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Randomly Monday

Random thoughts for a Monday afternoon:

  • Some days I love the internet: a reader has actually found — an offered to send me — an authentic “hogs are beautiful” poster. He sent me a picture, and it’s the genuine article, the very same print which used to grace every barbecue joint from one end of North Carolina to the other. And oddly enough, it was unearthed in Iowa of all places…

  • So did anyone else watch the hours-long “Richmond, Virgina gas station skycam” this morning (on every network) and wonder how long it would take Fox News to establish that the owner of the van was — in addition to being the one and only sniper — the same individual who masterminded the World Trade Center bombings, Jimmy Hoffa’s murder, and possibly the Crimean War?

  • Just how will Patty and Selma react to this?
  • Going out on a limb: after buying “Saturday Night Fever” on DVD this weekend, I feel compelled to remind you all that — once you get past John Travolta’s hair and the soundtrack — it’s a really good movie…

Maybe more later, or maybe not. I’ve got a pound of ground beef, a can of Manwich, and a bag of buns. The evening is full of possibilities…

Or Free Speech?

Got a response from the University of Texas. They pulled the page and sent me a semi-apologetic letter which mentions “free speech” and the fact that students sometimes state “strong opinions” on “controversial topics”…

What fucking opinion? What fucking topic? They flat-out lied and said that I use a drug called “soma” and that my site is all about my experiences while using it. That’s not a statement of opinion. It’s a blatant fabrication. And in many academic environments, it could get them expelled…

I’m always amazed at how many otherwise educated individuals haven’t the faintest notion what free speech means…

That said, I’ll mention again that there’s a (completely unrelated) new rant over at Planet SOMA today…

Academic Integrity?

I’ve written before about how so many people using the web are completely deficient when it comes to the concept of context. You know: the sort of people who type the term “cheap Disneyland motel” into a search engine, find a page which happens to include all three words, no matter how randomly, and then — without bothering to read the page they’ve found, which happens to be, say, an architecture critique — click that “contact” button and email the author asking where they can find the best deals on a motel near Disneyland. In other words, clueless idiots…

But this one takes the cake. Several University of Texas students a few years back managed to click onto one of my journal pages when they were still at Planet SOMA and determine that my site was about some drug called “soma” and my experiences using it:

This web site is the journal of a man that explores the effects of “Soma” and other such drugs. His experiences and the mindless state of mind that is the result of the drugs that he is taking are documented as well as his thoughts on whether or not it is a good thing. Explanation: This is useful because in contrast to the previous web site, he totally thinks that Hedonism & drugs in general are a good thing.

Just what website were they reading? How could anyone read anything I’ve written at this site — particularly this page (the one they linked to) — and determine that I’m some drug-crazed hedonist itching to tell the world about it? I haven’t even smoked pot in about 17 years, and I avoid users like the plague. What gives?

Some might call it “libelous”. Which is what I did when I emailed several key persons at the University of Texas this morning. No response yet…

Sprawl

Greensboro has a apparently been deemed “sprawl city” once again. Now keep in mind that “sprawl” is one of those things which is defined in much the same way that Supreme Court justice many years ago defined pornography: no one can tell you exactly what it is, but by God, planners know it when they see it…

By “they”, in this case, I mean the “smart growth” and “new urbanism” Nazis, who define it as pretty much anything other than cute little overplanned neighborhood units which look nice in magazine articles and newspaper features, but where no one really wants to live. The idea, of course, is to transform suburbia into a cartoon-like version of a central city, whether it’s appropriate to the economics of the area and the lifestyles of its inhabitants or not. They’re like the historic preservation crowd but even worse…

To a one, these developments usually focus on the facts that the houses are closer together and that a few token small retail spaces are placed in some sort of pointless village common in the middle of it all. It would just be too unwieldy to add things like supermarkets and the like, and it wouldn’t be at all picturesque. Granted, the yards are easier to maintain, and it takes about five fewer seconds to walk to your next door neighbor’s house, but the greeting card shops and cute little juice joints are doomed to failure, both from lack of patronage and from lack of exposure (assuming anyone ever leases the space to begin with)…

I rather like this: “Both High Point and Greensboro are changing policies to require more sidewalks to be built and have written new laws permitting the construction of more-compact developments.”. That’s great, really, but what good are the sidewalks when there’s nothing to walk TO? In this case, “compact developments” still means little more than smaller yards in a neighborhood surrounded by a buffer zone of shrubbery and connected to some arterial which will take them to the closest shopping center a few miles away…

The problem, of course, is the stifling zoning in suburbia, which keeps the stores and businesses people would actually USE completely isolated from residences. Planners repeatedly claim they want “pedestrian environments”, but they don’t want shopping centers anywhere near anyone’s homes, although a few small shops which sell nothing that anyone needs or wants would be just dandy, thanks. Evidently, they’d just prefer that residents just walk in circles around the neighborhood, waving at all the people who will, of course, be sitting on their porches with pitchers of lemonade…

A few clues: people, especially people in the suburbs, like to shop in big, cheap stores with parking. The days of the corner greengrocer and butcher shop are over, and no amount of nagging and prodding by planners will change this fact. If people want to live in areas which have “pedestrian environments”, they will generally tend to move to larger cities, where these environments already exist and have developed over time. It is not possible to plan them into existence overnight, especially in areas where no one really wants them except the planners…

Most Americans live in wide open suburbs because they like it. Outside the few dense urban areas like New York and San Francisco, Americans have no intention of taking public transit anyplace, so living in an area clustered around a light rail station is not a priority. You and I may disagree, but our urban snobbery is lost on individuals who are quite happy with the way they live, and who — by and large — are willing to put up with a little extra driving to have the way of life they choose. And frankly, what business is it of ours to tell them they’re wrong?

Mom and the Earthquake

Happy birthday to Mom…

Thirteen years ago tonight, I’d just been to dinner with my parents and we came home and watched San Francisco shake and bake on the news from the safety of Greensboro. I’d prefer not to have a more intimate earthquake view this evening, thanks…

I shudder to think what might happen if another major quake were to hit SF today. The live/work lofts in my neighborhood would all be reduced to little piles of corrugated cardboard and glue (which might not be such a bad thing), but we’d never be able to rebuild any lost freeways because there’d be too many arguments over which method we’d use to make them more appealing to homeless people (who might want to wander across them at random or live under them) than to evil, disgusting motorists (who’d just be driving on them, after all)…

While the Bay Bridge — sill unrepaired after the 1989 quake — would be history, the Transamerica Pyramid would, alas, still be standing…

Ah San Francisco, where the newspaper has taken to predicting “areas of morning fog, then mostly sunny” on Thursday and Saturday, and “mostly sunny, after areas of morning fog” on Friday and Sunday. For the sake of variety, I assume…

Working

Great time this weekend in Fresno at the fair, but don’t expect to hear about it for a few more days. It’s suddenly become a very busy week at work. Visualize me playing with REALLY large Excel spreadsheets and pretending I know how to do budgeting and forecasting. It’s kind of amuzing, actually, and it does sort of stimulate my inner geek…

Randomly Wednesday

Today’s baffling bit of email from a Planet SOMA visitor:

i am looking for a motel that has accomodations for a couple. i am requesting that the hotel room be furnished with a large round waterbed(preferably w/satin sheets)and mirored walls and everything that it entalis.

About the only response I could come up with was “How nice for you. Hope you have a lovely time”. Really, how am I supposed to answer something like this?

Hint du jour: if you ever need to go to the emergency room in San Francisco, try St. Francis Hospital on Hyde Street. I took my boss there today and, to my amazement, found that I was the ONLY person in the waiting room. I’ve never seen such an eerily calm hospital in my life…

Chafe du jour: why were there no coasters or stickers in the new Mac we got at work yesterday like their were in the one that showed up at Mark’s office?

Ten Years in San Francisco

I’d spent the preceding night in Winnemucca, Nevada; it was the final overnight stop in my first cross-country automobile journey. I caught up on sleep, had dinner at Subway, and watched TV stations from Idaho and Reno.

Upon waking up on Monday morning, I set out for my new home. After stops in Reno and Vallejo where I attempted to contact the friends with whom I’d be staying, I found myself crossing the Bay Bridge at rush hour. I drove immediately to the Safeway on Market Street where I knew I’d find a parking space and a phone. Within half an hour, I was moving my stuff into a very small apartment a block from City Hall and I had a new home.

My God, has it really been ten years? Have I really spent more than a quarter of my life in this insulated little burgh where reality and common sense rarely intrude? I was so excited to have arrived in a place full of sex and food and interesting streets I’d never walked down and stores selling bizarre merchandise you couldn’t find in North Carolina.

A decade later, I’ve walked down most of those streets and many of the things which initially attracted me to San Francisco now repel me and make me want to leave. I’m no longer a long-haired idealistic twenty-something and I realize that San Francisco is no better or worse than most other big cities, although a part of me will always think of it as home.

Strangely enough, it was in 1996, when I started a website about the city, that I started to analyze it and realize that it wasn’t everything it claimed to be. The more I wrote about it, the more I realized it wasn’t nevessarily Mecca, and that it might not even be the place I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

The city has changed, although not as much as I might like to believe. Some things I miss:

  • My old, uncrowded, dumpy Safeway at 16th and Potrero, since replaced with a shopping center containing a Gap, an Old Navy, and a new mega-Safeway.
  • Mike’s Night Gallery, the only sex club I ever really loved.
  • The amazing Alhambra Theatre on Polk Street.
  • My old car, which someone torched in 1996.
  • The Emporium, the last of the big old school department stores which didn’t require a credit check or proper attire for browsing.
  • Live 105 when it didn’t suck.
  • Channel 20, when it was still a quirky independent station with the barking dogs and the Christmas fireplace log and “Streets of San Francisco” reruns.
  • The Chinese restaurant down the street, which is, predictably, a “live/work” loft now.
  • The old main library (believe it or not).
  • My excitement about the city.

Some things I’ll always remember about my ten years in San Francisco:

  • Drinking until 2AM, followed by four hours of alternating coffee and beer before going back out when the bars opened at 6AM.
  • The first time I had sex with twenty people watching.
  • My first semi-public birthday gathering at Tad’s.
  • The first time someone came up to me in a bar and asked me if I was “that Planet SOMA guy”.
  • Picking up a boy at the bus stop and being a half-hour late to work after dragging him back to my place and buggering him.
  • Experiencing my first earthquake while talking to my mom on the phone (while she was staying at a motel across town on her first visit).
  • Long walks.
  • Touching Jane Weidlin.
  • “That used to be a Safeway”.
  • Conjugal visits with Mark before he moved here.
  • The amazing sight of fog coming across Twin Peaks after the standard three days of heat.
  • Sanity breaks in Oakland and Fresno and Sacramento.

I’ve changed a lot too. I’m no longer scared of computers and I got to watch the “Internet Revolution” firsthand, where it happened. I’ve become a weather wimp who complains when the temperatures goes above 70 or below 40.

Politically and morally, I’ve become less of a leftist reactionary after realizing that unchecked (and unquestioned) dogma is just as damaging when it’s spouted by the left as by the right. I’ve become more of an independent thinker, and I’m less likely to scream “discrimination” where none really exists. And I never use the term “homophobia” unless I’m making fun of it.

I don’t drink until 3AM (or later) anymore, and I don’t roam sex clubs until the wee hours. My other activities are no longer dictated by my nightlife needs; I’m more functional and productive (and at more normal hours) and I actually get the dishes washed on a semi-regular basis. I spend more of my disposable income on books and DVDs than on clothes and booze.

I’m in love and living with the boy of my dreams, which is something I couldn’t have envisioned ten (or even two or three) years ago. And he seems to understand my need to flee the city every weekend.

Living in San Francisco for ten years has been a good thing for me, no matter how much my arguments seem to suggest otherwise. I don’t regret coming here; it’s provided a lot of entertainment and memories and it’s sharpened my critical thinking skills. And I’ve made some friends I intend to keep around forever.

My life would be much different if I’d stayed in North Carolina. I might never have seen Winnemucca.