I was in one of my casserole moods tonight. Recipe available upon request…
Best song heard in a drinking establishment (where I wasn’t drinking) this weekend: “I Love You” by Yello…
Try to remember the kind of September…
September 1981: I’m a senior in high school, and I’m in the midst of ditching my last real “girlfriend”, working part-time as a stockboy at The Limited, and wondering why the hell I signed up for AP English.
September 1986: I’m a college dropout in the middle of my transfer from Myrtle Beach SC (where I’ve lived for three months) to Charlotte NC (where I’ll live for three years) to open a brand new branch of the surf and skate shop in a leaky former convenience store.
September 1991: I’ve just returned to Greensboro from my first visit to San Francisco, and I’m starting my final semester in college and wondering what to do next.
September 1996: I’ve just started doing occasional journal-type updates on Planet SOMA, my car is about to be brutally murdered, and I’m planning my first real online vacation to Minnesota. I’m also thinking about quitting my job, not realizing that when I do, I won’t have a full-time job again for at least five years.
September 2001: I still don’t have a full-time job and don’t really want one, am having the scariest health problems of my life, and really want to move back east but I’m wondering what I’ll do when I get there.
There has to be some common thread there, but I’m damned if I can see what it is..
I met one of my neighbors today. Not one of the ever-ephemeral loft dwellers across the street, but the gentleman right around the corner. The one who’s been here 70 years. In this neighborhood. In the same building. In fact, one of his kids once lived in my buidling…
What must it be like for a man to have watched all the changes South of Market since the 1930s, and from the very midst of the neighborhood yet? There can’t be too many others around. With only nine years under my belt I feel like I’ve been living here longer than a good chunk of my neighbors…
I think I may have to talk to him more often. Besides, I fell in love with his dog…
Anyway, it’s hotter than hell in my apartment and I can’t open my windows because of the painters. The whole building’s turning a rather putrid shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, but that’s apparently just the primer. I’m glad it’s eventually going away, although I must say it’s very soothing to the stomach…
BerkeleyBreathed.com on the monitor and Young Frankestein on the TV, which now has much-enhanced audio…
Thursday afternoon. I’ve taken one of my increasingly-frequent breaks to watch Miss Lucy and The Simpsons.
The disaster coverage was bad enough, but the victim and survivor stories are too much. I just can’t watch them without starting to tear up, especially the ones about people who went back to their offices based on an “all clear” announcement from the World Trade Center security staff. What the hell were they thinking? And when they played the Bay Area man’s last answering machine message from his wife on the 93rd floor, I’d had all I could stand.
There were bomb threats in the Financial District and at the airport today, although only the cops seemed to be taking them very seriously. There were idiot fratboys walking around trying to be funny by yelling “boom”. There were sirens everywhere, and people were looking up at the slightest noise.
Even in “tolerant” San Francisco, I watched people suspiciously eyeing a woman of apparently Middle Eastern descent as she walked out of the cell phone store. No one said anything, but you knew what they were thinking, and it didn’t have much to do with her tight skirt.
Tonight for me, it’s back to pushing the new fall season on The WB and UPN. Tomorrow I get to go have some more blood drawn. Oddly enough, I’ve been feeling much stronger and healthier the past few days and sleeping much better. I guess other people’s suffering has managed in some way to divert my mind from my own comparatively insignificant maladies.
Sunday night. My apologies to anyone who’s been under the impression that I’d fallen off the edge of the planet this weekend. I had a fairly big project to complete in a fairly short period of time over the past couple of days. Actually, I was grateful for something to occupy my mind so I didn’t concentrate on less pleasant things…
More tomorrow. I’m tired and I’m going to bed…
The thing which scares me almost as much as the potential for more terrorist attacks possible economic collapse, etc: the yahoos who are walking around acting so gleeful and excited about the possibility of a major war. These people are positively giddy at the prospect of “going over there and kicking some butt”, as if they were headed for a fucking football game. The testosterone flows freely.
We’ve been through a terrible tragedy and there will (and should) be a response, one both dramatic AND well-considered. But we’re not talking about a video game or a miniseries here. It’s not going to be exciting, entertaining, nor particularly fun to watch. It is not, under any circumstances, something to look forward to. And it’s not going to be over in a week.
Repeat after me: real life is not a war movie and the hero does not always survive to look sexy and get the girl in the final scene.
Patriotism and unity are one thing. Displaying an American flag while calling everyone who disagrees with you a “traitor” or “un-American” is another. It’s certainly not patriotism. Pride in one’s country is a little empty without pride in the ideals on which it was founded. It’s a little like the flag-burning debate; to many, the actual piece of cloth is more sacred than the freedom it represents. Priorities and perspective be damned.
Similarly, lashing out at anyone who looks like he just might have Islamic tendencies or Middle Eastern roots is a sign not of heroism but of plain bigotry and ignorance. Remember that big backlash against people who looked like survivalist white guys after the Oklahoma City bombing? Nope, neither do I.
OK, enough preaching for one day. Some things I love today:
- There are now “King of the Hill” reruns five nights a week.
- Pork chops are on sale at Safeway.
- I got two long overdue checks in the mail today and may be able to continue eating for another few weeks.
- The front of my building is no longer Pepto-Bismol pink.
We’re all still sad and frightened and generally anxious, but life goes on. Tomorrow, it’s back to the cynicism and saracsm you’ve come to expect in this space. Unless I change my mind…
You can also read older versions going back to 1989, if you like…
If, on the other hand, you’d like to complain about something I’ve said, why not just skip it? An email appeal is not likely to make me change my mind and suddenly decide that I’m just crazy about speed freaks nor make me a Republican, now is it?
What I Am:
- 37 years old, both younger and older in spirit and appearance, depending on the time of day, with weight increasingly less proportionate to height.
- Plaid-acting and appearing.
- Pretty far left politically, but with a significant lack of tolerance for pseudo-intellectual warm and fuzzy liberal bullshit.
- Bitter and cynical, but generally a nice guy unless I’m given reason not to be.
- Somehwat lethargic and sometimes even inert.
- Sometimes self-centered and often self-indulgent.
- Fond of my car and of road trips.
- Fond of transit and urban walks.
- More likely to shop at Target than at Macy’s.
- An avid reader of non-fiction and student of urban history, sociology, and architecture and commercial archaeology.
- A half-assed writer.
- Moderately profane.
- Independent and fetishistic about privacy and having abundant time alone.
- Convinced that Fresno, Baltimore, and Detroit may well be (or should be) the actual cultural centers of the US.
- Both intrigued and repulsed by the generic; an often-bemused observer of the everyday banalities of life.
- The kind of person who should probably be a career graduate student.
- Currently fighting hyperthyroidism and nicotine addiction.
- A veritable font of useless information and trivia.
- Very much into bullet points lately, for some reason.
What I’m Not:
- Obsessed with my sexual orientation or with “being gay“, “gay movies”, “gay websites”, “the gay community” or any other such claptrap.
- A closet case.
- Into leather, drugs, or dance clubs.
- Vegetarian.
- Patient with assholes, bad drivers, and other idiots, nor with spoiled children and the parents who made them that way.
- A workaholic, upscale yuppie drone.
- The inhabitant of a particularly stylish abode.
- On the cutting edge of technology.
- Inclined to pay 60 grand for a car just because I can. By the way, I can’t.
- An athlete or customer of any gym.
- Fond of nature, hiking, camping, or the “great outdoors”.
- Religious or spiritual.
- A Republican or Libertarian.
- Convinced that all intelligent life ends at the San Francisco city line.
- Particularly moved by poetry.
- A wine connoisseur nor a consumer of coffee which costs more per cup than lunch at Burger King.
- Sad to see San Francisco’s economy collapsing nor the yuppies fleeing.
- Comfortable in crowds or at parties.
- Amused by conspiracy theories.
- Likely to become any of the above.
What You Are:
- Unpretentious.
- Close to my age, maybe a bit younger, definitely not too much older. Call me shallow. I don’t care.
- Maybe a little geeky or dorky, probably somewhat shy and soft-spoken, and a bit of a loner.
- Probably more “east coast” in attitude and outlook.
- Intellectually healthy but still inclined toward more lowbrow cultural pursuits.
- A diner freak, and I don’t mean Mel’s or Johnny Rocket’s.
- A Simpsons fan who can recite dialogue from memory on a regular basis.
- Someone who values the written word.
- A little disshevelled-looking and not impeccably groomed.
- More likely to use MacOS or even Unix than that other, inferior Microsloth product.
- Able to love a tape which might include the Buzzcocks and Ella Fitzgerald, back to back.
- Comfortable with the idea of agreeing to go to lunch one day and ending up at some dive 150 miles away because I “felt like driving”.
What You Aren’t:
- A snob who never admits to watching TV, eating junk food, or watching porn.
- A professional homosexual who has substituted a sexual orientation for an actual personality.
- A speed freak, pothead, practicing alcoholic, or any other variant who relies on chemicals to have a good time.
- A gym rat, a disco bunny, or a sweater queen.
- A touchy-feely granola who uses the term “negative energy” without irony.
- Someone who has a shrill, politically-programmed response to every utterance including “it’s a nice day today”.
- Cocky, arrogant, loud, or inclined to describe yourself as “masculine” or (spare me) “straight-acting”.
- A workaholic, upscale yuppie drone.
- Unnaturally muscled or into that whole cologne thing.
- Morbidly obese or so into “natural” scents that you never bathe.
- A Republican or Libertarian.
- An “entourage” type who must always be surrounded by lots of other people.
- Someone who would ever make me listen to techno, “new country”, or Mariah Carey around the house.
- A fan of “Friends”.
- Annoyed by an individual who is a veritable font of useless information and trivia.
- Annoyed by bullet points.
I love it when this happens. I checked my relatively dormant Yahoo account (the one I use as a spamtrap) tonight and had a message from a friend from my deep dark past. And I mean LONG past: junior high. He’s one of those few people from back then that I actually like well enough to talk to, which we haven’t done in more than ten years…
I think I may have mentioned once before how there are a total of about three of my junior high or high school contemporaries to whom I’d even bother nodding if I saw them on the street. Did adolescence leave me bitter? Damn right it did…
Not that this is a particularly radical statement…
Nine years ago this morning, I woke up in Winnemucca, had breakfast at the McDonald’s next to the Motel 6, and got in my car, headed for my new home in San Francisco. It was a temporary home, a studio I was sharing with two friends from North Carolina who’d moved a year or so earlier. A month later, I’d move into the place I still occupy today, with yet another recent transplant.
It had been a great trip: my first cross-country drive and only my third trip ever to the west coast. I’d spent nights in Nashville, Kansas City, Denver (3 nights), and Salt Lake City. I had sex at a bookstore in Denver, and I’d even ditched a guy in a bar in Kansas City only to re-encounter him a few nights later in a club in Salt Lake City. When I found a cassette copy of Laurie Anderson’s “Big Science” in a thrift store along the way, I realized everything would probably turn out all right.
The last day, though, was really stressful. I was really about to “do it” and, even worse, I couldn’t get in touch with the people I’d be staying with. I finally stopped at a Kinko’s in Reno and faxed one of them at work and I think I finally made voice contact from a shopping center in Vallejo. From there, it was across the Bay Bridge (at rush hour, of course) and into the city where I drove straight to the Market Street Safeway for the rendezvous.
Nine years later, I’m still here even though I ask myself why almost every day. I haven’t accomplished many of the goals I arrived with, although I’ve set a few new ones here. I think I would have developed into a somehwat different person if I hadn’t come to San Francisco, although I’m not sure if I would have turned out better, worse, or just slightly different.
Anyhow, this is year ten for whatever it’s worth. In honor of the anniversary, here are some never-before seen (at least not here) pictures from that lost period between my arrival in San Francisco in 1992 and the start of all this web stuff in 1996. These are scanned from actual film prints. Imagine…
I went to Sacramento this weekend, and I couldn’t sleep there either. And now I think I’ve caught a little bug on top of everything else. I’m really not enjoying this month…
But neither is much anyone else, evidently…