¡feliz festividad del Festivus, uno y todo!

it's a festivus miracle! the festivus story, as told in spanish

this one's for you, Glenn

Glenn Beck chided Obama for the timing of his announcement on Afghanistan since it bumped A Charlie Brown Christmas from TV.


As Glenn Beck noted, that show includes "one of the most politically incorrect scenes on TV," in which Linus recounts the story of the nativity. "Maybe we should put everything back in its rightful place and listen to messages that actually mean something," Beck suggested.

Way to stand up to the man on the big issues, Glenn. I'll let Linus stick it to the liberals:

"I'm comin' home, Dorothy,"

gasped the American president, played by Danny Glover (naturally), and sole survivor (of course) of a giant earthquake to hit DC as he gazed up at an enormous tidal wave carrying an aircraft carrier about to smash down into the capitol and himself (well, yeah).
I'm sure the thought of this scene made more than a few 10-year-olds piss their pants in awe and excitement and gave Roland Emmerich a raging... well, he probably had to call his doctor after 3 hours while directing the scene for 2012.
It's my own damn fault for going to see the movie in the first place. I knew full well that I was going to see what the industry still insists on referring to as a "blockbuster" or "monster of a movie" full of explosions, CGI and Danny Gloverisms (yesterday was, in fact, the most Glover I've watched in my life. Earlier in the day, I spent an hour watching Pure Luck on BET. It's a hilarious 90s movie, but c'mon: BET?)


It shouldn't have been the least bit unexpected, considering Emmerlich's resume includes such shitastic wonders of cinema as 10,000 BC (9%!), Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow. Still, I consider it a personal fail and a lapse in judgment when I've handed Roland 25 of my dollars to sit in front of a moving picture that I wanted to leave 25 minutes in. That's, like, $1/min!

Still, wtf Emmerlich?! I scoffed so many times during the whole 158 minutes that my scoffer hurt and I was telling myself to shut up. I'm going to become invested in John Cusack as a character because I've seen the same effing dialogue and character structure in every effing action movie? Let's see: let's take the storyline template of divorced parents/dad trying to earn son's appreciation/dad and mom get back together and use $200 million dollars of tape and caulking to make it stick to this doomsday thing. Should we even bother to change the actual words or sentimental music from the last film? Nah, we have to spend the budget on CGI!



It really wouldn't have bothered me so much if there wasn't so damn much of it. It makes me angry to think how helpless I am to not be able to admonish somebody responsible for this crap. What am I gonna do, leave a sternly-worded user review on Rotten Tomatoes for 2 people to read? Yes. Yes I am. Suck it, Emmerlich. You too, Glover.

holy yowzas

it's cold. how cold? well, i went for a stroll today and within 3 minutes:
=

if you don't know what that second image is, google "diamond" and "cutter" - and make sure the safesearch is on. if you're from, say, portland or new york, just save it. this is the coldest it's been here in 30 years. so take your "we get four seasons of weather" and stuff it in a sack. it's COLD. by god, it's cold.

milk is good

feeling optimistic?

or generally upbeat and hopeful about your fellow man? don't worry, following are some handpicked recent news-makers to right that ship. they are not recommended for reading by idealists or pregnant women. that means you, jess.

downer 1
downer 2
downer 3
downer 4
downer 5

Yule Tides and Tannenbaums

and flannels, bitches

if you like it then you'll wanna put a ring on it, but they already did

i'll regret typing that later, but in the meantime, you know you like it. my bro-in-law pointed me to ted.com and this video is one of the more amazing/inspiring/mind-bending things i've seen. a couple years back they landed a probe on one of the moons of saturn. that speck of light you see in the low western sky, 750 million miles away in the outer solar system... mankind managed to land one of our machines on one of its 60 moons and send back pictures to us. when one really stops to think about the complexity and enormity of that accomplishment, well, check it for yourself. be sure to watch it all the way through for the amazing image at the end.

just sayin

foodbank

a charlie brown snoozefest

what is with the animated charlie brown thanksgiving? who is entertained by it? i don't see how it can hold kids' attention and it sure doesn't hold mine. yet almost every year i somehow end up watching a few minutes of it - of snoopy playing ping pong. and playing ping pong some more. more ping pong. ping pong. oh look, snoopy's fighting with a lawn chair. and... still fighting with the lawn chair... still? and the countless long pauses. did shultz even approve this?

does someone have poop in their pants, mr gover- oh, right

oh that's right. no one thinks you should be governor. now you just look like a black-hole-of-pout; exponentially becoming a bigger prick and a more sophomoric, sniveling, whiny, entitled cretin in front of everyone's eyes. oh, and now on tv too.

please don't stop - it's fun to watch

a link with video is worth a thousand posts

conan between 2 ferns

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

laura croft's snarkiness

"you should try to watch your temper sometimes," jean says occasionally. they're usually occasions following curb your enthusiasm fodder; exchanges with strangers including unnecessary drama, misunderstandings and obscenities. in general, i agree. i sometimes have a bit of a short fuse with people that i dont know, usually when they're in a position of owing me service and they either try to screw me or cop an attitude. rarely do i ever lash out. it's normally a curt, dismissive remark intended to stick it to them and leave them humbled in sorry reality (thanks for taking me down the busiest street at rush hour. funny how that affects a tip, isn't it?"). this is usually followed about 15 minutes later with coming to my senses and thinking the whole exchange was entertaining. then i feel bad for about half a day, before again thinking the whole thing was funny.

the film yard is a bit of a north beach institution. in the neighborhood for about 20 years, it's survived blockbuster (no big task there) and netflix. the employees are usually overly helpful and suggestive and often leave to grab a bite around the corner, leaving a "be back in 5 min" on the door for 10-15 minutes. it's locally owned, small and quirky though, so we usually frequent them for our film-watching needs.

there's one employee of this place who ordinarily wouldn't stand out from the equally-nerdy others, except that she sports a crazy belt that a homely laura croft might wear. it's unmistakable that this belt is intended to have at least a dozen uses. there's pockets, silver things, latches, compartments and chambers. this might have been cool in medieval times, but when you work part time at a video store and the rest of your time as a student at the evil empire of san francisco, i doubt you'll be whittling or slaying dragons any time soon.


Note: reference to belt only. Belt not shown to scale or with nearly as many compartments.

The other afternoon i approached crazy belt to ask where a certain film could be found. she was counting cash from the register, so i waited contently. after a few seconds, she looked up and stared at me. i blurted out a "hi" after presuming she'd open with a "how may i help you?" instead, she chose an irritated, open-mouth head shake and an exacerbated "did you have a question, or....?" There was no turning back at this point. after locating my dvd, i tossed it on the counter to really let her know she was out of line. she didn't care and ignored my adolescent grabbing of the receipt and half-assed signature. not to be deterred, i delivered a "you know, you should be more courteous to customers" before slipping out the front door. she ran out to the sidewalk to yell after me and call me something i wont be able to repeat to my nephews for 10 years, minimum.

i went for a run and the usual cycle began. i chuckled it off before starting to feel remorseful right about the time i was completing my circle in the general vicinity of the film yard. right on cue, as i rounded my last turn, there was a homely laura croft hoisting herself onto her fourth-hand motorcycle, leather chambers and compartments swinging violently as she climbed on.

"hey!", i panted as i ran up to her. "so, i wanted to apologize for how things went down earlier."

leah's face (her actual name, as it would turn out and awfully similar to laura), lit up as she launched into a big apology about her behavior and explained her rough afternoon. after exchanging explanations and complimenting the belt, we're now practically pals and i wouldn't be surprised if i suddenly dont get any late fees.

clearly, i wouldnt be on such good terms with crazy belt if i hadnt given a snide remark. this isn't the first time something like this has happened and to me, it's evidence that sometimes a bit of a temper is a good thing.

blanket helicopter of death

there's developed a mosaic of bird shit on my balcony railing of late. the railing was clean enough to eat off of when jean and i moved in 6 weeks ago. i also used to think there was an obligatory peacefulness when a bird landed by my window in my old apartment. now without morning commitments, however, i've been spending much more time in my living room in the morning hours, apparently when birds like to do their deed and within direct line of sight from where their stupid little bird brains are attracted to on the Z shaped corner of the railing.
after i drop jean off at work in the morning, it's a little chilly in the apartment, so i like to sit on the couch to check email and the daily news with perhaps a blanket on the ready. like the cookie monster to a pile of pepperidge farm mint cookies, birds of every fucking genus are drawn to that corner of railing and that corner of railing only with the same dumb expression on their beaked faces: "hello. have i been here before? hello. your herbs look like nest for my disgusting bird babies. hello. hello? have i been here before? hello."
and just as dependable, this is about the time that i fake that im going to lunge towards the pigeon and whatever the red-feathered kind is. sometimes i bang on the window. they never buy it. so i need to resort to the blanket helicopter. i stand up from the couch like an angry senile woman who just caught the damn neighbor kids on my lawn again and i start swinging the blanket around in angry circles over my head as i charge the sliding glass door. they glide non-chalantly down to the next floor's balcony and im left with a shitless balcony for another five minutes before... "hello. have i been here before? hello."
not my proudest moment of funemployment, but a necessary one.

signs of the season

DG

saw david gray perform last night. i really enjoy his work and it was a solid performance. i find him to be a very capable songwriter, with a real lack of the irritable watered-down lyrics of so many artists, melodies and sounds that stay with me for a day and then make me want to listen again.

why, then, did it bother me to watch him perform in front of a sell-out crowd of representatives from every demographic in the bay area? i didnt discover this guy and even if i did, i wouldnt have exclusive listening rights. it makes sense that so many different people with different tastes would be attracted to his style. for the most part, it's good, safe music that won't raise any eyebrows. still, it waters the shit out of the experience to see twenty-somethings jumping up and down like the school girls they aren't when they hear the opening chords to the obligatory radio hit. in a way, ive made his music my own after countless solo sessions in my car and attaching certain songs to certain experiences. i dont make it my own by dancing like ive had too much to drink and he's singing this song for me, justformeohmygodilovehim! then there was the huge soccer mom working her way down the first steps from the balcony after the encore, sharing with her equally huge companion that "it was a great show!". damnit!

i'm naiive. i'm hypocritical. i'm an ass. whatever.

also, when i become a singer/songwriter, i'm definitely touring in a suit, too.

oval of trust

it will expand again in a few weeks. that should even it back into a circle. for now though, i have one more new nephew with another close behind. i've been thinking about the ramifications much more this time, now that i've had three nephews who i can start seeing their personalities form. what will this nephew be like when he's 5? 35? what jokes will he think are funny? fart jokes? subtle sarcasm? what mistakes will he make?
the closest inner circle of people in your life expands again and while you don't know a thing about this person, you are connected at one of the deepest levels for the rest of your life. repeated thousands of times everyday and incredibly unique to you.

da best blackburry crew

my irrational disdain for "Flo"- the hilarious, relatable, personable, sexy, quirky, approachable and ohmigoditotallywannabuyinsurance cross-generational brain-skat rubbed out by the marketing goons at Progressive insurance - has only gotten worse since we've been objected to her "flirting" with the motorcycle guy at every effing commerical break. are we supposed to feel such an interest in this trusty gal of ours by now that we think this shit is cute?!

i wouldn't even know except that i've been watching quite a bit of live tv these days on account of the playoffs and cant fast-forward. if someone would've told me two weeks ago that another piece of television marketing was being molested through approval, i would've spit. well, i'll be damned. thanks blackberry. you know, there's a real chance i might not have bought a blackberry the other day had i had to watch the break-dancing only version of this commercial a dozen times a day:

practice and acceptance kicks in around :30

way to go! you wanted tigh-eet moves like yo crew - i saw the determination on your face as you walked away. you never gave up in front of the mirror and brawt-it and now i want a smart phone.

on the flip side, some spots are just genius, especially the one bald baby.


or the one baby's face when he sings "- fly again"


or any of these

and of course the only radio commercial series worth listening to

mr cell phone holster wearer
mr in the car nose picker

one badass tree

i dont know why i remember it, but when we were kids, holly used to make fun of a scene from robin hood: prince of thieves, where the peasants are being attacked by the evil british in their forest camp. "to the trees!" was the stupid line barked from some "panicked" extra. made me laugh every time. unfortunately, when i'm in a forest setting, i now occasionally cant help but suddenly think of kevin costner and why he didnt even bother to attempt an english accent in that movie. he really sucks.

i managed a costner-free experience the other day, thank god, as i biked through a steep hill in the presidio. it was one of those hills so steep that when relaying the experience to friends, you hold your bent arm out in an awkward 110 degree angle and wince while driving the point home. i was more than willing to stop my string of profanities about half way up the incline when i noticed a well-executed placard in the brush beyond the curb.

they're "renewing" the area, it read, by tearing out whatever trees the army engineers thought were nice back in the day and replanting the original species - young redwood trees. now, a few weeks earlier i would've thought, "hey, that's nice. redwoods are nice and big." one article and national geographic special later, however, i have a newfound appreciation for this sort of thing.


fact check! they're the fastest-growing organisms on earth - up to 6ft in their first year. if left to grow, they can reach close to 400ft high, the tallest trees in the world, and have a mysterious cell structure that allows them to essentially defy gravity, pulling water from their roots up the huge trunks. they also draw in water from fog hundreds up feet up. they were the dominant tree in north america relatively recently, but the last ice age confined their habitat to a thin strip of coast from big basin to a few miles past the oregon border. they do not grow naturally any where else in the world. in the early 20th century, when people just didnt give a damn, over 95% of the old growth trees - thousands of years old - were logged out. a few of the really old guys are left and protected, alive since the roman empire and before europeans ever arrived. they're so massive that rotting leaves can form soil on their limbs that support whole microcosms where other trees grow and animals spend their whole lives.

it's been a protracted legal fight to save the oldest surviving trees, and understanding exactly how rare they are makes it all the cooler that they survived on just this tiny strip of the world.

taste the sad!

taste it! taste the sad dodgers and dodger fans.




for a split second so fleeting i hardly believe it happened, i had a sense of regret about getting so much pleasure from seeing the dejection on the faces of the dodgers as they were eliminated from the playoffs. then i laughed it off. laughed and pointed at the tv. and mocked.

one of the funniest guys going

is galifianakis

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

simpler times

he was sprawled out on the sidewalk like a bug having met a windshield on I-5. prone on his back, limbs stretched out like a shoddy compass. his face looked like a pile of dark putty being pulled towards the cement by some particularly strong pocket of gravity. i dont normally notice homeless people anymore due to sheer volume, but this man looked so bizarrely peaceful. surely drunk as a sailor having just discovered simpler times and tripping off god knows what else, he might not be the wisest correlation to draw, but on an aimless stroll through downtown on a warm night, he was the perfect hyperbole for the sanguine last week.

taking the Centurion out for a spin around town when the town is in cubicles; it's kind of embarrassing, the weird smirk i cant help but get when i first get a good pedal going. the first few eye contacts with strangers probably merit explanation. "no, friend," i'd say. "i'm not imagining you without pants. i'm just a free man out for a roll on his wheels on a sunny weekday afternoon. i also might have a strange susceptibility to endorphins."

everything is better and new, having decided my daily employment commitment perhaps wasnt the best for me at this time. the future is brighter, centurion rides more rejuvenating, bums more peaceful. hell, even excruciating, demoralizing bottom of the 9th playoff losses for the dodgers are more satisfying (haha suckers! suck it la!)

i now believe it's incredibly healthy for personal welfare and integrity to quit when the quitting's good. i don't recall exactly how it went down, so my memory may be a bit dodgy. i do remember a boss who looks like a Bro'd-Out Lumbergh (from Office Space) Sporting Hair in Thick Gel - BULSHITG, for short - calling me into his office one optimistic morning.

+


bulshitg: have a seat. how you feelin?
me: thanks. not so hot actually. i've been fighting off some kind of co-
bulshitg: that's great. so listen, we're doing some realigning of accounts here and we're going to be giving all of your clients to someone else and you'll be sitting at a desk all day calling car dealers that are practically out of market and want nothing to do with us.
me: ...
bulshitg: ...
me: what?
bulshitg: we think there's some tremendous opportunity there.
me: ... so you're taking my clients who know me even though i've grown revenue, created a revenue-generating magazine, interviewed tim gunn, and was sales person of the year last year?
bulshitg: we think they just need to be called
me: what? the car dealers? why is this happening?
bulshitg: i don't think you should be asking why. i think you should be thinking that the decision was made that you should have a job. see, we're doing some realign- blegght
me: what was that?
bulshitg: sorry, must be the babies i ate for lunch
me: what?
bulshitg: what?
me: ...
bulshitg: we're doing some realigning. did you say tim gunn?
me: is this because i tried to raise workplace morale by making light of your "sales call roleplay" with me in front of the whole staff the other day?
bulshitg: losersayswhat?

i filed for my resignation shortly thereafter, or that's how my memory serves me. daily bike rides and mid-afternoon history channel specials without working is obviously not sustainable, nor do i want it to be. but for now i might take a lead from the bum and head to the park tomorrow around 10am with a simpler times and pass out because, well, i can. and every once in a while it's good to do... the simpler things!

best bookstore ever

i wish i could've lived some of these reviews

I quit!

In reality, I didn't. Not yet, but I sat down at my desk this morning and immediately stared off at the wall to the right for god knows how long. I could see myself ceremoniously shutting down my gchat and heading out the front door to high fives from all the other chronnies. People would be crying tears of joy and jealousy. One of the mainstay old bums at the corner would wail out, "run for it travers! run home and don't stop till you get there!"

The bells in all the churches would ring as I jog down Mission St, waving at passersby as they wave back with commendations and cheers. Strangers would shake my hand (the good kind with one hand on the forearm) and confetti would fall through the glorious sunshine. Golden retriever puppies will run along side me with job offers in golden satchels on their backs.

Yea, it'll go something like that.

“Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?”

Understanding how clueless, reckless and raped the presidency was under Bush would be enough to make me angry even if a deaf, orphaned amputee with a lazy eye managed to win office. I can't feel sorry for him, but I've come to personally feel an almost distinguishable tinge of something other than astonished animosity as I read the accounts of how the puppeteers absolutely had their way with him in fucking over the country for their gain. In some cases he seems truly helpless and unaware of how much unbelievable damage he allowed. It of course doesn't make him less culpable, just more bizarre and horrifying that this guy was seemingly all at once the most powerful man in the world while being used like the greasy-faced weakling in junior high who's forced to do the assertive kid's homework. Oh, and hand over his $700 billion in lunch money.

There's a good 15-minute read in an excerpt from one of Bush's speech writers in the final years. Read it with a shot of whiskey on the ready.

Ah, perspective

"Betty Lou Oliver was the elevator operator for the Empire State Building in the 1940's. She was working her last day on the job on the 80th story of the building on July 28, 1945. What Betty did not know was that a man named Colonel Smith was flying through heavy fog over New York in a B-25 and was heading straight for the building. The plane would crash into the 79th floor of the building. Betty was thrown from her post and badly burned in the accident though she survived while 14 others did not.
When rescuers got to her they decided to lower her via the elevators what the rescuers did not know is that the cables had been weakened to breaking point. Once the elevator doors closed the cables snapped and she plummeted 79 stories. Betty survived but again had to be rescued. She was later treated at the hospital for serious injuries."

demon sex crimes and deep cleaning

i form an opinion of most people near immediately. although it's more of a fault than anything, i do the same for people ive never actually met. it's what happened when i first read an entry or two of SFGate's columnist Mark Morford. while i thought his humor is a brand i would appreciate, ive found him to be more of a pompous word exhibitionist, finding some sort of pleasure from showing off to readers just how well he can encapsulate a point or witty comment by utilizing little-known words, forcing readers to keep dictionary.com open on a second tab behind his stupid column. a dictionary dick, of sorts.

as i sat in the dentist's chair the other day, i had to remember that i did tip my hat to him once for his equating of led zeppelin's sound to that of "demons fucking in a hurricane". now, led zeppelin may be the greatest rock band ever, so it was quite a feat to fully capture their full spectrum of badassedness in a handful of words.

the dentist told me i needed a "deep cleaning", lest the calcified pockets of bacteria under my gums begin eating away my jaw bone. this was not two minutes after she completed telling me a story about a recent patient who unknowingly had a giant cyst growing along his gums that wouldve snapped his jaw within days had he not taken the xrays that i subtly questioned earlier in the exam. so i came back for the cleaning, which was certainly deep, by all accounts. it did, in fact, sound as it must when demons take turns raping each other in a cement grinder, stopping briefly every 3 minutes to carve their initials into a concrete sidewalk with a rusty nail, before really getting back into it.

the aftermath? the sweat stains covering my shirt and pants as the dentist maternally blots my numb, sagging cheek with a cotton ball and makes some attempt at a joke about "sprayback". even through my blurry eyes i can tell the cotton ball is red. i go back next week for the other half of my mouth.



the moral to the story. FLOSS YOUR TEETH WITH A DOWNWARD, "ALMOST L SHAPE" TO THE BOTTOM OF YOUR GUMS UNTIL YOU HEAR THE SQUEAKING SOUND. THAT MEANS IT'S CLEAN PEOPLE. dear god, that means it's clean. tell your children: the squeaking means it's clean!

perseids

took a drive up north away from the city glow to watch the perseid meteor shower at its peak with jean the other night. this is some of the coolest stuff to me: watching debris, ancient in the truest form of the word, hurtle from the depths of our solar system towards earth at incredible speeds and plainly visible to the naked eye. "dust" from a comet that takes 130 years - generations - to orbit the sun enters the earth's shield of gases and ignites into a blaze. momentarily leaving a signature on the backdrop of a thousand visible stars and their respective non-visible planetary systems, with a smoke tail illuminated for an extra few seconds. at least to me, the idea of space seems so one-dimensional when we happen to look up at night. this makes it a bit more realistic to me, watching space violently throw itself toward us.

Behold, Centurion

Picked this little beauty up over the weekend. Yep, she's all mine. Some 23 odd years young and never owned. I've wanted a road bike for a while, and I've missed getting out on the long rides I used to do every weekend. This day had been a while in the making. As I got ready for her maiden ride, did a couple quick toe touches and looked in the mirror, all I could think of was how much of enormous dork I look like in a bike helmet.

Whatever - nothing cooler than safety, right? Giving a quick knock on the ol' helmet to check for cracks and rolling up my right pant leg to look like an official SF biker prick, I hopped on and headed around town on my new two wheels of radness and began pedaling around tourists and city buses with the grace and prowess suggestive of lance armstrong.

It's dicey as hell on a bike around here. Mostly because when it comes to concepts of inertia, direction, walking, common sense and eyesight, the average person leaves a lot to be desired.



Then there was the kid who fell behind his fanny pack-toting family to gaze at my new machine. I was stopped at a red light and assumed a badass pose by the curb so he could get the full effect. Probably a half-dozen double takes by the kid as he stared at my bike and the coolest dude ever riding it. Right before he walked directly into a bus stop pole.

Around town today

The joe in the workout shorts and shiny running shoes walking out of Costco with his brand new Wii Fit set under his arm and a look of accomplishment on his face.

The guy sitting on the steps at SF City College about two pages into "Math does NOT suck", all in bright pink lettering and in the same fonts used for the intro to Saved by the Bell.

The loser at the gym on the stationary bike. Sipping his latte while "reading" his novel. Ass.

The blind guy who was crossing Taylor this morning and couldn't tell I was half-way into the crosswalk until his walking stick slapped my bumper and confusion reigned for about 4 seconds until he found his revised path to the sidewalk. I tried to back up but the clown behind me wouldn't move! Sorry, if you're reading this. Oh, right..

The River Fun

As Meryl Streep is to:










,

So we were to:




































Thanks to an awesome birthday trip from Jean

Progressively worse

Anyone else genuinely despise these commercials for progressive insurance?



I mean, like really, really angrily dislike it. A write-a-sternly-worded-letter-to-progressive hate that almost ruins whatever faux reality show it is that I'm investing my time in. Whenever I see god-awful commercials like this crap, I immediately imagine myself sitting in the board room meeting where some blowhard executive is signing off on this script: the quirky, relatable hipster "gal" that makes car insurance FUN weee hehe! I'm of course powerless to stop this decision from being made, let alone the follow up board meeting where the same executive feels his new quirky, hipster campaign is being received so well by the voiceless viewing audience that he signs off on enough variations on the same retarded theme to fill 10 months of Seinfeld reruns and in between Billy Mays pitches (rip).

I don't like corporations trying to be too assuming of me as a consumer, too hip (close second) and likable. It's what advertising is in essence and part of a free market society, but these are the best ideas they have? These are what millions of dollars are being spent on? This is what we respond to??

Also, an interesting read today.

Happy something or other

I really enjoy that my nephs are old/young enough to be coerced/coached by my sisters into wishing me salutations. Whether it's Sam meticulously repeating his birthday wishes for me, Joe blurting whatever monosyllabic adulations come to mind, or Pax descending into the most thoroughly orchestrated balderdash between "happy birthday" and "berries", it's good to be an uncle these days.

holy mamas!

for the first time in 5 years, my Giants are competitive. for the first time i can remember, they're competitive because of young, enthusiastic, unpretentious players. they're competitive because of phenoms like tim lincecum, matt cain and pablo sandoval - some of the best in the league. not because of guys like jonathan sanchez.

jonathan sanchez was one of the Giants' five starting pitchers but was so terribly inconsistent that he was banished to the bullpen (baseball's version of sitting one out) and it was assumed the team was trying to trade him to any team willing to offer any value in return. he was unwanted. last week one of the giants other starters (who happens to be the ugliest man in professional sports), hurt his shoulder. the team needed sanchez to fill in for one slot while the other pitcher healed.

with his dad watching from the stands for the first time in his major league career. sanchez ended up throwing the first no-hitter for the giants in 33 years this weekend. i appreciate that it means little to a non baseball fan, but a no-hitter happens maybe once a year in the sport (with over 2,400 games played each year). its one of the more rare feats in baseball, especially considering that the giants have generally sucked and been one of the less-than-victorious/lucky teams over the past 50 years.

few things make me blurt obscenities at my television in excitement while im standing in my apartment alone in my skivvies. this did. (link is snapshot of his game in 3 min. jump to 2:50 on the link for the last couple outs, complete with padre sanchez balling his eyes out).

the rear window, sans christopher reeves

On nights like tonight I feel like Jimmy Stewart in the Rear Window, without the murderer (presumably), gimp leg and absurd speech impediment that 1950s America apparently thought was endearing.

It's one of the things I like most about my spot, especially on a warm night when the fog miraculously never bothers to form and is replaced by a still haze over the water, a long-lasting sunset and a peculiarly early summer night that even the Indians couldn't see coming.

Situated on the top floor in the tallest of two buildings in my complex, I have the benefit of casually peering into pockets of my neighbors' lives with them being none the wiser.

I attempt a light through several matches and kick back on the grated porch, four flights up, hoping for some sort of entertainment from dozens of apartment buildings stacked out in front of me like an absurd Lego set, but mostly the 5 doors wide open in the building across the way.

An old woman shuffles out of #12 and clutches against the railing to strike up a conversation with the landlord watering the bushes in the patio below. I can't hear what she's saying, but she looks like a long-removed fixture of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, repeating the same jaunting head cocking and mechanical arm raising, most likely warning about some some suspicious activity she's seen lately around the building. Her moo moo snags on her motorized undercarriage. The landlord seems disinterested in her warnings.

Two flights up and over in #36, Darryl is making his moves in on some most likely unattractive broad. I can only see her legs, and his XXXL basketball shorts, as he begins to mac on the couch. I don't know his name, but Darryl seems fitting after how many of his obnoxious house parties have made me wonder if I had the aim to launch my bar-b-que across the patio into his living room - lit.

They'd be prime candidates for me to witness some horrific attempted crime, if not for the French couple frolicking around in the pool between the two buildings. They moved in next door six months ago, and seem way too nice and carefree to not be the target of some twisted plot. Just minutes earlier they had told me how "pleasant warm" the water was - "30 degrees Celsius!" I didn't know those would be their last words. If I were Jimmy, I'd guffaw and bang on my cast, trying to alert them that something was awry.

Instead, I get distracted by the landlord, now up on the third floor, cleaning out #32 for a new tenant. Though a seemingly hip young landlord (he has a beard and wears v-necks), I think he's sort of had it out for me. Weeks after a bar-b-que I hosted, he posted flyers on every door in the building prohibiting bar-b-ques or any lit object near the building, and "thanking us for our cooperation". Only I haven't cooperated. I shuffle my chair between his line of site and my "Smokey Joe" mini bar-b-que on my porch, in the process drawing his attention to my lit pipe.

He feigns interest in moo moo pirate, who's shuffled back to her perch to haggle about something, but gives me an admonishing stare. I'm committed to a summer grill-off without the Man getting me down, and decide I've had enough of the rear window for the night. The Frenchies will have to fend for themselves.

nerd alert

i'll be the first to accept my descent into startling nerdiness lately with my utter fascination about space. hell, i'll embrace it. nerdiness is the confident clothed man's nudity. so there.

ive always liked this picture, once i really looked at it, because once you get past all the cliches, it is the closest thing we have to understanding the incomprehensible vastness of the universe while seeing the only thing we really know as it really is: floating in an infinite sea of dark matter.

one leading theory among astronomers that i recently read about is the infiniteness of the universe. this is generally an idea that is supposed to be too grandiose for humans to fully conceptualize. ive tried, but usually end up getting sidetracked by something more one time i threw a snowball at a car and the guy got out and chased me and my friend through the forest oh man it was crazy. wait, what?

oh, right. when i stop to think about it, the numbers and ideas are incredible: the edge of our solar system is 5 trillion miles away. it takes light one full year to travel 6 trillion miles. the nearest star to us outside of our sun is over 4 light years away. there are millions and millions of stars in our galaxy. and there are millions of galaxies with millions more stars in each. emitting out from earth at the speed of light is every radio broadcast and every image of every event that ever occurred on earth - floating out there at the speed of light waiting for some sort of eye to receive it as if earth's history is happening for the first time.

there is some evidence that suggests the universe as a whole is expanding at an exponential rate - that the universe is, in essence, infinite in size. the implication being that there are infinite versions of "earth" and infinite versions of each of us somewhere in the universe. somewhere, 3 million lights years away, there could be an exact replica of me and the entire world around me, with the only exception being that in this alternate world my alternate self is 4'6 instead of 6'4 and suffers from acute Napoleonic Syndrome, leading me to become a wealthy - albeit pint-sized - industrialist bent on space exploration.



all that to say, i signed up for SETI@home - software i read about that incorporates the processing power of personal computers around the world to mine through massive amounts of white noise recorded from deep space to search for any kind of pattern or radio signal. the idea, of course, is to search for any signs of intelligent life, which is incredibly nerdy, unlikely and fascinating all at once. i downloaded the software, considering it at least a somewhat passively remarkable contribution to the relentless search for the inevitable life of some level that exists somewhere, some how. Millions, billions, trillions of miles away and suddenly closer than ever.

Crazy Pills

I'm not on them. But somebody's running a racket around here, and being sober from crazy is isolating me from the general public more and more.

Take today's trip to the market. Pulling into the parking lot, I slowed to a stop at a crosswalk in order to let a round hispanic girl in her 20s cross. she didnt cross at first. she stood there and furled her stenciled eyebrows - i'm such an ass for having stopped to let her cross. i think they call that look the stink-stencil. all put out that she had the right of way, she huffed and began clomping across the street and directly down the middle of the parking lane. her painted-on jeans miraculously held her corpulent ass in place as it clogged any passage like newton's cradle. Somehow slipping past, i pulled into a parking spot down the way and idled while checking email. Hearing what at first sounded like a seagull in heat, I checked my side view mirror to see many poor eating decisions pouring over the front of a pair of pants and a button holding on for life.

"Kan choo move yore kar?! i cant open my dore!" came the angry squawking through my rolled down window.

"Sure. We don't need to be mean about it, though." Forget the fact that a fully stocked wheelbarrow could've rolled between our cars. My willingness to make room for her width brought more huffing before she wedged behind the wheel and re-stenciled while mouthing profanities at me.

Inside the store, I decided some chips would hit the spot. A man wearing a backpack and reading a magazine by the chip rack slowly looked up at me and stared as i walked up. he didnt look like a crazy. he looked like a nothing-special average joe, except that if you changed the chip rack to an 1850's saloon and transplanted his face onto Mad Dog Tannen's and called him "yella", nothing would be different.

I pretended to ignore his glare. He eventually looked back to his Us Weekly but as I reached for some Sun Chips, Mad Dog realized I was McFly and started staring at me again.

we finally exchanged "hello's", even though his was more of a "Hello, im incredibly crazy and i'm going to keep staring at you." and he did, all the way through checkout.

poop goes in the potty, people

my almost 3-year-old nephew could do wonders as an honorary hygienic ambassador to san francisco. if he could just walk the streets singing his "poop in the potty" song, the educational value for so many citizens would be ground-breaking. i know i appreciated being reminded.










pics courtesy holly

moxie

"On the drive into work this morning, there was a guy dressed up as a sunflower standing on the corner of Ygnacio Valley and Civic in Walnut Creek. He was waving at all the cars as they passed by. He wasn’t selling anything or holding any signs. Just standing there…"

one year

i almost typed 365 days as the title, then that incredibly abhorrent song from rent began playing in my head, with a vision of skinny art school students in scarves and overly-animated faces and wide eyes singing to me, gesticulating with raised arms and pumping shoulders for every sung rhyme about minutes or whatever the hell it is, with a smirk like it's clearly the best, superest, silliest song i've ever heard, while im stuck in the middle row of a packed auditorium and cant escape.

***

a year ago yesterday my good friend mike was in a horrible car accident, hit by an intoxicated driver that by all standards should have killed him. afterward, the ICU staff gave him what could be received as no chance of survival.



over the weekend, he got married and is practically fully recovered, considering what was expected. it's amazing. if this had happened even a few years earlier, would medical technology be as advanced as it is today to save someone in his practically dead condition? i still have a friend, and he got married one year after he wouldve died. i think it will always astonish me.

spare some chaange!?

Completely unrelated, but funny

Every so often it creeps into daily monotony: the sixth sense impossible to ignore that things are actively changing for me. It's vague but unmistakable, like a slightly pulled ass cheek muscle when you try to sprint-climb three steps at once and are reminded of it for weeks. Metaphorically, of course.

Sure, things happen every day that somehow effect who I am and the direction of my life. But there are also periods every few years or so when something is pushing me to move forward in life. routine becomes an approaching unbearable state and i'm driven to pursue some sort of advancement. new job? new home? go back to school? whatever it is, it transcends recognition.

last time this happened, i quit my job and went to australia for 10 days. i wouldnt mind going back to australia to "gather myself" for a few days, especially with the way Qantas is whoring itself out these days. dammit though, thats not it.



being blatantly ignored and patsied by potential employers is incredibly entertaining about 20 minutes after the fact, once the solitary obscenities evolve into general bitterness, vacant staring and finally determination to see them and the company they represent fail. it's also starkly similar to what an adult toddler pageant must be like - encouraged perversion of reality to achieve others' admiration. I'm sick and tired of putting on my sequined leotard for you perverts and your corporate lingo and retarded perception of what makes a valuable employee. stop staring at me!

the job market certainly takes its toll. still, a year of searching for a new revenue stream doesnt begin to match the impact of other life experiences recently.

watching a truly incredible person in their last moments of life makes you stop in your tracks. death to me was just something that happens until i watched a woman with no regrets and complete peace breathe some of her last breaths. a life that left no personal debts or grievances, no judgments cast. eye contact with the final wanes of life from a woman who cared so much about others, including me, places life in a surreal light. regardless of one's beliefs, a life lived right is a life lived right.

still waiting to figure out where this all lands, and ive unfortunately accepted that it is not a white beach on australia's gold coast. at least not at the moment. things need to change though and i expect they will. im no motivational speaker (outside of tuesday nights), but ive gathered enough to know that a life lived well is not lived sitting on one's ass.

Drink it

Nicks'd

Stevie was at her grovelly best last night, twirling and sauntering around the stage with the rest of whatever that band is. Beachwood something or other? Looking like a confused bag lady banging her tambourine, wandering from post to post on the stage and leaning on the mic like it was a parking meter. She was everything one could have hoped for. I don’t know if she found me, but I could see her scanning the top row of section 203 out from under her top hat to try to sing directly to me. Oh Stevie, you tried.

Meanwhile, the rest of section 203 looked like a PTA torture session. One middle-aged woman sat rocking in her chair with her knees against her chest for an hour like she just watched the entire cast of Dancing With the Stars get gunned down. Another woman in mom jeans and perhaps no bra repeated a dance move that looked like a cross between an inflatable flailing arm man and a person with their arms tied to the ceiling while they’re whacked with a bamboo stick. I think she may have tried to “pan for gold” during Gold Dust Woman.

Me, I just nodded in thorough approval. Great show indeed, Stevie. Great show indeed.

Istantinople

I don't know where this need to first put pictures to a soundtrack comes from.

Didn't do a whole heckuva lot today

Just cruised the Bosphorus Straight, the nautical divider between Europe and Asia, soaking in some sun, remarkable world history, and posh Ottoman water-side neighborhoods. One of the three gave my forearms a royal singe. We then sauntered to old town to the Grand Bazaar, bartering with the human equivalent of motion-detecting garage door lights. Except instead of light, they emit a horrificly-broken record: "hello yes please! hello yes please! you like jeans? yes please! you like new jeans? yes please! hello, yes please! new jeans? yes please! hello, sir? sir? hello, please. yes, please! you like new leather jacket? yes please! hello yes please! more inside please, yes please! hello, please! yes, YES PLEASE HELLO!"

Goddam. Raki, please!

Merhaba, lutfen!

"Hello, please!", which happens to be what one hears constantly while walking past the myriad vendors throughout istanbul. At least people who are clearly not from these parts... Turkish is not an easy language to just pick up for an English-speaker. Or, I would imagine, a French, Spanish or German speaker. It sounds very much like Russian meets Arabic - like this region's Spanglish. One of our waiters, one of the few Istanbulus who speaks decent English, said the best way for English speakers to learn how to say "thank you": "tea sugar and dream". Amazing history and brand new culture experience here.

Few early shots:


















Around the "New Mosque" - one of the hundred or so around the city that most starkly stands out from the skyline. It's "new", as in 600 or so years old - and extremely impressive inside. As perhaps expected, everyone must remove their shoes before entering and Jean had to cover her shoulders and head. The women worship behind even where the tourists stand inside, with the men up front.







One of the walkway tunnels under a busy intersection. This is one time when I had second thoughts about the swine flu. Also, it smelled like expired cheese. A sharp, sharp cheese. Fermented in old bowling shoes.


















The Haghia Sophia has been around since 537 AD - built by Emperor Justinian after the fall of Rome. It supposedly held pieces of the "true cross" and St Thomas' doubting finger - literally - before the Crusaders plundered it (shocker). Those pricks destroyed so many would-be relics around here, but it still doesn't get old to walk around and see the names of emperors and architecture from when this was the world's City.


We found this sweet patio restaurant overlooking the Haghia Sofia and park, along with the Topkapi Palace (the former center of the Ottoman Empire). Took this during one of the regular calls to prayer. They blast them over speakers from every mosque, so it permeates every bit of the city. It's interesting in that it sounds as it probably did hundreds of years ago, but it's obviously pretty unfamiliar and, well, uneasing.

off to Istanbul

One city, two continents, 3 names, more history than just about anywhere, Jean, the Bosphorus, cheap rugs, roasted pistachios and good beer. The Maiden Voyage is ready for round two.

Can't wait.

Little People, Big Horn

The Chuman Show

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but living a block from Chinatown is priceless. Absolutely priceless. That four blocks of my morning drive to work? Everyone should be so lucky. It's like a condensed, Chinese version of the Super Terrific Happy Variety Hour passing by. Stunts, gags, crazy windbreakers, Tai Chi routines, it's all there.

The nearest Walgreens is at Stockton and Vallejo. It's literally one block away, but always seems like a large chore to walk to, largely because as soon as you cross the street you've entered Chinatown and all bets are off. What you or I would consider common sense and street smarts are out the window and confusion and inertia rule the day.
Recently, I had a headache and needed a new stick of antiperspirant, so I physched myself up and walked into the lion's den. Blank stares to my left, needlessly gridlocked intersection to my right and pink plastic shopping bags all around like some piss-poor-choreographed grand musical number, at least that's what I imagined. They must've thought I was crazy, walking along with some goofy smirk on my face.



I made my way through the old, hunched ladies and uniformed school kids, bouncing off them like bumper cars. There's no "oh, pardon me", or general changing of course in Chinatown. There may be 9 feet of open sidewalk next to you, but if someone gets in your way, you may as well be an ant that had some kid step on the comrade in front of you, destroying all scent and creating utter chaos as you try every avenue but the obvious one to get back on course. I bounced my way into the drug store, maneuvering around the portly old woman who was standing in front of the open "In" door, staring in. Just staring.

I'm going to need to start looking for the tiny, cleverly-disguised Truman Show cameras when I go in this Walgreens. I swear everyone is on a loop. The old Chinese man with the Elvis Costello glasses and walker with tennis ball brakes seems to always be standing over at the cosmetics counter, coughing up a lung when I walk in. The old, egg-shaped woman is always propped on her cane in the toy aisle, facing nothing in particular. The 4'2" clerk in the blue Walgreens smock is always circling aisles 4B and 5A with the sort of frantic hustle he must give when he darts across the street late to his bus in the morning. It all seems awfully rehearsed and suspiciously perfected.

They must have a really high kleptomaniac population in Chinatown that struggles with body odor, because every stick of deodorant and antiperspirant is behind locked fiberglass. I pressed the button that welcomes you to beckon a customer service representative.



*Chime* "Customer service needed in the cosmetics department," came robo-woman's voice on the intercom. Two moments later, the clerk in the smock came speed walking around the corner to assist, almost as if he'd been waiting for it.

I sauntered to the end of the checkout line and watched as some woman demanded in horrifically broken English that her batteries be discounted to the price notated on her coupon, which she had folded 8 times over into her side pocket. I looked down and noticed that a stout woman had positioned herself nearly in front of me, directly in the middle of the clearly-formed line, six people deep. She took three sidesteps left to wedge herself in good, positioning herself straight ahead of me.

Her pal apparently knew the drill and had taken up her place at the end of the line, from where she was now shouting at her friend. The stout woman turned around and appeared to stare into my right breast, almost through it, towards the sound of her friend's yells. This went on for a few seconds, almost as if she was pausing for the tiny button camera on her taupe windbreaker to get a good shot of me... Then she shuffled past, banging my elbow en route to the end of line.