Travels

I leave on Thursday (early) for Georgetown, Massachusetts, where I'll spend the Christmas holiday with my family. After that, I'm headed to NYC for New Year's Eve and some of the days that surround it. I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also stressing out about preparing for departure; warm clothes, supplies for my cat while I'm gone, Christmas presents for the family, Christmas cards to others, and more! But, I'll be forced to stop worrying about that stuff at 7am Thursday morning, when I board my flight.

This blog is dying. Obviously. I have plans to set up a blog at my website, www.sphericle.com. There, I'll make space for this kind of blog, but also space for writing about things concerning music and computers, because really I could write a lot more about those on a regular basis than I can write about my everyday life. But, I'll still let you all now about adventures from time to time. Promise.

So, this is perhaps the last entry here. Check out Sphericle for future news!

Ph0 Sk8 Kru

A couple of friends and I took a bunch of faux skater pictures out at Hunter's Point yesterday. A few of them are pretty sweet. Click the picture to see more. The one here is me.

My Day Yesterday

I went to work. There, I completed a first-run at an RSS feed generator for the school's news section. I also did some revamping of the website's admin tools. Ate a burrito for lunch.

I went to an art opening. It was at Crown Point Press, and featured work by Nathan Oliveira and Wilson Shieh. I liked a lot of the prints I saw. I saw some friends. Ate mini-pizza slices and a chicken dumpling, along with some red wine (Pinot somethingorother) and a beer. Got a beer for the road.

I walked to the Arrow Bar. I was accompanied by a group of people. Two of us (me being one of them) had bikes. We drank a bottle of wine on the way. And a beer. It was a nice walk. A guy on the street told us we were the new generation of winos.

I ate Chinese food in the Arrow Bar and argued with the bouncer about hurricanes. The food was awesome, and the fact I was eating it in a bar was awesome as well. In a booth, to boot. I drank a beer. A girl on the street gave me a free can of Monster energy drink. Free samples. Another guy got one as well, changed his mind about it and gave it to me. I stowed them both in my shoulder bag. I got into an argument about hurricane Katrina with the bouncer, that lasted for about 30-45 minutes. It was really pointless, so I won't go into it. During the argument, I started drinking one of the Monsters.

I caught BART back to the Mission. But not to go home! We went to a girl's apartment in my neighborhood. I didn't know her, but she was a very good hostess. She played records. One of our crew drank the second Monster, but it didn't do it, and she went to sleep in our hostess' bed. We hung out. We drank 40's. We were being too loud, as one of the roommates was asleep. We all took the 40's and climbed a ladder up to the roof. We played a game of charades on the roof. Two teams of three. My team won! It was all movie titles. One of the ones I had to do was "Thelma and Louise". I tried pantomiming two women driving and having good times with each other, then driving off a cliff. No one got it. I also had to do "Lawrence of Arabia". I tried pantomiming a camel, and swinging a sword around. No one got it.

I went home. We waited for two of our friends to get picked up by a cab, then the four of us left rode away on 3 bikes. One of the bikes had no brakes, which was giving me the heebiejeebies. But, I think everyone made it ok. They went for burritos. I went home. I'd already had a burrito for lunch.

Standing Where You're Not Allowed

Last night I waited, with a few friends, about half an hour for the 14 Mission bus, around 2 am. It was taking an excessively-long time to show up. But, as they almost always do, it eventually came. We cheered tiredly at the pending arrival, only to gasp moments later when the bus was close enough that we could see the 500 people in it, give or take. The driver pulled up, opened the doors and told us "come on in, we'll make room!" Apparently the bus before him had crapped out before our stop.

The five of us stepped in, with only enough room inside for us to stand in the stairwell of the bus. The driver closed the doors and called out to me to not let the door close on my ass (I was the last to get on). I told him it just had, but that I was ok.

Quite a ride. It kept occurring to me that I was riding in the most taboo spot on a bus. Not only was I past the yellow line that you don't pass, but I was standing on the stairs! And not just on the stairs, but the bottom stair to boot, holding on to the diagonal rail along the door for stability. My feet were mere inches above street level. It was exhilarating.

Our ride was only about 12 blocks (we should have walked), but those 12 blocks included about 10 stops. At each stop, the driver would call out... "Doors opening for Mission and 16th"... "Doors opening for Mission and 18th"... and every time, I either had to get off the bus to let someone out, or I would just stand there, watch the doors open, look out at the storefronts, watch the doors close, grab the rail, and ride. Ride, ride, ride.

At one point the driver called for people to make room: "Ok, now, everybody fill up the spaces, fill up any of the spaces," to which some guy added, "uh, that would be your ears, your armpits, and uh, your buttholes." Just about the whole bus laughed at that one. Then there was this not-so-funny guy standing next to me who kept saying things like "this isn't exactly a clown car" and "where's the keg when you need it" and something to the effect of "try going in the back door (huh huh... huh huh huh)."

My Incredible Neighbors

For those of you whom I have not yet told, I live next to a family of superheroes. Today was laundry day.

A Highway 1 Day Trip

Why do I look so self-satisfied in this photo? Because I had a great weekend. I got the better part of a new song recorded, I saw the Great Highway and its beauties, I witnessed the gun powder chaos that is the Mission District on the 4th of July, and I enjoyed time with friends. Ah, sigh of satisfaction. Click on the picture to see more from my Highway 1 Day Trip.

Pride 2005

Pictured here is a young man under the tender-loving care of Daddy Howard, whose sign proclaims him the "Best Damned Spanker in the World". I took this picture at the Civic Center in downtown San Francisco during the second day of Pride 2005. Please note the following:

• The bruise on the guy's butt; this was taken at least 10-15 minutes into the spanking session
• The leather strap resting on the backs of his thighs
• The looks of pure glee on the faces of the two onlookers

Yeah, so pride was a lot of fun. Unlike anything I've ever witnessed. And of course, it wasn't all as debaucherous as the spanking booth; I would hate to pigeonhole the celebration with this one photo. It's just the best photo I took.

On Saturday of Pride, I went to the Civic Center by myself for a short while and saw a beautiful rendition of "Get Me To the Church On Time" from My Fair Lady, sung by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. The soloist in the song was dressed in a suit and top hat, and did a really bad imitation of a Cockney accent. But his voice was great. It took me back to my earlier youth, when I was in a musical review of My Fair Lady, but the chorus wasn't gay, it was Methodist.

There was, unfortunately, a healthy serving of corporate lameness to the Pride Celebration, as with all things these days I guess. There was a Scion parked in the middle of the celebration with a sign that read something like "The Official Car of Pride 2005". There was a huge Pepsi truck in the main parade. Crap like that.

But then again, as with all things these days I guess, to find the really cool stuff, you have to look somewhere other than the main event. And where was the coolest stuff going on? The Dyke March!

Man, the Dyke March was badass. Well, not so much the March, I actually missed that, but the celebration of the March, at Dolores Park. I have never seen so many lesbians in one place in my life, which was cool, but not as cool as the band that was playing there. They were 3 rocking women, 2 with huge afros. The bass player was really tall and lanky, and she made the bass look small. I would say that the music they played was kind of cock rock, but that label doesn't seem to apply very well, given the occasion. So yeah, the band was cool...

... but not as cool as the mud pit! Up the hill from where the band played was a big mud pit, on a decline. It was being used as a big, dirty slip'n'slide by a good group of people, mostly female, many of whom were not fully-clothed, a couple of whom were not clothed at all. And yes, frown upon me, I thought it was very cool...

... but not as cool as the fistfight that broke out! A bunch of muddy girls, some of whom were not fully-clothed, but all of whom were at least somewhat clothed, broke out into a rowdy fistfight, for reasons unknown. And yes, frown upon me, I thought it was cool. Somehow one girl in a wheelchair was even involved, and she got thrown out of her wheelchair, and someone got thrown over her wheelchair. I saw her returned to her wheelchair looking ok.

Now it seems I'm talking less about the coolness of pride and more about the coolness of nudity and violence. Where was I?

So yeah, Pride was cool. I was happy to be able to witness it and even more happy that it exists in the first place. It just got me to thinking about the crap that lots of people have gone through in the past for being queer, and the crap they still go through, including the fact that for some stupid reason they still can't legally get married... and it just made me happy that there was a good, solid chunk of time and space dedicated to the celebration of the LGBT (LBGT? LGTB? I can never remember) communities, even if that chunk of time and space includes people like me who get distracted from the main point of it all by girls in fistfights.