Tag: San Francisco

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Dream Journal

Bigfeet, Submarines with Screen Doors: A Multitude of Amusing Dreams

The house on Kemper court has been torn down and replaced with a huge ornate Victorian abomination. I remember carved wooden Africanesque statues piled outside (one of Socrates), dirty glass picture windows set in a wall looking into an empty garden, Chris’ old remote control toy truck under a layer of dust at the end of the driveway, rain leaking like a sieve in the vast empty garage. In the garage I film a little kid (my brother Chris) who knows how to skate impressively. Later, everything in my parent’s bedroom is oddly pastel (vaporwave, I now realize), and I sit in front of an old CRT TV that previously played a specific… song? Mantra? Now it displays a number to dial.

A jar one mixes with salt, a substance Lynae doesn’t have access to, with which one can access the seraphim.

Bill O’Reilly show is taping in an elegant narrow San Francisco TV studio, so narrow that only the camera, computer, and host fit in the dusk-lit back room. Crew and visitors (me) sit along benches in main room. Cozy, intimate. Afterwards, in the backyard behind the Queen Anne building, I’m floating/flying above what appears to be a miniature forest of small bushes while a fan of mine fawns for my contact info.

Piloting a covert submarine, my team runs into an unfortunate problem… the underside of the bow has clearly been fitted with a pair of flyscreens. Ridiculous. The gathered Sub Team leave our “elite yurt” as new romantic couples, leaving only two big girls who depart proudly arm-in-arm, in good humor, to cries of “Fat Girl Solidarity!”

Near the compound with the yurt, which has a storage facility/Looney Toons vibe, I espy the face of a Bigfoot, which reveals, with continued peering, a multitude of Bigfeet eyes — an entire tribe. They line up single file along the forest hillside and play a game of passing balls with their feet in both directions, the goal of which is not to get stuck anywhere.

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Dream Journal

Double Vacations

On double-vacation in San Francisco. Pass the Nihil Cafe, might be nice to go before we leave (to return to our first vacation, eventually to return home to SF). Slick marble streets of many colors, on some the water has been blocked off so you have to scramble over them. Mixing cum with radio magnetides to turn it electrically active, andand  last step creates rusty blobs (these blobs result from lack of enough reagent resources, I imagine). Beautiful bathrooms in these SF houses, I wished I had pictures. We shampoo the fancy white carpet in our rental. Maybe I did this in an earlier dream? Then vacuum it up with a toddler’s ball bobble walker.

Seventh grade science classroom home video. Halfway up the walls are ringed with panels of handprinted student messages (MC CHRIS HAHAHA). Big Bird trying to go up on stage wearing someone else’s t-shirt of single yellow feather, is warned then tackled off by tankgirl character. This is when I wet-vacuum. It’s so effective it reveals holes in the wood flooring where planks join at odd angles.

Opening up a chain-link gate to a coastal area for workmate Manny (Manxioc on chat) and hopping in the white interior of his car, they’re probably gonna smoke weed but I’m fast enough I think I can ditch if that happens.

Tall skyscraper in the distance has a loose symbol atop it (glittery purple teeth?); I see it wobble and wonder what kind of job it is to fix.

Frozen forest riverbank, I find my spot under a tree with hardly any ice. But the branches are more brittle from exposure. Looking up, one by one they fall (at an oddly uniform speed, no acceleration) and
the biggest nearly impales my head.

Immediately afterwards, Sir Paul McCartneyis escorted though a toy store having just dodged the tree branches. He’s shaken and a bit angry. The store is packed with shoppers and it’s quite dark, I use the button built into a toy box to see a Millennium Falcon playset, though it’s still too dim. There’s an exhibit off to the side in a 3-room alcove, some singing animatronics. Some cool, trippy florescent stuff in there. I bump into one of the bands (they remind me of Tusken Raiders) and a nice old lady helps me to remember the area by showing me archival “before” pictures from her booth — including a dinner attended by my Uncle John and Uncle Bob. Maybe a week ago, maybe 40 years.

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Dream Journal

Cafe Bookstore & Venture Bros

Beautiful new bookstore cafe in SF comes with a superstition: people put pennies in the rug. Their library/study is exceptional. It has a warm, farmhouse vibe even with the laptops.

Venture Brothers are captured and have to adopt false identities. When left alone, the facade drops except for Brock who tries to moralize with a speech about “scruples for heroes in stripes for pipes” (or something). I attempt to demonstrate a face mask filter but Lynae can’t help me find it.

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Dream Journal

Coastline of Mirror SF

Southeast corner of San Francisco, but mirrored SF. This corner faces the ocean. I’ve never been here and it’s called the Suicide Coast as that’s where they used to send you for rehab if you tried it. In the distance I can see an art museum that’s expanding, the foreground has an abandoned lumber mill and an old church. I’m with Lynae, and we flash-uncover a playground overgrown with vines. There’s an overhanging wooden structure where we talk. Lynae is coming off from drugs and she says she’s going to have a cigarette. I ask her how long her Implanon has been in; since February 2014, she says. There’s two kids I see out a window in the back; I convince one to fall over and play dead. Nearby, there is a lake, which may be a lagoon, and just over the Daly City border they’ve built a golf course. There is an interesting island that looks geologically painted out in the lagoon.

I’m not me… I’m ditching school as someone else, when I get a vision meant for Aislinn. It’s a blue LED candle floating slowly away while the rest of the world fades. I buy Ais lunch but end up eating it myself and putting it in a trash an as me and someone ride away on a carriage.

I’m in my room in the front of the house in Cathedral City. I lean out the window and knock on the front door as a joke, to get one of my parents to answer it when no one is around.

I’m in music class and I’m told there’s a percussion instrument I’ve never played, something like a bell set called a Xenia.

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Dream Journal

Bedroom Remodel and Big Pool

Mom and Dad’s bedroom in Cathedral City. Furniture has been mostly cleared. Bathroom has had fixtures removed, replaced with single sink. Dad is going to remodel to make the bathroom smaller since Mom is no longer around. In my Cathedral City bedroom, the bed has been moved to be by the corner window. There are white curtains, and a neighbors dog sticks his head in to lick my arm. Our Japanese neighbor seems bothered by this and tries to adjust the curtains. I haven’t made any solutions to the bedroom yet, so there aren’t any clever shelves on the walls (for hidden condoms for instance). There’s a computer desk right next to the bed. I have more room to work with and I’m trying to imagine how I’m going to use it.

In a very big pool connected to the ocean. It’s the end of California street, which is one-way. The waves are large enough that ships would have a hard time sailing through them, that’s why it’s one-way. The next street over has even higher waves. The ocean looks dark, cold, like Eureka, but I’m not scared of it. I’m swimming with many acquaintances, none of whom I know in waking life. There’s a man who comes up, is very angry. He claims none of the males there exist, because he didn’t sire them/create them. I alternately cajole him and sympathize while he’s being floating around on a bogey board. All the while the waves are crashing around.

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Smartglot

Monica has a Birthday

Fifty strangers meet in a public park. Many have never met before, some have. They are dressed variously in matching outfits, funny wigs or hats, or just colorful sunny day clothing. They have come for a singular purpose. However, what exactly that purpose is none are certain—except one. They have placed their faith in a leader. This leader, a sprightly woman, short, young, with twin feathery poofs emerging from her brunette hair, and dressed in a festive old west leather skirt and cowboy boots, assembles the convivial horde. The mob slowly quiets.

Megaphone in hand, pointed in no particular direction, she announces her name is Monica. She is turning thirty. Cheers. Welcome to her birthday! she says. Cheers. Much commotion and fumbling in pockets and, shortly thereafter, a blast from the megaphone. Even greater commotion. Another signal tone, a pause, much clapping and yet more cheers, then ebbing to silence, as the crowd seems to contemplate their plight. No one knows where to look so everyone looks everywhere. Two minutes pass, and the group is silent. Except for some minor fidgeting, the fifty party-prepped people together on the green grass stay still on this bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in the park. But then, inexplicably, with no cue from Monica or anyone else, the crowd begins to cheer again.

This is when some sort of magic starts to happen. Over the next half hour, with no apparent direction, revelers flap their arms and pretend to fly around in circles, play tag, dance at random intervals, engage in staring contests, hum the theme from Super Mario (more or less), go hide elsewhere in the park, form a spontaneous line to spank their beloved leader as she crawls between their legs, and finally, carry her bodily to her waiting birthday cake, where they summarily deposit her butt-first into it… and of course, must then sing “Happy Birthday.” Maybe just one more dance party, the crowd seems to decide. Much applause follows for super-special birthday-girl Monica who has rightfully earned it by pulling off this ridiculous, puzzling, and joyful spectacle. Then the magical shenanigans are over. One by one, people in the crowd pull out their earbuds.

You knew there was a big reveal, didn’t you? Well, of course—San Francisco is quite a magical place, but not that magical. It does have a lot going for it, though, such as a great many people who are willing to assemble at, say, a pre-determined location at a certain time carrying necessary props, just for the promise of fun. It has a lot of tech-savvy individuals who can coordinate over the internet, a lot creatives amongst them who can think up fun things to do. It has a viral culture that spreads ideas fast. The inevitable combination of qualities like these has been called the Urban Playground movement, although I’d say it’s less of a movement and more like “something humans have wanted to do since *at least* the industrial revolution but have just gotten around to acquiring the technology and inspiration and freedom to do so.” Zombie mobs, sidewalk pie fights, lightsaber duels, riding the subway in one’s underwear, gigantic pillow fights (on Valentine’s Day, no less), all are things that have been a long time coming.

A great heap many other factors made Monica’s awesome birthday party awesomely possible when it happened in Dolores Park this Saturday, February 9th:

  • The ubiquity of MP3 players, to start with. Sure, everybody might’ve had a Walkman in the 80’s but in the past five years it’s become normal for anyone and everyone to be wearing earbuds practically anywhere, all off in their own musical world.
  • On the website set up by Monica and Co. they credit inspiration to fellow, uh, “playgrounders” vis-à-vis Improv Everywhere’s MP3 experiment. Quote: “you’ll be part of a group of people obeying a shared voice in your head.” Coincidentally, Improv Everywhere is affiliated with the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, an improv group with a show on Comedy Central in the 90’s—to my knowledge the first to try this sort of just-for-fun situational public pranking.
  • One can certainly give credit to Maer, Monica’s DJ friend, putting together the MP3 track by such recently available tech-wizardry as having access to editing software and a library of music.
  • I’m sure her boyfriend Jason is owed some due, seeing as how he put together the website and, with her, hosts regular swap meets in San Francisco. The self-taught promotion skills and network of acquaintances they set up couldn’t have hurt either.
  • Quicker now: the shared modern urge to discover entertainment which is participatory, engaging, and/or doesn’t require spending money.
  • A continuing societal obsession with youth and youth culture (since the boomers actually) now manifesting as a growing hole between the walls of childhood and adulthood; call it “kidulthood.”
  • The Victorian invention of the civic public park that preserved spaces of open land in cities for recreation (told you it went back to the industrial revolution).
  • The western traditions that place value on an individual, combined with
  • the near universal superstitions of astrology that place such weight on the stars of an individual’s birth.
  • Also, the many inspiring bands of 1978, all those thirty years ago.

The most important reason, of course, being… hello, party! An oversimplification, surely. Perhaps not an unwelcome one. Hope this has been an educational experience for you all.

And you, Monica… thanks for having us… 😉

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Glot

One Year in San Francisco

And I still don’t like typing the name out.

I came here, like many, with just hopes and dreams and a stupid suitcase full of stuff I couldn’t really use. Lucky me, I found the right place the moment I stepped out of the car. Pacific Tradewinds was good to me. I might’ve stayed a little too long, even for my own sensibilities, and eventually I found a place where I didn’t have to commute downstairs. That’s the apartment, that’s where I live and love.

And that’s home base. Since I moved in there’s been more and more events gone to, more people met, and more projects done (well, started anyways). It’s an awesome lifestyle. I do always love writing about how much has changed.

There was supposed to be a party. There will be no party—sorry. I couldn’t pull together the, uhh… well, everything. There’s more anniversaries coming up soon. I’ll make sure not to miss them this year.

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Smartglot

City of Cannibals

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Regurgitate. Reappropriate. Reclaim. Reconnoiter. Rectify.

This is a city that eats its old. Set them out on the corner, and they’re gone. See something you want? Take it away—it’s yours. If that microwave, or TV, or refrigerator doesn’t have its cord cut that means it still works. Someone doesn’t want it, but wants it off their front curb. It’s a flea market town. You know about trash and treasure, one man and another man? What if that guy lived next door?

I’ve always had this habit. My favorite art assignment: find a box, find some stuff, put the stuff in that box. I dug in the dumpsters behind Target near my college, found a tea-kettle package and broken mirrors and a whole bunch of wire, shone a light through the whole thing. It was real pretty, and appealed to my natural cheapness frugality, also.

Number BricksLove of the abandoned, the lost, the free-for-the-taking is what got me through college. And when I say “got me through” I of course mean gave me something to do when I became too frustrated or bored with the school on old Fort Ord, and fell back to the Ord itself. My room was furnished with the 10 year-old leavings of a different institution, the Army, while my classes seemed simultaneously filled with different leavings.

I traveled abroad, and the most consistent fun I could find was exploring the drains of another country, finding little secrets and incidental items, dumpster diving with locals despite what other locals might think. Did you know there’s a drain that leads directly from the rainforest in Airlie Beach, past its campsites, underneath the main highway, and emerges directly on the beach? I miss the Cave Clan, even though I was never a member.

No surprise I should be happy in my new town, one might guess. There’s a Cathedral to tagging right on the waterfront. It’s next to the abandoned bus yard. Art cars, stock metal piled and forged onto them, are here and there. At the moment I’m on top of a street-bedframe, typing on a computer which rests on a street-desk, next to another monitor on top of a piano bench begotten from a yard sale, all for free. We got a chair at that same yard sale, then covered it in cool fabric samples glean’d from Craigslist free. We put it in our sitting room which is filled with some free plants; the urban garden down the street supplies them.

Of course there was the one occasion where, wandering down Haight street, finding a nice (different) piano bench and carrying it off, I was accosted several blocks afterward by a wild-eyed guy saying I took his bench. A little bewildered, I figured out that he’d found it earlier that day and had been trying to sell it ever since. I didn’t pay him the $5 he wanted, even if it was decent furniture. Violates the spirit of the thing.

There’s a lot of free culture, which makes that incident so unusual. More than anywhere else I’ve lived people get it. I’m not looked down on if I desire something cool in a dumpster. Even if I’m in the Financial District, businessman don’t get suspicious when I take their discarded office chair with me. These aren’t company secrets, and that’s why you put this thing out to begin with: so someone else would take it away for you. At the dump they weigh you when you get in and when you get out—if you take as much as you brought, you don’t pay anything. Give me a week and a moving van; I’ll give you an apartment another city-dweller in another city would cry over.

It’s recycling. It’s healthy. It means there’s less waste, what with everybody using everything once and twice and thrice. So what if my cabinet is the same as my neighbors’ before they found another one? A little cannibalism, a little creativity, a good city, can go a long way.

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Glot

Walking Outside on 4th of July

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user WhatNot

I had no idea what to do this fourth. Maybe I was gonna dress up like a salmon and bother tourists (it seemed only fair). But instead, I just walked outside. I walked outside. And my neighborhood took care of it for me. You have no idea how much I love this town.

Directly outside there were people setting off the screamy ones that don’t leave a lot of smoke. Down the street I could see big ones. We got in the car and drove southwards, toward Bernal Hill. We figured we could get a nice wide view of the entire Mission (which, apparently, is a “hotbed” of illegal fireworks). Unfortunately some other damn fool had the bright idea to light off some of the same from that dry, grassy park at the top of a windy hill, and… well, we drove outta there pretty fast once we figured that out. Precita Park was cool. The little lady’s new camera got such a workout her batteries died. Someone blew up a garbage can. The SFFD showed up with a big spotlight but didn’t say anything to anyone, and all was understood. The projects down about Cesar Chavez and Harrison were lit up, streets closed off with stolen (borrowed) traffic cones, its intersection packed with people standing 200-300 feet directly below the wink-and-a-nod explosions, each family who wanted to celebrate taking turns which meant at least three separate finales… that I saw.

Did I mention I barbecued burgers on our backyard balcony? Cause I did and they were delicious. Just wanted to mention. Happy Fourth, San Francisco.

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Glot

Arts and Culture

It’s real easy to feel culturally enriched if you’re lucky. I’m lucky I live in San Francisco. Why, just this weekend I went to two totally bitchin’ open houses for artist’s workspaces in my own neighborhood, experienced a dissertation’s worth of great art, and participated in a super-hip book swap where I traded in the original novelization of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi ("dweet-doo-dee-doo-weee-oop," R2-D2 beeped at the stubborn main computer) for the likes of Will Self’s “Junk Mail,” Nick Hornby’s “Polysyllabic Spree,” two short story anthologies, a Charlie Anders book, and a half-dozen other lucky literary insurgents. There was so little effort involved in doing cool stuff it almost made me feel jaded. But then I realized that I realized how cool it was. And then I was fine.