Happy Cesar Chavez Day!

Here's how I spent it:

Slept in late from Bonnie Prince Billying last night at the Fillmore.  Such a great show.

Played sloppy drums and got hungry.

Biked over to Ol' Jerusalem's for pickled beets, lamb kabob and way too much hummus.

Felt a 'lil sick.

Biked downtown for my weekly appointment with Bettina (see last Tuesdays's post). She put some more magical tape on my arm. I went for the black this week. It's more formal.

Biked to Four Barrel where I sipped some contraband (green tea) and read 70 pages of A Wizard of Earthsea.  Amazing book.

Biked home where I played some more drums.  I'm attempting to master the five, seven, and nine stroke rolls and sixteenth notes on the high hat at the moment.

Am now debating wether I will venture out to the Lower Haight where my friend Brett hosts a weekly Finnegan's Wake Popcorn or read on to discover if the sorcerer Ged will escape the Court of the Terrenon.  I'm leaning towards the high fantasy. . .

Holy Shit!

Will Oldham/Bagby Hot Springs Vortex.

Tonight my old friend Adam texted me.  He told me he was at a Will Oldham concert in Seattle and was thinking of me (we both share an affinity with the Bonnie Prince).  I received the text while watching the film Old Joy (a film about two old friends who make a pilgrimage to Bagby Hot Springs), and was actually thinking about Adam at that very moment because we are planning a similar trip.  Old Joy stars Will Oldham, and I am planning on seeing him in concert come Monday.

365 Pages. . .

And I'm finally halfway through The Brothers Karamazov.  I started last fall in the classics aisle at Dog Eared Books and finished the 4th Chapter of the 7th Book of the 3rd Part this evening at Vesuvio.  Tomorrow my reading group (The Kool Kids Book Klub) is meeting to discuss.

Other things that happened to me today include:

Cutting and wrapping eight wheels of Sartori Bellavitano (the current sample cheese at the coop, possibly our most popular sample cheese ever),

cooking rice at home for the first time in years (I'm usually strictly a pasta on the range kind of guy),

and going to see Bettina Neumann, my Physical/CranioSacral Therapist who is from a small town in southern Germany a few miles away from where my mother was born and raised.  She put some bright blue tape on my arm which apparently will alleviate some of my drummer's elbow and which I must wear until it falls off (probably 4 days by Bettina's estimation).  I'll keep all two of you updated.     

Indian Summer.

San Francisco doesn't really have seasons, it just has periods where:

(A) It's rainy, cold, damp and miserable. This has happened to me in January and June.

(B) It's perfectly clear and warm and sunny and amazing. This has happened to me in September and December.

Other then those two "extremes" the rest of the weather out here reminds me of Indian Summers back in the Midwest. This magical time of year happens on a lucky October where the first frost has already gilded a chilly morning and leaves have already begun to fall from the trees. You usually notice it as you are walking to work and decide it's too warm for a jacket. Then you stop to notice all the birds singing and by the time you start walking again you realize that you need to put your jacket back on. The weather cannot make up its mind and neither can you. But by the time you have begun your shift you are already pining for the walk home, and wondering if it will still be light out. It is the time of year for long meandering bicycle rides, crisp apples, afternoon naps in dappled sunlight, and impossibly blue skies. Every so often the north wind begins to blow, a taste of the long cold winter to come and a reminder that everything is fleeting.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Postcards Across Time.

47 years ago on my birthday (July 5th) a woman named Frances B. Murphey sent a postcard to her friend Marion White. Frances was visiting Montana and wanted to tell her old friend in Hudson, Ohio all about it. Here are some excerpts:

"Had a marvelous time in Montana. Saw cattle, horses, and mountains and water almost in every direction. Fed elk and deer. Silver dollars are impossible for your wallet."

The postcard never arrived. Time passed. Marion passed away in 1988, Frances followed exactly 10 years later. After Marion's death, an insurance agent named David Conn took over her post office box. Just last week he opened the box to find the postcard from Montana, arriving 47 years too late.

I think sometimes about what we leave behind, in the end, when we go. I think that all it may be is memories. How someone entered a room, how they might have laughed, what annoyed you about them, the way they said goodbye. In this way memories are very much like a postcard: they can be seen by the whole world but they are addressed to only one person.

We Are: (A) The World, (B) Impersonators, (C) On a Game Show, (D) In Japan, (E) All Winners.

Three Years Ago Today. . .

I moved to San Francisco, California.

These last three years have been the most difficult and depressing and strange and scary and challenging and courageous and wonderful wonderful wonderful years of my entire life.  

I dearly miss the midwest:  

My Friends and Family (of course),

Snow,

The "Blue Cow" at Caffrey's Deli,

Holy Land Homos (cause that's how they spelled it),

Swimmin' Holes,

Short Springs,

Humidity,

Theater on a Shoe-String Budget,

the West Bank,

Niceness,

In the Heart of the Beast's Annual May Day Celebration,

Grainbelt Premium,

The Turf Club,

The C.C. Club,

Treehouse Records,

Yards (Back and Front),

BBQ's,

Shorts (even though I never wore them),

The Spy House,

Hard Times Cafe,

Bicycle Rides to Diggers,

Valentine the Dog. . .

BUT

I dearly love my new town:

My New Friends,

Rainbow Grocery (my new family),

Fog,

The NY Steamed Pastrami Sandwich at Ted's Deli,

Taqueria Vallarta's Tacos (cause they have a mural depicting Joe Montana jumping out the back of a bottlenose dolphin)

Big Sur,

Perpetual Indian Summers,

No Humidity,

Music on a Shoe-String Budget,

North Beach,

Radness,

The Stern Grove Festival,

Trumer Pils,

The Hemlock,

Zeitgeist,

Aquarius Records,

Dolores Park,

BBQ's,

Sweater Vests (even though I wore them in MPLS),

Bazaar Cafe,

Vesuvio,

Bicycle Rides to the Ocean,

Cooper the Dog,

and all my Friends and Family (when they visit).

I once asked my close friend Adam Sekuler how long one can say they were "new" to a city.  His answer was three years. 

I guess that I'm finally home.

British Racing Green.

After almost half a year of biding my time I finally picked up my trusty Rivendell Romulus from Bernie Mikkelsen's Frame Shop in Alameda today! Thus concludes 6 months of "chomping at the bit" and results in the most wonderful shade of british racing green with creme detailing on the headtube and lugs.  Glory be.  

I celebrated with a double cheeseburger at Wendy's, my first in over 5 years.

I'll post some more pictures after the fine folks at Box Dog Bikes help me install some new MKS pedals (with cages!) and Honjo fenders.

Tonight. . .

. . . I am missing everyone I've ever loved.
They stand in a line that stretches from the San Francisco bay to the near side of the moon, and pass by my window like snowflakes.
How do I long to hold them, every one.