The Speaking Sisyphus Stone

Drought

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:03:29 GMT

Circo Osorio

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:16:17 GMT

Danny

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:54:51 GMT

This is Danny, of whom I've written. His favorite word is "Jolly."

Bob

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:33:38 GMT

Sanborn Skyline Park

Mon, 04 May 2009 08:06:33 GMT

Sanborn Skyline Park

Sun, 03 May 2009 04:36:05 GMT

I'm not Captain Planet

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:56:45 GMT

For some reason, I thought yesterday was Earth Day. I went down to my local Starbucks to buy a latte for all the endangered wildlife in the local area. As it turned out, there were only squirrels and skate punks. Neither of them are endangered, as much as we might wish otherwise.

As it was the afternoon, Bob, the crazy homeless guy, who lives somewhere in the waterfront park, came wandering by and dropped his backpack at the front door, as he does every day, ready to start bringing in the chairs and tables from the patio to earn a free drink and a few extra bucks. You can't immediately tell that Bob is mad as a hatter. Sure, he has unwashed hair, and a long scraggly beard. But that just makes him look like your average one percenter. There's a bike club up the street, after all. No, you have to talk to Bob to know he's on a really different wave length. Bob's thing is conspiracies. He's sort of like Mel Gibson in Bird on a Wire except, as far as I know, Bob isn't an anti-semite.

Whenever I see Bob we always say hello to each other, like civilized folks. Just because Bob is bonkers doesn't mean you can't remember your manners, and I'm half crazy my own self, anyway. So, yesterday, Bob was on about earthquakes. Particularly, that the recent earthquake in Italy, as well as earthquakes in general, here in the Bay Area, was and are caused by bombs. As in explosives. After mentioning that the federal government had borrowed money from him (I interjected that they do that to everybody), Bob moved on to his favorite topic — that someone, somewhere, is selling fake BMW's. Bob always warns me to watch out for that. I nod, and make polite noises of affirmation and interest. I do that a lot, because Bob often mumbles.

Speaking of polite noises of interest, there's also Davy. Davy is another regular at my local Starbucks. Davy is not crazy. He's differently abled. In many respects, he's much like a six year old, in that way that six year olds will wander right into your personal space and ask to be your friend.

Davy looks somewhat like, and talks a great deal like, Buddy Hackett. The first time I met Davy, he sat down at my table and asked, "Hey, what'cha readin', man?" I told him and he replied, "That's a good book, huh!" I said yes and politely ignored the long string of saliva that suddenly trailed from his lips to the table.

Davy is clearly lonely. He'll often sit down at other people's tables without being invited. Or he'll stand uncomfortably close to you, hoping to catch your eye so he can talk. He frequently walks up to women and says, usually quite loudly, "Hi, I'm Davy! What's your name?" The women will typically answer, tight lipped and with one hand inching toward the pepper spray, probably wondering if this guy is the worst pickup artist in the universe, or what. When they do answer, Davy says, "You seem nice!" He'll then go on to compliment them on some aspect of their wardrobe, or ask them what they're doing and where they're going. Most of the women will then make their escape, stiff kneed and rigid, eyes front. If Davy catches one of them at a table, he usually knows when the conversation is over, and he has the short attention span of a six year old and wanders off quickly, anyway. Endless entertainment.

Because it was effing gorgeous, yesterday, I ambled over to the Amtrak station and watched a couple trains roll through. Then I went down to the marina. The tide was way, way out, and detritus was scattered on the mud. Driftwood, trash, an old rubber boot, presumably sans foot. A seal was barking far out in the strait, somewhere, and the sun considered being fierce, and then changed its mind.

Yesterday should have been Earth Day.

Carquinez Strait Regional Park, again

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:00:21 GMT

Carquinez Strait Regional Park

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:42:31 GMT

Death by Chocolate

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:07:52 GMT

Today was my annual pilgrimage in search of a decent chocolate bunny.

I had no intention of visiting Wally World. Last time, the only thing available was crucifixes in both milk and white chocolate. Yeesh, it's already a co-opted pagan celebration. You don't have to go rubbing our noses in it! Talk about your last temptation of Christ!

No, my first stop was the mall. After a bite of supper at the local Todai, it was down to the chocolate store. Let's see, chocolate peanut butter cups, chocolate covered apples, chocolate covered potato chips, chocolate covered employees. No chocolate bunnies. Shocking.

Next, the old stand by, Target. Saturday night, and the place was packed. Nincompoops yammering all over the place. What were they all looking for, the night before Easter?

I fought my way to the special Easter section. Al-Qaeda had been there first. The shelves were decimated. Easter egg coloring kits, bags of little chocolate eggs, plastic grass and colorful baskets strewn everywhere. Marshmallow peeps crawled pitiably out from the corners where they had been beaten and maimed. The lot of them suffering from PTSD. They told me that many of their relatives had been marched to the microwave aisle in Home Appliances.

And then I saw them, glaring balefully down from the top shelf at all of us, with bright yellow sugar eyes, dotted in blue. A long row of two foot tall chocolate hares. Every one of them named Hoppy. "So Hoppy to see you!" "Feeling Hoppy? Jump on up and take a bite out of me, why don'cha?" "Hoppy kai yai yay! Get along little doggie. It's your misfortune and none of my own." It was frightening. I fled.

I went last where I should have gone first. Long's Drugs in the more genteel part of town. It was still Night of the Lepus, there. Marshmallow filled, caramel filled, milk chocolate flavored? What in tarnation is that? I snatched up the one remaining solid dark chocolate specimen. If there had been another, I might have bought two, but I didn't figure the little fella was going to have time to get lonely.

He's still sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for the end.

And now a word to the chocolate bunny manufacturers.

First, everybody knows the ears are the most popular place to start munching. They just lend themselves to the task. But that doesn't mean you should be making those mutants with the extra long ears. It's just plain unnatural! And you know what? They don't get bought.

Second, I don't like my cocoa creatures giving me full frontal, with a big goofy grin on their mugs. Especially when you put big staring peepers on them. Nobody wants their snack treats oggling back at them while being masticated. I like my rabbits expressionless, with no doo-dads stuck to 'em, just plain bas relief, dans le profil; so sideways that they're part flounder.

So stop it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment.

I'm still out here

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:26:16 GMT

I was reading the comments in one of poliphilo's recent entries, in which he mentioned that he had been in a school show but couldn't sing, and so stood in the back row and mimed the words.

I was bemused by how similar this was to a school experience of my own. In the fifth grade I decided to try out for the school glee club. Not because I loved music, not because I felt some great calling to the stage, not because I wanted to impress a girl (and considering it was glee club, it's not likely it was girls I would have impressed). I was 10 years old for Pete's sake. No, I just wanted to get out of class for an hour a day.

The tryouts were held in the school auditorium. Each student was made to stand in front of the stage, next to the piano, behind which sat the music teacher. For our tryout, each of us had to sing the National Anthem.

The Star Spangled Banner! She might as well ask us to sing a selection from the Götterdämmerung! They don't even sing the National Anthem live at ball games anymore. Except for Roseanne Barr, but unlike her, I was 10 years old and hadn't yet grown a pair.

Still, I gave it my all. I even knew the words. To the first chorus, anyway. How many 10 year olds can say that nowadays? I must have screeched like a blue jay with the whooping cough because out of the darkness at the back of the auditorium came a voice. "What in the name of Kate Smith was that?" it said.

I didn't know it then, but it was a middle-aged Simon Cowell, sitting in the center of the last row of those hard, wooden, fold down seats we had in the Brigham Elementary school auditorium. His hirsute arms were folded across his chest, and he was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt. He had less hair on his head than he has now.

"I mean, really. We don't have time for this." Simon continued. "You hit the first two notes. Oh say! and then rubbish. Good luck to you in sixth period. Get out"

Oh! The humiliation! My dreams dashed! Now how was I going to get out of that horrid class, terrorized by the six foot basilisk, Miss Counts? Hunched down in my desk, trying to avoid her baleful stare, while I gnawed splinters out of my No. 2 pencil, like some indigent beaver; the yellow Frito Bandito novelty eraser, with his thin lipped grin, mocking me, because he knew that I had worn the pencil's original eraser down to the metal base, such that any attempt at correction would produce a horrible squealing, a ripped sheet of notebook paper, and permanent black streaks like some terrible hit and run accident, all over my homework!

But I wasn't licked yet! Oh no! I did what any spoiled little snot would do in like circumstances. I moped, and I pouted, and I brooded, and I whined until my parents couldn't take it anymore, and talked the music teacher into letting me be in the glee club. The music teacher must have realized she wasn't getting the Vienna Boys Choir no matter what she did.

Time passed swiftly and, before I knew it, the school concert was upon us. Quite a program had been planned for the evening, with hits like Joy to the World and The Candy Man and Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head. The finale was I've Been Everywhere, Man, by Johnny Cash.

The other songs had been a breeze to learn. Even if I sounded like an accordion that had been assassinated, gang-land style, with two caps in the back of the head, I knew the words. But old Johnny was giving me trouble. All those cities! I couldn't remember them, and I had to sing them so fast! Night after night, I stood in my bedroom, dead center on my blue rug, which was shaped like a giant capsule of Strattera, the purple, mimeographed lyrics of I've Been Everywhere held three inches from my nose so I could smell them, but those towns and burgs and villes were all mashed together in my noodle. I would have to fake it.

Concert night, and there we all stood in our red turtlenecks. I was on the highest tier, at the back, stage left, fearful of falling over backward and dreadfully exposed. Staring into a sea of faces, which I thought were all staring back at me. Ye gods in hemlock! How would I survive the mortification of not knowing I've Been Everywhere.?

We weaved back and forth through Joy to the World (which included a big cardboard cutout frog, if memory serves), did jazz hands for The Candy Man, and I did my very best B.J. Thomas on Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head. But the time had arrived. Here it came! Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota. That was all I remembered! I started clacking my jaws like some insane ventriloquist's dummy. A red turtlenecked nutcracker with bangs and Buster Browns. Oh it was awful!

And then I saw her. My third grade teacher. Mrs. Virginia Lou Davis, looking right at me and grinning fixedly. Before I knew it, the song was over. I pantomimed wiping sweat from my brow and gave a phew!. Mrs. Virginia Lou Davis pantomimed right back. The woman was a saint. She must have kept a pitcher of mint juleps in her desk to put up with us.

That was it. Glee club was done. I never sang in public again after that day. Consider yourselves lucky.

Jimmy Britt's

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:20:11 GMT

Gas

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:02:08 GMT

Tanker

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:29:17 GMT

Sutro Tower, as seen from the hills between the Mission and the Castro

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:07:52 GMT

22nd & Valencia, Mission District

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:24:10 GMT

Doc's Clock, Mission St.

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:51:10 GMT

El Capitan

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:22:46 GMT

Getting ahead of the heat

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:35:59 GMT

Not the train station

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:39:34 GMT

Main St.

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:26:53 GMT

627 Ferry Street

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:28:45 GMT

Main and Ferry

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:59:02 GMT

My Review of The Dark Knight (summed up in one sentence)

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:01:51 GMT

I'm going to give the shortest review of The Dark Knight on record. But first, a few words from someone who is old as fuck and clearly out of date and out of touch.

People of America, when discussing, in print, things that are, or are about to be, lost; in the present tense the word is spelled L-O-S-E. It is not spelled L-O-O-S-E.

Let me give you an example: "Every day, in every way, I feel more and more strongly that I am about to lose it! That is because I have a screw loose, upstairs."

Now, is that so hard, you narcoleptic nincompoops?

This evening, at Half Price Books, while standing in line to make a purchase, the 30-something, buff, handsome man who, along with his 9 year old daughter, was waiting ahead of me, undressed, with his eyes, a passing pretty teenage girl. Men of America, when you surreptitiously ogle women, thinking that no one will notice, you are totally fucking wrong! Everyone fucking sees you doing it, including me, who is old as fuck and needs glasses, and including the woman you ogled, who can see you out of the back of her fucking head! And if your wife had been in the store, she would have known you undressed that teenage girl with your eyes you creepy little turd. If you're going to stare at women, just do it to their face and take the occasional slap. At least you'll be honest.

Also, men of America, after the age of 20? You are not allowed to wear shorts anymore. It makes you look like a child and nobody wants to see your quivering, out-of-shape calves with the hair rubbed off around the ankles from wearing socks most of the time.

Finally, men of America, I know I'm old as fuck, and old fashioned, and almost certainly chauvanistic, but when you are out on a date, or with your wife or partner, you drive the car, not her. When you are sitting in the passenger seat, with your numbskull resting on the head rest, and your arm hanging out the window just prior to it getting whanged off by a street sign, it really makes you look like the loser, not LOOSER, that you truly are.

Which brings me to you, women of America. I know I'm going to get an ear full for this, but please stop with the ingratiating forced smiles whenever a man looks you in the eye, on the street. I know it makes you nervous because they're ogling you behind your back, and this goes for you, too, waitresses in restaurants, but not all of them are dangerous so stop with the fake placation. When you make those smiles it never reaches your eyes, you show too many teeth, it makes the tendons in your neck stand out, and it makes me think that I'm about to get bit. So, stop it! When I catch your eye, on the street, you can keep that neutral expression or frown on your face. I would greatly prefer it because I'm old as fuck and half crazy.

Now that's out of the way, I can give my review of The Dark Knight which I can do in one sentence. -- This is one of the only movies I can think of, in recent memory, that I wanted to see again immediately after the credits rolled.

Okay, a few more sentences. I am going to see it again, but in IMAX. Maybe tomorrow. And Heath Ledger's performance? He should get an Oscar, not because it would make good television to award posthumously for a great performance, but because the performance really was that great. The thing is, we will never see the like of that performance again, for obvious reasons, and this really is a tragedy, and it makes this movie a notable piece of film history, as a result.

After the movie, I had dinner at Englund's Bistro and Tea Room, in Concord. The food was good, the prices extremely reasonable, and they brought me my check slipped into the pages of a tiny 1894 copy of Chaucer's A Knight's Tale. Clever, and a guarantee of a return visit by me, because I'm old as fuck and appreciate things like that.

Okay, that's it, people of America. Now shape the fuck up, will ya?

p.s. I do not know where to put my fucking commas!

The flies are getting in

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:31:47 GMT