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October 26th, 2004
08:50 am - Peel Sessions
John Peel died today. How sad.
Current Music: The Fall - Hip Priest
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September 13th, 2004
01:53 pm - Pique-Nique
Rita and I went to Opera in the Park yesterday with her mom and grandparents. Golden Gate Park ended up being fairly sunny around 1pm and my arms got sunburned. And I'm really glad we didn't end up at the Dave Matthews Band concert at the other end of the park.
Anyway, opera brings out the snotty people like nothing else. For one, they were having a 'Perfect Picnic Contest', sponsored by Sunset magazine or something. The picnic that won was Spanish-themed and had surtitles. I don't care how you define picnic, but a perfect picnic does not require surtitles. Okay, I understand these are opera fans, but I'm not going to a picnic I can't understand without a projectionist. We had beer and wine and sandwiches: a perfect picnic. Needless to say, we won nothing. But the gay guys in front of us (one of whom was wearing a "The Diva is IN" t-shirt and a matching DIVA! baseball cap) won some creative prize. I think this excitement led the guy in the pink tank top to walk BACK AND FORTH IN FRONT OF US the rest of the day. Rita threatened to buy me my own pink tank top. Then next year we will win the Perfect Picnic Prize.
Then the snotty people next to us compained that someone. Had the gall. To sit on. Their blankets. They laid out blankets that they were not using in a crowd of thousands. And someone. They did not know. Sat on. Their blankets. Breathless and apoplectic they shooed these (opera-watching) hooligans away.
The highlight of the day was the helicopter that circled for fifteen minutes right after the intermission. During Gounod! Everyone stood and shook their fists and shouted go away! And the tuba player started the melody from Ride of the Valkyries. To no effect really. That is until the organizers called the FAA and demanded the helicopter depart. Which worked surprisingly well. I didn't know that you could call the FAA to redirect unwanted noise.
What a beautiful day. My only complaint being not enough Rossini.
Get off my fuuuucking blaaaaanket.
Current Music: Charles in Charge theme song
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September 10th, 2004
04:11 pm - The Eye.
Flipping through the newspaper today, I stopped at the weather to see if it would cool off at all. It seems that the hottest days have passed for now. Which is good because I've been living in two pairs of sweaty shorts for about a week and a half now.
But I did stumble across the forecast for Kingston, Jamaica. The Chronicle says it'll be 90 degrees with partly cloudly skies. Which is strange considering this is headed straight for the island:
I guess partly cloudly because the eye will be rather clear as it passes over.
Current Music: The Double - A Throw of a Distance
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September 9th, 2004
01:46 pm - Bad decline.
I've been reading a lot of short fiction lately, my interest piqued I guess because I've actually started finishing some of my own stories. And I just read the title story in George Saunders's CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.
The story is set in a theme park called CivilWarLand where the inhabitants recreate a Civil War era village. But it's overrun by teenage gangs who are graffitiing the buildings and molesting the visitors. In the end the management (this includes our narrator) unleashes a twisted Vietnam vet on the gangs, who goes on to slaughter several innocent people. Also the narrator talks to the ghosts of people who lived on the land before it became a park. It's like black comedy, or Vonnegut if Vonnegut drank more heavily.
I'm really impressed with the tone his narrator has. He's both funny and demented at the same time. The character is fairly downtrodden, his wife sort of threatens to leave him, and he ends up being stabbed by the crazy 'security guard'. But somehow he infuses the story with real levity.
I've already read Saunders's other collection, Pastoralia, but I think I'm going to seek out other stuff he's written.
Current Music: Go! Team - Huddle Formation
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September 8th, 2004
10:13 am - Once more unto the breech.
Ants
Our house has been invaded by ants. They've been crawling around the counters lately over near the trash can. And I think they're coming in through the wall near where I keep my coffee beans, though, luckily, I think they have no interest in my coffee. Caffeinated ants are probably worse than normal ants. Normal ants are probably always high on sugar, but still.
Also, they're getting into the freezer, which when you think about it is kind of funny. They crawl in there through whatever tiny little hole they can find and then the temperature is about 50 degrees cooler than on the outside so their tiny metabolisms freeze right up. I think they go into hibernation. There's a line of them headed straight for the Safeway brand frozen yogurt that the fruit lady brought us (shit goddamn I should throw that out), but no line back because they're all frozen in line. Suspended animation. Cryogenics. Myrmecocryogenics.
In any case, I cleaned off the counters and the edge of the freezer with Fantastik all-purpose spray cleaner. This stuff killed them on contact. One spray and they all collapsed in little antheaps. Of course more appeared, but this was a good start.
Then I took some beer bottles out to the recycling in the back only to find the largest line of ants I had ever seen trouping from the backyard to our trash/recycling. So I tossed the bottles and got out the hose and washed down the cement and the side of the trash can.
Big fucking mistake!
Two minutes later I looked out back. In the heat, the water had mostly evaporated and there were probably ten times as many ants as before crawling all over everything. Including a huge line of ants crawling up the side of the house to the kitchen window! So I got out the Fantastik again and sprayed the line all the way from the bottom to the top of the wall (a good 6-8 feet of ants) and then on the inside of the window where there were getting in. I think most of them actually went inside the wall.
So I left all these dead ants on the windowsill, I guess as a warning or something about the ANT HOLOCAUST. But this morning when i left the house they were mostly gone. I thought at first that one of my roommates had wiped them up. Hahahaha unlikely. So then where did they go? I think that their Comrades either took them back to the colony to bury. Or to Eat! Myrmecocannibalism.
Current Music: The Futureheads - Le Garage
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June 21st, 2004
01:24 pm - productivity bottoming out again
holy shit, i just found a web site offering live streams of the euro 2004 matches. not the best quality but i can watch them at my desk at work. they come on every day around noon. which is i think a little better than 2 in the morning.
now playing switzerland and france. this is korean television or something. if i accidentally shout out 'goal' i think i'll just tell the boss i'm going over my recent performance evaluation.
Current Music: Slint - Breadcrumb Trail
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June 7th, 2004
10:18 am - Emily's brunch
We had brunch at La Note yesterday for D-Day and the passing of dear Ronald Reagan. He has a special place in my heart. Eat a pancake for the Gipper, I said. Oh no, that's not right, it was Emily's birthday. Here are some photos:
 
 
It was a beautiful day.
Current Music: The Delgados - The Actress
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May 29th, 2004
07:51 pm - gordo
okay so i didn't actually work on margaret's cd. i walked down to gordo and bought a burrito. and then i almost stepped on the exacto knife i left on the floor.
but the point here is that i just saw a big photo of this guy i went to school with in an ad in the guardian. he apparently has just published his first novel and it seems that he's getting big press now. fucking hell what am i doing with myself?
Current Music: The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
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06:28 pm - typewriters
so i got up late this morning and took a shower and walked down to royal to get some coffee and sit outside. i saw dave and carla there and we chatted briefly. they didn't have much to say to me so i read my new york review of books alone.
then i went home and made waffles. i add cinnamon to the batter; it makes them tastier. but i didn't have enough batter for the second one so it burnt a little in the middle and didn't cook all the way on the edges. i drowned it in hot syrup and didn't mind the crunchiness. i listened to blur's first album, leisure. it was one of the first cds i ever bought. in 1991 when i was 13. it came in one of those silly long boxes.
after i'd cleaned up, i sat in the sun on the couch on the porch. i always forget that drinking a couple beers in the sun will make me a little tipsy. so when i came back inside, it seemed really dark and woozy. emily came home and liked the way the kitchen smelled because she could still smell cinnamon waffles.
when she left i took the weedwhacker out and attacked the weeds in the backyard. i made it through about half the yard, but i can't really get to the places under the fig tree because the branches are so low. so i gave up and came back inside and took a shower to get the weeds and the sunblock off.
i tried calling nedra because i hadn't talked to her in about a month but no one answered the phone. she doesn't have an answering machine.
i worked on margaret's mix cd for a while too. i'm using emily's smith-corona to type up the song titles and some other stuff for the artwork. it types in black and red inks. i have to hit the keys pretty hard to get the letters to show up good and dark. i'm afraid this will carry over to my computer and that i'll hit this keyboard too hard as well.
eve called about half an hour ago. we talked for a few minutes before her phone's signal gave out. then she called back and we talked for a few more minutes. i didn't really have much to say though. i realized that i'd had several beers this afternoon. i was drinking them like water. i wanted to say something to her about chris but then i didn't. i'm pretty much done with it anyway. and the conversation kinda drifted away because i didn't have anything else to say while i was staring at things sorta drunk. she's on her way to l.a. to play a show with emily and rebecca at kristine's bbq. i hope it goes well.
margaret still hasn't called. she'll need to get the keys for emily's house, but i guess she's busy. i thought i'd see more of her this weekend, but maybe i won't.
i'm not sure what to do with the rest of the evening. i should drink some water. i wish rita were in town i'd really like to see her.
i think i'll try to finish the art for margaret's cd now. i have the back, i just need to finish the front cover.
Current Music: Blur - She's so High
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May 11th, 2004
03:52 pm - bloop.
so in the crosswalk on the way back from strada this afternoon i was almost hit by a slimy looking man wearing the same sunglasses i was wearing. he was driving a black mercedes with tinted windows. the license plate read 'bukake'. would have been easy to remember had i been splattered across his hood.
Current Music: b.j. thomas - raindrops keep fallin' on my head
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April 9th, 2004
10:30 am - baseball
I woke up late the other day and drank coffee on the porch in the sun, waiting for my brother who drove down from Sacramento. We took my friend Kate to her first baseball game.
 
I turned her into a Cubs fan really quickly. Or maybe she just stole my hat to keep the sun out of her eyes. My brother bought an A's hat. I made do with my sunglasses. It was a really beautiful day, which made up for the fact that the game was pretty dull. Almost no action, though there was one home run. The A's lost 2-1 and they almost scored in the bottom of the ninth. But then they didn't.
Don't you just want to roll around on that grass?
Current Music: !!! - Hello? Is This Thing On?
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April 1st, 2004
11:04 am - two weeks past
I should have written this earlier but I didn't get the pictures scanned until just now.
On my birthday this year (I turned 26) I dragged some of my good friends out to Limantour at Point Reyes. We stopped at Palace Market for food and beers and then went down to the beach to lay in the sun awhile.
  
Sadly there are no photos of me at the beach (I didn't take any), though we did get one picture of a little girl tearing down Chris's art installation.
That night we had a great party at my house, wasting away the last hours of my 25th year. One of our neighbors came by to say hi and threaten partygoers with a metal flashlight.
Things have settled down now. I don't know why I don't write more often.
Current Music: The Rapture / Erlend Oye - I Need Your Love
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March 2nd, 2004
09:32 pm - Jack Lavelle
My dad just called to let me know that my mother's uncle, Jack, died this afternoon. It has really upset me. He was in his early nineties, and frail, and bewildered. Up until a few years ago, though, it seemed as if he would live forever.
When my brothers and I were little kids, our mother would drive us out to Jack's farm in Dixon where we would often swim in the sloshing above-ground pool or ride his neighbor's pony. He referred to it as a farm, probably simply because he owned chickens. It seemed that the lot was smaller than the one our house occupied in Sacramento. His house stunk of dogs and cigarette smoke and aerosol air fresheners for covering up the other smells. And he lived right next to the train tracks, so every once in a while the Capitol Corridor train would blow through and shake the walls. We'd place pennies and nickels (and even dimes!) on the tracks to see them smashed flat, their portraits distended with the weight of transportation. More often than not we'd stay too long for our young patience and we'd bore ourselves barking with the dogs in the summer dust.
Jack grew up playing baseball with Herb Caen, who eventually escaped Sacramento to San Francisco (the City!) where he was eminence gris at the Chronicle until he died in 1997. Jack would often imitate Herb's mother calling him in for dinner, "Herbie! Come in here! Dinnertime!" Whenever I told Jack that I wanted to spend my life writing, he told me I should start writing for a local paper. Old Herb started at the Union, writing about sports. I should write about baseball, it's easy. Then I can move on to bigger things. I tried to get a job at the Sacramento Bee one summer but they weren't interested in hiring me.
I've only seen one picture of the ambulance. It was parked in front of a garage in what appeared to be midtown Sacramento sometime in the fifties. Bleached black and white, Jack stood tall and proud next to his car. He ran an ambulance business with his wife, Evelyn. Or I should say Jack drove ambulances for the business Evelyn ran. He couldn't be bothered to look at finances. His favorite story to tell, was the time he drove to San Francisco down I-80 to beat the helicopter. When hospitals began considering contracting helicopters for transporting urgent cases, Jack tried to convince them that he could make the trip faster. Back then, there was nothing between Sacramento and the city, only fields and hills, and the Nut Tree about halfway. I picture Jack with his head out the window of this ghostly white ambulance absolutely flying through the valley in the middle of the night, his headlights screaming speed, his red taillights blurred and infinite. The first time I heard him tell the story I think he said he made the trip in a little over an hour, but as he got older the time decreased and his speed always grew faster. He's probably doing a couple hundred miles an hour by now.
Jack was vegetarian most of his life, before it was au courant. He was pure and healthy, strong, powerful. He did push ups and sit ups every day. I've been told that it was so that he could be stronger than Jack Lalanne. Lalanne was his archnemesis. And he was incredibly strong for being so damned old. While I knew he was old like a grandparent, he never seemed it for all his bluster and his crushing handshake. Somehow he didn't outlast Lalanne, but I think this is the sign that that other Jack's time is coming too. What finally broke him was a roof. Or actually it was the ladder he was climbing up to the roof. Or it was the step that gave way because after 80 years of stepping one's bound to give way. Or it was the fall to the concrete after that step gave way that broke his hip. I've never broken a hip, but it must be a bitch if Jack didn't stand right up afterward. He refused to let Evelyn get help. Instead he crawled around the side of the house on his elbows. And then he pulled himself up the short steps into the house with those forearms he'd been honing forever. And he dragged himself into bed and laid there until finally someone convinced him that the pain was too much, until someone convinced him to let them call an ambulance. He never was as strong after that. He carried on for years but something was missing.
Jack always promised us that when he died he would rig his casket so that when mourners came to view him, they would step on a trigger that would lift his hand to his nose and wiggle his fingers. Jack, we couldn't not believe you when you talked like that. Your tongue's too golden, your words too unreal to be untrue. If you don't gesture like that when I see you on Saturday, Jack, I'll know your hands are just too busy at the wheel. Give me a ride someday, okay?
Current Music: Stereolab - 1000 Miles an Hour
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March 1st, 2004
12:14 pm - from the lake
i had trouble falling asleep last night, but when i did i dreamt of driving. i remember being in sacramento, on the road near reichmuth park, gloria drive, but instead of the softball diamonds in the park there was a large lake. i drove faster and faster approaching the curve before the lake, thinking that i should slow down or that i'd end up in the water. despite this knowledge i didn't touch the brake pedal until i was already turning. and i knew it was too late. as soon as the brakes touched the wheels the car flipped over and i rolled once and then i was underwater. i started to roll down the window so i could get out, but realized that my seatbelt was still on.
for some reason these colored blocks of ice (see the times article) remind me of the dream. as if i will end up inside one when my car sinks to the bottom, and i float out frozen and still.
Current Music: deerhoof - giga dance
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February 19th, 2004
02:36 pm - graffito - graffiti
we played a show at the stork club last night, our first with jon on guitar. i felt good about it, though a little uncomfortable with some of my vocals, and happy that so many people showed up. and this is the first time we've been paid. lance handed us a wad of bills at the end of the night totalling $76. we split it three ways and were left with one dollar. i want to do something special with it but i'm not sure what. suggestions so far: write the kids on it and frame it, buy bubblegum. i never really thought about being paid for playing, but what could be better than playing music for half an hour, hanging out with friends, drinking free beer, and then getting cash at the end of the night? lance offered us a saturday for our next show so maybe even more people will come and we won't have to make our friends stay out uberlate on a worknight. i really love music.
Current Music: sufjan stevens - say yes! to michigan!
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January 16th, 2004
02:34 pm - i'm still five bucks up.
I had an appointment at the DMV this morning at 9:45. I managed to get out of bed at 9:30, throw on some clothes and walk the few blocks down Claremont, arriving only slightly late. Eve kept me company for a few minutes as I watched the numbers tick ever so slightly higher. Finally, they called my number, A017, at 10:45.
I walked to the desk and said, "I need to renew the registration on my vehicle." I handed the woman the form I had filled out in December when I waited for three hours and never heard my number called.
She typed something into her computer and looked at the screen. She said, "See, when you were here in September you paid the fees, but you never finished it."
Me: "I was here in December, but I never saw anyone."
DMV: "No, you were here in September and you paid your fees but you never completed your registration."
Me: "What? I was never here in September."
DMV: "Yes you were."
Me: "I never received a renewal in the mai..."
DMV: "You don't receive anything in the mail when you come into the office. It was due November 8th, but you came in in September and paid the fees."
Me: "I was never here in September. I never received the renew..."
DMV: "Yes you were. You're not listening to me. You came in in September."
Me: "Okay. I was here in September. Is my car registered?"
DMV: "No."
Me: ...
DMV: ...
Me: "Can you tell me what I have to do to register my car?"
DMV: "You need to get it checked. You never had the smog cleared."
Me: "Okay, I didn't know it needed to be smogged because I never received a renewal."
DMV: "They should have told you when you came in that it needed to get checked."
Me: "Right. I guess I forgot."
DMV: "You have parking tickets."
Me: "Great. How much?"
DMV: "$51."
Me: "Okay, can I write a check for that now?"
DMV: "Yes, make it out to DMV.... Thank you."
Me: "So I just need to get my car smogged and then it'll be registered?"
DMV: "I'm going to give you a TOP and then you can call the number and take it to get checked but that will take a while."
Me: "A TOP? Okay, great."
DMV: "Oh, you paid too much for your fees, we owe you $56."
Me: "Can that cancel out the $51? And then you can just owe me five."
DMV: "Nope."
Me: "Great."
DMV: "It won't let me process the refund. You used to live in Sacramento?"
Me: "Yeah I sent in a change of address form months ago."
DMV: "This is the current address?"
Me: "Yeah. Claremont."
DMV: "It won't let me change the address either. I need to get my supervisor."
Me: "Oh, okay. That's great."
Five minutes pass.
DMV: "I can't change any of this information until you get your car checked. Call this number."
Me: "Great thanks a lot."
DMV: "When you come back make sure they change your address for you."
Me: "Yeah, I wouldn't want to miss my renewal notice again."
DMV: "We don't send out...."
Me: walks away.
Current Music: Stereolab - Vonal Declosion
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January 6th, 2004
06:20 pm - slight progress
the heat's on. it's still chilly but you can feel the warmth when you're close to a grate. the electrician that came today is a hero.
Current Music: npr - all things considered
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January 5th, 2004
06:33 pm - coldcoldcold
emily, george, val and i drove back from l.a. on saturday after getting only around 4 or 5 hours sleep. i don't really remember having gone to bed that night before, only waking up to bright sun on eve's arm and the scratching of a turtle in its plastic tub, eternally attempting escape up a side too slick. i had a good time in los angeles. we didn't leave the kindergarten too often, but sitting in its small chairs made me feel more than human. i wish we could have spent more time at the museum of jurassic technology looking at microscopic mosaics and reading about the bridge at iguazu falls. but there is only so much time in three days.
george was infinitely amusing on the drive back up i-5. after emily and val had passed out in the backseat, he and i chatted about wire and steve coogan and chicken mcnuggets. and i don't know what else, i feel like he talked for hours and i laughed. i like george a lot. when we finally got home saturday afternoon i took a shower that felt like afternoon sun. maybe it was only because the house was absolutely freezing. i could see my breath in my room. after talking to eve on the phone for a long time i slept for twelve hours.
emelie called me last night quite out of sorts. she wanted to talk to someone familiar and i fit the bill even though we haven't been close for years now. her voice sounded very familiar and sort of comforting. we were cut off in the middle of my christmas story about kate when we blew a fuse from running too many space heaters simultaneously. she told me to watch royksopp's poor leno video. and i agree with her that it's wonderful. i think we'll spend some time together later in the week. sumei and peter came over for zachary's pizza and we talked for a while before all going to bed, each of us separately, uniquely dreading rising for work in the morning.
Current Music: mice parade - two, three, fall
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December 30th, 2003
08:40 pm - she's the beast
i feel that the holidays have expired. i was only exposed to our christmas tree at home for about 48 hours. noel and i drove back to oakland yesterday in torrents of rain. at some points we were following vague red lights rather than the road or the painted dividers. i could hear the rain pelting the car's side. it sounded like children throwing gravel hard at the metal. the spare tire well in my trunk is filled with water. luckily there was next to no traffic, so we could easily avoid the semis hopping down the road with the wind blasts, not quite loaded enough to hug the ground as they should.
japanther and battleship and a couple other bands played in the basement last night. the space was pretty crowded, which was really nice. there was plenty of beer to be had and the cops only came once at the very end of the night. japanther was poppier than i expected with a real strong sense of melody. i guess i thought they'd be more noisy. all their microphones were made from payphones. they were real nice kids. at the end of the night i heard claudia singing the guitar part to one of the songs at the kitchen table and i drunkenly interrupted her and said 'hey that's one of my favorite songs. i love it.' everyone kinda smiled sheepishly and she sincerely said 'thanks.' i felt like such a dorky fanboy. but it was late and i was drunk, so what's to be expected? battleship was monstrously loud. and the strobes going off made their music sort of epic. dan said that's because they can't see what they're playing in the dark so they just kind of hit stuff.
we had around 20 people crashing here last night. noel and emily fell asleep in my room, ben and melanie took ben's bed. emily had about six people in her room and she crashed in sam's room. i think there were at least five people in the front room, two in the basement and one laid out on the hardwood in front of the front door. and many more slept in the vans in the driveway.
i love music. i love this house.
Current Music: wire - heartbeat
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December 23rd, 2003
04:32 pm - longtimeoff
it has stopped raining now, but when i was out at lunch the rain was light and in the air not falling through the air. it collected in my hair and on my jacket.
there is no one in my house. i know it's cold in here but it doesn't feel cold. there are three boxes on the floor near the front door. they appear to contain drum equipment, but they're addressed to my roommate so i shouldn't open them. my clothes are drying downstairs and i hear the tumbling up the stairs.
there are fourteen oranges on the counter in the kitchen and half a pan of fudge that kirsten made before she moved out. my coffee pot is still full of grounds from this morning. there is a newspaper from last friday on the table and on a chair next to me.
i just got home from work. we closed the library early today because there was only one person around. and he was just checking his email. my boss gave me a lift home. she and her husband have had a lot of health problems lately and she's hardly been at work. when i got out of her car i told her 'i hope you have a good break. i hope things are relaxing for you and that you rest.' she looked like she was about to cry and she said 'thank you.'
emily should come over soon and then we'll practice for a while. then if i had my way my friends would all start arriving and coming through the basement door. and settle in to listen to our music for a while. they would pass around beers and smile and laugh and talk over the chords. and i'd be so happy i'd want to cry too.
Current Music: iran - black eye ii
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uptownliquor's journal
