Category: Current Events

Randomly San Francisco

Randomly San Francisco:

  • I’m really glad the 12-Folsom bus now runs every ten minutes rather than every twenty. Otherwise, I might have had to wait an entire hour for one this morning rather than the half-hour I actually did wait…

  • Great headline on this article: “Fluffing up the Castro”. It would be damned difficult make it any fluffier, wouldn’t it? OK, so the article is about the seats in the Castro Theatre. But still…

  • I don’t think anyone who knows anything at all about the TV business didn’t see this coming…

  • San Francisco: where no idea is too stupid to spend thousands of dollars on…

OK, I’ll play too. 5695 excruciatingly long minutes to go, you pornographer you…

Mom’s Here

Mom’s here and comfortably asleep in the living room. I headed to SFO this afternoon expecting to find a madhouse of people standing in line being frisked and strip-searched. Instead, it was just plain creepy there. No one in line at the ticket counter, no one at the checkpoint, no trouble parking, and we spent about three minutes waiting for her suitcases at baggage claim. It was just plain weird; everyone was saying so…

Spiffy new redesign for Mark, who’s on Mom’s itinerary for Saturday. Later tonight will bring dinner with Dan, Jamie, and hopefully Sarah, maybe at The Dead Fish…

I think I’ll skip introducing her to my cardiologist at tomorrow’s appointment, though; I think there’s enough adventure on her plate for now…

I Can’t Even Think Straight

From the Chronicle:

Lindh noted that his son had been interviewed right after being pulled out of a flooded dungeon in a fort where he and others had been in a fiery standoff with US and Northern Alliance forces for days — and that anything he said at that point should be taken with a grain of salt.

“I don’t think he was thinking straight at that moment,” Lindh said. “I don’t think anyone could think straight at that moment.”

Maybe not, but you have to sort of wonder what the hell he was doing in that flooded dungeon in the first place. Following his dream, I guess…

Anniversaries and Rain

My mom and dad were married 52 years ago today. An anniversary with a number that high seems to be a milestone I’ll never achieve, if for no other reason than the fact that I’d be at least 89 when it occurred…

The rain today was amazing. There was none of that wimpy, drizzly California crap; this was the real stuff like back east. And, on schedule, the fiercest downpour hit this morning just as I was on that three-block walk between the Ferry Building and work…

Which seems a sort of piddly thing to complain about in the face of the latest news from New York. Jeez, what’s next? Earthquakes? Locusts? New Yorkers must feel a little like Californians felt in the early 1990s with the SF earthquake, Oakland fire, and LA riots, although Californians had three years to absorb all the drama…

Anyway, if this week ever ends (not a good thing to be thinking on Monday), it’s off to Fresno to see Mark this weekend. It’s supposed to be raining there too, which is not really a bad thing. I like rain…

Tonight, it’s cubed steak and gravy. I deserve cubed steak and gravy…

Randomly Friday

You have to wonder just how long it could take to retrofit one bridge approach and short freeway section. I’ve been listening to really loud heavy equipment outside my front window (which is working on one single Bay Bridge interchange) for longer than it took to rebuild the WHOLE Santa Monica Freeway in LA in 1994. Of course, it doesn’t help that it took about eleven years after the 1989 earthquake for work even to begin…

I don’t really have much to say today. I just wanted to get Leif’s crotch off the top of the page before people started thinking I was obsessed with it. I’m not. I may have been when I was 13, but it was the 1970s. People actually had crotches then, and it was much easier to get obsessed with them when you could actually see them…

I have a lot of work to knock out today, but it looks like a surprisingly (and unexpectedly) open weekend, which means I can either sit here and enjoy the coming rain or go out driving and watch all those wacky Californians (who forget how to drive from one rainy season to the next) kill each other on the freeways. I’ll probably choose the former. Either way, sleep will be involved. Pork products too…

What Attention Span?

What attention span?

  • The people I most worry about during these anthrax scares are the letter carriers. And not for the reasons you think. My fear is that some of them are going to snap and do unspeakable violence to the next idiot frat boy who cracks an anthrax joke, chuckling and thinking he’s probably the first one all day who was “original” enough to think of it.
  • Yes, these are the same frat idiots who run around yelling “hot enough for you?” when it’s 110 outside.
  • Yes, I work with one of these idiots.
  • Biggest score of the weekend: a cheap CD which sounds like it was mastered from a warped 8-track, but contains the song “Winchester Cathedral” by the New Vaudeville Band.
  • Children should not be heard and should only be seen from a great distance.
  • Sunday the 14th was one of the hottest days of the year. On Sunday the 21st, I almost turned on the heat for the first time. Ahhh, October.
  • Best find (as opposed to score) of the weekend: a semi-abandoned laundromat in Mountain View, where Jamie and I did our laundry (mine being a considerable amount) in realtive peace.
  • Second biggest: finding an Albertsons down the street from it, which was closing for good and selling out its entire stock (sale items included) for 25% off. I’ll have canned tomatoes, cooking spray, and Beef-a-Roni until the end of time.
  • Why have I suddenly developed this fascination with Oswald from “The Drew Carey Show”? It can’t be healthy…
  • Has anyone other than me noticed that all these super-patriotic commercials and public service announcements lately are disarmingly similar in production, tone, and music to those “free speech” announcements that ran at the beginning of almost every commercial porn video a few years back?
  • And has anyone considered what a good idea it might be to get some free speech announcements on the air right now, before people forget what it is?

End of Irony?

End of irony my ass. There are plenty of irritants around who deserve ridicule on a daily basis. A tragedy of epic proportions has occurred, but just because it happens to be a completely inappropriate target doesn’t mean we have to ignore all the unrelated, lesser idiots of the world and move en masse to the freakin’ little house on the prarie…

A sense of humor, when appropriately focused, is a very useful thing to have in times of crisis. And I don’t own a damned thing in gingham…

Class

Interesting documentary on class in America on KQED tonight. You know. America’s dirty little secret? That our classless society really isn’t? It was actually well-done and presented some valid arguments from both sides of this war we’re not officially having.

I was drawn to the guy who mentioned that, every time he sees a $60,000 car drive by, he wonders “what was that about?” Hit it right on the head for me. Is a $60,000 car really three times better than a $20,000 car or four times better than a $15,000 car? How much of that purchase price is primarily about the driver making a statement that says “Look at me. I can afford a $60,000 car!”

I don’t think it’s necessarily prejudice against the wealthy to look at this guy and his car and determine that we probably wouldn’t get along. It’s not that the guy is rich that bothers me. It’s the fact that his priorities and values suggest that blowing that much money on a car is a good idea. This says to me that we probably wouldn’t have that much in common.

I realize that very few wealthy people wake up in the morning wondering “how can I trample the working class today?” I also realize that too few wealthy people (and poor people, as it happens) walk around thinking how they can show respect for other people.

Also mentioned, though, was the idea of “getting above your raising”. This one, like flaunting your wealth and questionable priorities, is a disturbing class affectation, but one exhibited by the poorer classes. It’s sort of a disincentive for anyone who strives for something better, or even different. I’ve seen this one at work too, although not dramatically, and more from a geographic standpoint than an economic one.

The idea is that if you dare “abandon your roots” and try to move on to something (or someplace) which might be more suitable to your personality, you may find that family (and even some friends) back home don’t know or care how to react to you anymore. It’s not that they don’t understand your new life so much as they don’t even acknowledge that you might actually HAVE one. They don’t want to know about it, and they don’t really want to have much to do with you because you’re some sort of traitor for leaving a place which is so obviously perfect for you (because it’s perfect for them).

I’ve gotten some of this attitude from a few family members, it’s strange because I think I’m considerably less snobbish about my southern roots and surroundings now than I was when I actually lived there.

Another interesting, if a bit obvious, subject was the way class identity is largely established in high school, but that’s a subject for another time. I’m babbling and it’s time to go to bed…

Nationalists, Bigots, and Other Idiots

The thing which scares me almost as much as the potential for more terrorist attacks possible economic collapse, etc: the yahoos who are walking around acting so gleeful and excited about the possibility of a major war. These people are positively giddy at the prospect of “going over there and kicking some butt”, as if they were headed for a fucking football game. The testosterone flows freely.

We’ve been through a terrible tragedy and there will (and should) be a response, one both dramatic AND well-considered. But we’re not talking about a video game or a miniseries here. It’s not going to be exciting, entertaining, nor particularly fun to watch. It is not, under any circumstances, something to look forward to. And it’s not going to be over in a week.

Repeat after me: real life is not a war movie and the hero does not always survive to look sexy and get the girl in the final scene.

Patriotism and unity are one thing. Displaying an American flag while calling everyone who disagrees with you a “traitor” or “un-American” is another. It’s certainly not patriotism. Pride in one’s country is a little empty without pride in the ideals on which it was founded. It’s a little like the flag-burning debate; to many, the actual piece of cloth is more sacred than the freedom it represents. Priorities and perspective be damned.

Similarly, lashing out at anyone who looks like he just might have Islamic tendencies or Middle Eastern roots is a sign not of heroism but of plain bigotry and ignorance. Remember that big backlash against people who looked like survivalist white guys after the Oklahoma City bombing? Nope, neither do I.

OK, enough preaching for one day. Some things I love today:

  • There are now “King of the Hill” reruns five nights a week.
  • Pork chops are on sale at Safeway.
  • I got two long overdue checks in the mail today and may be able to continue eating for another few weeks.
  • The front of my building is no longer Pepto-Bismol pink.

We’re all still sad and frightened and generally anxious, but life goes on. Tomorrow, it’s back to the cynicism and saracsm you’ve come to expect in this space. Unless I change my mind…