Home from Fresno

Home. Sweating. Nose stopped up from spending 36 straight hours in air conditioning. Remind me once again that my delicate constitution suffers in the 100-degree weather of Fresno in August.

Despite the miserable weather (hot and sunny), it was a good trip. Look for details and pictures soon.

Rhetorical and other questions du jour:

  • Why does the same box of store brand cereal (in the same store) sell for $1.99 in Fresno and $3.19 in the Bay Area?
  • Who is responsible for that annoying new cover version of “American Woman”?
  • Where is my damned fog?

On Highway 99

 

Sunday morning brought breakfast at McDonald’s, since the Chicken Pie Shop was closed and everyplace else had long lines full of small children. I toured more of the city, taking this year’s series of pictures along Motel Drive, including a few shots of a motel which had burned a day or two before.

Along the way, I stopped in at an old dowdy Save-Mart supermarket (a Fresno chain) to buy a disposable camera. Just to be safe, I made a Count Chocula scan. They had it. I shrieked. Fresno housewives looked at me funny. I didn’t care.

I definitely took the long way home to San Francisco:

 

Madera is asmall agricultural town just north of Fresno, which looks alternately prosperous and depressed. Nice homes and tree-lined streets are found west of Highway 99, while the east side contains a seedy downtown and people living in old motels.

  

Merced has an interesting downtown with at least one passable used bookstore. There are some great buildings, a great old hotel, and an unbelievable number of houses…miles of them. Where do these people work? I haven’t figured it out yet.

I also stopped in Los Banos, Morgan Hill, and San Jose on the way back. I was hot and tired and getting a case of the sniffles and a sore throat. But something told me to take the old route through San Jose and santa Clara. And, lo and behold, what should I notice on El Camino but a Save-Mart, possibley the only one existing outside Fresno.

I hit the brakes, to the annoyance of at least seven yuppies. I almosy jumped the median. I walked into the Save-Mart. There was Count Chocula. I shrieked again. Since this was Silicon Valley, there were no housewives to give me funny looks. I hit the checkout and wondered at the fact that I’d driven to a town almost 200 miles away to learn, after seven years in San Francisco, that the chocolate marshmallow treat was available only forty miles from home.

Great things always happen to me when I visit Fresno.

To Fresno

 

Aside from an overnight stop with Erik on the way back from Las Vegas in 1998, it had been more than two years since I had a Fresno experience. Heck, it had been eight months since I’d even spent a night outside San Francisco. It was time.

I got out of town early on Saturday morning, assuming I’d have lunch in Merced and make it to Fresno before the thrift stores closed. By the time I crossed Altamont Pass, I already had the air conditioner on. I feared the heat of the Central Valley. I was right to fear it.

After finding a great bluegrass station just out of Stockton, I was speeding down Highway 99 and all excited about visiting my favorite escape. After eating lunch and driving around downtown Merced (and finding a great book my ex-roomie needed to own) I made way to Fresno.

The thrift stores proved antclimactic, and I left with one pair of 97¢ pants. Particularly disturbing was the Christian heavy metal station playing in one of the stores. I was sweating, dehydrated, and tired as the temperature had already hit 98. It was time for an air-conditioned motel. I checked in, took a crap, fixed the non-functioning TV and set the thermostat on “sub-arctic”.

Then I explored Fresno. I hit the Tower District and one of my favorite used bookstores. I drove the length of the North Blackstone strip. I visited a Von’s and an Albertson’s on my continuing quest for Count Chocula. I was unsuccessful. I was also a little pissed to see how much cheaper things are at Von’s than Safeway, despite their common ownership.

I checked out a few more used bookstores, both of which seemed to have this creepy Christian aspect to them (but no Christian heavy metal on the radio at least). One of them even had a Christian massage center in the backroom. Strange chants permeated the whole store.

About this time, I decided that hearing Lenny Kravitz sing “American Woman” one more time might drive me over the edge, so I switched to a Tejano station. I continued into a strip mall on Gettysburg Avenue, desperate to read the sign, which said exactly what I thought it said:

How can you not love a city with a strip mall named “The Gettysburg Address”?

 

Back at the motel (which now had the beginnings of icicles forming on the curtain rod), I contemplated going out. I really wanted to pick up another couple, as is my habit in Fresno. But I was also worn out from the heat and fearful of drinking and driving.

My gonads won. I hit the Red Lantern first, and was surprised that this empty, seedy little bar was now holding “salsa night” on Saturdays. There was an actual crowd. It was a fun crowd, but really cliquish and not at all cruisy. I was happy to see that the Red Lantern was quite gleefully ignoring California’s ban on smoking in bars. I picked up the fag rag and saw that tonight was “hardcore and alternative night” at the Cave, two blocks west.

This bar has a strange definition of “hardcore and alternative”, which includes Bon Jovi, Alanis Morrissette and a really bad disco version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I exited to the patio, which is also a backroom area, I’m told. All I saw were several bears talking about AOL buddy lists and chat rooms.

Conversation snippet: “I wish there was some action happening. Everyone knows about this place, but no one wants to break the ice.” An ice breaker from way back, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the problem was the lack of any interesting ice to break. I was home by 12:30, comfortably breaking up my own personal set of ice crystals which were now forming on every surface in the room.

Biggest nightlife revelation of the evening: the new freeway by Belmont Avenue makes bar-hopping much more convenient. And no, I didn’t drive drunk, thank you.

Pigdog

“What’s Planet SOMA?”

“Some website. S’posed to be good for ya. Wanna try it?”

“I’m not gonna try it. YOU try it.”

“I’m not gonna try it. Hey, let’s get Pigdog!”

“He won’t read it. He hates everything”

Narf, narf, narf…

“He likes it! Hey, Pigdog…”

I’m off to Fresno for the weekend now. There may be side trips to exotic locales like Clovis and Los Baños and Modesto. There will most assuredly be thrift stores and diners and cheap motels. I have not yet decided whether to add drama to the lives of another couple, but if history is any sort of predictor…

See you tomorrow.

Quake and Quiver

This was just plain creepy. At about 6:00, I walked up to the corner store to get a pack of cigarettes. The owner was watching the news about the earthquake in Turkey. We commented on how awful it was, and as I walked out, I just happened to utter the following words:

“We’re gonna have another one here before you know it.”

About ten seconds later, we did. The owner ran out of the store to tell me. It was a small one. I didn’t even feel it. But things were shaking and quivering inside the store. As I walked home, I noticed some neighbors talking about it on the sidewalk. I turned on the news. Channel 4 was already into its predicatble hype mode.

I predicted an earthquake with precision accuracy. And I didn’t even know I was doing it at the time. Much better than last time.

Things I love today:

  • Safeway Select Grapefruit Soda
  • The Safeway at 7th Avenue and Cabrillo
  • The fact that, after tonight, I will finally have every episode of “The Streets of San Francisco” on tape, including the one filmed near the aforementioned Safeway.

Things which suck more than usual today (which means they suck a whole lot):

  • Microsoft
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Active-X

Happy Birthday, Dad

Happy Birthday, Dad…

No, he probably won’t see it, since my Mom is still learning the ins and outs of accessing the web. But I thought it was a pretty cool “concept shot”. I have one of my Mom too. She’s standing under a sign which reads “motherhood”. A maternity store, I think. Shortly after we took these last January, mall security told us we had to stop taking pictures. We were so ashamed. Really…

My Dad’s birthday: another family event expedited by Federal Express. When my parents send me presents, they use regular mail. They plan ahead.

Things I love this week:

  • Fresca
  • Rosemary’s Baby
  • Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, which are even better after two days in the refrigerator.
  • Joe Orton

Road Trip Lite

I sort of left town. I just didn’t spend the night anyplace. So I still haven’t slept anyplace other than San Francisco since January. That’s absolutely terrifying. Next weekend for sure. Fresno calls…

As for this weekend, I pretended I wasn’t in San Francisco by lurking in the Outer Mission on Friday afternoon. I took a lot of pictures. I had lunch at the Chick-N-Coop Hoffbrau, which is a story in itself, soon to be told. And then I explored Pacifica some more. I keep thinking that there’s some excting part of Pacifica I haven’t yet discovered, and I keep being disappointed.

Today, I made one of my “huge circle” day trips, from San Francisco to Tracy to Stockton and Lodi to Sacramento and home again by way of Fairfield. This was mostly a thrift-shopping and picture-taking excursion than anything else. Final score: one very ugly shirt, two commemorative plates (Oklahoma City and Nebraska), and four very turquoise dishes. All for under ten bucks.

The best part, of course, was dinner at the Chick-Fil-A in Fairfield.

Other memorable moments:

  • The old guy in the Cadillac in Tracy who opened his door to reveal he was listening to ZZ Top at the loudest possible volume.
  • The new road in Sacramento which connects Arden Way and Garden Highway. In a brilliant move, it’s been named “Arden Garden”.
  • That hot dog from the AM-PM in Galt. I’ll be remembering it for days…

I may expand this day trip later, but right now I’m going to bed. I may drag my ass out early and do another one tomorrow…

13 August 1999


Different day, different David…

So the site needed a little sex appeal and my ugly mug wasn’t providing it. Therefore I’ve decided to feature a different David on the front page for a day or so. I think he’s an improvement. Besides, he took a good number of my birthday pictures Tuesday night, so I felt I owed him.

The big question today is whether to leave town for the weekend or use my freebie pass and check out Feast on Friday night. I need to get out of town in a major way. But it might also be nice to see if there’s any hope left for San Francisco’s sex clubs in the current homogenized era.

Speaking of homogenized, does anyone else find those new Gap ads (with the vacant-eyed youngsters mumbling the lyrics to “Dress You Up” by Madonna) to be one of the creepiest things you’ve seen on TV lately? What exactly did they put in the Kool-Aid at that shoot?

Is it the same stuff they sell in all those juice bars on Castro Street?

The Birthday Bash

Interesting idea, huh? I turn 35, have dinner at a classy dive on Powell Street, and invite all comers. It’s the sort of thing which could be either truly creepy or tons of fun. Of course, the fact that it was both self-obsessed and self-indulgent rather goes without saying.

I really didn’t think many people would show up. It was windy and foggy. It was a Tuesday. It was scheduled for a great but little-known restaurant on a block few locals ever visit. But people came! Thirteen to be precise, four of whom I’d never even met before. It was pretty damned cool and not creepy at all.

As I waited out front with Sarah, in an effort to make sure my blood’s nicotine level was in the acceptable range, people showed up one by one, and we all waited patiently in line for din-din, since (of course) there was a long line at Tad’s for the first time in recent memory.

We pretty much gravitated to the exclusive upper room, where one feels much more intimately connected to the red velvet wallpaper, as most of the downstairs tables were taken. It’s just different upstairs: no naked cherub light fixtures nor serving line noise. It’s also hotter than hell.

Sarah and Brad were there, as were Grant, Barry, and Trixie. Mark and Eugene and David, Spike and Becky and Jamie (who managed to find her way here even without email) all joined in the carnivorous delight. Tim dropped in to say hello. And at the and of the table sat the keeper of my favorite website, who I dared not photograph.

The grand total: four domain names, ten boys, three girls, three Okies, two reformed Southern Californians, five reformed Southerners (depending on how you count), four reformed Midwesterners (depending on how you count), and lots of random chick peas on the vinyl tablecloth.

And I got presents. I wasn’t supposed to get presents. I’m not complaining. Not when I have Count Chocula handed to me with a bow on it. Nor will I complain about festive and colorful iced tea glasses with cool fruit ice cube thingies (which probably have a better name) nor even the Elmo alarm clock which now wakes me with teh theme from Sesame Street. Nope…no complaints at all…

After dinner, the remaining eleven of us made the leisurely stroll down Geary to David’s Deli for dessert. The hostess (no doubt sensing what was afoot) emptied the Celebrity Room of old people before seating us there. Everyone sang to me and requested a speech. Everyone soon realized that I’m much better with a keyboard than a mouth.

I drank coffee. David’s is one of the few places I do this, mainly beacuse when you order coffee here, they don’t ask “what kind?”. This choice of caffeine at 10PM would later haunt me.

After desert, five brave souls remained for the walk to Hole in the Wall at Eighth and Folsom, where I was kept out way past my bedtime. This would explain why it took me two days to post these pictures.

All I can say is thanks. It was great. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. People talked and mingled and everything, more so it seemed than even at most “traditional” parties. And not a single business card was exchanged.

There will be a repeat performance. The Tonga Room comes to mind. It should at least be photogenic…

Thoughts on Reaching Age 35

 

So it seems I’m now 35 years old. It’s supposed to be a very good year for blue-blooded girls of independent means. But I’m still chasing after blue-haired boys of questionable means. That’s OK. I’m comfortable with the fact that Frank Sinatra might not approve of my life.

Thoughts on the day:

  • I can now run for president, which is a nice irony on the 25th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation.
  • I think I’ve jumped into a new Nielsen demographic. I’m now only allowed to watch CBS.
  • I’ve now lived half the life the Bible guarantees. I’m not sure if this is a money-back guarantee. If I live longer than 70 years, do I have to pay more?
  • The only two famous people who share my birthday are Rosanna Arquette (5 years older) and Herbert Hoover (35 years deader). No major truths can be gained from this fact.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing anyone who dares show up tonight. And thanks for all the good wishes, etc.