Friday, March 26, 2004
shake it up
I got hit by a car yesterday. It wasn't so bad, as these things go, I guess.
I was running to catch the bus. I took one step off the curb on Haight and Divisadero, and then found myself airborne and moving laterally, riding on the hood of a red sports car. And it was one of those moments when everything moves in slow motion and you think weird thoughts, like, "Wow, this car hood sure is dirty (and it just rained)." Or "how come he's not stopping moving?" Because he wasn't. The car continued moving forward for another five feet, with me on the hood. And then the driver stopped and I flopped off and looked down at the grime on my hands and then realized that I'd just been hit by the car. And my first thought was, "Man, I better hurry if I'm going to catch that bus." But then I realized slightly what had happened and I remembered to stare the guy down and shake my head balefully. (He apologized several times through the slightly open window.) But I didn't remember to get his information for my insurance or any possible future damages.
I should've thought to do that. Because I'd finally joined my group of friends in traffic-related difficulties. In the past year we've had:
Chris & Elly: 2 rear-end collisions! One totaled car.
Tim: one hit and run collision. One totaled car.
Kathleen: one rear-end collision while Chris was driving her car.
Brent: car died. One window broken, two bags and one stereo stolen.
Victoria: A guy's been breaking into her car and leaving gum wrappers.
Paul: I think something happened to his, but I can't remember.
The ironic thing is that Elka lives in a neighborhood where there's broken window glass everywhere and her car has been untouched. Of course, she's only lived there two months.
Anyway, I should've known to ask the driver for some info. Because now my leg's hurting more and more. The shock of being alive has worn off.
Boy, has it.
I was running to catch the bus. I took one step off the curb on Haight and Divisadero, and then found myself airborne and moving laterally, riding on the hood of a red sports car. And it was one of those moments when everything moves in slow motion and you think weird thoughts, like, "Wow, this car hood sure is dirty (and it just rained)." Or "how come he's not stopping moving?" Because he wasn't. The car continued moving forward for another five feet, with me on the hood. And then the driver stopped and I flopped off and looked down at the grime on my hands and then realized that I'd just been hit by the car. And my first thought was, "Man, I better hurry if I'm going to catch that bus." But then I realized slightly what had happened and I remembered to stare the guy down and shake my head balefully. (He apologized several times through the slightly open window.) But I didn't remember to get his information for my insurance or any possible future damages.
I should've thought to do that. Because I'd finally joined my group of friends in traffic-related difficulties. In the past year we've had:
Chris & Elly: 2 rear-end collisions! One totaled car.
Tim: one hit and run collision. One totaled car.
Kathleen: one rear-end collision while Chris was driving her car.
Brent: car died. One window broken, two bags and one stereo stolen.
Victoria: A guy's been breaking into her car and leaving gum wrappers.
Paul: I think something happened to his, but I can't remember.
The ironic thing is that Elka lives in a neighborhood where there's broken window glass everywhere and her car has been untouched. Of course, she's only lived there two months.
Anyway, I should've known to ask the driver for some info. Because now my leg's hurting more and more. The shock of being alive has worn off.
Boy, has it.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
architecture isn't just for buildings anymore
Hey, last night a DJ, er, band saved my life. OK, so it didn't save my life exactly, but it sure gave my old ticker a jumpstart.
I was at the Make-Out Room with Chris and Elly. There were some familiar faces in the crowd -- Matt Roberts and Yoshi from the Aislers Set, Ian from Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, that tall thin guy with the glasses and the droopy face, that girl who used to be inseparable from that other girl at all the indie-pop shows. Man, remember those days when you used to see them all the time? I always wondered what happened to all them.
Cast your mind back to 1998, when Alexander booked "Anisette" and "Schokolade," and the Aislers Set* rocked the Purple Onion.** That show was the utmost.
I was in the worst possible mood, fighting silently with my girlfriend, shooting daggers at my ex, wondering what the hell Tom Guido would do next, when the Aislers went on. And they fucking slayed me. You can say what you want about them -- sometimes they refused to play their best songs or seemed not to care about their audience or their performance, often Amy would crack up mid-song -- but no other local band sunk their arrows so squarely into the target of my heart. Some of my fondest show memories are because of them -- the Last Match release party at Du Nord, when Ryan and I were jumping around so much the yuppie guy next to me said, "Hey, thanks for rocking out!" or that SXSW show last year that I went to alone and didn't really care and felt right with the world. And that damn Onion show, when they finished and Mike threw on a soul record and the band leapt into the dance pit and everyone frugged until Guido kicked us out.
Well, that's sorta how it was with Architecture in Helsinki last night. They were just so cute and charming and inspiring. Eight kids from outside of Melbourne, playing a bunch of horns and making like they'd just finished band practice and were messing around before the janitor chased them out. Handclaps and fingersnaps and Beach Boys harmonies and Belle & Sebastian jangle/organ and goofy grins and thrift store hand-me-downs, and a way out-of-place rasta guy with dreads. Check out the video for "Kindling" here -- the joke is that no one's playing their real instruments, and that girl isn't really singing the song (it's the guy with the baritone tuba thing -- he sounds halfway between a boy and a girl, very disconcerting, kinda Danielson Famile). One warning though: they do get kind of wanky with a "drums and space" type thing late in the show. Maybe they just figured they were in S.F. so they had to do it. Anyway, they're coming to New York and Northampton so check them out. Yell out a request for vegemite -- it's their version of "Free Bird."
*Hey, did you hear the Aislers Set have broken up? Reliable sources indicate that Amy has officially moved to NYC, Alicia has quit the group, and Yoshi is tired of touring. Bummer.
**Hey, did you hear the Purple Onion is back in business? The Chron wrote a horribly uninformed article about it reverting back to a comedy club. The piece doesn't mention crazy Guido at all, or how the club was home to the first garage-rock revival in the early '90s. In fact, it says the venue fell into disrepair in 1990, not mentioning all the amazing shows we witnessed there up until 1999 (remember when the drummer from the Kiss-Offs lit off those explosives?). Everyone always complains about Jane Ganahl and I often stand up for her -- mostly because she was a friend of my pal, King Kaufman, and because she wrote about "Bardot a Go Go" for the SF Examiner back in the day -- but this article was shit.
I was at the Make-Out Room with Chris and Elly. There were some familiar faces in the crowd -- Matt Roberts and Yoshi from the Aislers Set, Ian from Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, that tall thin guy with the glasses and the droopy face, that girl who used to be inseparable from that other girl at all the indie-pop shows. Man, remember those days when you used to see them all the time? I always wondered what happened to all them.
Cast your mind back to 1998, when Alexander booked "Anisette" and "Schokolade," and the Aislers Set* rocked the Purple Onion.** That show was the utmost.
I was in the worst possible mood, fighting silently with my girlfriend, shooting daggers at my ex, wondering what the hell Tom Guido would do next, when the Aislers went on. And they fucking slayed me. You can say what you want about them -- sometimes they refused to play their best songs or seemed not to care about their audience or their performance, often Amy would crack up mid-song -- but no other local band sunk their arrows so squarely into the target of my heart. Some of my fondest show memories are because of them -- the Last Match release party at Du Nord, when Ryan and I were jumping around so much the yuppie guy next to me said, "Hey, thanks for rocking out!" or that SXSW show last year that I went to alone and didn't really care and felt right with the world. And that damn Onion show, when they finished and Mike threw on a soul record and the band leapt into the dance pit and everyone frugged until Guido kicked us out.
Well, that's sorta how it was with Architecture in Helsinki last night. They were just so cute and charming and inspiring. Eight kids from outside of Melbourne, playing a bunch of horns and making like they'd just finished band practice and were messing around before the janitor chased them out. Handclaps and fingersnaps and Beach Boys harmonies and Belle & Sebastian jangle/organ and goofy grins and thrift store hand-me-downs, and a way out-of-place rasta guy with dreads. Check out the video for "Kindling" here -- the joke is that no one's playing their real instruments, and that girl isn't really singing the song (it's the guy with the baritone tuba thing -- he sounds halfway between a boy and a girl, very disconcerting, kinda Danielson Famile). One warning though: they do get kind of wanky with a "drums and space" type thing late in the show. Maybe they just figured they were in S.F. so they had to do it. Anyway, they're coming to New York and Northampton so check them out. Yell out a request for vegemite -- it's their version of "Free Bird."
*Hey, did you hear the Aislers Set have broken up? Reliable sources indicate that Amy has officially moved to NYC, Alicia has quit the group, and Yoshi is tired of touring. Bummer.
**Hey, did you hear the Purple Onion is back in business? The Chron wrote a horribly uninformed article about it reverting back to a comedy club. The piece doesn't mention crazy Guido at all, or how the club was home to the first garage-rock revival in the early '90s. In fact, it says the venue fell into disrepair in 1990, not mentioning all the amazing shows we witnessed there up until 1999 (remember when the drummer from the Kiss-Offs lit off those explosives?). Everyone always complains about Jane Ganahl and I often stand up for her -- mostly because she was a friend of my pal, King Kaufman, and because she wrote about "Bardot a Go Go" for the SF Examiner back in the day -- but this article was shit.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
gay policeman on a bender
Wow. It's been a while. Isn't it strange when life intrudes on your blogging time? There's been so much going on. So much.
Like I had a birthday. And there was a party. A moustache party. Ajax described it pretty well. But he left out some things. Like how the next day we went to the beach with Jake and Elka's cool new roommate Carla. She'd served as the Queen of the Moustache Judges -- her badge read "I judge you," ha ha -- but Jake forgot this. So he was going on and on about how unfair it was that he'd been denied one of those fantastic Indigo Girls CD prizes. He'd actually grown a hideously sleazy 'stache which made him look like your sad 5th grade teacher from the '70s who decided to grow a moustache after seeing how studly the Village People were. And all the prizes went to fake 'stachers, like Chris and his cardboard mountain man one and Brent and his disturbing business guy one. And then Jake realized that Carla, seated right next to him on the beach towel, had been one of the judges.
Next thing we knew, the Golden Gate Bridge was disappearing in a bank of fog. And then the sun disappeared too. And we froze. I think Jake felt bad about it all, that maybe he was a little bit responsible for the bad vibes and goosebumps and the chattering teeth and the sloppy Carla tears. So he apologized profusely, saying he'd forgotten that she was a judge.
"That's okay, Jake," she said. "If I'd have known you were a school teacher, I would've given you a prize right away."
Then Elly woke up from her nap.
No, wait, then we fled the beach and I took a nap.
But, wait, there's more. Ajax was right: At the party, people didn't dance until "Rapper's Delight" came on (all 14 minutes of it!). I was sad. Maybe it was my fault for not realizing that my friends were tired of old-school hip-hop and '80s rock. I tried that Soft Pink Truth remix of Bjork, but that just seemed to cause massive apoplexy. Maybe dancing is so 2003, maybe it was the architecture of the house (damn architects! oops, sorry, Paul!) which kept all the music in the front room and not in the kitchen. We really wanted to put the DJs in the kitchen, because everyone always congregates there, but then the neighbors might've complained.
You know, I blame Fridays. And the East Bay. I refuse to blame getting old. Look at Charlie Chaplin. He was still siring children at 70. I don't know if he did much dancing though.
But Fridays, man, no one has any energy on Fridays. And so few people from SF will come across the bay for a party. It's just a fact of nature.
The problem with having great parties is not having great parties. You feel let down, when actually the not great parties are quite pleasant. But the cops don't come for quite pleasant. And you don't get to piece together who was hitting on the Russian ballerina in the guest room when it's all quite pleasant. Or wonder who bent the towel rack in the bathroom.
I refuse to stop bending the towel rack. Next party I go to, I'm making sure my butt (or Elka's) does some towel rack bending. You've been warned.
Like I had a birthday. And there was a party. A moustache party. Ajax described it pretty well. But he left out some things. Like how the next day we went to the beach with Jake and Elka's cool new roommate Carla. She'd served as the Queen of the Moustache Judges -- her badge read "I judge you," ha ha -- but Jake forgot this. So he was going on and on about how unfair it was that he'd been denied one of those fantastic Indigo Girls CD prizes. He'd actually grown a hideously sleazy 'stache which made him look like your sad 5th grade teacher from the '70s who decided to grow a moustache after seeing how studly the Village People were. And all the prizes went to fake 'stachers, like Chris and his cardboard mountain man one and Brent and his disturbing business guy one. And then Jake realized that Carla, seated right next to him on the beach towel, had been one of the judges.
Next thing we knew, the Golden Gate Bridge was disappearing in a bank of fog. And then the sun disappeared too. And we froze. I think Jake felt bad about it all, that maybe he was a little bit responsible for the bad vibes and goosebumps and the chattering teeth and the sloppy Carla tears. So he apologized profusely, saying he'd forgotten that she was a judge.
"That's okay, Jake," she said. "If I'd have known you were a school teacher, I would've given you a prize right away."
Then Elly woke up from her nap.
No, wait, then we fled the beach and I took a nap.
But, wait, there's more. Ajax was right: At the party, people didn't dance until "Rapper's Delight" came on (all 14 minutes of it!). I was sad. Maybe it was my fault for not realizing that my friends were tired of old-school hip-hop and '80s rock. I tried that Soft Pink Truth remix of Bjork, but that just seemed to cause massive apoplexy. Maybe dancing is so 2003, maybe it was the architecture of the house (damn architects! oops, sorry, Paul!) which kept all the music in the front room and not in the kitchen. We really wanted to put the DJs in the kitchen, because everyone always congregates there, but then the neighbors might've complained.
You know, I blame Fridays. And the East Bay. I refuse to blame getting old. Look at Charlie Chaplin. He was still siring children at 70. I don't know if he did much dancing though.
But Fridays, man, no one has any energy on Fridays. And so few people from SF will come across the bay for a party. It's just a fact of nature.
The problem with having great parties is not having great parties. You feel let down, when actually the not great parties are quite pleasant. But the cops don't come for quite pleasant. And you don't get to piece together who was hitting on the Russian ballerina in the guest room when it's all quite pleasant. Or wonder who bent the towel rack in the bathroom.
I refuse to stop bending the towel rack. Next party I go to, I'm making sure my butt (or Elka's) does some towel rack bending. You've been warned.
