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a place where i sometimes write:
journal
old entries here:
11.01.2000-01.28.2001
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2.27.2001
after a hellish day of traveling on sunday, i returned to san francisco to see mark kozelek at the great american music hall. despite being tired enough to doze off at the end of his set, i enjoyed the show. his most recent solo effort is an entire record of AC/DC covers and he played quite a few of those. i'm not sure what his obsession with bon scott is, but his interpretations of the songs are interesting. with just an acoustic guitar and his voice, he makes the songs virtually unrecognizable...but in a good way. he also played a few of my favorite red house painters' songs. on the downside, his onstage banter was annoying in a pretentious artist kinda way. some of his asides were funny, but the way he played a couple notes of a song and then decided to scrap it seemed contrived. he did this throughout the show and it got old. ah...it was still worth seeing. it was also good to see kristina again. she saved the day by coming to pick me up at the airport and driving us to and from the show.
going back to the second half of my DC trip, i think kai(aka "the virtual cyclops") summed up the highlights and lowlights pretty well. a lot of the museums we visited were cool; i think my favorites were the hirshhorn and the phillips collection, which i visited with my dad on wednesday. the phillips had an exhibition by northern california artist wayne thiebaud, which i enjoyed. the freer was definitely a drag. too many ancient artifacts, which are important as evidence of past cultures but not too inspiring to see. the national gallery was interesting, but too massive to take in all at once. there's only so much art a person can take. i guess that's why the air and space museum was a breath of fresh air. after staring at paintings, photographs and sculptures for hours...fighter planes and lunar command modules are a welcome sight.
in addition to the sightseeing, a lot of drinking and pool playing took place after kai arrived. we overdid things a bit on his first day there, but it was still a good time. snowball fights played an important part in that day too. we were pretty excited about the snow and seemed to be the only ones in town truly enjoying chasing each other around and getting frostbitten fingers from packing the snow with our bare hands. i guess we gave ourselves away as out-of-towners. i can't remember anyone else tossing a snowball and some of the uptight commuters seemed none-too-pleased with our antics. actually, some of the folks we were with weren't too pleased either.
by the end of the trip, i'd had my fill of DC's bars. overexpensive beers and pool tables were part of the reason. $1.50 for a game of pool is a crime. even in san francisco, ostensibly the most expensive city in the country, you won't see pool costing more than a buck a game. most places are 75 cents here. i also had enough of the capitol hill snobs we encountered at places like the capital lounge. it's tough to find a group of people more annoying than san francisco's arrogant dot.com yuppies, but some of these folks gave 'em a run for their money. if i sound like a hater, so be it. if someone's down-to-earth and cool, i don't care if they're homeless or a millionaire...i'll like them. but arrogance, vanity and superficial small-talk bullshit turn me off. luckily, all the people we actually hung out with were cool. i enjoyed spending time with nick and loni, suhail, kathryn and elisa. good peeps who i hope i meet up with again someday.
now that my 2 month vacation is done, it's time to buckle down and find some work. i have to find something by mid-march or it's gonna be ramen-time around here. i saw a help wanted sign at a neighborhood bookstore. if only i could survive on $10 an hour in this city...it might be an option. i'm afraid i'm going to have to return to the corporate world and i'm dreading it.
10:04 a.m.
2.20.2001
i'm sitting here in the DC office of raymond james, the financial consultants. i don't know much about them except that my sister works here and they have their name attached to the football stadium in tampa bay. and now they're providing me with the computer access i've desperately needed for the past 3 days. god bless their money-making souls!
i arrived in DC on saturday night. the flight was okay; nobody tried to sell me amway or talk my ear off for 4 hours. the plane was actually pretty empty. my sister and brother-in-law picked me up from national and we went out for indian food in adams morgan. i don't remember the name of the place, but it was damn good. saag paneer, chana masala, naan.....mmmmm. after dinner, we hit a party 2 blocks from my sister's house. it was pretty lame, with a professional bartender and a dude walking around with hors d'oeuvres and crap. the crowd was strictly yuppie, but to be fair the hosts and the few other folks that i met were nice. the guy hosting even played a clash cd and told me that he had wanted to play black flag, but his wife didn't think it was a good idea. so...it wasn't too awful. i was tired from only 3 hours of sleep the night before though...so we had a couple drinks and called it a night.
sunday was a lazy day. my sister cooked an amazing breakfast (some egg fritatta thing with spinach and mushrooms and some hashbrowns). i had no idea she could cook like that...surprised the hell out of me. we spent the afternoon having pints and playing pool at buffalo billiards in dupont circle. i didn't lose a game to anyone, which i hope is a sign of things to come for later in the week when kai arrives. that night, my dad trekked over from falls church, va and we had dinner at a lebanese restaurant. the food was okay, but not very hearty. i had to go to town on the pita bread to fill up. after dinner, we hit the brickskeller, a bar with over 700 beers from around the world (unfortunately none on tap). we sampled a few and talked, but left early cos it was stiflingly hot.
monday was another lazy day. kim took me to the zoo to see the pandas. it was fun, but all the screaming brats made me want to commit murder. to say i'm glad i don't have a kid would be an understatement. but hell...the parents' reactions to the kids acting up are just as wacked as the kids' behavior. after the zoo, we had to have a few beers to unwind so we stepped into biddy mulligans cos it was on the way home. a couple of pints of caffreys set us right and we went home where kim made another impressive meal. pasta, salad and some red wine...delicious. after dinner, i had my virgin experience watching the technological wonder that is the dvd. unfortunately, the movie was ass. of their collection, the only one i hadn't seen was austin powers: the spy who shagged me. they insisted that i see it and boy did it suck. i wish i would've lobbied harder for apocalypse now or seven. oh well.
today, i decided to hold off on the sightseeing since i'll be doing that tomorrow with my dad and thursday and friday with kai. instead, i hit a bunch of used book/record stores. saw some good stuff, but didn't buy much. i got to hear the new spoon cd at dccd. it sounded great. unfortunately, it was $14, so i passed. i don't know what's up for tonight, but i'm sure it'll involve good food and a few good beers. amazingly, the weather has been good. it was cold when i got in, but today it hit 60. the bad news is there's a cold front coming on thursday. the temperatures are supposed to be in the 15-25 range with snow. i hope kai's ready to freeze his ass off. thus my boring account of DC comes to an end....
5:04 p.m.
2.15.2001
i had to delete my entry from early yesterday morning. my drunken, idiotic ramblings were embarrassing. yeah, i played pool pretty well all night. better than i have so far this year. but in the end, i still lost $15 and spent most of yesterday recovering. good thing i didn't have to go to work. i wouldn't have wanted to be kai trying to get up for a meeting.
it's almost time to head out to DC. i leave on saturday at the crack of dawn. i guess i'm ready. there's just some laundry and packing to be done. this trip marks the end of my 2 months of vacation. once i get back, it's time to search for a job. the less i think about it, the better.
despite my pitiful state yesterday, i managed to stay awake long enough to watch a film. rated x is the real-life story of the infamous mitchell brothers, san francisco's kings of porn. the movie, which starred the brother combo of charlie sheen and emilio estevez (estevez also directed), was okay. but i couldn't help feeling that it should've been so much better. it didn't really dig deep enough into the brothers lives. it also wasn't filmed on location in the bay area, which was a disappointment. i kept waiting to see scenes of the tenderloin and other areas, but they just used a few external shots of the city's skyline. i guess they shot it on a soundstage to cut costs. anyway, if you want to see a movie about the porn industry, you're better off with boogie nights or people vs. larry flynt. it's too bad cos the mitchell brothers are an interesting subject. maybe i should read the book that the film is based on...although from the looks of the reviews at amazon, it may not be much better.
3:49 p.m.
2.12.2001
i haven't been listening to much, if any, punk rock lately. but as i headed out to the video store to get movies for tonight, i wanted to hear something good and loud. after rummaging through my old tapes for a few minutes, i found a winner: three-chord monte by chicago's pegboy.
whoa! i'd forgotten how good this band was. all it took was a few seconds of john haggerty's guitar to remind me how classic these guys were (at least their early stuff). three-chord monte was their first release, a 4 song ep released in 1990. they followed it up with a great lp, strong reaction. they don't make bands like this anymore. they were powerful as hell, but still had great melodies. and the lyrics were outstanding too. it makes me nostalgic for my college days, when i discovered so many amazing bands: jawbreaker, fugazi, husker du, descendents, minutemen, etc.
since i got so fired up just by listening to a tape, i've decided to try a little something. from now on, until i find a job and have to work days...i'm going to make myself listen to a record and write about it here. one a day at least. i have about 80-90 cds that i've rescued from the bargain bins at amoeba in the last year. i've yet to listen to most of them. this will force me to do it. of course, if i don't follow through with this, it won't be a surprise. but as kai says, "hope springs eternal."
6:41 p.m.
2.06.2001
i've been sick. damn sick...and it sucked. but all that's over now. the haze lifted on saturday and i started to feel human again. on monday, i celebrated my return to health by getting out of the house. i jumped on the n-judah and took it to the end of the line: ocean beach. no, it's not just the title of a red house painters lp. it's a beach too and it was my destination because it was the easiest way i could get to the pacific ocean. it had been awhile since i'd seen it up close and i felt i needed it. whenever i'm near the ocean, i feel calm and at peace with everything. yeah, that sounds all hippie/new age, but whatever. it actually has a positive physical effect on me. it's relaxing to hear the waves hitting the shore and it's damn beautiful to see. i also needed to see it because it's a reminder of what i like about san francisco. i've been getting a bit fed up with the city lately...to the point of contemplating a move north. since a move won't be possible for awhile, i thought i should do something that would make me feel good about where i am.
so...i get off the bus and walk to the beach. i was disappointed because it was 1pm and still foggy as hell. i couldn't even see the water from the beach. i couldn't really see anything 20 yards in front of me. i decided to walk down as close to the water as i could get without getting wet. then, i faced north and just started walking. it's hard to describe how cool it was. i couldn't see much all around me...just fog as thick as pea soup. i couldn't see any people either. it was just me, the sand and the ocean. as i walked, other people gradually came into the picture, walking the beach as i was. during the 1 1/2 mile walk (i would've kept going, but the beach came to an abrupt end at the site of the cliff house), i passed a few folks...but there were times when i saw no one for 5-10 minutes at a time. during those moments, it was almost surreal. i felt like i was the only person alive. in a city that's become way too crowded (to the point of being stifling...one of the reasons i'm thinking of bailing), i had found a place where i could appreciate the beauty of the area and find a little peace and quiet. finally!
one thing that crossed my mind during my stroll was that if i wanted to, i could walk straight into the ocean and disappear. who would be the wiser? not that i wanted to do this, but just the thought that i could made me smile. scary? maybe... anyway, it was an outstanding way to spend part of an afternoon. afterward, i returned to my apartment feeling renewed.
today, i did something a little less rewarding: record shopping. this turned out pretty well. i made a couple of good finds: fugazi's in on the kill taker for only $1.95 and an import by big tobacco for the same price. big tobacco is the side project of joe pernice and is an import-only cd which i'd considered shelling out $18 for. how it got into the cheap bins, i'll never know. i guess it was my reward for getting on my hands and knees and searching the very backs of the floor bins.
a final note of interest. a very cool site where you can find out what song was #1 on your date of birth can be found here. my birthdate song is "honky tonk woman" by the rolling stones.
11:10 p.m.
2.01.2001
finally archived my old entries after months of procrastination. unfortunately, i still haven't updated the look of the pita itself. i've got a few good ideas, i just haven't executed them yet. not much to say today. feeling lousy. only a few more weeks until my trip to DC and then it's time to find a job. to say i'm dreading a return to the 9-5 thing would be the understatement of the year.
1:31 p.m.
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places to go:
froto
math of breath
oppress this
saturn
underachievers
us-against-them
the wire
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