For instance, today I needed underwear. Not entirely a novel moment in my life, or anyone's life, for that matter. I remember what my Pee Wee football coach said when our team was about to play a team from some miserable Southern California ghetto like Colton. They were called "Southwest," I guess because that was the section of the crappy town where they lived. Being timid white kids from the good side of the tracks, we were scared shitless of Southwest, because, to a man, every kid on the team was black. I'm just telling you straight here--there were maybe two black kids at my elementary school. We had misgivings. Which was just fine, as it turns out, as the black kids from Southwest mopped the field with us.
Anyhow, our coach was from Redlands like the rest of us, except he was black. His kid, who was half black, was our quarterback. His kid sucked. He was a stringy bean pole with six inches of height on the rest of us, but he weighed 20 pounds less. He threw like a girl and trotted from sideline to sideline without ever gaining any horizontal distance toward the goal line. He pranced. He fucking minced for Christ's sake. His running reminds me, at this later date with a greater grasp of metaphor, of a newborn colt taking its first few steps while drugged on dilaudid. I have nothing against this guy: it's been about 32 years after all. All I'm saying is, I hope to hell he became a fashion designer or a dancer or started eating steroids and beat up people like me who hated his minging, side-stepping poofery, because the NFL was not calling him.
The coach, though. Coach MacMillan. Aside from the nepotism of casting his unathletic progeny in the starring role, he was a good enough guy. He gave us a pep-talk on the day of the Southwest game, which featured this reassuring bit of knowledge: "They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us." I guarantee you, if you have played any type of organized sport in your life, at least as a male--maybe girls' coaches use some other pithy bit of non-information--your coach has said this to you verbatim. Really coach? That's reassuring. The only difference is, when they're done putting their pants on, they're tough black kids from the hood who outweigh us by dozens of pounds and don't seem to like us and whoop our lily white asses into the turf once every year. What do their pants have to do with it?
So, yes. Needing underwear is nothing unusual. We all put them on every day, one leg at a time, with the exception of sluts and freeballers. If you fall into one of the prior categories, I guess you'll just have to read another blog post. Today was different because I had been meaning to buy underwear for quite some time. As I slide through the slime of middle age into a rotund geriatric existence, the waistband on my boxers seems to be getting blown out, like my dreams, and my moral standards. I'd intended to drive to Sears in the peninsula to stock up, but by the time I'd crawled out of the cave, drank coffee, walked the dog--and smoked, as it happens, way too much weed--it was Friday evening rush hour. Fuck that, homey.
Plan revision: go to the Ross on Geary, get some drawers, then head to Java Beach and have a beer. I'm nothing if not a goddamned go-getter, ne c'est pas? So, after picking out some smart cock coverings, I headed to the cashier. Her name: Tijuana.
This, this type of low-key mindfuck is what's guaranteed to happen to you when you're lit. Who in the fucking hell names their child Tijuana? Yes, I've been off Avenida Revolución. I've been to the art and history museum...not that by doing so I deserve a brownie or a hot churro, I'm just saying, how many chalkies go anywhere bet the main drag where they buy hookers and cheap leather jackets, drink tiny Carta Blancas, and bet on jai alai? I know the Most Visited City in the World has culture.
So I had to take a picture:
Yep, there it is:
After she looked at me funny when I asked to take a photo of her name tag, and rightfully so--clearly this motherfucker is high--I said, "it's just such an unusual name. It's very pretty." [Yeah, like a mangy dog peeing on a Bart Simpson in a sombrero statue.] "I have an unusual name myself.""Have you ever been there?," I asked.
"No, but my grandmother has."
Okay, fuck you. Not Tijuana, the person, or the city, but you--the reader. Don't you realize I was stoned? It was all I could fucking do not to break down laughing on the well-trodden Ross linoleum. Your grandmother's been there? The place is 20 minutes from San Diego...it's not like you're named Algeria. So your granny had a banner weekend drinking mezcal and smoking Mexican shitbrick, and 40 years later, your mom, conceived during that fateful excursion into the borderlands, decides to name you Tijuana? She must've ate the worm--literally and figuratively. Well, I guess you have it better than your brothers, San Ysidro and El Centro. Or your cousins Mexicali and Calexico. You're lucky you weren't named Open Sewer or Hooker Sore or Bakersfield.
It's too much. Thank Jeebus I had my phone cam and THC-induced complete lack of tact. Phone cameras are both a blessing and a curse. It's great to be able to have a camera in your pocket, and I enjoy the limited lens capabilities and low resolution, but I really need to make a pact with myself to bring my Nikon and my notebook with me EVERYWHERE. You have not heard the last of me.
In celebration of bumblefucking around in various states of mental unrest photographing things, here are a bunch of cell phone photos:
Redline RL-20 sighted before I sighted Tijuana:
Original Forklifters in chrome? Fuck me in the eye!Driving out on Point Lobos. San Francisco is eternal:
Yucca at Java Beach:
Laura cooks eggs:
All right, this guy was parked near the weed store and had grubby stuffed animals all over his car roof. Really, guy?
Speaking of the weed store, stoners, surprisingly enough, find it difficult to motivate and are not good decorators, generally speaking. Here' s pigeon roosting in a hole in the painted-over auto parts store sign in front of the dispensary on Geary. At least there's rasta colors to let you know they're serious about getting lifted:
Rose, that my daughter Dolly Rose spotted up the street:
Bo has such handsome, sad eyes:
Bo's playmate, Mulligan:
The boys, hard at play:
Josh and I did the lakes loop in Fairfax on our mountain bikes. Gonna have to go back next week and catch some bass:
These flowers were all over the trail. I think they're lilies or snapdragons or something. Sorry the colors are so washed out in this shitty exposure. Crazy beautiful:
The ride, though touted by the guide book as "moderate," had some gnarly climbing. This was especially rough on Josh, as his bike has a road cassette, forcing him to stand up and pedal on most of the climbs. Thankfully, we hit Iron Springs Pub and Brewery for burgers and beers after the ride. This is their Ambrewlance, saving lives--including ours--one beer at a time:
Backyards in the Inner Richmond. San Francisco was rocking the "green space" before being eco was cool.
Batphone!
Firephone!
The Elvira Apts in Noe Valley:
Can't remember where this is from. Seems a harsh proscription. "That toilet paper was like John Wayne--it was tough and wasn't taking shit offa anyone."--TJ
Marti from Casa Sanchez started up the tattoos for burritos get-down again. I didn't have the heart to correct her spelling of stimulus.
There's no shortage of wild shit to phone photo at the Buckshot. Vegetarians swallow balls:
Skeeball:
Mannequin:
"And I'll stick it/ Deep inside/ Yeah I'll stick it/ 'Cause I'm":
Laughing Sal:
Radiation suit and energy dome:
Dead things:
[A]ll [D]ay [I] [D]ream [A]bout [S]ex:
Matt eating pie:
Look at the white queen and knight. Boo Yah!:
My bay-bay at Ocean Beach. Crazy in love with this girl:
Actual real camera photo of my homey Andres at the Livermore state race:
Peeling paint always makes for a good shot:
Dress shoe on bush:
When you really need musk (the essence of animal attraction):
Dr. Sex: best tag ever?
So Iain got an invite to Dean Dickinson's Pink Motel Pool Party, to celebrate Dean's 100th pool a couple years back. Of course, he got the Ron W style invite: "Be at my house in Santa Cruz at 6am tomorrow," so he had to flag it since he doesn't have a car. Looks like it was plenty of fun, though. There's a great photo set on Defgrip and a couple of edits on Ride and ESPN. Ride caught Wilkerson taking it on the face--apparently he smashed his teeth out. Um, Ron...what happened to the full face helmet? You did throw yourself into a coma by landing on your face back in the '80s, right?
Looks like some wild ass moves went down: Blacksmith's ninja drops, Banton's ice to fakie, Levan's layback disaster thing, Dean's footplants and feet-up carves, Dirt Ron's fakie nosepick, Bristol's 540, Bauer bunnyhopping the whole fuckin' pool, and Tom Dugan going stupid high, clearing a So Cal werewolf.
I've got to seek out more backyard pools--met a guy at the Buckshot who works for a pool cleaning/refurbishing business: he's going to give me the inside line on empty pools. Gonna call him this week and get the magic underway.
On the local front, Kweli and Chris have another First Rule jam coming up June 13:
Last year's Scrape the Town was mad fun, until a plague of Oakland PD descended like locusts:
For those of us who ride mountain bikes and drink beer, there's an event benefiting IMBA California (they build and maintain trails and advocate for public singletrack) at China Camp called Ales and Trails going down on June which looks pretty fun:
Saving lives, one beer at a time.I'm going to close this one out with "Drive In Saturday." I've been getting into Aladdin Sane a lot lately--forgot how good it is.
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