Monthly Archive for October, 2008

Milk in Castro

Published on October 28, 2008 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

My evening was spent down in The Cas­tro, where they were host­ing the pre­miere of Gus Van Sant’s new film Milk over at the Cas­tro The­atre. The film is a bio-pic fea­tur­ing Sean Penn (and James Franco) about gay-rights icon Har­vey Milk.

Since I was unable to get a ticket to the show­ing, I hung around on the block for awhile to peo­ple watch. I even­tu­ally sta­tioned myself across the street from the the­ater, along­side the crowd of sup­port­ers of “No on 8″, where we chanted against the ridicu­lous propo­si­tion. We even got thumbs up from the arriv­ing cast, which of course set every­one off into loud cheers. While I’m sure some in atten­dance were there more for the gawk­ing of the celebri­ties who walked the car­pet, it also felt that a major­ity were present to honor Harvey’s mem­ory, as well. There were even points that I felt over­whelmed with joy as I observed the inter­ac­tions of the peo­ple; strangers befriend­ing other strangers, friend gath­er­ings on rooftops, and cou­ples (of all pref­er­ences) hold­ing one another while shout­ing in sync…it was wonderful.

And my two cents for the night: NEXT WEEK — PLEASE VOTE NO ON 8!

Things In Between

Published on October 25, 2008 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

So, besides hunt­ing like crazy for a place to live and for some­one to hire me, I’ve also had some time this week to do things that I enjoy. It’s the small things that keep me sat­is­fied, some­times. Heh.

Here’s a top-5 run down:

1. Make Salsa Not War: Those of you that know me, know I’m a salsa
fiend. But, for some­one who loves salsa so much, sur­pris­ingly I don’t
make it much. But I got inspired the other night (since it seems like most local sal­sas here are weak — no offense SF). This batch came out
pretty good and was pretty fla­vor­ful for what I had on hand. I think the next round will have to have some­thing special…I just need to fig­ure out what that is.

To be continued…

2. Da Mys­tery of Chess­boxin’: My friend Justin is a Chess instruc­tor at a
cou­ple schools in the city, so we’ve been play­ing a lit­tle when we have
down time. I hadn’t played in a long time, but Justin’s upgrad­ing my skill, teach­ing me all the moves! I’m also con­sid­er­ing cre­at­ing an account over on WuChess — any­one want to start a Clan? Wait, scratch that idea, shit costs $48!?! C.R.E.A.M. indeed!

3. Mis­sion Bur­rito Hunt: Not only am I a salsa fiend, but I’m also a
bur­rito con­nois­seur. I’m still on the hunt for my favorite Nor Cal
bur­rito spot, and so far this adven­ture has been great — very excit­ing! So much vari­ety! So many fla­vors!
This beauty comes from Taque­ria el Buen Sabor over on 18th and Valen­cia
in the Mis­sion. Every­one I’ve talked to keeps say­ing The Mis­sion is the spot for legit bur­ri­tos, but really, I feel like The Mis­sion is the only place you can find bur­ri­tos. Maybe I’m not look­ing hard enough.

And don’t be fooled, while this photo gives the
impres­sion of that puppy being small, it cer­tainly had some girth! And
it was filled with the goods: Black beans, guac, salsa fresca of some
sort (the hot, not the mild), cheese, and rice. I’ll give it a 8 out of
10. Maybe a 7, actu­ally — the rice did give taste hints of Rice-a-Roni at times (but that might of been because it sat for a moment, dur­ing the trip back to Twin Peaks by foot/bus, which might of caused the fla­vors to seep into the rice).

I like to con­sider this type of thing research for Bur­rito Mikeo.

4. Sup­portin’ the Peo­ple: We thought there was a “No
on Prop 8″ rally this morn­ing, so Justin and I headed to the Cas­tro around 10 AM to
go be active with our peo­ple. But, turns out, it wasn’t a rally, but more of a party at The
Look­out or some­thing. Damn. (Justin and I are still uncer­tain about what his poster is sup­posed to mean)

Well, what­ever, we moved onto num­ber 5…

5. Hangin’ Tough in Dolores Park: This has def­i­nitely become one of my
favorite things to do since I’ve been up here, and I was just think­ing
about it ear­lier, about how much I really enjoy the fact that SF peo­ple
use their parks. It seemed like back in So Cal no one ever wanted to
hang out in the park and just “chill”. Here, every­one does it — and
they do it all day! So, after our plans to rally didn’t hap­pen, we did
the next best thing and bought a six pack of Heinekens and sat on the
grass and just…well, hung out. Sweeeeeet.

Oh, and some other great things I’ve recently come across:

  1. Saw two guys fist fight­ing the other night while walk­ing to the Cas­tro MUNI sta­tion headed for the Nosaj Thing show.
  2. Last night, while walk­ing through the neigh­bor­hood heard some “man-moans” from a dark dri­ve­way cor­ner, and of course I fig­ured “oh shit, I’m about to walk up on some dudes going at it”, and to my sur­prise when I walked by it turned out to be two heavy­set men eat­ing brown­ies. L0lz.
  3. And last but not least, a shout out to the black tranny danc­ing on the cor­ner with her walk­men, in the mid­dle of the day, in the Ten­der­loin. Work it, girl!

‘Tis all for now. See ya!

Who Do They Think They’re Fooling?

Published on October 16, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

When­ever peo­ple want to talk Punk Rock, I always want to talk about Crass, and their related projects with Crass Records and Dial House. A lot of the time, I get a lot of dis­agree­ing, but it doesn’t mean much to me because I still feel Crass was the best. And one of the most impor­tant. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not dis­re­gard­ing any­thing that other bands did. I real­ize there were a lot of other great groups out there who stirred up some shit. Who put punk on the map. Who made a huge dif­fer­ence. But noth­ing as note-worthy in my book, that’s for sure. Crass just has this spark to it, and once you under­stand it — you under­stand it. I feel that for a band that did so much, Crass is also a group that has been over­looked incred­i­bly by many.

Well anyway…last night, I joined my friend Bryan in Oak­land for a screen­ing of the doc­u­men­tary Crass: There Is No Author­ity But Your­self, a film about them, over at an Anar­chist infos­hop, The Long Haul, in Berke­ley. After the film, I left feel­ing more excited about a band I’ve been fol­low­ing since I was in the 7th grade. It feels like the older I get, the more I am able to really appre­ci­ate what they had cre­ated. The film — ruled. It was filled with great rare pieces of live footage, old pho­tos, and inter­views with Gee Vaucher, Steve Igno­rant, and Penny Rim­baud. It even gave a tour of the Dial House! So sweeeeet.

If you’re famil­iar with Crass, watch it. If you’re not, watch it. I think what they were doing thirty-plus years ago has def­i­nitely impacted a lot of us, many with­out even real­iz­ing it. I still hold this band as one of the best, and most impor­tant groups of all time (in addi­tion to being one of the great­est things I’ve ever come across — their influ­ence is price­less), and def­i­nitely one of the most impor­tant things to hap­pen to Punk Rock, let alone Rock n’ Roll.

The Google video above is the same one they screened at The Long Haul.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Word.

Oh, and today is my one week anniver­sary of being a San Fran­cisco res­i­dent. Holla! I mean, hella!

Bueno in the Bay

Published on October 12, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

San Fran-fucking-cisco. I’m yours! Though I’ve only been here for three days, I feel so at home. Well, as at home as I can feel with­out my own place. I’m cur­rently stay­ing with my friend Justin, right in the hills above The Cas­tro. The couch I’m on is near a win­dow with an amaz­ing view of the city. Ear­lier, I even watched a fire­work show explode out of downtown…all from the liv­ing room. I’ve also been tak­ing care of busi­ness, and yes­ter­day started hunt­ing for work — that landed me two meet­ings for next week. Score.

Tonight, my adven­ture of the evening was down on Larkin St., at the White Walls Gallery, where I checked out the open­ing recep­tion for Mike Giant’s new show. I have been a long time fan of his work, but had never seen any of it in per­son, so I was really excited. (I even planned my move around this time SO I could make the open­ing, hehe.) Shit ruled! I was also sur­prised that on most of the pieces there were pen­ciled in notes around the darker mark­ered lines…pretty neat to see bits of his thoughts. I want to check it out again before the show closes on the 1st of Novem­ber, so if any­one is up here and inter­ested, lets go!

Out­side of White Walls:

This is the first thing that I saw as I walked in. Huge!

A shot from around the corner…people started pil­ing in soon after.

Skull detail — all black and white marker draw­ings. Sweet.

Pen­cil notes…shit, ain’t that the truth!

More bikeage. Holla.

There was a note on this one that said some­thing like “would make a great chest piece”. He’s right. And that’d be some good col­lar bone text!

More pho­tos can be found on my Flickr. Woop.

I like to keep things flowin’…

Published on October 3, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

And by that I mean, with a big party — there has to be a pre-party! Yaaaah, house party style tomor­row night! You’re invited!

I hope to see you there!

Yo, I’m Out!

Published on October 1, 2008 in Uncategorized. 4 Comments

That’s right! I’m San Francisco-bound next week!

But before I go, you know I want to party. My friend Sha­lyce at Club Bang! was so kind to throw me a spe­cial going away shindig, THIS SATURDAY, before I depart. Check it out:

…and I was think­ing about it today — hav­ing a party at Bang! is so appro­pri­ate. Did you know Bang! was the first club I’d ever attended, back in 2002, dur­ing high school? It’s also the place where 3.5 years ago I met my ex-boss (he’s now moved onto a dif­fer­ent venue) and landed the intern­ship that got my foot in the door here at the Glass House (Alisha and Jenna — you guys were there!). I’ve got­ten into a scuf­fle or two there; laughed with peo­ple I love; cried like the drunk fat chick who got the boot; fell down the stairs in front; and even danced alone, blacked out, at clos­ing (with the house lights up) to “Creep” on stage, while my friends had to con­vince secu­rity to let me just fin­ish the song. Hah! I’ve also seen some crazy, crazy shit go down too and in the Knit­ting Fac­tory park­ing lot (i.e. birth­day 2007, wtf?! watch­ing goofy ass scen­esters rum­ble against park­ing security…and I mean rum­ble like peo­ple get­ting thrown over hoods of cars!). Hell, I’ve even lost a new Black­berry there while in a haze!

Aww…so many great mem­o­ries. Lets close it out with a good one! I’ll prob­a­bly be sob­bing some­time dur­ing the night…oh wait, that was last time!

I hope to see ya there, friends.