49 square miles surrounded by reality

I wasn't going to write about San Francisco since I feel like I already told everyone about the trip in person, plus I didn't get many pictures, but I'm at work and tired of looking at Myspace. So, a summary of my trip and the posting of the few pictures I did take sounds like a good way to entertain myself.

Barbara and I flew up on Friday. She had some free drink coupons, so we treated ourselves, and also treated the guy sitting in our row. We ended up talking to him the whole flight...he was an interesting guy. Turned out he was recovering from a disease that had paralyzed him from the neck down for a couple months. Basically, he caught a virus(just a little cold), but his body's defenses malfunctioned and instead of just attacking the bad stuff, it started attacking his central nervous system. One day he had a cold, the next day he noticed he felt kinda stiff and fell twice in the shower. He called 911, by the next day he was completely paralyzed, and ended up spending 2 months in the hospital. Apparently there's only like 1000 cases of this a year, and all you can do is just ride it out.

Anyway, we got to SF, went to the apartment, got changed and headed down to John's Grill for pre-opera cocktails. John's Grill is famous for being a place that Dashiell Hammet hung out at. People say he wrote The Maltese Falcon there since the Sam Spade eats there in the book.
After killing a couple of hours at the bar, we went to Berkeley to see Barb's brother's production of The Sylvan and Oceanic Delights of Posilipo, a fully staged court entertainment that was originally performed in 1620 to celebrate the return to health of His Catholic Majesty, PHILIP III OF AUSTRIA, King of the Spains." It was a pretty cool production. There were dancers, opera singers, and a Renaissance band that included harps, lutes, chitarroni(a crazy looking baroque guitar) and harpsichords.

On Saturday, we went down to Haight St., got some breakfast at the Pork Store Cafe(it's been there since 1916, although it was originally just a butcher shop). After breakfast we wandered around Haight St., and finally made to Ameoba Records where I got 8 CDs for $12.00. I love that store. Saturday night, there were more cocktails, we went to an art opening for Barbara McQueen(it was just a whole bunch of pictures of Steve McQueen), and we finally ended up at a French restaurant where I tried frog legs and escargot. I also randomly ran into a couple of people that i know from Oklahoma....Wes from Edmond in the morning at Anthropologie and Matt from film school while walking down the street near the art opening. I am once again reminded of what a small world it is.

Sunday was full of more SF sight. We met Jimmy's boss for brunch, then went to Fisherman's Wharf, looked across the bay to Alcatrez, saw the sea lions lounging on Pier 39, tried to take pictures of the Golden Gate bridge surrounded in fog, went to The Buena Vista to have some of their famed Irish Coffee(they serve up to 2000 coffees a day!), rode the cable car from one end to the other, went to North Beach for some amazing Italian food, and finally wrapped up the night with some wine on Barbara and Jimmy's balcony.

That pretty much wraps up the trip. Barb and I flew home on Monday morning. I had a lot of fun, and have decided that I really like San Francisco. It almost reminds of another country. I'll definitely go back sometime.

The palm trees are candles

So, now I've experienced major brushfires...lets hope the earthquakes stay away! All day yesterday I went back and forth from my balcony to my room where the TV is...getting updates on the fire, then going back upstairs to see the flames and helicopters dumping water. I kept thinking the firefighters had it under control, when all of sudden there would be a new batch of flames.

Around 7pm, i went to see a movie(Vitus...a Swiss-German film about a piano prodigy...i recommend it). On my drive home, I saw the fire still going and got a call from Christina, asking if I was being evacuated. No...I wasn't.....I'm not that close to the hills. When I got home, I went back on my balcony, and saw the hills glowing red...it looked like volcano. I ran downstairs and got my camera, and by the time I got back more flames had broken out. Here's some crappy pics of my view.


More than 817 acres have burned, and a couple of hiking destinations were destroyed. Apparently, the firefighters have it about 50% contained, and I can no longer see flames, but I still hear helicopters.
I obviously didn't take this picture, i just thought it was cool.

still a Rock Star...breathing a sigh of relief

This past weekend was fun. Coachella(a big music festival in the desert) was happening and my friend Dana, who works for a band management company, invited me to go to Palm Springs and stay in her hotel room. She wasn't able to get any extra passes to the fest, but hanging out at the resort, chillin' at the pool and going to parties seemed like a good enough reason to me to drive down.
So, Saturday morning, I woke up early and started driving. It was a nice drive through the desert, and there was hardly any traffic. I arrived at the resort right on time, and we (me, Dana, and her friend Sarah from NYC) headed out to the day parties. Our first stop was the Jane Magazine party. It was at a fancy house in Palm Desert. There was a pool, with lots of pretty people hanging out in their bathing suits. All the free alcohol and food you could want, and we even got schwag-bags..nothing too exciting in them, but I got some mascara and some lip-plumping lip gloss.
We knew of a couple other parties, so we hung out at Jane for about another hour, then headed off to the next party. It was a Hugo Boss/Nylon Magazine party, and wasn't nearly as good, although I heard the night-time version was much better. Regardless, we all had another drink, put our feet in the water, and admired the cute Australian boys from across the pool. By then it was about time to head back to the hotel, so Dana and Sarah could get ready to go to the festival, and I could go layout.

When we got back, I took my new Jane Magazine and went to the pool. When it started getting dark, I went and worked out for an hour...go, me... after that got boring, I decided to give the hot-tub a try. While hanging out in the hot-tub, I start eavesdropping on the 3 dudes in the pool. I gather that they are in a band that played the festival and that they have toured England. By that point, I'm getting pretty warm, and head into the pool(i think the fact that it was pretty dark out gave me courage to strut around in my bikini). Basically, to make a long story short, I ended up befriending 3 of the guys in The New Pornographers.
After chatting the pool for awhile, we decide we should head into the hotel bar, have a drink and listen to the lounge singers. This turned out to be a treat because halfway through their set, Marleen, one of the 3 other people in the bar and a very old woman, gets up and sings Crazy by Patsy Cline. It was really good. About this time, Dana and Sarah get back from the fest, we decide to make a Del Taco run, and then call it a night.
The next morning, we met Kurt(the drummer from The New Pornographers) for breakfast before he had to leave for the airport. It had crossed my mind the night before that I should ask if they had any wristbands left from the festival...but I just didn't feel like I knew them well enough. Lucky me..he read my mind, and when he walked up to the table, pulled out his unused wristband and said "I thought you could use this". What a nice guy...plus it made me feel pretty cool to know that I can still get myself backstage!
The festival was fun, although very hot..(100 degrees). I saw Explosions in the Sky, CSS, The Klaxons, Jose Gonzales, Crowded House and Rage Against the Machine. There were quite a few other bands I would have liked to have watched, but I couldn't drag myself away from the backstage area if no one wanted to go with me. I was afraid I'd miss something. I also saw quite a few people from Austin that I know, like Grahm, the booker from Emo's, and Leigh and Thomas, owner of Factory People(and yes Maggie...they all asked about you!)
At one point when we were wandering around, checking out all the names on the trailers, we came across The Red Hot Chili Peppers trailer. I don't remember who started it, but the next thing I knew we'd snuck into the trailer and were having our picture taken on their couch. Granted, they'd played on Saturday night, and probably weren't even at the festival anymore....but still!
Shortly after that, it was decided that we were leaving and going to a party. Little did we know...until we were already back at the hotel...but the party we were going to wasn't happening. So, another night spent at the hotel...which probably was a good thing considering we had to get up fairly early to leave.
The next morning, we started our drive back to LA. Since I was on my own and was in no rush, I decided to make a few pitstops. The first was to check out the wind turbines just outside of Palm Springs in the San Gorgonio Pass. This place is one of the windiest in the world and there are 3,500 windmills there. Apparently, they make enough electricity for 250,000 people. I really wanted to take a windmill tour, but it just didn't sound like much fun on my own. I also wanted to go to the Salton Sea, but it was kinda out of the way, and once again I didn't feel like going on my own. Regardless, I got off the highway and drove down a little desert road to get a closer look, but didn't stay long, as it was pretty creepy out there, even in the middle of the day.
After that, about 20 miles down the road is Cabazon, CA where the world's biggest dinosaur lives. He is probably the world's most famous dinosaur too since he had a cameo in PeeWee's Big Adventure. His name is Dinny the Apoto and there is a gift-shop in his belly. There is also Mr. Rex T-Rex. He has a museum in him and you can look out his teeth, 4 stories up, but unfortunately he's only open on the weekends. The weirdest thing about this place is the religious stuff and references to the bible that are everywhere. According to their website they are a "creation science outreach ministry promoting a biblical world view to origins, education and life." There was some dude also looking at the dinos on his own, so we helped each other out and each took a picture of the other with Mr. T-Rex. You can see tiny me by his left foot.
After the dinosaurs, I got back in my car and headed home...there was a lot of traffic, but I eventually made it. I'm headed to San Fran this weekend. So...more pics and another blog soon.