When the definitive history of our age is written, the breakup and gradual reconstitution of AT&T (aka, the "Phone Company") will occupy far more pages than the putative "War on Terror".

What Would David Byrne Do?

Storming Fort Marcy

As soon as we told my parents we were going to have the reception at Fort Marcy, my dad started asking what kind of a fort it was and who we might have to fight off. I tried to explain that it was only condominiums named after the old fort that also had an event facility for banquets or wedding receptions. I don't know how well I ever explained it, and in the end I was only partially right anyway. If Fort Marcy wasn't much of a fort, it wasn't much of a wedding reception facility, either. At least in the business sense. The party, as parties are wont to do, turned out great in the end.

The location was so perfect -- outdoorsy, but close enough to the Plaza to march like soldiers to the bar after the reception -- and we got such a good deal that we're reluctant to not recommend the place. But there were, um, problems. We had not planned on making any kind of a grand entrance because we are control freaks and knew that we would want to check things out before the reception. When Heidi and Guy showed up a little early they saw that I was already there. "You're not supposed to be here!" Heidi exclaimed. "It needs supervision," I said. Again, I was both right and wrong.

Things were actually under control, but not by the employees of Fort Marcy. Apparently the event planner with whom we had been working for several months had walked off the job earlier that week. In her wake she left chaos. We had come to Fort Marcy the day before to visit with "Mike" -- if that is his real name. He seemed nice enough and let us lock the liquor and beer up in his office and put everything else in a less secure room, which everyone had a key to. That way I could come up before the wedding on Saturday and ice down the Cokes and then the bartenders would be able to get the wine and beer when they and "Mike" got there later that day. With some glitches, the first part of that plan had worked. But when we got to Fort Marcy between the wedding and reception, the second part was in danger of collapsing. Mike wasn't there, and no one had a key to his office. A few desultory tables had been put up. Everything seemed in imminent danger of collapsing into a liquorless disaster with no place for anyone to sit.

Fortunately, we have friends. Reyne and Danielle were already barking orders -- one of which was to grab the bottle of Limoncello that we did have and go off by ourselves. Which we did -- and it was no time before we glimpsed Montana's brothers and sundry friends carrying cases of beer up the stairs.

The key to "Mike's" office had never been found. Montana's brothers, always in character, had broken a window to get to the beer. The party, of course, turned out great.

I said I felt bad about the broken window, but that would be a lie. In truth, it kind of warms my heart to ponder "Mike's" reaction on coming into his office on Monday morning.

Everybody's doppelgänger's in Seattle

In Seattle we visit an Irish pub called Kell's where we drink Guinness Stout and eat some of the best corn-beef-and-cabbage we've had in a long time. A couple who in and sits at the bar table next to us -- from a certain angle-- look exactly like Joel and Melissa, my brother and sister-in-law. On the street the next morning, looking for some coffee for Montana and some bagels for both of us, I see a guy that looks just like our friend Gregg. Since we've already seen (at Hearst Castle) a ringer for a slightly younger Junior and (everywhere) people that look like John, I write these lyrics by the time I return to our hotel room:

Everybody's doppelgänger’s in Seattle.
A scary Earth Mark 2 where we battle
Our psyche evil twins without a soul:
Bizarro Gregg, Bizarro Junior, and Bizarro Joel,
(And 10,000 scary guys look just like John)

Admittedly, Hearst Castle's not in Seattle, but that's not the point.

me and my SO drinking wine with Jack @ Big Sur seven yrs into a new millennium

The Pacific Ocean laughs, Jack,
at both of us - you, fermenting
for the ages in Massachusetts
mud while I squeeze all
that vino, veritas and vivax
can yet give. The Pacific Ocean - just
these rocks and just that water -
the Biggest, Surriest essence of
the place - laughs at us, too,
intersecting across decades
at Vesuvio, an old place, where I
respectfully drink my beer.
I toast solemnly to history.
Did I hear you choke
in your grave, Jack?
Did we both hear the ocean laugh?
And what about these frickin redwoods? -
a thousand year's older than you,
or me, or Vesuvio,
or North Beach, or San Francisco itself
or any of it. Forty years on, Jack,
some of us moan to see
those trees stacked
like dead soldiers
on the backs of trucks
- but the Pacific Ocean just laughs.

20 July 2007

Best. Cab Ride. Ever.

On our last night in San Francisco, we went to 12 Galaxies, a club in the Mission District and heard Campo Bravo, Kally Price, and Phosphorescent. We were already disoriented by margaritas from Puerto Allegre, and the fact that Phosphorescent was actually just one guy who looked Amish but used homebrew tech to sing his own harmonies in realtime, and that Kally Price-- anything but realtime-- sang from some Bessie Smith-era dive in the distant past. We weren't prepared for the Best. Cab Ride. Ever-- but, in truth, are you ever?


By the time I had perused the musicians' selection of CDs, Montana had already walked out onto Mission street and hailed a cab. So the rest of the experience was her fault.

The Japanese cabbie immediately introduced himself as a dot-com refugee; his job had been outsourced to India and that was why he was driving this cab. I tried some sympathy, saying that I thought I'd talked on the phone to the guy his job had been outsourced to, but I was really thinking that this was going to be one of those cab rides where the cabbie whines about his miserable freakin' life the whole miserable freakin' time.

And then, as they say, the tone changed. Completely.

"But this is a Happy Cab," our driver told us, the capitalization audible as he reached into a plastic sack in the front seat. "Here, have some snacks." He tossed some Japanese Twinkie-type confections at us. While I looked at mine, trying to decide if I should open it and what the etiquette was in such a situation, he rummaged around some more in his bag, all the while careening up and down the hills of San Francisco.

Then, like some Asian Santa Claus at a West Texas barbecue, he pulled two silver cans from his bag. We recognized those cans immediately. "Here," he said grinning broadly, "have a beer."

"And some peanuts." He tossed us some spicy peanuts in plastic bags lettered in Japanese. By then our shyness had dissipated and, may I say, those peanuts went quite well with the ole Silver Bullet.

"In San Francisco," our driver said, "the bars close at two a.m. But my bar is open as long as the meter's running!"

But by then we had reached the Red Vic bed and breakfast. We tossed him the big tip he had well earned, and I stood in the middle of Haight Street and shouted "I love San Francisco!" to the panhandlers and the drug dealers.