Well, time to go offline for a while, after staying up all night packing, not being able to fall asleep, and then still not being able to fall into any deeper than a fuzzy, restless eyes closed at 7:00 for all the buzzing in my head, and then being woken up too soon at 9:00 to start the day.

I might drive Rte. 80 all the way straight through to New Jersey with only roadside naps out of necessity. Maybe I'll stop in Chicago if I'm burned out by then. I'm running on other peoples' hope.

Insight into my personality:
Tomorrow, at 7:36 P.M., Pacific Standard Time, the Cassini spacecraft will fire it's engines for 96 minutes to make a risky Saturn ring crossing. I set one of my alarms on my watch to 7:36 P.M., and another of the alarms to 9:12 P.M. to mark the time when the engines will be firing.

I can't believe I told you about that.

This is what I call the "getting worse before it gets better" point of packing. Maybe you think it doesn't look so bad. If so, you are cordially invited to come over and help out.

Packing continues. I think my dust allergy is gone. I haven't been covering my face with a bandana and I've been fine. Or maybe the dust mites have found my living space so unbearable that they left in a mass exodus that I somehow missed.

Today's weather was gorgeous, but there was a chill wind blowing through Golden Gate Park to remind me to not get sucked in. Eleven years. Is this home? It's more "home" than anywhere else I've lived in terms of time and familiarity. But I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking that when I climb into the truck on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, I'm not going to even look back.

I'm better than this place. I'm not saying I'm too good for San Francisco, or that it's so lame that I'm better than it. You know how your personality might change depending on who you're hanging out with? When we interact with people, it's sometimes a compromise of personality. Not all people; some people are adamantly, sometimes overbearingly or arrogantly, themselves no matter who the company is, for better or worse. More often I think we take on chameleon qualities to some degree.

Some people bring out the better in us, some people bring out the worse in us. Some people bring out the best, some people bring out the worst. It depends on how personalities bounce off each other. Well, my theory, and it's just a theory, is that the Bay Area has not brought out the best in me, consumate chameleon that I am. Whether it's the weather, the people, or the water, I don't know. But I feel that I'm better than this, who I am, who I've become. Or it just might be the way I've grown.

I have fond memories of New Jersey because I grew up there until college. I have fond memories of my college years and I have an affection for Ohio regardless of how much I regret about the whole experience at Oberlin. In both those places and times I've been able to connect with people who brought out the best in me. San Francisco? I'm strained to like myself the way I am here. The only fondness I'll feel is for the landscape, the natural beauty of California. Little else, as far as I can predict.

I'll see wherever I end up next. See if I can connect with people, find people who bring out better in me, bring out something more interesting, more likeable, more motivated. Maybe not, but that's what I want to find out. Worse case scenario is that I find I'm as boring, uninterested, and unmotivated as I am now to cultivate relationships and connections.

Ongoing packing.




Bedroom


Bedroom reverse angle. Note the New Jersey license plates above the closet.

I went with a friend to see the movie Thirst today. The privatization of water is an important global issue, and for that reason alone I think it deserves the good review, but as a documentary, it really disappointed. Maybe The Corporation has raised the bar on documentaries, but the failings of "Thirst" as a documentary were pretty palpable.

In fact, "The Corporation" touched on the issue and had more of an impact than "Thirst". "Thirst" basically posits the privatization of water as bad, and then just repeats that over and over again without going into details or substantive issues. What it did well was show grassroots workings in Rajasthan, India and Stockton, California; that political problems are about people acting out.

"Thirst" doesn't really go into the mechanics of how and why privatization of water is bad in Stockton and Rajasthan. It was like they assumed their audience would knee-jerk equate privatization, globalization, and corporatization with "bad". And that's probably true, but limits the audience of the movie.

What was the issue with water in Stockton prior to privatization? What came out of the Kyoto Water Forum? What are farther reaching implications of privatization of water and water rights, aside from that one worker who voluntarily quit? What was the context in Rajasthan and who specifically were they fighting against? What are the suggested solutions aside from "act locally"? What is the bigger picture? That's what "The Corporation" did right. Both films covered the evil, San Francisco-based Bechtel Corporation's attempt to privatize water in Bolivia, but whereas "The Corporation" put it into a global context of corporatization, "Thirst" just posits it as an issue, and that "people power" succeeded in that one case.

Anyway, it looks from the official website that "Thirst" is getting a PBS airing, so that's just another reason not to see it in theaters.

I saw a really intriguing film last night called Frankie and Johnny Are Married, about a Hollywood couple who decide to put on a play in Los Angeles so that they could work together for the first time, and reinvigorate their marriage. I saw it mostly because I got a free pass, but I had heard good things about it. It's pretty much a vanity film about a vanity project by a Hollywood producer, Michael Pressman, and his wife, actress Lisa Chess, where they are the subjects of the film, shot documentary-style, and play themselves(!). On one level, it's absolutely outrageous, but the performances are quite incredible. Pressman is so good on camera that it's mind boggling figuring out what he's doing (he's a producer acting in a film that he wrote about him as a director of a play that he acts in) and realizing that he isn't an actor. His wife is a struggling actress, playing herself in real life, playing a role in a play that her husband produces and directs so that she can get exposure as an actress.

I want to ask if these performances are so good because they're just playing themselves and it's easy because all they gotta do is act naturally, but then I imagine that "performing yourself" must be one of the hardest things to do when you're on a set, with a crew, and lights and cameras, because that's the most unnatural setting possible. The performances and the relationship study are what carry the film, and once the third lead, actor Alan Rosenberg, playing (spoofing?) himself, leaves, the film loses much of its wind, and the film glides to its end almost on momentum alone, and the injections of crisis and drama feel contrived. It's definitely worth seeing, but not necessarily in the theaters. I would say that actors and people working in the theater, and people interested in the production side of entertainment, definitely should see it. But this is no Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or Living in Oblivion.

I'm starting to stress about moving. Preliminary gestures have been made towards starting to pack this apartment up. A carport sale might be in order for this weekend. Gotta call people, gotta call people, gotta call people. Also to say goodbye.

I do weird things when I stress puppy. I haven't slept in my bed since some time last week. I've been sleeping on the papasan in the living room. The couch is now covered with junk. I'll sleep on the floor if my back starts hurting. Why? Do you ask why the wind blows? Why the flowers blooms in Spring? Why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west? Why do stressed gerbil mommies eat their babies? Why, indeed.

Around the axis we all spin
To determine what's left out and what's left in
What's left out and what's left in
Who's left out and who's left in

The moments come and go like water
I try to hold them but they’re fading
Oh my head sounds like that
Oh my head
"My Head Sounds Like That" - Peter Gabriel

Yesterday, a group of fotologgers tried to get together a San Francisco "bike gang", modelled after similar fotolog bike gangs in New York, London, and New Orleans. I don't know if it was successful, it was basically the same core group that shows up at SF meetup and fotostrolls and Critical Mass. Still, I'll miss those guys when I leave.



Bison in Golden Gate Park. It's a little known fact that they go home at night to their houses in the Richmond District, just north of GG park, where they like to relax with a pipe, slippers, and a pot of tea.



Three of us ended the day at Hemlock Tavern, where Courtney took this shot, letting me know it was time to blue my hair again.


Monika and Courtney at Hemlock Tavern. Great indirect lighting by the window.

Looking south along the Great Highway and Ocean Beach, around Noriega. The fog never broke over most of San Francisco today. This is San Francisco summers at their worst.


This was a first I've seen. The license plate frame was Google, so I'm thinking this car belongs to one of the Blogger folks. Evan maybe? 18th Street along Dolores Park.

Oh, I so did not need to learn that Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra would be in San Francisco tonight. I even needed less to learn that tickets are $25. I'm thinking of foregoing the red filter for my camera that would cost at least $25 on layaway (new ones for 72mm lens are like $70!). If I'm a good boy, I won't go. But, geez, it's the frickin' Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra! When would I ever get a chance to see them again? If you said, "never", you're probably right.

This review of "Around the World in 80 Days" is making me like a not-terrible film less. Mind you, I've never liked Mick LaSalle's reviews, the guy's a hack, but I still read them with a grain of salt. This review is a new low for him.

Let me get this out of the way right off: it offends me that Jet Li or Jackie Chan will never "get the girl" in a Hollywood film, and I'd appreciate it if reviewers start pointing this out more often. Anyway, LaSalle makes a mistake in bringing up the term "Jackie Chan movie", and once I think about it, "Jackie Chan movie" is not a descriptive, it's a term of art. And this movie is NOT a Jackie Chan movie. It's a movie with Jackie Chan and his trademark action artificially plugged in. That's not to say it isn't entertaining, but when Jackie Chan works with another director, they work together to create a seamless "Jackie Chan movie". This film is directed by someone else, but when it's time for a Jackie Chan action scene, it looks like Jackie Chan took the reigns and the other director took a coffee break.

LaSalle also makes it sound like this is fresh Jackie Chan. It isn't. He's getting old, he's getting slow, it's taking longer for his bones to heal. It still looks great even if his age stretches the credibility of his martial arts verility in a fight, but even the scene with the rope that LaSalle "marvels" about, it's been done before and done better and more cleverly by Jackie Chan. And about cameos, they are "welcome all the same"? What kind of line is that to put into a published review. The guy's getting paid for this. Welcome how? Are they so exceptional? Was the movie sucking without them? Welcome by whom? Not me. I can't stand Schwarzenegger, Rob Schneider, and the Owen brothers.

It was a reasonably warm day to get the call that my camera was ready in Oakland. I won't know for sure until I drain this battery and try re-charging it. I tried charging my old battery which I thought was dead back in February, and it only charged to 18 minutes. Which might be good - if it charged that much and that battery really is kaput, then my camera is working.

So a reasonably warm day in San Francisco usually means an even more reasonably warm day in Oakland, so I took my road bike to pick up the camera and then rode up into the Oakland hills to enjoy the heat. I went up Shepherd Canyon Road which I'd never been on and it turned out to be pretty steep, and I would've been happy to plug up it slowly without going down to my gramp gear, but then this dude on the side of the road started egging me on, so I felt compelled to make it look like I was putting a little more effort into it. So I dropped down to the gramp gear which gave me enough spin to push it until I rounded a bend and was out of sight, and then I relaxed a bit, continuing on the gramp gear since I had worn myself out too much to go back to my middle ring. Sports, it's all about how you look.

I rode Skyline Boulevard up to Berkeley and came down the hills on Claremont, which is my favorite descent because there isn't a lot of traffic or tight turns, and is steep enough to get some harrowing speed (44 mph today).

It's interesting how things have changed in 10 years time. When I first got out here, Berkeley Amoeba was the record store to go to. But now I go there and it seems so paltry and quaint compared to San Francisco Amoeba, which didn't exist 10 years ago. It was a closed-down bowling alley or something back then. Anyway, I picked up Shannon Wright's most recent release Over the Sun, and it's totally incredible. I still like "Maps of Tacit" better, but this one is different from that, and definitely better than "Dyed in the Wool". But what a voice. What a wail.

I got another flat on the way to West Oakland BART station. Same tube as Sunday, but a different puncture. I patched it, but maybe this tube has had it and I should put a fresh one on. Since I got the flat two blocks from MacArthur BART, I just jumped on a train there back to the city.

Nothing of note watched, except for a documentary on glaciers and permafrost warming in Alaska - bad news for the rest of the world, but what do we care as long as we can get our lattes in the morning. I definitely want to see Control Room, and I put in for a free pass for Frankie and Johnny Are Married, but it didn't come today, so I don't know if I got them.

Oakland from Skyline Boulevard - Lake Merrit on the left and downtown just to the right of it.


And to the right of that pic, San Francisco Bay, with GG Bridge, Alcatraz, Treasure and Yerba Buena Islands visible.

And we have our camera back! So a re-iteration of thanks and praise to meghan for the hat is in order. Are you pondering what i'm pondering?

You know it's time to leave a city when you can't find anyone to go with you to a free movie. Of course, I shouldn't wonder that it would be the same situation in any city ("so I blame this town, this job, these friends, the truth is it's myself" - Modest Mouse). I got a free pass to see a pre-screening of Jackie Chan's new movie, "Around the World in 80 Days". It was idiotic. Breaking into Hollywood is probably the worst decision Jackie could have made. <bored voice>Why, Jackie, why?</bored voice> He should have just retired in Hong Kong as the biggest movie star in the world. It's the U.S.'s loss (and industry racism) that Hollywood never recognized him when he was in his prime.

Still, as far as awful Hollywood stuff goes, it was watchable. I didn't leave. I even cracked a grin two or three times. It had at least one good sight gag. The audience was fascinating. Laughing at funny bits that weren't even remotely funny, or were questionably funny. Gasping at action or predictable plot twists that don't take a high school diploma to figure out how things will turn out. But these are the same people who would wonder what the hell is the crap I watch. We just get sucked into different things. For them, it's this vapid, bland, meaningless entertainment that is accessible to them. They can come up with their own derogatory description of the films I watch.

Still waiting for my digital camera to be repaired. This is the last pic I took before it went under the screwdriver.

Egad, I got sunburned doing a 20 mile ride today. Who'da thunk? Since I was going so short, I didn't bother with sunscreen or rolling up my sleeves to avoid a farmers tan. But red as rain are my arms, stopping halfway up my cyclists biceps (read: none). But seeing as it was reasonably warm today and it was an urban ride with no shade, and seeing as I got a flat and patched it in the bright sunlight, I shouldn't be too surprised. Maybe I'll go out again tomorrow to try to right this wrong.

Field of Dreams was on network TV last night and I watched it. It is so embarassing to count it as one of my favorite films of all time. It's not a sophisticated film. It's a shameless tear-jerker, albeit not a conventional one. Theoretically, the film shouldn't "work". The lines, the progression, the ideas - write them down on paper and they don't work, they're hokey, they're campy, they're pedestrian, they're "what the hell, who's gonna buy this?". But it's bold, it doesn't care, the film was made and the delivery is nothing short of sophisticated. Something worked.

I remember when it came out. I was spending the Summer of 1989 alone and isolated in a house in Oberlin, Ohio, writing and recording doomy songs on 4-track. I saw it at the Apollo theater in "downtown" Oberlin one night, and afterwards, all I could do was get on my bike and ride and ride, ride out of town on the flat, straight roads that were sporadically lit. When I stopped at the reservoir, I just felt like melting into the starry Summer sky, just letting my being go, vast nothingness glow. So hokey.

I always thought it was the connection and belief that got me. Keying into something inexplicable, but believing so hard that nothing is unbelievable; a feeling so pure that there's not even a consideration of cynicism. And, oh, the moments, the one-liners that resonate and if executed short of perfect wouldn't have worked. "Hi, I'm Archie Graham", "Daddy, there's a man on the lawn", "I had the same dream", "Sorry", and that whole end sequence. Wow. No other film has ever had me feel like I was being thoroughly brain-washed to believe this thing that was beyond all credibility. I mean, why not believe that these things can happen? Why not believe in magic?

I'm publicly planting a big wet kiss on Meghan's cheek for my new favorite hat *SMACK!!* Unfortunately, my digital is in the shop, so no pics until later :(

I almost broke my Pentax SLR today, too ($900 for ZX-5n body and 28-200 lens). Friggin' Tamrac camera strap sent it plunging to the concrete. Fortunately, the damage at this time looks limited to a shattered yellow filter that I put on this morning for the black and white film I put in this morning. The impact has also jammed that yellow filter to the lens protector. So if I can't separate them I'll have to replace them both. Still, that's $40 compared to a new $300 or more lens, which, mind you, I wouldn't get. First of all, I wouldn't get a new long zoom like I have, and I'd have to settle for a more standard one. But I would also shelve the camera and wait until I get back to New Jersey where I have a Pentax K2 (top of the line K series from back in the 70's), with two lenses covering 28 to 210 range. The ZX-5n could take those lenses, but more likely it would remain out of service until I could afford a new lens.

As much as a I want to curse Tamrac and blame them, I begrudgingly think I have to blame myself for not checking how secure the strap was more often.

I went out to a show last night. It was one of my exceptions. Kristin Hersh in 50 Foot Wave in March was also an exception. Prior to that, the last show I went to was Supergrass last August. Last night was Shannon Wright. I love Shannon Wright, and now I love Shannon Wright even more. I missed her when she opened up for Sleater-Kinney because they billed her wrong and she went on first and I got there too late. It was a crappy Sleater-Kinney gig, too, the Fillmore got their sound totally wrong.

But she was great last night at Bottom of the Hill. I was a little worried about being disappointed since she seemed to be the kind of artist that doesn't care about their career or how they come across, and touring is a big drag for them. And some friends who did catch her at the S-K show said they weren't impressed by her. But the way she attacked her guitar finger-picking and writhed about on stage matched the emotion of her songs and voice. She has a voice that can tear my heart out, while singing like I'm tearing out hers.

I got a $1 poster with a terrible picture of her on it (intentional, no doubt). I put it up over my bed so when I wake up feeling like crap to be alive, I can look at it and think that other people feel even worse.

Let's get some balance into the media love fest over Reagan's death.

I took BART to Oakland today to get my camera fixed. I don't know why I even live in San Francisco if I'm bitching about the weather all the time. Oakland is SO much nicer. As long as I was there and was on my road bike, I went on a short little ride, riding along the "foothills" of the Oakland Hills and around Piedmont and back downtown. 15 miles maybe. It is so much more pleasant to ride around in Oakland than San Francisco. Aside from the weather being nicer, it's just more laid back, less hectic motor traffic, less frenetic a vibe. I want to say less assholes, but 15 miles through the nice areas (deep pockets if they hit me) is hardly a gauge of non-asshole-dom. If I don't get my act together to leave San Francisco by the end of the month, maybe I'll squat somewhere and then find a place in Oakland.

I missed the protest against the biotech conference in San Francisco, but not because I was riding around in Oakland. Apparently the action and the arrests all occured while I was still asleep *groan*. The anti-war protests have lost a lot of its focus, but I do feel strongly enough against biotech to go to protests.

It's trippy, though, because the participants in the biotech industry really feel that they are doing good, and that the protestors are misguided. They can point to concrete things which might benefit humankind. But the protesting is about a rampant, unchecked, uncritical industry which is all about profit. Profit first, helping people is good, but profit first. And if other people are hurt, as seen and unseen costs, in the process, damn them. Basically, both sides see each other as misguided and naive, and the party that profits the most is the corporations, who manage to stay above the fray.

It's the same old corporate story from day one, emphasizing the benefits to humankind and society, while downplaying the downsides. Sure there will be benefits that come out of biotech research, but there will also be adverse effects. Sure there are benefits to having an automobile in every garage, but we're choking our planet. But no one mentioned that when they started selling cars, and so no one considered it. Computers are great. Using a typewriter, an office worker can complete 8 forms per day. Using a computer, 8 forms can be completed in a fraction of that time. But instead of creating more leisure time for workers, a promised benefit, workers now have to complete 50 forms per day, and there are rewards if you complete more than that. Run, rat, run!

Biotech just seems like such an unknown monster to me. To me it's screwy right down to what it says about our values. Like our society's obsession with biological life and health, rather than true quality of life. Meaning. Whenever a news segment talks about new research indicating this or that to lengthen life, it just makes me sick. People eat this up, too. They have to put more of this or more of that into their bodies to reduce the risk of this or that disease or to live longer. The focus is just off.

Look at all the pharmaceutical commercials on the airwaves. Who knows if drugging ourselves should be the first solution for a perceived problem, but the commercials are making sure drugging ourselves is the first thing we think of. And it's making sure we think we have a problem. And with the state of healthcare in this country, who the hell can afford these drugs? Hell, people are buying them.

I went and saw The Saddest Music in the World today and really liked it, but it definitely qualifies for "unusual". Interesting. Experimental. Maybe quirky. Definitely odd. Unique. But strangely endearing. I don't know enough about film and film history to comment on the look of the film (black and white, grainy, odd lenses?), but whatever they were going for, I think it worked. I got drawn into it. The visuals were fantastic. And all the ideas, each and every one of them, scores a 10 in the successfully absurd department. Appropriately to the title, the soundtrack included, but failed to credit, the second movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Although that piece may be better described as "dark", rather than "sad". I wasn't paying attention to the movie during that section because I was listening.

Oh, and I saw The Corporation last Friday. If this movie comes to your city, go see it! It is a must-see if you're waiting for the next Michael Moore film to be released. He's actually in it as an interviewee, just a regular guy, no outlandish antics, although there is one scene of him going Christmas caroling at a tobacco company's corporate office.

Moore actually mentions something that was on my mind through much of the film, which was how most people would watch the film, be outraged, and then go away and do nothing, go to McDonald's, go to their corporate job. For some reason, I'm really glad he pointed that out. It was like a self-conscious acknowledgement of reality and that they weren't being idealistic and naive by attacking the corporate form. I think I will try to see it again before it ends its run at the Castro.

Continuing on topic, Stephen Sondheim's Assassins won Best Revival of a Musical at the 2004 Tony Awards. I was so out of it, I had no idea it was in revival. I was wondering why Emily mentioned a show that was 13 years old and barely made a ripple in the Broadway scene. It's questionable whether it's even accurately called a "revival", since it has undergone serious re-working and re-writing through the years, but I guess "revival" sounds better than saying it was being workshopped for 13 years, which for a Sondheim work would have been ironically appropriate.

Or appropriately ironic, considering Sondheim's work has always been ambitious or offbeat or uncommercial or confusing, and now, perplexing. Strange characterizations for a composer who is arguably universally considered a genius in the community.

* "Sweeney Todd" was intensely macabre, featuring graphic onstage throat-slitting.
* "Into the Woods" cleverly entwines various children's fairy tales in the first act, and then starts killing all the characters in the second.
* "Merrily We Roll Along" reaches its happy ending only by moving backwards in time, confusing the hell out of critics. Even song reprises are heard before the actual songs (it's called "high concept").
* "Sunday in the Park with George", possibly my favorite, definitely closest to my heart, is an introspective, philosophical meditation on life and art. Very high concept (read: it's boring!). No show-stopping hoofing in this one.
* "Pacific Overtures" featured an all-Asian/Asian American cast, a fact that still blows me away. If that isn't the recipe for a box-office bomb, I don't know what is.
* "A Little Night Music" I think was pretty normal, but I've never seen it. It's based on an Ingmar Bergman film. All of the songs are in waltz time, but that's just conceptual, not odd. Now if it was based on a Fellini film, that would have been odd.
* "Follies" was a cynical and bitter look at love and aging and memory lane.
* "Company" was a cynical and bitter look at love and singledom and commitment.
* "A Funny thing Happened on the way to the Forum" was a delightful romantic comedy set in ancient Rome.

See?

And now with glowing reviews, "Assassins" has apparently been given the depth and complexity worthy of being a "Sondheim". As ingenious as the original score was, apparently the production was piecemeal and perplexing and loose on concept. Now it sounds like they tightened up the loose threads and gave it a full production treatment, and I really want to see it.

Comment: I think the Tony producers were more than happy to have P-Diddy's ("Raisin in the Sun" revival production) stature and notoriety as part of the show, although he was officially referred to as Sean Coombs. Naive of rap and MTV, I imagine the producers thought he might open up the Tony's to a new audience. Doubt it. As for the Diddy, I imagine he was sitting there wondering what he was doing surrounded by all these fruity people.

Wow, it's true then. There is a new Sondheim musical out, only it hasn't gone to Broadway yet. And the reviews are mixed. When I read the mixed reviews, I wasn't gonna get too excited about it, until I read the above linked review. He's right. Merrily We Roll Along lasted not even two weeks on Broadway, and for Sondheim fans, if that isn't their favorite score, they at least have to consider it before choosing something else. And he calls this one "prime Sondheim", which can only mean one thing. Once, a long time ago, I got recruited to play in the pit for a summer stock production of Follies, and I asked the trombone player if the score was hard. He just said, "It's Sondheim". I think he was trying to tell me that it was hard, but worth it. There would be parts I'd have to fake it, but it'd be fun. And being one of the few non-professionals in that pit, fake it I did! Might have to break down and buy a CD.

I gave notice on my apartment, so something is gonna have to happen at the end of this month. I don't know why I mull so hard on decisions that are no-brainers. I was mulling like you ain't seen anyone mull before. I was mulling all through jury duty this morning (parties settled and we were dismissed by noon). But no matter which way I look at it, I had to give notice on my apartment. Even if by some nasty blow to the head I decide to stay in San Francisco and get a similarly paying job as before, I'd want to move to a better part of town. Yea, the Mission is cool and artsy, blah, blah, blah, but I'm getting sick of barrio fabulous.

And leave it me to cast the dye to leave San Francisco, then ride up to Clement St. for incense and dim sum at this place that has the juiciest, fattest siu mai you've ever stuffed your mouth full of. Then get some work done on my bike and have the labor comped because I bought the bike there. We've got great cycleries. Then over to the Red Vic to catch Breathless - I don't know about other cities, but we've got the best rep and art houses. Why do I hate this place so much?! It's just that I haven't ever been able to make it happen. I love the landscape, I can become one with the landscape, shake it and vibe it and work it, but. . . no connection. With the people or the scenes. Ten years here and I have no community, and I'm still an outsider.

My life is like a TV I can't turn off, and I have a few choice words for the person responsible for the programming.

I haven't been watching much lately, nor have I re-activated my Netflix account, but I do think I want to see "The Saddest Music in the World" with the sultry-voice Isabella Rosselini. I also couldn't help but notice that "Breathless" is showing at the Red Vic. So many classics, so little time.

Ooh, and The Corporation opens tomorrow at the Castro.