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SWEET DANGO

ANOTHER SET OF WORDS FOR YOU TO READ -/THEY QUALIFY AS LEAF AND BRANCH AND SEED...

Friday, September 30, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #284
Bukowski quote I wanna lay on you:
he’s talking about people who are, in his words, “asleep at the soul” – this in the early Nineties in the Southland of L.A. – it’s this, about freeway drivers: “…asleep at the soul, and at the same time embittered, gross, cruel and stupid.” And as Sister Dionne spaketh, thru th’ auspices of Brother Bert Bacharach and Brother Hal David: “…L.A. is a great (and Greta) big freeway/put a hundred down and buy a car…” Gospel...”in a week they’ll make you a star/weeks turn into years, they quickly pass/and all the stars that never were/are parking cars and pumping gas…”

But enough about Hollywood…let us discuss the cute girls in high school…how about let us go there, OK?

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No body in particular, just a sense of them…in order to exorcise those demonic angels, light a Maine strike anywhere match on yer 501 zipper and ignite a San Francisco product, incense…apply patchouli essence oil…

And back to Mr. Charles Bukowski – he had a whole early Nineties entry in his journals denouncing poets…see the excellent The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship – this from ’98, Black Sparrow…thanks to the inestimable John Martin, publisher, who chanced on it…

And yet more about Bukowski: “…I saw Robinson Jeffers talking to a horse.” – a tribute to one of his heroes. Make of it what you will.

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And back to the hotel: tenant rep Mariko Obrero talking to Thai, superb maintenance man…and manager Brian Samuel was at his computer in his office…didn’t see who was at the front desk, since I left too fast, as I do…

Then at the Fence, sellers out in force, an exquisite medicinal herb book that I didn’t have the money for…nothing referring to cannabis, tho’…had a penny only, so no transaction possible, unless the guy was, like, cool. And buddy T. wanted to know if his old lady Edwina was there around abouts…didn’t know…

And: leaving the San Francisco Network Ministries Computer Center one day a few days ago, cute little girl prancing down the street, and I pranced jokingly

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in a mirror fashion, and she noticed this, and her accompanying parents found my moves humorous, not threatening…and was gonna cross on a red light but a SFPD paddy wagon stopped me from that violation.

And to the library, strictly business: reserved a computer for noon on the following Wednesday…and checked on the return status of books I’d checked out…renewed the biography of Seventies rock critic Lester Bangs…had to return the Sixties Zappa CD (We’re Only in it For the Money), and the latest John Fogerty disc…and the Neal Cassady letters (really, really, really recommended)…and two by Sonny Barger. Google. So that’s it for a 26-point font…gotta go – respond if you s’il vous plais…dig? [(415) 359-4999 – cell back up, y’all, prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 12:56 PM
starplane.blogspot.com #283
Signs of cash flow issues: don't have the 2 bucks to replace the 2 double A batteries I need for my digital voice recorder, so I can't access those one-hundred-and-99 stored notes, and ones I use to create this blog.

Also, just received a kindly letter from the friendly folks at T-Mobile requesting immediate payment of the 94 bucks and 84 cents I owe them to reestablish cell phone service. I've been there before with them, but different in this case is their threat of "permanent deactivation" and "the possibility of further collection activity, including referral of your account to a collection agency." Should this happen, says the letter, "your debt may be reported to credit bureaus and could be available to current and future creditors." Not a good thing...I don't have much of a credit history, but at least it's not a bad history.

Am getting a direct download into my Bank of America account tomorrow morning, sometime after midnight, of an uncertain amount, maybe three-hundred-30-plus...already owe B of A two-hundred-and-fifty bucks and change for ATM withdrawals I did that took the balance below zero...didn't know they allowed that, allowed the withdrawal of cash that's not there - this hasn't happened before, don't know what I was doing wrong lately.

And with each of these withdrawals, a fine of some thirty dollars was levied, to the final tune of that two-fifty. Sheesh. Two-hundred and fifty pennies is a lot right now. The bank will immediately take that money from that after-midnight deposit...not sure if I'll have enough to pay off T-Mobile with what's left...well,
will just wait to see what happens...could try and call a friend to

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get that money for the cell, but I've got only 15 cents in cash, 35 short of what a pay phone demands.

It's boring to talk about these cash issues...so to take my mind off it, lacking access to my usual voice notes - "Two double As! Two double As! My kingdom for two double As!" - will devote this posting to describing the 23 items I've currently got out from the wonderful holdings of the San Francisco Public Library:

1. Improve Your Memory Now by Dr. Gary Small - been meaning to listen to this CD set more but I keep forgetting to.

2. The audio book of the first volume of Bob Dylan's Chronicles memoirs. (And currently on cable, the Martin Scorsese production of No Direction Home, all you ever wanted to know about that bard and more - watched part of this - Dylan's just OK with me.)

3. The 2-Hour Tarot - a quick guide to using that ancient card-based divination system. (In a deck of playing cards, those 52 are included in a tarot desk as the "Minor Arcana" - the "Major Arcana" are an additional 22 cards. Fields is a source for this.)

4. The Passionate State of Mind - a collection of two-hundred-and-80 aphorisms by San Francisco's "longshoreman-philosopher" Eric Hoffer. The final one goes something like: "The search for happiness is the cause of much unhappiness."

5. China Boy by local writer Gus Lee - being promoted in the current "One Book, One City" campaign. Slogan: "What if all San Franciscans read the same book?" Haven't gotten to this one yet -

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glanced through it - I like the references to neighborhood streets.

6. Magicians, Wizards & Sorcerors. The title just about says it all - information about guys like Aleister "The Beast" Crowley.

7. Tom Wolfe's Sixties classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - all about Ken Kesey and his psychedelic Merry Pranksters.

8. Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - liked the Uma Thurman movie so much I got the novel to read again.

9. Sorceror's Apprentice by Amy Wallace, juicily detailing her life in the Carlos Castaneda's inner circle of devotees.

10. Facets of Ayn Rand, an audio book of remembrances of the philosophical novelist by two close friends.

11. Days, a late life journal of goings-on in Tangier by novelist Paul Bowles.

12. Funny Letters from Famous People - self-explanatory title - got it for the Oscar Wilde portion.

13. Everything is Under Control - a compilation of conspiracy theory topics in dictionary form by Robert Anton Wilson.

14. An audio book of Louis L'amour's Western novel, Hondo.

15. Disinformation, a collection of interviews by edge thinker
Richard Metzger, including the aforementioned Robert Anton

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Wilson.

16. The CD of The Collected Country Joe & the Fish: 1965-1970.

17. The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde - a collection of the man's quotable quotes.

18. C'mon, C'mon - a CD of the music of Sheryl Crow, including the good "Steve McQueen" tribute.

19. Magical Thinking, the audio book of the humorous memoirs of Augusten Burroughs.

20. Let It Blurt, a biography of rock critic Lester Bangs.

21. Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man in audio book. (Couldn't get into this - hasn't aged well unless you're a Hammett fanatic.)

22. The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship - journals of Charles Bukowski in the early Nineties.

23. Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste, a collection of the critical writings of the aforementioned Mr. Les Bangs.

But, all that means less than zero to T-Mobile...well, went for years and years and years without a cell phone, so it wouldn't be horrible not to have one. But I don't like the idea of that mark against my credit. Just gonna wait until tomorrow. [(415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 12:44 PM

Thursday, September 29, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #282
To begin this posting, more about movies – a surprise, yes?: Stones, use of them, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” – first song in the Johnny Depp cocaine movie Blow. Seems notable for some reason. The opening scenes under the credits show precise details of the farming of coca leaves and the subsequent manufacture into the flick’s title product. (Couldn’t get into this film much, despite my partiality to Depp, and have since deleted if from the 60-hour memory of my Comcast DVR – that is, Digital Video Recorder. It’s basically, I think, like a TiVo, and really enhances the tube-watching experience.)

And a movie I haven’t deleted from memory is 1953’s It Came From Outer Space, the kind of black and white Theremin-haunted Fifties science fiction film that inspired Larry Blamire to mastermind the really, really funny The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra – if you have a chance to see that one, you go right ahead and go for it. Definitely one of my top favorites of 21st century cinema so far, and for certain it will remain so as the millennium proceeds.

And: alliteration, humorous, in a listing for a Discovery Channel nature program: “…murderous mollusks in Mexico…”

And noteworthy: Kelly Hu as a “powerful sorceress” in the Rock vehicle The Scorpion King. (For some reason, one of the few films in recent years I’ve actually seen in a
theater…and even paid the eight bucks whatever for the

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matinee privilege. Definitely remember the emptiness of this one…a whole lotta action but at its core, insubstantial. But for what it is, it’s a good one in the popcorn genre.)

And something that managed to keep my attention, James Lipton’s two-thousand-five Inside the Actors Studio interview of Jodie Foster – watched more of this than I do of most things on cable. She’s got Flightplan out now…on the strength of her performance in Panic Room I definitely look forward to seeing this on cable sometime in the future.

And: lacking funds for food (or anything else, even a single hard copy of this blog), continued about this time to consume whatever edible was in my room that I’ve had sitting in corners for a while – including a tiny glass jar of honey (some European vintage – “miel” listed on the label – French for honey, I guess – same Indo-European root as the English word “mellifluous”), and spoonfuls on San Francisco tap water mixed with the Peruvian wonder root maca – available at the recommended Rainbow Grocery.

And another something I couldn’t watch, a recent Melbourne Eagles concert. “The Long Run” was the first song, and got through that alright…but it wasn’t a long run before I deleted this from my DVR’s memory. Now, I sure enough have a whole lotta love for the band but I just couldn’t watch more of them right now. This tour is billed as “Farewell I”…certain to follow, other tours designated with other Roman numerals, other renderings of “Hotel

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California” and “Take It Easy” and all those classics. I’m just not in the mood for all that right now. Sorry, Don.

And another one, as I mentioned previously, that I could watch all the way through, Outland, from 1981. Central to the plot, the smuggling of a futuristic psychosis-inducing amphetamine that helps the miners on a moon of Jupiter easily and happily work grueling 16-hour shifts, but with the slight downside side effect of causing murderous rage. Better Arbeit macht frei through chemistry.

And: Googling to get the precise spelling of James Lipton’s name learned that his father was one Lawrence Lipton, “a prominent American poet, and one of the literary and philosophical leaders of the Beat Generation…” A new one on me – I’m a student of beatniks, and all things Bohemian.

And thought I caught a mistake, technological, in Outland: Sean Connery’s O’Niel is talking on a two-way TV phone with his wife and kid, and there’s no delay in the communication – I thought that his family was back on Earth, millions of miles away, and so how could they talk without the necessary delay in signals? But it turns out that they were close to that moon of Jupiter he was on, so that was no flub.

And, Monday, just a few days ago as of this, Thursday, the 29th, the penultimate day of September of two-thousand-five…up around 10am, a usual time for me these

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days…neighbor friend Dave had knocked on my door some while earlier but I didn’t answer. He had to walk up 5 flights of hotel stairs, and his legs aren’t in the best shape, to understate it, but I still wasn’t answering – just not in the right frame of mind when he was there. He left a copy of that morning’s Examiner at my door.

And: have been watching not just silly movies lately but spirituality-oriented programs like host Jeffrey Mishlove’s great Thinking Allowed – sure, I love those silly Leslie Nielsen comedies, but shows like Mishlove’s really provide an intellectual balance. Recent guest for the excellent half hour was Peter Caddy, a co-founder of the Findhorn community in the far north of Scotland. (Visited there when I went to England in, oh, ’79 or so, one of the thousands and thousands of tourists to that famed location.)

And: came up with a parallel to Snoop Dogg’s “Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$”: “I paid the price to be this nice.” (He’s okay in the movie treatment of Starsky & Hutch. I’m not the hugest rap fan but it’s such a big presence in the media that I catch some of it and its major playas.)

And a personal note to close this posting: shaved for the first time in a while the day I’m blogging of, and washed my hair…had the last of a bottle of Shou Wu Chih (please Google), and a second-to-last yerba mate tea bag…read more in the Nineties Bukowski journals, TV off. [(415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 12:02 PM

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #281
More about The Hippy Gourmet, which captured my imagination a bit - he should add magic mushrooms to his veggie fried rice and call himself The Trippy Gourmet: that jam rock band whose music was featured in the cable access show is Transcendental Hayride - Googled on them and got this: "...formed in Hollywood in the early Nineties..." (the time I was there). Also: they're a "merger of country idioms and psychedelic dalliance..." I'd buy some of their music...that is, after I get the 29 cents I need to make a copy of this blog at the library... (And one more name to drop - the host of that hippie culinary show is Bruce Brennan.)

So, back to what was on cable: recorded some softcore porn, an offering entitled Personals: College Girl Seeking. Co-starring porn goddess Tera Patrick. Unlike the Passion Cove series, some of this genre on Comcast is apparently hardcore porn highly redacted - Google gives this definition for that word: "the condition of a document that had been edited to remove confidential or sensitive information" - highly redacted for presentation on Comcast. I think I can tell from the editing, the cutting away from certain intense scenes, that there was more that was deemed unfit. This presentation isn't entirely satisfying...but I enjoy looking at the beauty anyway.

And considered what I'd look for in pornography, a line for someone: "It's art, not a shoddy product." (Liked a scene with
Patrick and her acting partner, in an outdoor shower - lush

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photography, decent song on the soundtrack, with lyrics, not the usual run-of-the-mill instrumental used in these circumstances...but the effect was spoiled by the aforementioned redaction from the harder core original.)

Then changed to some science fiction - Sean Connery in Outland, kinduv of a classic, High Noon off a moon of Jupiter. Made in '81, a year before the better Blade Runner. Managed to watch the whole of this one, which I do with maybe only one-fourth or less of the movies I record on my Comcast DVR set-up.

Then viewed some of Stone Cold with Brian Bosworth. Actually bought the video cassette of this a few months ago, but couldn't get through it this second time - didn't care for all that biker jazz, but Bosworth has got the cinema charisma. The opening rips off Stallone's Cobra - Bosworth stops a grocery store robbery.

Then began listening to that Augusten Burroughs audio book memoir, Magical Thinking - really wanted to like it but it is pretty darn gay, I hafta admit - like in Seinfeld, it's not that there's anything wrong with that...but it just isn't my thing. Got through the first story about trying to get a childhood role in a Tang commercial but subsequent episodes weren't ringing my bell. But if gay memoirs tickle your fancy well then Burroughs is your man. He's reminiscent of monologist David Sedaris,

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who is perfectly hilarious, if not hysterical.

And so it was last Sunday afternoon, half after three, by myself in my hotel room, as is so often the case - thinking that I could walk down Hyde to the library and read the blog I'd done earlier on the 15-minute computers on the first floor - didn't have the 30 cents to print out a copy then. I skipped that and lounged in my room, a major occupation of mine. The price is right for that activity.

And flashed back to times a lady friend and I were at Victor's Pizza there at Polk and Pine - recommended...get yourselves glasses of their blush wine, discuss a metaphysical book bought next door at Fields Books, maybe share a dish of something Italian. And with apologies to Omar Khayyam: "...a book of text, a glass of wine, and thou..."

Then got slightly caught up in The Legend of the Swordsman, '91, a Jet Li period piece with Tsui Hark's hand in it - tho' he didn't direct. But I got bored with it...all those warriors spinning as they fly through the air. The kind of movie martial arts that Bruce Lee was reacting against. But I liked it that Li's character was into drinking wine. (There's some intriguing Vietnamese herbal wine at the store next door to the hotel that I've been wanting for a while...but due to my funds if I have money I get the cheaper bottles of the non-alcoholic Shou Wu Chih...one of these days, or nights.)

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And decided to fix myself some rice...but didn't have the essential salt that I have to have with it - no crystalline salt, no soy sauce, no nothing. Then remembered some dried seaweed I had and boiled that to flavor the water before adding the rice.

And back to Outland: there are at least two scenes of guys exploding when their space suits malfunction. Reminded me of a similar scene years later in Total Recall. If exploding bodies in outer space are your thing, then these are two to consider.

And was amused by the name of a starlet in '32's Movie Crazy: Constance Cummings. Sounds like a co-star in Personals: College Girl Seeking. (The lead in that - Tera Patrick was her friend and got second billing - was attractive and hot in her simulated sex scenes, unaltered breasts notwithstanding - Patrick's got those fake tits that I don't care much for.)
And: haven't watched much of that de Sade movie with Kate Winslet - she's a washerwoman smuggling the guy's manuscripts out of an asylum. I remember Hakim Bey's criticism of the Marquis, something on the order of that he was into freedom mostly for privileged white men so they could eviscerate women and children. (Recommended is Bey's T.A.Z. - got my copy at the as-well recommended Bound Together anarchist bookstore collective at the eastern end of the Haight commercial strip.) [(415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 2:39 PM
starplane.blogspot.com #280
So up into St. Anthony’s for one of their fabulous lunches a few days ago – unusual then since I went right in through their culinary religious portals, didn’t have to get one of the little square tickets, no waiting in line for twenty minutes. And coming out as I was going in, electrician Pete from the Odd Fellows Building – not Brother Pete Sellers, but the other Pete. He joked about me being late for lunch – I usually get there towards the half past one closing time – I said I was early for dinner – tho’ they only do lunch at venerable St. A’s.

Then after the meal, heading back to the hotel – someone asked about the directions to Mason – told ‘em to head east along Turk, but another pedestrian who’d been queried differed…and when I thought better, it occurred to me that Turk might not intersect Mason. They wanted to get to Geary and Mason so I told ‘em it was best to go north to Geary then turn right – not the fastest way as the crow flies, but that path would avoid the dark heart, so to speak, of the Tenderloin. This zone of San Francisco has potential, for certain, but for the present it’d be best for some to avoid some parts of it.

Then in front of the hotel – there was neighbor T., eating cookies. A woman passed by us from whom I’d bought Vicodins once, 3 for 5, and I mentioned this to T. – he said he could get prescriptions for some form of codeine, 40 for 20 of ‘em, and sell ‘em for a dollar each, making 20 bucks

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in that. And we also discussed mutual acquaintance Scott
Free – more of a friend to T. than to me – and how he was not able to get into the hotel since he didn’t have the proper identification, even tho’ he had several weeks to secure one. I said to T. that Scott was not necessarily the most organized individual of all time. And that the 25 bucks or whatever it costs for a California I.D. might be more easily spent by Scott on malt liquor, which the man dearly enjoys.

And up to the room, turned on the Comcast tube…attended closely to a lecture by a teacher of ECKANKAR on Channel 29, the public access station. The caption said it is “The Religion of the Light and Sound of God”. The man’s name was Sri Harold Klamp, also called “The Mahanta”, and “The Living ECK Master”. His topic was “The Right of Choice”…Harold discoursed on the importance of avoiding victim consciousness and the trap of feeling others are responsible for one’s problems – one needed to make the right choices.

I knew a guy in high school who was affiliated with ECKANKAR by the name of Keith Kondor – that bird of prey-sounding last name has stuck with me all these years. And I had a paperback book about the religion as well that I’d leafed through as a teenager, so the subject wasn’t entirely unknown to me. It believes in reincarnation and karma, so it’s some branch of Hinduism, as opposed to the other biggie in religion, Christianity – read somewhere that

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it’s always either one or the other of those two large
gorillas, in a final analysis. (Tho’ some uncanonized documents from early Christianity apparently profess reincarnation as well, but whenever selections were made for inclusion in Holy Writ these references were discarded by the all-knowing Church Fathers.)

So Sri Harold went on about how, whatever our situations as individuals, we have put ourselves there by choices, some made in previous lives, and that is necessary is to “become a co-worker with God” and get on the good foot (my terminology, and James Brown’s) regarding our incarnation, that the Earth is a school for soul and we’d better get educated. I went along with what the man was saying…guess I’m in the Hinduism camp.

And during that spiritual lecture, was thinking back to some cute woman I noticed at the Farmers Market, where I’d been before St. Anthony’s. Glanced back at her after passing…might’ve been a bit on the large side for my particular tastes. I prefer ‘em on the thinner side of the size spectrum, rather than the plumper.

Then after the ECK guy, a fun program called The Hippy Gourmet captured my attention – a 40-something hippie cooking up veggie fried rice in a huge skillet – some kinda Deadhead who’s made good on public access. His show also featured a lot of footage of the Bay-to-Breakers race

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and all the freaky and fit funky folks who were taking part in the annual San Francisco event – there was a Dead “Steal Your Face” shirt on one runner – those colorful exertions in between more of his skillful skillet work.

And that ECK master had got me thinking about the concept of spiritual and intellectual exercises…should delve into the work of Thomas Aquinas, for example, and exercise my thought processes a bit. And more about that master: one of his final comments was “spread divine love to all those around you.” And the number to call for more information about ECKANKAR was 1-800-LOVE-GOD…woulda thought that one woulda been taken already.

And after Sri Harold, there was a listing of other religious programming on public access, including a Ba’hai show, and one featuring one Buddhist Supreme Master Ching Hai. And there was one called The Humanist Perspective, for those, I spoze, who can’t swallow all that God jazz.

And: thing I liked in The Hippy Gourmet were close-ups of parts of the Haight, including dangling large red flowers, and unusual metal work on doorways…& he garnished that fried rice with raw green onions and mushrooms…then set about his next dish, frying up bok choy and zucchini in a wok – the guy wasn’t into raw foods, that’s for sure - this to the tune of some kind of second- or third-gen Dead jam rock. [prettyeddy@hotmail.com, (415) 885-5052 (#501)]

posted by Velcro  # 12:08 PM

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #279
A few days ago, got a gift from former hotel night desk man Keith, four magazines. Well, I'm pretty sure it was from him, it's a thing he'd do. Included was a Wired from a few months ago, and some fashion mag. Spent a good 15 minutes with 'em and pulled out the articles I wanted. That Wired had the most desired pages. Added it to the huge pile of other articles I've collected over the years and haven't gotten to completely. Good reference material at some point, anyway. The most weight of the stuff in my possession is just inked paper like that...a goal for me, get more of the kind of green inked paper with those dead former United States Chief Executives on 'em. Or someone's card, freely given, with a sufficient amount of cash on it - say, ten grand.

And then there was Thomas outside the hotel - I was dealing with those magazines and he'd asked for some of my time...and Patrick there as well after a time - that's brutha Patrick, not the white one also in the hotel. T. shared one of his fat joints with us - I had just a short drag off it, respectful of the strength of the leaf he sometimes partakes of. Sometimes with him it's mellow-enough shake, but he's been known to have, as they say, killer bud.

So, Thomas had to leave the hotel for months of non-payment of rent and was missing items he'd left with his girlfriend, who'd stayed on longer in their room. In particular, he was concerned about an expensive set of knives worth hundreds of dollars, including throwing knives. Now, Thomas can be a very intense fellow and he got into a deep rap, as he usually does behind that reefer, and he was laying out some revengeful-hinting ideas about what he'd do if he found out who took his precious sharpened

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steel. Didn't really wanna hear about it, didn't wanna know about
any planned violence. Maybe he was just fantasizing.

And notable in the rap of Thomas, his specific mentioning of how a configuration of chemicals, in him, one he'd not experienced before, was showing him new things about himself and how he should conduct his life. He has an interesting way with words and, as I said, an intense way of expressing that way.

Then down the short walk to the U.N. Plaza Farmers Market - bins of bell peppers and other vegetables, 15-dollar orchids, cajun pistachios and many other flavored nuts in big plastic bags, free samples of grapes and peaches, apples from Sebastopol, therapeutic body care via massage, Watsonville organic strawberries, primroses for a dollar and quarter, large tiger prawns, bags of flavored dal, sugar pie pumpkins, cage-free brown eggs from Ripon, Terra Bella wildflower honey, sweet Italian basil - just a small portion of the treasures to be found there, with many strollers of all ages and walks of life in their leisurely pursuit of desired California farm bounty - one of the very beautiful frequent scenes in San Francisco, to be very sure.

Then to the library to use a computer I'd reserved beforehand, waiting outside with a dozen and a half book (and other kinds of) freaks...across the street, two "kings" in competion: the Gyro King Mediterranean place (the more healthful alternative, and the one I'd recommend), and Burger King. And cute, a mother and father and their little baby boy, enjoying infant life in his stroller protected by his loving parental units.

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And: guy crossed Grove to join us library waiters, had on a t-shirt I nearly commented on, an AC/DC Back in Black. There's one cover band that does nothing but Bon Scott songs - that is, tunes from the albums before Back in Black - I think it's AC/Dshe that's no fan of singer Brian Johnston, who took over from Scott after his early death. (Had an AC/DC shirt that I prized, but gave it eventually to hotel friend and long-time hippie Barbara. Replacing it, my "F-KING ROCK & ROLL" shirt from the Virgin Megastore - 35 bucks - with a big skull on it - a more general statement about my affiliation with rock. My buddy Naz didn't quite approve of that AC/DC one 'cause it was a band that serial killer Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez was partial to. And I didn't particularly like the bisexual connotations for myself...tho' I read a biography of the band that discussed the origin of the name - merely the electrical term that sounded good as the name of a musical group. Nothing gay about AC/DC.)

And continued waiting for the library to open...looked closely at a part of a tree, what remained of a lopped-off branch, it must've been, that resembled, to put it delicately, the female sexual organ. Recalled some passage in one of science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer's pornographic novels describing a similar aspect of a tree. This one had a skull carved around it to boot. Then I noticed all the other carvings that had been inflicted on the poor tree...kinduv a shame. And then I looked up at all the bare-armed women on that warm San Francisco day, and above us all, another clear and blue and totally cloudless sky.

And eventually the doors opened and we all went in...I did my

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blogging...and had my heart set on a new audio book - finally picked one by an author I'd heard interviewed months ago on the Terry Gross Fresh Air radio program, Augusten Burroughs. Cover blurb put the contents this way: "...goes where other memoirists fear to tread..." And more: "...a sublime personal mixture of humor and revelation." Convinced me...it was nine hours of material on seven discs, unabridged - I like having audio books of that length and longer, something to really get into. (I was pretty much done with the Dylan and Ayn Rand ones.)

And so checked that Burroughs out - no relation to William S. - I think I recall from the interview that Augusten's entire name is made up...and thought about then, St. Anthony's for lunch on my mind, a flick I'd recorded, George Pal's 1960 The Time Machine, severely redacted from the H.G. Wells original novel. A special movie in that I actually watched the whole thing, it managed to get and keep my attention - most of the ones I record onto my Comcast DVR box I just watch bits of at different times, or just eventually delete after hardly attending to them at all. A futuristic touch I liked: spinning rings that recorded sound.

Then out the library doors, to St. A's...passed through the Farmers Market again, had 2 more sample grapes, paused to study a long list of locations of certified Farmers Markets all around the Bay Area, from San Mateo up to Novato - it pleased me that they are more widespread than even a few years ago. And in my back pocket, an empty, non-glass Royal Gate vodka bottle - it's like that guy in The Graduate said, the future is...plastic. [prettyeddy@hotmail, (415) 885-5052 (#501)]

posted by Velcro  # 8:13 PM
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[DELETED: 8 LINES.]

And: I’ve got something of a bad thing for Jennifer Garner…actually rented for 4 bucks (for 24 hours) through Comcast her very entertaining mystical martial arts flick Elektra. In the Alias I’d recorded her character was still a student on some university campus, not yet recruited by that renegade spy agency. She got a D on a test – but certainly not in “Looking Cute in Tight Jeans 101”, tho’. I like the show – all that “CIA cover station Taipei dossier” jazz. (And recognized a bad guy in it from Kiss of the Dragon, playing another bad guy – he just has the look of one…in that Jet Li flick he’s the guy who wants “to go to heaven” with a prostitute and gets his wish when the drug-crazed hooker assassin stabs him with a hair pin.)

And there’s an October 30th concert, free, at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park, a tribute to the recently deceased Chet Helms, Sixties hippie concert promoter.

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Found out about this from a small ad in one of the local
free papers…Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane/Starship will perform, so he’s not dead yet – Brother Pete Sellars of the Odd Fellows had said something to this effect a few weeks ago and I hadn’t been sure about his status vis-à-vis life. But: they spelled his name wrong in the ad: “Kanter”. Another instance of a proofreading error – I offer my services – will work for Guinness to spell it rite.

So, this Chet tribute starts at 10am and goes on all day – see 2B1Records.com/ChetMemorial for details, contact information, and the specific individuals involved…Ray Manzarek of The Doors to be there (from my studies, know that that L.A. band was one of the only ones able to bridge the supposed attitudinal differences between the countercultures of the south and north parts of the state. And also to be there, teacher Stephen Gaskin, and Big Brother, Canned Heat, and Blue Cheer – or whatever, whoever are going by those names in the 21st century.

And in something completely different, or seemingly so, have watched the new David Spade satire program The Showbiz Show several times for each broadcast, and I recommend it for anyone who’s into that sort of thing.

And: am applying patchouli essence oil to my arm pits these days, & spraying on Aramis as well. Got that oil at the Underground Shop at Sixth & Market. Again, if you’re into the sort of stuff that’s there, it’s a place to really go.

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And looking good upcoming in new releases in cinema, Serenity – superb science fiction female martial arts on a space ship for one thing in it. I’m just judging from the commercials, but this looks like a real winner.

And am admitting to freeze-framing on a scuba diving Jessica Alba in the Into the Blue commercial. But, a small, little, minor suggestion to improve upon that movie: delete everything but whatever Alba’s in. And in those scenes, delete all but her, just simply flat-out digitize out everybody else and put in, oh, a bottle of wine or two. And a lit candle, let’s say…and maybe some delightful burning incense. Similar suggestions for other movies – for example, in The Constant Gardener, everything must go except for the Rachel Weisz sequences – put in bottles of wine instead, candles, and incense. You know I’m right.

And then there’s the new Rock flick based on the Doom video game. Could watch this – given a warning for strong violence and gore, and “language”. Again, from the commercial, looks like it covers just the same monster special effects territory as the Milla Jovovich vehicle, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. But I like what Dwayne the Rock does on screen – enjoyed his work in The Rundown a lot, for instance.

And: liked the use of Steely Dan’s “Josie” in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls during a discussion of the significance of Close Encounters. The song doesn’t have much to do with

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that movie but it sounded right for what was shown. More
Dan in movies! (As I said in a previous posting, this documentary about early Seventies U.S. movies is based on the fine book by Peter Biskind – get it, read it.)

And from the same documentary, Star Wars was said to mark the end of the early Seventies era of strong directors guiding great actors in excellent movies. Thanks, George.

And, apart from all the movie stuff on cable, and details of the application of patchouli onto my person, have been attending to the excellent SF/unscripted cable news. A recent guest was John Marks, President and CEO of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau – said by host Art Bruzzone to have been instrumental in putting the city “on the international map” for tourism & general fame.

Interesting fact from Mr. Marks: up to 20 thousand attendees visit the city during conventions – this means plenty of money for San Francisco’s coffers…and a recent Oracle event drew 35 thousand & all their computer cash. And, Ex columnist P.J. Corkery was the second guest on that same program…I sometimes read him…he commented on the “rank insubordination” of Supervisor Tony Hall against Mayor Newsom – related to developments on Treasure Island. Hall is the head of San Francisco’s TI office and there are reportedly differences of opinion between him and City Hall about fiscal practices. Hmmm… [(415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail]

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Love Parade participants recently: two young women walking together – I believe they were straight - one had bright magenta hair, the other multi-colored horizontally-striped stockings. And these were only the details that I immediately picked up on – they were very pulled together in that outrageous Love Parade manner in all the extensive psychedelic particulars. A turn-on.

And also: a clutch of Asian Love Paraders, apparently, walking east on Eddy at Leavenworth – one guy had on a t-shirt that read: “I am a fun guy.” with a mushroom, a magic one, on it. (Get it – “fungi”?)

And then to the recommended Computer Training Center run by San Francisco Network Ministries – for some reason, there was a short session so I only had a half hour to do my thing – just printed out blogs I’d done at the library and hadn’t had the money to make hard copies of earlier.

And good recently on Trio, the documentary version of Peter Biskind’s well-researched study of early Seventies American movies, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Am a big fan of the book and read it at least a coupla times a coupla years ago. It began with a statement of how bloated and big-budgeted movies have become in recent years…and I guessed the next line: “But it wasn’t always this way.” (A basic premise of this: there were a few years in the early Seventies when the director really ruled, and that was a

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good thing.)

Featured in that documentary, Sixties tape of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate poolside, Roman talking about what was wrong with most films then. And: liked the use of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” in a sequence about drive-in movies with Roger Corman interviewed about the significance of Francis Ford Coppola.

And Dennis Hopper was interviewed about working for Corman – a bit of his and Peter Fonda’s The Trip shown – there’s Peter under the influence of LSD along a nighttime Sunset Strip. Hopper said Corman allowed them the use of the equipment on weekends to make that movie. And: Peter Bogdanovich was another of those spoken with for Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. At one point, Boris Karloff owed Bogdanovich two days of work, so he got that man for some project.

And, personally, apart from Hollywood history, am finishing up that stash of vitamins and herbal pills I got real cheap along with a bunch of food from neighbor John…still got MSM (that is, methylsulfonlmethane) in capsules – high in sulfur, said to be good for the hair and nails – and some Klamath blue green algae in the same form, along with powdered B-complex and C in caps also.

And in the Biskind flick, Karen Black interview, talking
about moviemaker and Monkees producer Bert Schneider. I

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recall being especially interested in the section of the book
about this fellow. (Black also memorable in Rob Zombie’s recent House of 1000 Corpses as a member of a psychotic Texas family – no, it’s not the Bush story.) And: learned that Midnight Cowboy was the first major studio movie that got an X rating.

And: just had to smile at the opening of Easy Rider, that use of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”…something about that song just got that reaction from me. John Kay’s doing the vocals – a great rock & roll singer, to be sure. (Disappointing that the Steppenwolf disc in the jukebox at Harrington’s doesn’t work – that at Larkin and Turk, one of my favorite watering holes – I’d have been there this morning, probably, but they are funny in that they want money for a Guinness. Or three. Silly of them.)

And more about Hopper: he used D.H. Lawrence’s estate in New Mexico to edit The Last Movie. (About Hopper: heard or read somewhere that he didn’t give screenwriter Terry Southern, who coulda used the money, more of a percentage of the gigantic take from Easy Rider, so I’ve always held that against him. Maybe I don’t have the facts straight, but until I do, the guy isn’t setting well with me.)

And also in the cable documentary of Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, good ol’ Cat Stevens, when he was still a Western musician, this for his work on Hal Ashby’s Harold & Maude. Not sure exactly which of Cat’s tunes

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were on it…probably not the one I really like. My favorite
of his might be “Two Fine People”, from the greatest hits disc. It certainly isn’t “Tea for the Allah Man”. And not “Jihad Has Broken”, either. (Yeah, these are the jokes…)

And one recent Saturday night, fireworks, I guess from SBC Park, or whatever they’re calling it now, for a Giants win. Or maybe another Barry homer. Must be some really amped-up display, since the ball park is far across town and I could still hear the explosions pretty well.

And, recorded overnight recently, on my Comcast DVR box, these: Mira Sorvino in the bug-infested Mimic, 1932’s Movie Crazy with Harold Lloyd, a Passion Cove, an Alias, The Great Silence (by Sergio Corbucci, an Italian Western, with Klaus Kinski), SF/unscripted and City Desk (local news programs on the Comcast channel), and an episode of David Spade’s new satirical show about the entertainment biz. (Which last one I really like…two programs so far and I’ve watched each of them 3 times – a funny, fun guy.)

And to be recorded later that day a few days ago: Brian Bosworth’s Stone Cold, a public access show about the religion ECKANKAR, another Alias (with the great Jennifer Garner, a new mom), Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Can’t Hardly Wait, Tommy Boy (Spade and the late Chris Farley), a recent Eagles concert from Melbourne, and Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland in a Peter Sellers biopic… [(415) 885-5052, prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 12:53 PM

Monday, September 26, 2005

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…desired item at "the Fence" a few days ago, there where the street sellers ply their wares at Hyde and Turk, an old school cassette player, for just two bucks, but two I didn't then have. Got music and audio books in that format I wanna listen to. Also, a wall plug would be extra, so there went that desire.

And also that day, signs of the Love Parade, guy in a Mad Hatter headpiece. Avoided that whole spectacle, which ended up in a milling throng, I believe, in front of City Hall. Just a few blocks away, but it might just as well have been across the universe. More power to those involved, tho'.

And next to the library, encountered a guy I know from the Odd Fellows lodge, Pete – not Brother Pete Sellars, but one who does electrical work in that building at 26 Seventh at Market. He was in a sober state – I've seen him under the influence of who-knows-what, barely able to converse – and we chatted a while – he was totally turned off by the smell of roasting meat near City Hall – I guess for the Love Paraders after their sauntering up Market – and he wasn't all that thrilled by the parade either – he said something about creating his own vibe as he walked in the city, and I agreed.

And was up into the library to blog at a reserved computer – been doing that with religious regularity at noon these days…had some Royal Gate left over and went up to the
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sixth floor water fountain to dilute it a bit. Up there, an
exhibit was in progress called "Shades of San Francisco" – a collection of "ethnic" photographs from certain San Francisco neighborhoods that aren't predominantly white.

Glanced just briefly at the visual riches – there was a tea party with 3 little girls, circa 1925 in the Mission, and from the same neighborhood, from about 1909, police officer Eddie Maloney, stalwart in his period very tall cop hat.

And had to use the bathroom then – went in - no paper…went out, asked a librarian for a tissue, or a paper towel, anything softer than the flyers for upcoming events, which are uniformly printed on pretty stiff paper and not ideal for the use I had in mind – or, that is, in another part of the body. Having no other choice, I picked up a copy of the At the San Francisco Public Library monthly schedule and went back prepared into the third floor restroom. There was an event listed for the Howl anniversary, and I coulda wiped myself with a photo of Allen Ginsberg…but I refrained from that insult. He's not my favorite of what are considered the Big Three Beat Writers – I give Burroughs that – but surely his memory deserves a better fate. Found crumpled discarded actual soft toilet paper on the ground and happily completed that mission of evacuation.

Then out of the library, down to United Nations Plaza –
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some overweight Jesus freak was singing out loud and playing his guitar in favor of his savior. And not badly, either. Musta been taking it upon himself to provide a balance to the pagan freaks in the Love Parade, like the guy in another Mad Hatter chapeau and big red bat wings.

And above San Francisco that day, a perfect and cloudless blue sky. I may be biased but it's usually a pretty city from just about any angle you can envision. Headed toward St. Anthony's, looking forward to the usual sweet drink they have – something about the Royal Gate vodka I'd been drinking made me crave that sugar. Was feeling that the clear alcohol was affecting me a bit less adversely than the brown of the Ancient Age, so might change my intoxicant.

And on the way, to St. A.'s, young punk lady in a metal-studded jeans jacket with these words thereupon: "NEW HOPE FOR THE WRETCHED". (Was curious about this name – Googled…related to Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics, a musical group from the Eighties…remember seeing her doing wild and crazy things on Tom Snyder's old late, late night talk show. Guess Wendy's an icon to the young punks of today. I've got more than one shredded pair of pants – I'm a lot hippie, and a little bit punk…)

And then into the fine cuisine of St. Anthony's…glad
to get it – but today they served up something I just couldn't
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eat, macaroni and cheese that absolutely looked like, well,
vomit, plain and simple. Now, I'm no finicky eater, but this was just too much. And it came with a side of some peculiar large trumpet mushrooms that I couldn't get down either. But today's was the only offering at St. A.'s that I couldn't tolerate out of the dozens of other agreeable ones.

So, the guy next to me said it was a sorry statement about San Francisco that it had to bring up a hundred sheriff's deputies from San Mateo to deal with the day's special crowds. He said, sarcastically: "…well, you never know when a riot will break out in the middle of a Love Parade…" I hadda laugh at his wit.

And: wasn't satisfied with the initial portion given that day – of turkey shreds in gravy over bread – and secured a leftover amount of the entree from a discarded tray. That did the trick, appetite-wise.

And had a lively dining companion across from me who said several times "Poor man's gumbo! Poor man's gumbo!" He wasn't crazy and just talking to himself, I felt – probably could've held a conversation with him had I initiated it…it seemed he just felt like livening the proceedings up a bit in lieu of the general silence that was prevailing. Kinduv of a fellow after my own heart. [(415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 2:00 PM
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…a usual scene at the Artisans Market at United Nations Plaza one recent warm San Francisco day: rock & roll seller Denny talking to some woman, and nearby, the Rasta vendor with his Marley and reefer wares. I usually say “Irie!” to him, tho’ until I just did a Google on the word didn’t know exactly what it meant: “positive emotions or feelings, or anything that is good”. Heck, I use words all the time and don’t know exactly what they mean.
And: recently at the San Francisco Public Library got the Alan Watts book I’d specially requested, Instant Weather Forecasting. But it turns out it isn’t by the Sage of Sausalito – it’s by a guy with the same name, and has nothing to do with the spiritual literature that was the forte of Watts. But take it from a guy who’s been a listener and reader of the man’s for years and years, for sure I thought it was by the dude himself – I mean, that “instant” part sounded like a reference to an immediate Zen perception, right? And the weather part could’ve been some slightly off-the-wall humor. Well, it sure fooled me. (Am waiting for a multi-disc set of Watts talks I’ve got on special order – it’s got several holds on it before mine, so I’ve got a long wait.)
And conducted some personal library business on the day a few days ago I’m blogging: paid off a 50 cent fine (I’m usually pretty good about not accruing any of these), and picked up from the self-serve retrieval shelves (a new feature of the library) a selection of Oscar Wilde quotes. And into the ground floor bathroom briefly, took a leak…graffiti on the stall wall: “XLNT HEAD” with a local number.
So I had reserved a computer and had an hour to wait on that – been reserving machines every noon now for days, a good time for

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me. Had some vodka and that Wilde book, so I stood outside on Grove, leaned against the stone of the library, and proceeded to pass the time well. Reminded of that Omar Khayam quote about “a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou”…the Wilde in place of the loaf, vodka instead of vino, and a place for any thou out there that can fulfill that role…gotta be a woman, for one thing. And younger than me. There are other qualifications, but those’ll do for now…
Then…a while later, back in the hotel room, watching West Side Story. Notable was John “Gomez in The Addams Family” Astin as some sort of dance coordinator. Questioning joke made by one of the participants about his sexual orientation.
Then: more vodka, alone in the hotel room, more Comcast, including the funny Damon Wayans in Major Payne, plus an intimate interaction (“Gotcha Covered” brand sunblock was involved) with an episode of the softcore cable series Passion Cove – as said before, this one has the most turn-on potential for me out of all the similar material now on cable.
Then, some of Quills, about the Marquis de Sade – a washerwoman (Kate Winslet) helps the Marquis sneak out his infamous manuscripts from the insane asylum where the French authorities have placed him. The movie features something I’d not seen before and frankly wish I hadn’t: a basket full of severed heads. Thanks for that vision, Phil Kaufman.
Then later in the day, still in the room, hotel friend Dave there, sharing the Royal Gate vodka with him – turned on more of Major Payne, which he liked due to the Marine Corps theme. (Star Damon Wayans is also great as a quite different character in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, currently on cable.)

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And: been watching more local news lately – I mean what’s on the Comcast special channel devoted to that. There’s The Marin Report, with details about the North Bay – have spent quite a few good days and nights there in times past. Learned about a Miwok museum in Novato. (The Dead have their current headquarters up in that city, I believe.)
And: learned of the death of movie legend Robert Wise through host Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies – he was a director, producer, or editor on many major films, including Citizen Kane, which I’ve got on my viewing schedule just now.
And: was watching some of The Anniversary Party, pretty much only for the Phoebe Cates parts – the approaching-40 Phoebe. Still looking real good. The red bikini pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High is in some sort of classic category, at least in this blog. (Jennifer Beals is also in that first flick, for what that’s worth.)
And, switching around quickly: got The Magnificent Seven recorded on my Comcast DVR…good scene with Yul Brynner’s “Chris” getting the tip of his cigar shot off – Steve McQueen’s character asks if he was “elected” and Brynner responds, no, “but he was nominated real good.” (I don’t generally care for these gun fighting movies, but this is, again, a classic.)
And more Marin news I found noteworthy – gotta get more into local events, get socially active – interview with Petaluma politician Bob Jehn, discussing getting a rail line operational up in his neck of the woods.
And a recent evening, with neighbor Steve, watching movies –

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specifically, Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses. Took maybe 3 of the Seroquels that I’d been given, too many – was really groggy, slurring words, finding it hard to keep my eyes open…the vodka I’d been drinking was accentuating the effect. Not going there again. Or at least not to the extent I did that evening.
And: unusual commercials during The Marin Report – a spot against the hunting of those baby fur seals up north, and one critical of Ecstasy use by teens.
And also in the same program, glad for the mention of great genius Rudolf Steiner – a woman up there teaches his dance form, Eurythmy. Good programming.
Same woman talked about Steiner’s perennial ideas, such as: “behind everything in matter is spirit…” And also recommended, for the more thoughtful and spiritual among us, is the series Thinking Allowed. A recent guest of host Jeffrey Mishlove was Jungian scholar John Tarrant – look for it.
And for local news analysis, Comcast’s program called City Desk impressed me – Bay Area news luminaries sit around the discuss at some length topical issues. There was a long interview with Board of Education president Eric Mar that I felt was important to listen to. A really different person than me…wonder if a Bohemian perspective would register with him?
Gotta get, library computer time is running out: (415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail.com...

posted by Velcro  # 12:58 PM

Sunday, September 25, 2005

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…looked at some of a David Koresh biography on Comcast recently. A preliminary analysis – tho’ I could be wrong: “…white trash egomaniac working obsolete metaphors to utter and Bible-prophecized disaster…” The guy just f*cked with the wrong government.

And: interview, recent, with Koresh’s mother, saying he was a cute baby. Yeah, hold on to that thought, mommy. Hey, Mussolini was cute as an infant, too.

Then: after that, waiting on cable for 1980’s The Hunter, final film for Steve McQueen, playing real-life modern day bounty hunter Ralph Thorson, co-starring Eli Wallach and that guy who played Kunta Kinte as well as that cat with the super-futuristic lenses in one of the Star Trek off-shoots. (Ooops! Thanks to Google, avoided a mistake here: was gonna say that bounty hunter’s name was Tom Horn – another McQueen film and character.)

And: couldn’t get through that last McQueen flick – tho’ Bullitt was on recently and I watched most of that. Jacqueline Bisset is at a height of her utter foxiness…also, liked an extended sequence in a jazz club, probably in North Beach, late Sixties – no dialogue, just the stars enjoying themselves, having some drinks, accompanied by the groovy flute music on the soundtrack.

And liked in Bullitt – his first name is Frank – a radio broadcast score of Giants-Dodgers game with a close-up of a bottle of Carta Blanca beer in a hotel room. And after the witness in that room is blown away by the hired shotgun killer, the assassin takes out earplugs – a tool of his trade.

And: joke from hotel friend Dave Mitchell, went something like

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this: “Well, I never want to cheat anyone…unless I get the chance.” I laughed at that, and he liked that I got the joke, and he put out a calloused vet fist to me – the answering movement, which I did, is to extend one’s fist as well, and touch those surfaces. One thing for certain, Dave’s got a good sense of humor.

And: unusual material in the pot-themed series Weeds. Kevin Nealon’s character admits being “f*cked up on cornbread”. And the leading lady’s son acts out by creating his own simulated beheading video. Modern life in suburbia?

And, recently called neighbor Steve to ask if he wanted to visit and watch WestVirginia cannibal flick Wrong Turn, have a drink, but he declined, wasn’t in the mood. (He’s since been over and we enjoyed seeing Rob Zombie’s incredible House of 1000 Corpses – first time for both of us – a fascinating movie. Steve, who is very, very specific and critical about cinema, actually said it’s a film and not just a movie, one of the major distinctions he makes about any silver screen offering. One reason for this honoring by him is that he said he didn’t ever know what would happen next – movies, he says, tho’ possibly enjoyable, are too predictable.)

And on order at the San Francisco Public Library, a 12-CD package of Alan Watts lectures, 14 hours and 15 minutes of the man…this from the excellent Sound True, in Boulder. Trouble is, there are several holds on this already, so I probably won’t get my hands on it for months. Oh well, it’ll be worth the wait – I think the electronic catalog listing said it’s all material that hasn’t been released before. I’m good and ready to hear Watts again.

And: wanna say that Alan Watts in eBook form is available at any electronic catalog terminal, not just in the more exclusive Internet terminals. Look up the listing for the Sage of Sausalito and click

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on the appropriate icon. I did this for The Culture of Counter-
Culture. You wanna read a chapter called “On Being God”? From a 1966 Sausalito houseboat seminar? Well, then, Watts is yer man with the plan.

Then, down to the ground level of the library…there was a worker at the self-serve stacks, long-haired, young, just kicking back, in a focused reverie, and I said to him something along the joking lines of it being a nice job just to stand around, and he said: “Beats working.”

And then took from the rock CD shelves of the library a collected Country Joe and the Fish, their stuff from ’65 to ’70. (Great liner notes on this one – I’m nothing if not a student of liner notes. Gave this 2 or 3 listenings – frankly, it’s mostly dated, but good for historical context…there’s a song about Janis Joplin on it as well that I didn’t know of, so I was pleased with that.)

(Gee, changing the subject, looking at the typed version of that response from the long-haired library guy, realize a second meaning in that – that is, this is how Beats – that is, Beatniks – work..Beats working, yeah.)

And: got an e-mail from Odd Fellow Brother Darick saying he turned down my counter-offer of him paying me twenty bucks to post my blogs in the window of his shop on Seventh. Initially, no money was involved, and that’s the way I wanted it. Whatever…it was okay while it lasted, to have pages up there for any passerby to glance at.

And: Darick’s e-mail said he’d see me in two days at the Odd Fellows regular twice-a-month meeting, but he wasn’t there…still might make some deal with Darick about posting hard copies of

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these blogs – wouldn’t mind that.

And: speaking of liner notes, I spoze these very lines themselves could be considered the accompanying text to a disc called, perhaps, San Francisco Considered as a Collection of Songs. Of innocence and experience, to quote Blake. So there’s a template for you attending to this little sermonette to consider. Keep singing...

And after the library, hoofed it north on Hyde, to the hotel – there was friend Barbara at a Muni stop, seeing me almost getting in the way of oncoming cars…usually don’t do that…so she asks me if I wanted something to drink, and I told her a bottle of whiskey, which she said she’d have for me in about an hour. Guess she was grateful for gifts I’d given her a time she’d been in my room – a red cube ear ornament I’d bought at the Underground Shop at 6th and Market (she’d need to get a lobe pierced, tho’) – and grateful as well for a stick of incense made in San Francisco and a postcard of Janis Joplin I’d given her at the same time.

And outside the hotel as well, Thomas, tweezering callouses on his hand. He had mirrored lenses on, as did I, so I was able to see my own face reflected back.

And back to that Country Joe disc – first song, one I hadn’t heard before, was called “Superbird”, from ’65. Critical of then-president Lyndon Baines Johnson…a line goes “…send you back to Texas, make you work on your ranch…” With another Lone Star stater in the White House, this tune is still appropriate, 40 years after. (Great liner notes, as I said, to this…by one Bill Belmont, from ’87…liked his phrase “many locally produced items”, referring to the first Country Joe album being such a thing, among others from mid-Sixties San Francisco. [(415) 885-5052 (#501), prettyeddy@hotmail.com, (415) 359-4999]

posted by Velcro  # 12:05 PM

Saturday, September 24, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #273
…another day a few days ago, average event, me walking up to the hotel, and there’s Dave Mitchell outside, sunning himself, sitting in his seat-equipped walker, talking to a hotel lady named Edwina, both several sheets to the wind, as the saying goes, on vodka. Edwina can apparently be quite the friendly one with some alcohol in her – she was all smiles towards me, and happy talk. But had to put a stop to it when she was getting rather touchy-feely with me – didn’t want her jealous boyfriend or jealous ex-husband to see this and find me the cause for Edwina’s over-familiarity. She’s a bit biker-chick looking and has been around several blocks several times, from her appearance.

And recently watched some of X, a Japanese animated movie…mastermind behind that is some dude named Rintaro – made in ’96 but not released on DVD until just recently. And there was a bit of Love Story from 1970 on my viewing plate then as well – my junior high class took a field trip to see that one back those years ago. Not sure what got so under Steve McQueen’s skin about Ali McGraw, frankly – read in a biography of the man that he kept her pretty much under lock and key at his place in Malibu. And was also flashing back to the Mad satire of the flick – one of their barbs: towards the end, when McGraw’s character is dying in a hospital bed, she just keeps getting prettier and prettier, and how real is that?

And: have since deleted that Picasso biography I mentioned

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in a previous posting, but watched enough of it to get a good sense of the guy’s early life. Learned about the famous “Blue Period”, the cause of that: his feelings regarding a friend’s suicide due to despondency related to unrequited love for some French woman named Germaine.

And: haven’t been into Green Day, but really enjoyed a recent California Music Channel airing of the video for “American Idiot”. But where can these boys go now but down? Like I said, my idea for them: change name to Blue Night and cover Seventies rock songs. But then, it occurs to me, that Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do this already.

And recent happy outcome: had bought at the Powell Street Walgreen’s a cheap, 15 buck cassette player ‘cause I have a lot of music in that format only – not to mention the audio books from the San Francisco Public Library I wanna listen to which they have only on cassette. But got that purchase back to the hotel and it turns out the tape doesn’t work. Had it in my possession for a while then one day figured I could return it – I’d kept the receipt – for cash back. And this I did, and those returned fifteen-plus dollars were well spent.

And on the way to do this, walking east out of the Tenderloin, passing the excellent Superette Market (try the “Devil Eggs” – should be, of course, “Deviled”, but for the T.L. this is appropriate) – passing that market I was harassed by a guy wanting to buy a cigarette. He thought the digital voice recorder I had in my back pocket was a

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package of cancer sticks. Told him no, but he insisted on
making a purchase. I just kept walking, but he hung on longer than I felt comfortable with – got past that, but in that area, even in the broad daylight when this happened, he could’ve made a more aggressive move, his “reasoning” being that I was blowing him off and showing disrespect. Fortunately, just yards down, at the next corner, the landscape turns touristy, and I was outta there.

So to that Walgreen’s, and made that desired transaction – got back sixteen bucks and 26 cents…and headed south down Powell, paused to check the free flyers and publications just inside Rasputin’s – picked up the latest Panache, a fine music-oriented newsprint mag published locally. The young woman who’s behind this is from Humboldt County and is apparently doing well down in this part of Cali. Interview in this issue with foul-mouthed musical funny man Blowfly – everything is sex with the guy – he does X-rated parodies of popular songs – like, oh, “A Spermy Night in Georgia”, like that – you get the idea – multiply that by a thousand altered songs and you get the guy’s act. New from him is the CD Fahrenheit 69.

Then after the brief stop at Rasputin’s, down to the cable car turn, & dancer Edward Jackson was on duty, pleasing the crowd with moves and music. Whenever I’m passing I usually at least wave, shake his hand, chat a bit – he is one of the beautiful, powerful spectacles in San Francisco.

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And made a call about that time to buddy and Odd Fellow brother Milton Mack. Woulda bought him a beer had he been around the area, but he was across town at the Barnes & Noble near Fisherman’s Wharf. Chatted with him a bit…he’s been feeling dejected lately…he’s from Chicago, and he’s been around the country, and he’s just not too happy with San Francisco. Tried to cheer him up a bit.

Then decided to move west along Market – there were the die-hard chess players at their game. One guy was seated on the white side of the board waiting for someone to sit down – I was game enough, tho’ I prefer playing white…he said he usually only plays when there’s at least a dollar at stake, and at that point I left – for sure he woulda beat me, probably in less than a dozen moves.
So got back up to the hotel not long after that – first expenditure of that regained cassette player cash, two bucks and a quarter for a half-pint of Ancient Age whiskey. Other customer in the store, a lady, said “A killer in your pocket.” to me after I’d put the bottle away in my pants, and I told her, “No, a healer.” Then, back to my room, alone. Wouldn’t mind some female companionship…but not the kind generally found in the Tenderloin, that’s for sure. So turned on the tube: an Australian woman not at all perturbed by the flies clustering around her eyes, talking about a drought-resistant plant she wants to introduce into Niger. Then Lee Van Cleef, bounty hunting in a Leone… [prettyeddy@hotmail.com, (415) 359-4999]

posted by Velcro  # 12:48 PM

Friday, September 23, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #272
Trivia question: what was the name of the Clint Eastwood Italian western - directed by the great Sergio Leone - with "Fistful" in the title? If you said A Fistful of Dollars you'd be wrong - no "A" in that name, brothers and sisters! You'll thank me if that comes up in a pub quiz with a really well-informed host.
So I've been watching that flick and others in that genre recently - I think it's IFC - the Independent Film Channel - that has been playing a lot of these lately...or is it Turner Classic Movies? That is, TCM? Whatever...good scene with Clint asking four guys to apologize for making fun of his mule.
And: notable is Ennio Morricone's unresolved high pitch on the classic soundtrack, seconds in length, before guns are drawn and Clint's character lays waste to the ones who made fun of his mule.
And: knew I wasn't losing my mind or had made a mistake - had some of that 20-ounce Coca-Cola left that Odd Fellow Brother Pete Sellars had given me, noted in a previous posting...at least I thought I had some left. But I was looking and looking around my hotel room for it, couldn't find it...but at last I did find it. Quenched a certain thirst, and it was worth the search. Things go better with Coke - at least at some odd moments in the day and night.
And speaking of that devil - I mean, angel - I'd classify him as a Heaven's Devil - Pete Sellars I am mentioning here - talking about a week ago as of this blogging - sorted out the handwritten poems he and his fiancee Sister b had written...meant 30 bucks in my

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Levi's to get 'em printed out nicely...got that job done, got that
money, task accomplished. The things I do for a few dollars more.
And there was a special on cable recently featuring the top hundred lines in films (Hollywood output, that is) of all time, as compiled by the American Film Institute. Have to admit I couldn't get through watching all of it, but the phrase from that wicked witch in Oz I like a lot - gotta use it more in my own life: "I'll get you my pretty! And your little dog, too!"
And who says TV is a vast wasteland, when there's programming like this: ecological information about an Austrialian drought-resistant tree that's been transplanted to parched Niger, in Africa? (And in another program, description of efforts to save the weird but cute primate, the tarsier in the Phillipines. Love those little things!)
And on the way to the library one Sunday, unopened "Black & Mild" little cigar in the gutter, spotted by me, and thereafter smoked - completely "virgin" in its cellophane, even. Felt a bit like Clint with his little cigar - tho' this one had a plastic mouthpiece.
And the slogan for that "Black & Mild": "Tastes great! Smells great!" I must agree. But I must admit, feared getting dizzy from that stronger smoke than I usually do so I was a bit cautious with the inhalations. Wussy behavior.
So: an average Sunday for me and San Francisco, in the vicinity of
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the Civic Center - the Farmers' Market was happening, had a
flower in my lapel I'd found somewhere. Returned the audio book, cassette version, of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Really wanted to hear that, but my two cassette players don't work. (Saw the TV version of this some while back - or part of it, anyway - wasn't too impressed with the rendition - from public TV in the Seventies, I think. Laura Linney is the cute chick in it...forgot her name, but Google was the cavalry coming to that remembrance rescue.)
And: thanks to Brother Darick for posting two pages of this blog in the window of his shop on Seventh near Market a few days ago. But: this is how something happened...he asked me for a dollar for each subsequent posting of pages in his window - I wasn't happy with this arrangement - he took the price down to a quarter. This didn't assuage my growing resentment - I responded quickly and said he'd have to pay me twenty dollars for any subsequent pages, and I hung up on him. He e-mailed me later to inform me that he wouldn't go along with this. His henchman Bruno got in my face about this a bit afterwards - it was none of his damn business...told Mr. Bruno that it was between Darick and myself and that it had been resolved. Whatever...Bruno is from Boston, not from around here, and he might learn how to act just slightly better here at the Western world (Steely Dan reference) and not with an immediate threatening disposition. But that's just a slight suggestion.
So, walking up Seventh after leaving two pages of a blog to post in Darick's window, a Street Sheet seller says he liked my walk, like I'm a "mack"...liked that compliment, even tho' it was an

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initial complimentary verbal foray to get me to talk more and
perhaps turn him on to coinage for one of his wares. I felt it was a genuine observation, a true one, and was fairly glad of that...can't dance in an extended manner, don't want to, but I don't mind being able to walk like some stripe of pimp when the spirit moves me.
And that day, over to St. Anthony's...hotel friend Dave Mitchell said there was chili to be had there. Pretty day in a pretty city, not too hot.
And: into St. A.'s...dining companion, lady about late 50-ish, falling asleep, nearly face first into her tray of chow...before that unpleasant interlude, guy in line with a Beatles button, listening to a CD on his portable player. Got into a musical discussion with the guy, one of my kind for sure, really into that pop sound...was a huge Beatles fan (unlike myself)...but I could groove behind what he was saying...he was from Canada, and he told me that in the early Sixties there appeared there in the French territories different and more-like-the-British versions of those first discs from the Fab Four...he told me - and I knew this - that the American albums changed track order, added filler. For the money.
Then after the fine dining at St. Anthony's, back up to the hotel - thought occured to me that even Hieronymous Bosch would find repellant many of the strange miscreants to be found in the Tenderloin.

So that is that for now...(415) 359-4999,(415) 885-5052,
prettyeddy@hotmail.com...

posted by Velcro  # 3:08 PM
starplane.blogspot.com #271

…was heading to the library one afternoon but there was Warlock Will – invited him over to my room – had whiskey, cable, something to smoke…we spent hours watching the flicks, burning incense, conversing – learned about his life – and added my Chinese elixir to Kentucky whiskey, and he liked that…hotel neighbor Barbara also stopped by, and we three enjoyed the fellowship, the conversing, the drinking.

Also, on a run to get more whiskey, guy in the hallway said he had Valiums for sale, and a morphine pill. Covered this in a previous posting – not sure if those several supposed Valiums were the real McCoy – possibly a generic form of it. And when he passed me the morphine pill it fell several flights down the space between the hotel stairs…searched for it for a few minutes, on hands and knees, but it was gone. Paid ten bucks for the several pills…felt like the guy was on the level, but he mighta hustled me…had the cash then and felt it was worth the chance – didn’t feel like a chance when I made that transaction, tho’.

And: recently watched about half a biographical program about Picasso…got a bit bored with it and deleted it.

And: have an invitation to attend Odd Fellow Brother Darick’s weekly meeting at the Starbucks across from the Metreon – missed it last week, and the week before that had been waiting outside for him but didn’t realize he was

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already inside…maybe it was the open can of beer I’d been
drinking from that put him off. Another meeting today at 3pm in three hours…not sure if I’m all that welcome, frankly, but I might go.

And: recommended teen movie: Girl, with Selma Blair, and Domique Swain as the lead.

And also “Samurai Saturdays” on the Independent Film Channel, if you are into the samurai thing.

And actually paid additionally for a Comcast flick, Elektra – four bucks for a rental of 24 hours, during which time it can be viewed as frequently as one would like. Forgot that I had it, so infrequently do I rent movies off cable, otherwise I woulda watched it at least one more time – rented it when Will and Barbara were there, and they both seemed to get into it.

And: had that renter rebate money for a few days, nice having that cash – for beer, breakfast – you know, the luxuries.

And: the Fringe Festival has come and gone in the Tenderloin without me seeing any of it. It’s a pretty involved theatrical event involving many actors and several venues – 42 shows, 12 days, tickets nine bucks or less – 14th annual series of these performances. But I’m not into

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live theater, particularly, except the daily interactions of life.

And: stopped in at the Odd Fellows Lodge, Brother Pete had a bag of stuff for me, plus a bottle of beer – in the bag, music discs, two German girlie calendars, other things that slip my mind. (Gave most of this to hotel neighbor John, who sells stuff on the street, so maybe he could make some money…most of the discs were not in jewel boxes, and lacked liner notes, so Rasputin’s wouldn’t take ‘em.)

On the way back to the hotel from St. Anthony’s – a whole piece of chicken on the day in question, not merely fragments of something – overheard guy mentioning a name for the Tenderloin I’d not heard before: “The Ten”.

And found the location of Brooklyn Pizza, where I’ve ordered in from a few times – on Jones across from the Chez Paree girlie club. (Never been there – I think it’s twenty bucks just to get in – might not be worth it, even for “Nude Goth girls”, as the marquee promotes.)

And saw hotel neighbor Nic outside the hotel, on his rollerblades, listening to music on earphones. Wondered what was in his player – surprisingly, Billy Idol – seemed really Eighties – Nic woulda been a baby when Billy was first happening. Was picking up two pennies from the gutter outside the hotel when Nic happened by – he called

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me a bum. Got that designation from Brother Lucky at the
lodge too. Takes ones to know one. (And: recommended Billy Idol’s cover of “L.A. Woman” to Nic…it’s on the jukebox at Harrington’s. He really does something good with that Doors song.)

And also in that bag from Brother Pete that day a few days ago: a 20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola – mixed it with my Shou Wu Chih Chinese elixir – the same color, but entirely different in effect. Coke’s pretty poisonous, but the price was right on that bottle and I went for it.

And: sometimes I come up out of nowhere with a decent line of fiction, for example: “…a viscous puddle of odiferous goo…” Like something out of Lovecraft, or Poe.

And from that Picasso biography: Norman Mailer interviewed, saying Pablo had problems concentrating on his mathematics since he’d look at a “7” and see only an upside-down nose and begin sketching a face in his math workbook, forgetting about the adding of the digits. (Also, there were drawings done by Picasso at age 13 – amazing…his father apparently taught his son how to draw at a very early age, and the guy really ran with that. Before all that cubism jazz, Picasso could really draw incredibly well. And one more Picasso fact: he was thirteen years old in 1895…coulda been my grandfather.) [(415) 359-4999, prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 11:52 AM

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #270

…back to where we left off:

Got a call from Odd Fellow Brother Pete Sellars, a usual one – he had free strong drink waiting for me at the lodge, whiskey and vodka, if I wanted to get it. I was (and am currently) fasting from substances at that time a few days ago, but went for it anyway. What the heck…yesterday went to Rainbow and got 25 bags of yerba mate tea, an adjunct to fasting, so I am taking steps in that direction – it’s important to de-toxify occasionally.

And, speaking of people in my life, there’s a new case manager for the entire hotel I’m in named Mariko Obrero – a great lady, and I wanted to mention her praisefully as a wonderful addition to the staff.

And: at the time I’m blogging of, about a week gone, had been fasting for about 16 hours from food and drink and noted feeling the better for it. Was out on Eddy in front of the hotel, feeling the gentle sun.

And: enjoyed reading the Robert Anton Wilson interview in the highly-recommended Disinformation collection of Richard Metzger – please, Google on these names, research, respond. He mentioned something specifically about how greedy landlords have been gouging tenants with high rent, and I’ve got that on my mind, and quoted it to someone. Well, it’s a plain fact, but it carries weight for me when

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mentioned by such a (non-)authority as Wilson…he’s one
that questions authority and wants people to think for themselves.

And: have been listening to a disc set about novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand – recollections by close friends. Not too into her, me, but sometimes I like to turn the tube off and get into pure spoken word, and this was about the best among the selections at the San Francisco Public Library – recently turned it on before dawn and got a real literary start to a day. Once knew a guy, about ’89, who was really, really into Rand, even had her photo above his desk at work. Guess she deserves that adulation. Coming up soon on Comcast, the movie version of Rand’s The Fountainhead – Gary Cooper stars, I believe. And the woman herself mighta done the screenplay – I know she had her time in Hollywood. (Same for a guy like Aldous Huxley – there’s another one that deserves researching into by whoever is attending to this little sermonette.)

And: recent flick I couldn’t get into was Paul Mazursky’s Scenes from a Mall, ’91, with Woody Allen and Bette Midler. Might’ve enjoyed the shots of the Beverly Center, but didn’t watch it enough to see those – spent a whole lotta time in that mall when I was in L.A. (Plenty of the Woodman on Comcast…tuned into a bit of Hannah and Her Sisters yesterday, and Love and Death was on recently…

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And: got that Vanilla Fudge disc back to the library a bit late…I’ve got fines of about 50 cents so far – not serious – when the total is 5 bucks, then the library police might take action.

And local sports news – not a topic I’m generally particularly interested in, but there’s Barry to consider. Recent Chron headline: “Return of the King”. I believe he’s hit 2 homers since he’s been back…closing in on “The Babe”. He might just take the all-time four-bagger title – go Barry, go!

And: had hotel neighbor Patrick to my room recently – gave him whiskey, and some items I’d had about my room that I didn’t absolutely want – a stuffed white rabbit and a Janis Joplin biography called Scars of Sweet Paradise and a crystal-like vase included in the swag – he sells stuff on the street and I’m glad to turn him on to items like this. And he gave me a pair of plastic peace sign earrings that I in turn gave to a friend. And later, found an interesting necklace with silver, brass, and golden baubles that he’d dropped on the floor. Have since taken to wearing this around my wrist for all the intervening time since that visit by him. Generally I give these trinkets away but this one I seem to be keeping.

And: always learning songs facts from the Comcast “Music
Choice” screens that accompany the songs. For example,

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now I know that pornstar-turned-singer Andrea True was
born in Nashville on July 26 of 1943…that “More, More, More” song came out in ’76.

And: mentioning again that surprise rent rebate check from Steve Westly, California State Controller, to the tune of three-hundred-and-27 dollars. Spent that in a few short days…over a third of it went to the friend who loaned me money to pay my cable bill, otherwise it mighta gone farther. Nice having some bucks in my Levi’s, for sure.

And: a few days ago, waiting in front of the library for my reserved computer, vodka in my pocket courtesy of Brother Pete. Not my favored drink, so I gave it to one of the skateboarders who were doing stunts, this on the Larkin Street side. Hopefully they drank it…the skater mighta thought I was some sort of molester given over to tempting youngsters with alcohol.

And: part of that state check went for the 2-cheeseburger deal from Brooklyn Pizza, the only place I call in from. Ten bucks for two of those babies plus accompanying fries, your choice of a side, and two soft drinks. But I busted ‘em for overcharging – twelve-99 was the first price given, and I hung up the phone behind that until I considered it – way too high. Called back and got the correct amount, ten-eighty-one. I can spend lavishly, but not stupidly.
[(415) 359-4999, prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

posted by Velcro  # 9:13 AM

Monday, September 19, 2005

starplane.blogspot.com #269
…and, continuing where we left off last posting: another thing that's fun about the Comcast set-up I've got, with the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) function built into the cable box itself – another fun thing is that I can pre-program anything so whatever I want to see, even weeks in advance, will record without having to think about it again. So it can be a pleasant surprise to turn the tube on in the morning – a 28-inch Hitachi thanks the unsurpassed generosity of my Odd Fellow Brother Pete Sellars – and see what was "captured" overnight.

For example, on a recent morning, this was what had been recorded since the last time I'd turned the set on: the horror flick about hapless teens and relentless flesh-eating bacteria, Cabin Fever, the great Alicia Silverstone in a psycho killer role, The Crush, and an Inside the Actors Studio with Johnny Depp – he's got to be my favorite actor, and I generally don't have much interest in the males of that profession. He was smoking Bali Shag loose tobacco, incidentally – and apologized for that.

And: noted what was to be recorded later that day: another fine one, Selma Blair, in Kill Me Later, a documentary about pre-teen cheerleaders, the California Music Channel with talented veejay Jessica Correos, and suburban pot dealing program Weeds.

And got a call back then, a few days ago from this posting, from neighbor in the hotel, Karl – wanted to know if I wanted to get to Glide for breakfast. And if I had watched the remake of Ocean's 11 that had just been on the tube. No on both counts…haven't been to Chez Cecil in months, not since I've discovered the great

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culinary delights to be enjoyed at St. Anthony's.

And as far as that
redoing of the Rat Pack flick – might be better served, might spend the time more wisely, seeing the original. Altho' I've heard good things about the new one with George Clooney et alii. (Yeah, you had best better Google on that Latin term, unless you are an intimate of Suetonius – it means "and others". Never let it be said that this blog, within its extremely narrow scope, is not diverse in the language it presents for your predilection – which last word, defined on my on-line Merriam, means: "an established preference for something". Heck, I just use the words, don't know exactly what they mean…)

And: while I'm at it, having mentioned the remarkable (and cute) Selma Blair, I've got her filmography up in another window: born in '72…making her 33 this past June…been enjoying her in Girl with Dominique Swain of late…she'll be in the upcoming second Hellboy (haven't seen the first)…was in Can't Hardly Wait as "Girl Mike Hits On #1"…and the second Scream. But many of her movies I've never heard of. First picked up on her in one of my favorite flicks of all-time, The Sweetest Thing. I'm a fan of Blair's – maybe even a groupie. Surely a groper, if all else fails.

[DELETED: 3 LINES.]

And another common recent sequence of actions: a visit to St.
Anthony's for lunch – whatever they serve up I'm pretty happy

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with – I'm not all that particular about what I eat - then over to the Odd Fellows Lodge to greet Brother Pete – or a reverse of that. Pete's usually got something for me to imbibe – a cold bottle of beer, sometimes, or even stronger drink. And often there are items he passes on to me: music discs, clothing, other unusual goodies. (Currently he's got me working on a somewhat major project, the typing out, formatting of poems – his and his fiancee's…gonna get 30 bucks for that…am on it. I organize text well.)

And: much activity in that Odd Fellows Building at 26th Seventh near Market…for instance, was going up one morning, waiting in the ground level lobby, and a young pretty woman on crutches was there. Learned she was going up to get therapy at the Gyrotonics studio…it's a bit like Pilates, just a bit, but it uses circular movements to provide physical therapy and exercise. Goes by the name of "White Cloud", if you are interested – check the Odd Fellows Building, care of Pete Sellars.

And a recent really easy dollar made: was at the Computer Training Center th' other day, in comes hotel neighbor Nic – wanted me to print out a page about an aluminum suitcase he had his eye on – did that quickly, and he gave me a Washington.

And: wanna mention the California Music Channel again – one of the only programs I always record and watch, 5 days a week. The day in question, veejay Jess was wearing a shirt that read "MY FACE IS UP HERE" with an up arrow. She must get a lot of pectoral staring. Another time, she had "PLEASE FEED THE MODELS" as her message. And: a recent video I enjoyed: Santana and Michelle Branch, "Game of Love".

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[DELETED: 7 LINES.]

[DELETED: 7 LINES.]

And am watching physician Andrew Weil on a public television program about his book Spontaneous Healing – getting a good holistic doctorly perspective from that through repeated viewings.
And: notably got around to actually reading text from a book! I admit I am probably watching more cable than I should, I spoze, but I feel I make very good use of the viewing time. Anyway, the book I read was from the San Francisco Public Library, Charles Bukowski's early Nineties journal called The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship – recommended. [(415) 359-4999, prettyeddy@hotmail.com]

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