<$BlogRSDURL$>

SWEET DANGO

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

Thursday, March 30, 2006

FAN DANGO #325 by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 1)

...so much thanks to St. Anthony’s and the related foundation (not, unfortunately, th’ Asimov kind...perhaps in th’ future)...for all the meals I’ve eaten there, for damn fuckin’ sho’...and...whoever is writin’ them menus must be given accolades...on Groundhog’s Day, this was the part of the meal: “Punxatwaney Puttanesca”...I myself could have done no better, or even that good, frankly...for what it’s worth, in the sense of David Crosby, and Nash, and Stills, and, sometimes in that agglutination, Mr. Neil Young...

And that reminds me...check this shit out...Lynyrd...Google...”Sweet Home Alabama”...”...well, I hope Neil Young will remember,/a Southern man don’t need him around, anyway...” (Used as the final song in ‘Con Air’, perhaps Cage’s finest moment, perhaps...)

And never call me “sir”...or “sire”...or anything along those lines...

And found a few weeks ago on a trash can at Leavenworth and Eddy, a very, very, very excellent book of sexual instruction called ‘Sexual Body Talk’...by Susan Quilliam...Googled on her – she considers herself a “relationship psychologist”...get the book...great – got it for free, you...

...and at the same time, found there on that trash can a Dante Gabriel Rosseti work on a postcard, called ‘La Bella Mano’...gave that picture to a friend in the hotel, but still have the book, it’s ‘that’ good...Quilliam’s text is, in two words, super...lative...

...and being watched by me a few weeks ago, intensely, by me, the Band, ‘The Last Waltz’...Chaucer quoted in it by some local poet...and Rick Danko talks about stealing food from some store in the Band’s lean-and-hungry days and nights...that band flick is fantastic...also, please study Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Song Remains the Same’ – essential, with a capital E...

And surprised at a recent ‘Dinner with Five’, on IFC...no Jon Favreau...Sixties ‘Marvel’ comics guru Stan Lee there...

And listen to Badfinger, “Day After Day”...from ’72...album is ‘Staight Up’...get it, and let me listen to it with you...peak at number thirty-one on the ‘Billboard’ pop album chart...sample lyric: “...looking out from my lonely room...”...not about ‘me’, of course, tho’ I appreciate th’ sentiment...

posted by Velcro  # 3:37 PM
FAN DANGO #324 by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2)

…now, on to digital voice notes I took a while ago – I’m back now away from handwritten stuff to using that handheld device…virtues in both ways of keeping track of shit – have done it however way, many times…

…noted the Chris Rock joke about avoiding any street in any town named after Martin Luther King because of the violence that’s sure to be there…Oakland’s a good example – ‘parts’ of M.L.K. Boulevard in that town, anyway…get the man’s actual spoken work to get the full impact of his humor – this is merely notation and analysis…

And my Bank of America credit card’s due in about a week – but I’ll have actual cash in my account downloaded in, oh, 18 hours…D. says just to keep the plastic for emergencies…like him wanting a 40 ouncer of Miller High Life and a pack of Midnight Special tobacco, for example…

…and: a pre-schooler in the Tenderloin, shirt with the Dash character from ‘The Incredibles’, which is a fun movie…recommended by this humble blog…great thing about the T.L. is all the really little children always about…lived in the Mission and the North Beach, each for three years, and there was a distinct absence of the tiny ones…

Line from someone passing on Eddy when I was standing out there a few weeks ago: “…too much culture shock…” Slogan for the Tenderloin…

And at Ellis and Leavenworth one afternoon a while back, food distributed from the top of a car by some local young folks…not Christians, these…looked more like junior gangsters. But with a social conscience…had myself a helping, glad to seem ‘em out doing that good work…

And books I let go a while back: a Christian Jesus-based book from Odd Fellow brother P.S. (with Christ called “the Great Teacher”), plus a Chinese medicine book also from the good man (unusually, it paralleled traditional Chinese medicine with Western astrology)…a novel called ‘Possession’ I bought from the Little Flea Market at Leavenworth and Eddy (written by one A.S. Byatt…liked that it had a lot of iambic pentameter poetry in it)…and an Alcoholics Anonymous text from hotel friend E.S. – and a Henry Fielding book I’d picked up at the Project Connect helping-the-homeless event at the Bill Graham a few months ago – a couple of his

FAN DANGO #324 by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2)

novellas loaded into one – ‘Tom Jones’ is only his most famous…

…and recommended activity: head to the Brown Jug – opens at six in the morning, for the hardcore…get an Irish coffee or two, put two bucks into the jukebox and attend to the Garcia solo disc in that machine…doesn’t get a lot better in the Tenderloin, frankly…keep yer Manhattans at the Top of the Mark, those who favor such humdrum behavior (yawn!)…

…and maybe I’ll just try to get that 99 bucks back that I put down for that 500-buck-limit B of A card…but it might be too late for that…and hello to my man Kirk Yee, my personal banker, a fine fellow…

…idea for parody of the T.L. – vehicle passing along Jones near St. Anthony’s, guy in bullhorn shouting “O.C.s! Vikes!” over and over, super-loud…that is, humor in that the pill sellers don’t give a damn fuck about what the police think about their street pharmaceutical sales…

And another idea for a parody of this ‘hood: super-long line at St. Anthony’s, a veritable ‘horde’, maybe a ten times the regular amount, or a hundred…

…and recalled this thanks to my taking a voice note on it: guy in head-to-toe leather, one of ‘that’ tribe, passing by the hotel when I was standing in front – offered me a hit from his joint – his pot cigarette, that is – and I honored his offer. Generous gent…not at all into his cow-skin thing, me, or related sex practices, but he seemed like an okay guy, a possible friend…

…and…’The Blues Brothers’ aired pretty frequently through the Comcast pipeline – noted their version of the ‘Rawhide’ TV show theme…they are, of course, blues players, but they had to please the audience they were in front of at some cowboy nightclub…

…and an inadvertent rock ‘n’ roll reference on McAllister, number 44 – it’s called the “Civic Center Residence” – which is “CCR”…

…and an unusual bloke on Eddy, a street full of unusual passers-by…a biker dude (motorized variety) with actual spurs on his heels, jingling as he walked…gave my friend D. a buck for beer at least once, so that shows kindness& class, two qualities I admire in all and everyone who has ‘em…

posted by Velcro  # 9:07 AM

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 6:40 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#323]

…so, at Glide for lunch yesterday…beef stroganoff and a salad with an actual small piece of chicken in it as well – generally the salad there is meatless…and as a special extra, a wrapped and rather gourmet beef sandwich…the luxurious Hilton is right across the street, an odd juxtaposition. Or an ‘ironic’ one, I guess, is putting it better…

In terms of celebrities, speaking of the Hilton Hotel, have no feeling at all for that Paris, despite her wealth and fame and (putative) beauty…and speaking of beauty, cute enough Asian-ish young Christian teen girl serving the Glide clients – poured some water next to me…quote from Ephesians on the back of her shirt…young enough to be my daughter, but I’m no one’s Daddy and don’t wanna be…felt something for her, appropriate or not…

And before I got a new audio book from the San Francisco Public – the unabridged and superb Paul Theroux train travelogue ‘The Old Patagonian Express’ – listened a bit to KQED radio, the intelligent talk and news thereon…didn’t quite do it for me…tuned into news of the U.S. military denying something, some Iraq massacre, maybe those 30 beheadings…have I got my head in the sand if I don’t need to hear about that? Got enough bad news on the street right outside the hotel I’m in, geez…

And found a cute thing on the ground near the hotel, a small, stuffed psychedelic-colored dolphin. Picked it up and have it in my room…makes me feel a bit sad, tho’, about the fate of many actual dolphins in the ocean…

And yesterday, it was, like in the Carpenters song, a rainy day as well as a Monday, but it wasn’t getting me down…I tend to run a little hot so the cooling effect of rain is very often welcome…

And been turning on fantastic classic rock in the form of a Creedence Clearwater Revival tape I bought a while ago on the street for a dollar…had put it aside to give to a friend who is a piano player and had a book with CCR music in it to learn, but was missing the sound…something about the band’s music means much to me…

And to the library to select a new audio book…I’m kinda hard to please…almost went for ‘David Copperfield’…the box it came in didn’t
seem nearly big enough to contain that fat Dickens text…and I was right – it

FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 6:40 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#323]

was just half the darn thing, just 12 cassettes, 17-and-three-quarters hours…

And then to Glide again yesterday for dinner around five-ish…due to the inclement weather, the long line wound up the stairs inside the building for several floors…worth the wait for the elbow pasta with sizeable meat chunk, corn kernels, salad…and another gourmet sandwich as offered for lunch earlier…interaction with guy across from me: poured water for him when he sat down…he said I could have his pasta and corn and salad…I gave him my beef sandwich as a fair exchange…and to my right, quite the charming dining companion, with a trash bag around his shoulders to keep away the rain…was in a hurry to get outta there since he quickly shoveled his food into the small Styrofoam water cups and left with little ado…

And thought of a two lines of iambic pentameter, rhymed – technically, a “heroic couplet”: “…the wages of their dietary sins/revealed upon their psyches and their skins…” Appropriate for the yogic-based health and happiness plan I am enacting of late…

…and…watched more of ‘Mr. Deeds’ today…only for the Winona parts, as I said…one scene with her in a focus-grabbing red hat…reminded of something my hotel pal S.M. said, who’s really into movies, into very intelligent analysis thereupon, about how often an item of clothing is wearing the actor who’s got it on…funny, good choice…

Then to the Glide lunch today…the worst case of a line there I ever experienced – due to the noon drizzle, the elite clientele were inside winding all the way to the very top floor…I got to the absolute end of the string and waited for a while but decided finally to get the heck outta there…the situation at St. Anthony’s was much better and enjoyed tasty bites there…

And back to the hotel…finished watching ‘Mr. Deeds’…closing credit music was the 1980 solo Pete Townshend song “Let My Love Open the Door”, a really catchy number…figured it was from about ’82-ish – just Googled to get the exact year…I was working briefly at a Daly City mall hot dog outlet when that song was playing…then to the wonderful Theroux audio book – am “Theroux-ly” loving it…I love the sly and understated humor that is very, I think, British…I mean to listen to it twice…it’s sure to beneficially affect the tone and elevation of these here lines I write for you…

posted by Velcro  # 6:42 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 6:06 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#322]

…back to mundane details of my life…for some reason I think some of you may be interested…doing this keeps ‘my’ head together, in general, anyway…and hopefully provides some light entertainment at the very least…

…was watching the Comcast tube th’ other day and there was a 1971 episode of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’…guess that show ran about ten years, starting in the very early Sixties…so there were the Clampetts on the beach at Malibu – humor based on them mistaking grunions, the small fish, for an invading army…musta really been running out of ideas by then…it was in color as well – the first episodes were in black and white…

And am continuing with a health and happiness program…including more walking, better diet…basically following a yogic plan as outlined in a coupla books I have…it includes wine…even many hardcore raw food health freaks okay that fermented beverage…

And got in a morning walk to the still-closed library th’ other day to return a science fiction audio book I could not get into despite trying…it was David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising’…a premise in it was that dolphins had created and were manning – or that be “dolphining” – a space ship…dolphins also used in William Gibson’s short story “Johnny Mnemonic”, which was expanded into a pre-‘Matrix’ Keanu Reeves flick, and not one highly-regarded by critics, or myself, really…Henry Rollins in that as some white smocked scientist (with a thick neck)…more should be done with Gibson in the movies…they’ve been trying to do something with ‘Neuromancer’ for the longest…

And have just about recovered from the excess of Carlo Rossi sangria I did all night recently – coulda felt better with some food to go along with that, but it’s the end of the month and I’m relying on the free meals at Glide and St. Anthony when I get to those charitable outlets…really gotta manage the money I get better. Or get more…anyone got any ideas for me?

And news from Iraq made the newspaper headlines recently – 30 beheaded bodies found…locals, I guess. Woulda been bigger news had they been U.S. citizens…glad to be in the good ol’ U.S. of A. where if such things happen, as in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, well, he does it th’ American way and puts

FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 6:06 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#322]

the decapitated heads in the refrigerator for later use, as any right-thinking
patriot would…

And…Elvis Costello in town recently, I read in the ‘Examiner’ – making music with the symphony…geez…I’m just not interested in that…prefer his first rock tunes in the Seventies. But he gets points for ambition…

And Mariah Carey just turned 36…and Quentin Tarantino just hit the big 43…thought he was younger…and also from the ‘Ex’, news of Cameron Diaz relationship issues – the guy she’s been on-and-off with is a good ten years younger and doesn’t wanna commit to marriage…Cameron’s okay – she’ll be 34 this year…me, my long-standing admiration for the charms of Winona Ryder seem to be coming to the forefront of my so-called consciousness again…hey, Winona! Read my blog! I say good things about you! You are alright on these pages! Lemme buy you cheap sangria!

And in movie news, scanned the top ten flix of this past time period…none I care to see…closest is the remake of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, and I really don’t care for the horror genre…came in at number 8, with a take of four-and-a-quarter mil – kinda shabby…the reviews not all that positive…

And the only movie of recent vintage I woulda gone to the theater to see was ‘Ultraviolet’, with Milla Jovovich in another action role – but that one is gone from the cinema palaces of San Francisco already…

And a generic picture of me recently in my hotel room, alone again, naturally, a Seventies Ringo tune on my cassette player (my CD doesn’t work right now), a sound-off show about the Chinese system of ‘feng shui’ on the Comcast tube, and green tea being drunk from a Boone’s Farm bottle…that’s about my life in all its particulars…

But I am quite accustomed to leisure, am good at being leisurely…and…in line at Glide recently…yesterday, I guess…like Tommy Chong, I’m not into time, man…guy in front of me started talking about cannibalism for some reason…he was sane, not some incoherent nut…told the tale of a “tribe” somewhere where a guy was hungry and boiled the skull of another, got the brain meat, ate it and, using the skull for a pillow, hunger satisfied, slept quite well…well, the perfect intro for another fine meal at Glide…

posted by Velcro  # 6:41 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 3:32 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#321]

…am still amplifying the many notes I took that night a coupla nights ago when I was up til dawn and long past drinking the cheap Carlo Rossi sangria by myself, watching the tube, listening to music, communing with the Bohemian spirit…

Well, a lot of those notes don’t seem so relevant now as when I wrote them in a state of utter be-wined intoxication…one is a title for something, and it seems a good one, a keeper: ‘Existential Realities’…feel free to use it, anyone out there, if you are in need of a serious-sounding name for something…and don’t even attribute the use…

…and that Joni Mitchell biography on the tube…noted a mistake…I’m pretty expert on much of the lady’s work…a song performance titled “California” from 1969 was, in fact, “Ladies of the Canyon”…there ‘is’ a song she did with this state’s name as the title, but that wasn’t it…

And speaking of that “Canyon” song…it’s about Laurel Canyon, one of several of those geographical landmarks in the hills above L.A. – a ground zero of music of the time, inhabited by many of song’s luminaries in that special era…see the fantastic book about Los Angeles music of the Sixties and beyond by British journalist Barney Hoskyns called ‘Waiting for the Sun’ – available at the San Francisco Public…very few books have managed to keep me up reading past midnight, and this was one…

…and Annie Lennox did a cover of “Ladies of the Canyon” – it was and probably still is on the jukebox at the Round Table near the Marina Safeway, near Fort Mason…and the price for songs on that machine is incredible – 11 for a dollar, if I remember right…have yourself a coupla servings of chicken wings, a cold brewski, crank up the tunes – some early stage Madonna on that box as well, I think…could do worse, a lot worse…

And remembered an idea I had a while back – ‘Altamont 2’…yeah, same location, echoes of the original…but done right this time, no harm, a healing of the damage done…any ideas on this? It’s doable, for sure…

And a line from a Nineties-era Joni song made me take up my pen and write it down to include in a blog…this, from “Sex Kills”, from the album ‘Turbulent Indigo’, I think: “…and lawyers haven’t been this popular/since

FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 3:32 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#321]

Robespierre slaughtered half of France…” A lot of carnage…approved of at
least by Germany, I’d imagine, tho’ I’m weak on most history…

And have on the tape I listened to several times that night, included among the twelve songs I think would be a fine and dandy movie soundtrack, “Two Fine People”, by high-fidelity (and not infidel-ity) Cat Stevens…really could be my favorite of all his…tho’ “Fill My Eyes” is also beautiful, very…

And really, really hilarious, much, much recommended, especially for fans of kung fu movies, Steve Oedekirk’s incredible homage and satire of the genre, ‘Kung Pao: Enter the Fist’…has to be seen to be believed…I mean, that sangria helped with the enjoyment but even the sober should find this one utterly laugh-inducing…run, don’t walk, to secure a copy of this ‘un…

And that finally comes to the end of that wine-besotted night’s notes, and glad I am of that…well, I tell you, shoulda eaten something along with the one-and-a-half liters of cheap red wine, and gotten some sleep, ‘cause I was not in the best of bodyminds the next afternoon…vomiting involved, so that tells about all you need to know – not a good sign…felt better after drinking some of the plastic bottle of Sprite I’d found the previous day in Union Squared…felt just about normal after enough sleep, back to a balance…

And in some recent pre-dawn bed, alone, imagining talking to some woman next to me…any takers for that role? I won’t bite unless you want me to, and then only gently…

And have been getting into, as noted in a previous blog, a very fine ‘American Masters’ episode about early American film icon Mary Pickford…didn’t realize how significant she was in the history of movies…known as “America’s Sweetheart”, an epithet currently bestowed upon Julia Roberts, I am pretty certain…am in the middle of watching her in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’, from the late Nineties, co-starring the superlative Cameron Diaz – ‘The Sweetest Thing’ is one of the greatest of all time, and I mean that. Well, Roberts plays a food critic…at the beginning of the flick, she’s served up a restaurant dish and offers this assessment: “…inventive and confident…” Much like Julia herself…who’s a Scorpio, by the way, like Joni Mitchell, Winona Ryder, Grace Slick…and myself, for that matter…whatever that might mean…any clues, lemme know…

posted by Velcro  # 3:31 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 9:06 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#320]

…and to continue about the night a couple ago I spent alone drinking an entire liter-and-a-half of Carlo Rossi sangria…woulda gone better the next day, feeling-wise, had I eaten something with that, but I chose to spend th’ 5 bucks entirely on that wine and not get a lesser quantity of drink along with something edible to go with it…& I stand by my decision as the best one…

Well, if you were to see the handwritten notes I took during that all-nighter, a smile might cross your lips to view the effects of intoxication on my penmanship…the notes get wilder and less linear, somewhat funnily so…

For example, I wrote: “…Axl….look ‘im up…” A reference to checking on what has become of the lead singer of Guns N’ Roses – the band I consider to be the best rock ‘n’ roll outfit of their era, 15 years ago, about…really liked Axl’s style, a truly fantastic exemplar of the rock singer archetype…

And…looked up in my Ephraim Katz film encyclopedia more about Louis B. Mayer, a tyrannical film mogul of the middle part of the last century…Katz writes that the studio head regarded any opposition to his will as “personal betrayal” on the part of the opposer…his word was law, no contradiction…

And was watching ‘Mr. Deeds’ that night…was looking at it again this morning, fast-forwarding through to the choice portions: that is, whatever scenes had Winona Ryder in ‘em…and realized that these are fairly few and far between – it’s mostly Sandler’s show, wall-to-wall with that man…and I needn’t remind you that centuries ago Dante described this very situation, and it was not in the ‘Paradiso’ section of his ‘Comedy’ either…

So, back to Winona in ‘Mr. Deeds’…glad she was making more use of her excellent cleavage…really a lot to look at of that in this one…her…’glands’ appear to be pushed up, and it’s a fine sight…but she’s not one to emphasize those charms in her films, in general. In this instance I believe she felt the character called for it, and I for one am the better for her wise decision…

And…had on that sangria-soaked night a tape with the Dead’s Eighties tune “Scarlet Begonias” on it…totally turned up the Garcia solo, all the way…

…and…not to totally change the subject, necessarily…this is all somewhat connected…see dimmak.net for an article entitled “The Science Behind Dim

FAN DANGO: 3/28/2006 9:06 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#320]

Mak” – containing an explanation of the so-called “death touch” of martial
arts…maybe Winona should get a little more evil and aggressive in her roles, have a a character that is adept at this – I’d like to see that…

And…on that audio tape I listened to I’d included the early 1975 Rush song “In the Mood”…man, really got to get more of that band, all their catalog, and benefit thereby…incredible work I haven’t appreciated as much as I really should…tho’ there’s a cowbell portion in the beginning that coulda, shoulda been deleted…there was a recent ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch with Will Ferrell that made great fun of that “instrument”…

And thoughts of going down to L.A. – wouldn’t mind hooking up with some cute young lady street punk on the Strip…shacking up…my so-called mind has turned it’s eye southward, visualizing…won’t make this move, if it happens, for three months at least, I’d say…but I might be inspired to move the change along faster, maybe…had enough of the Tenderloin…

And opened up that Katz movie encyclopedia at random…that, by the way, is a source of new ideas if one is feeling stuck or in need of creative suggestion – take a book and just open it up to a random page, see what’s there…so I got the entry for British actor Donald Pleasance…I remember seeing him as a child in ‘FantasticVoyage’, devoured at the end by that protoplasm…and he’s also in the ’67 Bond flick ‘You Only Live Twice’…

And a line of iambic pentameter: “…arenas, Frisco…Sausalito, too…”

And…ask yourself this: Jimmy Page or Paul McCartney? Or is that a wrong question to ask? I go with Page…never been much of a Beatles fan in general, and I have to say that Ringo’s my man in that foursome…I like several of his solo songs…been playing “It Don’t Come Easy” a lot lately…

And funny scene, very, in ‘Mr. Deeds’…George Wallace (the comedian, not the governor) plays an executive of the United Negro College Fund…he gets a check from Deeds to the tune of, like, dozens of millions, and he quickly falls backwards in his chair at the shock of that donation…

And thinking of the L.A. music scene of the early ‘70s, featuring the likes of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and more, more, more…

posted by Velcro  # 9:08 AM

Monday, March 27, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/27/2006 1:51 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#319]

…and was watching the Jet Li ‘science fiction’ flick ‘The One’ recently – well, all that wire work, frankly, just ‘sucks’…but surprised to see Jason Statham in it…he wasn’t an entity to me until seeing ‘The Transporter’…and recently paid four bucks through Comcast to see the sequel – good one…interesting cinematography or whatever aspect of filmmaking it is that got a certain visual aspect to it, a fairly unforgiving quality…

And there was some Carpenters I was listening to during a recent all-nighter drinking Carlo Rossi sangria…wrote this line: “We lost a lot when we lost Karen Carpenter.” There are a good half dozen and more of their songs that I just love…yeah, that Seventies romantic stuff…I love my rock and roll straight up, but tunes like “Rainy Days and Mondays” and “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” and “It’s Going to Take Some Time”…yeah, I confess, those really work for me too…

And part of that night was spent listening over and over to a cassette I’d made with songs that would, in my humble opinion, make a good movie soundtrack, as follows:

1. “Secret”, Madonna
2. “Roll Over Beethoven”, Chuck Berry
3. “So Very Hard to Go”, Tower of Power (live)
4. “Love is Like Oxygen”, Sweet
5. “It Don’t Come Easy”, Ringo Starr
6. “Hyacinth House”, Doors (’65 or so demo)
7. “Two Fine People”, Cat Stevens
8. “Tin Man”, America
9. “Scarlet Begonias”, Grateful Dead
10. “Blues Beach”, Steely Dan
11. “In the Mood”, Rush
12. “Man to Man”, Joni Mitchell

How ya like them apples? That night with the liter-and-a-half of befruited red wine I listened to this repeatedly, and felt this song selection really stood up to the scrutiny…helped having all that sangria, I spoze…that Doors selection is a real rarity from the aptly titled ‘Essential Rarities’ CD from a coupla four years ago…

And also, while listening to the music, viewing the tube, reading…watched ‘Mr. Deeds’…again, certainly not for Adam Sandler…Winona makes more use of her ample tits in this one than she generally does, and that’s a good thing…I mean, that jump suit in ‘Alien Resurrection’ really hid her curvature…she was supposed to have a bare-breasted scene in ‘Autumn in New York’, but that was left, apparently, on th’ proverbial cutting room floor…not sure what’s happening with the lady…missing in action…

FAN DANGO: 3/27/2006 1:51 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#319]

…and…Henry Rollins…been watching a new spoken word performance from New York…a guy after my own heart and mind: he describes sitting with a pink magic marker highlighting portions of a book…

And also very, very good on cable recently, in the ‘American Masters’ series, an hour-and-a-half about Joni Mitchell, her life and work…I’ve loved Joni’s music for over thirty years since finding a copy of the ‘Blue’ LP in a bin at a library in Daly City, where I spent my teenage years…admittedly, the early folky material doesn’t really get me that much…I like “Night in the City”…and her later albums like the Mingus one don’t quite capture me…but there are a good several in there that are just magic, that I’ll love forever…a lot of fine details about Joni’s head in this show…she talks about how Dylan influenced her…listening to him, he got her to be more personal in her lyrics, got her to say, like, “I feel this about him…”…the example of this was a performance of “Cactus Tree” from ’67, a very autobiographical song…

And back to my life…this morning, out the door…returned the audio book of David Brin’s science fiction novel ‘Startide Rising’ to the library – just couldn’t get into it…up to O’Farrell to see about catching a free Muni ride to Union Square…no such luck…noticed a place I’d not seen before on the 600 block of O’Farrell, the Sanctuary, a medical marijuana distribution center, with a pretty color image of a cadeusus surmounted by a pot leaf…and passed by the Golden Era vegetarian restaurant further east on the same street – ate there many times with my former lady roommate…associated with some female Buddhist teacher…tofu 4 miles & smiles…

Then away from the Tenderloin to the theater and night life district – there’s a very decent magazine and tobacco store, and across the street, the American Conservatory Theater…and my favorite art gallery in San Francisco, the Art Exchange, with plenty of rock ‘n’ roll images, like original Roger Dean paintings…and paused to study the menu under glass of the restaurant in the St. Francis – well, chilled Nantucket Bay scallops are merely the beginning of the beginning…

And to Union Squared for perimeter trash can food…nothing but the scanty remains of hummus and lentils that seemed to have been out a bit too long – I mean, I have my standards, after all…but I scored a prize in one of the cans, a discarded, long 100% cashmere scarf made in England…seen pictures of Nureyev wearing such an item – I’m no dancer but feel sorta like one with it ‘round my neck…and admired the statue of Betty Boop front and center at the new Powell restaurant devoted to her…then eventually to U.N. Plaza, the thrice-weekly artisan market…eye caught by a sizeable 35-buck piece of obsidian…don’t even have 35 cents to my name now…but will in 84 hours…and a retarded young girl said “Hi!” to me in such an open manner – geez, ya gotta be a bit that way in this town, I guess, to be so friendly, at least in certain quarters to certain individuals…more to follow tomorrow...

posted by Velcro  # 1:47 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/27/2006 1:07 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#318]

…Odd Fellow news – I ‘am’ one, after all – every so often my O.F. main man and brother and P.S. gives us lodge members pins…I’d collected four or five…I am wanting my hotel friend D. to join, so in order to remind him and to offer fellowship, I’ve given him a couple – I think as a lodge member I’m empowered to do so. D.’s a former military man and I think this awarding of pins could mean something to him…I’ve still got two on my backwards 49ers baseball cap, worn proudly…

And a good song heard recently – I’ve got it on one of the cassettes I compiled some years ago: England Dan and John Ford Coley’s Seventies beauty “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” – totally one of my all-time favorite songs…just Googled on it and learned something: the lyrics are by Barry Manilow! I really love this tune…

And got to thinking of Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn recently and had to heft up my Ephraim Katz film encyclopedia – suitable also as a door stop, it’s that big – and got to researching the man…born Shmuel Gelbfisz (hmmm, is he a Jew?) in 1882 – or 1879, it’s a disputed date – in Warsaw…died in ’74…early on, before he got into the silver screen biz, he was a glovemaker in a place called Gloversville – guess what was the main occupation in that town?

…and Mr. Goldwyn was known for his malapropisms…that is, “ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion of one of similar sound”…coined by 18th century British writer Richard Brinsley Sheridan as a character, Mrs. Malaprop, in his play ‘The Rivals’, for your information…

But back to Goldwyn’s malapropisms…famous ones: “Include me out.” And “A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” And also “Anyone seeing a psychiatrist should have his head examined.” Classics! Wish they made ‘em like him this new century…maybe they are…who are the moguls these days? In music, there’s Geffen…but are there any with the proverbial steel fist in an iron glove?

But actually, was thinking of one of those movie moguls known as, simply, a real bastard…seems like Goldwyn was pretty nice…I believe it was Louis B. Mayer who was the monster I’m thinking of…checking in the Katz…yeah – he says Mayer was “ruthless, quick-tempered”…that’s the guy…

And another song listened to recently, Wild Orchid’s “At Night I Pray”, from ’96, memorable from my time in L.A. – three ladies who could really put a song together, yeah, just fantastic, an awesome melding of sexual feelings with the religious…

And watched some of ‘97’s ‘Alien: Resurrection’…just two stars on the Comcast-o-meter…but, you know me, anything with Winona is just totally fine and dandy in this blog…and in this case, I’m a fan of the franchise as well, so that makes it twice as

FAN DANGO: 3/27/2006 1:07 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#318]

good…and speaking of Ms. Ryder…what about ‘A Scanner Darkly’, the Phil Dick
adaptation? Has it come out yet? And there’s that Asia Argento flick, with a small appearance by her…not going to see it at the theater, but if and when it’s on cable, I’ll fast-forward through to the Winona part…and more about that ‘Alien’ flick – learned that Joss Whedon, the ‘Buffy’ guy, wrote it – kinduv a surprise…

And also good on the tube recently, a new Henry Rollins spoken word show from New York…and I believe he has a new weekly show as well debuting next week…liked his ‘Henry’s Film Corner’ movie discussion program from last year – a very earnest gent…an interesting quantity is Henry, and a truly serious writer with his own publishing house…and a hulk of a presence in a world of thin male singers…

And must thank my hotel neighbor S.M. for the recent loan of twenty bucks – it all went for wine, for Boone’s Farm and Carlo Rossi red, and gladly…was up all the night by myself a couple ago drinking C.R. sangria, a liter and a half of it, listening to music, reading a bit, watching movies and such, fine with my solitude…

And couldn’t get into ‘62’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, the “restored version”…too much drama…remember seeing it as a little kid back in the Sixties…only thing I really recall is some quicksand scene where a woman disappears under the sand…

And was at the New Princess corner market one evening after my neighbor S.M. loaned me that last five…managed to secure that one-point-five liters of Carlo Rossi sangria even tho’ the total, with tax, was 41 cents more than that Lincoln…and just before me, a twenty-something guy couldn’t buy ‘cause the proprietor didn’t have change of a hundred. The guy tried a fifty after that, but even that was too large…he asked me if ‘I’ had the requisite change, but, y’know, he was asking the wrong guy…

And that sangria was tasting sweet and good…had some Carlo Rossi burgundy previously that sucked…mighta been an old bottle…and got into the ‘Alien’ movie…generally, don’t care for all that drama and violence, but, like I said, I’m a fan of the franchise and of sweet Winona…impressive underwater aliens as well…

And continued, as I said, all through the night drinking the cheap red wine, by myself…good song during that time was Jimmy Buffet’s “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude”…appropriate lyric: “…ran into a chum with a bottle of rum/and we wound up drinkin’ all night…” I like several of the man’s numbers…

And thought during that night of a heroic couplet – that is, a pair of rhymed lines of iambic pentameter: “…for Biel and Alba, doubled Jessicas,/this verse is just as it has been and does…” Well, not sure what it means exactly, but the meter is correct, and the rhyme is exact…over and out…

posted by Velcro  # 1:04 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/27/2006 10:08 AM by Dr.Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#317]

…e-mail from the brother of a good friend who has a friend, Jim Campilongo, who’s in a band called the Little Willies with none other than the lovely and talented Norah Jones, so that’s exciting…I’ve never bought any of Norah’s music but I ‘did’ once buy a CD of sitar music by her sister, Anoushka Shankar – like father, like daughter, ‘cause the girl can sure really strum the heck outta that darn thing, straight up classic Indian style…

And…from the Comcast “Music Choice” system, an on-screen factoid, learned that the Samantha Sang song “Emotion” was written by the Bee Gees – really love that tune, gotta get a copy…

And some guy I know offered me Marinol pills for two bucks each – never had one before - didn’t have the cash but might buy a couple when I do in less than 96 hours – not to be too precise about the time – well, I got plenty o’ time, tho’ no money…Marinol’s rare in the Tenderloin – Oxycontins, Vicodins, these are staples of street sales, but not that THC pill…

And picked up a discarded playing card from the street, for an impromptu omen…a king of diamonds…not sure what the corresponding tarot card is…

And looked at the free listings at classmates.com for members of my high school graduating class I knew – took down nine names, and that’s just a start…gotta get a few bucks to the site so I can get contact info…am really gonna get busy and see about organizing some sort of reunion soon…

And…no food lately except what I can find free around Union Squared, or at St. Anthony’s or Glide…plenty of tea, tho’ – I need to fast anyway…been drinking a lotta wine lately and should lay off a bit, give the system a rest…

…and watched some of ‘Access Hollywood’ the other day – pretty bored with the celebrities featured, same old ones, tho’ readers of this blog know that some of those female actors interest me…and Depp always fascinates…

Got an e-mail from a friend I knew from my L.A. days, so maybe that would be the connection I need to get down there again, if even for a short stay…am really feeling the call to get down south again – was there from spring of 1990 to late 1997 and sure wanna return, walking La Brea and Fairfax and Beverly again…feeling like the Rhinestone Cowboy: “…I’ve

FAN DANGO: 3/27/2006 10:08 AM by Dr.Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#317]

been walking these streets so long/singing the same old song/I know every
crack in these dirty sidewalks of…Melrose…”

And continuing to study that Theodore Roszak book I recommend, ‘The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein’…midwifery is a subject in it…Anton Mesmer also featured…available at the San Francisco Public…the town, I guess in Germany, of Ingolstadt is mentioned…in Bavaria…referenced also in one of the influential books of my teen years, Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘Illuminatus!’…

And watched some of ‘The Out-of-Towners’, a 1970 classic Neil Simon comedy…Billy Dee Williams has a small role as a ticket agent…and Ben Stiller’s mom Anne Meara also…was Ben even born then yet?

And also pretty good, ‘Very Bad Things’, with Jon Favreau, Cameron Diaz, from ’98…on IFC, unedited…has Cameron ever made a bad movie? Just watched part of ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’, with her and Julia Roberts…

And…me, in the process of losing weight – exercising more, eating less…am noticing the change…feeling healthier, and happier…

And listened recently to Jim Stafford’s “Wildwood Weed” recently…is it about marijuana? Or just some unspecified affecting rural plant? Kinduv a novelty tune, like the kind Ray Stevens used to do…like “Guitarzan”, that “classic”…and also listened to the great “Strawberry Letter 23” by the Brothers Johnson – used effectively in ‘Jackie Brown’…

And speaking of Quentin…I think his next move and movie should feature three things: science fiction, rock and roll, and a love story...and to this effect, here’s a heroic couplet:

…the love of science fiction rock ‘n’ roll,
considering the body, mind, and soul…

And here’s another set of paired lines, at no extra cost:

…between the formal and the casual,
a balance there between the all and null…

posted by Velcro  # 10:10 AM

Sunday, March 26, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/26/2006 12:04 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) #316

…I’ve signed up with classmates.com in order to get in touch with high school friends and acquaintances – a major anniversary of the graduation is coming up for me and mine…feeling pretty okay with myself and my life, pretty much, so I’ll pursue this in weeks to come…already recognized several names of people I haven’t seen in years and years…

And currently…thanks to pal J.J. for loaning me two bucks and a dime in order to get a bottle of Boone’s Farm “Wild Island”, an apple-flavored drink, to start the day yesterday. Or the day before, whichever…5% alcohol content, a bit less than the sangria of the same brand…am drinking only wine these days – fermented, raw…as opposed to the brewed beer and related beverages, and the distilled whiskey, vodka, whatever…a healthier choice – and I am interested in health and happiness, mine and yours…

And title for the sequel to ‘The Sweetest Thing’, one of my all-time favorite films: ‘Sweeter’…just watched it for the umpteenth time a coupla days ago with hotel friend P., who was seeing it for the first time – we both enjoyed it much, helped by some wine…

And title for something else, inspired by that B.F. drink: ‘Wilder Island’…had the idea that any city block is an island unto itself…I’ve been around my particular island block a few times, literally – it’s bordered by Eddy, Hyde, Ellis, and Leavenworth…a microcosm of the city. Or at least the Tenderloin…

And have begun studying that Theodore Roszak book mentioned previously, ‘The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein’…recommended reading for all women, wise or otherwise…available at the San Francisco Public Library…

And crafted an opening paragraph for a piece of writing inspired by the songs of the Seventies band America, also one of my all-time favorites:

“A woman sure can be a friend of mine,” he said to a golden-haired sister, an American. She is a force with a name…

And was outside the hotel sipping that Boone’s Farm apple wine – had it in a Bacardi rum glass bottle…a twenty-something guy passed by with friends and saw this activity of mine with approval and said: “Right on, dude! Fuck

FAN DANGO: 3/26/2006 12:04 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) #316

yeah!” I don’t necessarily condone public intoxication, but I took this as a compliment…it’s their world, I only live in it…I’m retired, yeah…

And had the last 3 of the many Seroquels someone gave me in lieu of paying me fifteen dollars back…so I’ve had my experience with that drug…I’m not a pill head, really, but I had ‘em and felt how they affected me…not good or bad, nothing I’d repeat…and thought of a title for something: ‘With the Wind’…different enough from ‘Gone with the Wind’, I spoze…

And was heading to St. Anthony’s – “Tony’s” – the other day, through the gauntlet of pill sellers offering Vicodins, morphine, and Oxycontins…and then to wait in line for the free meal…it was raining, but I was protected by the building and the awnings all ‘round…not a long line, else I woulda passed it by – didn’t go ‘round the corner of Golden Gate, so I decided to wait – many’s the time I skipped the meal ‘cause I didn’t wanna get into such a long queue…

It was “Chef’s Choice” day…my standard joke is that if the chef had a choice, he wouldn’t be cooking at St. A.’s…some sort of stew with some sort of meat and vegetables…palatable, at least…and got in line a second time, which I normally don’t do…and met a guy I knew from the street and we shared the meal time…

Then to the Computer Training Center to do a blog entry of two pages…I am diligent about these postings, if you haven’t noticed…I may appear very casual but about some things I am very focused and as formal as needed…

Then to the hotel…turned on the Comcast tube (recently downsized to expanded basic, but still with plenty of satisfactory viewing options)…no wine, but had a lot of green tea to irrigate my system…had Jet Li’s ‘The One’ on for a while, sound off with my cassette music box playing Tower of Power live, “So Very Hard To Go”…then tuned in a ’66 comedy called ‘Penelope’ starring the lovely and talented Natalie Wood – Peter Falk also in it…pretty racy stuff – at one point she’s running around in her underwear – a slim lady, but pretty built, and pretty, very…a classy sex symbol of her time.

Well, signing off…no sleep last night along with a liter and a half of Carlo Rossi sangria, and I’m feeling it…bedtime for this Bonzo…more tomorrow...

posted by Velcro  # 12:07 PM

Saturday, March 25, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/25/2006 2:50 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#315]

…and from the S.F. Public, took out a very excellent book called ‘The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein’, by Bay Area scholar Theodore Roszak…just the kind of reading I could use now, about wise women – read in it a while back…see the various “Editor’s Notes” sections for the juicy material – for those into that kind of thing, it’s the very thing indeed…and that would be a good title for something: ‘Very Thing’…

And…tried to get the ninety-nine dollars I’d given to Bank of America to obtain a credit card back, since that card’s being delayed for some reason…could really use the straight up cash this last week of the month, but noooooooo! Getting the money, says my banker Kirk, would take another two months – and in less than a week I’ll get my usual download of cash from SSI…have maxed out my credit at the corner markets ‘round my hotel, maxed it out on wine…so I hafta think of some other way to get th’ fermented grape…

And worthwhile to pick up, the free Spring catalog from ‘Urban Outfitters’, there on Powell across from Rasputin’s…fun (tho’ frankly overpriced) goods there – the buyers have a unique taste that coincides with mine…and the lady models in said catalog are quite so very cute and tres boho…

And there’s the recent debut of the second season of David Spade’s weekly ‘The Showbiz Show’, on Comcast…I find the guy pretty amusing…new set, new opening, same sorta material…he makes fun of Hollywood stars…liked his comedic work in ‘Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star’…

And gotta thank immediate hotel neighbor S.M. for a loan of five bucks yesterday morning, then another ten later that day…wanted to hit him up again today but refrained – woulda liked it if he had offered without me asking…I mean, a year or so ago I loaned him a hundred once…all of his 15 went for Carlo Rossi and Boone’s Farm…which is sounding good right now – all this blogging can make a fella quite the thirsty one, y’know…

And, in neighbor D.’s room, a frame I’d been given or found, I forgot which…I provided a psychedelic image in it when I first gave it to him…then a color photo of Jennifer Garner as Elektra, which D. liked…then recently downloaded photos of Heather Graham and Winona Ryder, to include them both in one frame – but D. didn’t like those as much, so now

FAN DANGO: 3/25/2006 2:50 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#315]

I’ve got those photos, in my safekeeping…

And when in D.’s room, drinking the coffee he gives away, or something alcoholic when available, a square plastic glass-looking cup like something Deckard’s sipping from in ‘Blade Runner’ – found it on the street some while ago and leave it in D.’s place for when I’m there…

And been using sometimes I line I read that Bruce Lee often said, a joke, in the ‘60s in Hollywood, about the poor quality of his singing: “…they say my voice is rich, because it’s ‘well-off’…” Heard Bruce loved to make jokes…

And it’s ‘Twelve Women’ I’m after…and fun on public access on cable, ‘The Vegan Vixens Show’…it’s on Thursdays at 10pm on Channel 29, worth seeking out – all about women in Los Angeles who eat only fruits, vegetables, and grains…and wine is okay with ‘em – it’s raw, after all…and there was William Shatner profiled on some show recently…there he is, “singing” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”…seems like a fun fella…

And gotta note new Betty Boop diner on Powell…was walking past when a large statue of the lovely and talented Miss Boop was being put in place…a welcome addition, at least in my mind, to that Powell Street fun zone – walking back one recent night from Rasputin’s, was surprised at the number of night lifers in the restaurants – good for San Fran’s 49 square miles…

And hello to new friend Jayson – hope yer reading this…always running into you at the library…glad to know you – glad that you are interning there at historic Hyde Street Studios…I’m no musician, but I like hanging out with ‘em…lemme buy ya a drink ‘round the first of April…

And…in my hotel room th’ other day – was it yesterday? Hard to say…in there with hotel friend P., drinking Carlo Rossi and Boone’s Farm, watching th’ tube…Steve McQueen in ‘The Cincinnati Kid’ captured our attention for a few minutes…then we were on to other viewing material – we watched the entire ‘The Sweetest Thing’, and P. loved it, as do I…

And this morning, thanks to friend J.J. for two dollars and a dime – scored a bottle of Boone’s Farm “Wild Island” with that – the merchant let me slide on the exact amount, which was a few cents more than I had…

posted by Velcro  # 2:48 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/25/2006 2:07 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#314]

…first, comments about Chris Caen’s column in the yesterday’s ‘Ex’:

…the phrase “days of yore”…my what? And that Van Morrison concert…wonder where he went in town before and after? I know he got ejected from Vesuvio once a few years back, so the story goes, for smoking inside – a noxious cigar, I guess…and you walk through the “Upper Tenderloin” to get to work, Chris? Just about my neighborhood, tho’ I’m in the lower depths, geographically-speaking, of the T.L. – how ‘bout a before-work drink sometime? On me, if it’s the right time of month. At, like, the Nite Cap, maybe…have a ‘morning’ cap…and I liked the transition from “Very rock and roll.” to you “rolling this around…”…

And for something somewhat different, liked the story in the latest ‘Onion’ (free at many locations around town) about how ‘High Times’ wasn’t found to be a “gateway magazine” to harder reading…that it wouldn’t make users “experiment with harder reading materials, becoming ‘book junkies’ who rummage through street bargain bins for a fix…” I can identify…but: “The study found some evidence that long-term ‘High Times’ exposure could put the peruser at increased risk for ‘Maxim’ abuse.” ‘The Onion’ is always great for a laugh, and the price is right…

And pulled from other print sources two reviews of ‘Stoned’, the new film about the life of deceased Rolling Stone Brian Jones, and three for that new Asia Argento movie…which flick I’d see only for the small role Winona Ryder plays – tho’ Argento is watchable, I spoze – her daddy seems like a maniac…the ‘Guardian’ reviewer says: “Seeing Winona Ryder onscreen, however briefly, does serve as a reminder that this movie needn’t be viewed as the mental landscape of any young boy at all.”

That Brian Jones biopic would be one I’d see, at least on Comcast in months to come…the ‘Bay Area Reporter’ reviewer says, basically, like “Men on Film”, he “hated it!” He says it’d be more worthwhile to rent ‘Performance’ with Mick Jagger, from the early Seventies, as a portrait of a dissolute rock star. But Joel Selvin in the ‘Chron’ says, in conclusion: “I loved this movie.” Gee, how often do you get that in a review? And this opinion despite, he says, the filmmakers getting everything wrong – like how Charlie Watts never played Ludwig drums…also, there is hardly any Stones music used…there’s some Jefferson Airplane on the soundtrack…wonder what?

FAN DANGO: 3/25/2006 2:07 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#314]

…well, thanks to the wonder of Google, got the info I wanted in less than half a second, from a U.K. music-related site: “White Rabbit” is the one…been, actually, playing that myself in my hotel room since I put it onto one of my audio cassettes a few months ago…and other music from ‘Stoned’ includes a whole lot I don’t know – which is good, the inclusion of lesser-known numbers – movies tend to use all the hit songs, y’know…Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breakin’ Down Blues” is used…

And back to details of my so-called life: listening to some news radio somewhere – the British Foreign Minister is named “Jack Straw”…like the name of that Grateful Dead song…funny coincidence…

And…got a jug of Carlo Rossi wine on credit at the Empire…when I already owed ‘em two or three bucks for, I believe, a Boone’s Farm bottle…so that makes it ten in total on the first-ish of April to them…and also, from a guy I know named Scott Free – my nickname for him – or maybe it was his friend T., in the Jefferson – a bottle of Boone’s Farm sangria…told Scott I’d buy him some port at the beginning of next month…I might not fulfill that one, since those puppies run over ten dollars each…this at the Serv-Well market at Hyde and Ellis – it’s not every corner market that sells port wine…

…and: some limits to Google encountered – put in the name of a guy I knew in the late Seventies in Berkeley named David Shimbo…he worked for Exxon, and I included that…none of the results seemed relevant…

And…listening recently to another song I put onto a tape a while back, “Hey Jack Kerouac”, by 10,000 Maniacs…good tune…the main branch of the S.F. Public is displaying some of the famous manuscript of ‘On the Road’ – haven’t seen it…more interesting for those into this at all are the collected letters of Kerouac’s pal Neal Cassady, available from your friendly neighborhood librarian…

And, to change the subject…noted the free-for-all intersection in front of FAO Schwarz on Stockon – pedestrians can go on the diagonal there on the green…and there’s the new Cody’s in that area as well – I know the Telegraph Avenue store from my late Seventies Berkeley days and daze…and to close, line I thought of while taking a free Muni ride: “If ever yer jonesing, best get off at Jones…” Hey, these ‘are’ the jokes…later…

posted by Velcro  # 2:06 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/25/2006 10:13 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#313]

…was at the Borders Union Square yesterday – checked out an April ’71 Dead CD set, recorded at the Fillmore East – at a free listening station heard, oh, maybe 10 seconds each of the following: “Truckin’”, “My and My Uncle”, “Sugar Magnolia”, “Me and Bobby McGee”, and “Ripple”…

And wanted to note: found a sack of stuff at the Square with unusually tasty unopened goodies, like chocolate-covered almonds and a small can of macadamia nuts…also stacks of crackers…filled my pockets with it…

And on to the usual…was in Jefferson Hotel friend D.’s room a few days ago – he’d found a copy of that day’s ‘Chron’ and I looked through the front page…he directed my attention to an article about “sectarian violence” in Iraq…when those locals aren’t battling the U.S., they are at each others’ throats, apparently, Shiites versus Sunnis, and both of those against some other sub-branch of some sect…D.’s thinking of getting a subscription to the paper ‘cause he finds it that worthwhile…me, I go right to the ‘Datebook’ – I don’t follow the news in print or media, basically…

And passed through the artisan market recently, there at U.N. Plaza, and these were the items I wanted to purchase, tho’ these days my pockets are innocent of lucre: a little glass pyramid, an AC/DC shirt, a poster of a ‘Pulp Fiction’ scene, a Pancho Villa photo, a heavy and red Chinese bracelet, any number of three-dollar magnetic bracelets to give out as nifty gifts, several two-dollar posters of various pop culture subjects, marijuana-related items from the Rasta dealer, shea butter for my skin and hair, Diesel-clone blue sunglasses, and a dragonfly garden ornament…and said hello to one Canute, from Jamaica, an artist and musician who is present at that market…

And gotta apologize for the last posting – a vermouth-inspired attempt at some form of hip dialect…guess it’s not all that bad, but I feel I owed you an explanation – expect mo’ if’n I is in th’ moody mood, blue or green or red…

And: plenty of shiny trinkets there at the artisan market…reminded me of my EXOL – ex-ol’ lady – she was attracted to sparkly things…

And that vermouth – given me by my Odd Fellow brother P.S. – dropped in on him a coupla days ago…woulda called ahead but I’m still phone-less…probably best with him to arrange an appointment beforehand – he’s

FAN DANGO: 3/25/2006 10:13 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#313]

busy and has got a lot on his mind…if any of you are interested in joining
the Odd Fellows lemme know and I can arrange that…and as for that drink – never had vermouth before and it was very smooth and very tasty…Googled on it – it’s “infused with herbs”…basically, a wine, a wine plus…

And also there when I met with P.S., lodge member and very fine local artist Richard Perri…hadn’t seen him in a while…he told me he’s working on a photo of Mayor Newsom…RichardLPerri.com is his official site – look into DogPile.com for other related sites as well…Richard turned me on to that, Dogpile – it combines Google and other search engines all into one more massive information structure…I might just stick with Google, which serves my needs just fine – how much information does one need, really?

And…met with my Bank of America contact Kirk Yee yesterday at the Powell and Market location – wanted to know the status of my credit card, which was due in my hands many days ago. Well, he makes a call, and it seems something happened – won’t get it for ‘another’ two weeks…oh well…Kirk was wearing a jade bracelet, which I commented favorably upon – I like seeing men with that sort of ornament. He told me jade was, in Chinese culture, protective of one’s physical self…good guy, my banker…

And, no dancer Edward Jackson at the cable car turnaround…haven’t seen him in a while – one of the best things about San Francisco, his artful form, a fabulous example of physical and spiritual art in one…

And then, up Powell, to this and that…on the way back to the Tenderloin, paused at the Martin Lawrence, left a message with dealer Cyd there, a young lady – met her at a recent Pop Art show opening…

And then to the San Franciso Art Exchange a little ways west on Geary…a really fantastic home of rock ‘n’ roll images…left my Hotmail address with one of the dealers – told her that Martin Lawrence is OK, but the Art Exchange is even closer to my heart and mind – do go there, enjoy…

Then to the Jefferson – in the lobby, a DVD collection of the Sixties TV episodes of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ was on the big screen in the lobby – somehow appropriate – very funny stuff, classic, holding up beautifully after these forty years and more…so there you go again…more this afternoon…

posted by Velcro  # 10:10 AM

Thursday, March 23, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/23/2006 3:33 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#312]

…yeah, listening to some Carpenters and No Doubt this morning –…found discs from those artists in front of the Jefferson on Eddy some moons ago….and put ‘em onto a cassette via a CD to a cassette of the audio kind…yeah, I’m still in ‘Ms. Pac’ man world – help! Help!...

…so lemme axe ya somethin’ – I address th’ Yute of this area…Area 54, or 55 – fuck 51…do better than me, ya all, fo’ fuckin’ sho’…I ain’t shit – or, at least I’m ‘good’ shit – do it, you all…bring that MP3 and whatever, la la la…ya gots sum Bruce Lee Marvin Strarvein wait’ in ya all…I have done whatever I do, so it’s up to you, and here, and there, and everywhere…

And for real, and unreal: seven days until cash comes in via my direct deposit, Cali and fed…talked to my cash man, Mr. Yee, at th’ Bank of America at Powell and Market…my credit card should be here on the seventh on the next month…and…gonna get some fine wine then…twenty buck port wine, you all…fuck th’ California port wine – Portugal is ‘the’ source, globally speaking…

And check this: e-mail from friend-I’ve-never-met Jerseyorker, Allen – including it here ‘cause it’s good, tho’ I’ve not read it yet – forgive th’ spelling errors, and th’ grammar…:
“The BIG joke about that series, sweet little THANG arrives in the BIGCity and magicly findz a room in a GREAT place owned by a what was she,a witch-- unlike the most of us who arrived in SF. I lived in flea baghotels almost forever--- Course the token gay character does strippingSouth of Market and the only real funny thing in the whole series iswhen her parents arrive and get to see the Sisters of Perpetual

FAN DANGO: 3/23/2006 3:33 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#312]
Indulgence SKATING down a hill--funny funny. I NEVER even saw the goodSisters back then, tho spose they were there----- GREAT mimicers of thedecrepit Catholic religion--- The Hob Nob was quite a place back in theold GEARY bar days- you could literally swoon from bar to bar there wereso many good ones, mainly the theater type places, lots of singing atpiano bars, celebs stopping in-- and Geary St a culture of its own..lots of Hollwood wannabe types, most liekly the bulk of them now 6 feet under…”
So that is my man Allen, who’s a fantastic correspondent – have not even read that yet, but like John Bryan did for our man Charles Bukowski in L.A. in the Sixties, it goes in, sight unseen…
…but, like, some grammatical errors that, oh, ROBERT GRAVES, author of THE WHITE GODDESS, might lift an eyebrow over..not to mention (tho’ I am) CHARLES BUKOWSKI, J.G. BALLARD…and, like, LORD BYRON…
…and…we are seeking 12 women…no pay for the job, but the work is difficult – any takers…WLR and HJG are in, if they want to take it on…
And there is Gordon Lightfoot to consider…got “If You Could Read My Mind” on cassette…check this out: “…a movie queen to play the scene/of bringing out all the good things out in me…” And just 1 mo’ thang…observe the interior of the SFPL…spaceship-like, eh…Bucky-style…talkin’ ‘bout Richard Buckminster Fuller, y’all…go fo’ it, yeah…

posted by Velcro  # 3:36 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/23/2006 9:10 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#311]

…thanks to my good friend Keith for a series of excellent audio cassettes given me a few months back when he still worked at the Jefferson on the night shift…listened to something called ‘Time Sweep’ from him that he recorded off the radio, I guess – it covered 21 years of rock and pop music, beginning in 1956, end in December of ’77, featuring a few seconds at most of all the number one hits of those years – an intense survey…

It’s interesting to see how that straight up Fifties sound began turning into the Sixties musical thing…that “Telstar” instrumental from the very early Sixties presaged the shape of radio sine waves to come…by the later part of that decade, psychedelia had come to dominate…

And also great, on recent Comcast tube, in the ‘American Experience’ series, a biography of early movie star Mary Pickford. Didn’t realize how significant she was in cinema history…she’s considered to be “the first modern celebrity”, setting the standard for how acting in film should be done – as opposed to the broad emotional and physical gestures of theater and the silents…fascinating to see her work her thespic magic…

…her real name was “Gladys Smith”…born in 1893…died in 1979, according to my voluminous Ephraim Katz film encyclopedia…and: Laura Linney’s the narrator…I know her from her ’93 turn in the TV adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Frisco-based ‘Tales of the City’. Which, by the way, didn’t really impress me, from what little I saw…could be done better…maybe amp up the grass aspect, yeah, that’s it, that’s the ticket…

And…headed yesterday to Union Square…walked up the Leavenworth incline to catch a free Muni ride on O’Farrell…definite change in ambiance at that street…called “Tenderloin Heights” by some wit…or “Lower Nob Hill”…

…and there’s the Nite Cap old school bar at Hyde and O’Farrell…never been there, but it probably has a decent juke box, and a classier clientele, somewhat, than the Brown Jug…tho’ I’m at home in the Jug, make no mistake…but Boone’s Farm in my hotel room works just fine as well…

So waited for the ride…portable electronics for sale in one store – CD player
caught my eye, 50 bucks…but I want a boom box type system, not just a

FAN DANGO: 3/23/2006 9:10 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#311]

portable player…and caught the 38 east to the Square…and thought of a line
of iambic pentameter: “…the dramas of the Frisco lower class…”

And off at Powell…have been eating from the trash around Union Square of late, but passed on those dainty morsels…picked up a copy of the ‘SF Weekly’, mainly for the fantastic ‘Free Will Astrology’ column of the superb Rob Brezsny – best thing about the ‘Weekly’, to me, anyway…

Stood at Powell and Geary and selected three items from the free paper: the desired column, a review of Asia Argento’s movie ‘The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things’ (with a performance by Winona Ryder included – that alone sells it for me – tho’ Argento her own bad self is quite an interesting quantity, and quality…she sounds like a straight up walkin’ freakshow), and a notice for a lefty political-literary event at City Lights – pulled for Jefferson buddy P., who leans that way, tho’ under th’ influence of wine he seems to transcend into a more comprehensive worldview…

And just Googled on “argento heart ryder” to get more about Winona in that Argento flick…got to a hardcore WLR site which has just been updated with photos of the lady from an event held merely two days ago…some sort of “Fashion Presentation and Film Screening” – her kind of scene…not sure where it was held…somewhere in cyberspace…I’m impressed with how well the site is maintained…I’d like to see her and Heather Graham – HJG -in a movie…with, oh, ten other female actors…with echoes of, like, ‘The Magnificent Seven’, and ‘Blade Runner’, let’s say, and also…whatever…

And then, a free ride on Geary west back to the TL...at the hotel, a ton, ton of food from, mostly, Trader Joe’s…I picked up four avocadoes, a plastic container of seedless red grapes, and a big container of orange juice…

And later, hung out in front of the hotel, wanting wine…got the song…but the women are the hardest to secure out of that fabled three-part harmony, it seems…and: sudden S.F. police action at the auto body shop a few doors up from the hotel – not sure what the hubbub was about…several officers, several vehicles, including an undercover man riding the wrong way west on Eddy…didn’t seem like they apprehended anyone…two officers left after it was over, and their nightsticks, wooden, clacked against their sides…so there ya all go again…see you next cat time, same cat channel…

posted by Velcro  # 9:11 AM

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/22/2006 1:10 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#310]

…a few more notes to compile…was in D.’s room in the Jefferson this morning – he likes guests, sometimes…said he listened to a George Bush, Jr. speech last night on the radio and told me King George the Second used “I.U.D.” when he meant “I.D.”…D. tends to joke a lot but apparently our president actually committed this verbal ‘faux pas’…I’ve seen collections full of these so-called “Bushisms”…

And on the tube in D.’s room, live from Santa Clara, 49ers cheerleaders promoting something. I’m not a football fan but the cute girls in skimpy outfits are the best part of any game…I’ve currently got a 49ers cap on, backwards…bought it from a guy in the hotel and am pretty happy with it…

And at the library this morning…should really decide to walk up the stairs there and at the hotel in order to improve my cardio level. I really need that…

And, on to one of my favorite topics, movie actors, the female kind…once shared a living situation way out in the Avenues in S.F. in the Eighties with a coupla student actors, one of whom said both guy and girl thespians should be called “actors” and not to use “actresses” for the distaffs…anyway, seems like Heather Graham’s made of sturdier psychic stuff than Winona Ryder, who appears to be missing in action…

And speaking of Tim Leary’s goddaughter…has the film treatment of Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘A Scanner Darkly’ come out yet? She has a role in it…just Googled on the title – Winona’s way down on the cast list, so maybe her part’s a small one…

And further to speak of Ms. Ryder: there was a cable program recently about paparazzi in Los Angeles called, I think, ‘Snappers’, or something like that…it documented the work done by those photogs in L.A. who get paid for taking candid shots of stars…one episode featured a segment about Winona buying something…

And thought of a title for a song: “She Wants Him Bad”…that could be taken at least two ways…one, as in her wanting him sexually, and very much. Another way is her wanting him to ‘act’, to be bad…

…and there’s ‘The Devil’s Rejects’, the Rob Zombie sequel to ‘House of 1000 Corpses’…I tell you, ‘Rejects’ isn’t for everyone, but it really sure delivered some kinduv filmic goods and I am now looking at Rob Zombie with a whole lotta respect – great Seventies-era soundtrack, including, even, Steely Dan...and Danny Trejo is in it, a former child drug addict and career criminal who has made a real place for himself acting in Hollywood…I gotta say, Zombie seems to have out-Tarantino’d Quentin…told this to a friend of mine and he didn’t think that was the case, but I’m believing it…I also like it that Zombie was a musician to start with…same with Depp – his first thing was playing in a rock band as a teenager…

FAN DANGO: 3/22/2006 1:10 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#310]

And…was passing through the Wednesday farmers’ market this morning at U.N. Plaza – beets for sale, looking as if they were just pulled from the ground…thought of a joke: say you take hold of one of ‘em, slide ‘em a few inches, then say: “What is this?” The answer would be: “The beet movement…” (Thanks to Tom Robbins for influencing that…he’s got a lot about beets, the vegetables, in ‘Jitterbug Perfume’…)

And on the way back to the hotel after trying to visit Odd Fellow brother P.S. at his building at 26 Seventh near Market, met former Jefferson resident L. – good musician, but with substance issues – but, who doesn’t have those? Seemed, as usual, a bit spaced out…chatted with him…not sure what he was up to – tho’, I spoze, one doesn’t have to be up to anything…having a goal is not necessarily a virtue…I believe we all need to ‘do’ less and ‘be’ more…especially being here now…and speaking of Ram Dass…been told ‘Fierce Grace’, a movie about the man, is much recommended for those into the Sixties countercultural thing…

And thought of a pun: would Ethiopian cheese be called “Afromage”? And that word might be what a Senegalese wizard would be called…get it? Afro mage? As in magician?

And at the library, picked up a copy of the new ‘Psychic Reader’…pulled three articles – one about “transformational cinema” (such as the new movie treatment of ‘The Celestine Prophecies’), a listing of “The Insights” in that ‘Celestine’ book, and a review of “Girlfriend’s Tarot”, a new deck…me, I’d get a Crowley deck and study that bad boy’s non-literal messages contained therein…

Then back to the Jefferson…guy at the front desk was sorting the mail and I waited and waited for him to finish – hoped Bank of America had sent me the credit card I’d ordered…it’s been way longer than the seven to ten days it shoulda taken to get it to me…maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have that plastic…but I believe I can mitigate possible maniacal money-spending…

And thought of a line of iambic pentameter:
…you now are on a longer, stranger trip…

And from that, a good title for something, a title of a novel, maybe, would be ‘Stranger Trip’…

And finally, quotes from a recommended text, one of my all-time favorite books, ‘Finite and Infinite Games’, by James P. Carse: “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite.” And also: “A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” Seek this one out, it’s worth it…

posted by Velcro  # 1:06 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/22/2006 9:07 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#309]

…my reply to an e-mail from Jerseyorker – said he much enjoyed the “Stargate” blog I’m putting out – it’s “Star’plane’”, Allen…the term is used in one sense to cover the entire spectrum of the Jefferson Airplane/Starship work…thanks much for your positive feedback, bro’…glad to have you aboard…I’m navigating – and, I guess, ‘you’ and others are the captains...

Now…long line yesterday at Glide so I skipped that, this around 5pm…was mainly waiting for the Computer Training Center on Eddy near Leavenworth to open – run by the very excellent San Francisco Network Ministries, which has its offices on Ellis, on the same block at the Jefferson.

So back to the hotel, back to D.’s room for his “slop” – his term – that he cooks in his crock pot…he had a 40 of Miller High Life and cigarettes, that he didn’t share…wouldn’t have minded a taste of those suds, but nooooooo! He’d gone to the corner market and purchased those “essentials” with what was left on his plastic for the month…

Then back up to my room…looked at what I had scheduled to record on my Comcast DVR – that is, Digital Video Recorder: the next episode of the cable access program ‘The Vegan Vixens’ (much recommended – Google on this, find out if you don’t know), the season premiere of David Spade’s funny ‘Showbiz Show’…and, from ’96, ‘Swingers’, which put Jon Favreau on th’ map…filmed much in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles…features the lovely and talented Heather Graham, just before she really hit the real big time with ‘Boogie Nights’…

Then to the CTC, did my thing…friend K. was able to secure the cash for a bottle of Boone’s Farm sangria, and we then finished up what we were doing on the computers, headed out to get that drink, and then up to my room to split the wine – not “Spill the Wine”, but “Split the Wine”…

Turned on the tube and we got into an episode of ‘Daddy’s Spoiled Little Girl’, a recommended show…we watched and commented as we imbibed the B.F. – each program features a young girl from a wealthy family, and her relationship with her father…in this one, the girlie had aspirations to go to Hollywood and make it in the movies…K. and I both agreed she was living in some dreamland apart from true reality…one reason I admire Heather Graham much is that she actually paid the real price to make it as big in the
FAN DANGO: 3/22/2006 9:07 AM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#309]

movies as she has…saw her in ‘88’s ‘License to Drive’ ten years after she’d
done it…didn’t get into her career until fairly recently…I guess after I’d returned from L.A. to San Francisco in ’97…

Got the lady’s filmography up via Google…in ’84 she had an uncredited role as “Factory Girl” in ‘Mrs. Soffel’…which, I believe, was a Shirley MacLaine vehicle, maybe…she was all of 14 then…haven’t seen that…

Then came a few TV roles in ’87…then that movie I mentioned – she basically carried it…some young guy star of the time was in it…one of the Coreys, I think…then ‘Drugstore Cowboy’ was a major role…co-starring William Burroughs! Don’t think they did a scene together, tho’…she might have a story or two to tell about the old man I’d like to hear…

…then a few ‘Twin Peaks’ TV episodes in ’91 – missed all those – not a huge fan of Lynch, me…then more film – notably for me, the Gus Van Sant adaptation of the Tom Robbins novel, ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’…saw it…she had a small part as one of the cowgirls…I recall her swigging from, like, a Jack Daniels bottle…probably with tea in it and not the whiskey…

Then more film roles, some tube stuff…then came the part of “Rollergirl”, and it was up-up-and-away from there…well, if interested, just Google for her filmography…

And back to my life…K. and I in my room drinking that Boone’s Farm, watching th’ tube…knock on the door – hotel pal P. wanting rolling papers – gave him two – he didn’t stay around…told him I’d a’ given him some wine, but felt there wasn’t enough to share just then – that didn’t bother him…

Then back to the Computer Training Center, typed out some more…then to K.’s room – he made some tuna salad and I had some on Russian rye bread…and made a cup of instant noodles…then to my room, and sleep…

Good tune this morning on cassette, Albert Hammond’s “Free Electric Band”…thought that rain in Southern California song was his one-hit wonder…got the lyrics up from Google…pretty wordy tune…he mentions Berkeley, my almost alma mater…he meets a girl in a social science class…so that’s that for now…more later today…thanks for tuning in…

posted by Velcro  # 9:38 AM

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

FAN DANGO: 3/21/2006 7:27 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2) [#308]

…coupla items from the ‘Chron’ I wanted to mention…almost never buy the thing – I just sometimes find a ‘Datebook’ section to scan through, post-haste…so two items caught th’ eye:

For one thing, April 3rd will be what would’ve been the 90th birthday of long-time local newspaper columnist Herb Caen – Moose’s up there in North Beach, across from Washington Square Park, will be holding an event in the late great man’s honor…this in the Leah Garchik column…it’ll be the last ever “Caen Day”…maybe his son should begin a similar event for himself…or his friends should do that, better, for Caen th’ Younger…this will be held April 5th – Willie Brown will emcee…be there or be elsewhere…

And the second item: epic battle, ‘South Park’ versus the Scientologists, described in the ‘Entertainment Report’ precinct of th’ ‘Chron’ raging rag, care of the Associated Press…seems an episode satirically critical of the L. Ron Hubbard outfit was yanked, thus making the ‘South Park’ guys miffed – they are retaliating…and seems Isaac Hayes has problems with the cartoon as well, and even quit his role…tempest in a teapot, frankly, but kinda fun…

And back to reality, ideas for ‘New Romance’…a novel…see the previous blog entry for inklings…gotta say, “Go ask Alicia…”…tonight’s her night…don’t let her get her…she’s gone to California, like Zep…

And more: looked up the word “agon” in a dictionary…”a conflict, especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a work of literature”…also a verbal dispute in certain Greek comedies…the current ‘nom d’blog’ is Dr. Agon Fly, so draw conclusions if you will…this is meant to be healing, psychologically, at least for me if for no one else…

And: learning that Heather Graham was in a no-longer-running TV series earlier this year – “Emily” was her character’s name – totally missed this, but would’ve absolutely tuned in and turned on if I’d known about it…read a review of it on the Internet, and I quote it…she plays a book editor: “some nicely timed comic moments” from Ms. Graham…well, she’s a straight up pro in the acting biz, and much admired by your faithful blogger…see ‘Cake’, a recent flick of hers, for some good entertainment…in my so-called mind, she scarcely can do wrong.

FAN DANGO: 3/21/2006 7:27 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2) [#308]

And: two books I just saw at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library that looked real good: ‘Ancient Energy’, and ‘The Universal Seduction’…look ‘em up…they are reference books, not to be taken from the building…

And: small crisis this morning in my room…had some leftover Ancient Age, mixed down with tea and Diet Coke, this given me last night by friend J.M. – well, made a boo-boo and spilled most of that leftover drink onto my hotel bed. I actually bent down to suck up what didn’t soak in…well, didn’t cry over spilled cheap whiskey…problem was, the cap wasn’t screwed on tight enough on the rum bottle I had it in…

And in other personal alcohol news, met with Odd Fellow bro’ P.S. today…hadda hand-write a line of information to a previous record of a meeting that I’d done secretarial duties for…and he gave me a can of old school suds, Oly, plus a bottle of Dos Equis, special in that it wasn’t the twist off kind. Took it outside and applied the cap to a piece of metal, thereby removing the obstruction to drinking satisfaction…tho’, must say, I’m a wine drinker these recent days and nights, and Boone’s Farm sangria just totally fits that bill…

And thought of a line of iambic pentameter, inspired by the titles of those two library books mentioned above:

Unique seductive ancient energies…

And on the way to St. Anthony’s ‘round lunch time today, found a nice new belt, silvery, snakey…rock starry, even…got it on right now…

And from Brother P.S. of the Odd Fellows, a mailed envelope containing a sort of sticker for the Port Arena lighthouse – Odd Fellow connection to that illuminating structure…as well as a photo of City Hall and environs taken from the roof of the 26 Seventh Street building, which houses the O.F. lodge, among other worthies…

So that’s another coupla pages for you…got an invite from hotel friend K. to go to his room and have something to eat – an hour ago we’d shared a bottle of B.F. sangria while watching th’ tube…good bloke, K. is…later…

posted by Velcro  # 7:54 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/21/2006 5:55 PM (Page 1 of 2) [#307]

…got an e-mail from a new Zen friend of mine, the Reverend Jana Drakka of the San Francisco Zen Center…her name is right out of ‘Dune’…something of a Bene Gesserit of this 21st century of ours…fun and funny lady, and serious about her meditation…she’s loaned me three audio tapes of lectures presented at that Center…I’m bullish on guys like Alan Watts, and so is the Rev…

And wanna mention slight turbulence experienced recently between myself and a lady named K., who works at the Jefferson Hotel front desk days…can’t recall the exact details but it came down to me saying to her, in a friendly and humorous manner, with the satirical condescension of an extraterrestrial, “Very well, Earth creature…”

Well, K. took offense at this – she’s a black lady and her point was, “Don’t call a black person ‘creature’.” I didn’t accept this – there were no racial overtones in my comment but she read that into it…we got into this, debate-wise, for a while, and got nowhere…I meant the line in a sort of ‘Saturday Night Live’ manner…she didn’t accept my explanation that ‘I’ considered ‘my’-self a creature as well, as in the line “all God’s creatures”…well, over the decades I’ve known all sorts of people, black and white and whatever, and have generally gotten along well with ‘em. Frankly, I think K.’s a lady that might have problems with any number of people. Still, she’s a nice lady all told and eventually we reached a measure of okay-ness, interpersonally…

And wanna mention a fun show on the Comcast tube I just learned of called ‘Minoriteam’, on the Cartoon Network. It’s done in the style of limited-motion animation from decades ago, based on the Marvel Comics art of Jack Kirby. Worth looking into if you’ve got that kind of TV access…

And…been listening lately to a tape of songs compiled by friend K.B. featuring a lot of funk music – including the Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me”…rock ‘n’ roll is my major musical bread and soy butter, but I’m not entirely unfamiliar with the landmarks of funk, including that one…

And had the idea for a science fiction love novel – the title is ‘New Romance, or, Real Good Time Here’…it would have twelve chapters, titled:

1. The One

FAN DANGO: 3/21/2006 5:55 PM (Page 2 of 2) [#307]

2. Breakdown Street
3. Night Life
4. She Gets Paid
5. Gangplank Stars
6. The Fence
7. Comes Easy
8. Let It Roll
9. Tool of the Angel
10. Free Cards
11. Right Connection
12. Sangria Sunsets

Thought of this while drinking a bottle of Boone’s Farm sangria by myself – secured the money for that by selling a double-disc Bukowski poetry reading and the Dead’s ‘American Beauty’ at Rasputin’s…three bucks for that – they got the best of that deal…so, had the two-bucks-16-cents for the wine, with enough left over for a pint of King Cobra…

Well, gave hotel friend P. a chance at that Bukowski set before selling it, since he’d seen it a previous night in my room and expressed a desire to listen to it. Went to his room before heading out to the music store, but he wasn’t buying…he’d been sick vomiting all the previous night…not sure what his complaint is…too much drinking, that’s one thing…

And…listened as well while drinking that B.F. to a tape I’d made myself a while back featuring a few Dead tracks (including “Shakedown Street” – turned that title a bit to get the name of the second chapter of ‘New Romance’)…and it also has Pink’s “Tonight’s the Night”, a song I dearly enjoy…I could see her doing a cover of the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues”…and the “Comes Easy” title comes from “It Don’t Come Easy”, a Seventies cut by Ringo Starr, also on this tape in question…

And wanted to mention a change at Rasputin’s – no more table just inside the door featuring cards and flyers for local music events…asked the guard about this, he said it was too much of a hassle to keep it in order, that the wind kept moving the items around. Too bad – always checked the free material there and often found neat pieces of work in the advertisements for shows…so – just got offered money for wine, so I’m outta here for now…

posted by Velcro  # 5:55 PM
FAN DANGO: 3/21/2006 3:38 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 1 of 2)

…walking down Leavenworth back to the hotel area, paused at discarded glass jugs of Carlo Rossi wine – in a larger size than is available at the corner market I go to…well, my Bank of America credit card still hasn’t come in – first purchase on it, I believe, will be for some of that C.R., the burgundy…

And was watching a locally-produced documentary about films shot in San Francisco…final image was of Jimmy Stewart kissing some woman – that cinema archetype...”…you must remember this,/a kiss is just a kiss…”

And had a small amount of marijuana that a friend had given me…I guess as thanks for all the brewed green tea I bring out to him – he used to live in the Jefferson, where I’m at, but got ejected for several months of non-payment of rent money that went for crack, basically…so I try to do what kindnesses I can for him, including making tea in empty bottles of wine and lugging those out to him…he says it helps him to rehydrate…and a super-hot quantity of tea is surely welcome on some of these cold Frisco nights…

So I had that little bit of green…mentioned this before – sold it eventually for two bucks and a quarter, and that went for a bottle of Boone’s Farm sangria…got that back to my room and I enjoyed it all by myself – Ambrose Bierce defined the word “alone” as “being in bad company”, but I feel that way not…so I quaffed that beverage, read an article by Tom Robbins about how oddly some of his work is translated into other languages…and had on the Comcast tube, sound off, a film from last year called ‘Cake’, with Heather Graham…not a bad way to pass the time…

And back to that documentary about filmmaking in this town – there was a clip from the Orson Welles movie ‘Lady from Shanghai’ featuring the now long-gone Playland at the Beach. I’m old enough to have gone there back when, as a Sixties child, I was living in this city with the two parental units. The site is now all condos…to mark the historical site, there’s merely a metal sign…

And also catching my eye during that documentary, a close-up of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s personal menus – the guy loved to eat, OK? What I thought was funny was “Bubble & Squeak” one day…just Googled on this and this is what’s in that: beef plus leftover potatoes and cabbage. (As a side note, from my studies as an English major at U.C. Berkeley, recall that when ‘Moby Dick’ first came out it was called “bubble & squeak” by one critic – I guess for the hodgepodge of material that Melville included in the text…)

And as for ol’ Al’s wine, Musigny and Moselle…there Weird Al and I share a taste…tho’ I’m at a loss about just how to pronounce that first kind…the man woulda probably fallen over ass-backwards had I offered him Boone’s Farm sangria, “the

FAN DANGO: 3/21/2006 3:38 PM by Dr. Agon Fly (Page 2 of 2)

poor man’s lady”, as it goes in Neil Diamond’s “Cracklin’ Rosie”…

And in that selfsame documentary about Frisco films, there was producer Saul Zaentz saying some stupid shit – had the sound off but you know it had to be some crap…a lotta folks really dislike the guy because of what happened between him and the great John Fogerty. Shit, it would take a dozen guys like Zaentz to even begin to equal a fantastic musician like Mr. Fogerty. That’s my opinion and that’s the way it is.

And been taking a lot of Zeroquell lately…guy owed me fifteen bucks and paid that off with a hundred tabs of the stuff…some sort of psychiatric medicine, prescribed for mania and depression, a mood stabilizer. Just testing ‘em out…taking ‘em with cheap wine…a lady in the hotel said she gets seizures if she takes it, but I feel nothing of the kind. I’m willing to experiment on myself with drugs to some extent…

And in that documentary, there was Lucas blah-blah-blahing…another guy I don’t really care for…here’s a question: Lucas or Roddenberry? Well, the ‘Star Trek’ creator’s my man – Lucas can take his sci-fi act back to Modesto for all I care…

And I’ve been toying with the idea of fiction, fiction instead of this stuff. Sample of what I have in mind:

…wine money on his mind. His credit at the corner markets had already been tapped to that effect – three jugs at one store, and one at another, and still nearly two weeks ‘til the next cash download.

Whaddya think? Basically, it’s what I’m writing in this, but using the third person. Or second person, or whatever that is…using “he” instead of “I”…

And on the “she” side of the fiction, this:

…precious little patience had she for those lip-smackin’, toe-tappin’ cephalopods…

And about the neighborhood I’m in, the Tenderloin, thought up names for two opposing teams in some sort of urban sport: the Leavenworth Cephalopods and the Hyde Street Jackals…

And thanks so much to the generous Foodrunners organization for delivering so much to eat to the Jefferson yesterday…heavy aluminum containers of various tasty things, two boxes of bananas, dozens of baby hamburgers (from, I believe, Pac Bell Park, or whatever it’s being called these days), a dozen hummus portions, and more, more, more…and a young crew from the Rescue Mission also dropped off goods in Styrofoam…we appreciate it much…and that’s it for now…

posted by Velcro  # 3:32 PM

Archives

01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004   02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004   03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004   06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004   07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004   08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004   09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004   10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004   12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005   01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005   02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005   06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005   07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005   08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005   09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005   10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005   03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006   04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006   05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006   06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006   07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006   08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006   09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006   10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006   11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006   12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007   01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007   02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007   03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007   06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007   07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007   08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007   09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007   10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007   11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007   03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008   04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008   05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008   06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008   07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008   08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008   09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008   10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008   11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008   12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009   01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009   02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009   03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009   05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009   06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009   04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010   10/01/2010 - 11/01/2010   04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012  

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?