In your last e-mail you wanted me to keep you informed about what's going on in the city, now that you're in the wilds of Wyoming. I guess I'm slightly qualified for that task of reporting for the entire city of San Francisco, but I'm more qualified to report merely on what's going on in my mind. I've got a few pages of notes from recent days that I can work from. If it's a little disjointed, well, that's just the way my mind works, mostly.
I like this place called Mason's at Geary near Mason - open 24/7, it's a nice place to go if I'm up early, say 4am, and want to get out of my lavish domicile. There are five or six other always-open joints in that immediate area near Powell Street, but I like Mason's the most, for the decor, the lighting, the over-all ambiance, the comfy booths, plus the team of cute, slim, young Russian women servers. I only always get a Coca-Cola - buck-95, 17 cents tax, 88 cents tip. That's a pretty hefty tip, don't you think? Close to 50%. But I like to be a big shot, even with limited financial means.
And...there was recently the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation's pool toss. Celebrities - or what pass for celebs in this area - are thrown into the pool at the Phoenix Hotel at Eddy and Larkin to raise money for, I think, Tenderloin children, of which there are a lot, many beautiful ones, judging from my observations after four years there. Stayed at the Phoenix once overnight with a friend a while back - nice, the kind of low-key Bohemian aesthetic I like. Owner Chip Conley, I've read, opened it as a place where traveling rock and roll musicians might stay. There are big buses outside sometimes, and I like to think such musicians, or their roadies, are inside.
And so...I was at Mason's one early morning, going through a newspaper, and was picking out items - Governor Arnold at some magazine conference in the city. Nothing I'd attend, or be able to attend, or really want to attend, but the item registered. Was just watching TV news and heard that Dianne Feinstein's a good pick to replace Arnold when his term is up. Jerry Brown also named as a possible. The activities of Arnold or Mayor Newsom, frankly, don't really interest me that much. But they seem like good men, doing the work they've chosen.
Also in the newspaper that morning, color photo from the funeral at Duggan's Serra Mortuary in Daly City for that Hell's Angel leader Mark Guardado, who was shot in the Mission a while back by a member of the Mongols, a rival motorcycle gang - I mean, "club". One Christopher Ablett is responsible, or is a suspect. Haven't been following this story since - these are not people I ever want to meet. Although Pete has some affiliation with the Angels - a couple of 'em were working in the Hall some while back, and I had a chance to chat with them a bit - one was nice enough, the other scarcy in some weird way - and Pete wears a shirt that indicates his hellishly angelic affiliation.
And there was a recent concert by musicians David Byrne and Brian Eno at Davies Symphony Hall. Again, something I'd never go to - for one thing, I don't have the clothes to get into that particular Hall. And it's likely the concert would bore me mostly - I like aspects of Byrne and Eno, but I'm strictly a rock and roll kind of guy, and like mainly to hear that kind of music from a jukebox, or a simple player - I'm still not into the MP3 world too very much - cassettes for me most times, or a transistor radio. But I'm glad such higher culture is occurring in San Francisco - someone's gotta do that and attend to it, I guess.
And Tibet quake news made the newspaper that morning, in a place called Gedar Village. Made passing note of this - Tibet's interesting, but I don't want to go there. Knew a couple of friends who went to nearby Nepal. Good for them, they can have such an excursion. One good thing about you being out of S.F., little or no quake danger in Wyoming. Felt a tremor not long ago that shook things a bit, but nothing major. I don't even think about it.
And then there's the haiji extinction - I believe it's some form of aquatic mammal in China. Not coming up in my search engine...so maybe it's already extinct and off the map? Wrote down that 25% of wild mammals are facing extinction. Not a nice fact.
But in better eco-news Solyndra, a company in Fremont, is producing solar tubes of some kind. I have a little faith and hope in this green, solar technology. Efforts are being made in San Francisco to be more green, and I'm all for that. There was a victory garden in front of City Hall for several weeks, showing what could be done in terms of growing food even in the middle of an urban environment.
And also in the paper that morning: the name Zoellick, of the World Bank - says the G7 is obsolete. A grouping of the most powerful industrial nations, I think that is. (Yeah, just looked up details on this - Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank - suggests "a new multilateral steering group" to replace the G7, which he considers ineffective. So...that's it for now...got a lot more notes to send you, will get to them by and by...how's that wild antelope meat?)
