Best and worst bus rides of the week

 

CRANKY OLD FART #321

leftovers & links
Monday, May 29, 2023

A middle-aged southeast Asian woman wearing one of those lovely swirling gowns rang the bus bell, but she didn't get off at the next stop. She seemed confused, and stood and asked the bus driver a question, a very long question, with an accent so heavy I couldn't understand a word. Honestly, it might have been Punjabi, except for her last line, "Is it zero nine, or is it zero eight?"

The driver couldn't understand what she was asking, but he listened, even tried to answer, holding us at the bus stop while they talked. She asked her very long question a second time, then a third time, and each time it was thirty seconds of words I could make no sense of, followed by, "Is it zero nine, or is it zero eight?"

Even that one sentence made no sense. There's nothing in Seattle that's either zero nine or zero eight, but she kept asking, and the driver kept trying to be helpful. You want bus drivers to be helpful, right?

We idled at that stop for several minutes, and none of the passengers complained. Finally the driver gave up and said, "Sorry, I can't understand what you're asking," and started the bus moving again.

The lady sat down, but a mile later she stood up again, approached the driver, and through his plexiglass COVID shield she gave an encore of her performance piece, starting again with the long spiel nobody could understand, and then, "Is it zero nine, or is it zero eight?"

The driver pulled over, and tried again to understand, but that's when people started grousing. "Just drive the bus, driver," someone said. It wasn't me, no sir. I was enjoying the show.

The only thing I said was, "You could call the help line," and I wasn't even being a smartass. Metro Transit has a call center with multi-lingual staff, so whatever that lady was asking about zero nine or zero eight, she could've called and asked someone who spoke her language, and probably gotten an answer.

Eventually she rang the bell again and got off at zero eight-and-a-half, and everyone but me was glad she was gone. We all got where we were going, maybe five minutes later than we would've otherwise been. Some of the passengers were still grumbling about it, but it was my favorite ride of the week.

My least favorite ride this week was Friday morning, which was also my least favorite morning. Everything went wrong.

Dean, the flatmate I despise, took his morning shower much later and longer than usual, blocking me from my shower, and from a desperately-needed morning poop. So I pooped in my emergency bucket/toilet, and went to work still caked with Thursday's sweat.

For the ride downtown, Metro sent a small bus, with about 40 seats. Usually we get an articulated bus, with sixty seats. It's the difference between having a seat for yourself and having to share, and for me — so fat I can't share a two-person seat — it meant standing all the way.

And we had a brake-riding driver. I frickin' hate brake-riders, especially when I'm standing. In stop-and-go "rush hour" traffic, the driver should coast the bus slowly, using Star Trek's impulse power, but lots of drivers jam the brake, then hit the gas, brake, gas, brake again, even when the maximum speed they're going to attain is 5 mph. It's seasick-making when you're sitting, and balance-challenging when you have to stand.

Once downtown, I trotted to my next stop and barely missed the #550 bus to the island, not because I was late but because the #550 was two minutes early. It pulled away when I was half a block from the stop.

For vengeance I picked up half a dozen of the rent-a-scooters that always block the sidewalk, and stacked them on top of each other in a little Watts Tower.

When the next #550 came, it was a cruddy old Metro bus. Metro is the county bus system, but #550 is a Sound Transit route — that's a separate tri-county service with buses that have much thicker seats and a superior suspension. Only, not on days when Sound doesn't have enough buses and they borrow one of Metro's old beater-buses that date back to the 1990s. An uncomfortable, bouncy ride awaited, and another brake-riding driver.

And the driver jolted the gas just as I was sitting down, which somehow smashed the underside of my knee against the seat support, and hard. It took all I had in me not to cry like a toddler, and it hurt all day, and it still hurts, and it's become a giant purple bruise, and where's my lawyer and wah wah wah.

Gotta mention, I am always impressed at how well my bucket/toilet seals the stink. My poop is still in the bucket, lid down, and it was a pungent poop, but even days later you can't smell it in the room.

At least, not over the cat litter I intended to tend to this weekend, but didn't.

Ever wonder how crooked a Republican has to be before other Republicans decide it's too crooked?

The answer might be Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He's been flamboyantly criminal his entire life, and under indictment for the past eight years, and now he's finally been impeached, but it's still dicey whether the Republican-controlled state senate will convict him and finally, permanently remove this scum from being, hilariously, the top-ranking lawyer in Texas.

Here's yet another priest diddling small children. Seems hardly even worth mentioning, since diddling small children is what priests do.

What gets me is this familiar line, familiar because only the nouns ever change: "…in 2003, former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada declared [the victim]'s allegations to be 'unfounded'. [The priest] was returned to ministry and continued to work as a priest over the ensuing two decades."

Why the holy hell is an Archbishop allowed to decide a priest's guilt or innocence? At this point, it's safe to assume any high-ranking Catholic official is a co-conspirator. These cases belong in criminal court, and then civil court.

For all the myriad failings of America's shitty, racist, money-owned justice system, the courts get guilt and innocence right lots more often than the Catholic Church, which doesn't even try.

Starbucks has nuked Ithaca off the map of America, in a brazenly illegal act of anti-union retaliation.

Of course, if you're patient and wait three or five years, the company will negotiate a small fine from the Departments of Labor or Commerce, admitting no wrongdoing. That future fine will sounds like lots, but it'll be piffle to Starbucks, and well worth the price for what's been accomplished by closing all their Ithaca stores — intimidating workers nationwide, to keep strangling even the idea of unionization.

I don't understand how anyone who claims to have a conscience can be a Republican, how anyone pretending to love Christ can be a Catholic, and why anyone, even someone who enjoys burnt, overpriced coffee, gets coffee at Starbucks.

If that's you I'm describing, rethink your thinking please, or simply fuck off.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• Orcas are attacking boats 

• They held down a Black teen who tried to shoplift. He died from asphyxia. Why was no one charged? 

• Cheers as Canadian school district rejects call to remove library books on sexuality, gender identity 

• Google delays killing third-party cookies as it develops something almost as icky 

• Panama Canal imposes restrictions on shipping due to drought 

• James Hansen warns of a short-term climate shock bringing 2 degrees of warming by 2050 

• Climate change may lead to massive tsunamis from Antarctica 

• California's cliffs are crumbling as climate change reshapes the coast 

• Warmer world will affect hurricane season 

• "I want my left eye back": victims of 2020's US police violence speak out 

• $19-million settlement over another "mental health crisis" killing by cops 

• Mother of 8-year-old girl who died in Border Patrol custody says pleas for hospital care were denied 

• A year after Uvalde, officers who botched response face few consequences 

• Police have fatally shot more than 8,500 people since 2015, with Black Americans shot at a disproportionate rate

Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going

• Click • Click • Click •
• Click • Click •

My browser history
without the porn

• 16 crucial words that went missing from a landmark civil rights law 

• Washington DC bargained away rural America 

• Some people get away with doing nothing at work 

• I've lived into my 40s without ever owning a smartphone. Hopefully I'll never have to.

♫♬  It don't mean a thing  ♫
if it don't have that swing

• Bongolia — Incredible Bongo Band 

• House of the Rising Sun — Wilbert Eckart & Volksmusik Stars 

• Man on the Moon — REM 

• Right Field — Peter Paul & Mary 

• That Kind of Girl — Mary Lou Lord 

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

• Stanley Deser 

• Alexander Wallace Dreyfoos, Jr 

• Sam Gross 

• Leon Ichaso 

• Cotton Nash 

• Floyd Newman 

• Marta Wisa

 5/29/2023   

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.  

Tip 'o the hat to ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, CaptCreate's Log, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, One Finger Medical, Two Finger Magical, Miss Miriam's Mirror, Nebulously Burnished, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration. 

Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.

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The loudest motherfucker

Picking my teeth with a Bic pen, I snagged half a kernel of popcorn from one of the craters where a filling used to be. As always, I sniffed it, and it smelled exactly like shit. Gotta be science behind that stink, like — does as entire digestive process take place in the cracks in my teeth?

It also made me stop and think — popcorn? Last time I had popcorn was when I bought a 49¢ bag at a grocery store and snuck it in to the Roxie, for Waterloo Bridge, nine days ago. I've brushed my teeth, lemmesee, twice since then, and still that popcorn kernel remained nestled in its niche.

Man, The Discovery Channel ought to do a documentary on the delicate ecosystem that thrives in my mouth.

♦ ♦ ♦  

At Black Sheets, I did some data entry, mailed out a week's worth of orders, and scrubbed the toilets. Also had a brief conversation with my co-worker Candy, who continues to be far prettier than either Bill or Steve.

It's been my experience that all office jobs are basically the same — push buttons, make copies, send faxes, answer phones, etc. This is the first office where scrubbing the toilet is part of my job, but it's also the first where they encourage me to take tall piles of porn home.

♦ ♦ ♦  

After work, it was time for shopping, which involves lots of walking. There are a dozen little grocery stores scattered around my part of Mission Dolores, and none of them have good prices on everything, but most have good prices on some things. Hence the walking.

I started by not shopping at Jose's Produce, just wandering the aisles, waiting for the right moment to discreetly drop seven roaches from a baggie onto the floor, near the meat counter.

Then I walked to Walgreens for cheap, flavorless, textureless bread (69¢), to B&T for ramen (12 for $1), Hwa Lei Market for an unidentified but cheap Asian pastry (69¢) and generic mustard (69¢), and Casa Thai for affordable peanut butter ($2.29, damn it — it was $1.99 a week ago).

The liquor store up the street has the best price on pickles ($1.99 for a big jar, or three for $5), so I got three.

Outside the liquor store, I stopped to read headlines at the news boxes. With my hand in my pocket, I jiggled some coins, and instantly a bum appeared, asking for spare change.

I sighed, and as I turned to see who I was about to say no to, the homeless guy suddenly screamed, "Motherfucker!" at me. Guess the 'no' was obvious in my body language. 

He'd shouted it really loud, possibly the loudest motherfucker I've ever received. The word was still reverberating in my head after he'd walked off. And jeez, it had been such a peaceful evening until then.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Weighed down with groceries from five stores in my backpack, I was waiting for a 'walk' light at the last intersection before the half-block walk to my hotel-home, when a conversation from behind cut through to my consciousness.

"We've given notice to the hotel owners, that it's a $25,000 fine for every drug offense." I glanced over my shoulder; the man talking was a young policeman in uniform, talking to a well-dressed businessman or mobster (there's no difference).

The silk suit answered, "Very good," like a boss talking to an employee, which he probably was.

The cop said, "We held a meeting for the hotel owners, explaining the law, and they seemed worried, as they should be." 

"Very good," the mobster/businessman said again.

Of course, they had to be talking about rez hotels, like the place where I live in, not real hotels. Real hotels are owned by corporations, and cops would never want to worry that kind of people and that kind of money.

Residential hotels, though — bum palaces, fleabags, SROs — are owned by people like Mr Patel, people barely scratching a living out of renting to poor people like me. 

So the cops are finally going to win the war on drugs, by coming after the city's Mr Patels. Shall I write another rant about the stupidity and futility of a so-called free country imprisoning people because they get high instead of getting drunk? Oh yes I shall write that rant, I'll write it a thousand times — but not today. 

Today I'll only say that I would've enjoyed saying something there at the curb, but it's unwise to argue with cops or gangsters. My fear of beatings, arrest, and being the next 'mysterious' death at the county jail usually keeps me quiet, and I was quiet tonight.

When the light finally flashed 'walk', I almost jogged across the street, slowing only when I heard the pickle jars in my backpack banging against each other.

From Pathetic Life #24
Monday, May 27, 1996

This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.

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Man on the Moon, and six more movies

THE NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #158
Sunday, May 28, 2023

The Man in the Moon (1991)

Hey, I remember this. It was the first movie I saw during my brief attempt to live in Los Angeles, before deciding on San Francisco instead. The theater was some monstrous maxi-plex with about thirty-six screens. It was half a mile from the parking lot to the box office, and then another half-mile from the box office to auditorium #27 or whatever.

The Man in the Moon is a folksy farm movie about an adolescent girl with a crush on the boy from the next farm over. There's lots of aw-shucks Southern charm, all polished to a pleasant but Hollywood version of rural reality. Sam Waterston and Tess Harper play the best darn parents in the world, and "introducing Reese Witherspoon" as their pipsqueak daughter in love.

It was written by Jenny Wingfield, presumably a woman, and it has what feels like more genuine girl and woman perspectives than you usually see in a movie. It's sweet and sad, and a little too preachy.

"Don't love me now, when things are so mixed up. I've got more than I can say grace over right now."

Directed by Robert Muilligan (To Kill a Mockingbird).

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Man on the Moon (1999)

I was never a fan of anti-comedian Andy Kaufman. He was intentionally unfunny, perpetually inappropriate, difficult, and probably he was mentally unwell. But aren't we all.

If you're unfamiliar with Kaufman, an example, as shown here, is when an adoring crowd came came to see what he'd come up with next, and he stood on stage reading from The Great Gatsby for the entire show.

Kaufman never gave an audience what they expected or wanted, always pranking the crowds, the entertainment industry, and the world. I respected the pranks, but didn't pay much attention during his short career and life — never watched Taxi, and saw but never connected with Kaufman's perplexing appearances on Letterman and SNL.

What I remember most about Kaufman is a bit he did on Dick Van Dyke's quickly-cancelled mid-1970s TV variety show, Van Dyke & Company. Not yet famous, Kaufman was uncredited but appeared on the show week after week as a disruptive member of the audience, barely speaking English, never making sense, heckling the show in progress. You watched and wondered what the fuck? And then in the third or fourth week of this, he suddenly dropped the accent and broke into a dang good Elvis impersonation.

That's dedication — weeks of setup for a pretty good gag that wouldn't have been funny without the weeks of setup.

Man on the Moon is the story of Kaufman's life, but like his public persona, it's unclear how much is true or false or beyond. Being mostly a neophyte, I agreed with a couple of background characters early in the flick who said, "This is not funny."

Gotta admit, though, never once did I consider turning it off, and eventually the film drew big belly laughs from my big belly.

Jim Carrey is good as Kaufman (Carrey is always good), and the movie plays with audience expectations like Kaufman did, only you don't have to wait weeks for a punchline — it's over in two hours.

I liked the movie much more than I liked the real Kaufman, and it made me like Kaufman better than I did, too.

Man on the Moon was directed by Milos Forman — Amadeus, Hair, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest — and produced by George Shapiro, who was Kaufman's agent, played by Danny DeVito in the movie. Music by R.E.M. Co-starring Courtney Love and Paul Giamatti, with smaller roles for just about everyone from Kaufman's career, including Howdy Doody.

Gotta say this about Courtney Love: From everything I've read, she's a wretched soul, but she's a dang fine actress. When she joins the story here, it's the moment the movie won me over.

"Would anybody like to pay a dollar to touch my cyst? I'm serious. I could really use the money right now."

Andy Kaufman died in 1984 at age 35, but there's a theory — alluded to twice in the film — that his death was a hoax, and he might still be out there somewhere. If so, he'd be 74 now. I hope he liked the movie.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971)

This is a made-for-TV movie from 1971, which was heavily hyped as an "issue" film. The issue was that Sally Field was playing a runaway, a flower child, a hippie. Back then she was famous as TV's Gidget and The Flying Nun, but this promised to be far less wholesome, and Mom and Dad wouldn't let me watch.

Finally, I've watched it, but Mom and Dad were probably right to protect me from it. Not because it's subversive, though it is, but because it's kind of a mess.

With the title, Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring, it ought to be about a runaway, but she comes home about ten minutes into the movie.

It's full of quick-cut flashbacks, constantly — while she's run off from home, the flashbacks and voiceovers are from before she ran away, and once she's back, the flashbacks and voiceovers are from her ten minutes as a hippie. With all the constant flashbacking, the story is a jigsaw puzzle, but I'm not convinced all the pieces are there.

It's directed by Joseph Sargent, who was one of the best journeymen moviemakers of the era, so there's definitely something here. One scene shows the girl using drugs — oh, the horror — while her parents get drunk at a fairly wild party, a subtle juxtaposition that challenges 1971. There's also a beautiful moment where the girl is high on something and writing words in the air via special effects.

On the downside, there's an awful lot of hollering — her parents hollering at Sally Field and her sister, and her shaggy boyfriend (John Carradine) hollering at her parents, and Sally hollering, her sister hollering.

And the flashbacks are too much, too many.

Field is fine in her part, John Carradine is OK but shaggy and "can't handle meth," but it all feels as superficial as, well, a better-than-average made-for-TV movie from the '70s.

Linda Ronstadt sings a few songs, and that's enough to give it a B.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

My Dinner with Hervé  (2018)

Same as Andy Kaufman above, I never paid much attention to Hervé Villechaize. Saw only the pilot episode of Fantasy Island, and turned it off halfway through. I've seen his Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, but every Bond I've seen has disappointed me, and nothing about that one exists in my memory.

Eight or nine minutes into My Dinner with Hervé, Peter Dinklage shows up, playing Villechaize, complete with a plausible French accent, and the movie is instantly better. I've been a Dinklage fan since The Station Agent, and he probably makes a better Villechaize than Villechaize.

This is allegedly a true story, about a reporter sent to interview Villechaize and write a short, hopefully comic puff piece about him. It's set long after the actor's fame had faded, and the reporter isn't much interested in the assignment, but Hervé wants to talk so talk he does, all night long. He drops clues, which the reporter misses, that this will be his final interview, and a few days after their conversation, Villechaize killed himself.

Based only on what's shown here, he seems to have been a prickly actor with an out-of-control ego, like most successful stars only shorter. It's hard to like a guy who's such an ass, but still, the parts of the movie that are about Villechaize are of interest, and Dinklage is excellent.

The movie is more about the reporter, though, and he's at least as obnoxious and full of himself as Villechaize. He's played by someone named Jamie Dornan, who (as the kids say) I can't even. Wikipedia says Dornan's been hailed as both "one of Ireland's greatest film actors" and "one of the 25 Biggest Male Models of All Time," but to me he's a blob of nothing on the screen.

His character's alcoholism, his harassment of an ex-girlfriend, the office politics at his job, and any of the other things we're supposed to care about are rendered moot by the actor.

The real-life reporter Dornan is playing was Sacha Gervasi, who wrote a book about interviewing Villechaize, then wrote and directed this film. Gervasi previously made the finest heavy-metal documentary of all time, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, but My Dinner with Hervé is no Anvil.

Maybe I'm dead wrong, though. This flick was recommended to me by two people whose opinions I respect, and it won awards and got rave reviews from, apparently, everyone on earth who isn't me.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦  

The Paper Chase (1973)

"You come in here with a skull full of mush. You leave thinking like a lawyer."

The Paper Chase was a very good book about the struggles of law students at Harvard. I don't care about the law, about law students, or about lawyers, and I certainly don't care about Harvard, but I read the book when I was in high school, and liked it a lot. It later became a TV series, which I also liked a lot.

Between the book and the TV show, it was a movie I'd somehow missed seeing until tonight.

It's not a comedy, but I laughed a lot, because the driving dramatic question is whether these very straight-laced 20-somethings will get the big-bucks, big money, and big boring careers they desperately want. You kinda hope they don't succeed, since a few of them seem like decent people. Also, you can laugh at Timothy Bottoms' 1970s hair.

If anyone actually watches a movie because I've written about it, listen closely during the first scene, before there's any dialogue. There's only crowd noise, as students walk into a previously-empty classroom, but the audio must've been recorded separately, and doesn't last as long as the crowd noise needed to be, so it's looped — repeated. You can't not hear the same thumps and coughs happening three times.

Also, the movie's last few minutes, after the climax, are unnecessary and occasionally silly. Between the botched first minute and the tedious last few minutes, though, everything else mostly works.

Directed by James Bridges (The China Syndrome, Colossus: The Forbin Project). Scored by John Williams.

Lindsay Wagner plays "female plot device," and of course the inimitable John Houseman co-stars as the brilliant Professor Kingsfield. Bottoms' acting tends to annoy me but just this once it didn't. There are small bits from up-and-coming stars Blair Brown, Edward Herrmann, and Ronald Mlodzik.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Promised Land (2012)

Slick buyers from a natural gas company want to buy up a poor farming town, so they can frack the county for natural gas. Matt Damon and John Krasinski star, and also wrote the script, which hinders things.

I became impatient with the story's leisurely pace. A lot of the film goes by, and rather slowly, before anyone says the word 'fracking'.

Fracking is evil, and the movie shows and eventually explains that, but it feels generic, like a couple of Hollywood liberals trying to say something liberal, without offending anyone. It's a Blue Dog Democrat when it needs to be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

There's a gut-punch twist waiting for you if you're willing to wait, and Promised Land isn't bad, certainly. It's just not as outraged as it ought to be. Googling about the movie after watching it, it wasn't a big surprise to read that Krasinski and Damon had first intended it as a story about wind power.

Directed by Gus Van Sant, music by Danny Elfman, with Frances MacDormand and Hal Halbrook.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Rubber (2010)

In the deserts of California, a crowd of people watch as a movie is filmed. That movie is about a sentient tire on a rampage, but this movie — the one you're watching — is about the first movie's moviemakers trying to kill the audience.

Why? "No reason," as the sheriff philosophically explains.

You might love this film, or hate it — and my response was both. I found it pretentious when it thought it was deep, boring when it thought it was funny. After twenty minutes I clicked it off, but it nagged at me, and I wondered if the problem might've been me and my mood. A month later I slipped Rubber on again, and found it amusing and intelligent all the way through.

There's also Wings Hauser in a wheelchair, and he helps.

The script is filled with existentialist wisecracks and exploding heads, and it plays like David Cronenberg meets Ludwig Wittgenstein. It's pleased with itself, made with maybe too much exuberance and bravado, but there's plenty of traction.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Coming soon:

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Colors (1988)
The Death of Dick Long (2019)
Invaders from Mars (1953)
Prime Cut (1972)
Spudwrench (1998)
Titanic II (2010)

 5/28/2023  

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

Alter
Cineverse
Criterion
CultCinema Classics
DocsVille
Dust
Fandor
Films for Action
Hoopla
IHaveNoTV
IndieFlix
Internet Archive
Kanopy
KinoCult
Kino Lorber
Korean Classic Film
Christopher R Mihm
Mosfilm
Mubi
National Film Board of Canada
New Yorker Screening Room
Damon Packard
Mark Pirro
PizzaFlix
PopcornFlix
Public Domain Movies
RareFilmm
Scarecrow Video
Shudder
ThoughtMaybe
Timeless Classic Movies
VoleFlix
WatchDocumentaries
or your local library.

Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.

— — —

 

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.

 

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Paranoia runs deep

It's Carnival, emphasis on the last syllable, so Mission Street was closed for the parade. I don't know what Carnival celebrates, except pretty women not wearing much, and I'm all for that, but I needed to get down the stairs and into the BART station to ride to my job in Berkeley.

Getting down those stairs was difficult, because hundreds and hundreds of faux Brazilians were coming up the stairs, filling the entire stairwell.

Call me Miss Manners, but that's rude — sidewalks and stairways are public thoroughfares, where walkers should keep to the right, same as drivers on a two-way street. The up-walkers were everywhere, though, leaving no space for a down-walker like me.

It's an annoyance I've written about before, and I am not going to turn myself sideways or otherwise yield, not even going to say "Excuse me," when you're coming at me on my side of the sidewalk, or in this case, the stairs.

No sir, and no ma'am, I will go down on the right side of the stairwell, as far to the right as possible, but if you're coming up in my downspace, we will bump, and hard.

Near the top of the stairs and directly in my way was a frail, almost teetering old man with a cane, and in a stunning show of courtesy and consideration, I stood aside and said, "I'll let you pass, old timer." We smiled at each other. Such a sweet moment.

When he'd hobbled past, I grasped the handrail to my right and began the long descent at a normal clip, clipping two middle-aged ladies, a youngish man, and a teenage boy on my way down. None of them toppled, darn it. 

Others saw me coming and wisely scooted to their right, where they should've been all along. I bumped another man, hard, and he said something, and I wanted to turn 'round and clip him again, but I only smiled and continued down.

♦ ♦ ♦  

On Telegraph, a he-and-she couple stopped to look at the fish display, the man smiling, the woman not. As is my way, I said hello but nothing more.

The man kept smiling, the woman kept not, and after a bit she said to her boyfriend or lover or husband, "These are, um, kind of offensive." And at that, the man's smile vaporized, he took her hand, and they walked away together. 

A typical moment in a typical romance — one person yielding everything, even a sense of humor, to the other. I'm happier alone.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Two men walked past my table, engrossed in conversation and not noticing the fish. One of them said to the other, "They don't pray right, they don't dress right, they don't live right…" and then they were gone and I didn't hear the rest of the sentence. 

What "they" was he talking about, that does everything wrong? Does it even matter? Any narrow-minded person could say much the same sentence. Insert your own judgmentalism, depending on who you want to hate.

I don't think there's any way to pray right, dress right, or live right, if you're letting someone else define what's right.

♦ ♦ ♦  

I sat in the sun at the fish-table, saying "Fish!" once or twice every minute. It's my job. I don't take the job too seriously, though, so I was also reading a newspaper.

When I looked up from the paper, a redhead was stooped over, messing with the drawstring of her backpack. The backpack was on the sidewalk, so she was stooped way over. I couldn't see her face, but there was a post card view of the Northern Territories, and I am not gentleman enough to avert my eyes.

Fishmaking and cries of "Fish!" ceased, as did the passage of time, as I studied an acre of cleavage with no hint of a bra. There may have been the edge of a nipple, or perhaps it was only shadow. I'm not certain.

When she finally stood up, though, and I got a gander at her face, she was too young for the ogling I'd just committed. 15, maybe.

So, should I withdraw the enjoyment, and be ashamed and embarrassed instead?

Nah, I'm innocent, officer. I didn't know she was just a kid… but I would've watched anyway. I wouldn't pursue a girl that young, wouldn't waste time talking with her, but looking? Hell, I'll look at whatever looks lookable, and when un-bra'd hooters in a too-loose tank top aren't worth a look, I'll be either blind or dead.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Am I paranoid? Have I seen too many shadowy film noir movies? Yes on both counts, but today I noticed a tall, skinny man in a blue baseball cap, loitering on Telegraph Ave. He seemed somehow wrong for the Avenue, and he simply stood there, for a long time before walking away. Later, I noticed him a second time.

The day went on, and eventually I packed the fish and locked them away at Jay's house, walked to the BART station, and — the same man rode back to San Francisco with me, at the opposite end of the traincar.

When I got off at 16th Street, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he'd gotten off, too, which gave me a serious case of the creeps.

I took the escalator up, and so did he, about thirty seconds later. I crossed Mission Street, then crossed 16th, and waited behind the doorway at Walgreens. He crossed 16th Street, and stood at the light to cross Mission, toward me.

Enough already. I went down the other set of stairs, the other entrance to the same BART station, figuring that if the man in the blue cap came down after me, he must be FBI or SFPD or something worse — maybe a reader of Pathetic Life.

At the bottom of the stairs and around a corner, I waited, sweating, telling myself this was all in my imagination… and peeking around the corner, watching, worried that I'd see that man coming down the stairs and toward me.

He didn't come down the stairs, and after ten minutes cowering, I climbed the steps to street level and looked around, but didn't see him. 

Several times, people who've read Pathetic Life have approached me on Telegraph Ave, and I hate it and hate them for it. Like Muni running late or the Christians complaining about the fish, it happens more often than I write about it, but it hasn't happened since Jim Cranston Day. Still, I'm wary. 

Look, three million people live in the Bay Area, and a few hundred thousand are always visiting. One guy loitering near my table on Telegraph means nothing, but the same guy riding in the same BART car from Berkeley to San Francisco with me, and getting off at the same station where I get off, and then crossing the same streets — I can't calculate the odds, but it's damned unlikely to be coincidence.

For safety's sake, I went into the station again, and rode BART to Richmond and back, getting off at 24th Street instead of 16th. Even then and there, I scanned the street scene for a few minutes to convince myself I hadn't been followed, before starting the longer walk home.

What to make of all this I do not know, but if that man had been smart enough to take his bright blue baseball cap off, I might not have noticed him at all. Which scares me a little worse.

♦ ♦ ♦  

On a cheerier note, aw shit and fuck and damn it all to hell, I just knocked over a whole bowl of beans on my bed.

It's the hotel's bed and it came with sheets, but they're tattered and wouldn't stay on, and got stuffed into the closet on my first night. I sleep on the mattress, unadorned.

I've wiped up what bean juice could be wiped, but the mattress remains sticky, and if roaches like pinto beans, I won't be sleeping alone tonight.

From Pathetic Life #24
Sunday, May 26, 1996

This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.

Pathetic Life
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The libertarian in me

Pushing the fish-cart, I was almost to Telegraph when a pretty woman in a short short sundress got out of her car, across the street. She closed the door, and my oh my. I was admiring her legs almost all the way up, and as my gaze settled on her rear, that's when she gently pulled some of her dress out of her asscrack. It had been bunched up in there, but loosened, her dress was suddenly several inches longer, and so was I, and the day was off to a better start than yesterday.

And then my spirits sank. 

It's that time of the month — like an infestation of ticks, the Christians were out, preaching platitudes and singing salvation at the corner all day.

Picture if you will, a very amateur band with five white guys playing sub-par rock'n'roll with Jesus in the lyrics. Now imagine that they're singing and occasionally preaching into microphones set way too loud, all afternoon, so there's simply no escaping the sound for blocks.

Conducting an open-air business across the street from this Christian cacophony is very difficult, and that's why we street vendors get the gut-drop feeling when we those damned Christians set up their amps, mikes, and big phony smiles.

After hours of this that felt like weeks, one of the loud Christians said into the microphone, "Our next song will be 'House of the Rising Son, Part 2'," and they proceeded to desecrate that song of desperation with new lyrics, all about The Lord coming to the rescue, and Lord, I couldn't take it no more.

Across the street from the "band," on the corner closest to me, they'd stationed a plump woman in a yellow muumuu, handing out their flyers to anyone dumb enough to take one. She held one out for me, on my way back from a pee break at the tavern, and I took the flyer, ripped it in two, dropped it into the slight breeze, and let her have it.

"What you're doing," I said in lines rehearsed while urinating, "is an embarrassment to yourselves, your church, your religion, and rock'n'roll."

She turned her back on me in a Christlike manner, so instead of speaking I started shouting. "It's so fucking rude of you to blast your beliefs into everyone's ears out here. Jesus wouldn't need a microphone!"

She ignored me, of course, and I'd become part of the spectacle everyone was ignoring, so I went back to my table, back to trying to talk about anti-Jesus fish over the noise of Jesus.

The band's next number, to the tune of "Yellow Submarine," was "We All Live in the Light of Jesus Christ," and Jesus Christ, I frowned all afternoon.

♦ ♦ ♦  

There's a newsstand at the BART station near my hotel, and when I'm coming home by way of BART I sometimes buy the evening Examiner there, from Sam, who ran the stand. Past tense.

Tonight, coming up from the subway and headed toward Sam's newsstand, the door-size wooden flap that locks the big box overnight was still down and padlocked. A wreath had been nailed to it.

And Sam's death is not merely my assumption; there's a note taped near the flowers, that says, "Does anyone know when the memorial will be? I'd like to be there, please call…" followed by a phone number.

Sam is dead. He ran that newsstand forever, far longer than I've been in San Francisco. I lived in this neighborhood years ago, before moving back in April, and he's always been there, seven days a week. He was part of the backdrop, a given — so much taken for granted that I don't think I've ever mentioned him in the zine, until now, when he's dead.

No word on how it happened, but it couldn't have been any lingering disease. He was laughing just a few afternoons ago, when I walked by his stand without buying anything.

He laughed a lot, and was a very friendly gent, which was mildly irritating. I only wanted to buy a paper, not make a buddy, but he usually wanted to talk about the weather, the news, whatever.

People loved Sam, though. They often crowded around his newsstand, buying a paper and then lingering to talk with him. 

When his newsstand was crowded, I was more likely to buy a paper, because Sam would be busy talking to other people, and I could simply grab an Examiner and slide the coins toward him and walk away.

If nobody was loitering around the stand, then Sam would want to talk, so I'd wave as I walked by and purchase my paper somewhere else, or do without.

Which means, I guess, I wasn't one of Sam's friends, or even one of his better customers. Still, I'm sorry he's dead, wish he wasn't, and I sure hope someone opens the newsstand again.

♦ ♦ ♦  

To buy a newspaper and a few other incidentals, I walked into a new grocery store, under their "Grand opening" banner. Nothing was particularly grand about the place, and the prices were higher than the bodega across the street, so I probably won't be back often. 

On the way out of the store, I noticed a bright yellow "Notice of Violation" glued to the window.

The city's Department of Building Inspection says it's an "unsafe building," per SFEC 90-37, with "unlawful use of electric energy," per SFEC 90-52, and "electrical work unlawful to [illegible]," per SFEC 90-56. I'm guessing SFEC is San Francisco Electrical Code, and it means that the building hasn't been inspected. More importantly, it means that the proper fees, bribes, and kickbacks haven't been paid.

Small print warns in three languages that this non-compliance will be punished by immediate fines of $100 per violation, escalating to $200 per violation if the first notice isn't heeded, and promising eventual fines of "not less than $1,000 per day or six months imprisonment or both." In addition to the Department of Building Inspection, nine other city agencies are listed, all of which must sign off (meaning, receive payments under or over the table) before the store can legally open (though, obviously, the store was open anyway).

Maybe I was breaking the law shopping there. Sure hope so.

You don't want electricity wired by amateurs, sure. Someone should look at that stuff, and all the rules, all the city agencies probably make sense at some level, or did when the rules were written. The libertarian in me is skeptical, though.

This store isn't in a new building, or a new space. It was a grocery with a different name until it closed several months ago, and since then it's been an empty storefront. All the new owners have done is paint the place, lay new tile on the floor, plug in the refrigerators left behind, and hung a new name from the awning.

This, then, is their punishment for doing business in San Francisco.

From Pathetic Life #24
Saturday, May 25, 1996

This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.

Pathetic Life
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