Secret 'Burner'

In spite of all of the slagging that I tend to do on Burning Man, I decided that it is time to come clean and admit that I am a 'burner'. I don't know if my heart is really in it or if I just do it for the fashion.
Anyhow, I buy all of my clothing here:
http://www.ilaniowear.com/garb/index.html
Make sure to click around to get a solid idea of where I come from fashion wise.

Royal Gate Bus Stop

I used the logo from the Royal Gate bottle to make it part of the street texture at a bus stop in the Mission. Royal Gate is a truly horrible liquor that you can get for $2.25 a half pint in the liquor stores. The target demographic would be the core alcoholic, no one would ever drink it for the truly terrible taste. The manufacturers claim otherwise however.

"Putting the "aah" in Vodka is our specialty. Royal Gate Vodka is an exceptional choice when it comes time for a smooth drink. Created in 1953, Haas Brothers continues to manufacture this special blend of fine ingredients. Available in three sizes, Royal Gate Vodka will meet your tasting needs."
http://haas-brothers.com/site/royal_gate_vodka

Medication Time Doily Head

I had a some fun with a mugshot that I found on the Ada County Police (Boise Idaho and surrounding area) website.

The ‘tea lifestyle’

Here is another choice advert from Craigslist.com, San Francisco Bay Area Edition that was posted last year. I kept this one saved on file because this kind of output can only be generated by a certified madperson. Someone needs to pull the reins in on this nut before they go publishing more things on the internet with their company name attached. My commentary in parenthesis.

Samovar Tea Lounge is Hiring / new location. (hayes valley)

We need to hire a few amazing folks who have as much zeal for tea as they do for life. (Uhh…alright. I drink tea. Whether my zeal for tea can be stacked against my zeal for life has yet to be answered.)
If you have what it takes to handle the incredibly intense pace of life in a tea lounge while simultaneously being able to evoke a contagious sense of calm and quiet...and you want to grow with us, send us an email. (I know nothing about the incredibly intense pace of life in a tea lounge, but I am a put my nose to the grindstone kind of guy. Simultaneously though, the sense of calm and quiet that I EXUDE spreads like wildfire whenever I step in the room.)
Please only respond to this email after reading below: (Okay, got it)
You will apply to this job if...
-you love customer service, and you want to deliver our tea experience to the entire world (starting here in SF)--Please tell us why you love to make people happy, and how you do it. (My love for serving the customer is eternal. My motivation in life is to one day deliver your tea experience to the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD in one supernatural throw. Until I find a suitable meeting place however, things will remain on hold. But hell, start small you know. I will begin my dream of delivering your tea experience RIGHT HERE IN SAN FRANCISCO!!! I hope that my zeal for tea is coming through LOUD and CLEAR on the page, the caps and exclamation points will have to stand in as an alpha representation of my nearly uncontrollable enthusiasm. Why I love to make people happy and how I love to do it would take pages though.)
-You have a flexible schedule and can work minimum 4 shifts a week, including saturday and/or sunday, morning, day and night (Hey, I don’t work with minimums, if life was an accelerator pedal, I would have smashed that thing all the way through the floor and been dragging my foot on the ground by now, producing a shower of sparks where my steel toed boot drags along the pavement. But that is neither here nor there. What I am trying to say is that given the opportunity, I will spend every waking moment delivering your tea experience to the world ((starting here is San Francisco of course)), morning, day and night.
-You exude the tea lifestyle: Patient, relaxed, hard working, really, really fast, care about organics, sustainability, and making a positive impact in the world. (The ‘tea lifestyle’ weeps from my pores. People can SMELL how patient, how relaxed, how hard working and really really fast I am. The subtle scent that trails behind me has a sustainable and organic quality that lingers blithely in the air. Notes of positive impact can be detected to the trained nose.)
-love tea--whether you drink it or have visited us at our locations (either or?)
-can learn really fast, hard, and pasionately. (In that order? I would like to put learn HARD at the top.)
-want to work for a company where there are no limits. Where dishwashers become managers, and where our only job is to help customers feel amazing. (How many dishes must I wash before I transition to managerial duties? It would help to know this upfront.)
-are available to start TODAY (Believe THAT!)
Please go to www.samovartea.com to learn more about us, and to decide if you have what it takes to join our family.

(I punched in the site and it redirected me from samovartea.com to samovarlife.com, thereby underscoring the need to make tea the lens through which you view life if you even want to be considered for a tea lounge position.)
DO NOT send a generic resume or cover letter. (Wouldn’t want to bury my zeal for tea/life under a generic resume or cover letter.)
DO tell us WHY, you want to work at Samovar, and why you are the best choice we could make. Include why you are capable of delivering the ultimate in customer service, your favorite haunts in SF for customer service, how you maintain calm in a sea of stress, and why you are the best possible we could bring to Samovar. (Uh, might have to come clean and admit that I don’t ‘haunt’ anywhere for customer service, I usually go for the food. How I maintain calm in a sea of stress is to shut my eyes, no matter where I am or what I am doing and picture a cup of tea sending a gentle wisp of steam heavenward. Then I count backward from 177 until I arrive at zero where I am once again restored and made whole.)

I called Samovar for a laugh and asked who was doing the interviewing on this. They told me to talk to Hector or Eric if anyone thinks they have what it takes to ‘handle the incredibly intense pace of life in a tea lounge while simultaneously being able to evoke a contagious sense of calm and quiet’, (415) 626-4700.

Male balloon busters

I collected some choice adverts from Craigslist.org while searching for employment opportunities over the last couple of months. Balloon busting is an industry in which I have no real experience or have even heard about for that matter. I am a fast learner however, and my ‘can do’ attitude will no doubt carry me through. The job market is forever changing and you must be able to adapt, that is not lost on me. I do have some questions before I proceed, so I thought that I would reach out to my network. Y’all might know more about this than I do.

Male Balloon Busters
(Anyone know why there is a gender requirement? Isn’t that a discriminatory hiring practice?)
Looking for men who enjoy busting balloons--especially by sitting on them--and would be willing to do so on camera.
(I don’t just pop balloons, I bust them by any means necessary and that includes sitting on them, my favourite method).
$50.00 an hour to start.
(The wage is nice, and when he says ‘to start’, I am to assume that there is room for the pay rate to escalate).
This is ongoing.
(That is good, I am looking for a career, not just a one off).
Not looking for professional models.
(Can anyone tell me what professional modeling has to do with busting balloon skins)?
Send pix/email for more info.
(I am somewhat confused as to why a picture is required. There is no association between my physical appearance and my ability to bust balloons).
If you could help me sort out a few inconsistencies in what appears otherwise to be a golden opportunity, I will thank you in advance.

Male Balloon Busters

I collected some choice adverts from Craigslist.org while searching for employment opportunities over the last couple of months. Balloon busting is an industry in which I have no real experience or have even heard about for that matter. I am a fast learner however, and my ‘can do’ attitude will no doubt carry me through. The job market is forever changing and you must be able to adapt, that is not lost on me. I do have some questions before I proceed, so I thought that I would reach out to my network. Y’all might know more about this than I do.
Here is the ad, with my comments in parentheses:


Male Balloon Busters
(Anyone know why there is a gender requirement? Isn’t that a discriminatory hiring practice?)
Looking for men who enjoy busting balloons--especially by sitting on them--and would be willing to do so on camera.
(I don’t just pop balloons, I bust them by any means necessary and that includes sitting on them, my favourite method).
$50.00 an hour to start.
(The wage is nice, and when he says ‘to start’, I am to assume that there is room for the pay rate to escalate).
This is ongoing.
(That is good, I am looking for a career, not just a one off).
Not looking for professional models.
(Can anyone tell me what professional modeling has to do with busting balloon skins)?
Send pix/email for more info.
(I am somewhat confused as to why a picture is required. There is no association between my physical appearance and my ability to bust balloons).
(If you could help the Left Hand sort these things out, I will say thank you for you for your help in advance.)

2 am eternal

Social Experiment

My neighbor Ray lives in the group home next door and throws his full weight into his occupation. And by that, I mean that he is a real nose to the grindstone kind of guy who makes a full time job out of smoking cigarettes. I met him a couple of years ago when I moved into the building and he told me that he used to do street drugs, it messed him up, but he doesn’t do street drugs anymore. He was actually pretty lucid compared to the near catatonic figure that I see behind the gate nowadays. I used to wave when I would pull in the driveway on my bike, but he didn’t respond a couple of times when he was looking right at me, so I ceased that. It probably wasn’t anything personal, he is just kind of catatonic like that for the most part.

He started trying to borrow money from me one day when I could see the desperate need for nicotine written all over his face. I decided to conduct a social experiment and gave him a dollar which he didn’t seem all that grateful about. As much progress as the dollar would give him towards some generics, it wouldn’t buy him the whole pack. I told him he could pay me back when he got some money. It wasn’t long before I was again pulling into the driveway and I could see Ray shuffling in my direction. It’s not hard to figure out what he wants when he can be bothered to get up and attempt to get in my personal space. I took a step back while he asked me for some money. I reminded him that he was still delinquent on that last loan of one US dollar. He looked all crest fallen and whipped because he knew that his failure to pay back the loan just doused his dream of a shiny new pack of cigarettes. It took a couple more times for the concept to register. He stopped asking me for money and evens waves back on occasion now.

Any Good Butts Today?

I feel like putting this question to my neighbor every time I see him out, but I just can’t manage to be that large of an asshole when the moment comes. I live next door to a group home type of operation this cat named Keith runs, and he gets paid to house 3-4 individuals through a government program.

I see this one shell shocked lost soul wandering out from behind the gate where they sit on chairs and smoke cigarettes all day. Opportunistic folks scan the horizon for possibilities while this guy searches the sidewalk and gutters for cigarette butts.

If I thought he was at all capable of communicating I might ask him about his take for the day. I will have to just imagine the conversation since it is likely to never happen.

“Oh yes, big haul today. I found a Marlboro light with a full inch on it and a lipstick stain. I found a generic full flavor with 2, maybe 3 good puffs on it and some spittle on the tip. The big money was cleaning out the ashtray at Kaiser hospital across the street, however. There I found a barely smoked Salem with a filter soaked in tubercular sputum. Top notch after dinner mint.“

As much fun as it is to make fun of others for suffering under the weight of a crushing addiction, I somehow manage to restrain myself. I feel a little bit bad for him actually, but that is usually in response to the urge to make some smartass remark.

Motorcycle Moments

I was riding on California Street on the hills above the Financial District. I crested the hill at the same time that a cable car made it to the top. There was a group of kids on the back, all around ten years or so. They saw me coming up from behind and they all got excited and were shouting amongst each other and at me. I realized that I was the source of their excitement so I threw a fist up for their benefit as I came up fast from behind and overtook the car on the right. I had a pair of dirt biking gloves on that were given to me by my brother and were rather rock starish in appearance. The kids went nuts and one kid screamed “YOU RULE!” as I passed. That was good fun.

comin' thru

Lock Set

Hated Phrases

Look at these babies.
Take a look at these bad boys.
Check out these puppies.

(im)pure love

Clearwater Thoughts

my Heart of HEARTS

I have a deep seated, unwavering disgust for the phrase “Heart of Hearts”. When someone says “I know in my heart of hearts that…”, this is a red flag waving in attempt to clue you into the fact that they are full of desperate bullshit. In addition, you can be sure that some aspect of their personhood is hinging on their ability to convince others into buying what they are trying to say.

Tortillas and Gorillas

The teacher handed a lesson down to us in reading class that still burns my ass to think about. This was seventh grade at Fairmont Junior High School in Boise Idaho. I can’t seem to remember the name of the teacher, but I couldn’t lose her visage from my memory bank if I wanted to.
The reason that she is still so memorable can all be traced back to one poorly conceived lesson on pronunciation. One morning she got it into her head that since the double L’s at the end of the word ‘tortilla’ are pronounced with a Y sound rather than a hard L sound, the word ‘gorilla’ should be uttered the same way. I knew immediately and without question that she was wrong, yet she moved passed her hesitation and had the class sounding it out and comparing the two words. GO-REE-YA. TOR-TEE-YA.
The bizarre thing was the way that she brought the concept up to herself more than anyone else, even though she was standing in front of a class and had been giving a lesson up until that point. It was like she put herself on the spot and I could see heavy confusion register in her face as she attempted to sort out the incongruence. But she was able to talk herself through it and convince herself that the commonality in spelling meant that they MUST be rule bound to sound the same. The unmistakable look of skepticism in respect to her own flawed theory never left her face, however. Once she had cast herself in the spotlight of doubt, she felt compelled to move on quickly to give herself and the class the impression that she knew what she was talking about. I was sitting towards the front, so I could even hear her mutter, “Yeah, I think that’s what it is… yeah, that’s what it is.”
When you run up against a situation where you are not sure of something, it is perfectly fine to say so in the humble opinion of the Left Hand. What the hell is wrong with admittance of the possibility that you may not know EVERYTHING? How hard is it to qualify an assumption? If you don’t know something, I won’t hold it against you, but if you go and present your half cocked conjecture as fact, then forget it.

Drop the Container

There is a hospital administrative building behind our apartment building that has a trash pickup everyday at 5 am. The daily drill that gets run goes like this; the driver puts the truck into reverse and enters the lot with the annoying reverse safety mechanism shredding the near silence as he backs the distance till he finally reaches the trash container. Then he exits the truck and attaches the container to a mechanism on the truck and gets back inside. Then he activates the hydraulics, lifts the container up a foot and a half and drops the fuckin’ thing to the concrete and ruptures the peace of 5 a.m. with a loud ass bang. Once is not usually enough, so another 2 or 3 impacts follow the first one. By then he can count it as a job well done if his intention is to wake me up, which it surely must be.

I woke up one morning under the described circumstances with a surge of annoyance because it was, no lie, the fourth day in a row that it happened. I raised up and grabbed two bottles off of the counter. I opened the back door quietly and slipped onto the fire escape. I threw both bottles one after the other and got back inside before I heard them hit with a double smash. I just threw towards the parking lot, I didn’t try to hit the poor bastard or his truck. I felt a little bad, I mean the guy is probably just doing his job, but hell, I don’t know how many times I had been jolted awake, thinking about how to deliver the message. This just sort of happened without a whole lot of thinking, I had just woken up seconds ago. From a window I saw him jump out of the truck to see what happened, and no doubt he saw the broken glass on the ground. It must have had the desired effect because after that it stopped happening.

Hitching Post Manipulation

One Nation...I Fear no Beer

I’ll BUY you a crackpipe…just don’t break my spark plugs please.

You know the recession has hit when the crack smokers of San Francisco are unable to purchased low cost pipes and must resort to the vandalism of my motorcycle. The scenario goes like this: coming back to the bike after a night out at the club or some other function and trying to start up. It is a little slow to turn over and seems to be running funny when it does fire up. First course of action in this diagnosis is to look down and find a plug wire dangling unattached. Further investigation reveals the porcelain broken off of the spark plug, still threaded in with the exposed copper wire protruding at a bizarre angle. Break off the porcelain part anyway, and you have a little jagged edge tube that you can smoke crack with and cut your lips while you blister them.
The engine design of the 86’ Yamaha Radian leaves the spark plugs in a vulnerable position to predatory rock smokers. Many bikes have the plugs set in a deeper, small space to where you need a deep socket to install and remove them. If they aren't just covered by the fairings all together. This makes a crack pipe/plug jacking a more work intensive affair and adds no small measure of difficulty to the procedure.
The first time it happened, I wanted to strangle the perp. I started to carry extras after the third time that some fool knocked me down from 4 cylinders to 3. It has became a recurrence that I have managed to get somewhat used to, strangely enough. Due in part to the realization that getting angry didn’t seem to help the situation. All the same though, if you need to something to blaze your white pebble with, hit me up here on the blog and I will BUY you a crackpipe. I’ve seen them for sale in a store downtown for .99 cents, and that is half the cost of a replacement spark plug. Take this offer into consideration before you baptize my bike in the aftermath of your singular need.

Street Gallery...the Versioned map goes on display

I took a picture of this guy (I'm the shadow in the bottom right corner) and hung a few copies of my California map retool in his street gallery. He was actually quite friendly in spite of looking pretty apprehensive here.

California; Retooled

I took a topographic map of California and versioned it.

Who is Left Hand Up?

View the image and tell me if you are any closer to figuring that out.

Makin' space, cutting thru the dust

There was a time when the mission was to beef up the record collection to add some bulk and heft. Amoeba records worked quite nicely for that, and it weren’t long before the whole load got massive and damn near unmanageable. All my good cuts were getting lost in the stacks and any attempt at organization was quickly reversed as soon as I moved again. Trying to organize and make use of limited space got a touch stressful at times, apartment living and all. The source of this vinyl avalanche was of course the fifty cent records at Amoeba. Coming home with a BOX of records every day for four days in a row during one particular week was staggering. And I did it all the time. There are no vinyl listening stations at Amoeba so I am limited to the names of producers and labels that I recognize and things I don’t recognize, but take a chance on anyway. Working like this, I bought a fair amount of truly horrible electronic music that I dispensed with immediately and refused to allow into my collection. Then there were a lot of records that were not sterling selections, but with the desire to make my collection larger, I found something about the tracks worth keeping around. This is how I got into trouble. Along with all of these dodgy sounds tho’, I found some right fuckin’ amazing records that made ALL of that dust inhalation worthwhile.
Over the last couple of months I have been pulling all questionable selections and giving them another listen to determine whether they are worth keeping around. Taking notes and putting on stickers to mark tracks. Taking paint to some records where there is only one serviceable track and blotting out the rest with colors. Thereby saving me the effort of going thru tracks that are not playable next time.
I am getting closer to finishing task and it has taken a lot longer than I counted on, but the extra space in our apartment and my head is nyce. Except when I spilled paint on that one really choice dark house track. I’m still twisted up inside when I think about that. I have uncovered many choice pieces from their hiding places and discovered a lot of great ones that I was unaware that I even owned, there was too much. Amoeba seems to have raised the prices on most of these records to a dollar however, and the quality has dropped, but no matter. I can just be selective now that the collection is leaner and has lost all of that dead weight.

Roll Call

The toilet roll situation at my last residence got out of hand at one point.

When the mind is single tracked

You know that person in the grocery store who goes up to the sample tray and parks their body physically in front of it, so that you can’t reach around and grab one yourself? The person who is so singular in mind that they lack the wherewithal or simply don’t care that there are people behind him or her who might be trying to get at the same thing? That is the same person who will put on a pair of headphones and try to communicate with others by shouting in order to hear their own voice. Taking no recognition of the fact that the music is strapped to their own earholes and not everyone else’s. You would think that people might have enough experience talking that they don’t need to hear their own voice in order to operate it. This is also the same person who has no skill in the ability to multi-task. Their thinking is so linear that if you introduce a new concept while they are trying to perform one simple task, it all ends in a smashup.

This is a Photo Chop that I made using a picture of my friend Kim, who is currently M.I.A. or what she likes to call 'incognegro', somewhere in San Francisco right now.

Haircut City (the same)….down to a science

Our conversations are what you would call abbreviated when I go to have some hair cut off. “Hello”, he says with a sweeping arm gesture toward the chair where I need to sit. He puts on the neck strip and the cape on me as he decides how to word the question. There is a two second silence where I can hear him thinking.
“Same?”, he carefully words the question.
“Yes. Same please.”
There are no words past that ONE that need to be spoken. And it would be a struggle because his English is very limited and I speak no Korean. He works like a surgeon with the scissors and clippers. Using research and empirical data to formulate strategy like a scientist.
When we come to the end of the session, he poses another question to me
“Okaaay?”, meaning am I happy with it and is there anything else that we need to do here. I always am, and there never is.

Business Hours Bay Loop Tour - a spin through seven counties

Last week I took my own self designed Business Hours Bay Loop Tour. All possible in part because the Left Hand is gainfully unemployed right now. I took my girlfriend to work and motored straightaway from Pacific Heights to Mill Valley in Marin County.
Coffee was on the agenda, but urination was a more, how shall we say, pressing matter. The Jiffy Lube that I stopped next to seemed a likely candidate. The bonus being the coffee that apparently comes free if you decide to stop and take a piss in their waiting room. My only complaint (and its not even that) is that it was flavored, but there again, no room to complain. On to San Rafael, which I have really only driven through once on a direct route to somewhere else. This being the point of the Bay Loop, to visit some towns in the Bay Area (over 110 towns in the Bay Area I have heard) that I always hear about but have not managed to come thru at any length yet. I drove the streets and wove around the grid. Got tired and napped in the sun. I got up and rolled straight through Sonoma and Napa Counties on the 37 off of 101. I got off in Vallejo (Solano County) and rolled around the blocks there, just watching and driving, taking photos here and there. Watched some police bother the locals.
I went to DD's Discounts and bought $30 worth of socks, they have the deal if you need some. The Dollar Tree next door worked me out of $42 as well. Ate up some time shopping and moved on to the South side of Richmond (Contra Costa County) via I-80. Stopped off to see my friend Junior and drink a Mickeys 22 oz that he bought me. Learned what 'spread' is, when a guy came up and asked Junior if he needed some. He was talking Social Security Cards and IDs, all clean. He didn't know what it was either, till then. Talked some little shit and it was time to get back down to San Francisco to pick up my girlfriend from work.

Moved it onward through Alameda County and got caught in Traffic for the Bay Bridge. Exercised patience and eventually made it through. Next time I want to make Benicia and go around Richmond more than I was able. I have to say that I have a better feel for the geographic region, all courtesy of the Business Hours Bay Loop Tour.

Sick Wit It

The part that I heard was;
“How do you like cashiering so far, sick wit it?”
Just to put it in context, this was a young white kid about 21 or so directing the question to his workmate at the Salvation Army on Geary Street. They were both suited up in their red vests and he had a puberty style moustache. She was Asian and a few years older, I’m guessing that she was Korean. I gathered that she was new to her job.
“Mm Hmm” she nodded after a slight pause.
Like she understood the first half of the question and didn’t manage the literal meaning of the last part but was intelligent enough to get the gist. To hear her talk, it wasn’t hard to tell that English was not her first language. I wondered why then he would embellish the question with some Bay Area rap phraseology, but there again, why do people do a lot of things?
I leave you with the lyrics to “Sick Wit It” by Mistah Fab.

Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.

[Verse 1:]
I pull a heater may never follow a heater man.
Even though we try to smoke the weed man.
Put up, or shot up, my loot up is wassup.
Wha-wha-what would you do as I shot yo hood up.
Even jealous my weed.
I take the cups.
Thats F.A.B. not Fabulous.
What it iz,
Sick wit it it iz,
They way this money look like I'll be indepentdent for years.
Is a gang of hood niggas eatin' off this plate.
So don't come over here if you ain't from this place.
Hear me coming bout a half a block.
Got a D in my silly for doing the robot.
Catch all kinds of us.
More kinds of thugs.
They offer designer.
More Kinds of drugs.
I'm Married to the air.
Pistol under the battery,
Dopes in the air.

[Chorus x2:]
Thizz, oh we sick wit it.
We iz, super sick wit it.
Sraper, Scraper, pull out the rippers.
Purple, Purple, gone off the liqour.

[Verse 2:]
I don't need no urns.
All I need is freaks.
F.a.b. what they call me.
Worty they mouths weeds.
I do the dummy, retarded, and ride the yellow bus.
Put a dent and a father be doing hella much.
High speed in my car, call it a scraper.
Pop my pees and yours bras, come for a ripper.
I only roll wit my folks, family, and mexicans.
Run away with what I have, I'm a pedestrian.
Hit the club, and I'm mad cause they wont let us in.
Now I'm about to go bad like drunk mexicans.
You know I'm mental and sumo, but I be holding weight.
Got love for the East Coast, but this is Golden Gate.
I'm from the band PI, we don't surf talk.
Since I was a PI a PI, i do Turf Talk.(yee)
T.H.I.Z.Z.Droop-E you too hard, you need to be easy.

[Chorus x2:]
Thizz, oh we sick wit it.
We iz, super sick wit it.
Sraper, Scraper, pull out the rippers.
Purple, Purple, gone of the liqour.

[E-40:]
Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka, it's real ugly.
Sk's and Ak's, in my Sentai.
Not the pretty aka's that go Skee-Skee.
But the ugly ak's that go Stoopy.
It really doesn't matter major feature or factor.
Walk up on that ass, you can have it in the bladder.
It's all about the money and the credits and the fat.
The rolls gone change, jewels and ear rings.
Turkin, drinking whiskey some.
Am I suburban, dropping off counters.
Tryina place my bids, tryna get in this bra.
Spit my lrp's, in Fairfeils much.
You can find me in the party getting spiffed and twisted.
See me in the club and I'm double fisted.
Higher than the Statue of Liberty, extra tipsy.
Playing possum, acting like your dizzy. (BIOTCH!)

[Chorus x2:]
Thizz, oh we sick wit it.
We iz, super sick wit it.
Sraper, Scraper, pull out the rippers.
Purple, Purple, gone of the liqour.

[Outro:]
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup.
Brrrrrup

Thizz is what it is...

My friend Junior here that I recently connected with again on my Bay Loop Tour.

Only in San Francisco...the first two episodes

You hear the phrase "Only in San Francisco" tossed around a lot, a few too many times for my taste. Overuse starts to give it a ring that sounds precious to me. I will admit, however, that there are times when it does apply.
I was walking on a sunny day in North Beach one weekday afternoon, and to my complete surprise, I saw the guys from the Fruit of the Loom commercials in full fruit costumes, rolling down the street in a low rider with the hydraulics jacking up and down. Shit was over the top! I'm pretty sure the apple was driving, but I am not totally clear on that. It was like some bizarre parallel television universe all of a sudden, a casual state of affairs that got surreal, real quick.
After a look around, I located the camera crew, and a conversation with a guy waiting around on the block helped me figure out that they were in fact shooting a commercial, and that he was an extra hoping he would get chosen for some work. That helped make some sense of it, because I was in disBELEIF when I initially saw them rolling the FUCK OUT in that tricked out Impala; hitting switches on the hydraulic lifts and making the grapes on that guys purple costume shake.
Another episode of only in San Francisco comes from a former coworker who gave me his account of what he found the morning after Halloween one year, in his car. He had long since stopped locking his car doors after the windows were broken several times to break into his car. With the stereo and everything else of value removed, he hoped that leaving the doors open would help someone discover that there was nothing left worth taking, without having to smash a window to arrive at that conclusion.
It was quite the stunner to see someone in full gorilla suit passed out cold on his backseat. Some real out of context shit that just puts the mind on whirl. He stood there for an extended pause wondering what the hell it is that one does in this situation, never having been presented with it before. Before long he chose to awaken the beast with some shoves. The beast reared its head and managed a few grunts as it somewhat painfully shifted into a seated position. It looked at him with an inquisitive expression for a couple of long seconds, struggling to gain some bearings likely. It then rose up and ambled off down the street, walking the walk of the deathly hungover to some unknown destination.

Don't loan me your books!

You won’t recognize it when I am done with it. The cover will be all mutilated. The spine will be cracked, likely. There might be some writing in it. Water damage. Pages: dog eared.
I don’t want to have to replace your copy.
Knowing that your book will just come out looking a mess, you might want to reconsider loaning me that book. I’m just going to fuck it up. Shorten its lifespan at least.

Mental Vacations - Piss on Ice

A few months ago, Left Hand and his significant other dined on a Friday night at a Salvadorean Restaurant called Balompie in the Mission. While the food was spectacular, there was another equally noteworthy sensation in the mens bathroom; a trough urinal full of ice. I can’t begin to tell you how satisfying it was to melt ice upon release. The feeling was strangely calming and soothing, something I have yet to come to understand. Strange only when you think about it, but in the act it was one of the few things that momentarily made all of the sense in the world.

Coffee Strength - Crystalized and Freezedried

How many spoon fulls in YOUR Nescafe?

Toxic Bikram

Left hand performed a Bikram Yoga class the day before last for the first time in over a year. Why he elected to do it on the far side of the room directly underneath the heater is beyond even himself. Could have been a severe underestimation of the havoc between body and brain under such duress.
Imagine if you will, over a years worth of toxins coming to the surface and saying hello. Not nice. Not nice at all. Nothing nice at all to say about it, except that getting all those terrible things out means that I am on my way to feeling better. I was wholly incapacitated that night and the next day. How I dredged up the fortitude to make it to class yesterday is also beyond my personal limits of understanding. I suffered significantly less however, on the side of the room with windows. Almost as punishing without the toxic aftermath.

CORD LIFE – or… A LIFE OF CORDS

Left hand has heard other people complain about not being able to drive space cars or have a robot maid now that we have arrived in the 21st century. These are among several technologies predicted back in the forties and fifties that never came to fruition. Personally I would be happy if all existing technologies were wireless, cause in that living space we call an apartment , we have cords every-ass -mother fuckin’- where.
It is truly unfortunate that our wireless internet router requires one to plug in by way of ethernet cable in order to function, rendering it nothing in the way of wireless. What that currently means is a tenuous connection that stretches across the room. Step on the cord and you risk either pulling the router off of the coffee table or un-socketing the back end of my laptop by forced removal. The laptop of the left hand is already dying a slow to medium speed death without scoring the lead in a shit show where something bad is just bound to happen.
Computers have cords. Lots of cords. So do speakers, turntables, cd players, lamps, clock radios, blenders, toasters, coffee pots and grinders, crock pots, televisions and dvd players, shavers, converter boxes, extensions and strips.
Too many (cords) and not enough places to plug them in at (sockets).

I'm back!!!

I’m back!!! There again, you likely didn’t know that I was gone (or here in the first place?) My return to the internet is brought to you by Rohto mentholated eyedrops (you’ve tried these, right?). Suspend your disbelief for a moment in light of the fact that Rohto is wholly unawares that they are sponsoring anything on behalf of the left hand.

my open bar dot com needs help

http://www.myopenbar.com/ is kinda hurt these days. This is their featured listing for the week of February 18th - February 24th, ' 09.

FEATURED LISTING: Zipcar Open Bar Thursday, February 19th free drink for Zipcar members / 6pm-8pm Drinking and complaining: a natural twosome. If you're already part of the Cooper Mini Mafia, Zipcar will buy you a free drink, give you $50 in driving credit for signing up a friend, and let you bend the ears of their SF management, all at once.
Poleng Lounge1751 Fulton St. btw. Masonic Ave. and Central Ave., Lower Haight, San Francisco, (415) 441-1751

There are a few things wrong here. a) You have to be a member of Zipcar to get the free drink. b). One free drink. One solitary free drink. You are fuckin' mad if you think I am going to get out of the house for that (although you would likely be forgiven for assuming that I might give it a passing thought) c). This is the featured listing of the week. To whom do I direct the burning question of what, exactly are the element(s) that make it worth featuring?

Digital Television Panic

Have you 'made the switch' to digital television yet? You are aware that your television is your lifeline to the outside world aren't you? God forbid that a natural disaster or some other calamity come down in the general vicinity of where you live if you are still watching a tv with rabbit ears. You will lose all contact with the outside world and be chastised in a public manner for you unwillingness to get with the times. Not at all unlike someone involved in an car accident "he or she was not wearing a seatbelt. Said person may have otherwise survived an entirely preventable accident if the victim was not so resistant to change, to digital television and seatbelts. Ask yourself, what you would do without a functional television In the tempest of a terrorist attack?

Most high and holy: Warren Jeffs

in the juice

Juri Commons

What do you know about Juri Commons?

The best quote from inauguration day.

When Obama sat down to put his signature on some documents, he said;
"I'm a lefty. Get used to it."

flakes and wires