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Saturday, 20 January 2001 (all the best cowboys have chinese eyes) 8:19am I'm watching MSNBC's coverage of Bush's inauguration, and the commentator just referred to Chelsea Clinton has having become "a well-rounded young woman." Jesus! Are they allowed to say that? I mean, I've always thought she was cute, but... 10:56pm As any nerd worth their virgin genetalia knows, that big meanie George Lucas is refusing to release any of the Star Wars movies on DVD. Which makes me rather proud to have acquired for $5 a bootleg copy of The Phantom Menace on VCD (a format which works on most all DVD players, mine included). Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the series and I thought the movie kinda blew, but it's the principle of the matter. Besides, it's widescreen, and while the quality isn't quite up to DVD standards, it ain't bad, and thanks to the subtitles with a little patience I can probably figure out how to write "Jar-Jar Binks" in Arabic. Then it'll really be money well spent.
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Friday, 19 January 2001 (empty glass) 7:14am Surrender!!! 9:08am In spite of what the billboards all over San Francisco would suggest, home movies (especially of children during their precious "young" stage) existed long before the iMac. Nice try, Steve. 1:58pm It's mid-to-late January, right? That means the New Year's Resolutioners are probably aren't going to the gym quite as much as they did after the first of the year. Of course, I haven't been there in a much longer time, but right now I have the excuse of not wanting to go without Maddy, and Maddy not being able to go at all right now since both her membership card and driver's license disappeared with her purse. But when she gets her replacement license...we'll probably start going on a regular basis. More than likely, and for real this time. Honestly. 4:54pm Ah, an old-fashioned Friday night crunch. It's been a while.
Pike tells me that for him, Friday is traditionally sushi night. Just goes to
show, I need some new traditions.
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Thursday, 18 January 2001 (stuck in a moment you can't get out of) 9:07am It's remarkable the amount of energy I put into getting people to simply leave me alone. It's not being antisocial, but I'm just really really sick of unsolicited calls and/or calls for other people. (Although some of my coworkers probably think otherwise, since I'm always wearing dark glasses and tend to remain in my office unless coaxed out for some reason, and am legendarily reticent about doing anything social, partially but not entirely due to the events of the "Fun Day" fiasco in '99. But Pike knows that I'm not entirely unfriendly, as does Brian and Patti and Elizabeth and...well, except for Pike, a bunch of people who don't work here anymore. And I'm surely an engima to the adjoining accounting department, which seems to be composed of extremely short women who spend most of the day buzzing each others' cubicles. They are going to be sooooooo freaked out when I start using their restroom.) The former is primarily a problem at home, and blocking calls from unlisted numbers has done away with most of those, since telemarketers don't like to announce their presence on caller ID. And though we still get the occasional wrong number, the latter is mostly a problem at work, since my number seems to have had a long and varied history before it was assigned to me. Many figures from that history continue to call looking for other people, usually acknowledging my presence before proceeding to leave a message for someone else. (Always leaving messages; I almost never actually answer the phone, unless the caller ID indicates is someone I know whom I actually want to talk to. I get away with it because I can, and I intend to continue to do so until I can't anymore, when the industry finally collapses and I find myself back at Le Video.) So I finally recorded a new outgoing message this morning, one in which I very patiently explain that messages for people who do not fall within the subsets of "me" or "other people in my department" shouldn't be left on my voicemail, since there's no chance in hell of it reaching them. I've probably breached some kind of company voicemail etiquette, I don't know. And I don't really care. 10:07am My brother wrote back. He's fine—wasn't even there when it happened—and he sent me some cool pictures of the aftermath. 10:57am "[S]elf-mutilating behavior (e.g., wrist-scratching)..." 12:14pm So the rolling blackouts are continuing today. Only those who happen to have their PG&E bills handy have any idea if it'll be affecting them or not, and I've never even seen the bill for my apartment (it's covered in the rent) let alone for this building. So if it happens, it happens. And considering the guy in the office next to me has just started playing Led Zeppelin very loud, it can't happen soon enough. I find myself hoping that people walking by realize it's him and not me. (For the record, I'm listening to R.E.M. almost as loud, but focused through headphones for maximum eardrum damage.)
I'm sorry you never check 4:27pm After a great deal of hemming followed by an equal amount of hawwing, I called to make an appointment to get zapped. His wife answered, and by the time I got around to telling her my name, she said, "I thought it was you!" Who knows, maybe someday I'll even meet her in person. I'm going in on Sunday at noon. Which sucks in a lot of ways, but the sooner I get this done, the better. By that point he'll have eleven days of growth to worth with, and after that I'll have thirteen days to heal before seeing my father. I already know it won't be enough. Sometime before then I'll be attempting to get my hair done. My hope is that enough time will have passed since getting zapped so I won't get the same blank stare when I tell the girl behind the counter at Anodyne's salon my name. ("Why is that man calling himself Sharon?") Maybe I can just use my last name...
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Wednesday, 17 January 2001 (cuckoo is a pretty bird) 11:49am My brother jonco works for the California State Assembly, headquartered in the Capitol building in Sacramento—into which a big rig truck collided and exploded last night.
Apparently nobody inside was injured (the driver was killed, natch), and I don't know that he was even
there at the time, but I'm still kinda worried. I wrote him as soon as I heard, but he
hasn't written back yet. No doubt he has more important things to deal with right now...
Anyway, as an experiment which doubles as an endurance, I haven't shaved since last Thursday (the day of the Neil show when the usher called me "sir," but I'm not dwelling on that, really I'm not). I figure it's the best way to gauge my progress; the longer I can go before the growth drives me nuts, the closer I am to completion. And there's certainly growth, dark black growth, on my upper lip and underneath my chin. Not so much to keep homeless guy I walked past this morning from calling me "ma'am" (for which I didn't give him any money, though I did break down at the woman with the pletheora of cats), and I could probably count them if I was patient and morbid enough. But it's there, and it's proof that I'm not done. A while back I'd come up with an analogy comparing getting zapped to the winter solstice, how after I've gotten zapped it's like the shortest day of the year in terms of my facial hair's growth, and each day afterwards the sun is up in the sky a little longer—which is to say, more hair comes back...or something like that. It made sense at the time. Then again, I was probably stoned.
Maddy will be meeting my father the first weekend of February. At the very least I'm going to
see Anodyne before then to get my hair done (can't let him see me with roots, now can I?),
and I'm obviously considering getting zapped. The timing on the latter is much more crucial,
though; do I risk the possibility of still having post-electro redness/swelling/yuckiness when
I see my father again? Or do I just let nature take its course for the next few weeks, and
simply hope that it doesn't get too much worse and that I won't cut myself when shaving
as has been my habit?
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Tuesday, 16 January 2001 (waiting round to die) 11:38am Our bad luck streak with motels (specifically, my unerring ability to pick those favored by pimps and dealers) is about to come to an end: from here on out, it's Holiday Inn or nothing. Their credentials are certainly solid. (By the way, this is one of those entries which only makes sense if you follow the link. Don't you hate that?) 12:44pm Thanks to Norcal's fascist collection policies, the loveseat won't get picked up until January 31. I'm anticipating even more gate and door-slamming than usual until then. 7:31pm And with the new year comes the blood oranges. Yum. I miss Lee.
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Monday, 15 January 2001 (no place to fall) 10:35am In the grand tradition of inappropriate teeve marathons on national holidays, MTV is showing Making the Band on this fine Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. As if the very concept of a "documentary" series about a putrid boy band wasn't creepy enough, the scenes shot in public are profoundly disturbing. Seems they didn't attempt to get clearance to show the faces of the bystanders (usually crowds in airports), so instead they simlpy blur out their faces. So the hunnnnky young lads exist in a Twilight Zone-y world of people without faces. As if having to suck Lou Pearlman's dick isn't bad enough.
Anyway, if all goes well, we should have a new loveseat this afternoon.
two tubs of blistex
Tinkling and rattling sounds were heard when we turned it on its side to move
it out the door, but I'm guessing they weren't gold doubloons so I didn't
investigate.
The old one is in the entryway, and will remain there for at least a week until it can be picked up. The upstairs neighbors will not be happy about that, but the landlords know and they're cool with it. Neener. Meanwhile, I find I'm getting depressed. Probably because it's sunny outside and we go back to work tomorrow, and we have this nice comfy couch now....
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Sunday, 14 January 2001 (don't take it too bad) 11:30am In an age of irony, the sincere has become amusing. 10:28pm We went to my favorite second-run theater today for a double feature of Unbreakable and the re-release of The Exorcist. I'd been avoiding the latter because of stories I'd heard about modern audiences laughing at it, and I was inclined to believe them given my experiences with pre-'99 movies in theaters lately. But it was a Sunday afternoon at an old theater, and it had been out for a few months, so it was worth a shot. Naturally, of the five other people in the theater, two of them were a teenage boys who were laughing and talking to each other. They seemed especially amused by the profanity in the film, since as we all know, swearing is funny. (Eat penguin shit, you ass-spelunker!) We were cringing in fear of the paroxysms of laughter certain to occur when the movie kicked into cross-fucking, puke-spewing overdrive, but for the most part they kept relatively quiet. One of them did get brave during the levitation scene and said, loudly, "She's doing magic tricks!" I shushed him just as loudly, and he shut up for the rest of the movie. What a pussy. We stopped off at a Thai place on the way home. As we were waiting for our food, the people sitting at nearby table (including one who made my tranny-radar go off just a little) called us over and asked what was on our shirts. Mine had the Trust Obey logo, a very phallic-looking "T," and Maddy's was of Interview With the Vampire, the dominant feature of which is a large red "V." (If the T is phallic, then the V...oh, I am so not going there.) They said they liked the shirts, our hair and overall looks, and that we were a cute couple. We accepted it as the strange but pleasant compliment that it was and returned to where we were waiting. They left while we were still waiting, and on their way our asked if they could take our picture. I haven't shaved since Thursday morning, not five minutes earlier Maddy had observed that I had three (3) new zits, and the pigtails into which I'd put my hair were decomposing in a big way. So, of course, I said yes. Because I'm that fucking vain at times. They then asked if I had a card. I blinked (because I was surprised and stuff) and said no. The maybe/maybe-not tranny handed us her business card (her name, I noticed, sounded like a boy name with a femininizing suffix) and asked for my email address. It perhaps goes to show the degree to which I am at times starved to make new friends that I actually gave it to them. And again I wonder, what the fuck is so hard to understand about "Sherilyn?" Nobody ever gets it right the first time. I like the name Sherilyn and I'm keeping it, but sometimes I long for the relative simplicity of "Jennifer." Maybe I should make that my middle name, so I can say "My name is Sherilyn Jennifer Connelly, everybody calls me Jennifer because on the whole they're too dumb to get my first name right." It would help to solve my father's J-name dysphoria, and best of all, Sherilyn J. Connelly makes me sound like a cartoon character. Did you know that both Bart and Homer Simpson's middle initials are J., as an homage to Bullwinkle J. Moose? *cough* But I digress. Anyway, I doubt they'll remember my address (and/or spell it correctly), but the card had a URL which I suppose I'll be checking out. After all, on their way out the door one of them said, "Goodbye, ladies." Points were scored for that. I think Maddy was a little weirded out by the experience, but that's only because she's not yet accustomed to having complete strangers take her picture, whereas I've ended up on more than a few alien rolls of film. I'm sure she'll get used to it eventually.
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Saturday, 13 January 2001 (a cool dry place) 10:27am It seems like my Linux epiphanies always happen early in the morning. I'll wake up from a bad dream (this time for some reason involving Bob Fosse's film Cabaret, even though I've never seen it), wander out into the living room, and figure out a problem that's been bothering me. They're very little things, but they get me closer to actually knowing what the hell I'm doing. (For the record, "early in the morning" does not mean half past ten, but rather around seven. I was just lazy getting to the journal.) I've known for a while now that Dana and Costanza would be moving away sooner or later; it now appears that it'll be sooner. Much sooner. Like, within the next month or two at the latest. This city will be deserted before too long, lemme tell ya.
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Friday, 12 January 2001 (ignoti et quasi occulti) 9:45am It's very bright outside. I guess that means the rain's gone. I'm not going to say I miss it, precisely, but I'd definitely gotten used to it. The fact that I bought Neil tickets while it was pouring outside, and with the knowledge that it may continue to be pouring by the time of the show, suggests I was learning to live with it. One always does. As we were driving around San Jose on Wednesday, not lost so much as simply unsure of our destination, a thunderstorm hit. For as beautiful as lightning is (one of the most spectacular displays of raw nature I've ever seen was the rainless electrical storm in September '99), the last thing my nerves needed at that moment was a bolt of lightning directly ahead of us, followed by a three-one-thousand clap of thunder. If nothing else, I wished the circumstances would have been a little different so I could have at least enjoyed it. Which wasn't quite so bad as yesterday afternoon on 280 between San Francisco and Daly City. It was pouring hard, and I saw white object bouncing ahead of us on the road. At first I thought it was a bag, but of course a bag wouldn't be floating around in a rainstorm. It turned out to be a large plastic bucket. Under normal circumstances I would have tried to avoid it, but again, it was the middle of a rainstorm. Swerving would have been a very bad thing, lest I want to become a statistic and/or an Advisory on sfgate's traffic page. So I plowed into it, figuring that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't become lodged underneath the tires, thus resulting in the same effect as had I simply tried to avoid it. Everybody's gotta go sometime, and it's the chance you take when you go driving in a rainstorm on a freeway which is perilous enough in nice weather. Of course, we survived. I'd like to think that means that when I die, I won't see it coming. We'd stopped at Tower earlier in the day to check on tickets and were told to try back later; we returned shortly after 3, right about when the show was officially confirmed. The tickets were going on sale at 4, so Maddy kindly indulged my desire to wait. As such I was the first in line, not a bad place to be for a show which sells out in ten minutes. As I was getting ready for the show, Maddy observed that we were a little out of sync in terms of dressing up. For Manson the night before she'd gotten dressed up all nice and beautiful, and I was essentially slumming in a t-shirt and the damn beret. A bit of makeup, but not much real effort. Then, for Neil, she was in jeans and a t-shirt, and I was in full battle gear. I assured her that she would not be underdressed, whereas I would most definitely be overdressed. I'm still not sure why I felt compelled to get dressed up for a show which was mostly populated by the jeans-and-flannel crowd, except perhaps that I was going to be close to home (closer than San Jose, certainly) and as such felt a little more comfortable. I considered wearing what the same outfit as I'd word to Roderick's on Tuesday, but figured that might be just a bit much. Makeup and fishnet would be more than enough. So we got to the Warfield with no great difficulty, and the rain had let up with Job-like timing. For at least two blocks around the theater, people were walking around trying to buy tickets. It's a phenomenon I've experienced at more than one Neil show, and certainly made me feel at home. Once inside, we admired the various posters from past shows (including the Bauhaus poster which I've seen in Summer's apartment and an Alanis which I've coveted for a long time) then proceeded up to our seats. Being first in line I actually got floor tickets—they were selling general admission floor first, then upper seating, and which you got depending purely on your place in line—but we traded them for seats, since on the floor Maddy would probably see nothing but the backs of necks. At least in the seats she'd have a fighting chance of actually seeing the stage, and this being her first Neil show it's a very important detail. We showed our tickets to the strategically placed ushers and found our way to our seats. One of them managed to perfectly deflate my ego, moreso than any of the girls at Manson or Roderick's, with what was either a knee-jerk attempt at politeness or a wink: "Your seat is behind the soundboard and to the right, sir." After Vertigo last week we went to Orphan Andy's, a diner around the corner from the theater. I hadn't shaved for a day or two and wasn't wearing a speck of makeup. The waitress said "ladies" all the same. I know now that she was just being polite, or at the very least, knows a less-than-convincing tranny when she sees one. Given that she works in the Castro, I'm leaning towards the latter. Employees of Bill Graham Presents, on the other hand, aren't fooled by me for a moment and feel no need to play along with my silly little game. Our seats were on the aisle. Normally in these cases I take the aisle seat in order to give my overlong legs a chance in hell to be comfortable. As we approached it became obvious, wordlessly, that I would be taking the inside seat, since the third seat in was occupied by what appeared to be a Genuine Ol' Stinky Hippie, complete with the long hair, glasses, and beard. Maddy hasn't been in California quite long enough to become accustomed to these things, and at the very least she hasn't been to many shows with an audience skewed in that direction. (I, of course, have been to more than I can count.) She later confirmed that he looked the way she'd expected Burnout to look. The guy was nice enough, really. He'd been to the show the night before, and we compared notes on other Neil shows we've seen. He seemed impressed by my track record (of which I've long since lost count; at least two or three dozen since 1988, maybe more), and said that his attendance hasn't been anywhere as "holy." I explained that I've lost the faith over the last year or so, but that the church seems more than willing to welcome me back. We also discussed both watching people, and getting watched by people—apparently even cookie-cutter hippies still get odd looks, even in San Francisco—and he said that I was certainly the most interesting-looking person around. I took it as a compliment. Still reeling from the implications of being called "sir" while in what certainly felt like full femme mode, I was willing to settle for anything. When the show finally started, he got out a joint. He wasn't alone, either, and the ushers didn't seem to care one way or the other; I guess they figured that in some situations you might as well look the other way. After bogarting for a few minutes he offered it to me and I accepted, and Maddy took a couple hits as well. Nowhere near as powerful as Burnout's stuff—just as well, since I didn't want to get too baked—though Maddy remarked that it was the biggest and fattest joint she'd ever smoked, like something from a Cheech & Chong movie. She's normally nervous about smoking a stranger's grass in public place, and for good reason, but in these circumstances it just felt right. The show was, as I mentioned before, amazing, loud, noisy, chaotic, energetic. For Maddy's first time seeing Neil live I'm glad it was with Crazy Horse, which is damn near as good as it gets. (And I mean that in the best way possible, although I think she'll also like his solo acoustic shows.) In terms of staging it was the antithesis of the Manson show; indeed, there was no staging at all, not even a backdrop. The stage was completely open and mostly filled with the Warfield's equipment, giving the impression that they'd simply come in, set up their instruments, and started jamming. Which isn't far from the truth. Standing in line for the Alanis show back in June, I heard a considerably more hardcore fan than myself comment that he hoped she did some new or different material, that it wouldn't be just the same old set. That's what I hope for every time I see Neil (honestly, I can go the rest of my life without hearing "Cortez the Killer" live again), though this time I would have been happy with a greatest-hits set, which is what The Ex said the night before had been. Always confounding expectations, in addition to the usual stuff, they did two songs which, so far as I know, they probably hadn't done since the late seventies. As an old-school obsessive fan, it made the show for me right there. Tonight, though, I've promised Maddy nothing more strenuous than staying at home, curled up on the (rapidly decaying but perhaps soon to be replaced) loveseat and watching Mystery Science Theater 3000. Sounds damn good to me, too.
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Thursday, 11 January 2001 (a small victory) 11:05am Among the minor castatrophes which struck last night was the loss of Maddy's purse at the show. In addition to a degree of freshly ATM-minted cash, it contained her driver's license and ATM card. I called the venue's Lost and Found this morning, and they told me to call back this afternoon. Talk about prolonging the agony. She's already called the bank to turn off the card just to be on the safe side, and is cringing in anticipation of dealing with the DMV to get a replacement license. It's funny how things can change at a moment's notice. I'm tempted to see it as a prophetic fulfillment of the sense of doom I felt before we left yesterday (as though the thunderstorms, bad directions and incredibly skanky motel room weren't enough), and in that respect, I guess it's better than running the car off a cliff. If that were to happen, I only ask that it be quick. (Probably just jinxed myself.)
According to The Ex, Neil did in fact play last night. At the moment there's no indication that he'll be
playing tonight as well—of course, by this time yesterday there was no indictation he'd be playing
that night, either. I'm going to keep an eye out, though. It's raining and he'd be at the Warfield downtown,
but after what we went through last night, this would be a friggin' cakewalk.
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