No Apology

This picture says a lot about me

I feel like noodling to start my day so here we go. No direction, no theme, no structure. Just stroke the writing bone a little before attending to my job.

I woke ten minutes before my phone alarm, which I'd set for five thirty. I was in a bed in a house and had to admit it was pretty comfortable to not be on the floor. Zoom had insisted I could stay there rather than weave my way home after the World Series game, which was fair since I briefly fell asleep on his couch watching the Warriors open their season against the Rockets. This tendency towards a content recumbence was I think understandable, as it followed three beers, two shots of tequila, and a fine dinner of potatoes and rice and barbecued tri-tip.

A tip to newly single males: Have friends who like to cook.

It was a good counterpoint to the start of the evening, when I felt I had to slip away from work early and unseen because the game started at four thirty and most of my cow-orkers are Asian or engineers or otherwise not interested in championship baseball and just wouldn't get it; and I found myself all sad and without a place to go, not having a TV, not wanting to invite myself anywhere, not wanting to go to some random sports bar, and not wanting to be alone. Oh waah. So I called Zoom on the pretense that the UPS website told me my package arrived at his shop that afternoon, and sort of hemmed and hawed until he invited me over.

I knew he would, he's a sports fan. Giants, Kings, and especially Packers.

But I went to the shop first and picked up these bitchin' boots I ordered. Ain't midlife crises grand? No worries, anything I get can be worn and worn out at Burning Man if nowhere else. 'Deed, the Captain was there and he had to admit his new four hundred dollar firefighting boots were probably going to get wrecked up in the desert next year. Whatcha gonna do.

Night prior was awesome: Went with a friend down to the Concord Pavilion to see Buckcherry, Three Days Grace, and Nickelback. I dig Buckcherry, they're a two-hit band with this catchy little tune whose chorus any grandmother would like*:

You're a crazy bitch
But you fuck so good, I'm on top of it

It ends with a very sweet sentiment.

You're crazy
But I like the way you
fuck
me

And Nickelback was okay, I like them but they're the big pop "hard" rock headliner, and the lead singing star has his stage act so dialed in he might as well work the casinos. I mean, he knows how to entertain and to give these Canadians credit they peppered the screen show accompanying "Photograph" with some images of the Giants but his smiles and jokes were about as sincere as a plastic fart, to use one of my deceased father-in-law's favorite phrases, no edge at all, and we left early, Concord being in the Bay Area and thus kind of far away (hour and fifteen without traffic).

It was Three Days Grace, the middle band, we both really went to see. They have a lot of great music and they did it all right. The minimalism of this paragraph is my lazy way of communicating that.

Not a big fan of videos and would have linked audio only if I could find it.

The TDG song linked to, while good for a chortle when relating how much my (ex) wife hates the chorus, is really about getting past a drug addiction.

Which all bring me to Sunday, when I drove my mother's car with her and three of my cousins in it through a gentle rainstorm in San Francisco to see the Post Impressionist exhibit at the De Young. I passed through the galleries with so much being sparked in my little brain, I truly regretted not carrying a notebook. Who goes to an art gallery without a notebook? Well, nearly everyone, but I shouldn't. It was a wonderful show in any case and if anyone wants to come along I will happily go again. I also enjoyed the survey collection of American paintings, in particular those depicting California in the last (or I guess previous to last) century.

I've always liked the De Young. Thing is, they tore it down and built a new one just a few years ago, and the new one looks like a science fiction set piece, especially on a drizzly day. They tore down and rebuilt the Academy of Sciences across the way too. Everything's different from when I was a child except the bandstand, which is a fine Beaux Arts piece they better not touch because if there IS an earthquake, hey, it's only the band.

* - No, really, my co-concert goer will be a grandmother in about six months