Another gorgeous day out! After visiting with neighbors Marc and Alyssa and their baby Madeline as they had lunch at a local taqueria, I struck out on the big weekend walk that I didn't get to last week. As with the Trestle Glen walk on the 28 Feb., I started off with no clue as to where I was going and just followed my nose.

This time I went up Grand Ave. and crossed a pedestrian walkway over I580... just because I'd never gone that way before. Then I zig-zagged up and down little residential streets until I hit upper Piedmont Ave. My right ankle sometimes gives me trouble and it was aching more than usual on the first part of my walk, so I figured it would maybe be a short one, but by the time I reached this point it had stopped bothering me so I decided to press on.

At lunch Alyssa had jokingly asking if I was going to the Columbarium, and as I was a block away, I decided to go onto the grounds and then walked into St. Mary's cemetary directly behind it. From there I got a new perspective down onto the small lake that I normally only see from a restaurant I go to very infrequently.

Being that I was this close to the end of College Ave. I decided to just head up there and to Rockridge. Just about the time I was toying with walking all the way to downtown Berkeley and then taking BART back, I heard my name called out. Deb -- a woman I know from the Piedmont Ave. coffeehouse I frequent -- was there with a friend of hers, and I ended up chatting with them for well on an hour.

Click here to read about Rockridge

By this point the afternoon was fast running out and I decided to go for dinner at the Cactus Taqueria. After stuffing myself to the gills on enchiladas and guacamole I decided to forego Berkeley and head home via a relatively direct route as the sun was on the horizon.

CLICK HERE FOR A MAP OF TODAY'S WALK

As with my previous walks I noticed lots of buildings and neighborhood details that I've missed in all my years of driving around. The smell of flowers was most everywhere as well, making it a delight for the nose as well as the eyes. I gpt home just after dark, listening to the water lapping the edge of Lake Merritt on my final few blocks

I checked my mileage as I made the map of this way, and it looks like I clocked in about just a hair under seven miles.

Posted by molyneaux at 8:31 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:05 AM PDT

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I was up waaaay to late last night working on the website for my online résumé (http://www.mpmolyneaux.com), designing the as-yet-unposted pages on my work in wireless gaming. As such, I didn't get up until 10 a.m. I met John and Becky and the three of us got lunch in Rockridge and then hung out at Piedmont Park. John sat in the shade and read while Becky and I walked the paths. Gorgeous weather, still. I wonder how long it will last.

Posted by molyneaux at 7:11 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:39 AM PDT

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Ah, the Bay Area; where the weather is predictable only in its unpredictability. Less than two weeks ago a rainstorm turned to hail mid-afternoon, and now for the past few days it's been sunny and warm. So warm, in fact, that I walked back from coffee this morning sans shirt!

Posted by molyneaux at 3:02 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:06 AM PDT

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Friend, performer, and man of bionic hips, John Sugden asked me if I would videotape the most recent play he was putting on with his students and the Woodside Priory in the hills south of Silicon Valley. Naturally, I said "$@#% no!" but he cried and begged and I finally acquiesced because of my sterling character, my generous nature, and the fact that I desperately need him for reshoots for my short film Flight Control.

Anyway, I braved sluggish traffic and got to the school just in time to tape show, which I recorded on both my digital video camera and one John had borrowed, operated by a student. After the show was over, I set the second camera up to record the next performance from one locked off position. My plan is to edit together these three recordings and make a DVD John can copy for the kids.

The play they performed was "The Mouse That Roared" (subtitle "The Wrath of Grapes"), based on the 1955 novel by Leonard Wibberley (and made into a mediocre 1959 film with Peter Sellers).

(The story concerns a microscopic country called Grand Fenwick, which is going bankrupt because a Californian winery makes a cheap knock-off of their only export. When their protests to the U.S. go unanswered, they decide to declare war, assuming the Americans will be victorious and do a "Marshall Plan" on Grand Fenwick, thus reviving their economy. But, when their intentionally futile invasion force of men with 14th century costume and longbows arrives in of New York City, they quite by accident capture a government scientist who has created the most powerful explosive in the world: a cigarette pack sized "Q Bomb" that will level 2000 square miles if detonated. Suddenly, Grand Fenwick is the super-est of superpowers, and the question becomes what to do now that they have defeated the United States!)

The play was pretty well done for kids in middle and high school. John's staging was fun, and the cast was huge (there were 44 students in various parts), as were some of his alterations to the script to make it more timely. The material is certainly dated, but as I was watching I could see how one could update it. Makes me wonder if I should look into the rights...hmmm...

Posted by molyneaux at 10:33 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:07 AM PDT

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In my new efforts to get out and about more, and to explore my neighborhood of the past nearly seven years, on the 28th of February I decided to go out for brunch and then just start walking. My thought was to go up Trestle Glen, a very nice road with very expensive houses more or less due east of my humble abode at Lake Merritt. I've driven up and down the road a few times and always thought it was beautiful, and decided it would be a prime candidate to see on foot where I could take in all the homes and yards and stop and smell the roses (or whatever flowers happened to be on the way). I zigzagged off onto side streets at various points and discovered cute little bungalows, amazing homes, and one really big beautiful but sadly under-maintained apartment building.

My original thought was to go until I was tired, as Trestle Glen is mostly a gradual uphill that gets to San Francisco steepness near its finish. But, the end was only about two miles, so not as far as I'd thought. Being that I'd gone to the highest point of the walk I planned, I decided I'd take a longer route home, down Park Blvd. and nearby streets, and then around the far side of Lake Merritt. After I got home I mapped the walk on Mapquest and realized I'd gone about seven miles without feeling at all worn out. This emboldens me to take even longer walks in upcoming weeks!

CLICK HERE for a map of today's walk!

Posted by molyneaux at 8:41 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:25 AM PDT

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One thing I find irritating about this Blog builder is that it doesn't let you make post-dated entries. If I don't write an entry the day something occurs, I can never actually set it for that date. Grrrr...

Anyway, I'm going to try to fill in a few things that happened on dates over the past week-plus.

I met Becky in Berkeley (there's a song there) to get dinner and a movie. After a lovely meal and good wine at a nice Italian bistro, we went to see a film that was the official Norwegian entry for the 2003 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film: Kitchen Stories.

I had to think about this movie for a while before writing about it. It was a well made picture and I was always interested in where it was going and in seeing how the situation would resolve itself. It was funny in a warm smile rather than a laugh out loud sort of way. But in retrospect the film felt a little...slight. Even as I revisit this entry later, I still don't have a lot to say. I enjoyed it, but I don't think back on it at all.

Posted by molyneaux at 8:13 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:09 AM PDT

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I'm a big believer in creative work within limitations, both external and self-imposed. I don't see boundaries as walls that stop you, but as purchases that allow you to climb within a structure. I embrace Orson Welles' statement that "Art without limits is its own worst enemy."

That's one of the reasons I like the TV series Cowboy Bebop. It is a show that works within a framework of self-imposed limitations, but is unusual because a key part of this structure is informed by musical forms rather than traditional narrative ones. While "Bebop" is the name of the vessel the leads travel in, it's much more than that. The improvisational form of jazz relates to both the free-form nature of the series (stories do not follow a rigid formula) and to the lives of the characters, who are making it up as they go along but riffing on their individual themes. The musical component is not thematic only, for music plays a big part in the series, from the jazzy big band title sequence through the original compositions that appear throughout the "sessions" (episodes). Even the session names are mostly song titles ("Honky Tonk Women", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Bohemian Rhapsody").

Even the series title is more thematic than literal. There are not Cowboys per se, rather Cowboy is the lifestyle of individuals struggling to make a living out on the frontier. The show follows three none-too-lucky bounty hunters, a youthful hacker and a "data dog" on various adventures throughout the solar system. Each character has a past that is gradually revealed over the course of the series' 26 episodes (and one feature film), and the whole thing has a definite beginning and ending. It's beautifully designed, spare on dialogue, and frequently relies on cinematography to convey emotions and story points. It's also got one of the hottest title sequences I've ever seen, and it has some relatively decent science to its science fiction (ships have centrifuges to generate artifical gravity, ships without fuel coast to their destinations, etc.). All pluses in my book!

The most surprising thing about my liking this show is that it's Japanese animation, aka animé, a genre I've never cared for both in look or content. But Bebop doesn't often traffic in those animé conventions that put me off, so I've become quite taken with it. I know it's not likely to be everyone's cup of saké, but it's surely one of mine.

Click here for a good Bebop website.

Posted by molyneaux at 1:02 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:29 AM PDT

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I had to take the car to the shop today to have a smog problem diagnosed. Fortunately, my mechanic is only a ten minute walk up the street from me. However, today is stormy, so I put on the rain gear I bought for my 2002 New Zealand trip in expectation of mother nature truing to soak me.

However, the rain let up right after I dropped off the car, and it was lunchtime, so I decided to risk an excursion to find lunch over on Piedmont Ave. I've lived in this area for six and a half years and I've come to realize that while I've biked through and driven along many of the streets in the area, I've never walked on many of them. As such, I decided to just follow my nose and see where it would lead me, talking an indirect course to my destination.

CLICK HERE for a map of my walk

Walking this route gave me a very different perspective on the neighborhoods through which I passed. I saw buildings I'd never noticed before, realized just what an ear-numbing roar there in on streets along the freeway, discovered a stair walk connecting two streets mid-block, and walked along a bit of one of the creeks that feeds into Lake Merritt (most of which now goes underground because of all the urban development. I also noticed that some streets that I thought looked like unappealing places to live where actually nicer than I realized, pointing out what a skewed view you can get of a place when you whiz by at driving speeds.

It was a refreshing walk, about 3 miles in total, with a big lunch at the midpoint, and makes we want to explore my neighborhood even more.

Mother Nature kindly smiled on me, as it only rained while I was safely in the restaurant eating lunch, and after I got home. Then, as I was getting ready to walk back to get my car, the rain started really coming down, and suddenly for several minutes it was hailing! Once it stopped, I decided to make a run for it, and the sun broke through the clouds. Luck-y!

Posted by molyneaux at 3:25 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:39 AM PDT

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One of the downsides of urban life is you can get so busy and wrapped up in things that you can find yourself falling out of touch with friends and neighbors. Jerry and Patrick live a short bike ride away from me, and yet I don't see them often. I made up for that a little on Saturday when I joined them for brunch in Alameda. Given the current situation in San Francisco the topic naturally turned to gay marriage, and they told me that they were planning to get married there on Monday. They've been together for about 20 years, and they decided they wanted to make the statement. Good for them!*

On Sunday Becky popped over from Pleasanton and we took my car into the city to meet John Sugden for brunch and general hangout time. We convened at the Seal Rock Inn (link: map of location), kitty-corner from where we parked on our beach walk last weekend. Brunch was delightful, albeit the most memorable moment was when somehow the subject turned to John and his girlfriend and I jokingly started insinuating what they do in the bedroom using a salt and pepper shaker to illustrate (John was pepper). Becky was laughing so hard her eyes were tearing up, and at one moment she chuckled so hard John commented, "We have achieved snort!"

We then adjourned to Clement Street where we rummaged through the vastness of Green Apple Books before migrating to Toy Boat Ice Cream. I had a concoction of ice cream and coffee that was pretty good...but I had to eat it very fast before the ice cream melted. Over this, we read through the fragmentary draft of my script "The Fish Who Cried Wolf", and John had a funny suggestion for the tag which I like a lot.

We parted company there, John off on his various errands, with the image of his girl as a salt shaker forever burned into his temporal lobes. Becky and I walked back to my car but took a side trip and explored Mountain Lake Park (map of location) (link: about the park), where Juan Bautista de Anza camped when he explored the area in preparation for the first settlers to come from Mexico. It's a cute little park with nice views of the titular lake, wedged between the houses of the Richmond District to the south, the Presidio Golf Course to the North and East. It would be idyllic but for the near continuous roar of traffic from Park Presidio to the west, something I suspect de Anza didn't have to listen to.

San Francisco seen from Fort Baker

As we were right by Park Presido and about two minutes from the Golden Gate, I decided to drive across the bridge and go down to Fort Baker (weblink: Fort Baker homepage), yet another of the long abandoned old defensive positions built around the entrance to the bay. This one is on the lee of the northern anchorage of the bridge, and gives great views up at it and of San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, and the various islands. There's a Coast Guard presence here, a little marina, lots of old buildings, and the cement skeletons of gunnery emplacements. Picturesque and quiet, it's a great place to watch the ships passing through the Golden Gate, and a picnic spot I'll have to remember.

There's a lot of renovation going on here, as the place is being turned into a cultural center and has a discovery museum, theater group, etc.

Weblink: page with many photos of the area.

Click here for a somewhat fuzzy picture of me at Ft. Baker!

Becky'd never been to Sausalito, so we drove through it on our way to the Richmond Bridge and back to the east bay. At least she can say she's seen it, even if she's not actually set foot in the place. Me, I've not been there in three years and I wasn't particularly motivated to stop. I'm sure I'll have reason to go again one day. Maybe if they have a decent margarita bar...

*Sadly, Jerry changed his his mind on everything and left poor Patrick in 2005.

Posted by molyneaux at 2:49 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:34 AM PDT

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I'm on the biggest roll of films I've done in a long time. Last night was another excursion to the land on cinema, this time to see the best bad movie I've seen in a long time.

I'm one of those people who really enjoys the ineptness of grade-Z exploitation pictures by the likes of William ("One Shot") Beaudine and the legendary Ed Wood. I love them for their very earnestness and ineptness. As such, I've always found homages and parodies of them to be a painful experiences because the knowing winks of the sendup perpetrators undermine the humor that comes from the absolute conviction of the form. Amazon Women on the Moon suffers from this in spades, becoming more tedious than the worst Ed Wood film imaginable.

Knowing this, it was with some trepidation that I joined my friends Christopher & Russ in attending The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (one review and official website), a film which is in parts sendup, homage, and recreation of one of those zero-budget cheapies. Lost Skeleton suffers somewhat from these problems, and at times I winced, but for some reason I found myself laughing out loud, not usually at the obvious funny bits, but often at the end of a scene, where the cumulative absurdity would hit me. The film is written by someone who clearly enjoys these clunkers for the same reason I do, and that affection is obvious throughout. The love is in the lack of detail, from the wood grain of the 2x4 visible in a spaceship hatch, the circular and repetative dialog, cheapo props, to the garage made rubber monster suit and titular skeleton operated by painfully visible wires.

True to the genre, Lost Skeleton sags in the middle, and there were points where the it played "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" too much. Such smug "we're in on the joke" moments derailed the film momentarily. The cinematography, even for a cheapie, was surprisingly neutral. The skin tones were disturbingly midtone gray. I cried, "My kingdom for a highlight!" but none was forthcoming.

Looking back, I still don't think Lost Skeleton was really that funny. Yet as we left we were quoting the inane lines and laughing our fool heads off. There's nothing inherently funny about "I sleep now!" and "Oh well," and yet, that's what we were reciting. Such is the power of lame dialog...

I'll probably buy the DVD. "Oh Well!"

Posted by molyneaux at 8:40 PM PST

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:10 AM PDT

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