Why I love this city
Topic: San Francisco

While it's surprisingly easy to take for granted the place you live, it's not so in San Francisco.

Skip came over from Berkeley to see my new place and join me for bruch. I didn't want to hit any of the known spots, so I suggested Pachi's, a Peruvian restautant Terry and Carol told me about. After an excellent meal for a surprisingly reasonable price, the glory of the day refused to let us waste time indoors.

So, heeding mother nature's siren call, we headed north, across the Golden Gate Bridge and then up the hill along the Marin headlands. After a few weeks of gray and rainy weather, it was sunny and cool and absolutely gorgeous.

We stopped and amired the vista of the whole of San Fransciso, the bridges, the sialboats, and then hiked through the abandoned tunnels and remains of the old coastal defenses.

I commented to Skip, as I have before, on the irony that so many people I know say they couldn't live where I do because they want to be able to easily get out in the middle of nowhere, as here I stand, 15 minutes from my front door, on a hilltop overlooking one of the most amazing vistas, and from which I could start walking north and be just as in the middle of nowhere...and yet be within whim distance of museums and 2000+ restaurants.

After Skip and I parted company, Matt Levine called and invited me onto an evening dinner & music jaunt. He picked me up in his convertible and we drove along the coast, through the Marina to North Beach, where——after the usual seeking-a-parking-space-adventure, we made it to our destination, a Bolivian restaurant called Pei??a Pacha Mama, where we joiend Matt's wife Diana and another friend of theirs for a scrumptous organic meal of Papas y Yuca la Huancaina (Potato, yuca & Bolivian ground-nut sauce), Albondigas (Bolivian meatballs), Plantains (Fried bananas with black bean reduction), Yuca Frita (Yuca fries with zesty vegan cream sauce), Fresh King Salmon with sweet potato mash and organic spinach, and Vegetarian Papas Relleno (a lightly fried stuffed puri??e of potato, queso fresco gami).

And on top of this sumptuous feast there was music, sweet music, by the exquisite Pickpocket EnsemblePickpocket Ensemble, whom Matt had turned me onto a few months ago. Their music, which borrows from all kinds of musical traditions (hence the name), is played so tightly and precisely that three different instruments playing the same melody line can sound as one. Wonderful stuff! This was my second exposure to the group, and I will make a point to seek them out in future. Click here for a brief sample!

Top down on the Matt's convertible, we zipped through the crisp night air and home.

I love this town!

Concerning last night's affair...
Topic: Day to Day

As recounted in an entry from last weekend, last Sunday I met a guy named Robert at Harvey's in the Castro, and got a kiss (okay, a lot of them) and a phone number. Last night. I got a proper date, and it was really good. We met at the Cliff House, had drinks and dinner, then took a drive around the city (I was playing tour guide), and ended up in the Castro for a nightcap before swinging back by my place.

It's always hard to judge how a first date will pan out, but we didn't part company until 2:30 am, so that was a good 7 hours! Promising? Maybe!

Today, as Becky and I sat down to brunch at Q on Clement St., Robert called me, which was a good sign.

After an afternoon or home furnishing shopping and pizza for dinner, I came home with an art deco floor lamp, and, after assembling it (with Becky's help), I called Robert back and we chatted for a while. Seems like a second date is in the works. Woo hoo!

The Naughty Bits of a Dame
Mood:  flirty
Now Playing: Mrs. Henderson Presents
Topic: Cinema

Why do my weekends so rarely go as I plan? Today my intention was to work on the graphics and script tweaks I've been asked to make on the Starship Exeter project, and slip in lunch with John-O Sugden-meister. As it happened, only the latter occurred, because my friend Patrick called me early in the morning and said he'd had a fight with his boyfriend and needed a place to stay for a few nights. Soooo, I had to get ready for a houseguest and then be moral support for him. So much for Exeter!

Patrick arrived, then John arrived, and after a nice brunch at the Clement Street Bar & Grill we decided to see a movie. I was confident it would work, because John -- who's notorious for falling asleep during film -- had just been fortified with coffee. There was hope!

Since John's fiance wants to see "Brokeback Mountain", we couldn't go see that. There was much speculation about the inevitable porn knockoff "Bareback Mountain". Maybe this put us in a bawdy mood, but whilst purusing the film listings we hit on "Mrs. Henderson Presents", a film based on true events about a wealthy British widow who opened a theater before World War II and ultimately put naked girls in the performances. This may not sound promising, but it's actually a quite delightful little film about an eccentric who loves making waves. The titular (no pun intended) Mrs. Henderson is played delightfully by Dame Judy Dench, and the man she hires to run the shows is one Vivian Van Dam, played by Bob Hoskins. The film's R rating is based entirely on seeing naked women posing in ridiculous tableau (the local official deems it can be compared to "art" if the girls don't move), and one funny bit where the girls will only disrobe for the first time if all the men in the theater do likewise. The way it's done is not at all exploitive, as it's part and parcel of the story events. The film is really about Mrs. Henderson and her love-hate relationship with Van Dam. I enjoyed it a lot.

After the flickeroo, John dropped Patrick and I in the Castro, where we went for a few beers and then dinner. In the first place we went -- Harveys -- I saw a handsome guy and smiled at him as I was walking to the bathroom. As I stood in line, suddenly, there he was. We chatted briefly, then he looked me directly in the eye and said, "Can I kiss you?" Well, I thought he was pretty damned cute, so I said, "Sure." Good kisser. And I have a phone number to call tomorrow.

Not bad for a Sunday.

The End of the Line
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Vacation

I left for Melbourne, Australia on the night of the 20th to see my friend Nick for Christmas and New Years, and now it's the 28th and I've been home since Boxing Day (the 26th). My stay in Melbourne was cuit short from almost 12 days to being there for almost exactly 96 hours. To say it went very, very badly is beyond understatement. I went there to re-establish a friendship that had gotten distrant (and not geographically), and came back with that friendship so utterly destroyed that I have absolutely no interest in ever seeing or hearing from him again.

20,000+km is a long way to go to end a friendship. And the 13-14 hour flights each way are some of the longest single flights in the world. As I like to say, that's Star Trek distance!

In a nutshell, it started off bad and went worse, I could bore you with all the details, but unless you really want to know, I'll give you the Reader's Digest Condensed version. Basically, any time Nick and I weren't alone I got the impression that he was holding me at arm's length. And even the few times it was just the two of us, he didn't seem very engaged. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I asked him about his sewing (he's been learning to make clothes), and after chatting about it for maybe 15 minutes he decided he wanted to go watch TV and just ended the conversation. At that point I felt really unwelcome. After their Christmas get-together, his partner Graeme went off with one of his mates, and Nick told me he was going to go to bed. I stopped him and told him how I felt, and he said that he "couldn't connect" with me any more, and then he started with the "I can't seem to relate to you, if I ever could", and that's when I knew it was over, because he was revising history and nothing I could say was going to change that.

The next morning he asked me what I wanted to do, and I said that my instinct was to cut my losses and go, but that he needed to tell me what he wanted. He said, "Honestly, I'd prefer you weren't here," and I replied, "Done deal." He tried to be polite and offered to let me stay, and said it would be a shame if I didn't see Melbourne after coming all that way, but I told him that I'd come to see him (mind you, he's the one who wanted to reconnect), and that I wanted to see it with him like when we showed each other around in the past, and that I had no interest in spending a week of my vacation alone in a strange city, and I would leave as soon as I could get a flight. So, since he works in travel, he called the airlines and managed to get my seat changed and I left a few hours later.

Now, admittedly, I expected it to be a little awkward. It'd been 2.5 years since we'd seen each other. But what stuck in my craw was that he didn't seem to take into account the time and the fact that we were in the circumstance of seeing his friends and hanging around with Graeme, which is very different than when he visited me before and we got to spend a lot of time together and re-engage.. He seemed to decide very quickly that he wasn't feeling the connection, and didn't make any effort to find it.

I swapped a few messages with him the day after my return, but it was fruitless, so I pulled the plug. The guy I saw on the trip was the worst side of the man I knew, and I didn't like him very much. Mind you, I'd have been fine if we'd made an effort and the old connection wasn't there, but at least had a nice time sightseeing, then parted on friendly terms. But he made that impossible.

Naturally, I was plagued by "what ifs" after my return. Should I have done this, was I not as friendly as I should have been. But as I look back I'm sure I made the right decision, because I should have had to make a lot of effort, given the effort I made to see him, he should've made some effort. That he didn't told me everything I needed to know.

The only thing I'm furious about is that I spent all that time and money for nothing.

On the plus side, since I came back early, I got to see Christopher and Lee, as they were in town for the holidays and would have been gone before I was originally supposed to return.

Note: The flies in Australia in summer are awful...buzz buzz buzz in your face all the time

Note 2: I flew from the shortest day of the year to the longest, so you can image how that screwed up my sense of time of day!

They Might Be Giants ... And what're we gonna do unless they are?
Mood:  party time!
Topic: Live on Stage

Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
To the name of this town in a desk-top globe
Exit wound in a foreign nation
Showing the home of the one this was written for

"They Might Be Giants" are four words that, when recited in that order, usually results in blank stares. I understand if most people don't get the particular reference I'm making, but you'd think occasionally someone would make the connection to the 1971 feature film of that same name.

Okay, so probably most of you reading this are equally in the dark. Do you know the song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)? Okay, how about the theme song from the TV series "Malcolm in the Middle"? Well, "They Might Be Giants" (TMBG from here out) is the band that did those songs (amongst a zillion others), and last night I finally saw them live and in person.

Click here for the TMBG website

I can't recall how I first got turned on to the band. I recall hearing "Istanbul" and seeing the animated video done to it back around 89-90, but how I got from this to the album "Flood" eludes my memory. Anyway, I got a few of their albums in the mid 90s, and was smitten by their clever lyrics and songs that visit all numerous points on the msucial map.

There’s a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores
And kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
I’d be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off
And countless screaming argonauts

...for instance, from "Birdhouse in Your Soul", which is nominally about a blue bird nightlight.

I turned my friend Sherri onto the band back when I first discovered them, and she and I played a few of their albums so many times the music is likely tattooed onto my cerebral cortex. When I found out the band would be playing some west coast gigs, and that one was in San Francisco, I immediately bought four tickets and then called Sherri and asked her if she wanted to go. She was excited (natch), but concerned that she couldn't take the time necessary to drive down from Carson City, what with work, house stuff going on, and her baby, Sam. I then suggested a plane ticket so she could fly out, have dinner, see the show, sleep, and leave again at the crack of dawn. Done deal!

Baby check this out
I've got someting to say
Man, it's so loud in here
When they stop the drum machine
And I can think again
I'll remember what it was

The above is from "Man It's So Loud in Here", a brilliant swipe at dance club music that uses its own overproduced excesses to bludgeon itself. Fortunately, the volume level at the club wasn't excessive, so my ears weren't ringing when it was over. A concert rarity!

Sherri's husband Art couldn't come on the trip, so that left two unclaimed tickets. I called a number of my friends, most of whom were busy the night in question. Finally, John Sugden's "Oh my God!" at the offer of free Giantism sealed the deal, and he planned to join us with his fiancee, Laura Lee. Well, she couldn't make it at the last minute, so I had four tickets to pick up at Will Call. What to do?

I grabbed Sherri at the aiport at 4:30. After a brief stop home, we headed across the Bay Bridge to get dinner with mutual friend Becky. We decided to eat on Columbus Street, since our destination was there, and Becky works near the other end of that street. I found parking two blocks from the concert venue, we met Becky, got dinner at a cute Italian place (the food was ok, but nothing too special). Dinner over, and after much silliness, said goodbye to Becky and moved on.



On Columbus St. just before the show!


There was still the matter of the one extra ticket (I know you're biting your nails in anticipation). As Sherri went to look for seats, I went along the Will Call and Ticket line and asked if anyone was looking to buy a ticket. 30 seconds later, I had my $25 back, which promptly and mysteriously vanished at the bar.

The show opened with an act that we didn't pay much mind to...being busy chatting and ordering drinks. Then TMBG took to the stage. They announced that they're writing a song about each and every venue they play this tour, and did a short set of these for ua. I can't wait to hear the song they come up with for the venue where we saw them, named BIMBOS!

A short break was taken before the main set, which was a great show with a lot of fun material, some of it already tattooed into my brain, others now vying to do so, such as "XTC vs. Adam Ant". One thing that's really fun about the band is that in addition to doing their usual unusual songs, they also do records for children ("Bed, Bed, Bed" for instance), and included a few of these cute gems in the set, including "Pictures of Pandas Painting", "E Eats Everything" and "Alphabet of Nations." They also do a rockin' cover of an old 1960s educational song "Why Does the Sun Shine" (which begins "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas")!

Reisisting audience cries for faves like "Istanbul" and "Particle Man", the two encores featured less obvious choices, but all good ones.

Then it was over. We waited at our table for the crowd to thin before heading out, then Sherri noticed that one of the "two Johns" who make up TMBG (the rest of the band changes all the time) was sitting on the edge of the stage talking. We strolled over and she got her newly purchased TMBG CD "Here Come the ABCs" autographed. I complimented him on their choice for the closing number ("Fingertips", which is actually 21 single verse songs (averaging about 20 seconds long) in almost every style imagineable played back to back to back.

John departed, and Sherri and I hit the club Martunis for a final drink in the piano bar. That was probably a mistake, as Sherri felt woozy afterwards, but we made it home safe and sound sometime after 1:30 a.m.

6:30 came realllllllly early, and I zipped her to the airport.

Hit and run concert going, indeed!

This Party's Over
Topic: Vacation
Well, I awoke this morning and, despite my best efforts, my feet are blister free. No purple heart for my soles!

I strolled into the hotel restaurant to join the Farewell Brunch and found Christoper and Lee sipping coffee at the far end. I walked up to say hello, and Christopher said, "Hello Maurice. All the ladies over sixty are in love with you."

Dear God, what have I done...

That's it, no more dancing...today.

Many farewells. Lee and Christopher are off for Paris, and I'm off to "Bawstun" for the flight home. I stop off in Braintree to see Marc, and Alyssa pops in for lunch, so I get a final vsit. I return the CDs I borrowed to Marc, deliver the box of assorted booze from Chez Menkov and head for the airport.

Naturally, this trip wouldn't be complete if I didn't get turned around and half lost in Boston. I did. I'm outta here!

Their Chuppa Runneth Over
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Vacation

Maurice, King of the Dance Floor


No, I did not make up this appellation. Read on to learn how I was thus coronated!

Well, today's the big day! Christopher Gray's getting hitched (I almost typed "kitched", which in a whole 'nother matter).

The usual wakeup, feeding and grooming attended to, I decided I wanted to get a card to go with the wedding present. Fortunately, a big mall is mere blocks away from the hotel, so I strolled off in search of it. Between my bed and mass consumerism stands the State Capital building of Rhode Island. How instrusive!

After checking a few stores, I bought a calligraphy pen and a box of lime green stationary paper, and a line green ribbon...lime to symbolize the limes of the delicious margarita recipe I wrote with it (see entry for Monday the 19th). Oh, I also bought a piece of paper with an old map of Paris on it, as that's where Chris & Lee's honeymoon is to take place. Yes, you would not normally associate Paris with Margaritas, but this ain't your traditional couple nor your traditional wedding.

After a brief stop at the hotel to change, it was off to the Manning Chapel at "RizDEE". I won't get into excessive detail about the wedding, but in short it was a modified Jewish ceremony, with a chuppa, the Metropolitan Klezmer band, and the traditional wine-glass stomping to bring it to a close. Lee survived a near down-the-aisle makeup distaster from an overeager aunt wearing a Tammy Faye of lipstick, and the guests laughed as Chris Corrigan's yarmulke refused to stay on his head as he did a reading. Christopher looked dashing in his vintage suit and orange shirt, and Lee was quite the blushing bride. I was all smiles. I've never see Christopher so happy, and it was so sweet watching him dab at his eyes throughout the proceedings. When he got the ring on, he held his hand up to the audience and pointed at it and silently went "YEAH!" much to everyone's delight.

I didn't realize how many guests there were until we all lined up for a group shot.

As the photographer shot the family and wedding party photos I got the car and headed for the reception. As has been the case this entire trip I had a really hard time finding the place, and went round and round until I finally spotted it. I like New England, but oy! will I be glad to get back to driving in California!

The reception was held at a club called the Hi Hat. The food was amazing, the bar was open (and I got the biggest Godfather I've ever seen), and the crowd was a delight. The Metropolitan Klezmer played for the first part of the reception, and Christopher's mom even took the part of accordionist during bride and groom's first dance. Naturally, what with the Jewish aspect, there was a lot of traditional dancing in big chains running around the room. Whew!

I know you're all dying to know about the caption on the photo topping this entry. Patience! Once the dinner and cake was done (there was no smashing cake in each other's faces...this crowd's not that low class), the klesmer band left the stage and the other music started. On the RSVP cards they had asked the guests what's their favorite song to dance to. They them loaded these all onto a iPod and hooked that into the sound system. That's a lot of guests and a lot of songs. Hours and hours of it. And, fool that I am, I was out there dancing and dancing and dancing with anyoen end everyone. The funnist thing was, most of the time when I'd end up dancing with Lee's mother, the song that came on was suggestive. First off, she's wearing a deep red dress and on comes "Brick House", and I totally play it up gesturing at her and doing hourglass shaped with my hands at "The lady's stacked and that's a fact, ain't holding nothing back"! Another time it was "Baby Got Back", then "Super Freak" ("She's a very kinky girl..."). And she loved it...albeit I don't think she always knew the songs or quite caught the subject matter!

Between dances I'd drag myself to the men's room and douse my head with cold water to cool off (the advantage to balding and buzzing the rest off). By the end of it, my feet -- in my stylin' burgundy leather shoes -- were killing me. Undaunted and fearless of blisters, I shucked the footgear and finished the night dancing in my stocking feet with probably every lady on the floor and momentarily with a few of the guys. Oh, and the bride, natch!

And that, dear readers, is how I was crowned King of the Dance Floor.

The reception, which started probably about 4:30, finally wrapped up at 11:30, mostly because the staff of the club practically booted us out. It was the longest, best and most fun wedding reception it's ever been my pleasure to attend.

But will I have blisters in the morning?

Vacation's all I ever wanted
Mood:  happy
Topic: Vacation

The last time I went on an actual real bone fide certified vacation was three years ago when I spent three glorious weeks in New Zealand. Well, today's the start of an actual real bone fide certified vacation wherein I'll spend 10 glorious days in New England.

I went to Massachusetts and Connecticut quite a few times between 1987 and 1993, but it's been over 12 years since my last visit!

The main reason for this vacation to this location in the nation is the impending wedding of my friend Christopher Gray to his fabulous fiancee Lee Jacobson.

I took a Jet Blue redeye out of Oakland last night after work and arrived in Boston Saturday at 7:05 a.m. (zoiks!). It's a good thing I can sleep on planes or I'd have been one sleepy puppy.

I first headed south to Braintree to see friends/former co-workers Marc and Alyysa, who just moved there from Cambridge. Today's visit with them is short because I have to head south, but I'll see them again tomorrow.

But first I had to backtrack to Logan aiport because one of my bags go swapped with an absolutely identical bag of another man, whose name even stared with the same letters, so a quick glance at the luggage tags made the mistake easy.

Luggage swapped, I headed south to Providence, RI, to see Christopher and Lee. Christopher suggested I visit at the top of my trip so that we could hang, knowing once the families start showing up for the wedding, they'll have too many people to spend time with. I bonded with their dog, Jasper, we went for a walk in the woods, and then I helped Chris run some wedding related errands (getting poles cut for a chupah) and ended the evening getting to watch him perform in two back to back improv shows. Ahhh, but he's a funny man!

The theme of the day seemed to be the seeming impossibility to get anywhere easily. The road signage around Boston and the Big Dig subterranean freeways is sorely lacking and if you miss an exit it's very difficult to recover. Of the cities I've driven in, Boston's the worst for recovering from a mistake. Anyway, I had a few issues finding other places on the day, and to cap it, the directions Christopher got to the location of one of the improv shows was so wrong that we ended up doing circles on foot around the Trinity campus before finally having to get back in the car and drive to an entirely different school...and even then we got lost! Oy!

The Classics!
Topic: Nostalgia

I love old video games. Yeah, many of them sucked, but the great ones were classics, and, heck, I admit it, I loved seeing what engineers could do with hardware so severely limited (by modern standards).

This weekend the annual Classic Game Expo is being held in the area, and, for once, this time I made it to it! Ah, a museum full of 8-bit and 32K RAM antiques and abandoned "next big things". A hall full of vendors selling yesterday's glories and duds and...lo and behold, rows of arcade machines where no quarters are required! Tempest, Black Widow, Warlords...we hardly knew ye!

In addition to the games, I picked up some PAC-MAN merchandise for Kenji's PAC-MAN museum at work, and got a Sean Kelly multicart for my Vectrex (with all the games for that system on it), but couldn't find Sean Kelly, who I was told was at the show. Too bad. I used to chat with him online years ago. I did get to see some familiar faces from the Old BAVE (Bay Area Videogame Enthusiasts) group, including some of the guys who wrote games my brother and I used to play on his Atari VCS.

One thing I wanted to buy, but was denied, was a five foot tall recreation of a PAC-MAN screen made entirely of Lego!

 

One Orbit around the job
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Work Stuff

Well, today is my one year anniversary at Namco.

Enviable things about my job:

• Getting paid to play and analyze games like PAC-MAN, Pole Position II, Galaga...amongst others
• Getting to track down and meet people whose games I played back in the day. The creator of PAC-MAN and the creator of Miner 2049er, for instance.
• Having a half dozen arcade machines right there
• An office with a door I can slam
• Working with super-cool people like Amy Steele ("Ya-hoo!")
• Getting to travel to places like Comic-Con, E3, and the Tokyo Game Show
• Did I mention getting paid to play games?
• A boss who appreciates tequila
• The money!