Journal of Pirate Lingo*

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* not an actual journal
of pirate lingo

22.10.01 - 3:58 p.m.

Matthew came and left, and now my house is a wreck. Thanks a lot Matthew!

Evidence of his visit:

1) sand all over the floor, from when we went to the beach
2) empty wine bottles and rolling papers everywhere
3) bags under my eyes and confusion in my brain

Matthew is one of my best friends, and I am reminded of this whenever we hang out. There are just certain people in this world that I feel I can really talk to-- I find myself continually thinking of things I want to say. Talking to a good friend makes you realize you've staked out moral/political/social/aesthetic/cultural stances. It makes you realize you have opinions! One of the great joys of talking to Matthew is that I always come away feeling like I've consolidated the various random thoughts that stream through my head into a set of coherent ideas. It feels like progress.

He arrived on Thursday. Jenny picked him up from the airport and drove over to my place. His hair is long now and he got an eyebrow piercing in Barcelona. Otherwise, same Matthew.

We ate lunch at the Taiwanese restaurant on 6th and Clement. I tried some pork potstickers, prepping for the meaty wonderland that is Santiago-- I haven't decided whether or not to stop being vegetarian. It's more a boycott of U.S. agribusiness than anything else.

After lunch we went to hang out at Dolores park, which is perpetually sunny. We'd bought wine & champagne & the drinking commenced. It's such a nice feeling when the sunlight touches your neck. I think in another life I must have been a cat.

In the evening, back to mine for more drinking, smoking, and discussion of everything. We burned a lot of cds and I cooked channa. Shawn & Sandeep & Anita came over, and we all ended up going to DNALounge to hear Truby Trio. I think in general I should avoid going to clubs when I'm lifted. I get very paranoid about 'coolness'. It didn't help that the bouncer was copping an attitude (or was I?? it's hard to say) and wasn't letting anybody in for a while.

When we finally got inside I started wandering around. They have these beanbags set up on a raised platform and I sunk into one, watching the light show. It was ok but not fantastic. As I was heading down from the platform, I ran into Cosmo. I'd called him earlier and we'd agreed to meet up, but in my hazy mind I'd forgotten about this. In fact I'd forgotten that Cosmo was even in SF (this should give you some idea of how hazy I was). So when I saw him, I was ecstatically surprised. "COSMO!!!" I gave him a life-threatening hug and demanded to know what the hell he was doing. I might have freaked him out a little.

We talked for a while. There were these Levi's banners hanging from the banisters of the club's upper level, and Cosmo said "This place is alright but everytime I look I feel like I'm in a jeans ad." Once he said this I couldn't get the thought out of my head. The other horrible thought that he inserted in my head that night was, "Did you ever play that genesis game Streets of Rage? Doesn't this music remind you of the nightclub stage?" AH!!!

At one point Matthew and I went out to smoke. Outside there were a bunch of presumably single girls swimming around shark-like. We each got accosted by a pair, two on my left, two on his right. It was sort of flattering-- I don't get chatted up much in clubs-- but mostly just weird. I had cigarettes but no lighter, so I asked one of them for a light. "Surrrre, you have cigarettes but no lighter!" the shorter one giggled. They had me guess how old they were and what they did. One was cute, but our conversation just wasn't going anywhere so I made an excuse and tapped Matthew. I think he was glad to be tapped cos we both got the hell out of there.

The night ended in a haze of booze and paw. We were eating Sandeep's brownies with some muscat... damn thas a fine combo!!

FRIDAY

After breakfast at the Blue Danube we took the bus down to MOMA. My fantasy of living in a museum hit me strongly. I think museums are beautiful precisely because they contain so much unused / inefficiently used space. Huge white walls, mostly empty rooms. I have always wanted to live in a place like that.

The Ansel Adams retrospective didn't excite me, but the other main exhibit was excellent. It was Latin American modern art loosely grouped under the heading "Ultrabaroque". They had these beautiful wooden globes, about the size of a large beach ball, with clown faces painted on. The faces were painted using an old technique called anamorphosis, meaning the image looks distorted from almost all viewpoints, but if you move to the right place you can see it.

There were also gilded vagina sculptures, skateboards with revolutionary youth gang members painted on top, rugs... there was a room containing prayer benches, the kind you kneel on. The benches were made of soft wax and each bench had a single impression, from where a person had kneeled to pray. There was something about the room, solemn & silent with those impressions seemingly made by ghosts, that really moved me.

Also vultures in black robes, carnations coming out of the wall in huge bunches (a "horizontal graveyard"-- in memory of all the people killed in Colombia's ongoing civil war)... in many ways South America is still a hugely fucked up place. Death and violence are much more at the surface of culture there. Of course maybe I'm talking out my ass, cos we have Colombine and Waco and South Central and Cabrini Green. But still I think there was a morbid tone to many, if not all, of the pieces in "Ultrabaroque".

From MOMA we headed to the Amoeba in the Haight, where I thought the Beat Junkies were doing an instore. Damn, it wasn't till next week. We shopped for a while (randomly ran into Cosmo, but this time I managed to control myself; we talked about death metal) and then walked home through Golden Gate Park. The sky was exploding as the sun fell-- it was a rarely seen shade of pink/purple and quite lovely.

Shawn Jenny AndyK and A. came over, and we made pizzas & sat around for quite a while. More paw, and Hungry Hungry Hippos... it makes an excruciatingly loud clatter but is a good way to pass the time. I was feeling horny as hell and half-wished A. and I could just jump into bed. But, guests take precedence so she took a nap while the rest of us hung out till really late. By the time we were both in the same bed, I was really tired. Yet I couldn't sleep... it was hot in my room, and I tossed and turned until 6 in the morning. I even tried using the sleep technique Nicholson Baker mentions in one of his books, where you imagine the 3D logo of a nightly newscast, and imagine yourself flying around the letters and rotating them and following their contours. That usually works but it didn't that night.

SATURDAY

We met Jenny & Shawn and drove north, over the Golden Gate Bridge. Matthew had heard about this huge scale model of the bay put together by the U.S. Army Engineer Corps., so we went to Sausalito to check that out. We got there at 4:03, and the model (which is in an acre sized building) closes at... wait for it... 4:00. So instead we just spit into the oily bay and talked in the cold.

It was crazy how much we all talked last weekend. Good conversation is one of the finest pleasures in this world, right up there with brownies & muscat.

We headed to North Beach later, where we spent some time browsing through City Lights. (Oh this is cool-- Jenny had a book on tape, of "On the Road", and we were listening to that as we drove around the city. As Jenny puts it, "it's like having another person in the car, except he tells more interesting stories than you guys." But you know the books on tape voice was? David Carradine! That's KANE FROM KUNG FU!! We were driving around listening to Kane from Kung Fu read On The Road to us! He sounded very wise.)

Dinner at the Stinking Rose, where garlic & tourists make a pungent combo. At night we drove to the west edge of the city, where the ocean laps in darkness. We were too lazy to build a fire so we just ran out to the water and then ran back to the warmth of the car. (It was freezing. I think I saw timberwolves running along the beach.)

We burnt CDs and called it a night. Matthew left really early the next morning. Sic transit gloria mundi. (ok I know he's not dead, but I never get to use that phrase)

SUNDAY

Good morning heartache. This is not a very emo diary, as you may have noticed. But I feel pretty down today. A. is not talking to me right now. On Sunday she found out that I'd violated her trust in a pretty major way, and who knows whether or not we'll get back together. I didn't cheat on her... I don't want to get into what I did but it was definitely something I shouldn't have done. She accused me of not knowing what I want. This is true. I spent most of Sunday curled up in the fetal position on my bed, listening to Suzanne Vega and thinking how funny it is that when you're having relationship problems, *every song ever written* sounds like it's about relationship problems. Including "Put em on the glass" by Sir Mix a Lot.


Happier (plastered) times

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