"We gonna shake, we gonna quake
cuz we got the baddest groove that we could make
we on then to, y'all the drummer's gonna tap
we gonna see if we can rock this motha to the max
and that's a fact, housequake
Shut up already, damn!"
- Prince, House Quake
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4.0-magnitude earthquake rattles San Francisco Bay area but doesn't affect Pirates-Giants game
(more here.)Well that's good to know. For a minute I was really worried about the game. (Roll of eyes.) Better yet, it didn't interrupt my blogging! Guess I'm really in California now, having experienced my first live earthquake. I just thought the people upstairs were having really insane sex.
It's painfully early to be in on a Friday night but I'm suffering an acute case of exhaustion. Chris says I'm always tired and he's kind of right and all, but this time I had a really packed full day of newness and people and things and I'm genuinely tired, dammit! I just left my friend a voicemail asking how he travels so much. The thing is, at the end of a long day its pretty tiring to be constantly interacting and is it wrong to opt for a night in whilst in the midst of a new city? Most of me wanted to come home and read, alone. Plus I got to thinking, this isn't New York. In my city I'd know exactly the train home and the amount of cab fare, should it get too late to safely transit the J Train way. Here, the public transit stops running early and I don't have a wallet big enough to dole out the exorbitant cab fare so... BART to Daly City it is. The house is still and there are a few alcoholic beverages buzzing in my system. Cooled out.
Enough justifying my old lady habits. Today was big Fun (the capital was necessary.) I headed to Civic Center to parlay with my friend Stewart, whom you might remember from the Ghana blog. He is a fiction writer, excellent dancer, huge-spirited fella who also happens to be a freakin' librarian. I mean, really, recipe for cool. (Or hot, as Rick and I discussed the other night. Cool is totally boring. Hot is where its at!) I met Stewart in Ghana, where we were both attending the Pan-African Literary Forum, and we both gushed over one another's beaming auras. Zing! He took me to the library, which he is bored of, but was exciting for me because its huge and circular and I got to go into all the librarian-access-only areas, which made me feel a little bad ass in a bookish way. Story of my life, if you haven't noticed.
"Um, Stewart, why do I look trashed at 2pm?"
"Stewart, you WILL look into that camera and you WILL smile!"
Parting ways with a promise for dancing (8pm Sunday night in Oakland, anyone else interested?) and I headed over to meet some mystery poets in The Mission for a feature spot on Pirate Cat Radio. Ok. Here is where I pause to honor and give a Wayne's World-esque praise-thee bow to Charlie Getter and Jonathon Siegel, who scooped me up and welcomed me into their poetry family circus. Charlie is downright hilarious. A crude and fast sense of humor but totally big-hearted and I instantly took a liking to his silly ways. Jonathon, more mild-mannered and the one who hooked me into two new gigs by way of some random myspace searches that somehow led him from Jon Sands to me (another notch on the why-myspace-is-better-than-facebook belt.) Hey, thanks Jon, for indirectly hooking me up with some great people! Anyway, can I tell you about Pirate Cat Radio? Break for the pulled-from-website jargon:
Pirate Cat Radio 87.9fm is an unlicensed low powered community radio station, broadcasting on 87.9 megahertz, to both the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles basin.
We believe that Title 47 Section 73.3542 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations currently allows Pirate Cat Radio 87.9fm to legally broadcast with out a formal licence from the FCC. Thanks to George Bush for declaring the "War Against Terrorism", it is now technically legal to operate a radio transmitter with out a formal license.
Which means, a) you can say whateveryouwant on air b) really rad people are involved and c) they get to have a vegan cafe in the front where you can post up and look in the radio booth and listen via loud speaker. Needless to say, I had the time of my life. In my head, when I envisioned this trip being a by-the-seat-of-my-pants, fly by the night kinda adventure, this was exactly what I had in mind. I read four poems, and after expressing how awkward reciting with headphones on, in-booth can be, Charlie set up a mic in the cafe for me to get live on. However, let it be known, if you are ever on Pirate Cat Radio with Charlie Getter, do not look in the booth, the man wilds out when you read a poem. Snapping and making hilarious faces and jumping up and down and should the show be archived, I'm sure you'll hear it in my voice. Holding back laughter, even on the serious poems.
Charlie, probably saying some funny shit...
Jonathon cheezin'
Rachel, I am coming to your bar this week!
I swear, Charlie, you gotta stop making me laugh!
Seriously, dude!
In short, good people all around, random poets kicking it at the cafe, especially Dusty Rose and Baraka, who just happened to stop through at the right moment. Baraka dedicates a break up poem to me, which makes me feel like an old friend even though we've just met, and come to find out they are going to the San Jose slam on Monday and would I like a ride since I'm the feature poet? Hell yeah! Forget the three buses and fear of n'er returning home to Daly City. I'm so in for the trip with two excited folks who take me in their arms like long lost family. And those names. Like characters in my unwritten novel.
Baraka gets serious
Dusty Rose does the damn thang!
In the way the universe has been handing me life on a silver platter as of late, Rachel, my favorite camp counselor from twelve years ago, the one who ran the artshop and taught me how to make metal jewelry, who listened to Portishead and had a really cool tattoo of a Japanese beetle, yah, that one, had her store opening right down the street from PCR. Icing on the proverbial cake is that her sister Sara, also my friend since age 12, happens to be in town and since we haven't connected the past two years in Brooklyn, this will set us off on the path to being on each other's friend roster again. Perfect timing.
I'm really bummed to tell you that the camera corrupted yet MORE photos! I wish I could show you how cute Rachel and Sara are, and how good the shop looks and Tae being goofy posing with his custom-made messenger bags but... so be it. It will all have to live in my imagination and you'll have to invent stories in yours. It was a wonderful reconnect, to say the least, and amazing to see someone you've known for ages' dream realized in a way that is just so them it hurts the heart (in a good way.) Pictures to come because you know I will be going back to hang with Rachel in her new store. In the meantime, buy some cute stuff online: http://www.arkayworkshop.com
Too tired for anymore tonight. Bye good folks!
.
.
.
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment