Grandma won't hear this story

I didn't come to California to live a boring existence. Every once in a while I need to remind myself of that by shocking myself out of my comfort zone. This weekend was one of those times.

They say the Pride festival is the second biggest event in California, topped only by the Rose Bowl. Nearly one million people clogged downtown during the parade and post-parade celebration in the Civic Center. I put on an appropriately explanatory outfit — a shirt leftover from college which read, "I'm not gay, but my friends are" — and headed into the chaos.

The parade had just begun as I poked my head above ground at a BART station. I waddled through the sea of feather boas, bare chests, and leather, and eventually found a front row spot to observe the procession.

The parade was different than many parades I've seen for obvious reasons, but the one that stood out the most to me was the positivity of the crowd. They didn't just come for the parade; they wanted to be there. Gay and straight, costumed and naked, sadist and masochist — they were all one big community. There was a good vibe going, spoiled only briefly by the Bible-thumping protestors at Powell Street.

After the parade, the crowd flocked down Market Street into the Civic Center. There was food and music everywhere, so I grabbed a hunk o' meat and sat in the shade near a stage. This particular stage was hosting the transgender musical acts. The one I witnessed was named Wood and described themselves as "tranny 70s cock-rock." They played some great renditions of "School's Out for Summer" and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," and other macho classics. The crowd rocked out. It was glorious.

Tired of fighting the crowd and feeling a little sunburned, I hopped back on BART and headed home. On the way there, a girl with a pink boa sat next to me and we compared photos on our cameras. She told me about how she's grown up around gay and lesbian people, so it's always kind of been a fact of life for her. The Pride Parade has become a family tradition for her, in the same way that opening presents at Christmas is a tradition for many other people.

This is what I'm talking about — people getting along in the streets, strangers having a discussion on public transit, ex-chick rock bands with devoted followings — this is why it's a great place to live.

(And the hot naked rollerblading women. But mostly that other stuff.)

Quittin' party

Jesse, a soon-to-be-ex-coworker of mine, throws great parties. This latest was in celebration of the fact that he's leaving us to work for another company. (I'm sure not celebrating that, but hey — a party's a party.)

My first bad choice of the night was to drive all the way up to the North Berkeley BART station to park my car, instead of going to the closer Macarthur station. During the day, I frequently park at Macarthur, but it's on the edge of Oakland and becomes a little touch-and-go at night. North Berkeley, on the other hand, is a very safe neighborhood and I don't have nearly as many qualms about leaving my car there overnight if need be. But this cautionary procedure adds about 30 minutes to my trip, not to mention the fact that there are never any direct San Francisco trains running at night so the subsequent delay and transfer can take another 30 minutes. And then there's the walk through the Mission. ¿Cómo se dice "sketchy characters?"

Once I finally arrived at the party, things were great. Past and present employees were all there, having a few laughs and a few drinks. After four cups of something only identified as "Super Peachy Drunko Mix" (not to be confused with the "Super Drunky Pinko Mix" commonly served at Berkeley parties), it was about time for me to sprint to BART and catch the last train of the night.

I woke up about 20 minutes later at Rockridge station, one stop past my transfer point. Oops.

As this was the last train of the night, there was no way to get back to North Berkeley. I wandered around Rockridge for a while, determined to walk north until I recognized something. I realized that this was not an ideal plan, but at 1:30 in the morning the buses and taxis are scarce, and I wasn't quite brave enough to hitchhike. Luckily, an unoccupied taxi eventually showed up and whisked me away to my destination.

I could have very easily slept until the end of the line, and that would have been a different story indeed.

The nosebleed section

This week was bookended by two free concerts. Sunday I drove over to Stern Grove to see Seu Jorge and Aimee Mann. Brazil had just won a World Cup match, and the entire Brazilian population of SF was in attendance to celebrate. Seu Jorge's band threw out deep Brazilian grooves to accompany Jorge's baritone lyrics and heavy guitar rhythm. I was sitting on a perilously steep hill under a tree way in the back, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable. Aimee Mann wasn't quite as engaging, but I've never been a fan. I hiked out of there after a few songs.

Then again last night, I trekked up to Berkeley's Greek Theater to experience as much of Radiohead as I could manage without actually owning a ticket. Eventually I found myself sitting on a retaining wall in the weeds, the stage obscured by trees. A thick fog rolled in over the Berkeley hills, and the light from the stage was reflected and traced into the air. Even though I couldn't see the stage, I could hear the music crystal-clear. I noticed they didn't play many of their older hits — Creep, High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees — but what they did play was stellar.

To commemorate my experience of almost attending a Radiohead concert, I've put together this mix. Enjoy:

Almost Radiohead

1. "Airbag" by Eric Gorfain (et al) from Strung Out on OK Computer
2. "Spies" by Coldplay from Parachutes
3. "The Sound of Failure" by The Flaming Lips from At War With The Mystics
4. "Exit Music (For a Film)" by Brad Mehldau from Morning Becomes Eclectic
5. "Mike Mills" by Air from Talkie Walkie
6. "Last Broadcast" by The Doves from The Last Broadcast
7. "Fields, Shorelines, and Hunters" by M83 from Before The Dawn Heals Us
8. "Up The Beach" by Jane's Addiction from Nothing's Shocking
9. "Easy Tiger" by Depeche Mode from Exciter
10. "Lose Myself" by Kid Galahad from The Bedroom Tapes
11. "Electric Relay" by Calexico from The Book And The Canal
12. "I'll Feel for You" by Semisonic from Great Divide
13. "Space Beatle" by The Beta Band from Heroes To Zeros
14. "High Hopes" by Pink Floyd from The Division Bell

Kirby's dream land

In my never-ending pursuit to 1) stay in shape, 2) keep my bike in shape, and 3) discover places around the Bay that don't require driving, I decided to take a bike trip over the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday. I had a very vague idea of what to do after I crossed the famous span; I only knew it was a beautiful day and I wanted to get some exercise.

While I was putting my bike onto my car in preparation for the drive to the nearest BART station, a neighbor inquired about my plans. "Just heading up over the bridge into Marin," I replied. He revealed to me that he works at a lighthouse up in that area, and offered a few suggestions on where to go. Nearly all of them seemed like a little more than I was willing to put my bike through.

After a quick BART ride to the City, I headed up the Embarcadero, through the Wharf, and into the Marina. All the jogging girls were out along Crissy Field, and some of that well-known San Francisco fog was rolling over the bridge into a Bay full of sailboats. It was a great view on all sides.

Two kinds of people bike over the bridge, generally:

1) Super serious-looking middle-aged dudes in full biking gear (bonus points for Lance's Discovery Channel jersey) going full-speed. These guys are courteous riders, share the lane with us slower types, and always call out "On your left" before they pass. Unfortunately, since they are going at roughly the speed of sound, you do not realize this until they have just blown past.

2) Tourists on Blazing Saddles bicycles, going very slowly and stopping frequently to point. Any part of the span which is less than two bike-widths wide seems to be a Designated Tourist Stopping Zone™.

Despite the racers, the tourists, and the wind, I emerged victoriously on the other side and rode in circles for a few minutes debating how to proceed. I felt like I should keep going up for a while, since what goes up must come down, and coming down on a bike is a lot more fun than going up.


After a granola bar lunch at Battery Spencer, I discovered a closed road with a sign reading "Kirby Cove." Breaking my own altitude rule, I headed down the winding road until it ended at a beautiful beach. There were only a few other people around, and the only things within earshot were the waves hitting the sand and the wind rustling the tall redwood trees. I sat on some driftwood and enjoyed the peace for a while.

While I was sitting, I contemplated any possible way to avoid the long crawl up the hill I had just descended. Wading into the ocean was probably out of the question, and since the road was closed to cars, there was no chance a stranger would give me a lift. Resigned to the fact that I would actually be getting significant exercise on this trek, I chugged up the hill slowly but steadily until I reached the main road.

I looked at my return trip over the majestic bridge and thought to myself, "Screw that." A quick descent into Sausalito, and I was on a ferry heading back to SF the easy way.

Keep your jimmies to yourself

Every locale has its own special dialect and jargon that one must learn to embrace if one wants to fully incorporate oneself into said locale. For example, Rachel tells me that in Boston, sprinkles on ice cream are called jimmies. (I don't know about you, but if somebody offered to put jimmies on my ice cream, I'd leave without tipping.)

Frisco

You do not say Frisco. End of story. This was not a big deal to me, because I'd never heard anybody call it Frisco who wasn't intentionally trying to sound fogeyish. But it's apparently a big deal here. There are tips on websites, books about it, even the laundromats are reminding us how uncool the term is. And yet, some say it's making a comeback...

Sacto

Whereas "Frisco" seems somehow natural despite its mass-shunning, Sacto seems completely fabricated. "Hey, why do they get their own catchy nickname? We want one too!" whined the citizens of Sacramento. And yet this term is completely acceptable and in widespread use. I don't get it.

Chill

This word couldn't be simpler. As a noun, it means a moderate but unpleasant coldness: "There was a chill in the air." As a verb, it means to make colder: "Chill before serving." As an adjective, the word adds an -ed and takes on another more informal meaning, especially when referring to music or emotional atmospheres.

But now the hipsters around here are dropping the -ed and using "chill" as an adjective. For example: "23 SWF seeks chill SWM for movie date this weekend." Or "that concert was pretty chill." It makes me cringe a little, but it's not as bad as...

Yeah-no

One of my friends (a linguist) wrote a thesis about this perplexing interjection. It indicates acknowledgement of the previous statement and the emphatic presentation of a related statement. It can be used in the affirmative: "Yeah-no, I loved that movie." It can be used in the negative: "Yeah-no, I hated that movie."

But it's not to be confused with the sarcastic affirmative, followed a beat later by a definite negative for comedic value: "Is the Muni going to be on time? Yeah... no." That's totally different. (Shame on you for even thinking otherwise.)

I know, right?

This one caught me totally off guard the first time I heard it. I thought perhaps the person wanted me to affirm their knowledge of the subject at hand, so I said, "Sure!" Little did I know that this little gem is an empty-calorie fluffball of passive agreement. As in, Person A says, "There's some killer waves breaking out there, man," to which Person B responds, "I know, right?"

Right.

Hippies and hipsters

Joel, a college buddy who's currently living in Santa Clara, came up to the city to visit this weekend, so we spent Saturday driving around and seeing what we could see (despite the fog).

Sunday we headed first to the Haight Ashbury Street Fair. We stopped and listened to a techno DJ for a while, nodding our heads in approval along with the rest of the yuppies. I don't much care for listening to recorded techno, but live shows are lots of fun. (And if GarageBand is any indication, I'd probably enjoy producing techno too.)

After an obligatory stop at Amoeba, we ventured into the Park to find the Cake show. First we stumbled upon some swing dancing in progress — how ironic that I planned and failed to attend twice, and then arrived by accident. Joel, a recent resident of Boston, commented on how random San Francisco seemed compared to "back East." Lots of fun (and free) stuff going on. My wallet silently agreed.

We stepped into the crowd (randomly running into Jesse en route) just in time to see OAR take the stage. I had seen them once before in Minneapolis when they opened for 311. They were good then, but this time they were great. Really a nice laid-back reggae vibe with excellent sax and guitar players sprinkled in. (But no violin, so I can't make any comparison to Dave Matthews Band. Shucks.) What was particularly interesting about this was that it was the first time I really felt like an outsider among fans. These crazies were singing every lyric, shouting inside jokes at the band, and predicting the set list two or three songs in advance. And, except for the one song about a game of poker and that other one they've started playing on the radio, I didn't know a single song. That's not to say I didn't thoroughly enjoy it; I just felt like less of a crazed fanboy.

And then Cake took the stage, and I resumed crazed fanboy mode. Shouting every word, pumping my fist to every drum kick, playing air guitar and trumpet, and snapping photos like a tourist on the last day of vacation. It was a scene to behold. I've been a big fan of Cake ever since junior high, when me and my friends played rough facsimiles of their songs in a farm garage late at night. They put on a great show, and it didn't go unappreciated by those of us in the crowd.

After the band prolonged the magic with an encore, we fashion nuggets formed a motorcade of generosity to the Muni. The lucky comfort eagles who found seats had it a lot better than the pressure chiefs who were left standing, but we all arrived downtown eventually. Joel headed south on Caltrain, and I returned home to recharge my supply of cheap musical puns.

Web browsers as a social tool

Despite brief moments of courtship with other browsers, I'm a loyal Safari user. Firefox takes too long to start up and the text and button rendering is fugly, and the others seem like also-rans. Plus, Safari reads RSS feeds — a feature I didn't think I'd use much, but like most of Apple's toys, found myself loving.

Here's a special tip for those of you who read several blogs regularly (including this one, perhaps), use Safari on a Mac, and would like an easy way to keep up with the latest posts without having to constantly navigate to the site.

1. Create a new folder in your Bookmarks Bar named Blogs.
2. Navigate to a blog, and look for the RSS icon in your address bar (). Click on it.
3. Now drag the icon to the left of the URL into your newly created Blogs folder.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each blog you'd like to monitor.

Now, whenever a new blog entry is posted on the blogs you bookmarked, a little (1) will appear next to that blog in the list. Whenever you see this indicator, simply choose the blog from the list in the Blogs folder and you'll be whisked away to the RSS feed where you can read the latest posting.

I use the same method to monitor several news sites and other various Internet diversions, including Daring Fireball, The Show with Ze Frank, some hot items on Craigslist, and even the latest Bay Area earthquakes.

One of these feeds led me to a posting in the personals section of Craigslist last night. I replied to it, and ended up exchanging emails and instant messages with a girl named Anna for the rest of the evening. She seems nice, and if the pictures she sent are accurate she's a total cutie. We might meet up for the free Cake show in Golden Gate Park tomorrow. Like everything on Craigslist, a grain of salt should be taken; but I'm eager to make a new friend.

Speaking of friends, a buddy of mine from college is now working for Apple (I believe the appropriate Californism to express enthusiastic disbelief regarding this fact would be "I know, right?") and is coming up to SF to visit me and see the aforementioned Cake show this weekend. Now I must stop typing and clean up my mess of an apartment.

Take me out to the ball game

The company had an outing to a Giants game yesterday. It was my first real baseball game, much to the delight of my boss, who offered many suggestions as to how I could make my first ballpark experience quintessential. Running shirtless across the field with GoldenPalace.com painted on my chest didn't appeal to me, so I stuck with hot dogs, heckling, and alcohol.

Giants Stadium   Pac Bell Park   SBC Park   AT&T Park seems like a great stadium. Panoramic views of the Bay and the city, plenty of open walking areas that aren't too crowded, and plenty of good seating. I don't have much to compare it to, since it's the only stadium I've been in. But everybody says it's nice. (But $5.00 for a bag of peanuts? What is this, the Pentagon?)

The Giants lost to the Marlins by a lot, but it was still a ton of fun. The weather was perfect, the coworkers were a bucket of laughs, and I got to drink a margarita during business hours. What more could you ask for?

China, Japan, and Idaho

Of the neighborhoods in SF that I frequent, I feel like Chinatown, for obvious reasons, is the most foreign. I took a tour of Chinatown this weekend to try to get to know it better and feel like less of an outsider. The tour was interesting and the price was right. The group was a bit too large to comfortably walk on the notoriously crowded sidewalks of Grant and Stockton streets, but we managed. I especially enjoyed the small alleys we ventured into and the intricate wood carvings in the temple of Tin Hau.

After a brief stop at an Egyptian restaurant, I continued my world travels with a tour of Japantown. Beginning at the majestic Peace Pagoda, we walked through various shops in the nearby mall, then around the neighborhood looking at buildings and houses. This tour was also very interesting, but the guide was going at a very slow pace and I decided to venture home rather than continue to sunburn.

Chinatown is obviously thriving from tourism and enjoys a dense community with many associations and family businesses holding it together. It is also very historic, being one of the oldest Chinatowns outside of China. But I think I prefer the feel of Japantown myself. The sushi boat restaurants, the whiz-bang technology, the disgustingly upbeat J-pop, and the open and elegant style of Japanese architecture draws me in. I'll return to both places for further exploration on my own.

In a brief moment of foresight, I placed a post on Craigslist late last week inviting any interested person or persons to join me at the Albatross in Berkeley, which I had heard good things about. I got a response almost immediately from a guy named Adam, who said he was going to head to Pacifica for some surfing but would be back in time to hang out at the pub. It wasn't the enchanting and attractive woman I was secretly hoping for, but in the face of certain boredom I tried not to place such importance on little things like gender.

After a few minutes of sipping cider at the bar, Adam walked in and introduced himself. We immediately started yapping about computers, music, the Bay Area, and his home state of Idaho (specifically, how to explain to Californians that it isn't Iowa). After a few games of darts (I won, mostly) and a halfway-sober game of chess (he won, definitely), we parted ways. We'll probably meet up again and throw a few more darts sometime later.

Now I have to explain to my parents that meeting a male stranger in a bar in the Bay Area does not undermine my heterosexuality at all.