As most of you are probably aware, I really hate graduations, or indeed similar ceremonies of any type. So it was with some dismay that I found myself, in the middle of a perfectly good Sunday afternoon, sitting at about the thirty-yard line of the football field at my cousin’s high school, waiting for the commencement ceremonies to begin.
Allow me to reiterate. I hate graduations. Before this past Sunday, the only graduation I had ever attended was my own, a fact that only occurred because on several occasions I was explicitly told that if I did not attend the ceremony, I would not be eligible to receive my high school diploma. Why that was the case, I do not know, but I do know that the event was excruciating. Pure pain. But I digress.
So there I was, just shy of the red zone, with my lawn chair and my sunglasses. The ceremony began at 2pm sharp with the high school band playing about thirty-five minutes of “Pomp and Circumstance,” which, under the best of circumstances, is only a marginally tolerable piece of music. This is to say that perhaps the high school band did not do the song its full justice, what with the flat trumpets and the squeaky French horn, but anyway, after about the sixteenth repeat, all nine thousand graduates had filed in (out?) and the speeches could finally begin.
And what speeches they were. Even if you were directly in front of the stage, the public address system left something to be desired, and I was off to the side, so I only heard snatches of the speeches, which was probably for the best, as I might have begun to heckle had I been exposed to them in their full glory. What I do know is that at one point during his speech, the principle donned a snorkel (although I’m not quite sure why) and gave the rest of his speech looking like a total douche.
It was at about this point that a line of dark clouds began to gather in the west, and the temperature dropped about ten degrees in as many minutes. The air became very windy and then very calm and then very windy again. This was small town Wisconsin, and the residents are not idiots when it comes to weather. Everyone there knew it was going to storm. A lot.
But what was really entertaining to watch was what people did with that information. Sitting where I was, in full view of the main grandstand, there was noticeable discomfort among the patrons of this event. Some shifted nervously in their seats. Some got out their umbrellas. Some, presumably of the mindset that their graduate was not worth getting wet over (really proud of you, son), simply walked toward the exits.
About twenty minutes into the proceedings, the principle interrupted to say that because of the impending storm, they were going to cut straight to handing out diplomas. At which point, the sky opened with tremendous force. It rained - as the saying in downeast Maine goes - “like a cow pissing on a flat rock.” It was a true Midwestern summer rain-storm, which is to say that everyone was fully drenched within fifteen seconds. I was able to stave off drowning by putting my folding chair over my head, but pretty soon that became saturated at which point it became about as useful of an umbrella as a tennis racquet would have been.
The really entertaining part of this debacle was that the graduates were having a fucking blast. What better of a way to end your high school experience than to see all your administrators fully soaked, and fully embarrassed, have a graduation ceremony the entirety of which took under forty-five minutes, and have what amounted to a big-ass water fight after you got your diplomas. People were literally spraying each other with water bottles (not that it really mattered at that point) as they stood in line to cross the stage. It was fantastic. I could never go to another graduation, satisfied in the knowledge that I have already seen the best there is to see.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Craps, bro.
I would just like to say, that when I left my apartment this morning (at 8:45am on a Saturday mind you) there were three grown ass men in various states of reclining on the sidewalk, playing craps. This scene was replete with fists full of cash, hats turned sideways, and indeed, one of the gentlemen was wearing no shoes – only socks. It seemed like they had really made themselves at home, right there on the street in front of my apartment. This was hilarious to me on several levels (really, craps? So passé) but mostly due to the fact that approximately 1:29am that morning (but who’s counting, really?) I was shouted awake by several men arguing over $20 won at craps. Which could possibly mean that I had witnessed at least a 7 hour game of craps, give or take. Weirdly enough, I ran into my roommate at work today, and she said that these same gentlemen were still playing when she left the apartment at 11:30am (that’s 11 hours and counting) and additionally, that they had decided to use her bike, which was locked outside, as a coat rack. I’m super excited to see if they’re still going when I get home tonight.
I won’t miss living here.
I won’t miss living here.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Fuck
Fuck I'm so sorry I suck real bad at keeping this blog up to date. Though to whom I'm apologizing I'm not even entirely sure. But if anyone actually still reads this given my shitty track record of not being able to update worth a damn, be consoled in the fact that I have, in fact, been writing, and in 5 or 6 weeks when I'm not in tech, I might even get around to editing and posting some of the things I've written. Again, my deepest apologies. Fuck.
fin.
fin.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
This is awkward, one of us is going to have to change...
So here’s a funny story: over Christmas, I went to visit my aunt in Orange County, and had the opportunity (misfortune) to drive around in her Prius. I had a whole post written (graphics and all!) about how terribly poorly that car was designed (seriously, everything looks like as though it was an afterthought - how is that even possible?) and then Toyota went and proved it for me. Like, I can’t even be funny anymore, because Toyota one-upped me on their own shitty product. I had all this stuff about how it looks like a shoe, and how the tiny steering wheel makes it seem like you’re driving with a paper plate, and then Toyota was all: “Oh yeah, sometimes the gas pedal gets stuck so you fucking careen out of control while you’re driving.” How am I supposed to make fun of it now? I was going to talk shit about how the joke-ass mini spoiler on the back serves no purpose except to ruin your view out the back window, but that’s not even funny compared to that tricky gas pedal they put in. What a laugh! And then Toyota: “Oh and also, sometimes the brakes fail too, so when that trick gas pedal sticks down and you’re going mad quick, sometimes you can’t stop.” Awesome. Toyota, you sneaky dicks: tricky gas pedal and prank brakes – that’s a riot. Thanks for fucking ruining my jokes. Next they’re going to tell me they did this on a bunch of different models too. Wait, what? Fucking really Toyota!?
Friday, January 22, 2010
Not Tonight...
So now that I’m pretending to be a grownup with a real job, it turns out that it’s much harder to update a blog with any regularity. It’s not really for lack of free time – I just don’t really do interesting stuff anymore. In college I could always fall back on the “I got real drunk and something funny happened” story, but I don’t really do that much crazy shit, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t write about it in a public forum, because it turns out that employers don’t like that so much. Plus, it’s much easier to motivate yourself to write about something asinine in college because the choice (at least for me) was usually between writing something fun online or writing something boring for class. Round about the fifth or sixth essay about Plato or Lessing or Wordsworth, writing about beer sports or baseball or really anything that’s not literary, seems downright enjoyable. It’s like a warmup for writing something meaningful – twenty minutes to let the martini kick in before starting to write. (That’s the trick to good writing kids – fix a real dry martini before you sit down with your computer and twenty-odd books. It really gets the creative juices flowing. All the great writers did it.) But now it seems like more of a chore than anything. In fact, the only reason I’m even writing now is because I didn’t have anything to do at work between my morning meeting and my afternoon meeting, so I took a two hour lunch break. I’m not even hungry, but I’ll be damned if I’m sitting at my desk for no reason when I don’t get paid hourly. But I digress. What generally happens in my life is this: I go to work, then to the gym, and then I make dinner, and by the time I get to my computer, I look at my blog and it looks at me, and I’m like, “Not tonight, I have a headache.”
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Electrics Glossary
Every profession has its own lexicon, built on the jargon, jokes, and technical terminology used by its laborers. Theatre – perhaps more so than other trades – has some really quality (and really colorful) vocabulary, the brunt of which originates in the electrics department. For all those of you who are fortunate enough to have a job that isn’t a theatre electrician, allow me to introduce you to some of the more useful and entertaining terms and phrases that exist in my world. In no particular order:
Hot Pocket: Hot patch or “courtesy” outlets contained in many touring dimmer racks. They are always on (“hot”) allowing the user to quickly test fixtures, cables, etc.
Inhibs: Inhibitive Submasters, which prevent lights from coming on. Opposite of a standard submaster, the higher the level of the sub, the lower the level of the light. Also a verb.
Pepsi Challenge: the act of slightly altering a designer’s specifications to be more practical/less neurotic. For example, if a designer specs a trim height of 20’-1” on his or her electrics, you would trim them at 20’ because that is a normal height, and then if, and only if, the designer notices, you change it. Pepsi Challenge can also refer to a scenario in which a designer gives you a note, and you don’t do it, but the next day you tell them you’ve done it and see if simply thinking it’s better alters their perception of what they thought was wrong in the first place.
50/50: the standard home position for many moving lights. 50% of tilt faces the light straight down, and 50% of pan gives the light ability to rotate in either direction.
Iso-opto: isolated optical splitter. It’s a device that splits a single line of data (usually DMX) into several lines. It serves roughly the same function for lighting data as a switch does for Ethernet.
Strippers: wire strippers.
Spaghetti: a cable or rope that is hopelessly and irrevocably knotted around itself and other cables or ropes. Also referred to as an “Asshole.”
Fucknut: the tiny set-screw on many lighting c-clamps that controls the pan of the unit. So named because it is super easy to over-tighten and shear off, and when you inevitably do it, you say “fuck.” Also known in some circles as the OJN (Oh Jesus nut).
Dykes: diagonal cutters.
Stinger: can be one of two things. Either a) a hot Edison extension cable or b) a short wire cable used for rigging.
Meanie: a rope cleat on the west coast.
Uncle Buddy: a rope cleat on the east coast.
“Spin a disk:” to save a show on a light board. This phrase has its origins in the fact that all computerized lighting consoles used to have floppy disk drives so you could save a backup copy of your show.
Jumper: an extension cable (usually stage pin).
“Bang it:” to go directly into a cue, bypassing the computerized fade time. This phrase has stems from the fact that on early model ETC consoles, you would go into a cue by “banging” the playback faders down and up. This phrase has been made largely obsolete by the “go to cue” function.
Dimmer Beach: the area in a theatre (or, more commonly, in a touring setup) designated for the lighting dimmers. Supposed origin: Since the dimmers are usually the heaviest things on the electrics truck, they are usually packed near the rear of the truck, over the wheels. As such, they are one of the first things off the truck during load in. Once the dimmers off the truck and set up on the venue, many L1’s like to set up a beach chair near (or sometimes on top of) the dimmers and instruct the crew on where to put the rest of the lighting gear. Hence, dimmer beach.
Alligator Pits: This may just be a thing at my theatre, but the open holes in the grid through which the batten lift lines travel are called alligator pits. Presumably because if you fall into one, you die.
Yup. See if you can take my job seriously now (as if you ever could)…
Hot Pocket: Hot patch or “courtesy” outlets contained in many touring dimmer racks. They are always on (“hot”) allowing the user to quickly test fixtures, cables, etc.
Inhibs: Inhibitive Submasters, which prevent lights from coming on. Opposite of a standard submaster, the higher the level of the sub, the lower the level of the light. Also a verb.
Pepsi Challenge: the act of slightly altering a designer’s specifications to be more practical/less neurotic. For example, if a designer specs a trim height of 20’-1” on his or her electrics, you would trim them at 20’ because that is a normal height, and then if, and only if, the designer notices, you change it. Pepsi Challenge can also refer to a scenario in which a designer gives you a note, and you don’t do it, but the next day you tell them you’ve done it and see if simply thinking it’s better alters their perception of what they thought was wrong in the first place.
50/50: the standard home position for many moving lights. 50% of tilt faces the light straight down, and 50% of pan gives the light ability to rotate in either direction.
Iso-opto: isolated optical splitter. It’s a device that splits a single line of data (usually DMX) into several lines. It serves roughly the same function for lighting data as a switch does for Ethernet.
Strippers: wire strippers.
Spaghetti: a cable or rope that is hopelessly and irrevocably knotted around itself and other cables or ropes. Also referred to as an “Asshole.”
Fucknut: the tiny set-screw on many lighting c-clamps that controls the pan of the unit. So named because it is super easy to over-tighten and shear off, and when you inevitably do it, you say “fuck.” Also known in some circles as the OJN (Oh Jesus nut).
Dykes: diagonal cutters.
Stinger: can be one of two things. Either a) a hot Edison extension cable or b) a short wire cable used for rigging.
Meanie: a rope cleat on the west coast.
Uncle Buddy: a rope cleat on the east coast.
“Spin a disk:” to save a show on a light board. This phrase has its origins in the fact that all computerized lighting consoles used to have floppy disk drives so you could save a backup copy of your show.
Jumper: an extension cable (usually stage pin).
“Bang it:” to go directly into a cue, bypassing the computerized fade time. This phrase has stems from the fact that on early model ETC consoles, you would go into a cue by “banging” the playback faders down and up. This phrase has been made largely obsolete by the “go to cue” function.
Dimmer Beach: the area in a theatre (or, more commonly, in a touring setup) designated for the lighting dimmers. Supposed origin: Since the dimmers are usually the heaviest things on the electrics truck, they are usually packed near the rear of the truck, over the wheels. As such, they are one of the first things off the truck during load in. Once the dimmers off the truck and set up on the venue, many L1’s like to set up a beach chair near (or sometimes on top of) the dimmers and instruct the crew on where to put the rest of the lighting gear. Hence, dimmer beach.
Alligator Pits: This may just be a thing at my theatre, but the open holes in the grid through which the batten lift lines travel are called alligator pits. Presumably because if you fall into one, you die.
Yup. See if you can take my job seriously now (as if you ever could)…
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Needless Sexual Innuendo The Week Before Christmas
Yesterday afternoon, I decided to log in to my work email before I went home. Awaiting me were several messages, but the one that jumped out at me had a subject line that read, “Have you seen my package?” I was really scared to open it, but it turned out to be a guy looking for a DVD he got in the mail. Fortunately, the next email I read was one about how there was a going to be a free keg at 4:30pm, so I was able to calm my nerves. But, Jesus Christ. Proofread your emails.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Postal Service is a Sham
First, let me make perfectly clear that the organization we are about to be mercilessly deriding is, in fact, the United States Postal Service, not the band “The Postal Service,” because the band is actually pretty decent at what they do, namely making sweet music. But even if their music was totally horrible, they’d still be doing a better job than USPS because, well, at least they’d be doing something. I swear to Christ, if I had a nickel for every time some deadbeat postal worker decided to go on break right when I walk in the post office, I’d be a rich man (well, I’d have at least about seventy five cents, because I try at all costs to avoid the post office like Fox News avoids the issues). Since I have been living in California (about four months) the following have not been delivered to my apartment: two issues of GQ, one issue of the New Yorker, one birthday card containing a check, and one freelance check. The following have been delivered to my apartment: numerous letters and a package for someone with an unpronounceable Asian name, a jury summons for someone named David, an alumni magazine from a college that neither my roommates nor I attended, a metric shitload of direct mail advertising for “current resident” and a letter marked “Urgent: Open Immediately, Time Sensitive Information Enclosed” for someone named Steve. I find it absolutely remarkable that I can get so much mail for people whose names are not Matt Avery, but that mail addressed to me has such a hard time actually getting to me. You’d think that at the very least, since I’m getting everyone else’s mail, the odds would be better for me to get some of my own mail too – it’s just simple odds.
Oh, and UPS, you’re on notice too. The next time you pull up next to my apartment with a package and don’t knock or even leave a “delivery attempt” slip, you’re getting a nasty blog post too. And don’t think I forgot about that time you somehow managed to get into our locked parking lot and leave a package outside my back door where I never go without leaving a note that sat out there for god knows how long before I happened to find it while I was taking out the trash. I know I live in South Berkeley and I don’t have a doorbell, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to knock on the goddamn door. At least pretend to make an effort.
All delivery services outside of FedEx and DHL are duly warned. Everyone else, if you need to send something, send it to my work address. If you don’t know what it is, ask, but then I damn well better see a package within the week.
Punk ass delivery services think they can charge an arm and a leg and a kidney and a pint of virgin blood to not deliver packages…
Monday, November 9, 2009
A few items of note:
I finally designed a show on an Eos. The show was a playwright’s series, which was only about 90 minutes long, and needed minimal tech support. I was using one of the best consoles on the market, with over 400 lights and about 40 scrollers at my disposal. It was like driving a tank to the supermarket: ultra badass, but super unnecessary.
The Bay Bridge is a PR nightmare. If it’s not getting destroyed by earthquakes or falling on cars, cars (or, more specifically, huge semi trucks) are falling off of it. I go to Treasure Island regularly because one of our rental vendors is located there, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t ever felt safe driving on that bridge. The new bridge being built to replace it is already years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget, and the new bridge isn’t going to replace or even circumvent the retarded double deck tunnel through Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island. Also, Treasure Island and YBI are technically only one island because Treasure Island is man-made, but that’s a story for another time. Caltrans and the Highway Patrol might as well give up and cut their losses – it’s only going to get worse from here.
I’m flying from the second busiest airport on the west coast to the busiest this weekend. Wish me luck.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Somebody out there has to hate Halloween as much as I do
I really fucking hate Halloween. It’s just the truth. I hate costumes and I hate going to parties where everyone is wearing a stupid costume and I hate walking down the street and seeing people in costumes. I hate it when all the bars are really crowded, and I hate it even more when they’re really crowded with costumed drunks. It’s like the one day of the year where everybody gets license to act and look dumber than they already do in their everyday lives. This one holiday basically embodies most of the things that are wrong with America.
I also hate children, and as such, I hate trick or treating. It really defies every type of conventional logic and reason. If there’s anything worse than a mob of children walking unattended down the street, it’s a mob of sticky, costumed, sugar-crazed children walking down the street asking you for free shit. Fuck trick or treat. Who thought up that crazy-ass shit? Let’s give all these already hyperactive children a metric f-ton of candy. For free. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Hell.
But here’s the thing: everybody else fucking loves Halloween. It’s like these people wait all fucking year to get dressed up and get really drunk and puke on their stupid ass costumes. Nobody’s even clever about it. I don’t how many girls in college told me the were going to their Halloween parties as a sexy (insert noun here): pirate, soldier, fucking bumblebee. Here’s a word to the wise. Bumblebees aren’t sexy. They’re really fucking boring. All they do is make honey and sting the shit out of people. That’s not a good Halloween costume. The only good Halloween costume I’ve seen this year is a girl who went as the Bay Bridge wrapped in caution tape with crushed matchbox cars glued to it. And the guy last night who was dressed like Aristotle Onassis, but that was more just a good fashion choice than a good costume.
I can make neither heads nor tails of it. It doesn’t seem to me like you would do more work and spend more money just to go out drinking - which, incidentally, is already really expensive– but I guess that’s just me. Which is why this year, like every other year, I’ll spend Halloween sitting in my apartment with all the lights off and the curtains closed, drinking alone and cursing quietly cursing the trick or treaters.
I also hate children, and as such, I hate trick or treating. It really defies every type of conventional logic and reason. If there’s anything worse than a mob of children walking unattended down the street, it’s a mob of sticky, costumed, sugar-crazed children walking down the street asking you for free shit. Fuck trick or treat. Who thought up that crazy-ass shit? Let’s give all these already hyperactive children a metric f-ton of candy. For free. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Hell.
But here’s the thing: everybody else fucking loves Halloween. It’s like these people wait all fucking year to get dressed up and get really drunk and puke on their stupid ass costumes. Nobody’s even clever about it. I don’t how many girls in college told me the were going to their Halloween parties as a sexy (insert noun here): pirate, soldier, fucking bumblebee. Here’s a word to the wise. Bumblebees aren’t sexy. They’re really fucking boring. All they do is make honey and sting the shit out of people. That’s not a good Halloween costume. The only good Halloween costume I’ve seen this year is a girl who went as the Bay Bridge wrapped in caution tape with crushed matchbox cars glued to it. And the guy last night who was dressed like Aristotle Onassis, but that was more just a good fashion choice than a good costume.
I can make neither heads nor tails of it. It doesn’t seem to me like you would do more work and spend more money just to go out drinking - which, incidentally, is already really expensive– but I guess that’s just me. Which is why this year, like every other year, I’ll spend Halloween sitting in my apartment with all the lights off and the curtains closed, drinking alone and cursing quietly cursing the trick or treaters.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
In Explanation:
Yeah. I haven’t posted for a month. Want to fight about it?
Here’s what’s been keeping me busy:
1. Getting engaged to my girlfriend. More to come.
2. Tech week for Tiny Kushner
3. Watching both the Dodgers and the Angels lose, shattering my dreams for a freeway series the one year I’m living in California. Was that really too much to ask?
4. Reading all the awesome reviews of American Idiot and Tiny Kushner.
5. Serving drinks to Lea Michele (of recent fame on the TV show Glee, for those of you who don’t follow Broadway actors).
6. Seeing a guy Chinese fire drill the Bart train.
7. Getting verbally abused by bums.
8. Enjoying the nice weather.
But not to worry. I’ll be back with a vengeance in the coming weeks.
Here’s what’s been keeping me busy:
1. Getting engaged to my girlfriend. More to come.
2. Tech week for Tiny Kushner
3. Watching both the Dodgers and the Angels lose, shattering my dreams for a freeway series the one year I’m living in California. Was that really too much to ask?
4. Reading all the awesome reviews of American Idiot and Tiny Kushner.
5. Serving drinks to Lea Michele (of recent fame on the TV show Glee, for those of you who don’t follow Broadway actors).
6. Seeing a guy Chinese fire drill the Bart train.
7. Getting verbally abused by bums.
8. Enjoying the nice weather.
But not to worry. I’ll be back with a vengeance in the coming weeks.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
National Pastime
Ahh, baseball. America’s national pastime that hasn’t been taken seriously for at least two decades now. The playoffs haven’t even started yet and I already don’t see any suitable outcomes; as today marked both the Cardinals (whom I abhor) and the Yankees (who use the playoffs like cheap prostitutes just about every season) clinching playoff spots, while the Cubs are 8.5 games back in the NL central, and the Brewers are another 4.5 games behind that. Even the Giants, who I started rooting for because I live in the bay area and certainly can’t root for the A’s, did a great job of blowing a wildcard chance, and now have a great chance of ending their season in predictable, mediocre fashion. Really the only high points for me this season are that the White Sox almost certainly won’t make the playoffs, while the Red Sox almost certainly will (unless they keep playing like they did this weekend). Baseball makes me sad.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Berkeley Is Weird
I would have to take off my shoes to count the number of times in the past few weeks that I have been completely dumbfounded by shit that has happened in this city. I feel like almost once a day I am either stopped dead in my tracks or made to literally laugh out loud by something that I overheard or oversaw completely in passing. The other night, I went to the bodega down the street from my house, and upon entering, found that a borderline drunken woman was cursing out the clerk, saying some shit that would have made Mamet blush. The coup de grace of the tirade was, "You better put a skirt on 'cause you actin' like a bitch. Go put some pumps on, ho, and suck my dick motherfucker." I can’t make this shit up – nobody can really – and that’s the beauty of it. It’s raw, unrestricted human interaction in it’s truest form.
The problem is, I don’t even know where to begin in describing some of this stuff – I can only tell the same “I heard/saw a homeless man/woman say/do something really funny/sad” so many times. But that’s only the beginning. A lot of people will tell you that New York City is the place where you can do anything and not stand out, but I’ve been to New York, and that claim is false. There is a lot of crazy shit going on in NYC, and to be fair, their bars are (sadly) open much later than ours, but Berkeley is really the place to come for balls to the walls, unencumbered weirdness.
For example, the other night, as I was waiting downtown for the late Fremont train after seeing a movie with a friend, I happened to stumble into a conversation (I use “conversation” in it’s loosest sense) with a few girls from St. Mary’s college. The conversation started by virtue of the fact that they were drunk and had no idea how to get back to their school by train, and then centered on (drunkenly swerved around) how one of the girls was from Chicago and I was from Milwaukee (tri-staters have a bond in California), and we both like the Deftones. As a side note, apparently I don’t look like I just moved here because everyone asks me directions to places. Almost every time I take the train, someone asks me how to get to San Francisco. It’s unreal, because I don’t really live here, but I know the transit system better than people who do.
Regardless, midway through this conversation we were approached by a woman who, in addition to having the physical appearance of someone on the tail end of a weeks long meth binge, was clearly either blazed out of her mind or wasted on acid. Now, if you’ve ever been to NYC, you know that getting approached by anyone at a subway station let alone someone looking like the physical embodiment of slow death wearing a bed sheet for a skirt and hand painted sneakers would, at best, be received with a “go fuck yourself” and a halfhearted wave. But no. One of these girls actually summoned her over to ask about her shoes. When I used the words “hand painted,” I of course meant that they were splotched with fabric paint in a drug-addled haze, not actually painted with any semblance of clarity or meaning, but she asked nonetheless. The woman came over and talked for a minute – I don’t really remember what she said; I was too busy being stunned at how high she must have been – and after she left, the girl who started talking to her in the first place simply said, “Damn, she must’ve been smoking those trees. Like four or five of them.” I was laughing for days, and she just shrugged it off like that kind of shit happens every day. Which it basically does.
Moral? I don’t really know how to respond to Northern California. People have asked how I like it here and I never quite know how to respond. It can be such an all-encompassing question; I don’t really feel like I can address it in passing. “The weather’s gorgeous all the time, but everybody’s fucking psychotic” is usually what I end up saying, but that’s not necessarily all the way true. The best way of articulating this is that Berkeley – much more so than many other places I’ve lived – is a state of mind, rather than just simply a location. I just haven’t quite got the mindset down all the way yet…
The problem is, I don’t even know where to begin in describing some of this stuff – I can only tell the same “I heard/saw a homeless man/woman say/do something really funny/sad” so many times. But that’s only the beginning. A lot of people will tell you that New York City is the place where you can do anything and not stand out, but I’ve been to New York, and that claim is false. There is a lot of crazy shit going on in NYC, and to be fair, their bars are (sadly) open much later than ours, but Berkeley is really the place to come for balls to the walls, unencumbered weirdness.
For example, the other night, as I was waiting downtown for the late Fremont train after seeing a movie with a friend, I happened to stumble into a conversation (I use “conversation” in it’s loosest sense) with a few girls from St. Mary’s college. The conversation started by virtue of the fact that they were drunk and had no idea how to get back to their school by train, and then centered on (drunkenly swerved around) how one of the girls was from Chicago and I was from Milwaukee (tri-staters have a bond in California), and we both like the Deftones. As a side note, apparently I don’t look like I just moved here because everyone asks me directions to places. Almost every time I take the train, someone asks me how to get to San Francisco. It’s unreal, because I don’t really live here, but I know the transit system better than people who do.
Regardless, midway through this conversation we were approached by a woman who, in addition to having the physical appearance of someone on the tail end of a weeks long meth binge, was clearly either blazed out of her mind or wasted on acid. Now, if you’ve ever been to NYC, you know that getting approached by anyone at a subway station let alone someone looking like the physical embodiment of slow death wearing a bed sheet for a skirt and hand painted sneakers would, at best, be received with a “go fuck yourself” and a halfhearted wave. But no. One of these girls actually summoned her over to ask about her shoes. When I used the words “hand painted,” I of course meant that they were splotched with fabric paint in a drug-addled haze, not actually painted with any semblance of clarity or meaning, but she asked nonetheless. The woman came over and talked for a minute – I don’t really remember what she said; I was too busy being stunned at how high she must have been – and after she left, the girl who started talking to her in the first place simply said, “Damn, she must’ve been smoking those trees. Like four or five of them.” I was laughing for days, and she just shrugged it off like that kind of shit happens every day. Which it basically does.
Moral? I don’t really know how to respond to Northern California. People have asked how I like it here and I never quite know how to respond. It can be such an all-encompassing question; I don’t really feel like I can address it in passing. “The weather’s gorgeous all the time, but everybody’s fucking psychotic” is usually what I end up saying, but that’s not necessarily all the way true. The best way of articulating this is that Berkeley – much more so than many other places I’ve lived – is a state of mind, rather than just simply a location. I just haven’t quite got the mindset down all the way yet…
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
An Open Letter
Dear Hipsters who live in my apartment building:
Do you think it is cool to throw parties on two consecutive WEEK NIGHTS? Do you think it’s cool to ride your fixie to a party in south Berkeley and then stand around outside on the sidewalk drinking 40s out of paper bags and listening to Massive Attack with the system on blast? It’s not. It makes you look like douche bags. You’re making everything smell like pot and sound like angst. I’m sorry your parents didn’t love you enough, but seriously cut it out. Some people actually have the wherewithal to hold down steady jobs, and those same people have to be at work at nine o’clock in the fucking morning tomorrow. Knock it the fuck off.
Sincerely,
Your hate filled, job holding, upstairs neighbor.
Note 1: Karma, bitch that she is, is apparently paying me back for all the times I partied recklessly on weeknights during college.
Note 2: I seriously just looked out my window, and I have a laundry list of stereotypes:
3 fixies
2 girls wearing flannel shirts, knit hats, and horn rimmed glasses
3 guys wearing skinny jeans
4 40s of steel reserve
1 douchebag moustache
I’ve never even met these people, and yet I hate them with the burning fury of a million fiery suns.
Do you think it is cool to throw parties on two consecutive WEEK NIGHTS? Do you think it’s cool to ride your fixie to a party in south Berkeley and then stand around outside on the sidewalk drinking 40s out of paper bags and listening to Massive Attack with the system on blast? It’s not. It makes you look like douche bags. You’re making everything smell like pot and sound like angst. I’m sorry your parents didn’t love you enough, but seriously cut it out. Some people actually have the wherewithal to hold down steady jobs, and those same people have to be at work at nine o’clock in the fucking morning tomorrow. Knock it the fuck off.
Sincerely,
Your hate filled, job holding, upstairs neighbor.
***
Note 1: Karma, bitch that she is, is apparently paying me back for all the times I partied recklessly on weeknights during college.
Note 2: I seriously just looked out my window, and I have a laundry list of stereotypes:
3 fixies
2 girls wearing flannel shirts, knit hats, and horn rimmed glasses
3 guys wearing skinny jeans
4 40s of steel reserve
1 douchebag moustache
I’ve never even met these people, and yet I hate them with the burning fury of a million fiery suns.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Summer '09: What a Letdown
Dude. What a shitty summer. As far as I can tell, the people who received the most publicity this summer can be grouped into three categories. And those are:
1. Saying stupid shit at bad times (See also: Gates, Obama, Williams, Wilson, West).
2. Good tennis players sucking at the US Open (See also: Roddick, Murray, Federer, Nadal, Williams).
3. Dying: (See also: Jackson, Mays, Kennedy, Fawcett, Swayze).
Yup.
1. Saying stupid shit at bad times (See also: Gates, Obama, Williams, Wilson, West).
2. Good tennis players sucking at the US Open (See also: Roddick, Murray, Federer, Nadal, Williams).
3. Dying: (See also: Jackson, Mays, Kennedy, Fawcett, Swayze).
Yup.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Green Day’s American Idiot World Premire: A Comprehensive Analysis
REDACTED.
Front office at BRT has specifically asked the entire staff, due to the number of premiers and works in progress, to refrain from disseminating information regarding American Idiot, or any other shows in the upcoming season. This is - to say the least - understandable, and because I like my job, I've decided to comply. Until further notice, all information regarding this and all other shows can be found at berkeleyrep.org. This original post may be back once American Idiot has opened, but for now, I have never seen the show, nor do I know anything about it.
Apologies...
-MPA
Front office at BRT has specifically asked the entire staff, due to the number of premiers and works in progress, to refrain from disseminating information regarding American Idiot, or any other shows in the upcoming season. This is - to say the least - understandable, and because I like my job, I've decided to comply. Until further notice, all information regarding this and all other shows can be found at berkeleyrep.org. This original post may be back once American Idiot has opened, but for now, I have never seen the show, nor do I know anything about it.
Apologies...
-MPA
Sunday, August 30, 2009
I Have A Love-Hate Relationship With The Bay Fair Target
Today, I went to the Target in Bay Fair for the first time. Much like the Target off the Stadium Spur in Milwaukee (for those of you who are familiar with my homeland), this Target is bi-lingual due to the high percentage of the population demographic that is Hispanic. I had a blast laughing to myself at the sub-par English-Spanish translations. There’s something about seeing a vernacular phrase you see every day in another language that makes it seem utterly ridiculous. However, this fact also means that many of the employees are not familiar with my mother tongue. Which also happens to be the official language of this country.
In any event, I decided to start an herb garden on my fire escape (oregano and basil, not the California herb), so seeing as how this Target had a garden center, I was firmly in business. I first picked up some groceries, and a few things for my apartment (did you know ice cube trays are considered home storage? I didn’t.) and then headed to the garden center. Here’s the funny thing about me: while I’m shopping, I have a tendency to forget that I don’t have a car, a fact that is only remembered once I have passed the checkout. This means that I either have to get home on my bike, or on the train, both of which are almost equally daunting propositions when you are carrying enough groceries and/or housewares to outfit a small Mexican village. This lapse in memory and judgment has lead me to ride my bike home to South Berkeley from the Safeway in Oakland with six full bags of groceries on the handlebars. But I digress.
I walked around the store, picked up my plants, then realized that I needed pots for all of them. Then I realized that I needed dirt to fill the pots. Then I realized that I needed a cart because all this stuff sure as shit wasn’t going to fit in the tiny basket I was carrying. But at no point during all of these realizations did I think about having to carry several hundred pounds of garden supplies to the Bay Fair train station, then onto the train, then home from the Ashby station. I did realize this after I left the Target Store and saw the yawning expanse of parking lot that separated me from my train. So, being the resourceful person I am, I figured I could carry all my stuff across the parking lot in my cart, and then ditch the cart once I got to the edge of the lot. What I did not take into account was that the sneaky target bastards had a trap set for people like me. Turns out at this Target, if you take your cart beyond a certain point, the wheels lock up. Irreversibly. And that point happens to be the middle of the main road connecting all the stores in the shopping center. Which is where my cart still is. I figure if they want to put the electric fence there, they can fetch my cart back from the middle of the intersection with no working wheels. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to do them the courtesy. So I loaded all my bags into my arms, hiked to the Bart station, and waited for my train.
In any event, I decided to start an herb garden on my fire escape (oregano and basil, not the California herb), so seeing as how this Target had a garden center, I was firmly in business. I first picked up some groceries, and a few things for my apartment (did you know ice cube trays are considered home storage? I didn’t.) and then headed to the garden center. Here’s the funny thing about me: while I’m shopping, I have a tendency to forget that I don’t have a car, a fact that is only remembered once I have passed the checkout. This means that I either have to get home on my bike, or on the train, both of which are almost equally daunting propositions when you are carrying enough groceries and/or housewares to outfit a small Mexican village. This lapse in memory and judgment has lead me to ride my bike home to South Berkeley from the Safeway in Oakland with six full bags of groceries on the handlebars. But I digress.
I walked around the store, picked up my plants, then realized that I needed pots for all of them. Then I realized that I needed dirt to fill the pots. Then I realized that I needed a cart because all this stuff sure as shit wasn’t going to fit in the tiny basket I was carrying. But at no point during all of these realizations did I think about having to carry several hundred pounds of garden supplies to the Bay Fair train station, then onto the train, then home from the Ashby station. I did realize this after I left the Target Store and saw the yawning expanse of parking lot that separated me from my train. So, being the resourceful person I am, I figured I could carry all my stuff across the parking lot in my cart, and then ditch the cart once I got to the edge of the lot. What I did not take into account was that the sneaky target bastards had a trap set for people like me. Turns out at this Target, if you take your cart beyond a certain point, the wheels lock up. Irreversibly. And that point happens to be the middle of the main road connecting all the stores in the shopping center. Which is where my cart still is. I figure if they want to put the electric fence there, they can fetch my cart back from the middle of the intersection with no working wheels. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to do them the courtesy. So I loaded all my bags into my arms, hiked to the Bart station, and waited for my train.
***
My central concern about this whole endeavor is the seemingly frivolous use of technology. Doesn’t it seem as though all the research that went into developing shopping carts whose wheels lock up could have been used for a better purpose? Like seriously is there a huge black market for stolen shopping carts? Because the last I checked, most people want shopping carts in the store, not outside of it. I would be really fucking pissed off about all this, except for the fact that my grand total for like eight bags worth of stuff was $44. Damn you, Target, and your incredibly inexpensive merchandise, making me forget that I was mad at you in the first place…
Saturday, August 15, 2009
I Saw It On The Bart
So the other day when I was waiting (a fucking eternity) at the Ashby bart (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station for the Richmond train, I had an awesome idea. I said to myself, “self, you should make a segment on your blog dedicated to stupid shit that people do on the bart. You could call it ‘I saw it on the bart’ and it would be really funny and people would like you because of it. You could even have other people submit stories and then you could write a book based on stories other people have submitted to your blog just like ‘texts from last night’ and ‘fuck my life.’ Then you could get illegitimately wealthy by taking the work of others and claiming it as your own.” And then I looked at the scrolling marquee, which besides telling me that I still had 13 minutes until my train arrived said “Seen and heard on bart! www.bart.gov.” (People in the bay area have a really annoying habit to which I refuse to succumb, which is dropping the article in front of bart. So instead of saying, “I took the bart,” they just say, “I took bart.” Which, because bart sounds like a proper name, makes it seem like they are discussing an actual person in train form. Which is weird. But I digress.) So anyway, I got really fucking pissed that the bart website had taken my idea and I resolved to put plan “I saw it on the bart” into action anyway. So without further ado, here is the first installment.
I saw it on the bart Vol. 1 Ed. 1
Guy at the Ashby station full on sprinting down the up escalator with his bike to make the Freemont train. And then getting yelled at by the train driver for trying to take his bike in the front car. Saw that shit on the bart.
Guy getting real confused by the fact that you have to scan your ticket on the way out of the station as well as on the way in. OK, that was me. That’s not how trains work on the east coast…
Ok, I didn’t really see this on the bart, but outside the downtown Berkeley station some dude was smoking a joint. At 8:30 on a Sunday morning. In public. What was even funnier was the black woman who walked by and said, aloud: “damn somebody be smokin’ them grapes.” Awesome.
Two homeless dudes fighting over a boom box at the top of the escalator of the 16th Street Mission station. This was at once hilarious, and terribly sad.
Two teenage girls getting stuck between two train cars of a moving train because they let the door close behind them before they opened the one in front of them. It made me chuckle.
Hippie man who clearly got dressed in 1969 (sporting flowered shirt, headband, full beard, etc) sitting on a woven blanket playing a sitar. Dude. It’s the year of our lord jesus christ two thousand and nine. This means three things: 1) Playing a sitar hasn’t been cool in approx. 30 years. 2) Lighting a candle and sitting on a blanket outside the Powell bart station has never been cool. 3) You should go to the barber and tell him you’re sick of looking like an asshole. I wanted to hit him upside the head with a fashion magazine. Although it was a pretty interesting dichotomy: him sitting there sporting his 1960s gear with Barney's, Bergdorf Goodman, and Louis Vuitton not half a block away. Funny.
So here’s the funny thing about “I saw it on the bart”: it looks as though it’s going to end even before it really gets on it’s feet, due to the bart worker’s strike that will be going into effect on Monday. I was mad enough about this strike when it just prevented me from getting to San Francisco in under five hours, now I can also be mad about the fact that it is ruining my ability to find wonderful unintended humor at the expense of others. Hell.
I saw it on the bart Vol. 1 Ed. 1
Guy at the Ashby station full on sprinting down the up escalator with his bike to make the Freemont train. And then getting yelled at by the train driver for trying to take his bike in the front car. Saw that shit on the bart.
Guy getting real confused by the fact that you have to scan your ticket on the way out of the station as well as on the way in. OK, that was me. That’s not how trains work on the east coast…
Ok, I didn’t really see this on the bart, but outside the downtown Berkeley station some dude was smoking a joint. At 8:30 on a Sunday morning. In public. What was even funnier was the black woman who walked by and said, aloud: “damn somebody be smokin’ them grapes.” Awesome.
Two homeless dudes fighting over a boom box at the top of the escalator of the 16th Street Mission station. This was at once hilarious, and terribly sad.
Two teenage girls getting stuck between two train cars of a moving train because they let the door close behind them before they opened the one in front of them. It made me chuckle.
Hippie man who clearly got dressed in 1969 (sporting flowered shirt, headband, full beard, etc) sitting on a woven blanket playing a sitar. Dude. It’s the year of our lord jesus christ two thousand and nine. This means three things: 1) Playing a sitar hasn’t been cool in approx. 30 years. 2) Lighting a candle and sitting on a blanket outside the Powell bart station has never been cool. 3) You should go to the barber and tell him you’re sick of looking like an asshole. I wanted to hit him upside the head with a fashion magazine. Although it was a pretty interesting dichotomy: him sitting there sporting his 1960s gear with Barney's, Bergdorf Goodman, and Louis Vuitton not half a block away. Funny.
***
So here’s the funny thing about “I saw it on the bart”: it looks as though it’s going to end even before it really gets on it’s feet, due to the bart worker’s strike that will be going into effect on Monday. I was mad enough about this strike when it just prevented me from getting to San Francisco in under five hours, now I can also be mad about the fact that it is ruining my ability to find wonderful unintended humor at the expense of others. Hell.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Observations
Since I’ve now spent a almost five hours in Berkeley, CA, and since that pretty much makes me an expert, I’d like to share some observations that I’ve made during that time.
1. Almost everyone in Berkeley is a hippie, with two exceptions: surfers and the homeless. Not that any of these are mutually exclusive, however.
2. Shit is fucking expensive here. My six-pack of Newcastle was $8.65, and that was before bottle deposit and the staggering 8.75% sales tax. I’m pretty sure I paid like $4 for a fucking box of mac and cheese.
3. People carry marijuana in the open.
4. The trains run more frequently, and smell less like pee than those on the east coast.
5. The weather is nigh on perfect all the time.
6. Cars actually yield right of way to pedestrians.
7. People smoke marijuana in the open.
8. Fucking everyone rides a bike.
1. Almost everyone in Berkeley is a hippie, with two exceptions: surfers and the homeless. Not that any of these are mutually exclusive, however.
2. Shit is fucking expensive here. My six-pack of Newcastle was $8.65, and that was before bottle deposit and the staggering 8.75% sales tax. I’m pretty sure I paid like $4 for a fucking box of mac and cheese.
3. People carry marijuana in the open.
4. The trains run more frequently, and smell less like pee than those on the east coast.
5. The weather is nigh on perfect all the time.
6. Cars actually yield right of way to pedestrians.
7. People smoke marijuana in the open.
8. Fucking everyone rides a bike.
Addendum
ok i thought i was done making fun of people in the airport, but clearly not. a whole fucking squadron from the army just got off a plane, all wearing fatigues, and one of them actually had a camo-print travel pillow? why the fuck do you need that? so you can fucking hide out while you catch some z's on the plane? i think not...
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