Weekend in The Bay Area
I'm back.
I arrived late Thursday night/Friday morning and had a harrowing taxi ride into from the airport to some neighborhood in Oakland where Greg was having his bachelor party. I was already in a cranky mood b/c I prefer to sleep on plane rides and my neighbors were loudly preparing a powerpoint presentation for some stupid fuckin' business conference. Anyway, the cab driver had no idea where he was going and getting directions via cell phone from drunken fools staring at strippers was frustrating to say the least. The driver's lack of command of english didn't help and shit, this is America at least speak the important language, spanish! Shit, I would have been able to get myself understood in Italian, French or Hebrew - but nope. . . no luck. At least he cut a chunk off the fare since we had to stop twice for directions - but still it was $50.
The bachelor party was over by the time I arrived - which I am thankful for - I am not really into the stripper thing - and the skanky hoes I saw leaving and I heard about afterward made me glad I did not have to pitch in $100 or more for. Every one was trashed and I drank the absolute last beer.
Rolfe drove me and Zach to his house. Rolfe is the husband of Senal who is a college friend of Sasha. I had never met him or his wife before - but they were kind enough to put us up for the weekend. Rolfe plays records much like Zach, and Greg and I, and thus there was a lot of geeky music talk to be had all weekend. It was endless.
Friday
Friday was started with breakfast burritos and then we picked up Kyra (who was also there for the wedding) and did some extensive record shopping in Berkeley. I bought a bunch of records at Amoeba and Rasputin and had a slice at "Fat Slice" - not Brooklyn pizza by far, but still decent for some pizza in the uncivilized realms of California. We went went back to Rolfe's (still had not met Senal she was asleep when we arrived the night before and gone to work when we woke up the next day) and played records and talked about music - but then I headed into San Francisco on my own by public transportation - which is always an adventure in a strange city.
The BART is cleaner than the NYC subway, but louder and scarier, especially when it goes under the Bay. The sound it made was a deafening screech that was worse than any 6 train I've been on. At Embarcadero, I had to switch to the Muni - which is kind of little unconnected subway - which has its own entrance not connected to the BART so you have to pay again, and it is the most backwards stupid shit in the world. They have these turnstiles that only take change, with this adjacent booths that don't sell tokens or take change. I go up to the booth and hand the lady a dollar twenty-five and she's like - we only take change. And I'm like, "Huh? what's the point of a booth then? I can't get change from you?" No, I can't, I have to go to the damn machine and get change - but then what is the point of the booth since I can just put the five quarters right into the slot in the turnstile. I tell ya - no city I have EVER been to has has public transportation as convenient and far reaching as that in NYC. Not to mention that much like D.C. the BART is an "add fare" system - where you pay for how far you go - I prefer a flat rate. I am very PRO-NYC subway system. Don't get me started.
Anyway, I met up with Eric - who I know from the Nutkinland messageboard community (<---------------It is a scary silly place I warn you, stay clear of it!). He turned out to be quite a cool guy and we wandered up and down San Francisco's ridiculous hills. They would kill a lesser person. And I have to admit if I had found that city I would have been like, this place is too hilly let's go somewhere else. He brought me to Cha CHa Cha's on the infamous Haight street - where the very hot waitress was just so friendly/flirty I could barely concentrate on flirting and playing glancing games with one of the lovely ladies at the table next to ours. I just felt great! I felt free in a strange city with nothing holding me back. I flirted wildly and introduced myself to everyone and just felt free. . . It was wonderful. After some tapas and too much sangria we grabbed a cab over to the Mission where I was to meet up with some East Coast friends who are originally from out there at a Senegalese bar.
Oh, and on the way to Cha Cha Cha's we passed the Lucky 13 bar - which is the name (kind of) of the bar chisaiboo is going to be opening here in Park Slope - so I snapped a pic.
At the Senegalese place I met a bunch of friends of my friend George of HighKick Lounge fame and I don't remember how - I ended up on the dance floor with one of them (named Sasha - not the one getting married) and had a great ole time. The DJ was playing Senegalese dance music, but it sounded like Dancehall to me - and she and I just got all nasty on the dance floor. I kept crying out, "What?! What?!" and she asked, "Is that what you say on the east coast? What does that mean?" And I had to explain that when a song is so good and in just the right spot you call out "What?! What?!" as if it is so good you can hardly believe it. "It is what you say when something is HELLA good," I said in the local vernacular so she'd understand.
I got a ride back to Oakland with Kyra's friend Sadie and her man (with me, Kyra and Zach crammed in the back) and me drunkenly ranting about my experiences in the City that night - I was just having such a good time! Even railing against San Fran's public transportation was fun and I had everyone laughing - Sadie thought she was gonna pee her pants.
Saturday
Saturday arrived with a pinch between my eyes and a queasy stomach. I tip-toed around Rolfe and Senal's place begging for coffee and Senal (who I finally met) obliged me and I was so grateful. Zach went off to breakfast with some friends from Seattle who now lived in San Fran and Rolfe cooked a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and vegetarian sausage. The food was delicious, but I picked at it carefully as my stomach and head were still a little angry from the night before. But the food helped.
I spent the rest of the morning helping Rolfe pick out records to play at the wedding reception and talking with Senal about growing up as a part of one culture while living in another (she's indian), and about religion and education and all sorts of related things. Man, they are such great people. I am really glad that Sasha arranged for me to stay there. I felt like I could be good friends with these people and made me feel like I've missed out by not knowing them longer. You can always tell people you get on with when you have barely hung out with them a day and already you have little inside jokes and like. Here is a pic I took of my hosts right before I left on Sunday:
And then it was time for the wedding. . . It was a place called "Treasure Island" - a place between San Francisco and Oakland - where the Bay Bridge (which is really two bridges) connects its two sections. The view was beautiful. Unfortunately, the photos I got of the view did not come out so good. It was raining intermittently. You could see the San Francisco skyline, flanked with the Bay Bridge on one side (as seen in this pic) and the Golden Gate on the other side.
<---- This was the best pic of the ceremony I could get as it was very dark in chapel. The actual ceremony was performed by Greg and Sasha's friends, Senal and Adam - which was very nice, and their parents also spoke during the ceremony. There were lots of weepy people.
The reception was wild and the alcohol was gone relatively quickly, requiring people to rely on the wine on the table to get their drink on. Zach (DJ Mohel) and Rolfe played the records and the dancing was fierce. I got lots of pics of that.
Greg's friends since childhood were wild, running around the dance floor - stomping and groping and writhing and humping each other in fraternal juvenile homo-erotic glee. It was great. Pete the dad of one Greg's friends and his wife, Alice were lost in the sauce and oblivious to everyone around them. More than once they simply fell over on the dance floor clutching each other inappropriately I leaned over them at one point when I realized that everyone else was too horrified, poilite or desensitized to do anything about it and told them they were taking up too much room on the dance floor. They did not listen.
The trip back from the island on the bus for those who would be too drunk to leave was an adventure in an of itself. There were bowls of goldfish being rescued from the centerpieces and one woman puking in one of those soft coolers that had been full of Tecate. There was one woman who overheard my name and decided she needed to call to me in fluent Spanish and tell me how her Mexican-American boyfriend (Enrique sitting next to her) didn't know any Spanish. She then stood up and began to sing a song called "El Rey" (the King).
My legs were throbbing from dancing so damn much that night and the night before and Rolfe drove me and Zach (and Senal) back to their place, where we ate Boca Burgers and fries and sat around the living room talking about a variety of things until late into the night.
Sunday
Sunday was a morning of Steely Dan on the stereo and political talk with our hosts. After Indian Buffet, Senal drove Zach to the San Francisco airport and Rolfe drove me to the Oakland airport. The security there was nuts. The toughest I have seen in any airport I have been to. The line itself to get checked out was about 45 minutes long. The plane ride was uneventful except that I watch Looney Tunes on DirecTV and ate apple juice and animal crackers, while my neighbor watched that piece of government propaganda crap "Saving Jessica Lynch" - even through my own headphones, I could hear the dramatic music swell as they showed the slow motion scene of an Iraqi soldier throwing his arms in the air in triumph. The exploitative nature of our media outlets. . . ugh. . .
Anyway, this woman named Melissa that was at the wedding with her boyfriend (who lives in Houston) was ont he flight back to New York and we shared a cab to Brooklyn and we had a nice talk on the way back. Sweet girl, too bad she's spoken for or I might have asked her to dinner. I did not get back to my place to way after midnight and though tired I was still wired and it took me a while to settle down and fall to sleep.
I think it is pretty funny that I am not in even one of the photos I took - so none of you can see how pretty I was all dressed up - looking fine and making all the ladies swoon. ;-) Well, if I get my hands on photos others took with me in them - I'll post them later.
As a Post Script, I just found out that one of my closest friends, Sean is getting married this coming August and I am going to be in the wedding party.
It all makes me feel kind of old and weird and happy and proud - all mixed up. Funny to have the children who are running around the reception not be little cousins, or nephews and nieces, but the children of your peers and your friends. Suddenly (it seems), we are the adults and we are the ones doing the things we saw adults do as children. We are the blurry memory of a six-year old who vaguely remembers some event 20-year's later having to ask a parent, "Whose wedding was that again?" I know we should not compare ourselves to others and we all go on our own paths at our own times, but still there is that part that nags at me and wonders, when is it my turn to find that kind of love and have a public celebration of it and make a family? Sure, part of me feels not ready for it, but you never are ready until you are actually doing it.
Not to end this on a low note - the weekend was amazing, and I look forward to going out to the Bay Area again and spending more time out there.
The Lucky 13 Bar in San Francisco
A Pic I took of my hosts, Rolfe & Senal, right before I left on Sunday
Part of the view from Treasure Island, where the wedding and reception took place
This is Sasha & Greg dancing the first dance, Sade's "By Your Side"
This is crazy Jorge. He was the life of the party and also arranged for the bar.
Dave & Chi - Another in my growing list of friends who are married.
Pete and Alice got a little crazy and blocked out the world and literally got down on the dance floor.
Sasha dancing beneath a veil, or something.
The bride and groom dancing and George (of HighKick) claps on.
TECATE!
Don't know her name, but this lovely lady spoke and sang with drunken dramatics in fluent spanish
I arrived late Thursday night/Friday morning and had a harrowing taxi ride into from the airport to some neighborhood in Oakland where Greg was having his bachelor party. I was already in a cranky mood b/c I prefer to sleep on plane rides and my neighbors were loudly preparing a powerpoint presentation for some stupid fuckin' business conference. Anyway, the cab driver had no idea where he was going and getting directions via cell phone from drunken fools staring at strippers was frustrating to say the least. The driver's lack of command of english didn't help and shit, this is America at least speak the important language, spanish! Shit, I would have been able to get myself understood in Italian, French or Hebrew - but nope. . . no luck. At least he cut a chunk off the fare since we had to stop twice for directions - but still it was $50.
The bachelor party was over by the time I arrived - which I am thankful for - I am not really into the stripper thing - and the skanky hoes I saw leaving and I heard about afterward made me glad I did not have to pitch in $100 or more for. Every one was trashed and I drank the absolute last beer.
Rolfe drove me and Zach to his house. Rolfe is the husband of Senal who is a college friend of Sasha. I had never met him or his wife before - but they were kind enough to put us up for the weekend. Rolfe plays records much like Zach, and Greg and I, and thus there was a lot of geeky music talk to be had all weekend. It was endless.
Friday
Friday was started with breakfast burritos and then we picked up Kyra (who was also there for the wedding) and did some extensive record shopping in Berkeley. I bought a bunch of records at Amoeba and Rasputin and had a slice at "Fat Slice" - not Brooklyn pizza by far, but still decent for some pizza in the uncivilized realms of California. We went went back to Rolfe's (still had not met Senal she was asleep when we arrived the night before and gone to work when we woke up the next day) and played records and talked about music - but then I headed into San Francisco on my own by public transportation - which is always an adventure in a strange city.
The BART is cleaner than the NYC subway, but louder and scarier, especially when it goes under the Bay. The sound it made was a deafening screech that was worse than any 6 train I've been on. At Embarcadero, I had to switch to the Muni - which is kind of little unconnected subway - which has its own entrance not connected to the BART so you have to pay again, and it is the most backwards stupid shit in the world. They have these turnstiles that only take change, with this adjacent booths that don't sell tokens or take change. I go up to the booth and hand the lady a dollar twenty-five and she's like - we only take change. And I'm like, "Huh? what's the point of a booth then? I can't get change from you?" No, I can't, I have to go to the damn machine and get change - but then what is the point of the booth since I can just put the five quarters right into the slot in the turnstile. I tell ya - no city I have EVER been to has has public transportation as convenient and far reaching as that in NYC. Not to mention that much like D.C. the BART is an "add fare" system - where you pay for how far you go - I prefer a flat rate. I am very PRO-NYC subway system. Don't get me started.
Anyway, I met up with Eric - who I know from the Nutkinland messageboard community (<---------------It is a scary silly place I warn you, stay clear of it!). He turned out to be quite a cool guy and we wandered up and down San Francisco's ridiculous hills. They would kill a lesser person. And I have to admit if I had found that city I would have been like, this place is too hilly let's go somewhere else. He brought me to Cha CHa Cha's on the infamous Haight street - where the very hot waitress was just so friendly/flirty I could barely concentrate on flirting and playing glancing games with one of the lovely ladies at the table next to ours. I just felt great! I felt free in a strange city with nothing holding me back. I flirted wildly and introduced myself to everyone and just felt free. . . It was wonderful. After some tapas and too much sangria we grabbed a cab over to the Mission where I was to meet up with some East Coast friends who are originally from out there at a Senegalese bar.
Oh, and on the way to Cha Cha Cha's we passed the Lucky 13 bar - which is the name (kind of) of the bar chisaiboo is going to be opening here in Park Slope - so I snapped a pic.
At the Senegalese place I met a bunch of friends of my friend George of HighKick Lounge fame and I don't remember how - I ended up on the dance floor with one of them (named Sasha - not the one getting married) and had a great ole time. The DJ was playing Senegalese dance music, but it sounded like Dancehall to me - and she and I just got all nasty on the dance floor. I kept crying out, "What?! What?!" and she asked, "Is that what you say on the east coast? What does that mean?" And I had to explain that when a song is so good and in just the right spot you call out "What?! What?!" as if it is so good you can hardly believe it. "It is what you say when something is HELLA good," I said in the local vernacular so she'd understand.
I got a ride back to Oakland with Kyra's friend Sadie and her man (with me, Kyra and Zach crammed in the back) and me drunkenly ranting about my experiences in the City that night - I was just having such a good time! Even railing against San Fran's public transportation was fun and I had everyone laughing - Sadie thought she was gonna pee her pants.
Saturday
Saturday arrived with a pinch between my eyes and a queasy stomach. I tip-toed around Rolfe and Senal's place begging for coffee and Senal (who I finally met) obliged me and I was so grateful. Zach went off to breakfast with some friends from Seattle who now lived in San Fran and Rolfe cooked a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and vegetarian sausage. The food was delicious, but I picked at it carefully as my stomach and head were still a little angry from the night before. But the food helped.
I spent the rest of the morning helping Rolfe pick out records to play at the wedding reception and talking with Senal about growing up as a part of one culture while living in another (she's indian), and about religion and education and all sorts of related things. Man, they are such great people. I am really glad that Sasha arranged for me to stay there. I felt like I could be good friends with these people and made me feel like I've missed out by not knowing them longer. You can always tell people you get on with when you have barely hung out with them a day and already you have little inside jokes and like. Here is a pic I took of my hosts right before I left on Sunday:
And then it was time for the wedding. . . It was a place called "Treasure Island" - a place between San Francisco and Oakland - where the Bay Bridge (which is really two bridges) connects its two sections. The view was beautiful. Unfortunately, the photos I got of the view did not come out so good. It was raining intermittently. You could see the San Francisco skyline, flanked with the Bay Bridge on one side (as seen in this pic) and the Golden Gate on the other side.
<---- This was the best pic of the ceremony I could get as it was very dark in chapel. The actual ceremony was performed by Greg and Sasha's friends, Senal and Adam - which was very nice, and their parents also spoke during the ceremony. There were lots of weepy people.
The reception was wild and the alcohol was gone relatively quickly, requiring people to rely on the wine on the table to get their drink on. Zach (DJ Mohel) and Rolfe played the records and the dancing was fierce. I got lots of pics of that.
Greg's friends since childhood were wild, running around the dance floor - stomping and groping and writhing and humping each other in fraternal juvenile homo-erotic glee. It was great. Pete the dad of one Greg's friends and his wife, Alice were lost in the sauce and oblivious to everyone around them. More than once they simply fell over on the dance floor clutching each other inappropriately I leaned over them at one point when I realized that everyone else was too horrified, poilite or desensitized to do anything about it and told them they were taking up too much room on the dance floor. They did not listen.
The trip back from the island on the bus for those who would be too drunk to leave was an adventure in an of itself. There were bowls of goldfish being rescued from the centerpieces and one woman puking in one of those soft coolers that had been full of Tecate. There was one woman who overheard my name and decided she needed to call to me in fluent Spanish and tell me how her Mexican-American boyfriend (Enrique sitting next to her) didn't know any Spanish. She then stood up and began to sing a song called "El Rey" (the King).
My legs were throbbing from dancing so damn much that night and the night before and Rolfe drove me and Zach (and Senal) back to their place, where we ate Boca Burgers and fries and sat around the living room talking about a variety of things until late into the night.
Sunday
Sunday was a morning of Steely Dan on the stereo and political talk with our hosts. After Indian Buffet, Senal drove Zach to the San Francisco airport and Rolfe drove me to the Oakland airport. The security there was nuts. The toughest I have seen in any airport I have been to. The line itself to get checked out was about 45 minutes long. The plane ride was uneventful except that I watch Looney Tunes on DirecTV and ate apple juice and animal crackers, while my neighbor watched that piece of government propaganda crap "Saving Jessica Lynch" - even through my own headphones, I could hear the dramatic music swell as they showed the slow motion scene of an Iraqi soldier throwing his arms in the air in triumph. The exploitative nature of our media outlets. . . ugh. . .
Anyway, this woman named Melissa that was at the wedding with her boyfriend (who lives in Houston) was ont he flight back to New York and we shared a cab to Brooklyn and we had a nice talk on the way back. Sweet girl, too bad she's spoken for or I might have asked her to dinner. I did not get back to my place to way after midnight and though tired I was still wired and it took me a while to settle down and fall to sleep.
I think it is pretty funny that I am not in even one of the photos I took - so none of you can see how pretty I was all dressed up - looking fine and making all the ladies swoon. ;-) Well, if I get my hands on photos others took with me in them - I'll post them later.
As a Post Script, I just found out that one of my closest friends, Sean is getting married this coming August and I am going to be in the wedding party.
It all makes me feel kind of old and weird and happy and proud - all mixed up. Funny to have the children who are running around the reception not be little cousins, or nephews and nieces, but the children of your peers and your friends. Suddenly (it seems), we are the adults and we are the ones doing the things we saw adults do as children. We are the blurry memory of a six-year old who vaguely remembers some event 20-year's later having to ask a parent, "Whose wedding was that again?" I know we should not compare ourselves to others and we all go on our own paths at our own times, but still there is that part that nags at me and wonders, when is it my turn to find that kind of love and have a public celebration of it and make a family? Sure, part of me feels not ready for it, but you never are ready until you are actually doing it.
Not to end this on a low note - the weekend was amazing, and I look forward to going out to the Bay Area again and spending more time out there.
The Lucky 13 Bar in San Francisco
A Pic I took of my hosts, Rolfe & Senal, right before I left on Sunday
Part of the view from Treasure Island, where the wedding and reception took place
This is Sasha & Greg dancing the first dance, Sade's "By Your Side"
This is crazy Jorge. He was the life of the party and also arranged for the bar.
Dave & Chi - Another in my growing list of friends who are married.
Pete and Alice got a little crazy and blocked out the world and literally got down on the dance floor.
Sasha dancing beneath a veil, or something.
The bride and groom dancing and George (of HighKick) claps on.
TECATE!
Don't know her name, but this lovely lady spoke and sang with drunken dramatics in fluent spanish