when i was sick earlier this week i ventured out to the local slaveway to stock up on illness necessities (tissues, chicken soup). as if my ghetto slaveway wasn’t ghetto enough, they’ve been renovating it for the past month or so, which means that it’s past ghetto, apparently now third world. all the tiles have been ripped up so you’re walking on bare concrete, half the shelves are empty, and a large portion of the produce section now is filled with empty wicker baskets. all the checkout stands have been redone, but they can only open two of them at a time so the lines are a mile long. and strangely enough, a lot of the canned goods now have cyrillic writing on them and there are lots of women walking around wearing babushkas and holding tickets.
my ghetto slaveway has now turned into soviet russia slaveway.
on the other end of the capitalist experience, the new mall opened downtown this week. which is not exactly a new mall, but a reopening of the old mall. or an extension of the existing mall? however you want to describe it, bloomingdales finally opened in the old emporium space, and the san francisco centre now extends into most of the block, and now there’s a zillion more stores downtown, some of them just blocks away from existing ones (banana republican, h&m, zara, borders, etc.) and at least now some brand new ones (bristol farms, adidias store[!]). and who can complain about another beard papa?
alas, everything was predictably packed with throngs of people. it’s like christmas in september!
it’s a fucking mall, people. if this many people would turn out for a new museum or library or even the election, wouldn’t this be a better place?
then again, i was there too, right? but only for the cream puffs.
i forgot to mention this, and really, there’s no reason i should, but i made a tiny little change to the site a few weeks ago. ok, i made a bunch of changes, but they’re all rather minor and very meta, so no one should really care or notice.
except maybe for that one. which makes me laugh every time i see it now. which is the only reason i mention it.
kudos for you if you noticed it. and bonus points if you can even identify it.
out sick the last couple of days, which means that instead of working from home and taking naps, i take naps at home and occasionally work to dull the boredom. or something like that. i can’t really keep my head straight with all this cold medicine.
what it really means is that i end up watching a lot of television. i’ve plowed through so much stuff that was sitting around on my tivo it’s not even funny. the entire run of neon genesis evangelion, for example (what the fuck was the end all about?). this season’s episodes of the simpsons. assorted episodes of mythbusters. and even a few random eps of homicide: life on the street (which, by the way, reminds me to include andre braugher as det. frank pembleton in my top 25 tv characters of all time).
and then of course, new episodes of my favorite reality show right now, project runway. which is really indescribably great. because:
alas, last night’s ep was a cop out, and then they’re also making us wait for two weeks before the finale. however, enterprising folks could just get a sneak peek at the results if so desired.
mamaluna and i conferred, and we’re guessing laura, laura, laura, laura, michael, michael, michael, michael, michael, jeffrey, jeffrey, jeffrey, uli, uli, uli, uli, jeffrey/michael?, jeffrey?
and finally— OMG:
there’s a cool cassette generator which allows you to make your own custom tapes (content and actual tape not included):
i finally got my car back last monday. as much as i’ve been wanting a new car and surreptitiously coveting minis, i have to say that i LOVE driving my car. i’m not sure if it’s quite like the mazda “zoom-zoom” campaign, as in my head it’s more like the “beep beep zip bang!” of that road runner cartooon. except that the “bang!” is sometimes me blowing out my engine.
speaking of which, if the whole engine has been replaced, how much is this really the car that i knew and loved? at what parts of the car can i replace and still consider it to be my same old beloved auto? i’ve already replaced several body panels through repairs of numerous accidents, and now i’m on the second engine and possibly the third radiator. and let’s not even count windshields and soft convertible tops.
even worse, what if the new engine is haunted? not unlike those horror stories where you get the arm transplant from a serial killer and you turn into a unwitting host to a KILLING HAND (the bloody hook should be a giveaway), what if i’ve gotten the engine from the miata equivalent to christine? granted, the miata version of christine would likely hit something and then crumple itself, but you get the idea. perhaps that’s why the attendent at rainbow grocery was yelling at me last week for allegedly driving recklessly in the garage. i should have pleaded, “it’s not my fault! it’s the car! IT’S THE CAR!!!”
from the ap: suburban homes being made into pot factories:
Saturday, September 23, 2006
(09-23) 10:12 PDT Elk Grove, Calif. (AP) —
Leon Nunn stepped out his front door one recent afternoon only to be waved back by a squadron of drug agents using a battering ram on a neighbor’s home.
The half-million dollar home in the quiet subdivision was stuffed with high-grade marijuana, plants covering nearly every square foot.
The bust is one example of a phenomenon that has come to light recently in subdivisions around the state’s capital.
Marijuana growers with suspected ties to Asian organized crime have been buying suburban homes — many in newer developments — because of the anonymity the drug dealers believe the neighborhoods afford.
They close the blinds and get to work gutting the inside, converting otherwise nondescript tract homes into the latest battleground in the state’s campaign against marijuana cartels.
…
Police from Sacramento to Stockton are bashing in doors at more homes virtually every day as they develop new leads or are tipped by suddenly wary neighbors. More than three dozen homes have been found to be hiding marijuana groves in just the past seven weeks, most in Sacramento, Elk Grove and Stockton.
Like the others, the home on Elk Grove’s Mainline Drive had been converted to what law enforcement officials call a hothouse, with 1,000-watt lights for growing and irrigation networks feeding high-tech hydroponic growing systems.
Walls and ceilings were smashed to allow for complex ventilation and air filtration systems that vented the telltale odor through the attic. A web of extension cords and makeshift electric panels illegally tapped into the outside grid to avoid detection and save thousands of dollars in power bills.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to convert each of the homes to grow millions of dollars worth of marijuana. Most of the targeted homes were purchased for between $400,000 and $600,000.
…
The phenomenon began in British Columbia, Canada, where Vietnamese organized crime outfits gutted houses to grow potent “B.C. Bud” that can sell for $5,000 or more a pound in the United States, said Corporal Pierre Lemaitre of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Growers headed south to avoid increased border protections after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
“It’s definitely a concerted effort by Asian organized crime groups in Canada to move part of their operation down to the United States,” said Rodney Benson, the DEA’s special agent in charge of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Idaho.
this actually happened to my stylist a couple of years ago: she has a house that she rents out in the excelsior, and long story short, her dad ended up renting it to some guy “from hong kong who’s going to be travelling a lot but bringing his girlfriend over”. for months they would just drop the rent in the mailbox, but she never saw them and couldn’t get in touch with them. eventually the cops came by and told her the people were under investigation for narcotics. when she finally got into the house (locks changed, etc), it was all ripped apart: holes in floors, windows boarded up to hide the 24 hour pot lights, new electrical run everywhere, walls ripped down, etc.
moral of the story?
uh, don’t own real estate? great! done!
speaking of taiwan, it turns out that the women’s team was playing in the fiba world basketball championship. who knew?
alas, after losing all of their group matches (to france, cuba, and the czech republic), they managed to beat nigeria in the consolation round, only to fall to korea, for the battle for 13th place in the tournament:
compare that with the comments made by germany’s coach as he prepared to take on the usa men’s team at the fiba world championships earlier this summer:
You can look at a game like that from a strategic perspective. But more than anything you have to rip your hearts out of your chests, throw them on the court and compete until you drop dead. And I think that’s the bottom line. You have to play with tremendous confidence and very, very strong faith and belief in your ability. And if you do that then maybe we can surprise people. Not just by winning. What are our chances of doing that? But keeping it close and giving them a great game, maybe scaring them a bit. If we can do that, I think that would be a huge success. I think that in itself would be a great achievement.
then again, what’s the taiwanese women’s version of dirk nowitzki?
back from the monkeyboy reunion weekend. i can’t really go into the details, but let it be said that a lot of fun was had, a lot of meat was eaten, and a lot of strippers now have our money we are now inexplicably poorer.
upon retrospect, i think what really makes the weekend enjoyable is this: when you’re in high school, you’re pretty much a weirdo because all of this crazy shit is going on in your head, and so you think of something and POP it comes out, and people hear it and think that you’re just weird. but as you get older you develop some rules and the ability to censor yourself, and even though this crazy shit is still in your head, you learn to make it sound sensible and reasonable or at least funny, and thus become more adult and mature. but suddenly you’re back with all your friends from high school do you just let all that weird shit fly without worrying about it, and it’s great because it’s bizarre and funny and we all get it because we’re all strange in that same way that made us get along back in high school in the first place.
it’s either that or the strippers. speaking of which, while i did appreciate that really soft smc coed, i spent a lot of time debating whether taiwanese are actually chinese with one stripper. I KID YOU NOT. granted, it’s not really the best come on line with me, but i have to give her credit— she wasn’t just spouting reckless ignorance and did have some insight and experience in to the matter. all of which we discussed in great detail. great detail.
i also have to admit that after these weekends with untold hours watching strippers, coming back into the real world is not unlike a post-burning man phenomenon. except instead of being surprised that people have so many clothes on, i look at girls and wonder if they would look good as a stripper or not. of course this is exactly the type of behaviour that anti-stripper feminists would cite as degrading, but it’s not quite that simple: you look around the world, and almost no one you see could be a stripper in the first place. certainly there’s the obvious stripper physique that most people lack due to absence of surgery, diet, speed, etc., but then that’s not just it, as they actually can come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties. but even the hot skinny normal girls don’t necessarily qualify. i realize that it’s something about the face: a hardness, a coldness that’s required. like a mask, something that looks pleasant but has closed off emotionally, to protect them from what they have to do. the question is, do they have that attitude and it allows them to choose to be a stripper, or do they develop that face when they become a stripper?
it’s the stripper version of the chicken or the egg question.
on the other hand, like the fish says, “who gives a shit?”
now i feel cheated: sure, the tokyo sales team took us out to the ninja restaurant, but now i find out they could have taken us to so many more exciting places:
Joan Sinclair, a 22-year-old photographer, was working as an English teacher in Tokyo when a friend dragged her to the city’s infamous Kabukicho red-light district, a neon-drenched enclave packed with 5,000 sex shops that cater to an impressively specific array of sexual fantasies and fetishes. She was hooked. Eight years later, she returned with a camera and set out to document Japan’s $20 billion sex-services industry, befriending hundreds of budding sex workers and their businessman clients. The results of her project are collected in a lush, vinyl-wrapped new book, Pink Box, published this month by Abrams. It provides a vivid glimpse into a subculture rarely seen by Westerners.
“The clubs are a reflection of modern Japan,” writes Sinclair, “where the rules are written out, prices are not negotiable, and fantasies are predetermined, prescripted, and prepaid.” But those who dismiss the Japanese as excessively demure or morbidly repressed would do well to take a peep inside. America has its run-of-the-mill massage parlors and topless bars, but only in Tokyo can you find entire clubs populated by faux nurses, teachers, stewardesses, and secretaries—not to mention naked karaoke, mirrored floors, life-size latex dolls, and bathtubs filled with green gel and faux-mermaids. And, as Tokyo police crack down on a wave of subway gropings, the Kabukicho district offers not one but three clubs equipped with immaculately reconstructed train cars filled with short-skirted schoolgirls who won’t press charges.
i don’t know if this is important, or why you would care, but this is what i remember of five years ago.
roo called me early in the morning, waking me up at some ungodly hour. it must have been something like 6:30am, and she’s frantic, telling me that there’s been some terrorist attack and people have flown planes into the world trade center. i can’t really understand what she’s talking about, so she just tells me to turn on the television. and it’s there.
i get off the phone and call hmc, who’s down in lost angels, working on… polar? she was getting ready for work or maybe on her way, and didn’t even know anything was going on.
the towers collapse. first one, then the other.
i remember actually having to go to work that day. my sales rep mk had a sales call with someone at visa down in san mateo. and i’m like, “are you kidding? he still wants to meet? are you kidding?” she says, “yeah, well, he says he’s in the office already, so we might as well.” unsurprisingly, the freeways were almost empty. suddenly the security guards were actually taking their job seriously, and carefully scrutinized my id before letting me on the lot. and they made me park far away from all the buildings, which was the first stages in crazy protection procedures we would see in the following months and years.
i don’t remember anything about the meeting. i remember afterwards that mk was as freaked out as i was.
the rest of the day was filled with nervous restless energy; watching a lot of tv to try and make sense of what had just happened, and not knowing what to do.
the rs had an impromptu meditation in the church that night, which i normally wouldn’t have gone to, but i did. and i sat with the others, in silence, in horror, in sadness.
and that didn’t make it better, but it seemed right.
no, not my engine.
xz asks, so for the record, i thought brick was pretty fantastic! great acting, very gripping, just a great movie, especially for a director’s first film. hooray for teen noir!
does this mean i’m supposed to start watching veronica mars?
i hope not.
1. had brunch with ee and folks, which was great fun. always a delight to see her, and i’m excited to see how she’s going to make out on her week-long trip to tokyo in a few weeks. although now i keep trying to think of dope lyrics that someone would work into a nerdcore wedding proposal. i’m not starting rumors, but i just like the idea overall. or what if it was a japanese nerdcore wedding proposal? sweet!
2. went to see the matthew barney exhibit at the sfmoma, since it’s ending next week and i’m going to be out of town, so this may be my last opportunity. it was actually pretty interesting and enlightening, and now drawing restraint 9 makes a lot more sense than when we saw it at the sfiff. the whole drawing restraint concept sort of boils down to his experiences as a former football player, in that when you train your body to do things like weightlifting, you put a restraint or weight on your muscles in order to break the fibers and then have them grow back stronger. barney envisions artistic ability in the same fashion: restraint is necessary to induce artistic outbursts. the whole field emblem is a capsule shape with a rectangular restraint across the top, which embodies this concept.
in dr9, where they make that large field emblem out of petroleum jelly and then cut the restraint out of it and then everything collapses, it’s trying to show how the body without the restraint is nothing, and will just collapse, as will the restraint without the body. the exhibit at the sfmoma actually has both of these, with the body made out of a plastic cast, but the restraint being an actual petroleum jelly block that was molded and then allowed to collapse on its own.
as for filming it on an actual japanese whaling ship, he said that he wanted to avoid getting in the middle of a very political and sensitive issue, yet incorporate all the legacy and history that goes around the years and even culture of whaling that is so much a part of japanese culture.
however, the best part may have been all the people in the museum looking up, dumbfounded, mesmerized, and mouths agape, at barney’s drawing restraint 7, which involves satyrs wrestling in the back of a limousine.
all in all pretty fascinating. catch it if you can before it leaves next sunday…
3. finally, the best of all— this via tv-in-japan via boingboing, is so incredibly great:
somehow ended up watching too much sports today (and all women’s, although to my delight both the detroit shock and maria sharapova won, so that’s all good) but through that stumbled upon another great tennis commercial:
this week while my car’s (still) in the shop i’m driving a subaru outback. gotta love hertz. when i actually asked for an outback to drive out to the playa for the fourth of july, they give me a pontiac rendezvous awd. and now when i just need a compact car to drive up and down the peninsula, now they give me the outback.
it’s fine as a car, but i don’t think i’d own one. it’s a little too pokey, but i’m clearly using it wrong. i’m trying to zoom around traffic and zip zip zip, but it’s not really meant for that. i need to find some mountain trail to drive around, or some wet rainy road, or a snowy highway on the way to the lodge. and instead here it’s sunny and warm and i’m driving around nothing in an outback. i feel compelled to go buy something big and haul it around just to make it worth it. i was thinking about buying things to redo our entire bedroom, but hmc said that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to drill into the hardwood floors. so much for that.
i wonder how much a small elephant costs?
maybe i should have rented a mini for the week, which would have been a nice test to see how much i’d love one. it would ONLY COST $400 more. yikes. although in stripper terms, that’s only an hour, right?
i think what i really want is the mini hybrid: cute and ecologically conscious!
it’s true what hmc said to xz and danger before they went off to wellington: “it’s probably like portland .”
we stayed at the jupiter hotel, which is actually a gussied-up motel and not anywhere as big as the largest planet in the solar system. even the new “edited” solar system. thank goodness we weren’t staying in the pluto hotel. it’s connected to the doug fir, which is one of the main musical venues/bars in portland, which meant that it was very happening/loud, which also translates to us being very irritable/old. no, not really; it was fine and in fact the air conditioner was actually louder than the crowd, although i can’t imagine staying in one of the rooms next to the outdoor lounge. oh, those crazy rocker kids!
it’s rumored that portland has the most strip clubs per capita of any city in america. so what did we do all weekend? go to the parks, of course! we mostly hung out with our friends andy and midori who moved there last year, so that meant shopping in the saturday farmer’s market, going out to the lovely japanese garden in washington park, and then tramping through a tiny portion of the wonderfully huge forest park just a few blocks from town. and the requisite eating and drinking and talking, of course.
and yes, there was the legendary powell’s books, in which we spent far too little time (although you could take days and days if you permitted) but still loved. i was sorely tempted by the new compilation of haruki murakami stories, but for space’s sake i decided on a paperback copy of david mitchell’s cloud atlas. which i love so far. hmc found some long out-of-print mr. lunch notebooks and bought up the whole lot.
one thing we noticed about portland was that it seemed, well, very white. yet we couldn’t quite put our finger on it: what was it about portland that made it seem so? we were sitting in the doug fir diner waiting for our food at 1am, and there certainly were minorities around: a couple of asians, an indian chick, a couple of african-american guys, so it wasn’t that they weren’t there. but then we realized what it was— it wasn’t that everyone was white, but it was that the whites were whiter. not just pale because of the lack of sun, although we did see some people whose complexion just stepped straight out of a victorian painting, but just somehow really fucking white. like look up “white guy” in wikipedia, and you’d find a flickr link to a picture of some dude in portland.
not that it was a big deal or anything, as the city was very pleasant (although it didn’t rain once, so that certainly helped) and nice to be in.
and there’s always the strippers.
hypothetically.
as i frantically drive back from work on friday afternoon before the labor day weekend, and try to make it home in time to finish packing, return my rental car to SFO and then catch bart from SFO to OAK (brilliant airport planning. brilliant.), i realize that the TSA’s worst nightmare terrorist is not this man:
but instead this man:
he can bust through walls, and need i mention that he’s made ENTIRELY OF LIQUID?
oh, the horror.
