16,000/square mile

7877/square mile

2010-08-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

that's the population density of the City of Angels, kids.

like hella.

Cafe Milano, 04/02/02

2010-08-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

i finished reading Remembrance of Things Past on that date in that cafe. i don't know what else i did that day other than write this stuff down in the back of my book.
_________________________

"a multitude of roosters sprang forth at God's hand"
-- bathroom graffiti

_________________________

"I think you have a hair of mine in your armpit."
-- the Russian

_________________________

me: we live in a Cartesian world
la Rusa: And I am a Cartesian girl.

pre-partying outside the Uptown

2010-07-31T15:43:00.000-07:00

"Wouldn't hipsters be like, the best undercover narcotics officers ever?"
-- Helena Bonham Carter

bad + better

2010-07-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

last summer, i read this biography of Mae West by Marybeth Hamilton. i've never really seen her most popular films, but i do remember seeing My Little Chickadee when i was a young kid, and kind of loving MW because of it. "When I'm Bad I'm Better" is really really interesting because it is a hardcore bio, but it's also kind of a thesis on the arc of sex in American culture during the first half of the 20th century.

a huge part of the book's thesis involves West's relationship with camp. in the 20s and 30s her acts borrowed heavily from current homosexual culture; she saw herself as a mouthpiece for a subculture. what's funny/tragic is that in the 60s and 70s when camp as we know it was solidifying as a social phenomenon, Mae West still saw herself as cutting edge, but by sticking to her old act she became more and more of an object of irony.

(here Mae West is trying to whip her socio-cultural status into shape)

anyway, so i've been thinking about Miss Mae a lot over the last year, which is why i was especially excited to see this Jean-Paul Goude spread in Harper's Bazaar starring Laetitia Casta.

19th and Capp

2010-07-27T20:24:00.001-07:00

mimosa float

2010-07-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

riding Muni to the Richmond

2010-07-26T20:04:00.001-07:00

"You can't even be a dogwalker without a PhD."
- some chick on the 38

a Serious Kittens Production

2010-07-23T13:16:00.001-07:00

do you like being drunk? do you like nachos? do you like getting drunk and making nachos?

if so, then you'll LOVE...

DRUNK COOKING!

many thanks to Limbless Jack for the awesome editing job!

a hangover's worst nightmare

2010-07-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

i mean, honestly. imagine this player piano screaming a Gilded Age children's tune in your ear after 4 hours of sleep when you're still drunk and it still doesn't even have the decency to be music. it's fucking meowing.

this picture is not necessarily a hungover person's nightmare but there's several things of note in it:
- awesome fucking weird kitten keyboard thing
- jack-o-lantern throw

ok i guess that's pretty much it.

oh! except that at the party that this was the aftermath of we got to smoke inside!!!!!!!!!!!!!

further evidence that i am dying alone

2010-07-22T19:21:00.002-07:00

ok so i am spending a lot of time in my room alone, watching TV. and by TV i mean "Law & Order: SVU" on Netflix streaming.

i think the most episodes i've watched in a row are 5. but i am watching enough of this fucking show that it has, at times, made me afraid to walk down the street. which, if we've met, is incredibly difficult to do -- like i fucking love walking alone late at night. but there've definitely been nights where it takes me 30 minutes to walk five blocks because i keep looking over my shoulder because i am paranoid about encountering a serial rapist woman hater who will escalate into murder-suicide.

from what i can tell the first season has a lot more detective research/courtroom testimony/police station background but right at the beginning of the 2nd season they sidled on into their "let's really focus on our victims and their crazy convoluted lives." also, weirdly, the Captain is obsessed with eating in the first half of the first season. do they even have Krispy Kreme in New York? also there's a lotta subplots on how none of the other police departments respect them. PLUS have you noticed that there's kind of a lot of sexual tension at the station office? and the detectives hella flirt! also Benson like, really favors baseball caps during that season. and hasn't settled into her kinda dyke-y haircut and wayyyyy tooooo muchhhhh upper cheek bronzer routine yet. there's also a lot more like, musical punctuation, which i'm glad they got rid of. finally, that dude who later becomes Sarah Connor's TV boyfriend is like, hardcore rookie who is kinda used for comic effect (a lot like hottie mchot O'Halleran's assistant ME who goes ballistic in season ten). i mean, basically, the show got tons better after season one because they hit their stride then.

ok ok ok ok ok but this is the reason i am realllllly dying alone. i have like, an emotional attachment to the detectives. like after watching the entirety of four out of ten seasons and a (un)healthy spattering of the other six i have come to the realization that Olivia and Elliot are fucking awful detectives. they're always getting totally emotionally involved with the cases -- Stabler can't handle pedos (i mean, who can, but i mean he fantasizes about killing them, in detail) to the point where it clouds his judgment and they botch up the cases because of him. and the fucking subplot with Olivia's brother in the 9th season?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? what the fuck is that bullshit! i watch this show to see Finn give heroin addicts a reason to keep clean by solving their little sisters' cold case murders!

speeeeeeeeeeeaking of Odafin Tutuola! he and John Munch are a one-two punch the likes of which New York, and all other cities need more of! soooo professional! really good with victims in a space-appropriate way -- they are warm, and sympathetic, and empathetic, and open to helping them with rehabilitation. they don't let their emotions cloud their policeworks! they don't let their personal relationship with one another (while warm and respectful and friendly) interfere with their investigations. we need a Munch-Finn spinoff! have you noticed that they always get told to pack their bags and go on a trip by Capt. Cragen. how awesome would a buddy travelling cop show with the two of them be????????? the only answer is so awesome.

i am dying alone : exhibit A

2010-07-22T19:21:00.001-07:00

sooo.... pretty much my most recent accomplishment is seeing every episode of "The Golden Girls" ever aired. which kinda means that ... i am probably going to die alone.

so like i have this dress. that i bought (in October) because i thought it was cute and would be a good date dress. it's black and scoop necked and black with gold detailing on the shoulders and back and short (so short, actually, that when Snake saw it, he said, "i know that the store says that's a dress... but it's not a dress... on you.") so like, woo! it's a freakum dress!

and then i saw Sophia wearing it ...

and then Blanche...

and that's when i realized. i'm dying alone.

17th and Hampshire

2010-07-21T17:35:00.001-07:00

"You talk about all that old shit and I don't wanna talk about it."
- a girl with really cool hair to a girl with meh hair

text message from the Conster

2010-07-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

"This sucks, I'm still really drunk, and nowhere is going to serve me food for awhile let alone deliver it"

Saturday

2010-07-13T15:21:00.001-07:00

View Larger Map
so me and Ferris Bueller had an epic hangout:

Kezar Pub (World Cup, junk food, drinking)

to

Fishbowl (Buck Hunter, junk food, drinking)

to

Encore (karaoke, drinking)

to

Miss Bliss' house (drinking, passing out, getting accused of puking on a bed because i was asleep on the floor)

neither worked

2010-07-11T15:26:00.001-07:00

Guy 1: What's up gorgeous?
Guy 2: What's up Raza?
- a spectrum of pickup lines, 21st and Bryant

Tradr Sam's

2010-07-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

ridiculous shit i said last night:

"what i really respect about Porky's 2: The Next Day is that it actually takes place the next day, and it's a film that takes place in Florida that actually acknowledges the presence of the Seminole Indians."*

____________________

"i mean not to get all Andrea Dworkin on you but not wanting to use a vibrator because you are worried it might ruin your experience with men is positing your physical pleasure within a phallocentric, heteronormative rubric that is unnecessarily limiting." (pretty sure i name checked the wrong feminist theorist, and anyway i don't really agree with her stance on porn, which i also think i brought up later)
____________________

"dude World War I? we don't even have to feel bad about that one. what did we do, create the modern German state by breaking up the Hapsburg empire?" (obvs. there's lots to feel bad about because, duh, war is bad, and, shit, Nazis...)
____________________

basically there was this Dude Who Was Trying to Holla at me and Pad Thai spitting some bullshit wannabe game and i told him to leave us alone and he like, didn't respect that we had a right to be in public without his treating us as potential conquests, and so i said, "you wanna take this outside?" and he was like, "What like a fight?" and i was like, duhhh that's why people take it outside and he was like, "I'm left handed and I have a mean right hook" and i brought up how Rocky is a legendary southpaw and he switched it up to beat Clubber Lang in "Rocky III" and he was confused and STILL wouldn't leave us alone and then finally i was like, "i was a man up until a week ago" and turned my back on him and that did the trick. jeeze louise!

_____________________

also i tried to give two 25 year olds a lesson on Maiden and why they should listen to them and i guess i was kinda soapboxing because one of them was like, "Is this a prepared lecture?"

* this statement garnered this awesome text message response from FIP: "I've often said: 1. Citizen Kane. 2. Schindler's list. 3. Porkys 2: the next day"

how do you even type out a fart noise?

2010-07-08T08:27:00.001-07:00

"Wait! Joe! Don't go! I wanna buy a whoopee cushion and I don't know how much it costs!"
- a little boy to his brother in the toy aisle of my jam, the Walgreen's on 24th and Potrero.

waiting

2010-07-08T08:25:00.001-07:00

"It's not about being scared to die, we all gotta go sometime."
- a homeless (?) lady to a gutter punk in his 30s, at the 33 bus stop, Potrero and 21st

22nd and Potrero

2010-07-08T08:23:00.001-07:00

"Hey there girlfriend, how are you? I see you out there walking."
-- a sassy lady construction worker holding a stop sign who had decided to make everyone's morning better by saying hi and smiling a lot

Magic -- The Gathering

2010-07-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

picture it: Kennedy's, early December. a drunk Mexican girl and a man named Snake venture out of the Mission to play some Buck Hunter. the game gets heated. after missing a shot that blows a hot streak, she slams down the plastic rifle in a wallop of sheer frustration. unbeknownst to her, a piece of the gun breaks off, flying across the room and hitting a nerd who is sitting at a table behind her, playing Magic: The Gathering. on a Sunday night. during NFL playoffs.

minutes later, the bartender shows up and tells our two protagonists that they have to go. because they broke the game and hit those boys. the man named Snake shoots one of the dirtiest, stinkiest stink eyes in the history of bullying in the direction of the nerds. heatedly, he tells the bartender that he has an open tab and since we have only just purchased this pitcher of Newcastle, we should get a refund. she agrees and heads back to the bar to bring back the credit card. the man named Snake orders our girl hero to chug as much of the pitcher as possible before she comes back. once the fiscal situation is cleared, the man named Snake menaces his way over to the nerds and unleashes a barrage of threats the likes of which are not usually heard in cities this side of the Mississippi.

so that was seven months ago. two days ago, i was telling Miss Bliss this story while we were chowing down on fried food at Rogue. no less than 15 minutes later, our girls found themselves at Kennedy's, playing Buck Hunter, surrounded by three tables of men, ages 14 to 65, playing -- wait for it -- Magic: The Gathering. w.t.f.

21st and Florida

2010-06-22T16:48:00.001-07:00

"My show itself, I don't like being under the influence of LSD, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the only music I listen to is psychedelic." -- a DJ to a group of people outside of Pirate Cat Radio

North Beach Festival

2010-06-19T16:46:00.001-07:00

things i did at or as a result of the North Beach Festival:

* made friends with a little South African boy by letting him play my cell phone racing game
* talked to a Canadian about our braces and retainers and teeth in general
* made fun of a 19 year old for not being able to get his own brother to buy him beer
* convinced a Pakistani taxi driver that i've been divorced twice. his response: "I will find you a third husband. No charge."
me: it's not gonna fly. he's gonna figure out sooner or later that i'm not Pakistani
Taxi Driver: He will not care once he is married and falls in love with you. I will find you a good man.

________

"She's entitled to one or two blackouts a year. Not including birthdays. After that, pushing it. " - some guy to his bro at the park

The Phone Booth

2010-06-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

today's caloric intake:

2 extra spicy Bloody Marys, no horseradish
1 bacon, egg and cheese Homemade McMuffin
1/2 a vegetarian Homemade McMuffin

let's be clear, i only care about today's game as the standings affect Mexico. but those sandwiches were fucking delicious. and so was the fact that i came to work loaded.

21st and York

2010-06-17T17:27:00.001-07:00

"I'm impressed! I didn't know you were so ecologically minded!"
- a guy to his friend who was talking about ground shifts, or something.

1901 Union Street

2010-06-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

cost of a round of PBR at the Bus Stop: $7
cost of convincing a guy from the South Bay and his friend from Colorado that i'm 28, divorced, and have two master's degrees: priceless.