But what can you do?

Something else I've seen walking from work to the bus station.

How is it that we're supposed to live? How much are we meant to ignore? Caring too much is just uncool, always has been. Plus, it's exhausting. Is this why so many people are so relentlessly shallow? I'm sure I am one of them.

Is it that the press is "weak?" Or just that everything is subject to the omnipotent Market? Money is strength, power, love, sex, good, right, might. And...truth?

Edge of the world

Went with Val and Kim to a party in the Sunset. Met some interesting FX geeks from ILM.

I remember coming out here to Ocean Beach back in the day, during the boom, feeling like we were standing on the front edge of the world.

Kim enjoys the backyard...

...while I try blogging from my iPhone.

A is for Alameda

Ice Cream

Not far up Park Street, some homemade ice cream can be had. Next time you're in Alameda, visit Tucker's. My favorite flavor is chocolate and peanut butter. Actually, that's the only one I've tried because I am a creature of habit, but all of the other flavors appear to be equally delicious.

Privatization

I work in San Francisco and often walk from my office, near AT&T Park, to the Transbay Terminal at 1st and Mission, where I catch the bus home. I've noticed that some of the buildings downtown have notices like this one embedded in the sidewalk.

You know, we citizens have given up an awful lot of what was once called the "commons," to the point where assertions of ownership such as this are the norm. We think nothing of the fact that corporations own, or claim ownership of, pretty much everything.

Meanwhile, I frequently pass this frighteningly monolithic, windowless cube owned by the aforementioned, stadium-branding telecom. It was from a secret room within this Borg box that the National Security Agency jacked into AT&T's Internet backbone. Thanks to our brave lawmakers, this corporation now has legal immunity for having helped our government spy on us. Oh, well.

In Memory of My Dumb Friends

In October, I will celebrate ten years in California. I've managed to pack a lot of living into the past decade, though it's still hard to believe so much time has passed. I lived first in west Berkeley, then various spots in Oakland, then spent three years in Los Angeles. A graduate degree and a wedding later, my wife and I returned to the Bay Area to live in idyllic Alameda, an almost absurdly Rockwellian fantasy of a hometown of the kind most Americans would not believe still exists. We love it here.

A few blocks from our home is Jackson Park, located on Park Avenue. Park Avenue happens to be one block southeast of, and run parallel to, Park Street, which is the main street on this side of the island. Kind of an odd arrangement, though oddly charming, that would certainly fuck up visitors to the island, especially those navigating by Google, if anyone who didn't live here actually came here.

Anyway, Jackson Park is long and narrow, just one block wide. At the west end, is a strange, curved, cement, bench-like structure that has become a hangout for whichever one of the island's hundreds of roving teen tribes gets there first. Carved into the base are the words, "In Memory of My Dumb Friends."



I believe this is a reference to animals; the cement thing may have once been a watering trough for horses. I'll have to check with the Alameda Historical Society on that one. But I also thought the phrase would make an excellent title for this blog. I have many fond memories of my dumb friends; my smart ones, too.