Other characters I love are:

-Old woman who does all her makeup and hair on the train.  She uses aerosol hairspray BTW and it gets on me if she sits next to me.  She also uses about 4 packs of those travel Kleenex pouches in one sitting, somehow.  I don’t have the guts to turn toward her and watch her do her thing so I’ve only seen her face when she first gets on the train and right when she walks off.  The weird thing is that she looks exactly the same.  Hmmm.  Must be that new invisible makeup line from Europe.

-Super smiley dude who resembles “Bob” from Twin Peaks.  He wears a very large puffy coat and has very white shoulder length hair.  Some days he seems wasted.  Other days he seems totally put together.  Every day he has his big coat and crazy creepy grin.  Sometimes he laughs to himself.  He has never said anything mean to me so that’s nice.  Thanks dude.

-Super aggro Muni driver.  It’s 6:00 in the morning.  Please try and refrain from blasting your horn at any chance you get.  Also, it’s probably not good for company moral that you talk shit about Muni like every day on the loudspeaker.

Most people just sit there and either read or nod off for a quick nap before they get downtown.  Others enjoy breakfast on the train.  I am not opposed to this as long as it’s a nice, subtle breakfast that doesn’t cause a huge mess and doesn’t fill the car up with a lingering odor.  Things that are acceptable to me are most fruits, granola bars, donuts, oatmeal.  The one thing that could be literally the WORST Muni breakfast choice is a hot dog from 7/11.

First of all let’s get one thing straight: I have nothing against hot dogs.  I definitely don’t eat them every day and have only purchased maybe three packs in my life (pigs in a blanket anyone?) but every now and then, you need dat dawg.  Choosing a hot dog as your first meal of the day seems too risky.  You don’t know how your insides are gonna react to that dog.  You may be setting yourself up for a disastrous day at work.  Probably better to stick to things that are well-established breakfast foods.

Second, I have never walked by a case of glistening spinning hot dogs proudly displayed on the 7/11 counter by the 5 Hour Energy Drinks and been like, “Yum.  I need that in my life.”  Who knows how long these have been stuck in their greasy spinning purgatory!  Were they leftover from the day before?  Would anyone even notice if they were?

Third, eating a hot dog is not a glamorous feat.  It’s messy, it’s stinky, and, let’s be honest, it’s fucking phallic.

The kid who got on the train this morning DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK.  He jumped on with his hot dog and several packets of condiments.  Apparently he didn’t have enough time to dress his breakfast dog in the store, but what better place to top it than a jolting, moving, urine soaked Muni car?!!  Sure why not!

He opened the cardboard clam shell, placed the dog on the seat next to him and began to open little packets of mustard, ketchup and relish.  After he meticulously dressed his breakfast dog, I could have sworn I saw him nod and give himself a silent “Hell Yeah, Dog”.

He ate the entire thing in about five stops.  Luckily he had plenty of napkins to wipe his face and hands clean. He placed the napkins, and the empty condiment packets in his now empty clam shell and sat there ready for his sodium-fueled day.

After a while, I think my body got used to the smell and I didn’t notice it anymore.  I once had an elderly piano teacher who had maybe 15 cats and her house smelled horribly of cat urine which is the worst kind of urine.  When I first entered her house, I almost threw up but after a while, I didn’t notice a thing.  Same thing with the hot dog.  People just entering the car would climb up the stairs and immediately gag a little.  It was actually quite comical to watch.

When he got off the train, Breakfast Dog Dude took his trash with him and even looked back to see if he had left any trash on the train.  After confirming everything was okay, he got off and started his day.  At first I was mad at the kid, but by the time he got off the train, I liked him.  That dude was like, “Man I’m hungry.  And I feel like a hot dog.” and he made his dream a reality.  You gotta respect that.  I’d much rather sit next to Breakfast Dog Dude than the drunkies in the second car.  Maybe next time those drunk dudes go into a 7/11, they should stop buying so many cans of Natty Ice and go for a nice, satisfying breakfast hot dog to start their day off right.

San Francisco has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the US and a ton are organic and locally conscious.  People who don’t live here often assume all food in San Francisco is organic, vegan granola sprinkled with quinoa kale chips.  Sure, there are places like this but plenty of places also serve great meaty, sloppy dishes that pairs perfectly with a great beer.

Last night I found myself at one of these restaurants.  We jumped on the N Judah train and headed to the Haight to meet up with some buds for dinner and drinks.  We sat at the long communal table (soooo San Francisco) and ordered our dishes.  Our waitress was a cute bleach blonde with a ton of gel in her hair so that it matted down and might not move if she was hung upside-down.  Still, she pulled it off somehow which makes no sense.

After a few rounds of beers and eating both small and large plates, we got the check and played the credit card shuffle.  I then noticed that my right hand and arm was covered in some sort of viscus honey-type substance.  Using my napkin dipped in water, I attempted to clean it off, but it then morphed into a grey rubbery mess that resembled pencil eraser shavings.  These little shavings were painfully pulling at my arm hairs when I looked down to notice that this sappy napalm was also on my shirt.  I jumped off my seat and investigated under the table and found the source of the sticky mess.  Because of it’s viscosity, it wasn’t something I could simply wipe off so the next person who sits there wouldn’t go through this medieval arm hair torture.  I decided to do the right thing and tell one of the hostesses.

“Hey there.  Just wanted to let you know that there’s something really sticky under that table and it got on my arm and shirt.  You may wanna have someone check it out.”

I expected her to reply with something like, “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry!” or “We’ll get it cleaned up right away thank you for telling us.” or, what would have been my favorite reply, “Let me buy you a drink to make up for ruining your shirt.”

The reply I actually got was, “It’s tree sap.  It’s an organic tree table.”  and then she walked away.

Do you ever have something weird happen to you and you freeze out of shock but then run through the whole thing in your mind for several days after and then come up with an appropriate response?  I have been replaying the scene in my head and have come up with the following response:

“Oh it’s an organic table!  My bad!!!  I thought it was sweatshop, genetically modified, test tube sap that ripped out my arm hair and got on my clothes but, hell, if it’s organic, then I’m totally cool with it and you should TOTALLY just leave it there so that the next person who sits in that seat can join me in my organic sappy bliss.  Next time I’m at your restaurant, I may or may not bring in some dog shit, smear it on your bar counter and proudly declare that it is organic and follow it up with a sincere ‘You’re welcome.’ with an indifferent grin and then leave.  Awesome have a great night!!!”

So yeah, I get annoyed when people make fun of San Francisco being a bunch of organic hippies, but if people start using the term “organic” as an excuse to fuck shit up or make a crappy product, that’s not cool.  So stop that.  Also, buy me a new shirt.

Mission Chinese from Sunday Paper on Vimeo.

Battery Crosby Study from Dana Shaw on Vimeo.

Photo by Carina

Saw Michael Ian Black at Cobbs Comedy Club last night.  He is my new hero.  I want to be him when I grow up.  Also, his blog is amazing.  Things he talked about:

-Being a father/shaking his baby
-Being a husband/punching his wife
-Not doing drugs/eating a space cake in Amsterdam

Oh, we also ate some bomb garlic chicken wangz at King of Thai Noodle in North Beach (see below).

On the schedule for this weekend is my friend Kirsten’s music/art extravaganza called Fantastic OptoSonic Projections II: The Stream of Light & Consciousness.  Should be cool.  Music.  Art.  Light.  Nice people who will talk to you about things.  If you can’t handle how nice people are there, the Hemlock is right next door.

@ Space Gallery 1141 polk st, San Francisco, CA 94109
First band @ 8:00pm