Hey GOP Leaders! Come To Our Bondage Clubs!

I know, I know, I am flogging the dead horse with this topic of GOP kink, malfeasance and sad pathos but who can resist a good flogging?  Obviously, they can’t!  If they wanted a caning, they could have gone to Singapore.  We all know the tales of great piles of fundraiser cash that was funneled into hours of leather clad depravity and trips so opulent and gilded, they rival the dreams of avarice.  What I want to know GOP Bigwigs is why weren’t you partying in San Francisco?

It can’t be because you’re frightened of our out of the closet gay community.  Hell, we’ve heard of enough repressed gay bathroom reach around incidents, followed by tear-stained confessions, to populate a whole month of Jerry Springer shows.  Perhaps you like your “dark, dirty secret” of Ryan Seacrest lust to be buried in a sea of Hollywood glitter rather than out in the steamy open of a boy bar in the Castro.  I can understand but you really should consider diversifying.

The next time you are having a recon mission for future “fundraisers”, have your people check out some of our clubs for your next junket to repression rehab.  We can use that revenue even if it’s stained with sweat and guilt.  We don’t judge.

There’s Bondage-A-Go-Go, one of The City’s premiere clubs for leather, spanking and good times.  If more discipline is required, perhaps you should check out the St. Andrew’s Crosses at the Citadel.  Wicked Grounds serves up coffee, tea and monthly ‘bring your human pet’ night (the only place in SF to get coffee served in a dog bowl).  You see?  We offer a wide variety of naughty to satisfy the most eclectic of tastes.

You know, everyone  has their faults, everyone has their secrets and everyone cuts loose  every once and a while.  I just wish when you decide to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, you would stop trying to chop it down later and set it on fire.

The View, Manners & the Walking Clueless

So this morning I was groggy from the cat dancing on my head at 4am so I could pet her and in desperate need of a grande non-fat Chai Latte when I was subjected to a very noisy morning on the ferry.  Some people don’t understand there are “unwritten rules”.  They are agreed on by mind-meld consensus, small signs and just plain manners.  While they aren’t universal to every city or every situation, here are a few we have in the Bay Area.

* Stand on the right, pass on the left.  This refers to escalators.  ANY escalator or moving sidewalk.  I believe it started with BART.  There are some stations that are a few floors below street level and the common rule is if you want to stand and just let the moving stairs do the work – stand on the right side so the people who wish to pass you (either going up or down) can do so on the left side.  When you just stand in the middle and block the flow of pedestrians either trying to get to work or get down to a train, you will piss them off.

* No cell phone conversations on public transportation.  No one wants to hear you ramble on about your kid/dog/cat/sex life/big financial deal or next hooker appointment.  Now some of you may say, “How is that different from two people having a conversation?”  It just is.  I think when you have a conversation in person, you are more aware of your voice level and lets face it, you look like a pretentious ponce carrying on a loud conversation on your phone.

* Supervise your children.  You are the one who decided to have them so they are your responsibility.  This means keeping them from running around in enclosed places (like the ferry), keeping their voices down and teaching them to sit quietly.

All of this builds up to this morning.  The first problem person must have been new.  She either has not rode the ferry before or not during morning commute.  You see, the unwritten rule for the morning commute runs are Quiet.  People are still getting motivated, napping, listening to music, trying to get some work done, reading or otherwise waking up to their day.  Some have not had their daily requirement of coffee and have forgone the onboard ferry coffee for Peets or Starbucks once we dock.  So into that hushed, library-like atmosphere comes a Mom, her infant and 2 kids.

Now I realize that babies fuss.  This one really didn’t fuss too much but the kids….  Gods help me and give me strength with no morning Chai fortification.  They ran, they screamed, they talked in LOUD voices about ducks, the prison, do ducks sit on the ocean, container ships,Treasure Island (No you twit, that is Angel Island), castles on Treasure Island (ANGEL ISLAND) and other nonsensical things non-stop.  I was going to go downstairs since this woman would not shush her kids and then, the cell phone woman started.

She is talking loudly on her cell.  She is thinking, “Well why can’t I?  I’m not talking near as much as that family or making as much noise?”  So I guess 2 wrongs now make a right.  It was annoying but I wasn’t close enough to tell cell lady to hang up or tell clueless Mom to hush her kids.  I tried to sew and kept saying “It’s only 30 minutes.”

Later when I returned to the Ferry Building to pick up a sandwich for lunch, something brilliant occurred to me.  Here I was walking to the Ferry Building, sun shining down, cloudless blue sky above, Coit Tower behind me, the Bay Bridge to the side and the Bay in front of me.  The farmers market was outside the Ferry Building today.  There were people shopping, laughing, taking pictures, a trolley went by and I thought “Damn, I am privileged to be surrounded by all this.  What do I have to complain about?  A few asshats were inconsiderate for 30 minutes but I’m still standing here in the sun on this wonderful day and nothing can ruin that.”  A friend once said something very telling about what we see every day  in The City, “People pay serious coin for that view on vacation”.  He’s right.  I always think how beautiful it is when I see the Golden Gate Bridge from the ferry, especially on a clear day like this.  We are very lucky.  We should appreciate it more and not let the small things get you down.

Hey, I wonder if people in London or Rome or Paris appreciate the view they have?

The Smells of The City

The City smells.  I don’t know if it smells better or worse than other cities but odor is defiantly part of the San Francisco experience.  When I was a little girl, growing up in the Marina, the smell I associate with childhood and San Francisco is tar.  I lived in a flat with my parents.  My Dad was going to law school and my Mom worked.  I didn’t have kids my age to play with.  In fact, my 4th birthday party is a tapestry of middle-aged adults and old Italians.  Not one other child except for me.  I liked it that way.

However, one day they were taring roofs for what seemed like forever and that smell just stuck in my mind like a perpetual tar baby.  San Francisco = Tar.  Every time I smell it, I go right back to Steiner Street in my head.  The other smell that is prevalent to me, especially now days is fish.  Hey! we are on a bay and fish is part of the landscape when you are on the edges of our wee metropolis.  Sure, the fish smell is more pronounced at the wharf with its open crab pots and docks and sea lions and flying velociraptors (sorry, I mean seagulls).  But there are days when you are on the fringe of the financial district, the wind is roaring through the canyons created by the skyscrapers and you get hit in the face with the smell of sea and sewage.  Yeah, fun.  Do I have any good smell memories of The City?  Actually I do!  It is that damp leaf, woodsy, fresh ocean smell that I associate with The Presidio.  It was always one of my favorite places to go when I just wanted to chill.  It was peaceful and lovely and just reminded me there is beauty all around you, even if it is an out-of-the-way place.

Scientists tell us smells and memories are linked.  I’m not going to mess with stuffy white coat wearing peeps with a degree but I think they are right.  Just think about the smells of your life.  Perhaps it is freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that remind you of your Mother or spring grass that remind you of picking berries with your BFF in vacant lots in Pasadena.  Smells are tricky things.  What are your favorite smell memories of The City or somewhere else?

Geek Grrl and A Rainy Thursday

This morning was overcast and damp from the pouring rain that blew through the Bay at 5am.  I was one of the first at the gate to await the ferry and guess who was right in front of me?  Geek Grrl from “Young Geeks in Love”.  Her counterpart was no where to be seen.  I tried to find the right words to approach her so I would not look like a stalker.  I seized on her backpack, decorated with Rockband patches as a conversation starter.

“You like Rock Band?”
“Yeah I love it!”
“Me too.”
“I put the patches in order of how good I am at them.”  (Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Drums)
“OMG, me too!  I sooo suck at drums!”

Thus began a cool conversation with the object of my blogging obsession of the past 2 weeks.  I found out the following in our geeky chat as we related stories of shipping deadlines, PC games and travel for each other:

* she is a game designer
* her husband is a game engineer
* her brother in law is a game designer
* her sister is a graphic artist for games

* she loves BioShock, Rock Band and tons of other cool games
* she is leaving for a weeks vacation next week to go back East and spend some time with her Mom
* her husband is on a business trip (no trouble in paradise – YAY!)
* she knows what it is like to “work hard, play hard”, be chained to a desk with a ship deadline and then get weeks of comp time to make up for it.  I told her about sliding flat food under the door to the engineers at AOL.
She was so nice, chipper and up beat.  I had my questions answered but now I just have .. MORE QUESTIONS.  How did she meet her husbnad, does she have pets, what kind, what is her view on pocket dogs, are they hiring where she works, can I clean out her cube for her – you know.. the usual stuff.  I hope  I see her tomorrow.  It would make for a good end to the week and maybe she will wear her cool flame shoes.

Attack of the Muni Bus!

As you may or may not know, Muni buses kill people with regularity.  Technically it’s the Muni bus driver that kills people, at times driving up on the sidewalk to mow down pedestrians but now I’m not so sure.  The statistics are pretty shocking:

• 2002 – 2 deaths
• 2003 – 2 deaths
• 2004 – 3 deaths
• 2005 – 3 deaths
• 2006 – 4 deaths
• 2007 – 8 deaths
• 2008 – 19 deaths and injuries! One of the men that was run down was dragged through the STREET AND there was the old lady hit and killed while she was in the crosswalk.  THE CROSSWALK!  The list goes on and on….

I am starting to think maybe it isn’t just maniacal or drunk bus drivers.  I think it is the Muni bus itself.  Did you ever read Stephen King’s book Christine, the horror novel about the killer car?  I think these buses are possessed by Satan.  How do I know?  I saw it for myself.  Today I looked the devil in the eye and it was life changing.

I was in the Embarcadero at a temp assignment, coming back to the office after lunch when I hear a horn.  I see a Muni bus up the street by Powell, coming towards the Bay at a bit of a clip, honking at the car LEGALLY in front of it, then SWERVES to go around the car (yes these buses are ATTACHED to wires overhead), the car moves and then the bus tries to mow down a bicycle!

I know what you’re thinking – it was one of those annoying, self-important couriers or those “Critical Mass” idiots.  It wasn’t.  If it was one of them, I would have run them down myself but this was a regular, law abiding, normal bike rider and here comes the demon bus bearing down on him, honking its horn.  It was surreal.  I was half expecting to see the bus jump its tether and go on a spree, mowing down groups of unsuspecting nuns and small children who are eating ice cream.

So now the question is, what do we do about Muni buses that are possessed by Satan?  Exorcism?  Well the Catholic church will tell you (when they aren’t thinking you are a nut job) that you can’t perform the rite of exorcism on an inanimate object.  So what is left?  I’ll tell you – squirrels.

Squirrels are minions of evil in their own right.  I think if you fling squirrels at the offending bus, the ensuing collision of evil will cause the bus to short out.  Now I just need to test my theory.  Does anyone have a spare crate of squirrels?