Watching City Hall #363 (4-18-05)
“Happy Birthday to me! … Happy birrrthhdayy to mee!!”
“If you tell anyone what happened, I’ll kill you.”
(Rachel Falmouth)
OK. What happens in the Barbary Coast, stays in the Barbary Coast … as we say down here in the Barbary Coast. By the way, … what happened?
“That’s off the record!”
(Matt Gonzalez)
Too much tequila to separate the wheat from the chaff by this time, Matt. I’ll just not mention anything I can’t remember. Does that work for you?
“Boy, I was really pissed off at you.”
(Ross Mirkarimi)
Sure man, sure. Get in line.
My birthday weekend
I have danced joyfully across the hurdle of another birthday (61 – which is also my IQ) and the 3 above comments came from Friday through Sunday evenings and were, in fact, stated in reverse order and probably incorrectly. The bar around here (regular readers will nod) … out of necessity, the bar in matters such as truth & lies & distortions & reality & illusion … is set pretty low. So, I want to state in advance that the things I relate may have happened exactly as I state them. Perhaps some of them happened in combinations with others that I either honestly don’t recall or have successfully repressed …Or, maybe not some, all, or any possible combination of same actually have no relationship whatsoever. But then, I mean, face it, in this way, I’m not that different from the Chronicle. …
So, anyway, I had one of the best 3 days of my life and here’s what I recall from each of them.
Friday
(why are you still reading this?)
I sorted a couple of hundred emails and went through my wallet and all the pockets in a pile of dirty clothes. Read the newspapers and online press for 4 solid hours after finally finding half a joint in my front shirt pocket and settling back. My birthday weekend was starting in a few hours and I wanted to get my head right. I pushed out a column and went to get $40 from my account at LSS. That should get me through another week. Clean clothes. Soaps and lotions and toothpaste. Eye wash, deodorant, laundry soap, floss … I’m living large. I put my half-finished Bulldog Press Pass in my pocket in case my SFPD decal got grabbed and headed for a pot club to hang out and mention that it was my birthday.
I’ve always exploited my birthdays by saying things like: “Oh, you don’t have to have a party for me or buy me a drink or anything like that.” Over and over and over. I’d sorted the responses I’d received from this shameless tactic and decided to spend every minute possible with my favorite people. It just so happened that about 100 of them would be in Ross Mirkarimi’s office for the monthly D5 art party. Free booze (he’d bought half the old Gonzalez monthly stock the previous month and I hoped for a correction) … free booze, challenging art and the best political conversation in town.
Literally. There is so much energy in the room that people … hmmmm, … yeah, it’s kind of like they set off sparks just walking close to each other and the quarters get closer than shoulder-to-shoulder as the 3 hours pass.
Of course, I always try to make things more intense by introducing people whom I feel should know each other. Hooking a rock singer with an entertainment columnist here. Making certain that a dirty old man meets at least one bimbo. Good naturedly shouting something incendiary to set off a couple of people I know to be at war. You know, Court Jester stuff.
Like, I introduced Krissy Keefer to Luke Thomas and his camera. I realized right away that Luke will do thousands of shots of Dance Mission and Dance Brigade productions as the years pass and I can say I introduced them.
I’d seen from the photos Jackson West ran in Sfist.com of the evening’s young artist (Andrew Schoultz) … I’d seen from what Sfist ran that the kid’s talent was prodigious and wondered if he could do buildings.
I fine-honed my buzz and sought out the sketch guru. I’m expecting m.c. Escher at 40 or 50 or 60. Not even. Schoultz looks to be around 19 but he’s probably 28 or so. It has something to do with all the preservatives we feed them nowadays. Hey, I was one who feared the level of the art in the D5 office (best mini-gallery in town) … I was afraid it would go downhill.
Needn’t have mentioned it. … This kid’s work challenges Felix McNee and that says lots. When, I saw it, something clicked. This kind of shit would be perfect on the blank wall across from my window on the other-side-of-the-UN Plaza-tracks at 7th & Market. I made my way carefully through the tight abs and soft bosoms, being careful not to spill my wine. “Ever do a big mural?” He pushed a folder toward me.
Some kind of pamphlet of Andrew’s work. The cover was the side of an aging Victorian upon which he’d done a whimsical panoply of twisting and turning buildings in a mural that first mimic’d then, elevated the urban scene. Turning negative energy into positive energy and reflecting it back upon itself. I knew where a mural like that would fit perfectly.
“You got a card?” I introduced myself. The kid looked up at the animated raging drunk before him (Ross had made the sensible move UP to $2 buck Chuck for these gatherings and more than doubled the capacity – if you couldn’t unwind, it was your own fault) “Naw. Do you have one?”
So, I don’t have cards. I turned around. I’d wanted to introduce him to some of Mayor Newsom’s people who were in the room and might snag the kid a prominent mural. They were gone back to work. I made a note to push his work at them as a possible choice. Gavin’s made a serious effort to encourage economic development in down-at-the-heels business districts by sprucing up blank walls and empty store fronts. There is no more important wall than the West end of the Renoir Hotel at the foot of UN Plaza.
“I heard someone had a contract for that wall years ago!” That was the next thing I heard. But, I passed the info along. Whatever happens, you can catch Andrew’s work for a month in rm 282 @ da Hall. That’s what these parties are about if you use them right.
That, and meeting chicks. I was hoping Rachel Falmouth would show up and she did.
So did Dennis Herrera and his shotgun rider, Matt Dorsey. Only the most secure of the Democratic moderates dare attend these things. Medea Benjamin was talking to Krissy Keefer. I snuck in to compliment Keefer on her month-long Cuba festival and ask if she’d like to go to Cuba with Gonzalez and I if I could talk him into it. She laughed and nodded. I promised to write a letter to Fidel in my column. No one believed me (I’m not very impressive in person – but, you know that feeling). Benjamin immediately trumped my proposal which was just a dream. “I’m going to Iran tomorrow to talk with the Ayatollah! Fidel is mad at me.” … Or, something to that effect. Don’t you hate it when they out-name-drop you? (letter to Fidel below – will he invite us?)
Rachel grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away. “Would you rather talk to them?” … Interesting question. When do we give up on a difficult reality and settle into a comfortable illusion? I shook a few hands and trailed out of the building after her. Once again, in love with someone who doesn’t exist.
San Francisco is a living circus full of freaks and geeks and wonders from all the world. … And, that’s just my friends. Imagine if we included yours. I went by to hang out with my oldest friend and closest amalgam of ‘Yoda’, Jens Nielsen.
“We all get old sooner or later.”
(Jens)
I was asking Jens and his girlfriend, Leona about the new lady in my life.
Leona: (lighting ‘Maybelle’, the pipe – named after the elephant) “Well, h., we haven’t actually met her, so she could just be like Eileen.”
Jens: (smiles and cranks up the stereo which is playing ‘A Whiter shade of pale’) “Come for breakfast on your birthday and we’ll get you started off right.”
A hundred people. A long column. Plans and dreams. Love and charity. That was just Friday. Saturday was Gonzalez.
Matt was soaking wet
I had a call from Gonzo that was a couple of days old and I’d been waiting to call back when I figured we’d both be able to talk. Early Saturday morning seemed about right. Couldn’t think of a person I’d rather spend some time with on my special weekend. I phoned at 7am and left a message. Matt called back around 8am and at 9am I was banging on his door and he was just out of the shower with a robe and his hair wet and combed back like ‘the Fonz’. He looked funny.
“You look funny!”
I’d been up drinking and smoking since before dawn and in quite a good humor. It was my birthday weekend and I need a lot less reason to go on a low-key San Francisco binge. As always, for a political junkie such as myself, work and pleasure are inseparable. By noon, the Green Knight of the Left had agreed to go to Cuba with me and Krissy Keefer and maybe, Carlos Petroni if I could put it together (sign here, Fidel). … He simply nodded a simple: “Sure.” when I asked to put his name & number on the back of my new Bulldog press pass (present back of PD issued passes is simply covered by cop warnings on that area with a signature of the chief) … I hadn’t gone to lobby the guy on anything. But, here he was helping me further a couple of pet projects and neither could do anything but cost him money and time.
Wouldn’t you want to go to Cuba to meet Castro before one or both of you died if you were a Lefty journalist and take the leading Lefty politician and the top Counter Culture Artist and the Publisher of the most radical Communist publication? I mean, shit man, it couldn’t get much better than that. … Here’s my letter …
h. brown
Civic Center Residence
44 McAllister #406
San Francisco, Ca. 94102
April 18, 2005
Comrade Fidel Castro
Office of the President
The Republic of Cuba
Dear Fidel,
All around the world (especially, in the U.S.) capitalist hacks are writing your history for you. We request that we be able to meet you and paint your portrait in words, dance, and politics.
We respectfully request that you allow us to join you as possible, for a week in the life of the President of Cuba.
We are:
Matt Gonzalez
Attorney: Former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Green Party Member: Narrow loss in last SF mayor’s race.
Writer, poet, painter, teacher and mentor.
Krissy Keefer
Artistic Director: Dance Mission … Geo-politically driven diva to most radical leftist dance center in the United States.
Most recent work: ‘Dear Fidel’ … Keefer’s song and dance tribute to Fidel and the accomplishments of the revolution. One show in Dance Mission’s all April Cuba format which included workshops and other works such as ‘Vamos Andar’, which includes the Keefer-led Dance Brigade’s piece, ‘Yo soy Cuba, ‘A Piece of White Cloth and ‘La Madre’. h. brown
Political satirist. Socialist commentator. Blog: Sfbulldog.comCarlos Petroni
Publisher, FrontlinesMeet some friends, comrade. We’d all be honored.
To the revolution,
h. brown
The phone rang. It was someone telling Matt that Marla Ruzicka had been killed in Iraq. The tequila jelled. The kid hit the phones and I hit the street to push rocks up other hills. Dreams. Reality. Illusion. Now, death visits again. Jens’ words rang in my ears: “We all get old sooner or later.”
Sunday started in the morning
“Jens Nielsen! .. Jens Niellsseennn!!” I always call that out through the door of Jens’ room on the front street level of the Edgeworth Hotel. It’s meant to echo the old: “Mary Hartman. Marryy Harrttttmannn!!” from way back when. The junkie who sits on the milk crate under his window 24/7 never even reacts.
That lets Jens know I’m there to visit and he can have his door open when I reach the top of the stairs. (Did you know that imaginary people don’t have ID’s? – See Eileen & Rachel) …
Jens knows best
Best omelet at Village Café on Polk, pot chocolate bar and $20 cash and a big fat joint. A couple of drinks at Jens’ central, then a pair of Bloody Mary’s at ‘Mr. LeeOna’s’ to start me on my birthday. My buddy of 30 years, Jens? He knows best. When I talked about Rachel, he pointed to one of the thousand photos that covered the entire restaurant. “That’s Kaye.” He said. “I’ve had breakfast with her lots of times but she never pays and never orders anything.” I faded back to my place and did my laundry and cleared my email and got ready to go see if Rachel would show up.
Where do you go on your birthday? I start at la boheme at 24th and Mission, hit the Gold Dust on Powell (not anymore, they appear to have gone bimbo) … then, maybe another drink at another bar or two or three or (why fix it if it ain’t broke?) … and, end up under Phil Burton’s statue at Fort Mason with a cigar.
OK, sometimes I don’t make it to the statue. Maybe next year. But, I did get the cigar. And, somewhere along the way. Rachel was there, standing just a bit aways and looking quizzingly my way.
Ania showed up at the Gold Dust
“Heyyy, h.!!” Big call from a little girl. … Now, let me clarify here for a moment. ‘Rachel’ like ‘Eileen’ before her is very real. Also, she does not exist at all. But, everyone needs company. Now, here came Ania, my best female friend in the world, off of Powell street to join me for a drink on my birthday. I felt like Anthony Hopkins in ‘Magic’. Would Ania see Rachel? I was relatively certain this apparition existed since she’d bought the first drink (that’s always a VERY good sign).
Three hours and one return to Mr. LeeOna’s later, Rachel and I put the little Polish jewelry maker (recently tossed off the rolls by Trent Rohrer for 6 months) … we put her on a direct bus home and headed back toward my place to rest up before heading for Phil Burton’s statue back over the hill and down the road a piece.
The rest is a blur. … for you that is. Always will be. For me it is a multi-textured living quilt of memories forever burned into the deepest reaches of my libido. And, I don’t even know if they really happened.
Yo, Fidel!
