Foggy, foggy, foggy. I watched a family of tourists walk to the beach today. Poor tourists! They come for a beach vacation and get THIS.

I am stoked though. At the Ocean Beach Street Fair I bought some raffle tickets and I WON SOMETHING. I never win anything! I won a cool necklace with a silver pendant that says OB. The O is a peace sign. It’s hella cool. I got so excited I went and bought two lottery tickets. I really need to win the lottery. So let’s keep the streak going, please. And if I don’t win the lottery, can you please send a couple of visible sunsets my way? Thank you.

The checks and balances of the universe and of each and every person and thing that inhabits the universe work in a cycle. I, being a creature of said universe, am no exception. And today I am seeing the upswing, the light at the end of the tunnel, the fat purple lollipop after a somewhat scary few days of agony.

Damn, I am such a Woos. But I am sorry, that fucking HURT.

I am out of it now. But it is a wake up call to be so messed up. Gotta start taking better care of myself, drink less wine and take Omega three gel caps and shit. It is a wonder that I am in the somewhat decent condition I am in, after all this abuse.

In my early years in San Francisco, I knew a photographer who I had worked with, had an affair with (in Boston during Hurricane Gloria) and eventually just ran into, from time to time. The guy had been in a motorcycle accident and fucked up his knee, and the constant pain CHANGED who he was. He ceased being the cool, fun photographer guy and became the guy who whenever-you-were-around-him-bad-thoughts-would-happen guy. The pain permeated him and everything around him. I remember sitting in his bedroom with him once, coming down off a crazy weekend of ingesting who-knows-what, and Patsy Cline was playing on the turntable. He went on and on about his pain and how he was drinking a pint or quart of vodka or whatever a day to kill it and before you knew it, I was crying hysterically (maybe that was his game). One time I sat in his kitchen and he rolled the I Ching for me. The I Ching told me “there is no relief or hope in sight.” Hmmm.

After a while I stopped hanging with the photographer so much (otherwise I might have hung myself. Seriously) but I ran into him from time to time, mostly at the Rainbow Grocery, when it was still on Mission Street. Every time, I would say hey Paul, whaddup? And he would answer something horrible about his knee, and how he was taking this or that or doing this or that. It was a fucking broken record, man. Eventually, after maybe a year of not running into him, I did again and he immediately went into the pain. And I just started laughing. I couldn’t stop. All the people looking at the index cards advertising room rentals or Spanish lessons in the foyer of Rainbow Grocery looked at me with furrowed brows, but I could not stop. The photographer yelled “it’s not FUNNY!” but fuck, after all those years of hearing about it, it WAS.

I guess my point is, I never want to be like that. After a few days of major discomfort, I see how it would be easy to kill everyone with your pain. And a pain that is there for always? Deadly for the bearer, deadly for everyone else.

Yes, the last week has been pretty awful. But today the sun is out, I managed to sleep until 9:00, and it is time to move on.

One good thing did happen last week – I got a ticket to the secret Sigur Ros show at the Avalon in Hollywood next month. Then I got two tickets to see them in October at Copley Symphony Hall here in San Diego. I have been waiting to see them for a long time, and I can’t believe I will be one of the lucky ones who gets to see them in the tiny Avalon.

If there is any band who manages to sound like where they are from, it is Sigur Ros. I have never been to Iceland, but if I lay on the couch and listen to the dreamy, lush, and totally original Ágætis Byrjun I can picture myself there. This is the record I listened to, sobbing, as I packed to come home from Spain last year. My mom likes it. My friends like it. When I met my ex-boyfriend Mark, I told him he had to like it, or it wouldn’t work out between us (I think he liked it OK, but it didn’t rivet him. And look what happened….)

Anyhow you get the jist of it.

So when I got an email saying tickets would go on sale for this intimate secret show the next morning, I spent a nervous and sleepless night. 550 tickets sold out in one minute. And I have one of them. This will be one of those shows of a lifetime.

The presales are all finished, but regular tickets are starting to go on-sale. Italian readers, there will be shows in Milan and Rome at the end of the month. North American readers, whether you like classical, jazz, opera, or rock, if you like music at all, try to go see this band. They are insanely good and totally unique.

Now, blue sky and the beach, and thoughts of the future.

I got some email about my apocalypse entry today. Seems I’m not the only one I know with intense dreams/thoughts about the end of the world. Tanks rolling down Newport Street. Cities nuked one by one. The rest of the world choking.

I’m in an in-between place. Half of me thinks there is no way to change the course. But half of me thinks, if we can change the energy, we can change the world. It’s kind of bizarre that I have this half totally morbid and half new-age way of thinking. Or is it? Maybe I am just one of katrillions that have this same half and half thing going on. I wouldn’t want to be all morbid (or I’d be dead, for sure) and I certainly wouldn’t want to be smelling like patchouli, either. There has got to be a balance. And the same goes for the earth, and for the universe. There has got to be a balance, and there is not.

Sadly I am just one of most who do absolutely fuck-all about this.

Most people – me included – will do nothing until their own well-being or the well-being of their families is threatened. Well, maybe we’ll all send a check. Whatever. It’s not enough. And even if we were to all actually DO something to change the course of the world, would it work? Maybe the course is already plotted by forces way bigger than us and there is nothing we can do. Or maybe it is all a big game of karma and we are all failing miserably.

Twenty years ago I thought I’d be a leader of the new age. What shit is that? That’s youth, I guess. The only way I’ll be a leader is if someone blows up a bomb in my ‘hood and I’m forced to. And the morbid half (borderlining on nihilism) says, that’s what it will come down to, so just fucking wait.

This morning I had a very intense dream about the end of the world as we know it. Basically we had two weeks left, and then, poof. I ran around trying to figure out what to do. Get in the car and drive to the mountains? Stock up on food? I got mad at my mom because she wouldn’t let me come to Santa Fe. Everything was crumbling, falling apart. It was so colorful and real. Two weeks left until the end of the world.

I woke up thinking, exactly how much time do we have? Is everything going to go down in this lifetime? And my answer to myself was, like it has been since I was eighteen years old, yes. It is.

Then I turned on the computer to the news that there are bombs and sirens and mass confusion and people dead and wounded in London. It’s all so sad and fucked up and scary. People just going to work.

I’ve never believed much in the future, but on days like this it really sinks in. I am totally bummed.

I always love it when friends come to visit me here in Ocean Beach and totally fall in love with it. My co-worker Bryan and his girlfriend Annika came on Sunday, hungover from a wedding. We spent Sunday sitting on the cliffs drinking wine and then we went to The Vine. I also met my good friend Cheryl and another slowtalker, Trish. It was a fantastic day. Bryan and Annika and I came back to my apartment, danced to Arcade Fire and then fell asleep to Sigur Ros. It was a fun, fun day. Bryan and Annika LOVE Ocean Beach. Now I am trying to convince them to move here.

Yesterday was a little tough at first, what with the 700 bottles of wine we consumed on Sunday. But it turned out to be a mellow, lovely holiday. It wasn’t so crowded on the beach this year. I went over to my friend Danielle’s house and watched her dip strawberries in chocolate. Eventually Danielle and I, along with a cool, funny architect, Jennifer, went and fetched Jennifer’s also cool boyfriend, Nick, and went to the beach.

It was beautiful down there. There was a red tide. I can’t seem to get a real answer out of anyone as to what causes the red tide. I tried to take a picture of Danielle and Jennifer running to the water, but it didn’t turn out too great.

Oh well.

After the beach I went to The Vine, where Brian was grilling meat for an assortment of employees and uber-regulars. Some people got on surfboards and paddled out to see the fireworks, and the rest of us scattered. I ended up on a deck on top of my friend Andy’s building. It was quite mellow and I didn’t have to worry about bottle rockets being launced at my neck. I HATE when that happens.

Today was totally mellow. I had the day off, and meant to do a bunch of writing, but instead went and sat in the window at South Beach Bar & Grill and ate a shrimp tostada and merely thought about writing. Then I went back to the beach. Yes, it is true – I am an obscenely lazy person. And Ocean Beach is such a great place to be totally lazy.

I know this is really boring but if you have made it this far – there are two kinds of people in the world. Dickheads, and everyone else. Thankfully there are more non-Dickheads than Dickheads. I always strive to be a non-Dickhead, even if I am a fucked up and lazy person. I am glad I live in Ocean Beach, where being a Dickhead is kind of verboten. I’ll always love my last home – Venice, Italy. Yet, Ocean Beach is Better. It really is. Really! For me, at least.

I think the antibiotics I’ve been taking after my oral surgery are messing with me. I can’t sleep, I’m having nightmares, my body feels funky. Yesterday I saw my cousin Robin and her kids. Robin told me one of her kids has Scarlet Fever. I got all wiggy inside because I am convinced antibiotics lower your resistance. Hence, I am going to get Scarlet Fever. So I keep telling myself “you are NOT going to get Scarlet Fever.” The kid was running around so it didn’t look like Scarlet Fever was all that bad. But still.

I HATE taking medicine. I haven’t taken any of the pain meds, so far haven’t been desperate enough. Wine is the BEST medicine. The best medicine for a regular fever is a bottle of Champagne. I wonder how many you’d need if you had Scarlet Fever?

Anyhow. I’ve been riveted lately by Rar’s Blog. Rar is spending a few months in South America, traveling around by himself. I am jealous of him. Because he’s a guy, because he’s young, because I am too much of a pussy to try to bushwack my way through a Bolivian jungle. Right now he is chillin’ in La Paz. He has a great way of putting things into perspective there and also of describing the things he does and the places he sees. I wish I was chillin’ in La Paz. Though I would be scared of the rubber bullets.

If is a foggy morning and I have to get my house cleaned up because my co-worker Bryan and his girlfriend Annika are spending the night. I talked them into it last night when they were drunk in a hotel room in Sorrento Mesa, where they attended a wedding. I love Bryan. He’s the perfect combination of fun, smart, and eccentric. And Annika is a sweetheart. I’ll do my best to keep them out of trouble.

Type “pro life blog” into a search engine.

This is going to get really fucking ugly. I love my country, and I love living here, but things just keep getting scarier and scarier.

Now is the time to get involved with NOW. All the work our grandmothers and mothers did might be history if we don’t. There’s going to be violence. It’s really, really scary. Thanks god for self-medication.

After all the hoopla after the last few weeks, today I had a bit of reality – Oral Surgery. Shocking that I can even write after all that Halcion.

I was quite sketched all day. Nervous and sweaty until it was time to take the drugs, an hour and a half before the appointment. Then I was nervous and sweaty about taking the drugs. Which is weird for me. Anyway, I took them and within a half hour or so I was sighing deeply, and in another half hour I couldn’t make my keyboard work right.

Brian came and got me and delivered me to the doctor (we drove the two blocks) and the whole thing was rather bizarre, not really painful, but trippy. First they gave me a lot of shots and I was kind of loopy so they didn’t bother me so bad. But the weird thing is, they blindfolded me with this big black cloth. So I could see nothing. I could hear, turn this way, turn that way. They were pushing and pulling but all in all it wasn’t that uncomfortable.

Then it was done! Brian picked me up again (I think we walked this time – did we?) Back home I think I ate some soup and fell asleep for awhile. But then I woke up and watched “Year of Living Dangerously” and now whatever drugs were there are gone. Halcion is kind of cool, if you don’t plan on doing anything for awhile, at least in my first experience of it.

I have an over active imagination and I had the most gruesome and scary thoughts of the afternoon. But really it wasn’t that bad. Still can’t figure out the blindfold. Kind of hot, if you think about it. Dentistry and Bondage. Hmmmm.

It was an insane weekend, but I am still here to tell you about it. Kind of. If you can stay tuned till the end I will tell you all about the killer Arcade Fire/David Byrne show last night at the Hollywood Bowl. But first….

If there is one day every year where one can be assured of total drunken insanity, that day would be the day of the Ocean Beach Street Fair. This year did not disappoint. It was a beautiful day, and everyone was happy. It’s kind of a trip how many people I know here after only three years. This was my third OB Street Fair and it was definitely the craziest. And that is Saying Alot.

There were parties on the beach and one giant party on the street. The weird thing about OB is, you can’t drink on the street, but you can drink on the beach. You can be holding a 20 oz. plastic Martini glass full of straight gin on the beach, but you can’t touch the sea wall at the same time. Hence, you have:

A Keg in the Sand. You also have:

A smiling police officer making sure you don’t lean up against the sea wall holding a cup of beer. He looks happy!

I drank a million glasses of wine – I kept going home for more. After hanging out on the beach all day me and Mark went to Tony’s bar. And I am shocked – SHOCKED – that we were all allowed to continue drinking.

Everyone was already hammerlaned, and it was only 7:30 or something like that. I do remember running into my friends Danielle and Zach. I need to get off my lazy ass and hang out with them more. Zach bought us all shots of tequila. At this moment a general feeling of haziness became no-turning-back.

You’d think it would all end here. But NO. I get home, and there is a message from Brian about a party up the street. Remember how I said I was happy The Vine was closed for the OB Street Fair? Remember? Well fuck me, instead there was a party with all the people from The Vine. I grabbed a bottle of Iron Horse Sangiovese and headed up to Bob & Margaret’s, just a block and a half away.

I was already a goner when I got there. Details are spotty. I’m just hoping everyone else was in the same general vicinity, blood level wise, as I was. Whew.

Anyhow, yesterday I woke up with a truly severe hangover, and this is coming from someone who knows her hangovers. And I had to drive to Hollywood for the Arcade Fire/David Byrne show. It took awhile, but I finally made it out of the house and through hellish Sunday traffic to the Best Western on Highland Avenue. Thank you, Best Western, for being so close to the Hollywood Bowl on a day when the thought of a two-mile walk is akin to the thought of, well, not having any thoughts from the night before. If you get my meaning.

It was four o’clock when I got there and I was starving. I couldn’t even get a whole piece of peanut butter toast down for lunch, so I was seriously running on empty. There was a little coffee shop in the hotel and the check in girl told me it opened at five, so I went to the pool to wait it out. Went back, not open. “Er,” says the check-in girl, “I guess they aren’t open today.” This same girl didn’t know who David Byrne was, so I guess I’m not too surprised.

I decided to go up to the Bowl early, grab something to eat in the Patina Marketplace there, and relax before the show. Well, the food from Patina kind of sucked (what happened, guys? You use to ROCK) but hanging out at the Hollywood Bowl was totally awesome. I really love that place. You can bring your own food and wine in, so the place is just a sea of wine bottles, Trader Joe’s bags, and acrylic stemware. I sipped on a glass of Esca Syrah, ate my nasty Patina sandwich, and read the L.A. Weekly. I was slowly recovering.

The Bowl was half empty when openers Si Se came on. Smooth jazz lovers, take note. They are smooth, not really jazz, but mellow and sweet and innocuous. They were good – don’t get me wrong – just not my cup o’ tea. I kept peeking at Jonathan Gold’s restaurant reviews. I was too tired to shift in my seat, or I would have done that, too.

Dusk, and then Arcade Fire. And holy fuck, they did not disappoint me. I LOVE them, but so does everyone. They opened with “Wake Up,” and I thought my heart would stop right there, but it wasn’t loud enough. I can’t believe, can’t believe, can’t believe I didn’t drop everything and see Arcade Fire at the Casbah in January. But I was at the Hollywood Bowl, on a summer night, sipping a really good wine, seeing this band that I love, and even though they seemed really far away it was worth every minute of that 2.75 hour journey through hell to be there. All of them all over the stage, playing their hearts out, playing with each other, so totally into it… man. When they did “Crown of Love” I started to cry. It was so beautiful, and they had Tosca Strings on stage with them. I’m not sure if it was my delicate state or what, but I got teary quite a few more times before they were done. I’m getting teary right now just thinking about it.

Most people sat down for the first half of the set, including me. I was simply too exhausted, and after last weekends Raveonettes show where I was one of three people who actually stood up, I figured I would just chill like the Chardonnay drinking, St. Andre eatin’ Hollywood Bowl crowd. Then Arcade Fire started playing “Tunnels” and I looked back to see pockets of people jumping around. Soon my section was on their feet, and I was happy to join them. Joy is a good motivator.

I did have to move seats right after they came on. Four obnoxious dickheads sat down in front of me (four songs into the set) and proceeded to talk and look around to see who was looking at them (Dude. Nobody. Is. Looking. At. YOU.) I could only stand about five minutes of these sadly typical L.A. concertgoers. I mean, what is the point? But the gods of rock ‘n’ roll were smiling on me. Right next to my bench there were some folding chairs, I guess for use in extreme circumstances. They were empty and I simply grabbed my wine and scooted on down. From my new vantage point I had a view of some really cute youngsters who were totally into it. So, I think L.A. Concertgoers have the same dilemma as American tourists in Tuscany. There are cool tourists in Tuscany, but the assholes are more noticeable.

Alas, the Arcade Fire left the stage way too soon. I am going to be kicking myself for missing that Casbah show for the rest of my life.

David Byrne came on the stage wearing a pink suit and with bleached blond hair. He had Tosca Strings too, and of course his backing band was stellar, but it is pretty hard to take your eyes off the man himself. Three songs into his set, the Four Obnoxious Assholes got up and left – by climbing over their seats, and over me in my cramped folding chair area. I mean, what is the point? Get to a show late, talk loudly and look around, then leave way early. They totally missed the best part.

About half way in to David Byrne’s set, I noticed, to my left, a bunch of crazily-attired people walking to the back of the Bowl with horns and drums and other instruments. I was like, OK, this is going to get crazy. CRAZY is not the word for it. BLISTERINGLY INSANE is more like it. They all looked like extras from Cabaret. There was a bit of time between that which I spotted them and when they came down, from the back of the Bowl, totally blowing everyone away. The Extra-Action Marching Band, equipped with hot drag-queen pom-pom girls, flag waving chicks wearing some kind of Xena Warrior Princess kind of outfits (I think) and then the band which was huge and also, chaotic, moved towards the stage and when they got there, it wasn’t so hard not to look at David Byrne anymore.

Arcade Fire came out and did one more song (in my state, I can only remember the vibe, but not the song) with Byrne, and then the whole entirety of the Extra-Action Marching Band was on stage with him doing an unbelievable “Burning Down The House.” I will never forget it – why, oh why, didn’t I bring my camera??? The pom-pom queens danced around, in formation, and the flag waving chicks stood rigid, never moving, through the whole song. The stage was awash with people. The entire audience was on their feet. I was standing ON MY CHAIR. Then, when it was impossible that things could even have a chance of getting better, Byrne rips out his final song, a cover of Beyonce & Jay Z’s “Crazy in Love.” A fucking brilliant and totally inspired choice! That is a GREAT song and with all those horns and scantilly-clad drag queens rolling around with pom-poms it was just unbelievably cool. The Xena flag wavers waved their flags over the rich people in the front and the scene was one of barely controlled abandonment. What a moment. What a night. You can check out a bit of the madness HERE.

At the end – and it had to end there, though I don’t think David Byrne wanted it to – the drag queens started throwing their pom-poms, somewhat violently at Byrne. In a playful way, but still. It was a great show but it would have been nice to have a bit of an encore… I was in bed by 10:30, and that is why I have the energy to write.