Friday, August 31, 2007

Corona Heights Park


I've been biting my nails about Berkeley Art Museum lately and need things to take my mind of it. The crazy puzzle Dani's grandma gave us is complete. The loss of the puzzle was a big blow, leaving my mild OCD with no outlet so I went on a little urban hike up to Corona Heights Park. (Thanks Andy for showing us) The view was amazing and I sat on the rocks and read about the history of the Barbary Coast.

It was a beautiful day. We never get clouds like this in SF. I really need to do more cloud reseach to know just what kind these are-- but I like them.

It's a straight shot up 16th. We live across the street from the large steple.



Thursday, August 30, 2007

Lucky Ju Ju Pinball

Madeline had her birthday party at a pinball palace. It was awesome. I could spend all night not talking to anyone at the party and not be thought of as rude. It was a wall flower's dream!

There were some beautiful machines. The place was divided into two rooms, one room for mechanical sound effects and the other for electronic.



This one was my favorite. It was from Madrid circa 1970's . It had electronic sound and was just all around cool!




Dani loses her ball

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Um...

Somehow the word problematic doesn't begin to describe...
Thanks to Julia's brother for the find.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Total Eclipse of the Moon/Heart

Last night I was dreaming about someone complaining that they got into a bike accident while holding their kitten. And this was really very upsetting for them because now their kitten would never want to ride a bike again. Meanwhile, in the dream, I was very annoyed by this because I was trying to show off my guitar skills by playing a song that I don't really know. I was not doing very well impressing the crowd of all my old friends and I felt pretty sure that if this person with the kitten would cut out the annoying prattle I would be able to play majestically.

Thats when Dani woke me up to show me the moon! It was around 2:45 a.m.or so and the eclipse had just started. For the next couple of hours (or it could of been days) I was in and out of dreaming as the moon became increasingly orange and discolored by the earth's shadow.



Saturday, August 25, 2007

If I had a jug band I'd call it Baby and the Butterbeans (and I would be Baby)

This weekend in Golden Gate Park was the official Jug Band Festival! How exciting! Gavin Newsome must have been excited as well because he officially anointed the weekend "Jug Band Weekend." As always Dani and I take our civic duties very seriously so we set out to learn as much about jug band-ing as we could. We saw some live jug band-ing in the park, where grown men make rhythmic farting noises into jugs while singing songs with lyrics like "hooray! they're going to kill my father." Even though there weren't any wax paper combs, spoon playing or wash tub basses we had a great time but weren't there for long. So, not wanting to let Gavin down we decided to see the jug band documentary "Chasin' Gus' Ghost." It was supposed to be about one of the original jug band-ers Gus Cannon. But it was more about Jug Band's 1960's revival- yes there was a jug band revival- who knew! I also learned that there is a huge jug band movement in Japan and that for the future of jug bands we should look to Japan.

Most notable of the the 60's jug band revival was The Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Fritz Richmond a member of the band, in addition to being an amazing jug player made startling refinements to the wash-tub bass. He developed a fretting system for the wash-tub so that it played notes. He is know as the "foremost washtub bassist in the world and was also the most sucessful professional jug player"
Some other notable participants in the Jug Band Revival of the 60's are:
Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and later the Grateful Dead.
Jon Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful
and Maria Muldaur of Midnight at the Oasis fame
Below is the Kweskin band with Maria Muldaur, and you can see Fritz playing a mean jug.


Sunday, August 19, 2007

End of the World on the 5

Dani and drove down to Orange County to see her family (see more about that visit here.) Just before the Grapevine the sky went orange and strange and there was ash in the air. Turns out there were fires near Santa Barbara and the smoke was blocking out the sun on the Grapevine.


Thursday, August 9, 2007

My Mom visits Sci-Fi City

My mom came back to San Francisco with me after my trip to VA. She stayed with us for a whole week. It was a really amazing time. We haven't spent this much time together in years (probably before I went to college.) Dani and I showed her all around the bay area. We went to the botanical garden at Tilden Park.

We stopped on the way down from the park to see the fog consume the city.

On Saturday we went to the Ferry Building and saw the Farmer's Market.
From there we took the ferry to Sausalito and then took a shuttle to Muir Woods. It was really fun although it was a little stressful-- at each leg of the trip we were a little concerned that the next form of transportation was going to fall through for some reason-- But it all worked out (thanks to the exceptional planning skills of the Wild Dani.)


The fog was so dense it made the city look really creepy as we rode back in on the ferry.

Sunday 8/5 was Jerry Day! My mom was really excited to celebrate Jerry Day in his home town. This was also our first time to Mclaren Park. All the bay area dead-heads dusted off all the old tie-dye and draped themselves from head to toe. I'm glad my mom was here for this because it was a really good time and W.D. and I wouldn't have gone without her.