Homeland Security in the Mission

"Their whole doctrine is to screw with your head. That's what they do," explained this kind agent, whose name I unfortunately did not note. He was ably directing traffic around the site of a bomb scare in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Last evening about 7:15 I came on this scene of a suspected explosive device which prompted Homeland Security to shut down the block of Mariposa Street between Hampshire and Potrero Ave.

Was the package found in the gutter behind a line of parked cars sidewalk trash or something more sinister?

Here is the scene outside the police line. I could not see the object in question, and when I rode by the Verdi Club a couple of hours later, all trace of this earlier drama were gone; the smokers airing themselves between dances in the club were blissfully unaware of the measures taken to ensure their security.

I felt like a killjoy when I asked if anyone had heard or seen the disposition of this nettlesome object, and when I explained to their widening eyes what was behind the question, instead of answering, they all nervously backed away from me.

I was tempted to echo the ICE agent who earlier had explained these precautions, "It's a new thing, you know."

Rube Waddell at Odeon Bar's closing night, 2005-05-21

Here is a musical treat, my favorite hobo jug-band of the apocalypse, Rube Waddell - performing a song on beast-love. Further proof that when you start reforming marriage in San Francisco, it's a slippery slope leading to bestiality and who knows what!

Failed Film-Goer

Few beings as sad and dejected - in this status quotidian American kakocracy - as the frustrated audient, wannabe audience member, turned away from a sold-out show. This then was my humbling experience today at the Berlin and Beyond Festival when I arrived a half-hour before the screening of DOWNFALL, with Bruno Ganz in a controversial depiction of the last days of Adolf Hitler. Ganz is one of my favorite actors, but in classic slacker fashion I failed to obtain a ticket in advance and faced the predictable consequences for this negligence. Not the first, and won't be the last time I'm turned away from a capacity theater crowd. Some of the down-est days of my life have involved being so turned away, but this was only a minor self-annoyance.

At least I received the bad news from friends. They were waiting hopelessly in line, but seemed resolved to not getting in themselves. Perhaps I should joined them in an optimistic but likely futile exercise in radical patience. But I did not even finish locking my bike. The sun was setting and with the rain in abeyance it was at last good riding weather.

On route home, I saw an all too common sign of superfluity and excess: an abandoned living room couch cluttering the sidewalk. The graffiti behind it was a poignant but enigmatic scrawl. If I can figure out how to, will link to a picture of this bit of waterlogged ejecta.

Bowling with Cherry

Call from my friend Cherry to wish me happy new year, and to schedule lunch for when we are both at our respective jobs in Berkeley. Next week some time.

She tells of her blog at bowlofcherry.blogspot.com. I check it out, and am suitably impressed. Good way to ventilate holiday issues, and other issues of the day by writing about them in an online medium. In c-space we might all hear each other dream.

As a long-time futurist, late-blooming early adopter, I am way overdue to end my days sans blog. Here it is then, one of many "probes" - as McLuhan might have called them. Queue e-D!