Diana’s been out of town (vacationing in Tanzania and Zanzibar), resulting in my tattered rags getting caught on our coffee table. Here’s what I did over the holiday weekend:
Friday night – Hooked up with my buddy Paul to go to the sold out Brother Ali concert at Slim’s. After a quick dinner at Popeye’s, we snared a cab to get to the venue. The first act we saw was the Boom Bap Project, a decent opener hailing from Seattle via the Bay Area. Some fun rhymes, especially the free-style portions, but I wasn’t a huge fan of their beats nor their DJ.
Next up was Psalm One, a female rapper from Chicago on Rhyme Sayers. I think my buddy Faust has put it best about female hip-hop, in that it’s really hard to get into, especially when they try to act tough/hard. Mostly forgettable.
The main event had everyone’s favorite Albino, Muslim rapper from MPLS, Brother Ali. He rocked (Like a Champion) in every aspect, playing mostly stuff from his new album, even some of the deeply personal tracks. He has a captivating presence, but it’s a unique kind of charisma that I’ve never seen before, but I can’t place it. The crowd was really into Ali, I didn’t realize he had gotten as big as he had.
After the show Paul and I scooted over to The Page to meet up with friends and get a couple of drinks before bar close. I got home and in bed around 2:30.
Saturday – Woke up and fed and walked Josie, did some chores, then finally made my way over to my buddy Dan’s Underdogs Sports Bar around 5:30 PM to hook up with JR and Joe to watch UFC 71. A great evening of fights, with 4 of the 5 main matches ending in upsets (which netted Dan over a grand in his wagers, in which he picked all 5 dogs). Much celebration went down when Rampage knocked out Liddell, but also numerous people were shocked that it ended so quickly in the manner it did.
JR, Joe and I made our way over to the Mucky Duck to welcome my friend Josh Six-Killer, his girlfriend Michelle and their roommate Stan to the neighborhood. They moved into a new place about four blocks from us on Saturday, and were having a few drinks after moving day. Eventually AJ and his girl Tera showed up as well, so there was a full-on bowling team bonding moment as well. Again, we closed down the bar and I went over to Josh’s new joint for a couple of drinks afterwards. I got home and in bed around 4:00.
Sunday – Woke up and fed Josie, then wandered over to JR’s place. JR, myself and a bunch of JR’s friends went down to the Mission to see the Carnaval celebration. We saw a bit of the parade with the crazy costumes, loud music, and tossed beads. JR and I ducked into a corner store that was closing down so we got 2 for 1 bottles of booze to encourage our depravity. After the parade, we wandered over to the street festival portion of the events and ate our way through the area.
Feeling pretty exhausted at this point, I caught a train home and figured I’d chill out for the evening, maybe watch a movie and go to bed early. Nope. My friend Cat texted me and asked if I wanted to go dancing, and convincing myself I would rest on Monday, I took a train back into the sketchy Tenderloin area. We ended up at a place called the BamBuhdda Lounge, which had kind of a neat set-up. Two rooms with two separate DJs spinning mostly house and techno stuff. It took me a while to get enough drinks, but I broke out some of my old moves from First Ave’s Sunday Night Dance Party. We left the club and ended up back at Cat’s, where we continued the dance party using people’s iPods as our source of tunes.
I was pretty exhausted by this point, so I left around 2:30 to walk the five blocks home, only to see about 8 cop cars, 2 ambulances and 3 firetrucks near the church by our house. From what I could gather, a car had blasted into at least two other parked cars, and at least one of those were on fire. They had the whole block roped off with police tape and I had to go around the block to get home. Very weird stuff, never found out exactly what happened, however. Got home and in bed by 3:30.
Monday – Rested a lot.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
The Pin Pals
A couple of months ago, my friend Joe mentioned that he was starting a punk-rock bowling team. I was amused by his enthusiasm and said it sounded like fun. Two Tuesdays ago I received a frantic phone call from Joe. “Dude first league night is tonight, can you make it?” I didn’t even know that I had been drafted into the team, not to mention I couldn’t make it that night. Apparently, me saying it sounded like fun was enough for me to be on the team. Luckily, Joe was misinformed so I didn’t cause our team to be a roller short that night.
On Tuesday I met Joe at Underdog’s Sports Bar so we could take a bus to the train to the bowling alley. Joe was already into his fifth or sixth drink by the time I got to him. We met another friend AJ and made our way to Serra Bowl in Colma, CA. We got there an hour early and split a pitcher and waited for our league to begin.
We are in the Mission Merchants league with about 20 other teams, and it was painfully obvious we were the Newbies in the league. Marian, the overseer of the league, was very patient with us and helped us fill out our scoring sheet and explained the set-up of the games. Our team (The Sunset Punx Pitcher Killers) ended up being matched up with another team of three (one of our guys failed to show). Joe darted to the bar and came teetering back with three pitchers of Budweiser, sloshing froth everywhere as AJ and I looked on in horror and bemusement. Most of the other bowlers were non-plussed with our antics.
We made our acquaintance with Bill, Roger and Steve (of course they had the best bowling names ever), our opponents for the evening. These guys appeared to be hardcore bikers/recovering alcoholics, as they politely declined to share in some of our bountiful pitchers of Bud. They were really helpful as well in figuring out the order and some of the rules surrounding the league.
The other bowlers in the league were quite varied, as clichéd as it seems, it was right out of The Big Lebowski. They came in all shapes and sizes, and everyone else was much more serious than the Pitcher Killers, I thought for sure they were gonna kill Joe for spilling the beer. One guy around our age started off with 9 straight strikes before crapping out in the 10th frame.
I ended up rolling a 171 my first game, which was my second highest score ever. “This game is too easy” I thought to myself in a Dikembe like tone. I was convinced that I’d be ranked in the top ten in the league in no time. Second game, a 141, was still a respectable score for this novice bowler.
By the time the third game rolled around I was a) getting tired, b) getting a sore arm, and c) getting a bit tipsy. I ended up with a 90. Hey, I still beat Joe. My cumulative average was a respectable 134, earning me top score for our team for the night.
Marian helped us fill out our USBC (United States Bowling Congress) application, so I will be a card carrying member for the next 1.5 years. She also gave us her “card”, a rainbow colored pen with her information printed on it. She’s the best. She also promised that she was going to take us under her wing and make sure we do our best to not annoy or do anything worse to the other bowlers.
I’ll try to let everyone know how we do as the season progresses, maybe by the end I’ll have my own Skull Ball and fitted shoes.
On Tuesday I met Joe at Underdog’s Sports Bar so we could take a bus to the train to the bowling alley. Joe was already into his fifth or sixth drink by the time I got to him. We met another friend AJ and made our way to Serra Bowl in Colma, CA. We got there an hour early and split a pitcher and waited for our league to begin.
We are in the Mission Merchants league with about 20 other teams, and it was painfully obvious we were the Newbies in the league. Marian, the overseer of the league, was very patient with us and helped us fill out our scoring sheet and explained the set-up of the games. Our team (The Sunset Punx Pitcher Killers) ended up being matched up with another team of three (one of our guys failed to show). Joe darted to the bar and came teetering back with three pitchers of Budweiser, sloshing froth everywhere as AJ and I looked on in horror and bemusement. Most of the other bowlers were non-plussed with our antics.
We made our acquaintance with Bill, Roger and Steve (of course they had the best bowling names ever), our opponents for the evening. These guys appeared to be hardcore bikers/recovering alcoholics, as they politely declined to share in some of our bountiful pitchers of Bud. They were really helpful as well in figuring out the order and some of the rules surrounding the league.
The other bowlers in the league were quite varied, as clichéd as it seems, it was right out of The Big Lebowski. They came in all shapes and sizes, and everyone else was much more serious than the Pitcher Killers, I thought for sure they were gonna kill Joe for spilling the beer. One guy around our age started off with 9 straight strikes before crapping out in the 10th frame.
I ended up rolling a 171 my first game, which was my second highest score ever. “This game is too easy” I thought to myself in a Dikembe like tone. I was convinced that I’d be ranked in the top ten in the league in no time. Second game, a 141, was still a respectable score for this novice bowler.
By the time the third game rolled around I was a) getting tired, b) getting a sore arm, and c) getting a bit tipsy. I ended up with a 90. Hey, I still beat Joe. My cumulative average was a respectable 134, earning me top score for our team for the night.
Marian helped us fill out our USBC (United States Bowling Congress) application, so I will be a card carrying member for the next 1.5 years. She also gave us her “card”, a rainbow colored pen with her information printed on it. She’s the best. She also promised that she was going to take us under her wing and make sure we do our best to not annoy or do anything worse to the other bowlers.
I’ll try to let everyone know how we do as the season progresses, maybe by the end I’ll have my own Skull Ball and fitted shoes.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Cha Cha Cha
It’s been a while since I’ve put something up on here, so I thought I’d write a quick story about the date Diana and I had on Saturday.
We had tried to go see Ozomatli earlier that day at some big radio station concert, but it was a big CF from the beginning. We went the wrong way once we got down to the piers, then we saw the line to get into the show was at least a mile long, no exaggeration. The doors were at 4, Ozomatli was supposed to go on at 4:30, and there was no way we were gonna catch the band waiting in that line. So we abandoned our tickets and made our way back to our place, a little tired and a little grumpy.
We decided that we’d go out and eat at a restaurant in The Upper Haight called Cha Cha Cha. It was a nice tapas joint that had a cool ambiance about it and was absolutely packed. Getting a table was going to be a wait of about 45 minutes, but then the host told us that we could belly up to the bar and eat there with a minimal wait. We considered our options and our growling stomachs and chose option B.
The bar was staffed by two very efficient, likeable servers. We ordered a large pitcher of sangria that was really good, and ended up packing a bit of a punch. The sangria at Cha Cha Cha is a well known staple, it was swimming with apples, pears, oranges and grapes and was a perfect drink for our meal.
Our first item to come out of the kitchen was a delicious seviche salad. The shrimp, scallops and calamari were all very fresh and the lime juice was fresh squeezed and made for a nice start to the meal.
Next up was a tapas staple, mushrooms. These were just the right size so they weren’t too woody or stiff. They were tender, buttery and seasoned with fresh herbs. Just a great dish overall.
The following dish was jerk chicken. This one was my favorite due to the combination of the fall-off-the-bone chicken and the sauce which had a nice level of heat. It was just spicy enough, but not so overpowering that it would ruin the flavors of the seviche or the mushrooms. Served on a bed of fluffy jasmine rice, I could have had this alone and been happy.
To top off the meal we had a nice coconut flan that was sweet, sticky and a perfect end to dinner. We finished off the last of our sangria, tipped out our servers, and made our way into the chilly evening and down a few blocks to The Gold Cane.
The Gold Cane reminds me of a NE MPLS bar, with a decent jukebox, cheap drinks and a stuffed moose head on the wall. The old Irish bartender that is always there was in a great mood (perhaps because he drinks on the job) as always. Diana grabbed us a 22 oz. cider and a bourbon ginger ale which ended up being an affordable $8. In the meantime, I bullied the jukebox and played tons of Aggrolites, Against Me, Bouncing Souls and Dropkick Murphys. We ended up making friends with a couple of other drunk Irishmen who enjoyed changing the lyrics of Pogues songs to make fun of each other or other bar patrons.
It was a great way to salvage what had started off as a difficult day.
We had tried to go see Ozomatli earlier that day at some big radio station concert, but it was a big CF from the beginning. We went the wrong way once we got down to the piers, then we saw the line to get into the show was at least a mile long, no exaggeration. The doors were at 4, Ozomatli was supposed to go on at 4:30, and there was no way we were gonna catch the band waiting in that line. So we abandoned our tickets and made our way back to our place, a little tired and a little grumpy.
We decided that we’d go out and eat at a restaurant in The Upper Haight called Cha Cha Cha. It was a nice tapas joint that had a cool ambiance about it and was absolutely packed. Getting a table was going to be a wait of about 45 minutes, but then the host told us that we could belly up to the bar and eat there with a minimal wait. We considered our options and our growling stomachs and chose option B.
The bar was staffed by two very efficient, likeable servers. We ordered a large pitcher of sangria that was really good, and ended up packing a bit of a punch. The sangria at Cha Cha Cha is a well known staple, it was swimming with apples, pears, oranges and grapes and was a perfect drink for our meal.
Our first item to come out of the kitchen was a delicious seviche salad. The shrimp, scallops and calamari were all very fresh and the lime juice was fresh squeezed and made for a nice start to the meal.
Next up was a tapas staple, mushrooms. These were just the right size so they weren’t too woody or stiff. They were tender, buttery and seasoned with fresh herbs. Just a great dish overall.
The following dish was jerk chicken. This one was my favorite due to the combination of the fall-off-the-bone chicken and the sauce which had a nice level of heat. It was just spicy enough, but not so overpowering that it would ruin the flavors of the seviche or the mushrooms. Served on a bed of fluffy jasmine rice, I could have had this alone and been happy.
To top off the meal we had a nice coconut flan that was sweet, sticky and a perfect end to dinner. We finished off the last of our sangria, tipped out our servers, and made our way into the chilly evening and down a few blocks to The Gold Cane.
The Gold Cane reminds me of a NE MPLS bar, with a decent jukebox, cheap drinks and a stuffed moose head on the wall. The old Irish bartender that is always there was in a great mood (perhaps because he drinks on the job) as always. Diana grabbed us a 22 oz. cider and a bourbon ginger ale which ended up being an affordable $8. In the meantime, I bullied the jukebox and played tons of Aggrolites, Against Me, Bouncing Souls and Dropkick Murphys. We ended up making friends with a couple of other drunk Irishmen who enjoyed changing the lyrics of Pogues songs to make fun of each other or other bar patrons.
It was a great way to salvage what had started off as a difficult day.
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