(You’ll never hear the words I, Me, or Myself more in any other column in your lifetime.)

December 2000

Man, have I been traveling a lot lately. For the past five years I pretty much confined myself to the Bay Area, but all that’s changing now. Lately I find myself behind the wheel of my car, uncontrollably possessed with an urge to leave this Baghdad-by-the-Bay I love so much. As I write this I just got in from Los Angeles a few hours ago. The drive would have taken less time if, on the way down, I had planned my departure time wisely instead of crossing the Bay Bridge to 580 on a whim during rush hour. And, on the way back, if I hadn’t decided to leave Venice Beach and hop on that giant parking lot known as the 405 at 5:15pm on a weekday. Of course, my car overheating on the Grapevine and getting repaired in Northridge didn’t help either.

The first thing I did upon arriving in the City of Angels was get a room from Minh, the friendly desk clerk at Vermont Motel (1717 S. Vermont in Koreatown). There’s still almost-piping-hot coffee and nearly-fresh bananas next to the elevator and, luckily, the Playboy Channel in every room. I drove north up Vermont Avenue and hit a charming neighborhood called Los Feliz. According to some of the shop owners there, Los Feliz is the new hip neighborhood in LA, supplanting nearby Silverlake of that honor. Famed SF Herald columnist Howard Hallis and his girlfriend stood me up for dinner, so I walked in on a party at some trendy clothing boutique called Aero & Co. (I forgot their address and phone number so look it up), complete with a techno DJ who was all smiles. Actually, everyone there was all smiles. It was pretty low on the ‘tude-ometer, which was a pleasant surprise. I met a nice chap there by the name of Leonardo Bravo, who actually threw the party there. It was a reception of a project of his called Transit, which he calls "a new curatorial project I’ve started which will provide an exchange between the fine arts and design disciplines. I’m interested in the crossover that can take place by bringing the arts outside of the stuffy comfines of art galleries and into spaces that are trafficked and visited by a wide selection of the public. I believe there is a self-isolation and insularity that is nurtured by the contemporary arts world and more is needed to build bridges between all creative disciplines.

My involvement in the local arts community has always been at the grassroots/alternative/non-profit level, always seeking to expand the dialogue and conversations that can exist within these entities." Leonardo can be reached at 1bravo@galef.org.

I sincerely had a good time, and not only because I drank too much Merlot. I asked one of the women who own the place if she wanted to get a late dinner. She said no, so I staggered into Palermo Ristorante Italiano (1858 N. Vermont, 323-663-1178), and let me tell you, I sure am glad I did. This place is my favorite Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. Anthony Fanara, the manager, told me it’s been there for about 25 years, before hipness existed in Los Feliz, but they still manage to keep attracting the old loyal customers along with the newer, less-loyal ones. Great food, and great service, too. Suzanna the waitress was an absolute joy, as was Diane the barmaid. "Absolute joy"? If I keep this up I’ll be using words like "divine" and listening to Judy Garland records. Hang on, time for a testosterone shot. Wheeww. Okay, I’m back. How about those Jets, eh?

Anyway, make sure you visit Los Feliz the next time you’re in LA. What was that? Oh, you NEVER go to LA. My my, aren’t we soooo San Francisco. Look, we can drop the "I hate LA" routine. Hey, I’ve spent half my life in New York and the other half in San Francisco, the two places on Earth that despise LA the most, and let me tell you , the "LA is so fake and San Francisco is so real" argument that worked for so long has been dead for at least 5 years with the dot-com invasion. Hey, if you’re going to have a town full of SUV-driving assholes, at least let them be surgically-enhanced beautiful, not a bunch of computer nerds. Venice Beach... now that’s what I call Silicon Valley! Heh-heh. Tee-hee. Speaking of Venice, I got to see my favorite record store in West LA... Benway Records! It’s at 1600 Pacific Avenue if you face the beach, 64 Windward Avenue if you’re not. Each address has a different phone number, too. (310) 396-8898 for Pacific and (310) 399-9098 for Windward. (????????)

Owner Ron Benway and manager Ron Barnett ("The Two Ronnies") enjoy their great location at celebrity central. As I was there, Barnett walked in and told me he just saw Orson Bean standing in line at the Venice Post Office. We were impressed, natch, until we couldn’t quite figure out what Orson had been in. I brought up that he was a frequent guest on Merv Griffin when I was a kid, and that he had written an autobiography many years ago, and that he dropped acid once (who knows, maybe more than once.) Ron (I forgot which one) mentioned he was in a new movie that was out recently, though no one remembered its name. Ron also said he sees Elliott Gould (wearing sunglasses) in said post office sometimes, and that the M*A*S*H star once got ticked off that someone cut in line. The downside to their fabulous locale is you get all these people coming in from out of town asking them, "Dude, where does Perry Farrell live?"

Oh well, I managed to buy some used cassettes there for the trip home. Nothing great, but fond remembrances of life in the late eighties, before I graduated college and had my spirit destroyed by working those shit post-college jobs of the real world. I bought Steve Windwood’s uplifting "Back in the High Life", the singles collection of Orchestral Manuevers in the Dark (with the early ‘80’s great stuff like "Enola Gay" and "Souveneir" degenerating into the late ‘80’s bubble gum pop of "Dreaming" and "If You Leave"), and of course, the grand jigs of "Fisherman’s Blues" by the Waterboys. My piece-of-shit car overheated again in Fresno. I gingerly opened the radiator cap and it blew off like a rocket, showering my engine in a boiling hot rain (luckily I dove out of the way in time to avoid searing pain and permanent disfigurement.)

It was dark and I couldn’t find the radiator cap. No one in the Chevron/McDonald’s at the rest stop had a flashlight. Go figure. Luckily, these guys in a van from Quebec lent me one and I found the cap. As it turns out, they were headed to San Francisco, too. I was so grateful I told them they could stay with me when they got there. I never heard back from them, though. I guess a guy from San Francisco offering to put you up for the night is a red flag to the rest of the world, if you know what I mean (and I think you do.) And here I am now, typing this column, listening to "It’s a fine line, a very fine line, split decision" playing away on my tape deck, as I continue to type, and type, and type as day turns to night and I will give up seeing "Manilow Live" on KQED tonight to attend a cocktail party in the Haight thrown by SF Herald columnist Hellen Wheels (and her little dog, Tu) where I will see San Francisco’s hottest new artist Laurie Jacobs and perhaps, famed SF Herald columnist Mr. Fabulous. After that, I’ll check out Jeremiah Johnson play some reggae at Pier 23. An absolute joy I’m sure it will be. So divine. Okay, I’m going to stop now. The next words you read will be have been written the next day (December 10th) as I continue speaking of my travels around the Golden State and a little excursion I made to the Sunshine State (a.k.a. Southern Empire State.)

Well, these are the next words you’re reading and they’re being written a week behind schedule on December 17th. The party was divine. An absolute joy, I say. The background music was via MP3, and Helen’s fiance actually snuck a few early songs by The Damned on! When was the last time you heard The Damned at a party? Hell, when was the last time you heard The Damned? After it ended, I walked back to my car and noticed some Irish kids in their 20’s had left another party and were having trouble hailing a taxi. One pretty lass was about to flash her breasts to get one to stop, so I intervened and offered to give them a ride, which they accepted. We all piled into my Toyota Corrolla ("The Paddy Wagon") and I dropped them off at some Irish pub in the Sunset. The pretty lass took a copy of the Herald and said she’d call me. She still hasn’t. Maybe she thought it was the Irish Herald....

San Francisco’s hottest new artist Laurie Jacobs threw a fun little shindig last Friday (December 15th) where we all watched "Nash Bridges" starring Don Johnson because they used the lobby of her building as a set during that night’s episode. Granted, we watched it with the sound off because we were all talking and being self-absorbed, but we still got to her lobby on CBS. Apparently Laurie ran into two guys who scout sets for the show and she bugged the shit out of them until they gave in. Ironically, December 15th was Don Johnson’s birthday. Don still hasn’t sent me an autographed glossy photo of himself for me to give to my stepmother in Florida for Christmas. Granted, I never wrote to him, I just assumed he would see my request that I printed in last issue’s Society Page. Oh well. The big excitement of the night, however, turned out to be Laurie’s "Christmas Torture" routine, where we were forced to open presents that turned out to be less-than-fashionable sweaters to a chorus of those familiar, not-very-sincere "Ohhhhhhhh"s and "Ahhhhhhh"s we hear each year from family members.

Apparently Laurie’s grandmother Mildred in Palm Beach (Yes! Someone who actually screwed up on one of those Butterfly ballots) sends her dear granddaughter 100-pound cartons of little white tennis dresses (with coffee-stains from 1963 on them), along with golf cleats and cow-necked sweaters from the ‘80’s. Laurie donates much of this clothing to homeless shelters and is often amused when, soon afterward, she encounters the city’s downtrodden sporting the same outfits her grandmother wore twenty years ago to visit Ethel Kennedy....

Oh, here are 3 pieces of info I forgot to mention in my rant about LA. I found them on Venice Beach. 1.) If you want to "avoid scams, save time, save money" breaking into show biz, then check out www.actingbreak.com (by the way, if you want to check out a REAL scam breaking into show biz, go to www.sfherald.com, click on "columnists", then click on James Dylan’s "Talent Agency Scam in San Francisco" story.) 2.) If you do want to break into show biz, I saw this sign in the window of a house along Venice Beach: "urbanpill.com A Venice Movie". 3.) Heartbroken that San Francisco dot coms dedicated to pets have gone bust and the sock puppet has gone to cyber-heaven? Then take your canine to Doggie Style Bath & Boutique (1301 Main Street in Venice.) Great name, eh?...

Lord I was born a ramblin’ man: Another uncontrollable urge to leave town came on November 14th. When my hands gripped the steering wheel of my piece-of-shit Toyota Corrolla and wouldn’t let up until I had found the hidden town of Bolinas, California. I drove into Marin County trying to find this small city, but the residents of said community always tear down their town’s sign on the main road, so it’s very difficult to locate. My interest had been piqued by an article the Chronicle ran last year about how Martha Stewart was thinking of buying a house there (that turned out to be false, thank God) and that the people who live in Bolinas don’t want anyone to visit them. I had an uneasy feeling there, as though I was being watched... by the whole town! My friend Clay had told me, before I left, that he knew this guy who went there and a bunch of bikers chased him out of their fair city. I figured I’d be incognito and would put the townsfolk at ease if I walked around taking notes. I forgot my notepad, so I walked into the local market to buy one. The market had no name, just a series of small paintings on it’s side wall. Most of them were landscapes, or psychadelic looking.

The one that stood out the most was one of a police badge that said "Bolinas Border Patrol" on it. At the cash register there was a sign that said "Sign Reciept. 1% Goes to Schools". What do I do? Do you have to be a registered taxpayer in Bolinas to sign it? Do I tell her I don’t live here? What would happen to me if I told her I don’t live here? Would she blow a whistle and would I be attacked by vigilantes? Oh boy, I wanted to find out! Oddly, she asked the people in front of me in line to sign their reciepts, but not me. Dejected, I left. Next door there was a For Sale sign on the Gibson House, which must have been a breakfast restaurant because the wooden awning in front of it had a giant wooden picture of a croissant nailed to it. There wasn’t a menu in the glass-enclosed case out front, only an acrylic painting and some Tarot cards.

The Chronicle newspaper box below it had been painted purple psychadelic. I walked across the street to Smiley’s Hotel for a club soda. There was a sign above the bar that said "Hangovers installed and serviced". Barry White was playing on the jukebox. The regulars nursing their Budweisers at the bar looked at each other, trying desperately to alleviate their boredom with pointless conversation:

"Wudyaget?"

"Ribs. (Chomp, chomp, chomp). Hey, git your dog outta here."

"Hey! Git! Git!"

I drank and left, realizing this was probably the place where those bikers chased Clay’s friend out of town.

Down the street was the Bolinas Gallery. It was closed but I peeked inside: A Wavy Gravy poster and some paintings by an artist fixated on Jamaicans, Ethiopians, and American Indians.

The town bulletin board was more interesting than the ones in San Carlos or Woodside:

"The Perfect Living Situation -- Two gentle, harmonious economically-minded mature women seek a dwelling in which we can:

1. Have a quiet space to meditate, practice yoga, make music, read, make crafts, etc.

2. Have space in which to grow a lot of our food and herbs.

3. Start our own internet business with right livelihood consciousness.

4. Cook delicious, nutritious meals, offer massage, housecleaning, bookkeeping, word processing.

We are open to exchanging some of these skills for some portion of the rent. (Phone number)"

"Mike’s Down Underdiving Service"

"Chrome Johnson @ Smiley’s 11/11 @ 9pm"

"An evening of vibrational healing with Diana Allen, Shamanic Healer, Sacred Sound Musician, & Visionary Artist. (Only $25 at the door.)"

"Multi-Dimensional Cellular healing (NOT cellular phones.)"

"Call the White House because of discrepancies in the way the vote was taken."

"Lost Dog"

Well okay, that last one wasn’t very interesting.

Bolinas has a monthly paper that’s certainly more interesting than most small town papers, with more of a leftist bent. It’s called the Great Western Pacific Coastal Post (www.coastalpost.com). To wrap things up, I’d like to thank the people of Bolinas for making me feel so welco-- well, for not all jumping me at once. Bolinas is a cute little town and I’m glad I saw it before I died. That said, I’ll say to my readers what the people of Bolinas probably want to say to you: It’s a nice town. You read about it in the paper. Please don’t visit. Thank you.... I drove and drove and drove for hours until I reached Fort Bragg. (The drive included one humorous incident in which a redneck in a white pick-up truck decided he didn’t like my "Wynn’s Motors SAN FRANCISCO" license plate holder, so we cussed at each other, spit at each other, and flipped each other off down a winding road in the rain for 15 minutes... I should have just let it go, his parents were probably cousins) It was the nadir of tourist season so I got a cheap room.

Fort Bragg had that California hippy-dippy quality like Bolinas, except people were less xenophobic. The guy behind the counter at Cheshire Books wouldn’t give me change to buy the morning paper in the rack outside, so I went to Headlands Coffee House (120 East Laurel St., 707-964-1987) and picked up a copy of The Monthly Rag with the appropriate subheading "Because it’s that time of the month again!". Headlands is the hip cafe in Fort Bragg, owned by David, Mary & Peter Gealey. Afterwards, I stopped in at the Mendocino Hemp Company (366 N. Main St., 707-962-0555), which is run by Ms. Andrea Luna.

A hemp store in lumber country, pretty ironic, huh? Call Andrea for your eco-friendly needs. While I was there I ran into an artist, Susan Miller, who collects and sells Huichol Indian art from northwest Mexico. Susan says they’re probably the most culturally-intact Indian tribe in Mexico. If you have any interest in Huichol art call Susan at (707) 964-0622, or you can see the art for yourself at Global Exchange here in SF and Berkeley. Everyone in Fort Bragg told me that their town was more REAL, and that neighboring Mendocino was too yuppie, but I found downtown Mendocino very beautful. If you haven’t been there, the storefronts are right on the ocean, with the waves crashing against the rocks. Just beautiful. It was sort of yuppie, but there were some interesting shops, like Out of this World (45100 Main St., P.O. Box 1010) which sells "premium optics and science play", which as I recall was a bunch of telescopes and "Star Wars" merchandise. They’re at DiscountTelescopes.com.

The only bar I found there was Dick’s Place, which had Steppenwolf playing on the juke box and a guy passed out on the table. The town sure was pretty, though. It’s too bad my late mother (my birth mother) never got to visit. I could picture her going store to store, spending her child support money on useless knick-knacks for our cluttered home. The ride back was gorgeous. I got to see all those redwoods and ocean views I couldn’t see driving up at night. On the way back I stopped in at the office (more like the barn) of that infamous leftist weekly, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which Alexander Cockburn writes for. Publisher Bruce Anderson (no they didn’t name Anderson Valley after him) wasn’t in, but I did get to talk with his associates....

Sandwiched inbetween Mendocino County and Los Angeles was my Thanksgiving family reunion in Tampa Bay. A real blast, I tell you. I mean it. I’ve got a great family! I went to the best part of sleepy Tampa... Ybor City. I know I wrote about this place last year, but it really is a swell neighborhood, adorned with nauseatingly trendy clothing stores, dance clubs, cafes, cigar shops, and bars. If you’re down there, visit. It’s like Valencia Street, except with lovely southern belles (and no tattoos). I brought my mini-tape recorder along so I could report the action in Tallahassee and West Palm Beach, but I was 5 hours from each place and didn’t have enough time to cover the election mess, which turned out to be a good thing because I’m sure all of you are sick of hearing about it.

Despite that, here are some thoughts regarding our most recent presidential election: Undemocratic, contemptible, a miscarriage of justice. Legally, it doesn’t matter that Al Gore received about a half million more votes than George W. Bush in the popular vote. Legally, it doesn’t matter that many Jewish senior citizens of West Palm Beach who wanted to vote for Gore accidentally voted for Buchanan, a candidate many (if not all) of them would view as being anti-semetic, doesn’t matter. For the average Gore voter, those 2 incidents have moral validity, but no realistic legal basis. The average voter (and Gore supporter) would file those under "Tough Luck". But here’s a moral outrage the average voter might not so easily file away; How the Bush campaign ran on a platform of states’ rights and then called in the feds when the state supreme court ruled against them, and how the feds stopped a recount that was quickly moving in Gore’s favor (less than a 160 vote difference) after deferring the case to the state supreme court.

If Bush hadn’t held the case up in the courts the entire state of Florida could have had a recount in a timely fashion. Those who say the recount, by law, had to be completed within 7 days and that’s it are missing the point; That when the law (a state law) was questioned as being physically possible, it was perfectly reasonable to have the judiciary (the state judiciary) interpret it. If the tables had been reversed and Gore went to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a Florida recount which was obviously moving rapidly in Bush’s favor, that would have been despicable enough, but to get the state supreme court overruled by the feds while running as a champion of the 12th amendment is lower than any legal maneuvering Clinton ever did (and that’s low.) Low, but apparently, legal. Oh well, Ralph Nader got his wish; He took away enough votes from Gore to ensure a Bush victory so that 4 years from now Americans will be fed up with Dubya and we’ll all become tree-hugging vegans who will take back the White House. Yeah, that 3% of the vote you got, Ralph -- it’s probably instilling fear into Trent Lott every day...

Thanks to Don for leaving me a voicemail message after reading my plea in last month’s column about how I wanted to live near the beach by the N-Judah line. Don said he knew "a Chinese landlord", but as it turns out, I took the room for rent where I live, so now I have 2 rooms (a living space and an office.) Thanks anyway, Don, I appreciate the call! Call me back, I owe you a beer. I decided to take the other room in my house when it looked as though my landlords were going to rent it out to this very intense woman who wanted to interview everyone in the house first to see if we were respectable enough for her to move in. Luckily, the guy in the basement hasn’t freaked out again as of this writing. But now that the vent from downstairs is in my new room, and hence my new room constantly smells like a Black Crowes concert, I can understand why he’s not very animated... There’s a new (or at least relatively new, I never noticed it before today) women’s clothing store on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto called Chico’s.

They’re online at www.chicos.com.... Thai-rific of Mountain View now has a Thai restaurant at 1199 Valencia @ 23rd here in the "new" Mission.... Adam White’s Mission Records & Tapes is still on Mission near 19th for all your punk needs. When I was there I noticed a flyer for "Punk Related Soccer" the last Sunday every month at 2 in Golden Gate Park, at 9th and Lincoln (on the Sunset side). NONCOMPETITIVE.... I got to see Chameleons U.K., this band I really dug in ‘84, at Slim’s recently. I highly recommend you get their first release "Script of the Bridge" (I haven’t listened to the later recordings but I heard they’re very good.) The band’s leader Mark Burgess, who I chatted with at the bar and was very nice, told me they have a new album coming out shortly, so look for it.

Some people consider them to be the greatest underrated band ever. If you like Bush (the band, not the president), you’ll LOVE Chameleons U.K. If you surf the web looking for info on them, you can also input "The Chameleons" because that’s their name in the U.K..... San Francisco’s politically active youth organization, Third Eye Movement, released its first compilation CD (self-titled) on December 22, full of hip-hop and spoken word....

I’d love to tell you about the recent show by Dogstar, whom Keanu Reeves plays bass for, at Slim’s. I’d love to , but someone somewhere along the line forgot to put me on the guest list, and the show was sold out. Anyway, Ultimatum Music did send me their latest CD, and I’m forwarding it to my music critic (I still haven’t figured out how to hook up my CD player.) Look for Keanu’s upcoming movie "Sweet November" which should be out in February, I believe. They filmed a lot of it in Potrero Hill. Charlize Theron is in it, too. Oh, and Warner Brothers sent me a waiver so they could use the San Francisco Herald as a background prop in it! Is there an academy award for Best Background Prop? I think the guy on the phone said they might have a shot of Keanu’s character reading it in his apartment, or something like that. Hell, knowing Hollywood it’ll end up on the cutting room floor, but it’s still neat, y’know?... Well, folks... if you haven’t noticed, an institution in the Tenderloin is no more. That’s right... Homeboy Liquors has been out of business for a few months now. Occasional SF Herald columnist Scott White told me they had a great gourmet wine selection at incredibly low prices. Hey, who needed to go to Napa when we had Homeboy? Wine may have been available there, but something tells me the "40" was the hot seller, judging from what the patrons out front were drinking. So long, Homeboy. I’ll miss ya....

Home BASE telecommunication Business Opportunity Available (MLM) call (510) 266-5857.... Hey folks, how about that short, fat, French skin care specialist on Union Street? Isn’t she great? Sorry.... Thanks to all of my loyal readers who have called to tell me about the unknown person(s) who has been inserting photostats of right-wing propaganda within the pages of the SF Herald. This is all being done at the most beautiful cafe in San Francisco, Seattle Street Coffee. I spoke with Pete, the cafe’s owner, and he doesn’t know who’s doing it either. To this person or persons: It’s nice that you’re passionate about some things, but even if I did agree with your views (which I don’t) you have no right to insert them within the pages of my newspaper. What you are doing is illegal. Please stop before I decide to pursue this further. You’re perfectly free to start your own newsletter. Thank you, and good luck....

Sign up for a writing workshop, The Craft & Business of Magazine Writing with Ethan Watters (10 Wednesdays from January 24-- March 28, 6:30pm--9:00pm, $300). Call (415) 441-6670 for more info.... The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, an Asian Pacific Islander American comedy theater group, present "My Own Private Sukiprata", opening January 17th and closing January 28th. Call (415) 646-0868 for info and reservations.... Okay, that’s it for now. Make sure you use all the coupons in this issue. Oh, and if you happen to pass by Pacific Rims Optometry in the Inner Sunset, stop in and politely tell them you saw their ad in the SF Herald.... Make sure you log on to www.sfherald.com and find your soulmate through SF Herald Personals. It’s so easy and inexpensive! Don’t wait another moment, do it now! At least check it out! And while you’re there, if you’re into astrology, check out Rockie Horoscope. Okay. Take care.