Friday the Thirteenth of February

 under construction

Lovely weather, high weather, mysterious aircraft, eschatology not quite now

In which the intrepid Flaneur undertakes a circadian February crossing subsumed by triskaidekaphobia . 

The circle will not be unbroken.

The first anomaly in my region of space: I discovered as the Oakland Ferry pulled in that I had forgotten to pack the adorable joint I had rolled this morning. Since I had at least had a wee puff for me aches and pains before my shower, and it was from a burning blend of OG Kush and Jack Herrer, both potent and long-lasting, I decided I would go ahead anyway. I did have a small jar a brandy to have with my lunch so quel dommage?

I was to find out.

1.

Coming in

Sizable Coast Guard ship at Bay Ship

The path we took

Astonishingly we would reach seventy degree balminess today,

But it was still a bit February out in the middle of the Bay

Almost there now

A young seal regards his lazy obese elders,

An observable social order exists here

There was a bull seal back on the last pontoon

Five times the size of the average female

The Emperor Norton, self-appointed

Is the patron saint to San Francisco's 

Longstanding Legion of eccentric alcoholics

Looks like the Bay Area could us a good scrubbing

Totally-toned swimmers proud of body

Turned-out as always

The crabs were on ice

  "Famous" child actor I did not really recall,

Act famous and people will think that you are

2.

 Aquatic Park

See that flying object in the sky over the bridge?
It's a twenty-first century plane
With two huge helicopter-like propellers
Set at an angle from the wings 

In the sky left of the ship

Is that plane again, returning from it's strange mission

(The kids fishing off the pier were about to dump their bait)

Here are both planes returning,

They had been escorted by two large military helicopters

Not the Chinooks I had since last month,

(Note gulls after bait dump)

This is the closest view of it I managed to capture,
I remarked to a friendly swimmer that every time I come to San Francisco
There was a show of military might.
He said that was Obama who flew over,
I had heard on the radio today that the President was speaking at Stanford,

3.

Going home

The real Friday the Thirteenth sequence began when I had hauled the long haul back to Pier 41only to discover that the old 5:30 Oakland boat no longer sails, it now originates at the Ferry building downtown only as does the next boat. I then attempted to catch the street car to get to the Ferry building but an ever-growing mob were awaiting it and no cars were even in sight.
If I had me herb I would have been more patient. I should have merely walked the mile and a half and caught the next Ferry building-only departure at 6:20. Although overcrowded and menaced by bikes, it was all at sea-level and a much easier walk than the one I ended up taking. More importantly it wouldn't have fated me to fight me way through and then out of the city.

Instead I crossed this MUNI yard dazed by a surrealistic cloud.
Before an hour had passed I was feeling transient contempt for San Francisco, for how miserable modern life has made it.

Things seemed about to take a turn for the noir,

I've seen this guy somewhere before,

I climbed arduous Stockton street through North Beach

The neighborhood was convivial as people began the holiday weekend,

You rarely get evenings as comfortable and mild in the summer

A hellish bus through dysfunctional Chinese Stockton street,

Followed by an involuntary detour to Masonic

Unhappy, so I got off and walked.

From the romantic illusions of Fisherman's Wharf's materialism,

to the hardened materialism of Chinatown's rush hour

to the satanic materialism around Geary and Powell

BART was another giant step into the realm of nightmare.
I had to stand on sore legs in a ridiculously stuffed train
But it got me back where that cute little smoke had saved itself just for me.

Postscript

Turns out it was a flyover by the President I saw. He was in the large helicopter and three MV-22 Ospreys joined him in the sky.

Here's a clip:

 
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=obama%27s+visit+to+san+francisco+february+13&vid=0c2878f78a22e3db83fadc5968a5743c&l=3%3A13&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608017771583442015%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DV3XFVm_zH_s&tit=President+Obama+Marine+One+%26+Ospreys+takeoff+Crissy+Field+San+Francisco+%28February+13%2C+2015%29&c=1&sigr=11bcl26ht&sigt=12ragt4tu&sigi=11ran9ii6&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dobama%2527s%2Bvisit%2Bto%2Bsan%2Bfrancisco%2Bfebruary%2B13%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=13o895mat&ct=p&age=1423871110&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&tt=b

13 February 2015

American Sniper

On Sunday I went to Jack London cinemas  for American Sniper

(depressing unredeemed)

during the crucial firefight a guy sitting next to me who had

demanded that a ghetto gal in the row in front of us put her jumbo phone screen down

He was blackish too--she ignored him.

Then I saw him turning on his own  cell phone screen to my puzzlement;

whereupon he shone it in the face of the girl and her tough ghetto boyfriend.

The boyfriend wasn't going to sit still for that.

The guy next to me yelled at him and he lunged just as two uniforms showed up

They get between them and then ghetto guy lunges again

and they all fall down in the aisle.

This is all immediately next to me.

I wasn't scared -- I wanted my movie without distraction, damn it

The "cops" got them up and led away only  the ghetto couple.

I felt it was an injustice:

they were rude but he was aggressive toward them

"You're going to jail" the older guy shouted gleefully triumphant,

twice.

You wonder why so many black people are in the hoosegow when

so many act like it was still the liberated 70s not repressive 2015.

(from an email)

Mainstreet USA Revisited in Winter

Building a library of rare books, a lionine calling 

With some wear and foxing to frontispiece

Whenever there's a soft parade, the Flaneur notes the floats,

1.

One afternoon on the other side

Scuba shop with style

You hit this place before going on an underwater caper

Like a sixties undercover cop movie

May the past be with you,

The land of kookie kitsch,

Where everything was sort of cool

Remember swinging?

Me neither

Music From Another World,

A space age classic,

Remember to flip it over

Here comes the Coast Guard again

Not some sentimental nostalgia,

 This ain't McHales Navy Operation Petticoat

Just serious business,

 Homeland Security

December 2014

2.

So Early in the Year

In January in Northern California

You can lie in green grass

In winter the water is preternaturally calm,

Low tide is like the Bay went away

Peaceful afternoon on the submarine walkway

Over the sun's pathway 

On rolling lawns by the beach

Old-time design on Santa Clara

California dream house across from the bank

The Flaneur loves a mansarde

This reminds me of all the winter sunsets

Watched from an attic window in my family home

The bank itself,

Its design incorporates the street name,

Remnant of dignified times

No mystery to this dormant pole

The barber closed his business

The Guitar Army on parade,

Jim Morrison lived in Alameda as a youth

I once went to a record shop along here 

For an exhibition of Jim's high school age artwork,

Needless to say, it was a bit sick

Time for me to bounce on along

On my wheels of steel,

We wave goodbye Main Street USA

January 2015

Mais Non, Je ne Suis pas Charlie

The thing about the Charlie affair is the mag did not act as an equal opportunity insult medium.

When they ran a cartoon by Sine ( great I even had a book of his)

showing Sakozy's son donning Hebrew drag to marry a rich Jewish girl

  Sine was forced to resign from Charlie

Moreover, notice how scarce reproductions of Charlie's scabrous cartoons are in the US etc media?

They should be on t-shirts with "Je Suis Charlie" in big letters:

Jesus sodomizing God the Father while being sodomized by the Holy Ghost should be popular

(that act of spite and malice was to protest resistance to same-sex marriage)

Or the Prophet with his buttocks spread and a dripping penis.

Sounds close to hate speech,

which of course is absolutely sniffed-out and punished in France if it in any remote way can be labeled anti-Jewish.

This is just an opportunity for those who wish to fan islamophobia to have a convention

Netanyahu was asked by French president to stay home and stay away from the march--

instead he and a bodyguard shoved his way to the the front ---to make it all about Israel.

There's a funny YouTube edit of him pushing his way with the Looney Tunes music.

The Hebdo perps were alienated French citizens who saw hatred and hated in return.





(from an email)

Museum Grounds

 

The Flaneur looks back one year for images of a sunny day in the court of a museum unnamed.

 Lake Merritt from a very precarious perspective,

If I had slipped at the Golden Gate I would have survived,

This is more like the edge of the American Falls at Niagra

 He would have made Blue Meanie alarm noises,

Had I fallen

 But safety, solitude and the hope of something else

 And peace shall be our sign

 A peace that surpasses

Arbitrary laws of ownership and debt

 A prismatic effect of the mind

 Clouds in the water

Fish in the sky

 The Flaneur seeks to acheive

A pleasantly semi-abstract state

 Reckon I'll mosey on fairly soon

 Just then a bolt of lightning

Struck the court house out of shape

VIP section

 Crossing the street

 

 Just passing through

A note: Those familiar with this museum with no doubt recognize it from these images. There is a reason that I do not actually promote the place or identify it for my readers.
For decades it has been a place of enlightenment and enjoyment. I recall coming to hear the poet Robert Duncan speaking here as early as 1979.
I liked a rather small percentage of the art but was gratified to see some of the artists associated with the Beats were on permanent display--Bruce Conner, Jay deFeo, George Herms.
The independent historian in me savored the contemporary history exhibits which in fact included a Beat Generation tableaux with artifacts donated by Vesuvio's in North Beach including the sign selling beatnik kits to tourists. Another one showed a Berkeley bus stop littered with political and hippie-related flyers. We added an old brass hash pipe to the detritus under the bench.
So many visits over so many years led me to feel acute disappointment over the recent cancellation of an art show by Palestinian children. It seems that activists, in the service of the right-wing interests of the State of Israel, had sufficient clout to get the museum to snuff it with an iron fist. Just following orders.  Incredibly, they hurt all those innocent kids. These are just kids who spent months preparing the show with hope for their future. I guess they just don't represent the big donors.

Peace, indeed.

No big deal to the museum I'm sure, but they lost me as a booster, permanently.

January 2014