Farewell Clementina Show

As of November 1, The Clementina Show is no longer being broadcast on a channel that we receive. It isn't off the air, we just don't get to watch it anymore.

I wish there were a word that expressed the feeling of no longer experiencing something horrible that you don't really miss, exactly, but still feel an unexpected affection for. This is the word I would use to describe how I feel about moving off of Clementina St.

True to form, The Clementina Show season finale was impressive. The night before we moved out, on our way to dinner we walked past a woman wearing a tiara who was squatting and peeing through her pants onto the sidewalk.

For our farewell dinner we went to check out a new fancy sausage place called "Show Dogs" that had just opened up two blocks from our Clementina joint. While we were paying for our fancy dogs, urine-reeking tiara lady showed up to "trick or treat," but instead of grabbing a Starburst from the proffered bucket she reached over the bucket, into the tip jar and grabbed a wad of bills. When the woman behind the counter protested, the woman paused, smiled dementedly, put a single dollar back in and then ran out of the restaurant.*

The next morning, as we left to get the truck for our move, we noticed some fresh human poo and other goodies on our sidewalk. There were also some people doing some form of hard drugs in a car parked across the street.

We had no second thoughts about our move.


*When we left, Eric dropped a few bucks in the tip jar, saying "Don't let the trick-or-treaters get it!"

7:15pm, Thursday evening

[Eric and I, sitting on the couch. Windows are open. There's a ruckus from the street. Eric stands up and peers out the window.]

"It's those Mexicans again, riding little bicycles, drinking beer and singing," Eric reports.

"Which ones?"

"The guy who wears the Steelers jersey, and the older guy who called you 'churro.' "

"Oh yeah, those guys."

Meet the neighbors

This is our neighbor across the way. We call him Naked Man for obvious reasons.



Be assured, this little peep show on a Saturday morning was not a one time event. He struts around his apartment and balcony pretty much all the time completely buck naked.*

We point him out to guests when they come over.

"Oh look, Naked Man's out," Eric will point out casually. The guest will usually laugh, then look, then gasp, then look again, then ask if we have binoculars handy.

We do.

I do have to wonder aloud why he has an enormous sign in his apartment which says "Bon Appetit." Perhaps someday I'll have the opportunity to ask him.


*In high school I was on the yearbook staff and we had to do a special scan through the names for all of the group photos to make sure no one was being a comedian and putting fake or ridiculous names down. Sure enough, my senior year, "Buck Naiked" was one of the more active students at OPRF and appeared in I think seven different groups including Stage Crew and Band.

The Happy Hobo

Last night while we were making dinner, we heard voices rise up from the street.

They weren't angry, drunken voices interspersed with phlegmy hacking and the sound of vomiting, like usual. No, these voices were singing. The tall and the small.* Oh wait...

The singing was kind of old-timey, like bluegrass when it was first getting started. I half expected that if I walked to the window they'd be wearing period costumes and square dancing.**

But I didn't walk to the window because that is almost never a good idea with The Clementina Show. And I had such a lovely, nostalgic image in my head that I was only going to be disappointed when I discovered that the singing was actually coming from a vagrant laying in his own filth, pants mostly pulled down, a half-eaten dead pigeon in one hand.

Instead, we just listened to the happy hobos singing until they drifted off.


*One hundred gold stars for anyone who is with me on what I think is a pretty obscure reference.
**Additional gold stars available if anyone knows of neat square dancing events in San Francisco. I have a feeling that that could be fun.

Other people's love letters

The Clementina Show had a cameo a few weeks ago from a gentleman, who we'll call Eddie Burris here for the protection of everyone involved (mostly me).

Mr. Burris has recently been released from a local prison and one of the things he did upon his release was to spread a bunch of his personal papers on the sidewalk in front of our apartment building.

It isn't unusual for there to be a lot of trash and papers in front of our building, so for the most part we didn't notice anything unusual. Until Eric picked up a handwritten letter on college-ruled notebook paper and brought it inside.

Here is what that letter said:

Dear Eddie,

So today is Sunday. I woke up really early this morning and made my kids breakfast, washed the dishes. Got the kids dressed and then waited for my mom the get dressed. We went tot he plunge in Hayward. They have a nice swimming pool and a beautiful hiking trail. It was really scary because the hiking trail had steep hills and cliffs. You have to really stay on the toddlers about that kind of stuff.

So, so far you haven't got any word from your other girlfriend. That's good I guess. I fell like you wouldn't tell me even if you did. Naw - you would tell me. You are pretty honest.

Sometimes I tend to direct the conversation in a negative direction. That's when you supposed to kiss me on the lips. Or just stop me from doing what ever it is that I am doing and give me a hug + kiss my neck. I need validation.

I wish I could have come to see you today but I didn't have the gas. I will be there next weekend though, I hope. I have to do that extra credit deal for biology next Saturday and it is an all day thing to visit you on Sunday.

You know something Eddie I think that I am a control freak. I like to control things. But if I would just let shit go and only worry about myself then that is half the battle.

A person only has so much mental capacity then they are just spinning their wheels and worrying about dumb shit.

It's like if a man finds his place with another woman, then it wasn't meant to be in the first place. So, why worry about you and Shaunice.

I'm saying this because I always doubt myself. I feel like I am worthless.

But the truth is that there are plenty of fish in the sea but for some reason I am hung up on you.

I'm telling you. It's the way we busted at the exact same time those times. That is powerful shit. Nothing can compare to that.

But sex is not everything. A person has to be mature enough and willing to take part in certain things.

I mean, shit, you are locked up right now. I don't want that in my life. A person who goes to jail on a regular basis. I have to make better decisions than that. If I was you, I would be pissed because you put 6 months into that job and then you were locked up for another 6 months. That would have been a whole year on your job and we cold have taken a vacation to Las Vegas or something. You can't replace that time.

I didn't do anything to you but anyways counseling would be good. Because you have to learn when to back away from a woman. So that you don't get yourself in trouble. If that woman is acting a fool, get the hell away from her. It's not OK to act like a fool.

Anyways, I'm listening to my new CDs Jay gave me. I like the Jams.

[here, one whole page with I (heart) U written again and again filling the whole page]

I'm waiting on you. You may not want to be with me but I'm not on drugs and won't get back on drugs. I'm holding it down and keeping this pussy on lockdown for Mr. Burris.

[then another page of I (heart) U's, then a whole page of 143*, then another whole page of I (heart) U's]

I think you will agree, this is pretty raw stuff.

The next day, I noticed that a bunch of the papers laying on the ground were receipts for purchases from the jail cantina where Mr Burris was incarcerated. He had purchased things like shower shoes and refried beans. I didn't bring them inside.

Not long after, Eric found another note; different handwriting, different notebook. Different girlfriend. It read:

Dear Eddie,

It was really nice to see you today. I came home, cleaned up my room and did a little math homework. Now I'm writing to you.

You know my brother and sister are both on dope and it is really scary. I don't want to deal with their drama or bullshit. I had a really peaceful life when I lived over there.

I move here and I got drama from the whole family. I don't really have a choice except to deal with it because I still got that CPS case. My court date is in June and they will probably close it then.

So, now that I know what is going on with you, I can relax. Do my homework, go to church. Visit you. Things will go pretty smoothly. All I gotta do is keep it simple and know what is important to me.

I can't wait to make love to you. You know that right? I love making love to you. I dream about it. You make me melt, Eddie. I don't know why, you just do. I can't wait to kiss you all over, especially your neck. You know what neck I'm talking about, too.

Spring break is next week. So, I will be there to see you next Thursday. I have a small budget, so I have to plan my funds to make it through the month.

My GPA last semester when I lived in Marin was 3.8 :) I'm not doing so good in this new English class this semester but I know I'm making A's in the rest of my classes.

I'm gonna get this in the mail. I love you and I can't wait to make love to you again.

Love, [name withheld - but it wasn't Shaunice]

It is hard not to feel kind of horrible and voyeuristic reading someone else's love letters. And we probably should feel horrible for reading them, and I should feel especially horrible for posting them here, because they are private. I hope that by removing the names that privacy can be protected.

I find these letters fascinating. They offer a glimpse into a reality that is so completely different from the one that I, and probably everyone I know, live in. The day to day lives of these women are clearly challenging in ways that I probably don't even begin to understand.

What I love about these, and what makes them so hard to stop reading, is how both of these women lay themselves so bare in these letters. There is a vulnerability and a reaching out that is hard not to be moved by.

We've been watching the Clementina Show with interest lately to see if Eddie will make an appearance, but I think he may have already moved on.


*For those who aren't with it enough to know what "143"means, it means "I love you": I has 1 letter, love has 4 and you has 3.

Profiling

On Sunday, as Eric and I were relaxing at home after lunch, we heard a small commotion on the street below. We headed over to the window to see what was the fuss and saw two guys attempting to break into an apartment across the street: one of them was supporting the other as he tried to climb onto a second floor balcony. There was significant grunting involved.

We thought for a moment about calling the police. But one of them was wearing a pink polo shirt and flip flops, and the other one was carrying a bag of Subway sandwiches. So we figured they were probably OK.

Critical, motorized

Riding my bike to yoga this morning, I unintentionally timed my trip perfectly to coincide with the Pride parade, which routes a few blocks past where I live. I tried to navigate around it when, suddenly, I found myself in sea of motorcyclists.

And these weren't just any motorcyclists: they were Dykes on Bikes.

And there were many hundreds of them!

It turned out they were turning right in front of me, trapping me in the elbow of the turn. All I could do for over 10 minutes was stand there and watch, and cheer, and be delighted and just a little scandalized at what I saw, which ran the gammet from women in full leather to women in nothing but leather thongs* and boots, and covered a lot of ground in between: leather corsets and garter stockings, topless women in tutus and bright pink fishnets, and even a couple of women dressed as bumble bees.

It, also, was quite wonderful. And just as unexpected. The mood was spectacular and it was hard not to feel, well, proud.


*I said "thong."

Things you do for fun in Ohio

We were in Ohio for four days. Cedar Point really only gets you through one day. So what's to do in Cleveland for three days?

1. Go to a market and check out the local foodstuffs. This was fun - we sampled dried green beans and cherry donuts and many flavors of popcorn. Against better judgment, we purchased and then ate a chocolate covered jalapeno pepper. The market trip was followed by a trip to Great Lakes Brewing Company, a local microbrewery. For the record, beer only makes your mouth hurt more, not less. Also for the record, the wait staff at the Great Lakes Brewing Company will think you are weird if you ask for a Lassi.

2. Go to Ohio wine country. Have you noticed that literally every state has a wine country now? We were more than warned by our hosts not to expect a Sonoma or even Virginia wine country experience and we quite enjoyed sampling the really really sweet wines while listening to probably the worst live music I have ever heard not on a boat.

3. Play in the backyard. Grass! Dog! BBQ! Garden! Fish pond! Trees! Tetherball! How neat to have a yard. This was mostly fun except for when Eric beat me at tetherball and I reacted like a 5 year old and stormed off furious when I lost. We also played a game called Cornhole which consists of throwing bean-filled sacks at a board. I insisted on calling it Cornholio the whole time because I think I am funny. I think everyone was relieved when I held it together after losing at Cornholio.

Arriving home late, late Sunday night after an interminable flight, Perm, our homeless neighbor, welcomed us back from his usual spot laying in his own filth on the sidewalk in front of our building.

It's good to be home.

Ring of Fire

The San Francisco Giants took on the Milwaukee* Brewers at AT&T Park last night to open the 2009 baseball season. We could see the lights on at the stadium, which is about six blocks from our place with no tall obstructions in between.

We've missed those guys! When we lived over by the ballpark we always knew when it was game day** and would often pop over for just a few innings. (In fact, this past Saturday when we went to see a pre-season A's v SF game in Oakland was the first time we've watched more than three innings of a game. I attribute it to the beautiful sunny, warm day. I think three innings is the max you can do at AT&T field without risking frostbite.)

I don't know who won but I do know that when the game was over there were a series of explosions known as fireworks. (I had fallen asleep watching "Who Killed the Electric Car?" which I was watching in spite of my resistance to movies whose title is a question, with the exception of "Who's Harry Crumb?" which is awesome.)

The fireworks were amazing! It was one of the better, and longer, fireworks displays I have ever seen. It had the ones that explode and then after a beat all the little points of light go squiggly, it had big shimmery ones ("It's like fungus!" marveled Eric), it had ones that looked like Saturn and other ones that were multicolored balls. There was even a cube that might have been the Giants' logo, and there was a whole series of enormous smiley faces. I swear.

I like any fireworks show that can be fully appreciated from the comfort of one's own chocolate velvet couch and following which one can be sound asleep in bed within moments. And this should be the first of many this season. Go Giants!


Epilogue: Eric, fixated on the fireworks, moved his foot, which moved the laptop cord, which knocked his Strong Beer glass (and his heart) onto the floor and into at least 40 small pieces. He remains sad this morning.

*Mili-wa-kay
**The drunk people in the street were wearing Giants hats and shirts and there were more of them than normal.

Domesticity in ten cities

The Clementina Show has mostly been wherever the butterflies go when it rains recently (or hails, as is becoming a daily occurence here which I'm sure is nothing to worry about) but yesterday, as a bit of sun peeked through the clouds, the Clementina Show perked up briefly.

Eric announced when he got home from work early afternoon that he had seen "a woman's poopy butt" on his walk down our block.

Then, as I was obsessing over the vegetable seedlings in the windowsill, I noticed Perm* and another gentleman down below collaborating on a project to better understand the workings of an umbrella. One would open it, maybe too far, they would pull it back in, then open it half way, then close it again, then...you get the idea. This went on for some time and was apparently fascinating. My attention drifted.

When I looked back a little while later, the same two fellows were now working as a team to fold a blanket. They had folded it in half and now each had one corner of it in each hand, but they were trying to flip it in opposite directions and it was getting twisted instead of folded. Then they would both switch, twisting it in the opposite direction. After a few false starts they managed to get going the same direction, made the fold and then did the bit where they walked towards each other, one person takes all the corners and the other person slides their hands towards the bottom to fold it again along the horizontal edge.

It was an odd and completely domestic moment happening right out on the street.

Then it started raining pretty hard some more and everyone went away.


*the "permanent resident" has officially been shortened to Perm, not to be confused with Big Perm, or Big Worm. Although it is true that he ain't got no job and he ain't got shit to do.

Stop thief!

Friday night, after losing a generous amount of money to friends who came over for poker night at our place, we were cleaning up deep dish pizza crumbs when we heard a car alarm go off in the street below. Though I would normally have rolled my eyes and ignored it, I happened to be standing near the window and saw that there was a shady-looking fellow hovering nervously near the car. It looked a little suspicious.

"I think that guy's breaking into that car," I said, mesmerized, standing there watching as The Clementina Show headed into CSI territory.

Eric came dashing over to the window just as the guy reached into the car and grabbed two bags through the window he had just broken.

We then immediately called the police, of course.

I wasn't wearing my glasses so Eric fed me details of the dude's appearance and watched what direction he was going so we could tell the nice woman at 9-1-1 where the police might catch up with the perp.*

We gave her the basics: he was tall-ish, wearing dark pants, a hooded sweatshirt and a hat and carrying a white shopping bag and a briefcase taken out of the car. The she got kind of demanding: What hand was he carrying the bag in? Um, one in each maybe? What kind of shoes was he wearing? Uh, hmmm. What color was his parachute? Oh, wait. Sorry. Job search on the brain.

She said they might need us to come down to talk to the cops; they would call us if so. Cops were on the scene just a few minutes later, and the people whose car it was came out to talk to them which meant that we probably didn't have to go down. But we really wanted to help, so Eric and I hung out of our 4th story window watching and listening, looking for a chance to be helpful.

We heard the cops ask who had called the police and Eric eagerly shouted out the window:

"We did! Hey! Up here in the window! We called!"

Four heads turned, registered our presence, gave a small wave, and then ignored us.


*I hope this is not the last time I get to use the word "perp" in the blog, but I hope that it is always removed from direct personal experience.

Maybe it was because they played that heartbreaking Sarah McLachlan song

This morning while I was making breakfast, NPR had a short piece about a homeless shelter in Oakland that held a memorial service for all of the homeless people who had died over the past few weeks. One of the women who had organized it said she felt that the passing of these people's lives should be recognized no matter what their circumstances had been in life. "If their deaths aren't recognized, then it's as if they never existed. But they did exist," she explained.

One man, newly homeless, became very emotional and stepped away from the ceremony. Like any good newsman, the NPR reporter followed the man to badger him with questions. He shared how scared he is, how he has been trying so hard to make things work, and he is wondering when things are going to start to come together, or if maybe this is just all that his life is going to amount to.

Something about the story struck a nerve. Maybe it was that I've been worried that The Clementina Show has been suspiciously subdued due to the cold weather. Or maybe it was that I wasn't yet caffeinated. Or maybe it's just sad. I cried. But just a little. And then I forced myself to pull it together and get the zucchini bread out of the toaster oven before it burned because that would have been really sad.

Tommy used to work on the docks

Part of being unemployed is that it becomes really hard to justify throwing money at problems to make them go away: suddenly, it is actually worth your time to fix them yourself. I guess maybe 30 is as good an age as any to learn how to iron.

Don't get me wrong. I've always been someone to keep an eye out for a good sale or take public transportation to the airport, but I'm talking about taking it to a new level. Let me get straight to the point: I'm talking about coupons here.

Humbling? Perhaps - but there are ways to sidestep facing the reality that one has become a coupon clipper. One is the Green Zebra, a book of coupons for local, sustainable businesses. I'm not being cheap, I'm being green. See the difference?

Another important resource for the wealth-constrained is FunCheapSF, a website that has listings for a wide array of free and cheap events such as Kraft-a-billy DIY Shopping bazaar w/ pin up contest & burlesque (SOMA) and Sexy accordian players concert and pin-up calendar party at Good Vibes (Mission Dist.). What?! And they're FREE?

I'm not sure what their posting guidelines are but I am tempted to submit a posting for The Clementina Show, which I believe is having a special homeless rodeo this weekend between 2 and 4am on Saturday. Cause you live for the fight when it's all that you've got.

Hot, Flat and Crowded

Friday night, we drove all over San Francisco in an unintentional neighborhood tour which included Potrero Hill (best view of the city, hands down) and the Richmond. We had dinner at a very warm yet delicious Burmese restaurant and played Rock Band at a friend's house afterward. I think it is safe to say it is no less than tragic that my talent as a drummer has gone heretofore unappreciated.

In an unrelated story, Saturday morning the car had a flat tire.

No big deal, right? You put on the spare and drive to get a new tire. Unless you have no jack or tire iron with which to put said spare on said car in said foul mood at 8 fricking am on a Saturday.

Surely one of the upsides of living in a neighborhood with more auto repair shops than human or animal residents is that this should be relatively painless to resolve. The first place I went into would have been more than happy to help but was going to charge me $65 just to put the spare on. Several other places just plain weren't helpful, with varying degrees of nastiness, indifference and bad breath.

Finally, I found a friendly old man who may or may not have actually worked at the shop he was sitting near and was willing to let me walk away with pretty much anything in the shop I could find without even asking me for my name, much less an ID or something that would guarantee its safe return. This man was my new best friend.

We rummaged around the shop and found a tire iron that looked like it would serve but had a hard time finding a small portable jack that I could take with me. All that they had, other than the built-in hydraulic lifts, were these rolling jacks that looked like small lawnmovers with a single broom handle sticking out. It was portable in the sense that it was on wheels, but it was very heavy and pulling it made a noise like dragging metal filing cabinets wrapped in metal chains across concrete, which isn't too far from what I was in fact doing. A little short on alternatives, I steeled myself for nasty looks and began dragging this much-needed tool towards home, just one ear-splitting block away.

As I rounded the corner and started the last half block down Clementina Street, I had a moment of horror, shame, pride and aural sensory overload all mixed together: this Saturday morning, for these brief but excruciating moments, I was the Clementina Show. I savored it. And then I said the loudest silent prayer I could muster that I am never, ever, ever in that position again.

What I didn't do on Saturday afternoon was go check out the Red Bull soapbox derby event, but the final count was that 75,000 people had attended. Friends, this park is not that big. And that's a lot of people. But I am willing to bet that none of them are as good at drums on Rock Band as I am.

Unpeel your eyes

I was sitting on the couch last night admiring our new black leaning bookshelves against the brown wall when I realized that it was unnaturally quiet and had been for some time. The unsettling quiet was coming from the street below which, though it is a small side street, is pretty much a 24 hour stage for a range of human tragedies in progress.

We call it The Clementina Show.

One of the things we've learned is that no matter how much you might think you want to look out the window to see the images that accompany the soundtrack, you don't. I'm only going to say this once: don't look.

Oh sure, we've got the requisite naked man on his balcony directly across from our place. This dude might not actually own any clothing: he reads nude, barbeques nude, he's clearly got nothing to hide from us. But he's an amateur act compared to the pros at street-level.

Eric made the rookie mistake once while looking out our window of making eye contact with a homeless man on the street below, who then, without breaking eye contact, proceeded to drop his pants and poop on the sidewalk.

Another evening, we heard a commotion on the street below: yelling, car doors slamming, tires screeching. Then a pause. Then a woman weeping. We peeked out the window and there was a woman wearing just a t-shirt and high heels standing next to a large suitcase and just crying. It was horrible. About 20 min later - more commotion and she was gone.

The show goes on. And on. But we're just tuning into the radio portion these days.

This past Monday night was karate night on The Clementina Show. "Hiiiiya! Ya!" we heard again and again from the street. Who was doing this new verbal martial art? I have no idea because I know better than to look out the window.

It was nice to have a bit of quiet last night but somehow it just didn't feel like home. Happily, I woke up this morning to the sound of a man trying to vomit up his lower intenstine, god bless him. It's nice to have things back to normal.