“Hey man, can I borrow a quarter? I want to go and get drunk and wake up in a tree.”

Is the second most amusing plea for spare change I’ve heard in my time in the United States of America. It comes in second behind a bum holding a sign that said: ‘Father killed by ninjas. Need money for karate lessons.’ I was going to make some sort of crack about the creativity of the homeless. But then I got hit with a pang of guilt. What’s funny about the homeless? (Well, Blanket Man is funny. But I’ll leave that question open. So some of you will read and think, “well, duh, heaps. The smell for a starters.” And then the rest of you will read and think about how the pressures of capitalism are a real shame, and that the homeless are collateral damage in the rat race of life and shame on us, how can we turn away?)

There’re a few homeless in America. Quite a few. It’s funny how easy it is to turn away from them. How seeing a man on the corner who looks like Tom Petty rolled in mud and cooked for too long in the oven ask if you can spare a quarter or even a penny is pretty easy to walk away from, even when you’re wallet is bursting with over six dollars in change. We have it good in New Zealand. Our homeless tend to be visible enough to be celebrities, they’re not three to a block. I was scalding a homeless man to Jon for asking me for some change for “marijuana fun”, when Jon commented that there would be nothing anyone could say to make me hand over a coin. And he’s right; I’ve grown pretty oblivious. Buenos Aires and Mexico City were pretty good practice. I guess today was just the first time I felt slightly guilty.

My wallet. Boy, it’s hard to even shut. I need to lose some pennies. There’s nothing more pointless than the one-cent coin.

Under the Bridge.  San Francisco, California.

So this second placed homeless hilarity took place in the Haight in San Francisco. We arrived yesterday about 4pm. Yesterday was Rock the Bells day. Well it was supposed to be. Due to unforeseen circumstances the festival cancelled the Sacramento show that was supposed to take place on the 19th, so the day before the San Francisco show we planned to attend, the remaining 4,000 tickets were snapped up by hungry Sacramento residents willing to make the 130 kilometre journey to San Francisco, and who were motivated enough to not just assume they’d get a ticket at the gate. Damn.

But we’re in pretty good stead. After the ten-hour journey from Portland we were near zombified, depleted by our third ten-hour plus drive down a monotonous stretch of highway in less than three weeks, but we bounced fast. A little two night rest up in Grass Valley, (our American home away from home at the moment, and full kudos must be awarded to the Pyle clan for their endlessly generous hospitality) saw us fighting fit on arrival into San Francisco, and our spirits again soared as the little 1994-Honda-that-could leapt across the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday afternoon.

The Golden Gate Bridge.  San Francisco, California.

Fun Bridge Facts: It is constantly being painted, it can sway up to 10 feet either side and around 95 percent of suicides take place on the side of the bridge that faces the city.

It’s 8pm. Lauren just miraculously pulled out a copy of Spike Lee’s He Got Game from a box of stuff in the house we’re staying at, which is marvelous. Jon re-enacted several pivotal scenes from the movie for us the last week in Seattle, and talking about watching He Got Game has become one of our favourite past-times. Tonight, it happens.

I’m listening to Boxer by the National, probably my new favourite band of the moment (I recently bought and enjoyed immensely another of their CDs, Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers. I recommend them to anyone) and one of three new CDs purchased from Amoeba Records here in San Francisco (the other two being Whiskeytown’s Faithless Street and Hamell on Trial’s Songs For Parents Who Like Drugs). Amoeba Records is like CD heaven. The San Franciscan store is a little larger than Wellington’s Real Groovy. The Hollywood store is about five times the size of San Francisco’s. The Amoeba stores are huge, amazing, cheap and full of most CDs that I ever classified in my head as hard to find. And two cool things happened. A suave looking black guy asked me if I worked in the store. And then the man behind the counter, who was the so-cool-I’m-actually-painfully-embedded-in-my-own-arsehole type complemented me on my Flying Nun t-shirt.

Ameoba Music. Haight District, San Francisco, CA.

I have to give credit to my black jeans for this I think. I’d miscalculated how hot it would be. San Francisco has suspiciously cold summers, but today was the exception. I have a new respect for emo kids. Tight dark jeans on a hot day is hard, hard work.

The Haight is a place I enjoy. It’s an odd collection of cool stores, Cosmic Corner-esque paraphernalia shops run by aging hippies and souvenir shops celebrating anything to do with the 1960s counter-culture that burst out of Haight. The people on the street range from the proudly hip to the wondrously crazy. We had a walk for a while, browsed in quite a few stores and then went and got Burritos and ate them under the Golden Gate Bridge. We had a great spot under the bridge, where I could admire in equal parts how big the bridge looked from a different angle, how pretty downtown San Francisco looks from around the harbour a little, and how nice the rest of the bay looks in general.

Haight: The birthplace of acid culture. Rock!

I love San Francisco. It’s a good looking, stylish and relaxed city. I spent nine amazing days here in 2004, and I’m looking forward to exploring the city again.

Today was slightly slower; we were all pretty hungover. We got drunk last night, and played The Game Of Life. I was an entertainer. Lauren a doctor. Jon a teacher/artist. Jon took the game out by 10,000 dollars. I thought I had him. Adopting two children late in the piece didn’t help me. No one wins in life with five children. No one.

Again, we drank into the night while debating the complexities of modern life till we were blue in the face. (Pretentious little fuckers aren’t we?) Also, at some point in the evening Lauren caught video footage of me trying to teach Jon how to dip, and us showing off our ballroom dancing moves to each other. I’m not wearing a shirt. It’s pretty gay I tell you.

Ha! To be a fly on our wall.

Posted by James

Tags: Movies, Music, Philosophy, Politics, San Francisco