My sister finally fulfilled her dream and dragged me out for a night on the town. We piled into two taxi cabs and raced through the streets of San Francisco to an non-descript warehouse where DJs held fourth and mixed sonic waves of sound effects to titilate the crowd into a frenzy. I had a really good time and managed, in the course of the evening, to work out a kink in my neck that had been bothering me for the past week.
On Sunday, I went over to visit a colleague’s loft in West Oakland for some scrumptous BBQ and, while waddling back to my car, spotted a rad-looking mod car. The photo sucks (I really miss my digital camera!) but if you look closely, you might see that the whole car is covered in bones and skulls which give it a nice Mad Max effect. I’d hate to see that thing bearing down on me in my rearview mirror.
On July 4th, I hung out with neighbors in Alameda. The entire Island was decked out in red, white, and blue bunting and many of the streets were blocked off for block parties. Thompson Avenue had it’s own casual gathering and our neighbor (who is an old school longboarder) had his extended family which are all skateboarders. Everyone from the four year old up to grand-dad himself spent the afternoon listening to surf music and shredding on the street in front of our house.
A parade through town provided a break from the action and the entire town came out to see some 200 different groups parade the 5 mile loop that weaved down Park Avenue, along Shoreline Drive, up Grand Avenue, down Central and then back up Webster Street. I think the parade organizers wanted to mix things up a bit with some of the placements and put the Disabled Veterans right in front of Mother’s for Peace and the gay group Out on the Island in front of a local church group which is known to be anti-gay. The parade also requires some groups to boil their message down to the bare minimum with the Falun Gong foks passing out flyers to parade viewers while saying “It’s good exercise.”
While riding through town, I spotted a Zydeco band, a street beach volleyball tournament, and a frog jumping contest. I capped out the weekend with a view of the official (an unofficial) fireworks that were being launched all around us from when it got dark around 9:30 all the way to midnight.
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