Category: City by the Bay

Litquake rocked. It’s hard to tell when you’re on the ground floor of the operation, making sure everyone arrives on time, the chip bowls are filled and the sound system turned on. But about three hours in, which my feet aching from trotting between authors, volunteers and staff, I did stop and say “Man, I hope this is how we all pictured it would go.”

Apparently it was. Nearly 70 Bay Area authors read at three venues throughout the day. The author party had them all in one room, including several who couldn’t read but came by to show their support. The closing party at the Edinburgh Castle, had lines snaking around the block. One of our PR mavens, who knows a lot more about these things than I do, called it one of the biggest cultural events in San Francisco this year.

Somewhere they had room for lil’ ole me. My official role was keeping track of sponsor accounts and alliances with community literary groups. But on the day of, we’re all common laborers. There were several times over the last three months that I cursed myself for getting involved in something like event planning which I clearly knew nothing about, several times I hated having to say “after Litquake” to friends, family and exciting career opportunities. But somewhere around hour 11, tired beyond the point of reason, I was wedged somewhere between Amy Tan and Rabih Alameddine in pleasent conversation. Earlier I had received an invitation to speak at a class at Stanford. My Litquake boss Jane had just told me that she was “blown away” by the work I put in. Suzan and her sister were coming by the closing party for a drink. And my whole being was lit up like a firefly with possibility.

So now I’m back. I missed my blog and writing each day. Sorry I was gone but I’d say it was probably worth it.

The Art Car Parade just went right by my living room window. Beep Beep!

Had a really large time tonight at The Porchlight storytelling series hosted by the unparalleled Beth Lisick, poet and artistic force that I’ve shamlessly modeled my career after.

My thinking is that San Francisco is not the only place this sort of thing, so if you think live storytelling might be your kind of thing (and believe me it is if you A) read a lot B) Are into words, performance and narrative or C) Are into human nature)…

1) Find out if Fray Day, a live celebration of personal storytelling, is happening in your city next month.

2) There are annual storytelling festivals all over the country. How about in your hometown?

3) Troll through Storyteller.net. There’s lots there.

I took a storytelling class once and sadly, there seems to be a great divide between first person, confessional storytelling and performance storytelling which sticks to folk tales, legends and “carrying on the oral tradition.”

Sounds like a bridge waiting to be built.

Several people I know are contemplating leaving San Francisco. I know supposed to take this personally but I feel like I just got here. Like my house has just come together, like I’m just plunking down roots.

Can ya’ll hold on a sec? I just got here.

Jane of Janeforshort, just moved to San Francisco. We hit it off last year at SXSW. If I was able to pay attention to such things instead of being, well, a goof ball, I would have known this from a while back. As such, I’m just finding out now.

Hey ya’ll. I’ve spent the last 48 hours playing catch up since getting back home and am really no closer to normal than I was when I landed. There’s probably a lesson here somewhere that I’m missing.

But I’m back. Back to my wonderful house, my amazing girlfriend, a warm group of friends and a foggy, everything-is-important city that I’ve grown to love. I guess it was much easier packing up my room and closing the door on the home I grew up in and Ann Arbor, the town of my birth, since I knew I had somewhere to go. Somewhere else where the streets now seemed intuitive, where day had a harmony of their own, where my life as a grown man and not a kid could leap off from and soar. Somewhere like home.

I had lunch with Derek this morning and wrapped up the trip. After Ann Arbor, 4 days in New York spent mostly in meetings with publicists, agents and a few CBers, followed by stumping as my friend Joanna’s date to a wedding in Saratoga Springs and then 2 days at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires with my folks. A very productive, way-too-long jet stream across 3 states that I shant repeat again. Next summer, shorter, more frequent trips.

And now I’m back. I’ve got a review due for SF Station on Tuesday, helping out with Fray Day 6, pulling a book proposal together, contributing stories to a local radio program, and hooking back up with everyone I’ve missed. Oh and my birthday is next week.

My dad once said to me that the sign of a great vacation is that you are eager to leave and eager to come back. This then was a great vacation.

So hey there. How have you been?

If you’re a San Franciscan, or the next time you’re out here, I highly recommend checking out the Extra Action Marching Band, a rediculously motley crew of trumpeters, drummers, flag twirlers and cheerleaders, most in poor taste and very states of undress. I was fortunate enough to be a party last night where they made a grand entrance by jumping on the furniture, lighting fireworks and molesting the guests.

Jeez, I love this town.

The thing I love about San Francisco is it’s loony interpretation of even the most Middle American of activities. Which is how I ended up playing bingo a few days ago, a game run by men dressed as nuns.

My lovely friend Dinah invited me to Ba Da Bingo, a monthly charitble fundraiser run by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence a charitble and social justice group of, well, nuns in drag. There are a few female members, too, fabulous all the same. Dinah knows a sister in training which is how we got there. And when we weren’t whipping balled up bingo cards at each other, or watching those who mistakenly yell “bingo” when they don’t have it get paddled (yes paddled), or watching Gay Rodeo Cowboys get spanked, Dinah briefed me on the organization.

I was mighty impressed. A non-profit organization for over two decades, the Sisters has been a force of education, social activism and good deeds in this city since the late 1970’s. Last year alone, they sent a dozen students working for social change to college. This bingo game was a fundraiser for a friend of the organization who was getting evicted for having a dog to help him through a work-related injury.

Ba Da Bingo happens just about every month in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. Check it out. You’ll have the best water cooler story at work tomorrow. I guarentee it.

Goats don’t smell all that funny. In fact, they don’t smell like much of anything at all. And they’re soft and furry, a bit like a kitten. That’s what I learned today, on a beautiful Saturday in Sonoma County, where Suzan, myself, her sister Anne Marie and our friend Sophia decided to go bond with some goats. Goats are also in the same animal order as deer. Did you know that? I didn’t.

Redwood Hill Farm is a small family-run operation, of about 400 goats on maybe 10 acres of land. I’m a big fan of their vanilla yogurt and I use their soap pretty frequently to keep my skin all nice and smooth (quit laughing). So when I dropped by their booth at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, where I go nearly every Saturday morning, I noticed they were having an Open Farm Day where you could come visit. I had no real plans, had never been to Sebastapol and believe the best reason to try anything is to have a good story to tell afterward. Three hours later, I’m milking a prize-winning doe named Savanah with udders the size of a bowling ball. She didn’t even squirm.

Now I hadn’t planned on getting near agriculture of any kind after reading Fast Food Nation, but I tell ya, there’s a great sense of relief in knowing where your food comes from and that those in charge of making it aren’t a bunch of lunatics spraying hormones everywhere and having the animals tread in their own manure. Redwood Hill is a free range farm which means the goats roam around as they please, nibble grass and hay, and do general goat things until it’s time for milking. As long as a goat gives good milk, they stick around. There’s a 12-year-old animal, still goating around at Redwood Hill.

Sonoma County is giving a series of tours at different farms this summer. I may go check out a few more, maybe other operations that feed me each week. The farm ain’t just for kids. It’s where I can go to see who I’m entrusting my body to and the value they place on that trust.

My friend Laura invited Suzan and I to a holiday party at Good Vibrations, where Laura works as a web producer. We spent a solid 90 minutes meeting her colleagues, learning about worker-owned cooperatives and ogling antique vibrators that looked like highly erotic blenders.

An excellent, if unconventional, way to spend a Monday night.