Those British Bastards

I live about a block from a temple. Next to the temple is an upscale restaurant. If you listen close enough and tune out the sound of Thai airforce jets on training drills and dogs barking, you might hear the bellicose chuckling of the fat Brits sitting around glutting themselves to an early grave. Tables full of expat kings gorging on cheap food and women 40 years their junior. The women sit silent. The men tell tales of riotous times and posh living. I ate there once and watched as one particularly obese Brit sat in a white linen outfit eating from 3 plates, a back brace and bright blue socks with sandals. A young Thai woman on each side. I tried to hide my outrage, but I could not contain the mimicking. "Oh hohohoho, Charles, you always were a cheeky bastard weren't you. HAHAHAHA. Good thing our kids don't know our women are younger than their children, muhahahaha. If Helen hadn't taken half my money I would have two more girls each night, hahahaha" Colonialism is alive and well in Thailand. They are not conquering land, but they are still conquering people.

The sex trade is big business.

Today, I went to the bookstore to pick up a Thai/English phrase book. Next to the book I bought was a whole row of books dedicated to teaching foreigners how to say things like, "I like younger women", "I want to sleep with 4 girls tonight, is thatOK?", "Do you like pain?" and it gets MUCH more explicit from there. The books are available in English, German, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, and maybe more. Can you imagine your grandpa walking into a Thai bookstore to get a phrase book designed solely to speak to Thai

prostitutes?

I would love their faces on billboards outside their London flats or their Florida tract home. Outside their country club, a big flashing sign for their friends and wives and stockbroker sons to see. "Grandpa supports human trafficking"

Fresh Things.

Meet Tze: (pronounced Tee, like the letter or the drink or the thing you golf with). Tze makes Thai style noodles. Like Thai Ramen, but a bajillion times better than ramen. His noodles are fresh, never dried, never frozen, and mixed with fresh kale and crispy pork (name your meat). He gets up every day at 5 to make the noodles from scratch. By 9 he comes to work at BABSEACLE (where I am doing my internship) He goes to the restaurant during lunch to help his mom with the lunch rush and then comes back to work until about 6:30. Then he teaches us our Thai language class and hangs out with us until about 10, when he goes home and gets ready to make more noodles the next day. He does this 7 days a week, even on Thai holidays. He is only 23 and definitely one of my favorite people... and his noodles.. definitely my favorite noodles.

Leaving the Loin

I left San Francisco at 1:20 am Friday and arrived in Hong Kong at 5:45 am Saturday. The flight was only 14 hours, but 29 hours passed on the clocks. I spent almost the whole flight sleeping, which is remarkable considering I was on the 64th row, seat 1 of 10 in the row. Man was not meant to fly coach, or I just got really spoiled flying first class to India last year.
I had directions to my hostel by way of train, but I decided to find a bus that would take me into he city instead. I saved 60 Hong Kong dollars by taking the bus, plus I got to see some incredible sights along the way.Like colorful piles of shipping containers, stuffed full of plastic toys and cheap electronics, waiting to make the trek across the pacific. Next stop: San Francisco, after that, someones birthday party, then, the final million years will be spent decomposing in a landfill on the outskirts of every American town.I did not really know where to get off the bus, so I just got off when I felt like it and it turned out really well. I was super close to my hostel, so I dropped my luggage and went out... at 7:00 am. I wandered til I should have been good and lost, but I ran into the elders (Mormon missionaries) and they gave me directions to a ferry that would take me across the harbor to some hip shopping district where I could look back and see the city.I thought I listened to the elders directions, but apparently I didn't cause I just got on the first ferry I saw and it went about 40 minutes away to this island that has no cars and no buildings over 3 floors. Truly unique in Hong Kong, and actually much cooler than Prada. I decided to explore the island and ended up hiking all over, buying swim trunks, and swimming in the ocean, right next to a huge power plant.

All dressed up for Muni.

4/24/10

5-to Ocean Beach

These buses vibrate like the coin operated beds you see in movies but are never so fortunate to actually encounter. I am on the 5 to Ocean Beach.
Across from me a woman is propped up quite comfortably reading the Chronicle. She is making no attempt to contain herself to one seat. Her cheap convention style book bag draped sloppily onto the adjacent seat. Her bare chubby legs spread open as if she is straddling a bucket of popcorn. She just switched the Chronicle for "Real Simple" magazine. Her purple metallic round hairy potter style spectacles magnifying all sorts of advise she will likely never take. She is wearing white tennis shoes, white tube socks, and very short white shorts. On knee is scabbed and both legs are spotted orange with fake tanning cream. The collar of her white polo is twisting out from under her over-sized blue sweatshirt. Her graying pony tail pulled through the back of her white cap. Loads of jewelry and make-up. She definitely spent time putting this ensemble together. Unfortunately, any chance she had of looking classy is overshadowed by the jiggling of her orange and white legs. Her shorts so short they disappear into the jiggling. Skin meeting skin. She is somebody's grandma. I hope she has a good day.

How many San Franciscans does it take to change a tire?

6th and Harrison

My friend came out of class around 7:00 pm at the Academy of Art to find the tire on her Jeep flat. She got out her jack and raised it to its max only to find that the max was not high enough. After 40 minutes on hold with her insurance roadside assistance, she had still not talked to anyone who could help so she drove on her flat to the nearest Chevron. I got word she was down there and decided I would be a man and go help. I literally ran through the Tenderloin to get to her and her Jeep at the Chevron in Mid Market. I actually stopped and walked the last half block so I could catch my breath and look like I had not run. I was there only a few minutes before the professional tire changer arrived in his semi-sized tow truck. We looked on as he walked back and forth between his rig and her Jeep. He did not seem to know what he was doing at all. Twenty minutes passed and he had still not touched the flat tire. He had backed up his truck and pulled it forward and backed it up again. Then he rigged up the jeep to be towed. We really thought he was just going to tow her Jeep away. Then he raised up the front of her jeep as high as he could with the hydrolic lift. He piled up a bunch of wooden blocks under the back axel and then lowered the Jeep on them. The blocks creaked and shifted and barely raised the Jeep up at all. Definitely not high enough to remove the tire. He tried this over and over and over before finally admitting (after some strong prodding in Spanish) that his jack had been stolen and he was just trying to come up with an alternative. We admired his creativity, but at this point it was 10:00 pm and the homeless people were swarming us. The tire man called in his friends. 2 more professional tire changers came in another giant semi-sized tow truck. They had a floor jack. I thought we would be on the road in no time. 1 hour later, after all 3 of them working together to figure out the jack and piling up more wood on top of the jack to get it high enough, the tire was changed. But by this time, one of the homeless people had become very concerned for us and started screaming expletives in Spanish at the poor guys trying to change the tire. I should have just given him the dollar for beer that he asked for up front. Instead I engaged him in a big discussion about how I had more debt than he could ever hope to have and how my friends insurance was paying for the whole thing so he did not need to worry. I sounded like such a freaking lawyer. We got on the road about 11:30 and I got dropped off back at my tower in the loin. Outside I can hear fighting and glass breaking. I am not sure if its bottles or car windows and honestly I don't care. Just dont ever get a flat tire in San Francisco, unless you happen to have 2 semis, 3 professional tire changers, a homeless man to curse at the workers, and a friend to keep you company.

Reflections on Mia's Muni Birthday Party

3/21/10
N-Judah
Last time I rode this line it was Mia's 19th birthday. She wobbled on the laps of her friends, clumsily sweeping her bleach blond hair and adjusting her halter top to keep her boobs inside. Everyone on the train knew it was her birthday, but I'm not sure anyone sang along with her inebriated harem. It was a harem in search of a man. And I happen to be sitting across from the perfect man. He heard the sirens call and walked back to the party, presenting a key-chain sized rubix cube as a birthday offering. Mia swayed wildly on her friends laps, rotating the cube in her hand as deliberately as her drunkenness allowed. Frustrated, she began shouting expletives before announcing her inability to perform the task at hand. Despite her make up and cleavage, she was impotent when it came to the rubix cube. Luckily for Mia, no one was judging her for her skills.

Excerpt from a letter to a friend

Fall 2009
I am currently looking out my 14th story window. Literally straight in front of me, across two cities and a bay, is the Oakland temple, just a pointy white dot symbolizing eternity. If I could go by way of crow, I could be there in minutes, but limited in my capacities, I will have to find another way. Rising from the streets to my window, the city echos with sirens and the schizophrenic arguments of the resident scavenger population. You could film a zombie movie here without any makeup. The staggering stumbling drunkenness, the crazed crack induced muttering. The violent outbursts over park benches and drug money. This is where I live, in a horror film of humanity.... but really that is just the surface. There is alot of good to be found on these streets.
From the same window I can also see Bloomingdales, nordstroms, Union square with Prada, Gucci, and Berk's favorites, Zara and H&M. 2 blocks away to $500/night hotel rooms and thousand dollar handbags. Sometimes the locals here will wander there to do their daily gathering (Most of them stopped hunting millennia ago), but by and large, invisible boundaries keep people in their place. Still, the only real difference in the two worlds is the price of the self indulgence, not the emptiness its masking.

Wikipedia says of my neighborhood (the Tenderloin): “"In addition to its rich history and diverse community, there is significant poverty, homelessness, and crime. It is known for its immigrant communities, single room occupancy (SRO) hotels, restaurants, artistic community, and large homeless population."

"Squalid conditions,homelessness, crime, drug sales, prostitution, liquor stores (more than 60 in 2008), and strip clubs give the neighborhood a seedy reputation."

"The extension of the Tenderloin south of Market Street in the vicinity of Sixth, Seventh, and Mission Streets is known locally as Mid-Market and is "Skid Row," or sarcastically as "the Wine Country," an allusion to "winos" (street-dwelling alcoholics)."

"The Tenderloin hosts many dive bars, including some left over from when the neighborhood housed large numbers of merchant seamen such as the 21 Club[4] and the 65 Club."

"...there is evidence of a community living here several thousand years ago, and when the area was excavated in the 1960s for the BART/MUNI subway station at Civic Center remains of a woman dated at 5,000 years old were found." (proof that early inhabitants of the tenderloin did indeed hunt)

"There are a number of stories about how the Tenderloin got its name....Another is a reference to the neighborhood as the "soft underbelly" (analogous to the cut of meat) of the city, with allusions to vice and corruption, especially graft....Yet another story, also likely apocryphal, is that the name is a reference to the sexual parts of prostitutes (i.e., "loins")."

"[Boedder Park] is often unused by children and is commonly occupied by drug addicts and intoxicated people during the daytime."

I wish Wikipedia were wrong on this account, but unfortunately, my daily eye-witness confirms the editor knew what s/he was talking about.
I live here because the rent is an affordable $1215/month for my small studio. Add that to my $40,000 annual tuition and I am suffering under undo amounts of debt. Fortunately for me, debt is really fashionable right now. Its the perfect all-purpose accessory. It pretty much goes with everything you want and all the hip people have it. I fear I have always been a hipster at heart. This is just quantitative proof.