as a matter of fact, i DO know the way to fucking
san jose, thank you very much!
(srl trip, day one)
8:48 p.m.

ok, i'll try not to make this a novel, but...

left for sf around 815 friday morning. nice weather all the way. one or 2 slowdowns for construction and of course slow going through santa rosa with all that freeway work.

got into the new york doll's new album on the way down, DOUG, GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW!!!

it's thrilling to hear johansen's voice in that context again. i was never really into his buster poitdexter thing.

a few great lines from "maimed happiness":

"yeah, i've been to the doctor
said there's not much he can do
'you got the human condition
boy i feel sorry for you' "

really, a great album for the most part, a few songs i'm not crazy about, and several that are just so...new york dolls! 30 years between albums...wow! i'll talk more about it later, perhaps.

ok. got to the ggb in 4 hrs 22 minutes, a new record!!! i don't always go 65 when i can, but this time i guess i did!

took a few pedestrian shots on the way out 19th...

oh! the funniest thing...i saw a sign for a guy running for city council or the board of supervisors, i forget which...his name is "ed jew"!!!

got to ocean park. checked in. i was gonna have to take a room with 3(!) beds, but one with 2 became available. i asked wendy if they had anything open for saturday. they did, so right there i decided to stay 2 nights.

the room was the nicest yet. had a kitchen and a dining area! and a tub, not just a shower!

walked down to the bull, had a great burger, fries, and a shake.

more great houses...

that one's for jason :)

went back and napped for a bit. there were earplugs by the bed, as i was right on the street, and those big 4-car buses go by all the time, but it was funny, i hardly noticed!

left around 7pm for san jose. i had my google earth directions printed out. parts of san jose looked very futuristic, some great modern buildings. sorta got lost at the last turn or so, i didn't see a street sign, but i knew i was very close to the convention center. saw a parking garage and went for it. turns out i was IN the convention center, which i found out when i got to the lobby. and the show site is right behind that, so that worked out great.

oh, in the lobby, there was this couple spinning around doing a little ballroom dancing, it was all marble and echoey in there. i didn't get a pic of them dancing but i got this:

you can kind of tell she's gliding along...it was a cool little moment.

so there was this big tent thing, almost like a hangar...got info there that i had to walk to the california theater to get my tickets...just a few blocks. some cool restaraunts around there. saw a hookah bar. lots of trendies around, the zero one festival had been going on all week. it was a nice area.

saw this cool VW there...

sold my extra ticket to a kind of drunk older guy...25 bucks, face value, i suppose i could have gotten more, but it felt like a good deed, ya know?

went inside the tent thing, there were all sorts of exibits around..all this high-tech stuff, art things, etc. i wish i could have checked all that out more, but i needed to get in line.

everything was running late i guess, i was in line for almost an hour. they were handing out free earplugs, which was great as i had left mine in the car!

finally got out to the site...there were bleachers there, but they didn't go too high, and anyway those upper seats were all filled already. so i was down front at the barricade. there were cops and fire marshalls all over, doing last minute inspections.

i dunno what to say about the show, really. it was incredible! loud as fuck. (i took one earplug out a few times. i was laughing at how loud it really was!) i mean, it's "art" and all that, but...it's more spectacle than...oh, having great meaning. a totally unique experience, for sure. i couldn't see all the machines clearly, but if you haven't checked out my vids, they are HERE.

when you see one of those fireballs, you better believe i could feel the heat on my face! and there were jets coming in to the airport every few minutes, flying low, close (it seemed) to the buildings. and towering above us were the hilton and the marriott, haha! the thing about the show...it would have been better if it had been in a site where you could really be far above it, to be able to take it all in.

but really, it was all so incredible. i DID take a few pics...

but the vids looked like they were gonna turn out great, so i stuck with that.

there was so much going on...the fire, the noise, some machines were making like sonic booms...the big atlas statue was set ablaze, as was this house on wheels...the tesla coil was making beautiful blue lightning bolts...the pitching machine, which i was right behind, was shooting 2x4's across the parking lot. in one of the vids it looks like it was malfuctioning, and this guy was POUNDING ON IT!!!

it was hard to take it all in, so i'm glad there's so many pics and vids online.

at the srl site they are asking for links to vids of the show, so i emailed them and maybe they will link mine, that would be so cool!

(update at 10:30 p.m. : i just got a letter back from karen at srl...she put up links to 4 of my vids!!! go see HERE ! oh, fuck, that is COOL!)

they have a link to a flickr search for pics from the show...OMG some people got some wonderful shots! there's like 3000! take a look HERE.

i found this pic on there:

(photo by brian topping)

and i'm almost certain i'm in that circled area. let's zoom in, shall we?

i can't see the cute little guy who was next to me...he had a hardhat with his camera flash attached to it! but it's a telephoto shot, so the perspective is kinda wack. but i really think that's me!

the show was about an hour. there were over 2000 people there.

as i was heading back through the convention center lobby, i saw this guy and his son (who was wearing dad's jacket!)...

that was kind of a nice kodak moment after all that mayhem!

got the car out on the street, and i had NO fucking idea how to get back to the city...made a turn, and like in a half mile i see a sign for 280 north....YES! was almost no traffic on the way back. and the amazing thing is, 280 eventually leads right to 19th avenue, there wasn't even an offramp or anything! that was soooo easy!

went up ocean avenue, found a micky d's that was open. got a snack and took it back to the motel.

read for a while and drifted off to sleep..those buses weren't gonna wake me up after all THAT!

(to be continued...)