señor taco’s travels

Well, this last week saw the arrival of my friend href="http://rotomonkey.org/">Chris the rotomonkey in California. He and
his beloved, Athena, told us months ago that href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/05/04#cb-athena-moving-west">they’d
be moving out here. Athena came first and for a few months Chris was still
in New York with the occasional visit to help keep both he and Athena from
going nuts-o (so not so much nuts-o…wait…yeah, nuts-o).

So, at the Whitney House we had a party with a dual focus. First,
to celebrate the arrival of the rotomonkey. Second, the href="http://pixar.com/">Pixar summer interns were all on their last day
and we had a farewell party for them. There must have been 60 to 70 people
at the peak of the party. There was much queso (a.k.a. liquid crack) and
guacamole that went way too fast. We also cooked up some of the Whitney Hot
Wings and people were nuts for those. The salsa I made that no one ate I
should have done a few days earlier, because now it’s perfect: hot, tangy,
and zesty. Everyone had a good time and my room mate has even said that people
at work that weren’t at the party heard it was good. I fear the next one
we do, we might reach critical mass or something.

I’m really glad the rotomonkey is out here. At the end of next month I’ll
be back in NY for his and Athena’s wedding and I can’t wait. I know some of
our href="http://speak.pushmedia.com/archives/2004/08/25/bye_bye_rotomonkey.php">
friends back in NY will be missing him, but that just means they’ll have
to come out here for more visits since we have the better weather. I also
look forward to some excellent pictures in the href="http://rotomonkey.org/">rotomonkey’s blog from his adventures out
here. I would have posted a picture here but like a dum dum I forgot to take
any of the party. Oh well, next time.

In the last week I’ve had the pleasure of my roommate hooking me up (meaning
he got the tickets or found out about the event and sent me an email. It
couldn’t be easier) twice with great entertainment.

The first event was last Saturday at the

Empire Plush Room. We went to see a vaudeville and burlesque show titled
The Va Va Voom Room. That was
one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. I was laughing the entire
time. The hostess was dead on acting as a Austrian starlet with one eye
from about the 40’s. The three-piece jazz band was tight and dead on. The
acts were all very good at what they did. My favorite performer was a singer
that came out and did two songs, but wish she had done more though. Not only
was she a knockout with read hair and a gorgeous body. She was wearing an
evening gown and above the elbow gloves, but that’s not why I was captivated by
her. Her singing was amazing. I’m just getting goose bumps thinking about it.
I will go back in the future if only to see her.

The second event was last night. On Monday my roommate sent me an email saying
he had gotten two tickets (the most one person could buy) to a show at href="http://www.bimbos365club.com/">Bimbo’s 365 in North Beach. The show
was stand up comedy by Robin Williams and had just been announced. Since it
was him working on new material I jumped at the chance to go.

I will say that he was really funny. Funnier than I even expected him to be
(I know, what was I thinking). There was a part where I had to just not laugh
for a bit because I was worn out from laughing. He did about an hour of
material and then an hour or so of improv. His stream of consciousness is
amazing. He can move from subject to subject with such easy and he’s so fast
at it you don’t really have time to think, only laugh.

All in all it was great. I look forward to being able to do both things again
in the future.

As anyone knows me I love music. Hence it should be no surprise that I’ve
gotten even more recently.

• Rise Against - Siren Song of the
  Counter Culture. Okay, Rise Against put out an album last year,
  Revolutions Per Minute. Honestly, it was my href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/12/31/">album of the year for
  2003. I still listen to it all the time because it’s just that good. Their
  new album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture is also a fantastic album,
  but I tell you, it’s hard to beat Revolutions. While spinning this
  album for a while I realize it would be a prenominal album if Revolutions
  had never come out, but it did and now we have more good stuff to
  listen to.
• Pretty Girls Make
  Graves - Good Health and The New Romance. This band
  is just supper solid. Sort of along the lines of Le Tigre and
  Sleater-Kinney in that they all have female singers and play similar styles
  of music, PGMG is a super solid and plays well for me in the background
  while I’m working. Everyone I’ve played them for has loved the sound
  immediately.
• Alkaline Trio - From Here to
  Infirmary and Good Mourning. I really used to love Alkaline Trio,
  then right before Infirmary came out something turned off for me so I
  skipped getting their last two albums. This year I got the
  
  Alkaline Trio/One Man Army Split. I immediately fell in love with the
  work of both bands on the split. That caused me to re-thing not having all of
  the Alk3 albums. I’m glad I decided to pick them up (besides being a
  completist) because Infirmary is good but Mourning is great.
  It’s right up there with the work on the split and has been very easy for
  me to listen to. The video for “We’ve Had Enough” is also really good (see
  the mention about the Rock Against Bush album below
• Less Than Jake - B is for
  B-sides. LTJ took 12 songs from the href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/05/24#mall-n-music">Anthem
  sessions and put out a whole new album. It’s short but very good. It is LTJ,
  what more could one expect. I’m just blown away that they had enough
  material to release another album from just the recording of one.
• Various Artists - Rock Against Bush
  Vol. 2. Another in the series. While all the music is great and
  a nice cheap buy the winning aspect of this disc is that it comes with a
  bonus DVD. On the DVD is a performance of Will Ferrell as George Bush and
  several music videos by bands like Alk3, Flogging Molly, and Bad Religion.
  All in all yet another great comp from Fat Wreck.

So, recurring dreams. Strange stuff. As it is I don’t remember too many of
my dreams. However I have some of the same dreams several times and themes
are definitely repeating. One of the major ones is, um, dead bodies (or parts
thereof) and bears. The bears are never causing the death and they don’t mess
with the bodies.

Last night was a new dream for me. Everywhere I went there were arms (both
left and right) from the elbow up sticking out of the ground. I could
recognize some of the arms via jewelry, watches, or tattoos but I have no
idea why they were there. None of them moved and they were obviously dead.

As I walked along I came across a bear. He told me his name was Shamus (the
first time a bear has spoken in a dream) and offered me a ride. We rode for a
while and then watched the sun set from the hills over the East Bay. Thats
when I woke up.

I have no explanations for any of it, but one friend told me that bears are
supposed to mean strength. That’s a little comforting I guess. At least I’m
not afraid of the bodies and the bears are always peaceful or non-threatening.

So, for the last 6.5 weeks or so I’ve been running myself on a modified diet.
Add to that 4.5 weeks of being at the gym almost every day. So far that’s
gotten me 20 pounds reduced in weight. I still have quite a ways to go and I
know it won’t be nearly as fast from here out, but I’m happy so far.

Being at the gym has been good. I’ve definitely got more energy in the
afternoon (since I go at lunch time) and I am sleeping a bit better. This
last weekend a friend from New York was out visiting. In addition to him I
was with a bunch of friends that I hadn’t seen in a few weeks. All of them
commented that they could see a difference so that made me feel better.

The only thing I hate so far is that I haven’t yet figured out a weights
schedule to tone up yet, but I still have a ways to go on the weight loss so
doing more cardio is fine. I also need to figure out some play lists for the
iPod. While some artists and albums are hunky dory for working out to a
little mixing it up couldn’t hurt. Maybe one of these evenings I’ll start
with one and then it can grow from there.

So, normally my BART rides consist of me reading a book or magazine and
a little bit of people watching. The last week has had some interesting things
though:

• Last Tuesday I went home a little early because there had been a bit of
  flooding due to a busted sprinkler system. Thankfully nothing was wrong at
  the house, but on the way into the href="http://bart.gov/stations/stationguide/localareamap_16st.asp?ct=1"
  title="BART Maps!">16th Mission station the guy in front of me was walking
  on the left side of a small hallway. People had to move out of his way and
  one guy got particularly pissed that me, being on the right side of the
  hallway didn’t get out of his way. He did the ’shoulder hit’ thing and said to
  me “watch it bitch.” Being the courteous bastard I am I replied with a
  “whatever cocksucker.” At this point he gets enraged and starts bumping into
  me with his chest (given that he was a good 6 to 8 inches shorter than me I
  found this particularly humorous) and repeating “what’d you say?” To this I
  decided to just stand my ground and stare at him which could have been dumb if
  he had a knife or gun, but it was crowded so I felt a little more confident.
  Now, walking in I had seen the BART Police standing at the station attendant’s
  booth so I also wasn’t too worried. Before I knew it the officers had moved
  down to where we were (you see, the “hallway” is actually just a concrete
  divider with a glass wall that doesn’t go all the way up). They asked if there
  was a problem and I said “I don’t have one, maybe this gentleman does.” When
  they looked at him he decided to take off running up the stairs, which was
  where he was headed anyway. One of the cops then ran to a nearby gate and was
  up the stairs after him. The other officer told me to have a nice day and
  that I could go. Amazing, had they guy not be dumb and ran (or caused a
  problem in the first place) he probably would have gotten to just walk out of
  there. I guess when you’re dumb enough to have a warrant or be wanted you’re
  dumb enough to run.
• The next day I was walking my usual route (yeah, bad idea, I know) from
  work to the BART. As I passed a low wrought iron fence that blocks off
  a small alley on the side of a house a man came over the fence. I freaked
  the hell out because, as is par for the course, people don’t generally
  jump over low wrought iron fences at me. As I was still walking down the
  sidewalk the man walked the same way I did. The first thing he said was
  “I hope I didn’t offend you.” So far, so good, he’s polite. “A man’s got
  to find a place to smoke his rock you know.” Oooookay. Now we’re on the
  same page. As I look over and down the small alley I see a woman pulling her
  pants up. Yup, smoked some rock and got it off too. Great. Anyway, for the
  remainder of the block we were on he proceeded to talk to me. Asking me
  if I wanted to by some 600mg Ibuprofin or if I knew if Codeine was better. A
  lovely conversation I tell you. At the next corner I turned and trucked it to the BART. Rude? Possibly, but the guy had a crazy look and little patches of hair that hadn’t been shaved off his head in an attempt at the Curly look. Eeee.
• On Monday I was doing the usual. Bart to 16th Mission, accend the stairs,
  and then walk to work. This morning however I got the pleasure of being
  accosted at the top by a lady getting in my face and saying “JESUS LOVES YOU!”
  at the top of her lungs. My reply? “Good for him.” That, apparently, was
  the wrong thing to say. At that she attempted to stay in my face as I
  walked off and started calling me a heathen and an unbeliever. Now, mind you,
  those things aren’t necessarily untrue, but I mean, come on. You like Jesus
  and that’s good for you. Respect my choice to be an atheist and leave me the
  hell alone. I tell you, people.

The sad thing is I really like where I work, but I don’t like walking through
the Mission any longer. It’s mostly the distance, and while not too bad, it
could be better. It is, however, better than driving and trying to find a
place to park.

Last night was fun. I went to the title="Conga Lounge in Rockridge">Conga Lounge in Rockridge to see some
Elvis related events (what with it being the anniversary of his death or
disappearance). The lounge is tiny, and actually much smaller than I thought
it would be, but still a good little place. I’ll have to see about going back
there when there are fewer Elvis revelers. As it was, the Elvis snacks they
had out, toasted peanut butter and banana sandwiches, donuts, and fried chicken
were just fine. Anyway, if you’re in the Rockridge area I suggest you give it
a try.

After trying many things and working with the excellent facilities personnel at
work I had to have my desk lowered by another two inches. This is the
href=”http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/09/30#desk-situation2″
title=”ONE! AH AH AH!”>second
href=”http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/09/30#desk-situation3″
title=”TWO! AH AH AH!”>time I’ve had it lowered. Now my shoulders really
do feel better. Of course, what I’d really like is some newer equipment
(tray, desk, chair, something), but that’s out of reach due to limitations
within the company at this point (and I’m not at liberty to go into them anyway
you nosey Nelly).

The best part is that I now have the lowest desk in the entire studio (by about
four inches) and it does a good job of freaking people out when they come over.
Tee hee hee.

Photo by Dan Weeks

Man, I so love fresh food. Tonight our meal was perfectly accented with a
fresh insalata caprese made from tomatoes and basil from our garden. It was
so good and seasoned (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper) to
perfection. Having a great mozzarella (made locally none the less) helped too.
I so love living in California, the food alone is worth it.