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 School
We had "spring" break this week. In reality, it
felt more like the last gasp of winter with another bout of
cold and rain sweeping in from the arctic.
Game Night
My tall club rented a free, 'community room' in the Castro
and I organized a game night. We were lucky to get an even
numbered turn out so we could break into two teams. We had
pizza and snacks and socialized for the first hour, then we
settled into a few rounds of Catch Phrase before moving on
to a round of Pictionary. I went out for drinks with the guys
after we cleaned up the room, but then I had to dash down
to Wicked.
 A
Wicked Weeknight
Friday marked the 12 year anniversary of the Wicked Sound
System. It was great to see some old friends and faces from
the five years I worked with Wicked. Jenö played some
really great classics from the late 80s and early 90s. I had
fun dancing in the corner with my pals Andie and Gina. We
had a periodic wander around the club, looking for friends
and checking out the space. Here's
a few pix
The venue, Mezzanine is brand new
Wicked marked the first Friday party in Audrey's new club
space, Mezzanine. It's a really small space with lots of concrete
that gives it a sterile, cold feeling very similar to the
"community" centre on Market street. The sound system
was very nice. They really got the air conditioning done right
as I often felt the cool, slight breeze in several spots around
the very small dancefloor. Looking at the crowd flow, it's
obvious the space is made for drinking alcohol with an incidental
dancefloor stuck in the middle of everything. Overall, I think
they may have a difficult time creating an art gallery space
during the week, but I've heard Audrey plans to have bring
in a variety of artsy, creative promoters to create additional
clubnights. I guess Wicked is the first in this strategy and
I think it will work if she's willing to take a risk on the
newer promoters too. They're the ones organizing club nights
around newer music with a smaller initial fan base. Because
the venue's maximum capacity is so small, it's well suited
to incubating newer musical movements. On the downside, almost
all of Audrey's staff was very rude. The guy who checked my
ID was cool, but everyone from the security guard who confiscated
my camera, to the bracelet guy and even the bartender were
all short tempered and seemed ill suited to working in a night
club. I got there relatively early (before midnight!) and
the crowd was fairly sparse, so if the staff is that frazzeled
that early, I can only imagine how cranky they would be at
5am when DJ Thomas was due to go on. Garth was meant to start
DJing at 2am though by the time I left at 2:30, Jenö
was still on the decks. All in all, it was a great night out
in a nice new venue.
E-Day
Saturday we had the nicest weather of the year. Of course
the cold and clouds came back on Sunday, just in time for
E-day. I was playing it mellow over the weekend and had to
forego several events...
How Weird Street Faire
Every San Francisco neighbourhood has it's own street fair
through out the year. It starts in February with the Cherry
Blossom Festival in Japantown, though for this year, it started
for me on Howard Street this weekend. Several blocks were
transformed into a circus of sorts for the How Weird Street
Faire...
 Drums
of War
What's the Big Deal?
Americans hate antiquities, museums, libraries, hospitals,
and clean, fresh drinking water in the US so why is the rest
of the world upset that American forces would ignore these
things in Iraq? Of course the troops rushed off to the oil
fields and gave protecting them top priority to the detriment
of the rest of Iraq... it just shows how much this war is
all about oil - why is anyone surprised about the way things
have turned out?
Too Expensive (part 1)
NPR reports that food is available in the Iraqi city of Basra,
but it is too expensive for most people to afford. Then they
went on to talk about the lack of water... on and on. Sure,
most humans can't go more than about three days without adequate
water, especially in desert conditions. But food is important
too and if you can't afford something, then it may as well
not exist for you. Having no food or water for the poorest
citizens amounts to a humanitarian crisis and the American
media and its government will never admit THAT's going on
in Iraq as it would be far too embarassing to do so.
Too Expensive (part 2)
The Pentagon admitted their war has cost American tax payers
over 60 BILLION DOLLARS! That's cost SO FAR because military
action is still not over and with the Bush administration
saying that the military could be there for another 18 months
or more, it's even more dismaying to find that by Pentagon
reports the US is spending about 3 billion dollars a month.
How many American kids would have cleaner, safer schools
with 3 bn a month? How many American hospitals could be better
staffed and improve their service with 3 bn dollars a month?
How many American elderly could give up the cat food with
3 bn a month for medicare and social security? We may never
know because Americans will be paying for the Shrub's folly
for generations.
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Week
Ending 20 April
Workin'
It 
