I’m drunk but wanted to tell you about Fisherman’s Wharf. Turns out there are all kinds of fisherman living on their boats down here. In the middle of this place is a Hooter’s. I went in to use the can and this was the only dude in there with a Hooter’s shirt on. I asked if I could take his picture and he went “No picture!”
Fisherman’s Wharf is one of the biggest tourist traps in San Francisco. A great place to buy a jacket with “SF” embroidered on the breast over an image of the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the old Chinese guys at the electrical supply outlet wear these, but for the most part you don’t see them on locals.
I ended up down there last night, I have two house guests in town. I caught up with them after work at a bar where they were drinking cognac with two crab fisherman. This was just the beginning of a very weird evening.
They showed us their boat (figure one) and we played pool at some other bar-high stakes pool against some professional skateboarders who knew the bar tender. The captain of the boat killed them even though he’d run his hand through the pot winch (figure two). He’d fashioned a bandage for his stitches with duct tape. (again, figure two).
I had a sober kick for about eight months. I fell on the wagon so to speak. I found myself restless sitting up on that wagon, it rode rough and fairly slow so when we were over the whiskey river I went ahead and jumped off. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that pledge of writing every day…
Collin writes his name in urine
Big Jim got me working on an electric project this week.
“We’re going to replace this surface panel but we’re doing it live,” he tells me.
“What’s that mean?” I ask.
“It means I’ll have 240 volts going through me if I touch the wrong wire. That’s why you need a long two by four. That much juice will seize my muscles so I can’t let go of the wire. You need to hit me with that board to knock me loose.”
And Big Jim was serious, so I stood beside him with the two by four raised.
Jhase continues his stories about the great state of Neveda…
“I worked for this camera store for like five years, and I quit – two years after I quit they asked me to go to Nevada to sell binoculars at a sporting event – it was a Nascar race. We show up three days early – we were representing Nikon and they wanted to be on top of it and sell the most binoculars. There’s no one there but event staff and they were making fun of us standing around with no one there but we cleared forty/ fifty grand during the race…selling binoculars.
Customers didn’t want to use them just for the race – everyone wanted to know if they could spot bucks with them too..I don’t really like killing animals, but every pair I’d say, “Yeah they’re great for hunting.”
The stand was in the middle of a giant parking lot, 15 feet by 15 feet, a vinyl canopy in the middle of a sea of lifted brand new F 350s and motorhomes. I didn’t see one import car the whole time.
It was a crowd of harley t shirts and fanny packs – male fake leather fanny packs with skoal tobacco and binoculars I sold them. We had a “spot the worst tattoo possible” game to keep us going..
Nascar is 150 degree heat, flap jack breasted biker girls with tribal arm bands…I spotted at least 30 around-the-belly-button sun tattoos. So many mullets I can’t even bring it up…
There was a kettle corn and bratwurst booth right by us. Every night we’d see how many vodka tonics we could put down…
We were more than a quarter mile away from the actual race way, and it was pretty loud, I wanted to go in but I had to sell binoculars to people. Once in a while you’d get a really rich redneck with snakeskin boots, turquoise inlays on them bragging about the size of his motorhome and he’d drop 1500 bucks on binoculars. We started saying howdy to everyone just to fit in. Right on the middle of the toe, on the toe, it had a turquoise diamond with sterling silver around it.
This is Gildas and Sophia, they just met through couchsurfing.com, a website where you register your couch as available to strangers traveling through town or else you register as a traveler and request to stay on a couch in a place you want to visit.
Gildas is from Bordeaux France but has been living in Paris until recently when he quit his job reviewing French television shows in order to travel around the world – by boat and train!
Sophia was my room mate a few years ago, she lives in the Mission District of San Francisco now. She discovered couchsurfing.com a year ago when she was looking for a cheap place to stay in Belize. She didn’t stay on anyone’s couch, but quite often people will show strangers around their city and Sophia met someone who did just that.
I asked Gildas if he had stayed on other people’s couches.
“Yes, 8 couches. Here and in Russia. I stayed 5 nights at one person’s house in Moscow, we had agreed on two nights but we kept extending. There have been no bad experiences for me.”
I was curious about French television so then I asked him about that.
“There aren’t many series in France, except American ones. But there are many reality shows. They copy American ones, like Secret Story. That was the last big success in France. It is like the show Big Brother – a group lives in a loft with cameras on 24 hours a day and everyone has a secret they try not to reveal before the end of the show. They tried to make a French version of Grey’s Anatomy, but it failed. The shows aren’t good when they copy an American one unless it is a reality show.”
What is the most popular American series in France today?
“CSI Miami.”
this was in the 1978 Tupperware catalog. I had these as a child.
an interview with Sonja and her boyfriend Jhas. (pronounced like Jason without the “un”) Notice in this rare interview, the subject starts with the first question.
Jhas: You ever been to Neveda? If you like Bakersfield, and I know you do, you gotta check it out.
my robot is pregnant: Where did you go?
Jhas: I went to Las Vegas of course, everyone does, but ahh..Pahrump Neveda is the real Neveda. The thing that supports the town is fireworks and prostitution… you can’t get more American than that…it’s freedom…and don’t forget motorsports, which is why I was there: racing; a motorcycle road race.
mrip: They close the road?
Jhas: No, on a track. I used to race Superbikes. Let’s see… what happened… one of my friends crashed really bad – her name was Dawn – she crashed because a week before she painted her bike with tiger stripes – we all thought it was lame and said she would crash. It was so bad. Tiger stripes? Her engine overheated, she was going about 180 on the back straight and the hose burst off the radiator and coolant lubed up her rear tire – she went to brake and turn for the right hand corner at the end of the straight, the bike went out from under her at about 90 mph….
mrip: What happened to her?
Jhas: She didn’t get hurt, I mean she walked away – she did like thirty cartwheels her bike went up twenty feet in the air all the body work and parts went flying – it was a cacophony of destruction…
mrip: What was she wearing?
Sonja: She was nude.
Jhas: She was a prostitute we had hired so she was nude. She crashed because we were shooting fireworks at her.
mrip: No, I mean, she must have had some incredible leathers…(at this point the conversation turned to cracking jokes until Jhas came back to the topic of Pahrump:
Jhas: The locals gamble until they have enough for meth. They take their family out to a Mexican food place if they win.
mrip: (turning to Sonja) and what’s your name?
Sonja: s-o-n-j-a.
mrip: That was kind of a redundant step…And have you been to Neveda?
Sonja: My mom’s from Nevada – Townapah, so, we, half of the town is demolished, it just fell down it’s so old. Its where my mom grew up – they used to have to eat cabbage with mayonnaise on it. It’s sad. The nicest hotel was one of those Motel 6′s. I stayed there with my mom once…I went to sleep and I woke up and I thought I was bleeding but it was old blood. My mom didn’t tell me she saw it because she didn’t want me to make a fuss. There was a bullet hole in the wall…it was awful.
Jhas: I remember there was a mom parked in her Volvo in the middle of no where in a dusty dirt lot with a sign that said “girl scout cookies” – she had a little chair with a little umbrella sitting next to the trunk of her old Volvo – nothing around. No one. The trunk was open and she had a few boxes of cookies in it.
stay tuned for an epic tale about selling binoculars at a nascar race, coming soon!
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