My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

San Francisco has small towns, but they call them neighborhoods. Mine is The Richmond District. There are people here that rarely go to the city, even though they live in one. People from the country probably don’t understand that. The city is one thing to them – a giant mix of people who don’t know each other, who live anonymous lives with no sense of community. To people who have lived for generations in the same part of town, it is just the opposite. Even for me, after seven years, I know the people at the coffee shop, I go to Dick’s International to get my haircut, I miss the cashier girl who got transferred from the grocery store. It’s a small town, or a small part of town at least. Filled with plumbers, bad artists, people who hate gays, yoga enthusiasts, local drunks, a regular beggar on the corner, a cast of steady characters any small town in America would recognize.

The DMV in Daly City is a good one. This license plate collection was on the wall and I asked to take a picture. They let me in behind the carpeted door. Later today I’m gonna call the man and ask him why and how he got this art piece on the wall.

UPDATE: I called Hal. Got his machine. He’s a contractor. I hope he calls me back.

Doug and I are working out in the country today. The ice cream man came by, we played with horses, drank cokes…it’s been good.

underneath the make-up table

I love this website called Morbid Anatomy. It’s like going into an old castle in a crumbling Baltic state with a very strange but very nice Countess as your host and after dinner at a long wooden table lit by tall blood red candles held in an antique bronze candelabra she asks if you’d like to see her collection of teratological specimens in the study. You have no idea what that means but follow her down a stone lined passageway and enter into a library lined with antique volumes, which you hardly notice because in the main area long rows of enameled tables hold specimen jars of pickled hands and feet, complete skeletons dangle from hooks, bodies in various stage of autopsy – some under gorgeous wood and glass cases – fill the area.

She offers you a rag soaked in formaldehyde which you both judiciously huff and then you begin exploring what humans have done in attempt to understand death through the ages. It is a room pregnant with beautiful incest between art and science.

It turns out a friend of a friend of a friend runs it and I want to do an interview with her about it. Check it out and if any of you have questions or comments for her I’ll include those, then bring it all back here.

Look at this thing. I used a blind stitch! No seam! And get a load of the little buttons below!

There’s a heat wave hitting Frisco and Hell’s Angels already know what to do – cut the sleeves off your jacket. 95 degrees tomorrow people, and I’m business professional. Watch me now, I got short sleeves on this wool thang.

This took less than two hours. I even cooked Annie’s mac & cheese while doing it.

TIPS FROM A PRO:

Cut the jacket two inches longer than your final length so you can turn it back and sew it like it was before.

SOMETHING TO NOTE:

Long sleeve suit coats allow the long sleeve shirt to poke out, but short sleeve shirts don’t have buttons and a snug fit. Mine was all bunchy and looked weird hanging out so unless you peg your shirt cuffs, leave the jacket sleeve longer than the shirt sleeve. Adds to the weirdness, too.

FYI

I’m lookin’ good.

Here’s the problem: in the old days of the 1950′s dudes were shorter. Cigarettes grew closer to the ground on the cigarette trees. By 2008 the lack of low dangling cigarettes resulted in an evolutionary adaption of increased arm length. Now all those cool thrift store sport coats are useless…until now.

My only complaint is that in this picture it looks like my arm was photoshopped and comes out of my body a few inches below normal. Stand by for my roommate to come home and take a better picture. I even knocked on the neighbors door. No answer.

I’m not going to dwell on the problems my own stupidity have caused me. This morning I picked up an old wool suit coat that I love and tried it on again. The sleeves are still four inches to short. I decided I’d cut them off and make a short sleeved suit coat. I feel good again. I’m whistling a symphony.

After having the not so great day when I lost my wallet, I headed down to Sean’s house to work on a set I had to build for a photo shoot. Apparently I rolled through a stop sign in my neighborhood and an unmarked or off duty cop saw it. Since I was in a large white box truck with no license plates he tailed me and called backup – unbeknownst to me. By the time someone hit the blues there were two more cruisers for a total of five cops waiting for me.

“License and registration and proof of insurance” he asked me.

“I don’t have any of that. I lost my wallet today.”

“Step out of the vehicle.”

It was night and they had the spot light on my truck so I couldn’t see in my rear view mirrors. When I stepped out that’s when I noticed all the cops on the sidewalk waiting for me. I stood a lot taller than all of them, with my long hair and growing-back-in-beard. I was pissed off still. Again. More importantly, I was ready for a beating.

If you noticed the report above, that was from last week when I got pulled over. In the same truck for the same thing. Slow learner. Rolled a stop sign, no plates, no insurance. So I’m checking the mailbox every day so I can get a second thousand dollar fine this month.

I didn’t catch that beating. I told them I lost my wallet. I told them I have insurance. i told them the plates were in the cab but I needed a wrench to put them on. After a while they let me go. The night got better from there because my good pal Sean helped me get the set walls built and everyone lived happily ever after.

all better

“Why did you punch the steering wheel?”

“If I break something or hurt myself then I can focus on that instead of what had me so mad.”

“That’s what cutters do – people who cut themselves.”

Shelly had made lunch for me and her two daughters. The littlest one was in some plastic seat thing next to her while she spoon fed the baby homemade mango mush mixed with oatmeal. The food ran down the little babies face. Shelly caught it in the spoon and put it back in the babies mouth. I ate my hot dog. The two and a half year old ate hers.

Shelly said, “Women release a hormone that calms them when they talk about things. They did studies on the brain and men don’t release that.”

“Talking makes me madder. As soon as I broke the steering wheel I felt better.”

“Is that really the best way to handle the stress though?”

“When I was little, like 9 or 10, I’d stab holes in the wall with my jackknife. So my Mom asked me to punch the pillow instead.”

“That doesn’t work,” Shelly said. “It doesn’t have the same feeling. I wanted to punch the closet door yesterday because of her.”

We looked at her oldest, who held Big Bunny in one hand and ate with the other.

“She made me so mad. I didn’t because I thought I’d cut myself. It’s scary for the kids, too.”

“I want those hormones,” I said.

I’m at the bank canceling my cards. Lost my wallet. Punched the steering wheel till it broke. That scared my lady so she went home. My license plate tags and new registration, IRS refund check and a stack of receipts I’ll never get reimbursed for are all gone. And they offer me lollipops.

you know you’ve made it when they name a donut after you. Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

this is proof that they used to make really weird handkerchiefs.

It looks like she is standing in front of a picture of trees.