Yep, these hang upside down.  Your plants grow down and out, like so many things in life sometimes.   This has a staghorn fern potted in it.  LOVELY!  Peep it here if you like.

A friend of mine sat down next to me at Atomix cafe the other day, she saw that I was reading a book called Mingus Mingus, and asked me if I had ever heard of Albert Ayler.  I hadn’t.  She said, “it’s the most beautiful thing”, she wrote down his name, and told me to youtube Albert Ayler at John Coltranes Funeral.  I just did.  I have to agree with her, it was very beautiful.  I just did my morning stretching  to it.  I not only feel good because of the stretching, but well… there is this extra buzz going on with my body, and i’m pretty sure Ayler has something to do with it.    Wow.

I came back from a little trip, and well… this was freshly done to our wonderful window.  My roomie and I don’t ever want to put a curtain up in this window, were on the second floor, and we don’t do anything shady to hide from our neighbors across the way.  I love this window, but look at it now.  I have lived in this building for just over a year.  The landlord lives on the first floor, and he makes house music in his basement studio.  The studio is just equipment in a room, an actual studio has sound controls that keep sound in, usually that is.  So yeah, it’s often very 1993 in our building.  That most likely has nothing to do with the fact that our place has been egged 5 times since we moved in.  I usually don’t care at all, because the eggings had happened to the landlords window.  A couple months ago, there were some eggs on both doors, the first floor door, and the door that goes to our place.  Gross and nasty was that, the smell, and the flies.  So whatever, some punk ass kid, or ex of his likes to constantly egg our place….. but check it, they finally hit our window.  We don’t have any ladders here, and it wasn’t thought to hose it off right after it happened.  So it has just been cooking onto the glass.  This is our view, this is one of the stronger features of this place.  I brought it up to the landlord fella, to see if he had any desire to get this cleaned off, and well… he must not, because its been there for a solid month.  Lazy days for sure, but that is what the other people in the building had told me when I moved in.   Any Chicago peeps got a ladder for me?  I’ll wipe that giant giz away.  We got egged, but doesn’t the idea of a giant pervert, standing in our window, doing his nastiness to the window, sound like a better story.

My boss recently let me know that I like to roll with the run on sentences, yeah.. that happens.  Feel free to edit?

This billboard is a couple blocks from my house. Isn’t Coca Cola such a global company, they are so multicultural right, look at the nice Latino family and the excitement they are showing about having twice as much Coca Cola around. I love multinational sugar pushers. Nothing really important with this little rant, I just found this ad stupid. I have had this desire to do my own little Beats By Otter AD Bust kinda thingy, lets see?

My long ago roomie, and good good friend Tim was in town, we had some house beers, and chatted it up for a while.  He suggested going out for food, and well… we did.  We walked down Chicago Ave, on our to the Highdive, or Cleo’s.  We passed El Taco Veloz, and I made a comment about it being really good, but not as put together as my favorite Mexican food joint up the road a bit further, Tecalitlan.  What does that even mean? better put together?  Whatever, Tim said Veloz looked authentico, and with that word of an old friend, we went in.  I explained that I sometimes go there to brood over a steak after a rough work day, not often, but sometimes.  They have all the pickled goodies on the tables, the vat of sliced carrots, cauliflower, peppers, garlic, and onions.  That alone is a reason to go and eat chips and Salsa.  Here’s the deal.  The food was super amazing, that is not what the coolest thing of the night was.  The best part of our meal there, was between the nice jukebox playing Mexican jams, the TV would blast.  As I sometimes looked up, it was mostly the big breast popping out of the tops of these reporter type women, I don’t speak a lick of the Spanish, so I would just look, and wonder what they were talking about, using the cut away shots to further my investigation.  But eventually I noticed that they were reporting on something special, and before I knew what was what, the President of Mexico was standing on a balcony overlooking a very large square in Mexico City, I only know that because Tim knew the name of the plaza.  He waived the Mexican Flag, and that is when I remembered my buddy Nata telling me that I was Mexican Independence Day at midnight earlier in the day.  I looked at my phone for the time, funny right? what happened to the watch?  It was 11:07 Central, so i’m thinking in Mexico City, it must be midnight, I’ll need to fact check that later, but for now… whateve, Then he walked over to a nicely covered bell, and began to ring it!  Awesome.  I said something to Tim like, “our country is so lame”.  I loved all the midnight celebration.  We do that for new years, sure, but so does everyone.  As the Mexican national anthem played through the TV speakers, I slyly watched the table of 8 near us.   Two women that were maybe in their 30′s were softly mouthing the words of the song.  The couple younger men, watched with importance, and the lone teenage girl looked, and mouthed some of the words.  I couldn’t help but wonder if she was born in Mexico, and left when she was super young, too young to know the words to this song.  Or maybe she was born in the US, and just kinda knew the song from family heritage vibes.  Regardless, it was beautiful.  The very small children while playing and not paying any attention to the TV, were decked out in full on Mexican colors, Even if they didn’t understand, they were taking part.  Yeah, El Taco Veloz, tonight was about more than the food.

We had the comment button blocked the whole time this site has been up, my fault.  I would love to hear what you think.  Off to the work spot.

The Man does it again, actually it was the word of a scared line judge.  She might have been on some “20 D energizer?” type of shit, or some “I feel Sorry for your mother” If you know what i’m saying, well.. you know, and if you know and you think i’m out of line, well…”motha fuck you!”  Wow two quotes form Menace to Society, and one from Do The Right Thing, Hughes and Lee got something stuck in my head piece for sure with those.   Serena should kinda know not to loose her cool in one of the churches of The Man.   But still, what a bogus way to go out of a US Open.  Ok ok, I can see how she was most likely going to loose the match.  To quote Herman Edwards “you play to win the game” or maybe it was some a  Grand Verbalizer from X Clan… “ZULU! runnin’ from my magic” type of action by Serena, that caused the folks to deduct a point.

I”m really happy that summer decided to show up yesterday, yeah!  I was kind of a sweaty mess, very caught off guard by that.  There was a moment when I questioned whether my tee shirt might be too thick for the day.  Whats that?  Better late than never, but wait… now its kinda chilly out.  Hip Hop Hooray, for this fall night.

what the what was that phrase from? It’s been in my head for a couple days, and I’m feeling like it was a lady product…. but i’m not sure, ” i can’t seem to forget her, her wind songs on my mind”, yikes! I just remembered the melody, for sure a commercial from the 70′s or 80′s. Help?

Steelers V Titans…. Boring!

New recycled from steel drum chairs… Dope!

Pedro Martinez still rocking some perm curl spray products… Dope!

Some hick calling President Obama a liar… Lame!

The flan from cafe Gaudi last night… Dope!

President Obama is…. a male… Funny?

The roast of Flava Flav…. Uncomfortable!

Wishing You Were Here by Chicago… Dope!

The dopes have it.

I was coming back into Oakland from a supertastical day of walking around San Francisco, Streets, Canyons, Hills, Shops, Hills, Hills, Hills.  Fruit was had, water was drank, and when the call for a real meal hit, we ate at Herbivore on Valencia.  Full on vegan spot, I got the Mac N Cheese, and an Artichoke Soup….. Yeah, it was good, real good, and good for me, but I was thinking about the Spicy Indian Food joint next door during the entire meal, that and the good company I was in.  My legs were literally throbbing from the hiking of the day, and I was super ready to have a low key Saturday night at Alejo and Amber’s house in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland.  I got off at the Macarthur Bart Station, and walked a couple blocks to Telegraph, took a left, I had only like 8 blocks to walk before I could just chill for the night.  I knew I was in trouble as soon as I took that left because Churches Chicken crept into my thoughts.  I hadn’t been to a Churches since like 1986.  There was one on the corner of Bradley and Prospect in Champaign,  my family lived on Bradley and Mom would often bring home the Churches.  I think I was into the novelty of it at first, but then I realized as I had my hand on the door handle that I was damn hungry.  This is about day eight of a ten day trip, and the prior meals of most of my vacation had consisted of lots of healthy food.  Vita Cafe in Portland was very good, and very Vegan, Even the lightly breaded Oyester from Fishtale in Olympia had a fresca feel to it.  The meals the Alejo prepared in Oakland were beyond yummy, but again with the lightness… I felt more than ready for some Fried Chicken!  I ordered the 4 piece meal, and added a leg to make it a 5 piece dinner.

There was only one other person in the spot, he was an older African American fella rockin a Jamarcus Russell Jersey (#12), Black dickeys, and a Raiders cap.  He was very much enjoying his chicken, I could hear it.  I sad down a couple tables away and began my munch.  We made eye contact and said our “what’s up’s”.  I mentioned that I had Russell early last season as my sleeper quarterback in my chill fantasy league, and he told me that was most likely a mistake, he was right.  Russell had a horrid year, but I still like and root for the guy, he just won’t be on my teams in the future.  He was just coming from a 36-0 preseason Raider game.  I think they played the Saints.  So we talked football between bites, and that turned to me being in from Chicago, and what I was doing in Oakland.  I told him that I was thinking of relocating to the Bay Area, and that I really thought Oakland would be the place for me, and that my dream deal would be for the store I currently work for, to open a spot out there.  He suggested a couple neighborhoods, Merritt Lake area, Temescal, where we were, and he even mentioned the Mission.  Which is kinda funny, because of the areas that I was looking at, that other people had suggested, he was right on.  Might be something to that.  We spoke about working in SF and living in Oakland, something he did.  And how if you do, you might want to drive.  That conversation turned into a conversation about how fucked up it is to have the Bart run 24 hours a day, or at least until like 3am.  He spoke about how it keeps things separated in a way, Race and Class style.  He asked me if I had heard about how the transit cops shot a brotha on the train the last time the Bart ran late, New Years Eve I think he said it was.   The whole thing was caught on tape, Bart security cameras that is, and it shows the guy being restrained, with a cop on top of him, no sign of struggle.  The cop said he was reaching for his tazer and pulled out his gun by mistake, AND FIRED IT!  He said white folks were right out with the black folks when people decided to make some noise in the street.  He like that about Oakland.  He also said Oakland was Wacky.  Hoods, next to little peaceful pockets.   We talked about how the Police suck everywhere, except for the good ones, but we both used the words occupying force.  He asked me if the Windy City was really windy, I told him how that name came from some yellow press shit back in the day, but that yeah, downtown if a canyon of wind, and how the lake is really amazing, but also the reason for such cold actions of winter for us Chicago folk.  I did talk some smack about how the Bears are going to be quite nice this year, and he agreed.  The next thing I new my chicken was gone, and he was still eating.  I think I was hungry, we gave a pound and said our goodbyes.  He said “stay cool in Chicago”, but my favorite thing was when he said, “if you make it out here, I’ll see you around”.  That was some friendly shit, and even if we never see each other again, he is my Churches Chicken Friend.  Why does the Bart Stop so early, is the Bay Area Trying to be like Boston….?   In the way that Boston is LAME!   Come on SF peeps, change that.  The chicken treated me well.  I went back to Alejo and Amber’s place just in time to babysit so they could go out on a date.  I was happy to do so, and the little one stayed asleep the whole time.  I watched 5 episodes of The IT Crowd.  Very funny Brit show. Go Raiders.

Riding down Augusta last night, my camera fell out of my bag…

I slowed my bike, turned around, and found it on the ground. I picked it up and took a photo. It still works.

Three left at the gig.  The 86 year old fella how makes them, or should I now say made them, Hennig Dyes has retired.  He has been making the bent wood lamps, made of light thinly shaved pieces of pine.  The trees are scatter farmed in a super low key way, up in the mountains.  Hennig, of  Costa Rican and Dutch decent, modeled his lamps off of a lamp he saw as a youth in Norway.  The lamp has been sold at Sprout Home since like 2004.  We got an email today informing us that Hennig is no longer making the lamps.  As of the typing of this, there were 3 left at Sprout.  I’m gonna try to make a move on the floor model once we sell out.  I took this photo today, the lamp is pretty, and when the soft glow comes through the wood…. pretty dope.

I was checking my long ignored yahoo email account, you know that one I have my online bills sent to.  And there is always some Yahoo News story about some famous person kissing some other famous person, but occasionally I see a headline and click it.  Today the story was: The Most Stressful Cities In America, of course I wanted to see where Chicago ranked….. Well, Were Number One dummy!   Traffic, Air Quality, Unemployment, the Housing Market, and even though they didn’t list this as a contributing factor, i’m gonna put the Cubs as a major reason Chicago and the word suck are linked together.I”m going to have some beers and reflect.

Top 5 Most Stressful Cities in America

1. Chicago, Ill.
2. Los Angeles, Calif.
3. New York, N.Y.
4. Cleveland, Ohio
5. Providence, R.I.

We do have the Bean though, and Cutler should make the Bears a fun thing to be proud of.  Buurs!