Thursday, April 14, 2005

Stuff I found on the floor, evidentally purged from pockets.

Coaster from Dylan's Pub, Friday Night, the Mission
I ordered cranberry juice but Jericho and Linda were drunk when they got there. Dylan's Pub was a block away from Last Gasp. The wobbly had something to drink as well. After we all got kicked out of the Last Gasp party (they kicked everyone out at 9:30) we headed on over there. There was a hippy shaman who was so drunk he was doing some sort of pole-dancing act with the bike rack. We all had fun (?) watching him, then he came into the pub and made a megaphone out of a discarded poster and pretended to listen to people. Or maybe he was listening to people for real. Linda is an orders person at LG, she had a ceramic placard on her neck that said "vodka" she said that she didn't want any, because she didn't want to mix different kinds of alcohol. Jericho looked like a leprechaun, complete with the accent, a bowler and braces. I had no idea any one person could look so european. He was a happy caricature.

The pub was a hoot. It had a strong welsh theme. Soccer jerseys hung from rafters, pictures of Dylan Thomas decorated every surface. Unintelligible welsh street sign bedecked the walls ( Llwelllegbcnwellencellewnwncnrnmnw). I was afraid to drink because I was tired and I still had to drive all the way down to the Ancestral Manse. I was high enough on exhaustion, people and excitement.

Sin-a-rama postcard. Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the 60's.
A Feral House Book
Wobbly picked up a bunch at the Last Gasp party. Where to begin? We got within a few blocks and it was cold and wet and Wobbly was sure I could park closer. I was dubious. I hadn't made any propitiary offerings to the Parking Gods in a long time and didn't want to push my luck. Fortuntaly, we were closer than we realized. The warehouse was a huge, manicured pink building in an industrial part of the Mission (about a block away from where I had that memorable you-are-uninvited house interview). We had to follow tiny, handmade signs to find the entrance. The signs told us to go upstairs. The building was endless, pale yellow, well-lit corridors. We found a door with a great, brass door knocker on it. It said "please knock"

I banged it three times.

nothing.

I looked at the door again, a tiny sign said "come in"

I pushed the door open. We entered a smokey, crowded room. It was scattered with knots of people who totally ignored us. A huge blond woman behind a counter (she was wearing a white fuzzy sweater, pearls and had a church-lady do) looked straight at me and wiggled her finger. I had a moment of panic, as if I had stumbled into the Teachers' Lounge. Another little sign said "registration" and pointed right.

We pushed through the people. As I was signing out my badge, the badge man dropped the HG file on the floor. He picked it up with a flourish and announced, "HAPPY GOAT!" Bystanders cheered.

TANGENT! I knew the badgeman. But he didn't recognize me. I volunteered at last years APE and he was my supervisor. I had to sit with him four hours and pass out books and badges. I found out he was gay (and not the adorable type) that he had a bizarre jacket fixation and that he generally wasn't a nice person. He ignored the women and old men, but whenever an attractive boy in a Patagonia jacket would walk by, it was like he became a different person. He smiled, he said flattering remarks about the boy's beeyoutiful jacket, he was helpful, he made small talk.

I left Wobbly and pushed through the crowds of goth girls, misshapen boy-men in black dusters who looked like although theoretically had left that ackward adolescent stage, were still in the pimply throes of a Nietzscheian horror vacuii, dwarves, longhaired, elderly hippy men, obese goth girls with facial piercings and tattoos, metros and old women with stringy hair. The place was decorated like a Coney Island freak show. Freak show murals covered every available wall, with plenty of vintage war propaganda posters from both sides, 19th century curios, stuffed mermaids, a life-sized manniquin of Bruce Lee, old pinball machines, vintage sleaze posters, even a shrine to the virgin, replete with blinking lights around her pudenda-shaped punumbra.

I chatted with some people from Cincinnatti, it was their first visit to the west coast. I talked to old ladies about aliens, I schmoozed with the bartender ( i got bubbly water). I chatted with publishers, writers, artists, academy alums. One alum was wearing a brass torque with his black t-shirt. Should I have venerated that scion of of the Pendragon?

The place had a great old-frisco atmosphere-- all musty and exotic, like the great american music hall or the musee mechanique.

The publishing house stock occupied the center of the building, like a diabolical bibliotec. I wandered around the labyrinthine stacks, leafing through pornography, graphic novels, conspiracy-theory books and all manner of smut and esoterica. I could have stayed for a long time, leafing through the books. I eventually found the Wobbly right before they kicked us out.

Buttons
jail bait with a graphic of dirty panties from KOAK
two little birds from ?
another KOAK button with the siamese lefty twins

Spirit Knight button, from the Men of Antioch. (spirit-knight.com) My sister found these dudes on Sunday (quite a propos). They looked like mormon elders, with short, brilliantined hair, and matching black t-shirts, acid washed jeans and new balance shoes. Their book was about a guy who walks on the wild side, does drugs, sleeps around and ends up begging for spare change in the gutter. Then Jesus comes out of the clouds to save him, he repents and journeys to the spirit world to clobber demons with the Bible. I had a moment of embarrassment when I was telling them that my table was under the gigantic graphic of a bald man that was emblazoned with the word "Lust." Its ironic, I explained, sheepishly.

Um yeah.

I suspect they are praying for my salvation.

RANT

What is a christian to do? I really wanted to support them, but their book was awful. It was well-produced, in full color on glossy paper. But the drawing was unispired and the story was questionable (Jesus never came to me in a cloud). I wanted to shake them and say, "look at the sistine chapel ceiling!" church art can be fabulous, it can be sexy! if corrupt popes can hire eccentric artists to paint on the ceiling and still make good art, what can little bourgois men do with a sketch book and a printer, for crying out loud! We should be kicking ass! people should be looking longingly at our work and thinking to themselves, "if only I could draw as good as a christian" then it would be fucking missional!

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