Culture, San Francisco, Poetry, Music, Reviews, Short Stories and Life
Summer in Kyoto, the heat sinks over the day early. Not the bleaching heat of the California desert, nor the hot and bothered blustery seaside heat of the Oregon coast, but a heavy, swamping, wet, earthy, fragrant verdant heat. Mosquitos everywhere, the Japanese call them Ka (sounds like the word car) , the short sharp […]
MoreIt has been just another diamond day, just another blade of grass spent wandering round Japantown with the Boy, a languid trip to a bookshop (the truly lovely Forest Books at 1748 Buchanan – see my post Zen and the artful beauty of the independent bookstore) to buy a copy of Basho, shopping for daikon […]
MoreIf in doubt, listen to Patti. I have been good recently, varied my musical diet with jazz and new distractions, but sometimes there is nothing else for it, but Patti, that feminine mouthpiece of the Muse, incantation reciting don’t give a fucking shit about The Man, Gloria herself. There is of course, Them’s original Gloria, […]
MoreToday we got lost, the Boy and I. We intended to walk through China Town and head to the Presidio, instead we ended up taking a wrong turn, not wanting to walk with the cell phone out in a sketchy area, walking past a park near Haight Ashbury, and then swinging round to Van Ness […]
MoreIf you ask me which month I’d like to reply, which was the most perfect time on the road, I would have to reply, Cass Lake in June. You see there is nothing more perfect, no matter the ticks, the mosquitos, the wet heat – which, let’s face it, sorry to break it to you, […]
MoreThe only way to come to America is with nothing. When I ran all I had was a backpack on my back and my guitar and my kids, with their backpack full of a few loved teddy bears and some clothing. I almost didn’t bring the guitar. I had to throw it in with other […]
MoreI like Iggy Pop in theory, not in practice. I like the IDEAL of the POP, not the reality of our peanut butter and blood smeared shock and awe purveyor of grotty melodic punk. There is one exception: The Passenger. The Passenger is every night not spent sleeping, but instead crawling city streets looking for […]
MoreMichael Stipe was way ahead of the curve back in 1987: the world was a relatively stable affair back then in the dark ages of popular music. I know Def Leppard, Aerosmith and Motley Crue might have made us all think that the apocalypse was upon us, but though the music sucked, the hair sucked, […]
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