| August 17, 2005 | Brides, Bachelorettes, and my Scorching Hot Social Calendar |
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Forgive me, dear reader. I've been kept away from the blog-a-log internets by my scorching hot social calendar, which had me driving to Tahoe to get gussied up in pretty party clothes with August, Owen, and Bethany to attend Jen and Deneb's wedding. Their wedding was up on a mountain, and we had to take a scary cable car to get up there. And I'm afraid of heights. But we somehow survived. And Jen looked beautiful, and Deneb rocked out. And August, Bethany, Owen and I sat at a table of 8 with Kurt Loder. Yes, *the* Kurt Loder from MTV and Rolling Stone. I was really excited to talk to him, but he didn't want to talk to us very much. Maybe we're really, really obnoxious? Or maybe he's just really, really shy? (He did seem to enjoy August's conversation about '60s one-hit pop bands he loves like Herman and the Hermits.) On the way back from Tahoe, I took August to Sonoma to celebrate his 29th birthday and getting accepted into the 39th ranked Law School in the country (U.C. Hastings). Yay! I celebrated with him so hard and at so many wineries that I ended up throwing up. Not just once, but many times. And I was the only licensed driver out of the two of us, so we were stuck and had to spend an additional night in wine country and then wake up at 5:45a.m. to drive back to S.F. to pick up my velvety fruitbat of a dog from the kennel and then drive down to Sunnyvale to make a 9a.m. meeting. I guess I should be thankful I didn't throw up at the wedding. Then I worked really hard for three days, and did the radio show, and flew to Denver for approximately 28 hours for my friend Ellen's bachelorette party. This weekend, I hafta do all of my Burning Man packing and preparing, and then the following weekend I leave for the playa for 9 days. When I return from the playa, it will be September. I will have one weekend to unpack and clean up my stuff, and then I will be flying out to Vail, CO for Ellen's wedding which I'll be a bridesmaid in. The next weekend I'll fly up up to Portland for Selena's wedding. Monkey and Mici just decided to elope next weekend because she's too busy with Law School to handle taking time out for their October Marin wedding. In October, I'll make 2-3 weekend trips down to Los Angeles to (hopefully) find myself a new home down there (I plan to move to LA on November 1), and then I'll fly to New York for the ONA conference for that last weekend of October. Then I'll start moving. Basically, my entire life is scheduled through November 1. My head is spinning and I have a lotta plane tickets and hotel reservations. Does everyone else have a lot going on too for August, September, October? Or is it just me? Labels: august, bethany, owen, photos, tahoe, travel, wedding, wine posted by Jess Barron @ 12:48 AM 
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| August 5, 2005 | Anyone Have Any Good Lawyer Jokes? |
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The very day we returned to San Franciso from the wilderness of Washington state, August received a phone call that he had been accepted to U.C. Hastings, the only law school he applied to. (He had been on the wait-list, and had almost lost hope.) He's very excited and getting himself all worked into a Law School lather. His hobo days may be numbered... Does anyone know any good lawyer jokes? If so, please share. Labels: august, jokes, law, lawyer posted by Jess Barron @ 5:39 AM
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| August 3, 2005 | I'm very worried about dragons... |
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"Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids. People say that you'll die, faster than without water, but we know it's just a lie, scare your son, scare your daughter. People say that your dreams are the only things that save ya. Come on baby in our dreams, we can live on misbehavior." -The Arcade Fire, "Rebellion (Lies)"  August, Bocce and I road-tripped with Andy in his Element that was filled to the top with camping gear, food and supplies from San Francisco up to Klickitat, Washington. We left my house in SF at 7a.m. and after an entire day of driving, arrived at Esther and Jason's camp around 10p.m. that night.We promptly unpacked the Nutria Republic flag I had brought and hung it up. Then we opened some beers. Or maybe we opened the beers first. I can't remember now. "Oh my god, Jessica! There's giant bugs everywhere!" Esther said. "And we keep seeing them in the tents!" "Aggh! What kind of bugs?" I squealed. "I've never really camped where there are bugs before!" (Plus, I'm scared of bugs.) "Giant beetles and these things that look like giant roaches!" Esther said. "Also, ants! Part of the shade structure is on an enormous ant hill. We didn't realize that until after we had picked this spot. Also, when we were building it, we realized that we are on a lava flow and it was impossible to pound in the rebar." The terrain was definitely more apocalyptic than the sites of the 2 past Phoenix festivals I had been to. Though we couldn't see it too well in the dark, the land had been burned in a forest fire about 10 years earlier. There were dead trees with knarled branches like the fingers of the world's oldest woman all around. I decided immediately that the Black Rock Desert in Nevada (where Burning Man is held each year) was a much more hospitable place to camp. Our friends Phil and Lori who helped organize the festival stopped by to say hi. "We were talking to the fire crew," Phil said. "And if one person drops a cigarette on the ground -- all this dry straw grass will go up in flames and we're all gonna die. Seriously. There is only one road in and out of this place. And they said the fire moves like 10 feet per second. There's no way we could outrun it. And we'd never get these cars out in time on that road." It seemed true. The road in to the campsite wasn't paved and was too bumpy and rocky to drive more than 5 miles per hour, even in the sporty Element. I was glad we hadn't driven my lowriding Volkswagen Beetle. It was too late to pitch tents, and too rocky anyway, and also we were too tired, so we all drank until we fell asleep on the floor of the shade structure. I didn't sleep well, because I was too worried about the giant bugs we had seen crawling through the shade structure while we were drinking, and then in the middle of the night it started pouring rain and thundering. The shade structure kept most of us dry, except Wink who was sleeping underneath the connection between the two tarps. The next day Esther set up the Nutria Interpretive Center (which I called the "Nutria Re-Education Camp"), and I distracted myself by reading about nutria and then asking everyone to contemplate the many mysteries of their species, for example, "Just how frenzied *is* their copulation, I ask you?" For the next two days we played music, played more music, played more music, and played even more music, danced to music, ran around in the rocky hills and field, and got very, very worried when we encountered a pair of sneaky blacklight dragons lurking near what we thought was a cool-looking stage. "This stage looks really cool!" said Andy, as we approached a place with flowy colorful lights. When we got closer -- they popped up outta nowhere: a pair of day-glow painted dragons, making the moment at once completely dorky and completely hysterical. Thankfully, we didn't encounter many fabric batiks or blacklight posters of bare breasted alien women. As anyone that's ever been to an all-night trance party knows, this is a serious concern. But in this case, we were able to focus our worry on the dragons. We became Dragon Worriers (inspired by an Amber chatlog). And we laughed so hard that we cried. "Do you worry a lot?" "Dragons are a very real worry in this day and age!" "Too many people are concerned about dragons." "California is very dangerous." etc. etc. We realized that everyone knows that dragons *love* rainbows, and that nutria do not. Also, we vowed to avoid typing in the dark. We didn't sleep much at all, except sometimes on the floor of the shade structure in the afternoon. The other main psytrance stage didn't have any dragons (nor fabric batiks or blacklight alien posters, thankfully), but at 2a.m. it looked and felt exactly like a setting from the Sony Playstation game Karaoke Revolution. The purple and pink colors felt like they were straight from a video game. The crowd around the stage and the lights felt like they were straight from a video game. But, perhaps most of all, the speaker dancers (or "speaker bitches," as we called them) were 100% straight from a video game. They were not real; they were made out of pixels. That could be the *only* explanation for how they looked. How else could her nipples have been quite so perky? How else could his jaw -- and scowl -- have been quite so chisled? There really was no other explanation. In addition to our ongoing -- and increasingly frenzied -- worries about dragons, we learned about the Free Cascadia movement, where Oregon and Washington want to succeed from the United States and bring Northern California with them. Man, the people of the Pacific Northwest have some crazy stuff going on... Like dragons and nutria. It's like the freakin' "land before time" up there or somethin' with all these mythical creatures roaming around. You don't need to be worried about nutria; just worry about dragons and everything else will be OK, I promise. Labels: andy, august, california, dragons, esther, nutria, oregon, party, phoenixfestival, photos, worries posted by Jess Barron @ 10:42 PM
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| July 20, 2005 | The Phoenix from the Flames... |
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I'm about to take off to drive up to Portland with Andy and August to go to the Phoenix Festival up in Washington. We're gonna meet Esther and Jason up there and camp in the ambient chill area. On Friday night, it's all gals on the decks -- Ladies Only DJ night. Bocce's coming too. It's her 3rd Phoenix Festival. She's not a huge fan of camping, because she gets a little bit cold at night. But she loves it during the daytime when she can lay around in the sun or inside the tent. Here are my photos from the Phoenix Fest in 2002 and here are some photos from 2004. Labels: andy, august, bocce, phoenix festival, photos, washington posted by Jess Barron @ 11:56 PM
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| May 16, 2005 | Jess and The City |
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I'm in New York City for the week to meet with ABC News for work. Bocce and August and I flew in on Saturday and stayed at Mindy and Erik's place on the way Upper West Side near Columbia. (I think it's called Morning Side Heights?) We saw a teeny tiny baby squirrel in the park. We went to Erik's architecture school year-end party and then went to the East Village to meet Lee, Brett, Will, Daniel, and Jeff. On Sunday we packed up Mindy's car, so that she could leave for Carnegie-Mellon, and then we went to Lee's place in the Lower East Side (which is confusingly layed-out and furnished exactly like his old apartment in SOMA), and we drank a jug of red wine. Then we travelled to Park Slope, Brooklyn to Jeff and Daniel and Lance's compound where we sat at the silver table in their backyard garden and grilled steaks and drank Rasberry Lambic and more wine. Bocce humped Odie (Lance and Mark's dog) who is male and part Collie and much larger and was completely indifferent to her advances. This morning, August and Bocce and I took the F train to Coney Island where we saw Astroland and The Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone, and a clam bar. Bocce didn't want to go on any of the rides. August ate two hot dogs from Nathan's with sourkraut and onions, and I had cheese fries with ketchup. Now we're about to head to the Paramount Hotel on 46th Street, which I stayed at in 2001 when I was travelling for Microsoft to meet with Viacom to discuss interactive music television projects we were working on for UltimateTV. They have a pretty interestingly-designed lobby, and they allow small dogs. On Wednesday I'm going with my work peeps -- Dave, Jen, Heather, and Arleen to the Good Morning America show, but we don't know what the topic is yet. Labels: august, bocce, jeff, lee, mindy, nyc, travel, work posted by Jess Barron @ 3:38 PM
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| January 9, 2004 | Wood and Fresh Paint |
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"That's all we do, isn't it -- look at things and try new drinks?" -The girl in Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" He talked in his sleep and said, "Mmmmmmm. You smell good -- like wood and fresh paint." Since he's a painter, I took it as a compliment. His eyes never looked as blue and large as when he quickly sketched my portrait in pencil and colored pens as I sprawled naked across his bed last weekend. When he's reading to me or sketching --that's when he looks the most beautiful. I loved the portrait, but he says he's still trying to learn my face. I understand, because I am too and it's been mine for nearly 30 years. Last night I was at the Suicide Girls burlesque show at the Great American Music Hall. The show was sold out, but Missy put Andy, August, and me on the guest list. (Here's my obligatory cell phone camera snapshot of the marquee. No cameras allowed inside. Sorry.) I know, it seems like all I do lately is go to burlesque shows and try new drinks, but really, I do other things too... like makeout with boys and write... and take photos. As you can expect from heavily tattooed goth/punk chicks, The Suicide Girls didn't exactly put on the classical burlesque show. (No, this was not your grandma's burlesque.) I'm telling you, you haven't lived until you've seen six pale girls wearing little frilly g-string underwear and tiny duct tape "X"s over their nipples squirting entire bottles of Hershey's chocolate sauce all over each other and rolling around together on a plastic sheet. If pictchas of girls gettin' it on with each other is what you're into -- you should definitely check out Esther's extremely artful and well-directed Barbie lesbian photoshoot starring Roberta (who you may recognize from our Burning Man camp last year). I'll leave you with an alt-rock album cover photo I took of Selena and August on Tuesday night at Sadie's where we co-opted the jukebox for a solid hour or so. Labels: august, esther, photos, sanfrancisco, sf posted by Jess Barron @ 1:00 PM
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| December 12, 2003 | The P-Dawg is Not for Pussies |
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"I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime. In a big country dreams stay with you like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. - Big Country "In a Big Country" When we woke up on Sunday, it was sunny. We went to the Ebb Tide for breakfast (I had a goat cheese and spinach omelette), and then drove to his house so he could change his shirt. We watched Trogdor and all the Radiskull episodes on his laptop, until the afternoon sun heated up his tiny room. Then we opened up the windows, I took off all my clothes, and the sunlight trickled in and made patterns across my legs and back. He read me Nietzsche's "Geneology of Morals" while we listened to the Velvet Underground. I watched his eyelashes skim across the pages and his mouth as his lips sculpted out the sentences, and somehow I still managed to follow some of the ideas. When the sun went down we headed to Zeitgeist where we sat outside in the back and shared a pitcher of Anchor Christmas Ale with Andy. After Zeitgeist we stopped at a corner store and picked up some cheese, Syrah, and unfiltered sake and headed to Andy's place where we proceeded to consume all of the liquor, and most of the cheese, but did not have enough combined attention span to finish "The Big Lebowski" or even a single episode of South Park. Andy told us stories about all-boys' boarding school, and when we got tired, we created a new drink by mixing Pernod with Red Bull. We called it the "P-Dawg," and it's not for pussies. Sometime after midnight we were back in my bed, and he read me some Rilke and then we fell asleep. It's cold today -- it was like 42 degrees outside this morning when I woke up. This is about as cold as San Francisco gets, and I can't really take it. Makes me want to move back to Los Angeles. I dunno how I'm gonna handle Christmas in Boston next week. I think it's in the twenties there and no doubt there will be snowstorms. I'm not physically or mentally prepared. I think the next season of "Survivor" should be held in a small, cold Massachusetts town in December or January. The frigidity would surely drive those contestants insane. Another version of "Survivor" I'd like to see would send twelve Mission hipsters to live for one month entirely in the Marina. Yes, that would be entertaining. Labels: andy, august, sanfrancisco, sf posted by Jess Barron @ 9:17 AM
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