I. At the bottom of Dolores Park was a cast of the bell that Hidalgo rang in Dolores, Mexico, that signaled the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence in September of 1810. The park sat on a hill, terracing gently downwards from its topmost southwestern corner to its bottom-most point, it’s northeastern corner. Hordes of park-goers spanned the green in more or less homogeneous patterns and groupings, sometimes splitting, interacting, re-forming, climbing up the hill or sauntering home down it. Drinking and other imbibery are apparently par for the course in Dolores, giving birth to a peculiar micro-economy wherein (as I heard from a friend later) homeless folks would camp out at the top of the hill selling alcohol, only to eventually work their way down the hill collecting the empty bottles for recycling. I used the restroom. I watched 8 cops subdue a fellow while listening to whispers about the gang problem, saw a stencil of Leslie Hall on gas meter that was fully encaged by chain-link fence; took a picture of a hulahoop cadre for my daughter.
II. We walked. A lot. Past muralled buildings and non-mulralled buildings, buildings that I perceived to be west coast middle class homes – I took particular notice of the construction of so many homes built wall-sharingly adjacent to each other. There were wheat-pastes and grafittis, the meta-vandalism of pranksters, folks, shops, cars, parking meters. Bars, pretentious looking grocers and coffee shops, non-pretentious looking grocers and coffee shops, Spanish evangelical Pentecostal store-front churches, scooters, bikes, things things. We stopped for a drink at a local hipster dive, Zeitgeist, which reminded me of the Replay Lounge, back patio and all – packed on this, what – Saturday? I can’t remember. It was mostly outside, very near a massive curve in the raised portion of Central Freeway/ Highway 101, and a vast portion of the back lot was comprised of partially and/or unused construction material and various hardware, an old truck, a large mud-puddle, half torn-down chain link fence. Apparently there is no actually remodeling or construction going on – the whole thing is part of the ethos, or something. We drank a lot, and I discussed “business” and the rhetoric/ concept of spatiality in poetry and its impact on epistemology with a new friend blah blah blah
III. We walked through the Castro. Took a trolley ride down to the water, walked up some street, saw City Lights, and ended up in the shadow of both the TransAmerica building and F.F. Coppola’s building wherein all the post-production work on the Godfather was done and where at street-level there is a cafe called Zoetrope. We ate across the street in great little Chinese restaurant where everyone and everything was shoved into a tiny space next to pictures of Keanu Reeves, Sean Penn and some guy from food network. Following this we found the BART station and skipped back across/ beneath the bay, where we inadvertently rendezvoused with the roughly one-half of our cohort who’d gone in a different direction than we had previously, at Dolores Park, which I didn’t tell you about.
IV. In between this point and the next notable event I can’t remember what happened. My memory resumes in a dark residential neighborhood wherein myself and a handful of comrades were looking for the location of a party. It turned out to be in a carriage house behind another house. At the house there was candy, beer and Metropolis on the television. I remember it was very red in there, probably because of a red light. A number of us stood outside to talk in the drizzly rain beneath a large tree that was next to a glass-top table on which we sat our cups, one of which became our default ash-tray. Folks came and went and we spoke to each other about this that and the other and right now a couple of faces stand out as well as a whole slew of mundane details I’ve mostly already outlined for you. Before I knew it we had our ride home to Oakland, where we crashed again, room almost spinning, streetlights through closed blinds.
V. Shortly after I thought I was asleep I was met with the dual attack of my comrade/ roommate Jose, whose vomiting on the other side of the house sounded like a small, fleshy volcano erupting (small for a volcano>Jose is a pretty big guy), while from the street the high-pitched protestation of a bar patron not satisfied with her treatment at the hand her friends (including their taking of her car keys) took place not five feet from the window near where I slept. I wish I could remember her drunken mantra: something like “Get your hands off me muthafucka!” etc. etc. It was all quite amusing. Jose felt bad, sort of stupid-bad, and kept saying that he felt like a freshman again. I told him it was okay, and that everyone was just so excited to be there and that the night got away from him. And then I knew no more.
