Back in the day of swashbuckling, gold panning, wooden ships and
wooden legs an embankment of cannons protected the San Francisco bay
along with an army of evil dolphins who carried
harpoons and small laser rifles. That reminds me that I once knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith.

What was the name of his other leg?

As
always, no blog is complete without a Mary Poppins reference. If you visit the Golden Gate
bridge today there are foots paths that lead you by the old canon placements,
and you can see scorch marks from the lasers. A few weeks back we took a walk along the footpaths and down a steep gravel-covered path to a spot with a picnic table. As we descended the path I
knew that someone would slip.

As I reached the last step of the path, I took my sunglasses off, slipped in an avalanche of loose gravel, landed on the ground, and destroyed my sunglasses. Oh, the universe has such exquisite timing. It could only have been better if Michael Douglas came in to view right as I fell (bonus points for anyone who gets that reference). And then it occurred to me that I couldn't
recall the last time I'd slipped and bumbled to the ground.

The weird thing is I enjoyed it in a childlike way. I think because my body had forgotten what it was like to fall down, in the same way it has forgotten what Playdo tastes like or what falling off monkey bars feels like. I bet falling down every once in a while is a good thing. It helps your body remember how to fall down. And then I started to think about other things I haven't done in a while.

And then I realized I don't know where the nearest swing set to my apartment is. That makes me sad. The next time I have a backyard, I'm putting in a Pope-sized swing set, damn it. The swing will have a cup holder so I can enjoy a beer while I swing, because when you're an adult you can do stuff like that.

Oh yea, I bought a dry-erase board the other day and weird things have been happening around the apartment now.

I took a class in college that studied the misrepresentation of the self in autobiographical works. We examined a wide variety of mediums and focused on the authenticity of works such as James Fry's "A Million Little Pieces" and ghost-written autobiographies such as Paris Hilton's "Confessions of an Heiress" (the title is itself a reference to the "Confessions of St. Augustine", one of the earliest autobiographical works).

There is a documentary called Blue - I forget who created it. It is an autobiographical work about the creator and his struggle with aids (or hiv?). The entire film is a solid blue color (the solid blue that VCR's used to display) with out any actual images. And then he has audio laid over it. It is an interesting documentary that is quite comical at moments. Basically, Blue is many things that a typical film is not

Don't worry, I'm going some place with all of this.

We also studied a guy named Roland Barthes, whom I quite enjoy. He likes to find the antithesis of things. If Blue is the opposite of a documentary, then what would a documentary by Barthes be like? Taking that thought in to mind I set out and made a video called Barthe's Bloo.

First off all, Bloo is a reference to my favorite cartoon character and personal hero Blooregard Q. Kazoo from the animated show Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Originally I had intended for the entire video to not contain the color blue. However, I needed about 2400 images without the color blue, and it proved too much of a daunting task to collect 2400 blueless images for a personal project that hadn't even been a class assignment.

At its simplest level a video normally...

• Is made of static images that make a moving image
• Is enjoyable to a degree that at least makes it watchable
• Contains only on a few layers of sound, each of which you can focus on (ex: music + voice + sound effect)
• Has a level of organization

Almost everything is the opposite of a normal film and it is all intentional. Among other things

• Images are graphic in some instances - especially the image in the very middle of the film. Beware!
• The images are static, so you don't get motion
• You're not supposed to enjoy this video or be able to watch it in full
• The sound track contains 11 tracks laid over each other
• It is very chaotic

Notes:

• The dialog at the start of the video is from a pod cast a friend and I made for OSU about the Student Code of Conduct Policy that each student is bound to). My sexy voice is the one that reads "You're going to have an informal meeting..."
• I originally meant for this to contain a greater variety of images
• I did not intend for most of the images to be religious

Wednesday evening I headed to the Hemlock Tavern to see a band called the Evangelicals. They hail from Norman, Oklahoma, and I kind-of-sort-of know the lead singer in a round about way. I enjoyed going out to support them, and to tip them off about Bob's donuts, which is a sugar-glazed piece of heaven in San Francisco.

Bob's is a donut store that is open 24-hours a day. Nothing is better than Bob's donuts at 2am when the donuts are hot out of the fryer and dripping with glaze. You know how excited the ending of Inglorious Basterds made fans of Jewish-Holocaust Fan Fiction Alternate Endings? This is nothing like that, because donuts have nothing to do with the holocaust and I doubt anyone writes Holocaust fan fiction. Although they kind of did in that World War II popularized donuts and then a girl from my Intro to Speech Class - her grandfather came back and commercialized donuts in the US and is the grandfather of donuts. Seriously. I'm not making that up. She gave a 7 minute speech on it and had the gal to not bring in donuts. She should have flunked the assignment on sheer principles.

If donuts try to obtain nirvana, then Bob's is where that cosmic state happens.

Anyways, the Evangelicals have a great studio sound (check them out on iTunes, Amazon MP3, or their MySpace page). To be honest the first time I saw them play I left unimpressed, but that happened over 2 years ago, and they've improved ten-fold. If they were donuts, they'd have almost made it to Bob's by now.

They headlined on Wednesday. I appreciated that they didn't just stand up and play their songs like the opening two bands. Instead they put on an actual show. Their setup is spartan, but they're on a quick tour around the US and they don't have some cool Spy Hunter style semi following them around with awesome gear. But their custom props (headless people made of plastic and filled with Christmas lights) and custom light rigs make a remarkable difference.

This time I couldn't help but notice how eerily similar Josh's voice is to Jim Morrison, and his lyrics are on the same creativity and oddness.

I love psychology, and I miss studying it a great deal. One of the most interesting effects is called the bystander effect, which basically states that if something happens to you (mugging, fire, rape, etc), the more people there are near you the less likely someone is to help you due to diffusion of responsibility (everybody presumes someone else is going to help you, no one ends up helping you, and then you die).

After I learned about the bystander effect I've never been able to break myself from countering it. By that, I mean if I hear someone crying for help I respond. I'd rather respond and potentially save someone than not respond and participate in someone's demise.

About a year ago Laura and I were hanging out and after a bit we realized we could hear a woman screaming hysterically. "Don't touch me!" "Get away!" "Leave me alone!" I grabbed my phone and keys and headed out. I traced the sound to outside of the apartment complex and discovered two other guys about my age also trying to figure out what might be going on.

We cautiously checked around the corner and found a young man and a young woman. She was going berzerk, and he wasn't anywhere close to touching her. He claimed she was drunk, but either she was the most balanced, coordinated, and agile drunk to ever be or she was strung out on a bad trip.

He said he had called the cops, so we decided to watch the couple until the cops arrived. In this situation until the cops show up, I'm not about to believe they have been called. Waiting included chasing the couple a block or two after she bolted. Eventually the cops pulled up, said they had to press charges but that the boyfriend could later drop them. Then I realized why he might be pressing charges. She had bitten his arm - look at your right arm, now imagine how much flesh you could bite off your bicep in one bite.

A few weeks later I heard the screeching sound of car breaks, a car alarm go off, and then a car rev its engine and take off. A yell that sounded like "He's been hit by a drunk" followed soon after. Once again I sprang in to action, grabbed my keys and phone, and bolted for the door.

Outside I turned the corner of the block to find a guy laying face down with another person over him. I thought it was a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver with his friend holding him. I'm not sure why, but I'm very calm in moments like this.

But I realized this wasn't the scenario. What had happened is that someone had come in to the neighborhood and tried to steal a car. They had driven up, let out an accomplice and then waited. But the accomplice set off a car alarm. And then I heard the car speed off as the attempted criminals fled the scene.

Well, seeing as a lot of people park their car on the street, two guys had both come outside to see whose car had almost been stolen. Except the second guy had arrived about 20 seconds after the first, and when he saw the first guy he thought "Ah! There is the thief!" And had tackled him in the street and wasn't letting him up until the cops arrived.

The cops arrived, sorted out the mess, and life moved on.

Today another event happened. On my way to work I pass by a local grade school. This is fun because it means a crossing guard stops traffic for me as I cross the street, and I find that fun. But this morning I crossed the street to discover 3 girls watching 2 boys fight.

One of the boys had the other in a pretty firm headlock. I leaned down, grabbed his arms, released the headlocked boy, and told them to knock it off.

Kid Who Had Been Winning: "We're just wrestling around. We're not actually fighting."
Me: "Are you fighting or not?" - I'm not about to believe the winning kid
Kid Who Had Been Losing: "Yes, we're just wrestling around."

And he meant it, so I let them be.

I'm not sure why I feel this obligation, but I'm always amazed that more people don't react to situations. On a side note, please don't get scared for my safety. I am cautious when I approach these situations, and I've usually got 911 pulled up on my phone and ready to dial, and I always make sure someone knows where I've gone.

I will always have a voracious travel bug, because I will never cease to be amazed that you can fall asleep some place familiar and wake up in a new place. I've fallen asleep and woken in amazing places. Last December I traveled to Germany and Israel. And on January 1st, 2009 I woke up in Mugraby Hostel in Tel-Aviv (one of my favorite hostels ever) and experienced one of my favorite days abroad. Hence the title, because today is 267 days after January 1st, 2009.

I shared a coed dorm-style room with a guy named Sam (from California) and two young women. Sandy, from Germany, and a young Russian girls whose name escapes me at the moment. For Sam, it was his first trip abroad and almost every experience was new to him. He'd already gained a good set of interesting travel stories: almost being robbed, someone trying to sell him cocaine, a girl randomly making out with him.

Above: Sam shows Sandy a few magic tricks

Sam is the only high school traveler I've met who seemed like an adult and not an American idiot with a passport. He and I hung out quite a bit. And he is the only magician I've ever known or met. He had great tricks and was always eager to find the card you'd thought of or make something disappear or reappear. A young David Copperfield without the super model ex-girlfriend.

Above: Sandy showing the albums she'd picked up at a local music store.

Sandy was shy, but not introverted, and gave the immediate impression of someone you wanted to know. She was the first person I met at the hostel, and if I remember correctly, she was a lion tamer from Detroit who'd fled north to Canada and then swam across the Atlantic to take political refuge in Germany from the Salvation Army or she was born and raised in Germany, had some rough spots here and there, and was now trying to finish university while she worked as a stylist.

Above: The Russian girl. Sophie?

She always had some place to go and always extended an invitation.

Now that you've got the setup. First, I'm always finding new people to hang out with. And I made good friends with two girls from the states named Claire and Lisa. I spent New Year's Eve day exploring Tel-Aviv, and then I met up with Claire and Lisa to visit some bars along the beach, during which time a friend and I faked being their boyfriend's in a completely platonic fashion (both girls have nice, real boyfriends, but wanted a way to fend of advances). Then I met my wonderful friend Mor, rang in the New Year with her, and retired for the night.

The morning of January 1st...

I woke up in the morning to the odd colors of the room. We'd all made it back to our beds from our various New Year's outings.

After getting ready, I went downstairs and ate breakfast with Sam....

And Sandy.

Breakfast consisted of toast with butter followed by two more rounds of toast with butter, and of course no bacon. Delicious. And for Sandy it also consisted of a few cups of coffee. Perhaps more coffee than toast - Europeans tend to eat many meals that way. It was Sandy's last day of travel. Not having any plans, She and I decided to wander the local market and explore until she needed to head for the airport.

From here, the day was idyllic. We bought fresh fruit drinks in the market, and watched the vendor cut and juice the pomegranates and oranges, we wandered around the markets, had a few small conversations (but we were almost silent the entire time), and the rest of the time we each took in the sights and sounds and cool breeze on our own.

Above: Near the start of the market, Sandy stopped for a cigarette.

She had cigarettes - a brand I'd never heard of - made from a kibbutz (maybe jsolberg can let me know what brand). The cigarettes were inexpensive, which wasn't the point. Rather the point was to partake in something local. I'm not a smoker by any means, but I had one as well, and she snapped the following photograph of me.

Above: Me looking at the book Sandy had on Buddhism called "The Way Things Are"

Remember, you shouldn't smoke. Or smoke and hold a flammable item. Something about smoking while holding a book on Buddhism is comical to me.

Above: Sandy asked these two men if she could photograph them, while I robbed them. Except for the robbery part.

Above: This is one of the photographs of the two men she photographed while I photographed her. A solid impression of Audrey Hepburn.

I should have taken more photographs in the market. For some reason I didn't take any, which is very unusual for me especially given all of the interesting fruits, colors, textures, and items that you find in a market. But we spent an hour or two wandering through.

The photograph above is of a car mechanics. I'm not sure why I photographed this and not the market. But that is the way things are, and am I fine with it. Although the place was an interesting rag-tag collection of items. It seemed more like an abandoned warehouse and less like a auto shop.

Above: At some point during our morning, I found this. I am an avid fan of Banksy - it is the right theme and style, but something about it seems more like a copy-cat than an original.

Eventually we made our way to the beach. We walked along it for a ways, stopped once or twice to talk, and then we said goodbye. She headed back to the hostel and then to Germany, and I headed to the train station to go meet Solberg (a story for another post).

Above: Sandy photographing the sand. Amazingly she still has some of the delicious fruit drink from much earlier in the market.

Above: More of the beach.

Above: Taken from the same vantage point as the previous image, but with my 10x optical zoom. I took this in case you'd never seen orange chairs up close before. It appeared to be a chair convention.

Above: Another self-portrait snap shot. I must have more of these than anyone on the planet.

That is the other thing I love about travel. You meet wonderful people, enjoy their company immensely, and then each go a separate way. You don't need to stay in touch with everyone you've ever met (although I do exchange contact information with almost everyone I meet, but it is mostly a formality). What more can you ask for than an excellent friendship, even if it is only for a day or two?