i've been out pretty much every night i've been back in the bay. that's about two weeks of nonstoppingness, and i'm waiting for it to take a toll on my body. amidst all this surging upwards, i'm surrounded by erosion. the nice streak of sunny cali weather was abruptly shattered today by a massive downpour. clouds loom over oakland, the sky announces the end of summer. my roommate mai-lei has been in bed the entire week with a fever, rising to the surface only to heat up leftovers and pick up her son from kindergarten. she's asleep by 9 these days, but not like i would know much about it, because by that point i've vanished into the night.

i can't really generalize what i've been doing these nights...they've been incredibly random. some nights have been productive--writing songs with the neighbors, meetings with directors, creative mumbo jumbo...

and then there are nights like monday. with phatrick and his homies, we found ourselves in a semi-swanky lounge in downtown oakland. it's the type of lounge that you don't call a bar...red candle lights and illuminated bottles stacked based on how much it costs to sip. with no drinks in me but slightly blazed i let my confidence rise out my throat.

"you know what i wanna do?" i ask, water glass magnifying a grin, the grin intensifying a challenge.

"what?" replies phatty. he recently replaced his thick black prescription frames with a pair that looks like it got snatched from the set of love boat. the lenses droop halfway past his cheekbones, giant panels squinted eyes in the middle (pshhh, chinamen!). next to each other, the two of us look like aspiring chinatown lords--the kind who bust into wonton houses at 1 in the morning, order 12 entrees, each take a bite from a roast duck leg and then bounce without paying. but aspiring, so not necessarily chinatown lords of san francisco or anything...more like chinatown lords in...boise...?



but like a true oriental gangster (that's what they'd call me in england!) i'm ready to wear this night out at the corners. "i want to go to a bar--no, a tavern," i start, ice cubes gleefully jingling, "where, when we walk in, everyone stops what they're doing and stares at us." there are several images in my head, like the scene in back to the future 3 where buford "mad dog" tannen kicks open the swinging doors to tell off marty mcfly. also in my head, this ween song is repeating in my head, but that's probably the purple talking.

phatty slams his beer bottle on the table in a determined huff. "we've gotta go to hotsy totsy in albany."



there is a part of the bay area that you forget is part of the bay area. not that it's a journey away or anything--it's right next to oakland--but it's the beginning of a run of smaller towns such as el cerrito, hercules, and richmond, or otherwise towns that you've never been aware of except during the two hours that you spent watching coach carter. albany, california is the gateway to that abyss.

yes, the hotsy totsy. it's difficult to describe the thrill of moseying into a bar not knowing for sure that you won't be shot at by a musket. in the darkness, the faded paint on the wooden plank exterior is less noticeable, but the oldness of the place is highlighted by the spazzy fluorescent "hotsy totsy" sign with most of the letters no longer working, so it's just a constant "ho" flashing in and out. the top half of the door is swung open, just high enough for a dwarf to guard the entrance and demand to know what you want from the wizard.

no wizards tonight though. no dorothy, tinman, or toto...just four chinese boys, one of which has recently come back from england with a newfound boldness around whitefolk.

inside the hotsy totsy, it's hotsy...and yes, it's also totsy. the decor is straight out of a tarantino flick--old mahogany tabletops, a rusty CD jukebox, a row of outdated video poker machines, and a brand new flatscreen television...playing a marathon of dog: the bounty hunter. a generously sized woman in a gray sweater hiccups in the middle of her conversation with a customer as we walk in. "hello, boys," she hums as she turns around. we've interrupted the exchange between ms. bartender and a man who will spend the next couple of our hours in the bar staring at us in utter silence.



"what bottles do you have?" asks one of the pack. ms. bartender shakes her head right away.

"no bottles, just cans." she slides open a mini-fridge to reveal a line of bud, and the more exotic bud light. the other three order their buds, i go for the créme de la créme--a sierra nevada...(wait for it)...on tap.

we spend the next two hours in awkward silence, sporadically commenting on how friendly dog is to his bounty once he's hunted them. finally, the marathon is broken by mississippi, a local who stumbled in in the middle of episode 2. his name is mississippi because he's from...(wait for it)...mississippi. after demanding that we flip off the tv and "play some fuckin' music," he heaves himself off his stool, waddles over to us and holds his palms in front of our faces.

"see these?" his drawl is thick with rumble. "just came back from huntin'!"

"word?" asks phatrick, rather hip-hoppedly. "what were you hunting?"

"deer." mississippi continues to go into detail about why deermeat is much tastier and healthier than beef, and how his son once hunted down an elk.

"so what's the best way to shoot down an elk?" phatty asks charmingly and appropriately. "do you just shoot it in the head?"

"no, in the shoulder!" mississippi pats himself on the right shoulder, i'm guessing as an act of role playing, in which he is an elk, demonstrating where the best place to shoot him would be. "you knock the lungs and heart right out."

mississippi was really nice. he even invited us to go hunting with him next friday. as tempting as it was to be invited by a complete and total stranger to go into the forest with firearms, we regretfully declined. at that point, it was 1am, and time for everyone else to sleep, and time for me to get into more trouble.



the rest of the night was pretty much a collage of garbled images. somewhere along the lines i met up with jose, with whom i drove to portland just for lunch in a spur of the moment two summers back. there was the watching of boondocks. and then heading to another dive bar, ruby room in oakland. a very punk rock bartender lady. going back to jose's spot and knocking out on the couch while watching...(waiiiiit for it)...weeds. and then waking up at 5am in an empty foreign living room with a sudden urgency to be in my own bed.

and surprise, 5am is exactly the time it is right now, tonight! (a.k.a. tomorrow morning)...luckily i'm already in my own bed. but my body clock's more thrown off than it ever was post redeye flights between continents. don't get it twisted...just because the clubs close at 2 out here doesn't mean the bay doesn't have its ways of keeping you up.

okay, off to internet with you, blog!