Stormin' and Struttin'

well, we've got another severe storm warning plus high winds. the winds have taken down a tree and a telephone pole on my block. in the seventh inning of the giants/nationals game there was a loud crack and an equally loud pop. the tree broke at its root base, grabbed onto a phone line from across the street, failed to keep itself upright with that, went to the ground with the line still in its clutches and the pole (rotten from the inside out) followed. the police are here now with lights flashing to let drivers know they should take another route. no rain, thunder or lightning, though. speaking of police...
it seems there was a child abduction at heaton elementary school this afternoon (about a four minute walk from my house). the 7 year old boy lives at the end of my block. the cops put out an Amber Alert, so it's on the radar. i'm sure the registered sex offender down my other street will have had a visit by now (whether or not it's warranted)...
the lightning has now arrived. beautiful forked lightning with three, four and five prongs. it remains to be seen if it will attack my neighborhood ( it can pour rain two miles away and leave my house completely dry often). but the sky light is gorgeous. the clouds are forming overhead, looming dark and foreboding. the wind is picking back up again. i won't be surprised if the power goes out at some point tonight...
still waiting for some city worker with a chainsaw to get the tree off of the street. still waiting for SBC to come and look at the phone line on the ground. perhaps, police cars should be equipped with saws of some kind instead of just guns, vests, restraint jackets, tasers, mace, etc. at least they're here...
as for the fringe festival, well. it was a very good time. lecram and i partied it up, coffeed it up, played it up and networked it up. the hotel we stayed in this year (because the essex hotel was sold to the city) was, uh, functional. no perks like rooftop access or The Mirror That Looks Back At You. it did have beds and a bathroom. and, really, what more does one need (other than Magic Fingers)? however, there was no interest in hanging out there if it wasn't necessary. no more Air Travel Hotel next year. it's just too dandy a place for poor slobs like us. oh, and how do flies make it seven stories up and into an open window? i thought they had like a 30 foot ceiling or something.
i saw ten plays this time around. and i was 8 for 10 in the good vs. not good scheme of things. a much better average than most years. not too much nudity this year. but plenty of cheese throwing, canadian club sipping, laughing. i even got spooged on by a giant penis (took me 5 minutes to get it all out of my hair).
the food was, of course, fantastic. friday night we supped on vietnamese food (their meatloaf is very interesting). saturday it was roast beef and lamb (at original joe's, which was the site of a robert downey, jr movie shoot on monday). and sunday it was indian. we naturally hit the Sunshine Kitchen for breakfast one morning (you can get rice with your eggs, bacon and toast, but i DIDN'T).
and a lot of time was spent at the powell street BART station drinking coffee and trying to guess who was a native and who was a tourist...it was a lecram thing. i won by pointing at him and yelling "TOURIST!!!" over and over again. the "scenery" was very nice with plenty of european women cavorting about along with the chinese stewardesses staying at our hotel. in the theater i developed a crush on the main actress from "Go!". she was pretty, but when she began acting she became beautiful. and stage talent turns me on like almost nothing else...
...the rain has arrived. heavy downpour. we'll probably get a quarter of an inch in about an hour. in some states that would be considered a fine spring mist, but here in september it's pretty much unheard of. the lightning is hitting about every five to ten seconds and it is almost directly overhead. the raisins (a bazillion dollar crop) will be ruined if this storm is widespread. i feel sorry for the policemen standing guard over the tree. and for the family of the lost little boy. this turn of the weather can only make it more fearsome...
we ended our fringe tour by attending the closing night party. now, in past years this event had been plenty boring and pretentious. i almost opted not to go, but that's where the bar was and generik (who is a hell of a host even if he wouldn't take me to a giants game and can't hold his liquor) and i weren't finished toasting each other. off we went and to my surprise it was a hell of a shindig. all of the actors showed up and stayed. whether it was because of all of the press they received this year (hadn't ever gotten any before) and a new sense of community was born or because they all thought they could win an award (and almost all of them did, because the festival founder greatly expanded the categories this year and very rightly so) or they had nowhere to go and the food was free or they wanted to meet those super sexy rogue festival creators and rub up against their auras...who knows? but it was a grand time for all. and the hangover wasn't so bad the next day.
on monday, lecram and i were up at the crack of ass (which is much later than dawn and shouldn't be experienced in front of the children) and down to powell station for one more gulp and ogle. then, we cruised it down highway 101 and over 152 with a stop for lunch at casa de puta. i had an unbelievingly normal burger with fries and lecram had the crow pot pie (i believe it was called the "casa de caw caw"). after a stretch and a good casa de poo poo we headed back to I-5 and cut over to 99 via the Firebaugh exit. a good trip back with plenty of good conversation, though most of it came from the radio. and in spanish. and they wouldn't take calls from wedos ("no habla honkie")...
...so, KVPT (our local public station) is off the air and not showing NOVA. i assume it's because of the storm. and the pizza delivery guy is lost and asking me for directions to an address that doesn't exist (i directed him to the house of my former car mechanic). the rain is still falling, but not as hard and the light show has eased. i wonder if this is the lull before the back edge hits. that's how it usually works here. the front dumps and blows and acts like a colicy baby, then mellows like a pothead on primo weed who's into computer games, then hits again as it exits as if to say "bitch! don't you ever hold out on me again!"....
and that's it for my adventures in The City. a good time, but it didn't refresh me in the normal manner. at work today i was a son of a bitch. didn't like anything. didn't want to do anything. i was tired and my back hurt and they shorted me on my paycheck (but it turned out to be okay, bacuse they told me they could get away with it...cool. next holiday pay period i will NOT be going into work on a saturday to help out a manager if they won't pay me overtime and they can just kiss my overqualified ass). tonight i'm better, because i left without working extra, got a nap in and watched the giants beat the nationals in a late inning comeback AND barry bonds hit a monster of a homer that shut up the boos (yes, virgina, he CAN hit them farther than santa claus, so shut the fuck up and go to sleep). and it looks like the padres lost, so the giants creep within 4 or 5 games with a handful left to play. exciting to the finish. and the giants beat the stinking dodgers head to head this year and could finish up better in the standings. bite me, L.A. and now we have a storm and i do so love inclement weather. it hurts my pocketbook sometimes when no asphalt can be paved, but rain is more important than asphalt. rain brings forth, asphalt covers up.