Nelson Marans, Back in the Game

Once a master, always a master. Nelson Marans has a letter in the New York Times Fucking Magazine today. No, I'm not kidding. And possibly for the first time, I agree with him. I tip my hat to you, Mr. Marans. (But I'm too lazy to dig up a link, so if you aren't a subscriber, tough.)

A Problem I Have

The other day I blogged about how I thought the Internet was dwindling in popularity and strongly suggested that I would start talking on the phone again. Truthfully, that isn't going to happen. I have found that I don't particularly like talking on the phone. This made me think that I would revert to older forms of communication: letters, telegraph, etc. Maybe get a party line just to phone Doc or the constable if the kids get ague or a donkey goes missing.

There's something I dislike even more than talking on the phone though, and that's listening to voice mail messages. I have a real aversion to them. At home, I go weeks without checking the voicemail box (voice mailbox?) and get really wound up about checking the messages on my two work phones. I have to psyche myself into it. On my cellphone, I delete them without listening to them as often as possible (when I called the person back while they were leaving the message, for example). It makes me very anxious. I had this problem when I was a lawyer too, but I would just whip myself into dealing with them 99% of the time, because the number one thing that clients hate is not getting called back. Now that malpractice isn't hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles, I can barely deal with them.

Someone I know suggested that I get Google Voice. You get one phone number and it rings to all of your phones, or none of them. The salient feature, for this discussion, is the voicemail transcription, which allows you to never listen to voicemails, and instead get them as emails. Along with its other features, it goes in the absolute other direction from Morse Code that I was dreaming about. But does anyone have any better ideas?

Cutest Scary Ghost Clown Ever?

The Internet Is Over

My blogging laziness is not particular to me. Admit it, you check fewer websites since the election, and your friends' who once consistently blogged are really sluggish, if they still blog at all. Most of your email is junk mail, and you aren't even as swamped at work as you once were. Everyone who accidentally Replied All with, "YES! L is a totally f----ing nightmare!" has gotten their emailing under control and have returned to face-to-face gossip. Okay, so maybe Facebook and Twitter are siphoning off a lot of the traffic but they have lost much of their novelty and are already facing stagnating membership numbers.

I think we are all headed back to the phones -- the land lines even! Or better yet, our desire to communicate, which was spurned by Bell's invention, is finally finding satiety, and we can all go back to something simpler and less communicative. Like gathering around the fire with our banjos and fiddles. Or turning in early. Or reading almanacs. I can't wait! You read it here first!

Jazz Prodigy

My older son has recently become obsessed with playing the saxophone. We cannot figure out the origin of this interest. When asked, he says it's because the saxophone is "beautiful and shiny, like pirate's treasure." He can imitate a sax closely enough that I vaguely worry that he'll be an Ed Begley/Bobby McPherrin-type. I've asked a few music teachers what they think about him learning the sax, and the consensus is that his hands are probably too small. This has no disuasive effect on him. So on Friday, I brought him to Best Music and, with the purchase of a reed, they let him play an alto sax. He also tried a keyless sax (no holes), a trumpet and trombone. The whole store basically gathered around for the show. One guy yelled, "I feel like I'm at Point Reyes!" (foghorn sound), but mainly everyone laughed hysterically and clapped for him. A Japanese couple asked him how long he'd been playing (the trombone). I thought he had died and gone to heaven. The problem is, now he wants to take sax lessons. He's like a dog with a bone. Anyone have any experience with this, with a FIVE year old??

Mild Bitch Session

I recognize that in the scope of world events and history, etc etc, my problems are minor, but I just need to vent for a minute. For six years, I have taken for granted that having a job and kids is a "challenge" - largely logistical. Each twist adds a new layer: One kid to two kids, baby to toddler to boy, to work, to babysitter, to preschool. Teeth, sickness, transition, dinosaurs, airplanes, mushrooms, tantrums, head banging, biting - all this is standard issue. Right now, I feel like we are getting all of it at once, and while I keep telling people that everything's fine, I really think it's hard. Again, its all logistical. Like, thank God, my kindergartner just needs more food in his lunch and not that I can't send anything for lunch at all.

In fact, I won't go down that list-road. Every "logistical difficulty" is a gift. My kids have great schools and teachers and babysitters; we have jobs and all the resources we need to give them what kids deserve. But like when there are too many Christmas gifts to properly enjoy them all, I am feeling a overwhelmed and cranky and want to put some of them in the basement until we are ready to enjoy them.

I am going to take my attempts to get perspective off-line but any words of advice are welcome. I'll be over here trying to put this puzzle together.

Bored?

If you are bored right now, you can play Cheese or Font, which is wicked hard.

If you are bored in the future, I recommend Paladar Temescal. For the moment, it will only take up time on October 24, but it's a lot better than being bored.

What's Up With Me, vol 2.2

This is an Oakland post. I just wanted to report out on a very wierd, topsy-turvy thing that's happening here in Oakland, so that you can enjoy it yourself and maybe even help explain it. But first I want to back up to 2000, which is when I moved here. In 2000, Northern California was going through a recession. The dot-com bust was underway, and Oakland had never really recovered from the earthquake (1989), fire (1991), and recession of the early 1990s. There weren't too many places to eat or see music; folks mainly ventured into Berkeley or San Francisco to do fancy stuff. Mayor "Moonbeam" Jerry Brown had this crazy-ass "10k in Downtown" plan that was widely derided by hipsters and their ilk (i.e. me). He thought if you built middle-income condo-style housing right in downtown Oakland, the city might start to bounce a little, even just downtown.

Okay, well, hat tip to Governor Moonbeam, because now, amidst all this tacky, "loft-style/lifestyle" new construction, there is a booming nightlife in downtown Oakland. A few weeks ago, I went to see a band play at the Fox Theater, which took about 200 years to re-open, but was totally worth it. The building is gorgeous, and the place was packed but comfortable. Good bands are getting booked. The Den at the Fox was packed, as was The Uptown, a bar across the street. We couldn't get reservations at Flora, and there were young people ("kids") just swarming around.

The next night, Mr. Scobie and I had dinner at Ozumo, a huge sushi bar/restaurant with a really wierd scene. And by wierd, I mean, it was totally different from the other crowd the night before. It was mostly young black professionals (which is not wierd), but also people who looked like drag queens and some who looked like professional athletes. The sushi was great but the prices suggested that they didn't know this was Oakland. We then walked over to Mimosa, a new place near the Y (!) which was nice enough, but didn't serve hard alcohol, so I don't know how long they'll limp along with that. Right on the same stretch are Pican, a new upscale soul restaurant and the newly old Luka's. Luka's seems old school now, but in 2000, it was Sam's Hofbrau, where mice would run along the pool table, and you could chip your tooth on the meatloaf (true story).

And since I work downtown now, I also get to experience the boom in lunch spots too. Flora is probably the best, and its usually crowded with Oakland-style celebrities (e.g. Jerry Brown), but the other day I met someone at Cafe Madrid, which is a coffee spot with a really nice little Spanish lunch menu. What the . . .? I thought I would be running the gauntlet of Oaksterdam "students" and instead I can get a decent meal? Color me baffled.

So for those of you who get out of the house in the Bay Area more often then I do, I encourage you to check out Oakland. I didn't even touch on the rest of the insane food scene. There's like 50 (okay, exaggeration) really great restaurants that are nationally acclaimed in Oakland. Step out, and let me know how it is. And big ups to Jerry Brown. This doesn't mean that I'm endorsing him for governor again, by the way, unless he can fast forward 10 years past his administration to a point where California is as nice as the new Oaktown.