happy birthday, mom.

i love you!

xoxo

mom, age 22, cleveland ohio, 1968:

A Perfect San Francisco Morning.

I haven't really had time lately to post anything or respond to a lot of e-mails I've been getting lately, mostly because I have been working long, long hours at the parking garage and Chris has been really sick...poor thing. If I'm not at work, I'm over at his place, and I feel kind of strange using his laptop anyway so I figure maybe sometime this weekend I'll be able to get some e-mails done.

One of the perks of working for the rental car franchise is sometimes I get to take some of the cars home for the night. I'm not really supposed to, but my friend Joey who runs the place says I work my ass off there and I'm more than entitled to take one, in his opinion. I'd never take one without asking, and definitely not one of the nicer "premium" rentals. This means I'll be seen cruising the streets of San Francisco not in a Cadillac Escalade, BMW Z4, or Porsche Boxster, but instead a Dodge Stratus coupe (what I had two nights ago) or a Jeep Grand Cherokee (what I had three nights ago). However, last evening I had to move some cars up to Marin County that were appearing in a photo shoot for a Volkswagen ad. I drove up a silver Mitsubishi Galant, a car I actually really liked and was kind of fun to drive. By the time we got back to San Francisco it was almost 9 PM, so Joey tossed me the key to one of the premium rentals, a brand-new Jeep Wrangler.

This car is FUN! And if you ever find yourself at driving up Rhode Island street at 19th in San Francisco, if you're going 39 MPH you totally catch air. There are a few corners like that, most notoriously Gough and Eddy streets...where Steve McQueen jumped the Mustang in Bullitt.

Oh yeah, the point of this whole blog. This morning.

So I left a feverish Chris (you have no idea how much it breaks my heart to see him sick) this morning, and hopped into the Wrangler to head back home to North Beach so I could change my clothes for work. However, since I didn't have to be at work until 11:00, I decided instead to grab a latte and croissant at Puccini on Columbus Avenue, and drive up to Coit Tower to enjoy the view and coffee for a bit. This morning was pretty chilly for July...about 59 degrees, a bit foggy, and overcast. I tuned the radio to AM 960, KABL, the local "standards" station. As I navigated the steep hills of North Beach up to Coit Tower in that bouncy Jeep, the voice of Frank Sinatra cut through the AM ether and warmed my heart along with that delicious latte. When I got to the top of the hill, the view was stunning, even in the cold and gray morning light. KABL was playing some really good stuff, too...Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Peggy Lee, and Horst Jankowski accompanied my breakfast croissant. Combined with the view, the coffee, and the cool car, it made for an Absolutely Perfect San Francisco Morning. Aside from a Chinese couple doing Tai Chi on top of one of the benches and a handful of tourists, it was pretty much deserted.

Too bad nobody was there to share the whole thing with me...but that's okay. Sometimes it's nice just hanging out by yourself, smiling at nothing in particular for no particular reason.

Hottest Trannys Ever !!!!!!! (now with full flake reductions)

This is just too good for words...I have no idea who wrote this, or what country it came from, but as far as spam goes this is primo stuff.  This landed in my AOL inbox this morning:

---

Subject: Hottest Trannys Ever !!!!!!!  flake reductions
Date: 7/14/04 6:55:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: girsh280z@aol.com, giro666@aol.com, girodet@aol.com, girondins19@aol.com, gira@aol.com, giraf53407@aol.com, girard1060@aol.com, gish302@aol.com, gishu@aol.com (yeah, one of those e-mail addresses is one of my AOL screen names)
Sent from the Internet (Details)
If you love Trans-Sexuals....Then you got to see this site..
Only The Hottest Trannys, Nothing Like a Chick with a cock...and Big Juicy Tits..
Dams these freaks are FINE !!!
http://virtualwildflower.com/tran.htm
I know if you met them out... you would take these hot chicks home...
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un sub scribe by link or snail mailhttp://intertwine.virtualwildflower.com/handbag.htm
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Adventures in rental cars...chapter 2

One would think that washing rental cars would be boring, mundane, monotonous, hand-chapping work. And actually, that's a pretty accurate description of my job right now. My days consist of a never ending stream of run-of-the-mill cars, one after the other. I walk into the garage, and descend down the slippery spiral ramp to the basement level, away from fresh air, sunshine, and pretty much anyone who speaks English. I'll then grab the keys to a Mitsubishi Galant or Chrysler Sebring and get started.

Hose it down. Scrub it with a brush. Rinse. Drive it back to the vacuum cleaner. Vacuum. Dust. Throw out all the shit people leave behind in rental cars (soon to be the subject of a blog). Gas it up if necessary. Fill out the ready tag. Drive it to the 8th floor. Grab the keys to a Pontiac Grand Am. Do it all over again. Grab the keys to a Chevrolet Malibu Classic.

Lather, rinse, and repeat.

One must find some sort of entertainment in an environment like this, and I, with my internal wiring the way it is, somehow find ways to amuse myself during the day. At the ground level of the garage, there are two attendants, one to let you out of the basement, the other to let you into the upper levels. Generally, they're grumpy old guys who will roll their eyes at you if you are missing a ticket or don't have your scanner card to let yourself out. Then they have to actually WORK and fill out a form and take down the license plate number of the car (for security reasons, presumably...I, for one, feel no safer than if they just hit a button and just fucking let me out of the goddamn garage without drama).

However, there is one fellow who works there who is an absolute ray of sunshine in the concrete mausoleum known as the Downtown Center Garage at O'Farrell and Mason Streets. I'm not sure what his name is, something decidedly un-masculine like Aubrey or Carroll, but I see him in the afternoons when I take cars upstairs to the 8th floor after I prep them. He's in his mid-60's, with a shock of white hair and sparkling blue eyes set in a round, jovial face. I, for one, have a nagging suspicion he's a notorious Big Gay Homosexual, and I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be some sort of super-pervert who dresses up in a muumuu, fantasizes about altar boys, and eats jello while listening to Tony Orlando and Dawn in his comfortable suburban home in Walnut Creek, California. There are a few reasons for this, the biggest being his inclination to undress me with his eyes every time I pass by his booth. That and I can just spot a perv from a mile away.

Hey, a skunk knows his own scent.

He's a strange, borderline campy fella, with a penchant for ocean liners and vodka. My kind of guy. He loves to chat with me, and every time I have to get a ticket from him he pulls out a picture book of ocean liners, with images of long-scrapped ladies such as the Queen Elizabeth, the Normandy, and of course, the Lusitania. I'll sit there and shoot the shit with him for a few minutes, until an impatient tourist starts honking behind me and I have to run along. We usually discuss art deco ships and buildings, the travesty of the Normandy tragedy (for some reason he never tires of ranting about that), and of course, our favorite vodkas and how we like to consume them.

He loves Grey Goose, which just happens to be my vodka of choice. Today I told him about one of my favorite cocktails, a Drew Barrymore. When I mentioned the name, he said, "I have a feeling this is going to be humorous."

Insightful guy.

A Drew Barrymore is a cocktail invented by my friend Genevieve, a notorious San Francisco bartender. It consists of a simple Shirley Temple, spiked with a generous amount of vodka when nobody is looking. Grey Goose is always preferred, but Absolut will do in a pinch. This made him laugh uncontrollably and got him on a cocktail roll, reciting his favorite cocktails (something I have heard many, many times before...it's our Friday afternoon banter). So he asked me, "So, Chad, how do YOU like your vodka?"

I smiled and blurted out the absolute (Absolut...har-dee-har-har) first thing that came to mind.

"Up my butt."

His eyes flew open, followed by his mouth, upon which he threw his hands and immediately started giggling like a 7th grade Catholic school girl from South Euclid, Ohio, eyes sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. Still giggling uncontrollably, he punched the button that raised the gate and I drove up the ramp in a black Nissan 350Z convertible (one of the "specialty" rentals in our fleet), blasting "Open Your Heart" by Madonna, which just happened to be on the radio that very moment.

It was a very, very gay moment, one that set the precedent for the rest of the afternoon.

A few minutes later, I rolled up in a Chrysler Voyager minivan. He smiled at me, equilibrium not quite regained after my last comment. I turned around and yelled at my imaginary bratty kids in the back seat, smacking one of them and telling them they're all going to be put up for adoption. He loves it when I do random shit like that. You should see me when I'm in the Cadillac Escalade.

Fo real. Shoo.

Anyway, I had just had an arguement with the nasty troll who is supposed to let me out of the basement. For some reason, he had a chip on his shoulder this afternoon and ignored me for a few minutes while I blew my horn over and over, waiting for him to Just Fucking Let Me Out Of The Goddamn Garage. I was feeling snarky at this point, and told my friend I wanted to break a fucking bottle over that asshole's head.

"A bottle of what?" he asked.

"My own urine," I replied matter-of-factly.

Oh, he was so not prepared for that. Speaking of urine, I was convinced he'd be standing in a puddle of it, seeing how he reacted to that statement. He giggled, guffawed, and flapped his arms wildly, and totally popped a boner. I couldn't help but notice it, as he was standing next to the car and his crotch was at eye-level behind the wheel of a Porsche Boxter (another one of the bijou rentals we have).

Like I said...you've gotta keep things interesting.

goddammit.

I just found a faulty copy of an old cd I burned for my sister, and one of the songs was "We Like To Party" by the Venga Boys. Smiling, I listened to it for about 10 seconds, but immediately had to turn it off.

The only thing I could think of was this little freak dancing around:



If you live in Northern California you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I scared a straight boy.

A few weeks ago someone burned me a compliation CD, and one of the songs on it was Set It Off by Peaches. I was walking home from a friend's house in Pacific Heights, listening to the CD with my headphones, and grooving quietly to myself.

Now, upper Polk Street in San Francisco is pretty much an extension of the Marina District, a decidedly straight and upscale yuppie enclave. There's a gym there that used to be the grand old Alhambra Theater, but now it's a Gorilla Sports. The guys who work out there are hot...incredibly so, and my friend and I often dine in that neighborhood just to cast furtive glances at the straight boys who are so good-looking, they look computer generated.

However, I digress.

I was standing at the corner of Larkin and Broadway, waiting for the light to change so I could continue my trek back over to North Beach. "Set It Off" was the next track on the CD, and I started singing along.

"Motherfuckers wanna get with me, lay with me, love with me, all...right."

Now, not only was I singing along, I was also grinding my hips, gyrating, and not lipsynching but actually singing out loud. And I mean loud. I pretended I was on stage, arms out, doing my little Peaches routine as if I was drunk at Badlands, with no shame, on a street corner in Russian Hill. Shit, I don't live in that neighborhood so who the fuck cares? Not I. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and I turned to look.

Standing not 2 feet away from me was a sweaty, [presumably] straight boy, about 24 years old, 6'2" tall, blond hair, green eyes, so hot he didn't even look real. He had just come straight from the gym, and he was staring at me the same way you would stare at Don King had you just walked into your bedroom and discovered him in your bed doing bong hits with Laura Bush and shoving a monster dildo up her ass while your mom videotaped.

There are certain times in your life when you just have to admit that no matter what you do, there is absolutely no way you can look cool and the only way to get out of that situation is to just say "Fuck it," and play it off. This was one of those times. I looked back over at the light, only slightly mortified, and by the pure grace of god, it changed.

I turned back to Mr. Hottie McStraight and sang, "C'mon let's set it off, c'mon let's set it off!" I whipped around, stared straight ahead, and crossed the street with style and grace as if nothing had happened. About 30 seconds later, I turned around, and he was still standing there on the corner looking shellshocked, somewhat confused, and in desperate need of therapy.

You know it, he loved it, he wanted it.

Had he followed me home he just might have gotten it, too.

The stolen rental car.

::: DISCLAIMER ::: This blog entry contains liberal use of the word "fuck" so if you can't handle it, I'd suggest you choke on this for a while.

For those of you who don't know yet, right now I have taken a temporary job washing and prepping rental cars in the basement of a parking garage in downtown San Francisco. I asked my friend Joey, who manages the place, if he had any open positions at his franchise that had very little responsibility and where I would not have to deal with customers directly, or at least not very often.

He asked me, "Wanna wash cars?" After pondering about it for a minute or two, I figured it would be a quick way to earn some extra money so I can buy a Canon Eos Rebel, a G5, music mixing software, plus get my photography business off the ground.

"Sure," I replied, not really realizing what I had committed to. Contract work has been scarce lately and this seemed like an easy enough job. I basically check in rental returns in the basement of the parking garage the franchise is located in, wash them, gas them up if needed, fill out a ready tag, and drive 'em up to the 8th floor of the garage. Simple, mindless (which affords me plenty of opportunity to plot, daydream, fantasize, and just be in my right brain), and sometimes sweaty work. Apparently, fetching recovered stolen rentals is in my job description, so off I went one bright, sunny morning down to Pier 70, the automotive quagmire where all towed cars in San Francisco end up if they're not claimed within 72 hours.

Well, it took almost an hour to find this particular car, an almost brand-new light blue Dodge Stratus coupe with less than 2000 miles on its clock. The story behind this particular vehicle is an interesting one, for sure. The retarded tourists who rented it drove up to the rental office after it had closed, where a bedraggled homeless man with dreadlocks greeted them. Smiling, he informed them he was the National/Alamo representative, and he'd take it from there. Obediently, the boobs got out of the car after parking it on the sidewalk, retrieved their bags, handed the man their rental agreement, and watched as he got in the car, started the engine, put it in gear, and drove away, never to return. They walked away, not once considering that perhaps something was amiss.

People that stupid shouldn't be allowed to leave their houses, much less go on vacation to San Francisco. Homeless people that enterprising should be running for office, and I've gotta give him credit for stealing a brand-new car like that in broad daylight.

So anyway, there I was down at Pier 70, sunning myself on the hood of a wrecked early 90's Cadillac DeVille, waiting for the attendant to find this poor Stratus so I could go back to washing Mitsubishis, Chevrolets, Nissans, and Dodges in that dank basement with a bunch of Mexicans who hate me because I'm a gringo and no habla espanol. Almost an hour passed before the ancient clattering and smoke-belching tow truck dragged a rather sad-looking car to the entrance of the impound lot.

"You have GOT to be kidding me," I thought.

The car was filthy, and the doors were covered in dark powder where the police had dusted it for prints. One of the tires had a large bulge in the sidewall where the homeless man (or perhaps the tourists) had slammed into a curb, and was missing a wheel cover as well. The windows were smeared with what appeared to be some sort of grease, and the entire thing was covered in at least an inch of dirt and dust.

"Um," I said to the attendant driving the tow truck. "I specifically asked for it to be detailed BEFORE you brought it to me. You are SO fired! Who is the manager of this establishment?"

The attendant, not used to people talking to him, much less being admonished for not cleaning a car when his only responsibility was to fetch them, looked at me helplessly, doe-eyed, blinking, like a small child who had just been scolded for running in a hallway or playing with a neighbor's garden hose. Being the merciful ex-Catholic I am, I decided to let him off the hook. "Just kidding, man," I grinned. He looked relieved, and smiled, revealing a single, lonely, somewhat-rotted tooth in his mouth. He shuffled away with his goofy, yet bashful smile still intact, and I walked up to Stratus to survey the damage.

Oh my fucking god.

Sitting there in plain view, on the front passenger seat, was a ROASTED CHICKEN from Safeway. Yeah...you read that right, a roasted fucking chicken...along with a bunch of used condoms on the floor and back seat. Closer inspection revealed an empty bottle of gin, greasy smears of questionable origin covering most surfaces, and rancid reddish-pink vomit all over the back seat and rear floor mats. Opening the glove box, I found a half-eaten package of sliced roast beef. WHY the fuck someone would stash slices of roast beef in a glovebox is beyond me, perhaps the be-dreadlocked gentleman thought it was some sort of refrigeration unit. Either that or he was a fucking cracked-out pig who had absolutely no sense of reality or decency.

Either sounds plausible.

I popped open the trunk, revealing MORE satan-barf (what the FUCK did this guy eat, anyway) and about 250 broken and crumbling Ritz crackers strewn about, along with an unearthly stench that reminded me of sewage, rotting cabbage, and dogshit, with a bit of Oakland at low tide thrown in just for good measure. In the middle of the mess was an unopened package of puke-splattered Keebler Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies.

What. The. Fuck.

This guy had class...steal a rental Dodge, shoplift some groceries ('cause you just KNOW he didn't put the groceries on his debit card or earn free United miles with his Safeway Select Club Card), stuff yourself with chicken and roast beef, fuck some nasty skank (I had to respect him for using condoms, though), chug a bottle of cheap gin, throw crackers around the trunk, barf everywhere, and abandon the car in the Tenderloin...now THAT'S an evening, if you ask me.

Shaking my head and heaving a gusty sigh, I realized I had to drive this jalopy back to the garage, about 3 miles to the north. Bile rising in my throat, I slipped behind the steering wheel and tried to start the engine. It started, ran for about 5 seconds, started chugging, and died. "God fucking dammit, what the fuck now?" I said to no-one in particular. Turns out it these newfangled Daimler-Chrysler jobs now sport an anti-theft device designed cut the fuel to the engine if started with any key other than the original, effectively stranding me at Pier 70 in this fetid vehicle. Thankfully, a hunky attendant (not 'ol Toothy Tootherson but a cute, butch guy in his mid-20's), took pity on me and performed some electronic magic with some wires, a pair of nail clippers, and some chewing gum, bypassing the fuel cutoff circuit. The car sputtered to life, ran rough for a few seconds, and I dropped it into gear.

Let's just say I let someone else clean that one when I got back to the garage.