Things that are bothering me lately

People starting sentences with “at the end of the day…,” and fringe as fashion.

Superheroes

This morning Superman and Batwoman got on the BART at my stop. Superman had a buzz cut and pock marks on his cheeks. Batwoman was carrying a purple Vitamin Water and a paper bag that was no doubt concealing a liquor bottle. A purple Crown Royale pouch hung from her plastic Bat-belt.
I wondered where they were going at 10 AM on a Saturday morning. Their casual demeanor, scruffy appearances, and alcoholic accessories, made me think it is probably time for some new superheroes. They didn’t appear to be in any hurry to fight crime.

Miranda July

A few months ago I saw Miranda July read at Modern Times, a modestly sized neighborhood bookstore in the Mission district. I arrived 15 minutes early and the place was already packed to the gills. Shortly after, Ms. July, looking very fashionable and only slightly awkward climbing a ladder in a skirt and heels, ascended to a platform running along the back wall of the store. She joked about this being her mother’s worst nightmare, watching her daughter climb a ladder in a skirt and heelsbefore a large audience. Then she played a game with the audience that involved finding words she had picked out from the books on the shelves around us and stringing them into a sentence. I’ve forgotten what the sentence was, but something incredibly clever and charming, I’m sure.

Miranda July is the epitome of incredibly clever and charming.

She is also, as a beautiful (if a bit cartoonish) and award-winning writer and director in her early thirties, an instigator of occasionally overwhelming envy in people like myself (undiscovered writers of the same age with only average good looks).

She read to us from her newly published collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, looking lovely and only a bit slouchy, throwing in self-deprecating jokes now and again. The stories she read were funny and honest and slightly surreal, the characters lonely and often self-defeating but also quirky and unapologetic and brave. She had the audience in her pocket and simultaneously eating out of her hand, if that’s possible.

A few weeks ago I finally broke down and bought the book (I was trying to hold out for the paperback, but what the heck). I read the whole thing in about a day. I was surprised to find that a lot of the stories are quite sexual, and not necessarily in a charming way. I don’t know what to think about all that sex, Miranda. It’s true, Me, You and Everyone We Know had some weird sex stuff in it, but somehow it came across as more cute than disturbing. This stuff was darker, less easy to laugh off.

I didn’t love every story, which was a surprising and also relieving. But I loved most of them. I even read some of them twice. How does she think this stuff up, I wondered? I still haven’t figured it out.

One noteworthy thing about Miranda’s characters is that they don’t have any friends, or, in the case of “The Man on the Stairs,” they have friends but don’t like them. This is nice for the reader, who can either relate (I don’t have any friends either!) or feel more popular in comparison (I have at least 2 friends! And I even like one of them!).

I of course tried to find Miranda in every narrator, no matter how unlikely. Does she fantasize about Prince Williams? Is she agoraphobic? Was she a fat woman in a former life? Had she once taught three elderly people to swim in her living room? It all seems possible.

And here lies the magic: these stories are utterly implausible and yet incredibly real. So we will forgive you, Miranda, for being so damn clever and charming, and sexually deviant as well. In a way, reading these stories gives us, if not a means of revenge, at least a sense of solace in “having to live on this planet, day after day, alone.”

Sunday at Fisherman’s Wharf

Although I’ve lived in San Francisco for almost three years I’ve never been to Fisherman’s Wharf. So last Sunday I called a friend and we headed over for a little afternoon sightseeing. The sun was out, the air was brisk, and the bay was all a-sparkle. First stop, Pier 39. Yes, it’s clogged with tourists and pocked with overpriced fish joints and tacky ephemera, but isn’t that part of its charm? A man playing bongo drums, frolicking children in funny hats, and in the harbor, row upon row of fat and happy sea lions, barking and lolling in the sun and every once in awhile pointing their noses straight up into the air and arching their backs like expert yoga practitioners.
In the center of the pier, adjacent to a carousel, was a small stage with a wee gray-haired woman promising an exciting show to a gathering crowd. She performed a series of small feats, all the while making jokes in a charming British accent. For the grand finale, she had two men from the audience balance a pole on their shoulders while she walked across it and then juggled three lit torches. “Not bad for a 54 year old woman, eh?” She quipped as she dismounted.
Only a few feet away we found a 3-D ride simulation called Turbo Ride, with three different adventure options. We opted for “Dino Island II.” After paying our 12 bucks we were led into a theater where we strapped ourselves into large, spaceship-like chairs in front of the screen and hooked on our 3-D glasses. When the film came on our chairs rose and began to move in sync with the film – simulating a ride in a helicoptor that lands on an island full of dinosaurs. We were plunged into the sea, flown through jungle, nearly eaten by a Tyranosaurus Rex, and attacked by a swarm of humungous mosquitos (at which point I cringed in my seat and covered my eyes, the effect was so realistic). Incredibly cheesy but a lot of fun. The only small disappointment was that the arcade, which is where you get funneled into after coming out of the Turbo Ride theater, didn’t have skee-ball.
Next we walked down to the Musee Mecanique, home to a large collection of antique coin-operated machines: miniature ballrooms and scenes from the old West, fortune tellers, Love-O-Meters, 3-D slides of the 1903 earthquake – all brought to life by a quarter or two. At the doorway is Laughing Sal, a life-sized mechanical woman in a glass box sporting a peasant skirt and a couple of missing teeth. Put a quarter in and she begins to shake and laugh a laugh that borders on maniacal. We watched with amusement as a small boy slowly backed away from her towering form, his hand clutching his mother, his eyes wide with terror.
We’d planned to walk to Ghiradelli Square but couldn’t seem to find it. We ended up at Scoma’s, a little old-timey seafood restaurant on Pier 47 that seemed one of the least tourist-y of the bunch. The food was good (I had grilled halibut with mashed potatoes and vegetables) but overpriced and everything kind of tasted like it had been soaked in butter for a couple hours. The light as the sun set was beautiful, however, glinting off the water.
It was dark by the time we headed back to the car, but the sidewalks were still teeming with sightseers and vendors peddling their wares. How strange to discover a whole other world only miles away from where I live: like going on vacation without ever leaving the city.

The Wonderful World of Crunch

Shortly after I succumbed to a fulltime clerical position at a large downtown San Francisco corporation (because what, really, does one do with an MFA in Creative Writing?), I signed up for a one-year membership at Crunch Gym. Even if you’ve never been to Crunch, you’ve probably seen the clever advertising: brightly colored posters featuring a potato saying things like, “Why work out? No one sees me naked anyway,” with the tagline “Don’t be a potato.” The motto of Crunch is No Judgments, which seems contradictory to me. Isn’t there an explicit judgment of potatoes going on in their advertising campaign? If not of the vegetable itself, then at least of the proverbial “couch potato.” I guess what they mean is, once you become the sort of person who goes to the gym on a regular basis and is at least attempting to do something about that extra 10 pounds of unsightly flab, then they won’t judge you.
I’d also heard rumors about how hard it is to quit your membership at Crunch once you’ve joined—a metropolitan conundrum that I’ve seen satirized in more than one TV sitcom, although I don’t know if these were specific references to Crunch—but I thought I’d at least go in and check out there rates, maybe ask about a trial pass. A pretty girl named Stella, who somehow managed to make a pair of gray sweatpants look sexy, gave me the tour and then fast-talked me into my membership, showing me all kinds of membership rates and then slashing and lowering them and making me special offers until I acquiesced and signed my soul away to Crunch. “I’m your Fitness Buddy,” she said, flashing me a dazzling smile, and she gave me my membership card. Sure enough, her name was written on the back under the printed title “Fitness Buddy.” We haven’t spoken since, which makes me question the depth of our “friendship,” but I try not to let it get to me.
Of the two Crunch Gyms near where I work, the one with the best classes is the smallest, windowless and dingy, although superbly convenient in its location next to the Montgomery Street BART Station. The main area of the gym, full of weight machines and Stairmasters, is gray and reeks of metal and stale sweat, and I can’t help but think when I walk through about how absurd it is that people would rather come to this smelly, underground cave to climb or run on machines than go to the park or jog around the city. The women’s shower is communal, something which almost prevented me from signing up for a membership, but then I decided this too was something I should try to get used to. Maybe this was a step toward becoming more comfortable with one’s body. Still, it’s not exactly luxurious. In fact it promotes the feeling of being part of a factory production, of being herded through a series of processes that are all focused on a desired end, much like the work week: sending you home tired and with a sense of accomplishment that doesn’t quite override your nagging anxiety about whether your life is “going anywhere” or has “meaning.”
The reason I wanted to join a gym was not so much to obtain “killer abs” or to sweat off my cellulite, but to increase my energy level and balance out my unhealthy vices. I was hoping to curb my tendencies toward irritability and general neurosis, banking on endorphins and chi flow to dissolve the anxious disposition that I’ve spent years cementing into place. So with this ambitious goal in mind, I begin my regimen of “innovative” and “revolutionary” Crunch aerobics classes.

Class #1: Cardio Kickboxing
The aerobics studio is small and overcrowded. I go in and try to position myself in a spot beneath the fan and with a reasonable amount of personal space. More people come in. The temperature goes up 3 degrees. The class starts. The instructor is a dorky-looking guy in his 30’s, wearing an oversized tee shirt with the sleeves cut off. I can’t help but note that he’s a bit on the scrawny side for an aerobics teacher. He starts us out with what he calls “booty-shake,” a movement that I would call “jogging in place.” Maybe using the term “booty-shake” gives it the connation of doing something fun and sexy. I look around to see how my classmates are taking this. They mostly look serious, or at least absorbed, watching themselves in the mirror. We move on to jabs. The instructor moves from one side of the studio to another in a frantic manner, which is probably supposed to enable everyone to see the moves that he’s demonstrating, but in fact makes the routine nearly impossible to follow. Its also unnerving to find him suddenly three inches away, jabbing ferociously in a downward motion, his left leg extended behind him and jiggling with each punch. Even more distracting is the extremely peppy girl to my left who is inserting her own choreography into the routine, tapping the floor between jabs, prancing from side to side at double-tempo, doing extra hop-step kicks at random intervals. She looks like a Mortal Kombat character with Tourette’s. I fight an overwhelming desire to hop-kick her in the knee. “Booty Shake!” calls the instructor, and then transitions into a move that makes him look just like one of those Dancing Guys on Saturday Night Live. Around me the other girls maintain their looks of fierce narcissistic intensity.

Class #2: Cardio Striptease
I come in late to this one, and everyone is already writhing on the floor, doing some tantric yoga-style positions. Without mats. I try to join in, and at once get floor burn on both knees. I grab a mat. I know real strippers don’t use mats, but the point here is to get a work out, not to learn how to be a stripper—right?
“Work the audience!” the instructor calls out, directing a sultry gaze toward the mirror.
I look at my fellow novice strippers. Almost all of them have a similar sultry look on their face. It is very similar to the narcissistic air of the kickboxing class, except with a sexual element that seems inappropriate for group exercise. Like we are all seducing our own reflections.
“Feel free to add your own flair,” calls the instructor. She demonstrates by sliding her hands up her sides and cupping her breasts in an erotic manner. I decide that it’s OK not to add my own flair: a glance from the corner of my eye tells me that the flamboyant boy swiveling his hips behind me has enough flair for the both of us.

Class #3: Belly Moves
This class should actually be called “Butt Moves.” It turns out that the key to bellydancing is flexing your butt, one cheek at a time: right, left, right, left, rightleftrightleftrightleft. First we sit on the floor and flex our butts. Then we stand up and flex our butts. For the grand finale we walk toward the front of the room, hands outstretched, flexing our butts. It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Go ahead, try it. Right, left, right, left. Or, if you prefer, “Bootyshake!”

Class #4: Flow Yoga
My favorite, by far, and the only one I continue to go to on a regular basis. The instructor for this particular class is a young gay man with a pink mohawk and a soothing voice. He leads us through Downward Dog, Warrior One, Cat/Cow, Silver Surfer. He grants us permission to have extra glasses of champagne for pushing ourselves through particularly difficult poses. We listen to Enya and New Age covers of 70’s disco songs. In more “serious” yoga practice I suspect one does not listen to music at all, but this is Crunch—we’re getting the VH1 version of enlightenment. At the end of our practice we bow our heads and say “Namaste.” I walk out feeling peaceful, smiling with superior detachment at the people sweating and grunting on the gym machines, doing all that work and getting absolutely nowhere.

So far Crunch has not cured me of my irritability and general neurosis—not even close—but I continue to persevere: I figure it’s better to spend the 5:00 hour at the gym than sucking down half-price drinks at the nearby bar. I’ve settled into the routine of putting on my “business casual” attire, riding the BART downtown with all the other corporate types, drinking my afternoon Jamba Juice and going straight to the gym after work. It’s quite a shift from my grad school schedule of sleeping until 10, going out four nights a week, and lounging in my pajamas half the morning; the eternal adolescent. I’m experimenting, trying out the role of “responsible, healthy adult.” We’ll see how long it lasts.

Why I Did Not Appreciate Mutual Appreciation

Here we have the story of a struggling musician who moves to NY, hangs out with some friends, kisses a girl he’s not that into, plays a show, and then flirts with his friend’s girlfriend. This is the plot, or lack thereof, of Mutual Appreciation, the new film by indie darling Andy Bujalski. It’s not that I require a complex or sophisticated plot to draw me into a film. Take Nicole Holofcener’s Walking and Talking, for example: also about unmarried twentysomethings doing little more than hanging out and talking in NYC. According to reviewer Matt Bailey, “[Holofcener], a refugee from the male-dominated trenches of film school and indie filmmaking…makes movies about women who are realer than real.” (for full review click here.) W&T is witty and insightful, with well-developed, interesting characters; it is naturalistic without being dull. Mutual Appreciation, on the other hand, is naturalistic in all the wrong ways – it captures the nail-against-chalkboard inanity of daily conversation, the annoying pretentiousness of hipsters attempting to make profound statements about life and relationships. And yet somehow the acting, and much of the conversation, often seemed contrived. Alan, the main character, is a generic composite of every flaky-player-hipster-boy-in-a-band I’ve ever met, but less interesting, and I wasn’t exactly sympathetic with his plight, i.e. blowing off the girl he’s made out with, figuring out how to live the rockstar-lifestyle without an actual band or even a job, trying to co-opt his best friend’s girl. Ellie and Lawrence were much more palatable, even likeable at times, but not enough to even things out.
Am I being too harsh? Perhaps its just that this film hits too close to home. Why sit on the couch and watch on-screen the conversations I could overhear at the nearest Mission dive bar? I already know what its like to attempt to be an “artist,” to balk a the idea of a mundane job, to sit around and drink wine and not know what the hell you’re doing with your life. And if I were to write a screenplay about it, I would hope that I could at least come up with better dialogue.
Or perhaps its the gender thing, and I just can’t relate to Bujalski’s bumbling dickhead of a protagonist. Perhaps I prefer Walking and Talking because the director and the protagonist are female. If Matt Bailey is right, Holofcener’s films don’t appeal to men because their focus is interpersonal relationships. If Walking and Talking is an “indie Gen X chick flick dramedy” and as such, an “unsellable hybrid of film,” what does that say about Mutual Aprreciation? It is certainly about interpersonal relationships, but it is most definitely not a “chick flick.” Is it merely the male perspective that defines this difference? I think in the end it comes down to this: while relationships are the central focus of Walking and Talking, the real core of Mutual Appreciation is the main character’s obsession with himself.

The Jascha Ephraim Memorial Library

Last Monday I went to see the Jascha Ephraim Memorial Library at the L Cafe on 24th St. I’ve known Jascha for a few years now, and he is quite an intriguing character. His first album is catchy and often hilarious, especially when seen live and accompanied by Jascha’s excellent dance moves and bizarre back-up videos. But after seeing this new turn his music has taken, I’ve come to realize Jascha Ephraim is nothing short of a man-boy musical genius.

On this particular night the Jascha Ephraim Memorial Library included multiple violinists, a keyboardist, and a bassist, with Jascha conducting from its midst in a self-styled headdress while singing and playing guitar. The band members were all outfitted in gray sweatsuits and had their faces painted in blue and red tribal fashion.

The music has the same pop sensibility as his earlier work, with similarly absurd lyrics, but it’s now less synthesizer driven, with a richer and more varied sound. The whole thing had a rock opera-esque quality about it–with an emphasis on rockin.’ They finished the set with a great rendition of “Be My Baby,” by the Ronettes.

Conclusion: I highly recommend that you go see this band if you have the opportunity. At the Jascha Ephraim Memorial Library the librarians dance on the tables and you only get kicked out for not having fun.