Makeshift Gatekeeper

San Francisco is a land of contradictions. It's where every café has beer but not every bar has liquor. It's where everyone's friendly but few are your friends.

After 2 weeks of living here, I continue to feel more and more like myself. Not in vacation mode, not in adjusting mode, just in being. With each phase comes new spending patterns. The first week, I noticed I was spending too much just adjusting. The second week, I went in vacation mode as I had a visitor. Then went to spend-none mode. Now back to just normal spending.

So I went out last night. Walked around, found a bar that proposed music later, and, not thinking I'd even be around for the music, went in. 

The bar was pretty empty, so I found a spot at the bar and opened one of my new books.

After thoroughly digesting the one-page forward and imbibing a 10% Imperial Porter, I was finding myself listening more to the ambient conversations than focusing on the book.

One group of guys, long-time friends, some in from out of town—for the Google IO convention?—were talking about tech stuff that I know some things about, while the bartender and her sound guy were desperately trying to find a door man for the show.

I finished a second beer and, as she asked me if I wanted another, I asked if they needed a door guy.

In most other cities, in most situations, bars don't trust dudes who just happen to be hanging out with $100 in change and potentially 3x that by the end of the night.

But in this situation, they did. Without even so much as a "What's your last name?" or "Can you leave your id with us so you don't just run off with the money."

Not that I would have, and maybe she sensed that, but I've been noticing, as a quasi-drifter—staying at an SRO!—how easy it would be to be a con-man. These people don't know me, and I have a trustworthy face and demeanor. But maybe it's my being trustworthy that has built that demeanor—and face.

So next thing I know, I'm at the door with a hundred bucks asking people for "7 to 10 dollars, sliding scale."

This bar has shows most nights but only charges a cover on some. This was one of those. So a lot of people either didn't expect a cover or didn't know what it was.

I found that the easiest thing was to ask for IDs, because that's pretty normal, and then while they were fumbling say: "There's a cover tonight for the bands." That last part—"for the bands"—was the important part, making me feel more justified in asking for money.

It's all about working with people's expectations.

Some would come in and ask how much; those were easy. Some would come in like they were on a bar crawl. There were, in fact, people on a bar crawl. 3 people came in, learned about the cover and were disappointed. Tried to haggle. I offered 10 for the 3 of them—they weren't here for the music—and the girl said that there were 15 of them coming. I looked around the bar, pretty full with an already-slammed bartender, and said "Then I don't think this is the right bar for you."

Was that too blunt? It was true. For them, for the bar, for me.

So then 15 people walked by the door looking either disappointed or angry.

The funniest thing I saw, besides the passed out cokehead getting carried out by his friends (which wasn't so much funny as unsettling), was out the door. From my position, the door was framing whatever happened out on the street like a mini-proscenium. But most of the action was happening offstage, leaving me to infer from what I could hear—and the little I could see—what was going on.

I saw a plastic cup go skidding by—blown by wind?—and then seconds later, this mid-40s guy in one of the bands comes jumping across my view and stomps on it like he had a score to settle.

Really, the funniest thing to me was the very fact that I was where I was.

The cokehead thing wasn't that funny. Just a white dude in his late 20s, early 30s who was kind of skeezy the whole night. But skeezy in a fun, party way. He was with friends and was "friends with the band" so wasn't just some bum off the street.

At some point, 4 of his friends hurriedly carried his dead-to-the-world body out the door, lying him on the sidewalk. I thought maybe it was epilepsy or something equally strange and scary. 

I didn't even recognize him at the time because he wasn't wearing his sunglasses, which he'd been wearing the whole time—in the "darkest bar I've ever been in."

Don't know exactly what happened, but I think he'll make it. And will maybe learn his lesson.

Then the last band ended—who were actually pretty good—and I forked over the money to the bartender. Not sure how much it ended up being, but at least one person—this elvish looking blonde waif—paid with a hundo and there were plenty of other 20s left after I got my cut.

It's a little sad, if you think about it, this random guy—me—gets 60 bucks for the night, while the musicians who put forth much more effort probably got a fraction of that apiece.

Such is life. And now back to my real job.

Home is Where the Startup Is

2 weeks ago today, I got to SF. And while I wouldn't expect to feel at home yet, I'm starting to.

The first week was excitement turning to routine turning to almost boredom. A week after I got here, I was sitting in a cafe feeling stuck in this new life.

Later that day, my ladyfriend (of the "Unicorns Exist fame) arrived after having bought a flight the day before. (And after having mulled it over for 3 suspenseful days.)

And so quickly, my stuckness became unstuck as we drifted around the city for 3 days as if in a cloud—a cloud of possibilities.

We hit up vegan/vegetarian-friendly restaurants, met new friends, saw the bridge, met old friends, and generally soaked up each other's company.

The sea was tiny that day.

Hence, I didn't have the wherewithal to write about it.

Her stay ended and I continued on still transformed, finding new joy in the routine of working from home, working from coffee shops, and doing long bike rides.

But finding a good space in which to work was still a challenge. Working from coffee shops wears on you, as your "co-workers" are strangers to you and seldom do you meet new friends—or even have the mindspace to do so.

Working from home is complicated: not having a desk, it's physically uncomfortable, not having a clear space, mentally beclouding.

But in one fell swoop, I found a workspace and a (potential) community of seemingly likeminded people.

It's called Noisebridge and it's a Hackerspace. And it's 2 blocks from my place.

Same Cork, Different Ocean

2 years ago, I took a break from my life and spent 2 months in Europe.

This summer, I'm spending 2 months living and working in San Francisco. It's my 2-year itch.

A month ago, I was sitting in Dolores Park with my friend and his friends, one of whom was leaving their place open for 3 months. Subletting was discussed, and over the course of a couple hours, I went from somewhat intrigued to practically convinced.

It's hard to say no to a city when you're drinking and being offered drugs in a beautiful park in the sunshine.

It's hard to say no to San Francisco.

The sublet was a room in a space that has been described as a "tech dorm", "tech hostel", and "squat." So SF. Not having seen it, I was blissfully ignorant of what to expect. Uncertainty excites me in general, and I was particularly ready for an adventure.

After committing to the sublet, there was scant further information. As my departure date loomed closer—that is, 2 days before leaving—I finally sent out some emails to try to get more information, hoping that everything was still set.

Got a quick response from the property manager, who told me how to find the place: "We are on the corner of 20th and Mission above the T-mobile store.The door is located about 30 yards up 20th st from the corner just past the eggplant dragon mural."

Eggplant dragon mural.

I ring the doorbell, after having lugged my 20 lb bike in a box along with a suitcase and carryon on 2 trains, through 2 airports, and through 2 cities, and waited. Eventually, Suzanne opened the door and seemed to know to expect me.

I walked up the stairs past a dozen bikes and got the tour.

The floors of the hallways have been stripped of any flooring down to the wood. Other bikes—some dusty, some broken—line the halls along with various construction equipment like sanders and saws. The one kitchen is nice but small. Considering the situation, it's surprisingly clean.

Currently, there's only one bathroom, which is shared by men and women and whomever else. 3 toilets, 2 showers. There's another toilet in a separate room down the hall—a modicum of privacy.

My bedroom is surprisingly nice. Carpet, queen-size bed, nice sheets, a hard-wood dresser, and a view over the neighbor's backyard. Small and no desk but nice.

My friend, the one who helped connect me to this opportunity, came by last night and was shocked at the... rusticness. I was a little... surprised... myself, but mostly pleasantly. I don't have to bring any chaos to this place; there's plenty enough as it is.

On Land

I'm on a new mission. After 2 years of recovering, refoundationing, and rebuilding, I'm adrift again, another period of punctuation in the amorphous flow of life.

I got back from Europe with only the promise of a job (giving bike tours), nowhere to live. Stayed with friends and parents and looked. Found the Castle: a 2-story graystone with 12 people living on 3 floors at the center of Logan Square.

People came and went, performed music/comedy/poetry, built things, went out too much, stayed in too much. And only one suicide attempt.

Then, after years of threatening to give up bike tours for good, I found my way out.

I have sympathy for people who are stuck—for I certainly was—but you can't get out if you're not constantly trying. It's like shooting rockets into space; you don't always know how much escape velocity you need.

For my escape, I uncovered web development, a métier that I enjoyed so much that I would do it for no money. That not being sustainable, it's nice that it is, in fact, remunerated. And pretty well at that.

But I did it for no money, pursuing my own projects—building websites that I wanted to use—and then fell in with a startup whose website I had already tried to use.

Dabble.co has been around Chicago for 2 years. They are an online marketplace for real-life classes: scotch tasting, glass blowing, photoshop, jewelry making, and so on. I submitted a bike maintenance class before I ever thought about working in websites. But then I couldn't work out the details, and the idea fizzled.

Here's the timeline as far as I can tell:

* 6/24/11 - We start following each other on Twitter.
* 4/6/12   - An email from a new contact: "So Dabble is looking for a developer..." (But I don't yet have nearly enough experience. Just started teaching myself a month earlier.)
* 7/9/12   - I have more experience, they still have a need; they agree to bring me in.
* 7/24/12 - Came in for the first time to Catapult, the startup incubator shared office.
* Did an unpaid stint with them for the rest of July, August and September; still needed experience.
* October, took a contract for a different website.
November, started working (contract) for Dabble for real money.
Little by little, the 20hr/wk contract became more like 30-40.
Which brings us to now: working 40hrs, making more money than I've ever made.

I'm also feeling freer than ever. Funny what a little money will do.

Quimper to Paris

I woke up in a Breton country house belonging to my friend Jennifer and her husband, Laurent.

Jennifer and I both studied in Paris together, during the Y2K scare, and at the end of the school year, we went on a hike of Auvergne, a formerly volcanic region in the middle of France, part of the Massif Central.

It's where the water comes from. In fact, we hiked up the volcano pictured below.

[If I were a graphic designer, I'd whip up a mock logo for a competing brand of water called "Vulvic." But I'd have to be a pretty graphic graphic designer.]

My entire trip throughout Europe had been pretty intense, staying with strangers (who often became friends), hitching rides, and never stopping for very long to rest. Finally, in Brittany, I had a chance to rest. Their lifestyle is inherently much slower than most that I'd seen. They weren't exactly farmers themselves, though their garden would be envied by most, but they were surrounded on all sides by died-in-the-wool farmers.

But I had to leave. I had a flight from Paris in a few days.

But aside from flight information, I had little else to structure my time. So I decided one evening, maybe the 2nd or 3rd that I was there, that it was time for me to fly. I did a long, extended a cappella version of Freebird and planned to leave in the morning. Here's my basic route.

They drove me to a rondpoint and I stood with my sign hoping to get to Lorient.

First person to pick me up was a woman about my age; now we're friends on Facebook.

We talked for a while - nice, easy conversation - and talked music, culture, Brittany, Celts, and whatever else. Somehow it came up that I was visiting Jennifer and Laurent, whom she knew through the theatre. Still not quite sure how.

Then, I waited. Je galérais. Finally, I got a ride from an old man who was much more difficult to talk to. I think he was a real paysan with a thick accent. Just when you think you know a language...

He dropped me off in a tricky spot; I was near a rondpoint, but the traffic coming through seemed to be going pretty fast and didn't have time to see me. But further down the road it became more of a highway and then traffic was really going fast.

I ended up waiting down the road for a while before I heard someone calling after me. I didn't remember making any eye contact with anyone, but either I did or they decided after the fact to help me out.

Once again, unusual. A family on vacay driving back to Paris. They were going to hole up somewhere for the night, making it a 2-day trip. They were nice enough, not particularly pleasant, awkward, or memorable. But I'll think fondly of them forever for their willingness to pick up strangers.

They dropped me off on the west side of Rennes. The highway comes in from the west, does a little bypass, and then comes out the east towards Paris.

There, I really felt stranded. After what seemed like an hour, someone finally stopped. I was so excited but quickly disappointed; he was just stopping to give advice: I was on the wrong side of town. Being on the east side would increase the likelihood of Paris-bound travelers.

Also, it was getting late. Late afternoon.

Following his advice, I took the bus into town. Thank goodness for public transit!

I considered taking the train, but it was well over 50 bucks, so I took another bus out of town. I considered staying in Rennes but, at the last possible moment, after finally finding wifi, I got word that I had a couch in Paris. Ali L'Original.

I can't remember his last name, but that's who he is on Facebook.

So I waited for a half-hour at a random rondpoint - after trying and failing at a couple - and, after getting ignored and even flicked off!, someone stopped.

I told him I was going to Paris. So was he. But. He wasn't taking the highway but the "départementale," backroads.

At that point, I was happy to have a sure ride than risk waiting all night at a crossroads. So we had 5 hours to chat, not 4.

His brown minivan betrayed a non-chalance and frugality that many other French drivers do their best to hide. He had some career for a while but was now a Private Investigator. That took me a little while to work out in translation, but it's essentially literal.

It got dark as we got close to Paris; I dozed and dreamt of a bed.

Finally, at 10pm - 22h - we got to Paris, specifically the 18th or 19th arrondissement, a predominantly African, immigrant, and Muslim area. I hadn't noticed, but my chauffeur was Muslim. His name, if memory serves, may even have been Mohammad or some other dead giveaway. His family was Moroccan or Algerian but had been in France for generations.

Then, to couchsurfing host, Ali, also a Muslim from North Africa, Morocco specifically.

I exhaustedly took the Métro to find my host and his cohorts - including several other couchsurfers. They were watching a movie in the park that had just ended and it was time to go out.

Time to go out, time to go to sleep; there wasn't much debate: I was horribly outnumbered.

Fortunately, we had a car. We stashed my bags and went to find a gathering on some abandoned railroad tracks. I wanted a drink, but it seemed BYO so I exhaustedly conversed with whomever, primarily the surfers also staying with Ali: a group of 4 Belgians and a young Austrian couple. We'd fit into Ali's apartment but it was juste.

Finally we left. To go to a bar on the rive gauche, totally touristy. The bar, in fact, was really close to the bar that my friend Ashley's current husband used to work at, also blindé de touristes.

I got my drink; we vacillated and finally got moving towards beds/couches/etc.

Ali's apartment had 2 couches in the living room where I slept, a spare room for the 4 Belgians, and then his room which he gave up for the Austrians. He slept on the other couch in the living room. Quel Mensch!

And finally ended my long day - early to rise, early the next morning to bed.

Opiating the Masses

Stories are coming back to me the more I dream, which comes back to me the more I sleep soundly in my own bed. [...my own borrowed, sublet beds.]

Once, I was in Tübingen, Germany for no apparent reason. Maybe my friend Russ had studied there during his junior year abroad; maybe I met a girl on the bike tour who suggested I visit. She ended up living not too far away and we met for lunch at a biergarten.

Turns out, the city had been around awhile before I got there, officially appearing in the late 12th century, staking its claim to fame in 1477 with the founding of the Universität. And it felt like it, each downtown house exuding history like American houses exude bland conformity.

[If you look closely at the buildings below, you'll notice one window that doesn't match with the others in its row. Someone told me some long, convoluted story about it; now, apparently, the odd window is effectively part of the neighboring building, the wall having been broken down hundreds of years ago.]

The whole 2 days were a bit surreal and included me coming across an old friend to meet for drinks (thanks to Facebook), which seemed almost organized by the Universe for my bemusement.

But this post is about religion more than spirituality.

I was walking through the altstadt when I saw a guy standing on a ladder orating. The crowd before him was small, about a dozen people standing, looking either askance or engaged. I looked askance but sat down to unravel the mystery.

Even without understanding what they were saying, I knew what they were talking about. The zeal and passion came through and betrayed their intention; this was the German equivalent of the black preacher in Chicago who sets up shop on State street with his microphone urging sinners to repent.

But, like everything in Germany, this was more organized and effective.

I watched, amused and horrified as two women in their 30s or 40s sidled up to a younger woman who had been watching. A conversation ensued, which, I'm sure, started with "What do you think about what he's saying?"

Then, one speaker got down and another got up; I realized that most of the audience either had already spoken or were about to. Their presence, though, gave the impression of a movement, something the guy in Chicago lacks, who gives off the impression of pathetic solitude--and therefore insanity.

Eventually, I became the prey, and a man in his 40s sat down next to me and something to the effect of: "What do you think?" I explained I didn't understand much, that I spoke English, which then opened the door for him to proselytize me in English.

The conversation was surprisingly innocuous for several minutes, covering mostly background information with sprinkles of jesus-is-god stuff. Then, he launched into his story, one that I found intriguing and not so off-putting. On-putting? He apparently was in the U.S. of America when he was in his early 20s and was doing a bike ride across the country. There were moments that he thought he was going to die; there were nights where he had no place to stay; there was drama. And each time, he called out to God and got his problem solved.

[I didn't mention that I was having the same experience in Europe except that, for me, the Universe itself was coming to my aid--not some anthropomorphic Deity and His Son.]

Regardless of what he said, I appreciated *how* he said it. It wasn't the usual scare tactics; it was more about finding joy, finding happiness, through love. Sounds cliché now, but the way he spoke made it sound earnest.

Then, though, I realized something. I was American and his story was about finding Jesus in America. Coincidence? Possibly.

Then, though, I realized that I was wearing my shirt with a dozen bicycles all over it. His story tied together two things about me in order to connect. Could they have been fabrications? What if he has his born-again story that he contextualizes differently for each person? What is truth and should it matter in matters of faith?

I feel a little scuzzy about it, but I don't think it should really matter. In this case, I have faith in his motivations, so I'll allow for some distortions of reality.

There's truth and then there's Truth. And to approach Truth, you often need to discard truth. In fact, I would suggest that we need to; the truth typically obscures our notion of Truth. There's the who-what-where-when-how, and then there's the Why. The Why is what ties things together but is somewhat independent of more mundane issues.

If you're not convinced, I would say that all literature, theater, and poetry are just as dishonest. But it's dishonesty with a purpose, and the audience knows it's being lied to.

In music, we have the luxury of approaching Truth without messing around with reality.

And then there's Quality...

and while you sleep we suck your blood

I was in Amsterdam and had no place to sleep. I wasn't worried. Somehow these things tend to work themselves out.

It was my third night in the city and I had already drunk enough good Belgian beer and smoked enough Dutch weed to consider the visit a success. The first two nights, Wednesday and Thursday, I had stayed with couchsurfers--Stefan and Judith. Neither could host me Friday, but I felt like staying a few more days; I put my faith in the universe and set out. There was a party at a squat according to, a website to which my friend Nicole alerted me, having lived in the city herself at one point. On the way, I took another suggestion of hers: Cafe Gollem. I can only assume they got the name from Golem and not Gollum. I can't quite find the answer on their site.

There, I sat at the bar and ordered a Trippel. I noticed some individuals sitting alone, noticeably a girl sitting by the window. I was pretty open to talking to whomever--little did I know that at Cafe Gollem "ledereen praat tegen iedereen." And then the girl at the window came up to order, which she did in a language that sounded strangely familiar. Turns out, she was from Texas. Not that exotic, but strange enough to meet her at a hole-in-the-wall in Amsterdam.

So I heard her order, asked where she was from, and then next thing I knew, she was inviting herself to sit next to me; turns out, this girl Lisa had been in the 'Dam for 5 days and didn't know too many people yet. Starved for conversation, we gorged.

She was a dancer, as in modern dancer, so I got to name-drop all the dancer names and modern dance methods that I knew. Eventually, we both decided to check out this squat party along with former host Stefan.

Found the squat but no people, no party.

Drats. It looked like it was a cool space--some big structure where they formerly repaired tram cars. Industrial but spacious. So we got some food and then I asked Lisa and Stefan who would like to house me for the evening. I ended up on Lisa's floor on a couple of yoga mats, which was not much better than her schlafplatz: a camping mattress on a wooden frame. Her mattress had been destroyed for harboring modern society's old world pest: bedbugs.

She had warned me about the bedbugs but had said the bugman had been by the day before and said they were gone. I trusted the bugman.

The next morning, no bites. I took all my stuff with me, hoping to find a couchsurfing host at the weekly couchsurfing meet-up. Lisa joined me but I could not bring myself to subject myself to yet another home situation--especially one that I would be jumping into late at night. The devil you know won out and I spent another night on Lisa's floor.

Finally, Sunday I left Amsterdam. I was going to hitchhike but was tired so took the train. It was 50€ I would rather not have spent, but I was tired and needed the rest. I found a compartment by myself and started to read the paper, a French newspaper called "La Libération", started by Sartre and friends.

Almost predictably, Murphy's Law?, I was joined by a family that occupied the remaining 5 seats: two parents, 3 rambunctious boys.

Got to Ghent, Gent, or Gand and found my couchsurf host at the train station--a blind guy named Didier. How strange and wonderful that I could enter into his world and see first-hand how easy or difficult things become when you can't see.

There's plenty to be said about my time in Gent, but suffice it to say that I woke up after the first night with 7 or 8 red bites on one foot. To the bedbug expert, this may not sound like a bedbug problem, but to me it sounded alarms. I spent the next few days a hypochondriac, worrying about whether or not I should worry.

This went on for weeks when I ultimately decided I have no need to worry. Lisa has said that there's been no resurgence in bugs; no one else I stayed with reported having them.

All this comes at a time when bedbugs are all over the news. Every couple of days in the Times, there's a new article about bedbugs and how wonderful and terrible they are. [To be fair, the only good thing about bedbugs is that they don't spread disease like other bloodsuckers.]

Now I'm hypersensitive, so whatever bite I find on my body (mosquitos are terrible in Chicago thanks to a lot of summer rain), or whatever small bug I see reawakens the sleeping worry giant. My new sublet, a step up from the co-op in terms of cleanliness, has never had a problem with them, but I saw some small bug, possibly one of those small spiders, and immediately feared the worst. So far, no strange bites, just the lingering sense of impending doom.