Man In A Panic

All Aboard

Having chosen to live in an 'up and coming' area, I have the thrill of riding the Number 5 bus to work every morning.  Some would say that the buses in 'Frisco are 'socially inclusive'.  And that my bus is very 'special' indeed.  I, on the other hand, would say that it's rammed to the roof every morning with criminals and mentalists, half of them on their way to court, the other half to the loony hospital...it's the Noah's Ark of human deviancy.

Like all buses, there are signs up front imploring passengers to give up seats for the 'elderly and disabled'.  A tricky business when bipedal activity is a rarity for everyone on board.  Every morning, there's a geriatric dance as passengers try to out-mental each other in a bid to sit down.  I usually win - having four able limbs and a stupid accent is enough to convince them that I'm the biggest freak of all.

Incidentally, Davis in Central Valley has some brilliant buses.  They're easy on the eye and you can hop on and off them at your convenience:

Not a bad idea for London really.  Bendy brained bendy bus bastards. The only Londoner I've met who supported the decision to get rid of the Routemaster buses had been run over by one.  And you know what?  I reckon she deserved it.

Stinson Beach

Another tough Saturday afternoon in mid-February.

Dodging those rip-tides and Great Whites is hard work.  And then there's the ardous 40 minute drive back to the city again.

Bummer.

Musical

Menopause (the Musical) 'The Hilarious Celebration Of Women & The Change!'

Bloody hell.  In every way.

Oh, and then there's this.

Sky High

OK, so this is a cheap blog entry.  But I flew to Chicago on Monday and was bewitched by the Skymall catalogue, a Pandora's box of absurd gadgets and inventive idiocy. 

The 'Skyrest' above is my favourite - I mean, this bloke's dodgy moustache and grave-dodging-Hawaiian-shirt would have me grinding my teeth anyway.  But can you imagine if he inflated this hovercraft in the seat next to you?

Of course, an hour later he'd awake from his slumber with an urgent need to empty his colostomy bag.  What happens next, folks?  Just how exactly is he going to squeeze past with an inflatable iceberg taking up half the plane?  You'd end up holding it, a streak of dribble inching its way onto your lap while the old git clambers over your face to get to the aisle.

At which point, you'd notice his LED Belt-Buckle winking at you, like a Xmas tree fairy for his Viagra-fuelled loins. 

Incidentally, I was in Chicago to meet a potential new client - not actually IN Chicago, of course, but in some miserable industrial park 30 miles from the city.  He was a marketing everyman, The Man With No Appearance.  However intently I l stared at him, I couldn't see what he looked like.  I'm sure he did have a face but I couldn't retain a single feature of it - every time I blinked, I'd have to start scanning him afresh when my eyes reopened. 

Two days later, I have no image or memory of him at all....his only legacy in my life is the new column on the right - "Words from Planet Marketing"...and I swear that these are verbatims from Mr.Invisible.

How do people do these Dilbert jobs?  I can barely live with myself when I wake up every morning to discover that I'm not Johnny Rotten.  This anoymous man would have made a great spy had he not devoted his life to shelf-space for meat-based spreadables.

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" (Mary Oliver)

Bent Bangers

Happy Chinese New Year, readers!

I thought I'd liven things up with a slightly racist AND homophobic post.  Either that or I'll be forlornly fishing around for something to dress up as a culturally astute observation. 

(Actually, here's one:  America smells of sandwiches...mayonnaise in particular.  Whereas Africa smells of meat; the UK smells of mud and S.E.Asia smells of lemongrass.  Finland smells of puncture repair glue.)

Sooooo.....I was in China Town last night for the New Year.  And let's just say that 'those people' do not abide by The Firework Code  when having explosive fun.  Let's just say they choose NOT to 'light the fuse and stand well back'.

Instead they choose to throw weapons-grade firecrackers at each other, at bystanders, at cars, at bars and, rather wonderfully, at The Gayers whenever possible.  And, as we know, The Gayers can be more dramatic than The Non-Gayers...

So, whereas in London, the soundtrack to a fireworks display in a muddy field goes something like this:

Tssssss.......WHOOOSH......BANG!  'Ooooooooo...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'

for Chinese New Year in SF, it's more like this:

Tsss..WHOOSH..BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! 'OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!! MY BOTTOM'S ON FIRE!! I'M FLAMING, I'M FLAMING!!"

Which I think is rather wonderful.

So 2006 is the Year of the Dog.  And absolutely not the year of the Chutney Ferret.

Dolby Stereo

On a whim, I went to see 80s-Electronics-Wizard Thomas Dolby last night.

He comes on stage wired up like a Dalek and performs cell-phone ring tones for an hour.

Quote of the night: 'I will now do a medley of my hit'.

I'm inspired though - I've bought a keyboard and become a GarageBand junkie, staring bleary eyed at beats and blips in the early hours.  I almost made myself dance last night.

Sounding Weird, Looking Weird, Writing Weird

So, as you can see, I'm only the STAR of some Hewlett Packard printer commercials.  Ignoring the fact that they've called me Brian and scrawled the word 'small' between my legs on the 'group shot', I'm sure you'll feel an instant and irrepressable urge to upgrade your printer.

I've also been trying to do a few voice-overs here in 'Frisco because us Brits are in hot demand - and it seems that every San Franciscan who's seen Woody Allen's (risible) Match Point has come over all hoity-toity.  So, reaching for the stars once again, I tried out as the new voice of Kellogg's All-Bran. 

Stuck in a sound booth and struggling to find my character's motivation, I was told to read the script "like a Big Friendly Bear".  Helpful advice as, obviously, my real quandry at that moment was deciding where in the Animal Kingdom to find vocal inspiration.   

That said, my guess is that if you (UK readers) all did a 'Big Friendly Bear' voice right now, they'd be remarkably consistent.  Why?  Well not all brain flotsam is pointless song lyrics...no, there's also several billion little grey cells faithfully storing the voices of Johnny Morris' 'Animal Magic'.  I lived in Kenya for a while and, thanks to Johnny, never met a giraffe who wasn't posh.  Sadly, there was no space left between my ears to remember Swahili though...

Anyway, I didn't get the job.  I was rubbish.  I instinctively fell into Victor Kyam 'voiceover mode' (yet another wasteful bit of cultural memory) and it was embarassing to listen back to.

It's amazing how many ads do still sound so contrived though.  And how so much ad copy is still so ad-copy-esque.  All short sentences.  Power words.  And meaningless constructs. Be Yourself. Right?

The marketing industry bleats on and on about 'authenticity' but still forgets to sound human most of the time.

Do you see what I did there?  I wrote a load of old bollocks and then tried to segue into a meaningful thought about my working life.  I'm going to try that more often - just in case people at work are reading this...

Here's an in-joke for you agency dorks, courtesy of Goodby.  Download 01_RC_LADY_FIN_1_2.mp3

Am I Bothered?

I've been in the USA for four months now and haven't bought a single newspaper.  And, even though I've got the World's Biggest Telly, it's not actually connected to any broadcast media.

It's surprising to me that, without the lure of familiar media brands - or the come-hither sports/celebrity news headlines - newspapers hold no real appeal for me here.  Not because they're bad, or dumb or US-centric....but because....well...I just don't really care...

I occasionally read the news on the BBC website and listen to Radio 4 but I'm much less well informed about 'current affairs' than I ever was in the UK.  Or perhaps not.  Perhaps just less full of other people's opinions - ever changing according to my media choices.

It's refreshing to escape from the tyranny of newspapers and telly for a while - freeing up whole days for discovering new music, watching movies and reading books I've been meaning to for years..

I'm not sure what I'm saying here.  Just that I'm pretty relaxed about being 'less well informed' about immediate news headlines....because the trade off is more time to think about things that actually interest me.

Is this the American malaise?  Is this why the 'Dumb American' cliche is so sticky?  Well here's a thought - proper international news is, of course, easily available here but you have to actively seek it out.  The evening news shows don't cover international events in the way that anyone living in the UK is accustomed to.  So it really is very easy indeed not to engage.  And to spend that time doing stuff that you enjoy instead.  And yet I meet loads and loads of very well informed people in San Francisco.  I just wonder - if I'd grown up here rather than on a small, rainy island, would I be so determined to find out what's going on? 

I suspect I might have been a right dumb-ass.

The Half Monty

A photographic record of my routine disappointment on Sunday mornings. 

London first up, 'Frisco following. 

Bacon or fat, sir?

 

Banger or a nice low-fat chicken weener...?

 

Barn egg or bleached egg...?
 

and DUDE, WHERE'S MY BEANS?!

   

Oh bollocks, I've become that bloke.

A Moving Experience

So the plan was to write a long, gently amusing blog about 'The Weekend I Moved Apartment'.  To catalogue the pain, anguish and frustration of a 2.7 mile journey which the Google uber-lords tell me should take six minutes.

But you know what?!  I can already look back and smile.  Yes, brethren, maybe Xmas in Blighty has alkalinized my bile, but it all feels like a dream.  Not a very nice dream, but not one where I'll wake up screaming 'WHERE'S MUMMY? WHERE'S MUMMY?' either.

That said, it was a frickin' nightmare at the time and I need to capture the bare bones for posterity:

1. I needed a strong man with a van to help collect a sofa bed, a leather chair, bookcases and a television from various parts of the city.
2. I found Adam on Craigslist.  He was cheaper than the rest.
3. His van wasn't as big as I'd hoped.
4. He wasn't as big as I'd hoped.
5. He was a midget.
6. The telly weighs an eye-watering 250lbs.
7. The World Record for Midget Weightlifting is a bladder-busting 200lbs.
8. Steep concrete steps. Lots.  Up and down.
9. Lost keys.
10. Biblical, torrential, relentless, ridiculous rain.

That was Saturday.  Sunday = Ikea.  Solo.  On the busiest day of the year.

On the plus side, I salvaged a table and chairs from a skip and it only took the best part of two weeks to assemble my Ikea goodies.  I just wish I knew how structurally important these leftovers bit are....hmmmm....

If I was Ikea, I'd build the whole 'mission impossible' element of shopping there into the brand experience.   I mean, it IS hell from start to finish....but perversely enjoyable....like camping in the cold or something.

Anyway, the dark days of moving are over and the flat is all brightness and light.  I shall enjoy living here, even if I have to steer clear of the neighbour, Mr.K. Bummer.

So, three months in and open for sofa-bed business, if anyone's heading this way.

And please spare a thought for my friend Annie, who's house burnt down on New Year's Eve.  After all, she'll have to go to Ikea sometime soon.  In the left hand column, you'll find the 'Anniethon' tip jar - if we can get a pound together, she can buy a nice new cardboard box.