Square one, my slate is clear..

Aloha.  In case you forgot, my name is Matt and I used to be a pretty serious blogger up until a couple of months ago.  Then, it appears, I quit cold turkey.  Let me see if I can get back into things over the next couple of weeks and months; Lord knows I don't think I'll have anything better to do.

This post finds me in San Francisco staying in Big Black Eric's apartment while Eric is in New Orleans.  Pretty silly, I know.  I like San Francisco.  I've been here since midday on Tuesday and I'd love to spend a few more days here but with Mother's Day on Sunday I've decided to keep my red eye flight Friday evening.  I love you, Ma.  Something tells me I'll be looking to make it back out this way later on in the summertime, though.  There's a three day music festival in Golden Gate Park around the middle of August which has caught my eye.  Attendance will be determined based on how motivated I am following Bonnaroo.  I have a hunch I'll be pretty fired up to continue touring and the lineups are different enough that it should prove more than entertaining if I can make things work.

I spent most of Wednesday wandering the northern half of the city on foot, and for a city of a million people it seemed surprisingly clean and well, relatively safe.  The weather has been tremendous, too.  I had no idea what to expect as the city is located in Northern California but it's been close to 80 the three days I've been here and tomorrow sounds no different.  The sun isn't quite as strong as on the Valley Isle but it still felt nice wandering around in shorts and sandals for half a day.  I made it to the corner of Haight and Asbury as part of a little hippy self-exploration but was pretty bummed to find a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop there.  Normally New England-based companies popping up far away put a smile on my face, but this seemed a little to contrived.  O well, that's capitalism for you.

Don't Hate.  Haight...get it?  Didn't think so..

I spent awhile walking into all of the goofy head shops looking for a replacement for my old Grateful Dead shirt from back in '96 but had no luck.  Seems to be a trend, I've never seen another shirt like it.  I don't have a picture of it but there's not much left of it anymore.  Many, many holes.  It has to be my favorite shirt, though I don't wear it often because it's destroyed and most everyone finds it inappropriate to wear in most public settings.  Some day I'll find a new one and hopefully take better care of it - dryers are the enemy.

From here?  Back to Maine.  Hopefully getting some hiking in right off the bat.  Put some air in my bike tries and get rolling around town.  I'm quite certain I won't be buying a car in the near future; fuck gas prices.  Truth be told I'm a little nervous about heading back to town.  I haven't been away for very long but at the same I feel like I'm going to grow tired quite quickly of discussing my motivations for moving back.  I DON'T KNOW WHY I DID.  Heh, heh.  Felt right at the time, so going to make sure it's right.

One of the first things I'm going to do when I get home is wash my hair.  Without the ocean to freshen up the mop the last couple days I'm already feeling unhappy with its present state and I can only foresee things getting worse.  That, and I've got some natty dreads forming in the back and I feel like those are an all or nothing kind of a hairstyle until I end up a homeless vagrant.  Which I hope doesn't occur anytime soon.  I hope Cindy at Taboo can still work her magic because I'm not sure I've got a home remedy up my sleeve to completely solve this problem.  That and I feel like the first time you wash your hair in a given year should be a special event, especially considering we're five months into the year.  Oops, guess I just kept forgetting.

On that lovely thought I must be going to bed.  I'm wheels up in less than 24 hours and I've still got the Golden Gate Bridge to try to check out.  I did make it to the pretty Queen Anne Victoria's across from Alamo Square.  And it now appears there were a couple of babes in bikini tops so that wasn't bad, either and provided me an opportunity to take a good, albeit sketchy to some, picture from the top of the greenspace.  Heeeeeeeeeey, aqualung..

And as I'm a sucker for a sunset..

...I took this while I was attending my first ever Bates alumni event.  It was at a yacht club down close to Marina Green, clearly right on the water.  Eric made me wear shoes and a collared shirt; I was unimpressed and upon arrival deemed it completely unnecessary though moot because I brought neither tshirt nor sandals to the event.  I stepped outside with a glass of wine and a snack for 20 or so minutes to take it all in.  It was a nice middle to my Wednesday.  Every now and again Bates proves its worth, and I found this to be one of those times.  Free wine and sunsets: That's what this guy does.

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I watched music videos for the first time tonight in forever.  I happened to flip to either Fuse or Palladia (can't remember which..) And Grace and the Nocturnals' video for their song Paris came on.  Pretty quality video; Grace and Catherine look sexy and they brought in some Moulin Rouge-style dancers in braziers and panties and feathers and shit.  Oo la la, indeed.  But I found this new Beastie Boys video to be even more impressive:

Pay attention to the cast of characters, it's pretty silly.

Catch you back on the east coast.  Cheers (And I think I've finally figured out how to upload pictures from my old-school cellular telephone onto thefacebook.  So, stay tuned for that tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next day.  Exciting shit, I know..).