Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Today
Laundry laundered, shopping shopped, and dishes dished, most of a clean bright Saturday stretched out before me and I had nothing to do but sweep the floors or futz at the computer or — here’s a thought — get some sunshine. So I accused The Boy of being a Keyboard Potato and told him we were going out. When he refused, I sapped him with a heavy gel wrist-rest and dragged his limp form out to the car.
Driving south on the 101, we listened to Soul Coughing’s Ruby Vroom, which kicks off with a jazzy bass riff and the words
A man
drives a plane
into the
Chrysler building
which is amazing considering the CD came out in 1994. It’s great stuff. You can get a little taste of it here with a different song, True Dreams of Wichita. We didn’t talk because The Boy doesn’t like his music interrupted and we drove onward thus, in musical silence, into Berkeley.
The key to driving Berkeley is avoiding University Avenue. Flee it as soon as you can, for it is a parking lot. We took side streets to San Pablo Avenue, south to Channing, and Channing took us where we needed to go: the parking garage over on Durant. I resisted my instinctive urge to eat at Top Dog (I’m not sure my gut can handle Top Dog anymore) and we had falafels instead, from a joint on Bancroft right across from Lower Sproul Plaza. We took our food to go and ate on the Plaza.
Afterwards, we looked for the gelato place, but it has disappeared. Damn! It was there in 2006, I’m sure of it! Then I had to resist my instinctive urge to walk all over campus. I doubt Jake’s interested, and as for me, I can’t go home again.
We did the Telegraph Avenue thing and went to Annapurna. Jake doesn’t need a new bong yet, but I needed a Betty Page greeting card and some incense. We went to Moe’s Books, picked up a couple more Christopher Moore books, then we went to Amoeba Records and picked up another Soul Coughing CD and the new Nine Inch Nails CD, The Slip. At Rasputin’s Records, we found the one Dandy Warhols CD we lacked, Welcome to the Monkey House.
Jake had a creme-filled chocolate donut while we watched the street fair. A guy with a mohawk tried to impress his girlfriend (who also had a mohawk) by doing tricks on his board and he ended up flat on his back. Dood, uber fail! Earlier, a guy pouted while his girlfriend shouted at him, “Is that going to be it for the rest of the afternoon, you’re just going to stay mad?” He wouldn’t look her in the eye. She turned her back on him but she couldn’t bring herself to walk away. I wanted to shout, “Walk away! No — run, run away! Life is too short.” But at that age, it’s all about the drama.
We drove back to San Pablo, to a Middle Eastern market with halal meats and the usual assortment of Arabic-labeled mystery jars. Sadly, they didn’t have any merguez sausage, which was my whole reason for going there. I bought a sack of basmati rice, a jar of eggplant pulp for baba ganouj, some harisa, and one of those huge oval breads. And then we drove home, grooving to our new tunes.
D.
Merguez! I haven’t thought of them in over 30 years.
Has anyone checked on those three frogs in the middle? That can’t be good for them.
I love reading your blog, Doug… don’t ever unblog…
keith
I needed a Betty Page greeting card and some incense.
We obviously run in different social circles.
Lucie: seems like I haven’t had the chance to taste one in over thirty years, but I think it’s closer to 13.
Keith, thanks. I think those frogs in the middle are doing quite well.
Dean: incense is for that Santa Rosa horse’s ass smell we get so frequently. And the Betty Page greeting card is because everyone needs a little Betty in their lives.
Educate me. What is a Betty Page greeting card?
Bettie was a famous pin-up girl from the 60s.
Eggplant pulp? Don’t you flame roast your own?
Haven’t been to Berkeley in years. When we are out in CA this summer maybe we’ll drive up there, but I think the boys are too young and I’m not that keen.
I’m much more sentimental about C-U, but then last time I was there that was weird too. Didn’t know anyone there. Now turns out I do know someone there (found him on Facebook), who had left and is now back working for Mathematica. Would be weird to see him again – from the picture, he’s quite different.
Sounds like a great day!
Betty!
Betty!
Hm.
BETTY!
(No, I’m not shouting, they capitalize it…)
I didn’t even notice your first hyperlink — that’s one of the problems with this theme. Text is black, hyperlinks are damn-near-almost-black.
Re Betty, do you think they took enough pix of that house?
Re BETTY, are they any good?
I wondered if you missed the link…
The pics are from all different Flickr accounts, not one user. The house is right off I-5, just north of the exit for UW and is quite visible from the highway, so needless to say it gets a lot of attention. Probably not as much as the Fremont Troll, but still…
Is BETTY any good? Yeah, even if they aren’t my musical cup of tea; they put on a fun live show.
which soul coughing cd?
as the radioman says, “it is 5 am and the sun has charred the other side of the world and come back to us and painted the smoke over our heads an imperial violet. it is 5 am and you are listening to los angeles…”
i fucking miss that band, man.
jOoLz: Golden Delicious (we already have Ruby Vroom, which has to be one of the great underrateds from the 90s). He’s still making music, just under his own name now.
ps: I’ll have to pay homage next time I’m up there 🙂