Jackson West’s Obsessive Compulsion

When I went to college I was expecting fervent bearded Marxists spouting economic determinism and classic literary theory while wearing Che t-shirts and sleeping with my classmates. Instead I ended up with postmodernistas. While Berger, Benjamin, McLuhan et al. are fine, they have sort of ruined my ability to appreciate the watching of watchers, or whatever the hell I’m supposed to be doing. I find it a struggle to be able to appreciate things in a direct, sincere way and not in a meta-distanced ironic subtext kind of way. Which pisses my parents off to no end, and makes me unsuitable for attending basically anything with a hint of heartland All-Americanism, un-ironic joy or passionate naivete. I’m in constant fear of getting the shit kicked out me for noting that someone’s weltanschauung must be severely skewed to have paid five hundred dollars for their NASCAR jacket - basically paying for the privilege of advertising (including one team sponsor Viagra, which Derrida would heartily approve of). What they don’t teach you in college is that the watchers can kick the asses of the watcher-watchers, so keep your postmodernist ethnographic snarking within the halls of your exclusive private university.

So when my friend and coworker, the esteemed Patrick, finished a book project and handed me a copy, I wasn’t sure what I was holding. Called Mundane Journeys, it’s a collection of quirky tidbits about San Francisco, culled from years of Kate Pocrass’s observations while living in the city. Orginally started as a message on an answering machine (left in a rather passionless monotone, heightening the mystery) at 415-364-1465. Kate would basically give a location and specific instructions on some place to go and look at or thing to do - things that basically part of everyday life and could be easily overlooked, especially if part of your daily routine. It was subtitled “An Eagerness to Interact with Strangers in Common Atmospheres,” something entirely foreign to someone as removed and alienated as I am.

To kick off the book release, Kate and Patrick put together a bus tour which would hit a number of places along the Mundane Journeys route. I managed to score free tickets by helping get the video portion of the tour from PowerPoint onto VHS [Ed. note: Die, PowerPoint, die]. Meeting near City Hall, nearly fifty of us piled onto one of those huge charter bus monsters and were greeted by a copy of the book. We sat down and watched the first video clip with the rules for the trip - read in Kate’s characteristic monotone - and it began to feel very much like a school field trip. I felt my cynical, ironic head about to explode from all the mixed messages and decontextualized associations I was experiencing - rather thrilling, really.

Stopping in Chinatown, in the area around Clay and Grant, we were handed flyers with a few suggestions on what to see and do. This was not your normal Chinatown guidebook format - instead, we were treated to the display of portraits by a local photographer; a trip to a small kite shop which had been here since the 20’s; a famous moon-cake bakery (featuring huge portraits of Bill Clinton characteristically gorging himself); a barber who purports to have cut the heads of the famous; and the local fortune cookie manufacturer. I bought a kite and some fireworks. Someone else got himself a haircut. Most of us lived right here in the Bay Area, but we were acting like total tourists. It was great.

Back on the bus and we tripped out to the Richmond. At 33rd and Clement we got back out in what was obviously not the type of place you would ever be lead by a tour operator or guidebook. We were treated to a free Vietnamese sandwich (delicious), thanks to masterfully printed coupons provided as part of the ticket price. Next door was Quickly, a pearl-tea shop. Across the street, the local movie theater was playing Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer. The juxtaposition of neighborhoods couldn’t have been more striking, nor could the east-asian influence of it all. I began to understand San Francisco in ways that I hadn’t before.

I have to admit that here is where I heard the call of the ocean and ditched the tour, but not because it wasn’t fun, entertaining and educational. I just wanted to go to the beach, and I have a real problem with overly structured environments. Besides, I wanted to participate in the spirit of Mundane Journeys by just living like a tourist on my own time in my own city. So the bus continued on without me. Still, I’m sure at some point I’ll come back to the book or give the machine a call and try to puzzle out again if this is all sincere appreciation or some elaborate joke that I just don’t get. Which is awesome.

Look for the book in your local bookstore or call the phone number and leave a message.

Billing it as the second coming of the Lewis and Clark expedition, my inimitable friend Rybo invited me and twenty-odd of our closest friends on a canoe adventure down the Russian River in Sonoma County. Since the pleasant weather has been pretty much unstoppable of late, and the previous weekend I had reluctantly come home from a week long vacation in the North Cascades, I was game for some wet, sunny fun. That and the fact that the river would prove to be lined with girls in bikinis.

Ever since I move to the Bay, I’ve found myself going back to southern Sonoma County again and again. Sebastopol, Guerneville and Monte Rio form a trio of cute vacation towns with the permissive flair of San Francisco and the granola sensibilities of Berkeley. It took me two trips to figure out why there was a progressive trance dance club in Guerneville - let’s just say it’s an island of Rainbow Pride among the redwoods.

The whole area is rather cosmopolitan for its rural surroundings due to its history as the end of the line for the tourist trains around the turn of the century and, more recently, the flight from the ridiculous real estate market. The area is home to the Bohemian Grove, founded as a hedonistic retreat by Chaplin and Fairbanks, which now hosts an annual assembly of world power players that would make a conspiracy theorist’s head swim. You only know they’re in town when the streets of Monte Rio become thick with limousines vying for the services of top professionals in the escort business. Henry Kissinger is a frequent visitor.

After tooling around in Rybo’s van picking assorted friends up around the Mission, we finally disembarked from San Francisco over the Golden Gate - always an auspicious start to any trip. An old mix of mine played away on the stereo as we chatted and joked, making good time up 101 on a Sunday morning. Before we knew it we were stopping in the Sebastopol Whole Foods to pick up food and ice. Another half hour and we had pulled in the parking lot of Burke’s Canoe Trips in Forestville.

Fifty dollars buys you the use of one of Burke’s fleet of steel canoes, which fit two or three people. You can put in at eleven in the morning and the last bus leaves the drop point downriver at six in the evening, so it’s a relative bargain for a day of gaiety. After listening to a short speech on safety and how not to lose your wallet and car keys, we were off. Couples generally paired off and singles teamed with buddies. I rode with the eminent Philllip, me doing the steering and Phil doing most of the work.

The river was low, probably due to the many weeks of hot, dry weather and the irrigation demands of the local farms and wineries. The Russian River starts up north in the Coastal Range, moving north-south through Mendocino county before hanging a right and emptying into the Pacific at Jenner. I had kayaked the estuary before with a different rental concern, and had borne witness to the violent slaughter of a harbor seal pup by a resident elephant seal. Luckily there were no displays of merciless nature on this trip, unless you count my terrible sunburn.

If you’re looking for quiet seclusion, then don’t come between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The river was teeming with canoes and kayaks, innertubes and families on beach blankets. It was more like cruising in your car than boating - the canoes riding low with loads of beer, playing pranks on your buddies gliding by and trying out your best pickup lines on the folks lining the banks. It wasn’t fifty yards out that we shed our life vests and cracked open our Budweisers, and another fifty before the beautiful Anne jump her ship and boarded ours. There was a definite “Hey baby, wanna ride?” vibe which was a lot of fun.

While I had a great time, I was a little troubled by the amount of trash lining the banks and made it a point to try to get everyone to chip in and pick up a bit. In fact, I would recommend to Burke’s that they provide trash bags and encouragement to their customers along with the requisite safety shpiel. The sun was also pretty relentless, coming from above and reflecting from below, so shades and a hat are a must for the melanin-deficient. And if you go swimming, reapply your sunscreen! I can’t tell you how good that advice would have been for me.

The day was capped by the bus trip back to the parking lot, with the bus driver blasting Bob Marley, broad smiles on everybody’s faces and one more beer for the road. Truly blissful. That moment alone was worth the soreness and pain at work the next day. So get out there and have some fun - in the warm, California sun!

Okay, so if you can make it there will be a free, outdoor screening of “Un Pelicula De La Mission”, or the Mission Movie, at the Mission Village. Here is a link to the press release. If you can’t catch it at this screening, make sure to catch it when it hits the local theaters. It’s gotten good reviews, and I look forward to the stories about the struggles of immigration, gentrification and artistic expression that have defined the neighborhood over the last two decades.