A Warrior Monk in the City of St. Francis: Part 5 - Of Music, Rain, and Honor

So now the weather has become a factor in my explorations of The City of St. Francis. An unexpected rain storm has descended upon The City and my friend E. Francis Kohler and I are busy deciding what we can do in the midst of the inclement conditions. Ah! The Legion of Honor! But before I relate that story, I had and interesting time in the Outer Mission District with Francis.... a musical event and party which the host named Ham It Up.

The weather hadn't turned to intolerable on our walk to The Mission but a wind was starting to make it's presence known to us so I had my hood up. Francis snapped this picture of me (above) and know you see the reason I have titled my blogs this trip to The City. My feet were still suffering from the punishment I had handed out to them the days before, but we slowly walked down Valencia Street and looked in the shops and galleries. We even ran into some old acquaintances of Francis' at a gallery where two of them had an art opening and spent time talking to a gentleman who claimed that he had a machine that was able to interact with us using Quantum Entanglement as it's method of interaction.... yeah, right. 

We arrived at the party fairly early, stuffed ourselves on some good food and wine, and proceeded to  sit and chat with people I didn't know but Francis and his lady Deb did. I eventually got to a piano and had a fun time playing but then the rooms became scheduled with performances so I just sat and enjoyed. Two of the guitar players were especially notable as they were very good and played songs from James Bond films such as 'From Russia with Love.' But, eventually my feet got tire of standing and I sat down in the hall on a chair. I started listening to Francis' friend Laurie (spelling?) who was relating along with another woman about the gentrification that is displacing lower income people in The City and about what is now being coined as the "Google Buses."  But more about that when I've had a chance to research more of that. Soon, the time had approached midnight and many people were starting to leave so we called it a night... back to the flat we went. Ah, blissful slumber.

The next day was raining in a misty way by the time we had worked our way to our final destination, The Legion of Honor. I knew I really wanted to get there since there was an exhibition of Impressionist painters with the theme being water and boats. This was fantastic! It had been over almost a decade since I had seen any of the impressionists works in person (since my trip to Paris with my parents in Christmas time of 2003) and I really wanted to see them again.

We roamed the halls and galleries for hours, ate a bit in the museum dinning hall and commissary, and then walked back to the main hall where there was a performance of the Skinner Organ which is a 64 rank organ that had been donated to the Legion of Honor almost 40 years ago. You see it and the soloist in the above picture. The type of organ is called a Symphonic Organ as it's evidently no meant to be played with great speed as a solo instrument because of it's design but rather mostly as an accompaniment to choirs and symphony orchestras. But the performance was lovely, the soloist quite enlightening in explaining about the instrument, and the sound in the main hall was haunting. But in the end, with it either raining or a constant mist, we headed straight home after the museum closed (but it was the right weather to be inside I'll have to admit to Francis).

And so today, I found myself doing just a little stroll of Divisadero Street to some shops after breakfast then a run to the Japan Center on Geary Street for a favor for my sensei. Now to finish my blogging and await my friends return home.... tomorrow, it's time to head home to Sac. My journey's in The City at an end, for now.

Asian Art and Odd-Ball Films

[This blog is out of sequence due to constraints on time and sleep while traveling with friends]

Day 7 of The Black Sword in the City of Saint Francis

PART ONE - Asian Art Museum

I had always wanted to go the the Asian Art Museum here in San Francisco but for some strange reason I'd never taken the time to go. After what I saw there today, I now know why... The place has so much art that I'm interested in I could just hang out there for days! The exhibition on Bali was to die for. I was not allowed to take pictures in the Bali Exhibition but the permanent exhibits were just fine as long as I didn't use flash. Well that was all well and good but I had never learned how to use my flash controls and thus how to turn off the flash. I fiddled with the controls as best I could but after a few tries I was still using the flash (and I'm happy that one of the docents didn't see it and rat me out or chew me out). Well, at least the iPhone didn't have a flash built in and it's camera was OK... not great, but OK. I took a slew of pictures from the iPhone but downloading them will have to wait until I get home and can sync my iPhone with my Main Media computer.

The permanent exhibits had examples of artwork from all over asia that was put in both chronological order and by place of origin. The entire exhibit divided the asian continent up with first India, then South East asia, then Tibet, China, and finally Japan as well as giving examples of the different religious philosophies and movements that had developed in asia over the centuries. I must have spent 5 hours at least in there. There was simply now way to see and digest intellectually all the parts of that museum. But, when I get the pictures downloaded at home, I'll be sure to post them and discuss them both here on my blog and on Facebook.

I had been standing all day from a very practical point of view and I needed to take a break. I hoped out of the museum and onto a #5 bus to head back to E.F.'s place. No soon had I just take a seat on the bus than E.F. called me and said he was home with his friend Katrina. I told him I was on the way and would be there in 10 minutes. When I got there, Katrina and I started talking. From my recollection, it was the first time I had ever met her but I had heard about her from E.F. plenty of times in the past. I think this was just the first opportunity for us to ever meet face to face. We started discussion hockey and our love for it, the finer points of the game, our injuries, and so on. Then it was time to get dinner before a treat (at least for me but surely for them too) which was a chance to see a set of archived films (yes films, on film and not tape!) at something called The Oddball Film Festival. It sounded fascinating.

We started out to pick up E.F.'s friend Johnny and his wife Giselle out on Haight. When we got there in just about 15 minutes of walking, it turned out that their new little puppy was acting up and Giselle was just too tired. So we set of without her and the four of us headed down into the Mission District. Along the way we grabbed some Indian food and relaxed then continued into the lower Mission until we reached this very, very nondescript building that if I had to find today to save my life I couldn't.

PART TWO - Oddball Film Festival

So we go inside, up this set of stairs, have to get buzzed in past this black metal door, scurry up even more stairs until we meet this gentleman who tells us it's $10 for a ticket. The place is a film vault and repository of all manner of films from 40's thru the 70's and 80's. It's evidently used by film makers as a place where old archived footage can be accessed and used in all manner of ways. The place where the films were being shown was fixed with a very small round stage and a huge part of the wall behind it was for the screen to see the films. A somewhat flimsy sound system was in use and sometimes one of the speakers would cut out. The intent of the evening was to showcase the work of this one film artist who had used the archives as a source for putting together old films into a theme which in this case was networks and communications.

The films were interesting. They were everything from old commercials with Bill Cosby talking about the virtues of Green Giant green beans to a film about the history of the telephone and the future of communications with satellites from the 1960's and Bell Labs. I hadn't seen some of these images since my childhood and it was fascinating to watch them. This is one of the things that I really love about coming to visit with E.F. in San Francisco. Every time I come there is something new and fascinating happening somewhere.

The return home was a long trek from the Mission back to Johnny's place then home. We stopped of at a corner store where Katrina got wine and I got Milano cookies and some milk (a secret passion of mine). We joined up in the living room and kept talking and eating until well after midnight. What a good day....

The Black Sword roams in The Mission

[Due to constraints on time and computer access, the blog posts will be out of order. Day 7 will be posted ASAP]

Day 8 - The Black Sword in the City of Saint Francis

PART ONE

It's one of the strange things that sometimes happens when you get very busy just doing what you do that there just isn't time to keep up with the writing that you had every intention of keeping up with. As such I'm actually writing about Day 8 before I could write about yesterday's adventures in the Asian Art Museum... Oh well, just try to stay with me friends.

After getting up and doing my usual computer and mobile device work, E.F. and I decide to do The Mission District today. We get our breakfast at The Blue Jay on Divisadero then walk a few blocks to the #22 Line which takes us into The Mission. After getting off the bus at 16th and Mission, E.F. has the idea to make a kind of M-shaped route down Mission, then back to Valencia and then back to Mission as these are the two main streets that make up the business life of the area. We put on our packs and we're off.... It's nice to have a tour guide with me this time.

The shops are the most incredible assortment of groceries, chain stores and kitch that could possibly exist almost anywhere. The area probably had it's heyday in the late 60's and early 70's but as you walk down the street and look at the marquees of all the shuttered movie theaters and the worn awnings over the shops, it's hard not to get this somewhat decrepit feeling about The Mission. The languages on the street come fast and varied with everything from Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and Indian dialects that I couldn't identify if I had to. It is a most fascinating melange of a place.

We keep walking until we get to a somewhat secretive place for book stores and take a back way into Valhalla Books, a neat but smallish book sellers place. After checking the stacks for a time, E.F. gets a few titles and I almost get a first addition text , but decide better not. We're back to walking and finally get to a couple blocks past 26th Street when we decide to stop at El Rio for a drink, some sit down time, and a great shot of Jameson..... More in a bit.

PART TWO

E.F. has a restaurant that he wants to try with my called Radish up farther on Valencia (actually at the corner of 19th and Lexington but it's really close to Valencia) so we start off up the sort of second main drag of The Mission to see what we can see. There are more shops that we stop into than I can reasonably write about here but one worth mentioning is Paxton Gate Curiosities for Kids. This place is a science teachers wet dream I swear.... Butterflies, skeletons, rocks and crystals, science glassware, and the list goes on and on and on.

Katrina finally texts us almost right after we sit down at Radish. She's in Oakland at the Oakland Museum of California seeing a retrospective by Michael C. Macmillan who used to do work for films in the day. We tell we are already eating and she says she'll see us later...cool. After finishing, we continue up Valencia toward our final goal of the day, Brendan Lai Martial Arts supply store near 15th and Mission.

This is a store I have visited for years but they moved since I visited last which was a few years ago. We walk until we get to 13th street... What the hell and where is the store.p? Did we somehow miss it by being distracted? We double back while I look up the address again on my iPhone. Nope, we are in the right area...oh, the store is boarded, closed and no sign of Brendan Lai's. They must have gone outta business during the downturn. Damn.

We make our way back to E.F.'s place after catching a #22 bus on 16th Street. It's incredible that, as I watch some homeless and almost decrepit lady with her cart rolling past who catches a quick place to sit at the bus stop before moving on, the richest country in the world and we still have the problem of not solving homelessness and mental defects on the streets (I'm referring to people walking down the streets with auditory hallucinations, not politicians). We get back to E.F.'s flat and collapse. Both of us are beat. When Katrina arrives, we have a great time watching some British comedy that E.F. has at his place. The wine flows, people laugh... life is good.

In the Interum

It was a FANTASTIC time at the Asian Art Museum... I literally could spend days there just looking at, well, everything. But, I must not be that much of an ubergeek since I couldn't even figure out how to turn off the flash on my digital camera. I finally had some help and figured it out but not after I took most of my pictures from my iPhone. That will have to wait until I get home but I'll try to transfer a few pictures from it to the laptop as soon as I can.

So, as you might have figure, this is not really my Day 7 blog but a stop-gap. I did spend most of the day at the Museum when E.F. called. Luckily when he was home, I was on my way back to his place. I got there and his friend Katrina from Sac was there. We all headed on down to The Mission District to eat (good Pakistani and Indian food, yum!) then went to a showing of archived films (yes, actually films on a projector!) at an event called The Oddball Film Festival even further down in the district. It was fun, but we didn't get home until close to midnight. I swear, E.F. and Katrina are half billy-goat. But, my legs survived and now it's time to get the day started here... Later.

A Black Sword, The Stein's, and Trolley Cars

Day 4 of The Black Sword in the City of Saint Francis

The day has consisted of mostly being with my friend Dena and Eric’s mother Dorothy. Eric is working this week, of course, and so he leaves before we wake up. So today we lounged until about 9:15 and decided we’d go get breakfast and then head out to the SF MOMA to see the Stein’s Collection Exhibit.

The standard good place to get breakfast is the little breakfast shop on the corner of Divisidero and Fulton is Eddie’s which serves breakfast all day. Coffee, juice, and eggs and pancakes with good conversation is such a nice way to start the day. Dorothy is 81 and so, even though she’s in great shape for her age, we need to plan where we’re going to go and be careful of how many hills we might need to climb (I should be doing so well at 81 if I live that long). We get done and head up the street to catch the #5 Line to Market Street and 3rd Street so we can walk on down to the MOMA.

We chit-chat on the way up to the bus stop. Dena is such a kick to have around and I sure as hell hope I can be good enough to keep Dorothy’s sense of humor when I get to be her age. When we finally get to the bus, it’s kinda crowded but we stand for a while then finally get Dorothy a seat. Eventually we all get to sit down as people come and go off the bus. There’s this one point where Dena seems to have lost her mind as she is making the weirdest faces. Then I see that a little girl in a stroller is making faces back at her and just having a blast. When we round the corner onto Market, we get off a little early at the corner of 4th and Market and slowly walk to the MOMA. Yesterday has not been kind to my legs and feet and I’m still feeling the adventure in the Richmond District. As a friend I know might have said,”Boy! The dogs are still barkin’...” and as we keep walking the barkin’ keeps getting louder. Ouch. For those who have lived all their lives in San Francisco, I have no doubt that they are just plain used to this kind of constant physical exercise. But coming from a town where the car reigns supreme, the pedestrian calisthenics that the streets and hills of San Francisco can put you through have just about done me in yesterday and today.

We get to the MOMA, get tickets, and go straight to the 5th floor. We take a look at the exhibit there on the Last 10 years of Modern Art and part of it has this exhibit of sonic sculpture called Sonic Shadows that is just fascinating. Dena and I stand in the middle of the exhibit and close our eyes and are treated to this sonic experience of white sound and oddly melodic noise that zips past us on our left, then right, then above, the left.... and it’s a really cool effect.

We finish the 5th floor, take the elevator down to the 4th, and give our tickets for the Stein Collection. It’s crowded even for a week day and we slowly make our way through the exhibit. The Matisse and Picasso work along wit some other lesser know artists is incredible. I must admit both some admiration and a touch of disappointment at both the Matisse and Picasso selections but I chalk that up to having seen a number of those along with other artists in Paris so any disappointment is just temporary.

The tour takes almost 2 1/2 hours and by the end my feet and legs are screaming at me to sit down again. We exit the MOMA and head back to catch the F-Line to allow us to get Dena’s jeep which Karen has let her park at her condo’s parking garage. The F-Line is a trolley line which is occupied with trolleys from San Francisco’s and other city’s past. We get on an island egress terminal in the middle of Market and here comes a blue and gold 1940’s Sand Francisco trolley. Cool.... but it’s packed to the gills with tourists. Oh great. Somehow we squeeze on and Dorothy finds a seat. We’re set.

Like the modern bus rides, people are squeezing on and off and we get a seat as it curves from Market to the Embarcadero and finally we get off at Sansone and Chestnut, walk to Karen’s condo garage and get ourselves in the jeep. A quick ride later and we’re parked and back at E.F.’s place in the Western Edition. A brief refresher and we’re once again on our way to an enclave at the end of the Western Edition called Hayes Valley. Basically, where Hayes and Gough streets intersect is this wonderful collection of shops and restaurants. We bop around there for another couple of hours where I pick up a cool set of antique cufflinks for a decent price and then drag ( no exaggeration this time) back to E.F.’s place. No sooner do we settle down then he comes home and the decision is made to go out for dinner while we all have any strength left. We trudge to the Japan Center for some outstanding ramen soups at Suzu’s Soups in the Kinokuniya Bulding at the end of the Center.

The conversation is light and playful as usual with our company.... but we’re tired and the Saki is flowing so it’s slow going home. We stop for ice cream for dessert ( Dryer’s Green Tea for me... yummm) and finally walk inside the door with only one thing on most everybody’s mind; go to bed. And that friends is pretty much the way the day has ended with me the last man standing and writing to you while stealing a neighbor’s internet and getting the last pictures off the SIM card from the digital camera. Enjoy the pictures and I’ll be writing to you tomorrow after I figure out where I’m off to next. Later.

The Black Sword, Friends, and the Waterfront

Day 2 in the City of Saint Francis

E.F. was great to see again but we didn't have much time to talk in the morning at his place. We had been invited to brunch with our friends Karen, Dena, and Amy down in the Northeast Waterfront area so we had to get ready and hustle. The brief trip required a run on the #5 line down McAllister to Market then taking the F Line to the Embarcadero and finally to Karen's place on Lombard. E.F. was kinda stoked to take this line because they were all old trolley cars from decades past and he had never taken it as far as we were going. Appropriately enough, we ended up on and old wooden paneled Italian trolley that the city had purchased and it was a blast. It had this somewhat jerky way of moving as it rolled down the tracks and the signs were in Italian and English so that was cool.

We get off at Sansone and Embarcadero and walk a block to Karen's. She lives in a great condo in a gated complex whose other taller building has a roof-top garden and incredible views of The City... I took a slew of pictures which I'll post soon as I get how to transfer them from the SIM card to my laptop. Karen had some great croissants and latte's for E.F. and me and when the girls came out it was like being back in high school again ( sans a crap-load of the pimples, drama, and insecurities of that time). Finally walked on over to the waterfront and went to a great restaurant named Butterflies. The view was great with big glass windows looking out onto the bay. Karen informed me that that was. The place to be when the America's Cup races come to San Francisco in 2012. Let me put it plainly, I am SO THERE.

A wonderful brunch done, we get to Karen's place, the girls change into walking shoes and attire and we're off to explore Telegraph Hill. Karen and E.F. take us on this great trip up these series of stairs, up Grant street and round to Coit Tower. This may seem crazy but in all the years I have been coming to San Francisco, I've never gone up to Coit Tower. The views are hard to describe but let's just put it that they are breathtaking. I'll be posting plenty of those pics as well. The tourists were thick so it seemed like a bad time to try to get to the top of the tower but I'll do that again before I leave if I can swing it.

We ended up going down a series of other stairs with wonderful gardens and quaint homes as we made our way back to Karen's again. The rest of the day was walking down the Waterfront and then back to Karen's again where we settled down after miles of walking. I'll end here only because I really want to write mostly about my time exploring on my own. But, man, what a great day.

The Black Sword in the City of Saint Francis - Day One

July 9th. A Black Sword in the City of Saint Francis

Day one of my explorations of The City and I find that I'm starting with some somewhat familiar territory .... I'm sitting in a cafe in the Japan Center and watching beautiful Japanese women and men walk by, having a decaf coffee ( what!? No tea? Yeah, yeah... I figured I'd be an iconoclast a bit and have coffee in the heart of Japan in S.F. So shoot me...) and waiting to decide on my next move. It was much less hassle to get to San Francisco than I had anticipated this time. Even though I packed large as I usually do, the taxis in S. F. make it much easier to get around and be a wanna be Sherpa with luggage when you remember to go do Powell Street Station which is right near a major hotel so the taxis are always hovering in the vicinity. $7.15 later and I slip the guy a ten note, tell him to keep the change, and thank him for the conversation. I'm at the inimitable E. F. Kohler's house for the duration gut he's not home. "Oh yeah! His mother Dorothy's in town for a few days too! Ok, I'm sure he's out spending time with 'mom' so its up to me to explore.... Off I go." More after I spend a few more hours out and a'boot.

Well, the shops are starting to close in Japan Town and so I slowly make my way back to E.F. Kohler's place in the Western Addition. It's a cool walk over the pedestrian bridge that spans Geary Blvd. and the views are great of the clouds just over my head. I pull out the camera and take a few pics.... I'll upload them as soon as I can. I spy a dad teaching his son the finer points of pitching at one of the local parks. I say, " Yup, 10,000 hours of practice." He spys back and says, " Yeah, you got that right." and I smile and keep moving. There's this great house only a block or two from E.F.'s place which is just this incredible example of turn of the century 19th-20th Century kitch architecture. The place is gilded with gold trim and is an interesting purple color. Gaudy is the word that comes to mind.

I get back and sure enough E.F. is there and his mom Dorothy whom I haven't seen in ages. We chit-chat and have a great time catching up when some relatives of theirs from Michigan call and say they'd like to have dinner. It's a nice trip across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. I can't remember the last time I did either... It's a small italian restaurant that we are in just a block off the water front. The food is vacuumed down by me when I realize that I hadn't eaten too much since I started this trip.

The return is nice and I get some idea even at night of where I wanna do some more exploring later in the week. We're all pretty tired by now. E.F. sets up a very nice air mattress and it's off to slumber land. More adventures tomorrow.

The Summer Vacation, Part One

Well, so far the vacation has been very non-hectic. It seems that when I loose the structure of the work day I get pretty inertia filled and sleep a lot. Don’t hate the vacation.... become a teacher! [ Just remember that for every up, there are a more than commensurate number of downs... hey, life’s a balancing act. You have your ups, I have mine.] At this very moment, I am working on my blog, starting the first-draft of Chapter One of my new novel In the Garden of the Warrior Monk, and have finished a series of projects in my garden (said inspiration for the aforementioned book) including plantings, landscaping preliminaries, and the back-yard is now set to be automatically watered along with the water cooling for the roof of my house when I’m home. So far a good, relaxing, and yet productive time.

I still have various projects to get to such as: [1] Getting the robots back into shape for cleaning chores. [2] Finishing the automation of the Front Yard [3] Finishing working on some weapons projects and starting the first forms of my own Bushido Kyo or Kai (I haven’t decided which it should be) [4] and some home projects like finishing the painting the living room and replacing the iMac with a new Intel-based iMac. But I have time... so far no calls for interviews from the boss so we’re still up in the air as to what the department is going to look like at the beginning of the Fall Semester. With the State of California’s Budget, is it any great surprise? And finally, I have a great party for mid-summer planned with Tessa Evans singing for my guests for about 3 hours. I hope everyone I’ve invited can make it. But now, this instant, the novel’s the thing where in I’ll catch the conscience of the King!

The Warrior Monk

Well, here I am once again after a long time of work and meditation with some thoughts and updates on life and living. It's been a very interesting few months to say the least. Where to begin... at the beginning.

I had a great summer with friends and time to myself to read and think of many things. I started reading a lot for one thing.... I had made many promises to myself that I intend to keep and one of them was to catch up on as much reading as I could. I tend to read nonfiction works. That's probably because of my science training. "What's the Matter with Kansas," "SWAY," and "Unscientific America" were just a couple and now I've started reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel" along with "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris. I have this drive and need almost to learn as much as I can before it's too late. And then that brings me to another happening... my diving back into my Zen studies.

I've been practicing the Tea Ceremony for almost 8 years now. The more I study it the more the Tea Ceremony (Chado) becomes more associated by me with the Way of Peace. Now this is a bit odd since I am also trained as a warrior in the Martial Arts and one would think that the two ways are antithetical.... I don't think so and that perhaps such a point of view is a bit immature. Who would desire the Way of Peace more than a warrior who knows that his way could mean his end and the demise of others? This lead me to finish reading "Kishido: The Way of the Western Warrior" and that combination of East and West resonated with me. Why? Because I am a combination of the East and the West and though I love the ways of the Japanese quite often, let's be straight, I am not Japanese (Nihonjin de wanae). But what am I then? More on that later...

I had promised myself that I would go back to the martial arts.... but, I have been injured and I was not sure how well I would do physically back at the Aikido dojo. I also have some very seriously different views on life than King Sensei and I thought I should reconsider the way of the sword like Kendo. I finished with Kishido and decided to try a Western martial art. I started Saber Fencing and I have enjoyed it tremendously. I will work my way into doing tournaments I suppose eventually but right now the physicality of practice and of competing against another human being has been great. And then I got a visit from Sam.... and I had been thinking of her. Amazing that she keeps getting more beautiful as the years go by.

It started me thinking of a story I started during the summer which I think is a wishful biography of myself in a sense... a work of fiction that I had not really intended to write but just appeared in my consciousness. I have titled it "In the Garden of the Warrior Monk" and I think it tells me a lot about myself. With the life I have been living, I feel very much like a monk and the sohei were an integral part of Japanese history. I often suppose that if I were alive in Japan in the 12th century I would have been a warrior monk. Interestingly enough, though my story has Zen in it, the Zen sects of Japan were not warrior monks but I have a chance to use some writer's prerogative to change that a little bit. The story revolves around a teacher-student relationship between the mysterious new teacher in a rural town in southern California central valley who had lived there before, become a monk, then returned to teach and a young female student who is of a prominent family but is mentally anguished and abused. The two meet and he teachers her life lessons as they tend his garden.... the garden of the warrior monk.

More to come...

Feeling the pain...

The last couple of days have been interesting with friends. Two instances happened this weekend where friends either lashed out or just fell apart either in front of me much to my amazement. I have been deep in thought for them. What put them where they are? What is the pain that they haven't dealt with? They might read this post so I'm a bit hesitant to go into much detail. What is it that drives people to put the pain so deep that they let it fester and boil up like some ulcerating sore when they least expect it? Is the human psyche so fragile that there are truths that it just can't handle... of course there are. I've seen it before. But in two days to have this froth of self-doubt and self-loathing boil over in person and over the phone... it has left me deep in thought. Then I started looking at my favorite videos on YouTube and Sarah McLaughlin gave me the answer in song: