Pokemon GO seems harmless at first, but man is it addictive. What follows below is a summary of my downward trajectory into an all-consuming Pokemon GO habit: The first day of playing Pokemon GO I think the game is boring. I catch two pokemon and say, “hmm. I see how this works.”
The second day I’m in the bathroom for a long time and think to myself, “might as well give it another try, I’m not going anywhere for a while.” (I’d accidentally eaten a full Serrano pepper the night before. It’d been an unfortunate end to my excursion into Ethiopian food.) Day four I wander into Golden Gate Park to play pickleball. There are so many pokemon! Like my phone is just lighting up and as I walk through the park, and, well, it turns out I’m not the only one playing. I meet some other players, drink some beer, and catch pokemon. It’s actually quite nice. The sixth day I walk a friend’s dog named Dorbis (name changed to protect the identity of the dog while still conveying said dog’s goofy-ass nature). We head to a local swim club that is, by no coincidence, also a Pokestop I suspect of harboring rare pokemon. The walk to the swim club involves a ten minute trek along a narrow creek bed. On the way I come across a group of six elementary school girls coming from the swim club. They want to pet Dorbis. While they do so I notice they are playing Pokemon GO. “Do any of you know where the Staryu is?” I ask. “I’ve been seeing it on my tracking map for several minutes, but I don’t seem to be getting any closer.” Several of the girls get very shy. One of them says, “no, we looked all around the way you’re going. But we didn’t see any Staryus.” This weekend I head to Monterey to scuba dive with my girlfriend and her brother. When we aren’t diving we’re playing Pokemon GO. At the restaurant. At the hookah bar. In the car. The entire four-hour San Francisco-Monterey roundtrip. The Uber rides to and from the bars. Sunday afternoon we are crawling through traffic on the ride home when we notice that the guy driving the sports car next to us is playing pokemon GO. My girlfriend’s brother rolls down the windows. My girlfriend connects her phone to the car’s speaker system and plays the Pokemon theme song very loudly. The driver seems disturbed, like he’s worrying to himself “is it reasonable to believe these people are sending me a message?” The other night I go to John Leguizamo’s one-man show and scheme ways to play Pokemon GO in the theater. (In all fairness, this was only partially because I wanted to play the game. Mostly I wanted to use the AR view to make a Zubat perch on John Leguizamo’s head). I seriously consider watching the show from the lobby once I see there is an active lure module. Tonight I will be going to dinner at the Park Chalet (which I previously wrote about here) for the sole reason that I understand it’s lousy with pokemon and a magnet for other trainers and, thus, lure modules. It seems I’m a lot of time and effort on a game I can’t even decide if I like.
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Children are weak of mind and susceptible to flashy gimmicks, this is a fact. This is how places like Chuck E. Cheese are able to dupe them into perceiving their series of shitty attractions as a day of wondrous novelty when taken as a whole. The sugar-rattled tykes zip from plaything to plaything, never slowing down enough to notice that the pizza sucks, the coin-to-ticket exchange rate is criminal, and the ball pit is a hotbed of pink eye.
In this way, kid is a lot like being shitty drunk. Both share impulsiveness, the singular pursuit of fun, and a feeling that everything is totally awesome. This explains the popularity of places like grownup play places like Dave & Buster’s, i.e. Chuck E. Cheese’s and cheap liquor. For many adults the overpriced food and children’s games are a small price to pay for the opportunity to publicly rebuff such shackles of adulthood as indoor voices, sportsmanship, drinking in moderation, and financial responsibility. In late 2014 Plank, an adult entertainment center of a different breed, opened in Jack London Square. one which fit the new Downtown Oakland renaissance culture. Plank promises a more highbrow experience than a Dave & Buster’s with its slogan “Beer Garden, Bowling, Bocce” and its concurrence with the Downtown Oakland renaissance. I twice visited Plank—once in late 2015 and then again last weekend—to see if it truly is the playground for discerning adults it appears to be. Here’s what I found: “If you haven’t been to the Beat Museum... you don’t know Jack”. So read the sign at the North Beach Beat Museum as I arrived for the 94th birthday celebration of the late Jack Kerouac.
I found an eclectic group cozying into the upstairs of the ramshackle boutique. Even among a crowd of two dozen, there were lit geeks, musicians, activists, students, and hippies--both original and modern--all mingling, as if they all knew each other. “Welcome, it’s great to see you all,” announced owner Jerry Cimino, “I recognize most of you.” Apparently they did all know each other. I decided to remain on the periphery of the crowd, perusing the collection of Beat artifacts and paraphernalia: Jack Kerouac’s flannel jacket, Allen Ginsberg’s organ--the musical variety, the 1949 Hudson used in the 2012 adaptation of On the Road, and oh so many Beat-authored books, letters, and artwork from the entire pantheon of San Francisco Beat boys, big and small.
On Friday Nov. 6th I was asked by BayArea.com to attend the San Francisco Vintners Reserve and write about my evening. As I no longer own that write up, I can’t legally post my own words here. So instead, I give you a collection of the best words spoken by others that night:
“Look, I think she’s having a winegasm, she can’t even stand!... Wait. Nevermind. She’s just drunk.” “Why don’t you go get a drink for the lady while we finish up some paperwork?” -Time share salesman to man, after noticing him flashing skeptical looks at his girlfriend. “This wine is classic, not slutty. Just like me.” “Sometimes you just don’t want to open a $100 bottle of wine on a Tuesday night” “They’re being so stingy on the pour. It’s like they’re spitting on me!” “These grapes come from a secret region known only to vintners.” “Where’s that?’ “Atlas Peak.” “Let’s grab an Uber so we can get home and eat some cheese while our mouths still taste like wine. One other thing worth mentioning: The company First Aid Shot Therapy was passing out single shots of their liquid hangover remedy. Out of necessity, I tested them the next morning. And though they aren’t a cure all, they make a real difference. I found they worked best with a bacon sandwich and mimosa. Check it out in the link below: I was out of place in more than one way at the Presidio Movie Night last Friday.
Most visibly, I was a childless man in a park full of hundreds of families come to watch Pixar’s Inside Out. I realized as kids frolicked through bubble machines on the lawn of the Presidio’s Main Post, that the bottle of Sudwerk’s 3 Best Friends lager I’d snuck into Sarah’s purse was probably a no go. I compensated by stocking up on the free popcorn and It’s-Its, including the last Mint-Chocolate Chip sandwich. We used a blanket to hold this treasure hoard of snacks, as well as our space on the lawn. Sarah’s decision to bring the blanket reflected apt forethought and preparation: With the drought on, the Presidio has ceased using sprinklers, leaving the lawn—and the butts of anyone sitting on it—brown and cakey. Sarah’s decision to lay the whiteside of the blanket face down on the lawn did not reflect those same qualities. While scouring the snack tables for more free treats I came across a trivia table, which offered stationery prizes and a precocious young girl whose third degree made me aware of a second way in which I didn’t belong. “Answer these 3 questions,” she bade me. Every chef knows that presentation separates a dining experience from a meal. Rachel and Michael Dunn, the Concord-based chocolatiers of Rachel Dunn Chocolates, know that presentation separates their confectionery from candy. Presentation is also what distinguishes the company's Chocolate Workshop from any old cooking class.
On July 14 the Bay Area food truck festival "Off The Grid" brought its culinary cavalcade for the first time to Walnut Creek and I, along with my girlfriend Sarah, were among the hundreds who were front and center for the gourmet fast food premier. Some foodies came from afar to see how Walnut Creek compared to Off the Grid's several dozen other locales. Some locals came only with vague notions of "checking it out." Sarah and I, though, had arrived with a mission: eat a meal from every food truck. All ten of them.
The plan to eat a living octopus started shortly before our plane departed for Incheon International Airport in South Korea. I know it was then, because the idea came from a video on Brian's phone, and I remember that shortly thereafter a flight attendant reprimanded Sarah for using a phone while the plane was driving down the tarmac.
Brian, being a large man and thinking himself secretive, turned in his aisle seat so that passengers looking into our row could only see his back. He handed the phone to poor Sarah, his sister and my girlfriend, who had the middle seat on account of being the smallest and the social link between Brian and myself. "Brian," The reproachful manner in which Sarah said his name is an amusing catchphrase from our travels together. Even as I write it I can hear the exact cadence of her voice, rising on the first syllable with exasperation, and falling on the second, acknowledging the futility of whatever the ensuing lecture will have. "The plane is already moving, you have to turn your phone off. You're gonna make the plane crash." Brian tapped the play button, still held reluctantly in Sarah's hand. The video started with an American tourist sitting in a restaurant with Korean characters on the windows. In front of her sits a bowl with a baby octopus, wriggling in the shallow water. "That woman, she's about to eat that octopus," Brian whispered. "Like the whole thing. Still alive?" I asked. "Yeah. And we should do it, too." |