Information Blues.

Here’s the concept: replicate Doctor Muerte on a pumpkin.

¿Quien es Doctor Muerte? That’s a good question. DM is a doctor like any other, except that instead of maintaining life he deals death. And instead of operating on a table he flies from the turnbuckles in Tijuana, BC.

I’ve just poured myself some tequila. It tastes silky, like buttery black pepper. Doctor Muerte is currently parked on the front steps of my building. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was invited to a pumpkin carving contest I didn’t win. The reception of Doctor Muerte was initially tepid. I drew his face first on the gourd with a miniature golf pencil, then again with a red sharpie. He materialized slightly bloated, but definitely doctoral, and very death. I scooped out the seeds in his belly and handed them to a lady pacing around looping, “Seeds for the poor?” Little did she know they were seeds of death, and could only increase her poverty. But the Doctor loves to share, so I gladly handed them over.

Jack Skellington had a cold but was still kind enough to offer advice. He said, “It was a compex design; I’m surprised you pulled it off.” Sally was sweet, she whispered, “I like yours.”

Doctor Muerte and the miniature skull on his forehead glowed from the inside. A nine year old approached and claimed to be an amateur war historian. “What’s your favorite war?” I asked him. “The fall of the Roman empire. Can you shoot a bow and arrow?” Doctor Muerte grinned. “No, I don’t think so.” He pantomimed a bow shot, then asked me to do the same. I shot him with an imaginary arrow and he fell to the ground. He proceeded to throw himself around the grass for twenty minutes, pretending to kick himself in the balls over and over; that’s the effect Doctor Muerte has on people.

When it was all over I knew I had two options. I could take the Doctor home and throw him off the roof of my five story apartment building into the street. (It’s the natural, proper fate of Halloween pumpkins to be destroyed by vandals.) Or I could leave him on the front steps to solicit new clients.

I left him on the steps, but if he’s still there tomorrow night he’s going to take a ride on my imaginary catapult. My tequila is done; three cheers for Doctor Muerte! And long live death!

Tonight I rode in the San Francisco (Halloween!) Critical Mass. I wore a lucha libre mask over my helmet, but found myself under dressed. I saw a giant green bean on a bike, Uma Thurman in a Kill Bill jumpsuit, many G.W. Bush mutations and sequined disco dancers. Jessie was dressed as Chococat, and her friends went as Meat and Evil respectively.

But just as the Mass started to roll, Jessie spotted a guy she knew being arrested, splayed across the hood of black and white. Being a righteous soul and a law student, she stopped to bear witness, leaving me near alone in the throng; I’d have to befriend Meat and Evil! And quick!

It was a rolling carnival, a spontaneous anarchy freak show. We rode from the Embarcadero up into China Town, pausing at key intersections to ride in circles and hold up cycles in triumph. There must have been at least 500 people though, so the train lurched and sputtered along, getting caught on corners and hills. We paused at a number of hotel worker strikes as the bicyclists joined in union chants. I kept on losing them, but eventually Meat and/or Evil would find me. Actually, Evil kept the closer watch. Meat and Evil were cute girls.

I was riding my fixed gear bike at 1 mph, weaving over muni tracks. We dropped in on two blocks of steep SF hills and I prayed my front brake held, else my legs might be ripped from my body.

At one point, one of the mobile disco trailer bicycles started playing Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”. That was one of my favorite moments. I turned to the cyclist next to me and exclaimed, “This song really messes me up!” as it began:

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain
He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook’s
Going to get himself a big dish of beef chow mein

That song sure makes me feel strange! It presses a button in my head that releases surreal acids.

Near the end of the Critical Mass ride people start to splinter off, leaving only the hardcore insurgents around. And with the loss of people comes loss of protection. Things always get really hairy at that point, as inevitably some driver flips out, starts screaming out their car window and runs over somebody’s bike. But before that happens, riding in the Mass is real bliss, touring the City smiling, spinning, revelling in the random parade. THE STREETS ARE OURS. And then they’re not.

Eventually we found Jessie, who had fallen in with some “Extreme Cheerleaders” who were joining in one of the hotel worker strikes. We then splintered off the Mass and headed to Pakwan to eat some piquant masalas.

I think I could eat a plate of chana masala every day and be absolutely happy.

I created a gallery of incriminating Ventana photos.

Proceed with caution.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the belted kingfisher is my current totem. Today I spent a few hours on my bicycle in the flats accumulating base miles. Sometimes on the way home from Alameda I take a detour to swing by known kingfisher hangouts; one ride I spotted 3 different guys and was stoked for a week. Another memorable occasion, riding with a strong head wind and Simeon drafting behind me, I spotted a kingfisher above us heading the same direction. I picked up the pace as fast as I could to race him, bellowing to Simeon (a fellow bird watcher) about it. But after a quarter mile he took a left turn.

I hadn’t seen one for quite a while. There’s a spot where they like to hang out on the Alameda Estuary, right at the slew that feeds Lake Merritt. Above a rusty barbed wire fence near a bridge sits the perfect kingfisher seat; it’s a curved metal bar at the fence’s elbow. It has a great tactical view of the water where you can see the bottom lined with moss and halibut, and behind it there’s an apocalyptic, burnt out industrial plot with red soil.

Kingfishers always seem to return to their favorite tactical positions each year. There was one fishing there today. I paused at the bridge and observed. He looked at me sideways, the feathers on his head ruffled up. I had Love Minus Zero by Bob Dylan in my head, so I sang him a few bars. I shouted:

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.

Was he impressed? No, he was slate blue. He saw a fish he fancied and took off, chattering a war cry. Each wing has a single white spot in the middle. Then he hovered and slid sideways like a frisbee, plunging beak first into the water. He was fully submerged for a moment, then beat his wings and took off to return to his seat.

Kingfishers don’t fly normally; they weave and dodge. Their wings beat at a loopy lope. They perform aerial stunts. They’re talkative and cheeky. They have a special eye for dramatic tactical positions. I have an eye for that too. My little apartment is a kingfisher seat. I stand at the window, watching the sardines drive by below. I chatter my war cry and take off…

My floating point processor is numb, I can feel it. It’s toward the front of my brain, in the middle of my forehead. This is where the soft math comes from, with imagined trajectories and ghost impacts, which I try to impart on physical objects.

The weather’s turning cold, and what do rational beings do in the winter? They stay inside and entertain themselves with novelty ball sports, like pool and pinball.

I see myself as a true enthusiast of novelty ball sports. You can add bowling to the list, and miniature golf. (But mini golf is a summer sport.) The pool circuit has begun again, with Doran and I scheduled to play every Wednesday until it’s no longer any fun. Last week I suffered a long john penalty due to faulty calculations, but last night I was in fine form, taking all nine games.

To me pool is a game of focus. When I’m playing well my mind quiets and I achieve a mathematical sort of clarity. The cue is the literal point of my focus, and shots read like physical manifestations of thought. But when I’m playing poorly, each ball is a riddle; I see too many angles, take into account too many factors. My math coprocessor still gives me data, but the figures are scattered, unrelated.

Nothing can wear out this certain part of my brain like playing pool does. I can really feel it start to tire, knot up, then eventually grow opaque. After five or six games it feels like I’ve been bending utensils with nothing but brainwaves. Then it shuts off, and I have to play by memory rather than realtime simulation.

I played pinball today at lunch and my thoughts were still a little sore. Pinball uses a different yet related type of focus than pool; pool uses a patient point, but good pinball relies on frenetic reactions and soft, wide focus. When I’m playing pinball well I feel like I can see the whole playfield at once. Today I was playing… okay. I paid for two games worth, but managed to match for 3 more free games. I’d really like to get my mark on the high score list for the new Lord of the Rings table at Thalassa. I’d need to score 100M, but my best score to date is around 70 and lately my good games peak at 40-50. Today the darn Aragorn ramp gave me nothing but trouble, but I know I’ll (high) score some day.

On the backpacking trip some LoTR talk came up and we were discussing who was equivalent to who in the Fellowship (IE Todd was obviously a hobbit) and someone mused that I might be Aragorn… no, WAIT! You’re Boromir! Chuckle chuckle.

I can’t really imagine Boromir enjoying novelty ball sports or talking about his math coprocessor. (This is the sum total of my argument against consensus.)