Information Blues.

Ah yes, a familiar scenario: Mr Ralston versus The Doppler. Common sense shows there’s a green pill of moisture moving my way. But spirit says, “I want to ride my bike!” So off I go, but first to Arizmendi for some supplies.

At Arizmendi I received an almond snail, a mocha, and a new Slapball uniform: one of their new t-shirts, real evil in red on black. I’d like to thank them for their faith in my abilities.

Back on my bike, full of marzipan, cocoa and espresso the green pill caught me on Broadway Auto Row. I’d hardly gone anywhere and I was getting wet.

I took evasive maneuvers, veered left on Macarthur to flee for BART. That’s when the Italian Bidet started up. I don’t know what it was; it never happened quite like that. I’ve ridden my bicycle plenty in the rain. My pants must have been at just the right height, belt agape, boxers showing just enough crack to allow a refreshing stream of back tire water to irrigate my ass. My bicycle, a fine Italian steed, had transformed into a French pony.

My local liquor store had the best pair of shades. They were sitting on the rotating corn cob rack amongst the fake oakleys and teal harlequin specs. These glasses looked like they were made of snap-tite, no glue model pieces: extruded ribs of gunmetal plastic.

They caught my eye and I talked myself out of buying them five times before Sunday the winter weather was so bright and crisp my eyes needed protection. (I lost my favorite wayfarers somewhere in Historic Downtown Hayward during the Wet Hop Festival… at night.) So I traveled exuberantly to my liquor store to pick up some cheap sun glas ses.

The vibe of them is sort of military; the lenses have that oblong shape of authority and distance. But they’re made of snap tite plastic, and they have a dose of sci-fi Porsche Carrera; I could picture (Sargeant) Doctor Who wearing these sunglasses.

I rode my bike in the sun and it didn’t burn my eyes. I headed for the Oakland Museum to see the last day of Baseball as America. The place was so engorged with baseball geeks that I had to hang out for nearly two hours with the California Indians. I marveled at their use of bird parts: a headdress of woodpecker scalps, and a woven bowl trimmed with quail top knots! That’s industrious, magical and creepy.

I rode by the Alameda Estuary, wondering if the L minus 0 ‘fisher was there. I haven’t seen him all year. I’ve seen a new guy haunting Laney, but as of yet no Bobcaster.

He still wasn’t there. Only an eared grebe and a pair of goldeneyes, leering at me.

I rode out along the Merritt inlet, offroading on a fixed gear, when I spotted a new fellow. He was sitting on the railing of a powder blue yacht, bobbing and preening. He was manic and bombastic, a fine young belted kingfisher in the prime of his season.

He was so handsome! He had a perfect pompadour, feathers full of pomade, and he looked at me sideways, aloof on his private yacht. He ran his beak back, scratched his wing, then puffed up his crown as if to make sure I knew he was the wild one. The Marlon Brandofisher.

I peered at him from behind snap-tite shades under my A’s hat, tried to match him blow for blow in cool. But that legendary actor bird whalloped me good, then he arched his tail feathers and shot a large stream of poop onto the hull.

And then he flew away.

Okay, I just beat Doran 21-14 and Kevin 21-13, which makes me the International Slap Ball Federation Champion. Slap Ball is another game developed from the fruits of Matt’s Trix Table.

Slap Ball is something like interoffice volleyball, but you get to hit it to yourself infinitely (juggling) or take it on one bounce, but once the ball rolls it’s dead. You have to slap it over the office wall, between the joists.

Each point inevitably involves ricochets off of coworkers, cabinets, desks, boxes, and bicycles. It’s typical to start laughing at the person trying to juggle the ball on the other side of the partition, so much that when they finally return it you’re incapacitated.

Trix Table balls are tricky. Some are large and floaty (orange and yellows), others mean little bullets (greens and blue.) I drew the face of a pig on a particularly trusty orange ball. Other good ones have been marked up with palm graffiti. Another says:

CALI
Where I lay
my
Slapdown

I’m going to make some fancy Doña Tomás style green enchiladas, full of sweet potatoes, rajas and cremoso cheese. Look at these wack ass poblanos:

After a day spent wrestling with fiction and milk I checked the Doppler and dashed out. I wore my raincoat over a cowboy shirt and a ski sweater. Ie: I was looking fly.

At Bandstand Cove (Adams Point, USA) a Sea Scout boat had washed up. The anchor was still attached.

I was hoping to see Red Phalaropes. Bess told me that she’d seen them on the Lake recently, heard on NPR they’d been blown inland by recent storms. Usually they commute far out to sea! The little guys seem to be trying to drive down the coast from the back of Alaska.

I continue to be infatuated by my own mixes. I was listening to California Gold, looking for phalaropes, when I spotted a male Red Breasted Merganser. What a handsome guy! I’d never seen them on Lake Merritt before, only a strange pond in Point Richmond. CCR covered I Heard it Through the Grapevine as I stood on the rock wall dancing like a hippie (inside) at the sight of mergansers.

I found a group of six phalaropes across from the Merritt Bakery. They were floating in armada, bobbing their heads. I’m tempted to say they were head banging, but it was too twee to qualify.

The storm knocked down a bunch of trees toward the Colonnade. Boughs were ripped off brutally. Someone placed a creepy, homemade, clay goddess at the base of a sheared eucalyptus. I stood there observing for a long time before taking a bulb from a fallen strand of The Necklace of Lights.

I watched the sun set from the steps of the Colonnade. The clouds cleared just in time to show some blue; I could see a wall of them speeding southwest along the peninsula. The sun went down behind fast moving vapor; they looked like silhouettes marching in a parade: big old portly, self-important columns, glowing with haloes.