We just want to dance here but they just stole the stage

Hoop De Hoo, friends and neighbours! I have returned from a week on the other coast where I was communing with videogame characters. Note to all: we will know AI is a success when it takes direction. Nyah on computerized people, nyah nyah nyah. But beyond the games we call video -- much fun was had and gleeful yelps did ring, yay and verily, hencely forth from weird Atlantis-like pyramid building to the barking sea lions on the bay. Yelp of glee! Bark of horny sea mammal! Gleeful yelp! Horny sea mammal bark! Yelp! Bark! Yark! Belp! Alas, it all runs together. Whoa ho, ha ba ti wa, so is life. Needless to say, as with many Amerikan cities, a.c.a.t. All Cliches Are True. My fambly is the sort to cite literary aphorisms at each other, and one can barely squeak out the words "San Francisco," before everyone says, "You know {dramatic intellectual pause}, Mark Twain said the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco!" This little literary tidbit can also be worked in subtly, "It's true what Mark Twain said ... {dramatic pause, waiting for listener to nod in agreement. When he plays along by quizzically raising an eyebrow} -- the coldest winter ever IS the summer in San Francisco!" Or it can be used to dramatic effect: "Holy shit! Mark Twain was fucking-a right!"
(awkward beat)
"You know, about the whole summer in San Francisco thing?"
(bar patrons resume conversations)
"Never mind."

But with San Francisco, indeed, a.c.a.t. It was cold and it was foggy. And sheeit, those are some hills. And I briefly glimpsed Ghiradelli square from a cab. I saw the Golden Gate Bridge through the fog.

See, the last time I was in San Francisco, it was the past January at Universal Studios in Florida. We cruised swiftly through New York and strolled through Martha's Vineyard but inadvertently wandered through San Francisco on the way to the Men In Black Institute. San Francisco in Universal studios had a Golden Gate Bridge peeking through the fog. I glimpsed Ghiradelli square.

In fact, we could see San Francisco even when we were waiting on line to learn how to shoot aliens. It was very hot, waiting to learn how to shoot aliens. We had to check our bags in special alien-shooting-lockers before we were allowed to report for training at the Men In Black institute and so we didn't have any toys to play with. One of my friends ate some tofu jerky for sustenance. This particular brand of tofu jerky reeked to high-holy heaven of some faux-meat enzyme. The remains of the stinky tofu jerky were tossed to the seagulls. And, oh. If only tofu seafulls had arrived to eat the tofu stinky meat. But we were pretty sure they were real seagulls. Unless they were robot seagulls who were trying to escape from the robot Jaws that we'd left back in Martha's Vineyard. One can never really tell in a themepark.

Needless to say, we had no toys and, sadly, we were out of prailined soynuts. Luckily, I had a map. And so even as we scorched in the pre-alien-shooting heat, we could point dreamily at the certain-to-be-more-comfortable climate zones around us. Jurassic Park? Too hot, and it smells like dinosaurs. And the music gets frightening after a while: It's Jurassic Park. Like no other park. There are dinosaurs there that you can see. And the lost island? Well. Poseidon was just kinda grumpy this year and he made all of us nauseated and there were mosaics that made one's stomach turn, forcing one to backswallow the Waffle House grits climbing up one's throat. And toon land was freaky and superhero world, while idelogically ideal, was too full of ... bad guys. And New York was just like home and Martha's Vineyard was too weirdly New England inbreeding weirdness and so San Francisco just seemed so right. And besides, as well all know, it was sure to be cooler there. The coldest winter and all that. And then someone realized that as long as were going to hit a nearby land, why not just go back to Norway, because Norway was certain to be refreshing this time of year. And for a brief shining moment, it made perfect sense that one could escape that broiling waiting-to-shoot-aliens heat br driving a few miles to Norway. The Norway in EPCOT. Oh so close to the desert sun of the M.I.B. institute in Universal Studios.

And there was also a lizard. And was it a themed lizard? Or was it a real lizard?

That question, my friend, has driven lesser men to the drink. But it can't make them water! Ba dump dump.


But anyway.

Anyhoodles. Back on this happy coast and autumn has prematurely come to Brooklyn. Spent the day wallowing in the peerless loathing of religion-induced self-loathing at my friend Aliza's wedding. Oh, those wacky Jews. My primordial-ooze brain goes, "Oooh! The Hora! AWESOME!" and the frontal lobes go, "Let's find something in the other room to be PHENOMENALLY interesting right now," the 'other room' often being either the bathroom or the inside of one's handbag.

Anyway. I drove over the Golden Bridge while blasting the greatest song ever on a CD I'd brought for that precise moment. (some might disagree. I say they can suck it.). It was rad. A dream come true. And now I can die in peace.

And hey, all you lovelies who have been sending such nice messages: keep those cards and letters coming. You rock. And you make me feel special.

Note: Let's bring back the adjective "Spesh." That's your assignment for this week: use "Spesh" five times.