Thursday, April 27, 2006
some deserts are better than others
i went to coachella two years ago. basically, aside from some seriously fungal moments during the flaming lips set, the entire trip sucked ass. there were some extenuating circumstances that made things worse than they would've been otherwise, but i still maintain that this (alleged) "art and music" festival is beyond lame. ooooh my goodness lame. and a nasty waste of time and money, to boot. plus offensive to anyone who was told that it was going to be a festival.
so first of all it's trashy, in more ways than one. with garbage lying all over the ground...and pale commericalized copies of ex-underground culture on display on people, in booths, and on stages throughout the fenced-in, over-crowded, under-shaded grounds. a bunch of interesting music, sure, but with such a weak attempt at art that it was laughable and pathetic. and more commercial than any real festival would ever dare to get.
so miguel sent this out the other day. and we'll forgive and ignore the fact that he was one of the less-than-perfect aspects of my trip down there last time because it skewers the event so nicely. i myself empathize not-so-much with the hard drug references, but i did manage to have my first bad mushroom trip while wandering around that piece-of-shit concert, so it's not entirely irrelevant to my experiences. enjoy...
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Apartment Coachella seeks to simulate the Coachella experience within one single apartment environment. Instead of stages, dvd players and laptops armed with YouTube will be spread around the festival 'grounds'. Thermostat will be turned up all the way to best simulate the intense Palm Springs heat. No more than 2 screens will be even remotely visible at the same time. The Gobi tent will be the closet. The Dance tent will be under the bed. It will take 30 minutes to get from my parking spot to my apartment. Beer will only be served in large plastic cups in the kitchen 'beer garden'. Stage views will be limited, and a minimum of at least 2 concerts will be faintly heard simultaneously. The toilet will not be flushed. All weekend long. There may or may not be toilet paper. There will be an afterparty with (insert famous dj name). At my next-door neighbors house. I will not be able to get in. Cellphones will work once an hour. The connection will be dropped exactly one word before your friend tells you where to meet up. Maximum of 4 hours sleep. There will only be liquor in the VIP area. US Weekly cutouts of Lindsay Lohan, Dave Arquette, Courtney Cox and Flea will be placed inside the VIP area. After we get home, I will run naked to the beach, dive in, run back to my apartment, do a line of blow, then run naked back to the beach. Repeat until I pass out.
so first of all it's trashy, in more ways than one. with garbage lying all over the ground...and pale commericalized copies of ex-underground culture on display on people, in booths, and on stages throughout the fenced-in, over-crowded, under-shaded grounds. a bunch of interesting music, sure, but with such a weak attempt at art that it was laughable and pathetic. and more commercial than any real festival would ever dare to get.
so miguel sent this out the other day. and we'll forgive and ignore the fact that he was one of the less-than-perfect aspects of my trip down there last time because it skewers the event so nicely. i myself empathize not-so-much with the hard drug references, but i did manage to have my first bad mushroom trip while wandering around that piece-of-shit concert, so it's not entirely irrelevant to my experiences. enjoy...
**************************************
Apartment Coachella seeks to simulate the Coachella experience within one single apartment environment. Instead of stages, dvd players and laptops armed with YouTube will be spread around the festival 'grounds'. Thermostat will be turned up all the way to best simulate the intense Palm Springs heat. No more than 2 screens will be even remotely visible at the same time. The Gobi tent will be the closet. The Dance tent will be under the bed. It will take 30 minutes to get from my parking spot to my apartment. Beer will only be served in large plastic cups in the kitchen 'beer garden'. Stage views will be limited, and a minimum of at least 2 concerts will be faintly heard simultaneously. The toilet will not be flushed. All weekend long. There may or may not be toilet paper. There will be an afterparty with (insert famous dj name). At my next-door neighbors house. I will not be able to get in. Cellphones will work once an hour. The connection will be dropped exactly one word before your friend tells you where to meet up. Maximum of 4 hours sleep. There will only be liquor in the VIP area. US Weekly cutouts of Lindsay Lohan, Dave Arquette, Courtney Cox and Flea will be placed inside the VIP area. After we get home, I will run naked to the beach, dive in, run back to my apartment, do a line of blow, then run naked back to the beach. Repeat until I pass out.
9 to 5
as long as i'm here, another email. verbatim this time.
this is the intro email i sent to the staff at my new job.
*****************************
Hullos, all. Last Thursday was my first day of work here with the Water Group in San Francisco.
I'm joining you from CHS Consulting Group, where I've spent the last year trying my hand as a transportation planner. Before CHS, I was at Jones & Stokes for two years as a Project Coordinator/Deputy Project Manager (in the Sacramento office primarily, then a few months in Oakland). While at Jones & Stokes I was based primarily on the Local Government/Planning Team, but I worked on a wide variety of projects that included water, natural resource planning, transportation, and even mining.
I graduated from UC Davis in the spring of 2002 with a B.S. in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning and a minor in Film Studies. While at Davis I was fortunate to find a position as research assistant with Dr. Paul Sabatier and the Center for Environmental Conflict Analysis, a research group that studies stakeholder collaboration processes in environmental problem-solving. I stayed on campus for a year after graduation to continue this position and to take a stronger leadership role in the Whole Earth Festival, an event that took most of my extra time while I was in Davis and that I've managed to stay involved with even from the Bay Area.
I'm a terribly proud NorCal native, originally from Santa Rosa but currently an enthusiastic resident of the heart of the Mission District in this lovely city. My non-work time these days is spent encouraging and propagating creativity, insanity, and good dancing within the Burning Man community in San Francisco. I'll fly across the country in search of a well-composed dancefloor. I've been known to play with stilts, fire, and other big people toys. And I have a strong affection for the color orange.
I very much look forward to meeting all of you :)
**********************************************
my new position is at ESA. i'm on the water team. i'm working on environmental permitting and CEQA projects. i'm much happier at work now than i was two months ago. things are looking up.
this is the intro email i sent to the staff at my new job.
*****************************
Hullos, all. Last Thursday was my first day of work here with the Water Group in San Francisco.
I'm joining you from CHS Consulting Group, where I've spent the last year trying my hand as a transportation planner. Before CHS, I was at Jones & Stokes for two years as a Project Coordinator/Deputy Project Manager (in the Sacramento office primarily, then a few months in Oakland). While at Jones & Stokes I was based primarily on the Local Government/Planning Team, but I worked on a wide variety of projects that included water, natural resource planning, transportation, and even mining.
I graduated from UC Davis in the spring of 2002 with a B.S. in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning and a minor in Film Studies. While at Davis I was fortunate to find a position as research assistant with Dr. Paul Sabatier and the Center for Environmental Conflict Analysis, a research group that studies stakeholder collaboration processes in environmental problem-solving. I stayed on campus for a year after graduation to continue this position and to take a stronger leadership role in the Whole Earth Festival, an event that took most of my extra time while I was in Davis and that I've managed to stay involved with even from the Bay Area.
I'm a terribly proud NorCal native, originally from Santa Rosa but currently an enthusiastic resident of the heart of the Mission District in this lovely city. My non-work time these days is spent encouraging and propagating creativity, insanity, and good dancing within the Burning Man community in San Francisco. I'll fly across the country in search of a well-composed dancefloor. I've been known to play with stilts, fire, and other big people toys. And I have a strong affection for the color orange.
I very much look forward to meeting all of you :)
**********************************************
my new position is at ESA. i'm on the water team. i'm working on environmental permitting and CEQA projects. i'm much happier at work now than i was two months ago. things are looking up.
peripheral vision, focused.
(expanded from an email, which i think i'm going to start doing more often so that i actually end up posting...)
the world is full of good friends this week.
i had a long phone call with my best-friend-type person on monday evening, then a quick but reassuring and soul-warming 15 minutes with haji, dropping by en route to maui... a lovely call from julien on tuesday night--he called from a beach in florida at 1am to send me smiles... then a startlingly beautiful conversation with elana, dwelling on events from a year ago that brought us into each others' lives... i'm having dinner tonight with friends from davis--some of my closest and most valued friends from davis--who i haven't seen in 10 months... and kyle and trish are back in town and will be at nickie's tonight! all this happening just two weeks before i start my davis-oriented set of weekends: one weekend at whole earth festival, one weekend in tahoe for mel and kelly's wedding, and one weekend in sacramento to spend days sitting around with my closest friends from jones & stokes who i haven't seen since before they moved to portland last spring...
i'm starting to think about how narrow my world has been for the past four months. i was so terribly intent to bring my attention back to sF and make myself happier here that i forgot why i let my attention wander in the first place. balance, balance...... i've never been good at dealing with life when all my eggs are in one basket. things seem supported now, but baskets break and eggs crack and really this analogy will leave me with nasty eggy YUCK if i'm not careful. and there have in fact been some shifts in the past couple weeks... shifts that scare me and make me much less confident in the nest i thought i was settling into...
and now with raindance discussions my head is flying back to visit where it was last may...
aeons away, it seems now--and SO different.
but not all bad.
more alone, i was, much much more alone.
but more adventurous, and stronger.
and with my senses more alert for new experiences.
hmm...
so. to do... don't lose sight?
less time now, with my new job...
it's proving to be very challenging to keep my peripheral vision focused...
the world is full of good friends this week.
i had a long phone call with my best-friend-type person on monday evening, then a quick but reassuring and soul-warming 15 minutes with haji, dropping by en route to maui... a lovely call from julien on tuesday night--he called from a beach in florida at 1am to send me smiles... then a startlingly beautiful conversation with elana, dwelling on events from a year ago that brought us into each others' lives... i'm having dinner tonight with friends from davis--some of my closest and most valued friends from davis--who i haven't seen in 10 months... and kyle and trish are back in town and will be at nickie's tonight! all this happening just two weeks before i start my davis-oriented set of weekends: one weekend at whole earth festival, one weekend in tahoe for mel and kelly's wedding, and one weekend in sacramento to spend days sitting around with my closest friends from jones & stokes who i haven't seen since before they moved to portland last spring...
i'm starting to think about how narrow my world has been for the past four months. i was so terribly intent to bring my attention back to sF and make myself happier here that i forgot why i let my attention wander in the first place. balance, balance...... i've never been good at dealing with life when all my eggs are in one basket. things seem supported now, but baskets break and eggs crack and really this analogy will leave me with nasty eggy YUCK if i'm not careful. and there have in fact been some shifts in the past couple weeks... shifts that scare me and make me much less confident in the nest i thought i was settling into...
and now with raindance discussions my head is flying back to visit where it was last may...
aeons away, it seems now--and SO different.
but not all bad.
more alone, i was, much much more alone.
but more adventurous, and stronger.
and with my senses more alert for new experiences.
hmm...
so. to do... don't lose sight?
less time now, with my new job...
it's proving to be very challenging to keep my peripheral vision focused...
