Great weekend

This weekend was one of the few when I had no plans. It turns out that - without plans - I did more things this weekend than just about any other.

Friday night I watched the totally awesome movie Hot Tub Time Machine (this follows last week's viewing of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle). Excellent, stupid flick.

On Saturday I went with my friend Geetha to the de young museum and the exhibit "Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee D'Orsay." Turns out that the event was sold out, but a couple women walked up to us and offered to sell us their tickets since their husbands couldn't find parking. Too bad. We took the tickets.

The D'Orsay is being renovated, so they're shipping all of their masterpieces to museums around the world. I've always been partial to the impressionists (there is an impressionist wing at the National Gallery of Art in DC - one of my favorites), but didn't really understand the context leading up to the impressionist movement. This exhibit brought it together for me. I bought a print of Gustave Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers.

Afterward, we tried to check off a few restaurants on my friend Meryl's "must eats in SF" list (Meryl was a gourmet chef in SF before coming to Duke). We tackled the Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative (decent pizza and coffee cake) and Chinatown's Fortune Cookie Factory (a soup nazi-like experience where you have to pay 50 cents to take a picture and they start bugging you to buy something if you stand idle for more than 30 seconds). You can see them making the cookies right in front of you. A machine churns out a pliable cookie dough, which a woman grabs along with the fortune, and she molds the fortune cookie into its typical shape in about 1 second using some tool. I got four fortunes in one cookie - the process isn't perfect.

I had planned on going to my friend Paul's birthday party and was about to head back to my apartment, but we decided to keep up the culinary expedition. I had heard about a place called Pirate Cat Radio Cafe, where they serve a maple bacon fat latte. We walked in and didn't really know what to think - there was a 3-piece band (shaggy homeless looking dudes) tuning up. I walked up to the bar not really knowing what to ask and then blurted "we're here for the bacon fat coffee." Given that there were only 2 available seats in the 6-seat cafe (the others being taken by the band), we heeded the barista's request to "take a seat anywhere you like."

It turns out that maple bacon fat lattes are delicious, and actually have little bits of bacon fat floating on top. The "cafe" doubles as a pirate radio station, complete with a recording booth. The band started playing, which was being recorded for a podcast (if you download the podcast I'm sure you can catch the cappuccino machine in the background). We sat there for the Hypnotist Collectors' 6-song set. While leaving, the lead singer - our boy Augustus, gave us an EP and invited us to their show at the Crescent Hotel later that night. "We'll see you there."

... note the fortune.

After some tacos at Taqueria El Buen Sabor and seeing a mock protest (a guy turning 40 gathered his friends, created a bunch of posters, and led the "protesters" with a megaphone... going from bar to bar), we joined up with my Fuqua friend Jim Wilson and took a cab down to the show. It was like we walked into an alternate hipster dimension. Half the crowd was wearing fedoras (which are, if you don't know, the totally cool new trend). The place reminded me of Eighteenth Street Lounge in DC, but more secret. It's on the second floor (bar area and separate room for the band) of a very unassuming boutique hotel. I kind of felt like George (of Seinfeld) when he stumbles on the supermodel secret hideaway. It felt like another dimension of coolness. The cool thing is that it wasn't pretentious at all - just a bunch of people looking good and drinking ironic PBR.

Digression: fedoras. The NY Times's man on the street did this short video on the trend. I'm on a mission to find my own, though I'm pretty sure I'll look ridiculous.

My friend Gerardo showed up (not the Rico Suave Gerardo), and we headed to the Make Out Room back in the Mission to meet up with Paul, Jason, Stacey, Eric - my Education Pioneers crew. It was really cool to see all of my different circles come together - Geetha, Jim (Fuqua), Gerardo (random friend), and Ed Pioneers. Very fun time. Night.

On Sunday we went on a free walking tour of the Castro neighborhood, which is the famous gay neighborhood in SF (think Harvey Milk). Interesting stuff, and I learned the difference between Victorian and Edwardian, and Queen Anne architecture.

Afterward we walked around the Mission, checked out some street murals, and walked into a Levi's Workshop. Possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen. Basically you can use screen printing, type setting, and other "design" tools... for free. They have artists in residence giving instruction and have events just about every night. It's a DIY/hipster paradise. I signed up to come back next Sunday and make my own type-set posters.

almost done....

Then went to some vintage clothing shops and stocked up on polyester - for future Halloweens. Then came back home, did laundry, and had an amazing takout meal from Dosa (south Indian food... like an Indian crepe).

Great weekend indeed.