WNBR 2010

Last Saturday, June 12, was the seventh World Naked Bike Ride in San Francisco. We ride each year to protest our dependance on fossil fuels. This year the weather was a beautiful 86 degrees. We started at the Ferry Building and rode down the Embarcadero to Pier 39, then onto Crissy Field, the Palace of Fine Arts, through the Marina to Lombard Street, down Columbus Avenue to Montgomery, down Montgomery, across Market to Yerba Buena Gardens, back north to Union Square, and then on to the Civic Center and City Hall where we surprised a couple posing for their wedding photos. After a rest, we rode up Market to Valencia, down Valencia to Eighteenth, up Eighteenth to Castro, and up Castro to the new plaza for another breather. The group then headed over to the Haight. I, however, headed on home. A glorious day indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhgb9hYjX3g

Greed?

Peter Orlovsky is dead.

Snail Poem

Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired

        & handsome felt, 

Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at

        blown up clowd. 

Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound

        of rain dribble thru this layer

        down to the roots that will tickle my ear. 

Hay grave, my toes need cutting so file away

        in sound curve or 

Garbage grave, way above my head, blood will soon

        trickle in my ear -

        no choise but the grave, so cat & sheep are daisey

        turned. 

Train will tug my grave, my breath hueing gentil vapor

        between weel & track. 

So kitten string & ball, jumpe over this mound so

        gently & cutely 

So my toe can curl & become a snail & go curiousely

        on its way. 

1958 NYC

Saturday afternoon on the Castro.

Photo courtesy of Tom Conrad

Memorial Day 2010

My friend is spending today, Memorial Day, sweating over his bookkeeping records for the past year. He received a notice in Saturday's mail informing him he must show up at Social Security office on June 1 with all of his records: earnings, expenditures, bills, statements, checks, rent, medical bills, or risk losing his Social Security and his Medi-Cal. Why? Two years ago his rent was raised. Social Security, in their wisdom of budgetary cost cutting, ruled that he is voluntarily paying too much rent, so they lowered his income ceiling. The upshot, Social Security claims they overpaid him $100 each month for two years and is requiring him to reimburse them $2400. Either way, with or without the $100 extra per month, he is living close enough to the poverty line to just be getting by. Meanwhile, the biggest banks receive billions of federal dollars, no questions asked, when they practically destroy the economy by unsafe and illegal practices, and 2010 is the year all inheritances are tax free, no matter how large.

Yes, it makes me proud to be an amerikan -- happy memorial day! I know this is why those brave soldiers fought and died.