Man In A Panic

Trick Or Treat

I owe my blog a week’s work.  And I owe my work a week’s blag.  I’m the Man In A Panic.

To sweat myself calm, I thought I’d go to the gym today.  But then I remembered that I wanted to keep my Samurai Halloween costume on until Tuesday.  And that gyms make me want to ritually slaughter innocent people with a big sword. 

Instead, I exercised at home by playing Blue Orchid by The White Stripes thirty times over and alternating air guitar, air drums and air vocals. 

All major muscle groups sorted without risk of a verruca or towel-flicking-incident. 

I’ll do a proper update soon. 

Falling Down

If you've squeezed my thigh muscles lately, you'll know SF is all about the hills.  At times, it's flabbergasting.  Last night, a taxi dropped me a block from my destination and I realised I'd need crampons, a rope and Kendall Mint Cake to complete the journey.

Getting into work every day is traumatic.  My office building is on a 45 degree hill, so getting through the door unscathed requires ski-lift dexterity and excellent timing.  I've been there 15 days and fallen over three times on 're-entry' after lunch. 

It's 'us and them' when it comes to living on the ups and downs: 'nonchalant locals' v 'hapless immigrants'.

The locals GLIDE down the hills.  It's all very controlled, like a human slinky spring.  I, however, slink for five steps...and then start slapping down my leading foot....before falling into a helicopter whirl of arms and legs.  Readers, I come down Chestnut Street like a Special School Triple Jump Champion.

I plan to illustrate this blog with video footage.

Barking Mad

On every single street corner in San Francisco there’s a well groomed dog (blow-dried, Versace collar, organic doggie biscuits) and a bedraggled homeless dude (one moon boot, old shopping trolley, howling at the moon).  Both are a blight on the city, not least because they shit everywhere.

San Francisco LOVES dogs and the smaller and more absurd, the better – yesterday, my ankles were snuffled by a pooch that was half Yorkshire terrier, half pink leg warmer.  As an 'Up Yours!' to the neo-Cons who want Intelligent Design taught in American schools, that’s pretty special – God did NOT design this dog…not unless he’d been out disco-ing with Freddie Mercury the night before. 

There’re dogs in my street, my office and my bar, getting in the way, slobbering my hands, eating my food…

”America is like a large friendly dog in a very small room.  Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair”

...said Arnold Toynbee once.  Give that man a bone.

San Francisco also LOVES homeless people.  At least I assume they must, or else they’d have provided them with homes by now.  Turfed out of mental hospitals under the Regan administration, the city is awash with unwashed vagabonds. They’re not especially threatening, but do seem considerably more bonkers than the average London tramp.  You’ve got Imaginary-Traffic-Cop-Tramp, Fly-Like-A-Bird-Tramp and Singing-In-The-Rain-Dancing-Tramp (although I suspect this last one might be linked to the San Francisco School Of Performing Arts - his griminess is too perfect).  Best of all is Ironic-Tramp who runs around screaming 'YOU USELESS CRAZY BUMS!' at all the other tramps.  Give that man a home.

Rather Peculiar

An English accent is like a magic cloak here.  It gives you 20 IQ points and 20 Sex Appeal points.

Consequently, to maximize the effect, the entire English population of SF now sounds like Trevor MacDonald.   

It’s hard to resist hamming it up when even the most appalling clichés win affectionate smiles.  We all collude in the game and it's only embarassing when you realise a bloke from Watford has just heard you blurt out 'Crikey! A perfect googly!  Let's crack open the dompers!'

Here, then, is an evolving list of things-i-would-never-say-in-London that could pop out here at any moment:

“Oh I say!”
“Drat!”
“Blast!”
“Would you care for……?”
“I’m everso sorry”
“Some old bean just called me up….”
“Shall we have a natter about this later?”

What a bloody tosser I am.

Plug Me In

One of my best mates in this city is technology. HA HAA! Yes, I DID just write that and now I shall go and mate vigorously with my USB port.

Seriously though, it makes life so much easier.  It’s obviously not SF specific, even though this city is at the heart of all things computery, but it’s the first time it’s worked for me.  And yes, Dave, I know I’m way behind the curve.

Good nerdy things:

1. The entire city is wi-fi enabled so I’m writing this outside a café in North Beach, not a cable in sight.  At the BBC, the office kettle was cordless but otherwise you were chained to your desk.

2. Every morning, my Ipod downloads the BBC news and Today programme which I listen to on my way to work….

3. At work, everyone’s Ipods are networked, so we have a library of 50,000 songs.  (although this does create a ‘Tragedy Of The Commons’ scenario, whereby everyone is waiting for everyone else to buy that good new album)

4. Skype  means I can talk to people all over the world for free….download it at once.

Dull, I know.  I was going to write something about how this city feels like a huge University campus, the technology holding it together - Craigslist as the notice board, Flickr as photo album, ITunes as the jukebox, different gangs on different blocks....but then I had to go to the laundrette to wash my socks and I decided I couldn't be arsed to write that essay after all.

I just think it’s great and the sociological impact of all this stuff will be enormous.  Like, er, imagine if we went to war again and our PM had access to Garage Band and a ZZ Top album….Download winston.m4a

Repeat After Me...

I'm not just in advertising, I AM advertising.

Download hitachivoice.m4a

I've got my hand in your head and I'm messing with your mind, dude.

Hiiii-taaaaa-chhh-iiiiiii!

Young Art

The De Young museum in Golden Gate Park reopened at the weekend...for 48 hours.  So we nipped down at 2.30am on Sunday morning to find a queue of thousands.  Somehow a friend blagged us in as landscape gardeners, so we didn't have to wait four hours to see exhibits like 'African Headress c.1971' and 'Victorian Vase c. 1876'.

The building is stunning but I'll have to take another look inside when less tired and emotional.  I always prefer the outsides of museums though.

The rest of Sunday was spent on Ocean Beach - sandwiched between a full moon and a candescent Californian sunset.  Aaaaaaaah...!

Word On The Streets

Of growing concern is my habit of bursting into song in San Francisco .  If not gasping helplessly for breath every time I reach the top of a hill, I inhale the sweet view and belt one out.

It's not the singing per se that's a worry, more my choice of material.  Can you imagine the loathing that an impromptu tourist performance of 'London Calling' would attract in Hoxton?  Well nine times out of ten, I'm halfway through...

"I'm goooooooing to Saaaaaaaaaaaan Fraaaaaancisco"

....before I feel the withering stares.

It's a difficult position to recover from but i've found that you can just about segue into 'Summertime' (from Porgy & Bess') if the timing's right.

Not only am I the Voice On The Street in SF, I'm also the Word On The Streets.

Yes that's right - Mike Skinner and co are very popular here and, obviously, our parallel lives mean that I can act as translator/interpreter and social commentator.

Dry your eyes, mate, there's plenty of fish in the sea.

Out Of Tune

Record shops are difficult to navigate over here.  Their genre definitions don't tally with my expectations.  So you find Roots Manuva in World Music and Goldfrapp in Rock and Soul.   And then 93 aisles of country bumpkin nonsense.

Best of all is the 'Go-To Make Out' selection in Tower Records, purportly a musical magic carpet to carry you from coffee-drinking to face-munching 'back at yours'.  Helicopter Girl was top of the list, lads.  Personally I recommend Sweetback - 60 mins of aural rohypnol. What are your favourite "go-to make out' tracks, readers?!

I saw Tracy Chapman live on Friday night at the excellent Independent.  Unexpectedly, she came dressed as a 21 year old white dude and sangs songs about driving a truck to surfing beaches.  Closer inspection revealed a shallow Tracy impersonator.  Had I been equipped with white stick and sunglasses, I'd love to have hollered a request for 'Fast Car'.  I might have got in trouble though - I think he was wearing a wrestling costume.

Incidentally, can you imagine my delight to discover that a large beer here is called a 'growler'?  And to have two drinks on the go at once?  That's 'double-fisting'.....

Top (Sticky) Tip

Save 15 minutes of your life by never asking a team of Californian stationery shop assistants for Blu Tak.

I left empty handed, their expressions of bafflement and disgust ushering me to the street.