Dan White

I’m teaching again, starting this Thursday. My new batch of students has no idea that my previous class called me “D. Money” and “Professor Diddy.” I’m counting on my readers — all eleven of you — to keep this under your hats. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Some months back, I posted about Vosges chocolates, some of the most experimental chocolate you can find. The people who make them are fearless. They will throw just about anything into their candies — Banks Beer, rum, champagne, dried violets, powdered tea leaves, even dried-up kalamata olives. They have one chocolate that is so fiery spicy hot that it will make your tongue curl up in your mouth. During that posting, I made a facetious remark, saying that I would support these candy makers until they became too “daring” and “weird” and started putting sausage in their chocolates. Well, my fears came true. Their latest chocolate bar includes applewood smoked bacon as an ingredient. I tried a piece of this in Noe Valley and it just tasted … well, not awful but weird and a little “off.” When the chocolate melted away, odd bits of gristle remained. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I keep myself in reasonable shape; my freelance assignments involve remote, steep places. Because of this, I’ve decided to step it up a bit and train for my third marathon. San Francisco is a perfect place for this. It is pedestrian-friendly compared to NYC. Just getting to Noe Valley and back is a real workout; it’s not long but the hills are steep. I love running on Irving. There are so many places to carb-load along the way (Arizmendi Bakery, for example.) The best part is the long traverse through Golden Gate Park. I love to run from the Haight to Ocean Beach and back, staying in the park for most of the way. Of course, there are occasional drug dealers stepping in front of me (the other day, I had 11 offers) For the most part, they are harmless. I think of them as speedbumps. Also, I plan to…

The following is an actual (handwritten) sign that hangs on the wall of All You Knead, a Haight-Ashbury restaurant. “Attention, Foreign Travelers:A quick guide to the wacky American custom of TIPPING.20 percent — great tip, great service17 percent, good tip, good service15 percent, fair tip, fair service10 percent: another way of saying to your server, ‘you suck and I hate you.” http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Hoping to see old friends and colleagues at the AWP in New York later this month. I also just found out that I will soon be on assignment, exploring the backwoods of the deep south for a travel piece. I’ll send updates when I get them. If any readers happen to be going to this, please let me know. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

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When I was a kid, if you wore big goofy angular frames like the ones worn by Elvis Costello on his first record, or Oscar Wao, or Piggy from Lord of the Flies, you would get beaten up or stuffed into a Dumpster. Today, these are your only options! I wonder what poor old Piggy would think, to know that he has been reborn as a fashion icon. Today’s trendiest glasses are all awkward, expensive and absolutely enormous, with huge black bug-eyed frames with weird jagged edges. Anyhow, I was at the eyeglass store in Noe Valley yesterday. The salesman tried a bit of divide-and-conquer. He had me try on some really big frames, and when my wife made a sour face, he waited until she was out of earshot and said, “I disagree with her but it looks like she has the say-so.” Tired of the hard-sell, I went…

Haight Ashbury’s pushers should all take elocution lessons. How many times has this happened to you? You’ve been walking down the street, minding your own business, and some guy comes up to you and makes you an offer that you can’t understand. “Hey you, want to buy some murgahblerghohgohablorojegt?” Yesterday, when I was down in the Haight, shopping for paper towels, a pusher approached me at the corner of Haight and Cole and asked if I wanted to buy a small bag of “green-vomit mushrooms.” I’m sure that’s not what he meant but his pronunciation was terrible! Five minutes later, near the corner of Haight and Clayton, a pusher tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted to buy a few ounces of “bagpipe sprouts.” http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

My friend and writing colleague Sam Autman sent me a news story about his favorite restaurant being invaded by cockroaches and serving roadkill to unwitting customers!! I was disgusted. At the same time, I have a pretty strong feeling that many of my favorite greasy hotspots in NYC and other places have shady histories. For example, I’ve always had a strange feeling about my favorite roasted chicken place on the west side. They are nothing but kind to me, but the waiters seem tough. I have a feeling that if I ever complained about the food or caused a scene, no one would ever hear from me again. Long ago, I frequented a Connecticut sushi restaurant that (allegedly) had a double life as a bookie joint. It was right at the height of the designer sake craze. In a snippy and entitled voice, I asked the hulking bartender, “What kinds…

This morning, I had a Phillip K. Dick moment when I (in a rare moment of self-involvement) was surfing the Internet and stumbled upon an advertisement for a used (!) copy of my as-yet-nonexistent, soon-to-be published book. The Internet site assured me that there was “one used copy available” and that I could get it in a week or so — even though the book won’t be published for five months!!! I wondered to myself, “how can there be a used copy of a document that doesn’t exist? And what would happen if I whipped out my credit card and pressed the ‘order’ button? If I did such a thing, what would the postman deliver? I had a vision of opening up a large manila envelope and having an amorphous Rosemary’s Baby bolus of future prose slither out of the envelope and land with a plop on my apartment floor….