Dan White

Well, it’s that time of year again. The Christmas spirit has descended on the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco. The free television — donated by some generous soul — still sits on the street corner, waiting for adoption. With every passing day, someone takes time out of his or her busy schedule to kick over the television set, or scrape it with a sharp object. Now that the holidays are upon us, people are slowing down the pace, engaging in witty repartee, and excusing themselves from the pesky burdens of every day life, such as bothering to clean up after their dogs. Just the other day, I saw a hale fellow and a young woman sharing a laugh as their waiting dogs relieved themselves copiously on the sidewalk. Four days later, the souvenir of their conversation remains at the corner of Waller and Masonic, just waiting for other people…

Yesterday, I surprised my wife by volunteering to do the dishes.“Can I watch?” she said. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

You won’t believe this. Yesterday, I went into a San Francisco spectacles store, hoping to buy a new pair of eyeglasses. I was trying to pay attention to all the fashionable oversized glasses, with huge black nerdy rims, but found it very hard to concentrate. Why? Because there was a DJ spinning and scratching records right in the middle of the store! There I was, squinting at the merchandise, looking at price tags, and trying very hard to ignore the WACKA WACKA WOCKA WOOKA WOCKA racket coming from the speakers, and the scratching, and the 20-something DJ wearing earphones and grooving to himself. I asked Amy why anyone in his or her right mind would put a DJ in the middle of an eyeglass emporium. “It’s the hipsters,” she said. “They want eyeglasses to be a ‘hip’ experience.” Now I understand. They’re trying to make medical problems funky, social, countercultural,…

Someone left a battered TV on the sidewalk near my house this morning. The electrical cord has been snipped. A fretwork of cracks extends across the casement. Dust covers the exterior. A dog has relieved itself on the side of television. The whole thing looks like someone either stomped on the top of it or smacked it with a baseball bat. And, to top it all off, someone left a yellow Post-It on the back of the TV set with the words: “FREE!! REALLY WORKS!!” I didn’t want to let this overwhelming act of generosity to go unheralded. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Every once in a while, I like to check in on the other Dan Whites of this world and highlight their strange behavior. There are many of us out there (hundreds!) Most of us Dan Whites are peculiar but harmless — with the exception of that one truly terrible “Dan White” that will never be mentioned in this blog. My favorite recent “Dan White” item comes from a BBC news website, which mentioned a nonprotester named “Dan White” (no relation) who organized an undemonstration about nothing in particular. He held a a cardboard placard signifying nothing, with no message of any kind. His utter purposelessness fuddled the cops. They didn’t know quite what to do with him. Did Mr. White need a non-protest permit to hold his un-demonstration? When asked what he was doing, Mr. White refused to say. The police gave up and left him alone. According to an…

Why are there so many crepe places in this neighborhood? How come you never see anyone eating at any of those aforementioned crepe places? What’s up with all the enormous puppies on hemp leashes? How come there are two “People’s” coffee shops — and they are right next door to each other? Why does the smaller organic food store near Clayton have only one employee — and he seems to be there, and wide awake, 24 hours a day, whenever you pop into the store? Why does our only local taqueria put peas in their burritos? http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Right now I am in the middle of doing the final grades for my writing students — but I am running into a slight bureaucractic glitch. The English department sent me a list of student names next to their essay grades. Most of the names are clearly recognizable. However, some of the names are a little strange, and I can’t figure out if they correspond to actual students or if they are imaginary people who exist only in another realm. Take, for example, the mysterious Crajantan Pooh. Crajantan Pooh did quite well on the University Essay. In fact, he scored well above the median. On the down side, I have never had a student named “Pooh” here or anywhere else. I put Mr. Pooh’s name into a worldwide Google search and nothing came up, not even when I narrowed the search to “Hangers-On of Christopher Robin,” “Tigger Has a Posse”…

One of the student essays included a reference to “Jesus — the renowned religious figure.” Usually, I don’t see a clarifying statement used in that kind of situation. It’s like saying “Buddha — famous peaceful entity” or “God — a world-famous overwhelming presence that controls everything.” I guess the student was afraid that the graders might mix him up with “The Jesus” character from “The Big Lebowski.” http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Avoid these sentence constructions when writing political manifestos: “The cessation of both opposing directions leads to the absence of the very substance that brought this country to life.” “It is frightening to think of the world coming to such a frigid end!” “The anonymous article, written by William Bennett …” “Such thinly conceived faiths shed much war onto any attempt at cival uniformity.” “A force overtly apparent …” “Terrorists taking over the nation? Or our nation being reduced to the perplexity of complex capitalist conformity? Neither option is particularly amusing.” “What it boils down to is: this is a war between values (America) and a nation of terrorists (Iraq.) That is not a value judgment.” http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I laughed out loud at the new Nintendo commercial, showing a bunch of freshly scrubbed kids sitting under a sunny tree and strumming along to — of all things — “Santeria” by Sublime. The kids are all smiles as they sing, “I don’t practice Santeria, I aint got no crystal ball, I had a million dollars,” etc. Then the kids skip directly to the chorus — conveniently eliminating the lines about popping a cap in Sancho and slapping her down. Hmmm. Is Nintendo advocating that the youth of America perform “the clean version” of every pop song in public from now on? I’m looking forward to Nintendo commercials featuring the squeaky-clean versions of songs by the Sex Pistols, NWA and Cannibal Corpse. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default