The Last Days of Hedonism, Part Two

This second part is in honor of Tyler McWilliams, who today set out with Miss Mausner on a journey across the country and the ocean. May his spirit travel farther…

Friday, July 3, Continued

Chad makes a serious offer to have me try the mushrooms but I’m not too sure, remembering Kat’s warning, and I’m more concerned with a girl in a green coat sitting nearby who caught my eye before and I thought she left but she really didn’t. Adam and Kate’s meditation on drugs and the creative process turns into a long debate (how typical for us) on how to get back to our cars, which disintegrates into us talking in fake accents and Adam pestering Kate for a Dostoyevsky summary where she finally snaps “I’m on page 2, you dipshit!” Mike takes charge, still lucid despite plenty of Mickey’s, and leads us out of the park, though not before a man named Don aka Mowgli thanks us for watching his stuff while on a jaunt elsewhere. He offers to give us some cinnamon buns and I tell him if he wants to thank us, he should give them to the homeless. He likes my style. The beer does a number on my stomach, I get nervous about being hungry after two days without proper exercise, and Mike notices my temporary depression, sagely saying that I need to think of food as fuel, not fat, and it’s hard not to see my parents in the mirror but I need to try. I feel really alright, and we share how happy we are to be here, together, now, all of us. At Philz, Liz gives us directions and I change a five for the bus but Mike points out we can just walk down Castro back to Haight so we do and it’s lovely with an old movie theatre and plenty of nice restaurants, including one called Harvey. We start thinking about Michael Jackson and an all-around semi-drunk dance up the hills to the tune of “Billie Jean” takes place. Which turns to “Funeral for a Friend” and “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” as we reach our car. Chad (cold), Kate (not amused), and Adam (still the same) keep going to their car and Tyler, Mike, Matt and I find it and lead the way down Masonic, a small caravan, with us singing “Goodbye Stranger” and toasting to an awesome night ahead. Our drive takes us to the hilltops with views you will never have in any other major American city, Mike still driving after two days and plenty of alcohol and as we go down one steep hill he yells “What if my breaks fail right now? We’re fucked!” But everywhere is great and we love it. Then we arrive at Liz’s house, which is on a certain street a few blocks away from a church used in a certain movie I watched many times as a boy. There are two parking spaces right I nfront of her house with no restrictions until Monday morning! Mike needs an extra inch, asks the man in the BMW ahead of us if he could move up a bit, learns said man is the owner of a thriving hat company he interviewed for the travel website, man acquiesces gracefully. Tyler smokes on the front steps while we wait for the others and a random couple asks when Liz gets off work. At the others’ arrival in Kate’s new rent-a-car, we find a six-bedroom house with room for all of us…it looks like Beth and Andrew’s place, but a touch smaller, though no less cozy and comfortable. Chad and I swipe corn muffins, take a look from the rooftop view, and then I take a shower for the first time since Wednesday morning and shave for the first time since yesterday before we left and just like in Rome eight years ago (damn), there is nothing so revitalizing for a man. I wash my hair twice because it feels so good. We’re all agreeing how sweet Liz is when she walks through her door with a cold case of Corona. Adam, Kate, and Chad all want naps, so the Big Sur contingent and our hostess retire with our beers to the bed-sitting room, a beautiful spot with wicker furniture and a record player with plenty of acoustic rock music on vinyl. I very graciously thank Liz again, then, as I like to do with all my newfound acquaintances, ask for a bit of her background. Turns out she has a degree in classical archaeology but, like me, found a new passion: sustainable food. She is a gourmand who co-manages a farmer’s market and wants to do more, so I, marveling at this bit of serendipity, offer to give her information to Beth at the slow food company. (Which I do once the hustle and bustle of moving is over.) Then Liz starts talking about Alex, at whose elaborate house in Westwood I participated in a booze-fueled jam session shortly after Big Pink was established. Liz, Alex, and Matt have an unstable history involving a certain Joey who died in December. I know nothing about that and feel it’s not my business, and Matt tells Liz about his recent production work and his apartment in Silver Lake, all of which I know, so I fade away to the sounds of Teaser and the Firecat, and eventually Matt and I sing along. Tyler wants to have a few drinks but thinks we need some food, so we wake up Adam and Kate and Chad refuses to climb out of Liz’s bed but she coaxes him out by playing a very rough version of “Amazing Grace” on harmonica. San Francisco is cold at night even in July so I’m wearing undershirt T-shirt hoodie and pullover jacket to keep warm. Liz reveals more of her gourmand side, and when she discovers Adam is a breakfast connoisseur, she writes down two restaurants we have to go to on a napkin. Through the darkness and streetlights, we arrive at where we’d been trying to go before, the actual Mission district with neon and ethnic food establishments everywhere, all of it intriguing. Her insistence we get Mexican food at first disappoints, but I know that her expertise will not lead us to anywhere bad. So we end up at an unprepossessing place whose name I can’t remember, she says she loves going there when she’s drunk and needs to sober up, I find out the next day that it’s rated one of the best Mexican spots in the city. For five dollars I get a veggie burrito with chips and it’s perfect, incredibly spicy, but spicy in a way where I don’t mind! Marvel! Tyler and Mike declare their el pastors the filet mignons of their kind, Matt says something really, REALLY CLEVER but it’s gone the way of that restaurant’s name. Then we go to El Rio, namechecked by Vetiver and Devendra Banhart (I don’t care if I didn’t spell that right.). It’s a beautiful bar with pool tables, old-school air hockey, a great, great, magical outdoor patio with strung up lights and heaters everywhere, just not enough seats. Our order is a combination of Pabst, Guinness, Johnny Walker Black, and for me, a Hendrick’s and tonic for ONLY $6.50 and later a Diet Coke with lime I get for free, the bartender saying it’s on the house because it’s cheap enough to be nothing, but I think it’s because I could swear he called me ma’am when I went to order it. Anyway, like Toby Keith, I love this bar. There’s no seats so I squat down (which I hate) next to Chad who’s having a deep conversation with Liz but subconsciously picks up on my discomfort and works me in. Liz is stunned it’s been almost six years since I met Mike, is a bit stunning. We all agree that we need benchmarks in life and motivation, but Liz and Matt hate Chicago and could never find them there. Personal fulfillment is definitely the key to this equation. When the conversation returns to Alex and Joey aka not my business, I depart with Adam and Kate to fetch more booze, we talk music, and Tyler professes a love for San Francisco after twelve hours knee-deep in it. At one point I have to go to the bathroom, there’s only one and I need to shit so I offer to let the woman behind me go ahead but she insists I go and while I’m in there I hear annoyed little snaps and people laughing. I need to get my head really on straight after that so I walk back to the house with Chad when we thankfully decide to head home. And I get pulled into one of the Chad Eaton conversations I have come to cherish and savor every moment of this one since it’s one of the last. Topic? Hypocrisy in religion, as Chad feels people don’t practice what they preach. I agree and point out that those who do often get killed for it, Jesus Christ and Malcolm X being my prime examples. Chad takes exception to both cases, his arguments based in his unbelief in God (the former) and a cynical view of humanity (the latter). As always, I can’t win, but God, do I love to hear him talk. Matt leaves—reluctantly—and Liz divvies up the rooms, with my humble self getting Christine’s room, and some sweet, sweet golden raspberries. Judging by my impression of her room and its objects, Christine is very nice but very messy (de rigeur here it seems), her floor and couch littered with clothes, photographs, high school AND college graduation mementos, shoes, a hair dryer, a very nice multi-colored bong. Grabbing a before-bed hit of weed, I feel compelled to say how lucky we all are to an agreeing Tyler. Changing into my pajamas, I descend to use the bathroom before bed and run into the only other proper housemate here, Amanda, a short blonde who grabs a Corona right away. I clean up, tramp up, set my alarm just in case, and fall asleep at 1:07, a lucky man who had plenty of good times and knows there’s more to come…and mushrooms actually look like mushrooms!