well, hello there officer

Saturday night, my friend Dave celebrated his 30th birthday. Barbara and Scott made paper Dave faces on a stick; a concept that was not new to me but had so much more entertainment potential than I ever could have dreamed.




After a dinner of reasonably priced, passable Italian food on the patio at Bocce in North Beach, we met up with my friend Jason's devil-themed going-away party at the Buddha Bar in China Town; a musty hole-in-the-wall bar on the corner of Grant and Washington, next to dim sum places and schlocky souvenier shops, run by a crazy Chinese binge-drinker who takes cigarette breaks instead of orders when the mood strikes.

"When they said cheesy soft rock, I'm thinking like Culture Club or Madonna. This is not what I was at all expecting." - Johnny

After an hour or so of molesting Dave's paper faces at Buddha, Angela, Jen, Mattia and his friend Johnny and I split for Japancake, a party thrown by some fools from Pancake Playhouse, the Burning Man camp that whips up pancakes and churns out the cheesiest of soft rock hits in the morning both on and off the playa. When the breaks and progressive house stopped at 3 AM, the smell of fresh Krusteaz permeated the air and "Angel of the Morning" emanated softly from the speaker stacks. I slow-danced with my friend John, keeping the junior-high-dance requisite 12-inch distance between our groins and shiftily glancing around the room. Then, Whitesnake. I rolled around on the floor like Tawny Kitaen on the hood of the car in the "Here I Go Again" video.





*****

Two weekends ago I went to a renegade party on a hillside on public land in the center of San Francisco. To avoid arousing suspicion, we shuttle to the location on a bus with blacked-out windows, wear no glowy or flashy things and have folks on standby ready to pass on the "cut the record" signal to the DJ should any vehicles appear on the road below. There are several close calls and false alarms before the plug is finally pulled.

As the officer ascends the hill with his flashlight, most of the 150 of us duck to the ground and fall silent, convinced if we're quiet enough and hide, he'll go away. Some scramble into the trees. The officer comes up over the edge of our makeshift dancefloor, pans his light across our squinting faces.

"Whoa. My God. Oh my God." he mutters.
"Surprise!" someone (I think maybe me?) screams.
"Happy birthday!" someone else shouts.

We begin a united chorus of "Happy Birthday" as the officer stands there, dumbfounded. Mouth open. He laughs. We laugh. Party over.