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The packable, drop-dead little black dress that goes in a stuffsack (see gallery for more revealing shots) - maybe I'd have sold more books if I'd worn it?
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Movie Clip: Alameda Talk/SF shenanigans (2.5 Mb)
If the Handsomest Man in Cuba ever needed to call Rent-a-Crowd it was on the night of the Presidential Debate.
No-one would argue that this battle of the balderdash was of greater national importance than a slideshow about poor Cubans and folding bicycles - indeed, my attemtps to get even a centavo's worth (1/10 of a peso) of media attention proved futile - I tried to ighore the fact that Alameda's latest Porta-Potty installation got more column inches than I.
Still, a couple of handfuls of adventurous folk - maybe those without a TV set - turned up. That is, those who could find the venue.
Alameda Free Library Director and Pocket Rocket Pro Petite owner Susan Hardie had envisaged a large turnout, unaware that the Debate would be scheduled for precisely that day. She'd booked the cavernous Albert H Dewitt Officer's Club on Alameda Point, part of a disused military base and as far flung as you can get in Alameda.
New World Tourist owner Ben Piper picked me up from the Berkeley BART stop with his dad, who in his 80's, walks with a cane but rides like a cyclist possessed. Ah, thank the low step over height of the Bike Friday, I tell people who say 'I can't get me leg over a normal bike.' We entered a large ballroom with chandeliers and hushed ambience, almost expecting a 21-gun salute to resound throughout the corridors.
Several Asian Americans showed up to occupy the front row - perhaps thinking I was a candidate for the Chinatown sector. It is always easy for me to talk to an audience with at least one Asian, as I can relate my background to them and usually get knowing nods of agreement. I tell them that being ABC (Australian Born Chinese) is a recipe for cultural schizophrenia - the 'study hard, play not, become a doctor' of my Chinese ethnicity is at severe odds with the more laid back, 'she'll be right, mate' ethos of the land Down Under. (The American Born Chinese is a better coalescing of the two cultures - both camps are all about 'work hard, get a good job, be too busy too look up from your DayRunner). All this makes me, I explain, a failed hippie - that is, I seek to overachieve on a daily basis, but a part of me just couldn't be bothered.
Susan had ordered a box of 50 copies of the book via Waldenbooks, but just 5 walked out the door and even that was a miracle. I usually wear my drop-dead black stuffsack dress, but this time I just wore my unromantic cyclist's uniform and whipped the dress out of the sack in my 'Travel Light but Look The Part' segment.
Ben Piper lent me his old Samsonite suitcase trailer to spare me taking it on BART - even though as you saw in my Davis Report it was easy.
We had a quorum of 5 Bike Friday owners including Ben and Senior Piper, Susan Hardie, Patrick Wheeler, moi, and someone else whose name escapes me...
However, Ben, I have to repeat that despite the long lines for their pizza of the day outside the Cheeseboard in Berkeley, I am afraid that Bene in Eugene just edges it out (I don't believe it - Ben).
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LOITERING IN SF
A free day in SF. Feeling the occasional twinge of abandonment after the abrupt demise of my relationship in Eugene 4 months ago, I checked the plethora of responses I got from my Craigslist.com posting , deleted the ones that were cut-paste 'I'm 6'1, blue eyes and drive a BMW' and somesuch and focused on the ones that said 'yo traveler! Come and hang out!'.
Robert from the Dreaming Room @ 245 Columbus kindly spent a few hours with me, showing me his collection of centuries old artifacts that the likes of Nic Cage and David Bowie regularly peruse and drop a few bank vaults for.
Checkout the gallery and movie, where you'll see ancient headhunting skulls (need a new mojo for your handlebars to scare off the SUV's?), fertiliy statues and a giant alter made by a deceased artist which looked like Chichen-Itza meets Bollywood meets a truckload of grouting cement.
The piece has since been bequeathed to the Alameda Museum, I believe, but you can gloat over it here until Robert works out how to get it out of his shop without a helicopter.
We ate fast-dim-sum at a local eatery where a dozen plump steamed har gaos, sui mais and char siew bows (not the correct Chinese spelling but close) and a soy milk each came to $5.30. IN SAN FRANCISCO! Where the rent is $1400 for a 1 bedroom box! If you can just find a nice place to be homeless there, you can eat like a pharoah.
Then we took in SF MOMA, where I filmed some stylish consumer items in the gallery shop - like a camera that takes stop motion shots with its 4 lenses, a vase made out of a zip loc bag without the zip loc, and more...
I tried to line up a presentation at City Lights books and if I do not get that familiar look of 'oh, is this a self published book?' down the nose I might be lucky. Funny how some folks struggle to be 'independent' yet shun others who are trying to do same, supporting only large corporations...
Now, time to pack for LA!
Lynette Chiang, lynchiang at yahoo dot com
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For more information, follow this link http://www.galfromdownunder.com/cuba.