there might be birds in my exhaust pipes

i returned from a five day elope from the bay area to find such an amalgamation of issues, events and people that have altered the Vancouver I left behind. From friends in hospitals, to riot protests, to a giant tent city across from save-on-meats, to a continuous supply of red wearing mobsters, to an abundant supply of police, drunks, and celebrities.

Last night I hopped on my bicycle and took to the streets to see what I have been missing.

It was like all the sport bars expelled themselves out into the streets. Huge televisions, flashing lights, congregations of drunks with lick on maple leaf tattoos on their forheads, hooting and hollering, cross eyed and delirious staggering into the streets, missing the sidewalk and miniskirts with no center of gravity going every-which-way, buses packed full of yelling faces sticking out of the windows, bodies sprawled out making cement angels in-between mcdonalds rubbish and beercans, horrible computer generated rhythms pulsing a fascist beat, terrified faced moms from suburbia sheltering their soon to bees. Larysa and I went to 33 West Hastings to see a "Light Bar" that was hosted by a group called Instant Coffee, to find they have been shut down by the police for serving beer without a license.
So then I headed home, and when I got to main and hastings, everything was actually peaceful. In comparison to the west end, downtown, yaletown, and the rest of the city, the DTES, was serene, quiet, organized, clean, and seemed like a community. It was beautiful.

in San Francisco I learned that drunk at 8am middle-aged, wheelchaired, pink-beehived, soother-sucking, dark-skinned homeless people always have a story to tell...

san francisco is a strange paradise/biosphere made of eccentrics that almost melt in with the palm trees, succulents, and large shedding trees, Hispanics who run strange stores that sell anything from corn tortillas, pickled pig snouts to prayer candles and amazing burritos, the hipsters that tear down the streets on their bicycles drunk buying records and smoking cigarettes, and the tourists that like anywhere else stick out as seeming to always be lost. It is an unearthly place.

the SFMOMA blew my mind. I saw authentic prints of my top favorite photographers.

going to riverview mental institute today. by choice.