Adventure - Marty
Description: To go to the Fillmore Jazz Festival on Saturday, perhaps dance, maybe jazz, and try not to get trampled by wild emu.
(Marty's Report):
As you might guess by just the fact of me writing this, we did survive the emu. Barely. But life is full of these near misses, so I won't bore you with the details.
What we did, you see, was to attend the Jazz Festival held outdoors on Fillmore, something that's been staged for the last 24 years. Eight blocks, from about Geary north to Jackson or so, is full of performance stages and meat stands and craft stands. And thousands of people, sweating under the mid-day sun, eating meat and waffle cones, but mostly drinking beer.
There was a LOT of grilling meat, of various species. Well, I suppose meat isn't a species. It's what happens when a species is, well, simplified to its basic muscular structure, usually to eat. I've heard of meat artists, but there were none at the Fair. And even the cooks would have been hard pressed to call themselves artists of meat. They were more like culinary undertakers: not really washing or giving meaningful rites to the deceased, only taking their carcasses and conveying them with a modicum of decorum into the waiting holes of their patrons.
Now, I'm usually a pretty tolerant vegetarian, accepting the choices and of my fellows with sometimes respect, often tolerance, only occasionally scorn and derision these days, usually when someone plays "taunt the vegetarian." But when Heather got a meat-object-on-a-stick, I had to tell her to stand downwind, lest I, as the kids say, hurl.
The crafts were about on par with the "food": overprice, under loved, and ill thought out. Nothing really struck me. I've seen some pretty amazing craft shows, but this was not one of them. Which was curious, given where we live. It felt more like K St. Mall in Sacramento: a place where artisans display their wares for the farmers and tractor salesmen to come on weekend.
The jazz, which I'd expected to maybe look like the Blues Festival in Sacramento--i.e., a lot of choices strewn around interesting venues--turned out to be about 4 bands for the 8 blocks, one of which was a reggae-roots band with Marley-esque political songs, and the others were jazz bands formed of youngsters without a lot of pizazz. We watched for a while a 9 piece band where only two members could have been over 30. The leader of the band, the pianist and songwriter, was no more than 28.
I've always thought of jazz as a seasoned person's music, whereas rock-n-roll was fully compatible with the needs of adolescents. And you could feel the youngness in these young men's playing. Not technically bad at all, just unseasoned.
We stayed maybe two hours, at the end of which we had one of those strange street meetings, in this case of two co-workers and their friends. Not much to say to each other, just conveying some friendliness and then moving on. Which was good as two hours in such conditions starts making me melt on the insides.
One nice discovery was a little cafe run by Arabic speaking folk, who made us coffee and gave perhaps a pre-glimpse into coming experiences in Cairo. There was a very nice feeling to the place, friendly but not saccharine as with some shops.
Last stop before going home was a quick trip to Guitar Center, where we picked up some heavy picks for the bass.
(Heather's Report):
My husband lies.
No, really.
I have to put up with his crazy vegetarian talk all the time. The whole "oh, eating some desiccating slab of dead carcass, are you?". Respect for his fellows? Really. Show me!! He's full of snark, don't believe his nattering about being a tolerant vegetarian. For the most part.
Besides, isn't he murdering hapless fruits and vegetables all the time?
I wasn't so enamored of the festival myself. It seemed an opportunity in which many humans seem to love to take advantage of: drinking and cavorting in the streets. Mostly the drinking part. I don't mind people drinking, it's just the behaving part that comes later. Especially the later after several beers.
Plus for some reason, with all that swilling of said beverage, you can smell it in the air. If Marty has issues with my Meat-On-A-Stick, I have issues with the lingering smell of poor quality beer floating about on the wind, plus that stale smell of alcohol inside someone's body and pouring out through evil exhalations. Yuck.
Okay, now I'm taking on Marty's Snark Fest Role. Where Pride, including alcohol (and very likely other substances) is completely tolerable in this realm, because it's more about the wonderful, crazy, fabulous energy that's going on, these sorts of street fairs are not so much. There didn't seem to be a lot behind this one other than the alcohol and meat.
Well, I did enjoy the meat. I had a big ole slab 'o dead animal on a stick with some sort of tasty sauce and I got all messy. I got to roll my eyes at my husband at his flailing anti-meat antics. That's always fun.
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