Living in a 7' x 9' tent on a roof in San Francisco
About living in a tent, on a roof, in San Francisco's Mission District, and a misadventure in Crested Butte, Colorado. What's up friends of SHAKE YOUR PEACE! This is my first blog post ever - I hope you dig it. Since mid-December I've been living up on the roof of my house in a 7' x 9' summer tent. It's been totally amazing, and not just amazing in a "looks-like-base-camp-on-Everest" kind of way, or the "feel like an anthropologist on a wilderness expedition of San Francisco every night" kind of way, but even amazing in a "it's only $100 a month rent so even if you hate tents you'd love this" kind of way. The most prissy folks I've met out here who start scrunching up their faces when I've told them I'm living in a tent suddenly light up when I get to that part. At this point I'd personally pay full price to live in this tent I like it so much! Maybe I'm a little too pleased with myself; I'm actually living in the little magical fort I'd be picturing as a kid when I'd be busy assembling blankets and cushions on the living room floor... I hope there's not some Icarus kind of lesson coming soon - there's no ocean I'd fall in, just the shopping cart filled with plastic bottles that the dude who smells like the freeway pushes around. But he's my homie anyways so that'd be fine. In fact he calls me "Boo," for real. "Don't do the Vodka Boo. I did it and it's no good man. I do like the beer though. The beer's nice. Do you want a beer Boo?"
I don't think I ever want to live in a house again... I haven't modified it too much since I got it - just put a tarp over the roof to keep the rain out, and I ran an extension cord out the bathroom window and through my front door (zippers baby) so I could have electricity. In fact, I'm writing this here blog from inside the glowing dome.
I live in the Mission District of San Francisco. It's a very culturally vibrant neighborhood but honestly, it's the fucking ghetto. People get shot here all the time and I sometimes I hear it, then hear about who it was that got shot the next morning when homies from the block come over to visit my housemates. Still, the folks I live with in The Pink Palace, as the musicians collective I've been living on top of is known, are RAD. We're like a living museum of poor ethnic musician guys: from Puerto Rico, Peru, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Philippines. The garage has been converted into a practice space so there's congas and chekere's laying around next to guitars and the washing machines. People from the neighborhood come over all the time and "work out" as Quique the conga player calls it. I've worked out with him a few times but it's sort of like having a thumb wrestle with Chuck Norris - my hands are cracked and bleeding and he's just warming up. His hands are like baseball mitts, and he could catch the beat with those fuckers from freaking 79,000 miles away. El Maestro. He could probably kick Chuck Norris' ass, with sheer brainpower alone.
I shouldn't talk too much shit about the Mission either. Despite the violence, it s pretty much my favorite neighborhood in San Francisco for real, and I feel really really lucky to have the tent set up going. This is the view of the tent from our neighbor "G's" house. That's Potrero Hill to the right, and way off in the distance to the left is the skyline of downtown SF:
None of the neighbors have complained yet, so that's great. There was almost an incident the night we had a pelting rain storm and 70mph winds and my tarp was snapping and flapping like a snare drum ensemble practicing. But I went out with my duct tape and just started cinching down every inch of excess flappiness. Pretty soon it got down to just about one drummer. Going to sleep was tough - the walls of the tent kept heaving in and out like it was going through seizures. I imagined waking up on the front lawn of my house in Utah, surrounded by a pile of wet clothes and papers and busted tent mess...that wouldn't be so bad. Or maybe I'd wake up in China...where they'd be making versions of SHAKE YOUR PEACE! for 80% less than I'm making it for. Maybe I'd wake up in Oz... where Dorthy would have giant hairy man legs and a booming baritone busting out of her fabulous red sparkly leotard... wait! That's not Oz! That' s the Castro! And lo, he awoke and found before him the shining city of San Francisco, and it was good. But the cool part about being in Oz is that I can jump in my blue hot air balloon and get taken back to the wilderness at any time baby. This is the hot air balloon from the ground:
It's sort of a half-buried hot air balloon. An emerging balloon. A balloon-rise. Here it is again at night:
This shot reminds me of Crested Butte, Colorado one winter when the town got buried in so much snow that the tops of the trees were no more than round lumps coming out of 13 feet of ground level snow. It was like if you stuck a small piece of broccoli under a huge white linen bed sheet - it was just one seamless flow of soft white with small ripples here and there.
Anyways - the snow made every light, big or small, glow like a yellow christmas light, just like in this picture.
A funny story about that trip though, is that one time in the house we were staying in, all of the bathrooms became occupied at the same time, and I really really had to shit. I couldn't hold it. So I grabbed a chair, dug a path out to the road with it, then ran toward a wall of snow that I knew had an open field underneath it. I dug at the wall of snow until I made a little trail into it. Now it was getting into danger zone. Before I realized I had no toilet paper I'd already hung my ass off one edge of the chair and was squeezing out steamers into the Antarctic landscape. Shortly thereafter I noticed that I hadn't really thought about the fact that you pee when you poo, and was more than amused to find out that I'd just peed all over the inside of my pants, as well as the wooden chair whose top was now turning into an ice-skating rink the size of a 12-inch record. What was even funnier was when I finally did realize that I had no toilet paper. And funnier than that, that these were the only ski pants that I'd brought. And even funnier that I was so supposed to compete in them the next day at the ESPN2 Winter X-Games - which turned out to be the pinnacle of my extreme sports career. Yes, indeed, I was in the Winter X-Games once. First and last time. You might say that career sort of went down the shit hole.... But hey, at least I found that shit hole and filled it that time. Skill ladies and gentleman! I filled the shit hole with skill! One brown steamer on an Arctic expedition signing off.
I don't think I ever want to live in a house again... I haven't modified it too much since I got it - just put a tarp over the roof to keep the rain out, and I ran an extension cord out the bathroom window and through my front door (zippers baby) so I could have electricity. In fact, I'm writing this here blog from inside the glowing dome.
I live in the Mission District of San Francisco. It's a very culturally vibrant neighborhood but honestly, it's the fucking ghetto. People get shot here all the time and I sometimes I hear it, then hear about who it was that got shot the next morning when homies from the block come over to visit my housemates. Still, the folks I live with in The Pink Palace, as the musicians collective I've been living on top of is known, are RAD. We're like a living museum of poor ethnic musician guys: from Puerto Rico, Peru, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Philippines. The garage has been converted into a practice space so there's congas and chekere's laying around next to guitars and the washing machines. People from the neighborhood come over all the time and "work out" as Quique the conga player calls it. I've worked out with him a few times but it's sort of like having a thumb wrestle with Chuck Norris - my hands are cracked and bleeding and he's just warming up. His hands are like baseball mitts, and he could catch the beat with those fuckers from freaking 79,000 miles away. El Maestro. He could probably kick Chuck Norris' ass, with sheer brainpower alone.
I shouldn't talk too much shit about the Mission either. Despite the violence, it s pretty much my favorite neighborhood in San Francisco for real, and I feel really really lucky to have the tent set up going. This is the view of the tent from our neighbor "G's" house. That's Potrero Hill to the right, and way off in the distance to the left is the skyline of downtown SF:
None of the neighbors have complained yet, so that's great. There was almost an incident the night we had a pelting rain storm and 70mph winds and my tarp was snapping and flapping like a snare drum ensemble practicing. But I went out with my duct tape and just started cinching down every inch of excess flappiness. Pretty soon it got down to just about one drummer. Going to sleep was tough - the walls of the tent kept heaving in and out like it was going through seizures. I imagined waking up on the front lawn of my house in Utah, surrounded by a pile of wet clothes and papers and busted tent mess...that wouldn't be so bad. Or maybe I'd wake up in China...where they'd be making versions of SHAKE YOUR PEACE! for 80% less than I'm making it for. Maybe I'd wake up in Oz... where Dorthy would have giant hairy man legs and a booming baritone busting out of her fabulous red sparkly leotard... wait! That's not Oz! That' s the Castro! And lo, he awoke and found before him the shining city of San Francisco, and it was good. But the cool part about being in Oz is that I can jump in my blue hot air balloon and get taken back to the wilderness at any time baby. This is the hot air balloon from the ground:
It's sort of a half-buried hot air balloon. An emerging balloon. A balloon-rise. Here it is again at night:
This shot reminds me of Crested Butte, Colorado one winter when the town got buried in so much snow that the tops of the trees were no more than round lumps coming out of 13 feet of ground level snow. It was like if you stuck a small piece of broccoli under a huge white linen bed sheet - it was just one seamless flow of soft white with small ripples here and there.
Anyways - the snow made every light, big or small, glow like a yellow christmas light, just like in this picture.
A funny story about that trip though, is that one time in the house we were staying in, all of the bathrooms became occupied at the same time, and I really really had to shit. I couldn't hold it. So I grabbed a chair, dug a path out to the road with it, then ran toward a wall of snow that I knew had an open field underneath it. I dug at the wall of snow until I made a little trail into it. Now it was getting into danger zone. Before I realized I had no toilet paper I'd already hung my ass off one edge of the chair and was squeezing out steamers into the Antarctic landscape. Shortly thereafter I noticed that I hadn't really thought about the fact that you pee when you poo, and was more than amused to find out that I'd just peed all over the inside of my pants, as well as the wooden chair whose top was now turning into an ice-skating rink the size of a 12-inch record. What was even funnier was when I finally did realize that I had no toilet paper. And funnier than that, that these were the only ski pants that I'd brought. And even funnier that I was so supposed to compete in them the next day at the ESPN2 Winter X-Games - which turned out to be the pinnacle of my extreme sports career. Yes, indeed, I was in the Winter X-Games once. First and last time. You might say that career sort of went down the shit hole.... But hey, at least I found that shit hole and filled it that time. Skill ladies and gentleman! I filled the shit hole with skill! One brown steamer on an Arctic expedition signing off.
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