“How come there ain’t no money here? Hmm! Whitey’s on the Moon…” -Gil Scott-Heron

A fun game I like to play with my friends is called "This is happening."

The point of the game is simple: to try and stump everyone by knowing something about current events that nobody else knows.

The game starts when somebody says something that is happening right now and then says, "This is real. This is happening."

For example someone might say, "Human embryos are being baked into pies in Scotland and served to rich people. This is real. This is happening."

(A hypothetical example.)

Then if someone else is familiar with the story, that person says, "I heard that, too" then that person has to provide some additional, verifiable tid-bit certifying their au fait.

Like, "Embryo pie goes well with sake they say."

(Another hypothetical example.)

My friends at work and I have been playing this game, formally or informally, on an ongoing basis for about a year, trying in vain to come up with some story that hasn't made it onto the rest of our radar yet.

Last night we had a winner.

The winner's name: Jo Boyer.

Jo's winning entry:

"America is going to bomb the moon next month. This is real. This is happening."

Nobody stepped up with an "I heard that, too." We all just stood there like a bunch of moon imbeciles.

In the past, I personally have easily and with extreme prejudice struck down far more trivial and way less interesting entries--stories from the foreign press or community newspapers that should have easily claimed victory were it not for my relentless commitment to, shall I say, information gathering.

Missing this one set some of us to wondering if maybe we're slipping.

Congratulations Jo, and thank you for making us aware of something we probably should have already known about. And for the rest of you out there who somehow missed this story too, let me help you catch-up:

Original Story
Planning the Assalut: Why Bomb the Moon?
Protest Site (one of many)

In the words of The Pretenders, "We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars."

The Story of My Life

Given three days off in a row, Audrey and I found three different ways this week to enjoy the Golden Gate Bridge, in order to see as much of heaven as we could on earth.

Day One, East of the Bridge: Treasure Island

In the bay between San Francisco and Oakland lies a man-made island, constructed in 1937 by the Army Corps of Engineers.

This is Treasure Island, World War II departure point for American soldiers embarking on their journey to fight the Japanese Empire, and home of the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, ironically titled "Pacific Unity."

Currently covered in dilapidated, toxic, asbestos-filled naval buildings, and gradually sinking into the bay, this oddity of oddities is virtually abandoned today except for the Treasure Island Bar and Grill (home of the best garlic fries in San Francisco), plus a couple of movie companies who lease the abandoned airplane hangars, and a small community of impoverished families housed in makeshift barracks on the north end of the island.

The Island Bay Homes Community Housing Project offers not only a roof over our less fortunate neighbors' heads, but unrestricted views of the San Francisco skyline, including both bridges, the Bay and the Golden Gate, the construction of which the World's Fair was intended to celebrate.

This photo from the 1930s shows treasure Island being constructed (foreground) simultaneously along with the Bay Bridge.


By 1939, the year the Pacific Unity fair opened, Japan had been at war with china for eight years and out of the League of Nations for six. During the course of the fair, two participating European countries had to close their booths as their real-world borders were being overrun by Nazi forces.

Day Two, West of the Bridge: Baker Beach

Just west of the Golden Gate Bridge lies Baker Beach, famous for its views, both of the bridge and of the clothing optional sunbathers. (Eli and Audrey were a little shy their first time at a nude beach.)


Looming above Baker Beach is the affluent neighborhood of Sea Cliff, where mansions rise above cliffs of Serpentine, California's State Rock, seen here being dominated by Audrey.


Day Three, Over the Bridge: American Normandy

Right across the Golden Gate Bridge lies miles of vineyards and local farms, appropriately dubbed the American Normandy for its landscape, its coastline and of course for its cheese.

It is here among the idyllic pasteurs, happy cows and swaying palm trees that the current world financial crisis has manifested its positive side: The best use for an abandoned bank building ever.


Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, whose home base is situated in the Ozark hills near Mansfield, Missouri, is the world's largest heirloom seed project. They opened their second location, the Heirloom Seed Bank, two months ago in the town of Petaluma, 20 minutes north of San Francisco.

As you may already know, massive food conglomerates have been endeavoring for years to genetically modify food crops so their seeds will not reproduce, forcing farmers and consumers to buy their homogenized produce.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has stated the goal of turning all of Sonoma County into an heirloom seed zone, where every plant grown in this region is sustainable, unique and most importantly non-GM.

We picked up some American huckleberry seeds, Italian artichoke seeds and Mexican pepper seeds. The world is in our garden again.

While in Petaluma (previously also home to our friend Sarah, owner of AV Framing back in Fountain Square), I also managed to fall down for no reason for the second time since we moved to California. This time I only scraped my hands.

After coffee at a waterfront bistro, we took a short drive from Petaluma to the Cowgirl Creamery, home of some of our favorite local cheeses. We picked up a quarter pound of "San Andreas," an unpasteurized, vegetarian rennet sheep's cheese to enjoy with the bottle of Sorrentino Gragnana Audrey bought from work and made the journey through the coastal farmland of Pt. Reyes to the famous light house, where wild deer keep watch over the Lighthouse Watcher's apartment.

Three days, three ways to take advantage of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Please enjoy this happy slideshow of our recent adventures, if you like happiness.

Donut Picnics with my Wife

The first time in our love affair Audrey and I were on the same work schedule, I was waiting tables at Mezza Luna in Broad Ripple spending many a gun-shy hour staring longingly across the bushes at Audrey bartending next door at La Jolla.

I thought she was too young for me. Too adventurous for me. Way too pretty for me.

I still think I'm right about the third part.

The second time it happened was in Chicago. I was bartending at the Roxy Cafe in Evanston when Audrey quit her job as a flight attendant and started working as a server at Club Lucky in Bucktown.

Precious daylight hours together were suddenly bestowed upon us in the Windy City to invent a terrific romantic pastime: Donut picnics.

Donut picnics by the lake shore. Donut picnics in the park. Donut picnics at the museum. Donut picnics on the L.

Now that Audrey is back in the restaurant biz once again, we happily share the same schedule a third time, a first since we moved to California.

Donut picnic revival.

We finally have time together to get around to trying those seven thousand breakfast places we've been wanting to try. And to look for that herd of wild billy goats that supposedly lives near Glen Park. And to make that video we've been wanting to make for our friends so they would know what to do if they come and visit us for a week but we end up having to work one of the days...

Claudette's Greatest Hits

The world throws itself at our feet in a heap of art and love.

San Francisco is a matchmaker. Connections made so far: Terra Haywood, Brian Ransom and Anya Prinz, two bartenders and a server at Ramblas Tapas where I work, who became my team mates for the 2009 San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project.

In one weekend last month the four of us managed to write, shoot and edit a film together (starring yours truly as the Hit Man).

With narration composed and read by D.D. Porush and music by Yes Alexander with Slow Burning Lights, it is my pleasure to present to you our film, "Claudette's Greatist Hits."