MOMS Podcast & Mission Ramble

 

March 26, 2021 MOMS Podcast & Mission Ramble WANT TO RECEIVE BAUMBLOG AS AN EMAIL?  CLICK HERE. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com FIRST, THE PODCAST: Carolyn and I have another string in our bow, which is a podcast: "CRACKPOT CRACK OPEN THE WORLD." Our latest one is MOMS & GRANDMOMS & MOTHER'S DAY FOR PEACE. It is really quite wonderful, and it's easy for me to say that because it's all created by Carolyn and Julia Ward Howe. Do you know how Mother's Day began? Originally, it was a day to bring women together to work for peace, the vision of Julia Ward Howe, who wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." You'll find her powerful proclamation and Carolyn's totally delightful memories of her two grandmothers in this podcast. PLEASE ENJOY. SECOND, THE RAMBLE:

I've taken many Mission Rambles with Tara and her intrepid service dog, the beautiful Nella.

Tara and I met on Thanksgiving in 2015. Here's the story: I had bought two tickets to the Hornblower yacht's Turkey Day buffet and cruise around the bay. My close ex Margo was supposed to fly down from Portland for the holiday. But she phoned me a few days before to say she'd fallen and suffered a concussion. Her doctor forbid her to get on an airplane. What to do... what to do? The internet to the rescue! I put a notice on adyke, a lesbian community list serve, asking if anyone was interested in jspending Thanksgiving sailing around beautiful San Francisco Bay with me. I got two responses from unknown women and chose Tara as the lucky dyke.

It turned out that Tara had moved to the Bay Area two years earlier from Madison, Wisconsin, where she was the ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF A GAY THEATER!!! Talk about having a lot in common! Tara and I had a blast that day. The bay was gorgeous, the company was sublime, and the food was awful. As you can see, the lovely Nella had not yet joined the team. Since that time, Tara and I have become close friends and the five of us (Tara & Nella & Nikki & Loulou & I) have gone on many long walks, particularly around the Mission. Tara notices things that I don't. I really appreciate that. This time we went a very short distance before encountering Lucky Alley.

I find the painting above completely mystifying. "San Francisco 2018-3000" -- Does the artist envision us all evolving into top-hat-wearing shrimp in the 982 years from when he painted this?? And what is Moin Tam? I know that MOUNT Tam is how we locals refer to Mount Tamalpais. But Moin Tam?!? If that is "Tam" obscured by Shrimp of the Future. I'm desperately scrambling for some kind of meaning. Clearly, the bay is full of sharks in 3000. Also, it's kind of a vintage Western motif, with the cow skull up top and the antique font. And why does the crustacean's top hat sport eagle feathers? I am well and truly fermished, That's Yiddish for "confused." I reserve the Yiddish word for occasions when my confusion reaches a transcendent level. An accomplished artist put this on the side of a building, where it could be blotted out at any moment. The world is an awesome thing, I'm sure you will agree. Onward down (up?) Lucky Alley!

I don't in general go for this ghoulish graffity-ish style, but I find this one exceptional.

I just love this garage door. In fact, I think this is my all-time favorite garage door. That's an extreme statement to make. A Mission Rambler sees many magnificent garage doors. But there is something special about this one. It reminds me of no other garage door. It is strange and funny and a little creepy. It is Other.

There are many stereotypically pretty women on Mission walls. But this one seems to me to be truly beautiful -- and set off so well by the barred windows on both sides of her face!

Another beautiful woman to the right. This one is clearly the portrait of a real person. Just a gorgeous painting, and with so much garbage obscuring the bottom part of it. Painful to see. But then, if you're going to get all weepy about garbage obscuring art, don't ramble down a Mission alley! I love how Stephen Curry's body flows up the wall and down into the street. I have been to one Warriors game, in the Oracle Arena. It was my present to my niece Rose for her birthday. She's a fan and at the time was on a women's basketball team. Big spender that I am, I told her, "Buy the most expensive tickets!" She reported back that the most expensive ones were $25,000. I settled for slightly more modest seats ($150), which STILL seemed like a lot of money!

Tara finds playfulness and beauty everywhere. She's a perfect companion for a ramble, because she points out things I miss. She was tickled by the decoration of these pipes and meters on the left. I like it too.

For me, the environment was nightmarish, with all the flashing neon lights and screaming horns. I would never in a million years go to another NBA game. HOWEVER, I am very glad I went, because I saw Stephen Curry do something impossible. Let me see if I can describe it so you can visualize it: He was kind of in the middle of the court facing the opponent's basket. He was closer to their basket than his own. He had the ball. Without looking behind him, he threw the ball backwards over his head in a huge arc, and it went directly into the hands of a teammate who was standing all alone right under the Warriors' basket, where the teammate immediately deposited the ball. How could Curry throw so accurately such a long distance over his head? I mean, it was like he ran over and placed it in his teammate's hands. I still don't get it, but I saw it with my own eyes. Bloggelinis, that's it for today's ramble. I think it's going to take several blogs for me to capture what Tara and I saw that day. I still have some work to do on my TAXES! Yikes! Well, it's been great fun procrastinating, rambling down Lucky Alley with you. Terry