2001-05-30 - 2:40 p.m.
My friends and I have a theory that there�s a Law of Conservation of Thai Restaurants at work in my part of town. Every time one goes out of business, another one opens up less than two blocks away. It�s as if the fabric of the universe is woven out of Pad Thai noodles and if there aren�t enough of them at this one location then the entire space-time continuum will unravel.
Remember when Thai food was rare and exotic? (I suppose it still is in some parts of the U.S., like Nebraska, but who gives a shit about them?) Time was when the only place I knew that served it was the scary-looking Chinese restaurant above the Cathay de Grande, a hardcore punk club in L.A. Then practically overnight a Thai restaurant sprang up on every streetcorner and every damned yuppie in Southern California was crowing about how this or that place made "exquisite" panang curry.
Fuck, I�m old.
But hey, if it means more for me, then bring it on. Last night a friend of mine and I tried out one of the newer Thai places in the neighborhood. The menu is small, but it�s full of amusing broken-English turns of phrase--"This dish will pinch your appetite!"--and specialities with awesome names like Heavenly Chicken and Drunken Noodles. I myself ordered a prawn-and-red-curry dish called--wait for it--The Evil Prince of the Wild Jungle.
He was exquisite.
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So. My weekend.
Other than seeing a No Knife show and watching the Padres lose, it was fairly uneventful. I did, however, go see a cool exhibit at the art museum called "High Societies," which uses art from three different historical periods to draw parallels among three avant-garde subcultures: the "Floating City" of 18th-century Edo (Tokyo), the bohemian society of 1890s Paris and the hippies of Haight-Ashbury. You can actually see how the representations of prostitutes and Kabuki actors in Japanese woodcuts influenced the posters and advertisements Toulouse-Lautrec did for cafes in Montmartre, and how he in turn had a huge effect on the artists who did a lot of the posters and flyers for Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead shows in the �60s. All very interesting ...
At least until the short film at the very end, which featured Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia, Country Joe McDonald, and a bunch of other folks I didn�t recognize pontificating about how They Changed the World and blah-blah-blah. (I admit, however, I always did like Grace Slick--she�s just as sanctimonious as the rest of them, but she strikes me as having a cynicism and clear-eyed sarcasm that her fellow members of the History Begins With Us Generation lack.) I had Spinal Tap�s "Listen to the Flower People" stuck in my head all day after watching that.
I mean, really--the whole point of the exhibit is that avant-gardism is nothing new. Creative, freethinking people have been testing the limits of their own minds and the societies in which they live ever since some caveman ate the wrong mushroom by mistake and started goofing on the colors. It�s good and it�s healthy, but Boomers didn�t invent it--they just either won�t shut up about it or have turned into frightening conservative ideologues and are trying to pretend they were against it all along.
***
Coincidentally, I�m almost done reading a book called Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, by Ann Powers. I picked it up during my recent bookstore binge because it looked like a good followup to Exile�s Return, which I read a few months ago.
For the most part, it is. Many of the characters she writes about bear strong resemblances to people from both my past and present. (Though I personally don�t consider myself a "bohemian," at least not the way Powers defines it--that sort of poverty-as-lifestyle-choice is for people who don�t have to worry about adequate health insurance and accessible housing.) But then in the last chapter she gets all angstly over how to reconcile her happy relationship and high-powered gig at the New York Times with her beloved past as a Bay Area slacker. She�s the punk equivalent of what Douglas Coupland called a "Bleeding Ponytail," meaning an old hippie who pines loudly for his or her pre-sellout days. Yawn.
For chrissake, Ann--just chill out, go smoke a bowl and make love to your husband already. So long as you didn�t vote for George W. (or Ralph Nader, the patron saint of bobo faux-radicalism), you�ll be ok. And when you�re done with the fucking, go out for some Thai food--"It will pinch your appetite!"
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