The Best Day of the Year will always be Bay to Breakers (did you register yet? Price gouging increases April 1!). But a strong #2 contender is the annual Easter Sunday BYOBW (Bring Your Own Big Wheel). Last year I made a half-assed attempt to buy a big wheel for the event, but San Francisco was sold out of BYOBW-approved vehicles so I merely observed the rumbling avalanchesque mayhem on Lombard Street from someone's driveway. Yow, it was probably the second coolest thing to happen in SF behind Icer Air 2005! Anyway, the looks of sheer glee on the BYOBWers' faces as they barreled down the world's most famous curvy street in endless waves of cacophonous premeditated traffic accidents led me to vow to attend this year's event no matter what other plan I'd have to cancel. Luckily this Easter was free of wedding and funeral invites. ;^)
Last year's event was huge. It's well known that as more drunken people amass in one place the odds of attaining "jackass critical mass" increase dramatically. Unfortunately this resulted in some local residents' ruined shrubberies who said they'd sic the 5-0 on us if BYOBW happened on their bucolic little street ever again. So this year the event was moved to a street in Potrero Hill with nearly identical topography and configuration as the original, but fewer nearby residents afflicted with anal-retentive landscaping complexes. An additional bonus of the new racetrack was the fact that the street was in a far greater state of disrepair which bosted rider blood loss (a key goal of BYOBW).
There was some drama in getting the trike that I ordered on EBay delivered in time. I ended up having to make a last minute emergency Caltrain journey to the Hayward Park K-Mart to pick up an audio-enabled Diego trike, which is probably the coolest unsafe wheeled device ever made. Its audio system makes monkey noises, Spanish turn announcements and many other fantastic ear nuggets. This purchase alone signifies clearly to me that whatever operational problems that have been plaguing K-Mart's financial performance in recent years have been addressed. What's really awesome about this thing is that I broke almost all the rules printed on the side of the box, including: Do not use on roads, hills, near driveways, if over 60 lbs., without parental supervision, or under the influence of alcohol.
I knew it was going to be a great day when I was riding up Potrero Hill with my trike bungeed to my bike rack, and several carloads of girls drove by screeching "BYOBW, W0000T!" at me. At the top of the hill there were news trucks, hipsters, drunkards, kids, parents, dogs, BBQs, big wheels, Green Machines, and homemade carts of death. YES! It all had come together. Check out the rest of the story at Larry the Llama.
I'm generally well-known for always indulging in the best of everything, especially when it comes to matters of appearance and grooming. So it should come to no surprise to you that after moving to ultra-chic and salon-rich Hayes Valley I decided to get my first haircut at a place even more superior to the Supercuts I always went to when I lived in South Beach: Zenzi'sCosmetology School on Hayes and Laguna. I figure there's no better way for me to secure the trendiest possible makeover than by hiring the services of a student beautician whose fresh ideas and unspoiled worldview have not yet been perverted by years of high pressure and profit-centric retail drudgery.
The experience of getting a haircut at the training center starts off rather ominously by signing a death, dismemberment, disfigurement and infection waiver form. I skimmed it and scribbled an X. The haircut itself was rather pleasant though; few stylists resembled Fleet Street's Sweeny Todd as the language of the waiver might imply. My makeover artist appeared to be fresh from high school, and evoked a pre-freakout Britney Spears (whose posters probably still adorn her bedroom walls) but with slightly more tattoos. Coincidentally, she lives with her apparently loaded parents a block from my old apartment in South Beach. She had little that was nice to say about my former haircut establishment.
Customers under the blade at the cosmetology school need to have a tolerant attitude. The gal across from me was getting her hair dyed dark purple, and at some point the stylist noticed a big dye splotch on the victim's face and said "I better clean that up now, it's totally permanent.""No I kinda like it -- looks like a bruise!" the girl in the chair replied cheerfully without a hint of sarcasm.
Anyway, my hairs are now cut very much to my satisfaction. It was a bit unsettling at the beginning as each timid snip of the shears from unsteady hands landed only after a surprisingly lengthy planning process, but the cuts somehow always hit the right spot. When I get tired of my stunning new look I'm going to some other Hayes Valley hotspot like Headlights to get a haircut for exactly 6 times the price that will likely suck. And then I'll be a regular customer at the Beauty School for good. :^)
