I've been curious about the smells-of-rotting-flesh-in-a-sewer, man-killing, illegal-on-subways King of Fruit for quite some time.  Because just about everything you read about durians are overwhelmingly negative, and because they're neither cheap nor easy to find, it never made it very high on my list of new things to try.  But I was in the Inner Richmond on Saturday buying lychees when I noticed a big box of durian.  I was about to take a picture when the unpleasant woman behind the counter started shouting "NO FRUIT PHOTO" to me.  WTF?  It was at that moment that I vowed to buy one -- from the market down the street.  So that's exactly what I did.  That store wasn't much friendlier, and in fact employees ran out, accused me of stealing and forced me to show my receipt as I was unlocking my bike.  What's so wrong about a white man buying a durian on Clement Street, people???

With the contraband successfully procured and packed in my bike basket I headed to Dolores Park for the free San Francisco Symphony concert.  I waited until the performance was over before opening the durian because I figured people downwind would be rather nonplussed about a possibly nasty stench wafting their way.  I got out a sharp knife, and was surprised how easily the mace-like shell was pierced and removed.  More surprising was that the smell was actually kind of good.  Apparently a fully ripe fruit smells 3 times worse than a vomit/eggs/feces mixture.  Well this tasted even better than its flowery odor.  Most people described it as a mix of custard and ripe onion.  While it's not my new favorite fruit, it's curiously yummy.

As surprisingly delicious as the durian was, it was way too much food for our small picnic.  So I walked around the park handing out samples to the unenlightened masses.  All I have to say is that if you ever want to feel like God, walk around and let people try Durian.  It was like a scene from the Sistine Chapel ceiling: dozens of times the durian-sample-wielding Hand of Karsty would descend to a heathen on a blanket, and a moment later I would witness the exact moment that each particular soul actually began living.  Sure, many weak and fearful people were too timid to accept the offering but there were far more than I expected that gave it a try.  Awesome.

Oh Frank Chu was there too, but he didn't want any durian.  However, he did tell me that with the galaxy count in the hundreds of trillions (all of which filmed him without his permission for profit), he is raising the value of his lawsuit to $3 billion or so.  I'm pretty sure that he was going to ask for over $10 billion when there were only 12 galaxies though. (?)  Oh, of course -- it's the weak dollar. ;^)

Last weekend was the annual Fillmore Jazzfest where for over the length of a very diverse mile of Fillmore Street, cars are replaced with musicians and happy people for two glorious days.  There are four stages where respected musicians play all day long.  Good stuff this year.  But the highlight by far was on the sidewalk by Fillmore and Post where a couple of kids and their band totally showed the chumps on stage what's up.  The drummer and tenor player are supposedly 10 and 12 respectively, and this isn't even the burninest part of their gig:

Man, you had to be there.  Music is in these kids' blood.  It's clear that it was all coming from their souls and not a bunch of memorized scales (which is how most of us chumps have to do it).  That was the most heartening thing I've seen all year.

In other FJF news, Frank Chu was there (no way, Frank at a major SF event?!?).  The galaxy count on his sign is getting out of hand.  I kind of miss the days when there were always only 12 galaxies that he wanted to sue, but now it's skyrocketing beyond readily pronounceable numbers.  I didn't ask him what the deal was -- I tried in the past and he didn't give me a 100% coherent answer. :^)