A sunny day for the
Fremont Solstice Parade. The best entry by far was the
200-300 naked body-painted cyclists who kicked it off. What was I doing sitting
on the sidelines? Drinking beer and enjoying it with friends on the porch
of Fremont Coffee,
I guess. Afterwards, I made it over to the parking lot of
Priceless
Works for a pavement picnic. Jesse and Adria were peddling their
wares as others literally cooled their heels in two plastic kiddie pools.
With the help of Craig, Jesse, and Olive Burd, I assembled
Flattened Can Spiral
2, which by Olive's count consisted of
439 traffic-smashed units.
(The first one had 163.) It's a
temporary
sculpture I look
forward to re-creating, but this one came to an even more premature end than
I intended when Craig
fell while being chased by 9-year-old Olive and neatly bisected the spiral.
After that it became merely a question of where to drink next.
In the past few years, Fremont has become overpopulated with overpriced,
tacky bars which attract hordes of drive-by drinkers--recent college grads
with big new auto payments looking for a fight or a fuck. It's ugly. By midnight
it was just me and Jesse looking for a place to cap off the day with a quiet
drink when it occured to me that one of Fremont's first bars, still undiscovered,
might be the best, and it was. The
Asian Wok and
Grill is a huge space with delicious inexpensive food and a cozy little
bar tucked in the back where the drinks are tall and owner Danny Wong is
generous with his talk. You might want to check it out.
Jesse and I closed
it down, hit a gas station for a couple of talls and rounded out the evening
by watching the traffic from the
Hwy 99 41st St pedestrain overpass, the just-about-summer
night still and warm. |