City Lights Bookstore - San Francisco

I could spend all day at City Lights Bookstore, that storied bookstore located in the North Beach zone of San Francisco and founded by the progressive literary legend Lawrnence Ferlinghetti, who is still living the legacy of the Beats at 99.

Although, Ferlinghetti and the Beats were famous for their poetry and brand of stream of consciousness writing, the non-fiction section is what caught my attention. The world to me is always fascinating, and things these days are truly stranger than fiction, so I spent a considerable amount of time perusing this section while I was up in the Bay Area recently. I wanted to dig into to many of the titles but I could only carry so many books back with me on the plane. Above are a few of the books I did not walk away with, but hope to get into one day soon.

I did however leave with a little poetry, Peter Green's new translation of Homer's The Odyssey was one fancy title I grabbed. You could say that I'm trying to elevate my style and class at this point in life. Writing has also been more and more on my mind as I have some new free time and to help jump start that process a bit I also left with Draft No. 4 On the Writing Process by the legendary natural history author John McPhee.

Outside Lands

Went up to the Bay Area for the Outside Lands Music Festival and stayed right at the beach with my buddy Nathen. Love that place man, I feel at home amongst the eclectic steep hillside surfing community of Ocean Beach. On the edge of the city there is a different vibe, it's a bit more mellow. So, I had a great time, got to see Radiohead with their thousands of fans and mind altering light show, Ben Harper, one of my all time faves, The Black Keys who absolutely tore it up, Tom Petty which was just classic, Steve Winwood who is another classic all around great musician, Rodrigo and Gabriella make you have to get up and move around, and finally Jack Johnson to soothe the weary crowd after a long three days. Too many acts to see, but I did my best. Also, surfed a bit and even bumped into shaper Danny Hess who let me try one of his keel fin fishes, and I had a blast on it in sloppy but fun 3-4 foot surf. Danny also enlightened me about fins after I told him I had one of his boards and he told me that the shop had given me the wrong fins. He sold me a pair of his own magic fins and they truly are somewhat magical, they are bamboo fins made by Marlon Bacon of 101 fin Co. and they totally changed the way my board feels, much faster and lighter.

I really did not want to leave this time, that city by the bay always sucks me in, and next time I might not be able to evade her powerful forces. Until then I'll keep dreaming about a place where I can look out my window to check the surf, ride a bike to a world class gallery, and eat healthy amazing food right down the street.