Squid Row

GoodMornSquiddies…

It has been a long strange trip… to San Francisco. Harold and I are rather exhausted from the weekend… and I can say that our table mate, Alex Shoe Schumacher, is exhausted as well. The trek home was not an easy one… it involved a 101 freeway reroute and nonsensical SF 49’r game traffic and so we got home after 10:30 pm. Here’s a bit of a quick rundown…

Friday Night Last Gasp Party: Awesome, as always… Long time sponsor and all around cool guy, Ron Turner, throws a mean opening party at his Last Gasp Books warehouse on Florida Street in SF. Home of weird curios and strange oddities, Last Gasp makes for a fun meet and greet and early registration joint. They also give a discount on books, free booze and a catered food situation. I picked up a copy of Meta Maus,  and mingled and met with some really amazing tooners. It’s a fun to-do… and it is where I originally met friend of the show, Aidan Casserly (Dada).

DAY 1: The Concourse is a familiar and charmingly old building. It’s wood… looks like a warehouse and I love it. I first discovered APE by the urging of my cousin, Theresa… she invited me to meet her there as she was visiting it with friends… and I was living in Pacific Grove at the time. I drove up in the pouring rain and fell in love with the event immediately. I’d never been to anything like that before. So the minions dropped me and my suitcase off in front of the building on 8th street and off I went inside to set up, and meet and greet and sell to all who would walk into the space in front of the Squid Row/Alex Shoe split half table. And wonderful for us, the person next to us gave up her table, so we had a much bigger space to play in! We had a full table! Yay!

I met some fine folks, talked until I was hoarse… but didn’t really cruise the con much. I like to BE AT my table should someone specifically come by to see me. It is my job. So I don’t like to wander much. When I left the table to find the room of relievement, that is when I quickly perused. Friends popped by, Kai Saturday, Walter drove up from Salinas as did Andrew… and Crow (Chuckle-a-duck) and his wife, Claire were most good company all weekend, delivering dark chocolate p-nut butter cups and hanging out at what was essentially a Starbuck’s near the Concourse. Alex was, of course, an AMAZING table mate… and we had fun yucking it up the whole time (It’s time to PLUN-der!). 

After the fun, which ended at 7pm, there was Thai food with Judy and Nelson at The Monkey Bar… where I had the best Absinthe ever… St. George … and I gorged myself on pork and spicy stuff I cannot pronounce. (Harold, who was very tired from the conversation and massive hug-fest, opted to stay in the car… I don’t blame him… he had a big day)…

Tomorrow, Day 2.

These are some of the sketches I made for Randie’s new place. She is renting a very small apartment in a triplex. The area is very narrow (a bit narrower than what I originally sketched here. I think that the front door would touch the futon when it opens. Right where the easel is located are the tall windows. I have them drawn as right angle windows, but I think they are at a slant. Also there is entirely too much room in the kitchen shown here. It’s much more cramped. Where the word “owners” is… that is the closet for the triplex’s owners, Tee and her significant other. I have not introduced him yet.

Randie doesn’t live on the ground level, and those are stairs leading up to her apartment. There is a gate in the far upper right hand corner and a pathway leading to her stairs there on the left.

Second sketch: The kitchen appliances are pretty dinky. Two burners, a mini sink, a small microwave and a mini fridge, with very few cabinets.

Randie’s other neighbor, who you will meet soon, lives on the other side of Randie… but his front door access is on the opposite side of the house. So Randie doesn’t see his comings and goings.

I used my ipad mini to sketch these drawings out in a program called Paper.