anna and i escaped the sac heat - triple digits!!! fucking hotssssssss!!!!!! - by heading to berkeley to see death cab for cutie at the greek yesterday. so hot even that there were brush fires surrounding the foothills, always dry and golden this time of year, near vallejo. the smoke was thick and dark driving thru. yet the haze reminded me and anna so much of growing up in the central valley back in the '70s when rice farmers were allowed to burn their fields after harvesting the rice. the burnings happened around fall and the air turned umber and the thick acrid smoke never fails to tell me that halloween is fast approaching. so there anna and i drove thru this murk happy and feeling a bit nostalgic over those long last days.

it was hot in the bay area but not as hot as when we caught crowded house at the filmore last month. no air conditioning!? you've got be kidding. well, fuck, the bay area is a temperate clime and air conditioning is horrible for the energy grid and the environment. yet, if you live in sac air conditioning is absolutely necessary - arguably at least - during the summer and if we visit places that doesn't furnish it - london comes to mind - it fucking hurts.

parking in berkeley is always a shade better than sf. berkeley is also one of my favorite towns. i wanted to go to moe's books on telegraph but we ended up finding a space near shattuck and were pressed for time. even so, we literally ran into pegasus books on shattuck and since i've not been to this store before i had to make a quick stop. the air was stifling inside. again, no air conditioning. yet, i was in heaven as pegasus is one of the rare bookstores that stocks a shitload of small-press works. it delighted me to see eileen tabios books on the shelves as well as logan ryan smith's chaps. i was looking for pubs by kevin opstedal and michael price - please see their cool blog ukulele feedback - and anything by the irish poet catherine walsh. i could just make a quick scan of the stacks before we had to leave. i picked up two pubs from ugly duckling presse, 6x6 15 with work by anne heide and will hubbard among others and red shifting by russian poet aleksander skidan, as well as one book from krupskaya press 8x8x7 by canadian poet colin smith. i could spend a couple of hrs browsing the stacks but i had to run and leave that to another day.

the crowd at the greek was mixed. because my own hair is salt and pepper, emphasis on the salt, i look for others with similar hair coloring. i don't know why, like begets like? should it matter? sure there were a lot of teenyboppers and the parents of teenyboppers but since death cab has been plying their sound for many years now it follows to reason that at least part of their fan base will be in their 30s to 40s. i'll just leave this part by saying that we sat in a section that was comprised of 14-year-olds and 40-somethings. i did not feel like the old man out. so there.

death cab were great live. they sped up their songs a bit and they rocked the house. it was a wonderful show. the surprise of the evening was the opening band. most opening bands in my limited view of things like this is that they are mostly boring and suck hard. instead this band, from oakland, were quite good. anna and i couldn't make out their name even when the singer said it. however, a quick google search today led me to the band's website and their name rogue wave. overall, a terrific night under the bay area stars for live music.

we then drove back home and watched the temperature rise by the minute. at 12:00 a.m. we were driving thru vallejo and the surrounding hills were still glowing red. the temperature was 70 f. home is where the dogs are. when we got back they were happy to greet us and be let out for a much needed pee trip. then i topped off the evening with a piece of chocolate cake and a bottle of fat tire beer, turned the tv on to 120 minutes on mtv and fell asleep watching 'house of burning love' by the great los angeles band x.