Headz the novel » San Francisco

KEITH S.A.K.E. FEST DAY ONE

J.J. Colagrande — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:54:27 +0000

Years ago, to celebrate our anniversary, I threw a three-day party for Sky. Only two people were invited, us. I called it the S.A.K.E.—Sky And Keith Everlasting—festival. Even made up a flyer. I mailed it to her and everything. The first day of S.A.K.E. was all about Henna. You know Henna has the power to protect, that’s why it’s used in Far East weddings. For supplies I went to the New Bizarre Indian Grocery Store on Polk. Found everything I needed, including henna leaves. I took the dried out henna leaves, sprinkled them with a bit of vegetable oil, and then with a coffee grinder I shredded it into a powder. The powder needed to be sifted until very fine. So I stretched out a nylon cloth and secured the nylon with a rubber band around a cleaned out Ragu jar. Then I sprinkled the henna powder on the nylon and with a spoon I pushed it through into the jar. There were debris on the nylon, fine twigs and what not. I got rid of all that. In a bowl I stirred three teaspoons of the sifted henna powder, one teaspoon of eucalyptus oil, and three tablespoons of the blackest black tea I could make. Twenty hours later I had the paste in time for S.A.K.E. We rubbed each other’s bodies in eucalyptus oil then went to work. After the henna set we periodically dabbed the designs with a mixture of lemon juice and sugar. Citric acid in the lemon juice helps the henna seep into the skin and the sugar acts as a glaze. The rubbing of the eucalyptus oil was a part of the henna process but it was also really arousing in its own right, for both of us, but there was not to be any sex, no sex until the last day of the festival.

If you like this, check out Sky’s version of the rest of their festival

SKY’S TRIP TO THE MUSEUM WITH KEITH

J.J. Colagrande — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:36:14 +0000

Keith and I were at the Legion of Honor museum. We were standing in the Rodin hall in front of The Mighty Hand. That statue says it all. It’s totally gripping. The tensions in every finger. The flex of every fiber of the hand. On one level it’s like the hand is trying so hard to hold on. With every ounce of energy the hand tries to hold on. On another level the hand tries so hard to grasp. Like it wants a piece of something. What is life if not the constant struggle to hold on versus the desire to grasp? The Mighty Hand does both. I remember Keith and I were talking about maintaining what you have, security, health, whatever it is, versus wanting what you think you need or should have, love, materials, success. This was back in the day. And then our hands fit into each other’s, with no tension at all, a complete fit, like two pieces of jigsaw destined to click together no matter how many times the game was played.

If you enjoyed this, check out Melody reveal how she met Sky in Berkeley

MELODY RAIN TALKS ABOUT MEETING SKY

J.J. Colagrande — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:14:18 +0000

I live in Berkeley Hills with my mom. My mom’s girlfriend lives there too. I’ll move out soon. I only need six more Natural Science credits to get an AA degree in Liberal Arts from Vista Community College. I don’t have to tell you anything, but just cause, this time I will. So it was finals week, spring semester. Sometimes I sit in the Irie Café re-reading a section from my Botany notebook. The memorization hella kills me. Then I seen Sky walk in. She’d entered wearing a long skirt and an apron top half-shirt. Her Osaris tattoo was in clear view on her lower back and the colored Ganesha tat on her shoulder was kind-a hidden by the straps of the shirt. She wore this Rasta tam and a few of her skinny dreads dangled out of the hat. She was totally a hottie. Nibbling on my favorite sandwich, the one with feta, avocado, green olive tapenade, and rocket leaves, I noticed Sky the second she walked in. When that Bobo blood clot started getting all crazy on Sky I stepped right in. I couldn’t help it. I wanted her. And I get what I want.

SKY TYLER’S BACKGROUND

J.J. Colagrande — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:31:05 +0000

I came into being on the twentieth day of April, nineteen eighty-nine, at the Mad River Community Hospital in Humboldt County. I had no control over being born on Hitler’s birthday. Had no idea I’d share my day of conception with the Columbine tragedy. I’m born on 420, whatever. It’s not my fault, really. I had no control over my birth. Almost didn’t make it. I came into being with pneumonia, a neonatal pneumonia, passed to me during delivery. The first four-syllable word I ever heard, although incoherent, was streptococcus. It came from the mouth of Dr. Hunts, approximately one hour after my birth, as I lay against my mother’s bosom, pacified. Interestingly enough, the first three-syllable word to penetrate my eardrums was heroin and it came from the lips of my mother, Charlotte, about thirty seconds after my being. Heroin, a word from a woman who just gave birth for the first time, either a plea for some extra pain relief, or a statement of credit to what got her through the four-hour labor, actually Demerol, a derivative of heroin. Or, maybe, she invoked the word to mean heroine, after all, in so many words, isn’t that what a mother is? My mother’s not self-righteous, but she’s known for escaping, for taking the easy way out. Heroin or heroine. You decide. The first two-syllable word to grace my infant ears was surprisingly, Jesus. Spoken, not surprisingly, by my father, who for an agnostic used the word more than he thought and in more contexts he’d of thought possible. Jesus was the first word I ever heard. It’s on tape, that’s how I know all this, my father, standing behind Dr. Hunts with a camera, my head pops out first, and he’s saying it over and over again: Jesus, Charl, Jesus, Doc, Gee-zus. Kind of an ironic introduction for a future and past Buddhist. Wouldn’t you say? Trippy, right?

click here to find out how Keith and Sky met

SKY & THE S.A.K.E. FEST DAY ONE

J.J. Colagrande — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:50:48 +0000

At the S.A.K.E. festival, with henna in a plastic squeeze bottle applicator, Keith drew outlines of his hand all over my body. In the middle of his outlined hand he pasted an eye. To make sure the designs were perfect, he edited with a toothpick. I was covered in henna hands. All over my body, on my breasts, thighs, legs, back, stomach, maybe fifteen hands, all with big open eyes right in the middle. He explained to me that the hands symbolized the world and how everybody in it wanted to get a piece of me. He said everyone wanted to put their hands on me and take what they could get, but Keith would do his best not to let that happen. The eyes in the middle of the hand were his eyes, his Mayan third eye, so he said, and his Mayan third eye would watch out for me forever. Interesting, huh? At the S.A.K.E. festival, in return, I drew a huge henna tree from his neck down to his knees. The bark ran down his stomach, his arms were the branches and roots ran down his pelvis and groin. I explained that the tree was a symbol of his enlightenment. After two years together he felt firmly rooted in my heart and soul. I never meant to hurt him. Keith and me have been through a lot. I never meant to hurt him. Anyway, the henna at the S.A.K.E. fest was so-o-o awesome. To make Henna the old fashioned way, which is what Keith did, it’s a process. He could’ve bought a henna kit with everything set up but that lacked spirit. And for Buddha’s sake, is anything real if not for spirit. I’ll never forget the S.A.K.E. fest—nothing in my life has ever come close to that celebration.

If you like this, check out Keith tell his version of the same festival

SKY S.A.K.E. FEST DAYS TWO AND THREE

J.J. Colagrande — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:58:55 +0000

Day two of the S.A.K.E. fest we danced a lot. We danced to Indian sageet music; beautiful sounds pushed by the seventeen-string sitar and the bell-like tabla drums. I know a little about belly dancing. I had taken a class at the time. We danced and danced, naked of course, covered in Henna. We made up the UIRBY dance during day two of S.A.K.E. U as in you. I as in me. R as in are. B as in be. Why? You and I are. We are. We are inside. We are, we be, but we be outside. U experience my B. I experience my R. UIRBY? Why are we? Why be? UIRBY? Forget it. It’s something from high school. Anyway during S.A.K.E. we created the UIRBY dance. In our version we kept the same rhythm as the YMCA but we assigned the I and R the chord to which M occupies. Also, during day two of the S.A.K.E. festival we pretended we were gods and goddesses making up dramas. Keith played Ganesha. I am Ganesha, son of Shiva. The elephant man, remover of your obstacles. I line your road with lotus petals and keep you free from struggle. He went on. His performance at S.A.K.E. inspired me to get the Ganesha tat on my shoulder. In turn I took on Lakshmi. My performance lacked the emotional resonance compared to that of Keith, but he was always a good actor, even before he moved to Los Angeles. During day two we also did yoga. We fell a lot but it had more to do with the sake wine we drank than our balance. On the third day of the S.A.K.E. fest we made love, eight times in all. Keith made love to me like Ansel Adams made love to Yosemite. Totally wonderful day.

If you enjoyed this meditation, check out Sky share an old story about Keith

KEITH & CRYSTAL CRAPS

J.J. Colagrande — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:20:38 +0000

I grew up playing craps with crystals. About sixth grade I invented a game. It was played with chunks of green jade, black onyx, orange amber, and the pointy purple amethysts. You’d get a shoebox and toss the four stones. The idea of the game was to keep the onyx away from the amber. You’d roll until the onyx was the closest stone to the amber. You wanted to get as many rolls as you could. This was a few years before I knew anything about their metaphysical properties. Like why would I want to attract amber to onyx in a game when they’re both grounding stones and are naturally attracted anyway? What did I know then? I just loved the colors. I had this one amber crystal with the remains of a moth fossilized in the resin. Very wild. You could see the remains of the fly. The moth could’ve been a million years old. Anyway, one day Antwain, your typical school bully, he got mad cause he kept losing, and he threw my rocks off the school playground and they soared and I never seen them again. So much for crystal craps. Even as a kid I used to like to gamble. SELF-REALIZATION alert!! There’s something about risk I like.

If you liked this, check out how Keith and Sky met

HOW KEITH AND SKY MET

J.J. Colagrande — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:39:23 +0000

Sky was a freshman in high school, a recent transplant from Humboldt. She lived with her mother and younger twin brothers in the Richmond, displaced from her dad in the divorce. She attended George Washington High, the same school as Keith. For social reasons, she joined after-school groups ranging from the Equestrian Club to the Life Savor Club. The latter worked to stop the spread of smoking by teens. Keith was a senior and always fiddling with crystals. Too clumsy for sports he liked to read, a lot of New Age stuff. But he also joined clubs. During his years at Washington High, Keith dipped his toes into the Drum Corps, and the Outdoor Club. As a sophomore, he briefly joined the Articulate Creatures of the Elements, a hip-hop club consisting of kids who by definition would hang out and compose only positive rhymes, a group that a member of Hurricane Clout belonged to, Diamonds, before he moved to New York. Keith had friends at school. There were over two thousand students. Yet, for the most part he lived in his own head, at least until Sky came along. They saw each other for the first time at a meeting of the Cool Cat Campus Clean-up Crew. They locked eyes and exchanged a smile. They spoke for the first time cleaning up after a football game, a big game, Washington vs. Lincoln, the Richmond District versus the Sunrise District. After the game, on the grass lawn behind the bleachers, they both bent down for the same Kit-Kat wrapper and their heads collided. They giggled and apologized and traded names. Afterward they always greeted each other in school with a smile and a hey. One day she asked him what he played with in his pockets every time he passed her in the hallway. Keith, to her surprise, produced an amber crystal and gave it to her. He said he carried the crystal every day in his pocket for a year and now it belonged to her and it would bring her good luck. He said he knew the rock belonged to her but he had been waiting for the right time to give the gift. No boy had ever given her anything. They cultivated their bud and their flower bloomed. One day everything came together. One of those moments in life when timing and opportunity align. One of those magic minor moments when major things happened. At Sky’s house, mid-afternoon, on the couch, they were watching Heathers. Her brothers were at basketball practice. Her mom at the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, a nurse in the department of Anesthesia. Sky and Keith were on the couch necking. Things steamed up quickly as they dry humped their fannies off.

“Keith, let’s go to my room.”

Keith sort of froze with a stupid look on his face. “You’re room?”

“Yeah, my room.” She said it in a dirty way.

Keith scooped her up like butter pecan ice cream; he had her in his arms, no problem. They headed towards the room. He wondered about music. Should they listen to Depeche Mode, The Cure, Tori Amos, The Pixies, Jane’s Addiction, Macy Gray, Barry White, probably Depeche Mode, he figured, People Are People was her favorite album at the time. Sky thought about candles. She wanted to light as many as she could. The door was in sight. Keith’s canter switched to double-time, his mind only on her bed, ooo-ooo, little monkey thoughts. They approached the door. Then Sky’s head banged against the side of the bedroom door. They had to go to the hospital. She needed seven stitches. It wasn’t funny. It was a mess. Sky had a concussion. Keith was a total wreck. He wanted to jump off the Bay Bridge. It worked out in the end. Sky was mad at him, for awhile. She went a week without answering his calls. She even blocked his e-mail address. He made up a new account. She blocked that one too. Yet she forgave him. Not because of the poetry or chocolates or flowers or song and dance number he composed in her honor. She forgave him because of the look in his eyes. It was a sparkling powerful Almond joy of a look. They didn’t have sex until three months later in the strawberry fields. Often they’d drive down to Watsonville and hit up the Seers Strawberry Pick-and-Roll, a huge farm with fields and fields of strawberry patches. They’d have buckets and take their time finding the ripest, fattest, reddest, strawberries they could rip off the vine. They used to find such wonderful fruit, so ripe the berries were about to fall off themselves. Sometimes they would wander deep out in the fields. So far out no one could see them. All they could see was the distant storefront where you paid for the fruit and the outlines of a migrant worker or two. The fields were theirs. They made love for the first time in the strawberry fields. Under the California sun, in between rows of strawberries, those strawberry fields felt golden.

If you liked this deleted scene, check out Sky talk about a secret festival called S.A.K.E.

THELONIOUS COMMENTS ON MELODY RAIN

J.J. Colagrande — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:22:31 +0000

When I kicked it with Melody Rain she lived in Frisco and still went to community college in the East Bay. That was like two summers ago. Let me tell you something: Melody doesn’t give a fuck about Botany or VCC or the AA degree. She lives her life to a different degree. A degree you can’t get in college. She travels with no money and parties without buying drugs and fucks and fucks and remembers to forget it all. Stoops. What good to her are the Latin names of plants? For exercise, for fun, she rides a broken down twentieth century fin-de-siecle and her horizon doesn’t stretch further than tomorrow. That bitch believes in a prolonged derangement of her senses, if and only if the party defines decadence inside and out. Melody’s got the rock star steez. She fears nothing, in the least what is unknown. Melody loves beautiful people. She loves Rastafari. She even loves death, but compared to death I’m sure she’d prefer a sandwich from the Irie Café. Sometimes I think of Melody Rain as an impostafari, but stoops, who am I to judge? I will say Melody got a ba dunk-a dunk butt. I’ll judge that, son. And I will say I turned that Shiite out.

If you liked this, check out Thelonious reminisce about San Francisco

MELODY’S DAYDREAM ON THE N JUDAH

J.J. Colagrande — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:19:30 +0000

Look at you, thirty-nine, maybe forty, wrinkled and maternal, I see you taking off your sweatshirt. Your arms stretch over your head, up comes your shirt. I see a bit of your skin cause your T-shirt rises as well. Your lovers past. Back in the day they saw the same spectacle with hella lust, with anticipation, they wanted you. You wanted to be wanted. Oh, yes you did. Remember those days. I’m filled with lust now when I look at you. Lust, like rust, doesn’t fade as much as it decays. Wait till I see Sky, wait till I see my baby-girl, I can’t wait. Thirty-nine, look at you, wrinkled, and maternal, what happened to you? You’re all right. It’s okay. You’re all right. We’re okay, sugar.

If you liked this, check out Thelonious comment on Melody Rain

THELONIOUS TAKES ON SAN FRANCISCO

J.J. Colagrande — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:26:12 +0000

The fucking cable cars. Nevah stay anywhere near a cable-car line. All day and night. Those fucking tourists, hip-sack, shopping bags, fleece SF sweatshirt, gee, honey—who would’ve thought it gets so cold in California durin the summer. Everyone hangin off cable cars all smilin and wavin. They wave at the locals. What the fuck you waving at? I’m mid-city chillin ovah here. I could have a mother-fuckin gun under this shirt. Please don’t wave at me. I used to have fun at Melody’s apartment when she lived in Nob Hill on Mason. I would hang out on the terrace and throw eggs at the cable cars. Only durin the foggy days. The fog was my cape. When crappy let them think Frisco’s filled with a bunch of punk assholes. When sunny give em their sun and smiles and bells and hip-sacks. I know I’m an asshole. I know I can be a punk. I burn bridges sometimes. But I’m not anti-Frisco, just don’t wave at me if I’m mid-city chillin. Melody’s from Bezerkley. She’s kind of punk-y when it comes down to it. My biggest qualm with Frisco is its too soft. And what’s with all the weirdoes? Like the spun out hippie selling handfuls of wilted flowers. Frisco needs a little wrecking crew steez if you know what I mean. I used to bomb the city. You know them posters with Andre the Giant—the OBEY shiite—one drunk night in Potrero Hill Melody Rain and me found one and I tagged right over it. I wrote OBEY HURRICANE CLOUT. You know what I’m tawkin bout, right? The fairey—my old man’s invested in his art—OBEY THIS. Fuck it, man. I used to bust a lot of graffiti in Frisco. Especially on the park benches. Don’t get me wrong. Frisco’s n-i-i-i-ce. I’m not fronting on the place. It’s just too mellow that’s all.

If you like Thelonious, check out his take on Chicago, or go back to New York