Nurse the Hate: On The Road To San Francisco

I am traveling to San Francisco to finally right the disaster of my last fortified wine test failure.  I have attempted to re-create the scenario as best I can so I can Groundhog Day my way to glory, but already an issue has cropped up.  I was anticipating getting my Jack Kerouac “The Road” scroll wallpaper hotel room.  I have an emotional attachment to the room now, this being despite the fact that it might well be the worst hotel room in the Greater Bay Area.  The last time I was there a couple of bums spent most of the night screaming at the top of their lungs things like “I’m the nigger?  I’M THE NIGGER?  YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I’M THE NIGGER!!!”.  I found that especially odd as the guy appeared to be an Eskimo or maybe just a really dirty man of some Pacific Rim descent.  He later started singing “Eye of the Tiger”, though it was a tad off-key.  He gave it his all though.  The hotel windows were thin enough I almost starting doing the guitar part with the “Dah!  Dah-Dah-Dah!  Dah-Dah-Dahhhhhh!” to give him a hand.  It was a very restful night as you can imagine.

Side note, am I allowed to call them “bums” any longer or is that like calling someone of Asian descent an “oriental”?  I have a fear that sometimes language shifts on me and I will cause an incident without knowing it.  “Grandpa Greg!  You can’t call Mr. Chang “that oriental fella”!”  Then I look up from my otherwise boring story about the nice neighbor confused as to why it isn’t 1921.  I need to research it further but my gut suggests it might be a bad idea to use “bum” in the future.  “Hobo” has a nice ring to it but suggests travel on the rails in The Dust Bowl.  9/11 nixed that romantic idea.  All right.  The guys screaming at my hotel were “homeless”.  Though then again, they might have been just out for the night and had perfectly nice places to live…  Please, give me a break.  Let’s just get past it.

Regardless, I’m en route to San Francisco.  I have drunk so much port, Madeira, and sherry that I will probably be dead from liver failure before my next post.  I am hoping that there are some machines that can keep my alive long enough for me to complete my exam.  I am going to see this thing through no matter what happens.  I plan on being buried with my WSET lapel pin.  I am becoming increasingly concerned that I don’t actually know if there is a lapel pin at the end of this thing.  I would prefer some sort of scepter, but that’s probably asking a bit much of some folks that just barely got a functioning website off the ground.  Maybe the WSET did a bulk order of scepters when they started this organization up.  There could be crate loads in the back library where they will savagely grade my exam later next month.  I really need to pop in over at WSET HQ and see what’s doing over there.  If I still have liver function we can argue about the quality of a fino sherry while standing in the lobby.   That would be nice.

I plan on walking over to City Lights Bookstore prior to the exam where I will sit in The Poet’s Chair.  I will have my wildly expensive pen in my pocket, assuming I don’t lose it on any of these flights.  I will look at the pictures of Ginsberg, Dylan, and Cassidy on the stairs.  I will purchase an armload of books.  I will then walk all the way over to the charmless Holiday Inn on Van Ness where I will sit in a windowless room and attempt to not over think the wines poured to me.  I will accurately write tasting notes with my amazingly expensive pen.  Afterwards I will gorge myself at The House of Prime Rib before catching my friends in Southern Culture on the Skids play a set at Slim’s.  I will get a night cap at Vesuvius where it isn't urine that you smell, it's "character".  Tomorrow I will begin my return to glory.  Today?  I must somehow get my Kerouac scroll wallpaper room secured and get ready to sing “Eye of the Tiger” with the homeless at 2:23am.  It's the key to the entire thing.