It is -- impossibly -- BLISTERING HOT ALREADY in Cleveland as Princess Wei drives me to the airport, so I decide NOT to take along my hat and coat to sunny California. However, upon arriving in San Francisco, I find it cold, windy and clammy, and that my host, circus impressario Chicken John (accompanied by Dr. Howll), will be driving me into town in a tiny open convertible with the top permanently down.
An hour later I am in the front yard of John Law, looking at THREE (3) of those giant kitchy California Hot Dog Stand fiberglass BASSET HOUND HEADS, which Law collects, while Chicken John scuttles about the ROOF of Law's art-junk shed, collecting neon Xs and Os for the giant Hollywood Squares game show set that he plans to build in Los Angeles for our show there. There are EXACTLY ENOUGH Xs and Os, no more, no less. John Law, one of the more active artisans behind the Burning Man events, shows us a video of their desert "CAR HUNT" whereby a truck full of armed hipsters pursued and shot down a driverless gas guzzler, being made to flee like prey across the salt flats by remote control. Law and I compare old Bob Black harrassment notes. John tells me about his website company, LAUGHING SQUID," and I suddenly remember that I had come across that very name only 2 days before, "BY CHANCE," while demonstrating how a search engine worked to a friend, and using the phrase PRAIRIE SQUID as the search example.
That night, Chicken's truck is broken into, and among all the things the thief COULD steal, it takes Chicken's switchboard for controlling the flashing Holywood Square neon lights, a device which will prove UTTERLY USELESS to the thief or anyone else besides Chicken John. So Chicken is forced to build a new one from scratch that night, in lieu of sleeping.
I am deposited for the night at the Mission district apartment of my old pals Palmer Vreedeez and Hal "Dr. Howll" Robins, where I can sleep on a cot next to Palmer's feeding trough, surrounded by the legendary museum of tiny reconstituted dinosaurs, robots, monsters, lone gunmen, and puzzling evidence. (CLICK "NEXT" BELOW TO CONTINUE!)
