My Brown Shoes
Frank Zappa and the mothers of invention famously said “brown shoes don’t make it” . Only one of my brown shoes didn’t make it Thanksgiving night. it was run over in the driveway to the ill fated old Jack Tar Hotel, now known as The Cathedral Hill Hotel. The jack Tar once a symbol of space age modernity is old and dumpy now and going to be torn down. My brown shoes once a symbol of normalcy that i only put on to feel that “brown shoe feeling”, i kept safely up on a shelf, and only put them on to walk around the apartment, or to wear while dining on Thanksgiving at my friends beautiful house where people still dress to dine, at least on one day of the year.
I had a couple of cups of coffee after stuffing myself with turkey,stuffing, potatoes, Veuve Cliquot, and a few pieces of pie. I put my walking shoes back on to go to the car and drive home, carrying the brown shoes in the water bottle holders of my rucksack. Parked my car in cathedral hill where there is more civilized parking and began to walk the almost five blocks to my apartment. The weight of the evening coming off of me almost all at once. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and i insisted on aquirring and cooking the turkey to ensure that that part of the day went as i wanted it to, ne needed it to. My friends do Thanksgiving right, and everything fell right into place even better than i expected (needed). The symbol complete. I noticed somewhere along Geary street that i had lost a shoe. I panicked. i combed up and down, but those blocks are dark. I went home. One of my symbols of things going ok was now horribly incomplete. I didn’t sleep. I thought of my shoe languishing on a dark sidewalk, i thought i might just buy another pair, The heavy fog turned into mist and then a light rain. In the morning I walked up to where i parked hoping with my fingers crossed that my shoe was safely still inside my car, but as i got to the driveway of the ill fated Jack Tar/Cathedral Hill Hotel, there it was right by the curb, dejected and flat. Not destroyed, still quite wearable, but with a flattened toe, not the shiny bulbous toe of its twin. I carried it home like a wounded bird, some scruffy men sitting on the sidewalk drinking said, “hey man, spare a shoe?”

The Brown Shoe (that didn't make it)

I will be playing deep underground dance music at 5pm sharp at 111 Minna 11 . 18 . 09 Qool

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At The Attic 24th and Mission Sundays at 8 pm.

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