THE ANNUAL PUMPKIN CARVIN' AT JOHNNY FLOWER'S

Since she moved out two years ago and now lives on her own with

her new husband--he's the younger guy with the long neck--Johnny Flower's daughter Graciella arrives on Halloween with pumpkins and decorations and does the front porch and then we all carve pumpkins.

Johnny Flowers is a tough city guy from Rochester New York but when his daughter arrives he mellows out and smiles a lot and goes right along with the activities. Me, I don't particulary like the interuption from my normal evening routine but my hunch is that it is probably healthy psychologically for me to do so and I go along with it to some extent. Anyhow, it is par for the course with Johnny Flowers: he has relentlessly intruded into my aloneness for all the past 15 years that we have been friends. My pumpkin looked pretty good for minimal effort. Graciella bought me a green one in Half Moon Bay but by the time Halloween arrived, it was orange as were the others.It was the only one with ears which probably has something to do with the fact that I wear hearing aids.

MUSING IN SAN JOSE

When Asiana got fired from her singing gig at Casino San Geranimo--her band was receiving $2,000 a night to entertain and then when the smoking ban took effect and business fell dramatically, the casino felt it could no longer afford her and suddenly she was gone and I did not have a clue where she was and I was tweaked. Finally, a security guard at the Casino whom I had helped with some of his communication issues, told me to try calling his marketing office, which I immediately did: joy! the marketing manager said Asiana was singing at the Bay 101 Club in San Jose.

LAST WEEK I was in San Jose on business and I stopped by the Bay 101 Club and relived poignant memories of nine years ago.

The area where Asiana sang, talked to me, and danced with me--and I was blissfully and naively happy with that not knowing then that she was at that moment taking permanent residence in a room in my soul that will apparently be topsy turvey and unfinished for the rest of my life--has been converted into an extension of the restaurant. Bay 101 did not have a cabaret license; I was told that as the result of these, largely Vietnamese dances, there were fights and trouble and some years ago the City Fathers shut the dances down.

SO WHEN I FOUND OUT where Asiana was singing I went to San Jose to see her. The first attempt was a total bust: I got horribly lost and she was not there but at a special gig in Santa Cruz; However, the next one was succesful--I walked into the room she was on stage singing, "How good it is to see you." Asiana had not seen me for three months. And, when she spotted me, she waved and blew kisses and man did I feel good. It felt as though I was in a movie.

ORACLE OPEN WORLD 2009

The heady days of Oracle Open World are finished for one more year. The recession did not stop Larry Elison from producing an awsome trade show. Kamaroh noticed th is year that there was a replica of his racing scull outdoors at the front of 4th and Howard. The real working racer is reportedly two basketball courts long. Three years ago they had the actual vessel in the North Hall Lobby of Moscone and the word is that it got hurt in theprocess of removing it from the depths and so that was last it will likely be seen in downtown San Francisco!

SAN FRANCISCO BY NIGHT

Sunday night, the 11th, Kamaroh went to the Herbst Theater to hear the San Francisco Korean Master Chorale with S.F. Korean orchestra. It was exciting music & nearly 1,000
attended. Kamaroh was invited by a female friend, entrepreneur Hunduk Kim. After the performance, as he walked down Van Ness to the Civic Center Bart Station, he was awed by the appearance of City Hall by night.