charles lives in san francisco and works in marketing. he's a dragonboater and amateur marathoner. he drinks a lot of coffee, mostly because the caffeine doesn't affect him. he also reads a lot. he no longer plays video games because he fried his last three video cards. he also likes to use brackets and start sentences with lowercase letters. appositives are his favorite language tool. the more complex your vocabulary is, the more charles will like you. it also helps to be able to differentiate between There, Their and They're. his favorite colors are black and orange, mostly because they're the colors of the San Francisco Giants, and also, conveniently, the colors of his dragonboat team, Ripple Effect. speaking in the third-person isn't something he usually does, but he thought it would be interesting, at least for this gigantic paragraph.
the term "csix" was taken from his first ever aol screen name, "c6freejack," but since no one knew of the 1980s epic called "freejack," which starred such dinstinguished actors as mick jagger & emilio estevez, he decided to leave that portion behind. there is no relation to the social network of high tech professionals of the same name, which makes things confusing, but then again simplicity wasn't the objective.
I’ve always been an outspoken advocate of seeing the night through. You hang out, you eat, maybe get a head start on the hangover, and you talk about it. The ideas are fresh. The stories may be blurry, but they’re more focused than they will be the next day.You’re probably tired, but part of showing solidarity with your friends is getting through it, getting over yourself and contributing.
Besides, every good night needs a recap, or a reset, or at least some kind of analysis to ensure that subsequent nights are more successful, whatever that may entail. You get your cup of coffee, maybe some eggs and bacon, and you get to it.
We’re seen having that discussion in a window off of Geary or Mission or Market at an ungodly hour and that makes us “Nighthawks,” indeed, just like the Edward Hopper painting. Though idealized, I’d always envisioned, and experienced, that scene as a great way to end the night. No matter how the evening went prior to the scene, you’re with your friends having a meal or a brew and life is good and simple.
Maybe it started with my fascination with 1940s America (the painting was released in 1942), the very definition of simple. Axis & Allies, life in analog (the TV hadn’t caught on yet), cars with fins and people wearing hats & ties. A bygone era, to be superseded by the information & drama overload of the present day.
So on those nights spent out with friends, or when I’m just having a long night either working on a project or trying to get into a book, I’m trying to boil it down. Trying to relax and process what went on in the daylight hours. Trying to escape days and nights and weekends spent controlling crowds and managing expectations. Maybe trying to do so with some style.
As individual as I like to think I am, my successes are always tied to big groups. This pack aspect tends to magnify an achievement due to the shared sense of effort. “Look what we did together, and this is what Chuck did to help.”
In the makeshift marketing career I have, it’s been defined by big clients and big agencies popularized by the show “Mad Men.”I always had a great team of creatives behind me, and a roster of clients everyone could recognize [if not despise]. “I work in advertising,” I thought, always had a nice ring to it.
Athletically, it’s been team sports, from 8th grade basketball to the drum corps in high school JROTC [hey, it was covered on a sports TV show once] to the dragonboat team. They all involved uniforms, running and a whole lot of yelling [though not always at a decibel level acceptable to the human ear, for which I apologize, but also warn will not stop].
[I'll group my performance (if it can even be called that) in the 2009 SF Marathon with the dragonboaters- most of the effort was fueled by a desire to look competent in front of other team members running the race. And speaking of which, Bay to Breakers does not count.]
Socially, it’s with the foot clan [don't ask], the dragonboaters, the accidental presidential crew [again, don't ask], the stanford nurses and the 2000 Facebook friends I barely talk to. They’re all good people, with families and (mostly) jobs and an at least somewhat developed capacity to keep on the straight and narrow.
I assimilate well and usually don’t have trouble fitting in. I can give and take directions. I have a role. Or I make one for myself. The camera usually helped.
It took me quite a while to get comfortable, socially, in high school. The cool kids hung out in their spots, and despite my best efforts I’d never gain “official” entry into the cliques. Only after years of this social study [if you will] did I learn to fit in, take what was given to me, and the numbers [as partly illustrated by my facebook friend count] began to speak for themselves.
But even then, you don’t fit in everywhere. Some people will inherently dislike you. Others won’t be able to stand [or keep up with] your verbal output. Others still will belie friendliness due to long-standing loyalties. Or they’re just not into the shit that you’re into. It happens.
While we’re all good-natured, we can’t help but see a group’s unwillingness to take us in as an affront. I don’t always take it well, and I’ve paid the price on occasion, but you can’t say it’s for lack of trying.
Then again, you shouldn’t really have to try. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
i have a habit of making too many friends. so much so that it makes me occasionally seem like a fraud. really.
but these are all good people. i met them in school, through friends of friends, at sporting events, and they all have their stories, equally legitimate, which makes them all worth acknowledging, and which keeps me on my feet.
for one, there’s rob- who i hadn’t seen from 1995-2004, yet we picked up right where we left off when he traveled back west following college. it’s always a kind of special duty to entertain the “accidental president” (don’t ask) because he had such a big role in introducing me to half the groups i’d hung out with up until the present day.
so, winning enough for 3am prime rib breakfasts, visiting the world famous Tu Lan, fried chicken during the Mayweather fight and confronting a very militant staff at zeitgeist were all a part of this particular tour of duty before he returned to med school.
family’s always given, but with all the attention still being lavished on the behemoth of a niece i have, an in-law’s 92nd birthday and even my own family’s mother’s day celebration never fail to have a common theme. i’m sure the process will repeat itself with the next kid, and so on.
and of course there are the dragonboaters. while my own personal struggles as a paddler and team member are well-chronicled on ripplesf.com, off the water this group has continued to be a bedrock of entertaining and mostly wholesome stories. there was keg party or ropes course or two (where rope burn was imminent).
and a dinner party. and a karaoke. and a trip to the academy of sciences. god, i see these people too much…
somewhere in the mix, still, are my regular visits to the Bitter End bar for trivia, which had Thin Tim hosting or Erin celebrating her birthday on 4/20, with the requisite singalongs and whiskey & beer, but, again, nothing all that out-of-the-ordinary for the average san francisco male.
[even if i do like to think i round out the bell curve]
