OK, those of you weary of my over-enthusiasm, or in general, averse to superlatives: skip the following.

   There is no city in the known universe that comes close to NYC. I’m staying in a small hotel in the old Village and right now having a latte and superlative breakfast wrap (eggs, cheese, sausage) in what is — yes, sorry about this — the coolest cafe I’ve ever been in. Grounded at 26 Jane Street, a couple of blocks from the hotel. Good colors, good Feng-shui (light pours in from street and skylight), greenery abounds, v. hip music, fast wi-fi, half the people here are on Mac laptops, everyone looks cool. No flakes.

   The hotel is in a 160-year-old building. I get to my 3rd-floor room up a steep flight of narrow steps (any steeper, it’d be a ladder). There are old nice quilts on the 2 beds. The windows open (unlike new hotels, where you are cut off from fresh air). Feels sort of like being in the attic of an old farm house. Traffic on street below, but it’s not bad, and dies down at night.

   NYC is in one of it’s very good moods. Weather balmy, fresh breezes off rivers, the sidewalk restaurants are full. When she’s good, she’s very, very good…

    There’s something very intimate about dining out here; you’re so close to people — you hear everything they say. I often end up in conversations with other diners.

   I’ve got a lot of good photos. Trouble is, it takes a lot of time to process and get them out there.

Deja vu factor. In 1957 I spent the summer living in a $60-per-week room on Morton Street (1st trip to NYC),  working the 4PM to midnight shift in a Durkee shredded coconut factory in Queens…another story…

From top down:

-Elegant steep gable house on 28th Ave near Balboa in SF. How come you never see anything this cool in Dwell Magazine?

-House frame in Vallejo, hip roof, nice little understated dormer. You can learn a lot just studying this nicely-proportioned frame.

-If you remember when skateboards were like this, you are pretty old. In the 40s we used to take apart clamp-on-to-yr.-shoe skates and nail them on a piece of wood. This is in the window at The Purple Skunk Skate on Geary Blvd. in SF.

-Ducati on street in SF. I like seeing the frame, as with the house in Vallejo.

-Bambi Airstream, obviously a new one, Novato

Boy, I love getting out and around, shooting pics.

Along one stretch of road are shrimp farms. They have ponds, raise shrimp, and serve them at outdoor tables. What a great concept. Locally raised protein, no transportation fuel or costs, served right next to the source…4-5 big wind generators, white blades, turning slowly in morning breeze…traffic along North Shore (Sunset Beach, Pipeline, etc.) is horrific. Haleiwa packed with turistas, but if you look close enough, some of the essence remains…like San Francisco: for years I bitched and moaned — no more a port, the Ugly Transamerica building, the difficulty for natives who did something other than manipulate contracts, stocks, or digital data for a living…but one day, I thought, stop bitching, it’s still the most beautiful city in America, there’s still North Beach and The South End Rowing Club, Ocean Beach, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, new hip districts like out at the beach (46th & Judah), steep hills and clear vistas, a city surrounded on 3 sides by water…so here, in Haleiwa, a tourist-inundated area, there are pockets of soulfulness, of things that attracted so many people in the first place; am seeking them out…I start getting sucked into negativity on this blog on occasion, and have started writing the occasional boilerplate letter for critics: here’s what I think about your opinion, whether it’s not obeying the Rangers or printing books in China…and now I’m getting on with it…this isn’t a forum, I’m a broadcaster, don’t want to get slowed down in debates…to tell the truth, the criticism  is sometimes thought-provoking, but hey…

This is my 6th day in HKG. It took me a couple of days to get off California time. I totally love this city. Right now am in one of the Pacific Coffee shops with a latte and donut and will soon head back to hotel and pack up…Going out to pick up F&G’s later the morning (Folded and Gathered, meaning unbound pages of the book). I can’t wait — I may be this book’s biggest fan…overf the past 6 months, it’s unfolded itself before our (I include Rick, Lew and David) eyes, day by day. The photos and words became as sort of collective muse — the book put itself together and we helped…Back to HKG: it sparkles, it’s got soul, fung-shui, gemütlichkeit, the food is just great — by avoiding any place with gringos, looking for places that are packed, I’ve had one great meal after another, the most expensive being $15 (with big bottle of San Miguel beer)…the rice diet is right up my alley…Yesterday Trevor & I took the Turbojet ferry to Macau. Holy moly! What a place! What a day! The Casino Lisboa is another planet, the most wild building I’ve ever seen, and impeccably built and detailed…I’m going to throw out a few pics here, have other things I need to do…That one shot is of jerky Macau is famous for…leaving for Hawaii tonight…mas despues…

I’m on the 22nd floor of the BH International Hotel in the Kowloon District. It’s a mid-range hotel, no doormen, you carry yr. own bags, etc. Right down the block is Parkes Street, which must have 50 restaurants in 2 blocks. Kowloon is rich, colorful, old, funky in parts as opposed to the glitter and elegance on the other side of the water, the mall of all malls on Hong Kong island…two places to eat: (1) Mak Man Kee, 51 Parkes St., world-class won-ton soup and noodles, chef  working in 12 sq. ft. kitchen, always crowded, you sit at small tables with other people, every seat taken (2) my sussing out of restaurants paid off last night; this place on next block down Parkes St., no name or street number in English — hip, friendly, no gringos in sight, fabulous (hot) hotpot w/ noodles, clams, San Miguel beer…bamboo scaffolding still famously in use in HKG…At a time like this, the limitations of this method of blogging bugs me; I really want to do a book-page-type layout, but don’t have coding skills, so am limited to one pic under another — going to change this soon…Trevor and I catching ferry to Macau today…