The Calif. Dept. of Forestry, in charge of fighting the hundreds of fires around the state, has posted a PDF of the major incidents as of this morning. An interactive Google Map is also available.

Meanwhile, the sky in the Bay Area cleared Sunday and yesterday. Today it’s overcast and foggy… And after last week’s horribly smoky conditions, now I don’t know if this overcast is part smoke or what.

One of the endangered spots is Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. They have a fire blog, Sitting with Fire; a feature in the L.A. Times a few days ago documented the outpost’s preparations for the worst. The resort-cum-monastery is closed at least until July 11.

I washed my dog this morning, clipped his nails and got out the door to go see the vet for his regular check-up. Because I did not have any cash on me, I walked a little further to get coffee, to a place that takes cards.

I go in this place frequently enough. Though the “law” says dogs cannot go into food establishments, both of my closest coffee shops allow them. When I bring the pup in there, I carry him in my hoodie, just to be respectful of others.

Today, I go in and order a mocha and bagel to go. I have my dog on my shoulder.

I’m waiting for my food, when I get the feeling that someone is staring at me. I look around and my eyes land on one of the most foul specimens of human waste I’ve ever seen. Literally, this man is the human version of “Jabba the Hut”. He is a desending pile of tires of fat, rings of flesh telescoping towards the ground. He is shaped like a fleshy soft-serve, ice cream cone. His skin is yellow from jaundice and his eyes are bright red in the lids and whites, showing “Pink Eye” at the very least.

This foul man-pile yells at me from his stench-seat, “The dog goes outside”. I reply, “Are you the owner? I’m not leaving him outside.” I go back to waiting… “It’s the law” says flesh-sore-man, “Are you above the law? I’ll call the Board of Health.”

I grab my stuff to go and say to him loudly, so the whole cafe gets the message, “When you call the Board of Health, tell them you have a full-blown case of the infection known as “Pink Eye”, and that everything you have touched, including that stainless steel spoon someone else will later use, is infected.” I continue, “Tell them the money you gave the cashier, has now been handled by the same people handling the customer’s food. Tell them you have now exposed your infection to everyone in the cafe. Maybe you should think about THAT next time you worry about health codes…”

Do I need to take my 4th Anger Management class? YES.

Is it ridiculous that in San Francisco, an 8 pound, freshly-bathed dog is a health hazard, when in EVERY corner of this city, the average San Franciscan comes upon human fecal matter on every train, door handle, cafe, bathroom they use because this city is swarming with filthy, homeless crackheads?

YES, more than I need Anger Management, YES.

I pick my dog’s crap up, no matter where it lands. EVERY DAY when I walk to work, I dodge SEVERAL piles of human waste. The people who made those piles can go into any establishment they like. But I can’t bring my 8 pound, clean dog on my shoulder to get a coffee to go without having some ridiculous law spouted at me from Jabba the Jaundiced?

The LAW must GO!

[Uncredited snapshot of a previous year’s installation, via The Pink Triangle website.]

This story on SFist is where I first heard about the impending installation, this coming Saturday morning, of a giant pink triangle on the eastern slope of Twin Peaks. The installation, an annual event since 1995, is nominally intended to commemorate gay victims of the holocaust, since the pink triangle was the symbol homosexuals were made to wear within the Nazi concentration camps. However, this commemoration has an obvious ongoing significance. As the organizers point out:

Even though the hatred that existed in Germany 70 years ago that led to the creation of the pink triangle no longer exists there, such hatred certainly exists in other places - such as Iran. According to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. “Consensual gay sex in any form is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

The featured speaker is Arsham Parsi, who has been called the first Iranian gay activist. Mayor Gavin Newsom is also slated to speak at the 10:00 AM commemoration ceremony. Bevan Dufty and — I have to say it — a bevy of other politicians will probably speak as well.

The organizers still need volunteers; go here to sign up for setup (which will begin at 7:00 AM) and/or breakdown of the installation (which will be on Sunday evening). Even if you can’t help set up, definitely come out to the commemoration, if you can, to show your solidarity with the LGTB community.

The cool air returned to San Francisco last night. When I took this picture this morning about 8:00 a.m., fog masked the skyline and Twin Peaks, but a ray of sun illuminated the inner Mission District. Taken from Bernal Heights.

Meanwhile, more than 100 fires were caused by lightning last night in counties north of the city, and inland areas still expect 100-degree temperatures, though cooling is expected to help firefighters in Napa and Solano counties.

The skies are smoggy over the Bay Area this morning, as a fire in Butte County — the northernmost of the pins on the map to the left — burns near Paradise. No, really, that’s the town’s name. The area burned as recently as 2003, when over 200 dwellings went up in smoke.

Winds from the north, bringing warm, dry air from the high desert area of eastern Oregon, are driving the smoke into the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, the Martin Fire in Santa Cruz County is only 25% contained, but cool air from the nearby ocean is slowing its spread. It’s only about 600 acres in size, while the Humboldt Fire near Paradise has already burned more than 15,000 acres. View an interactive Google map of the Martin Fire on the SJ Mercury News website.

See the Calif. Dept. of Forestry Current Fire Incidents page for updates.

Today’s high winds are contributing to the out of control fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which were reported early this morning at 5:30am. It is reported to be about 10 miles west of Gilroy, and the 35 northwesterly winds are pushing it along.

Area schools are closed, and homes have been evacuated.

Our thoughts are with the homes and families affected by the fires, and hope for the fires to be extinguished with as little loss as possible. There is currently no estimate when the fire will be under control.

Update 5:00pm: Still no containment. Over 3,000 acres have burned, but luckily no injuries reported.

Update 11:00pm: 15% containment, weaker winds tomorrow show hope for keeping the fire under control. For the most recent updates, see the update page on the CAL FIRE website.

One way to express your angst over your latest energy bill could be to…

DRIVE INTO THE PG&E BUILDING!

This SUV interrupted my zombie-like stagger toward work this morning… so I took a picture.

I don’t know what the human injuries were, but the PG&E building and sidewalk pseudo-obelisk seemed unphased.

Here is the current state of affairs in SF.

Gas = $4.41 / gallon

Parking ticket = $50 (minimum fine, sfgate story)

“Raising parking fines will lead to more abuse on the streets,” said Luis Estrella, a San Francisco parking-control officer for the past eight years who said he was punched last year by a firefighter who got a $50 ticket.

Downtown meter violations, for example, will be fined up to $60, and parking in a street-cleaning zone will set drivers back $50. The city now makes about $90 million a year from parking fines. The increase would bring in an estimated $13 million more in the new fiscal year.

COLA Formula revealed!

I have never heard the term “Zen Comedy” to describe a film. When I discovered that the Japanese film Glasses (”Megane” in Japanese) is described as this, I was immediately intrigued.

Glasses follows the experience of a four-eyed professor named Taeko (charmingly portrayed by Satomo Kobayashi), who escapes the city life for a seaside getaway at the seemingly innocuous Hamada Inn. The Inn is off the beaten path, and visitors often get lost trying to find their way from the purposefully cryptic maps drawn by the its quirky (and also bespectacled) owner (Ken Mitsuishi).

The charming elder woman of Hamada Inn, Sakura-san (Masako Motai), starts every morning by patiently sitting at Taeko’s bedside till she awakes, and greets her with a smile. She then leads a group of faithfuls through a set of exercises that look like something like a Tai Chi Chicken Dance. Needless to say, all the regulars here are different in their own ways, and it makes Taeko hesitant. Eventually, all at Hamada Inn find that they share more in common than just their eyeglasses.

Glasses is a beautiful film, shot in a beautiful island location. The pace may seem a bit slow, but it brings a sense of calm. The calming backgrounds along with the minimalist soundtrack allows the viewer to be engrossed with the characters and the poignant unspoken lines in between the spoken ones. I believe I now understand what a Zen Comedy is, but feel that you must see this film to understand it yourself.

Glasses plays today at 6pm and again on Thursday, May 8th at 5pm at the Kabuki Theatre. For more information on this and other SFIFF films, see the the SFIFF website and buy your tickets here!

Just got a chance to pre-screen The English Surgeon, which is having its West Coast premiere at the Kabuki tonight at 9:15. I plan to write an actual review of it in the morning, but for the moment just let me say that it is a wonderful and rewarding film, full of intensely emotional moments. It also has a couple of graphic surgery scenes (”I think you’ll find that will crack now” is a good quote) so be sure you can handle fifteen or twenty minutes of spraying blood and drilling bone and poking around in somebody’s open head. It’s really not all that hard to watch. The film is well-worth coming out to see.

Anyway, it screens tonight at 9:15 and screens again tomorrow at 6:15; I understand that both the director of the film and the surgeon himself will be on hand for the premiere.