2nd night in San Jose

Yesterday evening Apple held a mixer at a pool hall for the students here at WWDC on scholarship. I billiarded badly for awhile, then set off on my second un- (mis-?) guided tour of San Jose.

One or two buildings away was The Usual, where a band was setting up. I spied a banjo, and made my way inside. The Shitkickers play some amalgamation of bluegrass, punk and metal. The singer wore only jeans suspended by two white shoelaces, and the banjo player knew a good lick or two. A better lick occurred when a man riding his bike down the street outside stopped and began putting on his own show for us, doing blowfishes and drawing circles all over the window with his tongue. He then proceeded to unzip his pants and stick both his seat and handlebar, up against the glass. He knocked his bike over in his hysteria, then finally quit, zipped up, picked up and rode away.

The next two stops on my tour were far less interesting and don't deserve mention. My last visit was to a small, hip coffeeshop. I asked and was granted permission to watch a chess match between a thirtysomething, flamboyantly gay black man and a sixty-ish vietnamesian missing a few teeth. The former had two very-used books on chess, one nearly taller than my styrofoam cup of tea. I spoke to the men some -- first to the viet man, quite a quick and proficient player:
me: how long have you been playing?
he: oh, a little while now
...
me: how many moves ahead do you think??
he: I don't think.
other man:
oh, he's so arrogant...

The midnight closing hour quickly approached, with half the pieces still left on the board, but my new friend's arrogance and unthinkingness was not unfounded, and he moved gracefully to checkmate and the three of us parted.