13 GRINGAS

As you can see from the previous picture, and the time it's been up, I needed to get out of town. My yearly junket off the mountain was put off until now. Not a moment too soon. I'm writing this from my hallway PC in a Youth Hostel on Mission St. called The Elements Hotel. After my Goddaughter Monasita blew me off at the airport. (I wasn't specific enough about needing a ride. And then found out she drives a moped.) I grabbed my bag, walked past the bickering day laborers, and a crackhead wishing her mom happy Easter, and ended up with a nice room with a shower and comfortable bed for 60 bucks. Can't beat it.
Mona's father, my old friend El Prof was enroute from The Tijuana Airport. He was on the final leg of a journey that found him chaperoning 13 American female art students, along with a Mexican and Russian dude to Havana for 10 days. Think you can't go to Cuba? Talk to El Prof. I went to Cuba with him twice over the years during Bush. When the entire country is shut out of that island, El Prof will find a way to get home. Showing me the pictures of The Riviera and The Malecon as we smoked prime SF medicinal pot and drank Havana Club and coke, I pined for la habana. There's no place like it. The fact that El Prof shows up periodically with a gaggle of Gringas with legs up to there, makes him a legend down there.
But enough of Cuba. I'm in SF. Today is for catching up, seeing old friends, talking art, eating, drinking, smoking and meeting with art students. The sun is shining, holding the fog at bay and coffee is beckoning. Stay tuned.