cred cafe

The guy who was taking pictures for the interview, also the person who drove me down to the Bay, told me that he'd always been told that Emeryville, CA, was a pit of urban decay--but not exactly in those words. This is where were were to meet the interview subject.

As it turns out, there had been some changes made to Emeryville. Emeryville is now the City of the Future. It's about eight square blocks and it looks like they built the whole thing yesterday. It's hard to explain, and the pictures to the left hardly do it justice. Apparently, Pixar(who brought us Finding Nemo) and Chiron, which I think is working on making human clones or something, swooped into this husk of an East Bay town and, since they were making so much (so much) money, were able to heap tax-deductible capital into the surrounding area and did some serious economic redevelopment.

Apparently, this all went up a couple of weeks ago, and they're still building. I could have eaten off the streets. I was the poorest person in the town, and I think I sent silent alarms everytime I went into a store. There's a really big Ikea there that's got it's own street and parking structure and there's a sparkling shopping complex called Bay Street that even has an Apple Store. And its own parking structure.

But before all that--the wondering of the City of the Future--there was work to do. I got up at 6am--shot right up and took a shower. I was practically responsible, like all grown up. We travelled from the rapidly warming valley to the still foggy and delightfully cool Bay Area, where we found the ultra hip rendevous point, Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe. I was hardly cool enough to be in there, let alone ever hope to work there. It was punk rock-hipster central. All black hair, studded belts and tats. Dude who served me my cup of chai tea looked like he should have called me a pussy for ordering a chai tea. We got there way early, which was nice, because it left me time to prep some more questions and just chill out and not be in the office. I drank my pussy tea. And started a crossword puzzle. And waited.

The interviewee showed up five minutes late, which made it the most on-time in-person interview I'd ever conducted. It went very well. We all basically chatted for 20 minutes, accidentally fell into an interview, and then talked for another 20 minutes. Taking photos were fun. Sometimes my job is fun.

During the course of the interview, he informed us that we were just across the street from Pixar Studios and that the very cafe we were seated in was owned by none other than "the guy from Green Day." He didn't say which. But he didn't have to, because a beautiful--if not barely legal--young blonde woman entered followed by on of the guys from Green Day, bass player Mike Dirnt.

"There he is!" exclaimed the interviewee.

I was at first confused. People look weird when they're on TV or something, but you see them when they're not on TV. They don't glow with that TV kinda light; because they're people, and not light projected on a screen or however it is TV works. But anyway. There's no point to this, except that I thought American Idiot was a really good album. And we got back home and it was way too hot. I went to a soccer game, got drunk and rode a bike...again. I also sweated way, way too much.