welcome.
crazyknee.com is:
a personal Web page launched Nov. 1, 2000,
the day Leanne had ACL/meniscus repair performed
on her right leg. Hence the "crazy knee."
This page will be updated in some weekly way.

29 april 2003 . 11:57 pm PT
Talk about bad luck: my backpack was stolen today, out of John's car (we just don't know how this happened), parked in the desolate lot serving the Bay Trail behind the Yahoo! offices. Unbelievable. I now have no photo identification, since last month's purse snatch cost me my DC license, and the passport I've been carrying in its place was in my wallet. The wallet in my bookbag. I'm due to board an airplane in 48 hours. What can I do? Gone: a dear full notebook (pictures, stories, half-remembered dreams, lines of poetry, days of my life) gone, a just-begun book, my well-used glucometer, expensive insulin, and months of blood sugar readings, gone. Tickets to this evening's sold-out White Stripes show at the Warfield. But ah-HA, we managed to talk our way in, plead the case, storm the floor ... and we may have been late but MY GOD. Jack is such a rock star. Meg is too sexy to believe banging the drums and writhing. They were wearing red and black. RED AND BLACK. Are you taking note of this? Jack was in all red (his tee shirt covered in slashes), red pants with one black leg. BLACK. His black leg ended in a black loafer, the red leg ended in a matching red one.

Are you using Friendster? Everyone else you know is.

28 april 2003 . 12:15 pm PT

I am still here, fans. Here to apologize for my long absence. To make up for it, I will write way too many things in this space; deal with it. And, news alert, I ordered a new computer today. Who knows where the Knee will go, once I get the new system up and running! I'm also on the lookout for new employment; if you hear anything please let me know. Yes, I love the semi-colon.

In no particular order:

Fox's Mr. Personality -- another reality dating show, hosted by Monica Lewinsky -- is terrible, it's nauseating, it's not to be missed. Bubbleheaded Hayley Arp, (check out the ridiculous picture of her on Fox.com), will pick a new boyfriend out of a pool of masked men (some of them are ugly under those masks!). Last week was the premiere; Slate has a great summary. Highlight: Hayley listens intently as an astrologist (!) rates the sexual prowess of each suitor; Hayley eventually kicks off ten (ten!) men. Episode II airs Monday at 9pm. The web site has inane info exploding from every crevice (Lewinsky's thinking of pursuing a law degree? What, after her TV career dries up?). The show does the same. A freight train of pain, I promise.

Zwan: Billy Corgan is still shiny and bald, but oh that voice, that savvy guitar madness. Their album is getting consistent play in my life, and the live show did not disappoint. The girl bassist kicked incredible ass, in her tiny red short shorts. So loud. Good loud.

Even better and even louder: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I mean, yeah yeah yeah. It was a tragically short set last week at the Bottom of the Hill, but my friends THIS is it. It's so it! It's simply it. Poppy punk rock (watch a video here!). Karen O.'s dress did indeed fall completely off her front, not on purpose either. The pink-with-black-polka-dot contraption (fab crisscrossing lines in the back, it was a short shrift over tight pants) wouldn't stay hiked. At first I thought she was going for the "see-my-bra-I'm-a-rock-star" look. Guess not. The full-length is due Tuesday (yeah!). And I want to record my observation that Catherine has been snaking Karen O's stage moves for months. I've seen you do it, Cat, don't ever stop! Yeah yeah.

SF Int'l Film Fest: Due to a wonderful volunteer captain roommate, I've scored free passes to world premieres (while she's got to rub elbows with Tom Waits and Dustin Hoffman). Sure, these are films that will never ever be seen in your local multiplex, but so? The world isn't ready for girlie Hong Kong (pre-SARS) martial arts assassins. "So Close" (according to that site) will be in theaters this fall. Hmm, could happen. Once you overlook the fatuous dialogue and laughable love story, you will find Matrix-caliber fight scenes. Yesterday we saw "Save It For Later," a love-letter to San Francisco. Relatively cliché, but beautifully shot; the hometown audience gave a standing ovation to the first-time director (great story here about what this man went through to make the film).

Eggers update: He got married last weekend. Even the esteemed editor of Bookmarks Magazine is decidedly not impressed with the lad's new Believer mag. Literary sensation Jason International laid his eyes on Eggers for the first time last weekend, at Saturday's tribute to Amanda Davis (she died in a plane crash; her dad was piloting. They were heading to a reading of her new novel "Wonder When You'll Miss Me."). Eggers worked with Davis at Esquire, and like everyone else in the room that night (her boyfriend, her sister, her very sad friends), he believes we all lost something grand and lovely when she died.

And now some vital facts from the last week (courtesy of Harper's Weekly Review. Highly recommended! I quote directly):

• Russian train conductors were hospitalized following a contest that involved smashing their heads repeatedly against a train window to determine who had the strongest forehead.
• Police in Berlin confiscated an air-raid siren from a 73-year-old man who had been using it to stun his talkative wife into submission.
• A British designer unveiled an inflatable church; the gray plastic building features a blow-up organ, pulpit, altar, gothic arches, and fake stained-glass windows, and can be carried around and set up anywhere there is a need for impromptu services.
• Pizza Hut and Burger King set up their first Iraqi franchises, on a British military base near Basra.

No war, more rock(s)!

14 april 2003 . 10:59 pm PT
Since the combat is over in Iraq and we're pulling our big guns out ASAP (sure, US soldiers are still dying 'accidentally'), I'm surprised this school shooting didn't take higher placement on any of the major online papers. Four AK-47-toting teens gun down a 15-yr-old in a packed New Orleans gymnasium, sending high schoolers scrambling for cover. Remember when that would have been huge news? It's page A3 in the Post; Rick Bragg covers it for the Times. "After the shooting, school officials said they would try harder to keep guns out of schools," Bragg reports. Well, thanks.

This weekend we made an appearance at Jazz at Pearl's -- to see someone's older sibling blow away the trumpet, bass, and drums with his piano stylings -- and now look here, from the LA Times: "The day the music died ... the last San Francisco club fully devoted to the genre is about to close." Too too bad. But you know, it's tough to abide the "two-drink minimum per set" law.

When it's warmish and sunny in SF, you may chance upon a band of horn players in Dolores Park. Always a treat.

But I know what you want, don't try to hide it:

08 april 2003 . 02:26 pm PT

First there was the Getty Center, seen looming in the background below. (Check this link for some incredible pictures of the complex.) You park at this place, and get in a tram that rides you high above the freeway to this incredible brick/stone/glass complex. We looked at some art (learned all about "surrealist muse" Lee Miller -- who was also one of the first to document the atrocities of the Holocaust, on assignment for Vogue), strolled through first-class gardens, bought a Diet Coke for $1.62.

Yes, they love the USA in Venice, California. We stayed in the Charlie Chaplin suite at the Cadillac Hotel (supposedly Chaplin owned the place in the old days), right on the cement beach walk, high above the late-nite bongo drummers. Venice is amazing; off the main thoroughfares in this town are CANALS and picturesque bridges, bordered by colorful homes with outrageous sundecks. There are ridiculous houses along that infamous boardwalk as well -- a house with a wall of water (like, why do you need that?), another place with a floating treehouse room.

Taking self-portraits is one of the many ways to pass the time on an empty windswept beach.

In L.A. we also explored Long Beach (yuppie weirdos in painful shoes), West Hollywood (yay Amoeba Music! It's bigger than the SF store (if you can believe it)), and, uh, freeway traffic. (This just in -- West Hollywood bans declawing of cats. Insane!) Then there was Santa Barbara, which might be paradise. They do love the tourists. Everyone rents these "surreys" to pedal up and down the beachside walk, which was overrun with arts&crafts booths on Sunday.

And here's a tribute to the bug lives lost during our long ride back up the coast:

03 april 2003 . 05:25 pm PT
Friends, we're heading south this weekend, to that city of glitz and glamour: Bakersfield. Ah, ha ha. I mean L period A period, Venice Beach, the Viper Room. If you need something fun to do in the meantime, why not try saving the sewer rats? They need you.