Supergroup

That map up there is the route I took here to San Francisco from Tallahassee. It was an amazing ride, one that I'll never forget. There were the typical ups and downs that one might expect on such a long distance road trip: many moments during which I caught my breath in excitement at something beautiful just off to the side of the road, many times that the hairs on my thighs went stiff and my guts were shot through with a bolt of ice as some yokel narrowly missed destroying me utterly with a careless swerve along the road, many quiet moments spent utterly alone in an unfamiliar place along an unknown road in an almost inconceivably large country, many friendly faces that came unexpectedly out of the gloom to provide me with just the nudge of kindness I needed to get me down the road. There were many times that I found myself asking God for favors, too; asking Him for luck.

You know, there's an old saying that conveys the idea that it's good luck when a bird poops on you. I've always felt that this saying originated out of a desire to stop people from complaining about getting pooped on more than anything else (as in "Oh, fuck! I've just been crapped on by a bird!" "Oh. well, that's good luck, you know. Now shut up, here comes Isabella..."). Anyway, it's a saying not entirely sensitive to the revulsion one feels when defecated upon by a bird.

I was wearing my favorite "fashion/casual" jacket here in San Francisco, a grey turkish sport-coat that I never found much reason to wear in Tallahassee. I was ambling through North Beach, the Italian neighborhood of San Francisco up near Fisherman's Wharf, when I happened to look to my right and lift my arm at an awkward angle for just a moment and for no real reason when a pigeon flew over me and dropped a dollop of wet, white pigeon poop on the back of my right arm. "Ho, fuck," I said, automatically. Halima was walking next to me. She asked, "What?" I replied that I'd been dive-bombed. "Oh, that's good luck," she said. I replied, "Yeah, but it's still shit on my favorite jacket."



If I truly believed that getting shit on was good luck I'd run around under the pigeons in DiMaggio Park. I'd sneak around on the waterfront, scaring seagulls into flight, hoping to collect a poop or two as they jumped up, startled into the air. I'd shuffle around on the flat concrete patio at Union Square, bread in hand, waiting to receive my good fortune by way of avian incontinence. But I'm not so sure it is such good luck to get pooped on. If it were, why would you want to wash the poop out so badly? Why wouldn't people who've been pooped on just leave the poop there in an effort to soak up as much luck as possible? Wouldn't more or larger poop be more lucky? People might stand around behind horses or elephants much more often if it were.

Who knows? Getting shit on is no great fun, in and of itself; but here's to hoping that pigeon poop has a quiet effect on my fortunes that's working in ways too subtle for my leaden intellect to detect. Let's hope pigeon poop leads to something great, shall we? Let's do, lest my revulsion get the better of me and I burn my good coat.