Cafe Bucky

In honor of adding a couple of new categories (”WestCoast” & “EastCoast”), I figured it was high time to do a meandering bit on Petaluma. I’m in a West Coast mood today, enjoying the weather and the roar of 100’s of Harleys passing by my study, heading out D Street on their Sunday Ride.

I’m even playing the Dead (American Beauty, currently “Sugar Magnolia”), just to get my California hippie DNA to kick in. Don’t worry, another 15 minutes of this, and I’ll be switching to Frank Black to counterbalance.

I’ve been in Petaluma since 1995, and have had a sort of love-hate relationship with it. Now I have much more appreciation for it, as it’s my “Escape from New York” valve. I love the quiet walk downtown to Copperfields book store, where I pick up my NYTimes. I enjoy the mild bustle - the buzz of people sitting outside of McNears Cafe, the local post post punk Youth getting wired at Deaf Dog Coffee. It’s not San Anselmo or Mill Valley, but Petaluma still has that West Coast coolness about it. The big deal here is that we’re finally getting a Cinema downtown (which, it is said, will be playing plenty of themthere foreigner films) - I can’t wait to plunk down for tix and popcorn.

But there’s more than movies. Petaluma has more live entertainment than many cities its size. I just got back from a play - a matinee of “The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail”, with a captivating lead performance by P. Elias, a close friend of my daughter. There was even a live chicken on stage in one scene, which is somehow apropos for Petaluma :-) Long live the Cinnabar Theatre.

A meandering spirited backroads Sunday drive back home on a perfect Sunday afternoon. Now I finish up a blog entry, and get set for a trip to the local brewpub (a tie-in to the photo at the beginning of this). That’s the thing about a lazy Sunday, don’t have to focus so much, can turn the volume knob down. The biggest deal all day was sitting on the steps of my veranda to read the paper, and discovering I was in the middle of an Ant Interstate.

I love the West Coast, and get nervous when I get too far from the ocean. Petaluma can be a very mellow place at times. On the other hand, in the words of Woody Allen: “I have a tendency to - if I get too mellow, I - I ripen and then rot, you know.”, so that pitches me back towards NYC. Ok, time to switch music!

Date: Sunday, March 13th, 2005 at 3:45 pm | Category: WestCoast | RSS Feed: RSS 2.0 feed.

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