Month: December 2010

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Stay off the roads today!

I read something yesterday that I found a bit disturbing. Today, December 15th has the highest amount of car accidents. They can’t tell us why, but statistics have shown over the years that today is the worst day to drive.

This doesn’t really have any connection with San Francisco except that there are cars here, but I’m just saying. Today may not be the best day to be a gamblin’ man.

When I was 16 I was riding my skateboard in the Richmond district and made the mistake of riding down a driveway between two vans. Not the best idea, but I was 16 at the time. Out of the blue right there is a cadillac. Reacting I jumped which probably saved my life. I guess all those action movies taught me something. When you’re going to get hit by a car, jump. It worked. Well, except for my head going straight into the windshield and my foot being caught on the hood ornament that dislocated my hip and then when I fell off the car it popped back in. It took over 100 stitches to get my forehead stuck back onto my skull.

Let me tell you though. It only hurt for a few minutes and then the endorphins kicked in. They didn’t even give me any anesthetic when they put the stitches in because they knew the shock had me covered. I didn’t have to spend any time in the hospital, but it did compress a disk in my spine that causes me pain today. We didn’t think about those things 34 years ago. So I’m just letting you know that if you can today keep away from the car. If you can’t then at least try and not drive too much.

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Musee Mechanique

In my last post I talked about the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. Well, there’s a kind of cooler, in a different way place just across the street that you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it. This is the Musee Mechanique. It is an odd mix of things that used to underneath the Cliff House before it’s remodeling so the Musee moved down to Pier 45 at the wharf.

Oh, did I mention it’s free to get in? What the Musee Mechanique is, is a collection of old sideshow arcade entertainment products mixed in with todays regular video arcade games with a few pinball machines mixed in. Most of these will cost you about 50¢ each, but you’ll find that people don’t mind letting you look when they drop a couple of quarters in a machine.

[mappress mapid=”17″]Some of these date back to the 1915 Pan-Pacific exposition and the owner, Ed Zelinsky has been working hard to keep these all running in tip top condition. I couldn’t find an opening date, but it looks like Ed probably opened the place in 1946. The one thing I didn’t get a picture of was the history Laffing Sal of the old Playland at the beach. She’s a big fat creepy kind of clown who has a maniacal laugh and she’s still right inside the front door just like she was at the Cliff House.

So below is a gallery of some of the pics I was able to get the other day. All the old photo galleries are under the photo gallery tab at the top of the page.

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Wax Museum @ Fisherman’s Wharf

Normally, I like to be really proud of the things in San Francisco. This is one of the times I’m not sure what to say. I love wax museums, but after visiting Madame Tussaud’s in London and Las Vegas all others pale by comparison. That being said, this is still a kind of fun place to go. I love the wharf for it’s kitschiness. There’s lots of schlock for sale and every other shop on Jefferson Street sells either candy, t-shirts, cameras or antiques. I don’t understand the antiques part, but in between these little oddities there’s a bit of fun.

Today, thanks to SFKids.org, we got a free pass for the family to the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. What totally surprised me was that while it had been awhile since I’d been there it seemed much smaller than it used to be. Thomas Lee Fong purchased the property in 1962 and opened the wax museum in 1963. It wasn’t much, just the wax figures against black backgrounds. The place kept growing over the years and there was a big ruckus in the 80’s when they made a likeness of Michael Jackson who came out for the unveiling event. I remember Michael was jumping around on top of the cars parked next to the museum and it was all caught on tape for the home audiences to gawk in shock at.

In 2000 they did a complete remodel and now the entire ground floor is the wax museum. It used to occupy all four floors, but now it’s only one floor and that somehow makes it bigger. They have done some decent work in setting up the dioramas with the wax figures, but other than that the likenesses aren’t exactly top shelf. Our daughter enjoyed the whole show of walking around and looking at people who aren’t moving. I’m sure if they had a wax Elmo she would have exploded, but they didn’t. I do remember the Chamber of Horrors being a lot more gruesome than it is today. During the remodel they moved all the Chamber of Horrors stuff down the street to have a cavalcade of the grotesque for the tourists. We’re talking a rack that you could twist the wheels and listen to the wax “victim” scream in agony or the Iron Maiden complete with a body dripping blood as well a quite a few impalings. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Just remember that we walked slowly and took lots of pictures [encouraged by the owners], but I think we did the entire museum in under 15 minutes.

The SFKids.org website was a great resource for us here as if we had to pay it would have cost us over $50 total for the museum, parking and lunch. In the end we got away with only having to spend about $20. Check out the gallery below, but be warned it’s very dark inside so the photos are a little blurry and grainy.

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La Boulange in Cole Valley

While I tend to like French food, its not something I seek out on a daily basis. My friend Clint who’s running off to Costa Rica decided we should get together for lunch before he left and he suggested La Boulange on Cole. I have to say that when I walked it I looked at the menu for about 30 seconds and my eyes were drawn to the display case.

This place was filled with sweet and savory delights that I didn’t expect. I’ve been to French restaurants before and they’ve been of two types. 1. Crappy food in great sauces and 2. Plain simple food. This was #2 with a bit of the saucy flair added. As I was browsing the display case I noticed the croque monsieur which is sort a French way of saying ham and cheese sandwich.  That’s simplifying things a bit, but essentially it’s a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread with a little bit of bechamel sauce instead of mayonaise [which was originally called sauce lyonnaise in French] then they take it one step further and add more cheese on top and broil it until the cheese melts.

Croque Monsieur at La Boulange

While my arteries hurt while eating it I opted for the side green salad with a balsamic vinagrette. Not exactly the most French, but I’ll give them some slack as everyone had lots of piercing and tattoos here. On my first bite I just felt my eyes roll back in my head. This was awesome food and the sandwich, salad and a soda cost me less than $10. For the quality of the food, I have to say the price didn’t hurt and I wasn’t hungry after I finished. As a matter of fact I didn’t have that after Thanksgiving feeling where I wanted to lay down and have a nap.

My friend Clint did one of the cheapest things I could think of at the time, but understood why afterwards. They have a dessert section and he purchased ONE cookie. The cookie was the size of an oreo at best and was coated in the creamy fondant like coating. He broke it in half and handed me a piece. As we walked out the door I popped it into my mouth and after swallowing it two words burst out of my mouth…”OH SHIT!” This was one of the best tasting cookies I think I’ve ever had.

[mappress mapid=”19″]I want to take my wife back now so she can give it a try. She tends to be a bit selective on foods, but I know there’ll be something here she’ll like. Next time we’ll have to try the chocolate ganache dessert.

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Photo Galleries Just Added

seadragonWhen I first started this blog, I had the idea of doing a photo of the day thing of pictures around San Francisco. I sort of lost interest in it because it wasn’t a very elegant way of doing things. I’ve found a way to make it look more elegant now and if you click on Photo Galleries at the top of the page it will show you the various galleries I’ve taken around San Francisco. I hope you like them and I’m sure they’ll get better as time goes on now that I’m using my iPhone 4 for most of the photography. Here’s a set I took today at the California Academy of Sciences to get you started. Enjoy!

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D-D-D-Danny’s Birthday

Stacey Maisenbach, D-D-D-Danny, Thaen Rassmussen

Last night was a big blast from the past for me as my friend Danny had his birthday party. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Danny and all the people from the metal scene in SF so it was a fun time seeing people who are now 15-20 years older than when I last saw them.

Let me tell you a bit about Danny. He’s been known by D-D-D-Danny and stuttering Danny D. His stutter [which isn’t that bad anymore] has sort of made him stand out and he knows it. He’s a comedian, always onstage and always ready to bring on the fun. He’s like a big kid with a smile on his face all the time. This is probably because he and his roommate Ace put out a local show called Reality Check TV.

I’m not sure when Reality Check started, but I always remember seeing Danny and his team traveling around the clubs with their video camera taping people and then going home and editing it together to be shown on public access television. It was raw and rough, but it really captured the scene the way it was then and they’re still capturing it today…and it’s still raw.  Any book written about the metal scene in SF should have a whole chapter just about his exploits. Between him and Ron Quintana you’ve got an entire library of the scene from the 80’s until now.

Now Danny and Ace have branched out a bit from just being local only. They’ve done shows from the AVN awards, Danny’s been in several documentaries on the metal scene. I gotta say that I couldn’t do what he does today even if I’m only 4 years older than him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANNY!

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The Haight has Gone to Pot

As my wife and I were driving back from an appointment today she was hungry and suggested we get a slice of pizza. So of course we had to choose one of the best pizza places around, “Escape from New York Pizza” on Haight. As we were driving down Haight street we started to notice something. The Haight is becoming gentrified and lost it’s charm.

There are still a few places left like Murio’s, Zona Rosa and the Zam Zam Room, but most of the old head shops have now turned into Tibetan shops, actually it seemed like every other shop was hawking Tibetan knick-knacks. You don’t see any psychedelic painted shops anymore or smell the wafting of incense everywhere [which if every other shop is selling Tibetan stuff, where’s the incense?]

To get a feeling for what the Haight used to be like you have to stop in at Escape from New York. Ironic, eh? First, their pizza is great and it’s cheap. Second the walls are lined with some of the old psychedelic posters for shows at clubs that no longer exist as well as autographed pictures of bands and celebrities who love the pizza there. The saddest part of looking at the old posters was that it reminded me of the clubs that used to be there like the I-Beam, Nightbreak and the few others I can’t remember anymore. These were the clubs that became popular when the metal scene was pushed under by grunge and we lost some of the great clubs like the Stone and Wolfgangs now having some of the most kick ass bands being forced to play in beat up bars that were trying to bring themselves up to support the large denim and leather crew that would not go away. Morty’s [R.I.P.] in North Beach was a bit step up in comparison.

[mappress mapid=”20″]Call me a snob, but I don’t like seeing Footlocker or the Gap on Haight Street. That just ain’t right. I kind of liked it when the Haight was trying to preserve the late 60’s culture minus the smelly homeless people trying to look like hippies and peeing in the doorways of shops before they opened. I’d love to put this on my places to see list, but if it didn’t have Escape from NY and Murio’s still it wouldn’t be there.