Month: January 2011

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49 Mile Drive: Stop Two, Cathedral Hill

Today we stopped by St. Mary’s Cathedral, or more properly known as the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption. The main thing I would like to assume is that the architect had a few vision problems.

This is not your average cathedral. It’s very modern in design and this was it’s third incarnation. Here’s what I could find on the architecture of the site via Wikipedia:

“The cathedral is located in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption replaced two previous churches of the same name successively. The first original cathedral was built in 1854 and still stands today and is now known as Old Saint Mary’s Church. In 1891, a second cathedral was constructed but was destroyed by arson in 1962. The present-day cathedral was commissioned just as Vatican II was convening in Rome. Prescriptions of the historic church council allowed the Archdiocese of San Francisco to plan boldly in the building of its new cathedral. That resulted in the modern design of the present structure. The cornerstone was laid on December 13, 1967, and the cathedral was completed three years later. On May 5, 1971, the cathedral was blessed and on October 5, 1996, was formally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the name of Saint Mary of the Assumption. The first papal mass was celebrated by Pope John Paul II in the cathedral in 1987.

It ran the private all-female Cathedral High School, in a building adjoined to the present-day cathedral itself. CHS merged with nearby all-male private Sacred Heart High School in 1987. St. Mary’s Cathedral still has close ties to the resulting Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, which uses the cathedral as its principal church for masses and other special events, such as graduation.”

[mappress mapid=”2″]That’s pretty much all of what is there to see on Cathedral Hill. Other than that it’s pretty much just apartment buildings and down a block there used to be the old Jack Tar Cathedral Hill Hotel. Which will be torn down to make way for a new CPMC medical building. The insides of the cathedral are rather interesting as they adhere to the modernist design of the times. I will say one thing is that you have more of a feeling of warm inside with all the wood instead of the coldness of the stone of a place like say, Grace Cathedral. Didn’t get too much time to take pictures, but I got what I thought were some of the best expressions of what the inside feels like. You don’t get as loud an echo as you do in other cathedrals probably because of the wood. Another interesting note is that it has been called by locals as, “Our Lady of Maytag” due to the fact that the building looks a bit like the agitator of a washing machine. The worst part is you don’t have too think to hard to see that.

Update: A couple of my friends on Facebook posted to me that I left out the “Two o’clock titty” as Herb Caen referred to it. If you look at the picture you can see the shadow forming a breast on the Cathedral. Thanks to Libby and Harry!

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San Francisco: Not so gay anymore.

Apparently, according to the Advocate, the news source for the LGBT community, San Francisco isn’t so gay anymore. As a matter of fact we’re down at #11. How could that be?

“For each city, The Advocate added up numbers for Gay.com profiles, listed officiants for gay weddings within a 50-mile radius, openly gay elected officials, performances by lesbian sisters musical duo Tegan and Sara over the past five years, lesbian bars, gay and gay-friendly religious congregations and entries in YellowPages.com with “gay” in the business name or description.”

So it was just a little number crunching that took us off the list.. Well, that’s fine by me because people who are in LGBT community have been cited as the leading cause of all the problems we have in San Francisco. Now we can just say, “Nope” and point to…wait for it…Minneapolis, Minnesota is the gayest town in the US. Here’s the article at advocate.com says explains it all. Apparently last year we didn’t even make the list and Atlanta was on top.

[mappress mapid=”3″]This should come as good news to Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas better known as “GodHatesFags.com” because he and his buddies will have less of drive for the protesting and picketing. There’ll be less reason for him to come to California and save a dime or two. Good for him and good for us. So what is the overall ranking on “gayness”?

Here’s the list:

1. Minneapolis, Minnesota
2. Santa Fe, New Mexico
3. Las Vegas, Nevada
4. Orlando, Florida
5. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
6. Vancouver, Washington
7. Atlanta, Georgia
8. Washington, D.C.
9. Seattle, Washington
10. St. Louis, Missouri
11. San Francisco, California
12. Cleveland, Ohio
13. Denver, Colorado
14. Oakland, California
15. Miami, Florida

Miami is last on the list? ¡Ay Papi! What about South Beach? No Los Angeles or New York? How can this be? Are the members of the LGBT community going to the suburbs?

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San Francisco 94123: The Marina

More specifically, Chestnut Street between Fillmore and Brodrick for what  I’m going to be talking about. I spent a good part of my youth here since my Dad used to run a gas station at Steiner and Lombard prior to Phillips 66 being dissolved.

There’s still a few of the old places left like Lucca’s Delicatessen, the Horseshoe bar and Chadwick’s of London, but some of the old places of my youth are gone such as Vince’s News stand that’s been replaced by a place called Prescription Rx which when you think about it is kind of redundant name. Mostly you’ll find chain stores all along Chestnut. The originals that are still around you can tell because they look it.

This was always a nice part of the city which made it hard for me to understand why the Presidio Theater between Divisadero and Scott was once a pornographic theater. If you’re looking for places to eat you’ll definitely find them here. There’s all sort of restaurants such as A16 or Bistro AIX which are SF favorites placed in between the Jamba Juice, Johnny Rockets and the other chains. It’s not a bad mix because at least the chains that are there are decent ones usually meaning that they have higher prices which shows in the people you see walking the streets.

Walking the streets of Chestnut is not for the faint of heart. There are tons of 30 something hipsters walking around with their lattes showing off their new 4 month old twins along with the ass of an 18 year old they’ve reacquired after pregnancy by hitting the gym regularly and showing it off in their tight, black leggings. Well, a lot of them, not all of them. You get a few odd balls, but on Chestnut street it’s almost everyone is beautiful and fit [You want to go 3 blocks over to Union Street if you want to see everyone beautiful and fit]. The people are nice, but you’ll have to juggle yourself around all the strollers and dogs [usually both combined] to get down the streets. There’s a lot to see here and if you venture onto the side streets you’ll find even more food stops.

[mappress mapid=”4″]For some reason though the people living in the Marina have gotten a bad name. It used to be a middle class mostly Italian community until sometime in the 80’s when young afluent yuppies started moving in and turned the place into a bit of a kind of swingers scene. People were walking the streets at night trying to make a hook up instead of finding a bar. The Marina Safeway which is where you went to shop if you lived on Chestnut has been called the “Singles Safeway” or “Dateway” was listed as one of the best pick up spots in San Francisco and they were talking about frozen chicken. Cameron Diaz in “There’s something about Mary” turned the Marina District girl into a skank who would turn her underwear inside out to get another days wear out of it.  I think she was to blame for this more than anything else. Nobody stinks that you’ll pass by here. Yes, a few of them have a bit of an attitude trying to one up each other when you overhear them telling their friend that now that the twins have been born they’re going to finish their law degree in between their pilates and yoga classes and then waiting for a response from the friend who’s going to have to top that.

If you do stop by definitely drop in at Lucca’s Delicatessen. You might have to wait a bit, but it’ll be worth it. They get their mozzarella shipped in direct from Italy every week.

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America’s Cup: What it means for San Francisco

Well, obviously we’ll have congestion around the city. While there are a lot of people who love to sail [I’m one of them] the America’s Cup people are more like Larry Ellison, maybe not as rich, but they’ll come here with money to blow.

There is also the rebuilding of the piers where the race will be based which will give us more nice areas to hang out at to watch the day go by. Now this will also cost the city big bucks to do this, most of it will be coming from corporate sponsors to have their names up during the race and from the last winner, Larry Ellison’s team that’s is giving $150 million to help cover the costs.

The changes to the piers that have been submitted so far look really nice so I’m hoping for the best. Anythings better than the wrecked state the piers are in at this point in the game. This upgrade will help to overprice the already overpriced SoMa condos and there will be more jobs created from this. I’m sure the downtown businesses will bring in more money from all the monied tourists that will be coming in for the race. It will probably take a while for the money to trickle down to places like the Sunset and Richmond Districts, but I’m sure some of the people will want to see Ocean Beach from the shore, not looking at it from their boats.

[mappress mapid=”5″]Some people dislike the idea that we’ll have all these smug rich people taking over our city for a few weeks, but if they have money and their credit cards don’t get declined let them come and give me their money. I’ll be happy to take it from them. I’m happy that their money will go to help upgrade the city and I’m happy that we’ll have more nice places to see in San Francisco. Sailing isn’t only for rich people and there’s a group out at South Beach harbor that gives kids a chance to learn how to sail without having to sink millions into a boat. I can’t remember their name, but I’ll have to go down there and check it out and see if I can find them.

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Who’s in charge here?

I’d really like to know who’s brilliant idea this was. The picture here is across the street from my house. Originally these two houses had done something that a few people were into doing many years ago.

They’d have the curb removed so that the front of their house was all driveway. That way only THEY could park in front of their house or as was the case with the house on the left they used to park two cars in front of their house because they didn’t have any grass to deal with.

So close to two months ago some work crews come out that I suppose were from the city, but their signs had just about every department that uses these road signs set up to put the curbs back. Why? To make more parking spots available. What they ended up doing is taking a month to do the work giving us no more parking in front and not giving access to the driveways of the homeowners. Hell, I even saw them hooking up hoses to one of the houses outside water faucets and helping themselves to the water.

So once they finish a couple of days go by and they’re back again only this time tearing up the street and then blocking off the parking spaces they’ve just re-established. They worked for about two hours doing this and haven’t been back since, yet they’re still blocking off the parking places and originally had the police “do not cross” tape tied across the length of the row of road signs thereby not giving the homeowners access to their driveways. This has been set up like this for three weeks. I was happy though to see that people had pulled down the “do not cross” tape.

Now this wouldn’t bother me so much except that today I was taking a drive and noticed street workers fixing the roads all along Monterey Blvd [which for some reason they always seem to have road crews there]. There are also road crews set up on Bosworth when you’re going over Twin Peaks and there’s even a set up, but with no workers on Sloat Blvd. I’m just wishing that they could make all of our lives hell for a week and just push and redo everything then leave us alone for the next few years. I have no idea who’s responsible down at City Hall for this, but they need to take a good hard look at how they do things and begin to finish what they’ve started.

ED’s Note: As of today they showed up and simply repaved over what they ripped out. I never saw any reason for it, but I guess they know something I don’t.

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Pollo Del Mar

We took a trip to the local Parkside public library that’s been recently remodeled and ran into a friend of mine for many years. I was originally going to write about the new library, but instead decided to write about my friend’s band, Pollo Del Mar.

The band is one of the more popular “third wave” of surf bands who also might delve into surf versions of Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, the Dead Kennedy’s or even Edvard Grieg [look up “Hall of the Mountain King” if you don’t recognize the name.]

The band has traveled all over the world to Europe and Japan as well as around the US, but San Francisco is their home.  They’ve had songs on 26 different surf compilation CD’s in addition to their own in their 16+ years as a band. Just to give you a little feel about where this is band is coming from here’s a little paragraph from their website:

Your hosts for the evening: Jono Jones suavely stands at center stage; his greatest guitar influences: Hugh Hefner and David Niven. Jeff Turner on fretless bass, a portable energy packet and low-end rocket launch pad. Jeremy Rexford, beating the skins into submission, teaching them a painful lesson they will not soon forget! Ferenc Dobronyi, versatile man about town, roadie,  do-gooder and occasional lead guitarist.

Anyone who cites Hugh Hefner and David Niven as guitar influences is definitely marching to a different drummer. I was lucky to catch these guys live a few times and while they sound surf there’s still just something a little bit odd about hearing a surf cover of a Zeppelin tune. Things like this set them apart from others which in a music town like San Francisco is essential. If you’re the type of person who likes kitsch and good music you should definitely check them out. Here’s a little sample of them called Cutlass Supreme.

Oh and if you didn’t know it, Pollo Del Mar is Spanish for “Chicken of the Sea” a reference to a certain tuna product which of course ties in with the surf theme of their music. Check them out. They’ve usually got a few shows a month when they aren’t out touring the world.

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49 Mile Drive: Stop One, Civic Center

It was a bit of a cold day for us, but we decided to travel down to the main library last Sunday. Little did I realize until we were inside the library that this was the first stop on the 49 Mile Drive, so it was time to pull out the camera.

Big bonus, it was on a Sunday and we could park on the street for free. Big bummer, the homeless people outnumbered the bubblegum stuck to the sidewalks. One thing at least when you’re walking with a kid in a stroller is that homeless people have an understanding, don’t ask for money or be aggressive. I’ve seen this happen many times. I’ll even let my wife walk ahead a few feet and they’ll never ask her for money or a cigarette or anything else, but when I go buy they’re all over me.

Stop one, it’s nice in spite of the homeless people, but there isn’t much else to say about it. Here’s a few of the sites to see there:

  1. City Hall: Rather stately looking after you’ve finished going through security and you get lots of echos which you’ll have to keep your kids from screaming just hear their scream bounce back at them sending security guards running at you with one hand on their guns.
  2. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium: I’ve spent many a night there, even roadied a few shows for bands there. It’s a great place for live acts that has a small arena feel, but you can actually make out the people in the band from the top seats. Acoustics aren’t bad for this place either. Side note: The SpaceCon III Star Trek Convention was held here in 1976 and the Warriors used to play basketball here for a short time.
  3. Asian Art Museum: I can’t really say much about it because I haven’t been here since it moved from the DeYoung Museum. It was never very crowded when it was there and it sounds like they’re still having trouble attracting people, but if you’re into Asian art, it’s a cool place to visit.
  4. Davies Symphony Hall: Ah the place to see and be seen. It was kind of surreal the last time I was there as I saw Huey Lewis and Chris Isaak talking to Willie Brown. This place is serious symphony and you’ll never find an electric guitar in this place.
  5. War Memorial Opera House: It seems to be the home of the San Francisco Ballet and nothing else. It looked locked up tighter than Fort Knox when we walked by.
  6. SF Main Library: What can I say other than what I’ve said before. This place is gorgeous inside, it has a cafe and rotating exhibits as well as free wi-fi. Well, there are the homeless people who wander in to use the restrooms or to get out of the cold until someone throws them out which they usually don’t, but they’ve got a HUGE selection of books, audio, video and free computers to use if you’re on a low income and can’t afford one for yourself.

[mappress mapid=”7″]And that ends it for step one. It turns out that the 49 mile drive has had it’s locations changed over the years with the changing of landmarks over the years. I’m working off the current list for this trip. In the photo library bellow there are a few pics from our trip and that same gallery will be update along the way. Next stop, Cathedral Hill!

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The “It’s-It”: A San Francisco Tradition

Last night I was thinking about things that truly stand out as a San Francisco tradition and one thing came to mind, the It’s It. If you grew up in San Francisco you know this lovely treat of vanilla ice cream smashed between two oatmeal cookies and dipped in dark chocolate. It gave you everything when you had a craving for sweets.The It’s It has changed a bit over the years adding mint, cappucino and chocolate ice cream to replace the original vanilla as well as adding new products to riff on the original, but if you want the original you have get it with vanilla ice cream.

While the product was started by George Whitney, it finally has passed to Shamieh brothers who moved the factory to Burlingame, so while it is still very closely associated with San Francisco, it unfortunately, ain’t made here anymore, but at least it’s made about 20 minutes away from San Francisco so that’s better than finding out that they’re made in China now.

I went to their web site to find out more about the creation of this wonderful little tidbit that was a part of every San Franciscan child’s heart:

In 1928, George Whitney began what is now a San Francisco tradition. He placed a scoop of vanilla ice cream between two large old-fashioned oatmeal cookies and then dipped the sandwich into dark chocolate. On that very day, the It’s It Ice Cream Sandwich was born. George Whitney sold the It’s It exclusively in San Francisco’s Playland-at-the-Beach for over four decades.

Many generations have savored the It’s It. Throughout the years, the company has gone through many changes yet the product remains the same as it did in 1928. Maybe that’s why It’s It was named “The official food of San Francisco.”

When Playland was demolished in the early 1970’s, the It’s It ceased to exist. Times were grim. San Franciscans had one thing in common; they all missed their It’s It. Then, in 1974, It’s It was reborn. This time It’s It were hand made in a small shop in San Francisco and were sold mainly to mom and pop stores. When the shop became too small to quench San Francisco’s appetite for the It’s It, the company relocated into a larger facility in 1978, relocation just minutes away from the San Francisco Airport.

In the 1980’s, the demand for It’s It spread outside of the Bay Area and throughout California. Soon after, It’s It were distributed and were available in over 15 states. In the early 1990’s, It’s It Ice Cream Co. expanded nearly two-fold when it moved into a new office and dry goods warehouse across the street from its manufacturing facility.

I remember the trips my Mom and I would make down to Playland at the beach for It’s Its, but that was as close to Playland I ever got to go because according to her the place was filled with nothing but hoodlums. I did miss it a bit when Playland closed, but that was only a couple of years after it’s closing day which was Labor Day weekend 1972, the only time I actually got to go to Playland. Just a little side note, George Whitney who started the It’s It was the general manager of Playland from 1926 until his death in 1958.

While they are no longer hand dipped because that would be ridiculous for a company that now has to turn out about a million of these things a week to all the places outside of San Francisco, they still pretty much taste the same as they did. Their web site has a video tour of their factory. I think George Whitney would be proud to see he’s left something behind that’s only gotten bigger over the years.

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The Sorry State of Education in San Francisco

I received an email today from my daughter’s pre-K teacher. I was sad to read this email. As a few of you know, my daughter was diagnosed with autism.  Few people really know what’s going on with autism. Not every child acts the same way. They could be normal looking kids who don’t have the ability to talk and are sensitive to song or the tastes of foods to the kids who have what are called “stimmy” behavior which could be that they hit themselves or bang themselves around or making odd gestures.  I have to say we have received excellent help along the way from the school system. Kara, my daughter’s teacher is the best. All of the aids who help her out are also the best. They all have the patience of saints, but the problem is that they only get $250/year to supply their class. When I was a kid, my mother along with other moms would bring stuff to the class for the teacher to use. My mom was a teacher and still had lots of left over stuff that we wouldn’t need anymore, but would probably be able to be used in the class.

I knew things were kind of tough, but I never realized they had gotten that bad in San Francisco. Autistic children’s behavior runs across a wide spectrum. Some people have seen my daughter and don’t understand because they don’t see anything odd about her except that she doesn’t really speak much at 3.5 years old. Most of these people either haven’t had to deal with kids or their kids are fully grown and they can’t remember what a 3 year old is like. The school district needs to be better run to provide for our kids whether they are autistic or not. California ranks very low on the education scale. While we’re spending more than other states because we have more teachers, our teacher to pupil ratio is much higher than other states. Here’s the email:
Dear Family and Friends,
As most of you know, I am Pre-K special education teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District.  I teach a wonderful group of 3-5 year olds, who are mostly on the autism spectrum.  What many people do not know, is the huge negative effect our economy has had on California’s schools.  The last two years SFUSD teachers have only been given $25 a month for classroom materials.  Yes, that is right, we are given only $250 a year to purchase paper, markers, books, puzzles, etc.  It is nearly impossible to access these materials alone, and our current materials are nearing their end.   Recently, I joined Donor’s Choose and submitted a project to help enrich my students’ learning through music, art, science, and sensory materials (as well as necessary classroom materials such as shelves without holes, new carpets, etc.)   On this wonderful website, you can support this project by donating any amount. Once we reach our goal, the website will purchase the materials and send them to my class. I’ll take pictures of my kids using them and we’ll make thank you notes to our donors!

A free way to donate $5 to my project  is by going to this website http://www.bing.com/gives/default1.aspx#fbid=nYe–0CPAFi&wom=false .   Click START HERE, enter your email address, click MAKE BING MY HOME PAGE (do not worry it will NOT make BING your homepage), click NO I will not make BING my home page,  and then click finish.  You will receive an email from Bing (most likely in your junk mail) subject donation code.  You can redeem the $5 donation yourself for my project at : http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=487308 .

I am sorry that my daughter’s teacher has to ask for money to help cover the costs, but if you’re a teacher think about only having $25/month to fund your school supplies. It seems to me that all the money we’re spending on education not enough is being spent on educating our children. Special needs kids especially need special things to help them get over some of the textural issues they have. I know my daughter when she was 2 years old didn’t like the feeling of dirt and sand and now she’ll be grabbing handfuls of dirt like all the other kids with no problem. This may not have happened if we didn’t have the extra help to bring her around. We might have been able to do it ourselves, but it probably would have taken longer, so I have to thank the school district for that.
I’m hoping that Jerry Brown while he’s cutting out unnecessary expenses to the school department like his removal of the Secretary of Education because it was a 13 person department with a $1.9 million/year budget that was basically a yes man to the Governor and redundant to the Superintendent of Public Education office. Our children deserve more in a state that’s the 8th largest economy in the world. I’m sending my $5 right now.
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R.I.P. Phil Kennemore, Bassist for Y&T

We got into the car to head off to the library today we turned on the radio and found out that Phil Kennemore, bassist for Y&T had died. They didn’t give the how’s and why’s, just that he had died and then played just about every Y&T song they could play in their library. Apparently Phil was diagnosed with lung cancer in August of last year. I hadn’t kept up with Y&T too much lately so I didn’t know what was going on with them.

I do remember when a friend of mine let me borrow his copy of Earthshaker and after hearing that album I had to get it. Next my friend told me that Y&T were playing at the Old Waldorf and we should go check them out. I think I was about 18 at the time and I had never been to a night club so I didn’t know what to expect. When Y&T came on my jaw dropped. Here they were in a small club and they sounded just like they did on the album minus the pops and vinyl noise. I wanted my band to sound that way. Even though Y&T were formed in Oakland, we all considered them to be a San Francisco band. When they started to hit it big on the radio Y&T was San Francisco Music.

I found the following common by guitarist Dave Meniketti of Y&T today:

It is with profound sadness and disbelief that I tell you that my best buddy for 37 years passed away this morning, January 7, 2011 at 1am at Stanford Hospital. Bravely and steadfastly battling the horrible spectacle of lung cancer, at the end he was surrounded by his family members, and the Y&T family up until his final breath.

All the beautiful things that I could say about my buddy Phil could never be summed up in a short sentence or two, and I promise that I will be back to say so much more about how I feel about him and his talents in due time. But for now, at 3am, after just having returned home from his passing, let me at least put this out there.

Phil Kennemore was not only a sweet and passionate man with his life, friends and family, but as an artist, he also had that rare ability to say what was on his mind with the most eloquent, clever, and to-the-point lyrics, yet could turn it on it’s head in a second with some other viewpoint on reality and nail the point dead center. He was able to do what very few can – say the things that others have been thinking, but could never quite seem to put into words. He has always had a keen knack for doing that.

As a musician, with those huge fingers, his bass playing was always loud, strong, and deep, filling the largest or smallest of stages equally.

He had an amazingly strong life force that has influenced everyone who ever had the opportunity to be called a friend of his. I am forever grateful for our lifelong friendship, that was always in place throughout the worst and best of times. I will miss his sense of humor, his amazing wit, but most of all I will always miss not seeing him to my left on the stages I will play from this moment forward.

Yes, he was one of the class guys on this planet, and in this business, and I will always do what I can to spread the legacy of Phil Kennemore across the globe on every stage that I land on.

You know how much I love you Phil, and you knew how much your fans and fellow musicians loved and respected you. There was nothing left unsaid. You had a rich and wonderful life and I can only tell you that I was happy to have been alongside you every step of the glorious way.

Cheers to you, Phil.

Your friend forever,
-Dave

I’m really sorry to hear of his passing and I wish all the guys in Y&T and Phil’s family the best. The best I could do for a tribute was a you tube video. Check out Phil’s bass solo right after the bridge.