Category: Life in San Francisco

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Faux Rain

I had forgotten about this until today. We had heavy fog that to people from Los Angeles would refer to as…rain. You can’t see more than 20 ft in front of you in the afternoon while you can see farther the air is so thick with humidity that if you stand around outside for a half hour you look like you walked into a rain storm.

This is always something you have to be careful of especially when you’re driving as the water will build up on your windshield fast and if you don’t have intermittent wipers you have to be quick with your fingers or you’ll run into something or worse, someone.

Heavy fog also tends to be brighter with the tiny water droplets diffusing the light making you at times wonder if you’d see better by putting on sunglasses. I guess the faux rain of heavy fog is kind of like weather that can’t make up it’s mind.

I can remember walking the few blocks to school in this kind of weather and looking like I had been hosed down. Umbrellas don’t help, but you can try. They mind at least keep the top of your head a little drier, but not much. It’s also barely enough to keep you from having to water your garden if you have one and there’s almost nothing worse than seeing your neighbor out in their garden with a raincoat watering. I guess that falls into the same category as putting on your winter coat to go out to barbecue in July. It’s a Sunset thang.

Checking my handy dandy iPhone it tells me that we’ll have to deal with this until Sunday when it will stop. Until then, stay dry my friends.

 

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49 Mile Drive, revisited

A while ago it was suggested that I write about each of the spots on the 49 mile drive of San Francisco. Today I decided to write about the next spot, Chinatown only to realize that I had written about it already. So I started to skim through the list and discovered something…I’ve pretty much covered all the spots on this list.

For those of you not in the know, here’s the list of all the current stops [source: Wikipedia]:

As you can see there are few places listed that weren’t in the original 1938 version because they weren’t built yet. It turns out that the route hasn’t changed much, but more over that the stops along the route have changed. While I kind of scratch my head at a few of the places, does anyone really need to stop at the Federal Reserve Bank? I think they’ve covered a good amount of the places to see in San Francisco.
As I look over the list there are a few places I haven’t yet written about. I’ll tackle those shortly along with some of my favorite haunts around the city that I may or may not have revealed yet.

 

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The Red Vic is Closing

I have to admit that I wasn’t surprised when I read this. The Red Vic Movie House, not to be confused with the Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast in the next block has always had trouble defining itself and attracting customers.

I’ve never been to the Red Vic, but do remember it becoming the last place to show midnight screenings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This was not a place for first run movies. They were always fifth or sixth run movies with the occasional independent film from a local that was a first run because no where else would show it. When I was younger and we were far more superficial we didn’t like the idea of going to the Red Vic because they didn’t have typical theater style seating, but couches. Yes, couches like you have at home. Why pay someone money to see a movie that you could probably see at your own home for free on your own couch that you at least knew what had been spilled onto?

All of this is based solely on speculation because not only have I never even seen the inside of the Red Vic, but I can’t even find pictures of the inside so what it was like can only be conjured up in my head. My friends and I always thought of it as a movie theater for hippies because we thought at the time that hippies who thought television was bad for your brane would have to go out of their house or tent to see moving pictures. Maybe I’m right, or maybe I’m not, but I do remember the various hippies I’ve encountered over the years it was rare to see a television in any of their homes.

The Red Vic was at least a symbol of counter-culture cinema for San Francisco even if it never attracted the customer base to keep it alive. Part of me is sad to see it go, but I can’t exactly demand that it stay if I was never interested in offering any monetary support to keep it open in the first place. I’ve lost my love of movie theaters when the prices reached $10 a ticket and $20 for snacks. With our widescreen, high def, flat screen TV’s of today it kind of makes you glad to be able to watch a movies without your feet sticking to the floor and wondering what substance is making your feet stick to the floor. The Red Vic closes at the end of the month with Harold and Maude being the last movie it shows. I have to admit, that’s also a movie I’ve never seen.

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Pagan Babies

Now when I was growing up I was a public school kid so I didn’t understand the concept of pagan babies. I was probably one of the only kids in my school who never had to go to church on Sunday’s even so religion was a bit of a foreign concept to me. I understood that there was this God thing that was bigger than us and loved us, but at the same time was smiting us more than giving us candy bars.

A friend who likes to get into debates with me even though I agree with him asked me the other day how many people did Satan kill in the bible. The answer is 2. God killed millions. I digress a bit, but at times religion is a funny thing to me. When a group of the old Sunset District crew started to bring up pagan babies it jarred loose a memory from my youth. My Mom always used to tell in a ironic fashion about how when she was attending Saint Bridgette’s that she used to bring in pennies to donate to the pagan babies.

What is a pagan baby exactly? Well, from what I can remember and research has given me they were African, Asian and/or Hispanic non-Christian kids that were forcibly converted over to Catholicism by missionaries that were finances by shaking down kids in Catholic schools for their pennies and/or lunch money. My Mother was one of them and so apparently were all the other Catholic school kids in the Sunset.

We aren’t talking about hippy wiccans here we’re just talking about poor, third world children that the Catholic church said, you’re hungry? here’s some food if you believe in our God and become civilized and accept the names we give you. In my search I found a guy who was remembering buying his first pagan baby at 9 years old for $5 [sounding a bit like slavery yet?]. The pagan baby he purchased was named Daniel James and his $5 gave him a  Certificate of Adoption as a Souvenir of the Ransom and Baptism of an Adopted Pagan baby named Daniel James.

DUDE! Ransom and Baptism? I think the Catholic church needed better PR people back then. You’re teaching a 9 year old about slavery and ransom. That makes the nun’s steel ruler seem a bit tame don’t it?

The best part of this is that the pagan babies fought back. This individual received one of those Nigeria bank swindle schemes in the mail wherein the pagan baby he purchased offered him $4 million dollars in exchange for $100,000 paid into a Nigerian bank. The pagan baby even mentioned his purchase by him and offered to meet with him in Nigeria to talk about the old time religion that had helped him so much that he wanted to pay him back for it.

It seems that the pagan babies have learned how to turn the scheme around. I’m wondering now if there’s a linkback to the Vatican’s records of pagan babies from Nigeria. A salam aleikum.

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West Portal

West Portal is a little village within San Francisco. It is based on the metro station of the same name where the L-Taraval, M-Oceanview and K-Ingleside all come together. It’s quite a hub of transportation, yet at the same time has a bit of small town feel with a bit of a high price tag.

You’ll find very few chain stores here. I think Walgreen’s still stands out as the only major chain. Most of the shops here are of the Mom and Pop type where if visit any of them a few times the store owners will remember you.

West Portal is a funny area in that before the tunnel was built in 1918 it was rather difficult to get to. The tunnel which no services the SFMTA originally was a hole through Twin Peaks to enable streetcars to traffic people downtown in about fifteen minutes.

It’s funny to travel there during the week because after all the hustle and bustle of the morning commuters taking the trains downtown the place turns very quiet. Parking is everywhere and the place takes on a rather sleepy kind of presence. The only place you’ll find lots of people are at the tables outside the coffee shops, in particular Peet’s where you’ll find the older retired Bohemians sitting around talking about the news of the day over coffee.

You don’t find too many hipsters here and you only see someone at a coffee shop with a laptop occasionally and that’s usually at Starbuck’s. Most of the time you’ll see people here to shop or eat at one of the many restaurants. Did I just say restaurant? Well there are many here such as Fresca serving Peruvian cuisine [sorry, they don’t serve guinea pig] to the Mediterranean Bursa or if you like something less upscale there’s always Mozzarella di Buffala for a quick slice of pizza or authentic Brazilian dishes, yes you read that right or Noah’s Bagel’s for a quick nosh.

In the evenings if you want to experience a bit of old school it would be best to stop by the Philosopher’s Club to get your drink on an debate the state of politics with the locals. Be careful though for fisticuffs might ensue! While there are at least four bars on the strip of West Portal you’ll hardly ever see a fight though. This is a place where the genteel upscale people live being bordered by Forest Hill. It’s a step up from the working class here.

In general West Portal is well, nice. It’s a safe place to visit and shop. Everyone seems to have a smile on their face and there is a great sense of community here. The Merchants get together to fund decorating the parking meters for the holidays and they have a yearly arts and crafts show on the sidewalks that always brings the locals to visit.

Oh and in case you’re interested, I’ve started making neighborhood t-shirts at the behest of my Sunset District neighbors. You can see some of them at my Baghdad by the Bay Store.

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The Aftermath…

Yesterday was the day we chose to celebrate the US unfollowing George III. So how did we all fare? Well from accounts of friends and family no one blew a hand off not even my friend Nikolai, the mad Russian who plays with fireworks like most of us played with toy trains as kids.

I noticed something this year that I hadn’t noticed in years previous. If you’re out in the Sunset at least [not sure about the rest of the city] you don’t really need to take a trip down to Crissy Field to watch fireworks. All you need to do it walk out into your backyard or peer out the window from any high point in your house to enjoy the show. Last night was pretty spectacular.

While the noise ran all day it didn’t really get started until around 6pm when we started to hear the M-80’s and bigger going off. They are always used to start the evening around here because they aren’t much to see, but they let everyone in a four mile radius know you’re there. These are usually accompanied by a few bottle rockets and the occasional dim bulb who sends up a decent skyrocket before the sun goes down.

The place really starts to get going around 9pm. This is where the surprises came in this year. Our house was rocked several times by what I first thought were sticks of dynamite only to walk outside and see skyrockets that were more bang than flash. These sounded like canons going off and all the car alarms were being triggered. I think my next door neighbor was sitting in his bedroom waiting for the next bang to pull out his keys and turn off the alarm because his car would only beep twice and stop. Close to 10pm is when everything kicks in for the final finale. Down by the beach there were very large shells being launched that rivaled the size of the Crissy Field shells. The only difference was since we’re up on a hill the were exploding at eye level.

If you get out to the Sunset on the Fourth of July probably one of the best places to go is the Northeast corner of the Sunset Reservoir. It’s high enough up and unblocked by most buildings that you get a clear shot down to the beach and all around you. I’m hoping one day when my daughter who slept through the thunder of the fourth starting at 7:30pm will be awake and we can make a trip up to the reservoir to watch the fun. I think she’ll enjoy it a lot.

 

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The Weekend to Blow Sh*t Up

Welcome to the 4th of July weekend. A day where we all drink up and under the influence of alcohol light explosive devices, or in many of our cases the safe and sane fireworks of the Red Devil fireworks company.

The funny thing about this is that San Francisco ever since I can remember has outlawed the sale of even the safe and sane fireworks on top of the unsafe and insane fireworks such as the firecrackers and M80, roman candles, bottle rockets, skyrockets, you know…the fun stuff.

If you wanted to get the legal fireworks you had to go to Daly City at first and now Pacifica to get them. These were always cities with open spaces that were overgrown with weeds that dried out in the summer unlike San Francisco which had very few spaces  with dry weeds that could catch fire.

As a kid I remember my parents always telling me how a bottle rocket that flew up several hundred feet in the air and fell down through the air could land on your roof and set your house on fire. Unfortunately for her no one’s house ever caught fire in this fashion and none of the sparks from the large blasts at Crissy Field ever blew down on anyone’s house to burn it down either.

This got me thinking last night. Why is it that areas with the largest amount burnable material are allowed to sell fireworks, but large cities surrounded by asphalt that doesn’t burn aren’t? Is it a deal that the fireworks companies cut with big cities to get paid off to not sell there and give a kickback to the suburbs?

I honestly don’t know, but at least have some fun this weekend and blow sh*t up.

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It’s Not Easy Stealing Green…

I was prompted to write today’s post by events of last night. Tuesday Morning is garbage pick up day for us and so we put our cans out Monday evening. I get preoccupied every Monday and I can put the cans out between 6pm and 10pm. The same thing happens every time I put them out. Within five minutes I hear a rustling outside to find the picture included with this post.

Now while you can’t exactly tell from this picture, the woman rifling through my recycling is an elderly Chinese woman. You can see them throughout the day traveling around with shopping carts filled with stolen recycling or rifling through public garbage cans on the street in commercial areas.

Here is where I have a couple of points I’d like to make:

  1. First off, you may not realize this, but this is technically theft. To go through the cans that are the property of the City and Country of San Francisco to retrieve material of value [i.e. aluminum cans and other recyclable material] you are robbing the City and County of San Francisco of money that could be used in the long run to reduce costs of garbage collection. I’ll admit that while they won’t get rich off of it, they have the trucks to process it more quickly than a person walking down the street with paper bags so they can get more bang for the buck than the average recycle raccoon going through your bin can.
  2. This is aimed at all the Tiger Mom’s and Dad’s out there. I understand that you want your children to make something of themselves in life, who wouldn’t? How does this make your kids feel when they are told to work hard, get a good job, build a good family so that when you are retirement age you retire and walk around in salvation army clothes digging through other people’s garbage in the dark of night? Do you really want these people to send that message to your kids?

These are not role models I want my daughter to learn and even though the people are nice when I encounter them saying thank you, they need to realize that I and other people in San Francisco don’t put out our recycling to support you. We put it out to support the city and help lower prices a bit. If you’re going to steal my recycling to cash in then I’m going to have to ask for a cut of your profit. After I’m finished with this article I am going to make a sign and put it on my recycling container that says, If you remove recycling from this container I expect to have a $20 bill dropped in my mailbox on the first of every month. If I do not receive $20 per month I will photograph you removing my property and turn it over to the police.

Let’s face it, if THEY’RE going to make a buck on me, then I’m going to make a buck on them.

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Why There Will Never Be A Straight Pride Day

The city of San Francisco had a fabulous weekend of marches and parades. There was the transexual march on Saturday along with the Dykes on Bikes drive from Dolores Park and of course the Gay Pride Parade. The city this weekend was FAB-U-LOUS! This brought a thought to my mind. Why is there no Straight Pride Parade?

Several years ago on a mailing list of people I went to high school with there a couple of somewhat homophobic people who protested that homosexuals shouldn’t have a day to celebrate. This was hit with a gay friend of mine saying that heteros get to celebrate every day. Hmmmm, not exactly was my first thought. about the only way heteros get to celebrate is by the guys going to a strip club and dropping money on girls who take their clothes off and simulate girl on girl activities, oh wait that’s straight guys watching mock lesbians. Wait, we see that at the gay pride events every year, it’s just that the guys aren’t paying.

Well, the  straight guys could all collect themselves on a float with their penii hanging out pointing at them and screaming, for women only! but you have to admit a bunch of guys standing together on a float with their penii hanging out looks a little, well, gay. Women could collect half naked on a float writhing around at which point the guys would be screaming once again for girl/girl action which of course would put them in the lesbian category.

The whole pride thing started out to celebrate the fact that there’s nothing wrong with being homosexual, then the bisexuals were added in, then the transgenders hopped aboard which some of them while being once male or female have switched sex might now be attracted to the opposite of their new sexual orientation making them technically straight, or if they are attracted to the same as their new sex would make them gay, but since they were once the opposite sex makes them kind of straight, so…did I loose anyone here?

Pride day, which has turned into pride month pretty much celebrates an act against normalcy. Normalcy is something you can’t celebrate because it’s, well, kind of boring. We don’t even have a good line we could chant in a parade. We’re here we’re straight we pay our bills, uhm, you know we’re normal doesn’t go over too well. Celebrations need a bit of antinomianism to them to be fun. You’ve got to do something a bit naughty to enjoy yourself. Normal people aren’t very naughty. Our former Governor cheats on his wife and has a love child BOR-ING. That is so 10 minutes ago it’s not even in the local papers anymore. The only way a politician can get more publicity is by soliciting a homosexual encounter in an airport bathroom or by sexting pictures of what might be his engorged penis to underaged girls [that’s straight, but wrong right?]

I did a search this morning for straight pride and was surprised by what it turned up. Most of the small group of people who celebrate straight pride do so by speaking out that homosexuality is an abomination of nature. OK, so if everyone was heterosexual you’d have nothing to speak up about. Well, that’s a definite party buzz kill. I couldn’t find anything that these groups could put a finger on to give them something to celebrate for being straight.

So with that being said, I wish all my non-breeder, non-Mormon, non-no sex having people my hopes that you had a wonderful weekend. Now I’m off to iTunes to gift I kissed a girl by Katy Perry to Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Be Fab-U-Lous everyone.

 

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Crossing the Slot

San Francisco is a city that as my wife once quoted a person from Maine as saying, “Ya can’t get there from here.” Traveling is a difficult task because of the central hills and Golden Gate Park that has caused our transit system to bore holes through the hills to make it easier to get to downtown. The Richmond and Sunset districts occupy approximately half of San Francisco and are divided by the Slot, or Golden Gate Park. Originally, Market street was referred to as the Slot and the SoMA region was called South of the Slot, but today Market St is more of a slit for travelers than a slot.

Golden Gate Park is a massive part of the city being three times the size of New York’s Central Park. The problem with it is while it is a great outdoor open space there’s really only four places to cross the park. I’ll address each of these individually. The first is Ocean Beach where while it is a great place to drive is only two lanes in either direction That’s rather sumptuous compared to other places, but it is also subject to frequent closures due to public events such as the Bay to Breakers and other public events. It’s still one of my first choices when I have to travel to areas northwest in San Francisco.

The next is the 41st avenue [Sunset side] and 43rd avenue [Richmond side]. This is one lane in either direction with two stop signs to slow you down and leads to traffic pile ups.Quite frequently if you need to get to the northwest section of town crossing here will be slower than traveling down to the beach and using Great Highway. It’s a beautiful drive, but it will add time to your drive that feels like house when it is only minutes.

Next is 19th Avenue which while on the Richmond side is Park Presidio all the traffic reporters refer to as 19th avenue. This is the biggest three lanes in either direction transit point for getting to the Golden Gate Bridge. Because of this it is always crowded. There have been times when traveling there are smooth, but they are rare. If an accident occurs here it is usually within Golden Gate Park and will back up traffic all the way to Daly City.

The last is at Stanyan Street which most people ignore because even though it is two lanes in either direction, it’s a nightmare of traffic to wade through even though people supposedly ignore it. The Stanyan street corridor is one of the most congested streets of the city. I always use it as a last resort because even during the day when you would expect little traffic it has lots of traffic.

There are a few other areas you can use to get around such as the Lincoln Blvd and Fulton Street areas that run parallel to the park, but those usually get congested during rush hour because they’re the only areas with wide enough lanes to allow drivers to travel over the speed limit [c’mon admit it who hasn’t hit 60 mph on one of these streets?]

When I used to live out closer to the beach I used to enter on 41st Avenue and actually drive through the park in the mornings. It was a leisurely drive that few people take. While it is on the slow side, it is quite pleasant overall. It may add some time to your trip, but at least you’ll have a smile on your face.

San Francisco needs to realize that with half of the city being taken up with residents of the Richmond and Sunset districts that it needs to find an easy way to get there from here. Richmond residents have Geavy Blvd to get them downtown that while large is frequently crowded. The Sunset has no direct route to downtown by car except the Oak Street/Fell Street corridor along the panhandle which in the mornings is a nightmare to travel. SFMTA riders have access to downtown via West Portal station, yet Richmond riders have only the 38 Geary to get them downtown. Yes, there are other busses in the Richmond, but they take you twice as long as the Geary.

The next Mayor of San Francisco will have to take a look at finding a way to get the citizens of San Francisco from here to there quickly and efficiently.