When 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!
D-D-D-Danny’s Birthday
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!
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.
Indians, Native Americans and my Mom
A lot of you may not be aware of this, but San Francisco was inhabited prior to us “white people” moving in and taking over by depending on how old you are the Ohlone [modern term] or Coastanoan [older out of date term] Indians. Yes, I said Indians. To me “Native American” doesn’t exactly fit because I was born here in the San Francisco, California therefore that makes me a Native American. I understand “those people” not liking to be called “Indian” because the explorers who discovered this place [like the natives didn’t know it was here already?] thought they were in India. But that’s really a whole ‘nother story that I don’t want to get into here.
My Mom for some reason got into collecting the “Indian” baskets at a very young age. She had a huge collection of Ohlone, Paiute, well, pretty much every tribe you could find here. Her problem was that she showed them off by putting them on shelves without any kind of protection whatsoever and when she died and we started cleaning things up with noticed how covered in dust these baskets were.
I contacted a few friends at museums locally to see how best to clean them up. A couple of them came out and upon seeing what she had their jaws dropped. Some of these baskets are over 100 years old and in perfect condition. We decided to clean out the cabinet that was holding a bunch of crap glass that was pretty much worthless and cleaned the dust off the baskets to display them properly.
These pictures are just a small part of the entire collection that includes arrowheads, jewelry, rugs and pottery pieces as well. While 90% of these are from California, there are a few from the southwest along with a collection of Kachina dolls that are still hanging on the wall because we haven’t found a good case for them yet.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the “locals” had a very good degree of craftsmanship. A couple of the baskets actually had colorful bird feathers stuck into them that gave them a velvety look. Bird feathers unfortunately don’t last long and they’re hard to replace, but the weaving underneath still speaks for itself. While my Mom didn’t have a drop of Indian blood in her as far as I know she might have gotten some from my Grandfather who had the look of a mountain man with those “chinese eyes” as Pete Townsend once said about all the best cowboys. He probably had a bit in him and it might have been passed down. So this is our little museum we have in our house that’s holding up quite nicely and I thought I share a little part of an odd part of San Francisco with ya’ll.
Heavy Metal Never Dies
After reading about Ozzy and Mötley Crüe and how they tried to kill themselves I thought it would be nice to have a book about Metal in San Francisco from it’s start in 1980 to where it is in present day. So I’ve decided to write a book on the subject and have it self published.
What I need is to hear from the bands and people involved in the scene because there’s some parts that are a bit foggy for me and some that I missed out on. I want to do interviews for the book with the people who also pushed the scene along like Ron Quintana, Danny D and all of the others. Pics will help as well. I’m hoping you’ll all provide the words and stories that I missed out on, like the East Bay scene which I was only a peripheral member of, mostly seeing the bands when they came to play in San Francisco. Remember some of the old Waller house parties?
San Francisco was the spawning grounds for Thrash Metal that defined San Francisco as one of the big thrash metal scenes, so please contact me with information so I help all of us remember who was who back then.
Why I blog
Oddly enough when I tell people I blog for a living people ask me why. I have to kind of think of that because it doesn’t give me a good enough income to live off of, but it does give me an outlet. I love San Francisco and while I’ve traveled to numerous cities around the nation and world they still don’t hold a candle to being in San Francisco. I want to share my love of this city with them so hopefully those outside the city will want to come, spend money and create jobs that maybe one day I can find.
Then there are my rants. I like to rant because when a problem comes up in my life I’ve found it doesn’t do much good to talk to the person who’s irritating me, because they usually aren’t a person, but a corporate or government entity. I don’t like Chloramine in our water because of the health effects it has on us and our children and pets. I don’t like paypal because they’re a corporate conglomerate monopoly that my letter to them and local, state and federal government have ignored. I even had to leave a part time job because they only paid using paypal and now I could no longer get a paycheck from them.
There are a lot of things going on with me that I don’t like and when I get to write about them I feel a sense of catharsis. My blog is my therapist and I tend not to like flesh and blood therapists because they seem to have more problems than I do. I could write about a former boss that stole my identity and was using it to buy drugs for himself, but I had been ignored by the San Mateo police department possible because he’s up on a couple of felony convictions that will keep him locked up for years to come. I could talk about the trials and tribulations of raising a 3 year old autistic girl who most people wouldn’t know there’s anything wrong with until she has one of her little meltdowns [and I probably will write an article on that soon].
So while I blog about my love of San Francisco, it also gives me a change to vent my middle aged anger on the system that was supposed to work for me. When I become a gray haired old man I don’t want to be that guy walking around on garbage night going through people’s trash to collect recyclables. I don’t want to be a Wal-mart greeter or counting inventory for target, but while I’m highly skilled and qualified, there are also lots of kids living at home with Mom and Dad who can do the job for half what I need.
So please, if you can click on my sponsor links to help a brother out. Send me emails of encouragement or post comments about what you’d like to see here or not see here. I’d love to be able to do this full time, but know that only a few people in the world can do that and I might not be one of them, but I’m going to keep trying. I’ll keep blogging and I won’t go away.
Thanksgiving Humor
So I’ll assume by now that we’re all overstuffed with Turkey or Tofurky and are trying to keep from nodding off so I thought I’d share a joke my old boss Jay Walsh sent me this morning:
“A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to “clean up” the bird’s vocabulary. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said: “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.” John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, “May I ask what the turkey did?”
Happy Thanksgiving!
Groupon Black Friday/Cyber Monday Bonus Offer
As I hope many of you have noticed, Groupon is a sponsor of this website and they just sent me an email telling me that they have several special offers for the dreaded Black Friday so you may not even need to leave home. If you click on the groupon logo it’ll take you to my special page of links that isn’t available to the general public. Apparently when you click the picture it’ll tell you the pageEnjoy and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! It ain’t over until the tryptophan wears off!
My Cat is Senile
This is a picture of my 19 year old cat. She had a little problem because I don’t speak cat, but she had a couple of ingrown toenails which for people is one thing, but for cats think of it as you fingernails growing so long that start to grow into your hand. I took her to my friends at Avenue’s Pet Hospital that I’ve been going to for about 40 years. Dr. Scott Anderson and Dr. Rick Schwach have know our 4 dogs and 2 cats very well over the years and have always offered to help with any problems.
So Morgana is 19 and as I’m talking with Dr. Schwach today I jokingly tell him that I think she’s senile because she meows, LOUDLY for food and water and when I give it to her she’s forgotten I’ve given it to her and meows some more.
Dr. Schwach doesn’t bad an eye, “Well that’s because she is senile. When cats reach this age senility starts in.” OK, that explains a lot to me. I sometimes am woken up in the middle of the night to hear Morgana meowing from the garage and I was thinking maybe it’s because she’s cold or needs food or water or something like that. Dr. Schwach mentioned that the top audience for 3am KGO radio is older people because they don’t really sleep well at night.
I never thought of cats going senile. Our dogs always seemed fine and alert, but cats are kind of new to me. I got my first cat in my 30’s and that was really more because the cat wandered into my house and sat down next to me looking at the food I was eating. After I gave him some steak, Max was a recurrent member of the family. Max died during my trip to London from pulmonary edema that I thank my room mate Jack for taking care of. Morgana was a replacement present from my friend Mike and she’s been doing quite well all these years, but well, she’s senile now. After hearing what Dr. Schwach told me I’m going to start thinking when I hear the meows in the middle of the night that she’s probably starting to see things that aren’t there and I just hope they aren’t scary for her.
Edsel Ford Fong: The World’s Rudest Waiter
I had to go back a couple of decades to remember this, but it was in the early 80’s when I was out with some college friends looking for something cheap to eat. Some one suggested we go to Sam Wo’s. Sam Wo’s is in the heart of Chinatown right around the corner from Ed Jew’s Flower shop. It’s a kind of dodgy looking place since when you walk inside you’re in the kitchen and have to make a sharp right to go up the stairs to get a seat.
The people working there give you kind of strange looks except for Edsel. If you weren’t Chinese he saw you as fresh meat. This was my first time there around 1981 and I remember ordering sweet and sour pork. “You boring, why white people always order the only chinese dish they know. At least you didn’t order chow mein!” That was my response. I then made the mistake of asking for a coke. “No coke, only water. You want coke you go across street and buy it.” Little did I know, Edsel wasn’t kidding.
Two of us walked across the street to a little liquor store and got sodas for all of us and we came back in 5 minutes and the food was on the table. About every 5 minutes Edsel would come by and ask if we were finished. Finally I guess we were finished as Edsel began to take our plates. One of my friends Dan tried to take his plate back. Bad move. Edsel smacked his hand and walked off in a huff with his plate. Part of me wonders if when Edsel wasn’t working if he lost his broken English Chinese accent, but I’ll never know now.
Now some of you are thinking, why would I possibly want to write about a guy so rude. After awhile I kind of got it. Sam Wo’s isn’t much to speak of and Edsel was more putting on a show for non-Chinese people who would venture into Chinatown. Herb Caen used to eat there and he’d always post whatever insult Edsel had offered the night before and Edsel would hold up the column and proudly display it to the customers. It was his schtick and it worked. I was visiting a friend at work around the corner one day and walked past Sam Wo’s and thought of going in and having lunch. But without Edsel being there it’s just Chinese food and no entertainment.