Tag: culture

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San Francisco: Playland For The Borrowed And Not So Famous

Daddy, can you get your credit limit raised on your card?I had mentioned this briefly in my last article, but I felt this needed more attention. People don’t realize that San Francisco today has become a long term amusement park for people trying to make a name for themselves in the world who ultimately don’t and I thought I’d talk about what that means.

As many of you know I’ve been driving for SideCar which is fun and gets me to see more of the city on a daily basis. About half of the people I pick up haven’t been in San Francisco for a year and of those I hear a lot of them saying that Daddy sent me to San Francisco with his credit card for a year to grow up or something similar to that. First off, BAD DADDY! Sending someone in their 20’s to San Francisco with an open credit card will only make you broke and won’t make them grow up. They won’t make a name for themselves here [at least one that will make them money so they don’t need your credit card] and in the end they’ll end up calling you back to bail them out or move to the East Bay for a little while longer.

Because of the no credit limit kids who don’t learn a thing such as $3500 is far to much to pay for a 2 bedroom apartment and that a cup of coffee doesn’t have to cost you $5 they are the ones ending up destroying the City as we know it. They aren’t giving anything back only taking away. Well, they are giving money to the businesses, but aside from bars and landlords it’s pretty slim as to who else is getting the money.

This has happened in the past. If you think back to the 90’s we had slackers. They were the ones sitting around in coffee shops all day smiling in the sunshine without a care in the world. We just didn’t know how they were paying the bills. Back then most of them jumped from couch to couch of their friends until they ran out of friends or stopped being able to make anymore and they left.

People like to blame the techies, but I don’t really think it’s their fault. They’re causing building in run down areas of the City to be remodeled and creating new places to visit in the city. Yes, they are moving out low income people to some extent, but they’re also moving out low income people in high crime neighborhoods where there’s still enough crime to go around [have you heard of people talking about the good old days in the Mission when they had their cars broken into every weekend? No, because it’s still happening.] The techies also can’t ship in all the employees so they’ll be hiring locals which gives all the computer nerds a reason to smile after being ignored in college.

I’m not sure where this money comes from that the kids who were sent here to grow get to spend. Some of them actually have said that they’d never take the bus because they’re above that. They become disconnected with the rest of the world that they’ll have to go back to at sometime in the near future. Dads, if you’re thinking of teaching your kid to grow up in San Francisco send them off with a month’s rent and a couple hundred dollars. That’ll make them grow up quickly and give you some money for your retirement.

It is my honest belief that this whole amusement park thing that is happening to the City at the moment will soon come to pass. Think may never go back to the way they were, but the bubble will burst for the kids and the only ones that will suffer other than the kids who will run home are the landlords, new bars and restaurants that have been pushing their prices up day after day. Luckily there are still a few places that haven’t changed so much, but I’m going to keep those to myself.

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Put The Shark Fin Down…

Would you like a shark fin or two?Today is the day all the animal welfare people have been waiting for and the Chinese traditionalists have loathed. As of today it is officially illegal to engage in the trade of shark fins within California.

Specifically this will hit Los Angeles and San Francisco the hardest so I’ll focus on San Francisco because I suppose we hear about it more here.

Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy by the Chinese and served to celebrate births, weddings, nowadays pretty much any celebration comes with shark fin soup, or at least it did until AB 376 was passed. This caused quite a brou-ha-ha within the Chinese community with cries of racism being throw around like the shark fins themselves. While being seen as an attack specifically against the Chinese which is actually more collateral damage since the Chinese are the only ones who eat it, it was more about saving the wildlife of our oceans, mainly the top of the food chain predators of the ocean — sharks.

AB 376 was passed because there was a huge amount of sharks, including endangered species of sharks being harvested to make the delicacy with no taste. In some cases there has been a 90% reduction in the population of sharks who’s fins and only fins are used for the soup. No other dish uses shark fins and the less economically feasible rest of the shark is worthless in comparison and is thrown back in the ocean allowing the finless shark to die.

If you’ve read my articles on the subject before you’ll noticed that I was called a racist by Senator Leland Yee’s twitter account along with several other lovers of shark fin soup who tweeted to me questions such as, what about sharkskin suits? They use shark [No they don’t. Sharkskin is a smooth worsted fabric with a soft texture and a two-toned woven appearance. No sharks are harmed in the making of a sharkskin suit]. Shark meat that was said to be sold at Costco and other food outlets was shown not be sold any longer and it’s next to impossible to find shark meat for sale anymore.

Because of the ban going into affect today there has been a few more articles on the subject noting that the stores and restaurants who still have stock on hand were trying to unload it before today with everything from a Father’s Day 20% discount to $999/lb to discounted shark fin soup with a whole chicken for $138.

In one article I did find information on why this delicacy with no taste because popular. It dates back to ancient China when killing a shark took some major cojones or however one says cojones in Mandarin or Cantonese. To show off your masculine prowess by killing a shark meant you had to get your hands dirty and risk your life. So after risking your life you have to show off to guests by making them eat it. Makes me think of something along the lines of, I had to work hard for this food so you’re going to eat it. Kind of like something your parents would say to you when you were a kid, but in this case you were celebrating the prowess of the shark killer by consuming the flesh of the animal that would have consumed the flesh of your host. Now I’m thinking of some of the hunters I know and that works out pretty similar.

There’s a difference here you have to take into account. It doesn’t take any physical prowess to ask, how much is that shark fin in the window? The whole ceremony behind eating shark fin soup has been lost today and in some ways that’s a shame. I’d like to see how much a person really wants a cornerstone of their culture if someone hands them a knife and points to the ocean and says, help yourself.

I have to admit that I am no vegetarian and a far cry from it, but when I was a Boy Scout and handed a live rabbit and tossed into the woods over night the rabbit got to run free and I was a vegetarian for the night. It might have been different had I been stranded for more than a couple of weeks, but I could go a night without meat. Most of us that were raised in cities don’t have the hunter instinct anymore so the idea of you’ve got to kill it before you grill it is lost on us. I can understand the original reasons why it became a delicacy and that also helps explain why someone would want to eat something that’s tasteless. It’s not about what it tasted like, but how you got it and that part has been lost in today’s Westernized culture.

I enjoy cultural traditions and do think that in San Francisco the retaining of cultural traditions should remain. You also have to keep in mind though that there are some cultural traditions that need to change. Slavery was an American cultural tradition at one time. There are many cultures that cannibalism was a cultural tradition as well, but they had to be let go. I’m sure the Chinese have more cultural traditions to focus on than one that has been destroying the natural eco-system of our planet to support a cultural tradition that is outdated and anachronistic.

On the other hand, here’s a knife, there’s ocean. Have at it.

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Leland Yee: Outraged over animal abuse, but not shark abuse

I received an email from Senator Leland Yee yesterday about his outrage of the funding of a $750,000 grant for a Brooklyn artist to create sculptures for Muni who in the 70’s made a film where he made an art film in which he adopted a dog and chained it to a fence and then shot the dog.

I have to admit that I had heard of the film, but never saw it, but not only am I disgusted by the idea of this film, but so was the man who made it. He remarked that what he did was wrong and it was the stupidity of his youth that made him unable to see the bigger picture, yet at the same time, we have a California state Senator who while being disgusted by the shooting of a dog, sees nothing wrong with the dismembering of a shark and throwing its writhing, living body back into the ocean to die as being a Chinese cultural tradition.

To quote Senator Yee from his email:

This week, Ed Lee and the SFMTA approved spending $750,000 of taxpayer money on a central subway contract for Brooklyn artist Tom Otterness, who made a 1977 film in which he chained a dog to a fence and then shot and killed that dog on camera.

Yes, you read that correctly. He chained a dog to a fence and then shot and killed that dog.

This is a completely unacceptable use of taxpayer dollars.

I woke up early this morning to find a youtube video had been sent to me by an old friend of mine, Dave King. This is a video of Chef Gordon Ramsey tasting Shark Fin Soup for the first time to see what all the fuss was about. Not only do you get a chef’s analysis of the soup, but Ramsey also goes out to see how the shark fins are acquired. Warning for those friends of mine who are defenders of animal rights, while sharks aren’t all warm and fuzzy like a dog or a cat [which also happen to be eaten as a part of “traditional Chinese culture”  in China that I have written about before] this video does show the finning of sharks, in which case you might want to stop the video after Chef Ramsey leaves the restaurant.

Senator Yee, who is a candidate for mayor of San Francisco [which I might add he filed for just a week after being re-elected as Senator of California] has a problem with animal abuse as long as the animal being abused isn’t a shark. He talks about how shark meat is available everywhere, yet you can’t find it anywhere and the basis if AB 376 is an attack on “Traditional Asian Culture” when Chinese citizens are the only Asians who consume shark fin soup. In reality, this email isn’t an attack on a man who shot a dog, but an attack upon another fellow Chinese citizen of San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee. While as you all know I am not in favor of our interim Mayor running for re-election because it goes against the promise he had made that he would not run for re-election, I also do not like the focus that our Chinese candidates for Mayor are using to focus on getting the Chinatown vote. While Chinese make up 33% of San Francisco’s population, only 18% of them actually vote and the majority of the Chinese population isn’t living in Chinatown, but the majority of non-voting Chinese is.

Supervisor John Avalos and Attorney Dennis Herrera are making huge jumps in polls because of the fact that they are focusing on the population of San Francisco, not a small eight block area of San Francisco. We need a Mayor that will focus on all of the districts to bring about change. From the Sunset to the Bayview, from the Mission to North Beach and yes, also Chinatown, but not appearing to be only in favor of helping Chinatown.

Now with that being said, on to the movie:

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AB376 passes! On to the Governor!

I was informed by the California Director of the Humane Society of the United States Jennifer Fearing yesterday that AB376 passed through the senate 25-9 and now proceeds to the Governor for final sign off to be made a law making California partner with Washington, Oregon and Hawaii on the ban on the sale or possession of shark fins.

To me this is great. In our oceans the sharks are the top of the food chain. We kind of take the food chain for granted. On land, humans are considered to be the top of the food chain. 90% of  the shark population has been decimated by shark finning. If  90% of the human population was decimated by some sort of fate how do you think we would be living? Not too well is my suspicion. The food chain is much more fragile than a chain and when you remove the majority of the top of the food chain it becomes destabilized and starts to fall apart.

This can be seen in parts of the world where animals not from the area have been introduced. Crops fail, livestock dies and people go hungry. Shark is not a popular fish to eat and hasn’t been for almost two decades. Sharks because of their nature living in salt water do not excrete urine and their flesh when caught has a very strong ammonia content making them difficult to prepare. Their flesh is also high in mercury making them and their fins unsafe to eat.

As expected there were a few people against the ban. To quote our local Senator Leland Yee’s comments on the subject:

the bill would not save a single shark because there is no ban on taking the rest of the body other than the fin.

If it won’t save a single shark, then why not vote on it? His logic is fueled by the idea that people still eat shark meat. They pretty much don’t. Chefs are even working now to come up with a substitute for shark fin in the mostly tasteless shark fin soup because it should be more ecologically sound to reproduce a tasteless dish than to destroy our oceans to preserve a tradition that only one type of people enjoy. Shred up some tofu and add some dried shaved tuna flakes to the broth. I am truly sorry that this bill does seem aimed at Chinese people who eat shark fin soup to celebrate at weddings or the birth of a child. It does seem like a cultural attack, but it is an attack on a practice that is destroying our oceans for a small piece of meat that is high in uric acid and mercury. Doing away with this dish will probably bestow longevity on the Chinese people who previously consumed the dish.

I was at my doctor’s office a few years ago and thought I was reading an episode of Time magazine when I realized it was China Today and noted an article on the Chinese fighting against the cultural tradition of eating dogs. You would think it was an attack by PETA to see the pictures,  but these were Chinese citizens who would rather pet dogs than pot them.

Cultural traditions change over time. White people once owned slaves, but they do not anymore. Chinese once bound the feet of their women to make them attractive, but they do not anymore. Shark fin soup has had it’s time and should not be relegated to the history books. California is the 2nd largest consumer of shark fin soup outside of China and is fastly rising to the number one position. Even China is backing away from shark fin soup.

In my travels around San Francisco it is common for Chinese restaurants to post their menus in the window and so far I have only a small number that serves shark fin soup. I’ll admit that I haven’t been to Chinatown that probably has more, but that’s only a supposition on my part. It does seem a bit strange though that there was such a big fight to uphold a Chinese cultural tradition that is rather hard to find.

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San Francisco Mayoral Forum

Tonight I’ll be heading over to the United Irish Cultural Center to listen to several of the candidates for mayor tell me why I should vote for them. This is my first time getting involved with anything close to real politics and also my first time stepping into the U.I.C.C.

Scheduled to appear tonight are:  Leland Yee [who’s staff apparently doesn’t like me very much], Phil Ting, John Avalos [a man who took several minutes out of a campaign stop to talk to me personally], David Chiu, Joanna Rees, Bevan Dufty, Michela Alioto-Pier, Dennis Herrera and Tony Hall.

Since I’ll be visiting the United Irish Cultural Center, it seems only fitting that I wear my green suit in honor of Irish heritage even if I’m not Irish myself. It also doesn’t say if there will be drinks or snacks available, but I’ve been told they have an excellent restaurant that I might stop by for some potato leek soup, cod and chips with a slice of Bailey’s cheesecake to finish it all off.

From what I’ve been reading about the political candidates running for mayor, none of them are straying too far from each other for fear of losing a place in the second or third tier of the ranked choice voting. I’m assuming then that many of the candidates tonight will probably be saying the same thing unfortunately, that is unless Rose Pak shows up with the Run Ed Run crew. The only other thing that could get interesting is if I get pulled aside by some of Leland Yee’s crew to have a word about some of my previous posts regarding him.

If I end up spending the night in the bar then at least I’ll have a few friends to sit with me. Slainté!

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Friday Shark Attack…

Well, I thought yesterday’s article would smooth things over a bit by posting a rational, not overly emotional piece aimed at the politics in San Francisco and to help Senator Leland Yee understand that his campaign people are ruining his shot by playing the race card for him as well as not understanding what misusing social media can do for you. I don’t know if my point hit home, but I did notice I received a lot of followers yesterday and one troll.

Apparently a twitter account using the name @alumcalbearsedu started to go on the warpath with myself and anyone else locally he/she/it could find that spoke out against shark finning as a racist. A few of the people being attacked surmised that this troll was a sock puppet of Leland Yee. If he indeed is I feel sorry for Mr. Yee. While this person is obviously a Leland Yee supporter, he has a chip on his shoulder that he is being attacked for being a Chinese minority. I looked up the ethnicity of San Francisco and the Bay Area and Asians came in as the second largest race [the green dots represent Chinese, not Asians in this link]. If you look at the previous link you’ll see that in the Sunset and Richmond districts, Chinese are the predominant race. Chinatown oddly enough shows more red [Caucasian] than green [Chinese]. Of the 189 and under group Asians actually make up the majority of population in the Bay Area. OK his point is shot down.

He then goes on to ask why is shark meat ok, but not the fins. It’s an attack on Chinese culture. Let’s drop that into google and see what comes up. Here are some shark meat suppliers. Not one is in the U.S. and they typically are providing dried shark meat, not something I’ve ever heard of American’s preparing. This got me interested in how shark meat is prepared because I have read it is high in uric acid and smells like ammonia. There’s an Icelandic dish of pressed dried shark meat that even made the host of Bizarre Foods, Andrew Zimmern gag. Here is a suggestion as to how to prepare shark meat. Not very appetizing or sanitary in my opinion. Point two, shot down.

Then @alumcalbearsedu came back with, @baghdadbythebay Also check out eBay “shark skin” and “shark oil”. Tell me why they are not also being considered for banning? This one was easy. Shark skin isn’t made from shark. It’s a type of cloth or there is cow hide that is patterned with a shark skin look. Shark oil on the other hand has come under fire recently and is being placed in the ground rhino horn and tiger penis category as a mythological cure for everything. Strike three…you’re OUT!

Perhaps one of @alumcalbearsedu most telling comments was, @baghdadbythebay Ban the entire shark. Don’t single out the fins and make Chinese the escape goats to solving shark problem. Now the worst thing about this is that we have a person who claims to be an alumni of University of California, Berkeley that can’t put a simple sentence together. He has noted that only Chinese are affected by this and as stated yesterday 85% have decided to stop eating or diminish their consumption of shark fin soup in China which he hasn’t acknowledged. What we have here is a someone who is bullying people on Twitter who is doing so because he claims @baghdadbythebay Yes I am emotional about this. Chinese always gets bullied. Rush limbagh and Alexandra wallace… Ching chong chinks. So I guess he believes it’s ok to bully others if you feel you’ve been bullied. Why doesn’t he go after Rush Limbagh [sic] or Alexandra wallace [sic]?

This has lead me to create a PDF file for some grass roots politicking in San Francisco. I’ve never been one to do this, but it appears that Leland Yee’s campaign front is releasing trolls without doing anything to stop them. If you download this file, print it out and cut it into quarters and distribute it to any business that displays a Leland Yee for Mayor sign. It’s time we send him a message that he can’t straddle the fence on a topic that the majority of people are in favor of, included those of Chinese Ancestry…the passing of AB376 which would ban the sale of shark fins in California. This is an animal rights issue, not a race issue. Download PDF File.

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A Point of Clarification Regarding Leland Yee

I suppose I stepped a bit over the line the other day when I posted that Leland Yee called me a racist. He did, or should I say his twitter account did in a passive aggressive way infer that my dislike of shark finning to provide the main ingredient for the beloved shark fin soup was born out of racism by the use of the hash tag #racism. I really shouldn’t blame Leland directly. The post from his twitter account used the word He, not I so he’s not controlling it. I received a couple of hours after the post a phone call from Jordan Curley of Stearns Consulting that I did not answer. She did leave a message stating she was from the Leland Yee campaign asking me to call her back. I had chosen not to, but today after I get my work finished I will call her.

Jordan, expect my call. It would have been nice if she had said she was from Stearns Consulting, but I suppose consultants don’t like to be known as consultants, but would like to appear much more closer to the person they’re hired to promote. No matter, after finding her info on the site it will be a Caucasian to Caucasian discussion that I would find it hard for someone to bring up racism.

I admit that I may have emotionally over stepped myself in a way that my disgust at the practice of slicing the fins off of sharks and tossing the still live body back in to the water might have been perceived by Mr. Yee’s publicity juggernaut of people who have so much to wade through that they have to skim which probably led to the #racism hash tag. I don’t think that was right and I will stand by my disgust at shark finning. It is only done to provide the main ingredient for shark fin soup which is eating mostly by those of Chinese decent, but that does not make my comments I have posted an attack on the Chinese and their culture.

I being of Italian and Austrian decent would probably be up in arms if California wanted to place a ban on pasta, but only wheat dies in the making of pasta and no animal suffers during it’s making. I am sorry if my writings from the heart upset Jordan Curley and Mr. Yee’s aid, Adam Keigwin as they are the only ones who have confronted me on the issues [Adam via Twitter]. I have not yet received an email or phone call from Mr. Yee and I don’t expect to. I might run into him the next time I’m at the Tennesse Grill which he likes to frequent and if I see him I will introduce myself to him just to see if he knows who I am. I’m not sure he will.

This all started from my comments regarding a practice that I found appalling that was causing the decimation of species that is already threatened by an abundance of mercury in the waters that is making them even more unsuitable as a food source. As mentioned before, Costco hasn’t sold shark meat in over ten years because of people’s fear of mercury poisoning. Basketball great Yao Ming has done a TV commercial that 55% of the people of China have seen and is responsible for causing 85% of the people of China to say that they will stop or diminish their consumption of the soup. There has yet to be shown a proven way to sustainably provide the main ingredient for shark fin soup and there are chefs in the Bay Area who are even looking at ways to replace the main ingredient with more healthy alternatives. What we are seeing is a resurgence in the interest in shark fin soup made without the shark fins. It makes it more affordable and more healthy to humans and sharks. Mr. Yee, Mayor Lee and Fiona Ma [all California politicians with a San Francisco base], all I am asking is that you let go of something that even the majority of Chinese people don’t want anymore.

I suppose in this case that while I’m not a vegetarian in any way shape or form, I’m in league with seitan.

Jordan Curley Voice Mail

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Goodbye to the California Academy of Sciences

As most of you know I have had a love/hate relationship with the California Academy of Sciences. I love the fact that they have a super eco-friendly building with LEED Platinum certification, but what I have found with the new change is that they don’t have the science so much anymore. I grew up at the Academy and whenever I had a science project at school I would always do my research at the Academy because it was a treasure trove of information and because I was also a member of the Junior Academy I had access to even more.

I received my renewal notice from the Academy a few days ago and noticed that last year we paid $159 for a family membership. This year they have risen the price to $199. While that’s less than a dollar a day that kind of thinking only applies to food, not an Academy of Sciences membership which has now entered into the luxury realm. They’ve raised their prices to $29.95 to gain entrance to its hallowed halls, but once you get inside it feels empty. See the fish! See the rainforest! See the planetarium! (sorry all our shows are filled for the day) See our living roof! Oh, here’s some crap we’re using to fill in the space while you walk to our cafe to plunk down another $50 on top of the $100 you just put down to get your family of four in the door on top of the parking fee.

I’m not taking it anymore. While I grew up there and learned a lot through my activities there the Academy has been rebuilt to serve science to the rich, not the masses. This prompted me to send them the following letter:

Dear California Academy of Sciences,

It is with great regret that I will not be renewing my family membership this year. You price for membership has risen too much over the years to make it feasible for my middle class family to afford anymore.

I grew up as a part of the Academy of Sciences, attending classes at the former Junior Academy while volunteering at Steinhart Aquarium and eventually moving on to work in the Junior Academy and Planetarium. The Academy gave me great benefits at the time that gave me much more than I was learning in school and had me understanding organic chemistry at the age of 12 to the point that I was regularly pointing out errors to my teachers.

That was many years ago. Back when a $25 membership would allow your entire family and two guests walk freely about the Academy that wasn’t so incredibly packed as it is today. We also used to have free monthly meetings and a magazine delivered to us each month and I always looked forward to the free members night that gave us all behind the scenes tours of the aquarium and all the other departments at the Academy.

While the prices obviously have to rise over time, your costs less than 10 years ago prior to the rebuilding of the Academy were $65 for a family membership and came with eight guest passes and you still had the members night. Today that would cost me $1000 and on my budget that makes it unavailable. I have had the standard family membership which when I paid it last year was $159. If I were to renew it today it would cost me $199 which I still cannot afford.

There was a time when the California Academy of Sciences served the people of San Francisco. Now it would cost a family of four $100 to spend a day at the Academy and to me that is unacceptable. I regret that what the Academy once offered me it no longer offers the people of San Francisco and that my daughter will grow up without having access to what I had. I regret that there are so many people flocking to the Academy and giving up their hard earned money to view the aquarium, rainforest and planetarium with a few bits and pieces strewn about. There is no more Wattis Hall of Man, no more Hall of Birds, no more Hall of Minerals, no more North American Hall, no more Life through Science, no more Swamp and no more Entomology room. You have retained African Hall, but the only thing people seem to pay attention to is the penguin exhibit with the rest of the hall being the only quiet, open space in the Academy.

I used to be able to spend an entire day at the Academy of Sciences, but now I can take it in in under two hours. While the Academy has grown in square footage it has shrunk in what it is offering its patrons. I have friends and family who come to visit here and they would love to see the Academy of Sciences, but as soon as I tell them the price they choose to go somewhere else. I used to be able to give them my cards to use, but now you insist on members to show their ID to get in. True, you do offer the one free day a month which is by far the worse day to visit the Academy as it is so crowded it is probably coming close to passing fire code violations on occupancy.

I am not sure if I will ever return to the California Academy of Sciences again unless there is a change back to serving the people of San Francisco by not selling the sizzle instead of the steak at a high price, but by serving up science to the masses that teaches them and gives them a better understanding of the world we live in and how fragile it can be.

Sincerely with deep regret,

Eric Kauschen

The times, they are a changing. Please share this with your friends. I think it will be a long time before you hear me mention the California Academy of Sciences again.

UPDATE: After doing a little fact finding I’ve just discovered that the family membership was $60/year until 2008, A mere 3 years ago and offered the benefits of 4 free academy passes that they valued at $7 each not the $29.95 they ask today, three years later.

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Coit Tower: OMG it’s so big!

I decided to go for a bit of titillation for today’s story, but it’s something that many of you may not know about it’s “titillating” background. Coit Tower was built in 1933 by the bequest of Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the city as well as to commemorate the firefighters of the city. In particular she was apparently rather fond of the firemen at Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 5.

It is said that the rather tall tower was to replicate in an art deco, abstract way a fire hose nozzle. Now I like firemen myself as they’ve helped us out on numerous occasions when my elderly parents and grandparents were alive. I am not leaving one-third of my estate to them though.

Lilian had a bit more of a how do I put this…”devotion” to the burly firemen of company No. 5 and some have said that it wasn’t a representation of a fire hose so much as it was a representation of, well, uhm, uh, a “fireman’s hose” if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Lillie was a bit of a randy sort of woman who was a character that made San Francisco what it is today in many ways. She was an avid gambler and cigar smoker and even dressed as a man to be able to get into gentlemen’s only gambling establishments. She wore pants before it was fashionable and loved to thumb her nose at the establishment. People forget that the 20’s was the decade of “free love” before the 60’s and there was lots of naughtiness going on around the country and especially in “Baghdad by the Bay“. Her “appreciation” of the fire department even earned her the title of “Honorary Fireman.” In addition to Coit Tower she also had a statue of three firemen carrying a woman, presumably her.

[mappress mapid=”31″]OK, enough about the randy old lady of San Francisco. Let me tell you a little bit about the tower itself. Well, it’s a tower, a big one and that’s pretty much it. But if you take a closer look when you walk inside you’ll notice murals on the walls that were painted as a part of the Public Works of Art Project that was to help employ artists during the depression. One of my aunts was an artist that painted the murals there.

While I’d love to say it’s free to ride to the top, it’s not, but it’s still pretty cheap. $4.50 for adults, $3.50 for seniors and $2.00 for children 6-12, under 6 is free. So why should you pay to ride an elevator? Well, when you get to the top you have a view of San Francisco that you won’t get anywhere else. 360° of pure beauty and you can stay and take pictures for as long as you want. It’s an open air rotunda that I’m surprised they haven’t put up anything to keep people from using it as a great place to have a last view of the city before jumping off to end it all. I guess it’s such a view that you don’t want to leave it all behind once you see it.

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Baghdad by the Bay: The Show

It is official! I have decided to expand for the new year by not just writing about San Francisco, but also I’ll have a podcast available in iTunes of interviews with the famous, infamous and unknown people in and around San Francisco offering their take on what life in San Francisco is all about for them.

This will probably start on a monthly basis, but expand as time goes on. If you have something to say about San Francisco and are interested in being on the show then by all means contact me.

First, the show will be audio only, but as time goes on I may add video to the show as well. It will be available through iTunes and as always, sponsors for the show are always willing to be considered. Hopefully, you’ll be a San Francisco based business since the website is dedicated to San Francisco.

Here’s a little promo you can listen to, or if you’re a podcaster and use it on your show make sure to let me know so that I can give your show a plug back as well. Enjoy!

If you could, please click on my sponsors ad below. You don’t necessarily have to purchase anything unless you want to, but at least the click will add money to my daughter’s schooling fund, or if you like you can click on our donation link and donate even a dollar.

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