Tag: San Francisco

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Weather In A San Francisco Summer

Summer is here and it’s time for weird weather. San Francisco has four distinct microclimates, the fog belt [where I live], the banana belt [Mission area and everything East], Wind belt [downtown which is made possible by all the high rises funneling the air and the Marine Belt [just around the Golden Gate Bridge and extending down to the Embarcadero.

I had the chance to travel to the Potrero District [banana belt] this morning. I left the house to overcast foggy 55° weather and hopped in my car and started to drive East. Suddenly I noticed it starting to get brighter. I had to pull out my sunglasses and when I arrived out on Rhode Island street it was perfect blue skies and sunny. As I opened the door to my car I was hit by 73° according to my iPhone. That’s almost a 20° difference within a half hour’s drive.

There are even sub-microclimates, but for people who move to San Francisco they have to learn the city to understand it best. The first thing you need to learn is layers. In the Sunset District my Dad would go out in the backyard on weekends in the morning to work the garden. He’d have a tank top, t-shirt, sweatshirt and jacket on. As the day wore on the clothes would soon start to come off. Then around 3pm he’d have to start putting them all back on again.

While the Sunset has a bit of temperament about it’s weather, it’s not constantly foggy. We’re actually getting more sunny days than we used to, but I remember my brief stint living in the mission and I don’t think I owned a single long sleeved shirt unless it was for work downtown. Sure it will get overcast upon occasion in the Mission and Potrero, but you never see fog like you do in the outer Sunset and Richmond Districts. Now at least I know if I’m in need of some sun on a cold foggy day in San Francisco all I have to do is head East for a few miles.

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Morrissey Elected As Egypt’s LGBT President

I have been sick for the last week with a cold, but I don’t turn into the typical whiney bitch that most guys do with a cold, I turn into more of a zombie. Add to this that I have to get up at 6:20am to get my daughter out the door to school only makes it worse. So I hear things wrong. There’s a lot going on in San Francisco that I want to write about, but I’ve been having a bit of trouble keeping my thoughts straight. So what have I learned this past week after being in a fog without the help of any drugs?

1. Morrissey was elected as Egypt’s President: Well, I never liked his hair style or music, but I suppose they could have done a lot worse. I never knew the Brit was an Islamic extremist. You wouldn’t know from looking at him.

2. San Francisco had a really Gay White Pride parade. I guess I’ll spend a little more time on this because that was an actual twitter post I saw this weekend. It seemed funny until I actually saw footage of the parade. Even the non-White people in the parade looked White. Wille Brown was the most ethnic of all in a raisin in a glass of milk kind of way driving by in an old yellow cadillac convertible. The most diversity I saw was in a shot from a group holding up #OCCUPYPRIDE signs which i couldn’t figure out. The whole occupy [insert large corporation here] has become kind of meaningless when bringing down the man means bring down the man on man relationships. Yet there were tons of gay people there cheering them on. I guess they wanted to be occupied if you know what I mean and I think you do.

The trannies and drag queens did such a good job because I actually thought they were women. I had to look up Carmen Carrera after watching her drive by to realize that she actually was a man. I was trying to figure out how a nice straight looking couple with a daughter driving by fit in with Gay Pride and had to use google to find out they weren’t a straight couple. Science has definitely taken a step forward for the cross dressers and transgendered community. Similarly the Dykes on Bikes that start the parade looked butcher than many Hell’s Angels I’ve seen.

Sarah Silverman was also on hand because she can’t do a stand up routine without making a butt joke, so that must have been her tie in with gay pride. I have many friends that are gay, but I’ve never attended one of the parades. I don’t do well in overly crowded places and I probably wouldn’t do well in places that were overly crowded with fabulous people. Besides that I wouldn’t want to be spreading my cold around. I do want to go one day and take my daughter and wife just to see how many of our friends we’ll see. The problem I’m seeing from the footage is that the rainbow flag got dropped in bleach somewhere down the line.

Gay pride has become rather homogenized like milk, which is white. I was attacked for my article on why people hate the Marina by someone who said it’s too white. Well, it’s not too white, but it’s very Americanized. Too white is what I was seeing at the Gay Pride Parade. When Mayor Lee walks with the Golden State Warriors and all you see are bunch of tall white guys walking with a short Asian mayor something’s not right. A basketball team and there isn’t a single brother to be seen? Oh wait there’s the police driving by and waving and hey, there’s a person of color waving…from the back of the police car.

The you had the tag alongs and I’m not speaking about the Filipino language [inside joke], but the groups that really didn’t have anything to do with Gay Pride, like  the ACLU and Immigrants rights. Sure I bet there are some who are gay, but the whole parade is about celebrating being gay. Not about unions [which the last time they had a parade I believe the police were envolved and it wasn’t pretty] or letting immigrants into San Francisco [which is a standard practice depending on where you walk in the city]. Sarah Silverman was quoted as saying she supports pride day because it’s about being bad for a day. Uhm, OK, now it’s just pride day and not about gay pride? Hell Muni did it better by having all the busses displaying EQUALITY FOR ALL over the weekend.

I’m totally in favor of legalized gay marriage because with disposable income San Francisco’s Wedding planners would make tons of money. I honestly don’t care what type of person you’re attracted to. It’s not what’s between your legs, but what’s in your head. My head still isn’t right after being sick for a week, but at least I survived my zombie apocalypse without eating anyones face off. So I apologize if this story sounds like I was rambling, because I am.

And to finish off, Morrissey is gayer than the Gay Pride parade.

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On Behalf Of John The Waving Guy

Readers, I would like to thank you on behalf of John the Waving Guy. Many of you have made his life happier. Some of you are actually stopping and talking to him and Winston Churchill his dog. This is a great thing to me. You’ve shared my article almost 300 times so far. That makes it the most shared article I’ve written and I can’t think of a better man to have written about.

I even received a comment today that one of the people who waves to him stopped to talk to him and he proudly showed her the article that he had printed out. His sister even wrote to me and told me that before the stroke he was in a Softball league for seniors and was pretty good. I rarely feel like I’m able to do a lot of good, but I think this time I did do something good. I look for him all the time now when I drive past. I saw him working in his front yard yesterday, which for someone who has had a major stroke can be difficult. He just keeps on going and I’m glad some of you have helped make his life a little happier. Now maybe the Chronicle or Examiner will pick this up as a human interest story.

I think it would be a wise move.

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Ronnie Montrose

I woke up yesterday morning to find out that Ronnie Montrose had died of prostate cancer. It was a sad day for me because he was yet another person who helped me learn to play guitar. I had been taking lessons for about six months from my first teacher Alex Bendahan at Tree Frog Music and I new the chords, but I couldn’t wrap my head around guitar solos. There was one song that at the time was stuck in my head, Matriarch by Ronnie Montrose and I wanted to learn the guitar solo and Alex was trying to teach it to me. I just happened to be lucky that day because Ronnie walked into the store.

We had small amps in the tiny rooms where we were taught, but they were loud enough to carry across the small store that we were taught in. Alex would have me bring in tapes of songs I wanted to learn and he would teach me the songs by listening to them and figuring out the chords. Ronnie heard us getting to the solo part and walked back and pulled the curtain back on the room. I was frustrated with the fact that I just couldn’t understand how to play the solo. I knew the scales and everything, but I couldn’t put the two together.

Ronnie after pulling back the curtain said to me, you have to feel the solo then let it out. He took my guitar from me and started playing the solo along with the tape I had brought in.He wasn’t playing the exact same solo, but it still fit with the song. The exact notes didn’t matter, but he put his soul into it and then it clicked in my head. He handed the guitar back to me and said, now you try it. Alex’s band was fairly well know at the time so he knew Ronnie and just laughed at the whole thing and told me there would be an additional charge for today’s lesson. Alex rewound the tape and and I played along until the solo and just stopped thinking and a solo came out of me.

Ronnie was a good man and a great guitarist who was under appreciated. Sure everyone knows him for Rock Candy which was probably one of the heaviest song of the 70’s and gave Sammy Hagar his claim to fame. Years later my band lost a bass player who had an offer to join Gamma, Ronnie’s new incarnation of a band that later spun off to the Davy Pattison band after he left. It was kind of ironic that the guy who taught me how to play a guitar solo later stole one of my band mates. I guess you have to pay up at some point.

I couldn’t find a video of Matriarch on YouTube so you’ll have to do with Sammy and Ronnie playing Bad Motor Scooter:

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You Say Peninsula and I Say Isthmus

My wife and I were driving down to the Dollar Tree store in Daly City today when a random thought popped into my head. I always hear people in San Francisco when they’re driving south say, I’m driving down to the peninsula and I realized that they’re incorrect. Allow me to elaborate.

As you enter Daly City their slogan is, Gateway to the Peninsula! That’s true if you’re driving north, but if you’re driving south once you leave San Francisco you’re actually on an isthmus [pronounced like isthmus be my lucky day.] A peninsula is an area of land with water on three sides connected to the main land by an isthmus. An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas usually with waterforms on either side. So technically we should all be saying when leaving the city that we’re driving down to the isthmus.

I’m not sure this idea will ever catch on and I’m surprised none of my teacher in school when we got to geography never pointed this mistake out to us. I suppose they just considered the whole patch of land before you hit San Jose a peninsula would be true, but that would then make Daly City’s slogan false.

See what happens when I let my mind wander. Isthmus be one of the stranger stories I’ve ever written.

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A Letter From Uncle Frank

When I wrote my article on the Treasure Island Hot Dog and not understanding how hot dogs had any association with San Francisco it triggered a response from Uncle Frank of the Schwarz Sausage Factory. While the name sounded familiar I wasn’t aware that they had started in San Francisco. Here’s the letter I received from Uncle Frank yesterday morning:

I read your post about San Francisco having no hot dog connection.

I also notice you quote Herb Caen, a serious hot dog guy.

Actually, San Francisco has a proud, although not well known, hot dog heritage. Up until a few years ago, The City was home to Schwarz Sausage Company, a multi generation family business who have been at it longer than Nathan’s of New York.

And they provide Berkeley’s spectacular Top Dog with some of the finest hot dogs on the planet.

How do I know all of this?

We’re The Hot Dog Hall Of Fame (Mr. Caen was a supporter) and we’ve tasted hot dogs all across the country, easily a thousand places in the 35 years we’ve been doing this.

There’s more to it than that but I thought we should introduce ourselves.

A few of our blogs and web sites:

Our web site: www.TheHotDogHallOfFame.com
Our blog: http://FrankfurterChronicles.blogspot.com
About the collection: http://TheHotDogHallOfFame.blogspot.com
How we got into the weenie trade: http://TheGreatAmericanHotDogMachine.blogspot.com
The Presidential Wiener: http://PresidentialWiener.blogspot.com

With Relsh,

Uncle Frank

I thought I knew a lot about Herb Caen, but I didn’t know he was a hot dog fan, but that makes sense. Hot dogs were always what you got at a baseball game and it was probably one from Schwarz Sausage Factory that I used to get as a kid. While they’ve been sold and are now in Fairfield [like so many other companies that grew too big for San Francisco] You can see their current website at the Engelhart Gourmet Foods site.

Thanks for the info Uncle Frank.

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San Francisco Sourdough

While sourdough bread is thought to have originated in Ancient Egypt, it’s claim to fame has become it’s association with San Francisco gold miners [the other 49er’s]. I think I was probably around 12 or so before I tasted a French bread that wasn’t made with sourdough. My family used it for everything.

Their brand of choice was the now defunct Larabaru bakery’s brand. The company is so defunct that you won’t even find their name turning up results in Google. I remember the first night I had French bread that wasn’t sourdough. It was at the SF Zoo on a member’s night back when non-profits really gave back to their members if only but once a year. They offered everyone who came chili with a french roll and butter. When I bit into the roll it didn’t have the sour taste and something changed in me. I realized how much I hated sourdough bread.

Yes, I have to admit that while be a born and raised San Franciscan who is living in the same house I grew up in, I hate sourdough bread. There are people who used to come to the  city just for the sourdough bread. They even had stands at the airport where you could buy it to take home with you. When there was any major event between competing cities the Mayor of San Francisco would always send sourdough bread and crab to competing city’s Mayor [ahem, not organic hot dogs, please take note Mayor Ed Lee].

Now for the few of you who don’t know what sourdough bread is, it’s basically bread made from old dough. In particular the dough has offered itself as a home for the bacteria Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. Yes, it may have started with the Egyptians, but when someone found out what was making it sour it was named after San Francisco. Thanks, I think.

In order to continue to make sourdough bread you have to keep a little bit of the raw dough behind to make your next batch. This mother as they call it is the starter that every bakery has their own version of which dates back to opening of the bakery. I won’t go into all the chemistry of this because it will bore you to tears, but if you really interested you can check it out on Wikipedia.

I do still eat it every once in awhile though and it makes a particularly good combination with San Francisco’s clam chowder from Boudin Bakery. I might add that it is the only bakery I will purchase sourdough bread from. They started in San Francisco in 1849 and are still here. That something to say about a San Francisco company that old.

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Tony Does Frisco

I know I hate using the word Frisco for San Francisco, but I was trying to do a riff on the old Debbie Does Dallas, so I thought I’d give it a go. Anthony Bourdain’s the Layover aired last night and was about San Francisco. He used to hate us and thought we were obnoxiously smug twits. Well, he came by and saw us once and changed his mind. This time I have to say he did San Francisco proud.

While he hit almost every neighborhood of San Francisco, he did leave out the Sunset District, but I’ll let him slide on that one because he did a good job by staying away from the trendy places and focusing on more middle class fare this time. Swan Oyster Depot was probably the most expensive place he ate at, but he also tried one of the Mission District’s bacon wrapped hot dogs that they sell on the streets.

The only touristy thing he did was ride a cable car, but at least in doing that he understood how cool the cable cars are. The funniest was him telling us how cool they are a phony cable car with wheels drove past him in the background.

Bars, Bars, Bars. I think Tony was drunk about four hours after landing. After the hitting the Swan Oyster Depot it was onto the bars and the Tonga Room was a spot where he seriously got his drink on. He hit a bar in the Haight and Li Po’s in Chinatown where I’m surprised he didn’t sample the Uhn Kapay [I have no idea how that’s really spelled, but I have received a bottle for my birthday a few years ago and it’s something only for serious drinkers].

I think the best part of the show was when they interviewed locals who gave very good descriptions of what life in SF is like. Wear layers, expect overlaps in cultural cuisine, etc. I do wish he had made a trip out to the Sunset because we have some excellent places to eat. If he did I only wish that Pacific Sunset was still in business on Judah Street because what would he love more than to meet Klaus Loos who was the Executive Chef at Maxim’s in Paris and one day said, f*ck it I’m out of here to open a small restaurant in SF. He made some awesome food by the way and if you never got to eat there before they closed in the 90’s you really missed out.

Tony, hats off to you. You did a great job in San Francisco even though you ignored the Sunset District. I hope you survived your hangover and I think you should have gone to Trader Sam’s in the Richmond over the Tonga Room [which technically, the Tonga Room is a tourist attraction].

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Healthy San Francisco

Gavin Newson was loved and then hated after he left, but I have to admit that I approve of one thing he did — Healthy San Francisco. I was wary at first because it started by only serving the residents of Chinatown and then moved out into the Mission, but now it includes Brown and Toland which is an excellent health care facility that has several locations around the city and has saved my life a couple of times.

Because of that I have what is called a pre-existing condition. Most people in the 40’s do and because of that when you need to buy health insurance for yourself you usually get turned down or you are offered a plan at a grossly inflated rate. Because of this I applied and was given the San Francisco Health Plan which is a part of Healthy San Francisco. While it turns out that I can’t keep the same doctor I had with Brown and Toland I did get a very well respected doctor who’s right around the corner from him and I have zero co-pay on my visits.

I had a job once where the owner of the company called health insurance a crap shoot. Maybe you’ll need it, maybe you won’t. Nowadays from my experience when you are approaching your 40’s something starts to go wrong with you and you’ll need some kind of medication. Your blood pressure goes up, your cholesterol goes hay-wire. It’s not a crap shoot, but a necessity. You’ll need it and as you get older you’ll need it more. It kind of sucks to get old even though you can be more active as you’re older.

Healthy San Francisco is a good thing. Our insurance prior to being accepted would be costing us around $1500/month and even my doctor’s jaw dropped at that. That doesn’t include co-pays and medications, etc. Incidentally if you are on any forms of generic medications I highly recommend you look into Walgreen’s plan that for $35/year will give your family access to more than 400 generic meds for $12 for three months. It’s a great deal during these times.

Speaking of which, with the economy slowly coming back I’m seeing more part-time work than full time because it’s cheaper to pay two people to do one person’s job than it is to pay one person with benefits and it gives you them a run around the city’s law that employer’s have to provide health benefits. I am at least seeing more jobs offering benefits in San Francisco now and that’s a good thing. I do miss my old doctor, but once I get a job that offers real benefits I’ll transition back to him. The funny thing is that most of the benefits I’ve had in the past have had deductibles on the medications before you started getting them cheaper. One of the medications I take that is widely prescribed costs $120 until you’ve reached the deductible and then it drops down to $30. With the San Francisco Health Plan it’s free. Now if my doctor could add himself to the San Francisco Health Plan I’d be in a perfect world for my health.

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Sour Grapes

Well the election is over and while John Avalos refuses to issue a concession speech I have to say that I don’t think the rank choice voting method is a good thing. Moderates hate it, Progressives love it yet it turns out my prediction yesterday was off. We had to go through 11 rounds to elect Ed Lee who will probably still have to face up to voter fraud that of course was no fault of his own, but the fault of his supporters who helped elderly Chinese voters vote for him.

I’m not sure if you can really consider an area that occupies roughly an eight block radius as the tipping point for vote. While one third of San Francisco is Chinese, not all of them are U.S. citizens with a right to vote. I’m sure that the majority of Chinatown has less U.S. citizens which would make them have even less voting power. You have more Chinese U.S. citizens in the Sunset and Richmond district, so to me the Chinatown vote to get Chinese voters is irrelevant. If anything the Chinese voter power play should have been in the Sunset district which is the largest district with the largest Chinese population.

The appointed mayor who is now an elected mayor has done a decent job. Once he decided to run things changed in my opinion. Of the 850,000 people in San Francisco only 16.6% voted for mayor. That is a dismal turn out especially when you have groups of people literally forcing people to vote and telling them how to vote. At this point I’m almost thinking that we need a Tony Hall ass kicking to change this city.

I have in the past been attacked by people who back RCV trying to show me that it’s a good thing, but we still have people working to count the last remaining ballots to determine that indeed there is no one else that is going to beat Ed Lee’s 61% lead. If so that would mean more than 100% of the people voted which we already know isn’t possible when only 16.99% of the population voted. I suppose I should feel honored when people from the other side of the country are writing to me telling me my thinking is wrong. Actually, I do. That means I have some real clout in the United States. Not like Klout on the internet.

Now that the election is over I would like to ask our newly elected Mayor Ed Lee to step up and lead the people…all of the people and not show any partisanship to any particular racial group in San Francisco. I also think that he should consider using John Avalos as an advisor since he pulled 38% in the end and you certainly want the thoughts of 38% of the San Francisco voters on your side. Yes, I admit that I was one of the #AnyoneButEdLee group and that’s a large number of people in San Francisco, but I guess we were all split on who to vote for so we watered down a battle waged on 16 fronts.

Rose Pak, Willie Brown, let’s sit down and have some tea and talk about San Francisco I have a lovely dim sum place in Chinatown in mind. 😉