San Francisco, CA

Well, my travel plans changed and I ended up having to stay in Los Angeles for another week. Truth be told I had fun there despite how much I talked last week about the differences from San Francisco that I don’t like so much. But there were definitely still things in San Francisco that I missed seeing.

Here are some of the things that I could have seen last week in San Francisco that I missed out on:

- 2 Great Live Music Shows - A CD release party for bilingual singer-songwriter Tiffany Joy happened at The Purple Onion in North Beach and a general live music concert by local performer Kate Isenberg was the same night over in The Mission. I missed them both because I was in Los Angeles.

- The Mission Indie Mart. I just found out about this monthly event which happens in The Mission. It’s a clothing designer event in which inie designers and other artists come together to share their stuff. There’s also some organic food and lemonade - a down-to-earth DIY affair. I’ll let you know more about it when the next one takes place.

- Sunshine, supposedly. I heard rumors that there were a bunch of sunny SF days while I was gone. Meanwhile, there were actually a couple of cloudy days where I was at. Go figure.

- The Haight. For some reason I’ve been craving a trip to The Haight. I think it’s because I haven’t been there in awhile, but I’m definitely due for a trek up there. I want to catch a flick at The Red Vic, get some mashed potatoes at Asqew and spend too much money on thrift store clothes.

Well, the truth is that I didn’t see a whole lot of San Francisco last week because I was away for the week visiting my brother down in Los Angeles. I did see the Bay Bridge and all of the construction going on around it as I left the city and then returned again. That also means that I saw that monstrous green building going up over there which seems to be a blight on the usually beautiful San Francisco city skyline. I also saw an inordinate number of “green cars” advertising the benefits of environmental friendliness. Sounds good to me.

While in LA, I saw a lot of things that I don’t normally see in San Francisco. Just a few of these things included:
• Road rage. I never see this in San Francisco, I saw a lot of it down south.
• Smog. There was no fog down there but the sky was thick anyway.
• Traffic. It’s cliché but it’s so annoying. There were also parking lots. We don’t have too many of those around here.
• Celebrities. Well, I think so anyway. I’m not very good at eyeing them but I thought I saw a few. Although, since I occasionally see some around here, I can’t really say that’s something I don’t see in San Francisco.
• Sunshine. Yes, there’s occasionally sunshine in San Francisco but there was a whole lot more of it in Los Angeles and I have to say that was pretty darn nice.
• People swimming in the ocean. Without wetsuits. What a concept!

I don’t love Los Angeles. In fact, there are times I’ve been there that I downright disliked it. But I suppose it has its perks. Still, I’ll take the things I see in San Francisco any day over the things I saw when I was down in LA.

Fog. There were definitely some sun shining days in San Francisco this week but one of the things that I saw a lot of at the beginning of the week was fog. It’s a common thing here in San Francisco and it would be pointless to complain about it since it’s going to be a part of life as long as I’m living here. But I do have to say that it makes me miss the sun sometimes and makes me definitely appreciate it on the days that it’s out.

Another thing I saw was that clown that I’d mentioned in a previous post. You know, the one that was playing the trumpet down by the cable car turnaround. Well, this time I got a glimpse of his sign and I saw that it reads, “Clown is seriously depressed. Please don’t make him cry.” I can understand; it must be tough being a clown on the streets of San Francisco. The travelers at the turnaround seemed to enjoy his song, though.

I saw that there’s a new flavor of gelato at the gelato place near Washington Square Park in North Beach. It’s a gin and cucumber flavor that is tangy. Interesting, but not something that I would want an entire cup or cone of. I prefer the independent gelato place anyway (that one is the chain store) and I prefer spumoni to any other flavor that can be found.

I finally saw the inside of Panta Rei while I was over there. It’s the Italian restaurant that is located at the funny intersection of about five different streets in the area where Columbus hits Stockton. I’d never been inside before. It’s not much different from any of the other Italian restaurants that are over in that area, although it has a unique triangular design that lets you look out at both North Beach and Chinatown from one spot.

http://www.carltonartgallery.com/images/Warren%20Dennis%20Gallery/Clown%20with%20Trumpet.jpg
*This image is from the Carlton Art Gallery at Creekside.

This “what I saw in San Francisco” segment begins with last Sunday which was the last Sunday of July, otherwise known around here as the day for the annual Dore Alley Street Fair. What I saw there was a whole lot of leather, a whole lot of flesh and a whole lot of people who kept repeating “this is interesting” to each other. It was interesting. It wasn’t really shocking to a girl who spends her nights out on the town in San Francisco, but it was definitely different to see all that action out on the streets. Probably the most interesting thing I saw there was a man get Saran wrapped from head to toe. Tightly. So he couldn’t move. For fun.

Another thing that I saw on Sunday was the inside of The Cheesecake Factory, which I’d never been to before. Located about the Macy’s at Union Square, this restaurant seems to always have a multi-hour wait. It surprised me by having really, really good food. I didn’t actually get cheesecake but I did get stuffed chicken tortillas and they were impressively tasty, something I don’t say lightly about any chain restaurant. This place was totally over-stimulating, though, with people hovering over our table waiting for us to leave before we’d even gotten our checks.

Over in my neighborhood (North Beach / Fisherman’s Wharf area), I saw some other interesting things throughout the week. My favorite was when I was walking to the grocery store which is near the cable car turnaround. I heard a trumpet playing The Addams family tune and I looked over to see that it was coming from a clown who was playing for the tourists. A clown, a trumpet, the Addams family … sure, why not? I also saw a long line of people waiting to hop on those cable cars because it’s still summer here and there are tourists aplenty. (See my advice on how to ride the cable cars if you’re not quite sure how the locals do it.)

These are just a few of the things that I saw last week in San Francisco.

A week has passed now since I went to the San Francisco Theatre Festival, but it’s worth mentioning in the round-up of things that I saw in the city this past week because of how wonderfully fun it was. It’s an annual event (this was its fourth year) that happens at and around the Yerba Buena Center near the Metreon. They set up ten stages and each has live plays happening about every half hour all day long. Dozens of theatre groups from around the city come together to put on shows ranging from improve comedy to Shakespeare.

San Francisco’s theatre scene as an interesting one and we’ve got more than just this festival to honor it (there’s Fringe Fest in the fall) but this one really highlighted all of the different types of theatre that exist in this city. I didn’t stay long, but in the short time that I was there I saw a modern play about Marilyn Monroe, a truly funny crowd-participatory improve group and a play-in-progress being workshopped to the audience to make it work better when it goes on stage in New York. And it was all free!

I also saw lots of people at the event crowded together under the shade that was available because everyone around here thought last Sunday was really hot. I, myself, was quite happy to get some sunshine since it seems like fog and mist are all over the sky around here all of the time. I felt a bunch of that mist on Wednesday when I walked through Chinatown and the Union Square area to go to my dentist. The best thing I saw on that walk though was this trendy girl wearing knee-high boots that were bright mustard yellow and totally gorgeous on her. I mention it because it reminded me of how many people here are able to pull off unique fashion styles. I’m convinced this is due, at least in part, to the fact that so many people here are just okay with being who they are.

Another interesting fashion thing that I saw was a pair of peace sign suspenders holding up the bright pink pants of a mine on my bus. But that’s not what was really interesting about this guy. This was one of those guys here that is some sort of victim of a mental health problem, which I know because he was talking at me, telling me that my shoes (heels) were products of the devil. He laughed evilly for a solid five minutes about this, and he only stopped laughing because he began talking to the person seated next to him. Except that there was no one seated next to him. This seems to be a regular occurrence around this city.

Mental health isn’t the only issue of concern to people here, of course, as noted by the fact that Friday night was the last Friday of the month which meant that it was Critical Mass. I’d never actually seen the bicyclists on the streets of SF before, but I saw them this time because they rode straight down Lombard Street and right past our apartment. It went on for quite a long time (and included one girl running her bike accidentally into a parked car because it’s hard to brake on those hills; she was okay).

Speaking of transportation, I also got to see some interesting SF transportation this past week. It was a pick-up truck with this monstrous homemade camper shell attached to it. The camper shell was made from a leopard print cloth. And the rest of the truck was covered in a velvet-like material that was also leopard print. It appeared to have been done quite some time ago since it was falling apart all over the place. As my good friend Nicolas pointed out, the truck was molting.

And that’s just a few of the things that I saw in San Francisco this past week.

As mentioned last week in my introductory blog about what you can expect from About San Francisco, you’ll get a weekly update about the things that I saw in San Francisco from the week before. This week is just a brief one because it was actually mostly an indoor week for me; I was wrapping up a book deadline and didn’t get to do too much playing around town. But you’ll get the basic introduction to what you’re going to be reading here every Monday morning.

So, that’s the first point to be made. Weeks around here run from Sunday to Saturday. You’ll get the update on Monday about anything interesting that was noted in the San Francisco scene during the prior week. So, last week was July 15th – 21st. And of course, it’s now Monday the 23rd and you’re getting the update about it. So if something exciting happened to me on Sunday the 22nd, you probably aren’t going to know about it until next week (unless of course it’s worthy of a blog post of its own).

The other thing that you might be wondering is what exactly goes into the post since there are any number of things that I might have seen during the week. Well, that’s the point. Anything is fair game if I saw it out in the city. For that matter, it could even be something I saw online if it was really eye-catching. So, it could be a film or live music event that I went to but it might just be a conversation that I saw between a person and himself at the local bus stop one day. Anything is open.

What’s the point? I really do believe that the only way to get to know a city from the inside out is to learn all of the little details about it here and there, the things that you would see if you were able to walk the streets of a place every single day. And since you either don’t live here – or you do but obviously can’t walk in my exact shoes each day – I believe that seeing San Francisco through my eyes will help you learn more about an insider’s perspective on the city I love to share.

That said, what did I see this past week in San Francisco (besides my keyboard screen)? Well, let’s start with seeing since one of the things I did go out into the world today was have an appointment with my optometrist. So, I saw his office, which wouldn’t be notable except that it’s such a cute little office. It’s located on Powell Street, near Columbus Avenue which puts it right near Washington Square Park (where the ladies were out in full force doing their tai chi). The office has a dutch door – you know, the kind that just the top or bottom half can be open – and they keep the top half open during business hours so it’s a cozy, homey kind of place. And it has a dog which greets customers with a cuddly look.

For that matter, I also saw my chiropractor this week and the office there is also cozy. In fact, we were joking around while I was there that I was just going to start getting my mail there because it’s so easy to just linger and linger. In a city as big as San Francisco, it is surprisingly easy to find professional offices which are comfortable, welcoming and almost like home. That’s why I have “my optometrist” and “my chiropractor” instead of just “the doctor” of whatever of kind of medicine. San Francisco is good for making you feel like you’re home, no matter where you’re originally from.

And speaking of originally from … I’m originally from Tucson, Arizona so it’s shameful to admit that when the weather creeped up towards 70 degrees last week, I was whining that it was hot. I blame the humidity (yes, I think San Francisco is humid, and I don’t care what my East Coast friends have to say about it). But the truth of the matter is that I’ve just grown accustomed to the weather here. You can grow accustomed to almost anything I guess. Which is why another thing I saw this past week was the eyes of my neighbor at 4:30 in the morning. We both woke up when the 4.2 Richter earthquake shook our buildings, peeked outside to make sure all was okay and then went back to bed.

And that’s the story of my week in San Francisco!