To think, all this time, I’ve been doing it wrong. Balancing work, friends, life. Forget all that. Get some toothpicks. Glue. Don’t go out. Then maybe–just maybe–I can best this guy.
This remind anyone else of the Musee Mechanique?
Be sure to read the comments in the above link. I look forward to combining the only two drugs I can’t quit.
I say this with empirical knowledge of the NOPA Blue Bottle Martini, which goes against everything I believe in. It’s the usual problem: the use of -tini exclusive of the traditional trinity. Also, I often find BB disappointing outside of the Linden Street kiosk. Maybe I like alley-flavored coffee?
I was in a Haight Street cafe this week, sitting near a girl who was issuing all the usual complaints to the friends visiting her from Ohio.
“San Francisco and Los Angeles hate each other. But you can tell why, LA is a place with bad air, the people are all into themselves, and everyone drives everywhere. Of course, I’ve never been there.”
If I were the crazy boundary-breaking self in my head, I would explain how it really is. But I would probably also be wrong.
Nobody actually likes San Francisco. It is never more than a pricey stand-in for some other place preferred.
I woke up some minutes ago and found myself feverishly rethinking this. It feels like a cruel and unfair thing to say, now, albeit not an untrue one. There is something almost aristocratic about the particular unhappiness that pervades here. All this splendor and what do you do? You sigh.
One year into living here I realized that only a person from Ohio could think it’s cool to live here. Still into living here but only in the same way that I am into finishing an overly large meal at a steakhouse that all my friends say I can’t finish.
Complete and utter bollocks.
“Look, the city is not for everyone. There are a lot of downsides. But I am so fucking tired of hearing yuppies whine about how they just can’t make it here any more. Go. Please. Quit whining and just go. God, stop talking about it and move. Jesus. You are boring the fuck out of me.”
You were a frustrating father to one of my best friends, but you were also an amazing individual. “Not a drummer, percussionist."
is that it’s Frank Chu’s birthday. Celebrate like Frank: with a free beer and a sign.
My neighborhood is famous!
Go for a walk down 6th Street when the weather turns hot. Residence hotels spill their populace onto the street, all trash-talking and judgmental of passers-by (“Lookin’ good, sweetheart…And you: you a wannabe yuppie!”).
If you stop by Passion Cafe, the two amazingly sweet owners might take you on a tour of the newly-turned out space, 100-year old wood floors and proper marble counters. Most of the staff are hires from around the neighborhood, giving some backbone to all the talk of ‘community’ on that street. I haven’t even eaten there and I’m in love with the place.
Need a new place, since the roaches at TuLan grew too bold and started crawling on the tables to beg, making them the squirrels of the insect world.
about de rigeur holidays that irk me so? Is it that I lived in the Richmond for over five years, and after that, Lower Nob Hill for four, three of which were spent over a Polk Street bar?
Think I just answered myself. Wonder if the cops still put barricades out on Geary to keep revelers from falling into the street?
Oh yeah, I know what the problem is: it’s WEDNESDAY and I can’t go to a bar.
My god, you’re right–they’ve actually managed to make the Bridge beige.
Anyhow, thank you, your support means a lot.
The story behind it is simple: I’m not from here, but have lived here long enough to say that I’m a San Franciscan. I’d joke, when only here for a few years but already steeped in history, that after ten years I could apply for my green card.
Having come from a city where no one was a native–people moved there to become something–I was an anomaly. Here, I was just another emigré, lucky to have made it this far.
This is a city where people move for so many reasons: because it holds promise or challenge (and often more of both than they’d like); because it is not New York; and that most ridiculous but most true reason of all–because it is beautiful. Every city has a mythology, but at times it’s more apparent here than anywhere else I’ve lived.
Anyhow–click on the link above, and download your own Green Card and swear yourself in, and send feedback to the site in the form of pictures and questions. I’ll be happy to explain the various elements of the card, as a few people I encountered over the weekend were unfamiliar with both Caen and Norton. There’s some argument about whether that’s a pomegranate or an opium poppy pod above the Emperor’s head; discuss.
that I had less than five places to post. And you?
The lovely Imin Yeh has invited us to jump her train for the SFIAAFF’s all-day event this Saturday. Come experience the other side of the TGS–we’ll be swearing people in and handing out Green Cards. Don’t need proof of residency? Just come by and tell me your favorite Willie Brown and Herb Caen stories.
reminds me, May Day is coming up.
This is the Tenderloin Geographic Society, we are based out of the Middle Haight.