Category Archives: San Francisco

Oct 23 2012
23 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, San Francisco

Please Love Me

I’m looking for housing. Unfortunately, I live in San Francisco, where housing prices operate on some sort of looped scheme from the future so everything’s too expensive. In other words: it’s a long, pricey journey to find a place to rest my head.

Take a look at the first couple craigslist postings and you’ll see what I mean. One person asked me to write three paragraphs on myself just so they could consider whether or not they want me. And I did it knowing I’ll probably never hear from them. I’d have written a short story, composed a poem, or emailed them a video of me dancing. I would do whatever it takes. We all would. We are the housing seekers, and we are something less than human.

It’s not enough to have friends in the city. You need to have 800 friends in the city, and not so they can let you know if anything’s opening up in their apartment building, because there isn’t. And if there is, it’s too expensive or there’s a drug lord that lives downstairs or it’s a 20 minute walk to the nearest pharmacy and you don’t like the idea that one day you’ll have to debate letting that infection fester or walking a mile in the dark to pick up the prescription, your mind addled with fever. You need the friends so you can stay with them indefinitely, so that when one friend tires of your presence, you can move onto the next who will welcome you with open arms and a warm place for your head.

If I could say anything to the people with an empty room in their apartment out there in this city, especially if they’re closer to downtown, the Mission, or Alamo Square, I would say: please love me. I’m out here trying to make it, just like you. If it pleases you I’ll be quiet and clean, and if not I’ll be loud and messy. If you want, I’ll chat with you in the kitchen after you get home from work, maybe make you a cup of tea or offer you a cold one or a wet one if you’d prefer that. I might kiss you on the cheek, if you really need that kind of support, and I’d certainly offer to tuck you into bed at night and turn the lights out and say I love you even if I don’t mean it. I’d do that for you.

And one day, when I’m a famous author, I’ll mention you to the crowd as I accept the Pulitzer Prize for best work in science fiction humor journalism, and say that it was Cynthia Crabblestick after all who helped me be who I was today, because she let me into her home and let me pay rent and wash my dishes (and hers sometimes), and didn’t complain when I woke up early or when I was laughing by myself in my bedroom.

Thank you, Cynthia. This is for you. Let me take you out to coffee with my millions of dollars of winnings.

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Oct 02 2012
5 Comments
San Francisco, Travelling, Two minute read

Why Bluegrass Night is Unlike Other Nights

A real picture taken by a real person (nokapixel on flikr) of bluegrass night at Amnesia in the Mission

It’s a Monday night in San Francisco and about one month ago I ironed patches onto my skinny jeans to stave away the quite serious hole progression in the upper thigh area. The patches are not the same color as my jeans and they are huge. Are they a fashion statement? Are they hideous? It doesn’t matter. I can sit cross-cross-apple-sauce in them without exposing myself, and it’s bluegrass night and my boots are on.

For me, bluegrass night is also improv lesson night, and while we play games and learn to forget our inhibitions, my boots have a mind of their own, stompin’ and gearin’ up for the pluckin’ and strummin’ of the folksy tunes we’re about to hear. Somehow, improv and bluegrass go together quite well, based as they both are in community and doing something for the love of the game.

And bluegrass night is unlike the other nights of the week, no matter how special they are. Other evenings don’t hold the same perspiration-scented twang that homespun bluegrass tunes carry, or the madness inherent in the wild twitches of the banjo player’s hand. Other nights have 20% less stomping, 38% less twirling, and 72% less “yips” and exclamations of yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haw.

It’s a very present call to the past, an invocation of a time that may not have existed, a rootin’ tootin’ shindig.

At Amnesia, the bar that feels like the hull of a forgotten ship, which has an octopus in the corner and a selection of Belgian beers on tap and in the bottle, bluegrass draws them in. Some don’t understand what’s going on, don’t quite get the spirit or understand how to stomp and clap at the same time and which foot and which hands to use. Some are caught up in the stereotype. But the energy is contagious, the mixture of nostalgia and booze, the fire-spirited fiddle and plum-drum bass brewing the night’s mood.

Sway a little to the beat, pick up your feet and set them down, in rhythm. Don’t be afraid to believe in the myth, in the fields and the honky tonk and the sweet smell of hay and betrayed love. Because it’s bluegrass night, where the music is too good for pretention. It’s only simple if you let it be.

Grab a Maredsous, pick a partner and do-si-do, if you dare, or at least stand a little closer to the stage. Biting is for afterwards.

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Sep 26 2012
6 Comments
Modern Life, San Francisco, Serious-ish

And You Wonder What’ll Happen to You

Got one!

Every day begins the same. The curtains open onto the morning. Waking up. Either too early or too late, the last dreamy wisps evaporating, leaving only vague recollections of my father, Colorado, and a buffet. The hot water boiler takes the same amount of time, with its impossible churning and final beep beep beep “I’m done.”

One cup of hand-brewed coffee, because Folger’s isn’t ground for the French press, and it’s either Folger’s or Ralph’s coffee crystals, which look like brown glitter and taste like a nightmare, so the Folger’s is in my cup, and yes, it’s a pretty damned good part about waking up.

And then I’m at the computer, my morning, evening, and afternoon friend, my whirring, over-heating, crashing buddy, my decrepit warehouse. My morning deletion of emails is followed by the usual wondering what to read, the nagging feeling that something better is always out there, and that my time would probably be best spent reading articles all day and learning about the world since it’s so easy to have it shrink to the size of my personal experience.

I read an article and in the back of my mind I want to be looking for jobs instead, jobs that will bring me into new social circles, to new realms of pay, to continued lack or blessed presence of health benefits, to 9-5, to an office with catered food or an office where I’ll be bringing my PB&J or something else entirely.

And then it’s Halloween again, and I’m wondering what I want to be today. What is the perfect intersection of my dreams, my skills, and the realities of living what with the mounting cost of soft serve ice cream? What is the worth of each corner of the triangle—are dreams less valuable than reality even though I think I was told I could be anything I wanted to be?

The game is different than I thought it would be. I’m not sure of the rules, how it’s won, and who’s on my team. Making a difference seems secondary to making a living.

And you wonder what’ll happen to you, when the things you thought you believed in don’t affect your actions, when there are so many opportunities for you to become either someone you wanted to be or something you never thought you would be.

It’s easy for these things to change based on your neighborhood.

Maybe I’ll go hunt unicorns in ancient Redwood forest groves, but not to capture them. I just want to speak with them, and find out how they’ve managed to stay who they are for so long.

Then I’ll trap them, and start a circus about following your dreams.

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Sep 24 2012
15 Comments
San Francisco, Two minute read, Writing

An Oklahoman Laments the Loss of Fall

Redwoods don’t drop their leaves.

So it’s fall now, I think. I’m not really sure anymore if the seasons exist. Here in San Francisco nothing changes. Quinoa’s on its way out, boar’s on its way in. Gourmet sausage is somewhere in the middle, the roasted pork chop probably isn’t going anywhere, but fall isn’t coming. That’s for darn sure. Even though sometimes the wind blows and it’s got that crisp feeling and maybe there’s a leaf somewhere in there too, but it’s all an illusion. Fall isn’t going to come here at all.

Sure we get the Halloween Candy, and the pumpkins, and fall-themed lattes from Starbucks, but they won’t bring me a proper autumn. And the kids are back in school, and preschool-high school teachers are wearing themed sweaters over wildly patterned turtlenecks, but it makes no difference whatsoever.

The fog rolls out and in.

We’ve already been wearing sweaters for the past three months and one hundred years. We’ve already lit our fireplaces to stave off the cold of a chilly summer night, and warmed our hands at a bonfire on the beach to keep our fingers from turning blue in late May. We never put our scarves away in the first place, but we’ll never have to turn on our heaters because we don’t have them. Time doesn’t progress here so much as ebb in and out. Other places go in circles, but we move back and forth along the same straight line.

Still, the children get older. The facial hair on the hipsters gets slightly more ironic. Banana Republic models get more smug as they laugh in their business casual clothes.

Somewhere, college students are planning apple picking trips and updating their facebook statuses about how excited they are about wearing fall clothes. Somewhere, the leaves are beginning to turn slightly less green as they prepare to all fall down. But not here. Not ever.

I’ve only been on the West Coat for 2.5 months. Thank God it’s never too early for nostalgia. I’ll go out and drink $8 cups of coffee until the pain goes away.

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Sep 17 2012
7 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, San Francisco

Fake Backstories of San Francisco Neighborhood Names: The Mission

Mission Dolores and the site of the Great Carnitas Cook-off

Journey with me, if you will, back to the magical peninsula on which is situated that most unusual of cities, San Francisco, a gleaming wonder, 7×7 miles of living myths, tree huggers, dog lovers, and Banana Republic wearers.

Directly south of the city center is a sunny, burrito-scented patch known as The Mission, not A Mission, or Mission, or Mision, but “The Mission.” Its population is divided more and more evenly between feather-wearing hipsters and the more original hair-gel wearing latinos.

Dolores Park lies at the heart of The Mission, a park named for the nearby Mission Dolores, and the site from which the nearby restaurants have taken their carnitas recipes, perfected by Father Junipero Serra in the year 1779, the year of The Great Carnitas Cook-Off.

At the time of its founding in 1776, Mission Dolores was one of 18 different missions located in the city, each run by a brother of the same mother. The founders of these missions were drawn to SF because of its reputation for being a liberal lighthouse and a place where people could have a go at being themselves. In general, they disapproved of this laissez faire attitude and wanted to shut it down and end the rampant short-wearing that was going on at the time.

So 18 brothers came out to the city and each one set up his own mission, with Father Junipero Serra choosing the rather wise location of what would come to be known as The Mission—sunny and flat, it was both easy and pleasant for the friars to bike around and get their morning lattes.

Next to God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, the Serra brothers loved them some good carnitas. In addition to the prayers and confessionals, in each of the missions was also non-stop innovation in the realm of this delicious fried pork dish. Each week, the brothers revealed their latest carnitas creations and the parishioners would rejoice and partake.

After about a year, however, with the congregations growing and the general population feeling over-served by the well meaning but all too present Serra brothers, it became painfully obvious that 18 missions in such a small area was probably too much. The short-wearing problem was already under control, and the brothers were getting tired of meeting potential parishioners only to find they were already in attendance at their brother’s mission.

It was decided at a family meeting that only five missions were to remain open in the city, and that those missions would be chosen in a great carnitas cook-off. Each brother rushed off to their mission and began preparation for the carnitas battle.

On September 17th, 1779, the day before the contest, Father Junipero Serra prayed a mighty prayer to the Lord.

“Lord, make my carnitas an instrument of your peace. Where there is toughness, may there be tenderness, where there is dryness, may there be moisture. Lord grant that I may honor and glorify you in the carnitas cook-off, and I shall exalt your name forever and ever.”

And the Lord did hear Father Junipero’s prayer, and his carnitas that day were filled with a holy flavor that none has ever tasted the likes of since. His brothers and parishioners alike were in awe of the indescribable flavor, and rumor has it that some shouted for Junipero’s immediate sainthood upon tasting his saintly creation.

And thus his mission, Mission Dolores was named The Great Mission, and he stayed in the city along with his five favorite brothers. Over time, The Great Mission was corrupted to just The Mission, and the name was given to the area within the carnitas sway of Father Junipero.

And that was fake history. Because research takes time.

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