Fennel, Flannel, Funnel, Final...

Dame Darcy's coming through San Francisco. She'll probably sign her comics and pluck a tune or two on the banjo. I'll probably go up to her again and say 'hi', tell her I knew her childhood friend back in the day, give her the news about what her friend's doing, buy any records she's got with her and get her to sign my comic. I know I'll feel dumb for bothering her once I've done it, but I won't be able to help myself. I have a soft spot for Darcy in my heart - she and John Marr both. They were my favorite 'zine authors at the height of my interest in the subject.

Here comes a non sequitur...

I used to go to this Greek joint in Seattle, just next to the laundromat at which I did my weekly laundry. I’d put my stuff in the washer, then walk over to the gryo place and give them my order. At the time I was a vegan, so I’d order a falafel gyro with hummus instead of tzatziki (which is fantastic, BTW). Over time, the owner got to know me because of the frequency of my visits and the unusual order I was placing. He was a stocky Greek guy, dark and hairy and always ready with a smile. He was the local soccer coach for his son’s league, the main chef in his restaraunt and about as Greek a fellow as you could meet outside of Athens. After a time when he saw me coming, he’d just point at me and say, “The usual?” I’d smile and answer in the affirmative, he’d yell the order back to whomever was behind the counter, then he’d shake my hand and we’d chat briefly about our lives. It made me feel as though I were really part of that neighborhood.

One day I went in to place my usual order and there was a new kid behind the counter. I gave him my order, and he looked back at me and said, “You can’t have that.”

“What?” I said back.

“We can’t make that. A gyro comes with tzatziki, not hummus.”

“But I get it all the time,” I replied, “I get it here every week.”

“It’ll be extra,” he said back to me.

“No, it won’t,” I began to reply.

Just then, the owner came out from behind the counter wiping his hands on a paper towel and asked what the problem was. The new kid told him that I was trying to order something that wasn’t on the menu and that I couldn’t have it. The owner put his right hand up between his face and the new kid’s face and made a, “pssshhhht!” sound. “He can have what he wants!” He shouted.

The kid looked at me like I had just peed in his flowerpot, then he skulked off into the back to do God-knows-what (hopefully not spit in my gyro…). The owner extended his hand in appology and said, “I’m sorry my friend. The usual?”

I miss that place a lot.



I have yet to find my 'usual' place here in San Francisco, but I've been working on it pretty hard. Two places that stand out as possible candidates are Asuka Raman on Bush street downtown, and Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House, up in North Beach. Both of these places have good, cheep comfort food (if you think of raman or curry as comfort food, that is) and pleasant staff. Kennedy's is the more atmospheric of the two, but Asuka has genmai cha, which is one of my favorites. Anyway, North Beach isn't exactly on my way anywhere, so Kennedy's will probably end up being the once-in-a-while treat instead of my 'regular' joint.

Asuka, you win!

Supergroup

That map up there is the route I took here to San Francisco from Tallahassee. It was an amazing ride, one that I'll never forget. There were the typical ups and downs that one might expect on such a long distance road trip: many moments during which I caught my breath in excitement at something beautiful just off to the side of the road, many times that the hairs on my thighs went stiff and my guts were shot through with a bolt of ice as some yokel narrowly missed destroying me utterly with a careless swerve along the road, many quiet moments spent utterly alone in an unfamiliar place along an unknown road in an almost inconceivably large country, many friendly faces that came unexpectedly out of the gloom to provide me with just the nudge of kindness I needed to get me down the road. There were many times that I found myself asking God for favors, too; asking Him for luck.

You know, there's an old saying that conveys the idea that it's good luck when a bird poops on you. I've always felt that this saying originated out of a desire to stop people from complaining about getting pooped on more than anything else (as in "Oh, fuck! I've just been crapped on by a bird!" "Oh. well, that's good luck, you know. Now shut up, here comes Isabella..."). Anyway, it's a saying not entirely sensitive to the revulsion one feels when defecated upon by a bird.

I was wearing my favorite "fashion/casual" jacket here in San Francisco, a grey turkish sport-coat that I never found much reason to wear in Tallahassee. I was ambling through North Beach, the Italian neighborhood of San Francisco up near Fisherman's Wharf, when I happened to look to my right and lift my arm at an awkward angle for just a moment and for no real reason when a pigeon flew over me and dropped a dollop of wet, white pigeon poop on the back of my right arm. "Ho, fuck," I said, automatically. Halima was walking next to me. She asked, "What?" I replied that I'd been dive-bombed. "Oh, that's good luck," she said. I replied, "Yeah, but it's still shit on my favorite jacket."



If I truly believed that getting shit on was good luck I'd run around under the pigeons in DiMaggio Park. I'd sneak around on the waterfront, scaring seagulls into flight, hoping to collect a poop or two as they jumped up, startled into the air. I'd shuffle around on the flat concrete patio at Union Square, bread in hand, waiting to receive my good fortune by way of avian incontinence. But I'm not so sure it is such good luck to get pooped on. If it were, why would you want to wash the poop out so badly? Why wouldn't people who've been pooped on just leave the poop there in an effort to soak up as much luck as possible? Wouldn't more or larger poop be more lucky? People might stand around behind horses or elephants much more often if it were.

Who knows? Getting shit on is no great fun, in and of itself; but here's to hoping that pigeon poop has a quiet effect on my fortunes that's working in ways too subtle for my leaden intellect to detect. Let's hope pigeon poop leads to something great, shall we? Let's do, lest my revulsion get the better of me and I burn my good coat.

Bright as bright light...

I've just completed a week of 14-hour days, chipping away at a batch of furniture renderings that needed to be re-colored for a presentation. No, it's not a full-time gig (I'm going to build a floor with Captain Mike tomorrow for a little extra cash, in fact), I've just been freelancing some, which feels better in many ways than full-time work, both physically and philosophically. Yes, I am writing this in my underwear.



Halima and I have gotten settled in to our apartment, have had time to explore our neighborhood enough to find out where we'll be buying our groceries for the foreseeable future, and have found our first bills for electricity and internet in our mailbox. Yay, we're residents.

As I've written previously, I've parked Cricket under a neighbor's cupola. One thing I'd forgotten to ship out here was my bike cover, which means Cricket is sitting out there on the street with nothing to protect her from the wind, rain and stray weirdos. I really didn't think this would be much of an issue, but the other day I was passing her and reached out to stroke her gas tank, as I often do, when I noticed that some inconsiderate person had knocked off her right spark plug cap. Investigating further I found that they had also somehow chiseled the porcelain tip of the spark plug off altogether, leaving only the hexagonal nut in place in the cylinder head. I have some dim recollection of hearing that drug addicts do this kind of thing for one reason or another, but can't imagine that it's worth the effort of knocking off the tip of my spark plug to make a crack-pipe or whatever. In any case, not only did this person risk being discovered as a vandal and an asshole-at-large, but if I ever find them they're sure to be found out as a person in need of serious medical care as well. In any case, it's off to the garage to buy a bike cover and a padlock (I already have spare plugs). Some explanation of this bizarre incident here.

In lighter news, we ate at Le Trappe in North Beach the other day. It was amazing; sub-terrine Belgian food and beer and evidently a huge yuppie-hipster spot. We got there before the rush and ate rabbit stew and mussels and pom fritz (an upscale word for French fries), which were all sublime. What'd I tell you? A gustatory nirvana, San Francisco.



Furthermore, I've discovered that four or five of my friends from Guam have been living in San Francisco for some time now. They are from the arty bunch of people I used to hang around with back then, and they are evidently still as arty as ever. I've had drinks with one of them, the chef of the bunch, and she promises to have a little soirée at her place soon so we can all meet up again. Sounds like a plan.

More later.

Nothing but Hornblowers

Way back before the Americans got to it, California was a provence of Mexico*. San Francisco itself got it's name from a mission established by Spanish missionaries that they named after Saint Francis of Assisi (now called Mission Dolores. You can tour it for $5). The Spanish had established a whole series of missions along the west coast of what was then Mexico, and they were appreciably successful in dealing with the natives and bringing some measure of civilization to a very rough culture and topography. Happily, when America won the Spanish-American war and took the west coast as its spoils, they were wise and/or uncaring enough to leave these missions alone. As a result, a person can still see these missions, largely intact, and get a sense of one of the Catholic church's less horrifying intrusions into indigenous culture.

I have yet to go to the Mission Dolores, but I used to tour Mission San Juan Capistrano with school groups when I was a kid. I like the fact that these aged structures are still around, and that you get walk around in them and get a sense of how people used to live. I guess that makes me a layman history nerd, but I'm alright with that.

One thing I have done in San Francisco is walk. I've parked Cricket under a cupola, unpacked most of her bags, bought myself a MUNI pass and gotten lost in my new hometown a time or two as I get to know the place. I've opened all my boxes and put most of my things where they will be for the foreseeable future. I've spread out enough to pick up a bit of work at a local website, and have ambled around enough in my new neighborhood to bump into both the necessities and accouterments that every good neighborhood has. I've even found a local Italian place that does a pretty good linguine vongole - something everyone should know how to get quick access to when the urge demands it. Found a good raman joint, too.



Perhaps because I've moved from somewhere smaller I'm easily overstimulated, or perhaps as a product of my own excitement at being here I've somehow failed to see things that I've walked by several times. I enjoy thinking that my neighborhood has been offering up its secrets to me slowly, quietly letting me in - but the truth is that I'm sort of unobservant and spend a lot of my time looking up at the tops of tall buildings. Last night Halima and I walked a few blocks over to Mel's Diner, a place that recreates a diner from the 1950's a la 'American Graffiti'. On the way there we noticed a small assortment of businesses and structures that we hadn't remembered seeing before - a furniture consigner, a restaurant, a bank, like that. We got to the diner, had some pie and coffee (it was good pie and decent coffee), then walked back home and the same thing happened; the neighborhood seemed newer than it had in the daytime, different without the sun.



I'm sure I'll feel this exhilarating sense of discovery for some time to come, particularly with as curious about our environs and Halima and I are. One thing we've found that we expect will be pretty much the same for as long as we are here is the glut of tourist tents and shops set up down by the Embarcadero. There are street musicians and tents in which you can buy interesting hats or scented candles, and further along the street, up by Fisherman's Wharf, you can buy a whole steamed crab for about twenty bucks. It's an ungainly and messy meal, but worth every penny and every spare napkin it takes to enjoy it. Certainly a tourist trap, but one worth becoming ensnared in from time to time.

More to come.



*Yeah, sure, before that it was a provence of the natives, but I'm talking about structured government, not strict occupation.