Wednesday, October 10, 2012

SFO Day 4- Tourist Stuff.

After yesterday’s unremarkable day in the life of San Francisco, we decided we had better do the tourist thing before we leave the City. So we rose a little early and caught the Muni Metro downtown.

San Fran has a very multi-modal public transportation system. For a (relatively) small city surrounded on three sides by water, the options are astounding. It costs $2 to get pretty much anywhere (notably, for the most part it is a proof-of-payment system like TransLink, although some of the downtown stations have faregates). We rode on Muni Metro and on traditional buses while we were there.

The Muni Metro is a traditional electric streetcar, which is at grade for most of the time, except for a couple of underground stations under the Financial District. It is a unique blend of original 1930s streetcars and modern streetcars, and of old lines and new (5 of the lines were built before 1928, with the 6th line coming on line in 2007!). The modern trains are smooth and comfortable, but lacked the panache of the trams.

San Francisco also has busses (hybrid diesel, electric, articulated, etc.), CalTrain (heavy commuter rail that connects San Francisco to the Silicon Valley – think WestCoast Express), BART (a medium-weight subway system that connects San Francisco with Oakland under the Bay), and, of course, cable cars.
The Cable Cars cost extra, and are, I suppose, really just maintained for tourists (or, potentially as a taxpayer subsidy to certain Rice-a-Roni interests), but they represent a pretty innovative way to deal with San Francisco’s hills. Street cars can’t climb 10% grades like we have in New Westminster, never mind the 20% grades that are common in San Francisco. 
The cable cars are more like gondolas than trains: they are gondolas with wheels. Just like a gondola, there is a power station with a big wheel, turning a long cable, except the cable is underground, not in the air. The Cable cars have a gripping arm that reaches out of the bottom of the cable car, through a slot in the road, and grips the always-rolling cable. Or un-grips it when the car wants to stop. 
Tig, looking at the cable.
It is an ancient technology by mass-transit standards: more than 130 years old, but they keep it running, more out of tradition than good thinking, as no other City has operated a system like this for about 80 years.

With all of these transport options, it appears most San Francisans still prefer to drive. Elevated Freeways still blot out the landscape right in the middle of town, one of those quaint touches that Vancouver just seems to lack.



Back to the Muni. We rode to where the Embarcadero Highway famously used to be, caught up with the rest of the tourists, and took the short ferry ride to Alcatraz.

Yep, old prison. Almost everything you think you know about it (including almost every scene in every movie ever made about, around or on Alcatraz) is wrong. Typical for an American Historical Site.





Nice views, though.



We then rented a couple of bikes from a perky tenant at one of the dozen or so bike rental places within a 100ft of Fisherman’s wharf, and peddled past a bunch of Americas Cup type activity and the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge, which was living up to its Foggy theme.

Smooothest ride ever.
The bridge is beautiful, Art Deco but a contemporary to the (also steel) Pattullo, and (completely unlike the Pattullo) under almost constant maintenance. It was seismically upgraded, and the bike/pedestrian paths are smooth and wide.

It was also cold, windy and foggy.


“Coldest winter I ever spent was Summer in San Francisco” –Apparently not Mark Twain.
The way back through the Financial District took us past the office building owned and operated by the maker of my favourite movie of all time. This ties together really well with our last vacation, when we drove by his airstrip in Belize. Nice building.

For our last night in Lotusland South, we went to about the most vegan restaurant we could find. The food was actually phenomenal, and the spirit was groovy, though I’m not sure if it was the conversation or the piped-in vibrations and triple-filtered air...

The next morning we caught a Homobile to the Airport, and I was at work by 9:30am.

Monday, October 8, 2012

SFO Day 3 - Seeing stuff we can't unsee

This morning, we attended the Folsom Street Fair.

Some of you know what that is about, some don’t. If you don’t, you might want to check whether you are easily offended or shocked before you read on. If acknowledgement of fetishism bothers you, you might want to skip ahead to Day 4, where there is good stuff about Alcatraz and happy subjects like that.

(Harmless but strangely scary stuff ahead)
Folsom is, reportedly, the “Third Largest Annual Street Fair in California” (see this earlier post of mine on the topic of tri-perbole). Like most street fairs they shut down about 6 blocks of a street, they have bands playing on multiple stages, they have booths selling food, drinks, and other paraphernalia. It is run as a not-for-profit, and there are lots of opportunities for donation to theme-related charities. It is a real community event where lots of different people come out to share common interests. Like every other Street Fair in North America.

In this case, the common interests are “Leather Pride”, the BDSM lifestyle, and various associated fetishes.

Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t realise there was an entire “equine” fetish culture. At least one medium-sized parade worth.


There were people being tied to various things with elaborate knots.
(Notice how many people are looking at something out of frame that is more interesting than the person in the middle of the frame? That’s Folsom.)
One could be whipped for fun, or watch others being whipped, or even get whipped for charity.



There were a fair number of people being led around on leashes, most in various forms of undress.



While others were just looking fabulous.




As strange as it sounds, it was great. It was clear this was a happy, open, and accepting crowd. There was no shame (unless that was what you were into), and no judging. There was quite a bit of nudity, and lots of... uh... simulated rituals, but everyone seemed comfortable to be outside and Out There.


There was a noticeable lack of officialdom, although there were a fair number of people in uniforms. And in rubber boots. And in Macramé.

So after a few hours of that, we decided to pay big money to watch some other guys in tight costumes clasp their balls with leather gloves and swing their bats at each other in a ritualized homoerotic display.


That’s right: we went to a baseball game.

It was a hot, sunny afternoon, and the San Francisco Giants were just coming off their securing of the National League West title the night before. 
(it’s not polite to point at the tourists)
The Giants play in “AT&T Park”, which is a much nicer ballpark than it sounds. Very Norman Rockwell on the outside, with faux-copper framing and brick walls, the concourses are huge, the beers expensive, and the stands spectacular. The park overlooks San Francisco Bay, and manages to evoke the history of the Giants despite being a modern ballpark.

This suits me fine, as I love being in a ballpark. As much as I am a hockey fan first, I would rather watch hockey at home on TV. To enjoy baseball, you have to be at the park, drinking beer, rubbing shoulders with fans, watching the game slowly develop, earning your sunburn, listening to the organ and the bat. It is actually my favourite spectator sport to see live. Some of my best memories of living in the MidWest were going to Wrigley to watch the Cubs play in a traditional old ballpark... but I digress...

The Giants lost. They put a lot of their third-string talent out, this being the game after they won their division and secured their playoff spot, against a team (the San Diego Padres) who are something like 20 games behind with 10 to go, and will not likely be seeing the playoffs this decade. The Giants made it interesting in the bottom of the 9th, bringing the winning run to the plate with bases loaded and one out, but San Diego got out of it only allowing one for a 6-4 final.

I got a sunburn.

A nice Vietnamese dinner back in Pot Hill and a few pints at the local dive-bar, Bloom’s Saloon, and we called it a night on Day 3.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

SFO Day 2 - Seeing some things

Our second day in San Francisco, and we saw some things.

We started our morning walking west from Potrero Hill through the Mission District. This is a remarkably diverse and exciting part of San Francisco, much like the South Main / Mount Pleasant / Fairview part of Vancouver: in transition for most of the last Century. There is a mix created by being one of the first “suburbs” or the original City a century ago, and the subsequent waves of new immigrants building upon each other.

In the Mission, these were English and German, then Polish, then Mexican, and now a more diverse mix of Central American, Asian, and Hipsterstani people create a strange vibe. As San Francisco is known for “microclimates,” where the weather varies wildly by neighbourhood, the Mission seems to change its entire character block-by block.


These changes have not slowed at all. All along Mission Street itself, there are remnants of a more glorious past (mostly rendered in Art Deco), including numerous grand movie theatres converted to dollar stores. Then a block over, you will find a strip of boutique eateries selling curated organic vegan specialties to tweeded-up fixie-fetishists. Damned if I didn’t see Columbia Street’s past and future, pressed up cheek to jowl.

We went through the Mission to see two things: the first to find some real Mexican Food. Parts of the Mission with large Central American populations are wall-to wall taquerias.

 The second is to see some street art. There are several back alleys in the Central Mission where back fences and garage doors have been completely turned over to muralists. Balmy Alley is one of the more famous (you can get a tourist bus from a cruise ship to drop you off here and idle at the end of the alley while you peruse the art), and has a variety of murals depicting “Chicano” history, along with various themes around social inequity and environmental degradation...and more than one on the topic of gentrification.








Thus fed and inspired, we walked through Mission Delores Park (Where there were a shocking number of people out picnicking, enjoying the hot sun and spectacular view of the City and Bay over the most architecturally-impressive public High School I have ever seen), to the Castro.
...they don’t build them like this anymore
There is much you can say about the Castro, but you really have to be there to experience it. It is not Davie Street or Church-Wellesley. It is where you go if Davie Street or Church-Wellesley are to confining to your lifestyle expression. Walking out of a Wallgreens, we almost literally bumped into a nice middle-aged couple wearing nothing but a man purse (he) and sandals (she). We had apparently stumbled upon an annual “nude rights” rally being held at Harvey Milk Plaza.


The evening program has us travelling over the Bay Bridge to Berkley and the Greek Theatre. Thanks to our Host and her super-personable beau, we found a vegan Indian food place that set us up with some take-out, and we managed to walk it past the ambivalent security of the Greek Theatre. We hence enjoyed a relaxed picnic on the concrete lower steps of a faux-Greek open-air amphitheatre as the sun set over San Francisco. Then Wilco blew our socks off.
Oh, I should mention the opening band. You remember the movie “There’s Something About Mary”, and the two-piece Greek Chorus who narrated several scenes in the movie from within the actual scene? Funny guy with an acoustic guitar and a quiet drummer? That’s who opened for Wilco on our second day in San Francisco. Oh, and you should Google that guy, because he apparently invented Punk Rock. Who knew?  

Oh, and we noticed we are staying a couple of blocks away from this place: