San Francisco is My Home

31
Dec

Blood and song

Author: kris, Category: Downtown, Landmarks

Number three in the fusion series is the San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center. Here you can see performances by our excellent city ballet troupe and opera company. Here you can also come to attend cultural and veteran-related events at the War Memorial side. I am delighted every time I walk by this building, or attend a show here, not just because the architecture is satisfyingly imposing, but because it tickles me pink that this city combines such disparate flavors as war and opera.

Photo by Craig Mole, from the War Memorial website.

31
Dec

The Brainwash

Author: kris, Category: Bars and Clubs, Downtown

There’s a city legend claiming every new performance artist — everyone from stand-up comics to musicians to magicians — is obligated to perform at the Brainwash at least once at the beginning of his or her career.

The Brainwash is number two in our fusion series, because in addition to being a locally famous performance venue, it’s also a cafe/laundromat. You can wash your whites while you dazzle the audience with your Jeff Buckley covers. Or come for the show and stay for the Captain, a harmlessly nutty gentleman in a crisp captain’s hat who wanders in and out, greeting everyone present about once an hour.

31
Dec

The Beauty Bar

Author: kris, Category: Bars and Clubs, Mission

One thing I love about this city is our fusion services. First up in the fusion series: the Beauty Bar. Located among the Mission dive bars, the Beauty Bar offers some exotic cocktails (apparently the purpley-pink Shampoo is quite the drink), and on weekends when you order a $10 cocktail the bar throws in a free manicure. (That’s where the fusion comes in.) The bar is tiny and often packed, so if you’re not into crowds then this won’t be your most favorite hangout ever, but you should stop by at least once to take in the salon-style decor and the shimmery regulars.

30
Dec

Red Hill Books

Author: kris, Category: Bernal Heights, Shopping

I happened to have a half hour to kill in Bernal Heights yesterday, and I stumbled on one of the other branches of one of my favorite used stores, Dog Eared Books. This one is called Red Hill Books and it is just as marvelous as Dog Eared. They, too, have the intriguing bargain bin outside, the knowledgeable staffers, the towering unkempt stacks, plus a better sci-fi/fantasy section and a whole section devoted to classic children’s literature. I highly recommend it.

30
Dec

The love bus

Author: kris, Category: Seen, Transportation

Ok, I know I sometimes complain about MUNI. But if ever you find you’re sick of the city, with its ridiculous real estate and its heartbreaking homeless problem, take a ride on the 24 line. You can go in either direction. Outbound takes you past several examples of the city’s beautiful and strange iconic architecture, as well as through the snooty but visually interesting Noe Valley shopping district. Inbound rides you down Divisidero, past some fine eateries and drinkeries and partieries (Little Star Pizza, Toronado, The Independent, anyone?) and through parts of the Haight. Gaze out the window and remember that there are some darn lovable things in this hilly little town of ours.

30
Dec

The winter cobra

Author: kris, Category: Seen

Some of the downtown MUNI stations are filled with Starbucks posters. The posters all depict cartoony figures in happy, traditional winter scenes: skiing, making snow angels, catching snowflakes on tongues, and so on. Except one poster, which features a mongoose and a cobra standing in the snow, wearing scarves and hats and being friendly with one another. The poster says “Make new friends.”

I get it, of course: a mongoose and a cobra are traditionally enemies, but the Christmas season has caused them to forget their differences. But you know what else they traditionally are? They are traditionally known as animals that dwell in hot climates. India, for example. Why on earth didn’t Starbucks pick traditional snow-dwelling enemies? Like, I don’t know, a polar bear and a penguin? This poster bothers me every time I see it. Thank goodness I can share these little upsets with you.

30
Dec

Cha-Am

Author: kris, Category: Berkeley, Food

I have to say, if you’re looking for the perfect dinner in Berkely, Cha-Am is probably the spot for you. This is a Thai restaurant with the rare quality (rare in any kind of restaurant) of being perfect for just about any situation. You can take a group here and order a bunch of stuff to share (and you’ll want to share — it’s all excellent), and it’s casual and comfortable and quiet enough that you can all hear each other but no so quiet you feel weird laughing loudly. Or you can take a date here: it’s lit by tons of little twinkling lights and has a patio and is just kind of funky and interesting, architecturally speaking. It can be the perfect romantic anniversary date, or the perfect semi-romantic semi-casual first date. Plus, you can get a glass of house wine for $2.50, which is all you really need to lubricate any sticky eating situation.

28
Dec

Sad news for a city legend

Author: kris, Category: Charity, News, People, Volunteering

Pali Boucher is the woman who made me want to be a journalist. I’d already been freelancing for one newspaper for a couple of months when I interviewed her, but it was something I’d kind of fallen into and I wasn’t sure how much I was liking it.

Then I got assigned a story on Pali, the founder of Rocket Dog Rescue. Pali is an amazing firecracker of a woman: warm, articulate, energetic and fiercely caring, she’s dedicated her life to finding homes for dogs that other shelters would euthanize for being “unadoptable.”

Pali spent much of her childhood homeless, and when she grew up she suffered from a drug addiction. But when she got her first dog, Leadbelly, she knew she’d have to get clean to take care of him. The amazing part is that she did: she kicked her habit, found a home, and founded Rocket Dog. After talking to her I knew I wanted to stay a journalist so that I could go on meeting people like Pali.

Recently her apartment burned down, killing the three foster dogs inside, as well as her beloved talking parrot. It happened just before Christmas. The last I heard, she still wasn’t sure whether she’d be allowed to move back into the apartment.

If you want to help out Pali or Rocket Dog Rescue, either with a donation or by volunteering to foster a dog, visit the Rocket Dog website and click “volunteer” or “donate.”

28
Dec

Shh!

Author: kris, Category: Landmarks

Hey, you ever been to the main branch of the SF library? Because it. Is. Awesome. It’s like a palace where books are king. Five (five? I think five) floors stretch up into the booky heavens, reached by a spiraling staircase that looks out over the wide-floored lobby. (Also by an elevator, but I prefer the view.)

Like everything in this lovably down-at-heels city, it has its drawbacks. I’ve never gone and found all the books I was looking for in one trip, for example. Still, I always find something I’m powerfully excited to read. Plus, library members can access the OED (that’s the Oxford English Dictionary, for those of you who aren’t big grammar nerds) on the library website. For that alone I give them five stars, one for every floor.

28
Dec

MUNI troubles

Author: kris, Category: Transportation

Ohhh, MUNI. Take another little piece of my heart, why don’t you. Twice I have ridden your hallowed rails in the last three days and twice I have been stymied by lengthy delays due to computer error and signaling problems. Trains stayed frozen in place like we were starring in Ice Age VI, or whatever number they’re on now.

I have big respect for the worker bees of the MUNI system, who toil for thankless patrons like myself on a daily basis. But something needs to be done about the system as a whole. Until my friend visited from London last year, I never noticed how horrible the labeling system is. I challenge a first-time visitor — or anyone who doesn’t ride the underground regularly — to make sense of the BART and MUNI division in the underground stations. Which turnstile goes where now? And where and how do I pay? What are all these machines for, and why do so few of them provide quarters? What do “inbound” and “outbound” mean, and how can I tell which trains are going which way? And so on.

Buses are scarcely an improvement. Stops sometimes don’t have any upright signs at all, relying on half-erased paint marks in the road to tell you which bus you’re waiting for. The new satellite tracking signs you get at many stops are a big improvement, but I’d still prefer buses that ran on time.

However, I am still grateful not to pay eight pounds a ride, or whatever outrageously high fee they’re charging for the London underground. And I’m grateful we have a transportation system even as good as we do, since I’ve lived in many a city where the bus situation was far more dire. Still, let’s at least get the computer situation sorted out, eh fellas? Some of us have to get home and update our blogs.