San Francisco is My Home

26
Oct

National Novel Writing Month

Author: kris, Category: Events, News

November is National Novel Writing Month. This is a writing project that began in the Bay Area with just a handful of people, but over the years has expanded into a nation-wide event.

The challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel in just one month. The fun part is that many, many thousands of people are trying to do exactly what you’re doing, and there are write-ins, parties and online forums to help you share the misery with the other participants.

The kick-off party for San Francisco is happening this Saturday, October 27, from 7 - 10 pm at Olive. After that, you can sign up for any number of writing groups in the city, or meet up with writing buddies through the forums, or just check the boards every day for your dose of friendly support. Me, I’ll be meeting some writers on Tuesdays at Cafe H from 12:00 - 2:30, unless I chicken out. This is a meeting to write together, not to read our work to one another. If you’re signed up for NaNoWriMo and you want to join us, everyone is welcome.

26
Oct

We Be The Echo at Bottom of the Hill

Author: kris, Category: Events, Music

Last night I went to Bottom of the Hill to see We Be The Echo math-rock the house.

The sign outside Bottom of the Hill is blue neon and reminds me of the Cave Train ride at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. You know how some neon looks dirty and rugged and makes you think of noir films and cheap motels? This neon is friendly and looks G-rated. Why is that? Maybe because the letters are kind of rounded and cartoony. I would not be surprised to enter Bottom of the Hill and see a couple of animatronic cavemen clunkily playing rock-based instruments.

But actually what I saw was We Be The Echo, none of whom look like cavemen or play their instruments in any way clunkily. They play instrumental rock and are very entertaining live. I watched the bassist a lot, because he spends most of his time playing in this really uncomfortable-looking lean, almost like he’s sitting in an invisible chair. I was sometimes distracted from the music while I worried about what this posture must be doing to his lumbar region. Maybe entertaining isn’t the word I want for this. Worrying? They are very worrying live.

Man, they are going to Google themselves and find this and then I’m going to get letters. “Worrying? Seriously? That’s the best plug you could give us?” Guys, I am a huge fan of your music. But that thing Mike does with his back, it’s not healthy. Come on.

Potential injuries aside, I do really like their music, and judging from the size of the crowd I’m not the only one. It is no small feat to pack Bottom of the Hill. A complete stranger put it best: I was outside getting some air while the band played, and two guys, obviously coming to see the next band, walked up to the door.

“Is that them?” one guy asked.

“No,” the other guy snorted scornfully. “Listen to them. That’s a real band.”

So there you have it. Out of the mouths of babes, or at least reasonably good-looking guys: We Be The Echo is a real band. Check them out here.

23
Oct

Halloween outside the Castro

Author: kris, Category: Events, Groups

In an effort to assist my municipal government in their crackdown on Castro Halloween fun, I’ve come up with a few alternative activities you might try this year. Don’t come to the Castro, remember. We’ll all be lying under the windows with the lights off, praying you go away. Instead, why not try something a little spookier this year? Like…

Who you gonna call?

The San Francisco Ghost Hunt, of course. This is a three hour walking tour of some notoriously haunted spots around the city. Check out the photos page showing actual ghosts, although they kind of look like thumb prints to me. But then, I’m no expert.

If you prefer a DIY ghost hunt, you can travel to some of the hotspots all on your own. The Sutro Baths are supposed to be haunted: stand in the tunnel and leave a lit candle at the end. Supposedly a woman will come and take it away. But this is no park ranger! No, this is a wandering soul with, I guess, a thing about candles. I’ve always wanted to bring a group down here and get someone to dress up in white with glow-in-the-dark makeup who will come take our candle away, scaring the heck out of my friends and earning me twenty dollars. (In this daydream, you see, I have bet everyone that a woman will show up to take our candle.)

From Dracula to Angel, there is no hotter monster…

Ghost hunting is transparently cheesy (like this pun), right? In that case, check out the Vampire Tour. Spooky Mistress Mina Burns will walk you through the city, telling you the history of San Francisco and its vampires, a history she swears is at least “85% true.” Costumes are encouraged.

Listen, I’ve got a five year old…

I promised to start including some kid-friendly activities, but in this case another site has me beat. San Francisco Kids Net is a great resource for kid-friendly Halloween activities: everything from silly-fun haunted houses to pumpkin patches to safety tips.

And here is my own personal safety tip: don’t trick-or-treat in the Castro. Remember, locked doors. Lights out. We’ll be in hiding.

10
Oct

Book nerds, get happy!

Author: kris, Category: Events, Literature, News

For this is the week of Litquake, the annual orgiastic celebration of the written word in its many published forms. The week is packed with local and nationally-recognized authors speaking alone and in panels at book havens across the city. But to my mind, the best part of this week-long festival is Litcrawl, the traditional Saturday night end to Litquake wherein a group of readers and the authors who live off their patronage embark on a mammoth bar-and-bookstore crawl across the city.

Are you an aspiring travel writer? Got a novel languishing in your drawer? Is erotic writing your true passion? Or maybe you’re just dying to sling back a beer with Amy Tan? Litcrawl has something for everyone. Check it out.

07
Oct

Castro Street Fair

Author: kris, Category: Events, News

The Castro Street Fair doesn’t start until 11 a.m., but already the terrible music has begun. I’m not sure what it is about this fair that attracts easy listening fans, but for whatever reason it is 10:10 and we’ve got synthesizers, people.

Actually, I have always admired the Castro Fair vendors. The night before, the streets are filled with revelers being kicked out of bars and hollering their guts out. (For some reason people are really inclined to hoot and holler in the Castro. You hear “whooo!” a lot, a noise I’ve never been compelled to make at the top of my lungs, myself.) By contrast, the street fair people show up early in the morning and proceed to set up stalls, erect barricades, display wares, start food grills, etc., all without disturbing my precious sleep. A hundred vendors erecting a temporary city make less noise than one drunk girl trying to fit her car keys into the door lock.

For the record, I do not hate the 2 a.m. whoo kids. I love them. I love that this neighborhood is awake and crawling with people late at night; it makes me feel safe when I’m out on the town. And after five years in the city it’s hard to sleep without the noise of partiers and of Shakira assuring me, for the umpteenth time, that her hips are the soul of honesty.

But the point is, Castro Street Fair. It’s fun to wander around and you might find a few Christmas presents for people. If not, the food is always pretty great, and there are many, many options. So I’ll see you there.

Whoo!

04
Oct

Fleet Week

Author: kris, Category: Events, News

Tourists visiting this weekend might notice a battalion of fighter jets swooping over the city. Fear not, friends: it’s just SF’s annual Fleet Week, showcasing the Navy’s Blue Angels, a squadron of crack pilots with mad skills and, you’ll notice, very loud engines.

For the most part, SF is anti-war. A 2004 bumper sticker census* revealed that the Bay Area has a larger per capita percentage of stickers saying “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber” than anywhere else in the nation. We worry about high defense spending in this part of the world, and generally we are agin’ it.

But the Blue Angels are just cool. They swoop overhead in nifty formations, they do barrel rolls, they make that sonic boom noise. Sometimes they make smoke trails in patterns. When Fleet Week comes around, rooftops decks that haven’t been used since foggy Fourth of July parties are suddenly covered with San Franciscans swilling local microbrews and squinting at the sky.

So come on out this weekend — which promises to be warm and sunny, as Fleet Week always is, which just proves that the Armed Forces have secret devices they use to control the weather — and support our high-flying troops.

*Note: I made this census up.

02
Oct

A mighty fine show

Author: kris, Category: Events, Music, News

The Hobohemians put on a mighty fine show on Sunday night. As a band they were excellent, but for my money the best part of the evening was when the rest of the band took a whiskey field trip to the bar and guitarist Ivan Cooper performed a solo number.

As the band left the stage and the audience relaxed into chatter, Ivan started singing an a capella Irish ballad that silenced the room. It was like something out of a movie. Everyone got rapidly quiet, and then everyone got rapidly goosebumped, and then everyone got rapidly teary-eyed. Something about sitting in an Irish pub, listening to an Irish ballad (about heartbreak and death, as all the best ballads are) really brings my sentimental Irish blood front and center. Luckily, the band closed with a comical country song, also sung by Ivan. Thank god, or I would have gone home all maudlin-feeling.

The Hobohemians are playing again soon at The Brainwash, the laundromat/cafe/open mic that every performer in this town is required to perform at. It’s like the tax that every artist must pay. I sort of love it.

27
Sep

And it’s all still happening

Author: kris, Category: Events, Literature

It was a beautiful day down at Fort Mason, sunny and breezy, in the low seventies. The fort lies on the edge of the blue water looking out at the iconic Alcatraz Island and the orange tips of the Golden Gate Bridge peeking over a fog bank. In other words, a perfect day to line up in the sun while you wait for the Library Book Sale to open.

“Look, a queue for losers,” quipped a Fort Mason worker as he walked by the line of grim-faced bibliophiles clutching out boxes and shopping bags. But two hours later I emerged from the warehouse-like Festival Pavilion covered in dust and clutching a head-high stack of British comic fantasy novels. Who’s a loser now, eh? Ha ha ha!

…Hmm.

24
Sep

Fair and a little unbalanced

Author: kris, Category: Events, News

In keeping with this week’s celebration of all things cowskin, the Folsom Street Fair is happening this Saturday and is not a sight to be missed. There you will find something to cater to every fetish, and you’ll find most fetishes being catered to on the street while you watch. Don’t miss this unique San Francisco salute to debauchery.

24
Sep

Words, words, words

Author: kris, Category: Events, Literature

This is the week I wait for all year long, for this week begins the San Francisco Library giant book sale.

The sale takes place in an enormous warehouse at the lovely Fort Mason, and it is filled to the brim with used and new books on every subject. If you go in the early days of the sale (Thursday through Saturday), most books are around two or three dollars. Come back on Sunday and everything is a dollar or less.

Even if you are not a reader, the study of human folly is well worth the price of a bus trip, as thousands and thousands of bibliophiles come out of the woodwork and engage in subdued near-fistfights over the boxed set of Trollope or the 18th century cookbook one of them found in the humor section.