8:30am: Gave some change to a man sitting on the sidewalk on Powell near Market. He smiled broadly at me, asked my name, and said, "You must be 'bout 22." I giggled and replied, "Add 10 years to that." His eyes widened and he grinned even more. We exchanged "God bless you"s and I walked on.
5:15pm: Pan dulce. Met up with V. at 24th and Mission, where I saw him emerging from a panaderia with a bag full of the sweet rolls. Mmmm.
Cafe La Boheme. Chilled for a minute at my favorite cafe, where you find veteranos from the Mission's heyday, boho emigres from the suburbs and radical activists all mixed together. Then V., H. and I headed out to...
6pm: A free Saul Williams in-store performance at Amoeba Records (yay fresh indie record stores! And they sell videos too!) on Haight. Saul wasn't just spittin' lyrics solo, he had a whole band behind him, promoting his new eponymous CD. It's crackin', folks, you gotta hear it to believe this is the same hip-hop head who starred in Slam and who wrote ...Said the Shotgun to the Head, et al. The man's got a punk/rock/drum'n'bass soul in him that's refreshing to witness in this age of stale, lifeless pop music and yawn-inducing poetry.
Bought my mom a copy of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' 'cuz my sis says mom's voting for--gasp--Bush! I gotta fly over to her house later today with the DVD in hand to try to persuade her to turn away from the dark side. The thought of someone that closely related to me voting for Bush gives me the willies
7pm: Witnessed the gorgeous, slightly spooky lunar eclipse while standing on Haight near Stanyan, hearing the street punks howling and hooting at it a few blocks away. Somehow seeing Saul and the eclipse so close together made sense.
7:30pm: Had dinner at Los Jarritos with V., H., and D. Chile verde, house-made, warm corn tortilas, and a Negra Modela to wash it all down. Of course I made sure we sat in the back room, which I like to call the Frida Kahlo room, because of all the black-and-white pictures of her and Diego gracing the walls. And a surprise piece of yummy chocolate cake from the table of gay men celebrating a birthday next to us. When the birthday boy tried to blow out his trick candles (I hate those things) and failed (of course), he looked down at the cake and said, "Damn, Bush is gonna win!" Which of course prompted me to knock on wood furiously. I can't help it, 10+ years of Catholic school'll make ya superstitious about these things.
11:30pm: After much deliberating about a late-night dance/music destination on a particularly dead Wednesday club-night, we ended up at The Cafe, of all places, someplace I haven't been to in about 8 years. Walking up to the entrance, which was flanked by two Black women butches on security detail, I had flashbacks to being 19 and trying to get in without a fake ID with my friend Leatha.
The music was okay, some KMEL-ish hip-hop oddly mixed with old school grooves like Prince, Mary J. Blige and Arrested Development. The real treat was being in a mostly-colored queer club, watchin' the girls and boys get freaky and loose on the dance floor. Everyone looked so young, but that only made me happy instead of jealous. Ah, I thought, the youngstas are representin' and keepin' this shit alive. I was impressed that they still grooved to Arrested Development, because even to me that shit sounds like Mozart.
All in all, a great day in a, um, uh, great City? I still can't bring myself to say "I heart San Francisco" but I will say that I have my good days, and my not-so-good days. Yesterday was one of the best so far.
Blessings,
Rona
Posts
3 comments:
i can smell the san fran of ur narrative. sounds to me like a perfect day. missed the eclipse. im a big moon fan. but i live in manhattan. im not sure where to look for the moon in here. in puerto rico, my best day of the month is the evening of the full moon. i was always out on the beach. i looooooooved it. i have a love/hate relationship with manhattan too. more love than hate these days. mmm... really mostly love. when i left for the carribean, i couldnt wait to come back. when i visit san fran, i will retrace ur day. sound like my kind of places too. missed ur blogs. -elserenito
hey! you forgot:
-getting in the mood to go out by listening to h's personal spin session
-and the "customary" trip to safeway at 1am
-and listening to queen while driving over the bay bridge
-and, and, zzz...
i also think it's interesting that we totally missed the reason most new england folks are buzzing: the red sox won the world series. hmmm... maybe we were just feeding off their excess energy. nah. fuggeddaboudit.
=v=
B_yes SF is growing on me. You should post some PR reflections. I'd like some travel tips for once I get there.
V_I know, I know, I didn't include everything, but I'm not tryin' to have folks know all my business, okay??? ;-) Thanks for bein' part of our Frisco adventure. (and technically, listening to Queen happend on the Bridge so I couldn't quite call it a Frisco thang).. Peace&Grease, R.
Post a Comment