Piece of Quake
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 struck at 5:12 am on Wednesday, April 18, 1906
Victorian buildings on Howard Street between 17th and 18th Streets, photo by WJ Street
plenty more photos can be found here -Â The Bancroft Library Presents: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Neck Tie Goes To The Runner
9ever my favorite merton
A Fine Line Between Love And Haight
Ahhhhhhhhhhh San Francisco. How I always dreamted of visiting yer Golden Gates and gay Asian shores. And now that I’m twentysomething, I figured it was the time to get arf my a$$ and see what all this Rice-a-Roni and hill shit blues was all about. I mean, until a month ago, I kept miss(tori)pelling the city, ‘San Frasisco’. Hey, if I can call other people douche bags for spilling hot coffee on themselves, I can surely call myself one since I wouldn’t be anywhere without a spell checker. But enuff about semantics and more about my antics this past Columbus Day Weak End!
On Friday, the deadlines were stacked at work, but nothing was going to keep me from the home of Levi’s jeans. I hopped on the le ghetro E train for what seemed like an eternity by Calvin Klein and rendezvoused with the greatest latest thang in NYC transportation: The Airtrain. It’s like being on Epcot’s monorail, but cheaper, and it actually takes you right to your terminal and not a geodesic dome. When I finally got to JFK, the mostest random thing popped into my head: Steven Spielbergo’s The Terminal. I have yet to see this crap on a stick, but I can only imagine how terminally painful it must be to watch. Anywho, boarded my Delta flight, kicked off my smelly shoes, and caught Spider-Man 2 for the 2th time (Read our review here). Gawd bless Sam Raimi for drenching Kirsten Dunstes’es shirt in each of the movies. Lettuce juss hope tits three times a jizz for the next installment. Passed the rest of the time talking to this Indian bloke who explained to me that when people think of Indian food, it’s really just Punjabi food. Most Indian’s diets consist of beans, rice, and veggies, not chicken tandoori.
Anywho, touched down in SFO and was picked up by my weak end’s glamorous host, TSpliff, co-creator of the mos fantabulous website that never was (be sure to visit the stadium!). By the way, my ears had yet to pop and them STILL HAVEN’T!! Went back to his swanky North Beach pad, met his foxy lady lady Michele Ma Bell, downed some chicken-feta-pesto North Beach Pizza (you wouldn’t think Killafornia has good pizza, but they DO!), hit up some famous dive bar called Vesuvio, almost got in a fight with some Hispanic punk a$$ bitch, and called it a night… but not before peeping several episodes of Sealab 2021, one of the breastest cartoons I’ve seen since I declared my jihad vs cartoons. We also got all political and watched what has got to be the finestest show on the fall lineup: The Presidential Debates!! Can you name a more entertaining 90 minutes you’ve watched in the past year? I love hearing about Kerry ‘subcribing’ to ‘plans’ he has that we haven’t heard anything about or Bush just plain talking bout them internets.
Saturday was dedicated to being a whorish tourist. We had some Mexicali lunch right next to the Presidio and sadly didn’t see Sean Connery or Mark Harmon. Next it was off to San Jose via one of the most scenic routes me has ever peeped (being a 5 year NYCer, anytime you see land masses that aren’t made of concrete, you get kinda hot and bothered). And what may you ask is located in San Jose besides a hockey team with horribilistic taste in jerseys? Well, I’ll tell ya: The Winchester Mystery House. And how the FUNK did I come up with this grande idear to visit this place on my lil vacay? Well, one of me favorite all-time shows since I was a kid was A&E’s America’s Castles. A few months back I caught an ep dedicated to this house. And this is the house’s story of us: Sarah Winchester was the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune after her hubsy died. She believed that she was haunted by ghosts and spirits who were killed at the hands of the rifles.
One day she sought the advice of a Boston psychic who in turn told her that she must continue to build on to her house for 24 hrs a day until the day she died. And Sarah Dub did just that (she also invented the washboard!). The result is morerer nuttier than my poops after scarfing a gallon of Pralines and Cream. There were 160 rooms, where windows were built into the floor, stairwells that led to nowhere, closets with 13 hanger posts, rooms that had only one entrance but had three exits, doors that opened to a 15 ft drop, and a whole bunch of other MYSTERIOUS stuffings!! I yearned for a creepy tour. My gal Katty-Kat puuuurfectly suggested that the tour guide should be in the Vincent Price vein, but what me and the TSPliffster got instead was some cheerleaderesque girl, who was more chipper than Chipper Jones, and could play Jan Hooks’ Alamo tour guide in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure if they ever dared to remake it. Literally, our guide was one shake of a lamb’s tail away from making us say, ‘adobe’ and ‘tortilla’. Well, at least at the gift shop they had lovely San Jose postcards depicting a bus!!
As our magical mystery tour continued, wees drove back to the SF, mcnabbed a lil tasty baked sangwhich at Submarine Center in West Portal, drove up to the peaks of Twin Peaks (we even had the courtesy to unhook the bra) and saw the city from a far, and then gave the Tanner full-household a hello on the way to our next stop: the corner of Haight-Ashbury. Before arriving there, my mind was filled with mythical visions of such a holy sight. When we got there, the reality was as lame as being on the corner of 27th St & 2nd Ave, sans ferdinand. Although I’m sure the Gap and Ben & Jerry’s are extra hippyrific! Then we went to the mecca of all music stores: Amoeba Music. This place lives up to any hype you may have been hyped on by Hype Williams or the like. Think Tower Records meets Other Music meets yer ma and pa record shopppppee. I only wanted to spend like 10 minutes there and maybe buy one album, but an hour or so later, I walked out with 5. The prices were so cheap. Gotz like 4 used discs for 5.99 a peace and a Graham Coxon import for onsley 10 bones! Later that night, we grabbed some grand ole momma’s cooking at Home, cause Michele Ma Bell knew it would whet my meat and potatoes lifestyle. Laterz on we went to this new hot spot called Casanova where I sipped drafts of Pabst Blue Ribs and was reunited with my boy Robbie Revz who me hadn’t seen in 10 shlong years! We both told each other that we looked the same, but I think he was just being polite to me and my whale-size.
Sunday was dedicated to foo-ball and almost nuttin but. T’s pals Jorge and Co came over bright and early with some very un-NY bagels and shmears. Next time I’ll just bring some with me ;) I still cunt bee-leave people wake up at 10am to watch fooball. This was the 1st time I’d been in the West during fooball season and with the early games over by 1pm, that left the day thighs wide open for bidness. Although I was half awake and half baked, I still needed to take in a lil culture and me being the museum whore that I is, I had to drop by their MOMA, with former NY galster Veronica and coincidentally visiting NY galster Amber Crusiemanko. A nice collection, but me was more bitter than Passover herbs to find out that a Lichtenstein eggzibit was opening two weeks after my visit. Lichtenstein people!!! It aint just a pointless country no mo!! Rounded out the noche with A PLACE TO EAT AT B4 YOU DIE: House of Nanking!! They have a menu, but you don’t even order off of it. The waitress comes by and hurries you into ordering something. You just say ‘chicken’, ‘beef’, ‘tofu’ or whatever and PRESTO the most yummylicious stuff comes to yer table in a matter of minutes.
The next day I sadly had to go, but not before I purchased some cheap smokes, walked up the mostest crookedest street in the world and chowed on some In-N-Out Burger (still the most overrated burger in America. Fatburger rules x 324114!!). What a friggin fab-u-los-so city tit was. I fell in love and not only left my heart in ‘Cisco, but some mean smelling farts as well after all that chow. And there’s so much touristy shit left for me to do (trolleys, burritos, the wharf, Alcatraz) that I’ll be back quicker than you can say Jeff Gaycia. By the way, WHAT THE FORK IS UP WITH ALL DEM HILLS??#?@!?@?$??%@&!!%?~?%$$@#~$