photo by punchup on flickr

We here at The Rhodester Chronicles are authorities on the subject of surviving in San Francisco when you’re broke, because we live in San Francisco, we’re surviving and we’re currently broke.

Granted, not completely — we have some income, albeit not much. But we’re not sitting in a gutter wrapped in dread and a tattered blanket, bumming cigarettes from passers-by.

Not yet, anyway.

We’ve learned how to stretch a dollar which is often all we have, so in this post we are going to share some of this insight and help you survive in San Francisco when you’re broke.

There are a few things to know first..

SAN FRANCISCO IS EXPENSIVE TO LIVE IN

Hideously so. We are temporarily staying in a shabby hotel at a room rate of $220.00 per week. The bathroom is down the hall. The showers are past that. Everyone on this floor uses them including our immediate neighbor, who seems to have a drinking problem.

He likes to shout out the window (right next to ours) at young women passing by in the evenings, calling them “whores.” We totally expect an irate boyfriend to make his way up here some evening and get the wrong door, which would be ours, and then kill us.

He also tends to bang on the window grate while hocking loogies out onto the sidewalk, but please bear in mind that all of this only comes after a session of binge drinking on his part. During the early-morning hours and well into the afternoon, he slumbers peacefully which makes it nice and quiet around here.

Well, except for when the guys in the gym below come out onto the sidewalk under our window and talk loudly about sparring matches and kick-boxing. And when the dog across the street barks, which is all day long.

And then there are the sirens. Constantly. We take heart that they’re not coming for us.

Yet.

This building was erected in 1907 which means we’re really moving up in the world, because the other hotel we lived in when we first came here was built in 1906. We figure that if we’re lucky, we’ll eventually get into one that was built during the Eisenhower administration.

This room has a little refrigerator, a microwave, a sink and we even have a color TV. Oh yes, we have an Internet connection too, which is how we’re posting this. Except I think the Internet router was installed when they built the place.

We’re literally rolling around in the lap of gritty luxury.

Other rooms in grander hotels might actually have their bathrooms and shower stalls in the same unit being rented and neighbors that don’t scream well into the night, but those run about two thousand a week and to even qualify for them you need bright, shiny credit that can be seen by astronauts.

Of course, one would ideally like to rent or buy a house, condo or apartment here.

Buying a place to live is out of the question for us at this time, because we couldn’t get a mortgage on a six-pack of beer. So we’ve been looking for something to rent, but the problem with that is there are a million other people looking for something to rent while we’re looking, and they all answer the same ads we do and show up at the same places we do and compete for the same apartments and rooms that we want.

Because of this demand, rentals tend to run about five times more in this city than they would in, say, a small town in Texas.

The only good news, aside from the fact that we don’t live in Texas, is that jobs in San Francisco pay higher than the national average. It’s true! There is a higher minimum wage than the state and people get paid more, because everyone knows how ridiculously  expensive it is to be a citizen of this great city.

Now, if we could only GET a job here!

So, the first thing to do in order to survive in San Francisco when you’re broke, is..

LOWER YOUR STANDARDS

Sure, it’s nice to shuffle off to your very own private bathroom when you actually have one. Here, we get dressed and shuffle down the hall, passing other residents who are shuffling back. We toss little waves at each other and grunt pleasantries while on our way to pee.

This is acceptable to us because of the great coffee we’re peeing out. We drink it in our choice of great coffeehouses. There is art and decent music and cool people and neat things to see while we drink that coffee, depending on where we go. We could hit a different coffeehouse every day and not have to come back to any for a few years.

This is why people like living here, including us.

The greatness isn’t limited to coffeehouses though.. there are parks and trains and bridges and galleries and bars and fine restaurants and ships on a bay. We even have weather here — lots of it — which changes every few minutes. It’s a never-ending tapestry of fluffy clouds followed by dark ones and then sunshine, followed by an earthquake or two, and that’s all before lunch.

If the weather in San Francisco were a prime-time network drama, ABC would cancel it immediately, it’s that exciting!

Sure, it would be nice to have a lot of money and live in San Francisco like some people do, but that’s not what this post is about. It’s not about the eight-hundred thousand dollar condos with the four-hundred dollar a month HOA fees and parking for only one-hundred and twenty dollars a month.

It’s about not having a car to park so you take public transit, and not having HOA fees because you just pay your rent and the building management takes care of all the maintenance stuff, sort of, if you catch them early in the day when they’re sober.

Again, you just need to LOWER YOUR STANDARDS.

You also need..

THE SUPPORT OF GOOD FRIENDS

Our good friend James at Men With Pens bought us a six-pack of beer the other day, and she doesn’t even live in San Francisco.

Yes, James is a girl.

We’re not sure if she felt sorry for us or happy that we had accomplished so much despite how difficult it is to live here, but she said, “Go get a six-pack of your favorite beer and I’ll reimburse you on PayPal,” so that’s what we did, except we couldn’t find our favorite beer at the local market and had to settle for Blue Moon, which isn’t bad.

Thanks James!

Beer from JAMES

By the way, James sells books about blogging and freelance writing. We put banners for them at the bottom of this post because we know you want to buy them.

Yes, you do. So shaddup.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention another friend, who we’ll call Sebastian. That’s not his real name because we’re going to tell you that Sebastian drinks WAY too much, which he’s quite aware of, but despite that he doesn’t hock loogies on young girls and call them whores, like our neighbor does.

Instead, Sebastian helps us out, like the other day when he helped us out on hotel rent because we were short, which means he gave us his booze money.

He also helped us move our stuff from the first hotel over to this one, which would have been a lot more difficult if we’d had to do it ourselves.

Despite his own struggles, Sebastian is one of those stand-up guys you can count on in a pinch, so we’re glad we met him.

We’ve been fortunate to become acquainted with some other pretty cool people too, like Kelelah the Krazy Hawaiian, Bob the astronomy geek and San Francisco Joe, the troubadour.

We help them too, when we can.

So there you have it. Lower your standards and have good friends. Those are two ways to survive in San Francisco when you’re broke.

We would have gone into detail like how to file for assistance and which markets are cheap yet have good quality food, but we’re fixin’ to blow the head off an Anchor Steam because the Jazz band is about to start playing.

We love San Francisco. It keeps us humble and entertained at the same time.

F-Street car by Rhodester

Stuff that James sells to help you make money online..

Buy The RhodesTer Chronicles A Beer!

photo by macwagen on flickr

Yesterday I rode the J-Church train here in San Francisco to one of my favorite cafes, and there was a scruffy guy sitting in front of me with a chicken on his lap.

Yes, this sounds like the beginning of a joke but it’s really not. He had a chicken on his lap and the chicken had a name – which I’ve forgotten – and he said the chicken is “his baby,” going everywhere he goes.

I bet they don’t go into restaurants (unless it’s an ADA approved service chicken).

I know all this personal stuff about the chicken because he was telling a pretty young blonde girl about it and she didn’t look freaked out or anything. She was smiling and joking with him, and didn’t seem to be in the least bit concerned that the chicken might step over and poop on her lap.

I was a tad concerned the chicken might poop on his, but I reassured myself (quietly) that he’s probably figured out a way to get past that, or else he just doesn’t mind.

Because the thing is – and I speak as a person who’s had chickens, but not one who’s ever taken said chickens on a train – that it’s really difficult to teach them not to poop, unlike a puppy or a kitten.

Not that those are easy, but at least one CAN teach a puppy to only go outdoors and a kitten to use a litter box but, with a chicken or any kind of bird, really, you just kind of have a little random poop machine that discharges when it needs to, without regard to where it is or who’s company it’s in.

A chicken would poop on the Pope’s hat if that’s where it happens to be at the moment, or on a park bench, a new Corvette, the roof of a Walmart or in the cockpit of an F-18 Hornet.

A chicken would even poop on coffeesister without having read her blog first.

And to make it worse, birds (including chickens) don’t even poop easy little pellets that are simple to pick up like rabbits do. They mix their poop and pee so it’s all runny like an egg, or like me following a night of too much beer and bad tamales.

Speaking of eggs, it hadn’t occurred to me that the chicken might lay an egg on the guy’s lap, or the pretty blonde girl’s if it stepped over.

That would have been hilarious.

But the guy didn’t seem concerned about poop or eggs. He just went on telling the girl about how the chicken is his best friend and she laughed and said, “Well, that’s cool!” and I looked around for the hidden candid camera.

But really.. why not, you know? A lot of people here in San Francisco have dogs and an almost equal amount have cats, and sometimes people have other things like rats, snakes, mice, parrots and turtles.

It’s just that, when out and about, you mostly see dogs. You don’t see cats a lot, given the nature of cats and how they dislike being walked on leashes, and you almost never see the rats, snakes, mice and turtles, although I did talk to a drunk guy at a bus stop one time and he had a little snake wrapped around his wrist. He put it in his pocket when the bus came and he said, “I hope I remember it’s there and don’t sit on it like I did my last one.”

Yeah, that would suck for the snake.

You can’t really put a chicken in your pocket unless you’re a clown, in which case it’s YOUR JOB to walk around with a chicken in your pocket, so the guy yesterday had it on his lap and because of that, I learned something poignant..

I learned not to judge someone’s choice of domesticated pet, even if that species of pet happens to be served in almost every restaurant in town.

Which reminds me of how I almost complimented the guy on his chicken, because I’m very complimentary that way, but considering my compliment was going to be “Wow, she looks delicious!” I’m glad now I didn’t.

photo by usonian on flickr

San Francisco Muni Train - home of Veronica the sexy Muni Lady

I have a serious confession to make..

I have a torrid crush on The Muni Lady.

Yes, I said “torrid.”

Muni is the public transit system here in San Francisco. It’s short for “San Francisco Municipal Railway,” which is what they call it despite the fact that they run buses too, which aren’t on rails.

The name has stuck around since the old days when pretty much everything was on rails, including cable cars and horse-drawn street cars. They still have the cable cars for nostalgia’s sake, but thankfully the horse-drawn cars are a thing of the past because horses tend to take a dump on the street, and sometimes your shoes if you don’t get out of the way fast enough.

By the way, did you know that our famed Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco is built almost entirely on horse poo?

It’s true!

Back when horse-drawn streetcars were plentiful the city needed a place to put all the horse poo they shoveled off the street everyday, so they carted it off in wagons to these sand dunes out by the ocean.

This went on for decades, so plenty of horse poo piled up, which must have been quite pleasant for residents of that area.

Then, right around the time mechanization started to put horses out of a job, someone came up with the idea of having a huge park much like New York’s Central Park, then someone else said, “Hey, those horse poo covered sand dunes out by the ocean would make a great park because we have decades worth of built-in fertilizer!”

This has nothing to do with The Muni Lady of course, because she wasn’t born yet when they made Golden Gate Park. Heck, I wasn’t even born yet. But the fact that our park is made out of horse poo is almost as fascinating as the fact that most of the downtown district is built on top of the remnants of old sailing ships.

It’s true!

But I digress, so let’s get back to my crush; the sultry, sexy Muni Lady.

Her name is Veronica, which may or may not be accurate, but nobody really knows her name so that’s what I call her.

This is what she looks like..

Veronica, the sexy, sultry Muni Lady

This too may or may not be accurate, because nobody knows what she looks like, so this is what I like to think she looks like.

Veronica, you see, is THE VOICE OF MUNI and, if you’ve ridden on any of Muni’s vehicles, you’ve heard her sweet, sexy “celestial melody” (Longfellow) call out the stops and other information.

“How sweetly sounds the voice of a good woman.” – Massinger

San Francisco Cable Car - sadly sans Veronica

The only exception is the cable cars because the city wants to keep them all nostalgic and, as I already said, Veronica hadn’t been born yet in 1905, so the cable car operators take care of that task as they ring their little bell and belt out..

“Montgomery, next stop! MONTGOMEREEEEE!!!”

But Veronica is much more pleasant to listen to, primarily on the Muni Light-Rail Trains. Her hypnotically melodic tone reverberates throughout the station while one is waiting on the platform, and then she can be heard INSIDE the train once one boards!

This is awesomeness, because I just can’t get enough of her. I wish I could record her and put an audio file on here for you.

When she says things like..

“Outbound.. two car.. N.. in four minutes. Followed by.. one car.. K.. in six minutes.”

..I get goosebumps.

Then, when I’m on the train and speeding through the dark, scary tunnels, she provides words of warmth and comfort..

“Next stop.. Forest Hill Station.”

MORE goosebumps!

On certain days after having zipped through the multitude of downtown stations, I have to change my underwear after getting home.

It doesn’t end there, either. She’s on all the buses!

I’m telling you, this broad really gets around.

San Francisco City Bus with Veronica aboard

When I’m on a city bus I hear my sweet siren call out the street name of each stop as we approach it..

“Lombard Street.”

*swoon*

I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be married to such a wonderful gal. It’d be absolute heaven to come home after having slaved over a hot netbook at a wifi cafe all day to hear..

“Dinner..  lamb shanks in pomegranate sauce with garlic mashed potatoes.. in ten minutes.. followed by.. Crème brûlée and espresso.. in thirty minutes.”

*swoon*

*drool*

We have another transit system that runs through San Francisco called BART, which is an unfortunate acronym for “Bay Area Rapid Transit.” Bart consists only of trains — really long, fast ones — which run in a straight line under the city as they speed along on their way to outlying areas including cities on the other side of the bay, which means they go through a long underwater tunnel.

So, in that sense, they’re not really competition to Muni, although one has a choice of taking a Muni train or BART train if one is going from, say, Balboa Station to any of the four downtown stations.

Personally I opt for the Muni train because of Veronica, as you might have guessed. Even though BART is about twice as fast.

An ugly-ass BART TRAIN sans Veronica and bells

This is because BART doesn’t use Veronica’s voice to announce the train arrivals, sadly enough. BART uses a synthesized male voice that I have cleverly dubbed “Bart” and he sounds like one of those voice boxes people who can’t speak use to talk.

Actually, there are two Bart voices — one for the outbound trains and one for the inbound — and they both are synthesized male voices but one is just an octave lower than the other to (I’m guessing) differentiate.

The higher one will say..

“Next train.. nine car.. Richmond.. in five minutes.”

Then the lower one will say..

“Approaching.. five car train for Daly City.”

..and it’s all rather boring.

When you’re inside the BART train, the driver announces the upcoming station on the public address system..

“Folks, we have the Embarcadero Station coming up, all out for THE EMBARCADERO!”

So at least that adds a little flair to it and it’s better than the synthetic voices, but the BART drivers don’t even get a little bell to ring like the cable car drivers do, so I’ll take VERONICA over the whole lot of them anytime.

But alas, I know as well as you do that things are seldom as they seem, which means that Veronica probably looks like this..

Veronica, aka Matilda the sexy, sultry Muni Lady, in Walmart

And her real name is probably Matilda (no offense Matilda, if you’re reading this) and she probably doesn’t even live in San Francisco. She’s probably a professional voice-over person who lives in New York or Los Angeles, neither of which has a park made out of horse poo.

I have nothing to back up that last statement though. They might have horse poo parks too, so please comment and let me know if you live in either city and can vouch that they have horse poo parks.

But when it comes to the likes of Veronica, a man can dream, can’t he? Especially when he’s on the train platform, waiting for the N-Judah..

“Approaching.. two car.. N.. destination.. pure audio bliss..”

*swoon*

A BART train approximately a mile long approaches Balboa Station, and the synthetic announcer makes synthetic announcements while the train swallows a college girl and some other people before whooshing off at high-speed to Fremont..

As a San Francisco Muni train approaches, you can hear Veronica make a few announcements starting at 0:25. Oddly enough, she didn’t announce the stations while inside the train in this 2008 video — she does nowadays though. In this video you can hear her again at 7:40.

Ride along for the whole video if you want to take a trip Rhodester and coffeesister take rather often..

Coffeesister and I went to one of these meetup things last night where you try to find compatible roommates.

It was held in the Haight district here in San Francisco at a bar right there at Haight and Fillmore, and at first I kind of felt like it was a singles mixer. I mean, it was similar because everyone’s sizing up everyone else but not like, “Oh, that blond is sweeeeet and she has killer legs!”

It was more like, “Whoa, those look like cat people and I bet he’s late on rent all the time.”

We did meet several new friends who ended up vying for our affection though, so it was kind of like if coffeesister and I were Matthew McConaughey and we had both Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson hanging all over us.

As a result we have a couple of places to look at this weekend and will likely end up moving into one of them, but it’s really like choosing between Jessica and Scarlett.

Were this anything more than a metaphor, I couldn’t do it – I’d want both.

But the dog girl didn’t fare so well – she left early without meeting anyone because of the douchebag.

I call her the dog girl because I don’t know her name and wouldn’t put it in this blog if I did, but she was young and seemed sweet and she had a nice little dog on a leash.

I call him the douchebag because of what he did to the dog girl, so basically that’s what he is. I happen to know his name now, having found out what it was so I could tell the group manager about what I saw, but I won’t put his name here either.

The Urban Dictionary defines “Douchebag” as “someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk and asshole, however not yet reached fucker or motherfucker.”

That was definitely this guy, who parked his motorcycle in front of the door and strolled in like he owned the place, resplendent in his trench coat and boots. A shaved head, firm build and assorted tattoos had me picturing him as the bad guy in the next Die Hard film, where he’d be holding Bruce Willis hostage while planning to blow up New York.

The dog girl had just signed in and gotten herself a name sticker, which she hadn’t put on yet when douchebag strutted up to her.

“Miss, I need to ask you something.”

She smiled as she probably thought a potential home owner was about to introduce himself and offer a room to rent.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Is that a service animal?”

She looked down at her dog on its leash.

“Uh, you mean like a guide dog or something? No, I just wanted to bring him because I wanted anyone who might rent to me to meet him in person.”

Whoa, good idea! If you’re looking for a rental then you might as well let them see your dog so they’ll be impressed with how well-behaved and gosh-darned cute he is.

Douchebag scowled a little. “Well I’m afraid you can’t bring a dog into a bar in the state of California, it’s against the law.”

Oh, okay.. now I saw why he strolled in like he owned the place. He DID own the place. I thought he was being a little harsh about it but he was right, it was against the law because food was being served. The bar could get fined.

“Oh, I didn’t know.. I’m sorry!” She seemed a little flustered. “Can’t I just hold him?”

“No, you’ll have to tie him up outside or leave.” He was adamant. The scowl testified to that.

“But I’ve been planning on this meet-up for a week. I can’t leash him outside, he’s never had me do that to him..” Her voice trailed off and a glint of tears took over.

“I’m sorry but that’s how it is. You should have thought of that before you came.”

As she pulled off her name sticker and left, I expected him to strut over to the bartender and start barking orders, or head to the back office, or anything but what he did..

..he turned around and got HIMSELF a name sticker and signed in.

He was just attending the meeting like all the rest of us.

Excuse ME? WHAT THE FUCK?

Sure, it’d be the right of the bar staff to enforce the dog law, but the lone bartender on duty hadn’t said anything and there wasn’t a manager in sight.

The reason I’m soapboxing this is because it’s really hard to find a decent rental in San Francisco – if you answer ads you get a lot of kooks and scammers – so attending this type of social is a brilliant way to meet in person and know right up front if you’re getting a Matthew, Jessica, Scarlett or tragically, a motorcycle-riding trench-coated douchebag.

(By the way, we here at The RhodesTer Chronicles have nothing against motorcycles and trench coats, having owned a number of both in our time, but we do adamantly protest the wearing and riding of both while being a douchebag.)

So the young lady, thinking she’d been kicked out of the bar, left disappointed and possibly missed a chance at meeting the best roommate she’ll ever have because this idiot had some kind of stick up his ass.

Stepping off the soapbox now.

Oh, wait..

Stepping back on for a second..

Later, a couple came in with their dog. They were obviously neighborhood locals who weren’t a part of the meeting. As the bartender greeted them by name and started pulling a couple of pints for them, she greeted the DOG by name.

So.. dogs are cool in this particular bar.

Douchebag had left by then so he didn’t get a chance to say anything to the locals, who probably would have told him to fuck off, as would I.

Okay, NOW stepping down.

*Sigh*

Aside from douchebag, the meeting was a success and again, we have a couple of places to look at this weekend. We hope to be living in one of them with either Jessica or Scarlett by the end of the month or sooner.

And actually, Jessica liked Scarlett so much as we all shared a pitcher of Blue Moon at a table that she’s thinking of relinquishing HER house and moving in with us and Scarlett, so that should be interesting.

*pant pant*

Stay tuned.

Well, here it is mid-week already and here we Americans are, with our collective noses back to the collective grindstones after a holiday weekend of burgers, beer and fireworks.

This means that coffeesister and I must continue looking for new digs here in San Francisco, which can present quite a challenge.

Have you ever looked for a room for rent in this city? It’s not like in other places, where you go to the “rooms for rent” section of Craigslist and actually get legitimate listings from people who actually want to rent you a room.

Here we have scammers similar to the kind who claim you’ve won something and all they want is your personal information so they can send you several million dollars.

The room-for-rent scammers are always “out of town” and renting the room from afar. They want you to send them money and they’ll send you the keys in turn, along with assorted “rental documents and agreements.”

I am absolutely positive that they are the same scammers, or at least they all know each other and are sitting in an Internet cafe in Nigeria drinking pitchers of green beer as they boast to one another of their conquests.

“I took fifteen stupid Americans today for five thousand dollars and forty-seven social security numbers!”

“That is good Faahri, then you buy the beer!”

Fortunately, we’ve learned what to look for to avoid being victims who unwittingly help Faahri’s associates get free beer..

First of all, we never – and we mean NEVER – rent from anyone we can’t meet in person and who can’t show us the place. That takes care of pretty much all of them right there.

But we don’t even get that far if we just don’t respond to ads that have certain tell-tale signs that a scammer is at work.

Such as..

An “immaculate one-bedroom apartment with granite entryway, valet service and beautiful views that’s fully furnished and situated in a new high-rise in the financial district” for $650.00 a month. In this city, that rate will usually get you a closet in a dive hotel with a moldy mattress thrown on the floor.

An ad from a person claiming to be “a reporter on assignment” operating in a foreign country, but their English is terrible. So far we’ve had a television reporter, a newspaper reporter and someone covering a story in Nigeria for a San Francisco news blog. The ads tend to read, “I send greetings to you as so glad am I to have your interest in apartment to watch while I am away for assignment to the country where is great the turmoil and I am as such cannot return for long while!”

There is usually a wife left behind in the states who we can contact at a different email address to claim the keys and documents, AFTER we’ve made payment to the “person on assignment,” but sometimes they just say they’ll send that stuff after cashing our check.

But we’re experienced professionals now, that coffeesister and I, so we get past the scammers because we know all the signs, and we actually get to meet up with people who have rooms for rent.

And so do about 300 other people.

That same day.

We usually lose out to people who are younger, better looking and gainfully employed with stellar credit.

Plus, they sparkle in the sunlight and they’re not even vampires.

It’s really fun to peruse the real estate ads here too, even though we can’t buy anything. Houses like this one tend to run about eight hundred thousand dollars..

Whereas houses like these tend to run several million..

Even this house will set you back two or three grand, and you can carry it around..

A lot of houses in this city were built in 1906 or before. That’s older than I am. By a LOT. And they’re worth more.

By a LOT.

But we’re determined to keep plugging away, that coffeesister and I, because we’re hearty pioneers who are forging a destiny and all of that crap.

Tomorrow evening we’re attending a meeting in a bar, where like-minded people who are looking for places to rent or actually have places for rent will gather together to drink lots of beer, shake hands, swap names, tell everyone what they’re looking for (or have available) and then drink more beer.

The great thing about it is that they’ll all be right there, in person, and not a single one of them will be drinking lots of beer in Nigeria and using a Yahoo email address to tell us to send them a check and then they’ll send us the keys.

We’ll actually get rejected and declined in person!

I’m so looking forward to it!

I mean the beer, of course.

CLICK HERE to find out how the meeting went.

Seriously.

photo by james studiosushi on flickr

Like a big, RED balloon, and those things can be pretty vicious.

Things usually turn around, and usually when we least expect it. But for now, I feel like Billy in the Don Hertzfeldt cartoon I’ve embedded below.

I’m Billy and the Red Balloon is San Francisco. Things start off nice and I’m really glad to have my Red Balloon, until it starts beating the crap out of me.

Then there’s a lull and a few moments when it seems everything is going to be all awesome now, but suddenly the Balloon just picks me up and drops me on my ass.

Friends come into the picture and I’m glad to meet them, until they also get dropped on their asses. It’s all very entertaining.

And quite hysterical.

Toward the end you can see coffeesister holding a daisy and loving life on a bright, sunny day.

Until she gets her ass kicked by a balloon too.

Enjoy!

Vintage RhodesTer

restoring old posts to their former glory

originally published in December of 2008

Note – In honor of PRIDE WEEKEND here in San Francisco, I am resurrecting this blast from the past that is possibly the best explanation of gay people that I’ve ever come up with. I can say that because it’s the only explanation of gay people that I’ve ever come up with.

Today I am going to talk about gay people and gay issues.

This is because absolutely no one else is talking about them, and you never hear anything about their wants, needs, desires and politics, so I might as well bring it up.

HA HA HA!

That’s sarcasm.

Actually, we hear about it all the time, and you can’t swing a dead cat here in San Francisco without ruffling a gay person’s ascot.  But I just want to put in my two cents.  By the way, this editorial may be slightly overpriced.

I’ll start by saying that I have some gay friends who are pretty cool people.  I’ve also met some gay people in the past who are not my friends because they’re not so cool.  It’s kind of like having a cat that plays a lot and another cat who sleeps more than cats normally do.

For some reason I’m using cats a lot in my illustrations.

I’ll try and stop.

Drag Cat by rockmixer on Flickr

The thing is, as people, we’re all different.  There are good and bad white people, good and bad black people, good and bad Asian people and good and bad American Indians, who prefer to be called “Native Americans,” but I like “Indians” because it brings me back to my childhood when I used to play “Cowboys and Indians” until supper, when Mom would call us in just before putting the cat out.

Damn.

Okay, so getting back to gay people..

There are those who think gay people are like cowboys, in that they become gay over time, just like cowboys decide at some point to start punching cows (whatever that means) and rounding ‘em up.  There are others, present company included, who think that certain people are born gay, just like the Indians.

Not that the Indians are born gay — I’m saying that Indians are born Indians — stay with me, darn it.

So NOT gay

Indians who try to be cowboys are not usually very successful at it, as you’ll see if you watch a lot of John Wayne movies.  Heck, in those movies they don’t even try.  But they can be a cowboy if they want, because a cowboy isn’t something you’re born to be, unless you’re John Wayne.

But you just don’t see a lot of Indian Cowboys.

So it’d be more like if Indians tried to be cats (damn) because you are either born an Indian or born a cat, but you can’t really be both.  However, you can be an Indian’s cat if you want.

I’ve known gay people who’ve tried to be cats.. er, I mean straight people.. but it never seems to work because all they can think about is wanting to be gay and their hearts aren’t really into being straight.

I’ve even known of a gay cowboy or two..

Technically, they were Sheepherders

But if a person who is attracted to members of the same sex tries to go out and be attracted to members of the opposite sex, they usually just end up being really good friends and go shopping together a lot.

Now, here’s the thing..

I know this Christian guy, Mike, who says that the whole gay thing is an “abomination before God,” and all of that.  I’ve known him for a lot of years and, even though he’s married now, I knew him back when he used to say that abomination thing as he was on his way to a motel to shack up for three days with some chick who he’d bone like crazy.

Actually, Mike boned a lot of chicks in his hey day.  He was quite the ladies man, in that all he had to do was walk up to them and say “HEY,” and they’d drop their pants.

Now, before you go saying that Mike is a hypocrite, let me just check my stats to make sure he’s not a reader of this blog..

Okay, he’s not.  Go ahead and say it.

The thing about Mike is that he was born liking chicks.  Well, to be technical he probably started finding titties to be tantalizing when he was around 11 or 12, but you know what I mean.  I’m bringing him up because I remember him talking about a wedding between two gay people he worked with and how he would not be going to that wedding, because of the abomination thing.

So I asked him if he had fun that past weekend when he shacked up in the motel and boned that chick for three days.

He said yes, he did.. then he thanked me very much for asking, and offered to introduce me to her sister.

Other issues aside, Mike was always polite and courteous.

gay madrid by alex castella on flickr

But you see, guys like Mike think that all gay people are cowboys and that they choose to round up members of the same sex before punching ‘em, when in reality they’re all a bunch of Indians who are just really attracted to other Indians.  They find their fellow Indians to be quite lovely, and all they want to do is be left alone to pow-wow in peace.

Now, I realize that there are Indians who say “God made me the way I am” and there are Cowboys who say “God doesn’t make mistakes,” but make no mistake.. if an Indian wants another Indian then you best just git along and leave ‘em be, or else you’ll probably get scalped, with “scalped” being a metaphor for “gay lobbyists pushing legislators to pass laws allowing them to get married and enjoy the same civil rights under the law as straight people.”

This being the case, you’re going to just be better off sitting back and enjoying that parade of pretty headdresses.  Those gorgeous, fabulous headdresses!

in costume by moriza on flickr

That’s all I have to say.. I’m done now.

I have to go feed the cat.

DAMN.

“San Francisco Joe” entertains the crowd on Friday night, June 25th at Java Beach Cafe in the outer sunset district of San Francisco.

For the record, the crowd this late consisted of the three girls closing behind the counter, a girl on a laptop to Joe’s left and a lovely young couple to the right of Rhodester.

And Rhodester, of course.. eating something and drinking a beer.

Last week I was contacted via email by someone named “Alexa,” who wanted me to come over to her apartment and look at her etchings.

Then, after having a cup of coffee and taking a closer look, I realized it wasn’t etchings she wanted me to look at, but her website. She wanted me to give her advice on it, like is it easy to use and stuff like that.

Then I had another cup of coffee and looked again, and saw that it wasn’t actually anyone named Alexa, but rather, it was ALEXA INTERNET, which has been putting toolbars on the computers of willing participants since before the turn of the century.

That makes them seem really old, doesn’t it?

I’ve had one of those toolbars for quite a while, and it turns out I recently visited the Alexa website, which I don’t remember, and signed up with something, which I really don’t remember, and they somehow found out I live in San Francisco so they invited me over for a chat, since they live here too.

This is the email..

Alexa Internet is seeking 1 additional participant for a usability study to help us improve the Web site. As an Alexa user who has recently visited Alexa.com, I am reaching out to you personally to see if you would be interested in participating.

The key points:
• We are looking for someone to participate immediately! (Preferably in the next day or so)
• The test sessions will last around 90 minutes.
• Test participants will need to furnish their own transportation to and from the Alexa office in the Presidio
• Test participants will receive a $50 Amazon Gift Card as a “Thank you” for participating.

Actress Alexa Chung, after having sent me an email invitation to evaluate her website

So I responded and said, “Sure, I’d LOVE to come over and look at your website!” After that a guy named Chris got back to me and told me to come on Friday, and gave me directions. He confirmed that they’d shower me with presents from Amazon for participating.

Friday came and I hopped on a San Francisco Muni Bus and headed for the Presidio, which is where Alexa lives. Who knew? When I got there I realized I forgot my camera. So in a stroke of creative genius I’m posting pics of sexy actresses named “Alexa,” in lieu of any pics of the actual Internet company.

You’re welcome.

The Presidio is the former army base here in San Francisco that once belonged to the Mexicans and the Spanish before that, and then the Americans before finally not being an Army base any longer and becoming a National Park.

It still kind of looks like an old Army base but it’s totally open and you don’t need to go through a guarded gate, it’s just another neighborhood in the city now, albeit one with old Army buildings, barracks and ancient historical artillery equipment scattered around.

Alexa lives in one of the old barracks, which brought back memories of my Navy days, because most basic military barracks look alike. I commented about this to Chris when he met me at the door and he said, “You mean guys used to live and sleep right here in our office spaces?”

Yes Chris, they did, long ago.

Actress Alexa Chung greets Rhodester in her own special way as he arrives at her barracks at the Presidio

But now it’s all tables, desks and computers, with spaces divided up into cubicles and tiny offices with dividers and that sort of thing. I didn’t get a tour, since Chris was anxious to get down to the business of what they brought me in for, so we went into a room that had a couple of laptops set up and he explained to me how the “testing” would work.

“There’s no right or wrong to this,” he said. “We’re only interested in how easily you navigate our website when given a certain task to do, and your feedback will help influence our future design.”

Actress Alexa Devalos sleepily watches as Rhodester evaluates her website

This is like all kinds of cool, because I’m seldom asked what my opinion is on anything, let alone have someone tell me my opinion will actually matter and then throw gifts at me for telling them what it is.

Chris started the laptop and explained that my session would be recorded by the webcam, but he assured me it’d be used for in-house evaluation only and wouldn’t be posted to YouTube or anything like that. So if you see me somewhere online going through a website evaluation process please let me know, so I can sue them.

Thank you.

(I notice he didn’t say it wouldn’t be shown at the office Christmas party, edited and set to a Lady Gaga soundtrack. I hope I’m not giving them ideas here.)

Then he brought up their site. It looks like this..

I spent the next hour and a half pretending I was a big-shot company owner who did worldwide Internet business (HAR!) and following instructions like, “Now you want to see what keywords the competition is using to drive business and maybe use them yourself, so find out what they are.”

Whenever I did one of these tasks I was given a little questionnaire.. “How easy was this task? Did it suit your needs? Did you find what you needed quickly?”

It was basically what they said it would be.. a website evaluation.

Actress Alexa Vega contemplates downloading the new RhodesTer Chronicles Toolbar

After covering pretty much the entirety of the Alexa website, I left there with a new appreciation of what goes into the design of something like that. I don’t know if they’re going to implement any of my suggestions, like putting pics of sexy models and actresses named Alexa on their site, but I do know I picked up a few tips that I’m going to implement here at The RhodesTer Chronicles.

So stay tuned for THE RHODESTER CHRONICLES TOOLBAR, which you will download, install and use to track stupidity.

April 18th, 1906

As I put my pen to paper and write, I fear that the shaking of my hand shall render all illegible, for it will not abate. One could hardly blame me for it was less than two hours ago that I lost all, and not just myself, but many around me. The flames still leap in testament of the destruction that has ensued this Wednesday morning from the shaking of the earth under our very feet, and I expect they too shall go on unabated for days to come.

We came to this great city just over two months ago, my love and I, crossing over on a ferry and stepping foot onto the dock at exactly six in the evening.

I still hear the clock tower of the ferry building chiming a welcome to us as the brisk wind of February tugged at our coats and threatened to blow our hats into San Francisco bay. It was as if the city were playfully teasing us with a joyful ceremony in which nature herself took part. We’d arrived at last, and the wind opened its very arms to embrace us with cool, chilly kisses.

We hired a carriage upon arrival and went looking for a proper hotel. Not too expensive, but one free of miscreants and the like, or at least as free of them as can be for the price range we sought. We happened onto the Hotel Marybelle and have been ever since. That is, until this morning.

I’ve been trying to get on with the paper and working on a book in my spare time. She was helping out at the hotel with finances and expense reports, a task which lowered our rent. We didn’t expect to meet such amiable hosts as our current hotel owners and feel lucky that divinity steered us in their direction. Our savings amount to only so much and they agreed to help us by letting us help them.

It may seem silly to some that we came here with only dreams in our heads and no plans in our pockets, but what do they know? We’ve long since considered this place our home and always had intent to return, but it wasn’t until late 1905 that it even became a possibility. I was here years before, serving on a merchant vessel as a yeoman, but I gave up the seafaring life upon meeting her. We both hailed from different parts of California so it was no surprise to me to discover that she had visited the city on frequent occasion during childhood, when her mother brought her to see the ocean, and she had fallen in wide-eyed wondrous love with the essence of it.

I came as a child too, taking annual treks in with my parents to visit a great aunt and uncle who have long since walked off into the foggy mist of eternity, but who still hold a special place in my heart. It was my uncle who first took me aboard a ship in the port of San Francisco and watched with a wily grin as I peppered the crew with questions. I think he knew he had a young seaman in the making!

We love visiting this city, even though we now live here, because of its grandiosity and things yet undiscovered. We revisit places that we’ve grown fond of and seek out new things, and rather constantly at that. The diverse peoples provide an endless source of amusement and wonder, and we feel as if we’ve both traveled the world while not even stepping outside the borders.

Lately we have seen a need to watch our expenses despite the benevolence of our current landlords, but last night we went out despite our frugality. Odd for a Tuesday, but I have no work to worry me yet and she wasn’t to begin her next round of bookkeeping for the hotel owners until this coming Monday. We felt restless, as if something were stirring in the very air we breath, and it jiggled our bones to the core. We needed to be together, and not holed in a room, as nice a little room as it is, reading our respective books. We needed to be out together, somewhere to dine, and take in the sights of this city that’s of such proportions I’ve never seen the like. It’s a grand and busy city, full of light and souls and song.

Word was that Enrico Caruso, the great tenor, was in town and performing in Carmen at the Tivoli. Had we the funds to attend such a gala, we would have! But our meanderings took us to a small, inviting restaurant not far from the Marybelle and it was there we had a quiet supper and conversation. I’m now glad that’s the way it turned out.

We were back by ten and snuggled in by eleven. Our second room floor overlooks busy Mission Street, so the clip clop of horses with the occasional motorcar and conversation from inebriated passersby expertly lulled us to sleep as usual.

I awakened hours later with a need for the chamber pot. I made my way through the dark without taking the trouble to light a candle because it’s an easy trip through the door and just on the other side to the left. I’ve gotten to where I can hit the pot with my eyes closed and half asleep, so that’s what I did, unaware of the time but aware of the darkness and the silence. The drunken ones had long since laid down to sleep it off and with the horses stabled, the street was eerily quiet at that time in the morning.

I’d just finished my business with the pot and was headed back through the doorway when hell paid a visit. A tremendous roar rushed in and I was thrown against the wall with such force I imagined a thousand stampeding horses of fury had just trampled the building. The shaking was of such a violent nature I screamed out but the sound of it was immediately engulfed in the cacophony. All around me the building shook as if it were a stuffed doll in the teeth of a vicious dog, who was rendering it into little shreds. Works of art, vases and books flew past me and became debris, flashes of bright light accompanied sounds of sudden explosions all about, and the room I had been about to walk into suddenly disappeared in a swirling flash.

All I could think of was her. She was sleeping so peacefully in that room and now it was gone, seemingly in the blink of an eye but during a ferocious buffeting that seemed to go on endlessly. It eventually ceased but I couldn’t tell you if it had endured for seconds, minutes or the entire month of April.

As dust settled and parted from around me I saw that I still stood in that doorway, but it was now a precipice, with rubble below and sky above. I don’t know how it was that I was unscathed except for a few cuts and bruises, but for that I praise and thank the Lord while cursing him at the same time for taking my loved one and leaving me to grieve. I wasn’t resigned to her exit yet, though, so I grabbed some pipes that hadn’t seemed to be there moments before and slid down to the rubble to dig and dig and dig, until my hands were bleeding and nails tore from my fingertips, and then to dig some more.

It’s not that I watched the time, but in retrospect now I think it was a good half hour before I uncovered the awful truth that the Lord had taken half my life away. I used the bed sheet to wrap her for the sake of dignity and then I forced myself to the duty of attending to those who could still utter breath enough to slightly scream. It was a small hotel, this Marybelle, and the thirty rooms seemed to have yielded about four or five survivors including myself.

I saw Grace Jackson stumble out onto the street holding her little dog, and Max Sherwood was able to help me pull some rubble off Mrs. Swenson, so he’s attending to her wounds now. I ripped up another bed sheet and applied it to old Mr. Willis’ arm to stanch the bleeding, so now I’m taking a breather to gather my wits about me for the task I know lies ahead.

While digging through the rubble to find my loved one, I managed to come across my journal. I hope you can read the hastily scrawled words despite the blood smears that my hand creates. I tried to clean off as best I could, but there doesn’t seem to be water, which is unfortunate given the fires that are growing increasingly fierce all around me. I’ll soon have to finish up this journal and tuck it away for the future, then Mrs. Swenson and Mr. Willis must be moved to the street before this rubble is rendered into an inferno. I was hoping for something to be done for my love, even in this state, but I guess cremation awaits. That’s okay because I know she’s no longer there, but awaits me in heaven instead.

But first I have much to do, so I best be at it. It’s now seven in the morning and I know I’ll be tending to the injured for days if not weeks to come. God help us quench these fires that are just beginning to cause the air to reek of the stench of death.

I must not think of her. Not yet. I have much to do. So very much to do.

We’ve been riding the San Francisco Light Rail Trains a lot lately, and we’ve been seeing quite a bit of those Blue Knights, the MUNI FARE INSPECTORS.

This is because the trains are kind of long – about two or three times as long as the city buses – and they have a lot of doors. People can board them through any door and when they’re above ground a lot of people board them without paying the fare.

This is where The Blue Knights, aka the MUNI FARE INSPECTORS come in. They walk up and down the inside of the trains wearing their cop-like blue uniforms, complete with radios and badges and mace and handcuffs and possibly sidearms, but I’m not sure about that, and they ask to see passenger’s proof of fare, such as a pass or transfer.

If the Muni Light Rail Trains traveled under water instead of under ground, the MUNI FARE INSPECTORS would be fricken sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their fricken heads.

They’re just that badass.

Oh, and they’re fricken HELPFUL too! I know this because I had to run an errand yesterday which necessitated catching a bus over to the Van Ness station at Van Ness and Market, and then catching a Muni Light Rail Train from inside the station up to the Castro District.

When I got down to the platform I noticed two of San Francisco’s finest, aka The Blue Knights, aka MUNI FARE INSPECTORS, standing there waiting for the next train along with everyone else.

I stood right beside them because even though they’re badass laser beam headed sharks and that kind of shit, I have nothing to hide. I use a pass that I paid for, I have ID to show it’s my pass should it come to that, I don’t carry a spray can to tag the inside of the train because I’m not fifteen and I don’t sit in the blue seats. I leave those for the elderly and infirm.

I’ve also never thrown a gum wrapper or any facsimile thereof on a train floor or a station platform while waiting for a train to arrive.

I’m a good, courteous rider.

But I guess I was a totally clueless dork yesterday, along with the rest of our little group boarding at door #3. This is because when the train whooshed to a stop and door #3 hissed open, the lady MUNI FARE INSPECTOR stepped forward and took charge.

“Okay everybody, step aside!” she yelled to we on the platform who were eyeballing door #3 suspiciously as if we’d like to step through it and board the train. “Step aside and let these people come off!”

She stepped in front of door #3 and held her hands to either side as if parting the red sea, and she said, “Back.. BAAAACK!” as if we were all going to suddenly rush into the train and trample to death the poor, beleaguered passengers wishing to exit.

Okay, so before I continue, I want to say this about that.. the “San Francisco Municipal Railway,” as it’s called despite the fact that rails are only a part of it, runs a LOT of buses and streetcars and cable cars and trains. I’ve noticed that a lot of tourists tend to ride the streetcars, cable cars and sometimes the buses, but you seldom see them on the trains because I don’t think they know the trains exist.

Even if they did know they exist, I think they’d rather ride along slowly in a vintage streetcar or cable car with a clanging bell and take in the sights because that’s a part of the San Francisco experience and it’s one of the reasons they come here. They don’t want to go underground and get from point A to point B quickly in a dark tunnel, or if they do, they take the BART which is a whole different thing that goes under San Francisco bay where there really ARE laser sharks and cool shit like that.

My point is that the Light Rail Trains consist almost entirely of locals commuting and, as such, they know what to do when a train pulls up, which is step aside and let the people in the train get off of it so that they can get on and stand in their spot.

Well, most of the local commuters know that, I guess, except for us clueless dorks at door #3. The train that pulled up yesterday had two cars to it and each car has two sections and each section has two doors, so that makes eight doors along the platform side that whooshed open for people to step in.

We happened to land the first door in the second section of the first car, so technically it’s the third door, and I don’t know how in the heck the lady MUNI FARE INSPECTOR knew we’d all just stepped off the short bus up top, but man, she was ready to dive in and help us get aboard that train!

“Step ASIDE!” she barked, to nobody in particular because all of us had stepped aside to let people off when the train pulled up, and we were staring at the palms of her hands.

Then, as the doors opened and she had us all safely pushed to the left and right of her, she firmly put her hands in front and started beckoning to the people who wanted to get off the train. “Step off NOW please.. come forward.. come FORWARD.” She starting gesturing as if taxiing aircraft out on a runway. “COME FORWARD NOW.. that’s it.. STEP OFF..”

As soon as they stepped off and we clueless dorks were about to board, I glanced up and down the length of the train at the other doors. They were all clear of passengers. Everyone who’d wanted to get off at those doors had done so, and everyone who’d wanted to board the train was on it, and they’d done it all without the aid of MUNI FARE INSPECTORS. We were the only ones blessed with assistance from a benevolent Blue Knight.

And we were the only ones still standing on the platform.

“Well come ON people, board now! That’s it.. step on, push back..”

She waved us aboard with animated frustration.

“Come on, let’s go, let’s GO..!”

We managed to squeeze in and the two MUNI FARE INSPECTORS squeezed in behind us.

Oh, joy.

“They’re like sheep,” she said to her partner, not seeming to care that these particular sheep could understand what she was saying. “You have to take control and herd them in or it’ll hold the train up.”

Never mind that she’s the one who actually held the train up, for a few additional seconds, which is no big deal, but.. the irony..

I muttered under my breath, “Gosh, thanks for showing us what to do, we’d be totally lost without your guidance!” I didn’t want to say it loud enough to be heard because I didn’t want to get face-planted into a train window and cuffed and possibly maced. I don’t know about shot, I’m not clear on the sidearm issue.

A part of the brief yet slightly annoying delay was that the people attempting to step off the train had paused a bit, due to a uniformed officer beckoning wildly at them and shouting something. I tried to put myself in their place and realized that I too would probably stop to figure out what was so urgent.. was it a bomb scare? A terrorist plot? Why is this MUNI COP looking at me and shouting something and gesturing like that?

Oh, she wants me to get off the train? Well, okay.. I was going to do that anyway, so here I go..

In closing, I’d like to offer thanks to our caretakers in blue, for nailing the fare jumpers because we pay for our passes and it’s not fair, for busting the taggers because they make the trains look really shitty, for making sure the drunks, drugged and crazies don’t get out of line and cause mayhem to ensue and for keeping an eye out for nasty things like bombs that go kablooie, which could hurt, maim or kill the whole lot of us.

But.. could you leave the sheep alone? It just may speed up service.

Bah!

cafe mystique by diatrib3 on flickr

Coffeesister and I found ourselves running some errands in the Castro the other day and we got kind of hungry, so we wandered into Cafe Mystique at 464 Castro Street.

We WERE going to head up to Little Orphan Andy’s, which is a casual diner with friendly service but she said, “We’ve been there too much lately, I want something we haven’t tried before.” She said this as she stood in front of the entrance to Cafe Mystique and gazed at the menu posted by the door. It seemed kind of hoity-toity to me, meaning your entrees will be prepared in this and that kind of sauce, and pairing the right wine will be important, which is stuff that I’m usually uncomfortable with. I’m always afraid I’ll knock over a table candle and burn the place down.

But she had a point about Little Orphan Andy’s – we’d been there too much and we needed a break from the gay dock-worker motif of work boots, ball caps and t-shirts. The staff there is awesome, but it’s so casual they tend to bring you your patty melt and then sit down on a stool next to you to finish theirs.

Not so at Cafe Mystique. The waiter, whose name I forget so I’ll call him “Franco,” was polite, extremely nice and helpful, and not in the least bit snooty. This is important because when I’m in a place with fancy wines and sauces I tend to feel out of sorts anyway, so snooty waiters don’t help. I’m always tempted to take the table candles and light THEM on fire.

We looked over the menu and she ordered a nice wine. You’ve probably figured out by now that I ordered a beer. But at least I don’t drink crap like Budweiser and Coors – I had a Sierra Nevada on draft. See? I’m a little hoity-toity.

The lamb-burger was on special, but having met a few lambs in real life I couldn’t bring myself to eat one. They’re just too darned cute the way they bleat and scamper around, so we decided to share a plate of Salmon fettuccine, another plate of calamari and some garlic fries instead. Salmon and squid aren’t very cute but they certainly were delicious. Better than a patty melt.

Then the owner came over and introduced himself. His name is Sam and he wanted to make sure everything was just right, and then he told us how they only use the freshest ingredients and take great pride in their preparation, blah blah blah. Sam is an extremely handsome guy with a Jordanian accent because he hails from Jordan, and he explained to us in that accent how he integrates a lot of cooking techniques from that part of the world into what he does there at Cafe Mystique.

I asked him a lot of dumb questions, which he was very patient with as he gave me appropriate answers without making me feel like an idiot. One of the questions was “Do you serve spanakopita,” because I actually know what that is, and he replied that no, sadly enough, they don’t. Then I told him about the microwave spanakopita from Trader Joe’s because hey, it’s delicious, and he didn’t scoff or anything. I was impressed.

At the end I felt like the bill was going to be astronomical, but it wasn’t, and I felt like Sam and Franco should be totally snobby, but they weren’t, and I left feeling like I’d had a really nice experience that didn’t completely assassinate my budget.

So if you’re in the Castro and want a dive diner that has good service and decent food, hit up Little Orphan Andy’s. If you want a little higher class than that and to actually care what kind of wine you sip with your fancy fettuccine, stroll a few blocks the other way and visit Sam at Cafe Mystique.

Say hi to Franco too, and drop your fork on the floor at least once to see how fast he replaces it. You’ll be impressed.

..because “Crazy Candid Camera Cookiness” just didn’t look right. And you’d probably expect cookies. Or for me to cook something.

The Mission Street Ghost Car

A few nights ago I managed to snap a pic of the “Mission Street Ghost Car” from the hotel window. It’s this mysterious 1957 Buick that’s sometimes seen cruising up and down in search of its owner, who died in 1965 at the corner of  22nd and Mission when a bus went out of control and plowed into a liquor store.

The car’s owner, Hank Jackson, was the only fatality,  and the car witnessed the whole thing because it was parked nearby when Jackson ran into the liquor store for a pint of Old Crow. After being towed away later that day, it committed suicide in the city impound lot by yanking out its own sparkplugs and draining its oilpan before it could be claimed by the the heirs of Hank Jackson.

So now it cruises, forever looking for the its beloved owner’s soul, which has been lost to the ages. I had to lie in wait for it and snap the pic on the exact anniversary of the Jackson’s death, to the second, forty-five years later. That’s the only time the car becomes solid enough to be photographed, and you have to listen intently for the ghostly horn as it calls out the man’s name, “Hank.. HANK!” in the foggy mist just before it’s seen.

Okay, that’s all bullshit. The camera takes blurry photos at night and fast cars look like smudges.

————————————————————–

Toasties at West Portal, as seen from Squat and Gobble

San Francisco has this really cool subway system they call the “Muni Light Rail.” They don’t call it a subway – I just said that so you’d know what I’m talking about. A lot of it is above ground anyway, so you’re on this little train that’s zipping through dark, scary tunnels one moment and the next moment you’re on streets in regular neighborhoods snaking your way between houses.

Above is one of the Muni stations where the trains emerge from the cavernous recesses of the underworld. That’s the blue part. To the right is a diner called “Toasties,” which is at West Portal Station, which is where we went on Wednesday afternoon.

Except we didn’t go to Toasties. We went to the diner across the street from it, which is called the “Squat and Gobble Cafe.” I really wanted to go there to see if they actually make you do that, or if the server does that when you order.

The answer is no on both counts, so I still don’t know why it’s called that. But the food is pretty good and the view is too.. the pic of Toasties was taken from the window of our Squat and Gobble table.

“Squat and Gobble.” I like saying that.

Ahh,, NOW I know why the call it that.

———————————————

Text coffeesister to tell her what nice stripes she has

After gobbling our squat at the “Squat and Gobble Cafe” we decided to cross the street and enter the cavernous underworld via Muni Light Rail, which whooshed us down to the Ferry Building at The Embarcadero.

Peet’s is inside The Ferry Building, as are Cappuccinos and a cute young Barista who makes them named Vanessa. I’ve written about her before and on this visit she agreed to an interview for my San Francisco Everyday People gig, so look for that in the next week or two.

Above, coffeesister, aka Dorian, reads a text on her phone in Peet’s.

She didn’t say who sent it or what it was.

So don’t ask.

—————–

The Embarcadero at EmbarcaNighto in the EmbarcaDarko

We were in Peet’s so long, it got dark before we finally emerged. Shown above is a night view of The Embarcadero in front of The Ferry Building. If you were to head in this direction you’d be at Fisherman’s Wharf in about five minutes, where you could compete with the throngs of tourists jostling for overpriced souvenirs that were made in Taiwan.

We didn’t head in that direction but opted instead to board an ancient trolley passing in front that was headed up Market Street.

———————————————————————

Hi, I’m an admin for a group called “Coffeesisters on vintage streetcars,” and we’d love to have this added to the group!

Dorian, aka coffeesister, seems to like riding a rickety old street car on a rainy night in San Francisco. This particular one was from about 1915 but it had a badass horn on it that the driver liked to blow whenever someone got in his way, which was frequently. It was more effective than the cable car bells that go “clang clang”.. those are wimpy bells. People get in the way of cable cars just to hear them. People who got in the way of this driver got their pants blown off.

—————————————

N-Judah tracks next to the Java Beach Cafe

We rode the rickety street car up to a light rail station, then headed underground and boarded the next train just to see where it goes. Turned out it goes here – to a cafe called “Java Beach Cafe,” where it practically drops you at the front door.

See where the rails go by the sidewalk and the cafe door is on the left? Seriously, the train stops there and you pretty much just step off it and into the cafe. While hanging out in there we saw Muni train drivers come in about every 20 minutes to pee and get some more coffee.

In that order, most of the time.

One driver ordered a coffee and THEN went to pee, then returned to get his coffee.

Is that too much information?

Worth a mention – the train is called the N-Judah, and it’s so popular it has its own blog called The N-Judah Chronicles. Just to be clear, it doesn’t actually write stuff about itself and post it, like RhodesTer does here at The RhodesTer Chronicles. No, other people write stuff about the N-Judah and post it at The N-Judah Chronicles while nobody but RhodesTer writes ABOUT RhodesTer and posts it at The RhodesTer Chronicles.

Which I prefer, really.

—————————————————————————

Inside the Java Beach Cafe late at night

A coffeehouse with a liquor license so that it not only makes awesome coffee drinks, but can serve beer too is fine by me.

Yeah, coffeesister and beerbrother WILL be back.

————————–

Hi, I’m an admin for a group called “Demented old dudes in dark cafes,” and we’d love to have this added to the group!

None of this “we close at seven” stuff for Java Beach Cafe.
No man, we’re open until ELEVEN!

ELEVEN!ELEVEN!ELEVEN!
ELEVEN!ELEVEN!ELEVEN!
ELEVEN!ELEVEN!ELEVEN!
ELEVEN!ELEVEN!ELEVEN!

Sure, 24-hrs would be better. But even coffee needs to sleep sometime.

————————————————–

Nellia points to the door of the train, before entering it about 30 seconds later

I walked outside just before closing to get a picture of one of the trains that loop around to head back into the city, and this pretty girl walked up and asked how to get to Powell Street. Well, pretty girls seldom ask me anything so I’m all, “Hey, you see that train? Get on it! You’ll be there in about a half hour.”

Okay, so basically I just answered her question, but it was thrilling, I tell you!

Her name was Nellia, I think, because she said it and didn’t spell it so I hope I got that right. She also let me take her picture in front of the train before she got on and I told her what blog she’d find the picture on, so she’s probably reading this.

HI NELLIA! Did you get to Powell okay?

NO? What happened?

BANDITS? OMIGOD are you alright?

What?? You were just kidding?

You cute little smart-aleck, you!

**spank spank**

—————————————————————–

The N-Judah at night

The departing N-Judah whisks Nellia off to Powell Street and possible bandits.

————————————————————————

Sneakers and stuff aboard the N-Judah

Fifteen minutes later, coffeesister, aka Dorian, and I board the next train. An interior shot shows a nice view of what’s ahead through the driver’s glass door. We also get to look at feet. Wearing sneakers.

I think those were the sneakers Nellia was wearing.

———————————————————————-

<–RhodesTer coffeesister–>

Brightly lit interiors make it hard to see out the train windows at night, so we have to look at sneaker feet and our own reflections.

Shit.

Riding the train during the day is kind of awesome because they have these huge panoramic windows where you can see the city whoosh by if you position yourself strategically under the surrounding armpits.

The trains get packed during commute hours.

———————————————————–

An outbound train at Van Ness station

Having finally arrived at Van Ness station, I snapped a shot of another train whizzing underneath as we rose to the top to eventually emerge at Van Ness and Market, where a Muni bus stopped to shuttle us to the front door of the hotel.

Who needs a car in this city?

From the Mission Street window view..

Bum #1 comes by with beer can, gulps down last of it, throws can into gutter.

The can lays there for about 15 minutes.

Bum #2 comes along and picks up can, squeezes out last few drops, wipes his beard, throws can back down into gutter.

I love beer too!

all photos by rhodester

(Note – the title of this post is misleading, in that the post actually implies the mayor of San Francisco is an Illuminati Alien, and not the hobo making the claim.)

I’m writing this on Friday night while a party is going on under my feet.

We’re still in the hotel we’ve been in for a while, and we’re still in the really cool room with the bay window that overlooks Mission Street.

Under this room is the salon where I got my haircut a few weeks ago and at the salon tonight is an art reception. This is because the girl who cut my hair and who runs the salon, Brittany, hung some art on the walls. In San Francisco you invite everyone out to view art when you hang it and you serve them wine and cheese, then introduce them to the artist(s), whom you also serve wine and cheese.

I stepped off the bus earlier onto the curb in front of the hotel and whereas I can usually bounce right over to the front door and go up the stairs (and yes, I DO bounce), this evening I had to wade through a sidewalk crowd of beautiful young people holding glasses of white wine and nibbling on cheese, so I knew right away it was an art reception. Brittany had something like David Glass playing on the sound system, instead of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which would have been playing if we lived over a biker bar. I have nothing against bikers, their bars or Lynyrd Skynyrd (I’m a fan), but I prefer living over a salon.

Before you ask, no, coffeesister and I weren’t invited. Which is too bad because although I’m not much of a wine drinker, she is and we both eat cheese. We can also talk knowledgeably about art. Whenever we do, we talk about the time we went to Paris and saw all of the really good and famous art, like that stuff Van Gogh, Degas and Monet painted. We also saw a really old garden full of statues that a guy named Rodin had made, and we went to the Louvre and stood at the back of the crowd and jumped up in the air so we could catch a fleeting glimpse of the Mona Lisa.

We tell artists about these things at wine and cheese art receptions, and I’m sure the artists are always thrilled to hear their work compared to stuff like that. But this time we weren’t invited, surprisingly enough, so I have to settle for sitting on their heads.

I take advantage of having a huge bay window by putting the room’s little round table with my craptop on it right in the niche of the window, so that when I’m sitting here typing and perusing the Internet I get to witness the world as it races by, or at least the tiny slice of world that races by on Mission Street in San Francisco.

My awesome-as-shit bay window hangs over that sidewalk about 20 feet in the air, so I opened the window when I came in and fired up the craptop. Now I’m sitting here listening to the beautiful white wine sipping cheese nibblers talk about art and other hip happenings. So far no one has mentioned Paris.

A guy looked up at me a few minutes ago and saw me looking down, then he said something to the two girls he was talking to so they looked up and I smiled at them and nodded. They sort of toasted me with their wine glasses, so I smiled again, then they went back to talking. It was thrilling.

Police car #1197 got everyone’s attention a few moments later as it tried to pull over a huge white car. The cop had to hit the yelping siren which makes quite a commotion, then the car finally yielded. Cops always think someone’s shoving dope under the seat when they don’t pull over immediately, and they’re probably right. So everyone with wine and cheese stopped talking for a few seconds and watched the guy shove dope under his seat, then they went back to talking. Again, thrilling.

Of course the prerequisite nutty and disheveled hobo just made his way through the beautiful wine sipping cheese nibblers, ranting something that made them smile at him while looking a bit uncomfortable. Nobody engaged him in conversation so he wandered off down the street to tell someone else about the aliens and how they’re controlling the mayor.

I’ve been keeping up on the antics of San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, and I’m thinking maybe the hobo isn’t so nutty. For one thing, he’s just a kid. He’s only a year older than coffeesister and the guy is mayor of this huge city of almost a million people, so obviously aliens or the Illuminati put him in power. Perhaps both.

We saw him in person at the Chinese New Year Parade and even though he’s a year older than coffeesister, he looks like he should be at a college frat party wearing a toga and snorting blow off some coed’s tits. I’m telling you, the guy is going to rise to power FAST, and be the youngest US President EVER, even younger than Obama. He’s got about four years to do it since he’s around five years younger than Obama, but he’s looking at the governership of California next, so he’s on his way.

He can’t lose, not with the Illuminati aliens behind him. He’s probably the Antichrist too. Might as well be, while he’s at it.

I think I’ll go below and grab some wine and cheese, then make my way from one person to another as I talk about how Mayor Newsom is the Antichrist and he was put in power to rule San Francisco by Illuminati aliens.

It should be fun. Well, more fun than typing up this shit.

Bye.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a trendy wine bar in North Beach at the invitation of a new friend. It wasn’t his hangout; he was hired as the house DJ for the night and gave an open invite for people to come out and hear him spin some dance tunes. That’s what DJs do – they try to up the attendance as much as possible because they get a cut of the house take.

He did great but it really wasn’t my scene.. too hip and trendy, what with the young, beautiful folks standing around with their wine glasses talking about their careers. My beer and I felt out of place and had little to talk about.

This wasn’t the scene at 800 LARKIN last night, where we landed for Saint Paddy’s day. This is one of those bars cleverly named after the location so that you’ll not easily forget where it is.

“Hey, let’s go out to 800 LARKIN tonight!”

“Okay! But where is it again?”

“Ha, very funny!”

That address, which is at the cross of Larkin and O’Farrell, places this corner bar squarely in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, so location alone kicks any possibility of “hip and trendy” squarely in the ass. Fine by me.

It’s a comfy place – nice, plush sofas and love seats hang out with moderately amiable chairs, but no redwood veneers or polished oak in sight. You can spill your beer on furniture in here and not feel bad about it. We felt welcomed and we were actually scolded a bit for leaving early but in a good way, as if to say, “Aw, you guys have to go? We were digging your company!”

Another new friend introduced us to the owner, Martina. Our friend had never been there, but takes a class with Martina and it turns out Martina had invited her fellow students down to the bar for Saint Paddy’s, so the requisite corned beef and cabbage meal was on hand, having been whipped up by Martina herself. It was delicious but don’t look for it on any other day, which is a good thing.

Martina is friendly as can be and not in that way like, “I’m being nice to you because you’re patrons and I want you spend more money in my joint.” On the contrary we didn’t feel like she owned the place at all, but rather as if we’d just hooked up with a new friend who we hit it off with. Staff took care of the busy work, so she chatted us up while sinking a few balls into the corner pockets.

The building is old like many San Francisco digs, and the space that currently houses 800 LARKIN has been a bar since 1906, according to Martina. On a slow day you can shoot some billiards with a ghost or two while listening to stories of the California gold rush.

I dug the photographic artwork hanging on the walls. Sure, it’s various photos of sexy models and I’m a big, dumb drooling male, but the shots are rendered in a beautifully artistic sense by this one photographer whom Martina admires, thus the proliferation of his/her works hanging all about. I’ve forgotten the photographer’s name even though she told me a couple of times. Blame Guinness.

All in all, I’d return again and hope to do so soon. If I can only remember that damned address.. oh yeah! 800 LARKIN.

I needed a decent haircut, and bad. I’d come to San Francisco to hunt for a job looking like Nick Nolte’s famous mugshot. That’s a career killer so luckily Salon Mirabelle happened to be on the ground floor of the hotel where I was staying, called Hotel Mirabelle.

The owner of both establishment’s, Sharon, set me up with Brittany who met me at the door and offered tea and cordial conversation before getting down to what kind of cut I wanted. I’m never sure about these things because I detest the corporate haircut look and like to be a bit eclectic and stylish, yet at the same time I needed to get the length clipped down. So that’s what I told Brittany.

She latched right onto the concept and I left with a cut I was very happy with. A bit long in the front, and combed back in such a manner that I have to beat the women away with a baseball bat as I walk down the street. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But a sexy blond DID smile at me on the bus yesterday, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Brittany’s skillful finesse. Or it might have been another pity smile, which I get a lot of.

Salon Mirabelle is in the Mission district on the ground floor of Hotel Mirabelle, so it’s metered street parking only. There seem to be plenty of spaces available within half a block and it’s going to cost you a handful of quarters for the hour or two you’ll be inside, unless you’re a guy and it takes like 20 minutes to cut your hair as it did me. The Mission isn’t what it used to be, meaning that a woman can walk a block to her haircut appointment in relative safety these days, so don’t be fretting over street thugs. The police cars seem to outnumber the taxicabs around there at times and they do a good job at keeping the bad guys in check.

I have no reason not to recommend Salon Mirabelle for the price – if you’re in the Mission it’s right around the corner and if you’re not it’s one block from the 16th St. Bart station. Whoosh down on a train, walk a block and get yourself comfortably clipped in style. Oh, and the Muni #14 and #49 stop right in front about every ten minutes or so. Hey, no feeding the meter! Yay!

——————————————————————

Call 415.252.5700 to book an appointment,
or email or check out the Salon Mirabelle’s website.

(A review of our first temporary home upon arriving in San Francisco.)

An extended stay at Hotel Mirabelle proved to be just what we needed as my wife and I arrived in San Francisco to seek permanent digs. Sharon runs the place with grace, dignity and charm, plus a good sense of artistic value. The rooms and two sitting areas along with the hallways are adorned with some nice works for one to stop and admire, while the themed rooms match the displayed art beautifully.

We were fortunate to enjoy the “Sun Room,” which is prominently featured on their website. This is one of four front-facing rooms with traditional San Francisco style bay windows, offering a nice view of the action on Mission Street down below. Other rooms vary in size from smaller to really smaller, but for the price they can’t be beat.

The street-facing rooms can be a bit noisy as sirens wail and buses whoosh up and down every ten minutes, but that’s the cacophony of the symphony called the city. Opt for a room towards the rear of the building if you cherish blessed quiet with nothing to watch. Noise from the inside is minimal and you’ll only hear the occasional hallway conversation and shuffling of guests to and from the shared baths at the end of the hall which, by the way, are kept meticulously clean and tidy.

A word on these shared baths – I’ve honestly never stayed in a hotel without a private bath so I was a bit reticent at first, wondering if the showers were just stalls or as open as a locker room. Nope – my worries were for naught, as it turns out that the shower rooms offer complete privacy once you step in and lock the door. Dance to Bowie under a stream of luscious warm water to cleanse away the cares of the day, and nobody will see, hear or care.

Troublemakers and nefarious characters don’t seem to easily get in here and, although we encountered a few during our extended stay, they were out rather quickly once their actions came to light. My impression is that it’s safe, clean and cozy, with amiable management and a friendly houseman who greets you with a smile every time he sees you. Take him out for a cerveza to show your appreciation and you’ll get some interesting stories if your Spanish is good enough.

The neighborhood isn’t the best in the city but it’s by far not the worst. I’d give it about a 6.5 – 7 rating on a scale of one to ten, with a ten being somewhere you’d pay ten times as much (Nob Hill) and a one being a hotel where you’d trip over the meth addicts on the way to your room (Tenderloin).

Scurry up thataway to Valencia (about two blocks) and go pub-hopping with the hipsters, or jump on a BART train at the 16th Street station one block away and whoosh off to anywhere in the city or across the bay in minutes. Another transportation option would be the two Muni lines that stop in front going North and South. The #14 serves the length of Mission Street from The Embarcadero all the way south to Daly City. The #49 serves San Francisco City College in the south, but then cuts over on Van Ness after you jump aboard in front of the hotel and plows its way through the middle of the city all the way to North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf.

If you stay local you’ll have your choice of taco joints, coffeehouses and mini-markets galore, along with a few nice bars, particularly on nearby Valencia Street.

On weekends Sharon serves up a nice continental breakfast in the upper salon, consisting of a variety of fruit, bagels, pastries, coffee and teas. Sit up there when it rains or take it out on the back deck down below to schmooze with other guests who are doing the same. Despite what you’ve heard, there are more than a few sunny days in San Francisco during spring and summer, and that’s when the decorative back deck area is most inviting.

Parking, not surprisingly, is an issue. You’ll be leaving your car in a local paid lot for a fee or parking on the street for free after 6:00pm.. prior to that it’s metered and you’ll go through your change rather quickly. It’s best to leave the car at home, fly-in and shuttle from the airport, then avail yourself of the Muni and Bart, which will get you anywhere you want to go 24-hours a day (note – Bart does not run after midnight but the Muni buses run all night long.)

In summation, I’ll miss the Hotel Mirabelle, and I don’t miss what I haven’t liked. Who wouldn’t dig charm, class and amicable service offered up for a bargain price?

——————————————————————————————

You can book Hotel Mirabelle by calling 415.701.0931
or emailing them or visiting the website.

An email sent to San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority from yours truly moments ago.

(Note – I am only using the driver’s first names here for their safety and privacy. In the email to MTA, I used their full names.)

Hello MTA!

I’d like to voice my appreciation for two fantastic San Francisco Muni drivers, George and Bernetta. My wife and I had just purchased two Muni passes on March 2nd for the first time, having recently returned to this city after many years. We were on our way home from the Haight district and took the #33 from Haight St. up to Fulton and Stanyon to catch the #5 to Fulton and 25th.

When the #5 came, driven by Bernetta, my wife reached for her wallet to display her pass only to discover that it was gone. Bernetta saw that she was distraught and waved her aboard the bus anyway, stating, “That’s okay sweetie, we’ll work it out.”

We were shown the number to call for assistance and my wife hooked up with a very helpful operator who’s name I don’t know. She was told that the driver of the #33 (George) would be contacted and asked to look for the wallet. While my wife was on a cell phone talking to the operator, Bernetta also called from her bus radio or phone to try and get the other driver to locate the wallet as soon as possible. We all knew that time was important, given the increasing likelihood that some nefarious character would find it before the driver did and help themselves to it.

After we reached our destination and disembarked, the MTA operator called back to say that the wallet had been located and that we’d be able to claim it from the #33 driver when he came around again. We were given a time to meet him and grabbed another #5 going back to Fulton and Stanyan to wait for him.

When George pulled up he was beaming, and said that he was happy to have found the wallet because so many items are lost or stolen, he was glad to see something have a happy ending. My wife had ID in the wallet so George was careful to make sure it was hers and then he happily handed it over – a check of the contents showed that the newly purchased Muni pass was still in there, along with a number of important documents and credit cards. We vowed then to be more careful and check our wallets and passes before leaving any Muni bus we happen to be on.

A few days later we boarded a #5 bus on Market Street to get back up into our area, and Bernetta was the driver. I didn’t recognize her at first, but she recognized us and said, “Hey, you got your pass back!” She went on to tell us how glad she was it had worked out and that she’d actually been worried about it!

So I’d like to commend two Muni drivers who care – George and Bernetta. To narrow it down because I know there are quite a few drivers, George was driving the #33 route and Bernetta was driving the #5, both on the evening of March 2nd. We’d also like to extend thanks to the phone operator who took our request for assistance that evening, even though we don’t know her name. She was very kind and helpful.

Dave and Dorian Rhodes