San Francisco
BY DAVE CARPENTER
SAN FRANCISCO IS A WORK OF ART: the hills, the constantly shifting microclimates, the mixing of races and styles and neighborhoods and attitudes. It’s a place where people come to realize a dream they have about themselves. Some people create a persona only to find out that who they really are is the thing that works here, because San Francisco is a place where you can do and say and be what you want and nobody minds. You can walk down Haight Street in a top hat or a three-piece suit or a burka and the guy with dreads and a tie-dye shirt will still whisper a conspiratorial offering of “Acid, good acid for sale.”
More than in any other city that I’ve experienced on the West Coast – San Diego, Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle – the people who come to San Francisco are searching for something deeper, something they want to share collectively. They continue to move west in their minds. They come to paint or to play music or to teach or to learn, but they all show up to create something.
San Francisco is a place where our (straight) mayor shows up for the Gay Pride parade in tight jeans and a black t-shirt – and looks good. It’s a place where Starbucks can be made to feel comfortable and less corporate, and sometimes the girl working the cash register turns off the Starbucks satellite channel and tunes in Soul Coughing for a few tracks. It’s a place where Chris Isaak surfs the break at Sloat on torturously big wave days when other hardcore surfers are scratching their heads on the shore. It’s a place where a bar can have a fat tabby cat that’s allowed to prowl the bar top, and if he lays across your arm and you let him sleep there for a bit, the bartender will fill your whiskey glass for free, because you’re obviously cool.
San Francisco is almost physically an island, surrounded by the bay and the ocean, and is one figuratively. Our residents are idealists and dreamers and visionaries. Sure, some are ultra-liberal to the point of annoyance, but mostly we’re about looking for solutions that benefit everyone.
I love San Francisco for the Mediterranean cafe on 16th at Valencia that serves the greatest latke shawarma you will ever eat and the dozen or so Chinese pork bun shops down Clement. I love that in my neighborhood in the Outer Mission I sometimes have to speak Spanish to get my order right. I love my Chinese neighbors who bring in my trashcans when I’ve forgotten and the wind takes them down the street, and that we wave hello to each other every single morning.
I love the Church of Coltrane on Divisadero and that on Sundays the cops let all churches in the city use the median for the parishioners to park. I love that the cops seem to tolerate public drinking as long as it’s in a paper bag. I love the 12 a.m. conversations I’ve had on random stoops drinking 32 oz. beers after concerts at the Independent, places where the neighbors could complain but don’t because next week they’ll be the ones on my stoop.
I love the fog and the crazy wind on Arguello in the Richmond district and at that same exact moment the calm 75 degrees one mile away in the Panhandle stretch of Golden Gate Park. I love walking through the Castro as a straight guy and getting hit on twice by dudes within three blocks – because it’s great to get acknowledgment from anyone.
I love the dimpled walls in the BART station. I love that a guy found my wallet once on Market Street and returned it to me the next day with nothing missing. I love the Goodwill Store on Van Ness where I found a flawless Armani tux for 50 bucks.
I love the story I heard about a friend’s doctor who hugs his patients when he enters the examination room, and that we were one of the first cities to legalize medical pot.
I love that if you come here to get married or to visit or to live, you will maybe see some of the things that I see, but will likely see other things too. This city is a living work of art — it’s often in flux, and always taking your breath away.