Abruptly puncturing the lunchtime bustle of San Francisco’s financial district was a slowly marching cluster of people in purple t-shirts. One of the shirted, an enthusiastic, goateed guy who couldn’t be more than twenty-six, was leading the pack while repeatedly screaming out the same question to his disciples. His followers would obediently, and in unison, answer. This military call-and-response routine continued up and down Montgomery Street. They had drums. They felt a compelling need to bang on those drums as loud as possible. Their gripes were to be heard by everyone, and painfully, they were. The merry marchers took up the entire sidewalk, forcing myself and other pedestrians to the gutter. Who knew looking for a decent lunch spot could be so trying?
Similar downtown protests are by far the norm rather than the exception, as has been my short experience in a city where to gripe is to breathe. An apparently adverse change in health benefits seemed to be the gist of that particular demonstration. The young leader, wide smiling and energetic, kept on asking, “Who’s got the power?”
“We got the power!” came the forceful response.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure how much “power” the workers possessed since not a single onlooker grabbed a picket sign and joined them in their struggle. If anything, the march seemed to receive nothing but annoyed glances and half-interested head turns. Real power, I imagine, is never having to declare you have it. Further, it was a safe bet that management had succeeded in landing a more than decent lunch spot.
Besides the almost daily protests beneath the skyscrapers, I can’t help but feel San Francisco’s complex character all around town, in ways I couldn’t recall those many times as a mere visitor. Now, as an official citizen of the town I fell in lust with, it’s impossible not to be reminded of the sharp contrast between visiting a place for short spans and actually trying to live there. Besides the obvious differences, the city isn’t as smoothed over as I remember. Much less is swept under the plush red carpet trodden by tourist and tour guide alike. The magic I always felt San Francisco embodied is still there, but this time I can see some of the hidden strings.
Urban blight, for example, isn’t just a small paragraph in a travel guide used to counterbalance cheery descriptions of restaurants and boutique shopping. On the contrary, it’s an everyday reality, even for visitors who, by definition, aren’t there everyday.
The decrepit Tenderloin district (perhaps one of my all-time favorite names for a neighborhood) lurks just behind Union Square, Neiman Marcus, several GAP stores, the fabled trolley cars and plenty of other pieces of tourist candy. The neighborhood’s boarded up streets of desperation are never outside the peripheral vision of visitors waiting for a trolley car near Market street. In many American cities, it’s possible to be a tourist and not have any direct contact with the uncomfortable facts most tourism bureaus try hard to hide. San Francisco is a notable exception.
A recent walk down Haight street, near the famed intersection of Ashbury, wasn’t quite as mythic as my first jaunt two years ago. While home to some really good cafes, restaurants and unique stores, much of the Upper and Lower Haight along with some of the surrounding areas are shabby piss-holes. Many of the distinctive San Francisco-style houses usually bathed in the rose-colored hues of nostalgia look as if they haven’t been bathed in anything for quite awhile. Ditto for the drug addicts, dealers and homeless folk loudly crisscrossing the area begging; screaming, for change. Tribes of young, roving street nomads push shopping carts and skateboards, all the while, desperately clinging to a utopian ideal of free love and free living not seen here since Jefferson was Airplane.
The transition from tourist to resident of any new place also involves the acceptance, or at least guarded acknowledgment, of that place’s customs and traditions. Inevitably, these customs and traditions are always pre-packaged with plenty of head-scratching/eye-rolling absurdities specific to that locale. In this regard, San Francisco doesn’t seem to disappoint, either.
Some establishments on Haight continue to peddle steaming hot cups of utopian nonsense. The Red Victorian Peace Cafe — yes, a "peace café" — occupies a piece of the Red Victorian Peace Center. Inside, you can get coffee and baked goods to go with your sunny-side-up pacifism. The menu proclaims the café to be a welcome refuge for those, “building a peaceful and equitable world.” Not that I'm against a cafe that promotes peace (via cranberry scones?) it's just that such an idea seems as equally absurd in practice as a Conflict Cafe or a Belligerent Bistro would be.
The richer parts of the city are most definitely not immune from the ridiculous themselves. Once far enough away from the shadow of the Golden Gate, coming paw to paw with another San Francisco obsession — the pet dog — is as common as catching your breath at the top of the hilly street you must take to get to these areas. Coming from Washington, DC, another pet-obsessed city, the sight of owners doing everything for their dogs short of carrying them wasn’t at all that shocking. Neither were the streets lined with doggy accessory boutiques, nor the complimentary doggy treats sitting in bowls at several area businesses. What I was taken aback by was the “petlitical correctness” on display, particularly on the door of a Washington Mutual bank branch:
“Please ask your pet to wait outside unless he or she is a special assistant/guide animal.” (emphasis is mine)
What if he or she refuses? Must you switch banks?
Upon returning from past visits, I don’t remember recounting to friends and family the pungent aroma of weed encountered as I rode up the escalator at the Mission BART station, while walking past a hospital or while standing around and just breathing. Nor do I recall the makeshift chess games on lower Market played by a large group of the city’s most down and out on grungy plastic chairs and tables. I couldn’t detail the experience of watching outspoken senior citizens rightfully (and loudly) demand a seat near the front of a crowded city bus from the relatively younger people occupying it.
Conversely, I had never before ventured far enough into the city to enjoy the sculpted beauty of Golden Gate Park or the spontaneous community felt at a Stern Grove concert. I never had the opportunity to fall in love with the cornbread at the Blue Jay Café or a five-dollar bowl of soothing pho at a Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall on Clement street.
Hard urban realities and abundant absurdities aside, San Francisco is now my home, that is, when I’m not traveling. Maybe it is more apt to say that San Francisco is where I get my mail. Frankly, I couldn’t be happier living in a city where derelicts urinate right next to gorgeously old buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and where there is currently a troubled city supervisor named Ed Jew inspiring creative newspaper headlines. Along with the pho, the city’s character extremes seem to serve themselves up in heaping bowlfuls.
San Francisco is an incubator unto itself as I’m slowly learning. Things here are insane, ridiculous, criminal, beautiful and brilliant. Even places across from and at the bottom of the peninsula are nothing like the tip. It’s almost as if San Francisco’s bizarre weather patterns seem to confirm what every San Franciscan is painfully aware of while suddenly donning jackets in the middle of July: There ain’t no place like it.
You hit the nail on the head, buddy. Welcome home!!!
Posted by: kevin Fayaud | August 06, 2007 at 09:00 PM