My trip to San Francisco
Mar. 23rd, 2006 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rusty_haloI stayed home sick yesterday, but came into work today, as there's not much point in just lounging around at home.
San Francisco was awesome. I decided that I actually do like traveling alone, as long as I'm traveling to a place where I feel safe and where there's plenty to do. (And, bonus, fun people to hang out with.)
Thursday
So I flew at 6:45am (!!!) from JFK to Oakland, and got there around noon. I took the BART into San Francisco and then (after many wrong turns and much studying of several maps) found my way to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant called Golden Era. The Vietnamese crepe appetizer was good, but the black bean "chicken" entree was mediocre. The thai ice tea was awesome, though. (It's the sister restaurant to the one in Oakland that I relied upon for sustenance at that Oakland Buffy convention in 2004.)
Then I headed to my hotel (still lugging all of my luggage--not recommended, btw). I stayed at the Hotel des Arts, which is in a great location right near Union Square and Chinatown. It was also a great price, $60/night, which is better that I could've expected for that area. The tradeoff was that the room was kinda small and crappy, the elevator was scary, the place didn't smell great, the view sucked, and you had to share bathrooms with other people on your floor. Still, for that price, it was totally worth it. Oh, and it's an art hotel, so the walls were covered in paintings and photographs and all kinds of interesting artistic things, which I appreciated.
So I settled in around 3, and then decided to take advantage of the rest of the day for adventuring. (Even though I'd only slept like two hours the night before, plus a bit of time on the plane). So I pulled out my "Avant Guide to San Francisco" (a totally dorky little trying-desperately-to-be-cool guidebook, whose maps and recommendations did prove very useful).
I decided to stick to the local area, since I was tired. So first I went to the Wells Fargo History Museum, which was really close. A lot of it was pro-Wells Fargo propaganda ("how Wells Fargo built the west," "how Wells Fargo helped restore the city after the earthquake," etc.), but there was also some really interesting stuff. Most notably, two old stage coaches that they used to use to travel out west, with lots of info on how many people they'd scrunch into one, and how long the trip would be, etc. They also had a model of a stagecoach that you could climb into. Also lots of info on famous robberies, lots of stuff about the gold rush, lots of stuff about the earthquake, all of which was fascinating. The museum is right there in the back of the bank, and it's free, so you can just go there and wander around. I stayed until it closed at five, obsessively reading every single thing, then I headed to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
I'm not really a huge fan of visual art, but I enjoyed the museum, and of course, I went through every floor looking at and reading every single thing. They had an exhibit with photographs of the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, and a big exhibit on Calder, who I'd never heard of, but apparently he made weird model thingies. Like I said, I'm not a connoisseur of visual art. My favorite part was probably the second floor, which was kind of an explanation of modern art, with lots of little plaques explaining the context of the different pieces. Oh, and I really liked the exhibit on the "degenerate art" that was banned by the Nazis.
I stayed until the museum closed at 8:45, apparently missing a huge raging thunderstorm that was happening outside. When I left, it had just stopped, and everything was glistening wet and lovely.
I thought it was dumb to go to bed so early, so I decided to head to an "alternative 80s" club I'd found earlier in the day by typing "San Francisco Goth" into google at an internet cafe. (There was this lovely internet cafe right next door to my hotel.) The club was only a few blocks away, but it turns out that in San Francisco the blocks are way huger than NYC blocks, so it was about a 45 minute walk through a scary area. Oh well; not like I had anything else to do!
So I started walking there, and on the way I saw this beautiful huge waterfall thingy, so I decided to go investigate what it was. It turned out that I was in the Yerba Buena Gardens, and I was looking at a huge monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. I couldn't tell if I was allowed to be there, as I was totally alone, but no one tried to stop me, so I figured it was okay. It was night, and everything was glistening wet, and the water was flowing and falling so beautifully. It was a really nice moment. I love waterfalls. So then I walked around through the surrounding gardens, and discovered tons of jasmine, which is one of my favorite scents in the world. So I wandered around there for a while, then continued on to the club.
So this was a long scary walk, though at least I got there early enough to get in free. It was kind of lame, generic mainstream 80s in the front, slightly alternative 80s in the back. I knew maybe two of the songs. So I had a beer, figeted boredly, spent a half hour sending![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
10zlaine a long rambly text message, and then left.
Friday
I got up on Friday and decided I wanted to see more water, so I headed to Greens Restaurant, a vegetarian place with a nice marina view. The easiest route to get there seemed to be cable car, so I took the opportunity to do the tourist thing, and caught a cable car up there. I had a nice seat and an amazing view, so I think it was worth the ride. Unfortunately once I got there I got totally turned around lost, and despite calling the restaurant twice for directions, ended up having to take a cab to get there. It's not that I have no sense of direction; I think I actually have a negative sense of direction. Given the choice, I will always choose the wrong way.
So I had a delicious meal (including an awesome dessert of poached pear with cherries and chocolate mousse) and a great view. Then I left and wandered around outside for a while. It was so neat just totally living in the moment and exploring everything around me. I'm so used to blocking out the world and ignoring everything. I walked up some staircases into some kind of park, which had amazing views of the water and the Golden Gate Bridge, then wandered out of that to a beach, which turned out to be in front of the Maritime Museum. This was another interesting free museum, with lots of pieces of old boats, and figureheads, and scale models, and interesting plaques to read detailing various aspects of San Francisco's history. I was intrigued by some of the ads trying to get people to sail from the east coast to California, which emphasized that they wanted more female travelers and that there were lots of money making opportunities for women in California. (I'd also been intrigued by one of the stories in the Wells Fargo museum, about a stagecoach driver who was discovered to have been a woman after "he" died.)
I stayed in that museum until it closed (why does everything close so early?), then went outside to the beach and got my hands wet. I love the ocean, and it was a beautiful day. There was one person swimming in a wetsuit, but it was really too cold to swim. I calleddrujan and raved about how beautiful the ocean is, then spent 15 minutes watching a guy play fetch with his dog. He had this floating frisbee that he would throw into the water, and the dog would dive into the waves and catch it. His last throw went too far, though, and the dog couldn't get the frisbee. He kept trying, though, even as it seemed to disappear, and then finally after what seemed like forever, he managed to catch it. A bunch of people on the beach cheered. Cool dog.
After that I continued to walk along the water until I got to the touristy Fisherman's Wharf area, where I headed to the Musee Mecanique, which is a strange museum filled with crazy old amusement park games (in working order and modified to take modern quarters), with lots of text explaining the history of amusement in America. Every game seemed to be about either sex or death--watch a beheading, peek inside a woman's bedroom, find out how well you kiss, see 3D photos of the earthquake. I paid $.25 to peek inside a woman's bedroom, where I had to crank a little crank that moved these old black and white photos to look like a movie, in which a man hit on a woman and then the woman turned around and beat the crap out of him. Haha, awesome. They also had some neat recent stuff, like Indiana Jones pinball and the old Atari Star Wars.
In the middle of this, I went outside and discovered that you could pay $9 to take an audio tour of a World War II submarine. This sounded intriguing, so I decided to go for it (despite the fact that I dislike both boats and enclosed spaces). I was the only person there, so I had the whole submarine to myself, which was awesome. I went through, listening to the audio tour and marveling at how incredibly cramped and tiny it was. All the old machine stuff was fascinating; I kind of felt like I was in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, puzzling over the strange mechanical remnants of a lost civilization. Most of the stuff reminded me of my grandfather's old workshop. Oh, and of the awesome old Lucasarts adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, in which you spend a while wandering around (and attempting to drive) a WWII submarine.
I finally left around 7pm and took the cable car back to my hotel so that I could get ready for Chemlab, the whole inspiration for the trip in the first place. This time I was sitting in the front of the cable car, which was neat because I had an ever better view, and I called my dad for a bit to chat during the ride. Back at my hotel, there was a huge St. Patrick's Day party happening at the bar next door (with a long line trailing in front of my hotel). I was glad I wasn't trying to sleep, because my room was directly above the party and pretty much sounded like I was in the party. I got all dressed up in this awesome new dress (from Lip Service, which was worth the price because it fit wonderfully). I managed to get a cab after about ten minutes, and headed to the club, Bottom of the Hill.
I felt like a dork because I got there early and didn't know anyone, so I huddled at the bar and read a copy of The Onion while drinking a beer. While I was reading, bunches of people showed up, so by the time the opening band started, it was pretty crowded. They were generic boring industrial rock that sounds like every other bland generic industrial rock band, so I wandered around and got a squeeze from Jared as I walked past. I felt bad being a fangirl, but since he was literally the only person there I knew (Sean the stage manager's friend, who I'd talked to in NYC, was nowhere to be found), I went back and talked to him a bit. He was sick and losing his voice, and sounded very unhappy because his wife threw out her back and couldn't come to the show. Poor guy. So he left and I wandered off and watched the crappy band.
Babyland was next. They're quite good; I saw them once before, last year in LA. The crowd was really into them--they had a nice pit and a lot of people jumping around. I was sitting on a speaker on the left side of the stage, which gave me a great view without being knocked around. I don't quite get the appeal of Babyland--their music is good but not great, and there's nothing terribly charismatic about them, but they do have an interesting setup--one guy singing and one guy playing "drums" made out of strange objects. They spray endless amounts of airfreshener around the stage, which completely weirds me out. Why do they do that?
Next up was Chemlab. I was in the front, on the far left. Jared came out covered in black paint, with a white X over his mouth, wearing a red feather boa. Jared is a strange guy. The paint and feather boa made great props, though; I think everyone up front left covered in both feathers and paint.
The show was good, although I think the crowd had been more into Babyland. I also thought the NYC show was better, since it had all these guests coming up onstage and singing with them, and because the crowd was much rowdier in NYC. Still, it was a good show.
All my photos of the show are here.
After the show, they immediately kicked everyone out. I was feeling lame for not knowing anyone, and because when Jared put the microphone to my mouth I totally froze and didn't sing. (A bunch of other people didn't sing either, though.) Some people were hovering around outside talking about an afterparty, and Jared had mentioned onstage that we should ask him about a secret show on Sunday, but everyone was being kicked out and I didn't know anyone so I just left.
It took forever to get a taxi; I was in the process of trying to get a car service on the phone (nearly impossible despite the fact that I'd printed out a list of about 20) when finally a cab turned around the corner and I caught it. The cab driver took me back to my hotel, and I arrived at about 3am and fell asleep quickly, still covered in splatters of black paint. (At least I wasn't one of the people who Jared had totally covered in paint...)
Saturday
I woke up around 10am whenwitling called. I'd had plans to hang out with her and jolielaide, but jolielaide was sick, so plans were scaled back. (jolielaide, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you!)
I managed to drag myself out of bed and into the shower, and then headed over to the internet cafe to figure out plans. I had a moment of utter panic when I discovered that my lovely little internet cafe was inexplicably closed, so I began wandering desperately trying to find another. That didn't work, so finally I decided I needed to eat, and picked a restaurant that looked fairly easy to get to: Ananda Fuara, which was a few blocks away on Market Street. (Looooong blocks.)
On the way there I finally found a place to go online (a crappy little expensive place in a bad part of town), where I managed to check my email and discovered that there was no info yet on a Jared solo show. Addiction sated, I continued on to the restaurant. It was Indian-inspired hippie food, sort of good, but the people working there were rude, creepy, and cult-like. I tried not to eat too much because I didn't want to spoil my appetite for dinner at Millennium.
While there, I pulled out my guidebook in order to improvise plans for the day. I hadn't been the Mission District yet, and it seemed sort of close, so I decided to go there and see Otsu, a totally vegan store, and Mission Dolores, an old Spanish mission that's the oldest intact building in San Francisco.
I took the BART (subway) to the closest stop, then walked to Otsu. The mission district seemed nicer than the Civic Center part of town I'd been in earlier, and had lots of neat murals. Otsu, unfortunately, was one of those hideous hipster places where people draw ugly childlike things in brown and green and orange in order to pretend they're cooler than everyone else. I'm vegan and I wouldn't be caught dead in anything from that store. Thank god veganism is an ethical choice and not a fashion statement. *shudders*
Mission Dolores was a lot more interesting. You pay a bit in order to take a tour of the old church, from 1790-something, which has thick adobe walls built by Indians and which withstood the 1906 earthquake. Then you can wander around the old classroom, which is now a museum with some interesting artifacts, and enter the nextdoor church, which was rebuilt after the earthquake. You can also walk through the cemetery, which is mostly full of Irish immigrants, and is fascinating. I enjoyed this visit a lot.
Afterwards I walked to the Castro district, just to see it. It's full of bodybuilding shops and gay men, and does indeed have a huge rainbow flag. The flag has a plaque explaining that it commemorates the first openly gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978. I thought it was pretty cool that any American city would accept such a monument. I wandered around there for a bit, then took this underground train called Muni (which took $1.50 in change, weird) to meetwitling at Millennium.
It was awesome to seewitling again (I first met her at Writercon), and we had an interesting conversation. (At least, I hope it was interesting; I hadn't really talked to anyone in three days so I'm not sure how adept my conversational skills were, but whatever.) And Millennium was great. The entrees were good (if overpriced) but the dessert was absolutely amazing. I had some kind of crazy chocolate-banana-fudge-rum-sauce thingy that was indescribably good, and it was accompanied by an espresso martini named "Nocturne" (seriously!) that was also delicious. The bill was insane, but whatever, it's vacation.
After dinner, I said goodbye towitling, and wandered around Union Square park for a bit. I called thedeadlyhook to confirm our plans for the next day, then I headed back to my hotel and went to bed (relatively) early.
Sunday
I woke up the next morning feeling gross, with a painful sore throat, but resolved to enjoy the final day of my vacation regardless. I left the hotel at about noon to meet them at 12:30 at the internet cafe, but to my disappointment, the cafe was still inexplicably closed. I went back to my hotel and asked where else I might get online, and was directed to one of those computer chains a few blocks away (Comp USA, maybe?). So I ran down to Market Street, went online (it was a Mac--boo hiss--but I managed), and found out that there was indeed a Jared Louche solo show that night, to which you had to RSVP in order to attend. So I sent an RSVP via MySpace, then realized that I hadn't actually logged in to MySpace, and discovered that I'd just RSVP'd from some random account of a guy calling himself "Rico Suave." Seriously. So I frantically RSVP's under my own name and explained the situation. Then I logged out and ran back to where I was supposed to meetthedeadlyhook and her husband, toysdream. We found each other on the street, luckily recognizing each other by our descriptions. Yay!
They were both totally awesome, and tolerated my silly touristy interests with good humor, while giving me a great tour of the city. We walked through North Beach (the Italian neighborhood where the Beat poets hung out) and ate at little vegan place called Juicy Lucy's. Of all the hippie-influenced veggie places I've eaten at, I think this was the hippie-est. It was apparently staffed by one woman preparing all the food and drinks for everyone, and instead of a chair I sat on a bale of hay (pieces of which are still stuck in my sweater). The juices were served unrefrigerated in earthen bowls without straws. They were good and fresh, though, and the food was tasty. The atmosphere might've been nice, except for the endless buzz of the juicer, which caused us to nearly have to shout in order to hear each other. Very strange.
Afterward we found some coffee as we all needed a burst of caffeine-energy, then continued walking up to Pier 39. Here we decided to get on a boat and cruise around the bay, which turned out to be pretty awesome. First of all, our ultra-cheesy pre-recorded guide was Captain Nemo, which causedtoysdream endless amounts of horrified amusement. I think the trip was worth it just for that. But also, it was really cool that we were followed by a bunch of birds, who cruised along in the air right beside us. We went right under the golden gate bridge and then slowly around Alcatraz. It was a beautiful day, and the ocean and the breeze and the view were all wonderful. After we got back to shore, we walked over to look at the sea lions (who have invaded one of the docks and become a tourist attraction), then went to the nearby aquarium. In here we enjoyed "under the bay" and "under the bridge" aquarium exhibits (where you can see the fish floating around and above you). There was also a section where you could touch various animals, including rays and starfish and sea urchins. (The urchins kind of grab you when you touch them--freaky!)
After doing the touristy thing, we walked back toward Market Street through Chinatown (which was neat, and I wish I'd had more time to explore it). I was looking for a computer to check about whether I could attend the Jared solo show, but the computer store I'd been at earlier was closed. Eventually we found our way to the Apple store, where I managed to get online and get the details. I was confirmed, yay! Andthedeadlyhook and toysdream were super-helpful--they helped me figure out where the place was, and toysdream drew a map so I'd be able to get back to my hotel. They also walked with me to the place, which was so awesome of them--thank you guys!
Finally I said goodbye to them and had a soy chai latte in the cafe next door while I waited for the solo show time to arrive. (I didn't want to be the first one there!) I headed over at about 7:50. I really wished I'd had time to dress up properly and put on some interesting makeup (I was dressed as a tourist, not a goth girl!), but whatever--at least I made it there!
I walked in and no one checked to see if I was on a list, of course, making that whole RSVP thing superfluous. The show was in some guy's house (an awesome, big house) with speakers and a stage set up. It was quite classy, with wine and cheese, and the people were really nice and (shock!) actually talked to me. I ended up talking to two guys, one of whom recognized me from thesickcity (finally!) and who was really nice, and his friend who'd gotten covered in black paint by Jared and had rolled around with him on the stage at the end.
We talked for a while, about forums and KMFDM and Pig and then they started talking about Skinny Puppy and I kind of drifted. I went to get a drink (red wine, nice) and then the show started. Jared was not covered in paint this time (thank god) and his main prop was just a hood which he kept pulling over his face.
This show was totally awesome. There's no possible way I can describe how cool it was, it was all in the atmosphere and the people and the performance. Jared does this combination of telling long rambling stories, reading poems, and singing songs, all of which kind of merge back and forth into each other. He hits all your emotions, making you laugh your ass off and then making you cry. He's so strange, but he's a pretty amazing person.
A couple of people got up in the middle of the show for a cigarette break, so he stopped the whole show for a 15 minute break, then resumed. The fact that it was in a guy's house made everything so much more casual and real than a show in a club. And then at the end, he was apparently inspired, and did another piece after the ending because he wanted to. Obviously no one complained; we were all there to see him!
After it was over, everyone hung out for a bit, and then we headed out. I was going to walk back to my hotel, but the two guys I was with offered to give me a ride, and I said sure. (They were really nice, and people had seen me leave with them, so I wasn't worried). Despite my horrible inability to give directions, I managed to lead them to the right place, and they dropped me off. It was totally awesome to meet cool people and hang out with them.
Here's two of the photos that the guy from the sick city (Geoff) took.
Me and Jared (I look HIDEOUS, AHHHH!!!)
Me and Geoff:
Oh, I so wish I'd had time to put on proper makeup. *sigh*
Anyway, that was an awesome night. I got back to my hotel around 1am, packed, slept for two and a half hours, got up at 4am, took the BART to Oakland, caught my plane, arrived at JFK, got on the subway, and got home around 6pm. I cleaned up the many cat messes, hugged Lucifer a lot, went to bed at about 8pm, slept for 12 hours, and went to work the next day.
San Francisco was awesome. I decided that I actually do like traveling alone, as long as I'm traveling to a place where I feel safe and where there's plenty to do. (And, bonus, fun people to hang out with.)
Thursday
So I flew at 6:45am (!!!) from JFK to Oakland, and got there around noon. I took the BART into San Francisco and then (after many wrong turns and much studying of several maps) found my way to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant called Golden Era. The Vietnamese crepe appetizer was good, but the black bean "chicken" entree was mediocre. The thai ice tea was awesome, though. (It's the sister restaurant to the one in Oakland that I relied upon for sustenance at that Oakland Buffy convention in 2004.)
Then I headed to my hotel (still lugging all of my luggage--not recommended, btw). I stayed at the Hotel des Arts, which is in a great location right near Union Square and Chinatown. It was also a great price, $60/night, which is better that I could've expected for that area. The tradeoff was that the room was kinda small and crappy, the elevator was scary, the place didn't smell great, the view sucked, and you had to share bathrooms with other people on your floor. Still, for that price, it was totally worth it. Oh, and it's an art hotel, so the walls were covered in paintings and photographs and all kinds of interesting artistic things, which I appreciated.
So I settled in around 3, and then decided to take advantage of the rest of the day for adventuring. (Even though I'd only slept like two hours the night before, plus a bit of time on the plane). So I pulled out my "Avant Guide to San Francisco" (a totally dorky little trying-desperately-to-be-cool guidebook, whose maps and recommendations did prove very useful).
I decided to stick to the local area, since I was tired. So first I went to the Wells Fargo History Museum, which was really close. A lot of it was pro-Wells Fargo propaganda ("how Wells Fargo built the west," "how Wells Fargo helped restore the city after the earthquake," etc.), but there was also some really interesting stuff. Most notably, two old stage coaches that they used to use to travel out west, with lots of info on how many people they'd scrunch into one, and how long the trip would be, etc. They also had a model of a stagecoach that you could climb into. Also lots of info on famous robberies, lots of stuff about the gold rush, lots of stuff about the earthquake, all of which was fascinating. The museum is right there in the back of the bank, and it's free, so you can just go there and wander around. I stayed until it closed at five, obsessively reading every single thing, then I headed to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
I'm not really a huge fan of visual art, but I enjoyed the museum, and of course, I went through every floor looking at and reading every single thing. They had an exhibit with photographs of the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, and a big exhibit on Calder, who I'd never heard of, but apparently he made weird model thingies. Like I said, I'm not a connoisseur of visual art. My favorite part was probably the second floor, which was kind of an explanation of modern art, with lots of little plaques explaining the context of the different pieces. Oh, and I really liked the exhibit on the "degenerate art" that was banned by the Nazis.
I stayed until the museum closed at 8:45, apparently missing a huge raging thunderstorm that was happening outside. When I left, it had just stopped, and everything was glistening wet and lovely.
I thought it was dumb to go to bed so early, so I decided to head to an "alternative 80s" club I'd found earlier in the day by typing "San Francisco Goth" into google at an internet cafe. (There was this lovely internet cafe right next door to my hotel.) The club was only a few blocks away, but it turns out that in San Francisco the blocks are way huger than NYC blocks, so it was about a 45 minute walk through a scary area. Oh well; not like I had anything else to do!
So I started walking there, and on the way I saw this beautiful huge waterfall thingy, so I decided to go investigate what it was. It turned out that I was in the Yerba Buena Gardens, and I was looking at a huge monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. I couldn't tell if I was allowed to be there, as I was totally alone, but no one tried to stop me, so I figured it was okay. It was night, and everything was glistening wet, and the water was flowing and falling so beautifully. It was a really nice moment. I love waterfalls. So then I walked around through the surrounding gardens, and discovered tons of jasmine, which is one of my favorite scents in the world. So I wandered around there for a while, then continued on to the club.
So this was a long scary walk, though at least I got there early enough to get in free. It was kind of lame, generic mainstream 80s in the front, slightly alternative 80s in the back. I knew maybe two of the songs. So I had a beer, figeted boredly, spent a half hour sending
10zlaine a long rambly text message, and then left.Friday
I got up on Friday and decided I wanted to see more water, so I headed to Greens Restaurant, a vegetarian place with a nice marina view. The easiest route to get there seemed to be cable car, so I took the opportunity to do the tourist thing, and caught a cable car up there. I had a nice seat and an amazing view, so I think it was worth the ride. Unfortunately once I got there I got totally turned around lost, and despite calling the restaurant twice for directions, ended up having to take a cab to get there. It's not that I have no sense of direction; I think I actually have a negative sense of direction. Given the choice, I will always choose the wrong way.
So I had a delicious meal (including an awesome dessert of poached pear with cherries and chocolate mousse) and a great view. Then I left and wandered around outside for a while. It was so neat just totally living in the moment and exploring everything around me. I'm so used to blocking out the world and ignoring everything. I walked up some staircases into some kind of park, which had amazing views of the water and the Golden Gate Bridge, then wandered out of that to a beach, which turned out to be in front of the Maritime Museum. This was another interesting free museum, with lots of pieces of old boats, and figureheads, and scale models, and interesting plaques to read detailing various aspects of San Francisco's history. I was intrigued by some of the ads trying to get people to sail from the east coast to California, which emphasized that they wanted more female travelers and that there were lots of money making opportunities for women in California. (I'd also been intrigued by one of the stories in the Wells Fargo museum, about a stagecoach driver who was discovered to have been a woman after "he" died.)
I stayed in that museum until it closed (why does everything close so early?), then went outside to the beach and got my hands wet. I love the ocean, and it was a beautiful day. There was one person swimming in a wetsuit, but it was really too cold to swim. I called
drujan and raved about how beautiful the ocean is, then spent 15 minutes watching a guy play fetch with his dog. He had this floating frisbee that he would throw into the water, and the dog would dive into the waves and catch it. His last throw went too far, though, and the dog couldn't get the frisbee. He kept trying, though, even as it seemed to disappear, and then finally after what seemed like forever, he managed to catch it. A bunch of people on the beach cheered. Cool dog.After that I continued to walk along the water until I got to the touristy Fisherman's Wharf area, where I headed to the Musee Mecanique, which is a strange museum filled with crazy old amusement park games (in working order and modified to take modern quarters), with lots of text explaining the history of amusement in America. Every game seemed to be about either sex or death--watch a beheading, peek inside a woman's bedroom, find out how well you kiss, see 3D photos of the earthquake. I paid $.25 to peek inside a woman's bedroom, where I had to crank a little crank that moved these old black and white photos to look like a movie, in which a man hit on a woman and then the woman turned around and beat the crap out of him. Haha, awesome. They also had some neat recent stuff, like Indiana Jones pinball and the old Atari Star Wars.
In the middle of this, I went outside and discovered that you could pay $9 to take an audio tour of a World War II submarine. This sounded intriguing, so I decided to go for it (despite the fact that I dislike both boats and enclosed spaces). I was the only person there, so I had the whole submarine to myself, which was awesome. I went through, listening to the audio tour and marveling at how incredibly cramped and tiny it was. All the old machine stuff was fascinating; I kind of felt like I was in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, puzzling over the strange mechanical remnants of a lost civilization. Most of the stuff reminded me of my grandfather's old workshop. Oh, and of the awesome old Lucasarts adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, in which you spend a while wandering around (and attempting to drive) a WWII submarine.
I finally left around 7pm and took the cable car back to my hotel so that I could get ready for Chemlab, the whole inspiration for the trip in the first place. This time I was sitting in the front of the cable car, which was neat because I had an ever better view, and I called my dad for a bit to chat during the ride. Back at my hotel, there was a huge St. Patrick's Day party happening at the bar next door (with a long line trailing in front of my hotel). I was glad I wasn't trying to sleep, because my room was directly above the party and pretty much sounded like I was in the party. I got all dressed up in this awesome new dress (from Lip Service, which was worth the price because it fit wonderfully). I managed to get a cab after about ten minutes, and headed to the club, Bottom of the Hill.
I felt like a dork because I got there early and didn't know anyone, so I huddled at the bar and read a copy of The Onion while drinking a beer. While I was reading, bunches of people showed up, so by the time the opening band started, it was pretty crowded. They were generic boring industrial rock that sounds like every other bland generic industrial rock band, so I wandered around and got a squeeze from Jared as I walked past. I felt bad being a fangirl, but since he was literally the only person there I knew (Sean the stage manager's friend, who I'd talked to in NYC, was nowhere to be found), I went back and talked to him a bit. He was sick and losing his voice, and sounded very unhappy because his wife threw out her back and couldn't come to the show. Poor guy. So he left and I wandered off and watched the crappy band.
Babyland was next. They're quite good; I saw them once before, last year in LA. The crowd was really into them--they had a nice pit and a lot of people jumping around. I was sitting on a speaker on the left side of the stage, which gave me a great view without being knocked around. I don't quite get the appeal of Babyland--their music is good but not great, and there's nothing terribly charismatic about them, but they do have an interesting setup--one guy singing and one guy playing "drums" made out of strange objects. They spray endless amounts of airfreshener around the stage, which completely weirds me out. Why do they do that?
Next up was Chemlab. I was in the front, on the far left. Jared came out covered in black paint, with a white X over his mouth, wearing a red feather boa. Jared is a strange guy. The paint and feather boa made great props, though; I think everyone up front left covered in both feathers and paint.
The show was good, although I think the crowd had been more into Babyland. I also thought the NYC show was better, since it had all these guests coming up onstage and singing with them, and because the crowd was much rowdier in NYC. Still, it was a good show.
All my photos of the show are here.
After the show, they immediately kicked everyone out. I was feeling lame for not knowing anyone, and because when Jared put the microphone to my mouth I totally froze and didn't sing. (A bunch of other people didn't sing either, though.) Some people were hovering around outside talking about an afterparty, and Jared had mentioned onstage that we should ask him about a secret show on Sunday, but everyone was being kicked out and I didn't know anyone so I just left.
It took forever to get a taxi; I was in the process of trying to get a car service on the phone (nearly impossible despite the fact that I'd printed out a list of about 20) when finally a cab turned around the corner and I caught it. The cab driver took me back to my hotel, and I arrived at about 3am and fell asleep quickly, still covered in splatters of black paint. (At least I wasn't one of the people who Jared had totally covered in paint...)
Saturday
I woke up around 10am when
witling called. I'd had plans to hang out with her and jolielaide, but jolielaide was sick, so plans were scaled back. (jolielaide, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you!)I managed to drag myself out of bed and into the shower, and then headed over to the internet cafe to figure out plans. I had a moment of utter panic when I discovered that my lovely little internet cafe was inexplicably closed, so I began wandering desperately trying to find another. That didn't work, so finally I decided I needed to eat, and picked a restaurant that looked fairly easy to get to: Ananda Fuara, which was a few blocks away on Market Street. (Looooong blocks.)
On the way there I finally found a place to go online (a crappy little expensive place in a bad part of town), where I managed to check my email and discovered that there was no info yet on a Jared solo show. Addiction sated, I continued on to the restaurant. It was Indian-inspired hippie food, sort of good, but the people working there were rude, creepy, and cult-like. I tried not to eat too much because I didn't want to spoil my appetite for dinner at Millennium.
While there, I pulled out my guidebook in order to improvise plans for the day. I hadn't been the Mission District yet, and it seemed sort of close, so I decided to go there and see Otsu, a totally vegan store, and Mission Dolores, an old Spanish mission that's the oldest intact building in San Francisco.
I took the BART (subway) to the closest stop, then walked to Otsu. The mission district seemed nicer than the Civic Center part of town I'd been in earlier, and had lots of neat murals. Otsu, unfortunately, was one of those hideous hipster places where people draw ugly childlike things in brown and green and orange in order to pretend they're cooler than everyone else. I'm vegan and I wouldn't be caught dead in anything from that store. Thank god veganism is an ethical choice and not a fashion statement. *shudders*
Mission Dolores was a lot more interesting. You pay a bit in order to take a tour of the old church, from 1790-something, which has thick adobe walls built by Indians and which withstood the 1906 earthquake. Then you can wander around the old classroom, which is now a museum with some interesting artifacts, and enter the nextdoor church, which was rebuilt after the earthquake. You can also walk through the cemetery, which is mostly full of Irish immigrants, and is fascinating. I enjoyed this visit a lot.
Afterwards I walked to the Castro district, just to see it. It's full of bodybuilding shops and gay men, and does indeed have a huge rainbow flag. The flag has a plaque explaining that it commemorates the first openly gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978. I thought it was pretty cool that any American city would accept such a monument. I wandered around there for a bit, then took this underground train called Muni (which took $1.50 in change, weird) to meet
witling at Millennium.It was awesome to see
witling again (I first met her at Writercon), and we had an interesting conversation. (At least, I hope it was interesting; I hadn't really talked to anyone in three days so I'm not sure how adept my conversational skills were, but whatever.) And Millennium was great. The entrees were good (if overpriced) but the dessert was absolutely amazing. I had some kind of crazy chocolate-banana-fudge-rum-sauce thingy that was indescribably good, and it was accompanied by an espresso martini named "Nocturne" (seriously!) that was also delicious. The bill was insane, but whatever, it's vacation.After dinner, I said goodbye to
witling, and wandered around Union Square park for a bit. I called thedeadlyhook to confirm our plans for the next day, then I headed back to my hotel and went to bed (relatively) early.Sunday
I woke up the next morning feeling gross, with a painful sore throat, but resolved to enjoy the final day of my vacation regardless. I left the hotel at about noon to meet them at 12:30 at the internet cafe, but to my disappointment, the cafe was still inexplicably closed. I went back to my hotel and asked where else I might get online, and was directed to one of those computer chains a few blocks away (Comp USA, maybe?). So I ran down to Market Street, went online (it was a Mac--boo hiss--but I managed), and found out that there was indeed a Jared Louche solo show that night, to which you had to RSVP in order to attend. So I sent an RSVP via MySpace, then realized that I hadn't actually logged in to MySpace, and discovered that I'd just RSVP'd from some random account of a guy calling himself "Rico Suave." Seriously. So I frantically RSVP's under my own name and explained the situation. Then I logged out and ran back to where I was supposed to meet
thedeadlyhook and her husband, toysdream. We found each other on the street, luckily recognizing each other by our descriptions. Yay!They were both totally awesome, and tolerated my silly touristy interests with good humor, while giving me a great tour of the city. We walked through North Beach (the Italian neighborhood where the Beat poets hung out) and ate at little vegan place called Juicy Lucy's. Of all the hippie-influenced veggie places I've eaten at, I think this was the hippie-est. It was apparently staffed by one woman preparing all the food and drinks for everyone, and instead of a chair I sat on a bale of hay (pieces of which are still stuck in my sweater). The juices were served unrefrigerated in earthen bowls without straws. They were good and fresh, though, and the food was tasty. The atmosphere might've been nice, except for the endless buzz of the juicer, which caused us to nearly have to shout in order to hear each other. Very strange.
Afterward we found some coffee as we all needed a burst of caffeine-energy, then continued walking up to Pier 39. Here we decided to get on a boat and cruise around the bay, which turned out to be pretty awesome. First of all, our ultra-cheesy pre-recorded guide was Captain Nemo, which caused
toysdream endless amounts of horrified amusement. I think the trip was worth it just for that. But also, it was really cool that we were followed by a bunch of birds, who cruised along in the air right beside us. We went right under the golden gate bridge and then slowly around Alcatraz. It was a beautiful day, and the ocean and the breeze and the view were all wonderful. After we got back to shore, we walked over to look at the sea lions (who have invaded one of the docks and become a tourist attraction), then went to the nearby aquarium. In here we enjoyed "under the bay" and "under the bridge" aquarium exhibits (where you can see the fish floating around and above you). There was also a section where you could touch various animals, including rays and starfish and sea urchins. (The urchins kind of grab you when you touch them--freaky!)After doing the touristy thing, we walked back toward Market Street through Chinatown (which was neat, and I wish I'd had more time to explore it). I was looking for a computer to check about whether I could attend the Jared solo show, but the computer store I'd been at earlier was closed. Eventually we found our way to the Apple store, where I managed to get online and get the details. I was confirmed, yay! And
thedeadlyhook and toysdream were super-helpful--they helped me figure out where the place was, and toysdream drew a map so I'd be able to get back to my hotel. They also walked with me to the place, which was so awesome of them--thank you guys!Finally I said goodbye to them and had a soy chai latte in the cafe next door while I waited for the solo show time to arrive. (I didn't want to be the first one there!) I headed over at about 7:50. I really wished I'd had time to dress up properly and put on some interesting makeup (I was dressed as a tourist, not a goth girl!), but whatever--at least I made it there!
I walked in and no one checked to see if I was on a list, of course, making that whole RSVP thing superfluous. The show was in some guy's house (an awesome, big house) with speakers and a stage set up. It was quite classy, with wine and cheese, and the people were really nice and (shock!) actually talked to me. I ended up talking to two guys, one of whom recognized me from thesickcity (finally!) and who was really nice, and his friend who'd gotten covered in black paint by Jared and had rolled around with him on the stage at the end.
We talked for a while, about forums and KMFDM and Pig and then they started talking about Skinny Puppy and I kind of drifted. I went to get a drink (red wine, nice) and then the show started. Jared was not covered in paint this time (thank god) and his main prop was just a hood which he kept pulling over his face.
This show was totally awesome. There's no possible way I can describe how cool it was, it was all in the atmosphere and the people and the performance. Jared does this combination of telling long rambling stories, reading poems, and singing songs, all of which kind of merge back and forth into each other. He hits all your emotions, making you laugh your ass off and then making you cry. He's so strange, but he's a pretty amazing person.
A couple of people got up in the middle of the show for a cigarette break, so he stopped the whole show for a 15 minute break, then resumed. The fact that it was in a guy's house made everything so much more casual and real than a show in a club. And then at the end, he was apparently inspired, and did another piece after the ending because he wanted to. Obviously no one complained; we were all there to see him!
After it was over, everyone hung out for a bit, and then we headed out. I was going to walk back to my hotel, but the two guys I was with offered to give me a ride, and I said sure. (They were really nice, and people had seen me leave with them, so I wasn't worried). Despite my horrible inability to give directions, I managed to lead them to the right place, and they dropped me off. It was totally awesome to meet cool people and hang out with them.
Here's two of the photos that the guy from the sick city (Geoff) took.
Me and Jared (I look HIDEOUS, AHHHH!!!)
Me and Geoff:
Oh, I so wish I'd had time to put on proper makeup. *sigh*
Anyway, that was an awesome night. I got back to my hotel around 1am, packed, slept for two and a half hours, got up at 4am, took the BART to Oakland, caught my plane, arrived at JFK, got on the subway, and got home around 6pm. I cleaned up the many cat messes, hugged Lucifer a lot, went to bed at about 8pm, slept for 12 hours, and went to work the next day.