(Part 3) Top products from r/sanfrancisco

I don't really have many good stories but one that comes to mind is when i grew my hair out (down to the middle of my back) and stopped shaving for a short film I wanted to shoot. I was hanging out at my friend's apartment and she didn't have anything to drink so I wandered out with my skateboard to find a liquor store.

I ended up standing at a street corner on Van Ness waiting for the light to turn when three separate groups of people left a relatively nice restaurant (I think it was Stars) and stood waiting with me, and a homeless guy came by. He went up to the three groups, one by one, and asked for some spare change, but when he came up to me he kinda looked me up and down, gave me that 'sup head bob, and walked away.

I asked my friend when I got back to her apartment and apparently I'd been looking pretty damn homeless for the past few months and hadn't really been aware of it.

One thing I do tend to like about the bay area is that people tend to be casual about appearances and during this homeless-looking phase of mine I never had a problem eating at nice restaurants (I tend to eat out a lot). I mean the maitre d' might not be totally sure why I'm there when i first show up with my skateboard, bike messenger bag, shorts, t-shirt, reefs, and generally unkempt appearance, but when I mention that I have a reservation I'm normally treated like any other customer. The one exception was when I was in the mood for garlic and went to the stinking rose and the waiter (not the maitre d') gave me attitude.

Um, another relatively boring story (sorry, I don't really have many good ones) was when I was bar hopping with some friends and we ended up in some dive bar somewhere in the tenderloin. My gaydar is horrible and when one of my friends casually mentioned that we were in a gay bar I asked how the hell she could tell 'cuz as far as I could tell it was full of blue-collar workers. She replied, "I mean I could be wrong but those giant framed posters of naked men on the walls was my first clue." I was all, "oh, huh, didn't notice them."

As I mentioned earlier, I tend to eat out a lot so I tend to think in terms of places I like to eat when I'm in the mood for something specific. Like U Lee for chinese, little star stuffed spinach and mushroom pizza when i want something a bit different from the zachary's version (i hate the ambience here tho' - too loud), kara's cupcakes for filled lemon or passionfruit cupcakes (or chocolate velvet if i'm in a chocolate mood), la taqueria for tacos, el farolito for after-midnight burritos, and little orphan andy's for 24-hour diner food. Blue, or the completely unrelated blue plate, both for mac & cheese, in-n-out for animal-style burgers, the roli roti rotisserie truck at the saturday ferry building farmer's market for their porcetta sandwich (they appear other places, i just only know them from that farmer's market - also note that they sell out of said sandwich by noon or 1pm), suppenkuche for german food, minamoto kitchoan for fancypants japanese desserts or benkyodo for a cheaper mochigashi, memphis minnie's for some tasty (albeit a tad pricey) bbq, stars used to have good desserts but their dessert chef left plus i don't even know if that restaurant exists anymore. Firefly had decent grub and a very date-like atmosphere, boboquivari's had a good (but kind of overpriced) bone-in filet mignon, boulevard was also decent, one market had okay food but the clientele was a bit stuffy for my tastes, zuni cafe is okay but a little overrated, belden place is a kind of cool little blocked-off one-block street with a bunch of nifty restaurants (b44 is one i went to recently that my friends loved, me, less so), little delhi may not look like much but i dug its indian food, and for persian i go to alborz on van ness.

Oh yeah, one more lame story I have took place the day before I moved to mexico for a year or so. I was out with my friends bar hopping and we ended up in this place in chinatown and I saw a drink called a "mexi-me-crazy." I was like, "holy shit, a bar with a drink called mexi-me-crazy the night before i fly out to mexico city? that's totally a sign - I have to have that drink!" I took a sip and it was disgusting (keep in mind that I don't really like the taste of alcohol). My friends made me finish it anyway.

Oh wait, another story - I was flying in to sfo from eastern europe and brought along a shit-ton of crystal stuff (cups, plates, vases, whatever) 'cuz it was cheap and i was gonna hand 'em out as gifts. Because it was so cheap the dollar amount I wrote down on the customs form was pretty damn low but hoped i could squeak by the sfo customs people without any problems. Unfortunately, they took notice of me and wanted to check out my 2nd suitcase of crystal.

Fortunately (sort of), once the opened the suitcase they saw my two ultra-realistic-looking prop desert eagle handguns I'd bought in vienna, they ceased to give a single fuck about the shit-ton of crystal I'd bought and inspected the toy guns. Note that these guns looked real, felt real, cocked like a real gun, had real heft to them, had a safety like a real gun, shot bb pellets, and could be disassembled like a real gun. They looked so real, in fact, that all the customs guys in the room came over to take a look (not for work, but 'cuz they all seemed to be kind of into guns).

I told them the relatively funny story behind buying them, then one of 'em tried to take one of the guns apart. That was easy enough but then he couldn't get it back together so for about half an hour they all stood around taking turns trying to put it back together, until a supervisor came by and told 'em to break it up and send me on my way. I was all, "uh, no, you guys took it apart, you need to figure out how to put it back together". I spent about two hours in customs that night but ultimately the gun was reassembled and they didn't give a shit about all that crystal I was bringing in to the country. I've got another decent story about sfo customs from when I flew in from el salvador but that one requires me mentioning my name so I think I'll pass on telling it.

Anyway, I doubt that I could convince you that living in SF would be better than (or even as good as) living in boston, but it's a nice town, and small enough that most things are within walking distance of each other, but at the same time large enough that you can get most anything you need in terms of things as well as culture and sports and whatever else you can think of. I've lived and worked in a few different cities (sf, berkeley, santa barbara, mexico city, and, prague) and stayed for extended periods of time in several others. They all have their good and bad aspects, and it's kind of up to the individual to, y'know, focus on the good things.

Oh yeah, and if you wanna read some good stories about the east bay (like berkeley and oakland), you should check out back issues of a 'zine called "cometbus". It's a pretty famous 'zine so you can probably find it in a city like boston - in fact, i think cometbus just came out with a compilation book that gathers his best stories from the past couple of years.

tl;dr: sf is nice, mellow weather (some people think it's too cold and overcast but I like it), decent food, and with plenty of things to keep you busy and/or entertained if you look around. If you really want to read good stories about things like love and loss in the bay area (although not necessarily sf), check out cometbus.

511 is your friend. Interesting day trips may include visiting Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz (the Beach Boardwalk is lots of fun), Muir Woods, and/or Berkeley (there's a very interesting flea market at the Ashby BART station parking lot on weekends).
Don't forget the ferries to Angel Island, Alameda, or Sausalito.

Also check out the book Stairway Walks in San Francisco. We got this book as a gift and it's been a fascinating set of hikes through obscure neighborhoods.

Great advice thanks. Also for DIY bike mechanics this book is highly recommended. Actually I have the original version from 35 years ago, but hopefully it's only improved with age.

I was taught to do caricature when I worked in theme parks. I learned a lot from How to Draw the Marvel Way and studying great comic artists like Moebius and classic pen and ink artists like Charles Dana Gibson

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. There were parts that were a bit slow but the book covered a lot of parts of the city that don't get much formal writing about. I read it back to back with Imperial San Francisco and enjoyed that book immensely.

I loved living in SF but to be honest unless you are a startup founder, in Y Combinator, maybe, or VERY early startup hire with extreme equity I don't think living in SF is tenable. The city's dysfunctional housing and taxation politics are almost unbelievable. Jerry Brown has been trying to fix the problem but has not been successful.

The choices are exit, voice, or loyalty. I tried voice and failed. Exit was and is better for me as an individual.

wow are you confused! Fascism is and always has been associated with liberalism.

If you wish to educate yourself, here is the definitive scholarly work on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0767917189

In addition to the other resources mentioned, this book is great: http://www.amazon.com/Street-Art-San-Francisco-Muralismo/dp/0810996359/

> If we want to play this game, actually the Mission was historically populated by the Yelamu, before they were enslaved by white Europeans to build and then work the mission.

As long as we are splitting hairs, those Europeans spoke Spanish. And, citing to Randall Millikan, initially at least, the Yelamu of the Mission area welcomed the Spanish who were viewed as opulently wealthy and hence strategic allies hopefully benificial in the ongoing conflicts with adjacent native rival groups. (The "enslavement", if that is the right word, came later and was more an issue with Ohlone groups other than those at the Yelamu village.) Not that it matters much as the Yelamu, and 99+% of the nearby Ohlone people were driven extinct within a few decades. The Rancho period that followed was Spanish speaking. The English speaking didn't really flourish until after the 1849 Gold Rush influx.

Don’t take my word for it:

Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692210539/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zk.7Ab6XXDYSB

http://www.amazon.com/How-Many-Trucks-Truck-Pictureback/dp/0679878106

I read it in "The Mammoth Book Of Fantasy".

Same here. Had to google it

I know the name "Peter Thiel", but this is the first I've heard of the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Nobodies-Modern-American-Global-Economy/dp/0812971841

While the topic is laundromats... its much bigger issue. Cities need diversity, and diversity in services...
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X

So go the laundromats, bars, hardware stores, any specialty shops, florists, shoe repair, pet stores, thrift stores... it goes on. All these are being sacrificed for high density housing.

I actually thought of that exact Onion page when I saw the photo.

This book has been sitting on my coffee table for many years and it never gets old:
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Dumb-Century-Presents-Headlines/dp/0609804618

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZLBLFNF

You could make a case that the period, roughly, 1945 to 1980 in NY was one of the great creative nexuses of human history. I recently finished reading two memoirs: The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag by Edward Field and City Boy by Edmund White, both of which took place in pre-Juliani NY. The city they depicted was endless, exciting, personally transformative, and immensely creative.

Read them also makes me realize that people often don't realize it when they're living through one of those times and that almost certainly we are right here in SF.

All of that's not to diminish the problems that NY had. The city practically went bankrupt in the 70s and had to be bailed out by the federal government, and the ever escalating crime badly traumatized the psychy of NY.

http://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351
related soccer hooligans

It's as real as shows get. It was created by a former homcide reporter for the Baltimore Sun and the show was on HBO (aka, uncensored). The creator, David Simon, also wrote the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

The characters (criminals, cops, and politicians) and most events on the show were based on real life. He takes liberties to make social/political commentary and to adapt to television, it's not a documentary. I recommend you give it a shot before dismissing it as just another cop show. This is far from your average cop show. In fact, I wouldn't even say it's a cop show. It's a show about the war on drugs and decline of the American city as told through the stories of cops, dealers, addicts, politicians, schools, and the media.