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aight you didn t wander in there casually in 1970 my dad had opinions about hippies and parking near kezar meant you were going to hear about them on the walk back to the car but even as a kid you could feel it something had happened here and the ghost of it was still warm the grateful dead lived on ashbury jefferson airplane had that mansion up on fulton janis was gone by then but her presence was still around every corner the haight ashbury free clinic was already a neighborhood institution dr david smith opened it in 1967 because someone had to because the kids flooding into the summer of love needed a doctor who wasn t going to judge them or turn them in he just showed up and helped that same instinct would define the city again fifteen years later being gay in america then meant hiding coming out carried risks that are hard to imagine today san francisco was one of the few places you could actually live openly and then aids came for exactly that community the free clinic was among the first to see it kaposi s sarcoma young men wasting away no name for it yet no treatment no answers i lost friends you d find out someone was gay and that they had died in the same sentence san francisco was grieving while the rest of the country looked away the city that showed up for the runaways in 67 showed up again it s just what san francisco does when i lived in the city in the mid 80s i was on octavia and i d walk to polk street and catch the 19 polk gulch was the original gay neighborhood the white swallow bar was right across from the bus stop i watched that neighborhood every day from the bus by then the castro had taken over as the center of gravity but polk still had its scene the castro theatre anchored the neighborhood and the brunch spots had waiters who looked like the electrician from the village people cutoffs tank tops mustaches mirrored sunglasses the place to be was the patio cafe on castro street from the outside it looked like nothing standard storefront easy to walk past but you d push through the door and suddenly you were in this massive lush sun soaked greenhouse atrium plants everywhere light pouring in the whole neighborhood seemingly packed into every table eggs benedict bottomless mimosas poured with a generosity that bordered on civic duty and waiters who made the whole thing feel like theater it was legendary and it knew it halloween in the castro wasn t just a holiday it was the event on the gay calendar costumes drag queens leather guys and what felt like thousands of ethel mermans belting their way down market street it was joy defiance theater and community all rolled into one night a year in 1990 this preacher from texas larry lea decided he was going to purge the castro of sin he brought a busload of followers to san francisco on halloween night of all nights i heard about it and told my wife i m going to the city tonight she just said don t get arrested they had a revival at the civic center larry did his fire and brimstone thing and then the whole group came pouring out ready to march into the castro and bring jesus to sodom and gomorrah they were met by san francisco royalty the sisters of perpetual indulgence gay men in full nun habits whiteface makeup glitter lashes for days and with them dykes on bikes who have led every pride parade in the castro for as long as anyone can remember larry and his flock didn t stand a chance the sisters confronted them with camp and holiness and satire the dykes on bikes revved their engines and then i swear to god guys on stilts wearing assless chaps pressed their bare cheeks against the high bus windows a little pressed ham for the faithful larry and his crew turned right around got back on those buses and headed straight down market toward the bay bridge and whatever rock they d crawled out from under larry by the way later ran off with his church secretary after 27 years of marriage because of course he did san francisco wasn t having it not that night not ever i lived at 19th and geary for a while the alexandria theatre was right there and while i never set foot inside the place it made parking on weekends an absolute blood sport but the street itself was its own world great chinese food russian bakeries where the bread was serious business a kosher market near the ocean that felt like it had been there since the beginning of time on weekends i d grab my giant surf rod and head out to lands end you d walk past the ruins of the sutro baths this enormous victorian era public bathhouse that had burned and collapsed into the cliffs what was left were the old pool basins filled with dark water of indeterminate depth absolutely certain to be harboring some demonic water spirit waiting to grab you by the ankle with a tentacle cross the causeway to seal rocks and the whole pacific opened up in front of you waves hammering the rocks sea spray in your face sea lions hauled out and bellowing at nothing in particular and absolutely nothing between you and honshu on a good tide you had a shot at stripers or salmon at high tide it was genuinely suicidal slippery rock cold water nobody coming to help you if you hooked something you had to navigate back across that causeway and land it on the beach i never once thought this was a bad idea lands end it really was the perfect name saturdays were reserved for clement street chinatown west the locals called it real chinese food none of the tourist veneer of grant avenue the dim sum palaces were massive ornate rooms packed with chinese families doing what chinese families do on a saturday morning enjoying each other loud and unhurried over endless rounds of dumplings and tea you d point to what you wanted from the carts and at the end they d tally up your stack of plates after dim sum you walked it off browsing green apple books room after room of organized treasure the kind of bookstore that made you miss it before you d even left and the restaurants went well beyond chinese that s where i had my first rijsttafel the dutch indonesian feast of a dozen small dishes that arrived in waves and made you rethink everything you thought you knew about spice and indonesian spiced french fries that had absolutely no business being that good out in the outer richmond clement gets quieter mostly residential the energy bleeding south a block to geary but tucked in there was one gem that still brings a smile fairy lake blue discus palace at 1609 clement run by herman chan and his family since 1967 walking in felt like stepping through a portal old metal frame slate bottom tanks lining every wall the smell of fish food and aged water and something you couldn t quite name herman was a true master his hand bred discus turquoise reds wild crosses were unlike anything you d find anywhere else his jet black angelfish were a genetic masterpiece deep matte black without a single iridescent scale the result of generations of meticulous selection on any given day you could walk out with a portion of freshly hatched baby brine shrimp there was a resident shop cat the whole place felt like it existed outside of time which i suppose after fifty years it did for a guy in his mid twenties who was already half in love with fish it was church herman chan spent his whole life perfecting that craft places like that don t get replaced they just disappear and leave a specific kind of hole from the richmond you could head south cross golden gate park and find yourself in an entirely different city the sunset the first suburb that wasn t actually a suburb still firmly within the city limits but feeling like it belonged to a quieter slower san francisco fog stucco houses with curved corners pastel paint and hedges trimmed to match the architecture quiet residential its own ecosystem entirely stern grove concerts on summer afternoons free music in a natural amphitheater carved into the eucalyptus one of the great hidden pleasures of city life lake merced for trout fishing with marshmallows and pautzke balls o fire salmon eggs i can still smell the oil on my hands they held their own until powerbait came along and changed everything san francisco state was out there too still carrying the energy of the strikes and student movements that had shaken it a decade before the sunset didn t shout it just was fog rolling in off the pacific every afternoon like clockwork burning off by noon if you were lucky a neighborhood that felt like it belonged to the people who actually lived there which in san francisco was rarer than it sounds and through all of it the whole mad beautiful city of it i read herb caen religiously every morning in the chronicle three dots and a digression the city talking to itself through one man s typewriter the original blogger before anyone knew what that was a daily love letter to san francisco filed without fail for sixty years two hundred thousand words into my own rambling career as a writer old and in the way as garcia would say i still see herb everywhere in what i do the sidebars the anecdotes the way a thought trails off before it finds another one to chase and of course the three dots always the three dots a hat tip to a sacramento kid who adopted the city and made it sing i was just a sacramento kid who loved it from across the bay apparently i still do 2 comments filed under life tagged as california san francisco travel usa writing april 28 2026 8 53 pm prepping for the cpo i ve been preparing a proposal for the chief procurement officer aka mrs s for the purchase of my 2026 fishing licenses every year i buy a minnesota version a wisconsin version and this year an iowa version the wisconsin and iowa licenses are out of state so they re significantly more expensive than the minnesota version also and i forgot about this looking at my minnesota license from last year it s a three year license coolio one less discussion about putting joint family resources towards single use case recreation single use case meaning i am the one who uses it honestly it s a lot of fuss for a 100 expense but we are living in an age where my 10 year old car doubles in value every time i fill it the fact is every couple i know has an above board supply chain pre approved expenses for things like food non alcoholic beverages things mrs s wants and vacuum bags meanwhile for me there s a dark supply chain it s how i source the little niceties like camera lenses unneeded technology fly rods fine scotch cigars and special gummies for my trouble i have to mule that shit in like i m in a high security prison add ice cream drumsticks to that list too one of the aggravating things about being married to a frugal skinny in shape broad who has her shit all kinda together broad is her term not mine is that she literally needs nothing she wants nothing and for dessert is perfectly happy to split a single grape with me uggg i feel like a fat glutton with expensive taste and too many hobbies my old excuse at least i don t golf doesn t carry the weight it once did so i gotta create new ways to distract as in married man creative i use little phrases like that old thing that s not new or we had that bottle from before or it was at the lake speaking of which the last time she opened the cabinet above the fridge at the lake the one that last time she looked had three bottles in it one bottle of cheap blended scotch one bottle of mediocre gin and one bottle of vodka that landed somewhere in quality between tito s and comes in a plastic bottle her response let s just say there was an f bomb and a what the but not in that order where the hell are all the paper plates and cups that were in there there s no room anymore there s gotta be a dozen bottles in here people like choices i offered she didn t even blink it s a cabin not downton abbey give them the cabin pour or tell them to drink water then she opened the fridge then she shut the fridge omg why does that look like the walk in cooler at a liquor store there s literally no room for veggies in the crisper drawers i don t like vegetables i could see her wondering about decisions she made 40 years ago but in fairness for that one it wasn t me i could joyfully say to her ask your son one of my sons had been using the lake place over the summer and had his hockey team from maryland and his guys from california up to stay there that s on them i don t even drink beer much it s true one of the nasty side effects of being old fat and in the way is that half a beer and i m full she acquiesced on that one point and to be honest i was happy the place was still standing the fact that this team even made the trip was because they d been suspended from their summer league for sit down because this surprised me fighting the dude is 35 and maybe 120 lbs soaking wet i never knew he was a skinny tiger williams fighting yeah dad you gotta let em know you won t take their crap and you got suspended for one fight three three and you re out for the season three you got in three fights i was also third man in so um they frown on that in bar leagues i had to sit down after that one bar leagues i believe they frown on that in the nhl and to think he was a goalie in his school career i wonder how many mt zion parents can brag that their former bar mitzvah kid is now spending his free time diving into scrums in a freaking bar hockey league i didn t know whether to be appalled or proud or both i guess when your favorite hockey podcast is spittin chiclets it all tracks i digress so i also explained to the cpo with a straight face that the reason two cupboards are out of space stuffed with scotch bourbon gin vodka and one bottle of spiced rum i can t explain is because when my pals come up they tend to bring bottles and one friend who gets a bottle of shitty bourbon every year from one of his business partners sporting a label with his last name on it dumped three years worth of unopened rotgut on me and i hadn t gotten around to pouring it down the drain that was mostly true or based in truth and one more shady obscuring layer in my personal supply chain of deceit head shakes the post teen mature woman s eye roll and a mumble though that wasn t it she went up to get a towel opened the linen closet and more language you have more booze up here dude do you have a problem that s two bottles a 20 year old macallan and an 18 year old glenfiddich that s my private stash for when i actually want a nice scotch i don t want my swill driving pals doing shots of 200 whiskey she thought about it at least you re borderline responsible thank you now pour me a couple fingers of that macallan and let s see how the weekend goes 2 comments filed under family humor tagged as books fiction life short story writing april 10 2026 8 58 pm dude where s my butt i was watching something or another on tv and the question came up to a bunch of septuagenarians what s the hardest thing about getting old not an uncommon question for those of us of a certain age not an uncommon to...
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