It's the middle of February and boy is cupid hot on my ass! I keep trying to dodge him, but he's a persistent little gnat. I just hope his aim's good. The risk of getting the wrong guy is damn high.
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| Elevator Love |
Boys, boys, boys! This city is full of them. Every corner you turn, there's a new face, a new story, a legend. I realize that this entry is going to be a bit hetero-normative, but bare with me. It's for good reason.
Ambrose Bierce: History: "An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."
In researching notable San Francisco characters, I discovered the history of the Lanza gang, led by Jimmy "The Hat" Lanza from 1961-2006. I was talking with my kitchen manager about the mafia. For some reason, I always think of them as something television worthy, not of this world, and was therefore surprised to find, in the subways in Rome, anti-mafia commercials. They much resembled the war on drugs commercials of the 1980s: bleak colors, serious, unmoving faces, lots of slow motion.
Val was telling me about how when she was working in Chinatown, every Wednesday, right after lunch, all the mafia heads would file out of this restaurant to a long line of black cars operated by men with guns.
I must be naive. This really makes me want to watch the Godfather.
"Abscond: to 'move in a mysterious way' commonly with the property of another."
This city has always had an edge to it. In this book Krysten lent me, called Cable Car Days In San Francisco by Edgar M. Kahn, he states: "The city for the most part was made up of three classes of residents: those who had made and still held their stakes; those who had made a fortune and lost it and were fighting to regain a place in the sun; and those who had never struck it rich but had fixed their dreams on the legends about those who had."
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| Is this the same one that was on Big, the movie? |
I'm of the third class, clearly. And the third class is usually the most interesting.
Back in the day, during the Barbary Coast, Oofty Goofty came to perform. He was insensitive to pain. For ten cents, you could kick him as hard as you want; for a quarter, you could hit him with a walking stick; for fifty: a baseball bat.
Speaking of Barbary Coast, there was another dude who was down right gross. A notorious murderer/ medical student/ superintendent of a Sunday school (WHAT?), Theodore Durrant would perform at Madame Johanna's bagnio. Each act was the same. He'd cut the head off a bird and let it drip all over him.
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| Madame Johanna and her Three Lively Fleas |
On Sunday, I climbed Bernal Hill with Daisy. The walk there is always so quiet and peaceful. The houses are bright and clean. You wouldn't think but Bernal Hill was a seedy place all its own. Back in the day, there were warring gangs: The Courtland Avenue vs the Precita kids. One fight on the hill included 300 men and boys.
Frank Quinlan, a young boy in 1896, lived at 14 Elsie Street. He pissed off everyone with his excessive rock throwing. Having a complaint filed against him, he produced this statement: Quinlan "simply hates stones, especially those of throwing size and whenever he sees one he casts it from him."
On Monday, Jessica and I decided to explore North Beach, Chinatown, Nob Hill and the Tenderloin. Starting at my favorite, Vesuvio, we wandered to the legendary entrance to Chinatown's underground. Though we did have wire cutters, flashlights and scarves with us, we decided we didn't want to go to jail. Instead, we went in search of the phone booths.
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| Vesuvio |
The Bank of Canton used to be the Chinese Telegraph Exchange. The women who worked the switchboard had to memorize all 5000 residents, as no one had numbers. Supposedly, there are three phone booths still in existence, bright red and topped with a little pagoda, whose phone was originally connected to the Telegraph Exchange. Sadly and not surprising, all three purported locations offered nothing.
By now, we were thirsty again, but LiPo was closed as was the Buddha lounge. The Empress of China, however, was wide open.
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| The Empress: always classy |
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| The Saddest Lychee in the World |
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| Future Boyfriend? |
We doubled back to Portsmouth Square to watch some uncomfortable karaoke singing and men playing some card games, groups of seven to ten all clustered around perched pieces of cardboard. We turned down to the Donaldina Cameron House (920 Sacramento), once home to the "Fahn Quai" (white devil). Now I don't know about you, but sometimes my intentions get so horrifically misconstrued. I try to do something considerate or, in most cases, funny, only to accidentally offend someone irreparably. Though Donaldina wasn't a prankster, she certainly enacted some damage.
The problem with her intentions are twofold.
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| Cameron House |
Back in the day, she would 'rescue' girls from the Brothel and take them to this house, teaching them useful skills. But the problem:A) the only way you were allowed to leave the house was if you married a Christian man. B) she pissed off everyone. There were constant raids on the building. Trying to keep the girls safe, she built a series of secret rooms in the basement, rooms which, once when the building was on fire, trapped several girls.
When I think of the past, I imagine huge levels of exhaustion. I don't know how anyone got anything done, and when they did, how everything was always so extreme. Last week, I had mentioned that asshole Baby Face Nelson. Well, while I was reading about him, I got to reading about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which naturally made me think of their final battle, that great scene with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. I was reading of all these train robberies in which the criminals would plant gun powder in weird places, or how operators unhinged the train at rapid speeds, causing the whole thing to flip and crash.
Sure, i want a free buck here and there. I want my life to be easy and opulent. But come the fuck on! I don't have any energy to even consider a small time heist. I get sweaty if I find money on the sidewalk and there's no one around.
And though I'm clearly a baby, I find the seedy history of this city fascinating.
At Old Saint Mary's, at California, there's a sign that hangs below the clock:
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| Old Saint Mary's |
Strange fact, when this building was built in 1853, it was the tallest building in all of California.
Sadly, all religious activities were put on hold for President's Day, so we couldn't go inside.
Here are a couple of interesting facts I learned about Chinatown: Grant Avenue was originally called Calle de La Fundacion in the pueblo of Yerba Buena.
According to a photo I had found that was taken in 1951, there is a plaque on this street, indicating San Francisco's first residence. Strangely enough, we actually found it!
Other streets here used to be called "Street of the Sons of Tang", "Alley of the Imperial Consort of Heaven", "Avenue of Virtue and Harmony," and "Lane of the Golden Chrysanthemum."
Jessica and I decided to walk up to Nob Hill to get drinks at Top of the Mark (also closed- damn you Monday afternoons!). instead, we wandered past the Fairmont (more on that later), past the Flood Mansion (The exclusive boy's club, which, according to the Landmark SF website, is "not open to the public. Not open ever, barely even open for the wives of the members."), and through Grace Cathedral.
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| inside grace cathedral |
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| The Fairmont |
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| Top of the Mark |
There is so much talk these days of the fear of San Francisco's culture becoming endangered in the face of Google Invasion. A) I'm sick of this topic, B) I don't care beyond hoping that the evictions stop and C) when you spend a day walking from North Beach, through Chinatown, Nob Hill and into the Tenderloin, you realize it's going to take a lot more than that to even dent this city.
Like I said in the beginning, there has always been, and always will be, three classes here.
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| Clarion Alley's new mural |
In the book about the history of the cable car, there was a chapter talking about how the cars would move from the mansions in Nob Hill down to Chinatown, carrying all the house boys.
"...not enough has been said of those humble toilers in many more ordinary walks of life - farm workers, cooks, and those dependable domestic servants generally known as houseboys. Without them it would have been difficult to maintain well-organized California communities - particularly a formal social life in San Francisco, a social life rivaling if not surpassing the traditional hospitality of the South."
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| Billboard in the Tenderloin |
I'll leave you with one last legend. On October 29, 1877, a huge fight broke out. Where Grace Cathedral currently stands (post 1906), used to be the Crocker mansions. At one point, Crocker was trying to buy out his undertaker neighbor Yung in order to occupy the entire block. Yung refused so Crocker (a cable car mogul) built a wall almost entirely around the dude's house. Denis Kearney and his gang were hella pissed and started tearing it down, raiding Crockers house, throwing threats.
"Several thousand men out for vengeance and voicing threats clashed with the serenity of the surroundings. These sand-lot gatherings of the Working Men's Party of California had been increasingly demonstrative. The agitators had become radical and incendiary in their speeches."
Boys, boys, boys.
Cupid, I've got my eye on you.
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| a peeing sculpture just for you! |
I'm going to leave you with a song by one of our lovely residents.
