Born and raised in San Francisco, I know it well. Certain streets have very clear memories for me. Moments locked in time, and triggered into view when I pass those streets. For instance, Masonic and Oak Street, Summer of '67: seeing and meeting Mitch, Noel, and Jimi Hendrix. And that was a free gig. Or take Geneva Avenue, which is where the Cow Palace is, which is where I saw the Beatles.
Or on Van Ness Avenue where long ago I would see Captain Fortune walking down the street. He had the best and first kid show in town in the 50s on Channel 5, KPIX. When I was a kid, San Francisco was on the map. If a movie opened, the star of the film would be there at the opening. This is how I was able to meet William Castle.
I think it was the movie House on Haunted Hill, which opened at the Golden Gate Theatre, was the first time I met Mr. Castle. He was in the box office behind the ticket girl, counting the money with a cigar in his mouth. And I had recognized Mr. Castle from Famous Monsters Magazine and called out his name: "Mr. Castle!" He looked over at me and said "what's your name?" and I told him it was Cyril. And he said, "Oh, I'll call you Cy." Overjoyed, I went back to school later that week and bragged to my friends that Mr. Castle knew me. And of course none of them believed me.
Anyway, when Mr. Castle's next movie came out, 13 Ghosts, I took a couple of my friends to the opening and lo and behold, Mr. Castle went "Lo, Cy!"
San Francisco is home. I was born and raised here, in the Inner Sunset, actually Forest Hills. Born and raised on rock and roll. As I travel throughout the world, enjoying every minute of it, I never tire of looking out the airplane window and seeing San Francisco come into view. It always does that.
I feel so lucky to have grown up in San Francisco during the 1960s. I mean, it's always been a musical city... it was the first place to play "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Cathy's Clown," etc. It was and still has such a magical, international feeling to it. Different cultures, different people all coexist together. There's no place like it. Though it has changed, it still retains the smoke from the past.
I miss places like Playland (I caught the last few years of it), but San Francisco is still the town where Playland was and still is in my mind. Growing up here was a treasure: the characters, the neighborhoods. No matter how far I go away from here, there's still a piece of San Francisco in me and I'll always come back.
At Mario's on Columbus
North Beach
Friday afternoon
***
Bimbo's.
So we were all in line at Bimbo's. It was probably 1999, because so many of my friends still lived here. We were carefree, and we took cabs. It was the North Beach Jazz Fest, that much I remember, but I have no idea who I was in line to see (I like to think it was the Innerzone Orchestra). Who knows?
It was me, my wife Anne (who wasn’t technically my wife yet, as we got married in 2000), my buddy Rob, and my college friend Pete. It was crazy that the three of us were together in line, and since Anne was with us, we’d done the prudent thing and gotten there early. The doors were just about to open and the three of us were poised to run in and try to find a seat.
Bimbo's, for those of you who don’t know, is a pretty large club with tables on the floor in a semi-circle around a large stage. You’ll find more tables against the wall on the edges of the room, but those fill up so fast, and it’s never worth trying to get them. Then there are the corner tables. Large enough for an entourage, the corner tables have views of the whole room, the stage, everything. I surveyed the crowd. A long line stretched down Columbus toward Fisherman’s Wharf. It would be mobbed tonight. I’d probably have to hold my jacket, Anne’s jacket, drinks, and whatever else. It looked to be stuffy, hot, tiring.
But tonight, fate had adventure in store. As the doors opened, Pete and Rob disappeared inside. I walked straight to the bar, ordered a gin & tonic and a beer, thought better about it, and ordered a sparkling water for Anne, too. Caught up in the mad rush from the door to the main room, I saw Anne, and then found Rob. He was motioning to us both, pointing at Pete sitting in a corner booth. Pete had a table! Amazing. I ran over. Best seat in the house. Closest to the stage. One of those booths with a large round table and leather seats. Classy, but fleeting. It would be ours for only moments. The booth would seat at least 20 and we were only 4. In another minute some large group would move in and we’d be just as crowded as the poor saps in the middle of the room.
We all felt the pressure. Pete acted. He looked around at a pile of flyers lying on the table-top, and found one with an unprinted side. He folded it in half like a table-tent, took out a black felt-tipped pen and calmly started writing. He printed these three letters on each side of the fold: V.I.P.
I laughed. “Bro, that’s never going to work,” I said.
Pete didn’t laugh. He was a man on a mission. He waved down a waiter, ordered a magnum of champagne and a bucket of ice. He asked for half-a-dozen glasses, maybe more.
The effect was instantaneous. The rest of the club filled up, but our little corner stayed nice and empty. A long-haired Jazz fan with a backpack tried to back in and sit down on our couch. I made eye-contact with him, pointed at our little sign and simply mouthed “Dude …V.I.P.” He apologized with a wave, smiled, and left.
The band played. We sipped the champagne, we ordered more champagne. It was classy. Then the strangest thing happened. Other V.I.P.s started coming over and hanging out. A couple here, a couple there. They wore sports coats and were very cordial. We all shook hands. I introduced myself as an “artist,” Anne and Pete were in “high-tech,” Rob was a “film-maker.” All of this was basically true, but it was more of how we wanted to see ourselves than how we really were.
Another V.I.P. couple sat down next to us, and the man introduced himself as the owner of a club in the lower Haight. It was the DJ bar, “The Top,” and “Had we ever heard of it?”
“No Fucking Way,” I said, but then got a little embarrassed. That’s not how V.I.P.s talk, you know.
The Top was just about the coolest club in town at that particular point in history. We talked to him a bit more. Rob actually made music videos, and I owned turntables so we were (kind of) in the same business ... a little bit. We poured him some of our champagne, we traded music industry stories, we laughed. Then, as he left, he signed a few credit-card sized badges and suddenly we had year-round V.I.P. passes to his club. Amazing. And to think earlier in the day I was too broke to buy the super burrito at Pepito's.
And then, as soon as it had started it was over. The lights came on. Our real lives returned. Pete would soon disappear back East (Brooklyn). Rob went on to work on movies (the three of us were extras in “Groove”), and screenwriting took him down to L.A. Within a year me & Anne’s life evolved, simplified, and got a lot more complicated. We got married, bought an apartment, had kids. Champagne was reserved for birthdays, New Year’s, and new jobs.
There are so many stories I have about my life so far in San Francisco, but this one just about sums up what I like best. The randomness of every single day. The way you can re-invent yourself a thousand times over. The way that no-one really cares one way or the other what you do, as long as you do it with style. San Francisco is a city where you can do anything, be anything you want. It turned me, a broke kid from Florida into a big-city V.I.P., if only for a night. And for the record, Pete, Rob and I must have gone to The Top every weekend for the next year, loving every minute of it.
Calhoun Terrace Stairs Telegraph Hill Friday afternoon
***
My motto: “Dance, like no one is watching.”
I recently figured out the exact moment when I knew I would be a creative adult. It was when I was ten. I got to freestyle in my ballet classes. The piano player would cue music that I hadn’t heard before and I danced my little heart out. This freedom and creativity has always stayed with me. The feeling that ‘I should dance outside of the box’ helped push me to move to San Francisco from Los Angeles (and away from my family and friends) seven years ago.
It took a lot of faith and courage for me to move away from L.A. I stored all of my belongings and thought I would give it six months in San Francisco before deciding whether to stay or move back to L.A. I didn’t expect and wasn’t ready to fall in love with our city and the freedom of the people as quickly as I did. To live in San Francisco you have to be accepting and open. People might not start that way, but they change. I knew I had to stay.
When I came to San Francisco, I did not have any contacts or had a job arranged. In fact, I had always lived near my family. I was in search of my passion. I was in search of my identity and my home. I quickly realized that San Francisco was my playground and I felt alive and free. In fact every time I traveled to other cities, I continued to feel a pull back.
San Francisco is a magical city where you always seem to find new nooks and crannies. When I meet other San Franciscan locals, they have their own special places to show me. Our versions of the city can be completely different based on our own experiences. Some of my favorite places and things to do in San Francisco are the Palace of Fine Arts, the art murals at Coit Tower, the Embarcadero famer’s market on Saturday mornings, window shopping in maiden lane, sipping lattes at Caffe Roma in North Beach, indulging on Nutella crepes at The Crepe House on Polk Street. Where are your favorite places to go and things to do in San Francisco?
My past is buried in saffron-colored Southeast Asia. When I immigrated to the U.S., I brought with me a few tangible memories (for instance, the tessellated satchel from my school years), but I left the rest behind to stew under the hostile sun, to swim in the monsoon deluge from the Bay of Bengal. My recollections remain hidden in the Buddhist temples and the coconut groves, in the quiet monasteries and the muddy riverbanks. The fishermen with sinewy shoulders, the Buddhist monks with crooked teeth, and the brown-skinned matriarchs haggling over the price of a sack of rice will serve as temporary custodians of my personal history. They know that one day, when the country is free from the clutch of the military regime, I’ll return to reclaim my childhood.
I now live nearly 8,000 miles across the Pacific from my homeland. Here, several time zones removed from my origin, I’ve made a new home for myself among the secondhand bookshops, the Beatnik-haunted cafes, and the fog-choked city streets. But in the rumbles of the cable cars and the shouts at the farmers’ market, I still hear echoes of the temple bells and the open bazaars of the Far East.
Visiting my birthplace nearly 100 years before I was born, Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.” Sometimes, my childhood friends, who’d never ventured beyond their own shores, inquired, “What’s America like?” I’m tempted to reply, “This is San Francisco, and it’s quite unlike any other American city you know about.”
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A Moment in Time and Space
This blog is a platform for a larger project: photographing the people of San Francisco. The images shared here are willing collaborations between myself and those pictured.
It is my goal to share some of the spirit and fascinating layers of this city through the eyes and visages of those who live here.
Please Participate::Contact Me
If you would like to have your photograph taken for the i live here: SF project, please email me at ilivehereSF at gmail dot com for more details.
Many thanks.
Read about i live here:SF in the SF Chronicle
Click on the photo. (Photo courtesy of Russell Yip, SF Chronicle)
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