left my heart in san francisco
day six of our trip to visit family in california finds us in san francisco, a city i've never visited.
If I get a job at one of the 1324-908213457y-0124th schools they have in the area, I'm moving here. And there's really one reason.
The reason should be family: my sister lives in Cole Valley, a ten minute walk from Haight-Ashbury, my sister-in-law lives somewhat near the Presidio by the University of San Francisco.
But let's be honest--family alone isn't going to get me to the most expensive city in the US. Even a decent paying tenure-track professorship wouldn't guarantee that we'd move.
Amoeba, on the other hand, might do it. Well, and the fact that it never gets hotter than 75 or colder than 40. Amoeba is hands down the best record store i've ever seen. Yesterday I picked up--used, mind you--copies of all of The Books catalogue, Doves, old Conor Oberst stuff, and then toyed with buying an early Radiohead demo vinyl from 1990/1 (only $200). Lining the 20 foot high walls were posters from all of the shows played in the area from the late 1950s to the present. Hendrix, Clapton, the Beatles, Can, the Stones, U2, The Residents, Pearl Jam, RHCP, Nirvana, Zepplin, and the list goes on. Many of the posters were signed.
And now the important part of the post: my sister's boyfriend here in SF works with the bassist and the drummer of Birdmonster, Andy's new fav. They decided to go to Amoeba yesterday while we were busily shopping for music. They're as good as billed, IMHO. You should give their album a listen, if for no other reason than that Andy thinks they're good and that I'm only two degrees of separation from them (three from Kevin Bacon).
So good music scene, good bands, good restaurants (we ate in Chinatown yesterday), everything important in walking distance (we went to an amazing organic farmers market at Port Pier 1 yesterday), perfect weather. If only it was affordable, San Francisco would be close to a perfect city; unlike its evil opposite Los Angeles.
posted by e at 12:08 PM
4 Comments:
Glad you liked SF - we love it too, although it is expensive. It's not much cheaper down here in San Diego, but every little bit helps.
Next time you guys are out west, swing down here - we'd love to show you around.
Yo E -
Glad to see you're still lurking around my blog here and there. :-)
Here are a couple of links that you may find interesting. These are from my blog circa February 2005 when I was on a trip down the west coast. As a matter of fact, my blog was originally a picture-studded travelogue created for that trip...some of which is actually worth reading (IMHO, hem hem).
http://3rp.blogspot.com/2005/02/never-thought-id-say.html
http://3rp.blogspot.com/2005/02/city-of-anger.html
OK, happy surfing.
Cheers -
Rich
It should be noted, for the record, that there WERE good things about our experience in SF. My anger has long since cooled, and I've had a subsequent experience there that moderated my angst.
For the record.
:-D
R
I'm enjoying your west coast adventures.
I've been to Amoeba's. It is indeed a great record store. So is Rasputin's, across the bay in Berkeley, in case you get the chance to wander around Cal.
Birdmonster is wonderful. They're playing Columbus on June 15th, and I'm trying to recruit a bunch of people to go see a band they've never heard, because I'm convinced that they're going to be huge (or at least as huge as indie rock bands ever get), and that the time to see them is now, when you can still pay $5 to see them at Bernie's Bagels, instead of a year from now, when you'll be paying $30 or $40 to see them at the Newport.
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