Volume 11: Pete in San Francisco - A small essay from a city where marijuana is the best medicine
Bad At Revealing Town – observations about the BART
I flew into San Francisco from Hawaii on a Virgin America flight, a name that gave me confidence that no one had joined the mile high club in the planes toilets, otherwise I would need to launch a frivolous lawsuit around their use of the name “Virgin”. My initial thoughts were that this was going to be a nightmare flight as some fat bastard, a living proof that natural selection no longer operates in the human world, got 5 rows onto the plane before stopping to turn to his wife (or medical carer? Someone this dumb would qualify for a disability pension on the grounds of limited intellect) asking her what row they were in. The wife/nurse, consumed by carrying more bags than a crazed homeless person with a shopping trolley, reached through each of her 25 bags before finally finding the boarding passes. I was watching this all unfold from my seat, so I don't know why I was so angry at the massive hold up the man and his wife/nurse were creating. Probably just empathy for the line of people behind the couple who'd now wished they'd taken a baseball bat as their carry on luggage which could now be used to beat the man upside his head while his wife/nurse remained oblivious to the fact her husband/patient was now dead lying in a pool of his own blood while she searched her 25 bags for their boarding passes.
The couple finally reached their seats, somehow in the same year we were due to depart, but they were soon followed by a stereotypically loud American man and his family. God, looking down on me, mainly because I'd just said a prayer asking him to not place the loud American next to me, must have misheard that prayer and promptly sat the loud American right next to me. Thankfully, the excessive movement of his mouth must have used up a lot of the oxygen in his blood, as he was asleep within 20 minutes of take off.
As this was late December, I was delighted to discover a song in the onboard entertainment system called “Cocaine Christmas And An Alcoholics New Year”. It put me in a festive mood and got me thinking of the little known 4th wise man, the one that bought Jesus a kilogram of cocaine.
I landed at approximately 8:20pm at San Francisco International Airport, or SFO as I call it when telling chicks in a bar I'm a pilot, waited 20 minutes for the luggage carousel to finally move, another 10 minutes to get my bag, before making my way to the BART station to take me into the city. The BART, officially know as Bay Area Rapid Transit, would be more aptly named the Bad At Revealing Town. So many stations had no signs indicating what the name of the station you just arrived at, and the one's that did thought an 8 point font was a suitable size to inform the confused tourist where he was.
Once aboard the train I saw something that would suggest San Francisco and I weren't necessarily going to become best friends; a sign indicating a priority area for bicycles. If you have a bike you don't need to catch the train! Ride the damn bike home! This is a pet hate I've had for years in Melbourne, people taking a bike onto a packed peak hour train, taking up valuable real estate. Ride the damn bike home! Get off my train! If I was to take a horse aboard a train people would give me “what the fuck” looks, the same “what the fuck” looks should be applied to people who take bikes on trains. Ride the damn bike home!
Anyway, I put that anger aside as some old timer noticed I was wearing a t-shirt with HNL on it, the airport code pilots (and I use when pretending to be a pilot to chicks in bars) for Honolulu. He asked if I'd just come from Hawaii, and then became yet another person in the last week to ask if I'd competed in the Hawaiian marathon. In all the marathons I've ever watched they've usually been won by exceptionally skinny Kenyans, so I would have thought my beer gut might suggest I'm not a Kenyan marathon runner. That and my milky white skin might suggest I don't have African roots. That said, the old timer did have to ask me if he was on the correct train, so maybe he was just a confused senile old man with cataracts. But in fairness to the old timer, I must portray an amazing amount of confidence of someone who knows where they're going because I'm forever being asked by people for directions. When I lived in London I was asked by 6 different people in my first week for directions even though the only 3 locations I knew of were my office building, my hotel and the location of the Walkabout bar.
Other anomalies of the BART encountered during my time in San Francisco were a female robotic voice at Embarcadero station to give out announcements, leaving me to ponder that would be what Stephen Hawking would sound like if he decided to have gender realignment surgery. Another odd sign at Embarcadero was a LED screen that proudly announced “There are no elevators out of service”, leaving one to ponder are these elevators out of service so often that they have to make an announcement for that rare moment when they are in service?
The BART eventually got me to my hotel, the Hyatt Regency, some time after 10pm. I checked in, went down to the 7-11 across the street to purchase a beverage, negotiated my way past an angry man shouting at everything and nothing, and decided it would be best to check out the city in the morning.
It goes hotel, motel, Hyatt Regency – observations about the hotel
After a long day in transit from Hawaii it was great to see the Hyatt Regency sign as I exited the Embarcadero BART station. The first hour in a new city can be a confusing panic inducing moment as you attempt to find your accommodation before darkness falls. When I visited Birmingham in the UK in 2009 I'd looked at the map and it essentially suggested turn left out of the train station, walk for 500 metres and you'll be in your hotel enjoying a shower within 10 minutes of arriving. Sadly, when you fail to acknowledge a train station can have 2 exits, and that fate always sends you to the wrong exit, that 10 minute walk turned into an hour before I found my bearings and arrived at the hotel. Thankfully, the Birmingham residents that night sent out a welcoming committee that consisted of countless drunks shouting at each other and numerous drunks urinating at bus stops, so my panic was minimal. The same year I travelled to Prague, and once again fate sent me to wrong the exit at Nădraži Holešovice station. It seems the Soviets didn't particularly like political freedom or street signs, as I went on a confusing walk looking for a street sign to get my bearings. That was a 40 minute walk on that occasion, which saw me do a massive loop before finally arriving at the station exit I had intended to leave and my first sight of a street sign on Czech soil. Once again, the local Prague government sent me a welcoming committee, not to be outdone by Birmingham, which consisted of 2 or 3 passed out drunks on park benches, with the traditional offering of empty beer cans under and around those park benches. So, as you can see, the first hour in a new city can be a confusing panic inducing moment. This, however, was not to be one of those occasions as I walked all of 50 metres from the BART station to my hotel.
I was greeted at the hotel by a doorman, who I imagine had done a long apprenticeship that had provided him with the unique skill of being able to press a rather large button to open the door (do you really need a doormen when you have automatic doors?). I thanked the doormen, for without his unique set of skills I'd still be on the street, checked in and was soon on my way to my room in one of the large glass elevators that did well to convince you you were in a Wonkavator, whilst also providing excellent views of the construction that was currently under way in the hotels lobby. It was a truly mesmerising view of the construction site from the Wonkavator, so much so that days later some meathead stood in the doorway of the Wonkavator for what seemed like an eternity (that's not an exaggeration, I walked onto the Wonkavator with a Nokia 3300, but by the time the doors closed I'd upgraded all the way up to an iPhone 6 it took so long), before realising he had to move all of 6 inches so the Wonkavator doors would close. Still in a trance like state induced by this wonderful view of the construction site, he left his bag across the floor directly obscuring the exit. So, having been asked whether I'd competed in the Hawaiian marathon many times in the last week, it appeared this gentlemen believed I was also an Olympic standard hurdler, and as such I could easily jump his bag and be on my way with all the grace of an Impala bounding effortlessly through the African plains...god damn I hate people!
Of course, after a long day in transit, it's not uncommon to want to take a shower to refresh and recharge. I tell you what, trying to figure out how the heat worked in the shower in this hotel was like trying to crack a safe. Turn left: too close to C, turn right: near H but cold, turn left again about 3/4 turn then suddenly too hot. It was a bizarre one tap configuration, with the marking of “C” clearly having no relation to the word “cold” (Italian for hot is “caldo” so maybe this was a classy shower imported from Italy?). Once out of the shower, I reached for my white towel. Well, it was white when it was first purchased, while now it had streaks of red dye. At least I hope it was red dye. That or someone tried to mop up the blood of a dead hooker & the hotel did a very ordinary job cleaning the towel afterwards. This bathroom truly was an educational experience. From learning how to crack a safe while in the shower, to the coasters near the sink that had the phrase “Enjoy your drink” printed on them. Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn't contemplated doing that until I read that. As I say, a truly educational experience.
I find a key feature of any hotel is it's location. The Hyatt Regency was great in that it was located near the BART and a short stroll to the pier. What wasn't so great was its proximity to the Ferry Building and it's clock tower that rang its bell at 8am every morning. Handy in 1849, fucking incredibly annoying in 2015 when everyone has a phone so has their own time piece and doesn't need to be reminded what the time is while they're enjoying a dream with Miranda Kerr in a compromising position.
A crackhead wearing a Santa suit: it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas – observations of local sites and customs
I'll begin this section as I begun my first full day in San Francisco by venturing down to Pier 39. The sun was out, although the temperature suggested otherwise, so it was a visually appealing day for a stroll along the water from the Ferry Building all the way to Fisherman's Wharf where my main goal was to get a picture of the Fisherman's Wharf sign with the crab on it that appeared in the opening credits of classic late 80s/early 90s TV show Full House (queue reader playing Full House theme song in their head).
It was a solid 2 mile walk by the time I'd reached Pier 39, one of those man made tourist attractions made exclusively to be a tourist attraction. The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz are I suppose what you call “accidental” tourist attractions in that they were built to serve a practical purpose, whether that be to transport vast quantities of people or hold vast quantities of people. Pier 39 is an “intentional” tourist attraction built to allow vast quantities of people to be transported to it and held until all their money is gone. There's something about the presence of a Hard Rock Cafe that tells you you've entered a region of a city that no local has visited in a long time. The Hard Rock Cafe is placed at the entrance to Pier 39 as an early warning detection device that you should expect overpriced novelty goods and attractions. I hadn't had breakfast, so decided to have an early lunch, so purchased some calamari and chips and sat myself down towards the end of the pier near the carousel. The meal was quite enjoyable, which couldn't be said for the magician that was “entertaining” people nearby. For me, a street magician is only one step up on the career chain from being a human statue (how the fuck is standing still a talent?!?). As part of his act he swallowed a sword (one step up from a human statue that needs to swallow penis to make ends meet) to which he said “people often ask me what does it taste like? It tastes like burning”. If he asked me what sound his act made it would be the sound of sucking. Other gems he magically produced from his mouth were “I'm not gay, but my husband is” (I suppose if you can swallow a foot long sword a 6 inch penis is a stroll in the park). Given the majority of his demographic were young kids I imagine that made for an interesting drive home for the parents as their kids asked awkward questions about why would a non gay man marry another man. Parts of his show consisted of him asking for the crowd to make some noise and then saying “I can't hear you! Try again!” only to again be greeted by a silence (that should have only been broken by me shouting “Get off! You suck!”). He mercifully finished the show after what I imagine was only 20 minutes, but when I say “only” 20 minutes it's more in the context of telling someone you're about to be waterboarded for “only” 20 minutes. Pure torture. He said the next show begun at 1:20pm, to which I found it hard to believe local merchants didn't offer him $20 to make it 2:20pm.
After I finished lunch, I headed further along the pier, decided it wasn't worth jumping off the end as I'd be long gone by the time the magician started his 1:20pm show, and turned left where I stumbled across a bob/colony/crash/flock/harem/herd/hurdle/pod/raft/rookery/team of sea lions. Yes, they are all collective nouns for sea lions, which makes me think there should be a collective noun to describe the collective nouns for sea lions. “Shit load” is an early candidate. Their constant attempts to mimic the sound a horn pressed by a clown held my attention for a solid 10 minutes before I continued my walk further along the water.
I walked up to the crescent shaped Municipal Pier, going all the way to the end to get good photos of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. I had considered walking all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge, which must've have been at least another 3 miles, but my bowel decided it would prefer to see the inside of a toilet cubicle so I turned around and headed for Jacks Cannery Bar. Jacks Cannery Bar had a décor that suggested the proprietor visited many garage sales, owned a hammer and some nails, and after visiting each garage sale he would purchase random unrelated items and hang them on the walls. I felt bad about popping in to only leave a stool sample, so initially instead sat on a bar stool hoping it would hold in my stool while I purchased a beer. I sipped the beer for about 5 minutes, all the time thinking “don't poo your pants, don't poo your pants” before I ended the charade and asked the barmen where his facilities were. I made haste for the toilet, where I let out one of those massive dumps where you almost feel like you should smoke a cigarette afterwards or something else to commemorate the moment. As I finished up my business and washed my hands I had the misfortune to listen to some bloke who sounded like he was about to crap out an entire undigested watermelon. There have been women in labour shorter than this bloke. I left before he had finished, feeling almost like I should have shouted “good luck mate” as I exited.
I did manage to find my way back to Pier 39 a few days later after misjudging where I was, which might sound silly but the hills of San Francisco make it hard to get a clean line of sight, unless of course when you're on top of the hills, by which time you're so tired you just wish to be walking down and finding a pub to rest and enjoy a pint. I made my way for lunch at Bubba Gumps at suggestion of one of my friends. Bubba Gumps is a restaurant themed on the movie Forrest Gump. I do love that movie, but I don't recall any scene where Forrest says “momma always said life was like eating in a restaurant named after a southern fictional character while looking at Alcatraz.” The drink menu was attached to a pin pong paddle, making Forrest Gumps ping pong record all the more impressive given he competed with a paddle weighed down by a drinks menu. I wasn't overly hungry, so settled for 1 appetiser of calamari and 1 appetiser of onion rings. I think the onion rings were served in some magical bottomless cup; the more I ate the more seemed to appear. The thing you have to remember about the US is an appetiser is what the rest of the world would consider a main meal. The word “appetiser” joins other English language issues like "tyre", "colour" & the pronunciation of "aluminium" that continue to haunt the US. As for the staff in Bubba Gumps, they were quite lovely, which helped to distract you from the fact they all wore headsets like the secret service. I kept waiting for one of them to shout "The pig is in the poke!" or for a convertible carrying a recently shot JFK to speed through the restaurant.
The sense of smell is a powerful thing that can trigger a distant memory and instantly transport you back to a moment in your life. From this day on, whenever I smell marijuana I shall forever be transported back to San Francisco. Medical marijuana is now legal in the state of California, so given I passed 4 people smoking it on my first day I can only imagine San Francisco is possibly the sickest city in North America. I even had some poor sick fellow passing me on a bicycle puffing away on his medical marijuana, no doubt riding a bicycle on advice from his doctor it would help his fitness, and therefore, his health. It is quite comical that only “medical” marijuana is legal given the prevalence of it. You don't find yourself in a coffee shop seeing people popping aspirin with their beverage, yet I couldn't walk 2 blocks without getting a whiff of ganja.
Which brings me to other legal drugs and the plethora of ads for them on American television and you would almost come to think that all that “medical” marijuana is actually being used for medicinal purposes. I do believe drug companies spend more on marketing than on R&D in America, which is good as it helped produce a tremendous ad for Viagra which featured a hot woman wearing simply a football jersey. There's nothing that can arouse a man more than a scantily dressed woman who likes to talk sports, so if that ad didn't give you an erection then you would do best to see your local doctor for a prescription of Viagra. But what I found most amusing about drug ads on American television is the disclaimers that concluded each ad with the warnings of potential side effects, and that the side effects all seemed so bad that they had to be worse than the condition the drug was trying to heal. Extreme side effects like your penis may spontaneously combust or have small spot fires during sex due to dry skin caused by prolonged use of our drug. If pubic hair fire persists, consult your local doctor. Crazy.
As I've mentioned earlier, this was December, and given how cold it was my brain was struggling to process that it was so close to Christmas. As an Australian the song “White Christmas” has more overtures towards being a racist statement than expecting snow in summer, so I wasn't really in a Christmas type mood. That was until I saw a crackhead dressed as Santa manage to stagger across 4 lanes of traffic & not get hit by a car, that was when I realised it must have been a Christmas miracle! Days later I would see an Asian crackhead on California street wearing a Santa hat talking to himself or imaginary elves. Queue its beginning to look a lot like Christmas song in my head. San Francisco truly does have a significant homeless problem, but thankfully the homeless people tend to have the good decency to sleep on side streets, so people on main streets don't have to worry about guilt or walking through their urine. If Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco then I have no doubt someone picked it up & sold it for crack.
When you think iconic San Francisco images you think Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz and cable cars. As someone from Melbourne with an extensive tram network, the option to ride on a cable car wasn't something that had caught my attention as a must do activity, but I just knew when I got home people would ask me “so did you ride on a cable car?”, so present day Pete decided it would be in the best interest of future Pete to just ride a cable car at least once so he didn't have to listen to people saying “oh what?!? I can't believe you didn't ride a cable car?!?” like I'd passed up the opportunity to ride on the space shuttle or something rare like that. The cable car experience is essentially the same as riding a Melbourne tram; except its louder, jerkier and you're forced to sit outside in the cold. Oh, and it costs $7 which is $7 more than the free tram in Melbourne. The ride was shorter than a teenage boys first sexual encounter with someone else in the room and I was soon getting off at Van Ness and much like the girl who was in the room with that teenage boy I was left thinking “is that it?”. I was midway through contemplating that Van Ness sounds like someone with a stutter trying to say “Vanessa” when I stumbled across a female crackhead yelling at a male crackhead. I contemplated crossing the street, but foolishly continued on my way where my eyes would see something they sadly would not ever be able unsee ever again. The shouting ended abruptly, only for the female crackhead to fall to her knees and before I could think “she isn't going to do what I think she's about to do?!?” she did in fact do what I thought she was about to do and begun to give oral pleasure to the same crackhead she'd just been yelling at moments earlier. As it was 12:55pm in plain sight of 4 lanes of traffic, I trust their argument was probably about whether it would be more appropriate to wait until at least 1pm before they had a sexual encounter in public. So, I'd just dropped $7 on a less than pleasant cable car ride, only to be greeted with this less than pleasant experience. Sorry future Pete, I shouldn't have taken the cable car ride.
One of the cable car turnaround points on a hill near Pier 39 had been named the “Friedel Klussmann memorial turnaround”, leaving one to think this Klussmann character must have been a real douche who constantly changed his mind, constantly turning around to choose the opposite side of an argument. That or he was a basketball player with a great turnaround jump shot.
Hills on top of hills; the only true way to describe the San Francisco landscape. I'd expected hills, just not so many and not in such great numbers with such steep gradients. I was surprised that in my time in the city I didn't see at least 1 Sherpa guiding some tired person up these mountainous hills. The hills are so steep that if you were a local you would need to take abseiling equipment if you're just going for some milk & paper, especially on Telegraph Hill, the home of the Coit Tower. The Coit Tower was built as a tribute to Lillian Colt, a rich crazy woman (sorry, she's rich, so that should be eccentric, not crazy) who left one third of her estate to the city on the condition it was spent for civic beautification. I know what you're thinking; wouldn't removing crackheads having oral sex on the streets in broad daylight have gone a long way to the beautification of the city? But you need to understand the tower was built in 1933, before the proliferation of crack cocaine. I made the long sherpa-less hike up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, chuckling like a school boy all the while at coit being a colloquial term for the anus. I dropped the $8 required to use the elevator to the top of the tower and was rewarded with tremendous 360 degree views of the city. As for the old aged woman operating the lift, I'm not entirely sure what she had dropped, but acid was a likely candidate. She sung everything like she was in a musical, suggesting she was either senile or had been 2nd hand smoking too much medicinal marijuana on her walk into work each day. She mentioned some must do activity around walking down 700,000 steps or something as you left Telegraph Hill, but I was too consumed by wondering how this woman had passed her urine test to get the job.
Okay, so while I'm on the topic of Telegraph Hill, let me take you on a journey of geographic regions of San Francisco. I was staying in Embarcadero, which takes its name from the Spanish verb embarcar meaning “to embark”. Given its proximity to the waterfront that name would have been fitting for people looking to embark on an adventure by ship to far off lands back in the day, but in the current day the locals were more inclined to be embarking on a search for crack (have I mentioned there are a lot of crack users in San Francisco yet?). From there, you can head south to Mission street, where my initial mission was to escape as soon as possible after encountering a woman shouting at everything and nothing, whilst another fellow was talking to a construction site (didn't catch the gist of the conversation, but I can say with fair assurance he was asking the foundations and walls whether they had been built to the latest code to survive an earthquake). My mission to leave Mission street led me to Howard street and The Thirsty Bear Brewing Company. If the bear enjoyed their variety of beers as much as me then its fair to say he's no longer thirsty and more likely the tipsy bear.
If you head north from Howard street you'll hit Market street with its long street of shopping, much like the Champs Elysees but without the gypsies (but I did see a one legged monk on crutches asking for money) and the expensive 13 euro beers.
If you continue north you will eventually discover California and Sacramento streets running parallel to each other. This has surely led to much confusion over the years. Imagine telling your mate "I'm at California" and him responding "Yeah I know which state you're in, but what street?". Although, not as nearly confusing of the days of East Germany when there were 12 streets named after Stalin.
If you head east from there you will find the busiest location in San Francisco after 11pm; the 7-11 opposite my hotel. On 2 occasions I must have waited in line at least 5 minutes to be served, with 1 such occasion leading to a bloke in front of me holding a home made light sabre (surprisingly not high on crack) taking the last slice of pizza before I could get to it, making me angrier than a crack user whose dealer has told him the previous customer took the last of his crack. That incident led me to seek food the next night at a Subway restaurant, which had inexplicitly run out of meatballs. San Francisco is known as one of the gayest cities on earth! Surely you keep an over abundance of meatballs on site purely to take advantage of the double entendre that the use of the word “balls” presents itself with such a high gay male population? Benny Hill must be rolling in his grave.
When you're in a foreign country its all about embracing different cultures. If you drill down even further you'll discover culture within that culture in San Francisco. For instance, understanding your local accents. If you're in a bar the staff will be Irish, in a McDonald's Mexican, and if it's just a random store most likely Chinese. If you'd really like to embrace Chinese culture there is of course China Town, or you can head to the waterfront where there is Chinese woman handing out beads. It's funny how a lot of western people have moved away from believing in a bloke that walked on water 2,000 years ago, but will happily believe in exchanging money for the magic of Chinese beads like a young fellow named Jack might believe in the exchanging of a cow for magic beans.
Mr Hart visits the Irish Embassy – observations from the many Irish bars of San Francisco
People joke that to visit a McDonald’s restaurant overseas is to visit the American Embassy. So let me now introduce into the lexicon that to visit an Irish Bar is to visit the Irish Embassy. My goodness, San Francisco has a significant number of Irish Embassies, many of which I visited to the point you'd think I was an Irish diplomat. I visited Kate O'Brien's, Irish Times, Murphy’s, The Chieftain Irish Pub, and John Foley's Irish House.
Given I was travelling alone I'd planned to get out and meet the locals at local drinking holes. I find the best way to this is to get to a venue early, sit at the bar and say “G'day” to anyone that buys a drink. Eventually someone will notice your accent and say one or more of the following;
a) Are you from Australia? I've always wanted to visit there (to which I reply “I am mate”)
b) Are you from England? I've always wanted to visit there (to which I reply “English? Those bastards!”)
c) Are you from New Zealand? I've always wanted to visit there (to which I reply “Kiwi? Those sheep shaggers!”)
d) I've got relatives in Perth. Do you know the Thompson's? (to which I reply that “would be like asking someone from LA if they consider someone in New York a neighbour”)
Any of the above are good ice breakers and before long you're having a local offering to buy you a drink. Unfortunately, the plan to get to a venue early to secure prime real estate seated at the bar doesn't quite have the same effectiveness in San Francisco. On Thursday night the bars were packed by 5:15pm, and who could blame the locals? With interest rates at 0% it essentially means that banks are giving away money for free, so there's no reason to work hard. As soon as it hits 5pm, leave the office and take that money to the bar, knowing you don't need to worry about paying your mortgage down.
Myself, I was more price conscious than these locals enjoying 0% interest rates. When I discovered the Royal Exchange was selling beer at $7.35 a pint versus the nearby Irish Times selling the same pint for $6, I decided much of my time would be setup shop at the Irish Times. On top of the price differential, another thing working in the Irish Times favour was their prices didn't end in 0.35. I hate bars that do that. Come the end of the night I'm going to have so much change in my pockets I'm going to sound like the Tin Man walking after his dislocated his hip. I'd prefer a bar gave me cancer ahead of change from a product that ends in 35 cents, at least with cancer I can use it for something positive like “wow, now I should make the most of my limited time on earth”. With change from something that ends in 35 cents nothing positive comes from that.
My relationship with the Irish Times was a slow burn before it turned into a significant relationship in my life. The first night I went there I couldn't get a seat at the bar. I watched some short fat beardo of a man sitting by himself at the bar and constantly found myself trying to use a Jedi mind trick to get him to move. Move! You're sad! Me, I can drink alone because I'm in a foreign country! The short fat beardo of a man was drinking so slowly I'm not sure if it was natural evaporation or him actually drinking his beverage that was causing the contents of his glass to lower. At one moment, amongst many not spent consuming his beverage, he was texting someone on his phone. I imagine it was his wife and the message went along the lines of "really busy at work baby...before I shoot this bar up". I was aware of the irony that I was projecting an imagine of this man being sad because he was drinking alone, given I was doing the same, but he was short and fat so I figured he'd spent a significant amount of his life being bullied and most likely on the verge of snapping (if you're going to people watch you have to give them a back story, no matter how mean that back story is). The short fat beardo of a man finally left his seat at 6:40pm, only to return shortly after at 6:46pm, no doubt after discovering the gun store was closed.
The slow burn with the Irish Times begun to spark when a delightful Irish barmaid named Keelin picked up on my accent, mentioned she'd spent some time in Australia, and by the end of the night we were best mates. She introduced me to a couple of African American sisters (that's not me using slang, they were actually sisters) who'd been discussing Australia, and Keelin called me in as a subject matter expert to discuss my great country. I sadly don't recall their names, which may be potentially awkward given I gave one of the sisters my email and told her to look me up when she visited and I could act as a tour guide. It was odd that I couldn't remember, as they had names that would traditionally only be found in the African American community, so given I don't live in an African American community the name was unusual to my ear so should have been easier to remember. One sister was called something like Marqueesha, a name I asked her to repeat as I found it so unusual, yet not memorable apparently.
The slow burn with the Irish Times took full ignition to a great flame when Keelin purchased a drink for me the next night. I've always said the most important relationship in a man's life is that with his local barmaid, and this was further proof. That said, I may have tipped her something close to $50 the night before given when I woke up in the morning I didn't have any money in my wallet. That day begun with a free drink at John Foley's Irish House after I'd offered my seat so that an old couple could sit together, which was rewarded by the old timer buying me a drink (I would have also offered the old timer a kidney if it meant another free drink). I'd had 3 pints before reaching the Irish Times, before consuming another 5 at the Irish Times so I was probably in a generous mood. As I enjoyed my 2nd free pint in 2 days, I got talking to a barman at Irish Times. He was Irish and the majority of his knowledge about Australia came from the film Chopper. Many would find it disturbing that someone’s only knowledge of their home country was from a film about a murderer, but I found it refreshing to be in America and have someone talking about an Australian film that wasn't Crocodile Dundee.
One thing that stuck out most about the Irish Embassies was the number of toilet facilities that provided for urinals to facilitate the needs of midgets or leprechauns. So many low urinals. They had to be for midgets or leprechauns, because why would you provide low urinal facilities like that for children given none of your customers are children?
Defense! Defense! - observations from Dub nation at a Warriors game
My entire reason for this trip was to see a couple of Warriors games, with the city of San Francisco being a minor distraction either side of games. Like all of man's great decisions, I'd made the decision to fly to San Francisco whilst sitting on a couch drinking a beer. I'd made the decision to fly out less than a month before I would arrive, and only booked accommodation a week before I flew out of Melbourne via Hawaii for a week. It was nice to have a job that compensated me well enough to make such spontaneous expensive decisions, which almost made the last 12 months of hating everything about my job worth it (almost, you know if I'm winning lotto the next day the only reason I'm coming into the office is to drop my strides and tell everyone to kiss my ass).
To get to the games, both starting at 7:30pm on weekdays, I had to ride the BART in peak hour out to Oakland. That proved quite the challenge as I slowly waddled through the massive crowds at Embarcadero station, as I watched at least 5 trains leave the station before I positioned myself close enough to a train door to finally board a Dublin line train. The train was so packed I wouldn't be surprised if I'd accidentally impregnated a woman on that train, and that it wouldn't be a surprise if I returned to San Francisco in 18 years time to see a dashing young man with a deceptively huge upper body that looked a lot like me.
As I alighted from the train at Coliseum station I was greeted by a number of gentlemen of questionable backgrounds looking to scalp tickets for VIP parking. This struck me as odd; why would someone whose just arrived in a train be looking to purchase car parking? What chance is there of someone arriving with their family via train, and then upon discovering the chance for VIP parking, of the husband turning to his wife and going “okay honey, kids, back on the train. Where going home to get the car and drive back to the stadium”. Odd.
When I arrived at the stadium for my first game, a Wednesday night encounter versus the Suns, I was greeted by a large contingent of people standing outside listening to a DJ performing to celebrate Jewish heritage night. It wasn't the most natural of fits, I don't know much about Judaism but I don't recall any mention in Hanukkah of candle wicks burning for 8 straight days only being topped by a DJ playing Tupac for 8 straight days despite having no power for his decks. And when I think Jewish athletes I think of the moving Flying High when the stewardess asks a passenger if she'd like something to read. The passenger replies “have you got anything light?”, to which the stewardess replies “how about this leaflet; famous Jewish sports legends”.
Once inside the stadium I was delighted to discover that part of the hype team used to fire up the crowds in time outs included a gentlemen that was a dwarf. This is going to sound very politically incorrect, but dwarves as a general rule are funny. This is even more so in a sport with 7 footers to highlight their lack of stature. In this setting, it's like watching a monkey ride a greyhound, and as far as I'm concerned, if you can make fun of redheads, you should be able to make fun of dwarves. As for the pre game entertainment, that involved junior gymnastics. In this day and age where everyone is so litigious and kids are wrapped in cotton wool, it must mean the most dangerous thing you can teach kids is lame somersaults, because that was the bulk of the show. Nadia Comăneci was winning Olympic gold at 14! You can't tell me the toughest gymnastic skill she learnt before she was 12 was a somersault. That said, when you wrap kids in cotton wool and try to protect them from everything, it does lead to the amusing sight of a kid lifting another kid where the liftee has no confidence in the lifter. Is it morbid to laugh at a kid 3 feet above the ground with a look on their face that says "I'm too young to die!"? I say no, because I knew no one was going to die.
Anyways, in between laughing at dwarves and piss weak gymnastic displays, I did actually watch 2 games of basketball. In the first game Klay Thompson went off for 27 points in the third quarter, which led to a blow out with the starters sitting out the last quarter and me contemplating asking for a 25% discount on my ticket. The 2nd game, against the Bucks made every single dollar I'd spent on flights, accommodation and tickets worth every penny. The Warriors game back from 15 points in the third quarter, with the crowd making more noise than a 747 on take off. My excitement in finally being part of a 20,000 strong crowd chanting “Defense! Defense!” as opposed to being a lone person on my couch shouting the same thing weeks earlier was truly magnificent. The excitement was so great I'd even forgotten about the fact the beers were $13 a piece, quite a feat given my long tradition of attending sporting events returning to my seat carrying beers for mates and handing them over in conjunction with “you're not going to believe how much these cost!”. Sporting events around the world go hand in hand with brewery sponsorship, perhaps one day some of these sponsorship dollars will go towards halving the price of beer at said sporting events making them almost competitive with what that same beer would cost in a bar. Dare to dream people!
Fly me to the moon, or Melbourne. Whatever is quicker – observations of the flight home
On my last day in San Francisco my flight didn't depart until 11:25pm. It had been raining non stop for the last 2 days so I made the most of the 12pm check out in an attempt to minimise my time spent getting drenched and shaking my fist angrily at the sky like god was going to see me and think “okay, he's had enough. Shut down the rain boys”. These late departure flights have almost become ubiquitous with my international travel, while I somehow always seem to land early in a new country and wait an eternity get into my hotel. My arrival flight into Hawaii landed so early I had to wait 5 and half hours to check in, now my flight out of the US meant I had to kill over 11 hours in a rain soaked city.
So, to do that I decided to go watch a movie at the Embarcadero Center. I knew nothing of the movies available at this small independent cinema, but just wanted to watch something light and have a laugh. One of the movies had Rachel McAdams, I associated her with the comedy movie Mean Girls, so decided to purchase a ticket for Spotlight. Spotlight is all about how the Boston Globe uncovered a massive cover up within the Catholic Church of child molestation. Associating this movie with comedy because it featured Rachel McAdams is as big a mistake as associating Schindlers List as a comedy because you saw Liam Neeson in Love Actually. This was not the light hearted comedy I had been hoping for, but that didn't stop some bloke in the audience from laughing out loud in various parts of the movie. I didn't share the same desire to openly laugh during a film that was about paedophilia, so if I deemed something inappropriate you must know it is as I don't think any of my friends look to me as the moral benchmark. I tell you what, if Donald Trump wants to ban all Muslims from the US because apparently everyone of them has a connection to terrorism, you'd also want to ban the Catholic Church from your country after viewing this movie, especially at the end when they list the many, many countries that have had Catholic Church child molestation scandals.
As I left the cinema, it was still raining, despite me having earlier shook my fist angrily at the sky before going in. I headed back to the hotel lobby couches to charge my phone and make use of the free Wi-Fi, where some bloke with Jamaican heritage felt obligated to talk to me as I foolishly lifted my face from my phone to acknowledge him. Why is it that it's never a Victoria Secret model that sits opposite you and wants to talk to you? The Jamaican bloke had flown into San Francisco where he was having a “business meeting”. He was not an attractive woman, so I don't know why I bothered to even engage in this conversation, but I did inquire into what this business meeting was. He said he was in town as he'd asked some millionaires if they could show him how to become a millionaire, so later in the day he was heading out to do that. I didn't know there was a hotline you could call to ask a millionaire for some advice, but there you go, here was a living example there was. I eventually managed to transition back to reading the newspaper on my phone and at about 6pm I decided it was time to head to the airport.
As a general rule when I head to an airport, I like to take my luggage, so in order to do that I had to get my luggage out of the hotels storage area. It would seem no one has ever asked to get their luggage at this hotel at 6pm before, so the concierge was absent, most likely in a bar given the locals propensity to hit bars up early. I was forced to go to the checkin desk, where they advised me to go to the concierge's desk. I explained to them I was familiar with the concept of the concierge desk and intimated it worked a lot more effective if a human was there to service it. So some chump from the checkin desk, as if I'd disturbed him while his was in his dining room at home enjoying dinner, less than politely went and got my luggage and I was soon on my way to the airport.
The time at the airport seemed to move relatively quickly, as I managed to walk through security with no belt and in a pair of pants with no button, all the while trying to figure out how I was going to keep these pants up when I passed through one of those tubular xray machines where they ask you to lift your arms from your body. No hands in pockets was most likely going to lead to pants around my ankles. In a stroke of good fortune, security had got so busy they instead sent me left to pass through one of the old school xray machines that are more like a doorway with no door where you most importantly get to keep your hands in your pockets.
The flight boarded on time, only for the pilot to discover the crew had short fuelled the plane (better now than at 30,000 feet). This led to an hour and half delay (and hopefully some bloke who looked like Moe slapping the 2 other stooges who'd made the short fuelling calculation) and me quickly trying to calculate if that was going to impact on me reaching my connecting flight in Sydney which was to depart 2 and half hours after my original arrival time. This thought was soon overcome with the confusion with how this Boeing plane somehow had seating in rows that went from 39 to 43, bypassing all numbers in between. Why? Did Boeing sell these planes based on the number of the last row and not the actual number of rows in attempt to make the plane sound larger? Dodgy bastards.
I slept most of the flight to Sydney, and remained relatively calm upon arrival still trying to calculate if there would be an issue making my connecting flight. If I had of known how that Sydney to Melbourne flight would unfold I would happily have missed it. It was an unusual flight. The original passenger next to me had an infant on her lap. Great; an hour and half of an infant crying at the end of 17 hours of transit. After take off both passengers left that seat, to replaced by a gentlemen. Awesome, no crying infant. 10 minutes later this gentlemen disappeared, only to be replaced with yet another adult and now a different infant child. This was the first flight I'd ever been on which featured the game musical chairs. A flight in which I'd essentially had 5 different passengers next to me, and yet not one of them a Victoria Secret model.
The flight was the last of my dramas for the day, and I was soon at home shouting profanity at the endless pile of washing awaiting me.
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