I am totally pooped! My feet are slightly sore. I'm not eating any more of a low fat diet than I usually do, but with all this hard walking, up intensely steep hills, if I haven't lost a few pounds by now ...
Okay, after two relatively easy days, walking wise, I was feeling pretty strong and took off this morning around 10:30 or 11am. No use leaving any earlier as nothing will be open. I hopped on the street car and it was the third such trip in a row in which there was a problem person on board. The last two rides, there was someone who obviously had mental issues, as a certain percentage of homeless folks do (in any city), who had placed himself at the rear of the car - they always make sure to put themselves at the rear - I think they think they are in control of the atmosphere that way, much like people on a school bus think - and he was talking at the top of his lungs making sexual comments or saying words like 'faggot' out loud, and/or deriding the eating of pussy, and/or arguing with an imaginary enemy, etc. The time before, an apparent trans person got on with another guy, and also talked very loud, and non-stop - I can't stress enough that it was non-stop, the whole time, telling his friend off for supposedly being drunk, and then telling everyone around that his friend was just "a twink" he'd picked up, and how his personality had "completely changed the minute he had a drink" and how he'd dare to say something against "a tranny, and you have no idea how much trouble you can get into for doing that in San Francisco" etc etc etc. This went on, and fucking on, with the guy literally never shutting his mouth, until the driver had had enough, and asked the guy to stop swearing, and to keep it down. The guy continued, and at the next stop, the driver got out of his seat and confronted him and again told him to settle down, and the trans person would simply point to his "twink" as if the driver had been talking about him, and say "ya, I told him to shut up, but he gets this way when he has a drink."
This morning a guy got on board with another guy, and he didn't seem to have mental issues, but simply kept bitching to his friend, once again, at the top of his lungs so that the entire car could hear no matter the noise, talking at times in a mock-Chinese screechy accent and favoring, throughout the 'conversation', in particular, the use of the term "motherfucker". There were no kids on board - there were maybe only 10 or 12 people at first, but definitely some older women. I literally began counting the number of MF's and at last count, there were 12 in the span of maybe 10 minutes. The driver said and did nothing. Damn.
The driver had given me a great tip when I got onto the train, however. I blipped my transit card, called a "clipper card", which charges $2.00 for the ride, and asked for a transfer, and he told me I didn't need one since I'd used the clipper card - that the next bus or train I got on, when I blipped the card, would read the card and see that it was within the 4 hour or whatever hour transfer window, and not actually charge me. Which meant I went all over the place today, and was charged, other than the $6.00 cable car cost, a mere $2.00 round trip. Fantastic.
*
The streetcar brought me to Van Ness, a major street which runs north/south, and I caught the 49 bus up to the corner of Union, and began walking the maybe three blocks west, and spent the next couple of hours visiting Union Street shops, of which there were many - I had no idea the "shoppy" part of Union went for so damned many blocks - wow.
There were more boutique-y type stores than there had been at Fillmore the other day, and a number of fancy over the top dog bakeries and shops, including a place, Moulin Pooch, which promised "anesthesia-free teeth cleaning" for your dog, and which had some truly ridiculous dog items ...
(Yes, this is a pink doggie parka with fake fur edging.)
And also, not only organic dog shampoo, but matching doggie hair conditioner - organic.
I had lunch at a nice little home-y spot - don't have the name handy, but it was excellent mac & cheese, and just enjoyed strolling and hanging out in this lovely neighborhood. The best store - my absolute favorite of any of I have seen anywhere in the city - in maybe any city of late - was called Past Perfect, at 2230 Union, which was absolutely massive, and was so damned chock absolutely crazy full of incredibly groovie artifacts, mid century furniture, and old, kitchy, shit; 70's lamps, a pair of genuine roller-disco roller skates (which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of, as the clerk was handling them), awesome old radios and a huge-ass, wonderful multitude of wares, bric a brac, etc., and I was about pooping my pants.
That fucking brown psychadelic suitcase! All of this stuff was obvious original - no fake 'retro' here. Fuck, you could have spent 3 hours in this place.
*
The street featured an absolutely lovely old theater which, sadly, was closed for business - it's marquee blank and front doors boarded up.
I mean, seriously, what a gem - what a treasure! The sign and marquee appeared to be in excellent condition - you could totally see them being turned on at any point and it lighting up beautifully, no problem. You have to wonder how and why this was allowed to close. Undoubtedly it's of course just a business decision, ie the cost to run and the upkeep costs vs the rent vs the take, but shit, a number of these theatres are operating all over the city - wonder what was different in this case.
What is especially a shame is that this is a fantastic part of the city, and Union Street has a lot of cafes and bars, and per a clerk I talked to, it's fairly hopping at night, so it seems an old theater would be be perfect.
I also noticed lots of Union Street Fair signs for a couple of dates in early June, and asked the same clerk what that was, and she said it's a weekend when they close the street to vehicular traffic and all of the merchants - all day, into the night, have stuff out on the sidewalk, etc. She said it's extremely popular, and she said there was another street similar to Union - Chestnut, a few blocks north, which also had tons of shops, and which also closes down a day in summer for a street fair, as does parts of Filmore Street. Dang.
*
Anyway, the owner guy was there by himself, youngish bearded black dude, and he was chatty and asked me where I was from, and we discussed traveling, and he commented that he was sticking with State-side travel as he'd had an issue in Nicaragua recently. I asked what happend, and he said he'd gone there with a friend who had been there before, and had hitchhiked in the country and had a great time, and said it had been a great way to see the country and meet people. The guy said he told his friend he was reluctant to hitchhike, but since his friend had done it before, he agreed to it.
They got a ride from somebody, and the driver immediately began gunning it, he said, driving way too fast, and led them to a place far out in the sticks, and actually held them there for two days against their will, demanding the whole time that they each call up their families and get ransom money! He didn't say how much the guys wanted from them - there were a pack of them at this kidnapping hide-away. He said he and his friend weren't mistreated physically - they were fed and given water - but the money demands continued endlessly - and the kidnappers told them they were targeted specifically because they were Americans. The guy laughed and said to me, they obviously were thinking of different sorts of Americans, ie Donald Trump.
He said they managed finally after two days to convince these dudes that they had no money, despite being Americans, nor did their families - why else would they be hitchhiking? - and were finally let go. The kidnappers did not provide the courtesy of a ride back to town, so he said he and his friend were simply kicked out, and forced to walked for the equivalent of 17 hours to get back to town on their own, and then quickly got the fuck out of the country.
Absolutely incredible. I asked him how the hell you get over something like that, and he said he's still not really over it, but is too afraid to leave the country, now. Who the fuck can blame him?
*
Okay, so I checked my Iphone map - god bless Steve Jobs - I can't tell you how much help and fun this phone has been on this trip - a total godsend - and saw that I was maybe 3 blocks south of Lombard, and 6 blocks east of Hyde, the intersection of the famed Crooked(est) Street - the one with eight tight hairpin turns in a single block.
On the way there, I had to climb that end of fucking Lombard, and fuck, is that one steep MF.
Unfortunately this is one of San Francisco's most popular tourists location of all, and by the time I arrived there in the early afternoon, it was fucking nuts.
This is a picture I took of the top of the street, and a group of people having their picture taken en masse. This was only a fraction of the people who were clogging the top and bottom of this street, and the sidewalks.
Notice the sign with the curved arrow telling you the speed limit of 5mph - you'd be lucky to go that fast, actually.
I truly can't imagine the nightmare of living on this block - and paying hugely through the nose for it - because there is not only mega tourist foot traffic like the above, night and frigging day, right outside your door, but vehicular traffic - it's very common for there to be a continuous line of cars going down this road (it's a one-way) - and it sure ain't the locals.
In the summer it's apparently particularly bad, but anyway, the views are awesome:
So I walked down the stairs, then consulted my Muni transit website and map, and learned to my dismay that this area of the city is one of the very few without a plethora of choices if you intend to go directly south to Market. The best and sort of only choice was the cable car, which meant that I would need to climb the stairs I'd just descended - all 258 of them - yes - no sidewalk here - too steep - because the cable car goes along Hyde, which I was now one block beneath.
Believe it or not, I was sort of dreading taking the trolley - due to the tourists - I knew it would be jam-packed, and it was, and my feet were not happy to be stood on for 90% of the ride, but anyway, I took the delightful ride - it's always delightful, I mean, come on - all the way down to Market, then happily hopped onto the nice, cushy-seated streetcar home.
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