Castro (blog1)

As I was riding the Metro Muni to Castro a couple thoughts popped in my mind: Will I see hundreds of rainbow flags? Will there be drag queens on every street corner? Are people in that neighborhood incredibly rude and will I find a good place to eat?

When I exited the Muni station the first thing I noticed was the rainbow flags blowing against the tall buildings. I was caught off guard when this strange man wearing a camouflaged print shirt, a torn black jacket, and dirty red converse tapped my shoulder and asked if I wanted to buy some weed. As he got closer my nose scrunched up, the dealer reeked of alcohol and some other smell I couldn’t quite make out. The only thing I could do was ignore him and walk away.

Walking along Castro street to Market inside a couple of novelty stores, restaurants bakeries including Cliff’s Variety, Phantom, and Thorough Bread & Pastries. I was amazed at how polite and helpful everyone was which inspired me to stay a little longer then expected.

Walking passed the shopping area I began scanning down some of the houses in neighborhood. Expecting to see paint chipping off, dry dead plants, and maybe a couple of broken windows, I was pleasantly surprised by how well-maintained the houses were. There was no chipped paint or dead flowers.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard a man shouting uncontrollably across the street. Curiosity getting the better of me, I immediately turned around to see who that hostile voice belonged to. He was apparently having an argument with someone on his cell phone in front of a playground. I began to cringe when I heard him drop the ‘F bomb’ several times. The children occupying the playground jaws completely dropped and their eyes widened as they heard the first curse word to come out of his mouth. I quickly turned my heels back to the shopping area.

I stopped when I caught a glimpse of a couple nice hand bags hanging in front of a store called, “Does Your Mother Know”. I walked into the store to see if they were having a sale on book bags. It took me several boxes of edible underwear and sex toys later to realize the store was actually a sex shop. Fortunately, the manager gave me a great deal on one of the bags I saw on display (50 percent off). He then told me that I should come back next week for their sales on vibrators. I nodded politely then quickly turned around so that the manager didn’t notice the red tint on my cheeks.

Although I had experienced some quirky moments during my first day at Castro, the workers and residents made feel incredibly welcomed. I also enjoyed most of the stores, eateries Castro had to offer. Like every other neighborhood, Castro had its weak and strong points.

Bocce Ball Bonding Community

The bocce ball court instilled in a small park in South Beach brings people together in a fun and safe activity that cost almost nothing from the city.

As I was visiting South Beach on the recent sunny Tuesday afternoon, I completely missed the newly added bocce ball court, not too hard to do working through the throngs of people and merchant tents. I was standing outside one booth looking at the thinned out wine bottles...you know the ones. The merchant at the next booth informed me that the owner was playing a round of bocce ball on the lawn, but he would be back shortly.

Intrigued I wandered over to the small area that sits across from the Ferry Building and south of Justin Herman Plaza to see who I assumed to be the merchant and who I assumed to be a homeless man playing an intense game of bocce ball. As I watched the game finish I couldn't help but think what a great idea. A free bocce ball court! In an area otherwise not utilized other than the homeless to sleep in and the business types looking for a place to rest without being too close to the homeless. Now there is an activity and a space not only to coexist but to equally participate in an activity.

The court was actually proposed by and paid for by local business workers and residents. The main contributor was Chris Gruwell who petitioned for this free, fun, and useful project.

Don't think I didn't take part in this great activity. When Marc, the local merchant, had to go back to his tent, I was challenged to a game by a man named Rudy (with a "y" he made sure to tell me twice). I ended up losing terribly, and found out Rudy is a bad winner. He challenged me to a re-match but I was running low on time and graciously bowed out to the champion.

I am finding new things to love about this area every visit, and this is just one of the many right under my feet. Cheers to bocce ball!

Marching to the beat of the Beats in Little Italy.

When people think of North Beach two things come to mind. 1. Little Italy 2. The Beats.

In the late 1800s thousands of Italians came to North Beach due largely to the proximity of the docks and fishing wharves and in the 1950s North Beach became the center of the Beat movement.

Just like most every other part in San Francisco, parking in North Beach is terrible and worse of all it's expensive! Getting over my fear of public transportation is definitely on my to-do list this semester. On Friday night I parked in the North Beach Parking Garage, which is unique in that there is a fortune in every stall. My fortune read, "Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned," which I of course nterpreted as journalism.

As my friend and I made our way to the Beat Museum, I noticed that for the most part people seemed rather friendly. The Beat Museum is a bit small, but very interesting and full of photos and literature that helped shape the Beat generation. The price was also reasonable, costing $4 for students which included a small theater that showed a documentary about Jack Kerouac.

The Beat Museum is located on Broadway, which is also home to a variety of strip clubs. Promoters tried persuading us to go in by offering my entrance to be free of charged, but we passed and instead headed over to City Lights Bookstore on Columbus.

City Lights is a fantastic bookstore that has two floors. The first floor has a variety of topics ranging from feminism to fiction, history, art, etc. and the second floor has poetry. There I found myself reading Marquis de Sade and taking notes of upcoming events, such as readings and poetry nights.

When I went back to North Beach on Tuesday, the atmosphere was completely different than from that of Friday night. A lot more local residents were seen chit-chatting inside coffee shops and browsing the stores. I went inside the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi, where I engulfed all of its elegance and beauty and even (to my surprise) prayed. Later, when I walked back down to my now favorite bookstore, City Lights, an older Italian man called me his girlfriend and gave me lovely compliments. It reminded me of the old classic movies I used to watch with my mom that took place in Italy. Back in the day, it seemed that Italian men would compliment women like there was no tomorrow. I won't lie, it was a nice ego booster.

All-in-all North Beach is a great neighborhood, filled with culture, diversity and best of all poetry and art!

The Mission

"So where are we going first?" - "I don't know," I looked to the first person I saw walking by, a blonde young adult with dreads wheeling a bike toward the escalator in BART, "Hey, what's your favorite place on The Mission?" She looked surprised, laughed, looked at her friend and said, "I don't know, The Mission!"

Pretty good answer.

I enlisted my friend Ryan to walk around with me. Being a part of the street art movement (as it's referred to now, after Banksy started selling his graffiti for obscene amounts of money), Ryan has a unique perspective.

As soon as we crossed the street heading toward 15th street, he started pointing at stickers with what I thought was nonsense scrawled all over them, and geeking out about the "signatures." "That guy's from LA! I've seen his work, he's one of me heroes!" He said this over and over again, listing different names and locations, and I started to really look at the jumbles of letters and paint on the walls, and stickers left on parking meters. He especially took notice to the style of the letters saying they indicated where the person was from. "This is a San Francisco style writing." He said pointing to a jumble of letters that seemed to curl flawlessly into the next. "It's hard to read sometimes, but you can always tell where it's from."

We walked down alleys that smelled pungently of piss and rot, but the graffiti art was meticulously detailed, and really - just beautiful.

We walked down Mission and then turned right toward Church St. Ryan wanted to show me the wall that Banksy had claimed. There are koi fish graffitied on the sidewalk (not Banksy), and inside a fenced parking lot next to a bar is a simple lined tree that extends flawlessly up from two black poles. Perched on a branch is a bird with a speech bubble. Other artists have put work up next to Banksy's, and it really makes the wall look ritzy.

We crossed back through The Mission and headed through an ally to Valencia. Up ahead I saw a camera crew and ran to catch up with them.

"Hey are you here to look at the murals?" I asked the guy with the camera. He smiled, "Yeah, I'm actually in the process of filming a documentary about it!" He was thrilled that I was interested. He introduced me to his colleague and then to his dog, gave me his business card and walked on.

We walked along Valencia and went into several shops, including 826 Valencia, the tutoring center pretending to be a shop of piratey goods, and I talked to the girl at the counter for a while.

We walked along the street and looked through Paxton Gates (a bizarre store of taxidermy and botanical oddities), book stores, art galleries, shoe stores, and pretty much 'everything' stores.

It was an exciting five hours. I found myself talking to a lot of different people. I'm excited to explore more on my own now that I have a better idea of the layout, but I think it was a good first experience.

No Parking = Bad Reporting

On Friday, I walked through the streets of Haight district. A lovely, overcast day with little foot traffic off on the side streets, giving me plenty of opportunity to really delve into the neighborhood and really explore the area (because I'm actually ridiculously unfamiliar with it).

So I'm walking along and I see this really cool building on the corner of Waller and Belvedere streets with lots of murals on the walls. Lots of the windows had holes in them like they'd been shattered by fly balls from kids playing across the street (or perhaps inside?). There's a city car share parking lot outside of whatever boarded up and seemingly uninhabitable building it is.

I continued to walk around and noticed lots of food equipment through the grated windows. Trays and other cooking implements sat inside for the little distance I could see.

And then I stumbled upon a door that answered many of my questions while ushering in many more.

Cue in Saturday. I'm driving through to see more of the district, find out my boundaries and the like. I want to find parking so I can walk, but I'm unsuccessful for the moment and in my search I stumble upon the Haight Ashbury Food Program.

With about 50 people outside getting food.

Sounds like a story, right? That's what I thought. Plenty of people to talk to, lots of opportunity to see what's up in this supposedly shut down building.

There's no parking. I drive around for over half and hour and still can't find any. None. Absolutely none.

I'll be going back next Saturday for sure to try and actually get a story because, hey, I'm not that easily defeated.

Oh, and I'll definitely be taking the MUNI.

Talking to strangers in the Haight

What a terrifying and intimidating thing to do. Seriously.

I started with just exploring my neighborhood, walking around the streets and just looking around. I smiled at people walking by, trying to be friendly, mainly to no avail. Hardly anyone even looked at me.

I kept it up anyway.

I turned the corner to walk back down the next street and spotted a man about to get into his car. I watched him while I walked and when he turned to me I smiled. He grinned back and said, "You have a really pretty smile."

I smiled wider and walked over to talk to him. He asked for a hug, which I gave to him, and when we separated he smiled again.

I asked his name and he ignored the question. "You're a really good person, very nice and loving," he said in a very thick accent, which I soon learned was French.

And then he said the most superb line I've ever heard from a stranger: "Would you like to smoke some pot?"

He was just so friendly and happy that, needless to say, it encouraged me to get out there and meet some people.

Not that every person I meet wants to talk to me and then offer me marijuana, but at least it's possible to find these people somewhere.

Welcome to the Haight. :)

This is meant for us!