photos courtesy of Gene Hsu

Instead of doing dishes, vacuuming, or exercising, my weekend was spent among many merrimen at the Golden Gate Renaissance Festival. The first thing that came to my mind was little girls dressed up as princesses and boys running around with plastic swords – these were my memories when I went to a few of these faires during my childhood. Pleasantly surprised, I found lots of great eye candy and tasty food for us adults. My favorite events: archery practice and watching the Out of Kontrol performances.

I was lucky enough to have a behind-the-scenes view of the festival, thanks to a close friend of mine who works at them. Whether accidentally or not, my boyfriend and I have now been officially introduced into this interesting subculture, having already been invited to upcoming festivals and getting tips of wardrobe. During this “red carpet” view, I observed something very intriguing: a renaissance fair is, in essence, a naughty playground for adults. No, you will not see anyone running around nude, but you will see corsets, leather, chains, and other fetish-esque items. One peak behind the booths and you will find groups full of pervy people in-costume, having a grand ole time.

Maybe it is something about San Francisco, or the idea being dressed up as a wench with a tight corset, but this is some serious fun.

1. That Mark Twain said: “The coldest winter I spent was a summer in San Francisco.” While true in its meaning, he never wrote it about San Francisco, unless, of course, you’re thinking about Paris.

2. That there are 7 hills in SF. There’s far more.

3. That there are no straight men in SF. 500 posts in “men seeking women” in craigslist, for today (8/29). Seems like quite a lot to me.

4. Various Chinatown myths:
more on my myth-debunking…
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While standing at the Geary stop for the 24, waiting to head to my yoga job, I hear a woman telling another, older woman about the hit-and-run that happened earlier. I figured it was just a one-person thing and they caught the crazy drunk who did it, but that was not the case – up to 14 people have been hurt, with seven in critical condition. Still stunned that this kind of thing could ever happen, I am glad the man was arrested without much incident.

So many questions are still left unanswered, but the most pressing is simply: Why did he do this?

Dear Sir:

I have been following the story about your 5-month-old baby being abducted from your car while you stopped at 18th and Mission for some herbal refreshment cigarettes. While I obviously hope she turns up safe, this question begs to be asked: What the hell is wrong with you?

It is not normal for people to leave babies in unlocked cars in the Mission while they stop to pick up a dime bag a pack of cigarettes. Of course I don’t think it’s okay for anybody to snatch a random child out of someone else’s car, but come on. Weed run Cigarettes after an unsuccessful crack mission? Doors unlocked? I am sad to say that I’m rather suspicious about the whole scenario.

Sincerely,
JH

Edit: To be fair to the father (ahem) he had been in the Mission looking for crack/cocaine, according to this Chronicle article, not weed. And his claim is that the girl was lifted from the car as he went into the smoke shop to get cigarettes not while he was looking for weed or crack.

Theard has a criminal record for pimping and pandering and admitted to police that he had been at 24th and Mission streets earlier Sunday evening looking for crack cocaine, but had been unsuccessful in finding it. “That has nothing to do with why my daughter is missing,” he said.

Apologies for the confusion. But my open letter still stands. Fishy story.

Image from CBS5.com

I recently came upon this population density chart, including this pictured map, which is courtesy of the US Census Bureau (which, in itself, is a great site for finding out all you ever wanted to know about your community).

Darker areas in this map indicate higher density areas. The Tenderloin area of Post/Leavenworth/Ellis/Van Ness ranks the highest, at 99,085. The least populated neighborhood of SF is the Outer Sunset at 25,015. My new neighborhood, Hayes Valley, ranks #18 in the list at 49,141.

How does your neighborhood rank? Are you surprised, or are the numbers pretty much what you expected?

Killing time before a client meeting today, I wandered over to Levi Plaza, and into the Levi’s Building, drawn in by the large display cubes in the lobby. Four large cubits – two depicting the history of the clothing company in product and adverts, and one touting their philanthropic programs. The third cubit displays letters written to the company over the years – compliments on the quality of the products, statements that the red tab jeans were ‘standard gear’ for many a mounted policeman, and thanks for gratis merchandise sent to celebrities (the early days of swag).

The letters sucked me in and I circled around, reading about how the sturdiness of one logger’s Levi’s had played a role in saving his leg from amputation following a logging accident, to how the classic red tabs were the standard uniform for the teen Ridin’ & Ropin’ team.
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I was hoping that my virgin post would be something positive and uplifting about this wonderful metropolis. Sadly, that’s not going to be the case.

What is it with Muni on Mondays?? This morning I spent 40 minutes–that’s right, 40 minutes waiting for the #15 bus to arrive. For a line that’s supposed to show up every 10 minutes, there was only one between 8:20am – 9am. It’s plenty difficult going to work after the weekend, but couple that with transportation issues and your day is already off to a terrible start. To the folks running the buses, this is about managing your customers’ expectations. Showing up late is not the issue here. Showing up on time is not even what this customer is requesting. Until you hire some consultants in the field of process improvements, I would just like consistency. Be consistently late or consistently on time so I know how long to wait before hailing a cab or jumping on another bus. And because everything is relative, I would love nothing more right now than to hear a Muni story worse than mine.

Speakeasy in San Francisco
Originally uploaded by jacktrade.

One of the things that used to annoy me about living in San Francisco is the 2am last call. I grew up in Atlanta, where the last call is 4am and there are a few bars that have 24 hour licenses. I adore New Orleans and Las Vegas, because I can get a drink any time of the day. About a year back, there was a movement to make the last call 4am in the City. Well, I don’t care at all anymore because I seem to have gotten plugged into the world of underground venues here in town. I can get a drink any time of day that I want.

The picture is me at LEGION, an underground venue here in San Francisco. The girl next to me was a tipsy patron named Serena. I am not at liberty to tell you exactly where Legion is, but I can tell you that it probably is not that hard to find out. They have a very large crowd for how big the place is. It doesn’t really start hoppin’ until the bars close, and the underground nature of it means that they also serve absinthe. My first experiences with this stuff resulted in awful headaches, but I have since become quite familiar with the Green Fairy because of Legion and another underground venue here. I highly recommend this place if you’re looking to get your drink on after hours — it’s discreet yet accessible.

Want to find a speakeasy? Just ask around. I’m sure you’ll hit paydirt within a single evening if you are out at the clubs — there is usually a crowd heading there. If you have a suggestion for an underground venue for me to review, just drop the name here in comments — I am really good at finding places if I just know the name.

Seriously. The cupcakes I had at Citizen Cupcake sucked. They were dry, small, unsexy little dismally frosted unerotically unartfully baked carb buckets sentenced to dwell in their glass pastry killing jars on the top floor of Virgin Megastore. Was downtown with my lover the other day looking for cupcakes and being just generally sad about Citizen’s offerings, but try as we could we found no other source for delicious little cakes and our frosting-filthy little minds. So, please foodies — don’t give me that “they bring out the little kid in you” bullshit. Because when done right, a cupcake makes you feel like you’ve never been kissed deep before in your whole life, or fucked in that way that shows you a brand new sweet spot just *there* and makes your head spin and resets your DNA — and that at first bite you want to do both of those things like *right away* and with the cupcake too. Amazing cupcakes make you want to eat them for dinner because you have no impulse control in their presence. Last weekend I went to a party catered by Kara’s Cupcakes and almost passed out from the pleasure of one bite, but bliss on this scale is apparently not available on demand. We have the finest food culture and the most sophisticated sex culture in the world here in San Francisco. What are we if we only have Citizen/Virgin Anaphrodisiac cupcakes and Love at First Bite in — koff, koff — Berkeley!? We only have one cupcake source in this town, people. It’s a *problem*. I can only look at local blog Cupcake Bakeshop so much before I expire in a puff of sprinkles and crack like some forgotten frosting.

It’s official — I’m calling the Cupcake Terror Alert for San Francisco BUTTERCREAM: HIGH. We need a chart.

Image: good drinks, dry hump cupcakes at Citizen Cupcake.

cheap school supplies

Originally uploaded by Liz Henry.

We braved the squalor, for the 25-cent packs of colored pencils and fine tip markers. Big Lots is good that way.

The school supplies were clearing out as Halloween decorations moved in. At the other end of this huge strip mall parking lot, at Woodside and Broadway next to 101, there’s always a bouncy house and pumpkin patch sort of deal, up for a whole month.