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Archive for the ‘San Francisco’ Category

A fanciful proposition?

After all, there are no breathtaking bridges (unless you count the Foord Road railway viaduct), no crippling hills (no, not even the Old High Street), no $40 million properties (how much IS the Grand worth?) and no former high security prisons once claimed for Indian land sitting off the shore in Kent’s garden resort.

But, having spent a lot of time in San Francisco over the past twenty years, and written extensively about it in the past five years, I believe there are enough similarities to entitle me to suggest that it has more in common with my childhood playground, and now home, of Folkestone than one might at first think. The only differences are ones of scale and international repute.

Before I plunge into this pool of fantasy, a brief disclaimer.

The only photographs included in this piece are those of Folkestone – for a variety of reasons: 1) Many people will already be familiar with some of the sights I refer to in San Francisco; 2) If they don’t, there are probably millions of images and billions of words on the internet to fill them in, and 3) I have posted hundreds of images elsewhere on this blog and I’d be delighted if you were inspired to go hunting for them!

Back to the proposition.

Firstly, they are both marine ports with world famous stretches of water/land on their doorstep (the Golden Gate and the White Cliffs of Dover) as well as glorious bay/sea views in all directions and weathers.

The boats in Folkestone’s pretty harbour hardly match up to the million dollar vessels you will find docked in Sausalito or Tiburon across San Francisco Bay. But the scene has a timeless charm that is endlessly captivating, whether at high or low tide.

Both places teeter on the edge of their nation. Folkestone, with its proximity to mainland Europe, cemented by the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994, has long vied with neighbouring Dover for the title of “Gateway to England” (personally, I think it’s a draw), while San Francisco is on the seismically challenged tip of a vast continent.

And because of that position, they have both served as major embarcation points for their nation’s military in time of war. In the 1914-18 conflict, it is estimated that as many as eight million soldiers marched down Folkestone’s Road of Remembrance to the Harbour Station en route to the fields of Flanders and France, while in the Second World War, more than a million and a half soldiers left for the Pacific conflict from San Francisco and its neighbour on the other side of the Bay Bridge, Oakland.

“The City” (as (we) San Franciscans call it) is consistently placed high (invariably first) on culinary surveys. The Foodie Capital of the U.S.A is no idle boast. Folkestone may not have attained that elevated status (for a start it’s not in the U.S.A. but you know what I mean), but a number of fine cafes and restaurants have sprouted in the town in recent years, a visible and tasty manifestation of the regeneration, courtesy in no small part to the beneficence of Sir Roger de Haan.

Rocksalt, the seafood restaurant perched alongside the small railway bridge that separates the inner from outer harbour, has recently been named the thirtieth best in the U.K and Googies has been adjudged Restaurant of the Year in the 2016 Taste of Kent Awards.

There are a number of other quality restaurants (Copper and Spices, Blooms @1/4 and Follies are personal favourites), both in the town and dotted along the recently reopened Harbour Arm, capped by the lovely Champagne Bar at the foot of the lighthouse.

And one can’t forget, this being a seaside resort, that there are many establishments serving up fish and chips (not forgetting the mushy peas, white bread and butter and mug of tea).

Coffee culture is strong too – many shops provide coffee and cake in addition to their primary products – and there is a distinct hipster vibe about Folkestone that mirrors – on a smaller scale of course – the atmosphere in neighbourhoods like the Mission, Cole Valley and Potrero Hill on the “left coast” of America.

Any self-respecting coastal resort would not be complete without its harbourside seafood stalls selling freshly caught crab and lobster as well as cockles, whelks and prawns. Bob’s, Chummy’s and La’s are all well established and popular purveyors of the denizens of the sea. A Fisherman’s Wharf in miniature you might argue.

Home to Jack London and Dashiel Hammett, the Beat poets and the Summer of Love, inspiration for the WPA and Mission muralists, San Francisco has always had a reputation for being a town for artists, writers and musicians. After all, it provides a gorgeous natural canvas upon which to create. However, one of the consequences of astronomical rents in recent years has been to drive many artists out of the city.

In contrast, Folkestone’s star as an arts venue of international repute is rising. Every three years – the next is in 2017 – it becomes host to a prestigious arts festival (Triennial), where artists are permitted free rein about town to create public artworks (there are already twenty seven pieces on display by luminaries like Yoko Ono and Tracey Emin).

This is the most high profile manifestation of a burgeoning arts scene centred on the Creative Quarter where galleries and performance space adorn the once run down Old High Street and Tontine Street. Indeed, it is the arts that has been the fulcrum of the regeneration that has become the envy of other coastal resorts around the UK (which, admittedly, have not had the benefit of a sugar daddy like de Haan.

The City by the Bay is renowned for its year round cavalcade of neighbourhood and city wide festivals and fairs celebrating its cherished devotion to diversity, including Pride, the Haight Ashbury Street Fair, North Beach Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Folsom Street Fair.

In contrast, Folkestone’s admittedly more modest, but nonetheless impressive, calendar of annual events, notably Charivari, the Harbour Festival, Leas Village Fete, Armed Forces DaySkabour and the Folkestone Book Festival among many others.

I cannot resist including a pet (not literally) subject of mine – gulls.

Both places boast a feisty, ravenous population, hardly surprising given their coastal position, but these, reflecting their human compatriots in each town, are genuine “characters”. The giant seagull artwork, now serving on Folkestone’s Harbour Arm as an unconventional tourist information kiosk, has become an unofficial poster boy (or is that gull?) for the town. But generally, so far, I’ve found the local birdlife noisy but reasonably friendly, especially when I cross Radnor Park of a morning when they waddle up to greet me (but don’t let me get too close).

The same cannot be said for those that begin to circle San Francisco’s (base) ball park during the late innings of a Giants game in anticipation of feasting on leftover garlic fries. Fans remaining until the end of evening games have to have their wits about them.

There is one aspect of San Francisco life that I would not want to see replicated in Folkestone. San Francisco rents and the broader cost of living are the highest in the States, due largely to the influx of tech workers from Google, Facebook and Oracle to name but a few.

Now, the Alkham Valley doesn’t have quite the same cudos as Silicon Valley (pretty as it is – Alkham not Silicon), but there are other forces at play – improved accessibility to London through the high speed rail link, continued development and gentrification and relatively cheap house prices (for now) – that increase the risk of Folkestone becoming a town split between affluent “transplants” and residents who cannot afford to live in the place they were born and brought up in.

There is a more substantial analysis called for here, and I may attempt it in due course. Moreover, there are other issues I might have explored – dogs and drinking spring to mind (that’s not about the bowls left outside the Leas Cliff Hall for the delectation of our canine colleagues but rather two very distinct subjects).

But, for now, there is certainly one further similarity between the two places that I must mention – I left my heart in both, in Folkestone as a ten year old gleefully gambolling (not gambling) in the rotunda and in 1995 on a fateful West Coast tour of the U.S.A.

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A prominent San Francisco property website’s guide to the best sixteen neighborhoods in San Francisco does not feature it.

Only the “Rough Guide” of all of the most popular tourist guide books makes reference to it.

Even the “San Francisco Visitors Planning Guide”, the “Official Guide to the City by the Bay”, fails to regard it as worthy of mention.

Cole Valley, tucked beneath Twin Peaks, close to the south eastern corner of Golden Gate Park and virtually holding hands with the Haight, remains a well-kept secret to visitors and many city dwellers alike.

And that is my excuse for having neglected it too during a dozen visits spanning two decades, aside from one lunch at “Cafe Cole” following a t-shirt safari along Haight Street around three years ago. It never occurred to me to venture just a couple of blocks further south to the bustling but relaxed intersection with Carl Street because, after all, nobody ever advised me I should do so.

Until last month.

Now, Cole Valley residents might quite like to leave it that way, but I wonder how long it will be before it gains wider recognition and joins the first division of neighborhoods for which San Francisco is noted. I doubt that this modest paeon will have tourists flocking to join the line outside “Zazie” or hike up to the prehistoric feeling Tank Hill, but Cole Valley is beginning to get noticed – and not only by me.

Indeed, within a fortnight of my visit, the “Sacramento Bee” published an article asking whether it might be the “friendliest neighborhood in San Francisco?”

I rest my case.

Despatched by a combination of the 24 and 7 Muni buses from our Bernal Heights rental cottage on a mild, breezy May morning, my wife and I arrived at the corner of Haight and Cole and set off in pursuit of breakfast.

We were struck immediately by the frequency and availability of public transportation in the area. We were accustomed to riding the buses that served Haight Street, but there seemed to be vehicles crisscrossing the intersection of Carl and Cole almost continually.

Not only did the N Judah light rail rattle past every few minutes, carrying passengers from ballpark to ocean via downtown, but the more prosaic 6, 33, 37 and 43 Muni lines were equally regular sights on the street.

We had planned to eat at “Zazie”, a famed French restaurant that attracted brunch devotees from all over the Bay Area, but the line, or rather the ragged scrum congregating outside, made it clear that we might have to wait until Tuesday week to bag a table.

So we opted for our second choice of “Crepes on Cole” which boasted tables free inside – at least when we arrived. We ordered eggs sunny side up with sausage and bacon respectively, accompanied by the customary fried potatoes and the obligatory nod to healthy eating in the form of a slice of fruit. The dish was good, though the eggs might have been warmer. Like (hot) tea, this seems to be a not uncommon issue in the States. We Brits do like our tea to be hot! I regretted not having plumped for my habitual order of Eggs Benedict as it looked especially enticing as plate after plate wafted past. The locals clearly knew something we didn’t!

The “Rough Guide” remarks that there is “little to see or do here other than eat” and the preponderance of cafes and dining places is exceptional for the size of the neighborhood. But I, for one, don’t regard that as a bad thing. The only problem is one of choice. In the space of a couple of blocks, the discerning foodie can eat Italian, Mexican, French and Japanese. And each of the many cafes appeared to offer its own speciality lines (though, sadly, as I write this, the attractive “La Boulange” branch may be about to be closed by its parent company, Starbucks). And the “Ice Cream Bar Soda Fountain” and “Say Cheese” are two of the most celebrated shops of their kind in the Bay Area.

A relaxed and civilised atmosphere, combined with lovely and diverse architecture and the aforementioned public transport and dining options make this a tempting proposition for us to stay in in the future.

The streets were relatively flat too!

With one notable exception.

That just happened to be the highlight of our inaugural visit.

That was the sight that befell us at the top of the steps that snaked upwards from the end of Belgrave Street, beneath Sutro Forest or, to give it its mundane official title, the Mount Sutro Open Space Preserve (whose lush vegetation and wildlife we intend to explore on our next visit). As an honorary Bernalite, I had argued for the past two years that the views from the top of its hill of downtown, the bay, the bridges and the surrounding area trumped even those of Twin Peaks, where it seems it is the lot of all first time visitors, including ourselves twenty years ago, to be hauled.

I know that there are advocates for several other peaks, including Buena Vista Park which we had hiked only seven days before. But the panorama that emerged as we climbed those last few steps up to Tank Hill, so named for the late nineteenth century water tank stationed there, was a worthy rival to any. All that remains of that tank is a concrete base adorned with eucalyptus planted to divert the Japanese bombers after Peal Harbor. Among the stunning vistas visible from every vantage point, the best for me was the appearance of a hazy downtown lurking behind the equally dramatic Corona Heights.

Although the space atop the hill is small enough to fit into a corner of Bernal Heights Hill’s undulating expanse, we were surprised and thrilled to find a vacant bench that virtually teetered over the precipice. In fact, our only companions during our half hour meditation were a couple of youthful Dutch amateur photographers, hopping from one stunning spot to another, and the ubiquitous procession of canines, though they will have been disappointed that the lack of room did not lend itself to off leash frolicking. For one moment, I swore that I witnessed a cherry-headed conure, one of the famed “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”flit by noisily, but I suspect it was a consequence of the romantic reverie I had sunk into.

To the north, the view was dominated by St Ignatius Chatholic Church at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where many of the denizens of Cole Valley either studied or worked.

Cole Valley’s cosy but smart small town feel is reinforced by the presence of several family owned stores, some reflecting its proximity to Hippie Haight, such as the pharmacy focusing on alternative remedies and “The Sword and Rose” which specialises in oils, crystals and incense and gives tarot and astrology readings. “Cole Hardware” is one of the most popular and well stocked stores (it also boasts a fine backyard nursery) in the Bay Area.

We had arranged to call in on one of the friends we had made during our last visit, the manager of the “Land of the Sun” store on Haight Street and spend a fortune on her lovely “Summer of Love” merchandise. Reluctantly, therefore, we had to burst through the Cole Street bubble and re-emerge on its earthier, spikier neighbor’s patch.

The line for “Zazie” was, if anything, longer than it had been two hours previously. It occurred to me that we would probably have to find a place to live In Cole Valley if we ever wanted to have any chance of dining there before it closed in mid-afternoon!

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In a little over a month my wife and I will be returning to the place we regard as our second home (financial considerations dictate that it will never be our first) – San Francisco. In fact, this will be our twentieth anniversary since we first laid eyes on the imperious Golden Gate Bridge, sampled clam chowder in a sourdough bowl or cracked open a fortune cookie in a Chinatown restaurant.

After our initial trip in 1995 ( http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/you-were-so-right-louis/ ), it would be another three and a half years, and a further three years after that, before we settled into what became a routine of bi-annual visits. We would combine our stay in the city with a skiing trip to Tahoe and a few days elsewhere, such as Las Vegas, San Diego, Death Valley and Yosemite.

Invariably, after the eleven hour flight, we would stay the first night in a budget hotel, having dinner at Calzone’s on Columbus Avenue (but not without a visit to Tower Records first), followed by drinks at the Vesuvio Café nearby. Breakfast would be taken at the Eagle Café on Pier 39 the next morning, and I would buy my holiday reading at the Barnes and Noble bookstore (now long since closed) in Fisherman’s Wharf before driving over the Bay Bridge.

On returning to the city we would stay in a hotel, making the small step up (or was it down) from the Tenderloin to the Civic Center on our second trip before heading to the Holiday Inn at the Wharf for three of the next four vacations.

With each passing visit, we became less inclined to rush around ticking off the guidebook highlights, and began to venture off the beaten path and discover those places, within the city and wider Bay Area, where the only (other) tourists we might encounter were getting wind burn from the top of a tour bus.

It didn’t concern us that we hadn’t jumped a cable car for five years, stepped foot in Nordstrom or Macy’s or taken the rough ride across the bay to Alcatraz. Of course, we didn’t avoid all of the more celebrated spots, always finding time, however short the vacation, to eat at the Cliff House, shop on Haight Street, drink in North Beach and ramble round Golden Gate Park on a Sunday afternoon.

San Francisco quickly became the place where we wanted to live. Without the riches required to buy our way into residency, we would have to content ourselves with alternating between staying in the city (spring and autumn) and the UK (winter and summer) for three months at a time – and only then when we had both retired.

For now, it was a matter of a week here and a fortnight, and, more recently a month, there.

We wanted to “live like locals”, and staying in someone’s (second) home was a good starting point. There would be no maids knocking at the door in the morning anxious to clean the room, no loud, drunken conversations outside the room at 3am and no lift bells ringing or washer / driers humming at all hours.

So in 2010 we abandoned the lazy predictability of hotel living and rented an apartment in Hayes Valley, following that up a year later with similar accommodation in the Western Addition, a short stroll from Alamo Square. The migration west from downtown, however, took a sunny south easterly turn in 2012 when we chose Noe Valley for our base. It was during our second residence there that we discovered Bernal Heights ( http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/a-hike-up-bernal-heights-hill/ ).

Much as we had enjoyed living in the other neighborhoods, we immediately felt an affinity with the quirky, artsy, small town feel of Bernal and rented a cottage there last year. Our first impressions confirmed, we will be returning to that same cottage twice this year for a total of six weeks.

It might not have gone unnoticed that our original bi-annual visit strategy has now become annual – and, at least for this year, twice a year!

Over the past two decades, our time in the city has taken on a different, more relaxed tenor. It has become a familiar and habitual part of our lives, somewhere we have now spent more of our time than anywhere else, other than our permanent UK address.

Moreover, we try, as befitting aspiring locals, to engage  more with the city and its residents on a regular, deeper level. During those interminable months in which we are incarcerated nearly six thousand miles away. we maintain a daily interest in the life of the city, and indeed, I comment on it in a number of online forums.

In addition to my Facebook presence, through which I now enjoy a number of personal as well as virtual friendships (even bumming (pun intended) prime seats at AT & T Park to see “our” Giants), I started a blog on the last day of 2010 which focuses on the history, culture and characters of San Francisco.

And I plan to explore our experiences in more depth in my upcoming book Smiling on a Cloudy Day: An Englishman’s Love Affair with San Francisco, scheduled to be published towards the end of this year.

In our temporary home in the city we neither have to pretend to be what we are not, nor do what we or others feel we ought to do. We can watch the Bay Area news on KRON4 while catching up on household chores in the morning, stroll out to a neighborhood café for brunch, swing by the local wholefoods store and return to the apartment for a bottle of wine on the patio.

All dining options are also possible. We might have dinner in the apartment or we might try out one of the local restaurants. Or we might brave Muni on a trip downtown and eat in Chinatown or North Beach – or even Union Square. We are under no pressure to conform to a set tourist pattern.

What has happened is that our version of San Francisco has shifted, not only geographically but also psychologically, from the waterfront to the southern neighborhoods. In a sense, our journey has mirrored the historical expansion of the earlier city residents from Yerba Buena Cove to the hills.

But, of course, there is still room for those sights that first enthralled us as much as they have millions of others. They are still only a short drive, bus or taxi ride – or even walk – away. We still make a conscious effort to revisit those attractions we might have neglected on recent trips – for example we plan to explore Coit Tower and Grand View Park again after an absence of a few years – as well as sampling new locations altogether such as Glen Canyon, Dogpatch and Potrero Hill.

If that sounds as if living in San Francisco has become routine, less exciting, even a chore, that could not be further from the truth. We have become, in a modest way, San Franciscans, interested in its history, politics, culture and, undeniably, its sport (Go Giants!) – just as we do at home.

I invariably turn to legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen, for an authoritative, maybe definitive, view on such matters. Here he ruminates on what makes a San Franciscan:

I don’t think that place of origin or number of years on the scene have anything to do with it really. There are newcomers who become San Franciscans overnight – delighted with and interested in the city’s traditions and history. They can see the Ferry Building for what it represents (not for what it is), they are fascinated with the sagas of Sharons, Ralstons, Floods and Crockers, they savor the uniqueness of cable car and foghorn. By the same token, I know natives who will never be San Franciscans if they outlive Methusalah. To them a cable car is a traffic obstruction, the fog is something that keeps them from getting a tan, and Los Angeles is where they really know how to Get Things Done.

Increasingly, our hosts  marvel at our knowledge of, and adoration for, the city. I doubt, however, that the more strident members of online forums would agree with Caen’s loose, but characteristically generous, sentiments here, but I like to feel that we have moved beyond being “sophisticated tourists” who are “charmed and fascinated” by the city to warrant that title of “honorary San Franciscans”.

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I blame it, of course, on Scott McKenzie.

And Alan Whicker.

Now I trust that many readers, notably those of a certain age and transatlantic disposition, will recall that Scott McKenzie was the singer who advised the world in 1967 that, if they were going to San Francisco, they should “be sure to wear some flowers in their hair”. That song alone had a searing impact on an impressionable fourteen year old boy living five and a half thousand miles away.

But Alan Whicker?

In appearance, with his English grammar school upbringing, clipped accent, Saville Row suit, slicked back hair, thick-set glasses and brisk moustache, he was the antithesis of the young people flocking to the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood at the time.

Whicker was an English journalist and broadcaster who forged a career spanning nearly sixty years until his death in 2013. His finest work was Whicker’s World which he presented for thirty years, travelling the world and commenting in an inimitable ironic fashion on society, and interviewing many prominent figures of the time, including the Sultan of Brunei, reputedly the richest man in the world at the time, the Haitian dictator, “Papa Doc” Duvalier and numerous high profile actors and aristocrats.

His stiff upper-lip style made him the affectionate butt of many comedians, none more memorably than the Monty Python team who delivered a sketch entitled Whicker’s Island, in which a succession of Whickers would walk on and off the screen uttering in his customary hushed tones, the catchphrase “here on Whicker’s Island”.

On 9th September 1967, the day that Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Byrds headlined at the Family Dog and Fillmore Auditorium, two of the emerging and competing concert venues in San Francisco,  Whicker broadcast a programme on the BBC entitled Love Generation. The episode was groundbreaking not least for the fact that it showed scenes of drug taking, despite the corporation’s “horror” of the practice, for the first time on British television, notably in 710 Ashbury, the Grateful Dead house (Phil Lesh and Bob Weir figured prominently). In the light of the recent Mick Jagger drug bust, it was put out very late at night. Among the individuals invited to expound their hippie ideals, emerging music promoter, Chet Helms, outlined his plans for taking music and light show “happenings” to London.

It was an incisive, literate and surprisingly sympathetic piece in which Whicker spoke over footage of the large influx of youth who had hitchhiked from every state to “Hashbury”:

In the States, pot is going middle class and spreading like prohibition liquor as more and more citizens   get zonked out of their minds. The drug culture enters the blood stream of American life. Like it or not, we’re living in the stoned age.

Later he was to lament that the:

Summer of Love was a short outburst of happiness that lasted only a few months. When I returned a year later the flowers and the innocence had died.

I was, like the thousands of young people that sought escape from the drabness of middle America, inspired by the message of “tune in, turn on, drop out”, though I hadn’t the means of joining the tribes.

The broadcast also gave my first experience of the Grateful Dead in performance with a beardless Jerry Garcia taking the lead on the Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion). A song title was never more apt.

News bulletins featured scenes of Gray Line tour buses crawling down Haight Street with bemused middle aged, provincial passengers staring at the carnival on the street.

And then there was Scott McKenzie.

Another character with a splendid upper lip growth, it was his song, full title San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair), which topped the charts in the UK but not (quite) the US, that so enthralled that fourteen year old boy in what was, despite the emergence of “swinging London”, still a monochrome etched country.

I took to decorating my Beatle mop with an occasional fresh daisy or buttercup. I commandeered my mother’s chocolate and purple paisley print blouse to wear to the home games of my local football team, guaranteeing that I would be bullied as mercilessly on a Saturday afternoon on the terraces as I was already being five days a week at school.

But I didn’t care.

I was a hippie.

My home grown musical diet of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks and a dozen other pop groups began to be supplemented by the weird, thrilling sounds of San Francisco. But it would still be another three years before I could get my hands on the music of the  Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service (thank you Keith Mason wherever you are), and before I could justifiably claim to be aboard the bus – the magic, not tourist, version.

During those same three years, I became increasingly fascinated by American culture and society. My political awakening was borne more out of opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the blacks in the Deep South, and students at Berkeley and Kent State than with the Rhodesian question or devaluation of the pound in Britain. I chose American history as one of my “A levels” at school and later studied American literature at university.

Underpinning all this was the music – my adoration for the San Franciscan bands was extended to embrace the country and folk rock idioms of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Eagles and, of course, Dylan. I devoured every American film I could, especially those with a counter cultural bias like Easy Rider, Two-Lane Blacktop and Alice’s Restaurant, and read George Jackson, Angela Carter and Tom Wolfe.

Those enthusiasms have endured to this day, though it would take me another quarter of a century before I first gazed adoringly on the Golden Gate Bridge or strolled down the street that had been the epicentre of my cultural life for so long.

But that is another story.

To finish, another of those siren songs that sucked me into a San Francisco state of mind.

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This is the third in a series of articles about the writing of my new book: Smiling on a Cloudy Day: An Englishman’s Love Affair with San Francisco. The previous posts were:

The dates of those posts might already indicate that progress has not been as swift as I would have liked. There are a variety of reasons for this, not least my father’s fluctuating health over the past eighteen months and a recent, but now concluded, return to paid employment.

It is a similar story with the blogging – only sixteen posts, admittedly some of them quite long, since returning from San Francisco in April last year, compared to almost double that number in the preceding nine months.

But that is now in the past, and I am determined to publish the book this year. Indeed, I have been working on a draft for many months.

One illustration of progress is that dozens of disparate sheets of paper scattered over various surfaces have now been incorporated into a smart folder in which that working draft is now housed (see below). True to type, inspiration has been sought in the attachment of Grateful Dead and Giants logos.

Part travel diary, part guide book, part history and part analysis of modern city life from the perspective of a regular foreign visitor, Smiling on a Cloudy Day follows the adventures of my wife and I during a month in early summer (if June in San Francisco can ever be considered summer). You will be able to follow us as we explore many of the most popular, and some less well-known, sights, chuckle and groan in equal measure at the antics of fellow passengers on public transportation, ramble round our adopted neighbourhood of Bernal Heights, and endure extreme temperatures at AT & T Park while still believing that the Giants will avert the run of dismal defeats that have coincided with our attendance.

Unsurprisingly, food and drink will feature strongly, and there will be plenty of music too at festivals and concert halls.

I intend to press on with the draft over the next four months before our next pilgrimage to the City in May. Those two weeks will feel as much a research trip as a vacation as I attempt to clarify facts and solidify themes.

Irrespective of whether I publish digitally or in print (though I remain inclined towards the former method), I plan to do so in advance of my second trip, this time for a full month in September/October.

I will continue to supply periodic updates and brief extracts on my blog in an effort to whet readers’ appetites as the book develops.

But if you would now excuse me, I need to get on with writing it.

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Regular readers of this blog will know of my admiration for Herb Caen, the celebrated San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Indeed, it is often through the prism of his vision that I see the city myself, and I find myself turning to him invariably for an apposite remark in a variety of circumstances. It is why too I chose him as one of the first subjects in my “Great San Franciscan Characters” series, the revised version of which can be found at:

That post explored his life and career and contained a sprinkling of some of his most famous quotes. I have selected fifty for this article from a variety of publications, though I could have included ten times as many. Some illustrate his customary wit, but others are more wistful and contemplative. Above all, they illustrate his literary skill and “loove”, as he put it, for the city.

No photos, just words.

1. I’ve been living here man and boy, since nine months before I was born, having been conceived during the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition on what became the Marina.  (No, my parents were not in a sideshow, they merely spent the summer here, complaining about the cold).

2. A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 A.M. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.

3. Isn’t it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?

4. San Francisco has a bond of self-satisfaction bordering on smugness.

5. A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.

6.One of my pet ambitions is to run screaming through the lobby of the Fairmont, bowling old ladies off their red plush perches and tweaking the noses of aged elevator boys.

7. No mystery about the 60,288 San Franciscans missing in the Census. They’re all down in the Union Square Garage waiting for their cars.

8. San Francisco, city of the world, worlds within a city, forty-nine square miles of ups and downs, ins and outs, and going around in circles, most of them dizzy. A small “d” democrat city run by big-buck conservatives, a place where the winds of freedom will blow your mind and your hat off, where eccentricity is the norm and sentimentality the ultimate cynicism. Cable cars and conventions, boosterism living uncomfortable with sophistication, a built-in smugness announcing simply that we are simply the best.

9. The number of foggy days over the city is never reported reportedly. But take it from me – there’s enough to satisfy everyone, and dissatisfy somebody.

10. I rose in my mythical helicopter and looked down on the hippies and the heppies, the brokers and the broken, the champs and the charlatans, the Mime Troupe performing on the Marina Square, the fog chasing the boats off the Bay, the old geezers lounging in the sun at Powell and Market, the kids playing in the alleys of the Mission, and I knew I was still in love with the whole beautiful mess. And I knew I was not alone.

11. Fresh cracked crab with Boudin’s “dark bake” sourdough and a well-chilled bottle of Californian Chardonnay is still the quintessential S.F. meal.

12. one has to wonder how the San Franciscans of today would deal with a catastrophe of similar proportions (Earthquake and Fire of 1906). If the evidence is to be believed, our forerunners faced that disaster with a smile and a Jeanette MacDonald song, and, whistling while they worked, built a city even more glittering and glamorous than its doomed predecessor. Out of the ashes rose the cliche about the phoenix bird that would haunt cub reporters furthermore. “Like the phoenix bird, the Milpitas Mustangs rose out of the ashes of defeat to” – to what? To make the boozy old copy reader spit on the floor in disgust as he applied his big blue pencil.

13. Gray Line buses hauling gray-faced tourists through the gray city on a gray day, a city crew waking the Broadway Tunnel as the rain splashes outside, Chinese selling Japanese trinkets to South Americans carrying German cameras…..gee, what a crazy town.

14. The Sounds of the city. Once they were a heady mix of sidewheeler splash, seagull scream, Ferry building siren, sea lion bark, click-clang of birdcage signal and “one more for the road”. Today, the auto horns blow impatiently, amid hippie bagpipe, flutes, bongo drums, “Any spare change?”, a blind man’s accordion wheezing out “Wabash Cannonball” and – lest we forget – “Have a good day, have a nice day” and smile, damn ya, smile.

15. The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.

16. On the top-most corners of Nob Hill, I see tourists go crazy. Standing in the intersection, they whirl like dervishes as they shoot photos in four directions: hills, valleys, distant peaks, the cables, the bay, Alcatraz and Angel, sailboats and freighters, Chinatown’s pagoda’d roofs, a snatch of the Bay Bridge. From their antics, you can tell they’ve never seen anything like this before and they are entranced. The jaded San Franciscan looks twice and becomes entranced all over again.

17. The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.

18. nobody runs a headstrong city like this for long. She is still untamed. A wild streak of rebellion simmers and stews just below the surface, refusing to conform to the orthodoxies of religion and society. That is why San Francisco is a mecca – that non-Christian term – for those who have been cast out from lesser temples.

19. San Francisco is a city for all seasons (sometimes four in one day) and various reasons. A city that thinks nothing of spending $60 million and rebuild a cable car system that was obsolete a century ago, and even less of letting drunks lie on the street as long as they aren’t in the way of the cables.

20. This is the 14th largest city in the country, has the fourth largest number of so-called homeless, and the gauntlet of paper-cupped pitifuls gets longer and longer. I’m still good for a quarter but that pittance doesn’t go as far as it used to!

21. On foggy nights, where memories grow suddenly sharp in the gloom, you know the old city is still around you, just below the surface – an Atlantis on the Pacific. Maybe it’s the foghorns calling mournfully to each other, the only voices still around that evoke the swish of paddlewheels on ghostly ferries. Or, barely visible in the mist, a cable car disappearing over a hill on its plunge into yesterday. Halos on streetlamps over empty sidewalks that knew the tread of feet long gone….On a long January night in the quiet city (just before it stops being late and starts to get early), the ghosts begin dancing again, atop the creaking ferry slips, through the venal parking lots where lovely buildings once stood, across the steel bones of cable car lines that were buried without funerals. Bits and pieces remain, the leftover pieces of a jigsaw puzzle we could never quite fit together.

22. I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.

23. Waiting for the Muni. Spent some of the best years of my life waiting for the Muni at corner of Five and Mish’, where at is situated this pillar of veracity. It’s like Richard Armour’s catsup bottle – at first none will come and then a lot’ll…….While waiting for the Muni, must think about other things. Anything. “They’re doing the best they can,” is OK thought. Also true. One thing you mustn’t do, after, say, about 15 minutes, is step into street and look for buses that aren’t there. Watched bus never boils into view. When you look up street for buses and don’t see any, get very depressed. Wonder if a strike has been called and nobody mentioned it. You think about writing your District Supervisor, whoever he or she may be if at all. Kick mailbox, which is dumb.

24. It is hard to stay depressed in San Francisco, on a crisp November afternoon, with flowers and pretzels for sale on the street corners and the tourists going Instamatically mad at the bright wonder of it all. We are so lucky to have a proper downtown, where people can parade.

25. “What a great town!” The words come blurting out at dusk on the night of a full moon, erasing the doubts and returning the child-like shine to eyes grown cynical. The beauty is slowly vanishing, but enough remains, more than enough, as the lights come on and the bridges turn golden and a pinkish glow softens the hard lines of the marching buildings that could almost stamp out the spirit of a great city. Almost, but not quite.

26. San Francisco has a large gay population, and it keeps increasing, although exactly how gays multiply has not been explained. Nothing is ever explained in San Francisco.

27. The downtown streets of the naked city are peopled with rare and exotic birds, making their various jungle sounds: mating calls (“if you don’t like my sister how about my brother?”), cackles of insane mirth, pleas for help, attempts at music, poetry and sermons on stones. The scene is at once compelling and repellent – the smell of dirt and poverty, the flopsweat of desperation., If looks could kill, you in your neat suit, carrying your briefcase, hurrying along in your well-shined shoes, would have been dead a long time ago, bones left to bleach under the warm September sun blazing out of a washed denim sky.

28. San Francisco can be a perfectly maddening city. But when there’s a good bar across the street, almost any street, and a decent restaurant around almost any corner, we are not yet a lost civilization.

29. This past summer, the bee-busy Delancey Streeters somehow found time to take fifty kids a day, from “disadvantaged” neighborhoods, on tours to Alcatraz. One day, the guide pointed out a solitary confinement cell – “Just this tiny room, with a toilet and a bed” – at which an incredulous voice from the ghetto piped up to inquire, “You mean he had a whole room to himself?”

30. Nostalgia for a catastrophe may seem odd, but this is an odd city. We glory in our past while busily tearing down the evidence of it. Those who truly care about San Francisco know in their bones that there was something very special about the Founding Fathers, those grave, bearded, hang-the-expense types who built a world city overnight, saw most of it go up in smoke, and started all over again without, seemingly, a whimper.

31. A cable car may be the last surviving piece of public transportation that is still fun to ride. You see people actually smiling aboard them. You see people standing in LINE with a smile, just to ride them. A bus is a chore, a streetcar is infinitely better and a cable car is unarguably in a class by itself, being unique……I think most of us are willing to take their chances on the outside step of a cable, simply because it IS outside. The wind, the air, the view of San Francisco passing slowly by, to be savored – no other public transport provides these lifts to the sagging urban soil.

32. I don’t care what people call us as long as they call us, besides which “Frisco” is a salty nickname, redolent of the days when we had a bustling waterfront.

33. “I’d like to lunch at some place that’s typically old San Francisco,” said the Baron Philippe de Rothschild to his good friend, art dealer Bill Pearson – so Bill took him to Tadich’s, which, being typically old San Francisco, doesn’t take reservations. After they’d waited thirty minutes in the crowded little bar area, the baron sighed, “I dislike doing things like this, but perhaps it would help if you told them who I am,” “I dislike telling you this,” said Bill, grinning, “but I did – fifteen minutes ago!”

34. I ride Muni to get closer to The People, who I wish would get closer to deodorants.

35. I don’t think that place of origin or number of years on the scene have anything to do with it, really. There are newcomers who become San Franciscans overnight – delighted with and interest in the city’s traditions and history. They can see the Ferry Building for what it represents (not for what it is), they are fascinated with the sagas of Sharons, Ralstons, Floods and Crockers, they savor the uniqueness of cable car and foghorn. By the same token, I know natives who will never be San Franciscans if they outlive Methuselah. To them a cable car is a traffic obstruction, the fog is something that keeps them from getting a tan, and Los Angeles is where they really know how to Get Things Done.

36. The Tenderloin – so what’s to like? Rundown blocks, rundown people, rundown apartment houses between the big and sterile Federal Building on one side (is that what we really want?) and the Hilton Schmilton on the other. What’s to like is the action, the struggle to survive on one’s own terms, the togetherness of losers and loners…..Hands in raincoat pocket, head down, I walk among the poor, the sad and the ugly, one of them. It would be sentimental and nice to say that they all have hearts of gold, but I wouldn’t count on it.

37. Cockroaches and socialities are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.

38. The Giants were the perfect baseball team for San Francisco. They couldn’t win for losing in New York, and were going broke. Now they are going broke here. It figures. A lot of old-timers got nervous when they won a pennant in 1962, but they managed to lose the Series and everybody relaxed again. Who could live with a winner?

39. Spring training! One of the nicest two-word phrases in the language, along with “check enclosed”, “open bar”, and “class dismissed.”

40. Unaccountable millions of words have been written and spoken about San Francisco since the Guyana horrors and the City Hall slayings. In newspapers around the world, on radio and TV stations, this city has been loved and hated, praised and damned, discussed and dissected. Some of the words, and I include myself as a perpetrator, have been overblown, oversentimental, maudlin. There has been a tremendous outpouring of sympathetic concern, and a surprising (to me) amount of bitterness. There has not been this much concentrated “analysis” of San Francisco since the hippie era of the 1960s, and what emerges is the jumbled outline of the city that is all things to all people. For every person who finds this “the most civilized place in the country” there seems to be one who regards it as a cesspool and sinkhole, awaiting only the wrath of God.

41. The Hippies made their deepest penetration of the current campaign on Monday night…..By the hundreds, they poured into the heart of Straightville – by foot, via bus, on hogs, in psychedelically painted VWs, in buses so ancient they might have seen service in the First Battle of the Marne. Bells tinkled, beads jangled, beards bristled, plumes waved in the salubrious evening overcast, a brave sight, and no fuzz to tighten up the scene.

42. Wilkes Bashford revealed the Willie Brown formula for dating: “As he gets older, his dates get younger. That’s because the total of Willie’s age and the age of his date must never exceed 100.”

43. Cartoonist Charles “Peanuts” Schulz, resplendent in an out-of-date Nehru jacket, dined in the Sea Cliff home of cartoonist Marty “Bobby Sox” Links. “You should wear a medallion with that” said Marty, ” and I’ve got the perfect one – I bought it in the Haight-Ashbury.” She ran upstairs and reappeared with a heavy chain from which dangled a medallion reading “LOVE” in beautiful entwined letters. After fingering it for a few seconds, Schulz handed it back with a Charlie Brown smile. “It’s just a little too much for me,” he said. “Do you have one that says ‘LIKE’?”

44. Broadway today is just another wide street with too much traffic. North Beach is just around the corner, as charming and irresistible as ever.

45. Here’s Tinytown USA with big league baseball and football, major league opera and ballet and symphony, big theater, little theater, a thousand clowns in a thousand bars, world-class hotels, a financial district with 500 banks…..and all…..those……restaurants. And it all started because a gold miner needed a place to eat and a home-sick Frenchman needed a place to cook.

46. Can a town that has sour-dough bread and honey butter muffins be all bad? Not on your life! The crab may be frozen but it’s fresh frozen, and the Swan Oyster Depot is more redolent of oysters than swans and everything is fresh there, especially the paisans. The cheap white wine smells like a wet collie, so hold your nose delicately ‘twixt thumb and forefinger and drink, for tomorrow, keed, we die. I keep telling you, it’s a great town. You’ve got to be crazy to think so and crazier not to. Stay off the cable cars and out of the health food stores and you’ll outlive us all.

47. It is no longer the beloved city that poets rhapsodized over, visitors fell in love with and natives worshipped. Gone are the spires and minarets of Baghdad-by-the-Bay. The fight now is to save what is left, and fortunately, there is still a lot worth fighting for. If ever a city had an embarrassment of riches, it is this one, even after the squandering.

48. There is a new Mr. San Francisco, plural. Mover over Cyril Magnin – and make room for Bill Walsh and the 49ers, the new rulers of the universe of football and assorted galaxies…..I don’t really know what a Super Bowl can do for a city, but San Francisco must be a different place right now. A little more joyous, a little more confident and perhaps happy to shed the title of Kook Capital of the World. Now, we have the muscles, we have the Title, we have the kind of brawling image that goes back to the real 49ers.

49. Life is a bad item, short but pointless. You stand at the bar and play liar’s dice with fate. It’s the San Francisco way. You might win, and even if you lose, the scenery’s great and the weather isn’t too bad.

And, of course:

50. One day if I go to heaven…….I’ll look around and say “It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco”.

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In 1995 we were finally persuaded to avert our enraptured gaze from Italy (we had already been to Milan and Sicily that year), to make our first belated trip to San Francisco and, indeed, the United States.

As our tour bus rattled over the Bay Bridge on a balmy early October afternoon, Louis, pronounced Lewis, our chain smoking guide from Barcelona with a penchant for stand up comedy, took to his feet, but not before instructing the driver to press play on the cassette recorder and release the crackling strains of Tony Bennett upon us.

(The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay,

  the glory that is Rome is of another day)

These words were, however, indistinct on this occasion as they coincided with Louis loudly clearing his throat before uttering the two words that we had become accustomed to hear him preface every announcement with:

“Okey cokey”.

(I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan

I’m going home to my city by the Bay)

This was the cue for another, more violent attack of phlegm.

(To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars

The morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care)

That was the last we heard of Tony, at least for now, because Louis, larynx lubricated, was gearing up for a speech. He had an important message to impart to us before we were disgorged at our downtown hotel.

“You’ve all heard this song, haven’t you?”.

He couldn’t resist another, much more genteel, croak while fifty three passengers smiled and nodded in his direction.

“Well, it’s true. You WILL leave your heart in San Francisco”.

Emboldened by such an emphatic statement, he continued:

“We’ve been together on this bus now for twelve days and we have seen some incredible sights – the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Las Vegas , the Hoover Dam and even Disneyland. But this city is the place that will capture your heart. I am telling you that when you leave in three days time, you will know exactly what Tony Bennett means”.

As his fans beamed in childlike anticipation, Louis made one final claim before reaching for his cigarettes:

“If you don’t, then Louis knows nothing”.

If the last twelve days had taught us anything, it was that this squat, swarthy man from Spain, who might have passed for either fifty or seventy years of age, knew a lot about everything. We were, therefore, inclined to trust him on this one.

With one final, hearty cough – and another “okey cokey” for good measurehe descended the steps of the coach, shook hands with the proprietor of the Best Western Canterbury Hotel and lit up while the driver helped us to locate our luggage.

(Your golden sun will shine for me).

And for me.

Louis was right.

Despite twelve days witnessing one jaw juddering attraction after another, which had also, bizarrely, included listening to the outcome of the O.J. Simpson trial on the pier at Santa Monica, San Francisco did not disappoint. Not everyone in our party was as thrilled by its charms, as complaints about the homelessness, dirt on the streets and crowded cable cars testified.

But I saw beyond this.

Of course, I was primed for love.

It had been one of the longest courtships from a distance in history.

We stayed three nights in the heart of the Tenderloin, which rendered the moans about aggressive panhandling and grime entirely believable, and crammed in just about every tourist hot spot we could:

  • Twin Peaks (for orientation);
  • Cliff House (for the washrooms inside and jewellery stalls outside, no time for brunch yet);
  • Golden Gate Bridge (for what we would learn later was the second best view – from Vista Point);
  • Pier 39 (for family presents and the sea lion show);
  • Fisherman’s Wharf (for the clam chowder and fleeces (only joking about the latter));
  • Ghirardelli Square (for the chocolate, what else);
  • Union Square (Lori’s Diner and the Gold Dust Lounge, though I’m told there were a few reputable stores there too);
  • North Beach (for the coffee and Italian ambiance);
  • Chinatown (for cheap gifts on Grant Avenue and unmentionable looking foodstuffs on Stockton Street), and
  • Alcatraz (or at least we would have if we had had the gumption to purchase tickets in advance).

We still contrived to fit in an afternoon on Haight Street to enable me to pay homage to Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead’s lead guitarist, who had died just eight weeks before. And, of course, we stood in line for hours at both the Powell and Hyde turnarounds to catch a ride on the cable cars, marvelled at the cars snaking down Lombard Street, had dinner in Chinatown, and on our last night at The Stinking Rose (I still feel sorry for the other passengers sitting within three rows of us on the flight home the next afternoon).

And the rest is, as any regular reader will know, history.

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Suggested team records for next season, O/U (well, before Free agency anyway)

So as I mentioned in the previous post, Steve Fezzik - @FezzikSports (2 time winner of the Superbowl of sports betting) took the plunge and posted what he believed to be the wins/losses for all the teams for next season, let's take a look at them. ( - Also on the Ross Tucker even money... Continue Reading →

A very very early look towards next years Superbowl (yes really.)

So this is ridiculously early. But i wanted to get something down, as much for me to record what i was thinking at this time of the off seasons as anything else. Free agency is pretty much wrapped up. There's a few big name RBs still looking for teams. Jamaal Charles and AP are floating... Continue Reading →

Free Agency Roundup – @TouchdownTips

It's been 4 days since the NFL equivalent of the transfer window opened, and wow, what a hectic few days it has been! It all began at the start of last week when "legal tampering" a weird (oxymoron americanism) window opened, allowing teams to talk to players contracted to other teams and let them know... Continue Reading →

Under the Hat – Fantasy 2016 Review. Wide Receivers @jayhatton49

So in the final part of this series of posts, the wide receiver. Much of this season was actually a disappointment for the position. Only 3 receivers scored 200 or more points which was the lowest since 2012 and only 4 players recorded 1000 yards and 10 TDs which was the lowest since 2011. The... Continue Reading →

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Abbott Labs agrees to pay $1.5B over Depakote

AP News
Posted: May 07, 2012 6:26 PM
Abbott Labs agrees to pay $1.5B over Depakote

Abbott Laboratories has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5 billion over allegations that it promoted the anti-seizure drug Depakote for uses that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The case includes a criminal fine and forfeiture of $700 million and civil settlements with the federal government and states totaling $800 million. Deputy Attorney General James Cole said Monday the settlement reflects the determination by government "to hold accountable those who commit fraud."

At a news conference at the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Timothy Heaphy said that the top levels of Abbott carried out a strategy of systematically marketing the drug for purposes other than what federal regulators had allowed.

The illegal conduct was not the product of "some rogue sales representatives," said Heaphy, the U.S. attorney for the western district of Virginia. He said the company engaged in the strategy from 1998 to at least 2006.

Separately, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced a $100 million settlement with Abbott of consumer claims in 45 states and the District of Columbia. The consumer claims over Abbott's promotion of Depakote for unapproved uses were brought under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act.

Depakote is an anti-seizure and mood-stabilizing drug prescribed for bipolar disorder.

However, the company admitted that it marketed the drug for unapproved uses, including treatment of schizophrenia, agitated dementia and autism.

The company admitted that it trained a specialized sales force to promote Depakote in treating dementia because the drug was not subject to federal regulations designed to prevent the use of unnecessary medications in nursing homes.

The company also marketed Depakote to treat schizophrenia. Clinical trials failed to demonstrate that adding Depakote was any more effective than antipsychotic drugs in treating schizophrenia, according to court papers in the case.

Under the care of a physician, patients are sometimes prescribed drugs for purposes not approved by the FDA. However, pharmaceutical companies cannot market drugs for unapproved purposes.

Illinois-based Abbott said the company was pleased to resolve the matter. It said that it takes its responsibility to patients and health care providers seriously. Under the settlement, the company has agreed to enter a five-year probationary period designed to ensure that there is no repeat of the company's misconduct.

Reuben Guttman, an attorney whose whistleblower clients brought Abbott's activities to the attention of government investigators, said that the case shows how a company elevated aggressive sales and marketing of Depakote over medical decision-making. Abbott, said Guttman, "violated basic norms of health care and ethics."


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AP: Trump Is Seriously Talking About Firing Sessions

Matt Vespa
Posted: Jul 25, 2017 10:00 AM
AP: Trump Is Seriously Talking About Firing Sessions

President Trump took to Twitter to slam Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his lackluster performance on Hillary Clinton’s alleged crimes. It comes after he described his top legal enforcer as “beleaguered” yesterday. Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, a move that was not well received by the president. Trump feels that this recusal led to special counsel Robert Mueller being appointed to quarterback the investigation. Mueller also reportedly has access to almost a decade’s worth of Trump tax returns and other financial records, which has angered the president. There was talk about Rudy Giuliani replacing Sessions. Even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was mentioned, though he’s denied the claim. Giuliani also said he's not being considered.

Nevertheless, the Associated Press is reporting that Trump has spoken to his advisers about finding ways to remove Sessions from DOJ.

The president’s anger again bubbled into public view Monday as he referred to Sessions in a tweet as “beleaguered.” Privately, Trump has speculated aloud to allies in recent days about the potential consequences of firing Sessions, according to three people who have recently spoken to the president. They demanded anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Trump often talks about making staff changes without following through, so those who have spoken with the president cautioned that a change may not be imminent or happen at all. What is clear is that Trump remains furious that the attorney general recused himself from the investigations.

“So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?” Trump tweeted Monday. His tweet came just hours before his son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, traveled to Capitol Hill to be interviewed about his meetings with Russians.

Trump’s intensifying criticism has fueled speculation that Sessions may resign even if Trump opts not to fire him. During an event at the White House, Trump ignored a shouted question about whether Sessions should step down. The attorney general said last week he intended to stay in his post.

If Trump were to fire Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would be elevated to the top post on an acting basis. That would leave the president with another attorney general of whom he has been sharply critical in both public and private for his handling of the Russia probe, according to four White House and outside advisers who, like others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Many have noted that firing Mueller could be a catastrophic move for the Trump White House, though for now, the Sessions firing watch has begun. When Congress and the president of the United States are attacking you, it’s hard to survive it. As Guy noted at our Salem Day radio event at The White House, communications director Anthony Scaramucci said that Trump probably wants to let Sessions go.


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John McCain: The Democratic Party's Favorite Republican

Matt Vespa
Posted: Aug 03, 2017 8:30 AM
John McCain: The Democratic Party's Favorite Republican

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) certainly became the Democrats’ favorite Republican and there’s polling from Quinnipiac to prove it. The Arizona senator was one of three senators, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) being the other two, who blocked the so-called “skinny repeal” last week. On face value, yes—it was a bad bill, though House Republicans agreed to send it to conference if it passed, but that’s all over now.

With McCain being pegged as the Republican who could stop the bill last Friday, liberal outlets were quite awful in their coverage of someone who had recently been diagnosed with brain cancer. There was a lot of “I don’t want to hear another word about McCain unless he does something good or dies” commentaries coming from the Left leading up to the vote. He eventually votes “no,” and now he’s some hero, which brings us to the poll (via The Hill):

Nearly three in four Democrats, 74 percent, hold a favorable opinion of McCain, while only 39 percent of Republican have a favorable view of the GOP senator, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday.

Forty-nine percent of Republicans hold an unfavorable view of the Arizona lawmaker, while 18 percent of Democrats have an unfavorable opinion, according to the poll. Twice as many independents view him positively than negatively, 60 to 28 percent.

Overall, 57 percent of voters have a favorable view of the senator, while 32 percent hold an unfavorable view.

The poll was conducted July 27 through Aug. 1, mostly after McCain joined two fellow Republican senators in rejecting a pared-down "skinny" ObamaCare repeal bill last Friday.

Is the maverick back?

Personally, I do hope Sen. McCain beats his cancer and makes a strong recovery. Politically, he’s facing a lot of Republicans, who quite frankly have had enough of him, though there doesn't appear to be a hoping for death caucus like there is on the Left. The irony of this whole saga is that the man who campaigned against Obama’s health care agenda in 2008 voted to save it. In Arizona, premiums were projected to spike 116 percent this year. The GOP has yet to come through on their promise of repeal and replace. McCain wants to return to regular order to fix this, working together on a new bill. Republicans working with Democrats is not what was promised to conservatives concerning Obamacare. They did not vote Republican in 2010, 2014, and 2016 for them to work with Democrats to keep the law intact and make tweaks to it. After almost a decade promising repeal, there’s no turning back. Just remember that, GOP.


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Why Have Healthy Nutrition?

By John Gibb

While many people know that there are benefits to having a good nutritional plan, few regard it as being very important. Many people wonder, why have healthy nutrition?

In a world where fast food is quicker, simpler, and sometimes better tasting, its easy to get tempted by what the corporations have to offer us. Gone are the days of eating every meal at home. Regarding this, we need to keep a more watchful eye over our nutrition intake to make sure our body can be in the best working order.

Why have healthy nutrition? The benefits are many. The human body needs various nutrients and minerals to keep it functioning in tip-top shape, and the only way this can be accomplished is by maintaining a healthy diet including vitamins and minerals. These nutrients are necessary to the body for many different reasons; they are crucial for obtaining energy, helping your body grow, and repairing worn out tissues. If your diet lacks certain necessary vitamins, your health may suffer. Therefore, the primary benefits of healthy nutrition are mainly that it keeps your health up.

A sound nutritional schedule is recommended by doctors when a patient is inflicted with any of a number of diseases. Keeping your nutrition up when afflicted with such diseases as cancer or aids can be key to your survival. These are just a few of the benefits of a healthy nutrition. In addition, keeping fit by exercising while maintaining a healthy nutritional plan can result in higher levels of energy, higher self esteem and a generally better feeling of well-being.

As you can see, there are many answers to the question "Why have healthy nutrition", and all of them point to a better way of life. While the temptations of fast foods and junk can be great, some simple will-power and restraint can help you achieve levels of health you didn't even know were possible.

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text:
Archive for the ‘Crafts’ Category

Frankfurt is cloudy, rainy, and yucky which means I have absolutely nothing to do.

The past week I’ve spent my mornings relaxing with tea and reading. The rest of my days were spent walking, sitting on benches, Reading, being cold, walking, exploring, walking, taking photographs like a tourist and yep, you guessed it, more walking. My legs are so sore.

So, I’m stumbling through a bunch of super amazing craft ideas. I wish I could sew…and had a sewing machine for that matter. I can’t wait to try a few of them out when I get home!

Here are a few:

* Dresses
(I basically want to wear these every single day for the rest of my life…)

* Roses

* More Flowers

* Lanterns

* Rug

* Christmas Tree

* Path

* Soap

* Plantable Paper
(How did I not know about this?!)

* Precious Homemade Eggs

* Flower Pop up
(I want this on my table)

By a few I guess I meant a lot…oops. :)

Here  is just an interesting read about food combinations … and this is neat too.

Ok, time for eggs and more tea.

And here’s a really neat picture…for good measure. I want to live in this tree…

Read Full Post »


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Small Hiatus

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted a blog. We’ll call it, “too much going on to post”. And when I say “too much is going on”, I mean, I’m thinking about too many things to write. Here’s a quick, vague update:

– We have to move by the end of this month. Yes, in two weeks. Why? Our lease was not renewed. Why? Ask the owner because we have no idea. We asked the manager and he said, “Sometimes, the owner just doesn’t renew leases”. Well, alrighty then! I guess we’re moving!

(I’m actually THRILLED about this because our next door neighbors are about to bring ALL of the Detroit out of me! I’m more than OVER how obnoxiously loud and disrespectful they are on the daily. I’m not even joking/exaggerating.)

– We currently have no place to go. I’m serious. Like, no apartment lined up or anything.

– We are determined to not be in NYC, but that is up in the air right now because…

– Mr. B is in the interviewing process with a major company. MAJOR, I tell ya! And if it works out, we will most definitely be moving out of NYC (yay!!)

That’s the quick and dirty update. My mind is in disarray right now. I was working on several blogs, but I can’t for the life of me flesh them out so they don’t sound crazy. So, my apologies, but no blogs until June (unless I sneak something in that just has to be said).

Oh, about that whole, we have no place to go thing. Don’t worry. We will, like always, figure it out. Surprisingly, I’m not worried about finding a place. I’m more worried about other things. But finding a place should be relatively easy. I think. I hope, lol! No worries! 🙂

Until June, mis amigos…

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By Johnathan Landrum Jr., Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Oprah Winfrey wanted to deliver a story revolving around one of the biggest institutions in the African-American community: The Black Church.

In her new dramatic series “Greenleaf ,” Winfrey believes she’s accomplished that goal. The show, which premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. EDT on Winfrey’s OWN network, explores the flawed nature of the first family of a sprawling Memphis, Tennessee, megachurch where lies, adultery and scandal consume a house of worship.

Winfrey assures the 13-episode series isn’t an attack on black churches, which the media mogul called her “foundation” and “hope for the future” growing up.

“These are stories that are reflective on our life,” said Winfrey, who is the executive producer and plays the role of Mavis McCready, an outspoken bar owner she calls the “high priestess” of the neighborhood. The character, she says, is based on her late friend and mentor Maya Angelou. This is Winfrey’s first recurring role on a scripted TV show since the 1989 ABC miniseries “Women of Brewster Place.”

“I lived in the church,” Winfrey said. “Preachers were heroes for me. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized preachers are real people. That some preachers are ordained by God. While others are kind of, maybe not.”

Winfrey said she wanted to create black characters who weren’t “fantastical or over dramatic.”

“They’re not shooting each other,” she said. “They’re not necessarily out to hurt people. They are flawed people, and you get to see imagery and the artistry of them.”

Winfrey developed “Greenleaf” with writer Craig Wright (“Six Feet Under” and “Lost”).

The show stars Merle Dandridge as Grace “Gigi” Greenleaf, the prodigal daughter who returns home for the first time in 20 years after the death of her sister, Faith. Grace brought along her daughter, Sophia, and left her successful reporter job in Arizona to return to her family’s megachurch business of Calvary Fellowship World Ministries, which is ran by her parents Bishop James (Keith David) and Lady Mae (Lynn Whitfield), who Winfrey specifically sought out for the role.

Even though Grace wants to have faith, she realizes there is deception and greed within her family circle and corruption in the church. For intel and guidance, she leans on her aunt Mavis, played by Winfrey.

“It’s about a family-run business,” said Whitfield, who in her role plays the stern family matriarch overseeing the Greenleaf estate. “It’s not just about church. It’s not about religion. It’s about a church family. We hit the human elements. Anyone can lose their way.”


text:
In the beginning of Act 2 we learn that Alonso, the King of Naples, has washed up on shore with Antonio, Sebastian, Gonzalo, and others. Antonio and Sebastian tease Gonzalo with interesting, borderline mean, intentions only to be interrupted by the King. He interrupts to tell them of his grief that he is currently dealing with. He tells of his regrets of his decision to marry his daughter to a man that was so far away. The ship’s route, before the wreck, was headed towards Africa to see his daughter but has taken his sons life instead (or so he thinks). Sebastian then goes on to tell the King that it is his own fault because, despite the fact that everyone harassed King Alonso about it, he chose whom his daughter would marry. While making a point that he chose to marry his daughter to an African who lives far away instead of a closer European, Gonzalo changes the subject to try and save the conversation from getting too out of had. I chose to relay all this information because it is key in understanding how grief-stricken the King is in order to relate it to forgiveness. King Alonso has been faced with adversity, in this case in the form of grief, because of an action that he chose to do. In life, when we are faced with outcomes that are no favorable as a result of an action we have done, who do we blame and, more importantly, who do we forgive? While I cannot speak for King Alonso, in most cases we blame ourselves but don’t always forgive ourselves. If the root of problem is our actions then how does that translate into forgiveness? To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. I chose to put the “i” in “forgiveness” in my title in parentheses because what I am seeing in exploring the roots of forgiveness through Shakespeare’s literature is that most forgiveness is self-forgiveness, or “I” forgiveness. Self-forgiveness comes from time and peace of mind but one must overcome grief in order to start forgiveness. Let’s hope King Alonso can overcome the grief of his daughters marriage and this ship wreck.

photo via: http://cdn.theatermania.com/article/28526/1.jpg


text:
“The first time a man slapped me on the ass, I was fourteen years old, bussing tables at a family restaurant.
Catcalls make me jump out of my skin. I have never figured out how to take them as a compliment.

When I learned that “no” did not always stop slipping lips and wandering hands, I was sixteen. I was told that it was my fault for being tempting. I haven’t left the house with shorts on for years. It makes me nervous to be alone somewhere with another person when I have a dress on.

I always get uncomfortable when men make jokes about why women go to the bathroom in groups. Nobody likes to hear that we are taught from the youngest age that we should never go anywhere alone.

The second time that “no” did not stop someone, my date pulled up in front of my house and hit the door lock, wrapped his hand around my throat because I told him I just thought we should be friends.

The third time, I was sprawled out on a hammock in the front lawn with a man I’d been out with a handful of times. When I first said “no”, I thought maybe he didn’t hear me. “Please no, please don’t”. “Please no, please don’t.” “Please no, please don’t.”

Once I was told by a man that it was my fault if he ever went too far because his brain was wired like an animal. I didn’t argue. Can you believe that I didn’t argue? I wanted to say that even my dogs recognize the word “no”, but I was afraid of how he would react. I had to sit through the rest of the date with a smile on my face.

I carry my keys just to walk to the mailbox at night. I’m too paranoid to jog down my street alone.

I have been groped on the sidewalk. I have been groped at the bar. I have been groped on the bus.

The time I was followed all the way to my friend’s car by a group of men who stood around laughing and jeering and banging on the windows, not letting us pull out of the parking garage, was the last time I ever let a man buy me a drink at a bar.

I have men in my life who would call themselves my friends who have put their hands on my hips and my thighs without my permission. There is no question. They do not think they have to ask. They laugh when I bristle.

It took twenty-two years to realize only I had a right to my body.

I used to bite my tongue, but I do not say “no” quietly anymore. I bark my discomfort like an old dog, weary and uncomfortable even in its sleep.”

“this is not a fucking poem; it is an outrage (I Spent Twenty-Two Years Trying To Be Nice About It)” Trista Mateer


text:
Archive for the ‘Soccer’ Category

Tube heading breaking

Oh, my, my. Tubularsock has been so busy adding another story to The Tubularsock Underground Bunker in Oakland, CA overlooking Washington, D.C. that Tubularsock has let several interesting bullshit Maimed-Stream-Media-Tales pass by on their way to history.

I suppose you realize that when you add a story to an underground bunker you go down but the end result is up in the way you view it from the bottom floor. But enough about basic engineering and forward to the American fabrication of the world.

Now Tubularsock does admit that any game involved with balls should be outlawed but that thinking is very counter to world thinking. And Tubularsock feels that when it comes to football (American Style) the shape of the ball is not ball shaped. While the shape of the football (World  Style) is the proper shape of a ball as in all balls are in the shape of a ball EXCEPT the American football and its shape is just not ball shaped.

Which is the fundamental shape of American foreign policy in that we may be out of shape but we want the world to be in our image.

Which leads Tubularsock to the first order of business today, FIFA and its corruption. Wow, that was a slick segue if you ask Tubularsock.

Now we know Tubularsock is really on top of his game but even an imbecile has known that FIFA and its officials have been known for bribery, money laundering, fraud and are so corrupt that for years they have been taking under-the-table money on top-of-the-table.

If you don’t know, FIFA’s Central Committee is a rich old man’s club that does everything in secret so we’ll never know who gets what and how. It has always been corrupt and just now the U.S. has stepped in with arrests and indictments of FIFA officials in Zurich.

Just like the U.S. another “surge” with worthless results. It’s a bitch saving the “free” world!

Tubularsock with Sepp Blatter, President of the FIFA.

Tubularsock with Sepp Blatter, President of the

Wonder why just now all this anti-corruption is happening? There are two pretty clear reasons. And neither are based on any high moral stance by the United States which lacks the capacity for ANY moral stance at all.

Side note: Tubularsock finds it interesting that the U.S. government can find the time and the money and the concern over corruption in soccer in the world federation but massive corruption in military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan that has already shown to be overwhelming hardly gets a glance from the Justice Department. And speaking of massive . . . . Banking corruption is looked upon as too big to fail and EVEN WORSE the WAR CRIMINALS in our current and past leadership get to have a free ride! So it is Soccer that is the root of all evil?

The United States lost it’s bid for having the World Cup Show to RUSSIA and QATAR.

And gosh, Qatar is an American ally no matter if it’s a brutal dictatorship and got the 2022 World Cup Show.

That’s all good BUT RUSSIA got the 2018 World Cup …… ahh, there’s the rub!

And who was America’s honorary chairman for the U.S. bid committee, which promoted America as the best place to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup events?

Bill Clinton!

And guess what? In 2014, the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, set up by the Qatar government to ensure a successful FIFA world cup, awarded the Clinton Foundation between $250,000 and $500,000; the State of Qatar donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Funny how that looks to Tubularsock. Bill Clinton is chairman of the U.S. bid committee which doesn’t get in the running but Qatar who doesn’t even know how to play soccer gets the bid to have the World Cup Soccer Event. And the Clinton Foundation makes off like bandits. If this was a fist fight could it be said that Bill threw the fight for monetary gain? You bet your sweet bippy!

Bill told NBC in a recent interview, “I don’t think there is anything sinister about trying to get wealthy people and countries that are seriously involved in development to spend their money wisely in a way that helps poor people and lifts them up.”

Funny thing here the workers on the Qatar World Cup building projects are primarily migrants from India, Bangladesh, and Nepal whose passports have been taken away and are forced to work in 106 degree temperature. With at least one worker dying on the job every two days. Is this what Bill means by “. . . helps poor people and lifts them up”? Maybe he’s talking about death and heaven.

But did the U.S. Justice Department only become “morally” concerned about FIFA’s corruption in order to attempt to keep Russia from hosting the 2018 World Cup?

Well like some, Senators Menendez and McCain, have called on the FIFA Congress to elect a new FIFA President that would deny Russia from hosting the 2018 World Cup.

And this makes this entire corruption moment seem like interesting timing. Doesn’t it?

Or perhaps the interest of the U.S. Justice Department that felt so compelled to take action on FIFA officials RIGHT NOW for corruption was due to the fact that there was a good chance that Israel was going to be suspended from the FIFA like South Africa was in the 1960’s for Israel’s Apartheid practices against Palestine.

Hmmm, interesting timing indeed.

Tubularsock DOES see a silver lining in all of this because in our dystopian world the U.S. didn’t carpet bomb Zurich in order to save us all from the soccer-terrorists who need to be eliminated “over-there” before we have to face them on our shores!

God Bless AmeriKKKa.


text:
Saturday, August 5, 2017

Snickerdoodle Create Bake Make Link Party August 5, 2017

Thanks for joining us!  August is here dry and hot for us.  Taking a little break this weekend in Idaho!

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Funtastic Friday 138 and features from Christmas in July Link Up

Funtastic Friday Link Party banner

Welcome to Funtastic Friday 138!  How has your first few days of August been?  It has been hot, hot, hot here in Nevada--104 degrees today of dry heat.  Remind me of that when it is 0 degrees  this winter!  If you joined us for the Chirstmas in July Link Party, here are the Features.
Check out the link and see what other hostesses chose for their Features!

Here is Funtastic Friday!

 Meet the hosts of Funtastic Friday
Please follow the party hosts on social media.
Satisfy your sweet tooth craving in a flash with these 3 ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies.
Sherry and Angie's favorites Sherry's favorite - Loaded Eggplant Rounds @ Dizzy Busy and Hungry Angie's favorite - My Clever Way Of Giving An Old Mirror A New Look @ Jadore le Décor Funtastic Friday 138 Host Favorites 2 Lacie's favorite - Chocolate Apples: A Back To School Treat @ The Country Chic Cottage Liz's favorite - The Benefits of Time Tracking and How To Begin @ Setting My Intention Heidi and Donna's favorites Heidi's favorite - Double Sided Tissue Pouch Tutorial @ Gluesticks Donna's favorite - School Organizer: Farmhouse Style with Faux Concrete @ Then Country Cottage Chic Debra's favorite Debra's favorite - How To Make Butterscotch Sauce At Home @ Little House Living

If you’re linking up and joining the party, please grab a button or link back to Olives & Okra or one of the party hosts (right-click on the image and save the image to your computer): Funtastic-Friday-Link-Party-Thumbnail-150x If you’re a featured blogger, please grab a button to place on your blog (right-click on the image and save the image to your computer): Funtastic-Friday-Featured-Thumbnail1

All features are pinned to Olives & Okra’s Funtastic Friday board.  We will also share your post on social media if sharing buttons are readily available on your post. Help grow the Funtastic Friday link party. Tell your friends about the party, please!

  1. Post as many links as you like
  2. Family friendly posts only
  3. Old posts are welcome
  4. Comments are greatly appreciated
  5. Show fellow bloggers link love

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Party in Your PJs

Welcome to Party in Your PJs for this week!  Link parties are so much fun, don't you think?  I guess you must, you are here lol.  It's always a treat to see all of your creative posts and I get such great ideas, recipes, crafts, etc. from them!  It is hard to make a decision on choosing Features!

Growing Up Gabel has a wonderful tutorial for Galaxy Shoes!

Dizzy Busy and Hungry shares a yummy recipe for Chocoalte Pretzel Monkey Bread!

If you were featured please, grab a button:

Please check the features at our other hosts' blogs:

RCHReviews|Facebook | Pinterest
Grandma Ideas | Pinterest

Time to party!

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Christmas in July Link Party Features

Hi.  Wow, I can't believe that it is already August--where did June and July go?

Did you join in our Christmas in July Link Party?  If you did, make sure that you check all the bloggers' sites as we each will choose our own posts to Feature today.

Sunshine in the Attic has wonderful tutorial for Christmas "mug rugs".  So cute!

Purple Hues and Me has a very cute idea for your holiday table--no-sew Antler napkin rings!

What's Christmas without cards?  You can start now and get a jump on the season: Linda at Paper Seedlings made this cute cards.

My Pinventures  has an ornament idea for those of us who live by (or wish we did) the ocean.

Heidi from Building Our Hive  has a free printable for gift tags--you are gonna need those!

Nice job to everyone who participated and if you would like to get some Christmas ideas here is the Christmas Link Party .

Thanks for stopping by!

Blogging tips


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Sponsored Links
2.00 Rating by ClearWebStats has registered 8 years 7 months ago. This website has a #4,392,329 rank in global traffic. It has a .com as an domain extension. This domain is estimated value of $ 240.00 and has a daily earning of $ 1.00. Additionally, the website is monetizing using Adsense. While no active threats were reported recently by users, is SAFE to browse.

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Daily Unique Visitors: 110
Daily Pageviews: 220

Estimated Valuation

Income Per Day: $ 1.00
Estimated Worth: $ 240.00

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Hosted IP Address:

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Canada CA

Location Latitude:

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-79.4259 search engine traffic

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Websites Hosted on Same IP (i.e.

Homestead | Get a site, Get found. Get customers.

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Eslflow's guide to ESL lesson plans, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, games and activities for English as a Second (or Foreign) Language for teachers and students

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Website Disabled

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Cat Health Information from the Winn Feline Foundation

Winn Feline Foundation has been providing expert cat health information and supporting cat health research since 1968.

  1,984,791   $ 480.00

HTTP Header Analysis

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Content-Length: 14136
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Domain Information for

Domain Registrar: TUCOWS DOMAINS INC.
Registration Date: 2009-07-16 8 years 7 months 3 days ago
Last Modified: 2013-06-17 4 years 8 months 6 days ago
Expiration Date: 2014-07-16 3 years 7 months 4 days ago

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Host IP Address Country Canada Canada Canada Canada Canada Canada

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