Memories of San Francisco

I moved to San Francisco, California in 1997. We landed a 300 square foot spot in the North Beach neighborhood and shared the apartment with 3 other people. You read that right. It was insanely small and also so much fun. Our kitchen was the biggest room in the place and we shared our stories with each other there. We became a family in that room. Unbelievably, twice as many people lived above us in the same sized apartment. They often had fish and underwear drying out on the makeshift clothes line they rigged in the outside stairwell. Our apartment was almost always fragrant with their cooking. Exotic, spice-laden, pungent, sweet perfumes wafted into our downstairs abode. It felt like we were living in a restaurant.

We lived across from a playground, a library and a bocce ball court. My favorite guy in the neighborhood was named Lenny. He was from New York City and he was constantly wearing a tee shirt that said, “Where are my ‘ludes?”. He had this dopey dog named Fella. At least once a day, I would hear “Hey Fella !”, outside my window. My other favorite character in the neighborhood was named Dennis but everyone called him Mister Fabulous because any time you asked him how he was doing, he replied with, “fabulous, fabulous’. He was also from NYC and I remember his cousin was the filmmaker Todd Solandz which he liked to mention now and then.

I go back to San Francisco a couple times a year. I have dear, old friends that live there. We used to “rave till dawn” three or four times a week and hit up the bloody mary bar at the Ramp most Sundays when we could make it out of bed. Some left and came back but most stayed. After nine years away, I'm thinking about going back too. So, as I get on my flight this afternoon to the "Paris of the West" as it was known at the turn of the twentieth century, I’ll be reporting back with this in mind.

Ciao loves !