My First Solo Apartment, 1996

throughout college i had roommates, later, i futon-surfed my way through the east & west village in the nyc, by the time i landed in san francisco during the fall of 1996 i was done with roommates for good, that is when 204a day street found me, a 3-minute walk from my job at the 30th street senior center where i was the bilingual (spanish) volunteer coordinator, $540 a month & it was mine, when i first moved in i had a cot to sleep on, 6 cds, & a plant, spartan, no question, apartment highlights included: getting up at 5am to admire comet hale-bopp from my roof, hosting thanksgiving & a paella dinner party, listening to sonny rollins on sundays while cooking pasta -my solo sf apartment adventure ended when i moved to paraguay in 1998, but there are moments when i daydream about studio-living, less really was more.

Jerry Garcia’s Fingernails

when i was a kid i thought the grateful dead and iron maiden were related, both had skulls and were scary, i never listened to their music for fear, of what, i didn’t exactly know, freshman year touch of grey came out and the seniors were all about it, with their bandanas and tie dye t-shirts, i learned not to be afraid of their music, but i still never listened to the dead, ever, until college rolled around and they became unavoidable, every boarding school wannabe quasi-hippie trustafarian played the dead in their dorm room, and i still mostly hated their music, except for eyes of the world, friends tried to get me to attend concerts, but i always politely declined, there were enough burned out patchouli-smelling colby students without spending hours in a parking lot hoping for a “miracle,” so when i graduated i was glad to be rid of jerry and his band, a couple months went by and jerry died, a year later i’m living in california, my cousin is sharing an apartment with a mortician in kentfield (marin county), i’m at their place one day, dude proudly opens a drawer, finger and toenails are inside, those are jerry’s, he beams, i will never understand the obsession.

The Life & Death of North Beach, San Francisco

north beach has changed, the spontaneity is gone, we used to just go out, to shop at city lights bookstore, to eat, to have a drink, to be in the city together, listen to music, jazz, or whatever, the city used to be a community, no one really knew what might happen any given night, at vesuvio’s or caffe trieste, or on broadway, people being people, san francisco people, with their freedom and self-expression, the edifices remain, but the past is past, now they shop amazon online, order uber eats, reserve on opentable, scrutinize tripadvisor, calculate with gps, where to go and when, the city has had a partial death, and no one really cares, why go back to the old ways? we are now more and more, part of the machine, technology guides us, separates us from –lets just go out and be.