I'm a Retro-Beatnik!

To start off, the rather gorgeous Shonagh Dillon, manager of the Early Intervention Project in Portsmouth, which works infamously hard to support survivors of domestic violence, has posted a link to a petition organised by the Lilith Project, Eaves. This petition is attempting to stop a sitcom about prostitution (I kid you not) to be shown on Channel 5 and I would urge people to sign it as this really is a vile concept:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Eaves/petition.html

There's also an interesting article in the Guardian, with some even more interesting comments underneath (be prepared to get pissed off by some of these though!) at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1851754,00.html
Thank you Shon for letting me know about it.

So, our first day in San Francisco, Sunday 20th (see how behind I am - damn these long days of sight-seeing, my journal is suffering too!). We ummed and we ahh-ed for quite some time about the thorny problem of the RV and going into SF. With it's exceptionally busy streets, trams, and, most significantly, hills (you would not believe the angle on some of those, seriously), taking the RV back into SF to sightsee was not an option. The KOA site we're resting the Beast at though, suggested that we take one of their all day tours, which would acquaint us with the city and take the pressure off us to find our way around. The added bonus was that the bus is a tiny one that only carries about ten people and the guide drops you off at loads of different places and then takes you to the next one. Our guide was the lovely Tom Ovens (great name), who has been a resident of Petaluma for years and knows SF like the back of his tanned hand. Really kind, friendly and funny with a warm, kind of orange energy to him.

We drive from the camp and after a while are heading back across the Golden Gate Bridge (which is actually red, I was glad that Tom said he was disappointed that it wasn't gold, because I thought the same thing when we crossed it the first time - though I instantly forgot about it because we were trying to cram the RV through a tiny lane). Tom tells us that the bridge can sway up to 28 feet in each direction. I'm glad I only have to take his word for that, a jaunt on the incredible swaying golden gate bridge is definitely not what I signed up for. The stop there gives Amy and I a chance to wander down onto the bridge on foot, which I would definitely recommend for a sense of the scope of the thing - it's huge. This picture is of Amy on the GG Bridge and in the background, very faintly through the fog is Alcatraz. Apparently, no one wanted to build the bridge for years because they didn't think that any structure erected here could stand the force of the currents. San Francisco Bay holds 400 square miles of water and the currents are pretty strong, but the Bridge and its built-in flexibility prove all these fears wrong.

Tom tells us that although the Spanish arrived on the California Coast in the 1500's, San Francisco was missed until 1776 - anyone guess why? I bet Lisa Clark will know! Spookily, the reason is, as James Herbert may have speculated, The Fog (see what I did there?). When they did finally find it, it was apparently by accident (they were looking for Germany, just kidding). This fog is the reason why Lisa C also warned me to bring lots of layers of clothes to SF, as until the fog burns off later in the day, it can actually be quite cold, especially when it's breezy, too. It is also the reason why Mark Twain is said to have written of San Francisco, "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." The city has changed a lot since then, though, there are more people here, for one thing. The Europeans soon saw off the Native San Franciscans, the Ohlone people, with a combination of their own diseases and by undermining their communities and social structures by geographical displacement. Same old, same old, I suppose, we came, we saw, we took over and screwed it up for someone else.

Now, San Francisco is a seriously popular place to live, with over three-quarters of a million people living in a space of approximately 49 square miles. Property prices are high here, the median (i.e. if you put all the house prices in a list, this would be smack in the middle of it) house price is $700,000, while in nearby Sausalito, the median is $1 million. I may try to share when I live here. Land is tight, too. Most houses are terraced (although by law they have to have one inch between the houses for fire safety) and when they wanted a golf course in the 1800's, they dug up one of their cemetaries and converted it. Poltergeist, much!

Our first stop is Golden Gate Park and Tom takes us to the visitor centre to show us a 3D model of the park so that we can get our bearings. Inside though, I am more interested in the mural that covers every wall, painted by an artist called Lucien Labaudt, and depicting Parklife (see what I did there) during the Depression. Tom told us that this is why no one in the pictures is smiling. All the people he painted were real San Franciscans, including himself (Tom said the artist depicted himself as the cameraman) and the creator of the GG park itself, Scots gardener, John McLaren. Then we drove further into the Park and Dad, Amy and I popped to the Japanese Tea Garden, before heading over to the De Young Museum to ride up to the observation tower where we saw the Park and the city from a bird's eye perspective. From here we really got a sense of how densely populated the city really is, and a great view of the infamous block system - the Romans would be so proud. Outside, we took in some of the amazing sculptures in the grounds, Amy and I were particularly freaked out by this androgynous sphinxy thing!

Next we went through Haight Ashbury, the neighbourhood famous for its association with the Beatniks (the pre-cursor to the Hippy movement), who inherited it when the price of the Victorian buildings there plummeted in the 1950's. Soon, the area was renowned for its association with drugs, parties, free love and communal living, with often dozens of people living in one building. The Haight's best times only lasted a couple of years, however, before 'free love' became synonymous with a wide variety of drugs, organised crime sky-rocketed and the police moved in to 'clean up' the neighbourhood. Now, the Haight maintains some of its old integrity by maintaining predominantly independent shops and traders, and as we passed by some of these, Amy and I swooned over the fashion shops particularly. I especially loved the vintage shops there, with their fifties dresses -Lisa Clark, I am bringing you back here! In fact, I may try to re-create my very own Beatnik/Hippie household and gradually ship in everyone I know and love into one of those glorious old houses. We can all live off my writing earnings and exist under a collective ethos, man (by that I mean someone else will always be responsible for the cooking and cleaning). The Victorian houses are beautiful and there are more across the city, although most were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.

They say that there are little earthquakes all the time here, and none of us are quite sure if we felt any or not, so there were definitely no major ones, but I often had a feeling of slight movement, similar to standing on a docked boat, though it might just be the start of an inner ear infection. The city has definitely seen worse, the 1906 earthquake is known as the Great Earthquake and lasted 48 seconds, was 8.5 on the Richter Scale and caused fires throughout the area. It also damaged the water pipes so severely that the fires couldn't be put out and parts of the city burned for three days, making over 250,000 people homeless. The fires are out now, but the homeless still remain and are exceptionally visible throughout the streets. I read in the San Francisco Guardian (the most amazing left-wing free paper in America, I'm certain of it) that many of the county's homeless are military veterans, unable to find work following their departure from the forces. We saw a large group of homeless guys sleeping outside the San Francisco Public Library (see how important this service is to such a wide diversity of people - reaching the parts of the nation that other services don't quite make it to), which is in sight of City Hall, the roof of which is covered in over $400,000 of gold gilding - from one extreme to another, huh?

Our next stop was Chinatown, this is exactly what it says on the tin, and one of the most densely populated sections of the city (and of the entire USA, would you believe), and one of the poorest. The Chinese were originally encouraged to come to the US to build California's Transcontinental Railroad and they were never well-treated by the existing American population, but when the railroad was finished, they were made exceptionally unwelcome. In fact, the chinese population were the first ethnic group to have a law excluding them from immigration to the USA in 1882, and even when they did get in, many were detained on Angel Island for long periods of time. The chinese had no rights, they could not own property outside of Chinatown (which they only inherited because no one wanted to live near a Chinese household), could not vote and could not prosecute if crimes were committed against them. If Chinese residents wanted to go home and visit their loved ones in China, they only got a one-way ticket and were not allowed back into the country.

Today Chinatown houses 80,000 people in just 24 square blocks, and whilst obviously a materially poor area, it is culturally rich, with elderly men playing Mah Jong in Portsmouth (I know!) Square, stalls selling fresh vegetables and food on the street, and as many shops for all things China as the brain can conceive of. The housing in this part of the city is predominantly made up of small flats, and looking up from street level to the fire escapes above the many alleys of Chinatown, we could see a huge amount of clothes hanging out to dry, draped over every conceivable space. Tom told us that recently, a proposed hotel development required a derelict building to be knocked down, which was being used to house many homeless Chinese who refused to leave. The police were called in and were literally dragging the occupants out until the Chinese community got involved. The development was cancelled and instead, the building has been turned into low-income housing for 2000 Chinese. There was so much demand that places had to be allocated by a lottery.

It's true what they say about the hills in San Francisco, and I can see why the cable cars have been preserved as a National Historic Landmark. Obviously, we had to ride on one, and we took the Powell-Mason line, which runs up and over Nob Hill (thought you'd like that one) down to Fisherman's Wharf. I was content to sit and watch the world go by, but Amy was a total pro and hung off the outside for the whole ride! I had no idea how the cable car worked, or what relationship the constant bell ringing has to the operation (though the bell-ringing was my favourite bit), but I got a better idea of how to drive the cable car by driving my own virtual car on http://www.sfcablecar.com/gripmans.html - check it out and see how you do! We stopped at the Wharf for lunch on the infamous Pier 39 and I had the most heavenly peanut satay known to man. True story. This also gave us an opportunity to check out the famous sealions that have chosen to make their home here - they are very handsome, loud, hilarious to watch and exceptionally smelly! We did some shopping on Pier 39 and checked out the view of Alcatraz from there in anticipation of our visit on Tuesday. Then we were back in the bus and on to the next stop!

We went to Presidio Park next, 1480 acres of a former military site owned first by the Spanish military settlers and later by the US military. It is now a national park, much of it waiting for a purpose, as many of the original buildings remain unused since the departure of the military. Some parts of the park are currently in development as housing (don't get me started on how I would love to live here when it's done, but the prices will be vulgar) whilst others have been rented out to businesses. The most famous resident business is the empire of none other than George Lucas, of Star Wars fame, who has decided to move his Industrial Light and Magic and his Lucas Arts there - but even cooler than this is the statue of Yoda in a water fountain that guards the outside. Oh, jealous, I am! Presidio Park also houses the graves of 450 Buffalo soldiers, which was the colloquial name given to the African-American soldiers that spent time housed at Presidio in the 19th and early 20th centuries on their way to various wars and actions.

When we leave Presidio, we head back towards the camp, and though it was barely five in the afternoon, we were all exhausted (well, we were up at 6.45am - I know, ouch!) and are glad to roll back into the Beast an hour or so later. I am so tired, that I cannot even summon the energy to write, and this is the start of my fatal slipping behind that I am only now starting to catch up with. Sorry to be so behind, but I promise I'll keep you posted and I'm determined to play catch up tonight and take advantage of some of the hours that have slipped between in our flight across to New York(yes, I'm here, we arrived today, but that's a whole other show, which, if I was filming it, I would call - Dude, where the f?*k is my luggage? Stay posted and I'll tell all). I've got another 2 days in San Francisco to fill you in on before NY. Can you bear the anticipation?