Sunday Morning, San Francisco

I’m stay­ing at the cor­ner of Fifth and Mis­sion at the Pickwick…a decent hotel built in 1922. The rooms are smaller and old-fashioned, the hall­ways still have fire hoses in alcoves in the walls, the ele­va­tors are barely large enough to hold four peo­ple. It’s a nice place, feels like some­thing out of a Chan­dler or Ham­mett novel. Old-style claw­foot tub in the bath­room, win­dows that open to I can bask in the glory of the noise out­side which is, oddly, com­fort­ing if very dif­fer­ent from home. Part of the fun I have when trav­el­ing is see­ing what’s nearby on foot. I get to go explor­ing at a slower pace than dri­ving, check­ing out the inter­est­ing sites, and as a bonus I get some exer­cise. Yes­ter­day I spent time in a three-block radius of the hotel, end­ing up at the Metreon which was under con­struc­tion and the lit­tle deli I enjoyed the last time I was in town was gone. I take my lunch about a block away at a place called ‘wichcraft, order­ing what amounts to a grilled cheese with delu­sions of grandeur: Gruyère with caramelized onions. It is tasty but not tasty enough to make me order it again. The whole place feels a bit over­done; it’s not a bad place but some­thing about it rubs me the wrong way. I think it is The Hip­ster Thing; some peo­ple can pull off being unique on their own, and other peo­ple do it because they want to be dif­fer­ent, just like all the dif­fer­ent people. This place feels like the lat­ter. I head back to the hotel, stop­ping to get some healthy fare at a small gro­cery along the way. Along the walk home a hip­ster on a scooter crashes into me, knock­ing my glasses flying. There are grunts of apol­ogy from the fel­low as he recov­ers his lit­tle hat before head­ing on his way. I pick up my glasses only to find them bent. I try to straighten them and the right stem comes off in my hand. I sigh and head back to the hotel. I crash earlyand sleep deeply. This morn­ing I decide to walk down to Union Square. I’ve heard it called the unof­fi­cial cen­ter of the city, home to protests, par­ties, and riots over the last cen­tury. Shower, shave, pack my lap­top and stick my bro­ken glasses on my face, and I’m out the door. The city grows taller as I trek along Fifth head­ing toward Mar­ket. There is a cacoph­ony of visual noise, signs on build­ings declare what shops or restau­rants dwell within the their doors, bill­boards trum­pet catchy or inane mar­ket­ing slo­gans (my favorite is the bank advert declar­ing “Women have a lot in com­mon.”), neon shouts OPEN through glass win­dows, and pic­tures of women in their nearly-nude glory hiss the names of their cloth­iers, Victoria’s Secret, H&M. Sadly, there is trash every­where you look, blow­ing in the Sun­day morn­ing breeze. The visual noise is matched by the audi­tory noise and dwarfed by the olfac­tory assault. Cars, buses and trol­leys crawl along the streets even at 7:30am on a Sun­day. Horns blare, sirens shout, but this is back­ground com­pared to the smells. Some are over­whelm­ingly pos­i­tive; the smell of bacon waft­ing from one of the din­ers that line the streets, the scent of strong cof­fee com­ing from the pretty young woman keep­ing pace with me as we walk up the street. Oth­ers are vile; stale beer, piss, sewer, even gaso­line and the stench of sul­fu­ric diesel. The roller-coaster of scents is decep­tive; just as you think you are get­ting used to it, some­thing new side­swipes you and you’re back to crin­kling your nose in dis­taste or, in rare cases, try­ing to find out where it is com­ing from as it smells so good (like the char­broil­ing steak at Pow­ell and Ellis. Where the hell was that steak being cooked? Wish I knew.) After about fif­teen min­utes I make it to Union Square which has all the hall­marks of a city mon­u­ment; the etched mar­ble, tall plants and a wel­com­ing open­ness. It is a tiered plaza on a hill, steps lead­ing to the cen­ter, a park­ing garage under­neath. There is Art as a mat­ter of course; a large heart sculpted of metal and painted in muted col­ors stands out in par­tic­u­lar. The few peo­ple inhab­it­ing the square this morn­ing are the home­less, beg­ging for change. All the peo­ple with homes and pur­pose are walk­ing with deter­mi­na­tion, invok­ing invis­i­ble blind­ers and earplugs as they pass those pan­han­dling for change. One woman calls out “Happy Mother’s Day,” as peo­ple pass her by with­out spar­ing her a glance. I am no bet­ter than the rest, mov­ing in my imag­i­nary bub­ble, eyes focused some­where far down the street where I can­not see her any­more. It is semi-unconscious, semi-deliberate, and I feel ashamed, won­der­ing if she is someone’s mother, won­der­ing what brought her to this state. Build­ings rise and sur­round the square, all of them large stores with big names; Macy’s, Nike, Bor­ders. Hud­dling in the shad­ows of the giants are the more inter­est­ing places; New Delhi Indian Cui­sine, The Kens­ing­ton Hotel, Lori’s Diner. These are what inter­est me, and I make some notes on my phone to come back later in the evening when the doors open. Nat­u­rally, the place offer­ing over 100 rare micro­brews is of par­tic­u­lar inter­est and gets a star. The smell of break­fast starts my stom­ach to growl­ing; it is time for cof­fee. There are a great many places I could get a cup of joe but I’m a snob and want some­place with a lit­tle atmos­phere, some­place I can sit and write. I walk past three or four smaller café and only one Star­bucks (which shocks me…I thought I’d see more of those), and finally set­tle on a lit­tle place called Mo’z Café. It is clean, painted in earth tones, smells of warm bread, bacon, and, most impor­tantly, cof­fee. I find a place to sit, order my cof­fee, and soak in the morn­ing sun while sip­ping what turns out to be a fine cup of cof­fee. I decide that this will be my cof­fee oasis of choice while in town. The day stretches out before me, and I must pre­pare my sched­ule for Google IO. I will walk the route to the two venues today, get­ting my work­out in while mak­ing sure I know where every­thing is in prep for the con­fer­ence. I fin­ish the final swal­low of cof­fee in my paper cup; it’s time I be on my way.

Tags: San Francisco