A Lesson In San Francisco Geography

It’s too bad people don’t geographically position themselves according to their sexual desires.  Like say, for example, if I were looking to meet a Vietnamese harlot who was into Jewish guys, I should just be able to go down to Hồ Lê Dồng’s New York Deli at Steiner and Nguyen. Alas, this is not the case. People live wherever the hell they want, without any regard for my wishes, or even altitude-based breast size (sea level would be a total bummer, and women in Denver/Columbia/Mt. Everest would all have terrible lower back problems). Though I guess if I ever wanted to meet two guys wearing a total of five collared shirts and two gallons of hair product, I could always go out in the Marina.

According to that place where you can always get a good report of the “darkie presence” at your favorite watering hole(Yelp), there are a total of 42 individual neighborhoods in SF, each distinguishable by its own type of rainbow flag. 42!! That’s the atomic number of Molybdenum! Wait, that’s not interesting. But 42 is a lot. Enough, say, for me to hopefully squeeze out the rest of a mediocre column without having to resort to any more breast jokes.

I live in the Lower Haight, a colorful quarter brimming with arts, culture, food, and nightlife.  There’s even a Safeway where you can buy large enough quantities of bleach to sanitize the stains left from the various derelicts who snuck into your 90s party by pretending that “yes, I’m totally dressed up as Kurt Cobain” instead of just admitting that they’re wearing the same damn thing that they were wearing fourteen and a half years ago when their commercial real estate magnate father decided that 17 semesters was enough time to finish up that sociology major at San Francisco City State Communiversity College and it’s time to get a real job. What? Wait, I was talking about something. A number. 6? 13? No, 42! Of course, 42.

And that brings me to my next point. There are a lot of neighborhoods here, and you can pretty much find whatever you are looking for, except for Hồ Lê Dồng’s New York Deli. Why, we even have a nice buncha folks in Berkeley willing to provide free board to any lactating woman in exchange for breast milk nourishment! You won’t find that in stuck-up Jew York.

But you will find snow, real seasons, straight people, and SUVs, which are all things that San Francisco is lacking and I miss. We are also short on rednecks, homophobes, and airbag bombs, which I miss less but are nevertheless very amusing.

There are certain high points of the municipal geography, like the Golden Gate Bridge, and also a few low points, like my bathroom. My personal favorite place in the entire city so far has got to be the bar below my apartment, where you can watch ugly people simulating nervous system disorders while really good DJ’s play terrible music as a joke that is only funny to themselves.

To properly experience all the wonders that the city has to offer, you need a way to get around. Fortunately the city has provided this in spades, in the form of thousands of homeless people pushing dangerous, filthy carts that you can ride around in if you don’t value your personal safety/immune system/direction or speed of travel. Also there’s BART, which I’m pretty sure stands for Bring A Rape-whistle or Tazer, and Muni, where people can go to get free surgery. But watch out! After several embarrassing mixups, I discovered that BART toilets look exactly like elevators, and some toilets even look like regular hallways and stairwells! Sometimes I forget that our fair metropolis is full of neat people who like to recycle and reuse old things in new ways. But this city often has more to offer than meets the eye.

Ah, San Francisco. My whirlwind love affair with you thus far has been sweet, and salty. I can’t wait to get to know you better. But please, don’t call me, I’ll call you.