I've always been fascinated with what makes something "San Francisco." It feels like the kind of thing the city will never really agree on, and that's why it's great. I thought I'd ask The Bold Italic's readers their examples of things that felt very SF-as-an-adjective and some tender patterns of acceptance, adventure, and sadly, poop on the streets came through. Please feel free to share your most SF moment in the comments. I can't wait to read them.
A few weeks after moving from Texas, I saw a feather boa rolling down the side of Octavia in the wind, like a tumbleweed. I remember thinking, this is literally the opposite of Texas.
I did the walk of shame in front of Danny Tanner's house.
I was sitting on a front stoop, eating my lunch one sunny afternoon in Hayes Valley when I heard the distant sound of death metal. I looked up the street to find the source and noticed a tall man with long black hair, wearing a trench coat and pushing a black baby stroller down the sidewalk towards me. He wore thick black boots and had a boombox perched on the back of the stroller, serenading the neighborhood with scorching guitars and blast beats.
As he got closer, I leaned forward to try to catch a glimpse of the child that was was being raised with such awesome music taste. To my surprise, instead of a child, standing proudly with one paw perched on the front edge of the stroller, was a regal black Bombay cat complete with a leash and studded collar. The cat had the expression and posture of royalty looking down on peasants and seemed to be genuinely enjoying its afternoon constitutional.
Back when I was a kid, (I'm only 28 now) San Francisco was a different place; it understood poverty and at least attempted to understand those who experienced it. This was more noticeable on a street level.
I was around eight years old and I remember one rare, warm afternoon in which my parents and I, both of them being hippies with great attachment to the city, brought a picnic to Golden Gate Park. We were not poor by most standards, but we were not "well off" either. As we spread our food around us and began with our sandwich building, I remember an older couple, also breaking bread together, reaching out to us with handfuls of watermelon. They had kind smiles. They knew not what gratitude it brought to us and to this day, I feel like it was the last thing on their minds.
When I walk the streets of San Francisco and see the battered, ashamed, soon to be removed locals, I try to remember a different city; one that saw us as valuable even when it was obvious that we had so little.
The time when we met in Dolores Park for my friend's birthday and the girls next to us began to spread out one of those giant blue tarps. They proceeded to dump Costco-sized containers of Heinz BBQ sauce all over. They then stripped down to undergarments and proceeded to stage an all out BBQ wrestling tournament. They got BBQ sauce on my bike.
Back in about 2007, I lived on 19th Street in the Castro, and worked on Valencia Street in the Mission. One day, I was running late to work. Literally — I was doing a sort of half-walk, half-jog, purse bouncing on my elbow, coffee cup jiggling in my hand. I come tearing around the corner of 19th and Castro, and nearly run into a man coming out of the florist's. I look up to apologize, and it's Armistead Maupin.
Just then, a convertible full of men drives by with the radio blasting "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music (they were all, of course, singing along enthusiastically). The world stops for a moment as the men pass by, and then I resume my frantic commute and Mr. Maupin continues on to whatever literary greatness he had planned for the day.
At a bar in SOMA, the guy across from me says “So would you like to learn about bitcoin?”
I went to the local farmers market and bought two different types of kale and vegan, organic, gluten free tamales.
My first visit to San Francisco, 1997. July 4 night, driving from Oakland across the Bay Bridge, fireworks going off everywhere around us, downtown San Francisco lit up like a sparkling drag queen, and Madonna's “Ray of Light” came on the radio. The lyrics were so perfect, we blasted the hell out of it and sang at the top of our lungs. I could feel it, I was home! I moved here a few months later.
I was invited to a Purim party (Jewish costume-wearing holiday) and last-minute decided to dress as Cruella de Vil. Normally it would be hard to find red, satin elbow-length gloves, not close to Halloween, on such short notice. But then I remembered that I could hop on the M to the Castro. The pair was waiting for me behind the register at Cliff's Variety.
Having Mark Zuckerberg recommend the salted caramel ice cream in Bi-Rite. He was buying many pints to take to Dolores Park. I had no idea who he was (my friends did, they work in tech). It was 2009 or 2010.
I walked out my front door on Haight Street and saw a guy in a purple unitard cruising down the street on a unicycle. While he was waiting for the light to change, he rode in circles, flapping his arms like wings. This was 2006 or 2007.
The emptiness of the Haight Street Whole Foods during the week of Burning Man.
Flipping off an anti-abortion protestor while wearing Google Glass and smoking a joint on a warm January afternoon.
Being at the Pink Saturday Party down in Castro last year and seeing so many people without pants that all I could think about was the texting convo pre-party going something like, “Are you going to wear pants? Because I'm not.”
I had been living in the Mission two years at the time, walking down Market St. towards Starbelly on a random afternoon, and an old guy walks past wearing nothing but a sequin banana shlong-sock. It didn't even strike me until about half a block later that that might be unusual.
Offering a homeless guy my sandwich in the Haight only to be told in the most polite and sincere fashion, “Sorry, I'm a vegetarian."
Sitting at the Front Porch and overhearing the two kids next to us ordering their meal. Child 1, who couldn't be any older than seven, ordered a “cheeseburger with no bun because I am gluten free” and Child 2, probably about 10 years old, refusing to get the chicken strips because this place only had his “2nd favorite BBQ sauce” which he then proceeded to explain in great detail.
Taking my first taxidermy class and walking seven blocks down mission to my then girlfriend's bar job with a stuffed chicken in my arms... finally looking just as weird as so many of the other characters in San Francisco.
In 2013, I celebrated my first birthday in the Bay Area with a bike ride around San Francisco. I stopped by Lucasfilm in the Presidio to take a picture with the Yoda fountain and ran into George Lucas. The fact that it was on my birthday of all days made it mean something!
Had to be walking into Park Tavern for brunch last year and requesting my usual table by the window- only to be denied the entire section because Kevin Systrom and Kanye were eating at that table.
When my husband and I got married (I'm a man, so that's fairly SF in and of itself), my family came out from the East Coast for the wedding. My 12-year old nephew is a big fan of doing flips off of benches and other structures. I was walking up the Embarcadero with my sisters and their families after a Giants game, and my nephew executed a flawless backflip off a bench and stuck the landing perfectly. Walking down the street in the opposite direction was a young woman, I'd say early to mid 20s, with blue hair, punk rock clothes, and covered in rad piercings and tattoos from head to toe. She runs up to my nephew and says, “Duuude! That was SICK!” and gives him a double hi-five, and keeps on walking.
Hitting up the Gold Club for their Friday $5 fried chicken buffet and enjoying a surprisingly wonderful kale salad as well.
A friend was late to brunch with us because she stepped in human shit literally right outside her front door in the Lower Haight. I called it 'inconshiterate,' and we liked the term so much we started a Twitter account under that handle.
I had plans to meet a friend outside of her work after we both got off. We planned to meet on the street, and after wandering around for a minute I found a young guy playing saxophone while seated in a pair of whispering dishes on Market Street (giant cement contact lenses that focus sound at each other). The seat 50 feet across from him was open, so I sat down. After a minute I realized he was playing a beautifully intricate version of "Nature Boy", and took some time to take in the moment. The hustle and bustle of the streets, the song that I love… it was wonderful!
His buddy gets up and the two of them start talking, forgetting that I could hear everything they’re saying. It’s mostly innocuous, saying goodbye, but his buddy starts to tell him to check out music by Vince Stiles. Says it’s real good and he needs to check it out. The saxophone guy asks if that’s the guy who does the peanut song, and as they struggle to figure out what peanut-song-guy’s name is, I quietly said, “That’s Vince Guaraldi.”
They both freeze.
It takes them a second, but they look across to me and we all start cracking up. Dying laughing. The buddy leaves, and saxophone guy and I start talking, I tell him how much I love the song he was playing, he asks me if I’m a musician, what instruments I play, we talk music a little bit. He asks if I have any recommendations, I tell him to surprise me.
He starts playing a slow, melancholy version of “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby”, my friend appears, I say thank you and we carry on our way.
I once brushed out my ponytail weave on Bart... And I was singing a song at the same time... I had a moment.
On a flight home everyone in my whole row was reading a library book or knitting.
Sitting at an outdoor concert, the couple sitting next to me smoked pot the entire show. Whatever, no big deal. For the last song, they got out a carton of cigarettes, leaned over to me and asked, “Hey, do you mind if we smoke?”
When someone asked if I work at a start up once I said I live in SF, then I had to explain that I work for two.
My most SF moment is every time I'm riding my bike home. I live in the Richmond District, and regardless of where I am the bike ride home always clears my mind and reminds me of how diverse this city really is. The twists and curves of the panhandle lead me to Golden Gate Park where usually the moon is bright and full, and the fog is both eery and beautiful. Just as I'm coming up Balboa near my house, I can see for a brief moment, the tip of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I'm reminded of how crazy it is to live in a place that people from all over the world come to visit.