If You Are Going to San Francisco…
An un-edited romp through the thoughts of a visitor with a little over 48 hours to take it all in.
The city is alive with warmth. There is a buzz in the air. An old school art, hippy, and beatnik landscape pushed aside by the monoculture readiness of tech companies.
The city glows with beauty. Coit tower, the perfect illustration of the old dominating the new landscape. The pier hums along with tourists flocking to pictures and restaurants and rich techies mingling at a bar. The parks are packed when the sun is alive.
As night crawls forth, a hedonistic lifestyle becomes known. This is a city for the young. For the young to drink; the fine romance; to make mistakes and live their lives. Their faces aren’t forced on to their phone screens. There is no time between each beer and bar move.
The ladies are done up. Wearing next to nothing; covered in goosebumps, they want to look good for one another. To be seen. To be desired. Money sloshes around. You can see who has it, who doesn’t, and who doesn’t care.
San Francisco is a city for the young. It has been built and re-built on top of dreams made of fortunes and those searching for them. If ever there was a city made to sell picks and shovels, San Francisco would be it. The young flock to find their gold. And the gold changes from generation to generation. It once was actual gold. Two generations later, it became a movement. And at the end of the 20th century, technology forced the hand of young dreamers once again. It pulls those in to find their fortune and keeps them here with a relaxing beauty. Los Angeles is always talked about as the west coast hot spot. But that city has spent too much time inhaling it’s own smog. San Francisco is the place to be if you want to build anything.
The history here is immeasurable. Right on the cusp of North Beach and Chinatown you will find City Light Books, the beatnik era mecca for anyone wanting to pick up some poetry. Or any other book for that matter. Across the street sit empty strip clubs, probably kicked out years ago by overzealous property developers wanting to make a buck at any cost. Push out the scum, pull in the monoculture. But blazing neon signs for places like Big Al’s still stand tall, a reminder of a time when hedonism was a normal part of life, and people were more willing to revel in every aspect of it.
The reminder of a pandemic sits everywhere and in everything. People will still wear masks, this will never change. But you can see it in attitudes and how people act. Seattle is a reserved city. The bar and club scene still hasn’t hit the years before Covid came to light. It has been easy getting used to the quietness. The nightlife in San Francisco acts as if none of these things ever happened. And it is wonderful to see young people let loose, have too many drinks, make memories, and live their lives. What a curse the pandemic has been.
There is a class war happening here. Happening in the shadows. Common knowledge no one wants to say out loud. But things the history of a city like this. A city built on top of a gold rush no one won. A city built on revolution in the 60’s before it washed away, cascading on the empty shores of Altamont and Nixon. A city built upon the late 90’s fever dream of dial up to internet. Now a city built on AI. There is a human soul here. It only makes itself known through art and people.
