The other day, among the morning’s smattering of thoughts, I was, briefly, trying to come to a better, more clear understanding of what it means to be passionate, what it means to love. I was thinking in broad terms and not so much about romantic love or passion. I was thinking about how when we care deeply about something, we argue for it, we fight for it, we try to make it better, we try to become enmeshed in it. There’s that classic Groucho Marx scene from Day at the Races in which the character Flo implores Dr. Hackenbush to hold her “closer… closer… closer” and he replies, “if I hold you any closer I’ll be in back of you.” It’s that type of closeness – to be more at one with something that I was contemplating.
For context: it was another phenomenal weekend in the city. Free music, free sunshine, good company, and just enough beer to make happiness and joy seem like it could be life’s default setting if we just let it be. I heard a lot of good music, discovered a few local bands who I will check out, and spent a lot of time in one of my favorite neighborhoods, North Beach. During one of the free shows at the North Beach Festival, a friend and I watched an older woman (quite frail but dressed to the nines) dance and strut. Every step she took looked like it could easily turn into a tumble which might be her last. In her unsteady red heels, she had an ankles breaking look about her. Nevertheless, she danced to almost every song and with anyone who would dance with her. At some point, either the band or the emcee gave a shout out to the woman – North Beach Gail (or Gayle or however it might be spelled). I suggested to my friend, “that’s a story that needs to be told.” Who is North Beach Gail? I imagine an heiress or maybe an old shop owner or bar tender.
For context: hanging on the wall of my local bar is poster of a former “regular” announcing a celebration of life for her – which will happen at the bar. I’m sure I’ve crossed paths with her, but I didn’t quite recognize her in the photo. She’s probably the third or fourth regular who has passed away in the two-and-half years that I’ve been here. Morbidly and selfishly, I thought, is that how I’m going to go out? With my face hanging on the wall of my local pub and some people toasting another regular while others wonder, who the fuck was that guy?
For context: last week, I was writing about the “local scene,” its evolution, its perceived disappearance, its past, and its future. Mixed in with what I tried to pass off as cultural analysis of a boom and bust city, was a desire to contribute, a desire to build something or chronicle something, to bear witness, to discover, to share. A city is a spectacular thing. It’s made up of people, places, history, and hope. Countless lives lived. Countless stories to tell. Countless lives forgotten. A city can make you feel seen or it can be a place to disappear. It can make you feel grand or like a cog in the ever-grinding wheel of capitalism. It’s full of promise and busted dreams.
This is the context under which I was contemplating love and passion. How to fit in. How to chronicle the stories of the many characters like North Beach Gail who make a place or community unique. How to be that type of person, that type of spirit – someone who brings out goodness or joy in others. I spent part of that morning wanting to write a book or start a website/project about the characters who have lived here – to tell some of their stories before the obituary, before the forgetting.
For the better part of this past year, I’ve been trying to figure out what my contribution will be or could be. If I’ve wanted to own a bar or open a music venue or bring back the idea of an underground zine, it’s because I not only want to do more, but I want to do something for the sake of joy (as opposed to commerce). Yet… inevitably, when I kick ideas around, I trip over how to make them “profitable” or at least profitable enough that I could earn a meager living off of doing something I enjoy. This left me tangled in that awkward space between love and survival. Ideally, love and passion would be free of something as ungraceful as financial considerations and profit and loss statements, would be given freely to the world… but one has to have a roof over one’s head and food on the table. Even in the best relationships, beneath that romanticized “us against the world” or “let’s ditch this town” story line, lurks the reality of jobs and schedules and trying to make it work.
I followed the thread of wanting to build something (or at least understand this city better) down that rabbit hole for a bit. I read articles about the shifting cultural scene in the city. I read about Beach Blanket Babylon, the longest running musical revue in the country at the time of its closing in 2019. I read articles about other characters from the city’s past including the Wikipedia page for Frank Chu who has been protesting in SF nearly every day since 1999, making the claim that various presidential administrations have been “collaborating with a nefarious network of alien populations called the “12 Galaxies” to film him against his will, to broadcast this footage intergalactically.” A bar in the city was once named 12 Galaxies in honor of Chu. And because I had been reading some poems from Bay Area poets, I’ve been looking up places mentioned in their poems: old bars that no longer exist, streets I’m not so familiar with. Additionally, I read articles about some of the city’s detractors (and there are always plenty). There was a kerfuffle in 2013 about a tech founder who wrote about being forced to move to a shit-hole of a city (he later claimed his article was satire – which seems in keeping with how both tech and our current administration operate). It seems there’s always been this tension between tech and the city, between interlopers looking to get rich and the people who live here for other reasons. As one article concluded, “One lesson these idiotic editorials show again and again is San Franciscans want people who move here to love this city like they love it. And so far we haven’t had any strong voices from the tech world showing that they are into more than the city’s money.”
As with so many things, the more I dug, the more I felt overwhelmed and curious and inspired in all the best ways. I may not know how or what my contribution will be, but I can take comfort in knowing that I’m in a place where contributing seems possible. And while I’ve been itching to stretch my creative legs a bit, to know other parts of the city the way I know my neighborhood, to become more enmeshed and learn more, I can also feel good that for now, I have a local spot where I’m seen as a good ambassador and evangelist, where long-time residents have said I’ve helped them feel a new enthusiasm for the city and visitors have said they’ve gotten the best treatment from the regulars. I’m too shy to be one of the “characters” of the city, but I’m poking at the edges of who I might be.