Nice Shirt, Honey!

i was having another simple, but delicious Lunch in the * All You Knead * cafe @ Haight/Ashbury, in San Francisco, sitting solo in one of the spacious round booth's in fake leather, so much beloved by me. All this big space around me just for myself. A beauty of a young lady with bright red lips and dressed up all in blakk in a touch of art deco look, a purple shine in her hair, feminine walking her line past me leaving the cafe, she said “nice shirt, honey”. just when i was sipping on my root beer, me dressed in a red Hawaiian shirt.

Christmas time, Jeff Buckley and Halleluja

Christmas 05

In the USA there is a big debate going on. No more wishing to you Merry Christmas, but Happy Holiday and lots of new wording. Even president Bush, who calls himself a hard core Christian, doesn't wish you from the white house a merry Christmas, but a wishy washy something that sounds like blabla. Uh, he is a faky. If he would do a faky on snow skis, that would be great, but a faky on Christianity? Uh ah I'm not very religious, I'd rather be rokking and rolling, but if u call yourself Christian, then please keep to it. Uh ah I'm not very religious, I'm not really Christian, but i grew up in this Christian culture, but i WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS. Sears was the only company that wished you a very Merry Christmas. I spent part of my Christmas season in the Sonoma wine country, cocktail parties, dinners, always the best wine, good food, just a very enjoyable time in company of interesting and entertaining people from very young to very old. The brain topics rokked from Machiavelli, Zinfandel Wine, Stealth planes, spymasters.com, the beat of hip hop to the design of ultrafast multi use connections. And a small word to my sukking European counterparts: i was astound of the detailed knowledge about the world by many American friends i met. Now just one example: not only knew this person about the topic of a vote in Switzerland, he even told me how he would have voted!

Christmas day i spent in rainy San Francisco. My lunch was at my darling restaurant on Haight/Ashbury: * All You Knead *. During my Christmas lunch, as ever always a great treat for your tastes, all the while was playing Jeff Buckley and Grace, even so the restaurant is noisy. Oh gosh & oh god, what a treat. Next to oxygen, as Pitchfork.com so well defined, music is the most important ingredient to keep one alive, but besides 4 me: donuts, root beer, well done garden burgers, rokking & rolling, books, Zinfandel from the Wilson Winery, Yearbook the ski movie, snow and mountains, Hallelujah. I have never ever heard Jeff Buckley's music in a public eatery or drinkery. Here i am, enjoying my Christmas garden burger, well done, very cool customers around me, very stylish staff around me, one waitress had stockings on just to her the knees, small blakk pattern with lots of glitter in it, mini skirt in blakk, a tank top, so her rose tattoo on the back was in plain sight, just at the end of my lunch, one of my favorites by him started: Hallelujah. This is not a Christmas song, but it fit the day. I heard a lot of great Christmas music and I'm not getting tired of it. Many of them are very old melodies, time proofed, to glorify a peak religious event, composed by masters while giving their best. It's their harmonies that blow me, some of the most balanced music. And one of my all time favorites is : Phil Spectors Christmas music from the 70ies. From my hotel room i often could hear the saxophone by a black musician, always on the same street corner, playing Oh Tannenbaum. he played it many times, and i always loved it.
Today i walked from San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin City. Out of downtown Sausalito, away from the tourist trap, at the * Sailor's Landing * i stopped for lunch. This is a very good restaurant, one of the few that have NO background music. What a joy. A great place to be. Great Californian style interior, wood paneling, lot's of windows, real table cloth with real cloth napkins, nice simple wooden furniture, great old fashioned wooden bar, nice clientèle, friendly staff, and a great hamburger with really good French fries for just 7 dollars, the glass of zinfandel wine by Coppola was more expensive than my meal.

Sunday Best Ocean Beach and Brunch

16dec05

today in my Sunday Best it was my Sunday Stroll with another short bath in the San Francisco pacific. It woke me up, but before I had coffee and a long shaped pastry with lots of powder sugar on top at the Garden House Cafe @ Clement, reading the Sunday times, writing a letter, mostly jingle bells songs in the background, then slowly down to Ocean Beach, admiring all the nice and simple houses with the most varied paint jobs along the streets. Again i saw there the same truck i spotted already yesterday from my bus ride, but yesterday i was walking without my camera, so today i took a shot of this van. It's a '52 Chevy, as the owner, Bob, 54 years young, explained. An old surfer since more than 40 years, he has 2 more of this car. He is a painter, and also surfs in Hawaii, where he has his own place. I asked him, where i could take a dip on the safe side and he gave good advice. It's like with snow skiing off piste, or freesking, it's good to know the local conditions. Still, nothing is safe. I had a good talk with him, good surfer scene @ Ocean Beach. Hopefully i meet him again. Today the waves were high, in the 12 feet range. I took another plunge into the water for few minutes, still a bit chilly in my blood i then slalomed along the beach through many, many, many dogs, mostly barefoot in the water disturbing many different seabirds searching for their Sunday best brunch. I saw the first pelicans diving for fish, just before the surf broke. I found a small shell, shaped exactly like the Shell shell, only mine is in white and grey and not yellow. At the zoo i got on the bus and made a different city tour with a couple transfers. I will not shower tonight, the all natural pacific essence on my skin is to precious for me to drain it back into the San Francisco bay. As it says on MUNI ads: only rain down the drain. While I'm hakking, i treat myself to two glasses of Fetzer Shiraz, two very laaarge glasses, now i don't see the pixels clear anymore.

Grrrrl T-shirt

a girl boarded a bus in San Francisco and on her blakk T-shirt it said in pink:

Paint more

Think Less

pAINT
mORE

...THINK LESS

and I followed her advice

New camera: POLAROID

For $90 on sale i bought a digit camera. Good for me, but not a good camera. Not as good as my kaput Nikon. i wanted some photos as memory. Better this than nothing.

Pacific skinny dipping

11dec05
i finally landed with my full body in the cold Pacific. That was one of my main goals on this trip. Living in a country without any oceans, but mountains and money banks, the sight of sand banks make my heart sing. The skinny dipping also turned into a long walk. First i boarded a bus out to the ocean beach. On the way i stopped for coffee in Richmond at Clement and 32^nd Ave. this coffee shop is so pleasant, very friendly service, great interior with nice home painted paintings, the * New Yorker * on the table, and Bing Crosby singing * I'm dreaming of a white Christmas * while i was enjoying my hot coffee, reading the bad news and the good news: the sunny weather for the next five days and writing a short letter. I got on the bus again, a young guy came in with a surfboard on Ocean Beach, it turns out that he is swiss from Moléson, spent 5 months in San Francisco, doesn't like it here at all, he is a showboarder, well then it figured to me his small mindedness. Tastes are different. Another guy came in, started to read a thick heavy book, but he always glanced over to the beach to check out the surf, and the waves were big. I asked what he is reading, he was at the end, it's Tolstoy, War and Peace. He said tomorrow the waves will be even bigger, so I'm going back to Ocean Beach tomorrow. Glancing out the bus, a Ferrari club was on the next lane, spiced with a Lamborghini and a Lotus.
I stopped quickly at the * Aqua * surf shop, nice shop, nice boards, nice staff, but no grrrrls. So where then are all these California surf grrrrls the beach boys were singing me in the sixties? But i flew to California so i can hit the pacific, and i wanted to try this at China Beach, so i started to walk. I passed Cliff House, the Palace of Legion of Honor, where Hitchcock filmed Vertigo, i walked along million of dollars houses with manicured greens, and there was China Beach, small, very few People. I checked out the water, the flow, the currant, the coldness, and with respect and precaution i plunged in. cold was the water, and powerful. What a rare feeling this is for me. In China Beach the waves are small, still they are powerful and can smash you right into the sand. Also I'm not a local and regular with open pacific water, i was careful. A couple of weeks ago, on a Sonoma county beach, a couple of people drowned there in a undercurrent. I didn't dare to swim, i just played, waded, and enjoyed the feeling of salt water on my skin, on my tongue, in my hair. At home i didn't shower, i want to keep the salty taste of my skin as long as possible.I walked over to Baker Beach, where * Burning Man * started. Barefoot on this great beach with great view of the golden gate, Golden Gate bridge toll plaza, and then i could walk all barefoot in shallow water to the Marina. The tide was so low. In the bus to Haight/Ashbury into my darling All You Knead place and i had again the same plate like yesterday, because it is so yummy, and all the while they had John Lennon singing! On the way to my hotel by bus, a Friday night crowd came in, it was a pure pleasure to see all these diverse people, styles, attitudes, class, and their excitement whats coming up for them tonight, this MUNI bus ride was way better than any production of Parsifal opera staged in Los Angeles by Avant-garde director Robert Wilson.
Now while hakking this, I'm supported by a bottle of Fetzer Wine, Vineyards Valley Oaks, Shiraz, California, vintage 2001, hey, believe me, not bad, and even so i had a great day, i still deserve it.

Haight/Ashbury

10dec05
today was my first visit to Haight/Ashbury. I walked in from the panhandle side. The first sound i heard out from a delivery truck at the cross section of Haight/Ashbury at the red traffic light was from -> Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Déja Vue. Not eminem but Déja Vue. This coincidence was powerful, one of my favorite albums. This play is better than any masterly directed opera. This is a true live opera without any Verdi influence or Modzart, performed just for me with many coincidences coming together at the right time. This invisible director staged a perfect welcome opera party for me. Without paying a steep opera style priced admission, this opera was my private own opera in full public view. Oh man. me as an ex hippie and still an old true hippie in my heart with sometimes very long silver hair, in my age politically not correct, out of a truck comes the orchestra playing a time correct soundtrack. I don't know if it was from a radio or a Cd. Right on i felt good and like at home, the good old days. What a welcome the original hippie town gave me, a better script than any from Hollywood. I walked the whole Haight on both sidewalks, up and down. I noticed a dog groom store, with heavy duty black dog collars and tons of the sharpest steel spikes on them in the window display, but it turned out to be not a pet store but a sado maso sex store.The best vintage clothing stores you find here, next to London in Camden Town. I had lunch at the *All You Knead*, i sat in a sumptuous leather covered booth in brown all by myself, my neighbor an old man in my age with a black t-shirt with huge green marijuana plants screened on it, lot's of plants, many posters on the wall, like the famous *the night birds* by Edward Hopper, or the *the runaway kid* by Norman Rockwell, out of which the ski brand K2 made a good advertising version for fat skis. I had the daily special: vegetarian burger with salad, and a root beer, it was very delicious, the greens very fresh, the burger tasty and rightly grilled, the salad dressing to my taste, all this for a bit more than 8 dollars. I have a very good time in San Francisco, this was another highlight.
For dessert i walked into the music store *Amoeba*, now this, for a music lover like me but tired of mega hits, this is heaven. Huge, and so pleasantly designed, unlike these super commercial music mega store filled with the newest billboard shits.. Amoeba has music culture, the mega stores have capital culture. I wanted to make a test with a music group i haven't seen for 30 years stacked live in a shelf as a lp or Cd in a music store. Now listen to this, this blew my mind, although i didn't let it show in my facial expression: i walked up to the information booth at Amoeba and asked the young guy: “where can i find *Pearls Before Swine*” ? This is a group from 1968, unknown even in 1968. As if this is the same question the tourists ask over and over again, year in year out, at the tourist information next to the turning point of the cable car at Market, he answered calmly and very well assured, without first much reflecting, without thinking who is this weirdo band, without checking first the data base in his computer, he just said: down there in the Rock section. Hey, are you still with me ???, hey thank you, and there was *Pearls Before Swine*, and many of them, Musicalicous! The staff at Amoeba must be very well trained, must have a big musical brain. I was impressed. I'm going back, i hope D.... is joining me.
hANS bOLLI :: pAINTER

iWino Report

by a Sommelier from San Francisco:
iDrink a lot more wine than iUsually do, but hey i'm in wine country, and i'm not driving a car but high in spirits, here comes iConfess:Montevina, Sierra Foothills, Zinfandel, 2001, Amador County
Fetzer,Valley Oaks, Shiraz, 2003
Arbor Crest, Syrah
Fetzer,Valley Oaks, Chardonnay, 2003
Wilson Winery, Healdsburg, CA, Old Zinfandel,
Buehler, Chardonnay, Russian River CA

Chlaus Walk

6dec05
Today i walked the Samichlaus walk, to honor all * die chläus * around me, roundtrip Union Square to the other side of Golden Gate Bridge. I started at 7.30am and was back at 4.30pm. great weather, many dogs and even more Chläuse. First stop in the morning was after one hour warm up at the Chestnut Street Coffe Roastery for my medium size coffe and the San Francisco Chronicle, i stayed there for about one hour, getting deeper into the headlines and some chlaus watching. then it was just going and walking and sightseeing and some barefoot walking in the shallow seawater and in the sandy beaches, to give my feet a welcome massage and a breath of fresh air. Because me feet live mostly in the dark ages in wintertime, their home is in skiboots. In the last 10 years, my feet had this real seawater pleasure only about 5 times, and then always just for a moment. Walking barefoot on the beach is not without, as a surfer at Ocean Beach warned me: pay attention to broken glas in the sand. So while walking in the sand, i concentrate what's in front of me, so there is not a lot of sightseeing while walking.
Being here and be able to do all those great things, i'm a lucky man.

My dear Hotel Neighbour

What a big ass. I have never seen him, i don't know who he is. Luckily. To be politically correct, i just say this: he talks forever on his phone, loud mouth, singing voice, always the same topic for ages: women. he never says a name, but: i know! i know! i know! i know!, what i say, do you know what i mean, what! what! what! what! Very true, Very true,Very true, i agree with you 100%, oh yeah!! uh!! oh!! UH man !! uh man !! i know! i know! i know! i know!
I have to go out to buy Oro Pax or go out to Hyde into the Hideout bar and get drunk. even better would be a really good powerful sound system in my hotel room. this guy with his high screaming voice turns my silver hair into grey. Thank you brother.

No Men with cell phone and car keys in their hands

oh what a relief, since I'm here i have not spot a man with a cell phone in one hand, holding the car key in the other hand and at the same time scratching his crotch, and all this on public land in full view of the public. not in the streets of San Francisco. in California, in the USA, you don't brag about your car when you are a local. not that California would brag about their cars, oh no, California has the highest and most beauty full auto culture in the world, but on a different level, on higher level. In Europe, the locals don't do that either, but ..... Those men can't get enough with a cell phone in one hand, holding the car key in the other hand and at the same time scratching their holy crotch while strolling the streets. This is their status culture.