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Sunday 02/09/12 Finding the Hippies
When I was younger and through watching films I imagined a San Francisco full of hills, trams (cable cars), the golden gate bridge, pretty wooden colourful houses, parks and hippies playing instruments in them. I'd found the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars, I'd found the pretty houses and hills in North Beach, so today we would find the hippies and see a band.
Neil had booked us tickets back at home to see a punk band, The Men, at a venue called The Independent. It worked out well as Haight-Ashbury was close to the venue. We also read about a free festival for Labour Day weekend, Doing It In The Park, and thought we would check it out as it was in The Golden Gate Park.
We had all ready taken some wrong turns during our San Fran trip and On the way to the bus stop we took another one, walking straight through the ghetto ends of the tenderloin district and coming across some characters, for example, a toothless woman named Cookie (I wonder why). We quickened our step till we reached Market Street where we walked passed a woman hysterically crying in the doorway of a shop?!
Wow I hoped the rest of this day would go better. We jumped onto a busy bus and sat across from a couple of friends, an elegant transsexual and ghetto mama mouthing off to her friend about good for nothing men! The further we got away from downtown/union square the nicer the streets and houses became.
We jumped off the bus when we were close to Haight-Ashbury and walked along the shops and found a good thrift shop and I bought a blouse for £4. There were lots of hippy themed shops and smoking paraphernalia. The houses and shops were just as i imagined; Wooden panelled and colourful on hilly streets. We found Ameoba Records a huge independent Record store, a vast collection you could get lost in. For lunch we had mcchicken nuggets in the shabbiest McDs.
After lunch we walked into the Golden Gate Park and past some sketchy looking characters and into an open space where there were a group of people gathered playing music. More people started to join with their own hand drums and guitars. We watched from above and then followed a path round further into the park at which point we realised the park was huge. We had no idea where the festival was but found the university and science museum until San Frans mysterious foggy mist started to appear so we went back the way we came. On the way out we met another vagrant holding a glass bottle of vodka and shouting how "I'm a bad man and Im gonna kill you".
Once out the park we went to a nice bar that had a happy hour. I got the cheap bloody mary. It was good and had some of the perfect components; homemade spiced tomato juice and pickled asparagus, French beans and olives. Yummy!
The show was at 9pm so we went to find the venue and have a bit of dinner. We decided on a Thai place down the road from the venue. We shared a starter platter which was a good selection and came with good dips. It also included Thai starters I'd never had, tofu triangles. For mains we shared a Seafood Pad Thai and it was really nice, not too sweet.
We had time for a drink before the gig so stopped off in an art bar for a bev. The place had lots of gun art on the walls and a bar that went across the left hand side of the room, sofas in the back and a Bill Murray film being projected onto the back wall with no sound. There was a small stage in the corner by the door and a moveable DJ table. It seemed like they were preparing for a big night and it was the calm before the storm.
The Independent was a lot bigger inside and had an art deco feel. The venue was only about a third full so we sat near the front to the left. All the bands were really good and I enjoyed watching and listening to them all but we couldn't afford to drink a lot which is always a shame.
All in all Haight- Ashbury was a lovely place and we had a great day and that bloody Mary was bloody brilliant!
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