Sulfur deposits near a fumarole

Series recap: The Geysers’ fumaroles rise inferno-like, blasting steam plumes into the North Bay sky, while thick mineral-laden springs roil up from layers of permeable super-hot rock lying miles beneath the earth’s crust. The Geysers stretch down a dramatically steep canyon, and out across forty square miles of the Mayacamas Mountain range in northeast Sonoma and southern Lake counties.

A modern complex of twenty-two electricity generating plants mine steam from the Geysers. It’s the worlds largest producer of geothermal power. According to the final report on the Santa Rosa Geysers Recharge Project, by 1998 the Geysers had almost three times the generating capacity of their closest rival, Mexico’s Cerro Prieto.

Wastewater from neighboring communities is pumped to Santa Rosa. It’s treated, piped 40-plus miles into the mountains, injected into deep wells, thereby “recharging” rock lying like a fry pan, atop ancient, but still extremely hot magma.

This water-injection causes earthquakes.

Humans enjoyed and benefitted from these volcanic fumaroles and hotsprings for 12,000 years. At least 6 native tribes inhabited the area at the time of first euro-american contact. Recorded history notes 3 U.S. Presidents, a future King of England, Mark Twain and P.T. Barnum were among the many famed visitors to sign the “Devil’s Inkwell” registry at the once pricey resort. Over time The Geysers has been used for physical therapy, recreation, sightseeing and wonderment, and for native ceremonies.

Since 1921 “Sonoma’s Eighth Wonder of the World” has developed into the crown jewel of the world’s geothermal industry.

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The quest for electricity at The Geysers began in 1921, when a visionary gravel pit owner from Healdsburg leased The Geysers Hotel Resort. John D. Grant remodeled much of the resort, but dreamed of harnessing The Geysers’ enormous energy potential.

Grant formed The Geysers Development Company. World renowned horticulturist Luther Burbank came aboard as an investor. A photo of Burbank on-sight shows him turning a valve, letting off a little steam. Grant hired a 17 year old youngster named Glen Truitt to tap “the Witches’ Cauldron”—the hottest opening in Geyser Canyon. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but after digging mere feet from the surface, well No. 1 “blew up like a volcano”. The well-digging operation was moved across the canyon, and they went at it again.

After two years walking a financial tightrope The Geysers Development Company was reorganized, bolstered by new sources of funding. The operation contracted with and provided the town of Healdsburg electricity for a time, but cheap oil prices spelled its doom. The two tiny power plants shut down in 1934, when Healdsburg let go its contract for Geysers power. One plant was dismantled, hauled down the canyon, and reassembled to provide electricity for the resort. According to Glenn Truitt, electricity generated from this plant lit the resort buildings and grounds so that they “…looked like a Christmas card.”

The Geysers Resort Hotel burned to the ground four short years later. A good deal of press bandied about various proposals concerning what to do with the property, most emphasizing that as a sanatorium it was without equal. Indeed, that’s just how it was advertised during the brief tenure of Dr. Joseph Sooy, who operated The Geysers facilities for the three years prior to the devastating fire. It was Dr. Sooy who promoted “The Big Steam Geysers” as the “8th Wonder of the World”, while touting the health benefits of its arsenic and hydrochloric acid-laced mineral springs, and its “Radium Active Caves”.

The Geysers remained a resort until the 1970′s drew to a close. It was the end of an era. By 1980 the last buildings were destroyed and the Geyser’s turned exclusively to electricity production.

But energy development had continued right alongside Geysers recreation. This, even after initial electricity generating efforts failed to turn a profit back in the 1920′s and 30′s.

Magma Power Company teamed up with Thermal Power in 1955. The firms, owned by two close friends, jointly drilled wells as deep as 1,400 feet, selling electricity generated from their operation to utility behemoth PG&E, beginning in 1958.

The first “modern” plant at The Geysers was built and operated by PG&E, itself. It went online in September of 1960. By 1968 The Geysers was producing 82 megawatts of electricity, about one-tenth its current output.

Electricity production peaked in the 1987 at twice what is produced today. The Geysers simply could not sustain those high rates of energy production. The decision was made to cut back for the sake of production field longevity. Think pouring cold water on red hot sauna rocks. The more water, the longer it takes to reheat the rocks. In the case of The Geysers, once cooled, the magma takes a much longer time reheating the porous rock above.

Numerous business concerns have had interests in The Geysers over time. Today, Calpine Corporation owns and operates 19 of the 22 currently operating geothermal power plants. While Calpine is the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world, geothermal is just a tiny fraction of its energy wholesaling portfolio.

From an initial investment of $1 million dollars back in 1984, Calpine grew to a net worth of $23 billion, before falling $22 billion in the red by 2005. In 2004 their 89 energy complexes stretched across 21 states, producing a combined 22,000 megawatts of energy. Stock zoomed above 50 dollars a share. But it all came crashing down. Stock dropped to 30 cents a share. Calpine filed for bankruptcy in 2005, emerging whole again on January 31, 2008.

While the issue of geothermal energy production is complex, there’s little doubt that tucked way up in a corner of Sonoma and Lake Counties a unique resource called The Geysers will continue to awe, and will undoubtedly play an enormous and pivotal role in geothermal research and development for years to come.

Teddy Roosevelt laughing

recap: The Geysers is the world’s most productive geothermal energy field. It straddles northeastern Sonoma and southern Lake Counties. The twenty-two plants currently generating electricity at The Geysers produce enough power to satisfy the demands of every coastal community starting at the Golden Gate heading north to the Oregon border. But, long before its use as an electricity resource…

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The Geysers gained renown from the Indian Geysers Legend with its grizzly bear phantom and from novelist Robert Louis Stevenson squatting just over the hill. In fact, from the mid-1800′s on, The Geysers was world renowned, visited and remarked upon by luminaries including the future King Edward VII, Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, famed midget Tom Thumb, Ulysses S. Grant, William Jennings Bryan, Guiseppe Garibaldi and J.P. Morgan, to name but a few.

To get to the Geysers Resort Hotel famed stage coach driver, Clark Foss, raced visitors from Knights Valley to the foot of Geyser Peak. He charged over the narrow “Hog’s Back” hilltop ridge down the steep and harrowing descent to the resort, whipping his horses with screams meant to awaken the dead.

The road dropped 1,500 feet in the course of two miles. In his account of this stage coach ride Benjamin Avery tells us, “There are 35 sharp turns in ‘the drop,’ and the road, just wide enough for the team, frequently hugs the edge of steep rocky precipices… The great speed maintained, instead of increasing the danger, lessens it. Yet there are persons in almost every wagonful of passengers who pale and shrink as the vehicle dashes wildly down, and as they see below them, under the very wheels, as it were, the yawning chasms that threaten death… When the wagon reaches the hotel, all its tenants have a half-wild-look, as if they had just come down in a balloon and were thankful it had ‘lit.’”

The stage riders, once safely planted on terra firma, could peer off from the ridge overlooking Big Sulphur Creek, while spreading out before them innumerable rampaging infernos rose from craggy rocks like vapor demons. Fumaroles hissed, springs contorted, seething and grinding up subterranean hells. All this, steaming and streaming—stretching down the length of Geyser Canyon.

The Geysers Resort Hotel started out humble enough, as a cloth house in 1854. By 1890 it was a sizable complex. It’s kitchen served up venison, bear, grouse and trout. On busy summer days guests might be compelled to sleep on billiard tables or in bathhouses because the hotel was booked solid. The registry book was signed using black muck drawn from “the Devil’s Inkwell.”

Pioneering photographer Eadward Muybridge was probably the first to photograph The Geysers. In his famous 1870 stereograph “The Witches’ Cauldron, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I,” Muybridge poses three women in front of the roiling “cauldron”, hands joined together high in the air, yet grasping their “Geyser Pony” walking sticks like wizard wands or witches broomsticks to effect the passage:

Cooking eggs at the Witches' Cauldron, by Eadweard Muybridge

Eye of newt and toe of frog
Wool of bat and tongue of dog…
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. —William Shakespeare

The Geysers Resort Hotel was in its prime for less than 20 years. By the mid-1880′s it was already falling on hard times. Where it once catered to the rich and famous in an informal albeit pricey fashion (The Knight of the Whip, Clark Foss–charged close to $2,000 in today’s money simply for the stage ride to the resort), The Geysers Hotel owners now turned to budget-minded tourists with pitches like: “the grandest, most beneficial for health, and cheapest pleasure trip in the world”.

Whether financially successful or no, folks occasionally flocked, and often trickled to The Geysers, recreating in a setting even the most jaded and well-traveled admitted was, at the very least, different. Pilgrims traveled to The Geysers for thousands of years. Their skin pores opened by odorous steam blasting from molten subterranean furnaces, they stewed in warm, the searing hot, cold and tepid mineral springs. Perhaps some latter-day visitors simply heard of The Geysers, this freak of the natural world, in some distant place, and wanted to say they had seen it with their own eyes—much like a modern day RV enthusiast boasting decals from every National Park.

Here, at “the Gates of Hades,” as many as two hundred earth fissures blew vapor plumes to the sky, and bubbled up hellish broths of minerals and chemicals considered beneficial to health and healing. In 1935 Dr. Joseph Sooy signed a lease to the property. He intended to build a one hundred twenty room hotel and convelescent facility. Ernest Finley opined, “Development of what is sometimes referred to as ‘Sonoma’s Eighth Wonder of the World’ into a health and recreation center doubtless will attract large numbers of tourists, sightseers and invalids to The Geysers annually.”

Alas, it just didn’t work out. While the resort continued to attract visitors long after its glory days, the entire resort complex was gone by 1981.

Meanwhile, the first stab at geothermal energy development had already begun at The Geysers. John Grant recognized The Geysers energy production potential. In 1921 Grant hired Glen Truitt to tap the Witches’ Cauldron. The race to develop The Geysers as a massive geothermal energy complex was on.

Oceanic-Continental Volcanic Convergence

The previous column noted how The Geysers are the most productive geothermal energy resource in the world. They produce more energy than all of California’s wind and solar, combined.

Now it’s 1847.

Renowned grizzly-hunter William Bell Elliott races up a steep Mayacamas Mountain embankment on the heels of a wily bear named “Old Slewfoot.” Elliott slips around a narrow canyon corner, his body pressed hard against the steep crumbling mountainside, desperately digging toes into loose gravel, while a vertigo-inducing chasm drops 1500 feet straight into the gorge beneath him. To calm himself, he nervously casts eyes across the length and breadth of the deep North Bay canyon. With that single furtive glance, William Bell Elliott makes a sudden and startling “discovery.”

It’s not Old Slewfoot set to maul Elliot straight to his eternal rewards. Instead, Elliott confronts…, well, here’s how famed journalist Bayard Taylor described it:

“The torn irregular walls…glare with patches of orange, crimson, sulfur, livid gray, and fiery brown, which the last rays of the sun, striking their tops, turn into masses of smoldering fire. Over the rocks, crusted as with a mixture of blood and brimstone, pour angry cataracts of seething milky water. In every corner and crevice, a little piston is working or a heart is beating, while from a hundred vent-holes about fifty feet above…the steam rushes in terrible jets. I have never beheld any scene so entirely infernal in its appearance. The rocks burn under you; you are enveloped in fierce heat, strangled by puffs of diabolical vapor, and stunned by the awful, hissing, spitting, sputtering, roaring, threatening sounds–as if a dozen steamboats blowing through their escape-pipes, had aroused the ire of ten-thousand hell-cats…”

In short, on that bright sunny day back in 1847 William Bell Elliott felt certain he had just passed into—the very Gates of Hell.

One hundred and sixty four years have passed since Elliott’s “discovery.” Consider, though, that this thermal “hell” Elliott espied had been a Native American therapeutic spa and resort for at least one hundred CENTURIES before a single person of European extraction caught sight—or sulfurous smell of it.

But no matter when pre-Columbians first came upon them The Geysers are the legacy of ancient volcanic incidents which occurred long before humans came into being. In his Geologic History of Middle California, Arthur D. Howard lays it out for us:

“Volcanic activity, which had begun about 2 million years ago in the Clear Lake region continued on a grand scale… Volcanic cones rose sporadically, pouring out flows of light and dark lavas and spewing great quantities of ash, cinders, and rock fragments over the countryside. The rhyolite lavas of Cobb Mountain just east of The Geysers steam field were extruded about one million years ago…That the Clear Lake region is still highly unstable is indicated by the numerous earthquakes that beset the region. There is no reason to believe that volcanic activity may not resume at some time. We have already noted that a body of magma probably lies only 6 miles or so below the surface. This accounts for the many fumaroles and hot springs in the region. Hot vapors issuing from the ground may be seen… The Geysers steam area, about 15 miles south of Clear Lake, is now a major source of geothermal energy… The field includes the world’s most prolific geothermal steam well.”

Some claim that Joel P. Walker and John Ransford actually beat William Bell Elliott to The Geysers by five years. Regardless the authenticity of this contention, none dispute that back in the 1840′s, six different Indian tribes were each intently occupying specific parts of this 40 square mile geothermal field Elliot had misnamed The Geysers. Why misnamed? Well, the rugged and remote district between Sonoma and Lake Counties that we call “The Geysers,” as stated last week, are bereft of the water spouting rarities. The Geysers do, however, feature the world’s greatest array of fumaroles—steaming spouts of mineral laden vapor, with hellacious bubbling hot springs thrown into surrounding environs for good measure.

Various Wappo, Miwok and Pomo peoples trod the crisscrossing pathways leading to these mutually shared hot springs, steaming mud pools and fumaroles. For countless ages Indians soaked in the sacred mineral baths, sweated out toxins, and breathed deep vapors produced from the magma-hot depths of the seismic underworld.

Then came the white man, property rights—and hard cold cash.

The Geysers West Ford Flat Cooling Tower

Did you know that with each flush of the toilet North Bay residents both power their homes—and provoke earthquakes?

Here’s why: Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sebastopol wastewater is sent to Santa Rosa. It’s treated, then pumped 41 additional miles up into the Mayacamas Mountains east of Geyserville. This remote area straddling northeastern Sonoma and southern Lake Counties is called The Geysers—which, incidentally, they are not.

These “Geysers” are actually fumaroles. They don’t spout water. They emit vapors, or fumes—hence fumaroles. They do, however, generate more electricity than any geothermal field in the entire world.

Each day 11 million gallons of treated wastewater (and an additional 8 million gallons from Lake County) is injected into seismically active earth at The Geysers. The wastewater shoots down hundreds of wells, each drilled two miles or so into the earth’s crust. This process is called “recharging.”

No cavernous reservoirs lie below. Instead, wastewater is injected into tiny fissures of extremely hot permeable rock. And that’s just what it looks like to the naked eye—solid rock. But it’s not. These hot rocks and attendant gasses vaporize, or “flash” the water, sending it back to the surface in the form of steam. This compressed steam turns turbine blades, producing electricity. Each day enough electricity is generated from wastewater at The Geysers to serve the needs of San Francisco, or put another way, the power produced from “recharging” The Geysers equates to over 60 million barrels of oil each year.

On the flipside—recharging causes earthquakes.

According to the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory: “There were no earthquakes observed in the area of (The Geysers) geothermal field between 1949 and 1975. Starting in 1976 earthquakes were observed in the geothermal field and the rate steadily increased…”

Calpine operates 19 of the 22 powerhouses currently producing electricity from The Geysers. Their geologists estimate that earthquake frequency has risen 40% since Geyser wastewater injection began. USGS seismologist Dave Oppenheimer notes, “You’re going to have small earthquakes that may not have occurred at a rate that you’re seeing now because your rate of stress change is higher.”

Fortunately, wastewater injection at The Geysers is unlikely to produce anything larger than, oh, say—a magnitude 5 earthquake! Count your lucky stars the geothermal field lies amidst minor fault lines. On the other hand, were The Geysers part of the San Andreas or the Hayward fault regimes…

The really good news is while electricity produced from the Geysers peaked some 20 years ago, we benefit from this energy resource in more than one way.

Remember that proposed nuke on Bodega Head? Don’t need it. And what sounds better—44 billion gallons of wastewater producing 850 megawatts of clean renewable energy, or 44 billion gallons of treated wastewater pumped into the Pacific Ocean at one of our pristine beaches every year?

But there’s more to the story than that.

“(Jack London writes) as if his digestion, like his politics and rhetoric, was out of order.”
—Ambrose Bierce

Take two famous, controversial and egotistical writers. Pair them amidst towering ancient redwoods at a most exclusive gathering of men. Place bottles of Three Star Martel cognac in each writer’s eager hands. Okay—what have we?

Answer: The legendary 1910 Bohemian Grove bender pitting 67 year old misanthropic satirist, poet and author of macabre fiction, Ambrose “Bitter” Bierce, against a man half his age — the one-time oyster pirate, avowed socialist, white supremacist and world’s best selling novelist, Jack London.

It started out innocently enough. “Bitter Bierce, the Wickedest Man in San Francisco,” was camping out on his brother’s property, across the Russian River from Sonoma County’s Bohemian Grove. Bierce had been invited to attend that August’s Bohemian Club High Jinx spectacular, no doubt aiming to run his literary dagger through this fanciful pageant at the first opportunity presented him.

When his old friend and former personal sycophant George Sterling (himself a poet and long time Boho) informed Bierce of Jack London’s presence at the Grove, Bierce pressed Sterling for a face-to-face pow-wow. Sterling claims he was none too anxious to arrange the meeting.

“You mustn’t meet him,” Sterling insisted, “You’d be at each other’s throats in five minutes.”

“Nonsense,” Bierce responded, hoisting his drink. “Bring him on. I’ll treat him like a Dutch uncle.”

Bierce demanded Sterling perform his mission posthaste. Meanwhile Bierce, ever dapper, draped in his customary derby-topped black-suited garb, continued tippling brandy beneath the open air Bohemian Grove redwood bar. Soon he pulled focus on a gaggle of besotted Bohos stumbling towards him from some distance beyond.

A stocky fellow wearing Levis and a red vest led the parade. The man’s muddy workshirt pushed out from his jeans. He had a moon face, piercing blue eyes (just like Bierce), and displayed a wide smile revealing the gap where two front teeth paid the price for a marvelous barroom brawl. The man’s bottle swung to and fro as he moved, and grew ever lighter with each bottleneck-to-mouth inspection. This man, of course, was Jack London. Ambrose Bierce smiled wickedly, and motioned his bar boy to refresh his drink.

Brandy, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.
—Ambrose Bierce from “The Devil’s Dictionary”

The two combatants had three things, and only three things in common: Writing, alcoholism and occasional paychecks from William Randolph Hearst, a man each reviled. Otherwise they were a study in contrasts.

The surly yet gregarious “Wolf” London knocked about cat houses, creep joints and dive saloons the world wide. His two missing front teeth attested to this. London consumed oceans of liquor, built a novelist’s-fantasy stone mansion specifically to house, party with and impress his many friends. While a communal idealist, a utopian farmer and radical socialist, Jack limited his love of humanity to Caucasians, espousing the “humane” extermination of even a certain derelict portion of that white minority.

Radicalism, n. The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today.
—“The Devil’s Dictionary”

Ambrose Bierce, by contrast, survived Civil War horrors to write what is arguably the conflict’s most notable piece of short fiction. He had long been the bad boy of San Francisco journalism and a thorn in the side of most everyone, but most especially he railed against the high and the mighty.

Bierce called California Governor Leland Stanford “Stealand Landford.” He singlehandedly prevented Stanford and his fellow Central Pacific “Railrogues” from robbing the U.S. Treasury of more booty than they’d already plundered from it.

Though avowedly conservative, Bierce oft sided with minorities he otherwise looked down his nose at. While giving the occasional downtroddens a pass, Bierce never tired of pummeling big money interests, politicians, writers and humanity in general. Ambrose Bierce didn’t acquire his misanthropic reputation for hating humanity equally. In fact, he hated some people much more than he hated others.

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
—“The Devil’s Dictionary”

The lauded and successful Jack London wrote 1,000 words each and every day no matter his condition, and he was proud of it. But London’s boast was grist for Bierce’s contempt. And no wonder—London’s work was wildly uneven, and Bierce was green with envy over upstart London’s incredible success. One can only imagine what linguistic tortures Bierce devised watching the near embalmed London lurch toward Bierce’s liquored web that day.

Success, n. The one unpardonable sin against one’s fellows.
—“The Devil’s Dictonary”

Unfortunately, specifics concerning precisely what transpired between the two literary titans that day are slim to none. Even photos purportedly shot that day were either lost or ruined.

So while today’s rich and powerful spend two-and-a-half mid-summer weeks terrorizing their livers at the Bohemian Grove, each member owes an unpardonable debt to two real life “Bohemians” who did battle there, one century ago. While dialectic specifics passed on unrecorded we still hear echoes in the famed lexicographer’s timeless study of humanity:

Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
—“The Devil’s Dictionary”

• 1914—Ambrose “Bitter, Bitter Bierce” completes unauthorized biography of Wm. Randolph Hearst, rides into Chihuahua, and—some say—is never seen nor heard from again

• 1864—Mark Twain pens twaddle for the Call, is fired, and “For two months my sole occupation was avoiding acquaintances . . . I became very adept at slinking.”

• 1996—Baghdad-by-the-Bay’s Herb Caen plucks “Pullet Surprise” for It’s News to Me…

• 1880—SF mayor’s son acquitted, having murdered “hyena of society,” Chronicle publisher Charles de Young

• 1976—Armistead Maupin revives serial fiction format with Tales of the City. Characters eat human hearts in church

• 1856—Evening Bulletin Publisher James King of William crusades against corruption and murder. Gets murdered for his efforts

• 2004—Critics cite “Fangzaminer” for newspaper impersonation. “Monarch of the Dailies” writhes in death throe anguish

• 1898—Home boy “Yellow Press” publisher Willie Hearst claims trumped up “splendid little war” is all his

• 1846—Gold Rush scoundrel and vigilante leader Sam Brannan offs Avenging Angels, begins publishing the California Star in the hamlet of Yerba Buena—soon to be renamed San Francisco

• 1884—Sugar Daddy snaps, shoots Chronicle owner Michael de Young smack dab in the books

Our San Francisco Bay Area boasts a galaxy of culinary superstars ranging from “Can Cook” Martin Yan to Citizen Cake‘s Elizabeth Falkner. Michael Chiarello moved Napa Valley’s style from PBS to the the Food Network, and then took up with the Fine Living Network. Santa Rosa’s own still-skyrocketing hipster is Guy Fieri, a culinary GMO of Iggy Pop meets Curly Howard.

Northern California, with its ocean, rivers and streams; mountains, hills and valleys—and the San Francisco Bay itself, provide unsurpassed year ’round bounties. Our seafood, dairy products, meats, grains, fruits, herbs and vegetables are so prized they grace dinner tables worldwide.

Choosing meal beverages can be a chore. Our region produces thousands of ultra-premium wines, microbrewed beers, ales, ciders, and pricey boutique hard liquors. Natural bubbly gets bottled in Calistoga, and the High Sierras provide San Francisco some of this nation’s purest municipal water.

San Francisco has always catered to the open-minded gourmand. At Bab’s, for example, “….one dined off a coffin and was lighted by green colored tapers, affixed to skulls.”

Famed horticulturist Luther Burbank developed vegetable and fruit hybrids we still eat today. Burbank proclaimed our region unequaled in the growing of delicious fruits, vegetables and the unending flower varieties which festively decorate even our modest affairs. With its mild weather and microclimates Northern California has perfect nooks and hidden crannies growing a wider array of non-tropical foodstuffs than practically anywhere else on Earth.

California’s dairy industry was founded by Point Reyes Italians and Azore Islanders. Today, master cheesemakers—like Sonoma’s Ig Vella, produce such a range of exquisite cheeses that unending columns could be entirely devoted simply to their praise. Petaluma still celebrates its “Egg Capital of the World” heritage. Gourmet Mushroom Inc., of Sebastopol, grows fungal exotics, including the delectably rich and meaty Trumpet Royales. We Bay folk haunt scores of farmers’ markets. They feature artisan breads, fresh seafood and smoked meats, exotic varieties of locally grown cured olives and fresh pressed olive oils. We choose from a dizzying array of hand made pastas and delight in organic produce farmed locally on tiny plots of dirt.

But, holy cow—have Bay Area food tastes changed over time.

“In 1850 typical restaurant entrees might include baked hog’s head with cranberry sauce, calf’s head, dressed heart, mutton pie, and fricasseed oxtail. There was an abundance of game: venison, hare, antelope, elk, bear, curlew, goose, partridge, snipe, plover, quail, duck—a good assortment of which appeared on every menu.”
—Doris Muscatine, Old San Francisco

Anyone up for a good ol’ fashion snipe, curlew and plover party? Sounds more like a law firm than a meal.

Edsel would have demanded his cut

Doggie Diner relic

Daily restaurant dining was born, ironically, from economic necessity in Gold Rush San Francisco. Housing then was even higher than the stratospheric costs we suffer today. Most 49ers couldn’t afford homes with a kitchen. Hell, most couldn’t even afford their own room in that hyper-inflated Gold Rush economy. So, practically everyone took their meals at commercial eateries. That’s why, even today, San Francisco has the highest ratio of restaurants to city dwellers in the entire country.

Clarence E. Edwords’ culinary history book, Bohemian San Francisco, was first published in 1914. It has nothing much to do with artist-type Bohemians, nor members of the exclusive Bohemian Club fraternity, but has everything to do with classic San Francisco food, restaurants and recipes. Near the end of his book Edwords presents us with “A Good Bohemian Dinner” menu. Imagine indulging in this sumptuous fifteen course affair. You’ll feast on Bisque of Ecrevisse, Sand-Dabs Edward VII, Cassolette of Terrapin, Maryland—as well as everyday favorites like Tagliarini des Beaux Arts and Chicken Portola. Now imagine that while savoring two of these fifteen courses you’re provided with and expected to—smoke cigarettes.

Now that’s livin’!

Enormous gold and silver wealth paid for some of the finest dining of its day. It’s said that San Francisco millionaire Francois Pioche lured forty Parisian chefs to San Francisco in the mid 1800′s. Ernest Arbogast, chef at the old Palace Hotel, was celebrated for his Oyster Omelet, a concoction that included six eggs, an onion and one hundred oysters! But Arbogast’s omelet merely hinted at the most famous creation of those Gold Rush days—the Hangtown Fry:

“A scramble of oysters, eggs, and bacon, it originated in Placerville, then Hangtown, supposedly as the last dinner for a condemned prisoner, whose request was designed to delay his execution as long as possible.”
—Doris Muscatine

The origin of this classic dish, hangee notwithstanding (egg scarcity, not plentiful oysters, being his shun-the-necktie card), has at least two other plausible versions, but like many contested dishes, any story told well piques the rapt listener’s appetite for more. Which brings us to other oft disputed regional creations: Green Goddess Dressing, cioppino, Crab Louie, Chop Suey, Fortune Cookies, Monterey Jack cheese and the beloved Martini. Each has its own wonderful story—to be told at some later date.

San Francisco has always catered to the open-minded gourmand. At Bab’s, for example, “….one dined off a coffin and was lighted by green colored tapers, affixed to skulls.”

One of San Francisco’s most beloved early restaurants was the Poulet d’Or, universally known as the Poodle Dog. It had its imitators. The Poodle Dog was, of course, a French restaurant. Back then, however, “French restaurant” meant something quite different than it does today. Take, for example, the five floors comprising the Poodle Dog. Floor one was what we would expect of any fine public dining room’s decorum and cuisine. Floor two serviced banquets and special events. Ahhh, yes—but floors three, four and five—these were each reserved for discreet affairs of the heart,….and such. These private suites provided luxury accommodations, bath and bed included. Entering required taking a special elevator. Occupant identities were jealously guarded by zipper-lipped attentive Poodle Dog staff.

While touting today’s culinary daring-do, we might still appreciate bygone Bay times when, like today, gastronomic creativity flourished. Though these aging recipes may no longer be in vogue, who among us could resist a delicious “Italian Salad” featuring salt herring in milk tossed with cold veal, boiled carrots and boiled tongue, raw apples, potatoes, capers and beets?

Yum, yum….yum.

Rutherford Hayes was the first U.S president to visit San Francisco. Since that 1880 trip most presidents have made it a point to come here at least once. Some, like Bill Clinton, come often. But not every president has had the time of his life here, nor have they always been treated with the respect one holding our nation’s highest office might feel they deserve. A few cases in point are:

Warren G. Harding

Darling of the Teapot Dome scandal, Republican Warren G. Harding is often ranked as the worst president of all time (but let’s give W a few years). Harding died on August 2, 1923 in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. He was 57 years old. While it’s likely a heart attack got him, speculation over the years has run rampant. Food poisoning, stroke, pneumonia, cardiogenic pulmonary edema and even assassination by wife or mistress have been bandied about.

But hands down the most entertaining speculation into Harding’s death is a report by The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency. The report claims that Harding was first bitten by a vampire on a boat ride on the San Francisco Bay and then poisoned to put him out of his misery.

William McKinley

Nothing bad happened to Republican President William McKinley here in San Francisco, but Yellow Pressman William Randolph Hearst took a bit of heat for having published a darkly suggestive ditty written by famed curmudgeon Ambrose Bierce. Riffing off the assassination of Kentucky Governor William Goebel in 1900, Bierce wrote:

“The bullet that pierced Goebel’s breast
Can not be found in all the West;
Good reason, it is speeding here
To stretch McKinley on his bier.”

The following year McKinley, too, was gunned down.

Gerald Ford

It’s a pretty safe bet that California wasn’t President Gerald Ford’s favorite state — particularly after his double-whammy Sacramento and San Francisco greetings in September of 1975. On September 5, 1975 Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme tried to ventilate Ford in Sacramento. A couple weeks later Sara Jane Moore did the same outside the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square.

Both Fromme and Moore received life sentences for their efforts, and both were released following Ford’s death (from natural causes) in 2006. Interestingly, Moore was less than entirely contrite over her failed assassination attempt. In a 2009 NBC Today Show interview she told anchorman Matt Lauer, “I am glad that I didn’t kill [Ford], but I don’t regret trying.”

Barack Obama

Barack Obama’s San Francisco misadventure occurred at a Gold-Coaster Getty Mansion fundraiser in the heat of his campaign for the presidency. It wasn’t of the physical injury sort, but was an unexpected political guffaw, nonetheless.

Amidst champagne and beluga hand-gladding with donor billionaires, centimillionaires and old fashion heirs and heiresses, Obama was recorded making remarks construed to lack sensitivity to rednecks:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Personally, I think he pretty much nailed it, but Fox and Limbaugh had a field day with his remarks.

• 1937—Golden Gate Bridge opens – suicides celebrate

• 1998—SF’s 2,000 year old vampire hungers homeless

• 1875—William Sharon backstab’s bud, grabs Palace Hotel

• 1921—Fatty Arbuckle cited smooshing siren – proves untrue

• 1880—“Mammy” Pleasant said to pull brains from cracked nut in House of Mystery

• 1977—Chinatown’s Golden Dragon breathes hot lead – five killed, 11 wounded

• 1934—Bloody Thursday a mess

• 1926—Pisco Punch thought dead with Duncan Nichol. Drunkards distraught

• 1978—Elivis imitator Jim Jones botches big batch of Kool Aid

“What do you mean by ‘Frisco’?” asked Judge Mogan.

“No one refers to San Francisco by that title except people from Los Angeles,” said the court. “I am the chairman of the County Council of Defense, and I warn you that you stand in danger of being interned as an alien enemy. Don’t do it again.”

—San Francisco Examiner, April 3, 1918

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Have a listen to this 1915 ditty, “Hello, Frisco” by Elida Morris & Sam Ash while perusing these “Frisco” movies
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• 1924—Hello Frisco

• 1927—Frisco Sally Levy

• 1927—Hello Frisco

• 1932—Frisco Jenny (trailer)

• 1934—Fog Over Frisco

  Fog Over Frisco (trailer)

• 1935—Frisco Kid

• 1935—Frisco Waterfront

• 1942—Frisco Lil

• 1943—Hello, Frisco, Hello

• 1944—Man from Frisco

• 1945—Frisco Sal

• 1955—Hell on Frisco Bay

• 1979— The Frisco Kid

  The Frisco Kid (trailer)

These days, when talking San Francisco jazz we likely think of Fillmore’s Jazz District. It’s an official designation rising up from the sad ashes of the old Fillmore. That storied black neighborhood got leveled by the Justin Herman-led Redevelopment Agency in the late 1940′s.

“Negros playing it. Eye shades, sleeves up, cigars in mouth. Gin and liquor and smoke and filth. But music!”

But San Francisco jazz precedes the Fillmore scene. It begins in old San Francisco’s most rowdy, dangerous and licentious district – The Barbary Coast – birthplace of American jazz.

Musical Beginnings

Before jazz came into being the music on “the Coast” could be Spanish ballads or sea shanties; strains of celestial strings or polkas; minstrel tunes, marches, mazurkas, operettas or folk tunes. With gold discovered in 1848 San Francisco mushroomed like no other city in the history of America. Soon music became much in demand. It was played in saloons, dance halls, performance auditoriums, melodeons and “sporting” houses. Many of the earliest performers were women.

Here’s how Herbert Ashbury describes one such pre-jazz performer in his classic book, The Barbary Coast:

The Waddling Duck was a singer, sinfully fat, who was advertised as the only female who could sing in two keys at one and the same time. As a matter of fact, she sang in none; she simply opened her mouth and screeched what she called scales, along which her voice bounded like a frightened mountain goat. She was, perhaps, the first crooner in San Francisco.

Brawling & Bawdy

San Francisco’s Barbary Coast was one tough place. How tough? It’s where the word “hoodlum” originates, for starters. But what would you expect from a neighborhood whose other name was Devil’s Acre?

The Barbary Coast boasted the murderous Battle Row, a Chinese slave girl auction, tong wars, a municipal whorehouse and Ragpicker’s Alley. Two of its better known businesses were The Slaughterhouse and The Morgue. These were set amidst hundreds of deadfalls, opium dens, creep joints, gin mills, blind pigs, wine dumps, dives, bagnios, cow yards, shanghai dens and clip joints. Constantly roaming through the Barbary Coast were plagues of sharp-eyed vermin — thieves, thugs, crimps, Rangers, pickpockets, con men, hoppies, Hounds and hookers who preyed on one and all—and, on each other.

Art Hickman and “Scoop” Gleason

Small wonder San Francisco was called “the wickedest place on earth.” But no matter its gutter breeding the Barbary Coast, deadly playground of the 19th and early 20th centuries, has this boast—it’s the birthplace of American jazz music. Though you might argue that jazz got its start in New Orleans, Tom Stoddard, in his highly recommended romp-of-a-read Jazz on the Barbary Coast, writes:

The first use, in print, of the word “jazz” in connection with music occurred in San Francisco on March 6, 1913. the term “jazz music” was possibly used earlier in the black dives of the Barbary Coast.

Gary Giddens and Scott DeVeaux back up Stoddard in their recently published book, Jazz:

(Art) Hickman (1886-1930), a pianist, drummer, and songwriter, encountered jazz in the honky-tonks of the Barbary Coast, where he believed jazz originated: “Negros playing it. Eye shades, sleeves up, cigars in mouth. Gin and liquor and smoke and filth. But music!”

Tom Stoddard cites journalist E.T. “Scoop” Gleason’s multiple uses of the term jazz, quoting Gleason’s seminal 1913 San Francisco Bulletin article describing his jaunt to Sonoma Valley’s Boyes Hot Springs. Art Hickman’s band had traveled the 50 miles north of The City to hold dances for the San Francisco Seals baseball team. Gleason called Hickman’s group “the jazziest tune tooters in all the Valley of the Moon.”

Stoddard bolsters his case for jazz originating on the Barbary Coast by pointing out that New Orleans ragtime musicians’ first encounter with the word “jazz” came later, in Chicago. Art Hickman’s “Jazz Band” had come to the Windy City to tear the place up. Nailing down his argument for the Barbary Coast Stoddard writes:

From what has been said, several things are clear. One is that a black band from San Francisco’s Barbary Coast called itself a “jazz band” before any other black band…we know know that Art Hickman, whose name was that first to be associated with the term “jazz music,” visited Purcell’s on the Barbary Coast and picked up some musical ideas there. Fourth, on the first occasion that the word “jazz” appears in print in connection with music, we also find a reference to the “Texas Tommy,” a black dance popularized and nominally originated at Purcell’s, a black saloon with black musicians and entertainers on San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. It was then borrowed by white musicians, along with some musical ideas, and thus found its way into print. One of the San Francisco musicians went to Chicago and used the term in his band’s name: Bert Kelly’s Jazz Band. It was such a good word for the music that it was borrowed by Tom Brown to describe his band: Brown’s Dixieland Jass Band. The the Original Dixieland Jass Band adopted “jazz” and spread the name to the world.

DATELINE — February 2, 1848

On this day the United States’ dominion over California extends across what was yesterday the Mexican frontier state of Alta California. Today’s signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brings our trumped-up war with Mexico to its formal end. In addition to California, treaty terms cede Texas to the U.S., along with Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and a portion of Colorado.

Also today “…three frightened subjects of the Son of Heaven—two men and a woman—disembarked from the brig Eagle and vanished in the foothills behind Yerba Buena Cove. So far as the records show, they were the first of their race to pass through the Golden Gate, at least in modern times.”
—Herbert Asbury The Barbary Coast

Pete Bingo dosed in White's lair

Weird, twisted and bizarre tales about the SF Bay Area are so numerous some merely make us yawn. But if any one story stands out for its sheer audacity, moral depravity and utter madness—this is it. Years ago I came across a magazine article about something called Operation Midnight Climax. I knew it had to be a joke. The CIA, with the blessing and full cooperation of both the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the SFPD sets up and runs an LSD brothel in San Francisco for ten solid years? Who do you think you’re kidding? Still, I dutifully dug for corroborative facts concerning this alleged operation.

“White was a son of a bitch, but he was a great cop. He made that fruitcake Hoover look like Nancy Drew. The LSD, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Write this down. Espionage. Assassinations. Dirty tricks…”—Ira “Ike” Feldman

Turns out Operation Midnight Climax was no joke. Back in the 1950′s and ’60′s CIA experiments aimed at obtaining information and controlling human behavior gravitated to covertly dispensing numerous powerful psychotropic drugs. The CIA’s original charter prohibited it from engaging in any domestic operations. Yet many of these drugs were given to U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil without their knowledge or consent. Anyone interested in this unseemly labyrinth can trot down to the the library or just google MK-ULTRA.

If ever there was a reason to inform ourselves and hold political feet to the fire concerning our inalienable rights it’s MK-ULTRA. Its many programs had no external oversight and no accounting. For years fully 6% of the CIA’s entire budget went into MK-ULTRA programs that even Congress knew nothing about. But I’m wandering from the story at hand, namely: Operation Midnight Climax—a Bay Area baby born of MK-ULTRA.

*****

He was a tough, fat, bald guy—a character right out of Hollywood central casting. Back in the early 1950′s an itinerant San Francisco journalist, former OSS operative and then Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent named George Hunter White, aka Morgan Hall, was assigned by his boss Harry Anslinger to team up with the CIA. Together they created Operation Midnight Climax. White’s assignment: explore and record how a new drug called LSD affects behavior when consumed by unsuspecting male johns in the company of drug addicted hookers. A great comedy scenario, if it weren’t so damn perverse.

By day George Hunter White continued to work the streets of San Francisco, ferreting out drug deals and drug dealers, setting them up and taking them down. By night he’d repair to the portable toilet his friend Leo Jones had provided him behind the two way mirror set into a wall of “the pad’s” Telegraph Hill bedroom.

The L-shaped Chestnut Street duplex featured fantastic views of the San Francisco Bay. It was festooned with Toulouse-Lautrec posters, hidden microphones, tape recorders and a refrigerator stocked with pitchers of martinis. White was a notorious booze hound. He’d knock back a quart or more of gin nightly perched on the seat of his toilet scribbling notes on concurrent activities in the adjacent bedroom.

But dosing unwitting johns produced, well, wildly inconsistent results. White observed innumerable men behave in ways that suggested insanity. So White gave LSD the pet name “Stormy”. It fit. The “psychedelic revolution” was still years away. We can hardly imagine how the varied socio/ethnic/economic group of philanderers who wound up at “the pad” must have reacted when dosed. Most had never heard of, much less consumed any hallucinogenic substance before.

Richard Stratton interviewed George White’s last living Operation Midnight Climax associate for Spin Magazine in 1994. According White lieutenant Ira “Ike” Feldman:

“White was a son of a bitch, but he was a great cop. He made that fruitcake Hoover look like Nancy Drew. The LSD, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Write this down. Espionage. Assassinations. Dirty tricks. Drug experiments. Sexual encounters and the study of prostitutes for clandestine use. That’s what I was doing when I worked for George White and the CIA.”

George Hunter White continued operating his Telegraph Hill LSD brothel until 1965, when he retired from the service. He moved to Stinson Beach. Locals came to know him as Colonel White. He became the Stinson Beach Fire Marshall—and, after a few years on the wagon White died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1975.

Upon his death White’s widow gifted the Electronic Museum at Foothills Junior College, forty miles south of San Francisco, with his diaries. According to a Washington Post article dated September 5, 1977 these diaries: “provide documentary evidence that White met to discuss drugs and safe houses with such CIA luminaries as Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, head of the Chemical Division of the Technical Services Division and the man who ran MK-ULTRA, and Dr. Robert V. Lashbrook, a CIA chemist who worked with LSD. Other high-ranking CIA officials mentioned prominently include James Angleton, C. P. Cabell and Stanley Lovell. Gottleib and Lashbrook have been subpoenaed to testify Sept. 20 (1977) before a Senate subcommittee investigating the MK-ULTRA project.”

Upon retirement George Hunter White wrote to Harry Anslinger, his old boss at the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, reflecting on White’s many years of service: “I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”

And so concludes a true San Francisco tale about your American taxpayer dollars working to protect you and yours.
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QUEENIE CUMMINS is an internationally acclaimed majorette, researcher and motivational consultant. She heads SF Bay Timeless’ crack investigative team of former spooks, occult historians, ephemera hounds and curiosity seekers. She and her cadre of highly trained professionals are bent on exposing world domination-style conspiracies. Anyone suspecting such—past, present or future—is urged to comment. Queenie pledges she’ll lead on from there.

I was leaving Cafe Trieste yesterday when I ran into an old college buddy. George says he’s enjoying early retirement from a major corporation. Spends his time snow skiing in Canada and sailing south of the border. While never much of a student, George always did have a nose for dough. Plus, his family’s loaded to the gills.

George says he long ago morphed from the debauched party boy I knew into a proud, upright born again patriot. He’s an avowedly conservative Republican who’s done well in life by making the right decisions, keeping his nose clean and working his fanny off. It may all be true, though I can’t vouch for someone I last saw coming-to late one morning, arising buck naked from beneath a gargantuan mountain of frat house beer cans, sporting but a pair of pink panties draped over his head like the sheerest heart-emblazoned spoil of war.

Problem with America, George tells me, is others just don’t pull their weight. His country – the United States of America – is being attacked from within by labor unions and Acorn, by a lazy complaining workforce, poor people expecting a handout, by the liberal mass media, by our public education system and by a misplaced hatred of successful wealthy persons and large corporations. George claims that it’s policies, programs and institutional foes like the U.N., like the enormous tax burdens placed upon those who create jobs and our “nanny” social welfare system that are all equally to blame. He says government in general – most especially federal government – restrains growth and limits personal freedom.

And George is hopping mad about the whole kaboodle.

What makes it all the more galling, says George, is that lowlife scum who don’t contribute but who are afforded every societal advantage criticize and even defecate on the very fabric constituting our great republic. The United States of America, says George, is indisputably the world’s leader in virtually every measurable category. And it got that way because God especially blessed America’s work ethic, making it the one and only truly exceptional country the world has ever produced.

Moreover, it’s ridiculous, George insists, to believe that major corporations are too big or too powerful. In fact, they’re our best vehicles for promoting freedom, liberty, democracy and economic opportunities for all. Corporations selflessly strive to deliver only the best of everything for us. That’s how, George notes, they make their money. Our institutions – excepting, of course, government, public schools and unions – are likewise the best; as is our present health care sytem, our incomes, technologies—you name it. We, as a country, despite the naysayers, are simply the best at virtually everything.

I had to meet a deadline so I begged my leave and walked home. But ol’ George had really gotten to me with his unapologetic passion and fervor. I questioned my own beliefs, hunting up stats to see how right George really was. And sure enough, studies conclude that the United States of America is unsurpassed in a range of critical arenas including:

• ARMS DELIVERIES TO THE WORLD. — In fact, the United States proudly produces and sells more that half of all war machinery manufactured worldwide. We out-produce China in weaponry 20 times over.
• CARBON FOOTPRINT — Carbon Dioxide Emissions (however, these particular data are 6 years old)
• HEALTH EXPENDITURE AS % OF GDP — The flip side is, though we spend more per capita than any country on the planet we still have close to 45 million persons with no health care coverage, and a great many more who are underinsured.
• PRISON POPULATION AND INCARCERATION RATE — The United States had a prison population of 2,186,230 in 2007, or 738 out of every 100,000 persons. By comparison China, who we often chide for human rights abuses, imprisoned 118 out of every 100,000 persons, a ratio of more than 6 people behind bars in the U.S. for every person per 100,000 in China.
• OIL CONSUMPTION — With an ever-diminishing industrial base we, according to the U.S. Census bureau’s 2010 projections consume more oil than China, India, Japan, Russia and Indonesia combined; together which have a combined population more than 10 times that of the United States.

PART 2: Stuff we’re not terribly good at

“Eighty percent of the wealth in the United States is controlled by less than ten percent of the population. The vast majority of that elusive demographic resides in the four markets we currently serve.
—Haute Living Magazine (NYC, Miami, L.A. & San Francisco)

Haute Living Magazine‘s finely coifed, well-heeled and ultra-exclusive readership wants it all. With an average net worth of $25.2 million, they know they deserve whatever catches their fancy. No matter what envious slackers may think about them, Haute Living readers know that they are the only people who truly count. They’re richer, trimmer, happier and more spa-fit than anyone. And who would argue they don’t merit every advantage their growing wealth affords them, whether they did anything to earn it, or not?

Americans have never begrudged enormous wealth, no matter how it’s amassed. In fact, we celebrate fortunes made by the filthiest, low-down, cheating, scum-sucking conniving crooks – wishing but that we had dreamed their schemes up first. Besides, we too are on trajectories aimed at hoarding uncounted riches…soon…when…if only…then…

“San Francisco and the surrounding area is a haven for the creative types. Maybe it’s something in the water from the bay.
—Haute Living Magazine, San Francisco Edition”

What’s not commonly known is just how incredibly sensitive Haute Livers are to subtle class distinctions – and to the travails of their lessers. Haute Livers recognize that while they and their ilk bear responsibility for destroying our present day economy, it’s the peasantry that’s suffered. That, they argue, is just fine with them. Haute Livers say the plebes were begging for it; and besides, our grand economic game unfolds upon a level playing field for everyone. If the poor schmucks had really wanted to be rich, goes the reasoning, surely they too would be filthy rich.

Many a Hauter privately admits that current economic conditions do afford the better classes rare opportunities to leverage wealth, however. Thus they handsomely fatten already fat portfolios. In fact, the poverty, unemployment, mental depression, domestic violence, hunger, bankruptcy, foreclosure, divorce, addiction, suicides and gutter life endured by the churlish masses – while unfortunate side effects to the economic policies and behaviors of the rich – can actually prove marvelous boons to quick-acting Haute Livers and their delectably rich peers. The good news is that ongoing tribulations suffered by the vulgus mean Haute Livers have never lived better!

“Haute Living is a highly exclusive publication; if you do not fly private, stay in five-star properties, or own homes valued in excess of $3 million, you do not have access to our magazines. To ensure we reach the most elite audience, Haute Living utilizes a controlled distribution model which ensures our publications are placed directly in the hands of the world’s most powerful and acquisitive consumers.”
—Haute Living Magazine

The New Kid in the ‘Hood

But move-over Haute Living, because now there’s a new magazine vying for your readers, namely “those who desire—and have the means to experience—the finest things in life.”

San Francisco’s own Nappin’ Alley Winestyle Rag marries the sophisticated gloss of Haute Living to the elegant rusticity of Napa Valley’s ultra-premium wine-soaked lifestyle, offering refreshingly unique perspectives on class warfare ala Americana. Not only does Nappin’ Alley provide grist for the elitist mill, it does Haute Living one better by attracting a newly emerging wealth-accruing class, the self-identified—”ghettopreneurs.”

“San Francisco and the surrounding area is a haven for the creative types. Maybe it’s something in the water from the bay.”
—Haute Living Magazine, San Francisco Edition

“For best success at panhandling, nothing beats a smooth practiced rap—or a talent for projecting threatening vibes.”
—Nappin’ Alley Winestyle Rag

It’s Not An Address—It’s An Attitude!

Publisher Freddie “the Hawk” Colson says he started Nappin’ Alley after a lottery ticket paid out $177. “It was, like, man I gotta do something righteous with all this dough,” Colson says. “I knew it would change my life for the better. Little did I know I’d be here getting interviewed about the success of my new pub. Man, this is so awesome!”

Nappin’ Alley’s offices are strategically scattered throughout one of the world’s most renowned and exclusive Tenderloin neighborhoods. Its staff are all notable wine lovers. Like their Haute Living counterparts, Nappin’ Alley staffers prefer being motored about to driving themselves, though perhaps for different reasons.

“With a strong editorial focus on inspiring power players and unstoppable business moguls alongside intriguing editorial on “toys for boys” (private jets, megayachts, supercars, timepieces, and more), Haute Living is targeted towards those who desire—and have the means to experience—the finest things in life.”
—Haute Living Magazine

“Meals at Glide ain’t half bad, but for my money ya hop on Muni out to Golden Gate Park and hunt up Henrietta’s tribe for a load of down home hobo stew you’ll not soon forget. I give it Five Chugs.”
—Nappin’ Alley Winestyle Rag

Colson is quick to point out an advantage Nappin’ Alley has in butting heads with Haute Living, namely – their relationship with freelance journalists. Says publisher Colson, “Lookit. You know how the rich are. Buncha pretentious tightwad bastards. Haute hires writers who don’t have two nickels to rub together, then has ‘em cover polo matches where women draped in diamonds and ermine sip champagne and yak about their nails. Borrrrinnng. And I guaranfuckingtee you, they don’t pay shit.”

Colson pauses, quaffing from his bag and wiping his lips on his sleeve before resuming. “We treat our writers with dignity and class. They may not make much, but we oil ‘em up on our dime before sending ‘em out, and then we print word-for-word whatever they come back with. That’s what you call journalistic integrity. And we never talk down to or behind anyone’s back,… unless they’re passed out face-down.

“…if you want the best quality green tea money can buy, we here at Haute Living have the product for you. Masa Super Premium can claim to be the finest green tea in production. With only 36 bottles to be made, the producer, Royal Blue Tea, has started to take reservations for this unique product. Each bottle will cost more than $2,500. The tea is made from leaves picked in Shizuoka, is infused for three days, and is then distributed in 750ml wine bottles. A more expensive tea one is unlikely to find, however for the connoisseur of tea drinkers, and all things green, this really is a must have.”
—Haute Living Magazine

“Each of Dino’s Spud & Taco Shop specials come with a baked Idaho spud, a Chef’s Surprise taco and a tall cool can of effervescent malt. At less than three bucks a pop it’s the T.L.’s Number One real deal steal.”
—Nappin’ Alley Winestyle Rag

So just exactly how does Nappin’ Alley plan to lure away Haute Living readers? Colson thinks he has this all worked out. “Ya see, Haute asks these goddamn stupid questions, but they don’t give no answers,” Colson tells us. “I’ll bet every Haute reader wants some kind of reply. It’s human nature. Well, I posed these questions to my staff, and we replied. I don’t wanna give everything away, but here’s what I mean.”

“Haute Living asks… Where does Keith Menin satisfy his sweets craving?”

“So then my guys reply, ‘From the look on Keithie’s stuck-up mug we’d say he’s sweet on himself. Auto-fellatio, perhaps?’”

“Another good one was…”

“Where does Patrick Kuleto find hidden gems?”

“No one had a clue, but after glimpsin’ his photo we took a blood oath to never follow the guy into the head to find out… And then there was this one…”

“Where does Jill Zarin get pampered?”

“Again, who cares—but from the looks of that tweeky smile and her corn-row of pearly whites my money says there’s Swiss plastic surgeons and Alpine dental clinics locked into the deal.”

Bohos are Patriots

San Francisco’s Bohemian Club was founded by a rude gaggle of newsmen, artists, musicians and dramatists back in 1872. How this cutting-edge arts & intelligentsia drinking fraternity morphed into today’s rich, powerful and ultra-conservative version of Animal House in the Sonoma County redwoods is a slight puzzler.

Every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge has partied down at the Bohemian Grove.

“Weaving Spiders Come Not Here” is the Bohemian Club motto, meant to suggest that no deals are to be cut at their two week long Bohemian Grove summer bacchanalia. And if you believe that, why I’m selling some sunny oceanfront property in North Dakota…

William Shakespeare spun “Weaving Spiders” into his A Midsummer Night’s Dream four centuries ago. Methinks ol’ Will would be dumbstruck at the absurdity of two thousand filthy-rich plunderers calling themselves, of all things, bohemians, invading Sonoma County from all corners of the Republican corporate universe, hell-bent on perpetual inebriation, stumbling about looking for ancient redwoods to whiz on. The notion that these guys (no gals allowed) spend their time singing Kumbaya while uttering nary a business &/or political-dealing syllable, as their motto demands, transcends satire.

“The faggiest goddamn thing I've ever seen.” —Richard Nixon

In other words—this ain’t Camp Avant-Garde. But what accounts for the Bohemian Club turning a complete 180?

Perhaps it changed because broken down newsmen and artist-types are perpetually more bombastic and consumption-adept than they are fiscally solvent. Could be the deadbeat proto-Bohos simply needed someone to foot their outrageous bar tab.

Businessmen Bohos soon cloned themselves into the majority clubbers. Career-active newsmen were actually banned. Instead, Big Business invited Old Money, bankers, Joint Chiefs, right wing think tankers and high ranking conservative politicos to their blowout on western Sonoma County’s Russian River.

However, artists were still needed to concoct, produce and perform the many year-round club offerings. Some artists couldn’t afford the dues, and businessmen tend to exhibit numerically cumulative rather then participatory art talents, so the club created “associate memberships.” These lesser millionaire artistes work the Boho performance plantation. Rock stars like Steve Miller and Grateful Deaders Bob Weir and Mickey Hart are members. So is the former Ronald McDonald.

Herbert Hoover called the Bohemian Grove’s summer encampment “The Greatest Men’s Party on Earth.” There are over a hundred permanent Bohemian Grove camps. They sport names like Cave Man, Silverado Squatters and Hill Billies. One camp is famous for it’s perpetual daiquiri machine. Another for its pre-dawn gin fizzes.

While it’s known that Dick Cheney gave a run-up to Iraq-1 lecture on “War in the 21st Century”, the mammoth statue of the clubs’ patron saint, John of Nepomuk, stands finger-to-lips, cautioning Bohos to keep everything they hear and see while staying in the guarded encampment hidden from the unwashed masses (some protesting) outside the Grove gates.

Early Bohos included Mark Twain and the artist Virgil Williams. Today it’s the Bechtels, the Bush boys, two Rockefellers, a du Pont, Rummy and Henry K. In the early years, when the summer encampment was held in Muir Woods, a towering pacifistic Buddha oversaw the proceedings. The all-seeing Owl has long since become the club’s mascot, and the place is absolutely filthy with warmongers and defense contractors.

Each year club members gather together before scores of hooded performers holding fiery torches in a grand ceremony up on the stage across their small man-made lake. This spectacle, the “Cremation of Care,” has mock-mythic underpinnings. Texas-based conspiracy journalist Alex Jones sneaked into the Grove to bear witness to the proceedings in 2000. He claims the Cremation of Care ceremony is an “ancient Canaanite occult ritual…carried out by world leaders.” I can’t personally confirm that, but photos of the event do qualify as the essence of weird.

The heady combination of wealth, power and secrecy tethered to scandal-rumoring and innuendo has produced a sub-industry of Bohemian Club conspiracy theories. Perhaps the most provocative assertion is by former journalist David Icke. He claims that the Bohos are all reptilian shape-changers who invaded Earth millions of years ago. Other conspiracy theorists swear humans are sacrificed at the Grove, and that a secret underground dungeon is used to enact unspeakable atrocities.

But tin-hat fantasies aside, many of the world’s most powerful men will gather here again next summer, sworn to absolute secrecy. Perhaps they just dress up in drag, drink themselves silly and blow off a little steam; or run through the redwoods au naturel, relieving the incomprehensible stress of running and ruining our world. Maybe they just sit around playing rummy, scarfing scotch and howling at the moon. But then again, they’re not telling, so how are we to say?

Famed playwright Oscar Wilde cut through the Bohemian Club mythos just 10 years after its founding. Wilde visited San Francisco a celebrated and scandalized writer. His Boho hosts conspired to get him drunk and make a fool of him. But after successfully drinking his antagonists under the table, the still razor-witted Wilde proclaimed “I never saw so many well-dressed, well-fed business-looking Bohemians in my life.”

Wilde’s epitaph would read true on the tombstone of our republic.

—Al Ziemer, Belvedere

Thank you for your heartrending and propitious question, Al. Putting aside for a moment whether the Bay Area is, as a whole, a loving, happy and welcoming place for Zombies, recently published reports indicate we do have a growing population of the un-living here. In fact, far more Zombies are not-living here than are not-living in either Portland or Seattle, cities with otherwise similar demographic profiles and sizable Zombie communities of their own.

“Where, for example, are the nightclubs, coffee houses, fraternal organizations and churches catering to the ethnic Zombie community?”

Still, when examining the nation’s demographic spread it’s clear that blue states, and most especially the Bay Area, lag well behind red states in attracting and retaining zombies. In fact, were one to tally together the Zombie populations of every blue state their sum total would not even approach the numbers residing in any one red state. Not surprisingly, vastly more undead call Wyoming, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas home than do rational thinking human beings. And, as our “Mainstreet” recession deepens, expect redneck Zombie ranks to swell even more, since Zombies find BBQ fanatics, NASCAR fans, Teabaggers and Southern Baptists particularly toothsome. Personally, though, were I a Zombie I’d be shambling off to Utah or Idaho where abundant lean, healthy skiers are available to eat.

With that qualification let’s turn specifically to zombiological conditions unique to the Bay Area. It is my informed opinion that regionally-based Zombies face unique challenges no other minority group has yet to encounter. Attribute this to a preternatural un-lifestyle, if you will, but regardless the set of reasons, it’s fair to say that the single Zombie living in the San Francisco Bay Area is a largely isolated and misunderstood individual.

Where, for example, are the nightclubs, coffee houses, fraternal organizations and churches catering to the ethnic Zombie community? Of course, there are always the Unitarians, but when a Zombie just wants to hang out with fellow Zombies in a Zombie owned-and-operated establishment, what are his options? Few to none, I’m afraid, accepting one or two recently liberated stretches of Colma.

One thing is dead certain. For Zombies to achieve true happiness here in the Bay Area they must first be afforded opportunities to fully integrate into its society, and to participate in and contribute to its local institutions. Thus far even wealthy, educated and highly accomplished Zombies have found it enormously difficult to join even cadet branches of the region’s upper crust. Nary a Zombie, for example, has ever been invited to join a regional chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Curiously, at least two local Zombie socialites trace their ancestors all the way back to eating Indian corpses alongside ancestors of a host of current D.A.R. members. This, not long after they had all disembarked together from the Mayflower. Thus, clearly, Zombie exclusion from regional D.A.R. chapters is an outrageous example of targeted bias and discrimination. On the other hand, ravenous human flesh eaters have long been embraced into the esteemed ranks of San Francisco’s two most exclusive men’s domains, the Bohemian Club and the Pacific-Union Club.

As for the examination of local Zombie courting and mating rituals—this, I’m afraid, is outside the realm of my expertise. But even a layman can see the modus of Zombie love must involve unique complexities. Consequently, I have turned this portion of your query over to the SF Bay Timeless resident sex scholar, Mikki Bingo. I’m confident she can satisfy your question, Al. Keep a sharp eye out for Mikki’s next Omni San Fransexualis column.

Now, let’s examine your inherent right to maximize your un-dead potential, and thus attain a modicum of happiness. This, at least, can be answered in a straight forward manner. The basic foundation for our freedoms was first sketched out in the Declaration of Independence. These are delineated and guaranteed, for each and every one of us, by our Constitution. Read the Bill of Rights, at the very least. So, should you run into roadblocks, keep fighting for your rights, Al.

Constitutional guarantees and safeguards are well and good, but attaining true equality oft requires a solid education and a generous dose of social intercourse with persons outside one’s own community. The Bay Area is uniquely suited to provide both the education and the intercourse. In addition to our highly regarded unaffordable institutions of higher learning, our Bay Area is world renowned for its progressive politics and for its storied tradition of embracing and celebrating minority groups and alternative lifestyles—excepting, of course, when fashion dictates they be ruthlessly repressed, persecuted and/or exterminated.

Plainly, both discrimination of and cash bounties for Zombie kills must end. Jobs are a good place to start. Too few employers welcome into their workplace persons wreaking of the grave, dripping and caked with blood, entrails and half-consumed bits of putrified human flesh. Perhaps you can understand why. However, as your population has grown, matured and compounded its political capital a spate of nonprofit advocacy agencies have begun addressing issues of Zombie import. A growing number of for-profit businesses have joined in too, designed to teach their clients social skills and proper hygiene for a fee. In fact, I’ve personally witnessed cases of “death breath” and body rot ameliorated and even partially reversed by self-motivated clients committed to gaining employment.

Yet another hurdle Bay Area Zombies face is housing. Again, discrimination plays its part, and it may be that only by enacting legislation will this issue be resolved. Among the many reason lessors cite for denying Zombies rental units are:

1) They don’t sleep and haven’t proper balance. Neighboring renters complain about being kept awake by Zombies’ interminable low, guttural moaning, bone gnawing, foot dragging and crashing into walls.

2) Invariably this bumping and thumping leads to breakage of most everything in a unit. Lessors claim their damage deposits merely cover a fraction of necessitated renovation costs. Landlords point to a recent study concluding zombies are more likely than not to skip out of a destroyed unit and never be heard from again. The report attributes this to the pan-zombie tendency to forget precisely where they un-live, and, even more often, to having their heads blown off by bounty hunters—but these reasons hardly assuage angry landlords.

3) Zombies rarely remember to pay the rent, and when they do it’s generally with slimy, foul-smelling cash.

4) A less socially well-adjusted zombie might take a bite from, or even entirely consume a neighboring renter. Landlords object to these practices (which are entirely acceptable within the ethnic Zombie community) because it costs lessors additional time, work and money to find new lessees. Add to that the extra cleaning costs, and it’s little wonder these consumptive practices have proven a powerful court argument against renting to the undead.

Should an adequately socialized zombie find work and housing, he or she may still face challenges. While the total number of Zombies across the San Francisco Bay Area continues to grow, they remain a tiny minority. Consequently, few people can claim to have any meaningful interaction with a Zombie whatsoever, particularly since they tend to remain ghettoized in outlying graveyards and abandoned shopping malls. Yet even were every last Bay Area Zombie integrated into the fabric of our communities their numbers would still pale in comparison to locally affixed aliens from the planet Kwaughll, or the shape-changing lizard-beings comprising the entirety of Woodside. Still, Zombies are, as one would expect, far more numerous here than their even more aberrant Republican cousins.

While you may not be cheered, Al, by the arch of this discourse, there could well be an upside. Consider the dire predictions of imminent state economic collapse, cataclysmic climate and environmental upheavals, nuclear war, Mad Max scenarios and 2012′s Mayan bon-bon.

But even greater windfalls await you should our next Big One hit first. Just imagine your potential harvest. A small number of you and your fellow un-dead feasting on a bounty, nay—a veritable cornucopia—of freshest flesh galore. This event might well transform into legend, myth—and be institutionalized by latter generations of Zombies. Just imagine a day one hundred years from today when Zombies gather together, gobbling and grunting and minutely detailing this marvelous feast that happened so very long ago. Of course, their every utterance would be a lie, but isn’t that how all worthwhile traditions are preserved and handed down? I’ll even wager they call it Thanksgiving Day. No offense regarding the holiday’s name, Al, but I’m sure you will agree that Zombies do trend toward the derivative. Anyway, just think of the range of potentially fabulous futures awaiting you. Now, then—doesn’t that make you happy?

Professor Ida Braene, Ph.D, M.D., J.D. D.T. & E.T., is a three time Nobel, two time MacArthur Fellowship and one time Pulitzer, Polk and Country Music Legends awards winner. She and her menagerie live in the Berkeley hills.

CG’s menu is diverse, curiously arcane
and ridiculously expensive.

Chez Guillotine has been SF Bay’s culinary rage from the moment its doors swung open. In one short year CG’s signature fusion of noveau-ancien delectables has radically subverted San Francisco’s haute cuisine scene. CG celebrated it’s first year anniversary this past week. In recognition of the daring food mecca’s phenomenal accomplishments I invited my father and my daughter to join me at Chez Guillotine for what I’m certain was a dining experience unlikely to ever be equaled.

Picture Louis XIV breaking bread with Victor Hugo and Robespierre amidst a butchershop production of Cirque de Soleil. That’s Chez Guillotine. The retro 18th Century dining hall has garnered rave reviews in publications ranging from the New Yorker, the San Francisco Chronicle and Gourmet Magazine, to more esoteric pubs like Vegetarian Times and Porky’s Gazette. CG’s menu is diverse, curiously arcane and ridiculously expensive. Judging from the lines outside, when you’re hot, you charge. Could be those many hopeful diners are each dreaming of the heavenly slice of Devil’s Food the house comps each patron for dessert.

Of course, reservations are de rigueur. But even though we made our reservation months in advance, so had all the others. Finally Mikki felt compelled to slip our maitre de a discreet, if pointed, twenty. Thus were we finally shown to our table—three hours later. It’s said you get what you pay for, and that night at Chez Guillotine we truly did.

Curiously, CG’s offers two dinner menus. One is vegetarian. It offers up such toothsome fare as Bolivian spaghetti thistle in camphor stock, and Fuerte avocado roast on lightly poached tundra grass.

My daughter, Mikki, ordered the multi-grain mock-sushi appetizer, a nori seaweed salad with caper nut-cream dressing, radish potage, and, for her entree she chose grilled chanterelles mutard in an Everclear reduction with scallions over jasmine rice.

Our waiter seemed pleased with her choices, but acted funny when Pete and I asked to see the meat offerings. He snuffed and quickly walked away, returning with two greasy blood-stained menus from which rose such a vile malodor that it almost made me retch. I handed mine right back.

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

But my dad, Pete, wasn’t the least bit put off. He doesn’t read French so he simply pointed to one from each section. As the waiter made off I asked Mikki what the deal was.

“Chez Guillotine was founded by a community of rabid animal rights activists. I was told they were having trouble with a project funding drive. One night at an on-line newsletter party someone jokingly suggested they open a restaurant serving the finest food, with a twist. You’ll see.”

I excused myself and headed to the men’s room. Strange noises bled through the walls–squeals, grunts and hrrrumphs. By the time I returned to our table Pete was guzzling his first Bloody Bull.

“Not bad, ‘ said Pete, launching into another swig, ‘but it’s the goddamndest tasting…”

“It’s made from fermented ox blood.” Mikki explained.

“Not bad,’ Pete countered, studying the goblet, ‘not half bad!” He drained it, motioning the waiter for another. For someone raised on blood sausage, steak tartar and hoospeneena, Pete is one hard vegetarian sell.

Appetizers were soon placed before Mikki and me. While our service was prompt and efficient Pete inquired where his food might be. He was informed that vegetarians always eat first at Chez Guillotine, so as to pique the carnivore palate. Pete just shrugged and ordered another drink.

“Make it a double.”

I felt a tad uneasy when, once we’d finished our grazing, plates removed, the waiter ceremoniously fitted Pete with a butcher’s apron.

“Oh boy-oh-boy-oh-boy–chow time!”

If my observations were correct no one in the entire hall was dining on animal flesh. Once Pete was draped in his apron a murmur arose, and all heads turned, every eye fixed upon our table. Sure enough, I experienced all-too familiar pangs of embarrassment. Since childhood I’d be scanning for rocks to hide under whenever in the public company of my father, Pete. And I knew that Pete was eating the attention up.

When his appetizer finally arrived it proved to be a spectacular presentation on a silver service. Two slimy reddish-grey egg-shaped things, both road-mapped with blood vessels, lay on a bed of artistically arrayed vegetation. Pete rubbed his hands together, wiping saliva from his mouth. The chef speared one of the objects with satanic glee, placing it on his cutting board, then sharpened his knife before cutting paper-thin slices of meat.

“What the hell are they?” I whispered to Mikki.

“Pickled goat testicles.”

Everyone in the room seemed to share the same sardonic grin. I suppose they figured they knew what would happen once Pete bit in. The chef deftly arranged testicle slices along with pumpernickel toast wedges and preserved lemon-stuffed sun-dried Algerian olives. All fell anxiously silent. Pete contemplated this offering. He piled a dozen slices on the rye, chewed thoughtfully, all the while contorting his face as though he were set to puke–and finally chased it all quickly down with yet another Bloody Bull. Suddenly, he threw his arms out. Laughter erupted from the attendant diners.

“A veritable gourmet’s de-light!“, Pete enthused. “My compliments to the chef!”

However, his chef seemed anything but pleased.

“The stuff’s vile,” Mikki whispered. “How can he say that?”

“Just wait’, I replied, ‘just you wait.”

Judging from the dining hall’s many drained faces we were witness to the Bosch-incarnate scene here at Chez Guillotine. Our chef stood entranced, his mouth a fissure.

“Tell ya what, my good man,” said Pete, having already polished off both balls, pitching a final olive in the air, fielding it in his maw, “hows ’bout we dispense wid the other stuff an’ get right down to business? Bring on the main course!”

The gauntlet laid down, ante raised, gloves off—and the war had been engaged. Of course, Pete hadn’t a clue.

As the chef retreated kitchenward, muttering and shaking his head, Pete turned, surveying the stunned dining mob, then turned back brightly to Mikki and me, whispering conspiratorially, “Good grub, and lots of promising sales victims!”

When the kitchen door once again swung open there emerged bus persons heaving before and straining shoulders behind a creaking medieval cart, within which bounced a madcap litter of squealing piglets. Their proud mama was sprawled upon a mountain of hay, sucked silly by her pink offspring. The chef, now recomposed, addressed Pete, while gesturing to the pen.

“Please choose, sir.”

I guess this was meant to be a takeoff on the lobsters in the tank motif, though rather too crude and obvious. Anyway, it didn’t phase Pete.

“Well, the big one is a little too much after that wonderful appetizer, but lemme t’ink here fer a minute.” Pete scratched up some contemplative dandruff. The chef irritably brushed his white jacket. “Tell ya what.” Pete reached into the pen, grabbed a chubby suck-faced porker, and, holding it up for close inspection, proclaimed, “He’s a real cutie. I’ll eat him.”

The philosophy behind Chez Guillotine assumes that we Americans have so distanced ourselves from the brutal gore of meat processing, what, with cellophane, styrofoam and all, that once face-to-face with the ghastly process we will immediately convert to pure, clean vegetarianism.

It’s a marvelous theory.

The cart creaked back to the kitchen. Pete held the piglet on his lap, stroking and cooing it. Perhaps figuring he’d done his part Pete offered up the little fella, expecting the chef be off to roast it. But the chef just stood there before us, arms crossed, smiling maniacally. It finally dawned on me.

Chez Guillotine.

Sure enough–out rolls the red carpet, followed by the genuine article, though perhaps a smidgen downsized from the original.

A hooded executioner walked solemnly to the rear. I knew this little game would go no further. Pete would relent, if only because, in his own pig-headed obstinance, he had to identify with this helpless little creature.

I was wrong. Pete reveled in the spotlight, loved the grandeur and lusted every attention.

Besides, he was still awfully hungry.

“Perhaps,’ the chef addressed Pete, ‘you’d care to do the honors.”

“What?” Pete shot back. I don’ come to no classy joint and pay these kinda prices ta serve myself. Besides, ol’ Blackhood here looks like he enjoys his work, so who am I ta spoil his fun?”

Never. Never could anyone have imagined this. Even the most ravenous flesh eaters were certain to break before it came to this.

Staff pleaded silently with one another for ideas, support and guidance. But the spectacle had taken on its own life, and Destiny would have her way, regardless. This highest tone five star eatery, conceived as an arrogant and manipulative joke, these horrified patrons, participants all in this ritual of blood sacrifice–and no one could stop Fate’s hand, nor cleanse their own guilt in calling it forth.

Plainly, piglet was to be made into pork before our very eyes.

Mikki drew a napkin to her mouth and, sobbing, ran for the door. That did it. Patrons stampeded the front door. Pete jumped up from his seat. “Who opened the pigeon coop?” he sputtered, dejectedly. “Oh well…, fuggit. Like I always say, son, if at first you don’t succeed–give it a rest.”

I sat in my chair as if nailed to it, wanting out in the worst way, but I couldn’t budge. The executioner reached for our cute little defenseless porcine. He placed its squealing, squirming head betwixt wooden locks beneath an immaculately shining blade.

My feet involuntarily lunged into the parquet, knocking me backwards unto the floor. I scrambled up and raced after Mikki to the door.

***********

We spoke not a word, uttered not one syllable between us. Mikki and I were waiting impatiently out in the car, fidgeting and wringing our hands, waiting for Pete to leave the restaurant.

An hour later and Pete saunters out, pith helmet cocked rogueishly to one side, he grinning wide, winking and patting his fat tummy through his safari jacket.

“Goddamned butcher, he gets down on all fours, pleadin’ wid me ta save the life of his ‘poor innocent pig’. I said ta hell wid that, here I’m starvin’ an’ that pig’s what I ordered. See, at first I just couldn’t figure it out. Then it dawned on me.’ Pete pointed to his ear. ‘These guys are a bunch of religious nuts. That’s why they wanted me ta off the pig.

‘So I tell ‘em, okay, fine, I’ll do it. I’ll do the honors. An’ I proceed ta ask ‘em how the damn thing works. So then they start breakin’ down, cryin’ and pleadin’, throwin’ their hands up in the air and everything. They’re offerin’ me all kinds of stuff—dinner on the house, free drinks—anything, if I just spare the life of my succulent roast. O’ course, I know they was just readin’ from their bible, so I says, fine, ya don’ wanna gimme pork, lookit, I’m a reasonable guy. Hows ’bout a nice thick juicy steak?’

‘Man, were they relieved. They bought three gross of business cards, a box of flyswatters and two dozen packs of my Pete Bingo personally photographed playin’ cards. Free chow, good sales–and the steak wasn’t half bad. Hell, they tol’ me they had to run ta the store ta get it. Mahdoewn, I tell ya—what a bunch of goofballs!”

***********

——excerpted from the novel Pete & Dick Go Off

© p. joseph potocki

Where do young, healthy Zombies turn for love, lust and affection? My good friend and mentor, Dr. Ida Braene, posed me this question while we browsed strap-ons at Good Vibes last week. She told me of a young male Zombie unliving in Colma who inquired how and where he should seek love, and — more importantly — what could he do to have his sexual needs fulfilled. I took a few days researching Mr. Zeimer’s concerns since, while sexually adventurous, I’ve yet to do a Zombie. Apologies, Mr. Zeimer.

So here’s what I discovered. Over the last few decades Zombies have benefited from an ever-accelerating evolutionary development. Since the African Kimbundu tribe first revealed their existence to the west in the early 19th Century, Zombies have passed through a series of unkind developmental phases. These oft involved decomposed flesh falling away or being consumed whilst engaged in the erotic arts, thus denying one’s partner like pleasure.

The Zombie libido is truly a marvelous thing, particularly when freed of the need to continually feed, and from the unmortal fear of one’s head getting shot off.

But recent breakthroughs in science and technology mean Zombies no longer need be continually rotting to dust. Nor do they require daily human flesh. Consumption is down and Zombies are all the better for it. In fact, a Zombie with good health coverage actually unlives longer than your average brain dead redneck. With a consistent drug regimen, today’s Zombie needn’t fear his sexual apparatus will putrify and disengage; nor does the healthy female Zombie face the embarrassment of muff reek that makes a New York sewer smell like spring lilacs.

And, to demonstrate just how far they’ve progressed one need only look to politics and to the corporate world. Zombies are no longer a rarity in either of these fast-paced realms. That they never sleep, and that they exhibit no qualms, hesitation or conscience is a big plus in climbing the rungs of power.

Many Zombies have even been elected to public office. It’s hard to imagine where today’s Republican Party would be without them. Zombies can be found everywhere in the highest echelons of the corporate world, as well. The Pharmaceutical industry, health insurance, defense contracting, oil, food and major mass media are all filthy with Zombie execs. Thank Ronald Reagan. By deregulating natural Zombie behavior the Gipper flung open the doors to our current Zombie renaissance. Today, big bank boardrooms and their executive suites both are chock-full of horny, hard working, and excessively wealthy Zombies.

So, with all these material world triumphs it surprised me to discover that there’s a pronounced gulf between privileged Zombies running, for example, lobbying firms, advertising agencies, megachurches and the like, and poor unemployed and underemployed Zombies hidden from sight and ghettoized in places like Colma.

Your typical corporate Zombie enjoys a swinging sexual lifestyle. Here the old adage “money is nature’s most powerful aphrodisiac” seems to hold quite true. The Zombie libido is truly a marvelous thing, particularly when freed of the need to continually feed, and from the unmortal fear of losing one’s head.

But in Al Zeimer, the young Zombie who queried Ida, as with other poor young Zombies like him, we confront a host of seemingly irresolvable problems, particularly when it comes to getting laid. Firstly, unlike his boardroom brethren, Al hasn’t benefited one iota from Zombie deregulation. He hasn’t a job, money, proper medical care or clean clothes. He’s never taken a shower, had his hair cut, his nails trimmed, or been fitted with proper spectacles. Al’s never been to school, so he hasn’t learned that shambling about grunting, groaning and dragging one’s feet while excrement emerges from his every orifice is a sure turn off to most everyone but certain German “kaviar” fetishists.

Sadly, Al’s plight is all too typical. A few haves enjoy the best of all things, while vast Zombie masses suffer unremitting poverty and anguish. As for sex and only sex, I’m told a few dive bars can be found not far from Colma, but these aren’t the sort that welcome Zombies. Even if they did, however, we must remember that alcohol affects performance. Living persons are no match for the energies of an aroused Zombie – even when the living partner is sober. Just imagine if the object of one’s lust has just tossed back a few stiff ones. Not a pretty sight. Nosiree, barflys simply will not satisfy a Zombie’s lust for more than a quick snack.

So to Al, and to every less fortunate Zombie living on the bleak edges of society, I wish you well. Perhaps it’s time you rise up and demand of your fellow Zombies that they share a tiny measure of their lucky bounty with you. After all, those who have reached the pinnacles of wealth and power did so on the backs of your hard labor. They’re uniquely capable of understanding your plight and providing remedies. Tell them you require health care, a roof over your head, educational opportunities and decent paying jobs so you too might gouge your mark into society. Demand that they grant you the respect you deserve — and don’t forget to carry tissues and condoms. Should you get lucky you won’t want to catch a disease..

This year marks the 66th anniversary of the United Nations Conference of International Organization. San Francisco was told it would host the U.N. Charter draft proceedings on February 12, 1945. It’s said San Francisco received the nod because the official making the decision dreamed of The City before making his choice.

Representatives from fifty nations came to town for the big ta-do. Conventional history texts record U.N. proceedings and dealings taking place in the War Memorial Veterans Building and inside select Nob Hill and Union Square hotel suites. But famed San Francisco columnist Herb Caen knew better. According to Caen (he truly THE man with all seven senses set to the pulse of The City):

“the United Nations was founded at Sally Stanford’s whorehouse.”

Not to be outdone, Life Magazine had this to say: “Miss Stanford and her specially selected hostesses entertained princes and shahs, movie stars, state and national dignitaries; some of her customers even brought their wives.”

Sally Stanford was the most colorfully prosperous San Francisco madam of her era. She is known for her countless aliases, many bordellos, seven husbands and 17 arrests for running bawdy houses. But Sally is even far better know for her latter-day stints as mayor and “vice” mayor of Sausalito (that pricey less foggy hamlet directly across the Golden Gate from San Francisco), for her restaurant, her philanthropy, her parrot, Loretta – and for her steely resolve, (she even threw Bogie out of her place); and for her scalpel-sharp wit.

For years Stanford was dogged by one Sergeant Jack Dyer, who long made it his personal crusade to bust Sally and her girls in her most luxurious bagnio, aptly named “The Fortress,”at 1144 Pine Street on Nob Hill.

By all accounts Sally showed delegates to the United Nations the very best time in town. But unlike Pacific Heights matrons mounting lavish soirees to bolster their high society credentials, Sally provided services to the U.N. delegates with extraordinary remuneration in mind. In her paperback autobiography “The Lady Of The House,” first published in 1966, but now out of print, Sally had this to say about the global gathering of diplomatic titans:

“We were getting the real international lechers now, in the spring of ’45. The United Nations delegates were very large stuff in San Francisco. Prominent society hostess types were feverish in attempts to outdo each other with the foreign sauce and spice these imports inspired. It was a romp, let me tell you!

Since these boys were very large and juicy items with the State Department, we worked overtime to keep the foreign relations department in sweet rapport.”

American welfare, (n.) National resources, special considerations and taxpayer monies lavished on the too-rich and their corporations, the spoils from which they allocate a small percentage be spent railing against federal pennies dispersed to the poor.

Conservative Republican, (n.) Ancient reptilian humanoid tracing its esteemed lineage to the very creation of our universe, some 6,000 years ago.

Moderate Democrat, (n.) Closest relative to the gummy worm.

Rent, (n.) Payment by they who have too little to they who want it all.

Christian military chaplain, (n.) Mild-mannered schizophrenic who helps troops feel righteous about maiming and murdering at the behest of the Prince of Peace.

Worker, (n.) Missing link between serf and slave.

God, (n.) All powerful supernatural vain and hyper-shy being who couldn’t care less what horrific things humans do, so long as they do it in his name.

**************************************************************************************

Famed journalist, fabulist, satirist and misanthrope, AMBROSE BIERCE, is thought to have died in 1914. However, Bay Time Detective‘s and Timeless columnists Mikki and Pete Bingo discovered Bierce still sarcastically living in the not-so distant future. Bierce has condescended to contribute to these pages when it damn well pleases him.

Dear Professor Braene,
It’s been foggy the past few mornings here in San Francisco. It reminds me of summer, but this fog isn’t nearly as interesting as summer fog. It got me thinking. Where does our summer fog come from?
—Theresa Bell

Yes, Theresa—San Francisco’s summer fog is like no other. Dashiell Hammett concocted the hardboiled detective, framing his stories in the stuff. Newfoundland, Argentina and Washington’s Point Disappointment have even more of it than us—but who celebrates disappointment? London’s pea soup turned out to be pollution. There are at least 12 identifiable types of it.

“What residents know for sure is that the San Francisco Bay Area has three seasons: winter, summer and fog.”
—Carl Nolte

We’re not talking Foggy Bottom, nor the Fog of War—nor memory lapses by former administration officials testifying before Congress. We’re talking our fog, the world’s finest fog—that stuff pouring into the SF Bay Area at those exquisite moments when all points east suffer triple digit temperatures. It’s the world’s best air conditioning system.

Poor souls condemned to California’s Central Valley suffer stifling heat, frigid cold and oatmeal-thick Tule fog, depending on the season. Our Bay Area, is more temperate—not too hot, not too cold.

And our fog, particularly the summer sort, is mythic, romantic, generally welcomed and often gorgeous to behold. It comes in lacy wisps, billows up like cumulus cotton, caressing and cascading down our hillsides. Our fog floats in, spreading out in wraith-like fingers. Its arrival is heralded by a raw symphony of barnacled fog horns bellowing out from bay and coast, alike.

Today’s question is: Where does it come from—and will we lose it to global warming?

“What residents know for sure is that the San Francisco Bay Area has three seasons: winter, summer and fog.”
—Carl Nolte

Come September, with the kids back in school and Halloween beginning to goblin-up storefront windows, our fog begins to lift. Summer is already, for much of the country, officially, if not technically, over. But here in the Bay Area clear summer weather cranks up in earnest. In fact, it can get downright hot through October. The summer fog pouring through the Golden Gate and sliding between North and South Bay mountain chinks recedes. But why?

The Pacific High
The cycle which typically winds down in September begins each spring as we inch toward the sun. A warm high pressure system near the equator pushes north over the Pacific Ocean towards the Arctic.

“Some of it cools off and sinks to the ocean surface again several thousand miles to the north as the Pacific High—a ‘mountain’ of cool air weighing heavily on the water.”
—Harold Gilliam

The Sun’s rays evaporate surface water, pumping moisture into winds heading our way. The earth’s rotation spins northern hemispheric winds clockwise, so those winds hit us at about a 45-degree angle from the northwest. This phenomenon is called the Coriolis Force. As this moist air approaches the Bay Area cold up-rushing water replaces warmer surface water along our coast. Salt sprayed into the air captures minute water particles as moisture-laden winds meet cold coastal waters, condensing and producing “the great fog bank.” From late spring through summer this mass of fog hugs our coastline. It’s often a hundred miles thick and a half mile from the water up into the sky.

‘This… is a point upon a map of fog.”
—Ambrose Bierce

Meanwhile, as spring wends toward summer California’s Central Valley turns infernal. One hundred-plus degree temperatures become the summer norm. With Sierra peaks blocking it from heading east, the Central Valley’s hot rising air sucks fog into the Bay Area, like goose down into a vacuum. Fog sneaks through land-breaks like the Russian River Valley, Petaluma Gap’s Estero Lowland and the Nicasio and Muir Woods Gaps to the north; and the San Bruno and Crystal Springs Gaps to the south. Of course, the heavy fog-hitter is the Golden Gate, providing both unhindered access to the interior, and plenty of cool water to juice up the in-rushing fog.

But our fog is not an equal opportunity weather provider, even here in the Bay Area. I’ve left San Francisco’s Richmond district covered with fog in the upper 50′s, driven across the Golden Gate Bridge a few miles to Sausalito, where it’s sunny mid-90s. On days like that you can’t even see San Francisco for the fog bank overwhelming it. I’ve driven from the Alexander Valley south to the City, monitoring temperatures rising and falling three or four times through Sonoma and Marin Counties, the fog coming and going, until the temperature bottoms out in foggy San Francisco. Then consider the many microclimates within the 47 square miles comprising San Francisco itself. It’s even possible to experience a range of different types of fog on the very same day when traveling from one Bay Area destination to the next.

Cycles & Breakdown
The fog comes and goes in cycles—daily, weekly and such, from spring through summer. We’re all familiar with these cycles. But in September and into October, as the Central Valley temperatures begin to dip and the Pacific High heads south, the whole system breaks down. That’s why we often experience our clearest, hottest days this time of year.

Global Warming & The Fog
No one knows for certain how ongoing world climate change will affect our fog. While we’ve heard dire predictions concerning the toasty fate of Wine Country vineyards, I was pleasantly surprised to read Harold Gilliam, the dean of Bay Area environmental journalists’ opine on this subject in the updated edition of his 1962 classic Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region. Gilliam contends that as the earth warms we may actually experience more fog than at present. But he sure doesn’t guarantee it. Earth-wide weather patterns, greenhouse gasses, melting ice caps, the jet stream and our localized carbon emissions might combine to alter or dissipate the fog entirely, though it seems unlikely to happen in our lifetime.

Of the many things our Bay Area is famous for, summer fog ranks right up there with wine, computers, cable cars and sourdough. Can you imagine life here without any one of them?

Professor Ida Braene, Ph.D, M.D., J.D. D.T. & E.T., is a three time Nobel, two time MacArthur Fellowship and one time Pulitzer, Polk and Country Music Legends awards winner. She and her menagerie live in the Berkeley hills.

With this winter’s raining and complaining time’s come to place everything in perspective—global climate change, notwithstanding. In his sensational 1933 romp The Barbary Coast, subtitled An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, author Herbert Asbury writes about a wet winter exactly 160 years ago:

“Several times during the rainy season of 1849-50 horses, mules, and carts were sucked down into the mud, and the animals were drowned; and many men, trying to cross the streets while drunk, narrowly escaped similar deaths.”

Several streets were marked out along the foot of the sand-hills behind Yerba Buena Cove (today’s Financial District) as soon as it had become evident that the town was destined to thrive like a veritable municipal mushroom, and a few were cut through the hills. But they were neither paved nor properly graded, and in consequence were extraordinarily uneven and irregular. One man’s habitation might be on the same street as that of his nearest neighbor and still be twenty to fifty feet higher or lower. Or it might perch on the side of a hill nearly thirty feet above the rim of a gulch that necessity had made an important thoroughfare. The continual passage of men, animals, and wagons soon cut up these makeshift highways until they were little more than gigantic mud-holes. Several times during the rainy season of 1849-50 horses, mules, and carts were sucked down into the mud, and the animals were drowned; and many men, trying to cross the streets while drunk, narrowly escaped similar deaths. In a vain attempt to improve conditions the city authorities purchased a great quantity of brushwood and dumped it into the streets, but it soon sank from sight, as did the boxes, barrels, and other refuse thrown out by the citizens. The mud at Clay and Kearny streets, in the heart of town, at length became so deep and thick that a wag posted this sign:

THIS STREET IS IMPASSABLE;
NOT EVEN JACKASSABLE

Holy Sisters of Prune Face Frustration

Happy Jack Harrington owned the Opera Comique, a notorious Barbary Coast dive. It was a bawdy concert hall situated at Jackson & Kearny Streets, an aptly named stretch known as “Murderer’s Corner.” Fortunately for Jack, his paramour and partner in crime was a levelheaded business gal named Big Louise.

Whatever else it was, their Opera Comique was not what you nor I would call an opera house. On the other hand, let’s say you’d just set anchor after a long ocean voyage. Why, here you’d find stout drink, games of chance, winsome entertainment most unrefined, and your choice of tender embrace from a bevy of cash-only lovelies. Happy Jack indulged himself in it all—and all to grand excess.

Picture Jack’s wide-brimmed plug hat placed just-so atop a milk chocolate cascade of perfectly-coiffed curls. Jack’s beloved mustache accompanied the silken cascade down past his handsomely angular face. A ruffled shirt, diamond stickpin and long-tailed vested jacket adorned his torso. Paint-tight trousers tucked into shiny knee-length black boots completed Jack’s rakish attire. A natty Happy Jack Harrington was the Barbary Coast’s own Beau Brummel, Bacchus and P.T. Barnum all rolled up into one.

Happy Jack loved everyone, and everyone loved Happy Jack.

But Jack’s good-times-express jumped the tracks early one head-pounding morning. He was coming off an exceptionally brutal drunk—puking, crying and hallucinating. Though none can say with certainty, it may well have been New Year’s Day. That’s when a decidedly un-Happy Jack fell under the spell of San Francisco’s notorious Praying Band. These high-minded ladies unceasingly haunted hell-pits like the Opera Comique. Praying Band members lived but to bestow God’s salvation, teamed with their own sober lifestyle, upon reprobate Barbary Coast infidels—just like our hero, Happy Jack.

Another good time buddy

“Jack took to his new biblical vocation like a mad butcher to a side of beef.”

Even the Praying Band knew that to convert such wretches demanded the miraculous. San Francisco’s multitude of lost souls actually seemed to revel in their vile abyss. You see, back in those Barbary Coast days San Francisco was universally esteemed as “the Wickedest Place on Earth.” Most every San Franciscan took pride in this distinction, sparing no effort or expense in preserving his hometown accolade. Even elites joined the unwashed in perpetually potted debaucharies, until they either passed out, or passed on.

Still, out there, out in that horrible light of day, lurked staunch proponents of sobriety, honest work and similar balderdash. Not only that, these Praying Band “temperance” ladies used their Bible like an accomplished shanghaier’s lead pipe. As fixed betting odds would have it they’d luck upon the rare hopeless drunkard at his most vulnerable moment, pointing out Jesus in every pink elephant, crawling bug and slithering snake that set upon him.

A delirious Happy Jack Harrington was thus lured into the Praying Band’s spotless religious lair. One can only guess what mischief caused Jack to forsake his valued possessions, not to mention Big Louise, but that previous night must have been a doozy.

Classy joint

Jack immediately sold his stake in the Opera Comique, following the preying ladies to their California Street compound, clear the other side of town. There he took to his new vocation like a mad butcher to a side of beef. His unquenchable spirit must have impressed the God-gals, for Jack, who attended services and read his Bible daily, was soon made manager of the Praying Band’s own little restaurant. Perhaps he ran a faro game after hours to retain his sanity, but all this do-good-ed-ness was bound to take its toll. Happy Jack Harrington’s road to heaven had, after all, been paved with every despicable, sordid and stylishly bad behavior.

The last of the year’s damp chill fog swept in from the sea like a nightmare invading a wet dream. It crept through flesh, bore through bones, settling in like an icy plague, deep within the marrow of The City. Jack lay bundled, shivering upon his cot, lost and alone. It had been one long month since Delirium Tremens imposed his exile.

That night Happy Jack Harrington waged war, battling armies of inner demons. Blow after crushing evil blow befell him. The weight of the world pressed down upon him. He could barely breathe.

Suddenly, brilliant light enveloped him. Jack twisted about ecstatically, immersed in a profound spiritual awakening. In an instant he recognized the grotesque folly that was his life. The heavens opened to him. An angelic chorus swelled. Revelation shook Jack like a rag doll. It threw him from his bed. There, face down against that clammy floor, You-Know-Who spoke directly to him. The no-nonsense basso profundo demanded that Happy Jack Harrington henceforth do His bidding, and His bidding only.

So Jack did what any self respecting Barbary Coast Ranger would do upon such a transformative awakening. Happy Jack marked a pack of playing cards and headed down the hill to save souls—down into Satan’s playground, back into the gaping maw of pure evil, province of the lost and the wretched—San Francisco’s own Barbary Coast.

Jack dreamt of Big Louise

Once his newly acquired resort was up and running, Jack focused next on establishing his born again credentials. Soon, habitues of the Coast were confronted with hundreds of posters pasted to walls throughout their environs. These announced a free-of-charge fire-and-brimstone sermon cum lecture to be given by Mr. Happy Jack, himself. The poster read: “The True Inwardness of the Gospel Temperance Movement, or, the Potato Peeled.”

The day finally arrived. Inside the immense rented auditorium, brass band blaring, sat six bemused newsmen, and not a single other soul. God must have smiled down upon him though, for Happy Jack was saved from the embarrassment of an indifferent public when a vociferous drunk stumbled into the proceedings, quite by accident. This character boosted Jack’s spirits, and made for an inspirational cheering section.

But it is not those missing or even those precious few in attendance that matter. It is, rather, the nature and content of Happy Jack Harrington’s sermon which will be acclaimed long after we pass from this world.

Once he’d confessed to a vast litany of sins habitually committed throughout his lifetime, Jack’s soliloquy really caught fire. He detailed his brief affair with the Praying Band, explaining that consequent to his conversion he’d turned his back upon everything he valued most in life – Big Louise, most of all. Then, in a prophet’s roar, Happy Jack Harrington counted off each extraordinary thing he’d forfeited to the ladies’ Lord Temperance. Still, a contrite Jack admitted he was solely to blame for his misfortunes, letting it be known he had freely chosen to follow a false god.

Happy Jack offered up his trials as hard lessons learned. He had emerged from darkness a saved soul, he proclaimed, born once again. This illumination had led him to the key of righteous living. That holy key unlocked sacred hidden doors, behind which rested salvation, eternal grace and the ultimate human truth—that sobriety was the root of all evil. Then Happy Jack Harrington faced up to heaven with hands outstretched, fairly shouting to his Lord Father that should ever again God find Happy Jack Harrington drawing even one single sober breath—that God in His infinite mercy should smite him and send him howling straight to hell.

It’s said that Happy Jack Harrington never once drew a sober breath again.