San Francisco Photos 3

Early Sunday morning in the Haight District. If you remember your history of that wretched decade of the 1960's, Haight-Ashbury was the center of the hippie universe. There are still those types here, but they are more your modern-day variety. There streets were quite empty. The hippies must all be asleep. Shhh! I don't know where Pablo and what's-her-name are. Perhaps they had a late night.
There is a lot of Victorian-style architecture in San Francisco. I couldn't possibly take photos of all of it, so just imagine the whole city lives in flats like these. Let me give you an example of how far left this city is (and I don't just mean on a map). Walking around for several days I had the opportunity to notice quite a few political posters in windows and stickers on cars. Take one guess which candidate's name I saw most often. Go on, guess. No? I was Dennis Kucinich! Can you believe it? The wackiest liberal in the bunch! In fact, I only saw one or two signs that weren't Kucinich. I forget who they were for. I think there was the odd Dean and maybe a Clark. But Kucinich? Not only is he a far leftist, he's also has no chance of winning the nomination, let alone the presidency. Not that that means anything. I voted for Alan Keyes in the 2000 primary and he didn't have much more of a chance.
Ain't it the truth?
Here it is. The Α and Ω of free love, peacenik, drop acid, "turn on, tune in, drop out" hippiedom. (God I hate hippies!) In addition to hippies and homosexuals, San Francisco is a haven for homeless people. Sorry, I don't call them that. I mean bums and beggars. And why not? They are well treated here. So all you human failures and dregs of society, unrepentant drunks and drug users, go to San Francisco now. Please?
Not too far from Haight is the Castro District. Remember that photo of Tijuana with the giant Mexican flag? Well this one is sure to alert visitors to where they are. It probably serves as a warning to homophobes traveling down Market Street to speed through the intersection so that they are not tempted by those evil queers.
In case you don't know, Castro is the center of the San Francisco gay community. Rainbow flags everywhere and I won't tell you the kind of things I saw in the shop windows. On the left side of the street (you can just make out the sign) is the Castro Theatre where they specialize in classic movies and art films. When I was in Toronto a couple of years ago, my hotel was in the gay section of town. I took a picture of a club called Mary's whose slogan was "Eat, drink, and be Mary." I guess homosexuals must like a queer turn of phrase, because I ate breakfast in a little diner here called Orphan Andy's. (Hey, when is the next time I'll have a chance to eat in a gay diner?)
Here it is. The guys behind the counter were straight out of central casting for a young effeminate and an older, more reserved gay man. There was a guy next to me at the counter who was an odd sort. He was a draft dodger who spent time in prison and who had traveled around the world. I don't think he was gay, just a weird old man. The conversation turned to politics and the draft dodger asked the older man behind the counter who he liked in the Democratic primary. He didn't seem all that excited about any of them, but took the pragmatic approach that any one of them would be better than Bush. Then he said something that I couldn't believe. He had recently discovered that like people hate Bush (I guess most people in his world), there were also people who hated Clinton. Can you believe it? Duh! Where had he been for the past ten years? I guess he's been in this little liberal enclave where most of the rest of America is completely foreign.
We walk from Castro to the Mission District. This is the mission. It's in the Mission District. Seems quite an obvious name to me. Besides it wouldn't be a vacation without a picture of a church. The building across the street (in the lower right of the photo) is a synagogue. After all, this is San Francisco. They cater to all.
Here is the gate to Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park. As I was there I seemed to remember that the 49ers played here, but something didn't seem right. This place look like it only holds 10K fans tops. Even if they played here in their AAFC and early NFL days, that still seems a little small. Then when I got home I found that the original stadium, with capacity of almost 60K, was demolished in 1989 after suffering major earthquake damage. It was rebuilt as a small soccer stadium. Here's an idea of what it used to look like.
The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.
I believe this was the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. You might be able to make out some people in the distance doing tai chi. That's what, exercise or something? To me it always looks like Bruce Lee in slow motion.
The entrance to the Japanese Tea Garden.
Golden Gate Park is a great urban park, even larger than Central Park in Manhattan. You can really forget that you are in the middle of a large city. This was a beautiful Sunday morning. There were a lot of San Franciscans biking, running and otherwise enjoying the start of the day.