City Hall 100 was ostensibly a celebration of the century mark of the San Francisco City Hall structure itself, but the reason people came out on this June 2015 evening was not for events that happened 100 years ago, but for what started 50 years ago when San Francisco entered the rock and roll era: People were there for the live music.
“You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” Joni Mitchell. What Joni said is true both for eras–the 1960s, and for places–Sterling, Cooper & Associates, where the partners made their deal with the devil at the end of…
“Did you ever get the feeling you’ve been had?” The notion that Don Draper returned to advertising at the end of his extended road trip could have been presented in any number of ways. The fact that Weiner chose…
SEVERANCE? Mad Men episode titles may leave you guessing at first, but usually by the time it’s over, the title’s meaning has revealed itself and often in a subtly clever way. But a week has two weeks have now passed, and…
First of all, let’s put his epitaph right out front: Without Rod McKuen, there would be no Seasons in the Sun. Few poets live and die in Beverly Hills, but Rod McKuen did just that. This strange fact alone stoked…
“It’s Laurie at the trailer park. A space opened up. Do you want me to save it, or are the cops going to let you stay where you are?” Interesting message, because Jim’s trailer, which has so far been…
SATURDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2014. 17:56 PDT. VALENCIA ST. *** I came out to the Mission this afternoon on business. Once business was concluded there was still plenty of daylight left, so I decided to pay a visit to Valencia for…
*** I’ve been coming down to San Leandro and San Lorenzo for many years now, and have been noticing the big blue Walmart sign in the parking lot that straddles the two cities’ borders every time. As the tallest structure…
*** Late afternoon sunlight glistens off the rain-splashed asphalt of the Bay City Motel parking lot. Jim Rockford’s Firebird pulls in accompanied by the breezy strains of a Price Is Right-showcase horn suite. In the brief moment it takes…
PROLOGUE I’m hardly the first guy to ponder the end of television, merely the last. The epiphany came at a Berkeley cafe in Fall 2011, when I overheard one college freshman say to another, “I can’t wait to go…