for Marina Times, August 2010
by Bruce Bellingham
My favorite story of the month is the one about the transient who unlocked a shuttered bar up in Auburn (it was closed for ABC violations), and started selling drinks on his own. He was not the real owner. The town was so grateful that the watering hole had been revived, the local paper, the Auburn Journal, did a feature story on the welcomed reopening. The illicit proprietor gleefully posed for pictures. Then the cops recognized him from the paper as someone they had run into the hoosegow a few times for vagrancy. It seems he scared up the money to buy a six-pack, sell it in the bar, and garner seed money to buy more booze for the customers. This charade went on for days until the authorities got wise to him, and trundled him away.
The late Ron Fimrite had a great, old expression for jail: "durance vile."
Remanding him to durance vile is all wrong. Surely this sort of initiative should be recognized in some favorable way. The fake tavern owner showed real entrepreneurial spirit. Aren't we supposed to be creating jobs these days? Perhaps others would like to take over other shuttered businesses, and give it their best shot. There are plenty on Union Street. Putting the guy in the slammer at the expense of taxpayers isn't very constructive. Maybe he should be sent to bartender's school as part of his rehabilitation.
Speaking of rehabilitation, I walked down Union Street the other day, and found myself fielding questions about my health. Yes, I was absent from these pages for some time, and was in the hospital for some time.
People may inherit money from their families; some of us inherit heart disease, and a taste for unhealthy things to go along with it.
When my father had heart trouble -- there's a euphemism -- the doctors told him to take phenobarbital for chest pain, and recommended bed rest. A massive heart attack killed him at age 46. They can do a lot more for heart patients these days. However, the patient had best cooperate with the regimen. Dr. Dean Ornish (I'm always namedropping, even if it's over a mere matter of mortality) sent me a note, and offered his support. Years ago, he warned me about the perils of a bad family history. Have you ever seen his Reversing Heart Disease Diet? Sheesh. One is expected to eat little except nuts and berries, sort of a post-nuclear holocaust menu. Birdseed for the rest of my life. That's for the birds. OK, OK. I get it. You may expect a tweet from me.
This is the punishment for all the sybaritic times that I've had. Durance vile. I will be reduced to furtively peering into deli cases, and harboring impure thoughts about the mortadella.
"Listen," I said to the nurse at St. Mary's Hospital, as she added anti-coagulants to my IV, "If I water down my drinks, will my blood be thinner, too?"
The smartass question went dutifully ignored.
But I wasn't ignored. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for the people at St. Francis, St. Mary's and General Hospitals. And I'm grateful to Dr. Debbie Brown, Dr. Harvey Caplan, and Dr. Mary Gray. Yes, I have a Dr. Brown, and a Dr. Gray. I'll get to the pastels one of these days. Lots of other non-medical people were really sweet to me, too. Grateful I am, though I once published a sentiment that read, "When you start counting your blessings, you're really screwed."
Yes, these dark habits are hard to break.
Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay, and writes for the Northside. Send him an encouraging word at bruce@northsidesf.com
####
Friday, July 23, 2010
Bellingham by the Bay,Northside San Francisco, August, 2010
Perhaps July is the coolest month. Coldest in 40 years, they say. So they say. I felt so bad for the tourists who were freezing while standing in line at Swan Oyster Depot on Polk Street, I wanted to go across the street to Walgreens, and buy them mittens. Then I saw a man on Polk and Sacto. turn in for the night at 8 o'clock, grip his blanket, and try to sleep on the sidewalk. ...
A chilly month indeed. What would Mark Twain say? (You know he supposedly said that famous line about the frigid San Francisco summers.) What would Mark Twain not say? He did say this: "Now I hate to tell a plain truth, bit I must -- the bulk of San Francisco's liberality seems sometimes actuated by a love of applause." ...
Plain truth ... that's gotta sting a little. ...
July was a great month for the warm, specious sensation of Schadenfreude, with all of the public humiliations that celebrities have endured -- Mel Gibson's dark excursions, Lindsay Lohan's Day of Reckoning, Whitney Houston going unglued, Charlie Sheen's continuing private chaos -- most of us can all feel better about ourselves. We have all these people to sneer at. Where would we be without knowing that people actually attend tractor-pull competitions, people over whom we can really feel superior?
Gee, I can provide my own humiliations. But, I imagine, they are not so interesting. I could always audition for Stumbling with the Stars.
Times have changed. There is no more expectation of privacy. Hardly. I recall when Joe DiMaggio lived in the Marina. His disdain for media attention was palpable. Reporters backed off. They were sore afraid. If he was recognized while sauntering along Marina Blvd. or even when he was standing in line at the Red Cross Shelter at the Marina Middle School in the days following the Loma Prieta earthquake, Joltin' Joe would wince when someone would call out his name. My brother, Jack and I, saw him once and said hello. Jack was a DiMaggio devotee, we backed off from the bad vibes that Joe emitted. No wonder he could intimidate all of Yankee Stadium and those therein. Perhaps Joe recalled how Marilyn Monroe would thrive on the adoration of the world that she encouraged, and purr at the sight of the ever-present camera lenses. ... Truth is, Joe DiMaggio was a confidante of Vic Ramus, who owned the Horseshoe Tavern on Chestnut Street in the old days. They were old friends. Stefan Wever owns the saloon now. I saw Joe open and up, and be chatty with people he trusted, when Vic was there. As I mentioned, times have changed.
One the topic of fame, I hear Chris Isaak is a heavy contender for being the next Simon Cowell on American Idol. Chris seems to be awfully nice for the gig, but it would be refreshing to see some civility for a change, particularly from a San Francisco boy. Just as long as Chris keeps singing. Rod McKuen says of American Idol, "The producers have a lot to answer for." He means there will be a Day of Judgment for the show's success at marketing cruelty and freak-show antics. But punishment does not seem to be in the offing. On the contrary, the program has become a way of life. ...
Now that the Washington Square Bar & Grill is closed during the daytime hours, where does that leave the North Beach dinosaurs who used to slake their thirst at the bar? Well many are gone, I'm afraid. Where's Michael McCourt? He's counseling troubled persons who arrive on the shores shoeless, and without portfolio. That's what I hear. Where are the great characters? I was straightened out on this topic. They are still here. Did you see the ads on the buses? "San Francisco is full of characters." And I saw, as part of the PR campaign, a picture of Shrek. Yes, Shrek. This invention of Hollywood movies is supposed to be a S.F. character. Well, all right, there were days when I woke up looking like Shrek. But never waking up with Shrek, for Gawd's sakes. The auslanders have taken over San Francisco culture, for sure. ...
One of the best addition to the San Francisco landscape in Richard Rodriguez, who is a terrific writer and former essayist on the former Lehrer News Hour. Now it's called the PBS NewsHour.
"Jim Lehrer fired me," Richard explained to me when I ran into him on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights, his neighborhood. "Jim doesn't want essays on the air any more. After his friend, Roger Rosenblatt left, Jim abandoned the whole idea of people having commentaries. It wasn't a very good environment for writers who might have something to say. So, I was gone." ...
Liam, who used to own the S.N.O.B. Wine Bar, wants it known that he's changed the name to The Pour House. ... Down the street, the Lush Lounge, since it moved from its digs on the east side of Polk & Post, is going great guns. "Drinks are cheap, the company's friendly," sputters a seasoned local. ... I asked my cardiologist, "I I watered down my drinks, then I could thin out my blood?" She did not think that was funny. Apparently blood can be thinner than water. Well, some jokes can wear thin, too. ...
Some of us are just downright shellfish. Katie Baker, writing on the SF Appeal website, swears she saw something that looked like a lobster, painfully trundling itself along the promenade in the northern part of Golden Gate Park. Not so astonishing to me. Surely you recall Gérard de Nerval, the poet who walked his lobster on a leash on the streets of Paris during the early part of the 19th century. Ah, to be a boulevardier once again. Perhaps there are a few of these characters left, brazenly dragging their shellfish pals along the winding walkways of Golden Gate Park. Lobsters, as you know, can be notoriously uncooperative, particularly when they sense they are in the vicinity of a gurgling vivoir in a Richmond District seafood house where their crustacean cousins are awaiting their fiery fate. Besides, lobsters really do not like being schlepped from place to place on a leather tether. Given the chance, they'll make a run for it. Who could blame them? It is understandable that they long for the halcyon days when lobsters, with their ragged claws, could scuttle freely across the floors of the silent seas. Free the lobsters! Citizens, strike a blow for the Republic! ...
Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay. His doctors say it would be a good idea for him to walk his lobster as often as possible these days. Hold the butter. What do you think? e-mail bruce@northsidesf.com
###
A chilly month indeed. What would Mark Twain say? (You know he supposedly said that famous line about the frigid San Francisco summers.) What would Mark Twain not say? He did say this: "Now I hate to tell a plain truth, bit I must -- the bulk of San Francisco's liberality seems sometimes actuated by a love of applause." ...
Plain truth ... that's gotta sting a little. ...
July was a great month for the warm, specious sensation of Schadenfreude, with all of the public humiliations that celebrities have endured -- Mel Gibson's dark excursions, Lindsay Lohan's Day of Reckoning, Whitney Houston going unglued, Charlie Sheen's continuing private chaos -- most of us can all feel better about ourselves. We have all these people to sneer at. Where would we be without knowing that people actually attend tractor-pull competitions, people over whom we can really feel superior?
Gee, I can provide my own humiliations. But, I imagine, they are not so interesting. I could always audition for Stumbling with the Stars.
Times have changed. There is no more expectation of privacy. Hardly. I recall when Joe DiMaggio lived in the Marina. His disdain for media attention was palpable. Reporters backed off. They were sore afraid. If he was recognized while sauntering along Marina Blvd. or even when he was standing in line at the Red Cross Shelter at the Marina Middle School in the days following the Loma Prieta earthquake, Joltin' Joe would wince when someone would call out his name. My brother, Jack and I, saw him once and said hello. Jack was a DiMaggio devotee, we backed off from the bad vibes that Joe emitted. No wonder he could intimidate all of Yankee Stadium and those therein. Perhaps Joe recalled how Marilyn Monroe would thrive on the adoration of the world that she encouraged, and purr at the sight of the ever-present camera lenses. ... Truth is, Joe DiMaggio was a confidante of Vic Ramus, who owned the Horseshoe Tavern on Chestnut Street in the old days. They were old friends. Stefan Wever owns the saloon now. I saw Joe open and up, and be chatty with people he trusted, when Vic was there. As I mentioned, times have changed.
One the topic of fame, I hear Chris Isaak is a heavy contender for being the next Simon Cowell on American Idol. Chris seems to be awfully nice for the gig, but it would be refreshing to see some civility for a change, particularly from a San Francisco boy. Just as long as Chris keeps singing. Rod McKuen says of American Idol, "The producers have a lot to answer for." He means there will be a Day of Judgment for the show's success at marketing cruelty and freak-show antics. But punishment does not seem to be in the offing. On the contrary, the program has become a way of life. ...
Now that the Washington Square Bar & Grill is closed during the daytime hours, where does that leave the North Beach dinosaurs who used to slake their thirst at the bar? Well many are gone, I'm afraid. Where's Michael McCourt? He's counseling troubled persons who arrive on the shores shoeless, and without portfolio. That's what I hear. Where are the great characters? I was straightened out on this topic. They are still here. Did you see the ads on the buses? "San Francisco is full of characters." And I saw, as part of the PR campaign, a picture of Shrek. Yes, Shrek. This invention of Hollywood movies is supposed to be a S.F. character. Well, all right, there were days when I woke up looking like Shrek. But never waking up with Shrek, for Gawd's sakes. The auslanders have taken over San Francisco culture, for sure. ...
One of the best addition to the San Francisco landscape in Richard Rodriguez, who is a terrific writer and former essayist on the former Lehrer News Hour. Now it's called the PBS NewsHour.
"Jim Lehrer fired me," Richard explained to me when I ran into him on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights, his neighborhood. "Jim doesn't want essays on the air any more. After his friend, Roger Rosenblatt left, Jim abandoned the whole idea of people having commentaries. It wasn't a very good environment for writers who might have something to say. So, I was gone." ...
Liam, who used to own the S.N.O.B. Wine Bar, wants it known that he's changed the name to The Pour House. ... Down the street, the Lush Lounge, since it moved from its digs on the east side of Polk & Post, is going great guns. "Drinks are cheap, the company's friendly," sputters a seasoned local. ... I asked my cardiologist, "I I watered down my drinks, then I could thin out my blood?" She did not think that was funny. Apparently blood can be thinner than water. Well, some jokes can wear thin, too. ...
Some of us are just downright shellfish. Katie Baker, writing on the SF Appeal website, swears she saw something that looked like a lobster, painfully trundling itself along the promenade in the northern part of Golden Gate Park. Not so astonishing to me. Surely you recall Gérard de Nerval, the poet who walked his lobster on a leash on the streets of Paris during the early part of the 19th century. Ah, to be a boulevardier once again. Perhaps there are a few of these characters left, brazenly dragging their shellfish pals along the winding walkways of Golden Gate Park. Lobsters, as you know, can be notoriously uncooperative, particularly when they sense they are in the vicinity of a gurgling vivoir in a Richmond District seafood house where their crustacean cousins are awaiting their fiery fate. Besides, lobsters really do not like being schlepped from place to place on a leather tether. Given the chance, they'll make a run for it. Who could blame them? It is understandable that they long for the halcyon days when lobsters, with their ragged claws, could scuttle freely across the floors of the silent seas. Free the lobsters! Citizens, strike a blow for the Republic! ...
Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay. His doctors say it would be a good idea for him to walk his lobster as often as possible these days. Hold the butter. What do you think? e-mail bruce@northsidesf.com
###
The Final Word, Northside San Francisco, August, 2010
After that rather cryptic dispatch was printed in this paper last month about me, that is, "Bruce went on a vacation that no one would envy" or something like that, I feel I have some explaining to do for the readers.
No, I am not in jail with Lindsay Lohan. That punishment would be too cruel, and certainly too unusual for the poor, misbegotten woman. She's suffered enough.
I was in the hospital for a time. They call it a heart attack. Everything I see that fellow on TV, proffering drugs for some pharmaceutical firm, woefully claiming he had a heart attack at the age of 58, I say, "Shut up, already."
I'll tell you, I had no conventional symptoms -- no chest pain -- just felt really sick, as if the flu had been delivered to me in a big package by overnight mail.
I took a cab to St. Francis Hospital. That's my friendly neighborhood healing house, but they said I had to go to St. Mary's. I was transported by ambulance there. We couldn't fit all the paramedics in a taxi, I guess. Suddenly it all became very dramatic and terrifying. Enough to give one high blood pressure. Lots of people were involved. I was embarrassed by troubling them that much.
I sensed disdain from the staff as I was wheeled into an operating room. They cut off my underwear with a pair of scissors. Imagine. I hardly know them. Everyone looked grim. I felt guilty. I think they knew that I knew that I was not exactly a health nut for the past couple of years. I thought I could eat anything, and drink everything. Why take my underwear? They had to insert a needle into my groin. It's called an angioplasty. It introduces a stent to clear a blocked artery. Yes, a blood clot. All of the menudo, and margaritas had caught up with me.
I was flushed with anti-coagulants. I said to a nurse, "If I water down my drinks, will that help thin my blood?"
She didn't think that was funny. It was a week with a shortage of humor, I'm afraid.
Later, Dr. Debbie Brown would say to me, "You romanticize the wicked life of a writer too much. maybe Herb Caen could have gotten away with it until he was 900 years old. That doesn't mean you can." Yes, Dr. Brown knew of my affiliation to Herb Caen. Herb was 80 when he died, by the way. He might have said, "You can stay away from hooch, rich food, no sleep, and bad company. You may not live forever. It will just seem like it."
Perhaps the worst part of all this is getting yelled at afterwards. Everyone yelled at me: "How come you didn't tell me?" All that sort of thing. To tell you the truth, I did not know what was going on. I didn't think to pick up the phone to call.
I'm sorry about that, people.
Perhaps, like Thomas Jefferson, I should have a conversation with my heart. I certainly owe that still-beating beast an apology, too. I once owned a Morris Minor. I was only a kid when I was driving the Morris in Golden Gate Park when the front left wheel fell off. The mechanic said to me, incredulously, "You sure like to ride them right into the ground, don't you?"
I've been doing it ever since.
Remember that old Lightnin' Hopkins song? "My starter won't start this morning/My motor won't even turn."
It just comes to mind.
A few days after the hospital stay --- yes, that vacation you don't want to take -- I got a call from the ambulance company. They said I owe them $1,876.00 for my excursion to St. Mary's Hospital. Imagine that. I didn't even use the mini-bar. I'm not sure what kind of tip I should leave. I'm still gobsmacked by the cost of the trip across town. But the fellow was nice, as was everyone at St. Francis, and St. Mary's. With all these saints, how could I lose?
A saintly nurse at the Castro-Mission Clinic said, "Oh yes, it's you. I saw your chart. You're lucky to be alive." And so I am.
If this long list of medical facilities bewilder you, well, how do you think I feel? The list is longer, but will skip that for now.
This is not meant to be a cautionary tale. We're all grownups here. But for all the complaining I do about San Francisco, and how it has slipped into a funky condition, I have to say they provide comprehensive health insurance that saved a wretch like me. Talk about pre-existing conditions. I got out of the hospital on a Friday. Monday, I'm in the office of Healthy San Francisco on 25th Street. "You had a heart attack?" asked the friendly chap. "I think we can help you out."
Imagine that.
A whole cadre of persons helped me out so my final word -- as yet -- does not have to be so final.
Bruce Bellingham is a writer from the Northside, and the Marina Times. E-mail him at bruce@northsidesf.com. Tell him something encouraging.
###
No, I am not in jail with Lindsay Lohan. That punishment would be too cruel, and certainly too unusual for the poor, misbegotten woman. She's suffered enough.
I was in the hospital for a time. They call it a heart attack. Everything I see that fellow on TV, proffering drugs for some pharmaceutical firm, woefully claiming he had a heart attack at the age of 58, I say, "Shut up, already."
I'll tell you, I had no conventional symptoms -- no chest pain -- just felt really sick, as if the flu had been delivered to me in a big package by overnight mail.
I took a cab to St. Francis Hospital. That's my friendly neighborhood healing house, but they said I had to go to St. Mary's. I was transported by ambulance there. We couldn't fit all the paramedics in a taxi, I guess. Suddenly it all became very dramatic and terrifying. Enough to give one high blood pressure. Lots of people were involved. I was embarrassed by troubling them that much.
I sensed disdain from the staff as I was wheeled into an operating room. They cut off my underwear with a pair of scissors. Imagine. I hardly know them. Everyone looked grim. I felt guilty. I think they knew that I knew that I was not exactly a health nut for the past couple of years. I thought I could eat anything, and drink everything. Why take my underwear? They had to insert a needle into my groin. It's called an angioplasty. It introduces a stent to clear a blocked artery. Yes, a blood clot. All of the menudo, and margaritas had caught up with me.
I was flushed with anti-coagulants. I said to a nurse, "If I water down my drinks, will that help thin my blood?"
She didn't think that was funny. It was a week with a shortage of humor, I'm afraid.
Later, Dr. Debbie Brown would say to me, "You romanticize the wicked life of a writer too much. maybe Herb Caen could have gotten away with it until he was 900 years old. That doesn't mean you can." Yes, Dr. Brown knew of my affiliation to Herb Caen. Herb was 80 when he died, by the way. He might have said, "You can stay away from hooch, rich food, no sleep, and bad company. You may not live forever. It will just seem like it."
Perhaps the worst part of all this is getting yelled at afterwards. Everyone yelled at me: "How come you didn't tell me?" All that sort of thing. To tell you the truth, I did not know what was going on. I didn't think to pick up the phone to call.
I'm sorry about that, people.
Perhaps, like Thomas Jefferson, I should have a conversation with my heart. I certainly owe that still-beating beast an apology, too. I once owned a Morris Minor. I was only a kid when I was driving the Morris in Golden Gate Park when the front left wheel fell off. The mechanic said to me, incredulously, "You sure like to ride them right into the ground, don't you?"
I've been doing it ever since.
Remember that old Lightnin' Hopkins song? "My starter won't start this morning/My motor won't even turn."
It just comes to mind.
A few days after the hospital stay --- yes, that vacation you don't want to take -- I got a call from the ambulance company. They said I owe them $1,876.00 for my excursion to St. Mary's Hospital. Imagine that. I didn't even use the mini-bar. I'm not sure what kind of tip I should leave. I'm still gobsmacked by the cost of the trip across town. But the fellow was nice, as was everyone at St. Francis, and St. Mary's. With all these saints, how could I lose?
A saintly nurse at the Castro-Mission Clinic said, "Oh yes, it's you. I saw your chart. You're lucky to be alive." And so I am.
If this long list of medical facilities bewilder you, well, how do you think I feel? The list is longer, but will skip that for now.
This is not meant to be a cautionary tale. We're all grownups here. But for all the complaining I do about San Francisco, and how it has slipped into a funky condition, I have to say they provide comprehensive health insurance that saved a wretch like me. Talk about pre-existing conditions. I got out of the hospital on a Friday. Monday, I'm in the office of Healthy San Francisco on 25th Street. "You had a heart attack?" asked the friendly chap. "I think we can help you out."
Imagine that.
A whole cadre of persons helped me out so my final word -- as yet -- does not have to be so final.
Bruce Bellingham is a writer from the Northside, and the Marina Times. E-mail him at bruce@northsidesf.com. Tell him something encouraging.
###
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