Off the bart, up the escalator at Embarcadero Station, the woman ahead exclaims, "Look up! Look at the sky." Necks crane and heads tilt backwards. The San Francisco sky is spinning. The clouds advance rapidly in circular motion over skyscrapers and it feels as if earth is a merry-go-round. Walk down Market street, pass all the bums and homeless people until signs point to the ferry building.
I follow the crowd and enter. I'm disappointed, it has the feel of New York's Pen Station, goods lining the walls of little shops. Nothing exotic and strange to match my expectations of the artsy city. But perhaps I came on the wrong day. "Tomorrow is market day," Oscar, the guy running the mushroom shop tells me. "But while you're here," He says, "Try this." And proceeds to sprinkles some portobello salt between my thumb and forefinger.
I ask where's a good place to get a view of the city? He says if go the Carnelian, a bar across the way, maybe the bartender will let me go up the stairs. I'm out the door.
Meet Joey. Eating his lunch at the bar and watching a movie since it's early and the bar is empty. He says that normally he would let me up, but right now there's a promoter viewing the space. A door slams in the distance. "Uh, they just closed the door on us," he says. Instead he serves me ice water and we chat. He tells me he's a drummer and has done his fair share of traveling. He worked for Gap Corporate for many years but it got tough for them to accommodate the musician schedule so here he is tending bar. He's only been doing it for a short while but he's slowly learning as he's goes along. "At first I was so nervous," he says, "But then I realized it's only alcohol!" He laughs. He looks to be in his early 30's but "I'm getting old," he says. "This is my last go!"
I ask, "What if it doesn't happen?"
He gives me the look which says it must. "People keep telling me not to give up, but I don't know." He has a weary look in his eyes. "But music is my life." He adds.
He helps me plan out my next excursion on my iphone map and off I go to Chinatown. I follow his directions to Bush St. and Grant Ave, where stone Chinese lions leer in the entrance-way. The first thing I notice is a kosher sign dangling over a little restaurant. I chuckle to myself at the misplacement. But it all becomes clear to me a minute later when I meet Sol the owner of two Grant Ave. shops crammed with glittering gleaming kitsch items, "Made in China."
We become acquainted after I spot hear-no-evil and speak-no-evil bronze sculpted monkeys resting on a bench. I pull out my camera and hear behind me in an Israeli accent, "Ah, I see you like my monkeys."
I turn around and face a medium-built, receding dark hairline, middle-aged man and smile, "Yes."
"Let me take your picture with them," A second younger man joins. I sit on the bench, next to the monkeys and smile. "Do something," He says. I glance over at the monkeys and of course, it's obvious. I cover my eyes with my hands. I'm see-no-evil.
"And this is how people get their cameras stolen," the monkey owner, Sol says.
After a good laugh, I say, "You're Israeli, right?"
"Yes," they both look at me in surprise.
"Manishma?" I say. I tell them I recently spent five months living in Ashdod, Israel, teaching English.
"I'm from Ashdod!" The younger man says.
"How old are you?" Sol asks and before I can answer says, "I have a friend that's coming to pick me up for the gym in a few minutes, he's 26, a very nice guy, a cantor! I want to set you up with him."
I laugh, "Of course you do!" After spending time in Israel, I learned that it's virtually impossible for an Israeli to meet a person that's single and not immediately try to set them up with a nephew, friend or son. It would be like asking a duck not to quack, a baker not to bake, or a seamstress not to sew.
They ask me what I do and I respond that I write poetry and create art. The Ashdod native asks if I have some art on my iphone. I show him a few pieces I've drawn with oil pastels and Sol exclaims that it reminds him of Chagall. "I love Chagall," I exclaim.
"I have some prints at my shop across the street," Sol says. "Would you like to see them?"
"Sure!" I reply. Across the cobbles stones, into a second shop, he leads me to an elevator. The doors open and I glance inside. The elevator is decorated like a sitting-room; two Chagall prints hang on the wall and an ornate silk ottoman couch rests along the wall. "Ha! Why do you have a couch inside your elevator?" I ask.
"Sometimes old ladies want to rest on the way-up," he says. He shows me around the shop a bit and as I finally claim my farewell, he hands me his business card and tells me to look him up. "I'll be in LA soon." He says. Nodding my head and smiling I exit the shop. I do a double-take. The bench of monkeys have mysteriously moved to this side of the street.
I stroll through China town and music catches my ear. I spot a lone Chinese man playing a banjo-like instrument. Suddenly there is competition. Across the street, four Chinese men play fiddles Mariachi style. Outnumbering the lone player, they draw more attention and receive tips from passerbys. It also helps that an older Oriental man hovers nearby directing tourists to their fiddle-case money pot.
I walk along, I walk along, I walk along and arrive at City Lights Bookstore. I'm not quite sure what I expected but it's just a bookstore. More interesting is a pub next door called Vesuvio: Portland, Oregon. On the outside wall a poem is engraved alerting passerbys that it's time for a martini.
"Oh, I didn't run." She says, "I just came to meet them for a drink.
Seated at the bar, a middle-aged English lady named Bertha asks me if I can read the price for t-shirts hanging on a wall above the bar. "$15 for small, medium, large and x-large; $20 for xx-large," I say. We have a chuckle.
She tells me she's in San Francisco on holiday. She lives near Brighton and is a social worker at a hospital. Unlike an American social worker she doesn't deal with the emotional wellness of a patient but rather their discharge from the hospital. She particularly deals with the elderly to ensure that they can function on their own once they're discharged. "It's very sad," she says, "How a lot of what brings the elderly to the hospital can be prevented. They start having difficulty walking so they give up and stop walking all-together. This causes a lot more problems." She describes how little money there is for the care of the elderly. The worst is that as they loose some of their faculties, not to mention friends, many of them fall into depression which is many times misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's. "When a person is depressed they become forgetful and less-with-it," she says.
Bertha asks what I do. When I respond with poetry she asks if I can write her something. During her travels people have been suggesting places to go see, "Which I can't possibly remember," she says. "So I started carrying a little notebook around. This nice bartender I met yesterday even drew me a picture of himself," she pauses and adds, "And his girlfriend and myself sitting at the bar." She doesn't have the notebook on her at the moment so instead I have her pass me a cocktail napkin and then two, on which I scrawl a poem I hastily compose. I sign it and hand it back to her. "In exchange I have something for you," she says and digs around her purse. "I brought this from England for a friend here but the moment I gave it to him, he said, 'Ew, that's disgusting!' And handed it right back. People either hate it or love it."
"What is it?" I ask eying the little black jar she hands me.
"Marmite. It's really quite delicious. You spread it on bread with butter. If you don't like it please make sure to pass it on to someone who does."
"Okay," I say solemnly and nod my head. I down the last of my beer. "Well I'm off," I announce. "Cheerio!" Out the door, clutching the jar of Marmite I make my way back to the BART station. I smile to myself almost whistling; I sold a poem!
awesome day!
ReplyDelete