Saint Francis Was Probably a Pretty Cool Guy

So we bussed into San Fran on what we thought was the Golden Gate Bridge, but upon a re-examination of its color (NOT red) we realized it was just a bridge. Spoiler alert: we didn’t see the Golden Gate Bridge before leaving. Whatever, it’s just steel, screw that, we had better things to do. We checked into the Adelaide hostel, the hosteliest hostel of them all, with lots of guests and foreigners milling about being artsy and European and intellectual and whatnot. The actual room was in a hotel across the street, on the fifth floor, accessed by this ricketyass, oldschool metal gate style elevator. First night in, we dined at Akiko, a hole-in-the-wall sushi joint which turned out to be affordable and delicious. The “Lizzy roll” (named after Lizzy McGuire we HOPE) of salmon, avocado, and lemon was pretty snazzy. We then ventured to a hookah bar to get some banana cream smoke in our lungs. Tasty, but served by kind of an asshole staff. We had plans to go to the Fluid Lounge, a club with an EXCLUSIVE party that we had gotten ON THE LIST FOR, using the INTERNET. Understand? We were ON THE LIST. But between Marissa nearly falling asleep at the hookah place, and the inevitable oversmoking by Scott because of this, giving him a headache, they turned in for an early night of BP and bed.

On the docket for the next day were thrift stores, the Mission District, and Chinatown. This fine Saturday was characterized primarily by walking. The thrift stores were mainly a bust, and the couple yard sales we checked out, hosted by poor Hispanics and the butchest lesbians ever didn’t bear fruit either. The Mission district, seemingly the Hispanic part of town, was an endless walk of odd smells, curious shops, and rows upon rows of Taquerias. It was worth seeing, but ultimately we ditched that place to bus it on up to Chinatown. Well. Not before making one last stop near Guerrero street. Below you will see a series of three pictures. One, you might recognize. The second is the same store, now a café, rather than a flower shop. The third was taken right next to it, and based on the view, should be taken as proof that the storefront is in fact the same. Marissa’s favorite “poet” might be in Omaha, but Scott’s is in San Francisco, and here, he paid homage.

Hi Doggie

Chinatown in San Francisco is pretty awesome. It’s huge, with tons of bustling storefronts, many of which seem to have the same names and/or catchphrases, such as “spend yourself and save money!” Old men with zithers play on every street corner, while other old men beg for money in the most depressing death-wails I’ve ever heard. While we were loathe to actually purchase anything, knowing that there was inevitably a shop around the corner selling the exact same thing for half the price, we did indulge in some bubble tea and waltzed into a chinatown tea bar that was well worth the experience. This couple had their act down, entertaining the customers with their pseudo-fobby wit and offering up free tea tastings as they did so. They were just asian enough to impress white people, and just american enough to not scare white people. For positive reviews of Vital Tea Company, just look to the aspergers-prone nine year old: “Hey mom! I think I like tea now!” (repeat four times until mother begrudgingly acknowledges to get the full effect.) Even though one of the proprietors tried to rip us off on a teapot, we had a good time, and walked out of there with two big bags of strawberry rooibos and apple green tea. Score. To get this Chinatown nonsense out of the way, we’ll fast forward to the next day, where, after several hours of shopping around, Marissa bought an unbearably cute “Bubi Bubi” tea set, and Scott bought an unbearably cool cast-iron teapot, complete with two stolen tea cups slipped into his jacket, along with the incense he borrowed from the last shop.

Back to Saturday, we grabbed dinner at Shalimar, an Indian/Pakistani restaurant with homeless soup kitchen décor, delicious food, and uncannily low prices (we’re talking two beef kabobs for two dollars.) Marissa was not a fan of the shithole aspect of it, while Scott was enamored with both the style and food. We capped off the night with feeble attempts to plan a night at a gay bar or a straight bar, but after a series of phone calls, it became clear that Scott’s lost ID was a night-ruiner. HE IS VERY SORRY. More BP and sleep were in order it seemed, after a stop at Lori’s diner for a heaping banana split.

The next day started with a checkout from the hotel, and a delicious breakfast of crepes at Honey Honey. If this vacation has taught us anything, it is that it is a tragedy that there are no good crepe places in Charlottesville (and I know what you’re thinking, but that place really isn’t that good, they overstuff their crepes like crazy, and there’s not much variety.) So we checked out one more thrift store where some actual purchases were made, and then headed to Golden Gate Park, for a nice stroll.

Taken after we tossed each other a football from 4 feet away to establish our friendship

For lunch, we dined at Absinthe, headed up by executive chef Jamie, of Top Chef. The menu was stupid expensive, so we just snagged a hearty lunch of French onion soup (delicious) salad (delicious) and a croque-monsieur (delicious.) Given, none of these were crazy, experimental dishes, but they were damn good nonetheless.

Fuck Hosea, Jamie got cut too early

After a return to Chinatown, we hopped on the BART to head to SFO for the end of our journey. So, what are our thoughts on San Francisco? Well: lots of gaygays. Lots of hills. Lots of restaurants, lots of stores (with the biggest storefronts, I’ve ever seen; there was a Macy’s the size of the Pentagon.) Lots of money. San Fran was fun to visit, but who are we kidding, we’re too damn poor to live there.

asians tag the financial district with infamous lolcat graffiti

SLC BLOG : Pattybear for President

Boarding the train from Denver, on our way to SLC. Probably the most beautiful train ride in the US, with stunning landscapes, rocky orange outcrops, towering mountains, red sandstone cliffs, all as we wind our way slowly through the mountains. The pictures do not do it justice. We pull into SLC around 11. Big fat snowflakes falling everywhere. We call a taxi to take us to the International Ute Hostel. We get dropped off, and see a sign.
Place a call to the number on the sign. Wait for Pattybear to arrive. Him? Her? Hippie? Mormon? The giant peace sign on the roof suggests the former. Anticipation builds up and our hearts thump faster. Will she welcome us with open arms? Will he eventually rape us? Will the soup be good?

PATTYBEAR ARRIVES

She is a thin old woman in a robe with a big smile. We don’t talk much that night as she sets us up with a room to get to sleep, but it is clear from the décor of the place, that Pattybear and the Ute Hostel are everything we had hoped:

First we see all of the philosophical posters dedicated to peace on earth. Next, we see a mural of a giant tree and rainbows. Finally, we see a pee-yellow T shirt on display reading “Let it mellow.” This confused Marissa later in the bathroom, and unfortunately this time she didn’t have her phone to text him for flushing advice like she did in Denver. If you are truly committed to saving the world, Pattybear, you will be proud of Marissa.

Pattybear is full of suggestions on where to go.

“Down Main St is a Wal-Mart if you don’t think it’s the beast.”

“A friend of mine runs a vegetarian raw foods restaurant here, so, if you want to meet a beautiful soul, just go 5 blocks this way.”

“I don’t know if you’re building people, but if not, you can go to Memory park.”

She gives us some oatmeal before leaving, because “Mamabear wouldn’t want to send her baby bears out without anything sticking to their ribs.” Hell yes.

We ventured out into what we thought would be the cold, but was just a bit brisk, really. Thrift stores were a necessary stop, but due to the selection or prices, ended up being a fruitless venture. We got lunch at One World Café (on Pattybear’s recommendation of course) a kind of hippy restaurant where they make you up a plate of whatever of their organic, health and veggie oriented dishes they have, and you pay however much you want to pay for it. The food was good, and the principle “everyone should get something to eat” was even more admirable.

Next, we checked out the public library, which was by far the most spectacular library we’ve ever witnessed. First off, it was huge, 6 stories, with beautiful architecture.
Inside was a glass-walled wonderland, with glass elevators, a row of little stands and stores, ranging from coffee to comics to an art gallery. Above us hung a sculpture of hanging books forming a person’s face.


Inside were six stories of books, computers, couches, and in the kids section, assorted theme rooms and cubbies, which were clearly awesome places to be if you were a tyke. S&M could not be more impressed with this place, but after spending about an hour reading and sipping coffee like hip people tend to do (no iMacs to complete the picture, sorry), we headed off to the MORMON tabernacle to see what that was all about. Looked good.

Probably would have been even cooler if we had figured out how to get inside. Probably would have figured it out if we tried harder or cared. But at this point, we didn’t, because we had just gotten off of a tour of the Honeybee House.

Why is it called the honeybee house, you ask?

Well, that is certainly a question the old mormon manager lady and her young, confusingly fobby asian disciple were eager to answer. Multiple times. Twice the old lady asked us, and both times we awkwardly said “I don’t know” only to get a huge, denturey smile from her as she exclaimed, “Why, it’s because he worked SO HARD! Just like a HONEYBEE!” At the end of the tour, the fobby asian grinned like a schoolgirl as she asked us again. She asked us with such enthusiasm that she began to skip articles and mispronounce words. We had to shrug sheepishly only to have her also exclaim, “Because he work so hard! Like honey bee!” It was all-around embarrassing.

We were less embarrassed and more enthralled (also, sad that we couldn’t be shameless enough to put Scott’s voice recorder in a less discreet location) with a fight that went on between three youth group member s and the tour guides in the Honeybee House. The youth were startled by the Joseph Smith movie they had just watched. In it, they learned the man had several wives at once, while the Honeybee House had told them it wasn’t true. What ensued was an uncomfortable squabble about “What God wants.”

But all we want to know about the Mormon scripture, O Lord, is are we human, or are we dancer?

So there's SLC for ya. Some mroe stuff happened, but we'll be honest, we're just not excited enough about it to type it up for you, so let's just say our stay in SLC was uneventful for the most part. Except for pattybear.

Oh yea.

Human statue motherfuckers.

Denver Days: So Good, We Don't Even Need a Pun

Scott once laughed at Marissa for considering Denver "The Promised Land." But now they both agree that it is. Especially after Chicago, where every walk was uphill both ways in 3 feet of snow, Denver rocks. The transportation system is excellent, the people are friendly, there's a music venue across the street from a music venue, there are outdoor malls right in the middle of downtown, there is a chain of gas stations with brontosauruses as their logo...it's like everything NoVa lacks. And on top of it, there are always mountains and majestic nature, and even the Celestial Seasonings HQ just outside of town. The buses don’t go there though, so we’ll just have to take everyone’s word for it.

Full disclosure here: Our opinions are heavily skewed by the fact that it was sixtyfuckingfive degrees while we were there, which is damn near perfect weather, and compared to Chicago is basically like a sunny beach. According to our artsy and aloof 20-something hostel owner, Denver gets more sun than Florida, BUT WE COULD BE UNDER 3 FEET OF SNOW TOMORROW, THE WEATHER IS CRAZY LIKE THAT (emphasis in original). That’s ok. There’s something appealing about erratically extreme and unpredictable weather.

So before getting into the specifics, basically everything about Denver trumps Chicago, even the train ride. This train had OUTLETS. This train had FRIENDLY EMPLOYEES. This train had an adorable old couple, who drank wine, played rummy, and said “just think hunny, tomorrow we’re going to start our new lives!” We pulled into the station, which had a ridiculously cool, massive orange Union Station sign, that oh btw, lights up neon vegas style at night. We had to get to our hostel, a dreaded affair, given our transport experience from Chicago.

Oh hey, theres a FREE, hybrid bus system that goes up and down the downtown mall, with buses coming like EVERY GODDAMN MINUTE? Fantastic. Oh, there’s also a good bus system to take us basically anywhere, free transfers with ticket purchase, and uncannily friendly and helpful drivers that occasionally give you free rides? I DID NOT KNOW THAT ABOUT YOU DENVER, THAT’S PRETTY COOL. Getting around this place was exceedingly easy, and thanks to the gorgeous weather, walking around wasn’t a chore, but well worth doing, given the density of awesome stores check out. Seriously, this place was jampacked with shops.

Not just any shops. OUR kind of shops. Record stores, used bookstores, thrift stores, “recycled fashion” stores—seriously, we visited about 4 different varieties of each. We each got some new reading and new styles. Scott got a new pair of jeans that have a beer (or Mike’s Hard!) opener made of denim right on the pocket, and now goes by the alias of Catman MC, freelancer. Marissa pioneered a bold new look called Lacrhasta—a cheap, used Lacoste shirt combined with Jamaican-flag Pumas. Oh, how she rocks it. Fun fact about shopping in Denver: all sales clerks and employees are uncannily friendly, helpful, and nice.

FOOD was GOOD, and more importantly, EVERYWHERE. We could not walk down a street without spying at least 3 restaurants we wanted to try. Denver is apparently known for its Mexican food, so we went to a Mexican grill and bar, called Illegal Petes. The food was good, but seemingly inauthentic. This was remedied by trying some pork tacos from a little Mexican street vendor, that were swimming in spicy green grease. We begrudgingly agreed to pay the menu prices at a downtown crepe shop cleverly named Crepes ‘n’ Crepes, and what we got in return was AMAZEMENT. Scott, savory man that he is, ordered one filled with eggs, cheese, and an ASSLOAD of bacon. Marissa the sweetie-pie got some strawberry, cream cheese, and banana. They. Were. Bangin. Scott wants nothing more now than to work there. To be behind the counter, armed with ladles and spreaders and spatulas and three gorgeous, round, flat-iron skillets, serenely making delicious crepes; that is perfection in life. Then, last night, the duo scouted out yet another cleverly named eatery, Wok Uptown. They google maps-ed it and all, but as they wokked further and further uptown, they realized, hey, we’re in the sketch-ass ghetto, should we turn around? But amidst the sneakers hangin from telephone poles (rest in peace, Damionte) there was bamboo. Marissa was the lesser of the directionally challenged yet again. (Scott will argue this point, as Marissa has led them astray on more than one occasion.) Our server was somehow an overweight black man who was cutely nervous about getting our orders correct, and apprehensive about whether we enjoyed it. He had the build of Big Boi, and the soul of Radio (not retarded, just eager to please in an unsure way). Our food was delicious and plentiful. What sticks in our minds the most was the BADASS wasabi mustard they gave us that was clearly not fuckin around, and the sweet, sweet crab and cream cheese puffs. We finished the night at Gelazzi’s, a gelato joint with fun décor, sweet service, and delicious gelato. We savored it slowly, and left a gift in return before leaving. Marissa adjourned after finishing her Amaretto-coffee gelato to stop off at the restroom. Five minutes later, as Scott licks the last bit of smooth, berry ice from his paddle, he gets a distressed text from Marissa. It seems the toilet’s flushing capability cannot handle her poopoozao, and after 6 tries, it clearly refuses to go down. Like a brown canoe in the bowl it floats, too long and stiff to be forced. Upon Scott’s advice, we fled, leaving the gelato, and the lengthy log behind (for the super-sweet Disney Channel gelattoess to reckon with).

Then, of course, the Clarity tour was in Denver. It was pretty sweet, the voice quality was amazing but sadly obscured by the douchebags to our right and left insisting on singing with all their might. We ask you, do you go to a concert to hear the band sing, or yourself? We are obviously in disagreement with these gentlemen. Reuben’s Accomplice, a band from Phoenix with a kind of lame name opened for them. They were okay but seemed to have an identity crisis. When one of the guitarists was singing, the music sounded ambient and chill. When another sang, it sounded dangerously close to a RHCP knock-off band. There can only be one man who twangs the word California like CAHL ee PHONE ya. Sorry. So Clarity was good and seamless-sounding as it always is. It wasn’t good for the dumbass bitch behind us chanting right between tracks 6 and 7 “PLAY SWEETNESS! PLAY SWEETNESS! I LOVE THAT SONG!!!!” Someone did not get the memo on the whole “Clarity Tour” thing. Goodbye Sky Harbor rocked pretty hard except for an initial mic malfunction in the harmony part that was quickly rectified. Marissa nearly shat her pants at this point. But other than that, xylophones and all, it was met with the enthusiasm that one would hope. After Clarity was finished, they played a couple of lesser-known tracks (still, much to the dismay of Sweetness girl). It was cool because it seemed like they were playing whatever the fuck they wanted and people were loving it. That’s what it means to be a fucking legend. Or Conor Oberst, you take your pick.

Oh we met Michael Cera too

Scott became heartily annoyed with a girl in front of him who looked as if she heartily enjoyed too many a Double Whopper Meal. Her flesh bulged and brimmed at the seams of her too-small dress, as she spasmed in front of him, pausing only to kiss her equally ugly boyfriend, who was clearly disinterested with the proceedings. She started slow. A rocking of the head, side-to-side. Then she picked up, jumping and gyrating in no sensible manner, stopping to point fiercely in the air, sometimes at appropriate points in the music, and sometimes for discernable reason. She bucked and brayed, tossing her head back into Scott’s face, demanding him to duck and weave, to dodge this behemoth’s onslaught. It did not make sense, people. The dancing…it followed no rhyme nor reason, no order. It was chaos theory personified. Between this bitch, the overly zealous and loud jackass to his right, the little brunette girl behind him who decided it would be a good idea to grab his ass and then stare at him uncomfortably, and the jerk who simultaneously kicked him in the leg and punched Marissa in the back of the head in an ill-advised attempt to jump cheer the band, Scott feels safe in saying that the crowd was less than ideal.

So there you have it. Denver, the promised land. Culture and food spring forth from its bosom like mana, pouring out into the mountains and desert until they swell with its splendor, and angelic choirs serenade it while the sun’s(or lens flare’s) rays shine upon its majesty(yes, I am aware that my mixed metaphors in that sentence do not add up. If you don’t like it, then you can shove it. But you don’t like it, you love it.) But, like every Utopia, there are cracks in the glossy veneer of this paradise. However, even these flaws are endearing, lending it character rather than rotting away at its core. This is a big city. Make no mistake, there are hobos. But these hobos are of a different breed than Chicago’s natives. They’re polite, they’re friendly, one toothless woman even held Scott’s hand with unmistakably genuine sympathy when he told her he had nothing to offer her, on account of his missing wallet. There’s a large Hispanic population, and along with that goes the typical mexigang style and culture, but even the most delinquent of them here seemed to speak perfect English, and be generally non-threatening. There are surprisingly few Asians, but after living in NoVa, that’s almost a welcome respite. There’s an overabundance of white punks, and white-trashy, borderline-retarded youths with slipknot shirts and busted teeth. No silver lining there, sorry. And the streetbound, black criminal element is of course present, but generally nonthreatening in any way. As we waited for the bus, a fat Hispanic woman and her black thugs were hard at work, sellin that chronic. A man refuses. She says, “that’s ok, there’s nothing wrong with being drug-free.” Another man partakes. The drug deal takes place within two feet of Scott, so close and so in front of his eyes, he could reach out and snatch money and herb alike. But there are no threatening looks passed his way, only nods, and a friendly “how are you doing.” Even the thugs are chill.

Guess there’s just something about Denver that puts everyone in a good mood.

Day 1: CHICAGO

Chicago. After covering the wallet fiasco, we have to address the rest of the windy city experience. Scott rattled off a list of things we need to mention in our Chicago blog, and it went something like this: Cold, windy, greektown, wall-to-wall bed, cold, revolving doors, the El, Deep Dish Pizza, cold, too much light makes the baby go blind, THAT GIRL, snow, cold. Those of you playing along at home can make sure we hit every item on the list.

Chicago is cold. Like, bone-chillingly, can’t feel my nuts (or ovaries) cold, the kind where the wind pushes the cold into your bone marrow where it just chills out and refuses to leave even once you’re in front of a cozy fire, sipping a hot drink, cold smoothie that Marissa bought with one of her mommy’s Starbucks cards. It flurried when we got in, and it didn’t seem too bad until ten minutes elapsed and we realized what this town was all about. It’s about cold, people. Cold and hobos, and some more cold.

Our hostel turned out to be in GREEKTOWN, where everything is written in that one greek triangular font and there are gyro joints across from gyro joints. Our luxurious accommodations were on the top floor of the Parthenon restaurant. This place was like the Cadillac of hostels, with stone showers, plentiful heating, and wall-to-wall bedding. You couldn’t roll off of this beast if you wanted to.

So, as mentioned before, it was FUCKING COLD. So cold that almost every establishment, including 7-11’s, have revolving doors. We have come to believe that revolving doors keep the cold out. One place we went to had two sets of doors instead of revolving ones. Then there were always assholes taking too damn long coming into the place that we wanted to shoot.

The El, as Rhett Miller would have you know, is a cool place to sing about. The thing reminds us of the Grizzly Bear at King’s Do, it’s so fucking ghetto. You know how the DC Metro has nice little lights flashing for the deafies and bigass electronic signs telling the yuppies-in-a-rush when the next train comes? Well, the El does not have such amenities. In fact, the train platform is literally a platform. Like a deck that would hang off your house, built by your dad. But anyway, as many ghetto things are, the El was endearing. We could see the whole city from it, but unfortunately since both of our cameras weren’t functioning, we had to see the world through both our eyes. No more 3X5’s.

So, essentially, we failed in our roles as intrepid tourists, and decided to nap as soon as we got into the hostel. This kind of blew any pseudo-plans to check out the aquarium, meaning our next first stop in Chicago was the Art of Pizza, for what Chicagoans (we assume) have voted Chicago’s finest deep dish pizza. So we set off, and a hop, skip, and a jump away (read: the El, coldass streets, walking in the wrong direction, cursing ourselves, and more coldass streets, nearly giving up and dying in an alleyway before seeing the sign just in time) and we were inside, ordering up a 12” stuffed deep dish pepperoni, made fresh while we waited for 45 minutes and eavesdropped on the conversations of Northwestern kids. The pizza was good. Like, really good, dripping in hot cheese and sauce, with a thick enough crust to contain all of its glory. We each had two slices, which, trust us, is more than it sounds like, and took the other two home, much to Scott’s dismay, who was tasked with forcing his gloveless hands out of their comfortable pocketed home to hold this box for the rest of their icy night. Don’t worry, it was worth it on the train next day, as an alternative to either shitass $4 microwave pizzas or $22 steaks.

So next up was the THEATRE. A show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, apparently Chicago’s longest running show, for 20 years now, where a group called the Neo-Futurists puts on 30 plays in an hour, and it’s different every week. The whole affair was tainted with the unmistakable air of DRAMA KIDS (and adults, who, let’s face it, are just drama kids who seem a bit more pathetic at this point.) Still, the show was good, and undeniably unique. The audience chose the order of the plays via shouting, the plays themselves ranged from bizarre to funny, to artsy and all combinations of the above. We felt that throwing in the serious vignettes was perhaps not the wisest choice, seeing as the audience doesn’t know when the fuck they’re supposed to laugh and when not to. Protip: it’s NOT during the spoken word poetry about genital mutilation in Africa. Yea, I’m talking to you, asshole in the second row with the inappropriately loud guffaw. Regardless of the hit-or-miss nature of the thing, we both agreed, it was well worth going to. The audience certainly loved it. One girl in particular, standing in line in front of us, was clearly enthralled by the proceedings.

Well, she was enthralled by just about everything nerdy. And she wasn’t letting her theatre partner (read: older internet date OR father, we hope it’s the former but believe it’s the latter) hear the end of it. At about 16 years old with a mouthful of braces, this girl gave the man her uncut insights on everything. First, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: how great it was conceptually, but how unfortunate it was that Buffy was a ditz, and how all of Joss Whedon’s shows are that way. Then, Twitter: social tool or stalking device? Next up, the Next Big Thing: World of Warcraft meets scavenger hunt in real life. Although we missed the best of it, we caught the very end of her rampage on Scott’s mp3 player. Below is an artist’s rendering of Braceface and her two-cents on a show called Radiolab.

In the morning, we enjoyed a nice breakfast at a little local coffee shop that local’s call “Starbuck’s.” We ordered the tea lattes, and they’re seriously good, people. Go try one. We enjoyed the snow from indoors, and man, there was an asston of snow. FCPS would have taken two days off. We boarded the train without losing anything (!!!) and are now on our way to Denver. We will also pass through Omaha, wherein Marissa will pay tribute to her favorite…poet…of all time by listening to him whine for an hour.

PS. For a game that’s funner than homework, but not as fun as anything else probably, try and figure out which portions were written by Scott, and which by Marissa. I’ll give you a hint: If it includes a musical reference, it was DEFINITELY written by Scott.