Ah Crystal Pier Hotel.

I used to hang out next door at Blind Melons on evenings when they had a decent band.

Good old Sandy Eggo. Sorta miss it.

Ps. When you get to Coit Tower make sure you check out all the WPA murals that wrap around both walls on the ground floor. The view from the top is excellent of course. If you don’t go to the top be warned that the view towards Alcatraz/Golden Gate is obscured by SHRUBBERY. For some reason they’ve let some scrubby trees grow high enough to obstruct the view. I guess someone wants you to pay to go to the top of the tower. However the view back towards the Bay Bridge and financial district is not obstructed.

Several streets in SF are so steep there are no real streets – just stairs. Take the Filbert street steps to get up to Coit Tower (or better take them down from there). Cool little walk. Imagine what they must do to move furniture into these homes. Do they use a helicopter to bring a new fridge?

Ferry Building at foot of Market is overhyped (too many times mentioned in the NYT travel section) but actually good. Try a pork sandwich at Cane Roso and a gelato at Ciao Bella. Consider a ferry to Sausalito from there. Check out the bay like the commuters do.

If you spend an evening in the North Beach area (during visit to City Lights) then…

As mentioned above, after the high culture of City Lights consider a mini pub/restaurant crawl. Vesuvio’s is right next door across the alley. Good for a beer to check out the ghosts of the beats. Across the street is Tosca’s. That is good for an Irish coffee. It’s sort of retro cool but with an emphasis on cold (the place actually looks cold). Not my cup of tea.

Next door is the scruffy Spec’s. That’s more my speed. Lots of really cool junk on the walls (it’s a pseudo museum that has an ‘eclectic’ collection with everything from a few humongous mammal bones to a clock from a wrecked Pearl Harbor destroyer to an original poster from the Spanish Civil War). It also has booze. There are also various snarky posters on the walls. It’s interesting to see how the ancient ones accomplished ‘snark’ prior to the invention of the intertubes.

If you are totally adventurous head up to the Saloon on Grant Ave (1.5 blocks away). But you have to cross Broadway which is a pseudo-cesspool and then the Saloon itself is messy and a subset of the clientele can appear scary at first glance (one of the doormen looks like Uncle Sam on crack but he’s actually a nice guy). However they have really great rock/blues every night and especially on Friday/Saturday ($5 bucks entry those nights). The ratio of grungy surroundings to good music is strangely off the charts.

Good Chinese food around the corner at Yuet Lee’s at Broadway and Stockton. Good Italian seafood at Gigi’s Soto Mare on the block of Green Street between Columbus and Grant. Since you have two folks try the Cioppino. Or order a seafood ravioli and another order of some type of fish) and then divvy the orders up between the two of you. Or order the linguini with seafood (red) which is the best value on the menu – sort of a mini cioppino.

Thursday the Young Dubliners are at Yoshi’s (nearish Japantown). Kick ass Celtic rock band tho somewhat past their prime.

Cheers

Nine years? Yikes. Add another few years of TBogg exposure before that at Tabletalk in my case. 11 or 12 years of prime snark.

Ragging on reichwingers never grows old unfortunately.

Hmm. It seems like I lived right around the corner from Casa Bogg for five years during the early naughts and I never knew it. I think I might have recognized the beasties if I’d seen them since I knew you all were in Pac Beach. I guess I never wandered around the neighborhood while the boyz were being taken on their walks. Makes sense – I try not to be mobile before 9am and I’d guess the dogs are early risers even if they siesta-fy for the rest of the day.

The only time I saw bassets in San Diego was about 10 years ago at a Columbus Day(?) street fair in downtown – Little Italy. I remember being amused by a gaggle of about half a dozen bassets lolling about right next to a street painting exhibition (cool chalk paintings in the roadway).

I’ve had burgers ‘n beer in Rocky’s next to ‘The Menu’ but never wandered into that particular place. Too many Brazilians in PJs.

Miss SD.