Hello, Frisco, Hello

To my astonishment, this blog has lain dormant for nearly two years. It's not as though I haven't gone to new places and done new things...but I have mostly shared my photo records of those rambles on social media. It occurs to me that in the name of conscientious anal retentiveness, I should go back and backdate some of those excursions here, and so I soon shall.

Meantime, though, I am embarking on an ambitious new period of travel, with multiple motives in mind, almost too many to enumerate: 1) to earn money from speaking engagements and performances and promote my books, blogs and other projects; 2) to see and experience parts of the country and the world I have always longed to see; 3) to experience and chronicle a bit of the trouper's life, something I wrote about in No Applause as an abstraction, but I want to know firsthand; 4) to reconnect and engage with old friends and family, and to meet long-standing pen pals in person; 5) to investigate places where my ancestors and distant long-dead relatives lived; 6) to wrap my arms around America and kiss it. These have been a painful couple of years in so many ways. But rays of hope have returned. Time will tell, but depending on how events pan out, the tour will either amount to a loving and sad farewell, or something along the lines of a renewal of marriage vows. And: 7), to gather impressions of the world I can share with readers.

The epicenter of this personal earthquake's first rumblings was San Francisco. I'd been once before, about a dozen years ago, to report on a theatre conference for American Theatre and the Village Voice. On that occasion, I was working and didn't get to see much of the city. This time would be different.

I initially stayed with my gracious nephew and his family in the suburb of Lafayette, just northeast of the city. They have a ranch house; across the street is an actual ranch.

I relished the opportunity to take the local footpath/ nature trail/ bike path to get to the train for my first engagement. I was absurdly overdressed for the jaunt (and it happens, for anything, as the temperatures went into the upper 80s over the next couple of days), but anyway, joggers and cyclists seemed amused to encounter this on their nature trail in the early hours of the morning:

My engagement that day was at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF), where I was to talk on Jews, San Francisco and Vaudeville, encompassing the early days of the Barbary Coast, the origins of the Orpheum Circuit, the hippies of New Vaudeville, and much else. I badly planned my commute and wound up walking almost the entire length of California Street, up and down San Francisco's mountainous hills in a heat wave, in ill-fitting shoes and carrying a heavy briefcase. I arrived at the gig with only minutes to spare, but found the audience attentive and gracious. Thanks to my old pal, burlesque star Dottie Lux, for setting it up. 

The best surprise of this day though was the appearance at my talk of the blogger I (and most people) know as Confetta-Ann Rasmussen, author of the blog On This Day in Jazz Age Music. She'd long been a penpal, and she very graciously took me on a wondrous field trip to one of her favorite childhood spots, the waterfront site of the former Playland Amusement Park, the Cliffhouse and Sutro Baths. About a week later, my new friend Rena Azevedo Kiehn of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, presented me with several documentaries on this resort. So expect a big Travalanche blogpost on this topic, previously unknown to me, in coming weeks or months, whenever I have a chance to catch my breath. But while I was there I took these snaps.

The ruins of the baths, which burned for the final time in 1966. The pool is the footprint of the former complex: 

How it appeared back in the day: 

Vintage gear in the Cliff House gift shop:

The famous giant camera obscura on the Cliff House terrace:

A few days later at the Musee Mecanique, I met a former denizen of Playland, the famous Laughing Sal:

"Confetta-Ann" fed me chowder at a local seafood diner, and generally restored my cheer after a footsore and sweltery day, for which I was much grateful. She proved to be camera shy though, so no shot of her here. But I urge you to read her excellent blog daily. 

A very full day, but just the beginning. Coming up next, a road trip south to San Simeon and San Luis Obispo.