Photo Journal: The Accidental Tourist

My now-defunct first blog, started more than two years ago (coincidentally, the same week as Noise=Rest), was devoted entirely to rants about the tyrannically unfair SF Department of Parking and Traffic. Now, the parking issues have become so trying that I've reluctantly returned—for the first time in seven years—to buying a monthly pass for the complete disaster of a mass transit system we have here called MUNI.

One unintended side benefit of having a monthly Fast Pass, though, is that I've gotten to ride the cable cars again, which I haven't done since I first visited San Francisco as a tourist.

That's because without a monthly pass, a cable car ride costs a rapacious FIVE DOLLARS EACH WAY.

When I got in line for my first cable car ride a couple months ago, two British women who had already queued up asked multiple questions of The SF Resident: How often do they come? Does this line go to Fisherman's Wharf? How do you pay? How do you let the conductor know where you want to get off? I was absolutely useless to them, since I hadn't been on one of these things since, like, 1994, even though I've lived here close to ten years.

But now that I've started riding these cars regularly, slow as they are, it must be said: they really are fun! And the city somehow gets even more beautiful when you're hanging off the side of a cable car with a camera glued to your face.

A week ago I rode the California car almost the entire length of the route, from Market nearly to Van Ness—a surprisingly lovely ride at night, with the fog settling in over Grace Cathedral. Saturday afternoon I had an excuse to take the Powell line all the way to the Hyde terminus, in the midst of the Wharf (where, again, I hadn't been in at least five years), getting clear views of the crooked part of Lombard and of Alcatraz along the way.

I had been called to The Cannery by the H&H—s to witness the 16th (Sixteenth!) Annual San Francisco Accordion Festival. Were you aware that June is National Accordion Awareness Month? I didn't think so.

We caught only the last act, Those Darn Accordions, a 4-accordion band with electric bass & drums who performed a number of amusing original tunes (which took me & M. H— back to our Dr. Demento youths) and an indelibly memorable version of The Who's Baba O'Riley to close. Unfortunately there are no samples of that opus online; all I can offer you is a link to Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy and safe National Accordion Awareness Month.  Be careful not to throw out your back.

Comments

[sfmike]

Muni is actually quite fabulous if you pick your bus/trolley lines carefully, and the cable cars can't be beat if you happen to be going their way.

The nicest thing about having a Fast Pass is if a bus has the wrong crazy quotient, or smelly quotient, or maniacal driver, you can just jump off and take something else without worrying about it.

Remind me to tell you about sex with the Muni driver at midnight on a Sunday night many years ago in a Chinatown alley with the 1 California bus he was driving parked alongside. It was many years ago, but I've felt unreasonably happy about public transportation ever since.

[M. C-]

I put in a good amount of time (waiting) on MUNI when I first moved here; it was my only mode of transportation for a couple of years. You are right: there is a clear hierarchy to the lines, and if you can get by with the main ones then life is manageable. It's when you have to be somewhere at a specific time and that "somewhere" is nowhere near the 22 Fillmore that things get complicated.

Outdoor sex in an alley? That's Hott.

Outdoor sex in an alley with a MUNI driver? Uh....

[cedichou]

I love that first picture: "Just follow the sizzle. San Francisco Municipal Railway."