In the movie Annie Hall neurotic comedian Alvie Singer (Woody Allen) says, “I don’t want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.”
You can’t stop progress. California’s newest “cultural advantage” is charging shoppers 10 cents if they want a bag for their groceries. (For some reason they have not yet applied the tax to newspapers, which take up way more space in landfills.) California has also broken new ground in the realm of corporate synergies with a retail space in Pacific Heights that combines a Starbucks and a Wells Fargo Bank; you can get a loan and spend it all on a La Boulange Reduced-fat Pumpkin Cream Cheese Loaf Cake and a Caramel Mochiata no Whip Mocha with an Extra Shot. (I hope the Wells-Starbucks combo succeeds; I own both stocks.)
Here’s another California cultural advantage: The way-too-numerous homeless people in San Francisco do not content themselves with a couple of bags of belongings, as on the East Coast. No no no. They have one or two laundry hampers filled with belongings, sometimes with a couple of dogs perched on top. They sleep in the parks and wander up and down San Francisco’s splendid waterfront embankment, unmolested. How progressive is that!
Moving from the waterfront to the regulatory front, California Proposition 65 requires restaurants to prominently post this sign:
Warning: Detectable Amounts of Chemicals Known To The State Of California To Cause Cancer, Birth Defects Or other Reproductive Harm May be Found In And Around This Facility
In other words, “Caution, Salt Is Served Here.” I am looking forward to the Proposition requiring signs to be posted in all government offices and polling places stating:
Warning: Over-regulation and High Taxes in the State of California Are Known to Retard Economic Growth, Increase Poverty, and Cause Out-migration to States With Less Insane Regulatory Environments.
But despite all that, California is a nice place to visit. Perfect weather, excellent restaurants, and plenty of beautiful people running up and down The Embarcaderro on San Francisco’s waterfront. We spent a couple of nights in Pacifica, an agreeably tacky beach town about twenty miles south of San Francisco. Back in the 1950s, the Best Western chain snagged a great location right on a beautiful beach frequented by surfers. The location is so great, they haven’t needed to make a single improvement to the hotel since 1955. What I liked the most was that I could leave my hotel room and, without crossing a four-lane highway (unusual in California), take a short hike up a steep hill overlooking the crashing waves of the Pacific. Maybe next time I’ll wear hiking boots, rather than loafers, and get to the top of the hill.
San Francisco is a bit like Boston, but with steeper hills, better weather and way more immigrants. The Mission District is a large and lively low-income Hispanic neighborhood with dozens of fruit markets and taquerias. They serve food that is fresh, simple and tasty—I am still wondering why you can’t find comparable Mexican food in New York. China Town, hard by the financial district, has the usual complement of restaurants, travel agencies, and dry cleaners, but also quite a few establishments offering exotic new-age therapies, such as a place called Spirit Acupuncture Holistic Health, which treats back pain, stress, anxiety, migraine headaches and infertility.
Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2013. All Rights Reserved.
