A Tourist Wanders San Francisco- Part 3: Zinfandel Afternoon

Next we meander down Columbus St., a heavy Italian dominated community- they are people all around speaking their native tongue or heavy accented English. Jonathan is reminiscing on his younger days of strolling Spain and Mediterranean worlds.

Famished we stopped at a corner café Mario’s Café and Cigar Bar. It has long been without the fragrant aroma of a cigar but every tourist book I have come across raves madly about eating here. A hip north-beacher with French mustachio, scruffy beard that lead to a small pointing goatee wearing a fedora was our server, friendly but too hip to offer recommendations to traveling tourist. That’s ok we make our choices and there worth the wait- mine, tasty focaccia bread packed with Italian meat slices.

I have to go the bathroom so I head to the back. The toilet is in a closet under a staircase, it’s so small and cramped that I actually have to lean back to fit into the closet. I’m doing Pilates to urinate!

After lunch we head into the beating heart of North Beach, the essence, the life of the district. True Beat meanings live and shed light on this shady part San Francisco. City Lights Books is still there. It has existed and fought the Man from its beginning. In the window are still signs that they are standing strong in there fight – Shame on you Bush!

We walk in; I close my eyes for a brief moment hoping to hear muses from yesteryear speak softly in inaudible voices. Nothing. My fingers walk along covers that I have never read from authors I have never heard in sections not found on your local Barnes and Nobles shelves. My feet trudge up the stairs, I flip through picture books of bygone eras when this was the heart of cool; post-war kids.

City lights bookstore was not only a bookstore but a publishing company as well. They published Ginsberg, Burroughs,and Firaghetti; they have stood up for Americans’ right for free speech. It is an American Bookstore.

Here I stand, looking and listening for the great muses to speak golden meanings in this squalid part of town. Nothingness is all I hear. I suppose this is their great meaning screaming into my ear. I refuse to hear.

Kerouac Alley is behind City Lights, it’s funny what use to be a soiled alley littered with trash, tom cats, and drunken poets vomiting is now a cobbled alley with bronze quotes from great authors paving the way- a tribute to San Francisco’s adopted drunkard of a son. One sign rings true – in the company of best friends, there is never enough wine.

We head over to the Beat Museum across the street, in the middle of San Francisco strip joints.
“Legs, Breast and thighs, come and get our lunch special,” yells a young Hispanic man trying to lure starving men. The Beat Museum cost $5 to walk through, which sounds completely contrary, so we forsake nostalgia for the trail and head back to The Grant Hotel.

Jonathan brought two bottles of wine from Monterey; we open one up and drink out of clear plastic, hotel bathroom cups. I drift off into a catnap while Jonathan rehearses Science speakeasy, TLR7 and mice brutality.

Zinfandel Afternoon.