THE SAN FRANCISCO TREAT

It’s views like this that make people put up with exorbitant rent, consistent brownouts, and earthquake doom.



This is the first building that greeted us in good ol’ San Fran.



We shacked up w/ my cousin T.J. in SF, who proceeded to give us the most pleasant hard-sell of the city that we’ve ever experienced. His tactics were shameful, unethical, and brutal. How the hell are we supposed to resist stuff like this?


Sutro Park—a block from T.J. and Judy’s place.

Danny and Leah—cute kids that T.J. and Judy rented to make their familial façade that much more believable.




More expensive rentals—baby Dinah and optional Grandma Rutka attachment. Heartless bastards, this Mitchell/Melinek combo.



Juli giving her best thousand-yard-stare. A true professional out in the field. She can be my wingman any day.



My Spiderman costume from twenty-odd years ago didn’t NEED built-in muscles! I was a beast NATURALLY! Still am, punk!




We also stopped in to see old Gville friends now in SF, Marc and Lauren. They are slightly more sober and slightly more rich these days, hence the beautiful townhouse they just acquired in the Inner Mission district.



We considered going to see a show (can you believe I passed up going to see Oneida and Crime In Choir on the same bill?), but the Electric Six were playing everywhere, so we didn’t.

Continuing the ruthless assault on our senses, T.J. delivered the one-two combo of a backyard ocean view (trust me, it’s in there—look at the blue smudge in the middle of the picture) and a pizza oven.




Supposedly, we were supposed to be “roughing it”, as the kitchen was being remodeled, but utilizing a hotplate and an outdoor oven, we had everything from roasted artichoke hearts to grilled salmon to homemade hummus to roasted red peppers to stone-baked pizza. I, however, prefer the delectable brains of a young, unsuspecting child.



They have honest-to-God neighborhood coffee shops here, which is pretty much all Juli needed to hear to be 100% sold on SF. We walked there pretty much every day.




Before leaving, we HAD to see Sutro Park one more time.






I did some Qi Gong overlooking the city and a hawk followed me around for a bit. So I shot it.




We are so very cool.




We came in on this bridge…



And left on this one…