Eating history… (Or): Crabby bread!!!

Posted on January 2, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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There is one thing you absolutely must do if you are ever in Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco… and that is… go to this place…

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Yeah, it has been a San Francisco tradition since the gold rush! And I wasn’t kidding in the title. When you eat their sourdough, you are eating history.

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That is because bread yeast is a living organism… and every time they make a new batch, they use some of the yeast from the last batch as a ‘starter’… and that means that every time you eat that bread, you are eating the ancestors of living things that were alive during the freekin’ gold rush of 1849. That’s before the American civil war, people.

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Also, the bakery is fun to visit…

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But there is one thing that makes them the most San Franciscolicious thing to do in the city…

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They take little, round loaves of sourdough, and fill them with clam chowder. If you eat that on Fisherman’s Wharf, you are experiencing the real San Francisco.

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Or, you could just tell everybody you ate a baby turtle.

 

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And this guy…

Posted on January 2, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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This might have been the fastest art I ever saw made that was still pretty dang awesome… did that sentence make any sense, grammatically or otherwise?

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What I mean is that the paintings were beautiful and eye-catching…

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But he was doing it at lightning speed… he was twirling the canvas around, grabbing cans of spray paint and spraying it, using various bent pieces of cardboard to shape the spray of the paint just where he wanted it to go…

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And while the paint was still wet, he would grab a pallet knife or a little scrapper, and scrape paint off in fine lines… that is how he did the bridge and buildings. And he did all those details in like twenty seconds.

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I mean, it was impressive to watch, and the finished product was something that appeals to me, at least, and he was selling them for only $15… I would have bought one, but we were using public transportation, and I would have had to carry it around.

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And then there was this guy…

Posted on January 1, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Okay, that is a bad camera angle… let me move… he seems to be doing a headstand on a very tall table.

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Okay, that’s better. Now he is standing on a plank balanced on a metal cylinder. That is just the kind of thing you see on Pier 39, which is part of the area called Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

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I guess that is sort of cool… oh… wait…

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He had somebody in the crowd hand him some cups and another plank, and climbed up higher… without getting down first…

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And then he had another person hand him more stuff…

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And he is rolling around up there like a kid on a skateboard…

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And he was pretty funny, too.

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And he is from England, which, for some reason, made the whole thing more interesting.

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Okay, the juggling was a nice touch…

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And the ladies liked it when he took off his shirt…

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Well, now what is he up to?

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There you go!

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I talked to him after the show, and told him I would put the photos on the blog… (I mean, I was going to anyway)… He is from England, and grew up in a circus family. His joke was that his parents were acrobats, but now they are old and fat, so they are clowns… HA! His name is Orion Griffiths, and you should check him out. He is moving to LA because he wants to be a serious actor. I hope he makes it.

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Some of the weirdest… and creepiest things you will ever see…

Posted on January 1, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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One interesting thing to do at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, is the

Musée Mécanique

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It features a bizarre collection of old games and music box shows from the early 1900’s and even a few classic video arcade games.

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And you can still stick a quarter in these things and watch a drunk cowboy on a drunk horse sway back and forth…

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Or… okay, I have no idea what that one does…

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It is some strange, old-timey fun, the admission is free, and even kids love it.

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In fact, I suggest you all take your kids there. It is cool to see them interact with pre-electronic games… and it will teach them to stay away from drunk sailors and cowboys.

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Okay, I don’t know what that will teach them, but kids love it.

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Yes, there are some racist overtones to some of it. This was before political correctness, and anyway, President Trump is going to ban political correctness soon, so maybe we should get used to it.

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Wait… is that a scene from the Beatles Yellow Submarine movie???

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Alrighty then.

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I think that on Halloween, they should turn on all the games, turn off all the lights, and lock people in there for an hour.

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Uh… I think that is the drinking game version of Singing In The Rain.

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And a drunk English sailor, just to round things off.

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Ummmmmm…?

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Yup.

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Yee-haw!

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Monks… ringing bells… there was also one that was like the front door of the Bastille, and if you put a quarter in, the doors opened, and you could see nobles being beheaded by a guillotine. I kid you not. I didn’t get a picture of that. Sorry.

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Okay, don’t bring babies in there… that would just be wrong.

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Stuff you might see if you ever end up in Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco…

Posted on January 1, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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The Golden Gate through the rigging of an old sailing ship!

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Lots of people and buildings!

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A guy hiding in a small tent doing a lip-sync puppet show!

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Cute dogs!

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I mean really cute dogs!

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People swimming… without a wet suit… in water so cold it will kill you!

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Street performers of all kinds!

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Cable cars going up and down some really steep hills!

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Really cool old ships!

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A World War Two submarine and liberty ship!

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An unruly Christmas tree being escorted out by security!

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A guy rowing a small boat…

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… in the world’s most lopsided boat race…

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…Okay… that’s a little better…

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Singing sea lions!

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Fog rolling in over the city by the bay!

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Fog rolling in over the Golden Gate bridge…( I like it best when the fog squeezes in under the bridge, or rolls over the headlands like a slow motion tidal wave)…

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And some of the best damn sea food on the planet!

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For the birds… which is a polite way of saying I am less than thrilled about the rest of the decade being run by a racist, sexist orangutan…

Posted on January 1, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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How is that for a title of a post that is really just a bunch of pictures of birds I took in Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco while I waited for my wife, daughter and her boyfriend to finish up doing some touristy thing? I had the zoom lens on, and it started off with me just seeing if I could get any of the seagulls in focus while they were flying over my head.

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“I’m the king of the pigeons!”

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“Really? Because we have a submarine!”

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There is a little trick to getting good shots of birds in the air. Take really big digital images, and then crop them down in Photoshop or some other photo editing software, centering on the bird. It makes you look like you know what you are doing.

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See what I mean?

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Getting shots of birds in the water is a lot easier.

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And that was like shooting fish in a barrel.

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A lot of people say that seagulls are just rats with wings, but I find them rather interesting, and there are a lot of different kinds of gulls.

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“Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!”

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See, now that is a cute little gull.

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The feathers are beautiful, and she had very sweet eyes.

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Go fish…

Posted on December 31, 2016 by pouringmyartout

 

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Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco was… and is… a working part of a big fishing port.

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I saw all these fish on the side of a seafood restaurant.

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I just thought they were sort of cool…

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So I am sharing them.

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There is nothing fishy about that, is there?

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Sorry, I was just floundering for a joke here.

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Oh man… I crack me up…

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I am just throwing in the giant crab as a bonus.

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The seamen of San Francisco… wait… uh… I mean…

Posted on December 31, 2016 by pouringmyartout

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I just meant… the thing is… well, we were in Fisherman’s Wharf… and every time I see one of these pirates, I make Mollie take a picture of me with it… (once again, don’t ask where his hook went)…

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The wig is a nice touch.

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This guy sings a mean sea shanty!

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And he is a pretty snappy dresser.

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A little way down the street, I spotted this guy. Notice he still has his hook. That means that somewhere, there is a factory that makes seamen… or, more specifically, pirates.

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I find that both comforting and a little amusing.

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Next time you are in Frisco, say hi to the seamen.

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Chocolate and dogs… but don’t give chocolate to dogs… it is bad for them…

Posted on December 31, 2016 by pouringmyartout

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So, we got off the cable car near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We ambled through the park, and my wife wanted to take our younger daughter and her boyfriend to get some ice cream and chocolate… and where else would you go in S F to get chocolate but Ghirardelli’s?

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I decided to stay in the park and take some photos. It seems like a long time ago that we were walking on that bridge.

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There is a cool maritime museum in Fisherman’s Wharf, with lots of old boats. You can see Alcatraz in the background.

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Part of the old prison seemed to be covered in plastic. I guess we have tax money to pay to repair a prison that isn’t being used anymore, as long as it makes tourist dollars.

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Sorry, I was just playing with the zoom lens… and second-guessing my decision to not get some chocolate…

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I kept the zoom lens on for most of our time at Fisherman’s Wharf, because it is annoying to switch lenses, I have to take the backpack off… so I was having fun with the long shots, but I had to back up a lot for the close stuff.

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And then I met my two new friends.

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Don’t get me wrong. I met lots of friends. I played with a baby on the BART train, and two cute little girl in the cable car line. And I met other dogs too.

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They were sweet… and soft…

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I took pictures of them playing, because they were so furry that sometimes they blended into one big, playful ball.

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They are some kind of French sheepdog.

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Sometimes, you couldn’t tell where one dog ended and another began.

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Speaking about which, everybody is gone from the Christmas madness at my mom’s house. All the brothers and wives and nephews and nieces and even my other daughter and her fiance have all gone home. Now it is just my wife and I, our younger daughter and her boyfriend, my mom, and one last brother… who lives here to help my mom out. That is still 6 people, but it seems so quiet here now. I think we are going to go down to Berkeley in a while and get my daughter’s boyfriend a real Berkeley tie dye t-shirt. Seems like the thing to do, even if he isn’t all that thrilled about it. HA!

 

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That first photo might be the most San Franciscoey picture ever taken…

Posted on December 31, 2016 by pouringmyartout

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Or would that be: ‘the most San Franciscoish?’ That photo was taken from inside a cable car… (note the dangling Christmas ornament, top left)… and is of a VW bus… (that is painted in tie dye, and is taking tourists on a ‘magical hippy-trippy’ sightseeing tour of the iconic 60’s counter culture sites [like Haight Ashbury])… that is just starting to drive down Lombard Street… (the most twisty street in the world)…  I do apologize for the fact that I don’t have any better pictures of Lombard Street, but it took a long time to get on the cable car, and we had stuff to do.

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The funny thing is that we ended up on the same ‘well-decorated–or Christmas’ cable car that I took photos of on the day we went to China Town. I am still working on the assumption that the crews were responsible for the decorations, because most of them had none or very few.

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My wife, Mollie, our 17-year-old, and her boyfriend, are clinging to the outside of the cable car, which is fun and exciting to do. I sat inside, to leave room for some other lucky tourist, because I have done all this before.

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I gave up the chance to take some great pictures of the city from a less limited but more dangerous viewpoint …

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But hey, I am noble like that.

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Next time, I promise to take some better pictures of Lombard Street.

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I waited to be last off the cable car to take this photo of the controls the driver uses. The cables, which are under the street, are constantly moving, being pulled by massive engines in special buildings. The drivers have big levers. One operates special grips that grab the cable, and that makes the car move. The other is the brake, which moves big metal pads against the outside edge of the cable track. This keeps the car from rolling down the steep hills. You should Google that, it is pretty interesting, and it is some old technology that still works.

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And these things go up and down some pretty steep hills.

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Oh, and I met a lot of really cool dogs.

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