San Fran - 9 June yes this is day zero minus one! - after a long bloggerama this morning finally out on a 38 trolley to check out 1805 Geary aka the Fillmore Auditorium - it may be a rock "sacred site" but it certainly does not look like one! simply a blank 3 storey brick building with a sign saying The Fillmore - no posters with coming attractions or nuthin' - check Wikipedia for the "real" story about the Fillmore and how it moved to the West venue nr Market etc and now seems almost a franchise, with sites in Denver and Florida etc. Then a 38 trolley back to the cable car at California St to ride it down the hill to the financial district. Then I walked across thru Chinatown, which is fairly ... read more

Tuesday 8 June oh dear only one real restaurant night to go! (cos Thursday will be getting whatever I can decent at LAX that is not burger and fries!). So buckle in for tonight's plat du jour which is from the area called Mission (otherwise take your knife and fork and leave now). A heavily Hispanic area in terms of traders, such as fruit and veg and supplies, but obviously some trendies creeping in restaurant wise. I hopped off a trolley that had come down Fillmore Street (after which Bill Graham named an auditorium no doubt) when I realised I was in the area. Earmarked a cosy black painted very reasonably priced bistro looking place called the Corner - it was just before 6pm and as I only ate some pastry and coffee and a banana ... read more

Sunday 6 June This relates to Oakland update and to Berkeley from yesterday, as I am now in San Fran proper at the Opal Hotel - but we end there. Off we go. I take what I said about Oakland having nothing of interest - musta been cos I had at that stage only seen a little bit of Chinatown and the rather tawdry surrounds with no apparent hotels when I was rather hot and bothered - and the otherwise cheap Jack London Hotel - the whole area down near the waterfront is called Jack London Square, and as they say is the only concession to tourism there - which was only $50 - likely had no rooms available til 6 or 7pm as they were still cleaning em! - somewhat of a backlog then. Hence ... read more

Friday 4 June from (South) Lake Tahoe - the quintessential northern California retreat for the weekend - almost the same as going to Vegas from LA - but for San Fran people - 2 hrs away they tell me to drive it to Sacramento to drop car off before noon. Last night was of course in Jamestown - and I must admit it looked rather dull in the bright morning light - prefer the night lights in so many ways and Azzo's looked really dull closed up this morning while last night it had atmosphere. I did not mention that Azzo the owner has become a collector of Bay Area and other rock memorabilia - the relatively small hand bills of the time advertising the Airplane, the Dead, Big Brother etc are now worth quite a ... read more

Mariposa Thurs 3 June well it looked just like cheek abrasions yesterday - and the solid crash of camera on rock sounded like a lens smashing (but all continued to function to record the gasp-inducing Glacier Point thankfully. However this morning's mirror tells me it is a domestic violence case! and the somewhat blood-weeping grazed pinkie left some blood on the sheet (Warfarin good for nothing but anti-coagulation and bleedin')... read more