Let's Go to Estonia

Seriously.

I just learned that there is a bar in Tallinn that is dedicated to one of the three most awesome bands in the world.  Yes, a Depeche Mode bar.

The Moment I Felt Homesick

On our last night in San Francisco, we decided to catch Ellen Allien and Modeselektor. As you may know, I love both and have covered both for the LA Weekly (Ellen Allien I also interviewed for PopMatters), so this was a big deal.

We hailed a cab and headed down to Mighty, which we were told is on the border of SOMA and the Mission. It's a nondescript venue situationed in the middle of a block of warehouses. Outside of the club was a bus and a huge line. We waited, and waited. And at just after 11, when we got to the front, we were told that the guest list was closed and the party was sold out. We had to move to the line of people waiting to pay. That line was nearly a block long and there was no guarantee that we would ever enter the club. So we checked out the DJs in the Burning Man bus for a few minutes, hailed another cab, and went back to the hotel to pack.

I missed home, a place where no one shows up to nightclubs until 12:30, a place where I have been talking my way into clubs since I was a teenager.

We said it was no big deal, we would catch them Saturday night at Avaland. But then the train was delayed and we didn't get home until almost midnight. By the time we got ready to hit the town and made our way to the club, it would have been close to 2 a.m. and we would have missed at least one of the sets.

Thus ended our trip to the Bay Area.

Fisherman's Wharf

Based on some vivid childhood recollection, my sister asked me to pick up some saltwater taffy while in San Francisco. So we headed down to Fisherman's Wharf and followed some much vaguer memories until we found the candy store. Then we checked out sea lions and took a boat tour.









Then we walked all over San Francisco, heading back to Chinatown, where we caught this street performer.

Sunk in Dran Francisco

Li Po was a Chinese poet who wrote verse about drinking alone. Li Po is also a Chinatown bar that immediately became a favorite of mine.

"Sometimes people call it Lie Po," said the bartender, a tall, presumably Chinese-American man who looked to be hovering around 60. "But it's Lee Po."

The bar is located on Grant, maybe three blocks past the Chinatown gate. We noticed it while traversing the neighborhood, burning off the steamed pork buns, duck and egg fooyung that we devoured at the fantastic Far East Cafe. We were heading homeward after a stop at City Lights and a few contemplative moments in front of North Beach (I think) adult shops.



We needed a breather, and by breather, I mean drink. Li Po attracted us with its over-the-top Chinese facade. We walked inside, where there were three guys sitting down on bar stools, sat down, grabbed a round of drinks and watched the end of the Republican convention. Kind of watched it, I suppose would be more accurate. I'm all burnt out on politics and the election is still two months away.

Soon enough, I had to use the facilities. I walked down a dimly lit staircase and entered the ladies room. The only light in there was above the sink. It was pitch black in the stalls. Kleenex served as a substitute for toilet paper and towels. This should have turned me against the establishment completely, but it didn't. Perhaps I have overcome my fear of public bathrooms.

We stayed in the bar for two or three hours, as I chugged four vodka tonics.

"Wow, you're pounding those back," Carlos observed.

It's easy to drink in a city where you don't have to drive. I was just making up for all those frightfully dry nights in L.A. clubs.

Then we started messing around with the jukebox. I thought I had programmed Everything But the Girl. Instead, I got some house song I vaguely recalled from college. To that we added Prince and Nena's classic "99 Luftballoons," as a sort of tribute to all the German we had been hearing out on the streets of San Francisco (seriously, did the whole country get this month off and head to California). Unfortunately, it was the English version of the song. (FYI, the jukebox also hosts tons of Cantonese pop CDs, which you can program alongside the soul hits of the '60s.)

We saw a flyer for a club called Sweater Funk that takes place on Sundays at Li Po. Since we had to leave on Saturday, we couldn't attend. If you're in San Francisco, check it out and tell me about it. Our bartender said that there are also parties on Fridays and Saturdays. He told us we should come on the weekend, which I hope meant that he didn't assume we were tourists. Cool.

We hit up a small handful of bars over the course of our stay. The Gallery Lounge, about one or two blocks away from the Caltrain station in Soma, was good enough for us to enter twice in one night. The bar features art on the walls and the bartenders are very nice. The Utah Hotel Saloon, which is down the street from the Gallery, is alright. We inadvertently entered through the wrong door and pissed off the bartender. Capitan, down the street from our hotel, was super yuppie and cramped. We went to the White Horse, below our hotel, for food, not drinks, but can say that the dinner was great and the service far above the mediocre b.s. you get at restaurants in L.A.

Entering the City

Our goal was to hit as many spots in Northern California as possible. Then we entered San Francisco and, once you do that, it's hard to leave.

I had been to San Francisco once before. I was eleven or twelve at the time and the trip to San Francisco remains the only Ohanesian Family Vacation. Oh, we went to other trips, but the other trips all involved heading up to Fresno to visit family. Therefore, those excursions don't count.

It was the sort of family vacation fit for National Lampoon, something that could end up in an autobiography should I ever become a person of importance. But I fell in love with San Francisco then and, going back as an adult, I love it all the more.

On Wednesday, we headed up to The City, as the evening newscasters reference San Francisco, to meet up with my cousins for Thai food in the Sunset district. The next day, we packed our things and headed to the Hotel Beresford.

There are three Beresford outposts in San Francisco. We stayed at one of Sutter, near Powell, across the street from one of the many Art Institute buildings across the downtown area. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't and so you will have to check out the website.

This hotel was such a change from the HoJo. Sure, it didn't have air conditioning (even during a heatwave, it's not really necessary in San Francisco, at least for those of us from L.A.) and the wi-fi was virtually unusable, but it was a really cool hotel. The building is small and Victorian in style, with the rooms situated above a pub. The inside is decorated in that quaint, flowery British style. One of the major bonuses is that the minibar is dirt cheap, with beer running at about half the price of what you would find at a bar. Then there is the location. I think we were technically on Nob Hill. It was about two blocks away from Union Square and four blocks from Chinatown. From our hotel, we were able to walk almost everywhere. We hit up Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, Russian Hill and the Financial District on foot. We hopped on a trolly to get to Fisherman's Wharf and took a cab to an ill-fated club adventure I will document later, but that was about it. For the rest of the week, all we did was walk. And eat. And drink.

The House That Guns Built

Sarah Winchester was a savvy business woman who spoke multiple languages, a tough boss who rewarded her staff with unusually large salaries, free room and board and pensions, and an amateur architect who embraced such forward-minded concepts as electricity and showers. Sarah Winchester was also crazy. And rich. And, as those of you reading this should know, that combination makes her a classic eccentric.

Winchester's San Jose home is a must-see attraction if you're in the area. The closest train station is Santa Clara and that's a $20 cab ride away, so you might want to drive, or try to figure out the bus schedule (we couldn't). The cover charge is hefty, generally around $25, but you can get discounts at local hotels (I think we were able to get tickets for $18). Trust me though, if you're interested in architecture or just weird shit, you have to see the Winchester House.

Sarah Winchester married into the famed family of gun producers. After her husband's death, she inherited a hadsome sum of $20 million. Despite this vast amount of money, she was distraught over both the death of her man and her infant child, who passed away a few years earlier. So, she did what every sensible, grieving woman does, she went to a psychic. The psychic told Mrs. Winchester that her troubles were the result of the gun fortune. So many people had died at the hands of these weapons that the spirits were now out to get her. Now, Mrs. Winchester had to appease the spirits.

If you're like me, you probably thought that the only way to appease angry dead dudes would be to sell the gun business. You would be wrong. In fact, the only way one can settle the animosity of those killed by firearms is to build a house and keep construction going until the day you die.

So this is what Mrs. Winchester did. She moved to San Jose and began constructing and reconstructing a house that would become a local wonder. And she would do this until the day she passed away in this room.





This is the backstory provided by our tour guide Wayne. He was a cool dude, full of strange information that he related in the thickest of Boston accents.

Mrs. Winchester kept her stake in the gun business, making on average $1000 a day. In spite of the fact that she sold the weapons of genocide to the Turks, she was a generous woman who paid her staff at least double of what they would make elsewhere. She also provided room, board and pensions for her most cherished workers. This is the foreman's house.



She was also a woman of extravagant taste, who outfitted her ever-expanding home in Tiffany's most expensive creations.



Mrs. Winchester was also an innovator, installing electricity and showers into her home well before it was common. As the architect of the home, she designed unusually shallow staircases, as arthritis prevented her from lifting her feet high.



It's really easy to trip on those.

Construction ran all day, every day, ultimately resulting in a house filled with staircases that led nowhere, doors that lead nowhere and lots of towers.



The basic tour will take you through 110 of the 160 rooms in the house. There are additional tours that go behind the scenes, I think to areas that were under construction at the time of her death, and through the gardens.







There are also two small museums on the campus, one featuring Winchester guns and the other featuring the companies non-lethal products.



We only did the main tour, which is about ninety minutes and requires climbing many staircases.

You Too Can Float in Space

That's me floating in space. Sort of. The space suit hangs from the ceiling of The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. I sat in a chair and looked through a lens, which is how my face ended up on the astronaut's body.

I spotted The Tech from a taxi cab on Tuesday night and suggested to Carlos that we go. I was intrigued by the horse in front of the building.



The museum is completely interactive and, while I think it might be geared for children, it's certainly fun for adults. It's the only museum I have ever visited where you can sit around and play Second Life and virtually arm wrestle both people in the museum and those available by satellite.

For $8, you get admission to the museum plus a ticket to one of several Imax films that play in an adjacent theater. You can also pay extra to see multiple movies. We caught Sea Monsters, a National Geographic film about very large prehistoric water creatures in North America. The Imax theatre alone is worth the price of admission. It's shaped like a dome and the seats are slightly reclined, so when the film plays, you actually start to feel like you're in the middle of an ocean that no longer exists, swimming with fish that are now extinct.

Since we went to The Tech on a Wednesday morning after summer vacation had ended, the facility was virtually empty and we had the opportunity to play with everything. Carlos posed with a Kenny Rogers display (I think it had to do with memes, I can't remember).



One of the coolest aspects of The Tech is that you can record your scores on games and keep copies of pictures taken at different displays. Everytime you use something, you scan your ticket. Once you're home, you type the code on the ticket into the site and tap into your personalized page. The only problem I had was with the downloading the viewing software for the 3-D portraits that Carlos and I made of ourselves. Here's a photo of us on the Northridge earthquake simulator.



We also had the chance to see test piezoelectricty, play in astronaut chairs and even had a robot draw a picture of us.

And then we got to ride Segways.





Segways, by the way, are no easy ride. Everything relies on upper body movement, so you essentially have to move like a joystick to make it run and stop.

If you're in the Bay Area, check out The Tech. It's only a half-mile or so away from the Caltrain station, so you can take a train down from San Francisco and get their easily. If you can't make it to The Tech, you can check out some of the museum's online exhibits.

The Quest for Finger Food

Did you know that San Jose is actually more populous than San Francisco? Es verdad.

Maybe we would have had a different impression of San Jose if we were staying in one of the hotels by the museums and nightclubs, but, no, I had to be cheap and pick a Howard Johnson's outpost based on it's tagline as Downtown hotel. I was thinking, tiny motel in the middle of everything. Instead we got a motel in what looked more like a meth-addled suburb. Oh, this block of San Jose turf had Cops scrawled all over it. In fact, we saw what appeared to be the beginning stages of a sting operation at the hotel next door. I should have taken a picture.

But there was one highlight of our location. Thanks to Yelp, we learned that the Wendy's establishment one block over from our digs is *the* Wendy's, as in the one where a lady claimed to find a finger in a bowl of chili. As it turned out, she actually planted the finger in the chili, but that doesn't make this spot any less heinous.

This particular Wendy's is about as classy an establishment as you can imagine for the setting of such a notorious tale.  Frankly, I think that even we were surprised by the amount of prison tattoos visible inside the fast food joint at 11:30 a.m. (and, as Carlos said, that was just the women).  This too, I should add, is an observation coming from two people who have in fact eaten, or tried to eat, at the TV Cafe in Downtown Los Angeles.

We stood in line casually, trying not to obviously stare at the haphazard spiderweb pattern creeping up the neck of an older lady.  Then Carlos placed our orders, perhaps because subconsciously, we were thinking about making the chili a punchline.  When Carlos ordered and the clerk turned around, I whispered, "hold the fingers."

Carlos thinks I whispered a little too loudly.  It's probable.  After all, loud whispers are an Armenian trait.

We watched and, fortunately, nobody spat in the food.

Surprisingly, Wendy's chili isn't bad.  And it's even better if you don't add a finger to the mixture.

The Coolest Cab Driver in San Jose

Jay is a bus driver in San Jose. He is young, maybe still in his twenties, and speaks with a thick Indian accent. In our conversations, we learned that he can't stand the traffic in Los Angeles, particularly in consideration of that night when he was stuck in gridlock at 12 a.m. But he loves San Jose and he is the raddest, yes, I said raddest, cab driver we have had in all our travels.

Jay picked us up from a hotel that is supposed to be in downtown San Jose, but is actually a minimum $8.50 cab ride from the center of the city. It's basically like getting stuck in Highland Park, when you thought you would be in downtown L.A., something that is particularly annoying when you don't have a car with you. We asked him to take us to Smoke Tiki's, which we found on Yelp. He knew the place, although he hadn't been there himself. We pulled up to the restaurant/nightclub and, alas, it was closed. Jay could have left us to our own devices. Instead, he drove us up a few blocks to where he knew there was a string of restaurants, clubs and bars. Then he gave us his cell phone number to call him when we needed to go back to the hotel.

We grabbed a very late dinner at The Loft Bar & Bistro, where we dined in hip surroundings with a bunch of people who are probably high-powered geeks. The Loft is pricey, but the food is worth it.

Afterward, we walked around trying to find something to do. A whopping six cop cars lined up in front of the sports bar across the street from the loft. We then scoped out Toons, where we heard a mix of commercial hip-hop music and saw a large sign that read "Dress Code Enforced." A few doors down was The Dive Bar. Although it was smaller in size than Toons, it appeared equally unappealing.

Finally, we stumbled upon the Voodoo Lounge. This bar/live music venue is similar in style to Safari Sam's in Los Angeles, but, stylistically, it seems to cater to, as Carlos noted, a "Long Beach" crowd, aka punk guys and rockabilly girls.

There was no band playing tonight, and so there were maybe fifteen people inside the club at it's peak. Most of the club was blocked off by leopard print and red velvet curtains.



The club also has a door guy named Wolfe, which automatically makes it a cool spot, and the bartenders pour stiff cocktails. Two hours later, I'm still buzzing off of two vodka tonics. Nice.

There's apparently a metal show tomorrow night at the club, so we might head out to that if we aren't too exhausted after we complete the Quest for Finger Food (more on that later) and our trek to San Francisco. I might break the bank at the Sanrio Store. You never know. Regardless, I hope Jay is working tomorrow night because this guy is a godsend for those of us who can't even discern north from south in San Jose.

The Way to San Jose: View from a Train

There's a face hidden in the above photo.





Carlos took this picture of the front end of our train.

Leaving L.A., Just for a Few Days

Carlos and I are heading up north.

If you know of anything interesting to do in San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento or (possibly) Berkley, list it in the comments section.

Thanks.

I'll be posting here and on Twitter.

That is all.