San Francisco

Jack

I arrived in San Francisco late last night. The flight from Calgary was without incident – as I flew I tried the roughly guess how many ‘plane-rides’ I’ve been on in my life. After adding up the flights of the last year I realized that an admission of such a vast carbon footprint would summon Al Gore to absail through a skylight and arrest my ass – so I stopped counting. My friend Kelly picked me up from the airport and we headed into the Mission district to find some food. We settled upon a charming pizzeria that boasted the third best pizza in America, according to GQ Magazine – at least that’s what our camp-as-a-row-of-tents waiter was boasting. The pizza was great and the luscious vino was perhaps even better.

Today I hit the town – riding the train to the heart of the city my first port of call was Columbus street and the ‘Beat’ area of town. As a writer I have a few fellow scribes that I put upon a rather tall pedestal. The top rung of this bro-mance from afar is dedicated to Jack Kerouac. Kerouac wrote the seminal Beat Generation novel, ‘On The Road’ – which faithful readers of this blog will remember as my favorite book of all time. On the edge of Chinatown is a little alleyway that has been named in his honor – Jack Kerouac Lane is nothing more then a 100m stretch of pavement connecting two streets. Inset in the pavement are Jack’s words – immortalized for all to see.

Just around the corner is the ramshackle, “Beat Museum” which tells the story of Kerouac, Ginsberg and all of the other legends of the form. Though lacking in actual artifacts, save a few first additions it is home to a wealth of information and reprinted photos. Here is where things start to get a bit weird. I was standing in the museum, minding my own business when some middle aged woman walks up to me and says, “Oh my god, it’s amazing. It’s uncanny. You look exactly like him!” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about and was a bit perplexed that this random stranger would start of such a strange conversation with me. I replied, “Excuse me??”

“You look just like him. Just like Kerouac!”

If she was looking for some way to placate me, some sort of red button to push that would convince me to buy whatever she was selling I was in. she had me. “Really you think so?”

“absolutely, it’s amazing!”

I was flattered and a bit uncomfortable – I’m not so sure I see what she’s talking about. But imagine if you were a huge Elvis fan. You had all of his records, you could recite the set-list from the ’65 comeback special from memory and knew those trainspotter details that either make you look cool or strange depending upon the company you keep. And one day you head to Graceland and somebody comes up to you and says that you look just like the king – odd.

The rest of the day was spent cruising around the streets, checking stuff out. Dinner with an old friend (Sharif from my African Adventure) and a long awaited good nights sleep…