Month: May 2017

Finding Marbles

First I went to the wrong park …
No, first I had a big coffee when dropping Fern off at work. Normally, I’d know better — Public bathrooms in SF being ferociously rare. But the Starbucks had the Clover brewing system and this beautiful Rawanda blend that had glorious floral notes that are normally foreign in a Starbucks. So I wasn’t going to not finish it. I’d find a bathroom in the park – specifically, Dolores Park.
Nope, wrong park.
Okay, but to figure that out I first systematically circled the block, found a great parking space, looked down on the beautiful park and thought, “huh?” This park is not old. At least not old like I’m looking for. A quick Google explained the problem, which you already know: wrong park.
I wanted Buena Vista Park. Fortunately it was a short drive away. Parking was another story. I circled the park but the only space I could find was on the south end. So be it. I started up the stairs… and more stairs. And more stairs. AND MORE STAIRS. Oh my god, did these stairs ever end?

So. Many. Stairs.

Eventually they did, and from the top I found the main path leading around the park. More importantly, I found the gravestones I was looking for almost immediately:

Rest in Peace, Lo Ca

In 1900 San Francisco passed an ordinance forbidding any new burials within the city limits. No new burials means no new money for upkeep, and by 1914 the sprawling cemeteries in the Richmond district had become overgrown. The City ordered the bodies to be moved so the increasingly valuable land could be developed. A series of lawsuits followed (shocking) and the bodies didn’t actually start being moved until the ‘30s. But it wasn’t free. If you had a loved one buried in one of the cemeteries it’d cost you $10 (roughly $175 today) to get them moved south to one of the new cemeteries in Colma. If family didn’t have the money, or, more commonly, there was no family to be found (remember, by this point no one had been buried there for more than thirty years), then the body went to one of several mass graves (they were orderly — each body had a separate chamber). And the gravestones and monuments left behind? If no one claimed them, the city did. Some went to erosion control at Ocean Beach, some went to build Aquatic Park, and others went to build gutters in — you guessed it — Buena Vista Park.
Walking the wide paths, the gutters lined in bone-white marble marble stood out. I had heard that a few of the gravestones were installed inscription-side up and I was glad to find at least one example pretty quickly. I’d seen pictures of better examples, and I intended to find them. First, though, I needed a bathroom. I hiked the path down to the border along Haight Street, thinking it’d be there. Nope. I Googled it, and it looked like there was a restroom in the north-eastern corner. Back up the stairs.
I finally found a building… but no bathrooms. I was starting to get desperate. I spotted a Park Services worker and inquired as to whether there was a bathroom. There were no bathrooms. “Crazy, right?” he said. “Especially when this park is 37 acres!” Crazy indeed.
But I still had to pee. And I was even more desperate.
It is pretty wooded….
I climbed up into the thick woods on an unpaved path that looked a little overgrown and unused…
And then I thought about all the signs warning about coyotes in the park…
And then I thought about all the homeless wandering around the park…
And even though this path led through the woods, there didn’t look like the path ranged far enough to be out of site from all the paved paths where old women walked Pomeranians…
Desparate times…
I started hiking up the eastern side of the park. The gutters on this side of the park were no longer bone-white; these gutters were constructed with regular stones. Ahead loomed the top of the stairs I’d come up. Before I reached it, though, a German Shepard-sized coyote jogged across the path ahead of me, slowing just enough to look down at me giving me a look that said, “I know”…
My time was up — I had to meet an old friend across town. And I didn’t find a bathroom or a better example of a tombstone. I’ll be back, and I’ll make sure to skip the coffee.

When The Internet Fails Me (at an impossible task at a ridiculous hour)

Thursday, 2:45am — It’s supposed to replace our brains, right? Middle of the night, song fragment runs through my head. Ancient history. What is it called?! Not much to go on, I’ll grant you that – a fleeting memory so ephemeral I can’t hum it but it keeps naggingly drifting in and out on the periphery of memory… I think there’s the word “vampire” in the title. Too broad a search… related songs? For some reason I’m hearing it on a mixtape I made with…. oh! Bad Religion‘s “Stranger Than Fiction”! Yes, that’s a start! Something I can work with. 1994. Okay. But listening to that track reminds me it teansitioned into Counting Crows‘ “Einstein On The Beach” (why the hell can I remember that kind of thing? From a mixtape I made in 1994?! Really?!). Google doesn’t help me with “songs around 1994 with the word vampire in the title”. Semantic web, my ass!
Now I’ve been up too long, even that wisp of a melody has evaporated like a barely-remembered dream. All I’ve got is  the word “vampire” in the title (maybe) and somewhere around 1994…
(Aside: my friend Lisa and I decided that the 90’s will perpetually be “about ten years ago.” Because, seriously, it feels like about ten years ago… sort of… in the same way that everything a couple hours away is “a couple hundred miles” whether you’re talking about Sacramento, Reno, or Nebraska.)
The dog implores me just to shut up and go to sleep. Too late. I pull out the big guns: the binder with my old CDs:

Now it doesn’t feel like “about ten years ago,” it feels like an archeological dig. Sifting through artifacts left all but forgotten in a binder on a shelf out of the way. But it’s no good — there’s no organization here and it spans too great a time in my life. Not that that’s something I have any intention of doing.


Organizing a record collection biographically still sounds… I don’t know, nostalgically romantic. To do the same thing with CDs lacks that sort of gravitas, it’s like preparing a “Paint-by-numbers” exhibition at the Louvre. Don’t get me wrong, there was some good music in the 90’s, but the CD’s time, in hindsight, seems so limited. Purists will quibble with dates, but the heyday of the CD lasted barely a decade — the 90’s — after which Napster effectively ushered in the Fall of The Roman Empire for the recording industry by showing us that, technologically, we didn’t need shiny, damageable plastic platters to listen to music. Yes, yes, you can still buy CDs, it’s better fidelity, blah blah blah. But the truth is that the CD is synonomous with a very limited scope of music, chronologically-speaking, whereas the vinyl LP stretches from the goddamn Beatles until present day — and you’re not going to see a nostalgic renaissance for CDs. No one will cry on that grave except the music executives who got away with charging twice the amount of an LP for a medium that literally cost a fraction of the price to manufacture.
But I digress…
Even the wispy trails of the melody are gone now. Winston has opportunistically taken my side of the bed. I’m giving up for now, as soon as I can shove his hundred-pound frame onto the far side of the bed.

Fogbelt Brewing, Santa Rosa CA

Fogbelt Brewing
305 Cleveland Ave.
Santa Rosa CA
707-978-3400

Fogbelt is a place I’ve had on my shortlist to visit since they opened nearly two and a half years ago, but particularly with new breweries opening seemingly every month in Sonoma County, and so many other things in life, Fogbelt remained unvisited.

But on a beautiful Saturday afternoon the stars aligned as I pulled into the parking lot on Cleveland Ave, not far from College Ave. The crowded marque for the “Vintners Square” complex lists Fogbelt fourth after three wineries, but despite the sign, Fogbelt’s building is front and center and a lovely place to spend some time.

Brewers Paul Hawley and Remy Martin grew up in Sonoma County, sons of winemakers and dabbled in homebrewing while themselves working in the wine industry. A few years ago they decided to turn their hobby into a business and FogBelt Brewing Company was founded.

Inside the central bar dominates the space, but very well-spaced tables and booths ring the outside and provide plenty of seating areas even on a bustling weekend afternoon. After ordering at the bar, my friend Lisa and I decided to sit outside in one of the tree-shaded booths.

Following the theme of their Fogbelt moniker, which represents the foggy region along the coast mountain range that is home to the tallest trees in the world, Fogbelt names their beers after significant redwood trees. First up I tried the “Sentinel” single hop pale ale (5.4% ABV) while Lisa opted for the wonderfully named “Screaming Titan” double IPA (8.2% ABV).) ­– the “Screaming Titan” is a towering coast redwood in the Grove of Titans in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in Del Norte County, while “Sentinel” is an enormous sequoia redwood in Sequoia National Park east of Visalia.

Personally, I’ve rarely found a well-balanced single hopped beer, and the Sentinel, though delicious, wasn’t an exception. But balance isn’t why I always gravitate to single-hopped offerings, but rather because they show off a particular hop. Sentinel is brewed to showcase a different, rotating hop varietal – currently the sole hop for Sentinel is Calypso. Despite being a pale ale, sharp notes of green apple with only undertones of citrus dominated, the citrus lingering on the finish.

By comparison, Lisa’s Screaming Titan was one of the best balanced double IPAs I’ve tasted. The blend of Chinook, Cascade, Mosaic, Citra, Centennial, Bravo, and El D hops evened out flavor profile with an easy citrus palate and gentle finish. Fogbelt’s menu describes the Screaming Titan as their “signature Double IPA,” and for good reason – it’s an extremely well-crafted beer.

Speaking of the menu, Fogbelt boasts a fairly full menu of food items from their kitchen. We opted to share the pretzel bites with a beer béchamel dipping sauce and meatloaf sliders (which we opted for the bacon add-on because, well, bacon). Both were delicious, with the tangy spicy ketchup of the meatloaf pairing nicely with the beers. The beer béchamel didn’t stand up to the beer nearly as well, but sea salt and parsley on the perfectly baked pretzels allowed that dish to shine as well.

For a second round, Lisa stayed with the Screaming Titan (who could blame her?) while I wanted to try the “Del Norte” IPA (7.0% ABV). The hearty blend of Centennial, Exp. 0727 and Chinook hops certainly places it in the West Coast IPA style, but it’s not aggressively hop-forward. The finish is short but leaves a note of caramel in its wake.

Overall, we had a great time and great beer. Even though Fogbelt Brewing Company has been open for two and a half years, they already feel like a well-established member of the Sonoma County brewing scene and well worth a visit.

Fogbelt Brewing Company is at 305 Cleveland Ave. in Santa Rosa (707-978-3400, fogbeltbrewing.com, @FogbeltBrewing on Twitter and Instagram, and Fogbeltbrewing on Facebook). The brewery and taproom are open Monday –Thursday from 12 – 10pm, Friday and Saturday 11am – 11pm, Sunday 12 – 8pm with the kitchen open until an hour before the taproom closes.