Tourist for a Day

Yesterday with the weather wonderful, my boyfriend Jack working at a friends’ loft wiring sound equipment, and me with an itch to get outside, I drove to Fisherman’s Wharf. I’ve only been out there once before but it was just kinda on the edge of the maddening crowd.

On this day, I was in the right frame of mind to deal with the whole scene. The downtown Cost Plus store has a really cheap parking garage beneath it that the tourists don’t seem to know about. I parked there and walked down Mason Street to the Wharf-Mall. The air was crisp and a nice breeze blew.

Let me make no bones about it: Fisherman’s Wharf is probably the cheesiest urban tourist Mecca I’ve ever seen. It ranks up there with Dogpatch USA. Some people compare it to Bourbon Street but I don’t agree. In spite of how touristy Bourbon Street is, it still has a feel of not being that way. It still feels real to me. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I haven’t been there in so long, I’m nostalgic for something that never was.

My favorite storefronts on Fisherman’s Wharf were THE WAX MUSEUM, THE HAUNTED MINE and THE HOUSE OF TORTURE. I didn’t go inside but the fact that these establishments didn’t even pretend not to be cheese made them much more appealing. There’s a Ripley’s Believe it or Not on the strip but after my nine-year-old experience in St. Augustine, Florida (the day after Nixon resigned), no other R.B.I.O.N. could hold the same thrill or more profound sense of the ridiculous. I wonder how many kids will think back 25 years from now how they went to the R.B.I.O.N. museum the day after seeing the 60 Minutes that brought down the President. So many comparisons made using the Baby Boomer’s and Kennedy’s Assassination to my generation and Watergate. Think of the next generation and its relation to Presidential Oval Office Groping. I fear for our future.

I walked down the strip that had all the tourist mall stuff. I didn’t go in any of those shops. I really just wanted to be next to water. I crossed the street assisted by the friendly hand-flicking of some old guy wearing a jacket that was the same color scheme as the old Howard Johnsons. He was a San Francisco Goodwill Ambassador making sure that I crossed the street safely (the walk sign would have been sufficient — but the human element was nice; keeping those retirees off the street and from driving with the left blinker on). I walked past all the food stands selling chowder, crab claws, fish and chips. Whether or not the food actually tastes good in there, it was nice to bypass the inflated pricing and impending gastric disappointment to just enjoy the smell of fish boiling in oil for free. The sound of tiny hammers smashing crab claws echoed over the crowd’s din. I was getting hungry in spite of myself.

I weaved in an out of tourists speaking all sorts of languages; yelling at their kids, walking and eating. The biggest disappointment is that the part near the water is a big parking lot. Kind of a shame to dodge cars for a peak at THE ROCK and the bay. But, because the wharf used to actually be a working industrial area, the parking lot is probably the most authentic to the space. The alternative would be yet another sleek, neon water plaza that has genericized nearly every city in the U.S. San Francisco has that too — Ghiradelli Square sits a little farther down with more chi-chi shops like you see at the Riverwalk or Baltimore Harbor.

Through the parking lot-slash-plaza I walked past steel drum bands, jugglers, and two guys with huge Mohawks and tattoos and holding a sign, “Take a Picture with Freaks, $1”. A black man with big dreads and sunglasses and wearing army fatigues and white gloves called himself the Human Statue (he stood on a crate and talked about suffering in Yugoslavia and told people not to pay taxes, accenting his shouting with dramatic hand motions — he would intrigue people for about three seconds and then they would get the hell away quickly and determinedly). I felt like I was in the movie “Life of Brian” when Brian lands on a rock amid all these other “prophets” saying “remember the lilies” and holding up gourds. It was really funny. This is all backgrounded by announcements to cruise around Alcatraz. SEE THE FAMOUS ROCK: HOME TO AMERICA’S NOTORIOUS CRIMINALS. Granted, all the boats directly to Alcatraz were booked but, for the same price, you could get in a boat that just sailed AROUND it. What a bargain.

Question: before Alcatraz was a mere tourist attraction, did they have those cruises around it? There’s an old-looking neon sign to advertise this. I imagined tourists in the 50s all decked out in hats and suits sailing around the infamous prison hoping to catch a glimpse of some notorious gangster waving a tin cup behind barred windows. LOOK HONEY, THE BIRDMAN JUST LET A PIGEON LOOSE. But maybe the cruises and souvenir striped T-shirts only appeared recently — once the prison became a National Treasure. I’ll have to investigate this one.

I enjoyed running through the crowds. I had no purse ( I stuffed money, keys and license in my jeans pockets) and when this guy, who probably belonged to a cult, tried to sell me one of those “I LUV YOUR SMILE” stickers I smiled and said, “I’m local. I came down here to walk and I don’t have any money on me.” He said, “Keep on Smilin” and I said, “right on.” I finally made it to some water and looked for the sea lions but there were none. I saw floating cardboard and gulls. I think the sea lions hang out farther down. I’m very intrigued by all the large glass restaurants where nearly everyone can view the bay. It’s comical, in a way. On one pier, there was a WWII sub with a HUGE, HUGE line of people waiting to get on and crawl around inside. I got to go on a sub for free in Norfolk once when Dave and I visited my high school friends, Keith and Judith, who were living on the Navy base. It was cool. As my mother exclaimed about the USS Alabama docked in Mobile Bay more than once, “If you’ve seen one battleship, you’ve seen them all.” I think she said this about caves, too. Sylvia could speak with a lot of authority on certain issues. When she made statements like this, we believed her. My desire to see battleships and caves is pretty minimal thanks to her.

I ended up going to one fish stand with outdoor tables. It was tacky and rickety and reminded me of places in rural Louisiana, so I thought it could be the best option. I got fish and chips with lots of tartar sauce and ketchup and ate quickly before the sea gulls could steal my food. Mildly tasty, though greasy. But the best fried food comes out of New Orleans. I think it’s a combination of sweet tasting gulf seafood, spice and the perfect flour/cornmeal combination.

Or, maybe it’s just something in the water.

I argue with Jack constantly about how much better New Orleans seafood cooking methods are than Maryland’s: in particular boiled versus steamed AND how the Louisiana Blue Crab and the Chesapeake Blue Crab are the same thing. And, even if there is a slight mutation, the Chesapeake has been so fished out, nine times out of ten, the crabs you eat in Maryland restaurants have been trucked in from south Louisiana. He refuses to believe it. It explains why there are fewer crabs to catch in my home state now. Too many people started over-fishing and sending them up north. It was very noticeable when I visited the camp in Montegut a few years ago. We used to go there and lay traps down and eat crabs the entire time. Now, we’re lucky to get enough for a boil by Sunday. All so people can go hang out on an Annapolis pier eating crabs that have been (gasp) steamed for about $300 a bushel.

One bad thing: tourists treat the places they visit with utter disregard. I noticed this in DC, too. They litter and complain about the locals and block traffic. I think Disney World makes people forget that cities are real places where people live and work; not staged attractions that cater only to them. Remember this next time you’re a tourist. The littering really got me. I mean, people who come to San Francisco are probably not poor. It’s expensive to get here and expensive to stay. So, you’d think they’d be more respectful in their middleclassiness about throwing their trash away. The ground was covered with food-smattered styrofoam plates, yet the garbage can closest to me (where I tossed MY dirties) was not even half full. I watched and figured out the trick. When the plate lightened, the wind would take a plate flying and the tourist would not get up to pick it up. It had some sort of domino effect where everyone thought that was OK to do.

The fog started to roll in about then and I had no jacket. I walked back the way I’d come and made myself go into one souvenir shop. I scanned the personalized items to see how many times I found my name. I ended up coughing up $2.50 for a tiny California license plate with “LYNN” on it. It’s a zipper pull and I put it on my Daytimer. My California souvenir total is: 2. The first item was the charm bracelet from Chinatown with little SF emblems like a seal, Coit Tower and other things.

The drive home was traffic-heavy but I calmly waited my turn at all red lights. It was a great opportunity to watch people all the way home. There were people everywhere. It was really dramatic to take the Presidio and check out the Golden Gate Bridge. Like the excitement I never lost of driving across Memorial Bridge in DC toward the Lincoln Memorial, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the fantastic views in this city. The wonderful thing here, too, is no one seems to be so jaded to take that for granted. I never could get over the amount of Northern Virginians I’d meet who were so proud of the fact that they NEVER went into “the district.” They never saw the cherry blossoms in the tidal basin, never went to the top of the Washington Monument, never took advantage of the free national museums. I don’t ever want to be like this. It’s such a waste.

Next weekend, all of you, get out and play tourist in your home town.

It’s all good.