Neptune Landing

Neptune Landing was never meant to be a string of complaints about my precious life in one of the world's most dynamic cities but I can't help but notice that my writing has drifted towards the depressive side much like the inactive human mind often does. So in the last four days I've taken some action. Every six or seven years, I pull myself back into Buddhist practice. For the uninitiated, I loosely refer to Buddhist practice as activities centered around the Noble 8 fold path. Namely, 1. Right View 2. Right Intention 3. Right Speech 4. Right Action 5. Right Livelihood 6. Right Effort 7. Right Mindfulness 8. Right Concentration To start, I picked up several books about the Buddha's life as well as a copy of the Lotus Sutra, one of the premier texts of the Mahayana tradition. Mahayana is the more generous, ambitious school that seeks enlightenment for everyone in this lifetime versus the Theravada school which embraces the more lone, ...

There's a quote from the sages that floats across my mind whenever I struggle with the Never-Never land called San Francisco. "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today." This weekend was the 42nd annual GLBT Pride Celebration in SF. Saturday was the more  bacchanalian street fest known as Pink Saturday and Mauricio and I walked around clinging to each other in horror. It was the trashiest thing I ever saw and I'm so glad I don't party anymore. We saw young teenaged girls passed out in the street (thankfully with friends watching over them) with all stripes of people drinking, drugging, pissing, vomiting and spitting everywhere. One young girl was even wheeled away strapped to a gurney after having a drug overdose. We quickly fled to the quiet confines of Alamo Square where we both hugged a Monterey Cypress and looked out over the still, quiet skyscrapers of this arguably beautiful city. Jane Austen helped us to decompress with the BBC version of "S...

There are moments where I feel like an extra in the movie "Logan's Run" while living in San Francisco. Except instead of under 30-year-olds thriving in a sci-fi setting, it seems you can only live here between the ages of 18 and 65. Part of the age-angst that screams "Renew, Renew!" is perhaps just a facet of my neighborhood, Mission Dolores or what I call Dolastro. It's a total party town and even on the weekdays you feel as if everyone is on vacation. SF has the lowest number of children per capita out of any major U.S. city and a number of people I've spoken to who are 50+ feel very invisible. Deeper into the Castro, many homeowners are in fact older gay men, so you have this strange dynamic of folks who feel like strangers in their own neighborhoods. Part of me is actually looking forward to a quieter neighborhood with more diversity, perhaps Excelsior, Glen Park or "The Avenues," i.e. the Richmond and Sunset neighborhoods. My only regret ...

The Expectations Game “You can have a hot lover, a hot job, and a hot apartment, but you can’t have all three at the same time.” — Mona’s law, from Armistead Maupin’s “More Tales of the City” --------- San Francisco is not for everybody. Especially the following: ·                 People who like the seasons ·          People who hate the wind ·          Introverts ·          Those who value peace and quiet ·          Those who hate hipsters ·          Homophobes So many of my observations of this city is colored by my own experience and recent history. Take the working life for example. Customer service here is stellar. The only notable exceptions are every single...

Since I've arrived on this blustery peninsula, I feel I have heard more about references to Boston than while living in Massachusetts. In fact this sister city commands a solid esteem in the minds of Bay Area residents. A lot has been written about the similarities. For instance... Both are the brainier, smaller siblings to their fiery coastal counterparts (i.e. NYC and LA), Both utilize light rail or trams (i.e. the four green lines in Boston and the six streetcar lines of SF) The Bay Area has Stanford, Berkeley and UCSF and the Bay State has Harvard, MIT, Amherst and  like 100 different colleges. Both have spearheaded various movements of a similar vein. Think about everything from the Transcendentalists/Fireside poets or what Poe disparaged as Frogpondia to the Beat Movement in San Francisco's North Beach and Chinatown. For psychedelia, you can thank Timothy Leary's research at Harvard and the early Grateful Dead parties. Sexual liberation is another huge area of c...

Recently, I overheard someone in the Castro say that "San Francisco is like Israel for gay men," meaning that this is the chosen land, the geographical magnet for the queers seeking emancipation. I've quietly mulled it over and think that San Francisco is Israel for anyone who is different. But even that seems a little weak-willed. So I've decided that San Francisco is like Israel for rule breakers. This idea behind San Francisco has produced a lot of coolness and creativity but also quite a bit of frustration. I was appalled when I saw people bicycling on the sidewalk and pissing on the street. I nearly witnessed a 90 degree collision between an irate bicyclist and an impatient motorist trying to outrun a red light. On my second night here, in Civic Center, I witnessed a grown man dressed as an overgrown infant girl with a huge pink-and-white Binky and bonnet. More chilling, on my birthday in fact, an elderly Asian man was run over at the main Castro intersecti...

I have terrific news. I found a sweet apartment in the neighborhood of Mission  Dolores for less than what I was paying in Somerville, Massachusetts! And there's a free washer and dryer thrown into the mix; quarters and loose change sashay away. The Goddesses of hearth and home once again looked kindly on yours truly. The only trouble now is saying good-bye to my hosts, Eric and Richard, their cat, Cali and the sauna and jacuzzi of Opera Plaza. Here are the deets on the new crib: It's a second floor, rent-controlled apartment on 16th Street and Church. Mission Dolores is a mild-mannered, almost suburban hamlet sandwiched between the boisterous hipster/latin Mission District and the gay/fabulous Castro. Mission Dolores is actually where San Francisco was founded and *immediately* across the street from my new abode is the sideview of the 1918 Basilica, shown above. Next to that, just out of view from my front stoop if we had one, is the oldest standing structure in the c...