Cash

Near Mission Creek
SoMa
Wednesday morning

***

My name is Cash.  Most people assume I’m named after Johnny Cash, but that’s not true.  I’m not saying he’s a bad guy or anything, I mean, I love his music, he’s just not the inspiration for my name.  My original owner named me Cash because I cost a pretty penny.  But look at me, ain’t I worth it?  Ladies love me.  Dudes love me.  I mean, come on, look at this face.  I’m adorable.

My Texan Uncle once told me that the United States is slanted and all the crazies roll down into California.  I guess that makes me crazy.  But to be honest, it’s a lot more relaxed here.  No more kennel cages.  No more dog nappings.  No more getting bit in the ass by crazy pit bulls.  But I’m not gonna lie.  Sometimes I miss the accents.  And the big hair.  And the wide-open spaces.

I don’t get to run those wide-open spaces anymore.  Except that once, when I first moved here and took off down the Great Highway.  My owners didn’t like that though.  And the cars drove so fast.  So now, I keep it close to home.  There’s no point upsetting family.  ‘Cause no matter where I am, with the bluebells of Texas or the fog of San Francisco, family is family.  I love mine.  And they love me.  I mean, look at me, how could they not?

***

You can meet Cash’s mom, Katherine, here.

Katherine

Huffaker Park
SoMa
Wednesday morning

***

Today I went running in San Francisco. As I ran under the 101 Freeway, I almost stumbled over a homeless man, groggy in his black polyester sleeping bag. I passed a beheaded turkey with crayon-colored plumage sticking out of a paper grocery bag in front of SOMA’s Sports Authority. I toured an apartment (this was after all, a run interspersed with open house visits). It cost nearly $500,000, and looked and smelled like a crack den and had a view, through grime-stained windows, of a whole slew of additional crack dens across the street. People remark about all the crazy liberals in San Francisco, but I think the craziest ideas here are the real estate prices.

I ran past Latino men milling around, wearing layers of torn plaid shirts. They sold broken appliances from the 1990s and used children’s toys haphazardly arranged on pilling blue blankets lying on sun-doused sidewalks. I passed an elderly man with a red wire rolling shopping basket, the kind that folds into a square. He was resting on a city-sponsored concrete art project bench, hands clenched in what looked almost like prayer, but I think was just exhaustion at life. A father, with mocha colored crepe-fleshed hands, held his sleepy child. The tiny boy clutched a well-loved grey stuffed bunny rabbit. They slid by me under a small tree in the upper Mission. As I turned sideways to avoid bumping them, the green leaves brushed across my blood-pumping, pink-flushed cheek. My panting breath blew the dangling branches further ahead, away from my slow moving body.

The people in the streets reminded me of midtown Amsterdam St. in New York City: Shiny, sweat-stained, ebony faces hocking goods from commercial cubicles. Except instead of black, everyone was brown. Groups of men huddled, blocking sidewalks, spitting chew, the faint smell of sweet grass occasionally wafting in the background. I ran past families with freespirited, brown-haired children trotting alongside women with hips that undulated in sausagecasing jeans. For some reason, I was reminded of the Hasidic families in Midwood, Brooklyn, where I briefly resided. The men there, with their face-framing brown curls, and large horizon making black hats; the women, with their thin cotton layers of black and white, smothering all that female flesh. These families lie on opposite ends of the spectrum. Each equidistant from the everyday reality I call home.

I crested a giant hill in Potrero after examining an apartment filled with charm and, consequently, lacking a dishwasher. The city splayed out in front of me. San Francisco, it struck me, is a city for observation. It is full of peaks and valleys that look upon cityscapes, and blue waters, and green earthen hills in the distance. It is full of contemplation. There are houses like the suburbs, with cars so that people can be urban participants, yet remain removed from daily interaction with their neighbors, never forced to sneak by each other on tiny stairwells with revealing groceries protruding from corner market bags. It seems a place where we are each our own city co-existing with each other, sometimes not well, often oddly without respect, but together with a unified sense that we are somehow better than the rest of the nation.

As I looked out on the Financial District book-ended by clouds and, farther out, by bridges, I became lost in thought. I thought about the fact that I am sure my heart was, and always will be, in New York City. Left in a place where dead artists and dying artists scribbled their names in black ink across bathroom stalls that will soon be torn down. Static in a town with silk and stiletto clad women who strut through public parks that connect privilege to less privilege. My heart was cultivated there. But maybe San Francisco isn’t for my heart. Maybe San Francisco is a place to stand on hills in contemplation. Maybe it’s a place for my mind.

***
You can see a slideshow of Katherine’s photo shoot here.

Katherine’s website is www.theamericanmeatproject.com

Dennis

On Folsom Street
SoMa
Tuesday morning

***

When I first moved here in the Fall of ’97, as typical with most new San Franciscans of that era, I spent about three months looking for a place to live.  I crashed at a friend’s studio in the Tenderloin, and perhaps time has weathered my memories of those months, but now that I think back, I vaguely recall that I slept in the closet.  My first weekends here were punctuated by Critical Mass and Folsom Street Fair.  I clearly wasn’t in Ohio anymore.

I spent the first few years commuting down to the south bay to my internet job, so honestly, my most vivid San Francisco memories from that era were of hazy nights at nightclubs on the weekends.  I could have easily been mistaken for someone that didn’t live in the City.  San Francisco was where I slept, so a move from the Richmond to Noe Valley mostly meant that I could get 30 minutes more sleep before my drive down to work.  It wasn’t really until 2001, when my company moved their office up to the City, that I really started living here.  Now, instead of hours on the 101, I was introduced to the magical concept of happy hour and a weekday social life.

And then I finally started living in San Francisco.

I regularly attended Qool, the Wednesday night happy hour at 111 Minna.  I bought a bike and learned how to DJ and started promoting parties every month.  I conducted four pilgrimages to Burning Man.  I moved to a fantastic apartment atop Dolores Park and invested in a restaurant & club, Supperclub.  I started blogging.  I woke up early and played golf at the Presidio before work.  I swam regularly at Aquatic Park and ran at Chrissy Field.  I finished the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon with a smug feeling that the race was on my “home turf.”

For the first time, when I went to visit family for Christmas, I called San Francisco home.  And when I was home in San Francisco, I had a thick family of friends.  Most of my high school friends back in Ohio were married, with kids on the way.

My brother and I moved into a place in SoMa, where he and his fiancé are my downstairs neighbors.  We share a dog, a Boston terrier named Bailey.  I started a company with four guys named Mike, and though we all work from home, we are all here in the Bay Area.  I Yelp.  I Facebook.  I Twitter.  I write code.  I write stories.  I make mixes.  I eat a lot of Asian food without really realizing it.  I shoot trap at PRGC.  I bike everywhere and shop at Rainbow and Trader Joe’s.  I am trying really hard to be a Giants fan.  Cleveland teams, for better or worse, still have my true loyalty, so it’s a little weird for me to root for teams that actually win.

My original plan was to live in San Francisco for awhile, and then move east to New York City (a common plan, I think).  My family had moved from Ohio to New Jersey after I graduated high school, so NYC seemed in the cards.  Then, one by one, they all moved out west.  First, my brother, then my parents and our dog, followed by a handful of cousins, aunts and uncles.

Now, not only is San Francisco home, I’m growing roots here.  And it continues to grow its roots into me.

***

You can see a slideshow of Dennis’ photo shoot here.

Dennis’ blog is http://www.dennisyang.com/
Follow him on twitter: http://twitter.com/sinned

Morgan

Near the freeway overpass, 13th Street
SOMA
Friday morning

***

Nerdom dictates much of my life. It is nerdom that brought me to this city, and it is nerdom that has forced me to move away. It is a city that has nurtured my wide array of nerdencies (that’s nerd-tendencies) and opened my eyes to new and exciting nerdcentricities (nerd-eccentricities).

Let me start by looking back at my humble nerd roots. I was born in the meth-infested, McDonalds-proliferating, Hells Angels-founding, city of San Bernardino. I moved away from this inland gem, looking for a job that wouldn’t be stagnant and a city with a rhythm closer to my own. I moved about for several years, and spent a significant amount of my time (and disposable income) traveling. In about a five-year period, I managed to move ten times, and visited nearly 30 countries. Also, in this time of great transition, I held a wide-range of jobs including; snowboard instructor, marketing associate, steel fabricator, law clerk, lumberjack, emergency fire crew worker, and speed shop mechanic. After a rather horrific job experience in Irvine (an equally horrific city), I gained a position at UCSF in neurological research. Once I had relocated to the city by the Bay, I was able to finally flex my nerduscle (nerd-muscle?). Outside of working this full-time position, I took advantage of the excellent universities in the Bay and started working in research for Berkeley and Stanford. In what little free time I had left, I would visit the local museums, galleries, festivals, and industrial facilities (yeah, I know…).

Then, early last year, something devastating happened in my life; I was accepted into a Ph.D. program. Somewhat begrudgingly I accepted a generous offer from Hong Kong University (full-tuition and a stipend), packed my meager possessions, and moved half a world away. The very first thing I did upon arrival was drink a fifth of low-grade whiskey, stumble about in a drunken stupor for a few hours, and pass out in Victoria Park; the local time was10:30 am. Upon my awakening (by the local law enforcement), I realized that how much I already missed my city. I didn’t hate Hong Kong… I simply could not live without San Francisco and the freakdom for which it stands. Less than a week later, I bought a one-way ticket home.

Now you might be asking, couldn’t a nerd such as yourself find nerdortunities (I will let you figure that one out on your own) elsewhere in the country/world? I might be inclined to agree with you; a general nerd should be able to find his/her/its’ niche in most major cities/university towns. However, I like to consider myself part of a special subset of the nerd phyla. I am a nerd with velocity… an aerodynamic nerd, a nerd who needs to meet adventure head-first with little regard to his own or anyone else’s safety. It is hard to explain exactly what I mean by this so I will give you some examples; I am a nerd who needs to dance, to dress in costume on a weekly basis, to go to bear bars for the cheap drinks and the congenial patrons, to strut across the city in little more than my skivvies to prove a point, to attend to art functions in the day, and get mugged in the park at night. A nerd with velocity needs diversity, adventure, and a sense of unbridled freedom. A nerd like me needs a city like San Francisco.

***

You can see a slideshow of Morgan’s photo shoot here.

Morgan is a traveler, researcher, photographer, and is unable to sit still for extended periods of time (don’t give him coffee). You can see some of his work at http://languid.carbonmade.com/

Lex

Calli

Everyone always says, “There’s SOMEthing about San Francisco.” And then they proceed to try to nail it down by making lists of the things that make this city what it is… But you can’t do that and actually capture that something. Maybe because it’s different for everyone. Maybe it’s not actually something and people just need to justify why they live in a loud, crowded, dirty city with a bunch of loud, crazy people.

For me, it’s the pulse. This city is a living breathing thing that feeds creative energy into the lives of the people who live here. There’s a constant need to produce, to do things, to make art, to make science, to marry the two to each other and to make things Interesting. There are places in this city that you’d never could have dreamed existed. There are people in this city that defy the laws of common social nature. And they’re all proud to be who they are and excited about what they do. It’s a city of life filled with alcoves of hidden art, cultures from all over the world, and people with zillions (yes, zillions) of stories. It’s a colossal panoply of universes all laying one on top of the other and we are here in the middle of it all, eyes rolling, mouth stretched taught with glee and in awe of everyday life.

I fall in love with someone or something in this city at least once a day. I’ve never experienced that before I moved here. And I wouldn’t give that experience up for anything.

I’m a menswear designer. Something, had you asked me 5 years ago, I would have never considered doing. This city found this passion in me.

I dance and perform. Something I would have never had the courage to do if it weren’t for the people in this city who drew it out of me.

I make art for people to play in and to change perspectives on the possibilities at hand. And if it weren’t for the other artists defying logic and pushing possibilities, I would have never thought to try.

For the first time in my 27 years, I found a place that feels like home. A place that I can always come back to and feel comfortable with friends who are excited to see me. This is why I live here.

Allan

on a rooftop in SOMA
Friday noon

***

in his words:

I’ve recently started collecting pieces of scrap metal I find in the street. I’ve always been a collector, but previously my habit had been limited to Legos or CDs or typewriters — useful things. Now I pick up discarded hunks of rusty metal.

This came about when a couple of weeks ago I’d noticed that while biking I was having to swerve around a lot more scrap metal than usual. I mentioned this to a friend, saying, “If I’d been picking it all up, I’d have a gallery-ready art project on my hands by now.” My friend said, “You should do it!” I said, “No, no, then I’d be an insane person.”

The compulsive collector in me took over, and now the piles of junk on my coffee table at home and on my desk at work are getting bigger every day. I’ve gotten some good stuff on Valencia, on Duboce, and on Bryant. But my choicest find to date is the big rusty coil I picked up on Alemany this morning. I don’t know anything about art galleries.

I am an insane person.

***

You can see a slideshow of Allan’s photo shoot here.

Allan’s blog is Mission Mission.