Go for a swim in Bass Lake

It's understandable that you may be antsy--this being one of your last weekends and all--about not having sampled enough of Bay Area nature since moving to San Francisco. Day-to-day life, with its chores and hangovers, got in the way, and suddenly your days are numbered and you've begun to sweat. Lucky for you it's the heat that's the cause, and that now you've got a beautiful way to cool off, Marin-style.

Bass Lake is part of the Point Reyes National Seashore and is located near the town of Bolinas. It's a pretty little thing that comes at the end of about a 2.5-mile easy-ish hike. Strip down to your bathing or birthday suit--nude bathing is supposedly common here--and jump in. There is a recurring rope swing somewhere on the shore, much to the consternation and resulting efforts of officialdom, so keep and eye out and be careful if you find and attempt it.


To get there, take Highway 1 north from Stinson Beach. Just north of Bolinas Lagoon, turn left on exit to Bolinas. (The welcoming Bolinas residents regularly tear down the sign that marks this turn-off, so you may have to resort to guesswork here.) Follow the road as it curves along the lagoon and eventually ends at Olema-Bolinas Road, and continue along Olema-Bolinas Road to the stop sign at Mesa Road. Turn right on Mesa and drive four miles, until it becomes a dirt road and ends at a parking lot. Take the Palomarin Trail from the dirt lot. After a couple of miles you'll come to a junction. Continue left on the Coastal Trail. You'll eventually see the lake, so at this point begin searching for a small path to the water's edge.

Eat a weekday lunch at SFAI

Spectacular views of the city and the bay. A mural by Diego Rivera. Exhibits of student art that rotate on a weekly basis. Great, cheap, healthy food. There are few better places to eat lunch in San Francisco.

Half Italian/Spanish monastery and half poured-cement Modernist angularity, the school building itself is pretty great. You first enter a quiet courtyard with a fountain at its center, trees providing shade, and student art hanging on the walls along the periphery. A bell tower looms overhead. To the left is the Diego Rivera Gallery, home of the eponymous mural as well as year-round student-run exhibitions of student artwork. To the right are various classrooms and administrative offices. If you continue straight through the courtyard and up the ramp you enter the modern addition to the original building. A curated gallery exhibiting the work of professional artists is on the left. Past that is the cafe.

They've got all the coffee drinks, bagels and other similar snacks, a full sandwich menu and heartier specials--e.g., roast 1/4 chicken, dal and rice, Thai curry, different salads and flatbread pizzas--that change daily. There are always at least a couple veggie options. I've not seen anything over eight bucks, and you can usually eat something delicious that will fill you up for about five. Eat your lunch inside at one of the tables, or, even better, up on the roof, where you can enjoy the food and the view at the same time.


The San Francisco Art Institute is located at 800 Chestnut, a block and a half west up the hill from Columbus. The cafe is open for lunch, on weekdays only, until 2pm. Your best bet is to bike, though the 20 and the 30 buses both service Columbus. It might even be worth the cab fare. For more information about the architectural history of SFAI, go here.

Get (at least) a drink at the Powerhouse

What better way to commemorate Anal Health & Pleasure Month than by heading over to the Powerhouse--the bar with a tastefully done pencil drawing of a fist up an ass hanging on the wall--for a drink? Not to be confused with the Power Exchange, the Powerhouse is a friendly little place in SOMA where you can pull up a stool, order a beer and snack on popcorn while watching vintage '70s porn on one of a few televisions dotted around the joint.

Not feeling the whole TV thing? Check out the pool table or pin ball machine. A smoker? Why stand out on the street when you can escape to the back patio and have a conversation in a confined space with an aggressively sexual fellow patron? Gotta take a leak? Invite the guy sitting on the stool next to you; the cant of the mirror in the bathroom is not an accident.

Sounds like just the kind of place you'd want to show off to Mom when she's in town to help you pack up your things.

On second thought, this might be more of a place for Daddy.


The Powerhouse is located on Folsom at Dore St. (between 9th and 10th). The drinks are made like the patrons: strong. An array of interesting theme nights awaits: "Dirty Dicks" (Monday), "Ink & Metal" (Tuesday), "Macho" (Wednesday), Underwear Night (Thursday), Pec Night (Friday), and Boot Lickin' (Saturday).

One word: Alcatraz

Enough said.


Alcatraz is possibly the most famous island in the world. It's the one with the lighthouse that you see when looking north across the bay from (god help you) Fisherman's Wharf. It can also be seen in the miniature on everything from handbags to fleece vests to shot glasses to smashed, engraved pennies that cost a dollar. It has starred in a number of movies, including:

Escape from Alcatraz,


Birdman of Alcatraz,


Murder in the First


and, of course,

The Rock

If you've already been there and are tempted to go back for a final farewell, it might be fun to instead pose as a tour guide and see how many unsuspecting folks you can sign up for a "scenic driving tour" of the island. Report back when finished.

Go to Burning Man

Your neighbor, your boss, two of your college friends and the girl you hooked up with on Saturday night are all going. Everywhere you go these days--from the Marina to the Mission--you hear talk of camps and costumes and rides out there. Sure, you may think you're not be "that kind of person", but you'll never know until you try.

If you ask me, I think you should delay the flight to London and join the 44,000 others in making the trek into the Nevada desert. At the very least, the extra week of warmth will do you good.


Burning Man officially starts on August 27 and lasts till September 3. It's located in the temporary metropolis of Black Rock City, NV. Information about tickets, which currently cost $280, can be found here. To quote the event's website: "Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind." Cliché, but essentially true.

Get Mexican and beers and eat in Dolores Park

Since prehistoric times, man has found comfort and clarity in eating outside. Only recently has he taken to eating microwaved frozen science projects while seated in overstuffed reclining chairs and facing flat panels frenetically churning with consumerist imagery. The delivery man and the drive-thru are the mallet and stake piercing the now-clogged heart of America's healthy, fresh-air digestion.

All of which bring us back to grabbing a burrito, a tall boy of Tecate and taking them to the gentle green slopes of Dolores Park. Find an unpeopled bit of grass and call up your friends to join you. Bring a book or a frisbee or that little one-hitter you bought from your sister's stoner girlfriend when you visited her at Smith while still in high school. Don't forget a jacket though, as this is San Francisco, Land Devoid of Warm Nights.

Your hunter-gather forebears would be appalled if you moved to Brooklyn without having spent an evening eating on the grass in the sunny Mission. Tsk tsk.


Dolores Park is bounded by 18th and 20th north and south, and by Dolores and Church on the east and west. It is usually quite crowded on a nice day or evening, but there's always room for one more. Additional optional accessories depend on the part of the park in which you choose to sit: fixie and ironic smirk (corner of Dolores and 18th), attention-starved dog and/or soccer ball (the dusty plateau behind the basketball courts), a young child (the playground directly in the center), a Speedo, tanning oil and mirrored Prada sun glasses (the upper corner at 20th and Church).

Watch the movie The Conversation

It's a little late to be delving into the history of the city, seeing as you're moving and all, but why not take a break from packing and go rent The Conversation?


Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it stars a young-ish Gene Hackman as a paranoid surveillance expert hired for a job that quickly takes over his life. An even younger Harrison Ford makes an appearance as the creepy inside guy.

Released in 1974, it provides glimpses of '70s-era San Francisco. See how many landmarks you can spot!


The Conversation was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. You can find it at your local video store--I recommend Lost Weekend. Check out this interesting article on the movie and its strange path to release. Here is the (spoiler!) trailer for the movie. (My dad says that the '70s comprised the best decade in American cinema.)

Get drinks at The Eagle

A coworker friend of mine once commented that every bar he'd ever seen called The Eagle turned out to be a gay bar. (That this comment was prompted by the address of the website for a Phoenix plaintiff's attorney that we were about to join in a conference call is another story.) Though lacking in hard, penetrative empirical evidence, a quick web search leads me to believe that he may have had his finger right on the g-spot of a trend in naming.

And guess what? San Francisco has its very own Eagle, perched conveniently in SOMA and waiting for you. With a pool table, really cool biker decor inside and a huge outdoor area sporting a 49er/Gold Rush theme reminiscent of Knott's Berry Farm, as well as an impressive collection of men's underwear tacked to the ceiling, you owe it to yourself to make it there before you leave.


The Eagle is located on 12th at Harrison. Thursday nights boast live music with a cheap cover and Sunday afternoons feature the $10 all-you-can-drink (of cheap beer, for three hours) Beer Bust, where you can find tons of these:


a few of these:


and hardly any of these:

Check out Saint Mary's Cathedral...

...also known as The Most Un-Catholic-looking Of Churches, Ever.



You've sped past it many times, either on Geary on your way out to the Richmond or when timing the lights on Gough after a weekend spent north of the city. On a couple of occasions while drunk at a random party at some apartment that is clearly more expensive than yours, you've stumbled out onto the north-facing balcony and, taking care to ignore the sound the arc of urine makes as it splatters on the windshield of the Audi parked four stories below, squinted at the skyline in confusion.

"What the hell is that white thing doing there? Whatever it is, it looks like a huge fucking washing machine agitator has alighted in Japantown. Should we be worried?"

No need to be worried, I assure you--unless, of course, you leave the city without taking a close-up look at this strange, strange San Francisco landmark. Be sure to report back on what's inside, as I've yet to visit (though I'm not the one who's leaving).


The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption is located on the corner of Geary and Gough. It was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi in 1971 and was evidently controversial from Day One.

Eat at Spices

I understand if you've given up on Chinese food, having scavenged leftovers from twice-weekly catered lunches since you first started at whatever boring office job you've got going these days. In your book, Mr. Henry Hunan and all his culinary cousins can go to hell--though far be it for you to refuse a free meal, so you'll just go on reheating your kung pao chicken and pork fried rice, silently vowing to never again actually pay for this shit.

Well, it's time to discover the cure for the common Chinese place: Spices.



With two in the Inner Richmond and one in Oakland, you've got a few choices. I recommend Spices II on 6th Avenue at Clement, though epileptics and those easily distracted may want to avoid this location because of the neon! Chinese music videos! disco ball! twirly laser lights! hot, girlish waitresses!

The food here is great and the portions are huge--one entree, two starters for two people is more than enough--and cheap. Make sure to try the spicy cucumber, salt and pepper chicken, pork shoulder (ignore the squeamishness-inducing jiggling mass of fat in which the good stuff comes enveloped--the waitress will cut through all that for you, no prob), or anything labeled "Explosive Chili Pepper".

Sure, your waitress may look indifferent as she snaps her gum when she's taking your order or absentmindedly twirling her hair just before delivering your plates--but she's hot--and you may realize hours later that "Spices" could probably refer to both the start and finish of the digestive process--but the food tastes great and you've most likely got leftovers--and the front of the place vaguely resembles a Chinese-language cell phone store--I've got nothing on this one--but it's worth it.

Besides, there probably is no place like this where you're moving.


Spices and Spices II, mere blocks from each other, are both in the Inner Richmond while Spices III is in Oakland's Chinatown. Be sure to check out their odd--what, no Oakland location?--website before you go.

Spend a day on BART

No, I'm not kidding.

Why not ride the entirety of the public transit system that was named the #1 transit system in America--in the ">30 million annual passenger trips" category--by the prestigious American Public Transportation Association?

Weekend or weekday, you're bound to find something interesting on BART. Take a book, a pad of paper and a pen, your thoughts, some light refreshments and a switchblade to deter the crazies and get on at the station of your choice.

Never seen Fremont? Always wondered what Concord looked like? Colma? For the low price of $4.65 you've got three (or more--ask your station agent) hours to tour all 104 miles that BART has to offer--without exiting any stations--before returning to the station where your adventure began.


For a fascinatingly detailed look at the history of BART, go here. For those wanting more dates and less narrative, here is a 74-page chronology of the birth of BART. And here is information relating to everything bike on the BART system, just in case you can't stifle that urge to get off and see all that Dublin has to offer.

Visit the Marin Headlands

The Headlands are the brown/green hills you can see--when there isn't fog, at least--directly across the Golden Gate Bridge. The road that snakes up to the top of Hawk Hill "affords spectacular views of San Francisco" and is a part of the popular "Headlands Loop" bike ride that many cyclists make a part of their training regimen. (For those who don't know, this is easily doable after work during the summer months.)

It is likely that you visited the Headlands if you came to San Francisco as a tourist before moving here. Ditto if you've lived in the city for a while, have a bicycle or access to some kind of personal motorized transport and have entertained out-of-town visitors. But if you're like my friend who recently left San Francisco after living in the Bay Area for six years and had never been to the Headlands and didn't have a car...take the bus--see below.

Lots of good stuff to do/see here. There's Point Bonita Lighthouse, a Nike missile silo, a beach, a lagoon, a hostel, lots of hiking and mountain biking trails and a nice place to view the sunset (when there isn't fog).


The 76 Marin Headlands runs only on Sundays and holidays. Here is a schedule and a route map.

Check out the Richard Serra sculpture at UCSF Mission Bay

For those that don't know who Richard Serra is, here is a bit of a primer.

My quick synopsis, though, is that he's an artist who is best known for making these mammoth metal sculptures that are usually intended for some specific outdoor site. Eli Broad, some really rich dude who really loves LA, likes his work, as does whoever organized the retrospective currently going on at MOMA in New York.

In the case of UCSF Mission Bay, you've got two 50-foot-tall, 80-ton slabs of steel facing each other in the middle of a dirt courtyard and tilting slightly in opposite directions.

(un-justice-doing picture)

Beyond the easternmost slab is Third Street, China Basin and the East Bay. Benches are conveniently placed for enjoying a tall boy of Tecate while watching the setting sun inflame these rust-colored hulks.

Also, be sure to check out the chain netting partially enshrouding one of the parking garages on the campus--specifically, how it can also appear to be a solid indigo-colored panel, depending on where you're standing. It's hard to describe, but is cool in person.


UCSF Mission Bay is located at the corner of Third Street and 16th, and is accessible by, among other things, bicycle and the T Third Street. The sculpture in question is visible from Third Street and is located in a plaza, evidently called Gene Friend Way, located between Third and Fourth. The plaza and the parking garage--the latter labeled Community Center Garage--are on this map. Here is an article about the rather difficult installation of the piece.

Go to Trannyshack

"You live in San Francisco and you haven't been to a drag show?!?! For shame!"

If you're seeking to avoid admonishments like this, then take action tonight by heading to Trannyshack--the weekly drag show with its own Wikipedia entry--at The Stud. It's been happening every Tuesday night for about the last 10 years.

A few hints if this is your first time going:

1. Don't wear too many clothes. It's usually pretty crowded and so can get hot as fuck. No need to rile up a bunch of sweating homos by dragging your bulky North Face down jacket across the tops of their heads while squeezing your way to the front.

2. Drink before you come. However suggestive that recommendation may sound, it actually pertains to the crowded conditions referenced in #1. Unless you like trying out different facial expressions--sexy, desperate, pissed-off--just to get a bartender to notice you over the 54 other patrons with similarly receding buzzes, pound a few beers on the way. Or, if your personal views do not condone consumption while on public property, order drinks two at a time once you get to the bar.

3. Don't stand too close to the stage. Things sometimes can get messy.


The Stud is a bar at 9th and Harrison that homosexuals are known to frequent but whose clientele is not exclusively such. Cover for Trannyshack is $8. A tip for the large drag queen collecting entry fees, though plainly "encouraged", is not required. (Did I mention that one Tuesday I saw Bjork exit the bar and chase a passing garbage truck around the corner onto 9th? This was the week that Matthew Barney's exhibition opened at SFMOMA. Bjork arrived at Trannyshack with a small marching band. I have no idea about the garbage truck.)

Admire the view from the top of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel

This is a pretty spectacular, if under-appreciated, view. From the vantage point of a glass "skyway" 48 stories above the street, you'll find clear lines of sight due south--the South Bay, the Mission and Daly City--and, even better, north--the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, Angel's Island, Marin and beyond. Maybe the best part about the whole deal, however, is the sense of scale you get of the Transamerica Pyramid and how it towers over most everything around it.

But this view doesn't come easily. Where you're going isn't public space, meaning that you've got to evade a couple lines of people who are paid, in part, to keep people like you out. You've basically got two options here: pay whatever exorbitant price they charge to stay the night or pretend that you paid whatever exorbitant price they charge to stay the night.

(Additional options do exist. For example, somehow obtain a uniform and impersonate an employee of the hotel, actually get a job there, falsify the necessary credentials and permits and then visit the hotel in the guise of a building inspector, etc.)

But assuming that you usually favor the cheapest and least-complicated options in life, put on your sternest businesswoman's face and your most sensible pair of pumps and just stride through the smallish lobby to the bank of elevators in back, ignoring any welcoming comments directed at you. Go to the elevator and take it all the way to the top. Once there, head towards the the glass-walled section of hallway, taking care to avoid making any suspicious and/or obviously déclassé moves that might alert someone to the fact that you don't belong.


The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, also known as 345 California Center, is located at 222 Sansome Street. It is notable for a number of reasons: 1) It is the third-tallest building in San Francisco; 2) It is the tallest mid-block building in San Francisco; 3) It is perhaps the only distinctly Chinese-looking tall building in the San Francisco skyline--my opinion. (For a while I thought that it bore a subtle resemblance to the Bank of China tower in Hong Kong--maybe it's the antennae--but I'm not so sure anymore.)

Check out the murals in Balmy Alley

One of the great things about living in the Mission is the number and quality of the murals that you stumble by in the midst of your daily routine. Depending on where you live, that might happen while biking past the Women's Building to Dolores Park, scavenging for clean needles in Clarion Alley or vomiting on the ground on Clinton Park after an afternoon-that-turned-into-night at Zeitgeist. Worth a special trip, though, is Balmy Alley.

Make it an afternoon, perhaps. Get huevos rancheros or tacos at Taqueria Vallarta--located right at the 24th-Street mouth of Balmy--grab a tall boy or two from the corner store across the street and then head into the alley. You will find a block-long stretch of garages and the backs of houses painted in all manner of styles by a number of different artists. (If you're really good, you'll probably recognize the work of a few artists who have done other murals around town.) And once you pop out at 25th, make sure to keep an eye out for another Mission icon: the passed-out drunkard pissing himself in Garfield Square.


Balmy Alley connects 24th and 25th Streets and is between Treat and Harrison. The Women's Building fronts 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero. Clarion Alley connects Valencia and Mission, between 17th and 18th. Clinton Park is a tiny street off Valencia that smells like hell. If you really dig murals and want the whole shebang, check out the walking tour offered every Saturday morning by the community arts organization Precita Eyes.

Go to Yosemite

So you're from Massachusetts, grew up "vacationing" in Vermont, and went to some small, overpriced liberal arts college in the Northeast. Late in your senior year at said institution, you realized that the soft drone in your ear wasn't a consequence of that drunken tumble down the basement stairs one night at a house party that you self-consciously laughed off at the time but that secretly really did hurt, but was instead the quiet, insufficiently enunciated age-old call of "Go West, young man". Upon graduating, you heeded that call and loaded up your Subaru, bought a tape adapter for your iPod, packed a generous eighth into your glovebox, and "took the northern route" to California.

Fast forward three years.

You've got five weeks left on your lease in Russian Hill, a silver BMW parked in the garage, a letter of acceptance to grad/business/law school at some large, overpriced private university in the Northeast, and the sinking feeling that you should have spent more time in nature and less time in terrible Marina bars, surrounded by vapid, terrible girls and your terrible steaky friends, during your time in California.

What to do?

Do what I'm doing this weekend: go to Yosemite.



Hike Half Dome, do a multi-day backpacking trip starting from Tuolumne Meadows, swim across Tanaya Lake, check out the wonders of the Valley floor...lots of stuff to do.


Yosemite is about 4 hours east of the City. If you don't own a car, rent one, hit up a friend with wheels to come along or consult the craigslist rideshare board. For more information on camping or other, fancier lodging, as well as all the necessary logistical info--directions, trails, points of interest, and so on--check here.