San Francisco Memories

A Hawaii artist makes a cathartic and exhilarating trip to the Bay Area haunts of his college years

When people ask what I did this summer, I can proudly say that I finally took a trip somewhere.

For many, travel is no big deal; getaways to the neighbor islands or Las Vegas are common destinations for local folks. But since returning from the San Francisco Bay Area in 1990 from art colleges (I went to two), I've never left Hawaii.

For years I've pined and dreamed of seeing my old haunts and stomping grounds of Oakland and San Francisco again. As a student, college life was expensive. In addition to rent and tuition, art supplies weren't cheap. There was little free time and even less money available to be a tourist and visit all the famous sites the city is known for.

One day, my art class met outside the California Palace of the Legion of Honor art museum to paint outdoors, but I never had the opportunity to view the art within its hallowed galleries. My only reason for entering the building involved a quick trip to the restroom.

Going back to the city became a personal mission because for many years I felt a need to close the circle and return to all that I missed.

Thanks to the Internet and several travel books, I had my itinerary scheduled like clockwork. Each day on my calendar was filled with a list of places to see, where to eat, who to meet, and all the photos I would take with my new digital camera. But after taking incredible pics all week, I accidentally deleted them on the last day of my trip, just a few hours before my flight home. I felt like my whole vacation was ruined. Fortunately, I also brought my SLR film camera but its photos did not capture my full adventure.

LEAVING HAWAII on an overnight flight, I had the pleasure of being with parents and children representing Hawaii in a Tahitian Dance competition in San Jose.

Arriving at 7 a.m. in San Francisco, there was little sign of aloha at the airport. San Francisco's first impression was rude, unfriendly, and as cold as its morning chill. Even outside the terminal, the first thing I saw was a large driver cussing and bullying a half-pint security officer writing him a ticket for being in a stall too long. Two nuns were nearby and the guy still didn't clean up his language. From the airport to the city, I felt at ease being driven in slow morning traffic that allowed me to appreciate the sights and read giant billboards advertising everything from iPods to Chinese beer.

Once in Chinatown, I stored my bags at the Grant Plaza Hotel on Grant Street until afternoon check-in. Standing on the streets of San Francisco again was like being transported 16 years back in time. Just taking in the familiar sights of shops and the clang of nearby cable cars was surreal and heart-pounding. I proudly wore a new Hilo Hattie aloha shirt with shorts and I wanted everyone to see me as Mr. Aloha, even if my legs were freezing.

Normally, I'm a cool-tempered guy, but I lost it that morning below Powell and Market streets at the San Francisco Visitor Center just after buying my City Pass (www.citypass. com), a convenient discount booklet containing passes to major city attractions and unlimited rides on all cable cars, street cars and Muni buses. (Honolulu should look into creating its own version.) I noticed that those involved in the service industry never smiled or greeted visitors, whose questions were often met with annoyance. The young Asian lad working behind the counter yelled, "Next!" to each person waiting to purchase a pass. He never responded to my "Good morning" or "Thank you," so I snapped and yelled, "No! You say 'May I help the next person in line please?' "

Oh well, so much for being Mr. Aloha.

NEARLY ALL OF South of Market, or SOMA, is being redeveloped into giant office buildings, museums and mega stores. Construction was going on most streets and finished buildings advertised rent space. A multi-theater complex called The Metreon was showing "Superman Returns" on IMAX in 3D. I struck a heroic pose under the marquee and yelled, "Indeed I have!"

It was still early morning and business people held on to their Starbucks coffee while rushing to work. I felt the need for a San Francisco-style breakfast and found it while wandering Mission Street and discovering Cafe Infusion, where Belgian waffles with fruit and cream were only $3.99! I felt like Rachael Ray doing a "$40 A Day" segment.

At the cafe, I met two young lovely employees: Cindy was from Sweden and Charlotte was from Thailand. This reminds me of the local nuance that most San Franciscans are actually from somewhere else.

Breakfast was great, but rather light for a person accustomed to Spam, eggs and rice.

AS AN ARTIST and art teacher, I appreciate museums. The city boasts museums and galleries of all artistic forms and interests. At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, I was able to view the original works of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Wayne Tiebaud. A standout piece is on the fourth-floor gallery, where visitors come to a larger-than-life, gold-and-white ceramic sculpture of Michael Jackson and Bubbles, his pet chimp, completed in 1988. Honestly, I thought most of the modern art, including the installation shows, either too weird or trite.

The museum is spacious and each floor feels like a giant maze, with clone-like security officers behind every corner, ready to pounce if you get too close to an art piece or even take a picture. Taking a spiral stairwell to the top floor, visitors are led to a catwalk hanging more than 100 feet above the lobby. I have a fear of high places so I tried to avoid looking down, lest I create my own modern art on the people below.

Around the corner of the grandiose SFMOMA, I arrived at the humble Cartoon Art Museum (www.cartoonart.org), where I met gallery manager Andrew Farago and took the grand tour. The museum originated in 1984, when comics fans and underground cartoonists began sharing their collections. An endowment by "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz established a site for the museum. It continues to exhibit, preserve and collect original cartoon art in all media.

Here, in my element as a cartoonist for MidWeek, I felt relaxed. I donated three original MidWeek cartoons to the museum, as well as a signed copy of "You Know You're In Hawaii When ..." by MidWeek editor Don Chapman. Andrew and I posed for a digital photo shaking hands and holding the book. Lost that. Still, it's neat to think that the donations might be the museum's first Hawaii additions.

Near the end of my trip, I went back to the Legion of Honor, and not just to use the restroom. The "Monet in Normandy" art exhibit had opened and hundreds lined up to see Claude Monet's Impressionist works. Security was tight, yet polite. I must admit, seeing his water lily pieces in front of you is quite moving. The posters and book illustrations I saw in school do not do justice to the master's use of colors, form and brushstrokes. Good art creates an emotional response.

Of all the pieces in the Legion of Honor, the most impressive work was outside. Just below the main parking lot is the Holocaust Memorial by George Segal. The white life castings of humans piled in a dead heap with a lone man peering beyond the prison barbed wire depicts both horror and hope. The memorial was a good reminder that evil in the world cannot be met with apathy.

SOME OF THE things I really love and missed about San Francisco are the diverse neighborhoods, such as the Hispanic Mission District and the Italian community of North Beach. If there was a second Chinatown, it would be Clement Street. It's a leisurely 1.5 mile walk lined with Asian markets, excellent ethnic restaurants, vintage bookstores and clothing shops. Across the street from a Hawaiian barbecue joint was an L&L Diner about to open.

I also visited a Japanese toy store called Heroes Club. Anyone who grew up with Kikaida and Ultraman will love seeing the nostalgic vinyl toys and collectibles. I bought a Minya doll (Godzilla's son) to go with the Godzilla figure I purchased weeks earlier from the store's Web site (www.artoftoy.com). Sadly, the photo showing me holding a full-size Kikaida mask ($1,280) was among those lost.

At Japan Center I browsed through familiar and new stores. Signs of Hawaii appeared unexpectedly. Outside the mall and across from its towering five-tiered pagoda monument was a Hawaii store. Ted Mokulena, the proprietor of Aloha Warehouse, explained that the salty attitude I'd been seeing is partially the a result of the dot.com boom and bust of the 1990s, with a new generation of yuppies pushing out longtime residents and values.

Many San Francisco traditions remain. The Fillmore Street Jazz Festival was in full swing and on the corner of Post and Fillmore I met Adnan Abusharkh, a jovial Palestinian man who held court outside his bustling Pride of the Mediterranean restaurant while smoking a tabletop hookah. He said that he once planned to open a restaurant near Anna Miller's in Aiea but the rent was too high.

Inviting me to sit at his table and join in with his hookah, a young waiter rushed up to bring us more hot coals and a new tube and mouthpiece. The smoke was cool and smooth and his homemade blend of shisha tobacco had the sweet aroma of black currants, oranges and mango. I had a bag of li hing mui plum hard candy and shared it with them. They were thrilled to try something popular in Hawaii. Who knows, maybe Adnan has added li hing mui powder to his hookah mixture.

I walked and danced the length of the block down Fillmore and up to Alamo Square to see the famous row of Victorian houses. Everyone has seen the famous postcard view so I took one close to the homes. People across the street taking pictures yelled, "Get the #*@&# out of the way!"

Walking toward hippie Haight Ashbury was a tiring uphill and downhill trek which required the energy boost of several handfuls of macadamia nuts. As soon as I hit Haight Street, I smelled marijuana smoke. Tracing the scent to a two-story apartment house, I was greeted by a young crew-cut fellow at the door asking for my I.D. I showed it to him and then he asked for my doctor's note, explaining that this was a medical marijuana joint. No pun intended. Those I saw going in looked pretty healthy to me. Maybe it does work.

The Haight is a vibrant neighborhood with the feel of an old global village full of fun shops. Hippie counter-culture meets modern-day capitalism in sales of protest pins, tie-dyed shirts and smoking paraphernalia. The biggest disappointment was the ultra-modern Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream shop which seemed out of place in the psychedelic intersection.

For entertainment, I urge every visitor to see Steve Silver's "Beach Blanket Babylon" (www. beachblanketbabylon.com) playing at Club Fugazi in the heart of North Beach. BBB is the world's longest running stage musical and still sells out each night. The general plot follows Snow White's journey around the world searching for her true love. Along the way, she meets politicians, celebrities and pop-culture icons. The 90-minute musical-comedy is smart, silly, whimsical, ever-changing, crazy and surreal. In other words, it's San Francisco.

The second recommended activity is the Ghost Hunt Tour led by Jim Fassbinder (www. sfghosthunt.com). Starting at 7 p.m. six nights a week from the Victorian Queen Anne Hotel, guests are introduced to some of the city's most famous ghosts and haunted homes in Pacific Heights. Fassbinder wears a leather top hat, wool vest and long black frock coat to look the part of someone living in both Victorian England and the wild Barbary Coast. In one (haunted) hotel room, an orb appeared above my head in a digital pic (which was deleted) but I did catch one on film when I took a shot of the staircase. Outside the hotel, we were led to various haunted sights as Fassbinder recounted the detailed events of what happened there.

By nightfall, the tour took on an eerie ambience as the darkened streets were illuminated by the flickering flames of Fassbinder's lantern. Guests huddled closer to stay warm, as well to avoid being alone in the dark. Some residents of the haunted homes must enjoy seeing tour groups come by. As we stood across the street of a haunted apartment, one of the occupants turned off the indoor lights and walked past his window covered in a white bed sheet. Everyone, including our guide, burst into laughter. I signed and gave Fassbinder a copy of "Haunted Hawaiian Nights" by Lopaka Kapanui, for which I had created the cover illustration. After the tour ended on an empty chilly street, we continued to talk about the late Hawaii ghost hunter Glen Grant and his stories about Hawaii.

TRAVELING SOLO is fun, but there's nothing like being able to share someone memories with someone. A special treat was going to Napa wine country with an old friend from Hawaii. Victor Agmata moved to Napa several years ago and works for Cardinale, which operates Kendall-Jackson Vineyards. He picked me up at my hotel early one morning and we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge into warm weather, surrounded by vineyards. The winery was closed on a Sunday morning but I got a behind-the-scenes tour of the vineyards, wine laboratory, harvesting machines, giant steel vats, barrel warehouse and wine-tasting chateau. I don't drink alcohol but I did relish tasting the fine 2003 vintage merlot and some early 2008 cabernet from the steel vats.

We lunched at Silverado Brewing Co., a popular restaurant and microbrewery, and I met one of Vic's friends, who arranged a visit to the winery he works for. Heading into St. Helena, we visited the private La Jota Winery atop Howell Mountain, which stores its wines in French oak barrels for 18 months in a 200-year-old cave. Vic drew wine from a barrel with a glass tube called a wine thief. We took our glasses outdoors for a toast while sitting on a veranda overlooking gorgeous vineyards and countryside. Tough life.

Heading back into town, I noticed wavy tire skid marks on the Napa roads. Victor explained that sometimes tourists taste too much wine now and then.

IF YOU LOVE San Francisco, you gotta love walking the steep hills. Going up Taylor Street in Russian Hill was a hike that made me break into a sweat, but the view of the bay and city skyline was well worth the climb. My goal was to climb a staircase there. Macondray Lane is a narrow, blocklong stone pathway between lush gardens and hidden apartments. The rickety wooden staircase leading up from the street to the lane and apartments were the inspiration for the fictional setting of 28 Barbary Lane of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" novels.

The stairs were used in a TV miniseries based on the tales. Since watching it on PBS in 1993, I've been a fan of Maupin's "Tales" novels. The books originated in 1975 as a daily fiction column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Walking through Macondray Lane, looking at the network of apartments, and climbing the wooden staircase was like being an Elvis fan going to Graceland. I savored the moment and sat silently on the steps.

Before my vacation wound down, I hit all the major tourist sites, such as the Palace of Fine Arts, Alcatraz Island, the Exploratorium, Ghirardelli Square, Pier 39 and the new Aquarium of the Bay, which features two underwater clear tunnels where sea creatures swim above you. A school of giant tuna passing above made me hungry for poke!

Boudin Bakery now features a museum, retail store, bakery tour, bar and restaurant. A long French-style sourdough loaf costs a mere $2.75 and I ate two whole loaves during my stay. I brought in some loaves for the MidWeek office and my co-workers whacked them down like the penguins feeding at the California Academy of Sciences!

Known as the gayest center of the world, the Castro district is also one of the friendliest and strongest of the city's neighborhoods. Rainbow flags flew proudly outside shops and corner posts. In a place that celebrates openness I felt no shame browsing through various shops and picking up souvenirs, like a unique cigar lighter.

The clerk, who looked like she just walked out of a John Water's movie, helped select the color. Silver or bronze? "Dahhling!" she said in a deep, husky voice, "Get the bronze! It matches your eyes."

That's what I love and admire about the city of self-expression, the freedom to not take yourself so seriously. I love Hawaii, but it's so small that everyone knows so-and-so who knows so-and-so, creating a fear of "making A" in front of others. This creates pressure to fit in with the crowd.

During my trip, no shame. I recited "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg in the poetry room at City Lights Bookstore, marking the 50th anniversary of the controversial poetry book's publication. Michael McClure, one of the founding poets of the Beat Movement, was my English instructor in art college. His poetry books and plays were well-displayed on the shelves.

I chatted with a 21st-century beatnik I met in the store about a particular Hawaii book and author he likes. It was Lois-Ann Yamanaka's "Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers," and we talked about Yamanaka's fearlessness in expressing herself.

I mentioned the way poets in Hawaii turn their art into a competition rather than offering it up as shared open expression, the way it was originally meant to be. You dig?

Finally going back to visit my art colleges was fulfilling. At the Academy of Art University, I learned the new department head was one of my former instructors back in the '80s and I presented copies of the books I've illustrated, as well as a MidWeek issue. I shared lessons I learned in school that I have incorporated into my own art classes and career. He gave me a tour of the classrooms and art studios and shared how computers and animation have changed the curriculum.

Except for the computers, everything looked the same as it did 16 years ago! I felt like I closed a circle in life by coming back and showing the results of my art education.

Across the Bay, changes were greater. In Oakland, my old freshmen dorm at the California College of Art is now the student service office. Even Berkeley has toned down from its radical days. I saw only one Communist/Revolutionist member at the Berkeley gate, looking uninterested in giving out leaflets.

Street vendors along Telegraph Avenue hawked a line of tie-dyed T-shirts that has expanded to include polo-style shirts! A lot of the popular used bookstores are still around, but most of the stores and shops I enjoyed in the past are gone. My old apartment is now gated up like a mini prison.

Outside the Oakland Safeway market down the street, I met a woman named Andrea and shared my homecoming story. She related it to an old "Twilight Zone" episode in which a guy goes back in time and everyone pretty much tells him to get lost and go back to the present. I guess she had a good point. Enjoy the past, but don't live in it.

Oh, the stories I wish I could continue to share! I guess if you see me in person, I can tell you about other things like the fun of leaping from one cable car to the next, mixing my own Irish Coffee outside the Buena Vista Cafe, joining Italians in North Beach cheering the World Cup, getting tied up in a straitjacket by a street performer at Fisherman's Wharf, reenacting a shootout from a Dirty Harry movie with other tourists, wearing a "V for Vendetta" mask and cracking my bullwhip down Chinatown like Honolulu detective Chang Apana.

It was sad to lose my digital pictures, but I still have memories of new friends and places I won't forget.

And, as one person said while trying to cheer me up, "Well, now you have a reason to come back here."

In the words of their state's governor ... I'll be Back!

I'm not a big fan of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," even though it plays on every souvenir music box. Still, the song always made me sentimental since moving back to Hawaii. It's believed that if you play the Tony Bennett version at the start of entering the Golden Gate Bridge and drive at the correct speed limit, the song will end at the exit! After taking my vacation, I now have a new tune. The closing song in "Beach Blanket Babylon" is "San Francisco," the city's official song. The opening lines sum up my journey.

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