49 Square Miles Surrounded By Reality...

Oh, San Francisco, so much to answer for...

I'm not going to make this one of those smarmy I-left-my-heart-in-San-Francisco diatribes, but I will say this right outta the gate: I love San Francisco. I've traveled all over the United States and I can't imagine living anywhere else in this country. Well, except for maybe NYC, but that would only happen if I won the lottery or something, and I could only handle it for a few months at that. If I left the country altogether I would most certainly be Guadalajara-bound, but that's another story for another day.

I moved to San Francisco on August 31, 1997, the day Princess Diana died. What a strange and portentous marker that has been for me, but that's another story as well. With the exception of the year I lived in England going to school (1987-88), I had spent the previous 27 years living in Washington State, where I was born and raised, the last 10 years of which were spent in Seattle.

My reasons for leaving Seattle were many. I was 28 years old at the time and I needed a change, I guess. It has never been something I could put my finger on specifically, I just knew it was time to go.

At the time I left Seattle, almost everyone I knew was from somewhere else. Most of the people I'd known growing up had moved away, either out to the suburbs or onto other cities. The Grunge regime was being laid to rest, and in its wake was a city I no longer felt I knew anymore. Everything had changed in such a short amount of time and I felt like a stranger there.

So in the end, I broke up the band I had been in for more than 5 years, sold and/or gave away most of my belongings and off I went. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I wasn't just moving, I was moving away, quite possibly for good, and I didn't have the first clue as to what the fuck I was doing...

San Francisco was a city that I felt I had always known on some level. My first visit was at the age of 5, and I paid many visits in the years since, establishing friendships with people who lived here long before I ever left Seattle that continue to this day.

But as anyone who lives here will tell you, visiting San Francisco is nothing like actually living in San Francisco, and I found that first year to be one of the most difficult periods of my life. To be fair, timing had a lot to do with that, as my arrival coincided with the peak of the Dot-Com boom, when the vacancy rate was less than 1%. It took me 9 months to find an apartment in the city, after living in the East Bay for a few months, followed by a protracted spell of couch-surfing with various friends.

But after a year of struggling, I finally felt like I actually lived here, and I never looked back. Believe me, this is one city that, once you make the decision to live here, you have to commit to it with every fiber of your being, and some people just aren't able to do it.

That is not meant to imply that I'm some formidable tower of strength or anything, but it does take a certain type of mentality to really connect with this city. Paul Kantner himself once said to me: "San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded by reality." I think he was quoting someone else at the time, but I have never forgotten that statement because it always rang true to me.

After living here for last 11 years, the one thing about San Francisco I can say with the utmost certainty is that it attracts damaged people in droves. I have never known more people with drug problems and emotional issues, and that is really saying something after having lived in Seattle.

But at the same time I feel totally at home among them all. I mean, I'm a damaged person as well, and who doesn't have baggage? But there is something here, something strange and unidentifiable where it all seems to make perfect sense to me, and I know I'm not alone there.

An older gentlemen that I was acquainted with around the time I moved to San Francisco, Lenny, a university professor, once observed that San Francisco was like a nature preserve for freaks. I didn't quite understand that at the time, but I understand it now.

San Francisco is full of freaks. Some of the most gloriously weird people I've ever known are right here, all around me, and again, I count myself among them happily. Perhaps that is why this city has always been such a breeding ground for art. I mean, after all, a lot of what art is about comes from a place of pain and suffering, as a means of expressing our inner demons. And let me tell you, people suffer here daily, and they do it willingly.

It's strange how people move to LA or NYC to "make it", but San Francisco is populated with more talented and creative and truly artistic people than either of those 2 cities combined. I firmly believe that.

There is no other city like San Francisco in the world, and there is no other city that I could call home, and I am truly home here, at long last. Everything I could ever need is right here. I even met my partner of 10 years here, Mike, who is quite possibly one of the biggest freaks next to myself (he's certainly the most talented) that I have ever met. It's a perfect fit, and he's someone I know without a doubt I was always meant to meet, but it could have only happened here.

I, like many others, often have that fantasy of "...if I decided to move, where would I go?" I can never find an answer to that question. Guadalajara is the only other city besides San Francisco I've been to in my entire life where I felt an instant connection to, as if I was meant to be there. But I don't think I'm ready for that yet, that is something for down the road, and another adventure to look forward to and learn something else about myself in the process when the time comes.

So until then I am here in San Francisco, my own private freakshow, and I am home.