There’s a moment in “The End of the Golden Gate” that seems to encapsulate all three things, penned with a light hand and probing eye by comedian W. Kamau Bell:
“I once did a show at Vesuvio Cafe with Allen Ginsberg opening with a new poem. Margaret Cho dropped in to try out some new material. Kirk Hammett from Metallica and Jerry Garcia played folk songs on acoustic guitars. Annie Sprinkle did a visual history of porn. … Armistead Maupin sat in the back writing a book that ended up being ‘Tales of the City.’ And unbeknownst to all of us, Willie Mays and Rick Barry were in there the whole time.”
In his essay, Bell acknowledges: “Um, I don’t think that timeline works” of the fictional gathering he conjures above, only for his friends to reply, “You missed it, man. It was so cool.”
San Francisco is forever dying
Michelle Robertson
SFGATE
Article discusses this book:
The End of the Golden Gate: Writers on Loving and (Sometimes) Leaving San Francisco