Reddit mentions of Add Toner: A Cometbus Collection

I don't really have many good stories but one that comes to mind is when i grew my hair out (down to the middle of my back) and stopped shaving for a short film I wanted to shoot. I was hanging out at my friend's apartment and she didn't have anything to drink so I wandered out with my skateboard to find a liquor store.

I ended up standing at a street corner on Van Ness waiting for the light to turn when three separate groups of people left a relatively nice restaurant (I think it was Stars) and stood waiting with me, and a homeless guy came by. He went up to the three groups, one by one, and asked for some spare change, but when he came up to me he kinda looked me up and down, gave me that 'sup head bob, and walked away.

I asked my friend when I got back to her apartment and apparently I'd been looking pretty damn homeless for the past few months and hadn't really been aware of it.

One thing I do tend to like about the bay area is that people tend to be casual about appearances and during this homeless-looking phase of mine I never had a problem eating at nice restaurants (I tend to eat out a lot). I mean the maitre d' might not be totally sure why I'm there when i first show up with my skateboard, bike messenger bag, shorts, t-shirt, reefs, and generally unkempt appearance, but when I mention that I have a reservation I'm normally treated like any other customer. The one exception was when I was in the mood for garlic and went to the stinking rose and the waiter (not the maitre d') gave me attitude.

Um, another relatively boring story (sorry, I don't really have many good ones) was when I was bar hopping with some friends and we ended up in some dive bar somewhere in the tenderloin. My gaydar is horrible and when one of my friends casually mentioned that we were in a gay bar I asked how the hell she could tell 'cuz as far as I could tell it was full of blue-collar workers. She replied, "I mean I could be wrong but those giant framed posters of naked men on the walls was my first clue." I was all, "oh, huh, didn't notice them."

As I mentioned earlier, I tend to eat out a lot so I tend to think in terms of places I like to eat when I'm in the mood for something specific. Like U Lee for chinese, little star stuffed spinach and mushroom pizza when i want something a bit different from the zachary's version (i hate the ambience here tho' - too loud), kara's cupcakes for filled lemon or passionfruit cupcakes (or chocolate velvet if i'm in a chocolate mood), la taqueria for tacos, el farolito for after-midnight burritos, and little orphan andy's for 24-hour diner food. Blue, or the completely unrelated blue plate, both for mac & cheese, in-n-out for animal-style burgers, the roli roti rotisserie truck at the saturday ferry building farmer's market for their porcetta sandwich (they appear other places, i just only know them from that farmer's market - also note that they sell out of said sandwich by noon or 1pm), suppenkuche for german food, minamoto kitchoan for fancypants japanese desserts or benkyodo for a cheaper mochigashi, memphis minnie's for some tasty (albeit a tad pricey) bbq, stars used to have good desserts but their dessert chef left plus i don't even know if that restaurant exists anymore. Firefly had decent grub and a very date-like atmosphere, boboquivari's had a good (but kind of overpriced) bone-in filet mignon, boulevard was also decent, one market had okay food but the clientele was a bit stuffy for my tastes, zuni cafe is okay but a little overrated, belden place is a kind of cool little blocked-off one-block street with a bunch of nifty restaurants (b44 is one i went to recently that my friends loved, me, less so), little delhi may not look like much but i dug its indian food, and for persian i go to alborz on van ness.

Oh yeah, one more lame story I have took place the day before I moved to mexico for a year or so. I was out with my friends bar hopping and we ended up in this place in chinatown and I saw a drink called a "mexi-me-crazy." I was like, "holy shit, a bar with a drink called mexi-me-crazy the night before i fly out to mexico city? that's totally a sign - I have to have that drink!" I took a sip and it was disgusting (keep in mind that I don't really like the taste of alcohol). My friends made me finish it anyway.

Oh wait, another story - I was flying in to sfo from eastern europe and brought along a shit-ton of crystal stuff (cups, plates, vases, whatever) 'cuz it was cheap and i was gonna hand 'em out as gifts. Because it was so cheap the dollar amount I wrote down on the customs form was pretty damn low but hoped i could squeak by the sfo customs people without any problems. Unfortunately, they took notice of me and wanted to check out my 2nd suitcase of crystal.

Fortunately (sort of), once the opened the suitcase they saw my two ultra-realistic-looking prop desert eagle handguns I'd bought in vienna, they ceased to give a single fuck about the shit-ton of crystal I'd bought and inspected the toy guns. Note that these guns looked real, felt real, cocked like a real gun, had real heft to them, had a safety like a real gun, shot bb pellets, and could be disassembled like a real gun. They looked so real, in fact, that all the customs guys in the room came over to take a look (not for work, but 'cuz they all seemed to be kind of into guns).

I told them the relatively funny story behind buying them, then one of 'em tried to take one of the guns apart. That was easy enough but then he couldn't get it back together so for about half an hour they all stood around taking turns trying to put it back together, until a supervisor came by and told 'em to break it up and send me on my way. I was all, "uh, no, you guys took it apart, you need to figure out how to put it back together". I spent about two hours in customs that night but ultimately the gun was reassembled and they didn't give a shit about all that crystal I was bringing in to the country. I've got another decent story about sfo customs from when I flew in from el salvador but that one requires me mentioning my name so I think I'll pass on telling it.

Anyway, I doubt that I could convince you that living in SF would be better than (or even as good as) living in boston, but it's a nice town, and small enough that most things are within walking distance of each other, but at the same time large enough that you can get most anything you need in terms of things as well as culture and sports and whatever else you can think of. I've lived and worked in a few different cities (sf, berkeley, santa barbara, mexico city, and, prague) and stayed for extended periods of time in several others. They all have their good and bad aspects, and it's kind of up to the individual to, y'know, focus on the good things.

Oh yeah, and if you wanna read some good stories about the east bay (like berkeley and oakland), you should check out back issues of a 'zine called "cometbus". It's a pretty famous 'zine so you can probably find it in a city like boston - in fact, i think cometbus just came out with a compilation book that gathers his best stories from the past couple of years.

tl;dr: sf is nice, mellow weather (some people think it's too cold and overcast but I like it), decent food, and with plenty of things to keep you busy and/or entertained if you look around. If you really want to read good stories about things like love and loss in the bay area (although not necessarily sf), check out cometbus.