Portable Storage #3
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3..Editorial 7..Pre-Build Ruins Alva Svoboda 12..Weird Stairways 58..Core Samples L. Jim Khennedy Craig William Lion 30..Beatnik Memories 64..San Francisco Expanded Ray Nelson John Fugazzi 31..Genders 68..Cole Valley Ray Nelson Kennedy Gammage 33..San Francisco, 1967 71..The Messiah Bunch Stacy Scott Terry Floyd 35..San Francisco Soliloquy 78..Hippies Kim Kerbis Robert Lichtman 38..Ghosts of San Francisco 82..From the Catacombs of Berkeley Don Herron Dale Nelson 41..Poets Don’t Have 88..The San Francisco Adventures Spare Change Michael Breiding Billy Wolfenbarger 107..What Was I G. Sutton Breiding 108..Staying Put Jay Kinney 112..Crap St. Ghost Dance D.S. Black 116..My San Francisco Century: 43..San Francisco Part One: 1970-2020 G. Sutton Breiding Grant Canfield 45..The City 146..House of Fools James Ru Joan Rector Breiding 48..Does A Moose Have an Id? 149..LoC$ Gary Mattingly 157..Dr. Dolittle 52..Me vs. The Giants Gary Casey Rich Coad 166..The Gorgon of Poses 56..Cliff House, Tafoni, Rock Lace, G. Sutton Breiding Use of Gyratory in a Sentence Jeanne N. Bowman “A time almost more than a place.” Susan Breiding 2 Artists in this Issue Frank Vacanti (Cover) Jim Ru (2, 30) Craig Smith (3, 40,51,56) Steve Stiles (6) Dave Barnett (31) Kurt Erichsen (45) John R. Benson(47, 70) Crow’s Caw Grant Canfield (116-145, William M. Breiding unless otherwise noted) I knew from day one when starting Portable Storage that I wanted to do a themed issue on San Francisco. There would be AC Kolthoff (149) no agenda. Whatever the writer chose. Inevitably that meant personal recollections. From the brief to the extensive. And thus Harry O. Morris (166) it was. Brad Foster (172) I have had a long storied history—a torrid love affair, really— with San Francisco. When my family arrived there in 1968 I was All photographs are accompa- eleven years old. I took to San Francisco remarkably well. Hav- nied by credits. All others fair ing first been born and grown in a rural setting then a small use internet. wooded town perched on the banks of a river valley it would seem unlikely. But I was fascinated by the City from our first moments there and it automatically became my natural habitat. Portable Storage Three Spring 2020 I have spent as much time hating San Francisco as I have loving Edited by William Breiding. Available in it. The City and I both refused to compromise and as in any re- hard copy for the usual: letters of com- lationship there was conflict. I was always leaving. I was always ment, trade, contributions of writing and visuals, or endowments of cash. Also crawling home. Because of San Francisco’s peculiar combination available at efanizines.com. of provincial backwater and economic hub and its embracing of Please send letters of comment and the different it somehow remained a low profile yet important submissions of all kinds to: porta- city. Jobs were easy to come by and apartments were plentiful [email protected]. Hard copy and the cost of living on the medium-to-low side. When I left the trades: street address is on your mailing envelope. City there was always comfort in knowing I could easily pick up where I left off. I did this uncountable times. Artists, writers, Thanks to Mustafa for technical advice. poets, musicians, and every other sort of slacker could embrace Portable Storage is a semi-annual publi- and be embraced by the City because of this easy living attitude. cation. The submission deadline for the Fall 2020 issue is July 31, 2020. The icing on cake was the beautiful estuary—the San Francisco Bay—and the hills, those amazing hills and cascading architec- Entire contents © 2020 William Breiding. All rights revert to contributors ture. upon publication. There is a long history of people coming to hate the town they Contact! [email protected] 3 once loved. This is particularly everything will be just fine. manently with a brief hiatus true with San Francisco. Every Walk along somewhere not your August 2000 - April 2002 that generation becomes crestfallen own and be prepared to be was a delicious dreamlike time by the City that is no longer taunted.) Every major city has that encompassed 9/11 but end- theirs. (By “generation” I am these problems, true enough, ed in complete disaster and meaning a cultural generation, it’s just that San Francisco’s emotional devastation for me. one that happens about every problems were generally very Sometimes you cannot go home ten years.) Mores and trends, neatly hidden from the casual again. But I tried. Really hard. economics and culture always eye—being viewed as open and For many years I felt bitter and shift but often we don’t. San accepting of all quirks, weird- pissed off about being kicked Francisco was my town from ness, and alternative lifestyles. out of the City. I wrote two 1968 to about 1993, when I be- But every Cultural Generation scathing essays about San Fran- gan to lose my sense of place. (I witnesses their lifestyle die, to cisco called “The Forever Dying joked that I had failed to up- be subsumed and commercial- City” and “The Orphan Adrift” grade to the future, and that was ized (rainbow crosswalks in the that I considered publishing true.) I had been able to be fluid Castro!) and then discarded. here but decided 1.) it would be until that point. It seemed as the What’s left is always a painfully cheating and 2.) I don’t feel that City changed, thus did I, and so empty husk filled with memo- way about Old Frisco no more. we kept apace. ries of when you were “The After years of licking the Of course there was always Young Turk” and the town be- wounds of my failed relation- pending disgruntlement in our longed to you. Now you just ship with San Francisco in the relationship. The City’s cost of leave (even if it’s only to the hinterlands of Iowa, Arizona living slowly but unerringly rose ’burbs) or white knuckle down and West Virginia I finally made creating ever smaller margins (hoping you don’t get kicked out peace with Friscotown and be- for error in my generally below- of your apartment) and watch gan returning to my city by the the-poverty-line peripatetic life- the passing parade with a bay for extended visits. And fell style. The City’s politics became *sigh*. right back in love with its heav- oddly conservative while toeing 1993 was the year that things enly landscape, its architecture, the liberal party line. (At this went awry for me, when I began its quaintness, its quirkiness, its point the desire for political cor- pushing against the river and cultural diversity—and it’s walk- rectness has stifled freedom of becoming ever more bitter with ability. I finally set my heart to speech and opposites become each passing day I resided in the complete rest when I wrote a evermore polarized without the City. It culminated in 1996 after novel about the City and let go consideration of reasonable dis- a disastrous year emotionally, of it forever as my home. I had course.) The City had never economically, and culturally. I instead become its ideal visitor. been that “cool grey City of love” was on the precipice of home- except in the hearts of roman- In the years since I’ve stopped lessness and probably would tics. Surely there is plenty to visiting San Francisco has have become so due to my emo- swoon about in San Francisco turned into a “weird dysto- tional state. (I personally fucked but the real cold hard daylight pia” (thanks, Ted Whipple, for so many things up that year that portrait of the City is that it is the phrase!) of the Digital Age you just might as well name me (and always has been—) a jangly that seems predicated on just for the jerk that I am. But even uptight racist town, one of com- two things: money and hipness. so, the City still remained a plete segregation and disharmo- When a techie pays five hun- worse jerk.) Instead of home- ny. (Oh yeah, everyone just stay dred dollars for a tee shirt you lessness I chose another re- in your little neighborhood and know Elvis is finally dead. When course. I left San Francisco per- 4 a small apartment rents for five tried to take cues, especially brother Sutton’s “Fog; what it thousand dollars that means from Outworlds in its later is”. there are no more poets living years when Bill created a seam- An amazing issue. One for in San Francisco. less whole out of a terrific which I feel grateful to be able abundance of variety and per- You have to ask: where have all to present in this humble fan- sonal connection. the flowers gone? zine. There are many treats. I This issue had to necessarily could extol the virtues of every Of the over twenty writers con- start with Alva Svoboda’s Bru- piece, guide you to the magic, tributing to this issue none talist grey-toned and exquisite but you should find it for your- have chosen to write extended “Pre-built Ruins”. Just as it self—and then tell me about it rants, or any rants at all, about necessarily had to be followed in the next issue. the morphing of San Francisco by L. Jim Khennedy’s spangled from the inclusive to the exclu- On a somber end note that un- sive.