The Drink Tank 45 Another of Christopher Garcia’s Favourite Places Half Moon Bay

Here it is, (and later the Mexi- another Drink cans) intermar- Tank dealing with ried and produced my favourite places a large number in the world. This of mixed-blood time, it’s a whole Ohlone. I’m one of city, a city where those types, in fact, I’ve spent a good a few generations deal of time and out. that I fell in love Back at the with one long turn of the 20th evening. It’s Half Century, there Moon Bay, Califor- were two roads in nia, and it’s one of and out of town: those cities you’ve one that is roughly always wanted to highway 1 to- visit. day, and the other that was a part of the For those of us Bay Area types, it’s vast stagecoach network that went all over as far away as you can get from home with- the Santa Cruz Mountains. This became out being too far away to pick-up your dry- San Mateo Rd. and Skyline Blvd. In 1906, cleaning. It’s about 1/2 an hour from the a steamtrain line was built between San heart of the Bay Area (San Francisco) and 45 Francisco and Santa Cruz, with Half Moon minutes from the liver (San Jose). You have Bay being on the line and an important to drive Highway 35, which seems to have stop. This gave a big rise to Half Moon Bay been blasted out of the rock in anticipation as a place to live (since you could get to SF of some grand purpose. Half Moon Bay is anytime you wanted, really) and helped the the oldest town in San Mateo County. It’s town grow up around becoming a stop for was them Spaniards that founded it in the folks on the weekends. Spas and marinas 1800s and it was called Spanishtown until became a big deal to the town, as did nice the 1870s. It wa a popular place for ships eatin’ and hotels that overlooked the waters. to land in the old days that there’s talk that This made Half Moon Bay and the nearby the pirates of the Pacific liked the sheltered cities of Montera and Moss Beach very popu- coves of the Coast near Half Moon Bay. At lar during Prohibition. The restaurants and that point, the Ohlone Tribe (of which I am, hotels that were built on the ends of fingers in fact, a member of by virtue of my 1/8 that pointed out into the water were perfect blood) were very active by that point. It’s for giving folks time to clear the place out if hard to say how long they had been there (at a raid was seen to be on the way. Saloons least ten thousand years if you are to believe like The Moss Beach Distillery were very their story versions of history). Half Moon popular and really cemented Half Moon Bay Bay is a sort of a spit which is ideal for fish- forever as a place to go to relax, unwind ing and all sorts of sea-going activities. The and get good ole fashioned stinko. This re- Ohlone of Half Moon Bay and the Spaniards mained true when I was in High School and folks would make the drive over the hills to HMB to get their drink on. As the years went by, Half Moon Bay got a lit- tle more hippy. The 1950s had brought Beatniks into town, some of which are still there. The 1960s brought those flower-wielding Peace-niks that changed much of the town. As the going got weird, the weird turned pro and these hippies started to open small shoppes and boutiques. This led to HMB becoming a place where you would go for artsy-crafty things. Every Saturday you can see them, those who come to buy beaded bags Back when I was in High School, it and unicorn items. They flood the sidewalks and eat was a very typical thing to bring a date over-priced lunches on Main Street. over to Half Moon Bay. You’d never But sadly, those Over-Priced Lunches are damn eat there since it was far too expensive, good. and you’d never say that you were go- There are some fine restaurants in Half Moon ing to HMB beforehand, but if things Bay, so good, in fact, that I know of people who will went well, you’d head over and stake drive the drive just for lunch. Main Street is the home out a place on one of the beaches. of the best known places. Cetrella is the best known of Once you were there, you had them, probably. It’s pricey, and for some things very lots of options. There was a liquor pricey, but everything is at least good. The first time store that was known as UnderAged I ate there, I had a grilled Lamb chop that nearly kilt Liquors because they never carded and me it was so damn good. Perfectly seared and medium places that sold in and around San rare as you could make it. I ordered it again the next Jose, you didn’t have to slip an extra day. twenty in to get what you wanted. The After I stuff my face, I usually discover that smoking of weed was popular, though I’m more interested in staying around for the night. among my friends the preferred smok- There’s always the first option, which is giving a call ing was of Cigars, the bigger and most to one of the few Bed & Breakfasts that I really enjoy. vile smelling the better. Of course, The Zaballa House is the oldest standing structure in there were more than a few children Half Moon Bay. It’s also one of the best of the quaint conceived on those beaches, including Victorian Guest House-type B&Bs on the West Coast. one that belongs to a couple that I went The rooms range from quite large and well-appointed to school with. They still celebrate (and expensive) to intimate and fun (and less expen- every anniversary with a trip to the sive). I got hooked on this place when I visited with same beach. an ex-girlfriend of mine in 1997. The two of us got the The best thing about HMB smallest room and brought a CD player, an Al Green beaches was they’d never come by un- CD, a bottle of good wine and a book apiece. I loved less they first shown a light down, basi- that book, and the rest of the night with her wasn’t cally giving away that they’d be there bad either, but reading Dhalgren in that setting was soon, but they’d always give you at leat wonderful. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve got my priorities five minutes to scurry off. We once had straight. a huge bonfire with twenty people and There are times when the Zaballa House is full, they spotted us. Everyone scrammed or my money is tight, and then I head up the road except me and my buddy who were the a bit. There’s an Ramada Limited on Highway One, only two not drinking and the ones about 2/3 of the way North to Moss Beach. It’s a sim- who hadn’t driven. The guys came and ple little joint with clean rooms that all have views of we said that we had hiked here and the an empty lot, though beyond that is the blue Pacific. guys bought it. A, hour later, the party The prices tend to be pretty cheap, 79 Bucks most of was back and lasted until morning. the time, and driving there takes you right by one of Half Moon Bay’s Most im- a nice snack and watch portant spots. the sun go down. With In the 1970s, there Binocs you can see the was a guy by the name of surfers nice and clear. Jeff Clark came out and Half Moon Bay has discovered that there were a tonne of beaches, and big waves right off of Half it’s not at all rare to find Moon Bay. The prevailing yourself sitting on one of theory was that Califor- them, getting near to sun- nia just didn’t have huge down, and have someone waves. For fifteen years, you don’t sit down next to Clark and his buddies surfed Mavericks in ya and start chatting. The first time it hap- relative peace and quiet. The place was pened to me I thought the guy must have great and everyone who surfed it, less that thought I was holding and was trying to 20 or so people total, loved it. score some dope, and in that case I’m the Then a dude named Steve Tadin pub- wrong guy to hit up. Instead, he just chat- lished a shot in Surfer show Clark in a big ted away for about half-an-hour and that wave. That got everyone interested and was that. It’s happened to me several times. people started coming to Mavericks to surf The city is not only filled with hippies and the big ones. In 1994, there was a Big Wave surfers, but with burn-outs and folks who Riders gathering called The Men Who Ride are just plain nice. I like that, sometimes. Mountains that drew all the big names in And other times...well, let’s just move on. Big Wave riding. Mark Foo was a legend in A trip to Half Moon Bay has to include that field, having grown up riding the biggest some Hawaiian Food. The best Kaluah Pig ones in Hawaii for years. At the gathering, I’ve ever found, and please don’t remind me on a wave he should have easily been able exactly how non-Kosher it is, has to be at a to handle, Mark caught a corner and fell. place that is right next to the Ramada Ex- Hard. Mark was the first known fatality at press. Ono Hawaiian Grill is a great place Mavericks. Mark was highly popular in the and it’s really authentic-ish...or as authen- surfing community, so his death hit hard tic-ish as you’re going to find on the Main- and led to the formation of the Mavericks land. There’s a great macaroni salad, wh- Water Patrol. ich is saying a lot because I hate macaroni From that point on, Mavericks was salad, and they do a mean teriyaki any- legendary, and starting in 1999, there’s thing, but the highlight is the Kaluah Pork. been a big wave riding contest there every Just eat it and you’ll know the joy that is the year. They even made a documentary about flavour of the island. it in 2004 called Riding Giants, directed by As with everywhere I really love, there skateboarding legend and documentarian is a ghostly component to Half Moon Bay, Stacey Peralta. and one that I have done a lot of research on The closest land to Mavericks (which over the years. The first place is my beloved is 1/2 mile out) is Pillar Point Harbor. It’s a Zaballa House. lovely little harbor and a great place to peo- I’ve never seen anything myself, ple watch. I’ve spent afternoons there, having though I’ve had a lot of weird feelings in that Half Moon Bay has always been massively racially diverse. The largest groups seem to be Mexicans, many of whom work the various fields around HMB, and Portuguese. There are various Asian communities as well. Philipinos are another large group, which isn’t surprising considering there are nearly 1 million folks of Phillipine decent living in California. Strangely, there’s no Asian market in HMB, but there is an excellent Bodega which caters to both Mexicans and Asians. They sell lots of carps. place. There’ve been and then headed over sightings in two rooms: to the Distillery for an Room 6 and Room 7 early lunch. So early, (and I think the hall be- in fact, that we were tween them). The story easily the first ones goes that one of the there. I went down to original owners died in the restroom and when the place, and so they I got there, no one was haunt it. I’ve heard a around. I went to do couple of different sto- my business and the ries, with one standing tap started running. I out. was concerned, but not A Family had overly so. As I finished checked into room the tap stopped. I went 6 and were settling down to wash my hands (as I am for the night. There was not a heathen) and before a knock on the door next I got to the tap, it turned door to them. No one paid itself on. It wasn’t a sen- any attention, since hearing sor tap either. I saw the sounds from the next room handle move. I high-tailed in the old place isn’t unu- it out of there and have sual. A few seconds later, a always made sure I’ve gone person walked through the before I get to the MBD ever wall and after taking a few since. steps into the room, they disappeared. That story happened in the early to mid-1990s, The story behind the ghosts is a good but there are stories that go back to the one. The Ghost is called the Blue Lady and 1950s. No one is really sure who or what she dates from the 1920s. She was having the ghost is, but they’re always trying to find an affair with a piano player and she went out. over the cliff on the old Bayshore and died. The other haunted place in the area A good reason to haunt, I’d imagine. is the World Famous Half Moon Bay is accessible all year Moss Beach Distill- Top: The Zaballa House from Main Street. Bottom: and is best in Early ery. Trust me, the food The Room where I’ve stayed in the Zaballa House Fall and Late Spring. there is enough to gain which is claimed to be haunted. Middle: The Moss If you’ve never been it a large following, Beach Distillery overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a to the Pumpkin Fes- especially the Sunday rare day when there is no fog rolling in. tival, you should try brunches they do and and rectify that mat- the Crab Scramble. ter ASAP. There are There’s also the fact also more Christmas that there’s a ghost in Tree Lots than they the place and my freak- know what to do with iest experience hap- and it’s a good place pened there one morn- around the holidays ing in 1998 or so. for Tree buying and Me and my gifty-craft shopping. girlfriend of the day, Get lunch while you’re Melissa, had journeyed there and you’ve got all to HMB for a bit of fun. the required makings We stayed at Zaballa for a good holiday time Happy birthday, Thunderbird 2! by Frank Wu

On September 30, “The Thunderbirds” will be 40 years old, same age as me. We are talkin’ here not of the nifty Ford sportscars, nor the acrobatic airplane pilots, but the uber- cool geek-fest British TV show from the sixties. This was the fullest flowering of the mind of producer Gerry Anderson, who had earlier brought us “Supercar” and on both sides of the ocean - not as much as “Fireball XL-5” and later “UFO” and “Space: “Star Trek,” but nonetheless huge. 1999.” While “Dr. Who” was huge in the I spent a significant amount of energy, UK, it was unseen in the U.S. until the mid- time and money about a decade ago buying seventies, and until then Gerry Anderson and selling Thunderbirds toys, but what was the main Brit competitor to “Star Trek” amazed me was that half of the folks trading and other American sci-fi TV. were engineers. What made the Gerry Anderson shows This makes sense if you view Gerry so cool was that stuff zipped around and Anderson shows not as “science” fiction, but very often blew up. Really cool stuff. Like as “engineering” fiction. The puppets were a car that could fly through the air or plow - let’s face it - stupid and painful to watch, through oceanic depths. Or a submarine but the episodes were mechanical and with a jet engine attached to its nose. Or a aeronautical engineers’ wet dreams. (This giant mole that could burrow you into the parallels a remark made about the seminal ground. Or a super-fast rocketplane. Or a rock band The Velvet Underground: Few spaceship with all these different modules people bought their original albums, but that you could switch out depending on the every one of them started their own band.) adventure at hand. And if it got wrecked by When I was ten I discovered that some alien madness, the command module could TV shows featured big boobs and some, big- detact and be flown independently. (For ass laser tanks. I prefered the latter. I was completeness, I should note that the vehicles did not travel by themselves but were piloted by either grotesque puppets or bland-faced live actors, who were mostly interchangable and forgettable. Better parts were written for the spaceships than for the actors.) “The Thunderbirds” - which featured five vehicles, plus accessories, used to rescue people around the world - quietly had a big influence on a generation of kids mesmerized by the way the camera would telescoped their arms, shot out jets of water or linger lovingly on landing gear and tank lasers, held out suckers or magnetic plates as treads. (Everything I know about landing necessary, lifted things into the air, plucked gear I learned from the T-birds, which puppets from the bottom of the ocean, held up actually came in handy recently when my collapsing walls... all in the midst of explosions pals were trying to fi gure out exactly what and fi re. What could be cooler? had gone wrong on with that JetBlue fl ight.) The one who had blazed the trail for These shows did not simply “tell” us how us was Martin Bower. He had started out the heroes’ problems were fi xed by some as a teenager building models in his garage, brand-new subatomic particle or by fooling perfecting his craft in anonymity. When he a computer, but they “showed” us how fi nally showed his work to Gerry Anderson, the you could fi x any situation with a toolkit of producer was so impressed that the models grappling hooks, winches, wire, wrenches were immediately bought up for use in “Space: and jet engines. 1999.” For a ten-year-old, building plastic When we were ten, we weren’t cute; models was cool, and the geniuses (like we knew we would never be actors or Brian Johnson and Reg Hill and Martin supermodels. But maybe, if we honed our Bowers) who built the machinery in all the skills like Martin Bower, one day our plastic Gerry Anderson shows were the greatest creations would become “supermodels.” heroes of all. Their models were the real Thus, a whole generation of children stars of the shows - did you notice that became artists and crafty engineers instead the series(“Stingray”, “Fireball XL-5,” of chartered accountants - all because of “The “Supercar,” etc.) were mostly named after Thunderbirds.” the vehicles, not the “human” characters? -Frank Wu- Their models zoomed or clanked around, Emailed Words of Comment Sent to [email protected] By My Gentle Readers LoC buthavenocomments and openedDT43withmy I alsohadreadtheforwarded seem towantwork. retexting itanddoesn’t sure whattodo.I’vetried one hasmestymied.Not that Ishouldknow,butthis Adobe productsenough You know,Iworkwith went wrong. adobe sodon’tknowwhat not reallyunderstandpdfand further inthefanzine.Ido happened. 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Iamnotobjectingtothe its £35pricewaswayoutofmy buy itasacuriosity.Unfortunately mutant Bearandwastemptedto thought oftheTeddyBearasa forgot aboutthecharacter.Ijust broadcast orreadthebooksand listened totheaudiotapesof since itismanyyearsI IhadforgottenaboutHitch-Hiker announcing events(orevenlate- to beuseful andpickuplate- frequent enoughfor thecalendar makes sense,inthat it’sstill to onceeverytwoweeks probably dead, simplyresting. Andtheswitch Sullivan! The NewestSuperfan,Peter Edmund R.Meskys Best, somehow. get alittlearticulationoutofit his leftshoulder.Still,theydid with abadmannequinheadon extra arm,butitwasjustaguy I thinktheydidawaywiththe audio tapesandre-listentothat. but Ithinkwouldprefertofind my could dorealisticspecialeffects, new moviewashighbudgetsothey use hisextraarm?Iunderstandthe shoulder. Also,howactivelydid“he” puppet’s headattachedtoone I wonderifanactorhadasimple sighted todescribethingsme. did experienceInothaveanyone not triedtowatchit,andthebitsI I amnotmuchofaTVfanandhad Good tohearthatSFSFisnot announcing cancellations). But it gets away and were suddenly silenced.” But then if, as from the grind of always having to chase the SF fen, we bothered about reputation, we next week’s issue, which is what apparently would probably have never gotten involved drove Jack into the ground. Because of in “that crazy Buck Rodgers stuff” in the the subject matter, I guess it’s not as easy first place. to pre-produce material as you could for I think I agree with M Lloyd about something like The Drink Tank. a Chris Garcia Anthology - at least, if I’ve There are some things that we can pre- understood her right. The most remarkable do, like getting articles from former and thing about a typical Chris Garcia article current BArea fen and pros, which we’ll is not the article itself - most are above be starting soon. It’ll be a fun zine, trust average, but so is 49% of everything. me! Normally what’s remarkable is the fact that I like the idea of referring to puppets the article is only seven days (or less) after as “Fabricated Americans.” And, speaking of the last article. Having said that, there will Tartar Sauce, have you ever heard the old, be stuff worth anthologising as well. old joke about Sauce Tartare being French I’m at 1% of good writing, which at my for “Goodbye, cheeky”? current rate means there’s 10,000 good I have not heard it. I try not to hear too words a year! many French jokes because I’ll try to -- turn them around and use them on my Peter Sullivan friends from Quebec, and if you know any Quebecers, they have no sense of And finally, a brief note from Eric Mayer! humour! I’ve seen the “woman is just a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke” quote Hi, attributed to both Kipling and Hemmingway. But in the latter case I gather it’s more likely You’re going to get me in trouble. Reading that someone thought that he *should* have your comment about how The Drink Tank is said it. On that basis, you might as well a sort of blog reminded me I’d written a bit attribute the quote to Groucho Marx, who on the topic of zines vs. blogs for Truefen.net *definitely* should have said it. and never posted it. So I updated and went That’s true. There are a lot of sayings ahead. So now the topic becomes blogs as like that. My favourites are the great locs! misquotes, like “play it again, Sam” and -- “Kiss Me, You Fool!” Eric It never occurred to me until Eric Mayer Don’t count on me to jog your memory mentioned it that Trufen has blogs. But, everytime, Eric! I’m not a reliable device since it’s based on the slashcode from for that sorta thing. Slashdot, I guess it must have. They are just not very visible from the front page (he says, The Drink Tank Issue 45 was written by Christopher J. hoping that there’s not a “Click here, bozo” Garcia and Frank Wu, with appearances by Ed Mes- link he’s missed). I know that livejournal kys, Peter Sullivan and Eric Mayer! The next issue has a certain ‘reputation’ amongst the will be out either late next week, or early the follow- online community. When the whole site ing depending on SF/SF and how that goes. Thanks when down earlier in the year for a few to Bill Burns again. This year, let’s get him a Best days, there was pretty much a whole thread Website Hugo! on Slashdot slagging off of the typical LJ I also bought a copy of a 1990 Niekas at user. Probably the funniest was “A great BASFA this week. Still one of the truly great fanzines disturbance in the Force... as if millions of of all-time. teenage girls suddenly cried out in terror Remember: Tip your waitstaff!