Thursday, August 1, 2013

Blog 108: MY HAIGHT STREET (Jammin Chronicles-Part V/To Be San Franciscan-Part II)

Blog 108: My Haight Street (Jammin Chronicles-Part V/To Be San Franciscan-Part II)

My Jammin Chronicles Parts I-IV are blogs 81, 84, 91 & 102…my first “To Be San Franciscan” Blog is 88…what is up with two blogs in one…deal with peeps, sometimes worlds collide.

I found it fitting to write this blog today…this week…

As a native San Franciscan….there are certain places around the city that make memories swirl in my head and my heart swell with pride…Golden Gate Park (Shakespeare Garden for that super intense feelings,) Ocean Beach, Sutro Baths, that park by my second High School 3 blocks north of California and Broderick…and Haight Street.

Haight Street was the first place in San Francisco I could go at a young age and entertain myself…it is the first place a smoked pot…it is where I found my style…went for a trip...it is where I met my first boyfriend.

(***PRINCESS SIDE NOTE*** Haight Street is where my first rule of boyfriends was created… “Don’t ever go out with a dude you met on Haight Street.”…Ladies…to be specific…if the dude Lives on Haight Street…and I mean actually lives on the street itself…Don’t do it…that shit will cost you a lot of money and grief and he will not smell good…I learned that at a very young age…don’t make my same mistakes…oh my poor parents.)

For me…as a teenager who did not have a lot of friends and didn’t really fit in…I felt at home on Haight Street…until Jerry Died…then everything changed.

While I still hung out from time to time…I switched my focus to the park…cause with our Shinning Star gone…a bleak-ness took over the street.

The sparkle had drifted, becoming lack-luster in mourning… “gone where the days we stopped to decided…where we would go…we just ride….”

When I left to go to college…I wouldn’t come back to visit Haight Street…it was still depressing…and had a “hardness” to it… I simply could not phathom where it came from.

When I moved back 12 years later…I still never sauntered down to the street…it seemed like a waste of time…like I was taking those awesome memories and laughing in their face.

Then I a little over a year ago…my friend bought the store on MY corner of Haight and Masonic. (I say he is my friend with great pride now…but the truth is, when he bought the store, he was just some guy who I was introduced to from my ex-boyfriend, who the first time I hung with I ate way to many cookies…I was hungry!...and passed out in front of a door…not slick on my part at all)…I didn’t know this dude very well at all…but the first day of the store I was there…not for him…but for the little girl that used to hang out right there (I am pointing)…for what that corner made her feel, believe and inspire to be.

And that is why this Princess works where she works…and why I am now not just the Princess of the Tenderloin…but the Princess of Haight Street as well.

It is my company’s mission to revitalize Haight Street to what it used to be and can be…so that one can come down to this historical mecca and really feel the inspiration…the beat…the flavor…the rainbows…the stimulation. And as a woman who has seen Haight Street at its darkest moments…I feel the vibrancy running back into the street’s veins…the pillars of Haight see it too…if I may quote Mom, “Since you all got the store, a new life is back, a joy…you can feel it…you can see it…thank you!” (She said this with tears and pride in her eyes.)

And the little girl inside me knows it to…she sees it in the children she sparkles, in the people that look up and drop their jaw at the breathing ceiling, that join her hoola hooping on the street, as the bubbles she blows make people’s eyes wander amaze, the passer byers she startles with Foxy Monster Hats…or entertains many with crazy gluing money to the street for hours of cheap thrills and giggles.

As I walk in any direction from the store and see the glitter on the street…I know I have left my mark on Haight Street…and my mark fucking sparkles bitches!!!!

Be warned…don’t mess with my corner….I will dump party cups full of glitter on you, and don’t try to tell me you have been here since 98…cause child…I have been at this intersection since 92…boooshhhhhhh.

That is why I come to Haight Street six to seven days a week…yeah, it has to do with the money, with my friends, with the fact that I got to…but the real underlining factor…is that this is my City…San Francisco is my Home, and who the fuck am I to be calling myself a Princess of any part of this place if I ain’t fucking giving back.

If I am not making it better kingdom…Who am I? I have a name to live up to…as well as we have a legacy to carry on…another prank to accomplish….

I also do it for that awkward red-headed teenager that didn’t know where the fuck to go, what the fuck to do …who didn’t know whom or what to believe…I do it for the lost young me…to remind her that she can do whatever she wants to do…be the person she wishes to be…that she has a destiny.

It is funny…sometimes when don’t know what direction to go…you just got to wander your hot ass Home…and find the “you” you wished to be.


DANCE MOVE OF THE WEEK:

THE CONDUCTOR.

Some people…whom could I be talking about…like to conduct the music at shows…so for this dance, all you got to do is head up to the front…make sure everyone in the band has a good view…put your arms up and start conducting…letting each player know when to play, to silence, to lift…to carry…point to each one, go all crazy at some point…arms flaying in the air…after all this is your music…and your show…conduct that shit.