So Will had a couple of jobs to finish the following few days after our all nighter. So I embarked on the only mode of travel I’ve really known so far: wandering aimlessly. Took a 2 minute walk from Will’s place to Lafayette BART (BART is their Cityrail / rail system) and launched myself into San Francisco.
I remembered that my Dad had kept imploring me to ride a cable car / trolley / tram in San Francisco, as they were the “oldest moving museums” or something like that. So when I spotted one I tried to chase it down. Every cable car I came across had either terminated or had a massive wait. So I wandered down Market street (their George street) until I saw one of those junctions where they manually spin the cable cars for it to change direction…fascinating.
I bolted for that tram and jumped onto it without thinking, not knowing where it was going and paid my $6 for a 1-way trip. All thoughts of “dafuq am I going” were soon quelled as this hulking bit of mechanical history lugged forward. You could hear the creak of it’s age on every turn. It was a fairly slow, though luxurious ride…totally a tourist’s pace where you could soak in the surroundings. What I loved about the cable cars was that they seemed to be manually operated, a driver would push and pull levers and cables, a total nightmare for automatic drivers like moi.
I was driven through Chinatown and Russian Hill. Apparently San Francico has the largest Chinatown in the world. They should just rename it Chinaworld. Or Chinaverse. After a bunch of turns and people-who-were-hanging-off-the-poles getting their arses clipped by car side-mirrors, I could clearly see I was heading towards the coast…so west. West coast homie. I ended up at Fisherman’s Wharf.
Fisherman’s wharf is a tourist trap. It didn’t stop it from being gorgeous though. Despite having loads of resident-loathing tourist activity – it still felt mighty chilled out. Maybe it was the ocean breeze. Maybe because blue is a tranquil colour and we were surrounded by the sea and clear sky. Maybe it was the keyboard sax busker duo calming us down with what seemed to be an 80’s Singstar playlist tribute. I noticed that almost everybody was carrying a rather large bread bun around on takeaway plates. I thought to myself, way to go tourists…go from however far you came from to a wharf and you’re jonesing for a hunk of bread…nice one. Then…..SHAZAM!!! The head of the bun popped off and inside…CLAM CHOWDER.
Now, I don’t eat seafood. There are exceptions though: Sashimi (weirdly enough) and any sea creature that has been deepfried to oblivion in a batter that is 3x thicker than the meat it was covering. And now, clam chowder. For the first few sips I held my breath and tried to use (in vain) some sort of magic sensory trick on my tongue that can pick up that “seafoody” taste. Nothing! I just tasted creamy goodness of some sort. The bread bowl was nice, but really it was a bit much. So much you could bludgeon someone over the head with it with aggressive results.
So you’re probably waiting for some kind of point now. Alright! To speed things up I went to two main attractions at Fisherman’s wharf. The SF aquarium and the MUSÉE MÉCANIQUE.
So the aquarium had cool fish and shit. Sweet. Here’s a small photoblast: (bottom left: far out starfish are psycho)
Anyway onto the MUSÉE MÉCANIQUE. From that point in the trip the MUSÉE MÉCANIQUE would’ve had to have been the highlight. So let me just try and summarise what it is. It’s the world’s largest privately owned collection of mechanical instruments and antique arcade games. This place singlehandedly freaked the shit out of me and also thrilled me to the point of child-like giddiness. I spent 5 hours here and blew about $30USD in quarters. Yeah boi.
The museum immerses you in a carnivalesque dream sequence of quarter operated entertainment. From mechanical fortune tellers (creepy as), to automatic pianos (I felt like I needed to be in a wild west saloon) to (possibly) 1800’s porn viewfinders. I felt like I needed to be on a date with someone called Jane, we’re both wearing light wool beige cardigans and I have enough money for a hot dog, fairy floss and a ferris wheel ride. Also I have enough upper body strength to impress Jane with the strength tester (the one with the mallett and bell)…dream sequence indeed. Instead I only had the reflection of the funny warp mirror and photo booth to keep me company. But WHATEVER DUDE, it was sick I couldn’t have had it any other way, stuff you Jane! I barrelled through the museum, game after game, swiping any children out of the way. I HAD TO TRY EVERYTHING. ALL THE THINGS.
The whole feel of the experience was an eruption of visuals and I soaked it good. Art deco, wild west, steam punk, 80’s blocky arcade designs… many design elements which align with my personal interests. Visually and audibly it felt a little eerie, the mixture of mechanical smiling rosey cheeked dolls, sounds of clanking metal and swing jazz / crazy saloon piano jams made me feel like I was in Ratchet in the video game series Bioshock. That’s the same reason I adore that game. They effortlessly mix creepy with aesthetic beauty. (on a side note, at the time I’m writing this post Bioshock Infinite has just been released in the states…squeeeeee)
Also I won two Chinese finger traps and a handful of armymen all in one skill test (shown above). Though I broke free of the trap and consequently broke one of the traps, maybe it’s in my blood. (or not) ALSO, if you saw those antique porn viewfinder thingos above – I was kinda wondering what the arrangement for viewing was back then? Did you line up at some sort of private booth? Could you…buy one for home which you can hide behind a bookshelf? Could you quickly change or alt-tab the slides of the machine to something innocent like the bible or Man Pantaloons Weekly? Were there multiple viewer options? Damn.
So I won’t forget Fisherman’s Wharf for that reason (all of the above, not just the porn). As I’m typing this in a secret bookshelf room in Brooklyn, New York (I’ll get to that), it just came to me that I’m freakin’ glad I punted that particular tram.
-Chumpy