It’s always a pleasure to write about friends, and that’s what I’m doing in this column — friends like John Coppola, Bernard Quintana and Fook Fook. I’m also taking this opportunity to display my cranky side. See below in Changing with the Times and New ... Read More
This is the first — and probably the last — “Best of North Beach” list I will write. I say probably the last, since my esteemed editor has better judgment than to let me get away with these idiosyncratic awards on a regular basis. Here goes. I call these coveted a... Read More
This North Beach Sketches column is becoming too beefy for my taste. Too many snippets about guys and guy things with only a sidelong glance at North Beach gals, past and present. Yes, we’ve taken note of a few feminine heavyweights, not heavyweights as in tipping the scale... Read More
North Beach has always been a funny place — a haven for comedy and comics. In San Francisco’s early days (and where we now call North Beach was San Francisco), there was a mixed bag of men and a few women: miners, merchants, clerks, entrepreneurs, sailors, ruffians, c... Read More
As I scribble this column, I sift through memories, North Beach memories of course. Let’s consider the majesty of the written word. The old neighborhood has seen both flood and ebb tides as a haven for writers, from the bawdy to the Beat to Banksy. These days the coffeehous... Read More
Last month in the first North Beach “Sketches” column, I called the old neighborhood “la dolce vita with an attitude.” Yes, Columbus Avenue — resembles Rome’s Via Condotti in that wonderful sixties Fellini movie. I guess that makes me Marcello, the jad... Read More
North Beach is an enclave of Mediterranean ambience overlaid with energetic and adventurous seekers of the good life. In the North Beach rakish bohemian culture there’s always been a sense of creative possibility. It wafts over the old neighborhood like the perfume of garli... Read More