San Francisco is nothing like I imagined it. For one, I did not see a single fag. I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. I saw Alcatraz. (from the shore, but still) I drove down some steep twisty streets. And yet, San Francisco is nothing like I imagined it. For some reason I thought it would be a modern city. I swear, the last piece of construction was completed in the 70’s. I thought it would be crawling with hippies, like Portland. But no, everyone there is Asian. Ooh, BTW, did I mention that EVERYONE in San Fran is Asian? Totally cereal.

I wanted to go out to eat. I wanted to drink. There were 17 restaurants within a 1 mile radius of me. They were all Asian. I talked to the clerk at the hotel. “Do you know of any hotels around here that I can get a beer at? That aren’t Asian?”

“No, you have to drive 5 miles to get to the nearest American restaurant.”

“Well, OK, I’ll try anything twice. What is the best Japanese restaurant around here?”

“HaHa! Stupid American! Sushi is for the workers, eh, how do you say? The labor workers. It is for those who can’t afford Sashimi. Here eat Sashimi.” I didn’t know if I should feel honored or insulted. I ate the raw fish. It was awesome. The coolest thing about the raw fish that I ate was that most of it was brought in by locals who caught it hours earlier, and some of it was actually sea snail, and some of it was actually illegally poached sea snail. Why do illegal things always taste so much sweeter? I was there for hours eating whatever the locals tossed across the bar to the bartender and drinking whatever rice based alcoholic beverage he tossed at me. It was awesome!

That is the one redeeming thing about business trips - drinking with Asians. For example, tonight I was drinking Yuengling and eating 150,000 scoville heat unit wings (http://www.quakersteak.com/food/menus/core_menu.pdf)and it sucked. You know why? No Asians. OK, maybe that’s not true. Last night was awesome and there weren’t any Asians there, just Italians. That is the one redeeming thing about business trips – drinking with locals. I’m done with trendy bars. Long live Asians!