Greetings From .....

EDIT: I wrote this last week... too lazy to change the tense ;P

Right, so I'm in San Francisco. Covering the Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass Festival... main focus, Mondo Cane. And hanging with friends. Actually I'm probably more excited about the epicness that will be Sunday night's show because I will be with some pretty fucking rad people.

Already I am blown away by the peeps I am renting a house with - they rock! The house is this tall, yellow, typical San Fran house in the Haight area, actually very close to Haight and Ashbury.



It's dope and we like to call it the Mondo Cane Party House, except at the moment most of our partying has been taking place outside of the house.

I flew in by myself on Wednesday and spent the day dicking around the city center and what not. Stayed at a most awesome hotel (Des Artes) with the most awesome, fitting hotel room:









Next day I interviewed one of my heroes, Bill Gould, the bassist and brainchild behind Faith No More. How amazing was this? The coolest guy (which I already knew), good food on Haight St (he paid, what a gentleman) and a really intriguing 2 hour lunch - You can read the article HERE :)



Afterwards I met up with my housemates, went out for Pho at a noodle bar, also in Haight, it was huge:



We went out for a few drinks in the Mission area at Benders (Bill wrote me a guide to San Fran and recommended this bar), saw a the most hilarious, ironic hipster speech at this impromptu sit-in outside the BART station. It was like open mic-night:



Next morning we walked to Golden Gate Park to see MC Hammer... haha it was awesome.



Here I am doing my Hammertime impression:


Then my BF showed up and we went to Humphrey Slocombe's famous ice cream shop for it's million flavours. I had schezeuan strawberry, Mike had Jesus Juice (coke and wine) and Helen had olive oil. Seriously subtle and tasty:



Then we continued our culinary escapade through the Mission district to the tiny Pirate Cat Radio Cafe... a radio station/coffee shop that serves... BACON MAPLE LATTES! If you like bacon (and who doesn't), you'll love this. Smokey, sweet... mmmm bacon fat infused steamed milk with maple syrup and bacon bits. DROOL! Heart attack in a cup!



We went past the Mission Delores, the scene of Carlotta Valdes's grave in my favourite movie, Vertigo:



Next up, acting like dorks in front of the Painted Ladies... cue "Full House" theme song:




Sign says "This is NOT Full House!"

Then a jaunt around Little Italy or North Beach for some appies and drinks:





Followed by the organic, tiny, extremely popular Mexican restaurant (part of Bill's recommendation) Nopalitos. Worth the two hour wait for a table (we busied ourself at an Ethiopian bar):



After that, we were pretty tired but we managed to meet Bill for drinks at a few Lower Haight bars. Joining him was a familiar face, Marc, the guy who interviewed me after The Warfield show. I was surprised he remembered me! Really cool dude, great stories and some pretty funny moments.



He snapped this cute pic of us and sent it to me :)



What a great start to San Fran, right? Well, the next day I ended up having my iPhone stolen. Yeah.... sucks big time. I can't ever have a trip where nothing goes wrong, can I? LOL oh well, good times regardless and Thank God I have brilliant friends who are lifesavers in these situations. So... all is well that ends well!