Tales of MY City

I know I haven't posted for a long time and I also know you want to hear about my trip to New York (fabulous, in one word) and I promise I will write another post talking about that and the results of the latest MRIs and what is happening with the new business and the latest culinary creations by Carla and Liza, but right now I want to talk about the world premiere of the musical Tales of the City which I saw today with Trish.

Yes, it's that Tales of the City, based on the serial which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle starting May 1976, which then later became a series of 6 books and then finally a miniseries on PBS starring Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis.   The musical is wonderful.  It's funny and evocative and charming and emotional and clever and extremely entertaining.  The entire cast is excellent, as are the sets, design, choreography, costumes, etc.

But what I really want to talk about is how I related to it and how it affected me.  I arrived in San Francisco in the Fall of 1973, from Europe by way of a 3 week road trip across the USA.  I stayed with my sister Trish at first, as I fully intended to only be here a month or so, after which I would travel up to Canada and then take the train across Canada to eventually arrive in Finland to visit my good friend Ulla who is Finnish but whom I had met in Munich, and then resettle in Paris.

Except that I fell in love with San Francisco.  It seemed to combine all the qualities of my 3 favorite cities: the culture of New York, the cosmopolitanism and sophistication of Paris, and the beauty and joy of Rio de Janeiro which is also situated between a Bay and an Ocean.  I eventually found my own apartment (a studio in Noe Valley) and a job (financial analyst for Fibreboard Corporation).

I don't remember very much about the next 3 years.  The only friends I made also worked at Fibreboard. I hated working for a corporation and I had little in common with the people I met there.  Then one day I met Michel, a Frenchman living in SF.  We became friends and I started doing some work for him on the side.  I loved it and I loved being able to speak French again.  Then Michel moved to Houston, TX to start an import/export company and when he called me to come to Texas and work with him, I jumped at the chance.  Anything to get out of that corporate world.  So I packed up my little green VW bug and drove to Texas.   I lasted 4 months (March through June 1976) after which I gave up on the heat and the mentality and the FOOD (oy) and called my good friend Roger Pearson to fly out and help me drive my two cars back to SF (I'd gotten a good deal on a used Mercedes but still had the bug).

You're probably wondering why I'm writing about all this.  There's a reason.  The day we arrived back n SF a week later is the day my life here really began.  After dropping off my cars at my studio, we went to the bar The Bus Stop on Union Street for a drink and I met Kate Earl, who instantly became one of my closest friends and who still is (even though ironically enough she is now living in Texas).  On the way out, we bumped into friends of Roger's, Ruthie and Bob Shaps, who also became close friends.  Later that week I walked into a cheese shop in Tiburon and picked up a brochure on a cooking class.  I called the teacher that night who was Larry Negri, originally from Rhode Island, and we ended up talking for 3 hours.  I not only ended up taking every class he taught, he also became my friend, my older brother, my mentor, my playmate.  Kate took the classes with me and there we met Dan Cane (and by extension his partner Dick) and Lillian Wendroff (and later her husband Alan who ended up being the one who caused me to meet Elson but we'll forgive him for that).  The 7 of us - Larry, Kate, Dick and Dan, Lillian and Alan and myself - became a village.  We were constantly together.  Kate and I were basically inseparable - some people where she worked even thought we were a couple - and people still remember the parties we used to give.  I still tell people about the New Year's Eve we all spent at Dick and Dan's.  Everyone contributed something and Dick's contribution was a tin of Beluga caviar.  He was so disgusted when we wolfed it down in less than 15 minutes - it had cost him $500!  What a lot of fun memories from that period.

But life continued to get better and richer.  Within a couple of weeks of meeting Kate and then Larry, I met Richard and Rick through my cousin who was visiting from L.A.  Jeff was an actor at that time and was staying with Rick who was also an actor at that time.  Richard and Rick are still good friends to this day, even though they are no longer together - Richard living in Florida and Rick in France with Eric (and yes, Rick, Carla and I are still planning to come visit - I just don't know when yet).

And finally, I got to meet everyone who worked with Kate at Romano Wine Imports since I worked with her at all the wine tastings and thus I met Michael and Francine Filice, who are part of My Village and still extremely close friends.

All this happened in the Fall of 1976, right when Tales of The City was being serialized in the Chronicle.  We all read it religiously.  After all, it was our life being depicted - although instead of being into drugs, we were into food and wine - and we still are.  All these memories came flooding back as I watched this play.  The feeling of being part of a family (Richard used to always say you can't choose your family but you can choose your friends).  The joy, the abandonment, the total non-judgment.  Every day was an adventure and every night we were on the phone with each other.

The first act consisted of recreating this era and introducing the characters.  It reminded me of a Neil Simon or Woody Allen play with one liners being thrust right and left and you could tell which of us in the audience had been around at that time.

The second act was a bit heavier and more emotional.  One of the main characters, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, had not told his parents he was gay and he finally wrote a letter to his mother (which he sang) in which he told her in a very loving way.  Anna Madrigal had the secret of being a transgender.  One by one all these secrets came out and by the end of the play everyone was accepting of everyone.  My sister and I were both sniffling and choking back tears several times.  One of the things I adore about this city is the lack of judgment and the acceptance of all kinds.

But mainly I was reminded of the first village I had when I came back to SF in 1976 and the village I have now, which includes some of the original members - Kate, Francine.  I have been so lucky to always have been surrounded by loving and supportive friends.  That is what Tales of the City is all about.  And that is why I consider them to be Tales of MY City.