Friday, April 28, 2006

Bagdad by the bay

Hola, Chicas! So now I'm in San Francisco. I LOVE the San Francisco Board of Supervisors but more on that later. I've got a book reading at Cody's on Stockton and after that, am heading up to Fisherman's Wharf for a taste of San Francisco. But you wouldn't believe what a gauntlet I had to run to get there!

Coming out of the airport, I had to drive through onethe scummiest neighborhoods, full of the most Mexican lowlifes you ever saw. I was told this is real-deal Latino neighborhood but there wasn't anything upwardly mobile about it (proving that this is a racist society). Anyway it definitely wasn't fit for someone like me, the dirty queen of chica lit and the spokeswoman for an entire generation of empowered Latinas.

I stopped off at at a place called Cafe Macondo. Never again. None of the furniture MATCHED in this place and it was all old and worst of all it smelled old.

They served this sort of icky thick coffee out of a yellow and red can called 'Bustelo' (Girls, I always get mine fresh) and in these TINY china cups! (Give me Starbucks any day. I wonder what I'll do for coffee when my "peeps" finally get in power and nationalize all private businesses? Oh well, we'll all have to sacrifice a little I guess). "What's with the tiny cups?" I asked. I looked around and I started smelling a ripoff already. "Are you that fucking cheap? Why are these goddamned coffee cups no bigger than my false eyelash case!" I asked the chica at the counter. "I think you're cheating me!" I could barely understand her because of her shitty Mexican accent but she seemed to be saying it was not personal and that they always served their "coffee," - I mean, "cafe," WHATEVER - that way.

Sure! Don't they not know how many of these tiny fucking cups of coffee it takes to make up just one cup of jos ar SB? I would have to buy a dozen of those chintzy cupfulls. This crummy little establishment had no idea that coffee comes in PAPER cups in 'tall,' 'grande' and 'venti.' And what an stupid name, 'Macondo' like I'm supposed to buy some real estate there after that "coffee" experience! This just really blows, fucking beaners!

It didn't get any better when I went to one of those burrito joints. I asked them for the menu and they pointed to the wall. "Yeah but where's the vegetarian menu?" I asked. The fat Mexicans, who'd obviously filled up on plenty of these burrritos didn't speak much English and just pointed to the wall. "Goddam it, where is the vegetarian menu! They shrugged. Then after I realized there wasn't any, I said: "I WANT lettuce on my burrito!"

All they had was fucking meat. They told me I had a choice of carne asada, bistek, some pork thing-carnitas, or "shicken." I wanted to scream! What kind of healthy eating is that?! The only "vegetable" they had in that place was, barf, refried pinto beans! Where were the sprouts?! Where was the carrot shreds?! Where was the lettuce?! Where was the cucumber?! Oh there were some dirty-looking radishes on the table but I wasn't going to eat those, just to get a goddamned vegetable! What kind of a place is this? I'm calling the health department because nobody should be legally allowed to serve such unbalanced, unhealthy, un-appetizing meals! You could catch a disease in that place!

The whole place is crazy. In the middle of this trash, graffiti, bums and grimy used merchandise places that weren't antique shops, I found an oasis. It was a bookstore called Modern Times and I fell in love with it right away because of its many Che Guevara posters and its hammer and sickle decor. There were adoring books about my hero, Fidel and his free spiritedness! I was in heaven, it was just like being home!

And the next thought that came to my mind was why hadn't my goddam publicist scheduled me to speak here! Wouldn't everyone at Modern Times like to buy "Make Him Feel Good"? I asked fot the book and the brown-bereted Chicano at the counter actually had the nerve to tell me, the Reina Dirty, best selling author and one of Time magazine's 25 most influential Hispanics that they carry that "garbage" and suggested I hoof it up the next street to some place called 'Good Vibrations'.

I was late and had to get to fucking Cody's. I had no time and wanted out of there anyway. In the meantime, girls, go out and buy my book!

not Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

1 comment:

Orlando Furioso said...

Thank you for the laugh.