I received a random email today from Walton.  He wrote a great little piece on San Francisco that I wanted to share with all of you.

AND OH’

by Walton Jordan

I like finding a spot in every city I go to just to sit and watch people.  It’s basically the same every city you go to.  People in a rush to get where they’re going.  Cars going too fast.  People walking across the street when they shouldn’t.  Even the homeless people are in a rush to go nowhere.

People talking on cell phones.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a lady on a cell phone get out of their car and lock their keys in the car along with their kid in the baby seat.  How rich kids pretend to be poor and how poor kids pretend to be rich.  How gay people pretend to be straight and how some straight people pretend to be gay.  How a man and a woman can forget about anyone else being around and take the time to stop and kiss and hold each other right on the street in the middle of the rush.  Where dreamers come and learn to just survive, by getting a job they really don’t want. They would rather be playing music, writing poetry, dancing, or just sitting around with other people who are dreamers like themselves.  How some people love being at work, because they don’t know how to act, if they’re not working.

How every city has a place you can go and forget you’re in the city.  How every city is black or white without that much grey in the middle.  I’ve been to a lot of cities.  Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chi-town, Grand Rapids, Rock City, Memphis, Atlanta, and New York Fucking City!  But one stands out more than any other cities I’ve been to, and that’s San Francisco!  A city that’s always fighting with itself.  It has every kind of social class, race, and lots of pretty women.  The people in the city want to be poetically correct, but there’s too much rebellion in the air for that to work fully.  This city was built on being rebellious.  It’s a city that’s known for its gay people, but every city has a lot of gay people.

San Francisco is a lot more than that; its a city that wants to scream at the top of its lungs, but scared it might offend someone.  The city is only 7 by 7 miles, so it’s easy to get from one side of town to the other side. It has a fog that’s as  thick as chili, but without the depression like in Seattle.  There’s an unexplained magic in the air that makes the ground shake and demands your attention.  Its how rich people live close to poor people and poor people live close to rich people. It’s how the city swings back and forth to it’s own pulse. It’s how you can be at a place where the beer costs $12 each and two doors down you can get a beer for $1.50. It’s how young and old desperately want to shake their fist in the air and yell, “ FUCK IT ALL!” And where big deals are made.

San Francisco is the kind of place where Lucifer would live, because there a peace amongst the maddest here in this city.  San Francisco is the kind of place where God would come down to play chess, talk, and listen to good music at the same table as Lucifer, because there a melodic tone here where the people walk around in a trance and still able to function.  San Francisco is the place where you can get high even if you don’t get high.  San Francisco is all that and more.  Maybe I feel this way about this city, because I found a lady whose attention I’ve got to have.  I’m not sure, maybe it’s all of the above.  Oh’  San Francisco.