San Francisco Things to Do Tips by Lornabug

After the guys shampooing the alley we parked in as part of "Sleazy 6th's" makeover warned us not to leave anything on the seats or they'd be cleaning up my car's glass, we dodged the forgotten ones of the Tenderloin to Market and started looking for 1007 with most stores' graffiti-tagged cages rolled down, making our task harder. I buzzed at a sandwich sign and a light over a recessed door covered in stickers and someone came out, leaving. A quick "Is this the Luggage Store?" and we went up stairs covered in scrawlings, stickers, fliers, and strange art relics.

That afternoon listening to KUSF I heard a spot for the experimental 2006 Edgetone Music Summit so I went with the motto I later read penciled in the gallery's restroom: "Try something new." You can do just that at the gallery's Creative Music Thursday. Check the website, call, or listen to KSJC or KUSF for details.

Thankfully, the second-floor sunlit white-walled studio was in clean contrast to getting there and the festival director took our 20 in a white lab coat while a glance around revealed nothing but four huge canvases, chairs, and a stage.

Our evening was a 3.5 hr extravaganza of Pamela Z, a woman sampling and mixing her own operatic voice live while playing sounds and images with a Thiermann-like apparatus; Positive Knowledge, an erratic woman with myriad of rattley instruments, a man who made a bass clarinet sound like a harmonica, and a drummer who looked like he couldn't keep his soul inside; and NIRISU III a harpist with paper and fingernails rattling the strings and fingers strumming its hollow body, a schizophrenic double bass that spoke through its player like a ventrilloquist, and a visuals guy in the middle with a laptop who looked like he lost his coffee shop on a tiny chair at a tiny table.

The gallery is a unique music venue, with the city sounds and streetlight seeping in from outside and it is your chance to see SF's creative residents at their best.

Take BART or a taxi for your own adventure, and also come for the art.

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Phone: (415) 255-5971
Address: 1007 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94103
Directions: SE corner of Market & 6th across from the Golden Gate Theater. Next to the little yellow all night Taqueria place. There's an ATM at the Donught Store across 6th if you forget cash. Visit www.511.org to plan your mass transit trip.
Website: http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/
Other Contact: http://www.511.org

O.K., so maybe I live my life from coffee shop to coffee shop... but who cares when they're this cool!

Java Beach Cafe is at the end of Judah on the Great Highway, a perfect place to stop in and warm up to a chai when you're checking out the sure-to-be-chilly Ocean beach side of the city. I like to come here to take a break from my classes at nearby SFSU. There is no better place to stop for coffee this side of town, so DO stop in, and forget the Cliffhouse. Check out the website (link below) for a better description than I can write, with pics and all.

Whether sitting inside at the bar, a table, or bench, or sitting outside in the sun (or fog!) you will get a taste of the local Sunset district culture: lots of dog owners, yuppies, cold-blooded surfers, students, and the like, mostly reading the paper, chatting, or surfing the (free) internet. The beans here are mostly fair trade and organic, of course. Lots of tasty treats from perogis to scones. Also beer and wine and salads.

Getting here is easy: it's a couple blocks south of Golden Gate Park as close to the beach as you can get. The streets don't actually dump out onto the Great Highway but with the tiny parallel street, La Playa. So you'll have to turn off the Highway either at Sloat and go north to Judah or at Lincoln and go south to Judah. The streets parallel to Judah run alphabetically south, if that helps.

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Address: 1396 La Playa St, San Francisco, CA
Directions: A couple of blocks south of Golden Gate Park where it meets the ocean.
Website: http://www.javabeachcafe.com/Default.aspx