i will never be young again or any younger than i am today. i will never be faster or more flexible. i will never win competitions against 22-year-old wrestlers in my weight class. i will never be a black belt. none of those things will happen, but none of that matters anymore. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder san francisco is changing. we all know it. you can t stop it. were you born here? yeah, both generations of my grandparents are from san francisco. my dad s side came out after the gold rush, so came here in the 1850s. author john birdsall grew up in this town, and he s a close observer of the changes happening here. you know, when i first came out to san francisco, i was making all the same sort of tired jokes that everybody from new york that comes out to san francisco the first time makes. you know, i thought it was all
together we support immune function. supply fuel for immune cells and sustain tissue health. ensure with twenty-five vitamins and minerals, and ensure complete with thirty grams of protein. the bay area is changing forever. will san francisco s new overlords find a place in their hearts for this? trader vic s. one of the last of its kind. started in oakland in one of a wave of tiki-themed polynesian fantasy restaurants, bars, and nightclubs that, for a time, spread across america. i definitely need the drinks menu.
i ve been beaten like a chicken fried steak, you know? why? oh, you were doing some sort of martial art, weren t you? yes. yes. i want the mai tai wave. what s the mai tai wave? it s a flight of mai tais. really? it s like a surfboard with three different mai tais. not many places left that do this. very few do it without irony. this is not the first time you ve been here? no, i practically grew up in this place. really? my parents used to take me from, like, about age three. it was like a home birth at trader vic s, and then i author sean wilsey grew up in san francisco. his parents were regulars at the original downtown vic s. i used to drop acid and go to hawaii kai, so this kind of thing is a taste of my childhood too. oh, yeah. oh, cool. i got sent to boarding school when i was a teenager. an east coast boarding school, where everybody was, like, oh, you re from the gay bay, and it was really difficult to just negotiate being from san