VENETIC

HORSE MAN

Does San Francisco!

"The biggest problem for a jetset guy like me is actually being let into San Francisco...."

"I get this every time I disembark at the airport - I mean, do I look like an alien?"

"One of my favourite places in San Francisco is the Presidio Pet Cemetery."

"It's full of touching headstones like this one."

"Forget the Golden Gate Bridge - here's the bank that Patty Hearst robbed

when she was with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974!"

"And here we have the site of the temple run by the Reverend Jim Jones,

the man that gave the world the Jonestown massacre in 1978. Oddly enough, on Memorial Day in 1977,

Jones and six hundred of his followers had participated in an anti-suicide rally at the Golden Gate Bridge."

"Even more conceptually absurd: this is the Haight area apartment on Cole Street

that Charlie Manson lived in during the Summer of Love in 1967."

"So why is this fire hydrant by Dolores Park painted gold?

Well, after the 1906 earthquake, it was the only one that was still working

when the Great Fire burnt down large parts of the city, and it helped save several city blocks."

"Over 100 years ago, this stretch of Jackson Street in Chinatown

was the site of San Francisco's most notorious opium dens!

Unfortunately, I don't know where the good ones are these days..."

"When I'm in beatnik mode, I dress in black and hang out at City Lights Bookstore!"

"Recent excavations uncovered this discarded beaver skin bra

beneath the corner of Washington & Kearny Streets:

the site of the very first topless bar in the United States (1885)."

"Caffé Trieste in North Beach is where Francis Ford Coppola worked on the script for The Godfather."

"I still have nightmares about that scene with the horse's head in the bed!"

"And let's not forget one of the culinary delights of San Francisco - jerky!

They have everything from teriyaki jerky to turkey jerky, but I decided to settle for plain old beef!"

"Well, here goes!"

"Don't worry, I'll be OK!"

"No, honestly, I'm fine!"

"There's nothing like living on the edge in ol' Frisco!"