San Francisco has a special place in my heart.  It has the romantic feel of New York City mixed with the casual, laid back feel of California. This combination makes San Fran a bit of a utopia for me, except, it’s still too darn cold. If it had the same weather as LA, I would definitely have been tempted to live there, but now that I’ve grown accustomed to sun and warmth, I am happy to visit the City by the Bay at least once or twice a year.  My husband and I never grow bored of the city, and are always discovering something new to do and somewhere new to see. On this last trip we went to the city’s Carnavale festival, saw the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit at the de Young Museum, took a Noir-themed walking tour that focused on the life and writings of Dashiell Hammett, and took in the fireworks honoring the Golden Gate Bridge, among other fun little adventures that I will detail in upcoming blogs. Being that this is a FASHION and TRAVEL blog, I would be remiss to not tell you all about the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit. Back when the E! Channel used to focus on fashion, I spent many hours of my youth watching their fashion runway telecasts. During fashion week I was glued to the television watching pieces of magnificent art walk down a little runway. Jean-Paul Gaultier’s fantastical and irreverent designs quickly became my favorite and greatly inspired my youth and the designer I am today. The exhibit at the de Young was overwhelming to say the least.  There were six large galleries filled with Gaultier’s creations, sketches, videos, monologues, photographs, etc. And each of the galleries was absolutely packed with people. There was a...

Taking the Staten Island Ferry is like taking a little cruise, offering spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline.  I’ve seen it sailing back and forth at the mouth of the Hudson River and have discovered that the Staten Island Ferry is much more than just a floating bus. The Staten Island Ferry shuttles commuters and tourists back and forth from New York City’s fourth borough of Staten Island; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The ferries depart from Whitehall Terminal in lower Manhattan and St. George Ferry Terminal on Staten Island.  During rush hours, ferries run every 15 to 20 minutes, slowly decreasing in service to 30 minutes on evenings and weekends, with once an hour service provided late nights. Riding the Staten Island Ferry is one of the best tickets in town as it’s FREE! But, it wasn’t always that way! In 1817, ferry service between New York City and Staten Island began under the ownership of former New York governor Daniel D. Thompkins.  Thompkins secured the rights to operate the ferry service and to build a bridge to the island (which never happened) in exchange for his development of the village of Thompkinsville, which is still a prominent neighborhood, today. When the Civil War began, some of the ships were commandeered by the US Army and never returned to passenger service.  With the opening of the Staten Island Railway in the 1850’s, the population on the island skyrocketed and the number of passengers on the ferries dramatically began to increase. Originally, the cost to ride was the same as the subway, a nickel.  But, as the cost of subway tokens went up, the ferry toll stayed low. The price rose to a dime in...

“They were here before you were” is what the sign says on the front window. This iconic New York City bar has served up their homemade brew since the 19th century. While the world outside McSorley’s has dramatically changed, what’s inside has changed very little. St. Patrick’s Day weekend is upon us and people will enjoy piling into a local pub for libations and to celebrate the Irish, regardless of their own heritage. You can bet McSorley’s will be packed several patrons deep. I first visited the place many years ago while some friends were visiting town. We had read about the history and knew that this pub was something special, but were unprepared for what we found. It’s a time capsule back to the 1800’s. The antique bar, no stools, the old fashioned metal taps, no cash register, and sawdust floor. A working coal stove is centrally located and still keeps the place warm during the winter. It’s neat to see Houdini’s handcuffs clamped to the bar and wishbones, covered in decades of dust, hanging from the lamps. It is said these were left by World War I soldiers. When the soldier returned from battle, he would remove the wishbone he had left. The wishbones that remain are from the soldiers who never came home. The exact opening date seems to be in dispute. McSorley’s claims they opened in 1854, but according to notes posted online, the lot was vacant until at least 1881. At this point, when the place is over a century and a half old, who is going to complain about a few decades? Besides, it is listed as New York City’s oldest continually operated bar. The original owner, John McSorley, was born in Tyrone, Ireland in 1827. After a potato blight struck the country, he left for...

I left New York City about two weeks after Sept 11, 2001. At the time, I felt like a bit of a heel (for those that don’t speak Noir- a heel is worse than a cad but better than a crum-bum.) After all, the entire nation was weeping and praying and sending their love to New York and I was all “Peace out, bitchez- I’m going to Cali! Good luck with all that healing and shit- Daddy’s getting his beach on!” Of course, there are a couple of reasons why I shouldn’t have felt bad for leaving: 1. I had been planning to move out of NYC for some time before Sept 11 and had quit my job and already secured an apartment in LA. 2. While the entire nation was happy to pour love and affection into NYC, there was no way in hell that any of them were actually about to show up there in person. In fact, I would bet that most of the red-state, pink-cheeked Americans in Oklahoma and Missouri (that’s a place, right? “Missouri”?) who bought shiny new FDNY caps and “We Will Not Forget” t-shirts on Sept 12, 2001, hated New York with a passion on Sept 10. They hated the gays, the Jews, the commies, the Yankees, the Mets, the Knicks, Spike Lee, Woody Allen, Ed Koch, subways, hot dogs, pastrami, homeless people, drug dealers, the smell of urine, high taxes, bad traffic, knishes, theatre, Puerto Ricans, Brooklyn accents, stockbrokers, Port Authority, being yelled at and, yes, probably even the World Trade Center. The only way they could sustain their empathy for New Yorkers after the attacks was if they pretended that the hook-nosed, cross-dressing, book-reading, coke-snorting socialists which they had (quite accurately) believed New Yorkers to...

Last weekend, Night Mother opened, bringing seven months of work to light. This weekend those seven months came to a quiet end with the closing of the show. It was a great experience, invaluable lessons learned and all that business. While it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it was exactly what I needed. The family came in from Michigan, in fact I saw old familiar faces that had been missing for too long. And for the first time since I graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC, 2001, I have actually ACTED. Imagine that. For years now I have been telling people, “No really. I CAN act!” But I haven’t been given a chance to really display the talent I continue to profess I have. So I got the idea to produce my own play. Why the hell not? I grew up doing mostly small theatre, I figured it couldn’t be that difficult to pull off a little show here. So I picked a two woman piece I have wanted to perform in since I first worked on it over 10 years ago, Night Mother, and off I went. A terribly unorganized often self destructive chick with a dream, to produce and star in a play. That’s it. Over the past seven months I have been tested in ways I certainly didn’t expect and still more ways I did. From losing my original co-star, to the director losing her home and our constant search for free rehearsal space I was pushed. Rehearsals became a wonderful escape from the building tensions in and around the show. My new found patience was tested time and again when it became clear that my hand picked director freaked out over all things great and small....