Category: San Francisco

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Suggested Song: The Night Before, The Beatles
Suggested Drink: Espresso Martini: vodka, Kahlua, espresso, simple syrup (good for the morning or night).

I’ve always been an early riser. Sometimes my work required it; mostly I just preferred it. This bias has become more ingrained with age. I’m usually up before dawn now, and winding down shortly after dinner. I used to fight it, now I lean into it. The agency of aging.

I love running before daybreak. The San Francisco air is fresh, the streets are empty, and the quiet calm reveals an urban temperament most locals would not recognize. In my Civic Center neighborhood the morning commute will soon fill the air with a cacophony of beeping horns and lurching buses and a start-stop rhythm of red-light traffic flows. The sidewalks will bustle with coffee-clutching bobbleheads talking loudly to no one while rushing to work. The homeless emerge, dog walkers get fido out for the morning poop, and the F Line street cars start clanging their way up and down Market Street. It’s a radical contrast with the moonlit serenity I enjoyed just an hour earlier.

Photo by Craig Lee, San Francisco Examiner.

Aix-en-Provence is different but the contrast no less distinct. French tourist towns rise early. The streets may feel sleepy but a lot’s happening behind the curtain. Boulangiers are rolling out dough and firing up ovens well before sunrise. The cafes along the grand Cours Mirabeau won’t open for another hour of two, but the pre-shift is already setting up terrace tables and chairs as I jog by in the dark. Aix’s sidewalks and alleys enjoy a pre-dawn hosing down, while loud sweeper trucks bristle past. (Aix hint: never rent along the Cours. Oh, those apartments above street level look elegant with their high windows and long views down the tree-lined promenade, but the early morning noise? Infernal.)

By 8 a.m. Aix will be humming with a different sort of species. The morning shoppers with straw baskets (paniers) will be getting first picks at the farmers markets in the Richelme or Prêcheurs plazas; the bread-crazy French will be queuing at boulangeries for baguettes and croissants and pains au chocolat; and the cafe tables will start filling up with cigarette-smoking, espresso-sipping locals, and a few early-rising vacationers puzzling over coffee options. (A market merchant or 2 will likely be enjoying a fortifying half pastis or rosé before the rush.)

The Passage Agard in Aix-en-Provence, before the crowds get moving.

My friends are mostly night owls, not morning larks. Their productive hours start later in the day and run into the evenings. Stay up until midnight writing or gaming or watching Netflix? No problem. Sleep in until 9 a.m. or later? Even better.

If we plan a night out, even an impromptu same-day plan, I will rally, but those mid-evening calls – hey, we’re all down at the Forum, what are you up to old bean? – go straight to voicemail these days. I am starting to enjoy my clear mornings more than my cloudy nights, and honoring that shift. The agency of aging.

There’s good reason to fix a night/morning schedule, whether you’re a lark or an owl. The health benefits of getting a solid sleep are well documented – heartier immune system, happier emotions, healthier brain – and a hack for said sleep can be found in honoring a set bedtime, be it early or late. This is harder to follow when we’re young, horny, and expanding our social networks (At the Forum now? I’ll be right down.). But those priorities yield to a different set with age. (If curious to read more about the complex world of sleep, Why We Sleep remains the touchstone on the topic.)

A 2024 study by Imperial College indicates that night owls operate at higher cognitive levels than morning larks. But Bryan Johnson, the popular lifemaxxer, insists that the sweet spot, at least for him, is around 8:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. Lots of conflicting opinions and data, but you have agency. So what’s your birdcall?

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Give A Little Bit, Supertramp
Suggested Drink: Land of Happy cocktail: gin, balsamic shrub, Prosecco, lemon wedge.

I was at an Eid al-Fitr celebration in San Francisco this past weekend. It is a Muslim fete at the end of Ramadan, the festival of breaking the fast. There was a joyous scene bubbling along Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, an immigrant neighborhood bordering the Civic Center where I live. Bouncing houses and shawarma popups, ethnic music and dancing, olive oils from Jordan and pottery from Palestine, an open air clothing bazar selling all manner of niqabs and hijabs and abayas (I’m learning). There were also numerous community organizations offering free services and looking for volunteers. I’m considering my look in a crossing guard vest.

Eid is to be honored through acts of kindness and generosity, of sharing meals with others and being charitable to one’s family and those less fortunate. Other religions have similar traditions: the Jewish Purim, Buddhist Vesak, and Christmas, of course. These benevolent rituals are effective happiness bombs for their followers. It is widely documented that acts of kindness and generosity are some of the lowest hanging fruit in the blessed tree of positive vibes. We get a much greater emotional boost from giving than getting. (For an insightful read on the proven power of generosity, enjoy this paper from the Greater Good Science Center.)

I caught up with an old friend last week, over an afternoon beer at the SF Ferry Building. His wife has been volunteering in a hospice care unit since both parents passed away recently, one shortly after the other. That was quite the emotional hit, understandably, and this act of giving was helping backstop the slide. My sister Cathy too used to volunteer at a Ronald McDonald House, which helps families in need of accommodations and support near pediatric hospitals. Her time spent with children, some terminally ill, could be trying but deeply rewarding. She had her dark moments, as do we all, and this was the best antidote. Cathy was a giver, as is my friend’s wife Susan.

My first 3 months back in San Francisco were spent at the big blue house on 6th Avenue and Irving Street in the Inner Sunset. I was offered a furnished studio there, at no cost, because I needed a temporary place while looking for my next apartment. How did this happen, to enjoy a charming unit in a beautiful historic home in a trendy neighborhood in one of America’s most expensive cities, … for free? Barbara Oleksiw. She’s a giver.

Aside from the large toy library of dolls, games, puzzles and other things Barbara organises and sets out daily for neighborhood families – take what you want and give back what you no longer play with – Barbara offers a community bulletin board, free monthly knife sharpening, and live musical entertainment during street fairs from her sizeable garden. While I was living there, Barbara invited a farmers market bakery to give away their unsold croissants and other delights from her street corner post market, and personally bought 50 roasted Costco chickens to donate to families in need one weekend. She just set up a table with a few friends and gave them away. Inspiring.

Barbara Oleksiw’s Big Blue House in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset.

My mother was also an inexhaustible source of kindness and compassion, and I was blessed. She looked for the best in everyone, never (and I do mean never) criticised, sought calm and compromise in all situations, and was effusive with her smiles and complements and gifts. On the give versus take meter she bent the needle, like Barbara.

The brilliant and the boors

Some people are brilliant suns and others boorish black holes. Most of us bounce in between; good days and bad. Then there are the deeply deprived and aggrieved, wholly committed to sharing their miseries.

Stephen Miller is a fine sample from that angry set of folks stewing at the sewer end of the give versus take spectrum. Let’s take a look. Everything Miller says, every scowl he casts, every immigrant community he demeans, reveals a man deeply unhappy with his lot in life: white and raised upper middle class in sunny Santa Monica, California, a graduate of prestigious Duke University (in just as sunny North Carolina), and political annoyance suddenly elevated to giddy levels of influence and power. The contempt Miller holds for all who contest his zealous beliefs is expressed in a twisted sneer that chills the soul and sucks the warmth out of all in proximity. Think Death Eaters of Harry Potter fame, or the hunched Max Schreck from the 1922 film Nosferatu. Miller is a taker.

So what’s the point here, … (it’s rosé hour, this needs to wrap up). Our place on the give or take spectrum is something over which we have agency. No one can be Mother Theresa 24/7, but we choose to call our better angels or send forth our demons at will. That Winnie was one of the happiest people on earth and also spent her every waken hour with the haloed doers of good deeds does not prove causation. That Stephen Miller presents as one of the angriest people you’d be unfortunate enough to meet and commits his every drop of sulfurous energy squeezing hope from all those in his orbit does not prove causation, but boy is that correlation compelling. Along what part of that spectrum do you want live? I think I know the answer. You know mine too.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Everybody Eats When They Come To My House, Cab Calloway.
Suggested Drink: Any fermented grape worthy of your own home communion.

Communion (noun): intimate fellowship or rapport.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I had been eating out a lot since moving back to San Francisco. It’s fun to let someone else do the cooking from time to time, especially in a gastro mecca like SF, but I get great joy from tinkering in the kitchen. I also love to host. Sharing a home-cooked meal prepared with love for close friends who matter most turns good into great on all counts: the meal, the evening, and the company. It’s the power of communion.

My old kitchen kit arrived from Aix-en-Provence about a week ago, filling out the inventory of pots, pans, utensils, and gadgets I’d been picking up daily from Macy’s, Target, Cliff’s Variety, and other purveyors of fine homeware within a walk from my downtown flat. I’m back to roasting this and braising that while enjoying a glass or 3 of wine (darn it’s expensive here), while Coltrane or Chopin provides an evening soundtrack. Meals out are great, but give me the homespun zen of an evening encounter with a kitchen counter heaped high with fresh produce. What’s even better? Sharing the creation that’s all a’bubble on the stovetop with others.

The kitchenwares aisle at Cliff’s Variety in San Francisco.

I met a lot of fascinating people in Provence. Like Paris, Aix is a melting pot of Gaullist natives and multi-generational immigrants, plus a heaping dose of expats from all points on the globe. Reflecting on my time there, I realize that the closest friendships made where with people who communed on some evening at 7 rue Manuel (damn, I miss that place), enjoying (or suffering through) an alchemy of ingredients from the daily marché and favored boucherie. I would promise the starters and mains, and everyone else pitched in with breads, cheeses, charcuterie, desserts, and wine. The quintessential French dinner party.

(Also upon reflection [over a cold pilsner on the terrace of Anina in Hayes Valley yesterday afternoon]), it dawned on me that dinner communions chez Bill (the cause) begat the deepest and most durable friendships (the effect), and in that order. I didn’t just invite close friends to dinner parties. No, it’s that the people who came for dinner parties often turned into my closest friends. And this was quite a wide-ranging ensemble of ages, interests, talents, peccadillos, and kinks. Always lively, never boring, and rarely ending early.

What is it about these dinner rituals at home that build connections more deeply than an hour or two dining in a restaurant? I think it’s the shared service. In a restaurant we all sit while orders are taken, dishes delivered, silverware replaced, plates removed, wine glasses topped off, and check presented. Off you go now. This communion is elegant, organized, proficient, and performative. Dinners out can be wildly pleasurable, but not deeply communal.

A few close friends joining for a meal at 7 rue Manuel.

In our homes we serve each other, pass around plates, hand each other bread, fill each other’s glasses, forget something or other still steaming on the stove top, stain the table cloth, and then take turns bussing everything back to the sink where clean-up is shared (a couple of volunteers scrubbing and rinsing while the rest of us stand around drinking wine.) This communion is gloriously messy, unscripted, and authentic. As are the deepest relationships, right?

If you find yourself again changing cities or countries or continents you’ll want to find a local tribe. An increasing mountain of evidence shows that strong social connections are fundamental to longer healthspans, particularly with mental health. As we get older this can be more challenging. Consider laying out a dinner table for fun folks you meet here or there, with whom there seems to be a curious connection at first contact. This offer of generosity, this communion ensemble, may plant the seed for friendships that keep you happy and healthy through the many years ahead, … or until you again pull up roots.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: San Francisco, Scott McKenzie
Suggested Drink: Chinese Mai Tai at the Li Po Lounge (Dark and light rum, pineapple juice, and a mysterious “Chinese liquor”).

I’ve been delinquent in getting a new essay out since arriving in San Francisco. A change in amoureux messes with one’s creative rhythms, and while an urban divorce with visitation rights had been my plan, I’m quickly accepting the flaws in my thinking. What’s Plan B?

I am vexed by 2 lovers. When in San Francisco I long for the warm embrace of Aix-en-Provence. When in Aix I miss the urban energy of San Francisco. Both are real seducers but distinct encounters. One is a bustling ball of creative kinks and diversity, the other a charming postcard of Provençal splendor. One, an impatient center of bleeding edge what’s next and its innovators, the other a revered destination for the good life now and its disciples. If San Francisco is a stalking tigress in black leather, Aix is a demure gazelle in white linen.

Their distinctions can be contrasted as much as anything through food. San Francisco is the definition of culinary range. The Inner Sunset (my current squat) offers menus of French, Singaporean, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Eritrean, Italian, Mexican, El Salvadorian, Persian, Moroccan, Greek, and other cuisines packed around the buzzing 9th and Irving core. Banh mi, pho, glass noodles, kitfo, street tacos, sushi, ceviche, pizza, … what’s for dinner tonight? This neighorhood puts my tastebuds in hyperdrive.

Korean BBQ short ribs (Kal Bi) at Manna, the Inner Sunset, SF.
Korean BBQ short ribs (Kal Bi) at Manna, the Inner Sunset, SF.

Aix is a totem of French exceptionalism. The small Mediterranean city has over 40 boulangeries, most packed into the dense centre-ville. Some, such as Farinoman Fou or Hat’s, are considered among the best in France. The daily open air markets overflow with local Provence produce and flowers, honey and lavender. The rich sights and sounds and smells consume the senses. Okay, I surrender, give me a few of those. Yes, you can find flaky croissants and bustling farmers markets in San Francisco. No, as anyone from France will tell you, n’est pas pareil (just not the same.)

I have come to realise that neither affair will ever satisfy completely. A clean Provence break is not possible, nor is resisting San Francisco. The only solution is an open metromarriage, a polyurban arrangement, and that challenge is giving me purpose. Stay tuned.

An aside on big moves: the merits of patience and acceptance

With any audacious endeavor comes challenge, and this move-my-life-back-to-SF adventure has had its hiccups. I’m honing 2 virtues to cope: patience and acceptance. With a bit of effort we eventually get mostly what we need, and when we don’t, … well we can learn to roll with it.

My master plan for reentry went something like this: get reacquainted with the city (it’s been 15 years), optimize on a neighborhood, close on an apartment, fill it with stuff, find your groove.

It turns out I’ve landed into one of the tightest and most expensive housing markets in the country. (That whole doom loop thing? Yeah, that was so post Covid. Try to keep up.) Complicating matters, unlike the nouveau riche swarm of AI techies I don’t have a regular salary 3x the exorbitant rents (medium monthly for a 1 bedroom is now $3,670 as of this writing), and my US credit history is a blank page, having been in France for almost 2 decades.

I am getting to know San Francisco again, visiting old haunts like Mario’s Bohemian and the Tadich Grill, and finding new favorites, like Chez Maman in Hayes Valley (soon to be my permanent quartier). The neighborhoods I had optimized on have become p.r.i.c.e.y (!) and the spacious Victorian flat I imagined, … suffice it to say that expectations have been recalibrated. This took a lot of unit visits to appreciate (patience) and humility to absorb (acceptance). All good.

The Tadich Grill on California Street, SF. California’s oldest restaurant.
The Tadich Grill on California Street, SF. California’s oldest restaurant.

So, I have found my new neighborhood and home, a downtown high-rise apartment along bustling Market Street. Not the charming urban village I had imagined when starting this journey, but we have to be flexible; another virtue that has come in handy. Now the fun part: finding that new groove of favored cafes, restaurants, bars, parks, strolls, and flirtations that will color my days and evenings. The tender touch of Aix has spoiled me damnit. Onward!

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: New Dawn, Gaby Moreno
Suggested Drink: Sidewinder IPA, Snake Lake Brewing Company

“To change one’s life: (1) start immediately; (2) do it flamboyantly; and (3) no exceptions.”
– William James

Snakes molt a few times per year. Their bodies outgrow the old skin, and shedding it helps remove pesky annoyances like parasites and debris.

I’m attempting a molt as the year closes out. I’ve outgrown this skin, and there is always debris to cast. As to parasites, I work hard to stay surrounded with allies and advocates, even of the corrupting kind. Still, there is value in refreshing the circle, for that’s not a zero sum game.

Snake Shedding Skin, by Alysha Dawn

I admit to a few moral failings, from the Calvinist perspective. It can be challenging to refuse a petit verre when offered, and then another. I can tumble for someone impulsively and irrationally, taking the scars and leaving the tears. (The chances of this happening increase proportionally with the number of petits verres.) I am a master procrastinator. Nothing motivates me to dust or do laundry more impulsively than a creative deadline. What else? Plenty.

Can we too slither free from our vexing debris? Unlikely completely. But starting the new year with a fresh unsullied skin, even if not surviving first contact, can be instructive. Some blemished bits and unhealthy pieces merit leaving on the trail. A new set of faults and flaws surely await our serpentine glide. Onward.

So, just how do we slip the skin? These 3 pillars provide the core foundation of authenticity and personal stability (or so I will argue over un petit verre): what you do; where you live; and whom you love. Dislodging just one can provide ample imbalance to loosen the membrane. (I upended all 3 with my move to Provence in 2010. Effective, but not sure I’d recommend it.)

Where I live

It’s normal to experience the occasional stall. The wind dies, the sails flutter, the sea calms, and there you sit. I have learned to accept these pauses as an excuse to do nothing productive until the wind picks back up (see moral failings above). It always has and I have had fun waiting. Recently it hasn’t, and so I’ve decided to row to a new lagoon across the sea. Maybe there’s a fresh breeze over there. Maybe I’ll grow a brilliant new skin over there.

Here I float in my new lagoon, typing a few words and playing some music when not dusting or doing laundry. C’mon you beautiful breeze.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Bordertown, Bill Magill
Suggested Drink: Tecate Cerveza, with lime

Puta, Spanish for “Whore” (noun): “A person who is willing to compromise their integrity or principles for personal gain.”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1980s

I was known to venture south of the border on occasion in my youth, crossing the Rio Grande into Nuevo Laredo or down the Baja coast to Ensenada. The unpredictable lawlessness of these border regions sparked the adrenalin injectors in ways not possible north of the divide.

I made acquaintances down there that still warm the corazón. I sought to be a safe after-hours companion, with little money and pidgin Spanish, but charming in my clueless gringo way. Nothing was solicited but trust and adventure. Rainée took me midnight dancing at the Ballroom Holiday Inn, where she kept a room on the manager’s tab. Claudia had a tiny live/work bungalow behind a La Zona cantina. We drank Tecate from the can and talked LA Olympics until sunrise. She aspired to dance the salsa for a gold medal. Never mind my teasing that modern dance wasn’t an official category. But Billy, mírame bailar!

The infamous Hussong’s Cantina, Ensenada, Mexico.

These were very good people with no good options. What they did on-meter was transactional and transparent; contrived but not shameful. I didn’t venture south for that and they appreciated it, but tenderness can be found in dark corners. Green shoots in squalor. Good people with no good options. Putas descontentas.

2025

Tim Cook and Marc Benioff (CEOs of Apple and Salesforce, respectively) joined a coterie of business leaders for dinner at the White House last week, and toasted Mohammed bin Salman’s red carpet visit to Washington. Salman had come bearing petro-riches, including $1T in US investments in return for Saudi access to America’s world-leading technology in energy, defense, and AI.

The 2 tech titans enjoyed honeynut squash soup and pistachio-crusted rack of lamb with a man who, according to the CIA, ordered the brutal murder and bone saw dismemberment of an American journalist (Jamal Khashoggi) in 2019. The Saudi government, when confronted with a mountain of evidence including an audio recording of Khashoggi’s final moments, conceded that, yes, it executed the killing. (Salman contested the CIA’s claim that he ordered the hit.) Also in 2019, 5 Saudi men confessed under torture to homosexual acts and were publicly beheaded. Common theater in the enlightened kingdom.

I’ve long admired Cook and Benioff. In contrast to a legion of increasingly brash and self-consumed tech titans, Cook and Benioff are reserved and stoic. They direct their considerable wealth toward charities and good causes heroically, and Benioff has been a great champion of my beloved San Francisco. But in the Trump multiverse, sharing polite dinner conversation with a murderous authoritarian is okay. I’m crestfallen.

Glass Apple wafer, gifted to President Trump by Tim Cook, August 6, 2025.

Here was Tim Cook, powerful leader of the second most valuable company on this planet, presenting (with stunning deference) a glass wafer on 24-karat gold base in August to our own aspiring authoritarian. “You have been a great advocate for American innovation and manufacturing, and I’m grateful for your leadership and your commitment.” The words from his lips were pure ingratiation; the look on his face complete descontento.

And there was Marc Benioff, exasperating admirers in October by backing Trump’s call for a National Guard deployment in San Francisco and adding, in a New York Times interview, “I fully support the president,” who “is doing a great job.” A virulent backlash provoked a rapid backtrack, but the damage was done. Yet another self-inflicted momento descontento.

An instructive aside

Ford Motor Company was the largest car manufacturer in the world in the early 20th century. Our man Henry was a brilliant pioneer of production design, supply chain management, and mass marketing and sales. He was also lauded in Mein Kampf and decorated with the Nazi Grand Cross of the German Eagle for complicity, through Ford-Worke, with Hitler’s war machine. Despite Ford’s stellar accomplishments and immense wealth, a vulgar little asterisk attesting to this Nazi complicity forever colored the legacy. (Public mea culpas later in life did nothing to remove the stain.)

Tim and Marc, you are good people. Unlike my gal pals Rainée and Claudia, YOU HAVE OPTIONS. Your net worths exceed $2B (Cook) and $9B (Benioff) in fuck you money. You can simply refuse to play the grovelling game, turn down the royal invitations, and decline comment on the current administration. And if this most minimal display of moral backbone puts shareholder value at risk (I submit that it will have the opposite effect), then FUCKING STEP DOWN.

Your 2 companies have deep benches of talented CEOs-in-waiting. You are getting on in age and not indispensable (I know that is hard to hear, on both counts). Your shareholders will be just fine; you’ll be just fine. Your legacies will remain (mostly) intact, and those vulgar little asterisks can be avoided. Best of all, you will cease being putas descontentos.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested song: The Real Me. The Who.
Suggested drink: Curtain Call cocktail. Rum, champagne, lemon juice, simple syrup, bitters.

Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.
– Mother Teresa

June is Gay Pride month. The San Francisco parade has been cancelled this year and that’s a shame. I have colorful memories of that brilliant cavalcade: the vibrant floats and flamboyant dance troupes and butch bikers tattooed up in black leather and blue denim. Loud and proud.

I was called into a group-wide meeting one morning while working at Livermore Labs back in the 80s. Our area supervisor announced (paraphrasing) that from this point forward John should be addressed as Joanne and will be dressing accordingly. Expect female attire and makeup. She’ll also be using the ladies’ toilets. Any questions?

This coming out was one of the most startling and bravest things I’d ever seen. The John I had known was a burly guy’s guy and husband with kids. To be considered for reassignment surgery he first needed to live full time for a year as Joanne. I couldn’t imagine the courage it took to share that decision with family, friends, and now coworkers.

We all have our closets. We perform on an open stage and let our hair down with the cast and crew when the curtain falls. A very few good friends get invited back to the dressing room, but then there is the closet. I’m hoping that I’m not the only one with a scary closet.

There are few resentments worse than feeling like a fraud, of being inauthentic. Real honesty requires a precarious journey from closet to stage in full drag, and that can be a tough walk. The good news is that as we get older this gets easier. A certain “let the chips fall where they may” settles in with age. The urgencies that guided our earlier years – career and vows and status – become the lesser priorities to authenticity; leaving this world with a history that reflects our truest selves.

Martin Whatson: Behind the Curtain

Being honest with oneself is of course step one, and often the most difficult of conversations. I lived most of my adult years in San Francisco and didn’t bat an eye (or even a heavily mascaraed lash extension!) at people being true to their sexual and gender orientations. But professional orientation was a different beast altogether. It is convenient to suppress misgivings over career choices when those positions are filling the bank account and feeding the ego. Damn I’m special! I was front and center of that line but in good company, particularly in the investment banking and venture capital industries.

There’s no shame in pursuing pay over passion when young and in one’s prime income-generating years (I’m happy to debate this over a glass of rosé). There’s great dishonor when continuing to shelter in the closet post mid-life, to oneself primarily. What you do, where you live, and whom you love. The legacy you leave. Are you getting these right? Are the what, where, and with whom choices you are making now reflect the most authentic and beautiful you? Will your eulogy be delivered by people whom loved you most, reflecting on things for which you wanted to be celebrated, in a setting that defined your spirit?

That is a lot to consider.

A final note. I founded the Interprize Group in 2013 to help people, mostly at 50 plus, pursue grand life ambitions of deep personal meaning. If I’m being honest, I’ll admit to using these workshops as much for self-discovery as for guiding others. Authenticity and purpose are 2 topics that get a lot of attention in these workshops. For the past 3 years I’ve been focused on a grand ambition of my own and the workshops have been on hold. We are offering a new and completely redesigned Life Leap Workshop this October in Provence. You can find more information here. If you are curious to know more please get in touch and we’ll set up a time to chat. Let’s get you out of the closet.

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Suggested Song: The More Things Change, Bill Magill (from the Eskimo in the Sun album, 1996)
Suggested Drink: Fog Cutter cocktail: rum, gin, sherry, cognac, orange and lemon juice, orgeat syrup.

I want to thank the couple at the Hôtel Pullman, 5th Floor, Charles de Gaulle Airport, for getting my travel day started with the right spirit this past week. Their impressive exhibition of amorous congress, drapes pulled proudly wide, was a surprise distraction while lacing up my boots in the Ibis just opposite the courtyard. “This flight to San Francisco will either be totally f*cked or f*cking amazing” I thought, depending on their performance now. Allez, avec enthousiasme!

Dispatch #1 – Neighborhood Charms

San Francisco is a city of small villages, and that’s party of its intimate charm. Neighborhoods are defined by ethnicity (Chinatown), weather (the Sunset), sexual orientation (the Castro), affluence (Pacific Heights), or pharmaceutical proclivity (the Haight). It’s also a city of coffee culture and North Beach would be that tribe’s historic ground zero.

The Italians started arriving in San Francisco in the early 1900s and quickly planted their flag in this beautiful corner of the city. The young DiMaggio boys played stickball on these streets in the 40s, Beats claimed asylum in the ’50s, sleaze clubs took over Broadway in the ’60s, and the punk wave crawled out of the Mabuhay Gardens in the ’70s.

I arrived in San Francisco in the ’80s and spent my idle hours in the coffee shops and blues bars along Grant Avenue. Listening to opera singers who would casual in on Sunday afternoons at Café Trieste was always a solid backup plan, with a bottle or two of chianti and a close friend.

Focaccia sandwiches at Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store Café, San Francisco

North Beach has resisted the techie invasion transforming many of the other San Francisco neighborhoods, sometimes for the better, more often not. And this gives me comfort. City Lights Bookstore is still thriving – it’s poetry collection on the second floor is unbeatable (no play on words) – and Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe on Columbus and Union remains safely in family hands.

We took up bar stools there yesterday and ordered hot focaccia sandwiches, with Mario’s young grandson Dario working the oven and his sister taking orders and running the till. It was a reassuring moment of escape from a world that never seems to stop losing its authenticity. Grazie, and another glass of that delicious red my friend. Now onward!

Dispatch #2 – Build It and They Will (Still) Come

I’m trying to imagine a San Francisco without illegals from south of the border. The slightest peek under the hood of this town’s booming economy shows the degree to which these crafty intruders have ingrained themselves into the gears. Build a wall, physical or virtual, and that finely tuned machine will grind to a very messy halt.

A morning stroll down 24th Street in Noe Valley means dodging prams of pale, blue-eyed babies guided by brown Aztec chicas: Illegals! Push through the swinging kitchen doors of any city restaurant – from Michelin star to burger joint – and who’s manning the burners and cleaning the plates? Illegals! (“The restaurant business as we know it , in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers.” – Anthony Bourdain). Suffer the roar of (what sounds like) a million lawnmowers and leaf blowers buzzing through the grassy gardens of St. Francis Wood or Pacific Heights and who is making the racket? Illegals!

When I lived in San Francisco Valentin was our gardener, Rosa our cleaning lady, and Ana our Nanny. There is no family position requiring more trust than that woman helping with the babies. Ana was a gift from heaven. Short, wide, solid, gracious, and assured. Just let me do the diaper por favor, you got it all wrong Bill. She was part of the family but not. She joined on vacations, but rarely at our dinner table. We paid her well but not enough to escape the gang-ridden barrio of the Outer Mission. When mules arrived in Tijuana with her frail father, whom they had smuggled up from Guatemala, they demanded an additional $5,000 at the border to hand him over. When she pleaded that she didn’t have it Ana found a gun barrel at her temple.

The morning line at the Tartine Bakery.

We privileged gringos of San Francisco have first world problems: the line at Tartine Bakery was insufferable this morning, wifi was down on the Google bus, and now Hamilton is sold out! If the Illegals are dismayed by our sense of entitlement and lack of empathy they hide it well. Job security? Zero. Medical coverage? Ha! Still, they mow and clean and cook and raise our precious kids, all with a smile of gratitude. And still they come, … despite the absurdity of blame for stealing jobs that no one else wants, … and the humiliation of a wall.

I opened a new checking account at my Chase branch in West Portal yesterday. A young Gabriel Deluna was the Private Client Banker who helped me set it up, quickly and with coffee offered (how not French). It was his last day before a week’s vacation in Guadalajara. “Mexican,” I asked? Yes indeed, second generation. Did his father mow lawns? That I didn’t ask, maybe he was professor at Stanford. Somehow I doubt it. Chase, you have a star on your hands. Treat him well. Now wouldn’t that be a change? Onward!

Dispatch #3 – The Soundtrack of a City

The best cities come with a soundtrack. There’s an urban pulse and rhythm, a melodic energy that pulls us down the avenues and into old haunts, that guides us to new encounters. Our dearest memories might be triggered by old sites and smells, the childhood bedroom and mom’s kitchen aromas, but our most vivid recollections of the city sort are provoked by music.

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin in Paris.

San Francisco and Paris are two of my favorite towns. Feasts for the senses, cityscape museums, hip and romantic, captivating places where interesting people gather and cool shit happens, … and they have amazing soundtracks.

My Paris is Piaf, Brel, Aznavour, and Gainsbourg. When I explore the winding ruelles of Montmartre La Bohème is swimming in my head, and along the grand boulevards it is Je t’Aime, Moi Non Plus, with Jane Birkin’s erotic (okay, she’s about to have an orgasm) word play with bad boy Serge. I love this song so much I honored it with my own Linger With Me; Laëtitia Costechareyre invoking the breathy Birkin purr.

Carlos Santana in San Francisco.

San Francisco is a very different evocative jukebox. Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Huey Lewis, and Chris Isaak for starters. Janis and Credence are there too, and of course the Dead. Just as in Paris, the music is drawn from the neighbhorhood character. I was never much of a Deadhead or pot fan, but both are hard to avoid in certain quarters like the Haight. And when in Rome …

The best mode of transport in both scenic cities is by shoe leather. Down Boulevard Saint Germain, past Notre Dame, across the Seine and on to the Marais? That’s quite the hike but pas de problème, with Quand On a Que l’Amour in my imagination spilling from the cafés and animating the lovers sharing a glass en route. From the cablecar turnaround at Union Square, up through Chinatown and down Columbus Avenue to Mario’s for a sandwich in North Beach? Just another amazing walk when powered by Huey’s The Power of Love. (His brilliant trumpet player Marvin McFadden brings the brass on my 1996 release Dance Hall Girls.) These 2 songs of love couldn’t be more different; these 2 romantic cities couldn’t be more distinct.

Do you hear music too when skipping through your favorite town? Maybe you hear voices. I don’t know, I think we’re all a little crazy. And now I’m off to France. Homeward!

Bill Magill

on by

Suggested Song: Travellin’ Band, Credence Clearwater Revival
Suggested Drink: Fogcutter cocktail: rum, brandy, gin, orange and lemon juice, orgeat syrup, sherry

I’m sitting in 36D – center section aisle (mon préféré) – and after 12 hours on this United flight from Munich I admit to some ache. The pilot has just turned on the seat belt sign and provided an update on the cool, foggy San Francisco weather adding, “we should be on the ground shortly.” Blessings to an imminent touchdown.

I haven’t written a dispatch from San Francisco since my last trip here in February. I haven’t written anything since February, actually. Why the pause, my first writing laps in 8 years or so? Now that’s a question I’ve been pondering too. The well isn’t empty, but the motivation has been flagging. I’ve been stretched with other projects, but that’s nothing new. A mystery. Perhaps we just need a breather sometimes to rethink and resync.

Is there a better city than San Francisco for inspiration, to get that figurative pen back to paper, whatever one’s form of creative art? None that I’ve know of. So here’s to a refire of the creative flame. Let’s see what develops. We’ve just touched rubber to tarmac, … and off we go.

Dispatch #1 – A Sense of Place

Noe Valley is a beautiful family neighborhood in the sunny center of San Francisco. It’s a perennial locals’ favorite but never a trendsetter. While the must-live-here-now quarters like the Marina, Hayes Valley, and the Mission bloom and fade on the shifting whims of the hyper-paid, transient hip, Noe Valley remains a priority destination for those seeking longer-term permanence in this city by the bay.

It hasn’t escaped the gentrification wave and real estate bubble burning through the city. There is a scattering of all-organic, locally sourced, gluten-free juice bars and quirky concept stores in the neighborhood now, but many of the boutiques along its 24th Street core remain in family hands after 30 years or more. Haystack Pizza, 24th Street Cheese, the Dubliner bar; I was a regular at all when Noe Valley was my first San Francisco home so way back when – the late ‘80s while studying at SFSU. I’m back in Noe Valley again this week, back to my morning buzz at Martha’s Coffee, my evening beer at the Dubliner.

Place plays an elemental role in life. It frames our quotidian and colors that community of friends and strangers who fill our days. When I take a pulse on how things are going – as I am this year – it’s the what I do, whom I love, and where I live that get the most critical reflection. Getting the where right is so important.

At 60 I’m ready for at least 1 more grand adventure, one more lifting of the anchor for parts unknown. This new course doesn’t have to be geocentric. It might just be the what or with whom. It is certainly not guided by a quest for more cash or greater security, which often fuels the flight in younger years. The eternal wanderlust for personal growth and new experiences, the adrenaline rush from knowing you’ll likely fail spectacularly … but what if not?, … that stubborn unwillingness to accept that this is it at any age; yep, this is the propellant.

I’ve rambled a bit through the years, living here and there in the States and now in France. A few of these places have left their mark, have spoken to something inside that is authentically Bill. Aix-en-Provence, where I’m living now, moves me at a deep level, and San Francisco as well. If I believed in past lives I’d say that I have wandered those streets before. And whenever I’m in the magic kingdom – Bagdad by the Bay, as the great columnist Herb Caen used to say – there’s no neighborhood that I love more than Noe Valley. Now off I go to Martha’s for the morning cup. Onward!

June 7, 2018

Dispatch #2 – Graduation Day

The motivation for this trip west was the high school graduation ceremony for my daughter Stella. One of those big life moments for her and for her proud parents as well. The wave of emotion that swept over me as she first appeared in the auditorium wasn’t a surprise – I knew what was coming the moment I’d see her in that purple cap and gown – but it was still a struggle to keep my pride in check. I’m a teary guy, what can I say?

Stoicism is a guy thing, maybe even more so an American guy thing, I’m not sure. We imagine ourselves as cowboys carved from some noble stone. What me cry? Never! Nothing stirs me more than music and certain songs can put a fine crack in the cool façade. Stella’s mother used to tease me for that vulnerability. When the Beach Boys Don’t Worry Baby came on the AM radio of my treasured ’66 Mustang, sitting behind the wheel and a warm California breeze chasing us down some coastal highway, well lets just say things would get a bit misty. I’m even moved as I write this now, hearing that brilliant third verse in my head:

she told me baby, when you race today
just take along my love with you
and if you know how much I loved you
baby nothing could go wrong with you
oh what she does to me
when she makes love to me
and she says don’t worry baby

I went to an Irma Thomas show last night at the San Francisco Jazz Center. She has a backstory that is as fascinating as the timbre and range of her voice. Doing studio work by 13, two marriages and 4 kids by 19, over 30 singles and 20 albums and a history of small victories, but always in the shadow of Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight and other better-known contemporaries.

Irma is 77 now and still brings it big. She had the committed crowd firmly in the palm of her hand, and for good reason. Her voice remains sure and strong and after 60 years in the business she knows how to command the stage. She had us on our feet for much of the night, white handkerchiefs waving New Orleans style as she worked through an endless string of requests from her long back catalog of hits.

We’ll all be lucky to still be bringing it at 77. Doing something we love, something so natural and sure that it seems destined. When I think about the kids graduating with Stella this week, about their futures and all of the questions and uncertainty they face in a world of rapid churn and change, I can offer just 1 piece of advice: never stop trying to find your reason for being alive. It’s rarely evident and you may keep asking the big questions well past midlife. But it’s that journey of discoveries and doubts that makes life as beautiful as a teary sing-along in a classic car or the sultry voice of an American soul queen. Sing on.

June 9, 2018

Dispatch #3 – For a Few Dollars More

The average selling price of a family home in Noe Valley in April this year was a cool $2.5 million. For the monthly rent on a 2-bedroom flat prepare to fork over $4,300. Welcome to the new world of San Francisco economics.

It’s not just the lodging that hurts. A veggie sandwich at Dolores Park Cafe ran me $14 earlier this week and my chai tea at Bernie’s last night was a steep $3.50. When you remove their cost for the tea bag – about 10 cents wholesale according to my back-of-the-envelop calculation – that’s some pretty pricey boiled water. But imagining their rent along that prime spot on 24th Street, I get it.

It’s an unvirtuous upward cycle driving this madness. A surge in the tech industry is once again pulling in boatloads of high-paid software engineers and designers who are young and hip and want to live in uber-cool San Francisco, not the uber-uncool suburbs of San Jose. And with the average salary for a tech worker now hovering around $150,000 they can afford it (well okay, maybe with a roommate!).

To woo the best and brightest, many of the newly minted barons of tech like Twitter and Salesforce are setting up in downtown now, and those that remain in Silicon Valley are providing wi-fi’ed commute transport from the city and back, … which feeds the need for even more pricey condos and chai lattes and all-organic, locally sourced, gluten-free juice bars in neighborhoods like Noe Valley. Sitting at Martha’s Coffee earlier this week, I counted 7 massive luxury buses in 14 minutes rolling down 24th Street, picking up riders for the hour drive south to Google, Apple, and other large corporate centers.

So where’s the problem? The techies are happy, their employers are happy, the city with its coffers full of higher tax revenues is happy. The problem is the loss of diversity, and that has always been at the heart of San Francisco’s unique color and flair. How does a cab driver or cellist or schoolteacher afford $14 sandwiches and $4,200 leases? They don’t.

I like tech workers okay and count a number of friends among them. I just don’t want to be limited by only their interests and sensibilities. There’s only so much bar talk about stock options and fundraising and blockchain that I can take before my attention disorder gets provoked. Yawn, pass the wine please, … and where do I set up my tent?

June 10, 2018

on by

Suggested Song: The More Things Change, Bill Magill
Suggested Drink: Anchor Steam Beer (brewed in SF since 1896)

I’m en route to San Francisco with just enough connection time in Munich for a cold lager and doughy pretzel.  The 11-hour leg into the magic kingdom will be long enough for a gourmet airline meal and glass of plunk wine, a couple of movies, and some typing on this first report. Perfect.

My last collection of dispatches was offered up just about one year ago. I was struck by the changes both good and bad resulting from the ongoing tech invasion, voyaged up to the wine country for a proper braising in hot, stinky mud, and went on safari for the perfect cheesecake. (That would be Zanze’s by the way, mission completed.)

What’s the plan for this trip? Well, aside from some music recording later in the week I’m keeping the expectations open and hopeful, which is how one should always approach San Francisco, this magical City by the Bay. Onward!

Dispatch #1 – All Colors of the Rainbow

I’m flying solo on this voyage so have accepted my ex’s invite to stay at the old homestead. It’s become quite the colorful residence, with ages ranging from 18 to 84, dinner debates in 3 languages, a grandma from Spain (no inglés, lo siento), our 3 French/American kids, one new boyfriend and a transgender girlfriend (both are second generation immigrants also fluent in Spanish, so that works for grandma!), and now Bill-the-former-husband sofa surfing for a week.

How my ex manages to manage this ever-entertaining circus while holding down a full time job, caring for her mother, helping with college apps, keeping the house from falling apart, and putting a dinner on the table every evening is a mystery to me.  It takes real perseverance, acceptance, a love of all things diverse, and a big heart, … and this is what makes it a truly San Francisco household.

This is a city of incredible diversity: ethnic, sexual, economic, and even meteorological (50s at the foggy beach, 80s in Dolores Park). It’s not a town for the intolerant or neophobic. If you’re uncomfortable with change or being around people of different shades, accents, or orientations of any fashion, best to avoid signing a long-term lease.

Perseverance and ambition have been the hallmarks of each wave of migrants who’ve managed to secure a foothold: the gold miners and railroaders, the Chinese and Italians and Irish and Mexicans, the gay community, the techies. You don’t come to San Francisco for a life of leisure by the sea. It’s a city of creative sweat and big energy, … and the possibilities of beautiful reward.

So here I am and being blessed with sunny blue skies. My walk this morning along West Portal Avenue for a coffee at Peet’s – a few days of adjustment will be needed for the American caffeine dosage – has left me sweating in my light pullover. It’s only 9 a.m. but I’m already thinking through neighborhood options for lunch: tacos, pasta, sushi, burgers, pizza, dim sum …. the options are endless, kinda like this town. Appetite peaked, let’s go!

February 17, 2018

Dispatch #2 – Strike Up the Band

It is an interesting twist that we immigrants to this garden paradise are proposing border walls to keep out its former owners. Mexicans were roaming these Pacific lands long before the gringos arrived in ships from Spain and wagons across the Sierras. Since then they have been driven out, then invited back to work the fruit and vegetable farms during WWI, bussed back out during the Depression, then begged back to the fields during WWII, and on and on. They are a resilient group, and despite current presidential claims to the contrary continue to play a vital, essential role in the economy and social color here in the magic kingdom.

In the studio with Eduardo Garcia and Adrian Arreguin of Nueva Generacion.

Mariachi music is distinctly Mexican. It is a festive mix of strumming guitars, brassy trumpets, sweeping violins, and nostalgic lyrics about life and love south of the border. These ensembles come large and small.  Bands of 10 or more in splendid mariachi regalia play weddings and parties, and small combos of 3 or 4 in their nicked up cowboy boots and hats wander the Mission District streets, popping into bars and restaurants for an hour of entertainment and tips before moving on.

La Rondalla was a special kind of restaurant cantina in the Mission that I frequented in my rowdier years. It had a long and dark serpentine bar, Christmas lights shaped like tiny chillies blinking year around, generous bartenders known to break into Spanish song, a crazy fun mix of patrons – from the local hispanics to city hipsters, gays and lesbians of every persuasion, punkers and college kids and anyone else out for an unpredictable night – and great mariachi music. There was a large house band and no stage. They would show up mid-evening, stand at one end of the bar and rip out song after song while the locals sang along with lyrics that most of us didn’t understand. It was a family ensemble, with dad leading up the group and his young sons and nephews and friends, some barely into double digits, playing along and learning the craft. Great energy, great fun.

I had more than a few interesting evenings at La Rondalla. One involved a close and charming friend that moved me to write Paralyzed, which is one of 14 songs being recorded now for my upcoming album. It begged for a festive arrangement, and so last year I sought out the best mariachi band in San Francisco to help adapt and play it. Nueva Generacion was the obvious choice, particularly after learning that its young leader Eduardo Garcia was one of those kids playing weekly at La Rondalla so many moons ago, most likely on the night that Paralyzed was inspired.

Life never ceases to amaze. It leads us across the paths of people from different tribes and ages, with different histories and hopes, and we make biased assumptions about them that only serve to disserve. I have to constantly remind myself: stop this! Not in my wildest imagination would I imagine that this young Mexican kid I used to watch playing violin in La Randalla would be collaborating with me on music so many years later. Thank you Eduardo! Just more magic in the magic kingdom.

February 26, 2018