Honoring Emperor Norton
Joseph Amster, owner and operator of Emperor Norton's Fantastic San Francisco Time Machine, honors Emperor Norton on the 134th anniversary of his death, Shot at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Colma, Ca. on January 8, 2014. For more information, go to emperornortontour.com.
Narrated Random Mediocre Drivelapse With Tangents: Touring part of San Francisco randomly by car
49-minute, 11.6-mile, 149-block narrated drive-lapse tour wandering randomly through parts of San Francisco, discussing history and other points of interest that we encounter along the way. No exciting accidents or anything like that, just me driving around literally randomly on a Thursday evening in August and blabbing about stuff -- sort of a drivelapse crossed with a (low key, somewhat cheesy perhaps?) travel or history documentary. With both new and archival material, occasionally going off on short tangents on various subjects. We do see a few bad drivers along the way (myself included at one point) and some jay-walkers of course.
Two cameras in the car, although mostly just using the main camera, which unfortunately I set a bunch of settings incorrectly on and didn’t mount very well, which leads to a few minor video “idiosyncrasies”, which is part of the reason for the “mediocre” in the title. Instrumented with dynamic maps, position, speed, clock time and playback speed.
By the way, this is the first 1440p (UHD) video I’ve uploaded to this channel. I’ll be interested to know if anyone actually watches it in 1440p.
All video shot and owned by me. Narration by me. Music licensed from StockMusicSite.com and AudioMicro.com. Some photographs were licensed from the San Francisco History Center of the San Francisco Public Library, some are in the public domain, and some were shot and owned by me. Google maps used in accordance with the Google terms of service for an online video.
This video was recorded on public streets and other places accessible to, and visible to, the general public. The appearance of, or mention of, any person, business, product or organization herein is not necessarily an endorsement or recommendation of or by that person, business, product or organization.
Registered, International Committee on Drivelapse Standards (ICDS), Certificate number 7-490876-805447.
Index / Table of contents:
00:00 Introduction, route map, devising the title
02:43 Starting out on 9th Street in South of Market (SoMa)
02:54 Typical SRO hotel
03:43 Bill Graham Auditorium
04:26 Turning on to Larkin Street
04:43 Phillip Burton Federal Building
05:41 The Tenderloin neighborhood
05:43 Cool bar name #1
06:05 Little Saigon neighborhood
06:10 My favorite place for Vietnamese Sandwiches
06:32 “The wall”, impromptu flea market
07:41 Tendernob neighborhood
07:43 A corner
08:35 California Street
08:37 Cool bar name #2
08:50 Some Cable Cars
09:20 Van Ness Avenue (US 101)
09:29 Freeway revolt of the 1950’s and 1960’s
10:30 Bad driver #1 (red light runner)
12:13 Aquatic Park, fireworks
14:05 Bay Street, Russian Hill neighborhood
14:26 Hyde Street
15:55 Going over top of the Broadway Street Tunnel
16:57 Cool bar name #3
17:11 California Street, Nob Hill
17:30 More Cable Cars
17:40 Mason Street
19:40 Market Street, Mid-Market neighborhood
19:57 Muni, 21-Hayes
20:15 Old bank building
20:58 U.N. Plaza
22:07 Leavenworth, Tenderloin neighborhood
22:24 Cop car zips by
22:34 Ellis Street
22:40 Another corner
23:31 Polk Street
23:48 Former Pierce-Arrow building
24:20 Police activity
24:35 Polk Gulch neighborhood
24:50 Look back at SantaCon on Polk
25:50 Clay Street, Nob Hill
26:40 Chinatown
27:05 Grant Avenue
27:26 Not stopping for food
27:47 Broadway, North Beach neighborhood (Little Italy)
28:16 Famous restaurant / movie location
28:48 Bad driver number #2 (bus)
29:23 Battery Street, Financial District
29:44 U.S. Customs House
30:04 Washington Street
30:28 Transamerica Pyramid
31:26 Chinatown again
31:31 Site of new Central Subway Chinatown station
32:12 Stockton Street
32:32 Stockton Street Tunnel
33:45 Sutter Street
34:15 Powell Street
34:24 Protest march of some sort
34:49 Post Street
35:16 Grant Avenue
35:51 Geary Boulevard
35:55 Site of new Central Subway Union Square station
36:12 Union Square
37:54 Entering The Tenderloin again
38:15 Bad driver #3 (me!)
38:55 Demolition / construction site and channel
40:06 Cathedral Hill neighborhood
41:43 Chinese Consulate
42:39 Japantown, Peace Pagoda (stupa)
43:34 Webster Street, Western Addition
44:00 Golden Gate Avenue
44:21 SF PUC building
45:17 Civic Center neighborhood
45:23 Franklin Street
45:25 Bad driver #4 (cone dragger)
46:59 Eddy Street
47:04 YouTube chides me that my videos aren’t exciting enough
47:28 Van Ness Avenue
47:39 Turk Street
47:53 Closing credits
A few other similar or related videos that you may enjoy:
SF POPOS: Public Hangouts In Prime City Real Estate
In this video we embark on a little treasure hunt for San Francisco's secret gardens and oasis; these are the little known San Francisco POPOS, or Privately Owned Public Open Spaces. These hidden atriums, plazas, and rooftop terraces are located in some of the city's prime buildings and real estate. They are the perfect chilling spots for coffee, lunch, or just to get away for a bit. Currently, there are over 70 scattered throughout the FiDi and SOMA districts, but I'll introduce you to my top 7.
#sanfrancisco #exploresanfrancisco #travelsanfrancisco
The city's most up-to-date map of SF POPOS:
SPUR's more in-depth guide to SF POPOS; a bit outdated but this one has descriptions, ratings, and amenities:
Bob Dylan 2016 Nobel Lecture in Literature
Bob Dylan received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.
Auburn Coach Wife Kristi Malzahn Agrees with Match & eHarmony: Men are Jerks
My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection. Don't nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling Bravo! in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
Obviously, I wasn't always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry's Kids aren't going to walk, even if you send them money. It's not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it's downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.
Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there's supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn't feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it's unlikely.
And while Rachel and her supposed soul mate, Ross, finally get together (for the umpteenth time) in the finale of Friends, do we feel confident that she'll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames. It's equally questionable whether Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family. (Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?)