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"FacebookPinterestFacebookPinterest\n\nNovember 9:\n\n Sunday morning\u2014I check in with Dave, who said he&amp;amp;#x2019;d be sleeping until our book event thing. So I roll solo down to the Mission to check out Aquarius Records. It wasn&amp;amp;#x2019;t open when I got there, so I popped across the street to Ritual Coffee Roasters. (I should have gone to Four Barrel, which was nearby, but my brain felt like a ball of gauze and I don&amp;amp;#x2019;t have an iPhone, so I couldn&amp;amp;#x2019;t figure it out.) After an eternity, I got my cappuccino and headed across the street to Aquarius. I was surprised at how small, physically, the area of their shop that was dedicated to vinyl was for the reputation they had. Then I started looking. Then I understood. Picked up three reissued records I hadn&amp;amp;#x2019;t seen around elsewhere: 4 Men with Beard&amp;amp;#x2019;s very-nicely done double LP of John Fahey&amp;amp;#x2019;s America; Herman Chin Loy&amp;amp;#x2019;s seminal 1971 dub album, Aquarius; and DeKift&amp;amp;#x2019;s Yverzucht, a disc of Dutch squatter punk from the 80&amp;amp;#x2019;s on my favorite record label, Mississippi Records.\n\nBreakfast at a place called Spork with my brother-in-law; then an uphill climb to Omnivore Books, where we had our last San Francisco thing to do for the book.\n\nChang: I head to the &amp;gt; Hotel Diva early to try and sweat out the booze. Works about half way. Then in a cab to a book signing at &amp;gt; Omnivore Books, an awesome independent culinary bookstore in Noe Valley.I was late to the event because my cab got stuck in some kind of parade, which extra sucked because Omnivore is tiny and it was packed shoulder-to-shoulder all the way up to the table where Meehan and Jeremy Fox were sitting.Jeremy Fox is a friend and an &amp;amp;#xFC;ber chef. He just received a Michelin star for his vegetarian restaurant in Napa Valley. Yeah, yeah, I know. Shut the fuck up and eat there. The dude can cook his ass off. It will change the way you look at food.Anyway, I can&amp;amp;#x2019;t believe I&amp;amp;#x2019;m late. Celia, who owns the store, has a plate of figs from her own tree out on the table to set the scene. But nobody was there to fight. Meehan, Fox, and myself rambled on about the same shit and then we signed books.Meehan and I say our goodbyes as he is ditching me to head back to NYC. Bastard. I still have Seattle on the agenda.\n\nI head back to what we&amp;amp;#x2019;ve decided is the hotel&amp;amp;#x2019;s official caf\u00E9, Lefty O&amp;amp;#x2019;Doul&amp;amp;#x2019;s, a vintage and cavernous bar and hot lunch deli place down the block. The kind of place you grab a tray and slide it down a rail as a dude behind a sneeze guard carves up a whole corned beef to slap between fluffy rye bread for $6.89. Each of the two or three times I had a sandwich at Lefty&amp;amp;#x2019;s, I put the horseradish sauce on it and every time I did it was so pungent, I immediately teared up. Nothing like a sandwich that brings you to tears.\n\nWhen I was done crying into my sandwich, I packed up and headed over to meet my friend Greg&amp;amp;#x2019;s new baby. I got one on the way, my first. Greg told me a great story about Krishna eating dirt as a little kid (read it here) that&amp;amp;#x2019;s stuck in my head ever since. After spending a couple hours with Greg and his family eating burritos sans meat or cheese (Greg, Nina and no are vegans and, God bless, I needed to stop up the meat-delivery hose that is my life for a minute), I headed to the airport to take the red-eye home. The guys at the Hotel Frank said they&amp;amp;#x2019;d hook me up with their &amp;amp;#x201C;best car service&amp;amp;#x201D; to which I am like whathefuckever and then boom! White stretch limo arrives to take me to the airport for the same price as a cab. I realize, while riding in it, that I have never been in a stretch limousine before. I change the colors of the pulsing lights in the back of the car with the digital control panel just because I can.\n\nChang: After the signing, Fox and I head to this place called &amp;gt; Alembic on the Haight\u2014great Pisco sours and a bartender that gets drunk with us. Neither of us had eaten all day, so we ordered tons: lamb sliders, bone marrow, fried shishito peppers, etc. Great bar food and drinks. A perfect place for a snack and a civilized drink or three.Fox&amp;amp;#x2019;s best friend is James Shyabout, a chef who&amp;amp;#x2019;s gotten a lot of attention for his restaurant &amp;gt; Commis in Oakland. That&amp;amp;#x2019;s where we head for dinner, with Nakamura and his wife, Patti.Commis is in this super cool, nice space, kind of reminds me of &amp;gt; Ko but with tables and a kitchen counter. Fox hooked it up so we got those kitchen counter seats; the meal was super like it was supposed to be. The highlight for me were James&amp;amp;#x2019; two egg dishes and this sunchoke soup served hot and cold. Awesome. The wines were killer. Commis is gonna be a huge hit\u2014James and his team have only been open for four months. They have a bright future.Nakamura takes me back to San Francisco. Fox stays at Commis to hang with James and meet up with his wife. On the drive back across the bay I was thinking that Fox is one the few truly good people in this whole fucking rotten business. I love that dude.Have to get to the airport for a 6:30 flight and drop off a rental car before going; the staff at the Hotel Frank practically stormed my room to get me out of there and off to the airport. Saved my ass. Sleepwalk through terminal. No need for pills: doze off and wake up in Seattle. No Jimi Hendrix but rain, and lots of it.\n\n\n\n Things We Are Thankful For: Gabriele Stabile\n\n Gabriele Stabile, who shot our book, was in San Francisco trying to rest and relax when we showed up on this book tour. He came out a couple times, but we tried to leave he and his wife Pax alone. Here's what his trip looked like:\n\nFacebookPinterestFacebookPinterestFacebookPinterestFacebookPinterest"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/lefty-odouls-the-san-francisco-treat>