The San Francisco Chronicles: Ramshackle

{Originally written... Oh deal with it. I don't remember.}

The other night when we went to the MOMA and Pier 39, we rested solely on public transportation to get us to the city, around the city, and back to our hotel by the airport in Burlingame. BAD IDEA. At around 9:30 p.m. after a rather long day of shopping and sightseeing and the like, we made our way back into the heart of the city. Our bus stop to get back to the hotel was on Market and 3rd. Somehow amongst the hustle and bustle of the trolley, we didn't hear the stop we were supposed to get off of, and when we did get off, we were surrounded by numerous head shops ,strip clubs and x-rated video stores. We were on some street that at this time I can't recall because of the evils it placed there. But one thing I knew {after looking at a map.}, we were smack-dab in the middle of the Tenderloin district.

Lemme give you some background. I am a very, VERY paranoid person. So, naturally, I looked up all of the places to avoid in the San Francisco area, their addresses, and the reported crimes in those areas within the past week. Upon this research, the #1 place to avoid according to crime reports and visitors' reviews was {and I quote} "Anywhere in the Tenderloin District. STAY AWAY." And with good reason too. Numerous assaults, shootings, drug busts, thefts, rapes, and prostitution cases had occurred recently in that area.

GO AHEAD. LOOK IT UP. I DON'T LIE TO YOU, DEAR READERS.

For the next hour and what seemed like an emotional cocktail of fear and adrenaline, we escapaded through abandoned bus terminals and finally chased down a bus leading to Burlingame, where the hotel was. I had had it. It was 10:45 p.m. My hair felt like it hadn't been washed in days as a result of the windy city. An Indian man was yelling at my sister because she was looking at the pictures on her camera that she had taken that day. {He was crazy. It got so bad that the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and made the man move to the back of the bus so he would 'stop disturbing the passengers.' Our bus driver was sooo awesome and I totally felt safe with him there after such a hectic night.} So, I did what every teenager who thought she was going to spend the night in an unknown city miles from home in an unknown abandoned bus terminal with a lot of unknown homeless people would do: I plugged into my iPod. The first song to play while on shuffle?

Ramshackle by Beck.

Because of that night, this is my favorite song. It is like a photograph to me now. I see and feel everything I did that night when I listen to it. It honestly feels like I'm listening to the art that I saw at the MOMA earlier that day. I hear the distress I felt, the ache of my feet in my worn Sanuks, and the polluted city air running itself through my hair. It is my gateway into the past.

I present to you, dear readers, Ramshackle. I hope that this song can make you feel something inside as it does for me. I hope that it can stir up emotions you forgot you had, and perhaps get a glimpse of how I saw it that night on the bus. For me, this song is a very precious memory.

Take care of it.

Savor it, as the artist would want you to.


Music is how we hear our feelings.

-Lexi