Table of Contents
Frisco………………….The Golden Gate City
Sunday Songs…………………Yachty, TYO 808, Sawyer Hill, Will I See You Again?
Sunday Poll……………………..Grading cities
Sunday Carrier………………….New News Old News
Studio Jali …………………………Studio Updates
P.S ……………………………………….Sea lions are adapted for movement on land as well as in the water. Wing-like front flippers have a bone structure similar to that in our arms and hands. Swimming with these flippers propels the sea lion forward, while the hind flippers steer.
It was my birthday this week. I turned 26.
26 is a mid-tier age. It’s not as significant as 25, doesn't have the lore of the “27 Club” (even if that’s probably not lore you want to be part of), and is the last youthful pitstop before 28 and 29 have you counting down to 30.
But for now, I’m just four days into 26. I was born on the 13th, an unlucky number for most, but the number I’d bet on if my life came down to it, and so I’m looking at 26 as turning 13 twice. A positive sign.
Every year on my birthday I take a trip. Last year I went to Jamaica. The year before that, Atlanta. And this year, I made my way from Los Angeles up the coast to San Francisco. Here are my thoughts and observations from the Golden City.
First Impressions
I live in Los Angeles. So there are only two cities in the United States I can travel to where it’s obvious the local residents have deeper pockets than my neighbors who live hidden high in the hills. New York is one. San Francisco is the other.
It’s the moment you get off the plane and walk through the airport. Seating options at the gates are leather couches, tasteful, colorful, and comfortable, chairs, paired with a plethora of outlets, glass tables, and the quality of design and art that tells you “Welcome to San Francisco, we have all the money.”
Outside of the airport and down the highway into the city, there are billboards and advertisements for various start-ups. Most of them are AI-related, and I admit it was a little unsettling to see after the Sora videos that went viral this week. San Francisco might be Skynet HQ one day, but I try to not fret about the future. Even as a newly 26-year-old, I know the world is always changing and people are always inventing new technology to change it faster. Fire. Electricity. Industry. Cars. The internet. AI. I’m sure all these things were just as scary for people before they understood what it was or how it was going to be implemented in their daily lives.
San Francisco isn’t Los Angeles
We travel somewhere because it’s different. Comparison is the thief of joy. But the discussion of differences between two cities can always be enjoyable as long as it doesn’t ruin your trip. Don’t go to Canada and expect good Mexican food.
SF feels more grown up than LA. The tech influence is deep, the city is quiet, dense, and it feels like if you’re successful here, you need to wear a suit, have a proper haircut, and be a “serious adult.” In Los Angeles, you can be 40, rich, dyed your hair blonde last week, and walk into Erewhon with baggy corduroy pants, an arm sleeve, two kids, and a Porshe parked out front and no one bats an eye. In fact, this energy feels borderline encouraged.
This “grown-up-ness” is the leading reason why there’s a lack of style in SF. Yes people have “nice” clothes, but that’s not the only thing fashion and style is about. Compared to LA, the public here is not dressing outside of the box. Everyone is in their archtype role and dressing it.
When I was really on the road in my late teens and early 20s, I came up with travel guidelines and “isms” regularly, and wrote them in my notebook. One of those “isms” is that a city will tell you a lot about itself by its parks. And San Francisco has parks. There’s Dolores, a well kept gem right in the middle of the city that’s always worth a visit. And the crown jewel, Golden Gate Park, which doubles as SF’s Central Park and is exactly the type of place that LA needs. LA should be the best city in the world, and it’s frustrations like the lack of a truly great “central” park that hold it back.
Transportation, is another aspect that SF does better than LA. For one, when you ride a SF train, it typically doesn’t smell like urine or have an undercurrent of “it feels like someone is going to get shanked” which is already a great step. Again, LA needs better public transportation. This is something I’ll be writing about for the next 25 years.
I’d also like to take this moment to remind everyone that LA used to have 25 miles of streetcars (trolley’s) laid across the city, but removed them all in the 1950s in favor of public buses. Sigh.
Last Thoughts
When compared with SF, LA needs more corner stores, better density, more delicatessens, and BETTER PARKS
The homeless in SF are on another level compared to the ones in LA, in a bad way. Tranq is a popular drug of choice here and it’s disturbing to see the effects of it
I saw some people surfing the waves beneath the golden gate bridge on a day when it was 50 degrees, raining, and the swell was high. These people are insane. They are also probably the same ones behind SORA
Take the time to see the sealions at the pier. Everyone loves the sealions
Let’s bring back Alcatraz — I know — but there’s something fitting about a prison being on a rock in a bay???
Anyway, it’s time to get back to the grit and grind and vibrance of Los Angeles.
Sunday Songs
It feels like I’ve been talking about Lil Yachty for a year, but it’s getting to the point where I have the take that he’s the most important artist in all of rap right now. The reason I have this take isn’t solely because of his rap songs, but because of the artistic range, aesthetic, and mass appeal he’s unlocked. One of the reasons everyone loved Kanye was because of his uncanny ability for all of his albums to sound so different sonically, but still retain a level of high musical quality. With Yachty, this is represented by his stretch into (psychedelic) rock, while still retaining his rap quality. And it was recently announced that he is going to release a collab album with James Blake. I have a feeling this album will be very very very good. And when it is, I will be writing about Yachty again.
This is the rap song of his I’ve been listening to the most recently.
In past editions, I’ve wrote about not listening to full albums from artist anymore because I’ve been corrupted by the playlist algorithms, but this weekend I made the decision to listen to MadeinTYO’s, TYO 808.
This is cheating a little bit since I’m already a fan of MadeinTyo’s music, but regardless TYO 808 is a strong album from start to finish that I’m happy I took the time to listen to. It’s also one of those albums that hit at that time it felt like it was supposed to, like the lyrics are speaking to me and my life specifically.
(And I love the rug in the cover photo)
Favorite songs:
To step out of rap for a minute, Sawyer Hill’s Look At The Time is a song I found from the Instagram short algorithms. I’m unsure how I feel about this, because a good song is always a good song no matter how you find it, but I don’t want every single new song I find and like to be from a series of 1’s and 0’s.
Anyway, listen to this heartbroken soft rock lover boy song.
Closing out Sunday Songs this week, is a heartbroken soul oldie song. The kind that sounds rich and timeless.
Sunday Poll
Frisco. Are you in or out?
Voting is free and anonymous. All it takes is a subscription. (That’s free too).
You only have one week to vote. Results will be reviewed and discussed in next week’s edition.
Sunday Carrier
Israel-Palestine Human Rights Watch
Elementary School Principal named in Gilbert Goons Lawsuit
2023 - San Francisco's Deadliest Year ever for Drug Overdoses
Iowa star Caitlin Clark breaks NCAA scoring mark
Weekly Report:
2 Episodes of Uncredited scheduled to be recorded in upcoming week
Uncredited S2 debut February 29th
Recasting a role for Rob Rabbit
PS
It’s the end of Pen Sunday, edition #68. If you reached the end, thank you for reading. It means a lot.
Pen Sunday is a newsletter about a writer, a dream, and a studio. With headlines from around the world, music, and maybe a poem. Every Sunday and Sunday only.
Until Sunday,
Solomon Lovejoy