Just a Fan by Janet Flemer

The 1989 earthquake woke me from an afternoon nap, having called in sick from my job at a skateboard magazine. I was living on solid rock on the 17th St. hill above the Castro so there wasn’t any damage but it shook so much and I did hear a low grinding roar. My little in law bootleg apartment was under a wooden 2 story house up a staircase from Saturn Street. Picturesque as fuck, but there were raccoons under the house and when the wind up there blew, which was all the time, the pilot light on the water heater went out. I’d never even thought about it all collapsing on top of me.

My coworker came by with NyQuil for me and had felt the jolt in her car. She was in a rush to get home to the Haight and watch the World Series. We had no idea.

Not until I went to the corner store at dusk to get batteries and candles (sold out for hours) did I know anything about the strength of the beast. Rumors flew freely. The Bay Bridge had collapsed! The World Series was cancelled! All the BART and underground trains had shut down so everyone had to walk home! (That one was real, although the buses still ran). All the phone lines were down! (Also kind of true). Land lines only. No Internet. No posting cell phone pics of your freaked out face or the blacked out city to the Gram. I finally turned on the boom box radio and called my mother.

I’d been in San Francisco about 4 years at this point, having moved here alone, in touch with one real friend from college years in Eugene. The roommate in my first apartment here (thanks, Roommate Referral!) turned out to be a compulsive liar. We got evicted because she wasn’t paying rent, but she told me the landlord needed our apartment for his pregnant sister or some shit.

San Francisco couldn’t break me! The Saturn place was an unusual piece of good luck, I can’t remember how I found it. I’d slowly made friends through live music, going out almost every night. I’m cripplingly shy and have a powerful bitchy resting face, so this needed years.

One night at the the Vis Club, which became the Kennel Club, Justice League, then the Independent, I met a group of people who’d all moved to SF together from Syracuse. The band playing that night was the Coolies, from Atlanta, who played their own version of Simon and Garfunkel tunes. I think this was 1986 and started a social streak that’s still going.

A few nights after Loma Prieta, some girls I’d met through the Syracuse lads insisted that we go see Fetchin Bones at the Kennel Club, “I need some Hope Nichols tonight.” Indeed, that singer was a revelation. It really did help.

Just last night, over 30 years later, seeing an ensemble called the Red Room Orchestra playing the soundtrack for McCabe and Mrs Miller, I also got an almost physical boost. The group includes veterans of many local bands who are all incredible. Before the music started I got a sick headache and was thinking about going home, but the musicians made all that go away immediately.

I cared about these nights out, soaking up music, more than any job I’d ever had. The catharsis, energy and connectivity, even though I was just an observer, did make me  feel part of something. Even if there was no live music, there were new friends to be made. There were bookstores (hello Adobe and Green Apple, still here), poetry nights(!) and theater, art openings and sometimes people made food and we ate with plates on our laps.

There were movies at gorgeous old Art Deco theaters long since turned into gyms or torn down. Near Dark at the Alhambra, Pulp Fiction at the Metro, Christmas Day Coen brothers movies at the Bridge or Lumiere, Goodfellas at the Coronet (where i sprained my foot and stayed anyway like a dumbass), the Alexandria, the Clay and the mighty Castro. Of course the Red Vic and ATA and Art Institute, too. The Roxie and a few tiny neighborhood places are somehow still surviving.

You could usually at least overhear a good conversation in record stores like Aquarius, Recycled, Revolver, Rough Trade, Reckless, Streetlight, Rooky Ricardo’s. Bands would play sets in them for free. Some like Epicenter were more like community centers. I was intimidated by some of the employees.
I felt more comfortable in video rental places, perhaps because I’d worked in one in Philadelphia. Naked Eye in the Haight, Captain Video and Tower on Market Street, Leather Tongue on Valencia, and one on Potrero Hill whose name I just can’t remember. I hadn’t had a TV for a few years, which some people couldn’t understand, and when I did it was mostly used to watch movies. Those pre-Buffy years held no interest to me.

There were two independent weekly papers, where lots of people started their writing careers. I was surprised to read that SF Weekly was still around as recently as 2020. The Bay Guardian was shut down at least a decade ago, after both of them were taken over by media conglomerates that ran them into the ground.

In 1990, even though I’d sworn I’d never have roommates again, I’d moved to an actual house a block from Dolores Park with two other women, which quickly became two women and one annoying boyfriend. I’d started classes at California College of Arts and Crafts for graphic design. The house was pretty luxe, with two bathrooms, two working fireplaces, a garage, a huge kitchen, and a view over to the East Bay Hills. A year later we were able to watch them burning on an eerily warm fall day and into the evening. In early 1992 I moved into my own place and I’m still there.

Upon graduating I became a huge influence on the design world and got all the Print awards and speaking gigs and accolades and all the cool designers drop my name. Just kidding, But I did get health insurance which has come in handy.

Some people got married. I haven’t but have been with a lovely man for 20 years who I met when a good friend went on a Nerve date with him. We reconnected at a Fiery Furnaces show at the Bottom of the Hill.

I guess I’m supposed to drop a bunch of club names now. I Beam, Chatterbox, later the Chameleon, Paradise Lounge, Kennel Club, Oasis,  Kilowatt, El Rio, DV8, DNA, Slim’s, Hotel Utah, Covered Wagon, Albion, Elbo Room, Nightbreak/Thirsty Swede, The Purple Onion, Music Works, 21 Bernice, Studio 4, The Farm, Kimo’s, the Knockout.

Thee Parkside, Bottom of the Hill, The Rite Spot, Make Out Room, Latin American Club and Great American Music Hall are all still here.

This would be very long if you want band names.
Oh, OK:
American Music Club, Granfaloon Bus, Dieselhed, Rick Buckner, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Flying Color, Catheads, Mommyheads, Thin White Rope, Game Theory, the Buckets, Tarnation, Flipper, Tragic Mulatto, the Snowmen, Thinking Fellers, Harm Farm, Wannabe Texans, Virginia Dare, SF Seals/Barbara Manning, Fuck, Frightwig, Wade, Camper Van Beethoven, Grandaddy, the Enablers, MK Ultra, the Mummies, and that’s just the local ones I can think of that I liked. There were some (cough cough 4NonBlondes cough cough) that I did not.

Janet’s photography can be followed here.