36th Anniversary "Tales" Walking Tour

On Saturday, May 26, 2012, I had the pleasure of co-hosting a "Tours of the Tales" walking tour with Larry Rhodes (www.toursofthetales.com) in San Francisco.  Our group met near the Buena Vista/Aquatic Park and ended with dinner in the Castro at The Sausage Factory.  A surprise for everyone, Armistead Maupin and Christopher Turner joined us for dinner.  Christopher Turner toted a bag of books that Armistead graciously signed for the tour participants while personally greeting everyone.  Needless to say, it was the highlight of the night.

Larry led the tour pointing out locales mentioned in Armistead's novels, as well as other historical information.  We enhanced the experience by playing clips on an iPad from the miniseries at the locations they were filmed.  We also talked about the influence of Hitchcock in the "Tales" mini-series, and other movies that were filmed in San Francisco.

I want to personally thank Larry for organizing an amazing day roaming the world of Anna Madrigal and tenants, to Armistead and Chris for making the evening a memorable one, and the folks that came to share their stories of what the "Tales" universe means to them.  I met some amazing people that I look forward to seeing again in the near future.  Armistead's influence extends beyond being a great storyteller, through his work, I have befriended a handful of fans that surround the globe.

Included in the tour were Scott and Brandon from San Francisco, Peter and Maggie from England, Tim and Alicia from New York, Trish and Cindy from California, Nancy Snell and myself from Indiana, and tour guide Larry Rhodes from New Mexico.

If you are interested in signing up for a Tales Tour, check out Larry's website at www.toursofthetales.com.  You can also download tours to explore the city on your own.

Macondray Lane 

Macondray Lane  

Macondray Lane

Me, Armistead and Larry

Happy Anniversary "Tales of the City"

"Tales of the City" debuted 36 years ago today in the San Francisco Chronicle.  I've posted this previously, but here it is again!  To celebrate, Larry Rhodes of http://www.toursofthetales.com/ is hosting an anniversary tour in San Francisco.  I am honored to co-conduct and spend the day with Larry and other Tales fans on Saturday, May 26.  Another bonus, the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge is the 27th.  This should be an amazing weekend and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone that signed up for the tour.

Enjoy!


This is the first installment of the original "Tales of the City" series. It appeared in The Chronicle on May 24, 1976.

Mary Ann Singleton was 25 years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time.

She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her Mood Ring was blue and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland.

"Hi, Mom, it's me."

"Oh, darling. Your daddy and I were just talking about you. There was this crazy man on 'McMillan and Wife' who was strangling all these nice young secretaries, and I just couldn't help thinking ..."

"Mom ..."

"I know, it's just your silly old mother, worrying herself sick over nothing. But you never can tell about those things. I mean, look at that poor Patty Hearst, locked up in that closet with those awful ... "

"Mom, this is long distance."

"I'm sorry, sugar, I'm such an old worry-wart. You must be having a grand time!"

"Oh, Mom, you wouldn't believe it! The people here are so friendly. I feel like I've ..."

"Have you been to the Top of the Mark like I told you?"

"Not yet, but ..."

"Well, don't you miss that. You know, your daddy took me there when he got back from the South Pacific. I remember he slipped the bandleader five dollars, so we could dance to 'Moonlight Serenade' and I spilled Tom Collins all over his beautiful, white Navy ..."

"Mom, I called to tell you something."

"Of course, dear. Just listen to me rambling on. Oh, one thing, before I forget it. I ran into Mr. Lassiter yesterday at the Ridgemont Mall, and he said the office is just falling apart with you gone. They don't get many good secretaries at Lassiter Fertilizers."

"Mom, that's sort of why I called."

"What do you mean, honey?"

"I want you to call Mr. Lassiter and tell him I won't be in on Monday morning."

"Oh, Mary Ann, I'm not sure you should ask for an extension on your vacation."

"It's not an extension, Mom."

"What? I don't ..."

"I'm not coming home, Mom."

For a moment, the line seemed to go dead. Then, dimly in the distance, a television announcer began to tell Mary Ann's father about the temporary relief of hemorrhoids. Finally, her mother spoke: "Now you're being silly, darling."

Mary Ann tried to stay calm. "I'm not being silly, Mom. I really feel comfortable here. I mean, it seems like home to me already."

More silence.

"Mom, I've thought about this for a long time."

"You've only been out there five days."

"I know, Mom, but I'm really sure about this. It's got nothing to do with you and Daddy. I just want to start making my own life, have my own apartment ..."

"Oh, that. Well, of course you can, darling. As a matter of fact, your daddy and I thought those new apartments out at Ridgemont might be just perfect for you. They take lots of young people, and they've got a swimming pool and one of those sauna things, and I could make some of those darling curtains like I made for Sonny and Vicki when they got married. You could have all the privacy you ..."

Mary Ann's voice was gentle but firm. "Mom, you aren't listening to me. It isn't the privacy or living with you and Daddy or ... any of that. It's just me. I love it here. I'm grown up now and ..."

"Well, you certainly aren't acting like it! I've never heard such a thing! You can't just run away from your family and friends to go live with a bunch of hippies and mass murderers!"

"Oh, Mom, that's just a lot of TV crap!"

Her mother lowered her voice reproachfully. "Don't you talk nasty to your mother, Mary Ann ... and it's not a lot of TV ... stuff. What about those Giraffe Killers?"

"Zebra."

"Well, whatever. And what about those earthquakes? Your daddy took me to see that awful movie, and I nearly had a heart attack when Ava Gardner ..."

"Mom. I've made up my mind about this. Will you just call Mr. Lassiter for me?"

Her mother began to cry. "Something terrible is going to happen to you. I know it."

"Now who's being silly? What could possibly happen to me, Mom? San Francisco is a lot safer than Cleveland, and the people are so mellow."

Her mother stopped sobbing for a moment. "What does that mean?" she asked suspiciously.

When it was over, Mary Ann left the Buena Vista and walked through Aquatic Park to the bay. For several minutes, she stared at the Alcatraz beacon, drunk with the prospect of an undefined future.

"What could possible happen to me, Mom?" The words came back to her on a chill wind, nibbling uncertainly on a corner of her mind.

Back at the Fisherman's Wharf Holiday Inn, she looked up Connie Bradshaw's phone number. Connie was the only person she knew in San Francisco. Mary Ann had heard that she was a stewardess for United but hadn't spoken to her old high school friend since 1968.

"Oh, God, I can't believe it!" squealed Connie, when Mary Ann identified herself. "How long are you here for?"

"For good, " said Mary Ann, savoring the words.

"Oh, super! Have you found an apartment yet?"

Mary Ann decided to be direct. "Not yet. I was wondering if I might be able to crash at your place for a couple of days. My savings account isn't holding out too well."

"Sure, " said Connie, without hesitation. "No sweat. That is, if you don't mind an occasional sleep-in."

Mary Ann was thrown for a moment. "Oh ... you mean guys?"

Connie uttered a throaty laugh. "Do I ever, honey!" {sbox}

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/20/PKEM1HKVCH.DTL

Armistead Maupin: Pen Pals lecture series

Salman Rushdie, who spent nine years in hiding after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him for publication of "The Satanic Verses," will headline the next season of the Pen Pals lecture series. Other guests include mystery writer Dennis Lehane, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, Minnesota native Alice Kaplan, who has written a number of books about France, and "Tales of the City" author Armistead Maupin.

All lectures will take place at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, 1111 Main St., Hopkins. Cost for the series -- a fundraiser for the Friends of Hennepin County Library -- is $160. Cost for individual tickets is $40. Subscription tickets go on sale Monday by phone (612-543-8112) and online at www.supporthclib.org. Individual tickets will go on sale June 25. Here's the lineup:

• Salman Rushdie, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18 and 11 a.m. Oct. 19. Rushdie is the author of 11 novels, three works of nonfiction, a collection of stories and an upcoming memoir, "Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie," which will be published in September. The cost of his Pen Pals appearance includes a copy of the book.

• Alice Kaplan, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 29 and 11 a.m. Nov. 30. She was born in Minnesota and is a professor of French at Yale University. She is the author, most recently, of the biography "Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis."

• Roz Chast, 7:30 p.m. March 14, 2013, and 11 a.m. March 15, 2013. She is a staff cartoonist at the New Yorker magazine, where she has published more than 1,000 cartoons.

• Dennis Lehane, 7:30 p.m. April 11, 2013, and 11 a.m. April 12, 2013. He is the author of "Shutter Island," "Gone, Baby, Gone" and "Mystic River," all of which were New York Times bestsellers and were made into movies.

• Armistead Maupin, 7:30 p.m. May 16, 2013, and 11 a.m. May 17, 2013. Maupin's "Tales of the City" began as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle and grew into a series of bestselling novels, a TV miniseries and a musical.

LAURIE HERTZEL

JLO + ENRIQUE: Jennifer Lopez, the actress-fashion designer who has used "American Idol" to reignite her music career, will perform Aug. 1 at Target Center with Enrique Iglesias, the voice of such smashes as "I Like It" and "Tonight (I'm Lovin' You). This will be JLo's first prominent performance in the Twin Cities. Opening will be the Wisin Y Yandel, the hit-making reggaeton duo from Puerto Rico. Tickets, priced from $29.50 to $129.50, will go on sale at noon May 18 at Ticketmaster outlets and Target Center box office.

JON BREAM

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/151037805.html

Obama's Gay Marriage Evolution: A Societal Shift?

May 12, 2012
As the debate over the political calculations behind President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage continue, Host Scott Simon checks in with acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Armistead Maupin to talk about this as a cultural moment.




http://www.npr.org/2012/05/12/152561155/obamas-gay-marriage-evolution-a-societal-shift

Crown & Anchor Appearance

Author Armistead Maupin will make his first public appearance in Provincetown at the Crown & Anchor's Paramount Nightclub. Maupin's iconic Tales of the City series has blazed a trail through popular culture – from a series of globally bestselling novels, to a Peabody Award-winning television miniseries starring Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney, to a musical that premiered last year at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. Maupin's most recent Tales novel, Mary Ann in Autumn, was published to international acclaim in 2010.

Ticketholders to TEATIME WITH ARMISTEAD MAUPIN can expect an afternoon of free-wheeling anecdotes and lively conversation with the audience – as well as a reading from Maupin's current work-in-progress, The Days of Anna Madrigal. The author's books will be available for purchase and signing.

The after party at the Wave Video Bar (open to non-ticketholders) is sponsored by Bear Central, a new social site created by Maupin's husband, web developer Chris Turner. "This time it's a total family affair," says Maupin. "We can't think of a better way to kick off our summer."

"Tales of the City (is) perhaps the most sublime piece of popular literature America has ever produced... As with the Beatles, everyone seems to like Maupin’s Tales – and, really, why would you want to find someone who didn't?"

– Laura Miller, Salon

"To quote the inestimable Quentin Crisp (upon introducing a friend), 'This is Mr. Maupin, he invented San Francisco.' Not just San Francisco either. For millions of fans around the world Armistead Maupin might as well have invented gay culture.

-Out Magazine

http://www.onlyatthecrown.com/entertainment/performer.php?id=83

100-Plus-Year-Old Chinatown Restaurant, Home of Famed Rude Waiter, to Close This Weekend

Sam Wo, which by some accounts opened in its current location at 813 Washington Street in 1907 but may have opened ten years prior, is closing after service on Friday. The owner, David Ho, tells the Scoop his reasons: "Too old. Everything’s too old. The building is too old. It’s very sad." Sam Wo was the legendary home of "the world's rudest waiter," Edsel Ford Fong, made famous in part because the restaurant was also a hangout of the Beats. Fong, who died in 1984, was immortalized as a recurring character in Armistead Maupin's series of Tales of the City novels, a character later featured in the BBC mini-series based on the novels.

Fong was said to be in on the joke, so to speak, but nonetheless he was known for calling patrons fat, criticizing their menu choices, seating people with strangers, groping female patrons, taking orders with a cigarette in his mouth, swearing, forgetting orders, reminding people to tip him, and busing tables before diners were finished. (Alas, the restaurant's reputation for nutty/aggressive waitstaff continued into recent times, as evidenced by this video of a brusque, screaming waitress from 2009, shot by some amused tourists.)

The three-story restaurant has run into trouble with the fire department lately, and apparently the owner feels the kitchen and the building itself are beyond repair. (We should also note that Jonathan Kauffman just this week wrote about Sam Wo as part of this Rice Plate Journal series, calling it "dirty and adorable" and "the most charming dive in Chinatown.")

Luckily we still have the city's oldest Chinese restaurant, the former Hang Far Low which renamed itself (wisely) Four Seas a few decades back. It was originally located, pre-quake, on Dupont street, between Clay and Sacramento and was called the "Delmonico's of Chinatown" according to an 1885 guide book. After the quake it moved to its current location at 731 Grant Avenue.

Update: SFist reminds us that Sam Wo was featured on the Late Show with Conan O'Brien in 2007 when Conan was doing a week of shows in S.F. Also, they're open until 3 a.m., for those looking to squeeze in a last visit.

http://sanfrancisco.grubstreet.com/2012/04/sam-wo-chinatown-dive-closing.html

World of Armistead Maupin, novelist

The Tales of the City author talks to Melissa Whitworth about starting out, coming out and a note from Gandalf.

By Melissa Whitworth 4:32PM BST 30 Mar 2012

Armistead Maupin, 67, is the author of eight novels in the Tales of the City series, of which there are six million copies in print. The series began as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1976 and has gone on to become a television mini–series, a film and a musical. The novels are all now available as ebooks. A ninth instalment, The Days of Anna Madrigal, will be published next year. Maupin lives in San Francisco with his husband, Christopher Turner, their labradoodle, Philo, and their cat, Maxine.

Mornings I get up at about nine o'clock; usually my husband and I spend a few minutes in bed with the animals before we open the curtains. The dog and the cat both like to crawl on and snuggle. We have a similar ritual just before bed, so that gives you a pretty good idea of how much we care about our creatures. The dog is named after the Greek root for love; he looks like a Muppet.

Writing My office is an eyrie at the top of the house. There's a lovely view of the eucalyptus forests out of one window, and we can look out across the bay towards Sausalito from the other. I work when my energy is high, in the morning. But the sunshine pours into this room and it makes me want to curl up like a cat.

Childhood I made every effort to become a lawyer because that's what my father wanted. But it was clear from the beginning that my instincts didn't lie in that direction. I was by nature a storyteller. When I was eight years old I would make my friends sit around the campfire and listen to ghost stories. It was how I found self–worth because I was so rotten at sports.

Starting out Tales of the City began as a failed effort to write a news story for a little newspaper about the heterosexual cruising scene at a local supermarket. I couldn't find anyone who would actually tell the truth about why she was there, so I made up a character called Mary Ann Singleton. Then the newspaper folded so I took the idea to the San Francisco Chronicle. The serial, now fiction, appeared five days a week and I had to come up with 800 words of a continuing story every day, no matter what, for two years. It was a pretty harrowing but exhilarating experience. Now Tales of the City is like a ball of sourdough starter I keep in the back room of my mind. I can use it to bake new bread whenever I want. Its DNA is always there, ready to generate new stories.

On the wall There's a painting of Christopher (pictured) by Don Bachardy, who was Christopher Isherwood's partner for many years. Don is still a very close friend. He was 30 years younger than Chris [Isherwood]. My Chris and I have a similar age gap, so their relationship has always been an inspiration. In my office loo I have a framed newspaper rack card from 30 years ago (pictured), announcing the return of Tales of the City. I think most self–promotional items should be in the loo – a certain amount of modesty is required.

Coming out I came out of the closet while writing the series. And what a revelation to realise that the thing that I had feared the most had become the source of my greatest inspiration and the cause of my success. My mother said to me, 'I don't mind you being honest, darling, I just don't want it to hurt your career.' I said, 'You don't understand, this is my career.' I knew very early in the game that my responsibility was to be publicly, openly, happily gay. That wasn't hard to do. I don't suffer closeted folks gladly. I let them know, especially if they're famous, that I think they have a responsibility. Years ago my friend Ian McKellen asked me how I felt about it and he told me that the evening he spent talking to me was what pushed him over the edge. I'm really proud of that.

Gandalf When Ian stayed here on one occasion, he left this note (pictured) on his bed. It says 'Gandalf slept here' – and, in parentheses, 'with Magneto! [McKellen's character in X–Men]' It's a little drawing of Gandalf lying on his back in the bed, smoking a pipe.

Lucky charm I have a brass Chinese dragon that I bought in the Chinese section of Saigon when I was stationed in the military there during the Vietnam War. I kept it by my radio in my bunker on the Cambodian border as a good luck charm.

In demand Readers see my characters as members of their own family. It makes me very happy to know that they matter to people so much, and have provided guidance for people I'll never even meet. Some fans can get quite proprietorial. I recently went into Facebook silence because I needed to write a novel. When I showed up on Facebook a week later people would post messages saying, 'Shouldn't you be writing?' To know that you are in demand is a lovely thing.

Award A crystal obelisk was given to me by the Trevor Project, the heroic organisation that helps suicidal LBGT [lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender] kids. There are a lot of them in the States at the moment with the homophobia being spewed by preachers and politicians. Children need to be told their life is worth something. I was given this award about 10 years ago. It just says 'for his efforts in saving young lives'. I think they meant that my work contributed to the spirit of LBGT self–acceptance and that makes me happy.

Coats of arms Chris and I have our coats of arms (pictured) framed side by side, in the wedding manner. We got them on a lark in Drumnadrochit, the village on Loch Ness where the monster is the chief tourist attraction. The poor lady who took our heraldic information didn't quite grasp the idea that it was our marriage that we were celebrating. Looking at the coats of arms she said, 'Which one is the bride?' We said, 'Neither of us, actually.'

Sexuality I have been conscious of being part of a cultural revolution for the past 35 years. There's no question that it's easier in some ways because gay folks aren't invisible any more. When I was young, many of us thought we were the only gay in the village. Now, because of that visibility, there's a much more concerted campaign against gay people, especially from the fundamentalist segments of America, and that means the pressure is much worse. Still, the polls now indicate that most Americans support the right for people to marry the person that they love. The battle hasn't been won yet, but we're close.

Relaxing I do enjoy a joint at night. I use something called a vaporiser, which removes the smoke from the cannabis. It's much better on your lungs. Lately I've been smoking something called Blue Dream. There are so many varieties these days, it's like wines, with similarly pretentious descriptions.

Viewing I spend the evening watching television with Christopher. Probably half of Britain will cringe to hear this but we love Downton Abbey. We giggle at the absurdity of all those people standing around dressed to the nines. But there's something oddly comforting about it. I'd rather wait for Maggie Smith's gowns than J–Lo's.

Love My life is full of love; I designed it that way. I try to make my own experience about love and I look for kindness and tenderness in others. That's what I've found in Christopher. That's the thing I value the most: it will get you through everything.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/9157791/World-of-Armistead-Maupin-novelist.html