Leaving my heart in San Francisco

This is my favorite time of year in the city. The months of September and October are chock full of concerts, festivals and parades, most of them free (or at least under $10 bucks).

Let me give you an idea of what I mean.

This weekend in GG Park, there was the fourth annual "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass" Festival. It had four stages and Emmylou Harris was the headliner of this 3 day affair. I went Saturday. Well, I tried to go Saturday morning, and got myself sufficiently displaced in the park (easy to do -- it's a big place), but AZ and I finally managed to get our butts to the Speedway just in time to see some killer clogging. You know why I love Bluegrass? Not just because I lived in North Carolina for a few months. I love Bluegrass because it is happy hippy music. Case in point: at this free festival, where there were TONS of people, there was basically NO security. No one had to wait in line and get patted down, nor have their bags checked. Why? Because happy hippies would never hurt anyone. They just want to groove, man, and groove they did!

On this same weekend in the park, I saw signs for an Arab culture fest, the orchid fest and the reggae festival. All in one day.

Sunday, was the 28th annual Bridge-to-Bridge run/walk. I opted for the walk, as running is not really my forte. I tried to get some friends to come, but no one seemed to be interested. So I said to my self, "Self, this is for a good cause (special olympics), so why not just go anyways." So, I took my good friend Justin (Timbaland) with me, and made my way down the most beautiful race in the country.
Me and my closest 1000s of friends. It was great. And at the end, lots of people giving away free water, energy drinks and bars, and cool gels/creams/ointments for sporting minded people. Beer and garlic fries were available for purchase.

But the best yet was the free concert for all of the race participants.

Mind you, it was like 10 in the morning. The band (who had to get up early for such a gig) was Ozomatli. They were amazing!!! A mix of salsa, rap, reggae, rock and funk like no other. I was standing 10 feet from the stage; I could feel the energy from the band bouncing off of me. And all around, people dancing. People who had just completed a 7- or 12K race were dancing like crazy.

It was fabulous.