Mike Bacsik would be a good subject for the letter B. He is the guy (that everyone will forget) who pitched the ball the other day when San Francisco’s Barry Bonds broke baseball’s career home run record and set a new one at 756.
Unfortunately I’m not a baseball fan so I find it difficult to get excited about it, though there is one story I like. The baseball stadium sits alongside the water of the bay and each game a flotilla of small craft gather hoping that one of these home runs, particularly the 756th would be struck out of the park and then they can dive in and fight to be the owner of the historic ball. Apparently some folk inside the stadium take the opportunity of each huge crowd roar to throw a ball out into the water, which if anyone dives for will be found to have the word sucker engraved on it.
If I was a football fan I could probably make something of the fact that David Beckham arrived in California recently to play for a team in Los Angeles and the same day saw his shirt for sale down town in a Market Street shop. Unfortunately since his arrival he has been injured and only appeared on the substitute bench and the fans have taken to booing him.
So I have chosen Steve McQueen.
The Cannery is an old fish-canning factory down near Fisherman’s Wharf that has been converted into boutiques, bars and restaurants. The area is a largely expensive, tacky tourist trap full of shops selling Alcatraz Prisoner t shirts, woolly jumpers for anyone who forgot to pack wisely for the summertime in San Francisco, chocolate, key chains and that very gift you really don’t need.
There is also a small outdoor stage where street performers work and this month, for no apparent reason other than the love and celebration of celluloid, the Cannery has organised the open air screening of films made in or about the city; each Sunday evening at about eight or as the sun sets.
I went along to see Steve McQueen in a film I hadn’t seen since I was 14, the year that the film was made. Bullitt.
It was a good film then and it still is. Ok, compared to today’s action films the beginning is pedestrian and the assasination amateur, but once the film kicks in it as good as anything contemporary.
Free film night at the Cannery (The Cannery Rising) consists of a few of us gathering in the open courtyard and shifting the benches opposite the stage to around the small screen set up in front of the DVD projector. It is all gloriously low-key, low tech and family, but presented with such enthusiasm and joy that it was one of the best night outs I have had. The organiser introduced herself and asked each of us if we were locals or from out of town, went on to outline the programme of the next four films - each a week apart but a decade apart in production. Bob was available making popcorn in a microwave oven set up on a trestle table behind the pillar.
There must be something about San Francisco and open-air cinema; there is a programme this summer throughout the parks and even downtown in Union Square as well as this Cannery event. I saw Casablanca in Union Square earlier in July with about 400 other people. Some had taken carpet to sit on, others chairs - camping or deck. There were small tables set up, picnics, meals and bottles of wine shared amongst friends. When Rick appeared on screen we all cheered, the cheers and applause at the end was as good as the baseball stadium's.
In the Cannery we were a more intimate crowd but when those two cars started the chase up on the screen, through the streets of the city we were watching in, we too cheered. Some of the hills in San Francisco are really frightening to drive down for a newcomer, and to drive up seems impossible, it feels as if the car will just come to a halt and even topple over. In Bullitt some of the sequence is filmed from the car and in an open-air cinema you feel as if you are on a roller coaster.
Next they are showing Escape From Alcatraz though as it explains on the programme, along with the warning “remember to bring blankets and extra layers of clothing just in case it’s a chilly and foggy typical summer night”, there is always a chance that in case of “inclement weather the movie night will be postponed.”
I don’t think there is much chance of that, as in the two months I have been here I haven’t seen anything but blue skies. Bluer than Steve McQueen’s eyes.
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