Most everyone has arrived, and I am pleased to report that not only was everyone wearing shoes, and we made it through the first night without any incest jokes. Some of the relatives have pretty cool jobs- one works in radio, one designs aquariums and is installing the aquarium in San Fran, one runs a construction company, and so forth.
Also turns out some of them read this website, so I won’t be able to trash talk anyone. Sigh. At some point someone asked what made you change from Republican to Democrat, and I just blurted out “George Bush,” and we had a good laugh.
The hardest thing to get used to is listening to my aunts and uncles call my dad “Johnny,” as if he was a 12 year old.
Just Some Fuckhead
We went to a giant reunion last weekend held every year since the 1920s for the bearers of my wife’s last name which is why we were in your state, Bluefield area. Since none of her relatively close relatives or immediate family went, we really didn’t know anyone and we ducked out early to get back home to go to a concert.
Reunions pretty much suck. The thought of them always seems cool but then they are boring and uncomfortable.
TCG
The best jokes about living the a state that was in the confederacy or a border state comes from people living in a state that used to be in the confederacy or a border state.
You hear about the kid from Alabama that got in the face 100 times? He was trying to learn how to eat with a fork.
But yeah family reunions can be tough.
Scotty
Sounds like your family is normal. Lucky.
Joshua Norton
It’s even worse when the aunts and uncles want to still call you the cutesy name they had for you when you were a kid.
skippy
it could be worse; when i go home my elder relatives still call me by my childhood nickname, which is “buster.”
Martin
If it makes you feel any better, ‘Skippy’ is worse.
Andy
Aren’t yinz from Pittsburgh n’at? Is that where the reunion’s at?
Ninerdave
Bummer I was looking forward to great stories of family gang bangs and lurid sex with latex and animals.
…oh wait, you’re not Republican anymore. My bad.
Ted
Now that is cool. I’d enjoy that work.
Ted
Mine was “Theodorable” [dry heave].
Not that it means anything, but the absolute most annoying human being I’ve ever met in my life went by that nickname. But we like this Skippy. I first heard about him on CNN.
Tzal
My Mom was born and raised in San Francisco. She calls it San Fran. Some people yell at you when you do that, but they are full of shit.
Ninerdave
Frisco, is what drives a long time San Fran resident up the wall
Ted
Someone needs to check the party registration of that guy in the news a while back who got arrested for repeatedly banging his patio table in front of his neighbors.
Kevin
The ones who refer to it as “The City” are the ones who annoy me.
Kevin
The ones who refer to it as “The City” are the ones who annoy me.
Kevin
I swear I only clicked ‘Submit’ once.
Joshua Norton
Ah, but it is “The City” short for The City by the Bay and people really do call it that. “Frisco” is really just uber touristy and hay-in-the-hair.
Mr. Tactful
Hmmm, I thought city was short for….city. I know several places I could call a city. In fact, I am in one of them as I write this!
Joshua Norton
If you’re any place in Northern California there’s only one “The City”. And when you say you’re going to The City, everyone knows what you mean.
srv
Right. Bozo. Why, you intellectuals no doubt say Orleans, York, Worth, Los Angels, Paso and what-not and think you’re hot shit.
Frisco is in Texas, Bozo.
Ah, it must be a heavy cross for you to bear, Bozo. Not that you’d ever understand, but nobody here has ever said those words in conceit.
Right. Honesty is your forte.
You know, it really is amazing how many of you folk come here to visit, clog up the city every summer, how well we treat you, and you can’t even get the name right.
LanceThruster
I’m too old to cry and it hurts too much too laugh.
Enjoy yer kin. Tell ’em Thruster sez “Hey!”
Shouting at the Rain
Joshua Norton. I knew I’d heard that name before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_A._Norton
Coincidence or homage?
zuzu's petals
Only thing I’ve ever heard it called. Except when growing up in Southern California.
Joshua Norton
No it’s really me. I’ve actually been dead for 128 years and I’m still younger than John McCain.
Martin
True in SoCal as well.
MobiusKlein
It’s ‘SF’, or San Francisco, if you don’t mind.
But I’ll take ‘Frisco’, ‘San Fran’, or whatever over the rightwingtools bloviating about San Francisco values. grr.
Kevin
Either you have never set foot in the Bay Area, or you have never set foot outside of San Francisco. Either way, you’re a complete twat.
Fuck off, dickhead.
skippy
this coming from a guy named “martin”?
Kevin
“The City” comes from when it was the only “city” in the Bay Area.
Why should I listen to a dead Emperor, anyway?
JGabriel
Joshua (Can’t we just call you ‘Josh’, it would be two keystrokes shorter, y’know) Norton:
In North Jersey, NE PA, NY, CT, there’s only one “The City”. If you’re going to any other city, you’re going “into town”.
For instance, in NE PA, if you were going to New York, you said you were going into the city. But if you were only going to Scranton, then you were going into town.
.
ThymeZone
Yes, exactly. Former resident of the Bay Area here (San Bruno, most recently). “The City” means SF and only SF. “South City” means South San Francisco.
“Frisco” means that the speaker is from out of town and doesn’t know anything about the local scene. Nobody up there calls SF “Frisco.”
Dennis - SGMM
Same here. Lived in SF a few years at various times. It is the only city in California. The rest are just aggregations.
gaucho
Born and raised in the Central Valley, and for as long as I could remember “The City” was San Francisco. I definitely got confused when I learned about how much larger LA was, but still “The City” shall always be SF. And as soon as we find A) a consistent QB situation, B) a servicable line, and C) at least one serious gamebreaking receiver then the Niners’ shall return to their rightful place top the football Pantheon. (talk about the audacity of hope…_
Joshua Norton
Tell me. Sometimes when a group of us get together to watch a game, we do shots if anyone from any team gets a touchdown. Otherwise it would be a very dry viewing experience.
zuzu's petals
Yeah, I see that San Jose passed SF in size awhile back, but it will never be anything but a blob.
There is only one City.
zuzu's petals
I grew up in Orange County and am not sure what we called SF when we thought about it (probably just San Francisco), but we definitely didn’t call LA “the city.” It was just “LA.”
empty
I am told there is actually a city called the city. Istanbul is said to be a corruption of istinpoli (the city). Constantine renamed it after himself but the old name remained among the inhabitants and when the Ottomans took over they went with the old name.
The Dude Abides
I’ve lived in LA all my life, my father has too, but his sister moved from LA to San Francisco and started a family there. The only time I ever say “Frisco” is when I feel like annoying my cousins (and it always does).
Chuck Butcher
Sometimes…I live in Baker City, OR. Ten thousand of us do. We get something more than a dot on an Oregon map, a bit more. If you live in the country and are going in, chances you’d say anything other than I’m going to town are small. My family lives 2500 miles away, for over 20 years I’ve been that far and when my 81 year old mother comes for a visit I get to live with a nick name I shed over 30 yrs ago. Being a III and a Charles limits things a bit. (No, I won’t cough up with it)
I lived in the N Bay area for several years, didn’t go to The City much, but I was real aware of the ‘conventions’ regarding its nicknames. I wasn’t real fond of the Golden Gate on a motorcycle.
Mwangangi
I live in the North Bay, but I am from N.Y. and S.F is not ‘the City’ (perhaps because I’ve only been here for three years. When anyone says ‘the City’ I automatically think N.Y.C. unless I’m already there, then I know that means Manhattan (as opposed to another borough [which is why Manhattan is N.Y, N.Y.] {212 muthafuckas}).
So, folks from the Bay area call S.F. ‘the City’, but folks from the entire tri-state area (though this, by default [WRT the terminology], includes the entirety of the three states) call N.Y.C. ‘the City’, and I give N.Y. the nod. Then again, I have an obvious bias.
Michael D.
The question is, are any of your relatives named “Cletus” or “T. Boone”? :-)
Glad you’re having a good time, Johnny!
Georgette Orwell
My *entire* family now consists of me, two sisters, two brothers-in-law, two nephews, a niece, and one cousin. We could have a reunion in an SUV–if all of us were speaking to one another. I’m the last of my name, in a family that came to America around 1630. I do find that having a large family I choose (good friends) rather than those few thrust upon me by fate can simplify things, though.
jake
Wait, you’re a Junior?
maxbaer (not the original)
Apparently, Los Angeles is actually “the city.”
Bob In Pacifica
John, is your aquarium-building relative working on the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, SF? I am looking forward to that place reopening in September.
powdermonkey
My 90 year old grandfather is still called “Junior” by all his brothers and sisters, just imagine how weird that is.
RSA
I speculate (having been born in San Francisco and having lived in Los Angeles for a short time) that LA isn’t called “the City” because you can be an ungodly distance away from downtown and still be in LA (that is, the “metropolitan area”, which is 5,000 square miles).
Krista
That “The City” thing happens no matter where you go. If any of us are going to Halifax, we say we’re going in to “the city”. If we’re just going to Truro or Amherst, we’re going “to town”.
So John, if your family calls your dad “Johnny”, do they call you “John”, or “Junior”? Enquiring minds want to know…
John S.
I sure hope people don’t try to slap my son with that ‘Junior’ stuff.
I mean, my name is John, his name is Jack. I realize that people named John are often called Jack, but he was actually name for someone named Jack – not me.
Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever met a Jew who was a ‘Junior’ or a ‘Third’ or ‘Fourth’…those are strictly goyim naming conventions, I think.
Krista
I’ve never understood why people give their son their dad’s name, risking his being called “Junior” when he’s a senior citizen. If you want to pass the name down through generations, why not use it as his middle name?
b. hussein canuckistani
Last family reunion I went to, I brought along my telescope and spent the night showing the Moon and Saturn to all the kids. It took a lot of the pain out of dealing with my family.
RSA
Better than showing Uranus, I guess. (Rim shot.)
Just Some Fuckhead
Same here. Now that is weird. Wonder if it was the same fucker.
capelza
Another hand for “the city”…we lived in Eureka, it was six hours away..and it was THE City. Not Oakland or any other berg around the bay. When you finally got through the tunnel on the Marin side and there she was…something special.
If one was going to a concert in Oakland, then one said they were going to Oakland, not “the city”.
I still get that feeling sometimes going north to Seattle…there’s bend you round on I-5 and there she is…my other “city”, but I’d never call Seattle that. “The City” on the West Coat anyway, means San Francisco.
b. hussein canuckistani
That’s a good one, RSA. I hadn’t heard it before.
*eyeroll*
My nephews and nieces did a better job, with such variations as the Rings around Uranus, and the Klingons around Uranus.
Just Some Fuckhead
Yo San Frannnies, no one gives a damn what you call your city or what others call it. Listening to you little bitches, I’m surprised no one calls it Whineyville.
Don K
I’ll second that. When I was growing up in South Jersey, going into Philadelphia was going into “The City”. To us, New York was New York, (or “N’Yawk” – pronounced with a bad South Jersey imitation of what we thought a New York accent sounded like).
Dennis - SGMM
You hate us for our freedoms.
Damned at Random
My cousin, who is a big rubust guy in his late 40’s, is still “Little Dougie” to the family
Damned at Random
Ouch, robust
Bob In Pacifica
Maybe “rubust” is a combination of “robust” and “rubenesque.” Nice invention.
Having lived in San Francisco, then sliding to Daly City to buy a house, then on to Pacifica, I think that over the past 35 years that I’ve been around here the whole “Frisco” thing has been diminishing. The late Herb Caen did a lot to perpetuate the love-hate relationship with the tourists. Nowadays everyone welcomes the Euros and the Yen. Call us what you want.
Joshua Norton
Oh I don’t know about that. If you believe the rants that out-of-state repubs are sending to the Chronicle, the idea of putting our president’s name on our sewage plant is beyond contempt and the world will boycott us.
Frankly, I think the road will have to be widened to handle all the tour buses that be streaming by it.
capelza
Bob In Pacifica,
I remember Herb Caen. Maybe you can help me. We’d go down to Union Square from Eureka to shop for my school clothes. I Magnin, yada, yada…there was a French (I think) cafe on the square with white cast iron chairs with red striped upholstery..lots of whipped cream and strawberries and the like. I’ve been trying to remember the name of the joint. Did Gump’s have a cafe?
I also have a terrible earworm of Journey’s “Lights” since I read this thread. Steve Perry is repeating “When the lights go down in the city”.. he reaaally wants to be in the city by the bay.
Susan Kitchens
LA as “the city”? I don’t think so. (I’m outside of LA proper, but inside LA County). It’s “LA” or the specific district or region. “Downtown” or “mid-wilshire” or “hollywood” or, less specifically “across town” as in, to get to “the westside,” I have to go across town. The Valley is the San Fernando Valley, even though I live in another valley, the San Gabriel Valley.
I one did an informal compilation of geographical terms that are preceded by “the.” In SoCal, we call freeways by their numbers, preceded by “the” “The five” “the one-ten” “the two-ten” “the four-oh-five” etc. I think the naming convention evolved from confusion over the titles of the freeways (as described in traffic reports, &cetera) “the golden state freeway” “the foothill freeway” “the hollywood freeway.” That mostly made sense to locals but not to visitors/newcomers, so to clarify the titles got changed to the numbers.
Other “the thes” I have known: In the bay area, it’s “the city” and “the bay.” In Newport Beach, “the bay” and “the peninsula.” In Colorado, it’s “the divide” (as in continental). In the Gulf Coast, it’s “the gulf.”
Joshua Norton
Not to mention Jefferson Starship “We built this City”.
John Cole
Bob- Yes, she is involved in the construction of that aquarium. For years, she worked at Monterrey Bay Aquarium.
And they all call me “J.G.,” which is what I was called growing up because my father was the John of the house.
bc
Well, srv is right about the San Franciscans treating tourists well. I’ve been there about a dozen time, sometimes we even drove into the city, and no one yells or honks at us – they figure we’re so far gone they just might as well suffer us for as long as they’re around us. Always had good experiences, both with what SF has to offer and the people who live there. Another thing about SF – they support their unions big time. If there’s a strike at a grocery store, that store might just as well close up until it’s over because no one will cross the picket line.
Krista
Lucky you for not getting saddled with “Junior”, then. Funny how many of us have the names that our family calls us, and then the names by which we are known to the rest of the world. Most everybody calls me Krista, but my family all call me Kris (and for some reason, Punchy calls me that too — I’m wondering if he’s not one of my relatives gone incognito).
srv
Not to mention the buses, as the Republicans like JSFH have such wide asses now.
Nothing like watching some wingnut tourist only able to fit one asscheek on the F seats.
Kathy
Hey Krista,
Hope that you have fully recovered from your escapes last week.
To everyone else, such a toodo over “city.” In the Philly suburbs, if we go into town we refer to it as “center city” I also know that if you refer to Omaha as a “town” they immediately correct you. (My daughter’s school has a lot of exchange students from there.) It just seems to me that “city” is in the eye of the beholder. If that’s what you want to call your area of origin, whatever, I’m cool.
Kathy + 1/2 bottle of cab
jake
[Snerk]
Sorry.
My family has very few nicknames. In the S.O.’s family all of the older men have nicknames that are their use names because they never use their real names and the nicknames bear no resemblance to their real names. There’s even a Junior who isn’t an actual Junior.
I assume this is a quiet, heartland of America way of fucking with people’s heads and call them Mr. [Last Name] or Sir.
OriGuy
I’m thinking that might have been the City of Paris, on the corner where Nieman Marcus is now. Exterior photos; I couldn’t find any interior shots.
Just Some Fuckhead
Dayum bitch, you must be the meanest fucker in yer third grade class. What next, gonna call me a poopyhead and stick yer tongue out?
LiberalTarian
I have GREAT times when I go to the City.
There was the time I took my mom to the DeYoung but it was closed–for three years. Sigh. Got her completely soaking wet. That same weekend I drove uphill the wrong way on a one way; the lady I almost had a headon with was pretty nice though, she did curse at me or anything. We dried out in a donut shop over coffee. Seems like an odd story, but that was one of the very best days I have had hanging out with my mom.
Zeitgeist is my absolute favorite bar–it’s a place where you can go in the back and hang up your bicycle and drink beer all day. It’s on Mission, convenient to BART.
And don’t forget the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, or Power to the Peaceful, or the tea garden, or the Marina, or Critical Mass Friday. Also, a good portion of “land” on the island used to be bay–they filled it and buried a number of ships that were abandoned after it brought folks to CA during the Gold Rush.
Yeah, GREAT place. All kinds of interesting factoids.