I know first hand from my recent Left Coast
Crime experience that Tokyo-based Barry Lancet is the best navigator a driver
can hope for on Phoenix streets. In this
piece, Barry takes that skill to the City by the Bay. For those of you who don’t know Barry’s work,
you’re in for a treat. He’s the Barry
Award Winning and Shamus Award nominated author of the Jim Brodie international
mystery-thriller series. California born, Barry’s more than two decades in
Tokyo, much as an editor at one of the country’s largest publishing houses, gave him
insider access to places most Japanese never see, allowing him to bring true
authenticity to his novels, Japantown,
Tokyo Kill, and the latest, Pacific
Burn. http://barrylancet.com
Jeff—Saturday
These days it seems my vacations are often dictated by what locations
might appear in my next book. That means
I hit the Japan trail, sometimes San Francisco, and then the additional new
places that might be scene-worthy.
But there are times when it works
the other way around. I go someplace and
the location sticks in my mind and later shows up in a book quite by
accident. This happened when I finally
made it out to Miami to fulfill an age-old promise to visit friend and
author/translator William Scott Wilson (The
Lone Samurai, Hagekure, Tao Te Ching). It was my first visit to
Florida and by the end of the trip I thought, I could use this place in a
book. And I did. Miami and some of its locales found their way
into Tokyo Kill, alongside Tokyo,
Yokohama, China, and Barbados.
This summer I found a third
way—when an old friend I was traveling with suggested a place he always wanted
to visit: the Seal Rock Inn because “that’s where Hunter S. Thompson hung
out.” More accurately, it’s the place
Thompson holed up in to write “Fear and
Loathing on the Campaign Trail.” With
guns, drugs, and who knows what else.
The inn is a rustic lodge on the edge
of San Francisco, only a few hundred yards from where the city meets the Pacific
Ocean. It is still owned by the same
family. The Cliff House is a half a
block away. Here’s Thompson:
"Dawn is coming up in
San Francisco now: 6:09 a.m. at the Seal Rock Inn. ... Out here at the far end
of Geary Street: this is the end of the line, for buses and everything else,
the western edge of America."
From
the window, even today guests can catch a sliver of the ocean. The trees lining 48th Avenue
across the way have grown tall and spread since Thompson’s residence forty-plus
years ago, cutting off much of the view.
The buses are still there, lined up right outside “his” window, ready to
take morning commuters into the city center.
When the large diesel engines were fired up and left idling too long, as
was the habit in those days, it’s not too hard to imagine Thompson sticking a
shotgun out the window and telling them to cut the noise and the fumes or else. Bus engines have been improved, and
environmental concerns have changed the way public vehicles are operated, but
some things remain the same. The fog
still rolls in thick as a blanket and the winds can be relentless, even when
the sun shines.
That’s
where we stayed during my latest scouting trip through SF for book locations,
two doors down from the room.
Reports have it that Thompson didn’t come out for days but had
everything brought in—food, drink, drugs, and any friends wanting to
party.
During
the trip I confirmed details for my new book (Pacific Burn) and scouted
locations for the as-yet untitled book 4 in the Jim Brodie series. Will the Seal Rock Inn find its way into a
future story? Not in number 4, but maybe
one day. Who knows? Either way, the visit was memorable.
Barry for Jeff
But security wise - the sources say that Holande the bachelor will make it easier than last time Hollande came with then First girlfriend Valerie Trierweiller. The advance security team has come to San Francisco a week before to laise with local San Francisco cops, the Sheriff's department, and the Secret Service. A lot of prep work for Hollande's one day San Francisco visit - he's not even sleeping here. On second thought maybe they want to keep him out of temptation. There will be a big luncheon with tech giants based here FB, Twitter, Genentech, Yahoo etc. Hollande's out to show he's getting savvy with the tech world in Zeelakon Vallée, wants to encourage entrepeneurship. Maybe he'll see how San Francisco doesn't much care fo Google these days.
