The Year of Sheltering Dangerously
By Ben Fong-Torres
Well, hasn’t THIS been a fun 365?
As we approached the anniversary of the shelter-in-place orders for the San Francisco Bay Area, on March 16, I thought of some of the changes we’ve been through.
In February, our calendar was packed with restaurant dinners and a large, loud gathering at Harbor Villa, saluting our friend, the civil rights attorney Dale Minami.
And there was my 24th time as co-anchor of the Chinese New Year Parade, on KTVU. The Year of the Rat. Indeed.
Early in March, we had more restaurant get-togethers, including dinner at the House of Prime Rib (almost as hard to get into as Hamilton) and a family luncheon for Chinese New Year at the stellar dim sum restaurant, Yank Sing. One evening, I went to the dive bar, El Rio, for the monthly jam staged by Los Train Wreck, and did my usual, a parody of a Dylan classic, “Rainy Day Women 12+35,” with lyrics I ripped from the headlines:
They’ll stone you when you come to see the band
And make mistakes, like shaking people’s hands
Los Train Wreck’s easy going, and all they ask:
Is when you’re talking with them, use a mask
And you will not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned!
On March 13th, I went to the Record Plant, the fabled studio in Sausalito, to be interviewed for a documentary about the Plant.
