I took advantage of the break between semesters to go back to SF for a week. Heading west in the winter used to be a way of beating the cold but global warming (or “climate change,” as Republican pollster Frank Luntz wouild prefer) has set our continent on a bizarro-world path. The east coast is enjoying spring-like temperatures, as much as we enjoy anything here (most people I know are freaked out by the weather) while the Bay Area was reeling in the wake of thirty degree lows.

San Francisco itself looked especially empty on this trip; I was reminded of a trip we took to Paris after the deadly August heat wave three years ago. “Daddy,” my daughter said as we trooped through the vacated Rive Gauche, “do people actually live here?” In SF the question is not so much do people live there, since I saw plenty of live bodies in cafes and restaurants, but how do they live? With the priciest real estate this side of Hong Kong (NY is a relative land of bargains) I marvel at the midday cappucino sippers, tapping on their three thousand dollar laptops while the money trickles in… from somewhere.

Michael Moore groused about the same thing in his first film, the slightly specious documentary Roger and Me. He had been given the heave after a brief and ineffectual stint at Mother Jones and the bitter taste left in his mouth reminded him of dark roasted beans and the seeming slackers who enjoy them at any given hour in SF. He was fired essentially for not doing anything, while MoJo’s last editor, my old pal Russ Rymer, was sacked for doing too much. Over breakfast at that old North Beach standby, the Cafe Puccini, he told me that he knew the end was nigh when an overlord told him, “There’s nothing in the magazine that couldn’t have appeared in The Atlantic.”

And he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

While the question of how people live in SF remains on the table, one need only look out the window to get the why. The most spectacular new view in the city can be found at the top of new De Young Museum in the middle of Golden Gate Park. On a clear day you can see the city entire, more glorious than most of the funky Northern California art on display. My brother Ethan and I circled the observation deck and reveled in the sunlight and crisp colors before heading off for lunch at a Burmese restaurant. My sound track as I drove was the new album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers which also seems to grapple with the meaning of California. Those guys are all in recovery now which reminds me of a meeting I attended…