npc_ideas

ACTUAL¶

Wan­da Jen­nings - low lvl mys­tic amer in­di­an 37yrs tran­sex­u­al born on Mi­wok own­s/runs HIBH new agey crys­tal­s, heal­ing en­er­gy, auras

Left tribe had sex­change and fell in love with a man. Re­nounced past but when ap­proached by tribes agree to help sup­port trib­al stu­dents at­tend­ing school.

Red Feath­er - Coun­cil El­der wise, ten­der, car­ing, strict

Buck - Al­ca­traz war­rior amer in­di­an 22yrs pos­si­ble ang­ie love in­ter­est ang­ie met when 9

Al­fon­so de la Cal Del­ga­do (pi­co) to friends - The watch­er

Wendy Jen­nings - the slay­er

Ger­ard Jeremi­ah Jen­nings - slay­er’s sin­gle par­ent fa­ther

Spike - mind/­men­tal pat­terns made in­to an AI The Big Bad leads vamps on cru­sade

Wil­low - very, very old mag­i­cal­ly ex­tend­ed life. Spends most time on the net her han­dle “Old man of the Wood­s” tech­no­man­cy cast spell that freed nets from cor­po­rate rule

NPC¶

Em­per­or Nor­ton - An­i­ma­tron­ic ro­bot that es­caped from some dis­play NOR­TON I Em­per­or of North Amer­i­ca pro­tec­tor of Mex­i­co Josh­sua Abra­ham Nor­ton Born en­glish, tak­en to South Africa Capte­Town 1849 took ship to CA via Rio de Janiro 2 dogs Bum­mer & Lazarus Bur­ried in old Ma­son­ic Cemetary, moved to Col­ma

Miss Kit­ty Fan­tas­ti­co: black kit­ten with white socks bought by Tara to be her and Wil­lows fa­mil­iar.

Saint Fran­cis of As­sisi [1182-1226] - co-­founder of the Fran­cis­can Or­der, and name­sake for the city http://d­moz.org/­So­ci­ety/Re­li­gion_and_Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty/Chris­tian­i­ty/­De­nom­i­na­tion­s/­Catholi­cis­m/­Saints/F/­Sain­t_Fran­cis_of_As­sisi/

Supporting Cast

• I’m the law School Mil­i­­tia The Dis­­trict Mil­i­­tia Coun­­cil Cops

  The Dis­­trict Coun­­cil (sub part of a city) Coun­­cil (main au­­ton­o­­mous zone coun­­cil

• Ususal sus­pects

Supanatural¶

Ara­di­a: God­dess of the lost. Called up­on when work­ing a guid­ing spel­l.

Uf­ta god­dess of child birth

er­aka, The Or­der of: So­ci­ety of dead­ly as­sas­sins dat­ing back to King

Solomon. Wear rings to iden­ti­fy them­selves.

Old Ones, The: name for the demons who used to in­hab­it the Earth be­fore hu­man be­ings.

Le­off de­mon: Long hair, white faces, red noses, and sup­pu­rat­ing sores. Like to suck mar­row. Glo­ry re­cruit­ed some to kill the Slay­er.

Companies and organizations¶

Blush Beau­ti­ful Cos­met­ic­s: fic­ti­tious com­pa­ny that as­sas­sin Nor­man Pfis­ter claims to rep­re­sen­t. He gains en­try in­to his vic­tim’s home with the prom­ise of free sam­ple prod­uct­s. Killer of the Dead: Poi­son used to kill vam­pires. Caus­es ex­treme pain, and a lin­ger­ing death. Faith shot An­gel with an ar­row dipped in this poi­son. The on­ly known cure is to drain the blood of a Slay­er. Buffy was un­able to bring Faith to An­gel, so forced him to drink from her in­stead. Kit­ten pok­er: demons and vam­pires play for kit­tens in­stead of mon­ey.

Cadil­lax Re­search and De­vel­op­ment CRD Corp

nep­tune so­ci­ety

rose­cru­tions

Lees and Chans - street gangs tol­er­at­ed since they rarely kill each oth­er pro­vide good gurel­lia troops

Au­re­lias: Twelfth cen­tu­ry prophet. Be­gan a sect called The Or­der of Au­re­lias. Proph­e­sied that they would bring about the death of the Slay­er through the cre­ation of The Anoint­ed.

Au­re­lias, The Or­der of: The Brethren of Au­re­lian. A vam­pire cult who were fol­low­ers of The Mas­ter. Mem­bers wore rings with a fi­deli­ty sym­bol carved on the top, and a sun and three stars en­graved on the in­sid­e. An an­cient and ven­er­at­ed sec­t, they were called by The Mas­ter to as­sist in cre­at­ing The Anoint­ed.

http://www.not­frisco.­com/­col­matales/s­fec­c.html

Among the most cher­ished of San Fran­cis­co in­sti­tu­tions are its weir­does — er — ec­centric­s. They in­clude peo­ple who yell at the tourists at trol­ley stop­s, cof­fee house philoso­phers with unique views, mil­lion­aires who want to leave some large fol­ly in their mem­o­ry, and many oth­er­s. Some are artist­s, some are fi­nanciers with an eye for the odd, and oth­ers are just in­de­pen­den­t, cre­ative type­s. These peo­ple have de­fied con­ven­tion in some re­mark­able way and by their an­tic­s, caused us to re­mem­ber and cher­ish them. MAD, ad­j. Af­fect­ed with a high de­gree of in­tel­lec­tu­al in­de­pen­dence; not con­form­ing to stan­dards of thought, speech, and ac­tion de­rived by the con­for­mants from the study of them­selves; at odds with the ma­jor­i­ty; in short, un­usu­al. It is note­wor­thy that per­sons are pro­nounced mad by of­fi­cials des­ti­tute of ev­i­dence that they them­selves are sane. - from The Dev­il’s Dic­tio­nary, Am­brose Bierce

Concepcion Arguello

This wom­an’s tale is per­haps the sad­dest on this page and one of the most mag­nif­i­cent ex­am­ples of de­vo­tion told any­where. When she was young, the daugh­ter of the Pre­sidio Com­man­dant fell in love with Niko­lai Rezanov, a young Rus­sian of­fi­cer from Fort Ross who had come to San Fran­cis­co to es­tab­lish trade be­tween his set­tle­ment and the still tiny vil­lage. She could not mar­ry him be­cause he was not a Catholic, but as he left he promised her that he would go to the Czar and ask his per­mis­sion to con­vert so that he could. Many years passed and Niko­lai did not re­turn. Doña Con­cep­cion en­tered a con­vent and wait­ed, con­vinced that he had not for­got­ten her. In 1846, some forty years af­ter their ro­man­tic af­fair end­ed, she learned that she’d been right: Niko­lai had left im­me­di­ate­ly for St. Pe­ters­burg, but had died dur­ing the long over­land trek and was buried in Yakut­sk, Siberi­a. His lover nev­er mar­ried.

Ambrose Bierce

Am­brose Bierce de­vel­oped caus­tic wit to a high art and be­came the lit­er­ary ar­biter of the West Coast. He ar­rived in 1868, just in time to as­sume the role of “Town Crier” from an­oth­er great Amer­i­can hu­morist, Mark Twain. Even Bierce’s em­ploy­er, William Ran­dolph Hearst, was not safe from his barb­s. Hearst sent Bierce back east in 1896 to use his edged words against Col­lis B. Hunt­ing­ton and the South­ern Pa­cif­ic Rail­road. In 1913, Bierce ti­died up his af­fairs and dis­ap­peared in­to rev­o­lu­tion­ary Mex­i­co. It is not known where or how he died.

Sam Brannan

When the ship bear­ing Sam Bran­nan and the flock of Lat­ter-­Day Saints ar­rived in San Fran­cis­co, they were sur­prised to find it oc­cu­pied by the Amer­i­can­s. “There’s that damned flag again,” Bran­nan is sup­posed to have said. Bran­nan and his fol­low­ers planned to trav­el over­land to Utah where they would meet Brigham Young. The al­lure of San Fran­cis­co proved too much and Bran­nan, with many oth­er­s, re­mained. When Brigham Young sent word that Bran­nan should for­ward the com­mu­ni­ty’s tithes to him, Bran­nan replied that the Lord was wel­come to come col­lect in per­son. Bran­nan soon broke with the church.

Bran­nan as­sumed a lead­ing role in San Fran­cis­co af­fairs, an­nounc­ing the dis­cov­ery of gold at Sut­ter’s Mill (after he’d tak­en care to open a gen­er­al store in Sacra­men­to) and or­ga­niz­ing the First Com­mit­tee of Vig­i­lance. He be­came one of Cal­i­for­ni­a’s rich­est men dur­ing the 1850s. Bran­nan, how­ev­er, loved drink and made some bad de­ci­sion­s. He bought up Na­pa Val­ley land where he hoped to build a re­sort. “Sarato­ga” was the name he’d planned to give it, but he showed up drunk on ded­i­ca­tion day and an­nounced that here­after the place would be known as “Cal­is­to­ga, Sarafor­ni­a!” The min­er­al springs and town are still known as Cal­is­to­ga.

Bran­nan lost it all af­ter his wife di­vorced him. She took all his San Fran­cis­co prop­er­ties and let him keep Cal­is­to­ga. Bran­nan soon mis­man­aged his re­sort in­to bank­rupt­cy and dis­ap­peared from the pub­lic eye. He died a pau­per in Es­con­di­do, Cal­i­for­ni­a.

Benjarmino Bufano

“Mer­cu­ri­al” is the po­lite term peo­ple used to de­scribe Ben­jarmi­no Bu­fano’s tem­per­a­men­t. He fought with his pa­tron­s, he with­held his art from them when they of­fend­ed him or did not of­fer ad­e­quate com­mis­sion, and made peo­ple fear him. Peo­ple talked about him even af­ter his death. Holy Cross Ceme­tery re­ject­ed his tomb­stone (a mod­ern stat­ue of Saint Fran­cis) as un­suit­able for their ceme­tery, so Bu­fano and his mon­u­ment were placed in a back cor­ner at the head of the plot for in­di­gent chil­dren.

Charles E. Bolton (Black Bart)

A hand­ker­chief, dropped at a holdup scene, led a Well­s-­Far­go de­tec­tive to dis­cov­er the iden­ti­ty of the ban­dit who had been ter­ror­iz­ing his stage­coach line for two years. Black Bart turned out to be mild-­man­nered Charles Bolton, a bank clerk not be­lieved by any­one to be ca­pa­ble of vi­o­lence. In all his rob­beries, Bolton nev­er harmed a soul. He picked ex­clu­sive­ly on the Wells Far­go Com­pa­ny. As a call­ing card, he of­ten left po­em­s. Up­on his re­lease from San Quentin in 1888, the war­den asked Bolton if he had giv­en up his life of crime. “Yes,” said Bolton, “I have.” “Are you go­ing to write any more po­et­ry?” asked the war­den. Bolton replied “I told you I was­n’t go­ing to com­mit any more crimes.”

I’ve la­bored long and hard for bread For hon­or and for rich­es But on my corns too long you’ve trod, You fine-haired sons of bitch­es.

Black Bart PO8

Dr. Henry Cogswell

Dr. Hen­ry Cogswell be­lieved that it was his du­ty to spread the good news of mod­ern den­tistry to a caries-rid­den pop­u­lace. His mode of car­ry­ing out this wor­thy mis­sion­ary ac­tiv­i­ty is what puts his name among the great ec­centric­s. Cogswell not on­ly thought den­tistry was a good thing, but he al­so ev­i­den­tal­ly be­lieved that he was the em­bod­i­ment of all that was good about den­tistry be­cause he gave to the city sev­er­al stat­ues of him­self of­fer­ing a glass of ev­er-flow­ing wa­ter to thirsty cit­i­zen­s. “Pur­ple Cow” au­thor and hu­morist Gelette Burgess lost his job as a draft­ing in­struc­tor at UC Berke­ley be­cause he made some un­men­tion­able al­ter­ation to one of these mon­u­ments to den­tal hubris.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit

Lil­lie Hitch­cock Coit went to live in the South dur­ing the Amer­i­can Civ­il War. She dressed in men’s clothes and crashed their ex­clu­sive bas­tions and af­fairs. She sur­vived an as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt by a crazed and jeal­ous cousin. Lil­lie was the beloved of the city’s fire­men. She was for­ev­er grate­ful to the Knicker­bock­er Com­pa­ny for res­cu­ing her when she was young. She cheered for them as they fought fires. At her death, she be­queathed the city the un­usu­al Coit Tow­er, shaped like a fire hose noz­zle. Her tomb at Cy­press Lawn is said to hold a shrine lad­ed with fire mem­o­rablia still main­tained by un­known per­son­s! She is the sub­ject of a fu­ture Tale from Col­ma.

Willie Coombs or George Washington II

Willie Coomb­s, al­so known as George Wash­ing­ton II, was a smal­l­-­time phre­nol­o­gist who al­most made it big as Nor­ton’s chief ri­val. Ear­ly re­ports by Colonel Mous­tache spoke of both them as crown­ing glo­ries of the city’s in­di­gent pop­u­la­tion. Coomb­s, a na­tive of New York, walked through the city, car­ry­ing a ban­ner and wear­ing a tri­corn hat over his long pow­dered hair. Her­bert Ash­bury says that he wore a Con­ti­nen­tal uni­form of tanned buck­skin. A plump lit­tle man, he was con­fi­dent of his come­li­ness and tout­ed him­self via the ban­ner, poster­s, and his own voice as The Great Mat­ri­mo­ni­al Can­di­date.

He was one of many habitues of Mar­tin and Hor­ton’s sa­loon. Here he spent his evenings im­bib­ing steam beer and por­ing over maps and doc­u­ments, plan­ning his bat­tles. He com­posed mes­sages to Con­gress and to oth­er na­tion­s, much like Nor­ton did. It is hard to say who im­i­tat­ed who, but the jeal­ousy they felt to­wards one an­oth­er was in­tense. Like Nor­ton, Coombs took his per­sona se­ri­ous­ly and once spent a win­ter starv­ing him­self un­til friends con­vinced him that Val­ley Forge was over.

Coombs left the city abrupt­ly af­ter a clash with the Em­per­or. One day, he stormed in­to the po­lice sta­tion, claim­ing that Em­per­or Nor­ton was tear­ing down his poster­s. The po­lice chuck­led and in­formed him that there was no law against this; he would have to re­sort to civ­il ac­tion. George Wash­ing­ton II had no mon­ey, so he did as Nor­ton did and went to Nor­ton’s fa­vorite news­pa­per of the day, the Al­ta Cal­i­for­ni­a, where he told his sad sto­ry. When asked why Nor­ton would do such a thing, Coombs replied “Be­cause he is jeal­ous of my rep­u­ta­tion with the fair sex.”

Soon af­ter, the Al­ta pub­lished an ar­ti­cle de­scrib­ing its two res­i­dent crack­pot­s. It made fun of Nor­ton’s sloven­li­ness and point­ed to the “light of in­san­i­ty” shin­ing in the eyes of Coomb­s. Both men stormed in­to the Al­ta and, declar­ing their per­fect san­i­ty, de­mand­ed a re­trac­tion.

A few days lat­er, the Al­ta print­ed a new procla­ma­tion from Nor­ton di­rect­ing the Chief of Po­lice to “seize up­on the per­son of Pro­fes­sor Coomb­s, false­ly called Wash­ing­ton No. 2, as a sedi­tious and tur­bu­lent fel­low, and to have him sent forth­with, for his own good and the pub­lic good, to the State Lu­natic Asy­lum for at least thir­ty days.” Coombs found it ex­pe­di­ent to go back home to New York.

Mark Twain found him there in 1868, still think­ing him­self to be George Wash­ing­ton’s rein­car­na­tion and dis­play­ing his legs for the en­joy­ment of the ladies. He pe­ti­tioned Con­gress to give him the William Penn Man­sion in Phil­a­del­phia and, when this ed­i­fice was torn down, he re­quest­ed they give him the Wash­ing­ton Mon­u­men­t.

Lotta Crabtree

Lot­ta Crab­tree, a pro­tegé of Lo­la Mon­tez, be­gan her ca­reer as a gold­en-haired girl who wowed the min­ers at San Fran­cis­co’s Bel­la Union and else­where in the Moth­er Lode. She grew up to be a fa­mous ac­tress in her own right. Her unique gift to the city — the cast-­iron mon­stros­i­ty known as Lot­ta’s Foun­tain lo­cat­ed at Mont­gomery and Mar­ket — earns her a place on this list.

The Great Unknown (Wilhelm Frohm)

San Fran­cis­cans won­dered about the strange, tall man who they saw walk­ing ev­ery day and they called him The Great Un­known. Tai­lor Wil­helm Frohm him­self did not know he was the sub­ject of con­ver­sa­tion for some time. When he found out, he tried to cap­i­tal­ize on his fame by rent­ing a hall and sell­ing tick­ets for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet him and find out who he was. On­ly one re­porter showed and by the next morn­ing, all of San Fran­cis­co knew the iden­ti­ty of the mys­te­ri­ous man in black.

Sadakichi Hartmann

By this name lived a true sain­t. Some­one named this son of a Ger­man fa­ther and a Ja­pa­nese moth­er “The Most Mys­te­ri­ous Per­son­al­i­ty in Amer­i­can Let­ter­s”. He once pre­dict­ed that Cal­i­for­nia would “even­tu­al­ly se­cede from the Union.” When he was dragged in­to court in 1918 as a Ger­man sym­pa­thiz­er, he scoffed “I hate Ger­many. I was ar­rest­ed in Berlin for call­ing the Kaiser names.” The world shook around him. Sada­kichi went on paint­ing, writ­ing, act­ing, and just liv­ing all the same. Such is the world that a sane man like Sadi­kichi qual­i­fies as an ec­cen­tric by men and wom­en who do not think. If one had­n’t been one­self, it would have been worth­while be­ing Sada­kichi.

Jim Jones

The City’s lib­er­al es­tab­lish­ment (in­clud­ing May­or George Moscone) de­pend­ed on Rev­erend Jim Jones be­cause no one else could turn out precinct work­ers like he could. The dark side of Jones on­ly be­came known short­ly be­fore he fled to a South Amer­i­can set­tle­men­t: the Peo­ple’s Tem­ple en­sured the loy­al­ty of its mem­bers through tor­ture and in­tim­i­da­tion. Jon­estown was the Rev­erend’s per­son­al dic­ta­tor­ship Af­ter mur­der­ing Demo­crat­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Leo Ryan, Jones or­dered his fol­low­ers to join him in sui­cide. Some did so vol­un­tar­il­ly. Oth­ers were killed by en­forcers who killed them­selves when the job was done.

The King of Pain

The King of Pain told those who bought the lin­i­ment he sold out­side the Pa­cif­ic Clin­i­cal In­fir­mary that if they cov­ered their bod­ies with the oint­ment as he did, they would need no clothes. He him­self wore a bright red union suit, a heavy velour robe, a os­trich-feath­ered plug hat, and a heavy sword. As he grew wealth­i­er from the sales of his aconite oint­men­t, he bought him­self a coal-black coach and six snow-white hors­es to draw it. He lost it all at the gam­ing ta­bles and end­ed his life a sui­cide.

Anton LaVey

A car­ni­val sideshow op­er­a­tor turned high priest of evil opened his Church of Sa­tan in a re­spectable part of town and at­tract­ed ac­tress Jayne Mans­field and oth­ers who sought to sell their soul­s. LaVey’s Sa­tan­ic Bible is lit­tle more than an in­ver­sion of the Beat­i­tudes and any oth­er part of the Bible which calls for lov­ing thy neigh­bor as well as thy­self. He claims the pow­er to curse those who of­fend him.

James Lick

James Lick made his for­tune sell­ing pi­anos in South Amer­i­ca and then in­vest­ing it in San Fran­cis­co re­al es­tate dur­ing the Gold Rush. His rep­u­ta­tion as Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Stingi­est Man was well-de­served: he wore old clothes that he fished out of garbage can­s. A nephew who came to vis­it his pros­per­ous un­cle com­plained that he was made to sleep on top of an old pi­ano! Lick re­pent­ed late in life, giv­ing the City a large mon­u­ment to West­ern progress (on which he is promi­nent­ly de­pict­ed). To the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­ni­a, he gave his tomb­stone: Mount Hamil­ton’s Lick Ob­ser­va­to­ry. Lick is buried un­der the 36 inch re­frac­tor tele­scope that bears his name.

The Little Drummer Boy

This lit­tle fel­low ap­pears in many of Ed Jump’s car­i­ca­tures, which al­so fea­ture the likes of Willie Coomb­s, the Em­per­or Nor­ton, the Great Un­known, and many oth­er ear­ly San Fran­cis­co street char­ac­ter­s. The au­thor spent many fruit­less weeks try­ing to find who this lit­tle guy was. Then, in a musty file at the San Fran­cis­co Archives, he dis­cov­ered the truth: Jump had made him up be­cause he fig­ured Em­per­or Nor­ton need­ed a drum­mer.

Joaquin Miller

This self­-styled moun­tain man was, in his time, the Bay Area’s most fa­mous po­et­aster. He left a string of il­legi­mate chil­dren, trav­elled to Eng­land as the em­bod­i­ment of the Wild West, and re­turned to find him­self ridiculed by his coun­try­men. Be­tween vis­it­s, his Eng­lish friends (who in­clud­ed the Roset­tis) read his po­et­ry and found it bad. Miller preached free love from his Oak­land home, The High­t­s. Some­times he con­duct­ed rain-­mak­ing cer­e­monies for cu­ri­ous vis­i­tors. They al­ways worked: Miller prov­i­den­tial­ly sta­tioned his gar­den­er, the po­et Yone Nogu­ichi (fa­ther of sculp­tor Isao Nogu­ichi), next to a sprin­kler valve hid­den in the bush­es. On re­turn­ing to my own coun­try, I found that this un­pleas­ant and en­tire­ly im­pos­si­ble fig­ure ev­er at­tend­ed and even over­shad­owed my most earnest work.

The Empress Norton

Nor­ton I looked in vain for a suit­able con­sort. Queen Vic­to­ri­a, Queen Em­ma of the Sand­wich Is­land­s, and Maxmil­lian’s wid­ow the Em­press Car­lot­ta (who many thought were suit­able be­cause she, like Nor­ton I, was de­ranged) all seemed like­ly match­es. On at least one oc­cas­sion, Nor­ton em­barassed him­self mak­ing a pro­pos­al to a pret­ty young wom­an. Alas, he died un­re­quit­ed. In 1961, José Saria ran for City Su­per­vi­sor un­der the name of the Dowa­ger Wid­ow of the Em­per­or Nor­ton, Em­press of San Fran­cis­co and Pro­tec­tress of Mex­i­co. Sari­a, the first open­ly gay can­di­date to run for city of­fice, polled 6,500 votes.

Emperor Norton (Joshua Norton)

Joshua Nor­ton was per­haps the most beloved San Fran­cis­co ec­cen­tric of al­l. He is the sub­ject of a Tale from Col­ma.

Old Orthodox, Hallelujah Cox, and Crisis Hopkins

The names of these three be­long to­geth­er, not on­ly be­cause they drank at the same bar (Martin and Hor­ton), but be­cause they in­ter­act­ed so fre­quent­ly with one an­oth­er. Old Or­tho­dox and Hal­lelu­jah Cox were street preach­er­s. Cri­sis Hop­kin­s, who wore a high cler­i­cal col­lar, was their neme­sis. No soon­er than the two mis­sion­ar­ies fin­ished their fire and brim­stone, Hop­kins would mount his own soap-box and preach free-­think­ing. No one knows if ei­ther the preach­er or the man of rea­son made much of an im­pres­sion on Bar­bary Coast denizen­s. The hel­l-­fire and damna­tion preach­ers are gone, friend­s; now lis­ten to rea­son.

Crisis Hopkins Oofty-Goofty

This char­ac­ter start­ed out as The Wild Man of Bor­neo in a Bar­bary Coast sideshow. When peo­ple came up to his bars, he would growl and mut­ter “Oofty goofty!”, hence his name. He once played Romeo in a pro­duc­tion where the lead ac­tress proved too heavy for the bal­cony. So they switched po­si­tions and, true to his past, Oofty Goofty made like a mon­key and grunt­ed and moaned his lines. He be­came a cu­ri­ous one-­man in­dus­try when he dis­cov­ered that he felt no pain. Peo­ple could sock him, kick him, etc. and it would not both­er him. He let sa­loon denizens abuse him for four bits a whack. His ca­reer end­ed when he let heavy­weight box­ing cham­pi­on John L. Sul­li­van hit him across the back with a pool cue. Sul­li­van broke two of Oofty’s ver­te­brae, forc­ing Oofty to re­tire. There­after Oofty walked with a limp and whim­pered at the slight­est touch.

Mary Pleasants

The tall wom­an in a bon­net caught the eye of many who shopped in the morn­ings. They whis­pered that she knew “voodoo” and called her “Mam­my”. Af­ter her em­ploy­er and busi­ness part­ner, Thomas Bel­l, slipped on the stair­way of his Oc­tavia Street home, some said that she’d killed him with her scar­f. One gris­ly ru­mor held that she’d scooped out his brains and eat­en them! Mary Pleas­ant did have an un­can­ny tal­ent for ma­nip­u­la­tion. She steered Sarah Althea Hill in­to her fa­mous di­vorce law­suit against Sen­a­tor William Sharon. She act­ed the pro­curess for many oth­er girl­s, too. But she al­so cham­pi­oned African Amer­i­can civ­il right­s, to the point of spread­ing wal­nut stain on her fair cheeks to dark­en them and so elim­i­nate any trace of white an­ces­try.

Margo St. James

Mar­go did­n’t start out as a pros­ti­tute. She liked to hang around North Beach cof­fee shops and give it away free to who­ev­er pleased her. One night, the San Fran­cis­co po­lice raid­ed her apart­ment while her new room­mate was en­ter­tain­ing. This ex­pe­ri­ence first led her to seek a law de­gree and, when she went broke, to join the busi­ness her­self. Mar­got found­ed COY­OTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethic­s), a pros­ti­tutes’ rights or­ga­ni­za­tions which, for a time, held an an­nu­al Hook­er’s Bal­l.

Sister Boom-Boom and Sadie-Sadie Rabbi Lady

A pair of drag queens who en­tered pol­i­tics and chal­lenged the forces of an­ti-­gay bias which some­times vis­it­ed the city. Sis­ter Boom-­Boom ran for may­or and list­ed her oc­cu­pa­tion as “Nun of the Above.”

William Walker

In our cen­tu­ry, William Walk­er was the sub­ject of a sur­re­al mo­tion pic­ture about U.S. in­ter­ven­tion in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. In his own time, he af­fect­ed a de­lib­er­ate­ly Pu­ri­tan air, wear­ing a long black cape, black pants, and a large, flop­py-rimmed, black hat. He used San Fran­cis­co as a base of op­er­a­tions for his Cen­tral Amer­i­can ad­ven­tures which were fi­nanced, at first, by Cor­nelius Van­der­bilt. Walk­er took over Nica­rau­gua, but soon fell afoul of Van­der­bilt and of na­tive Nica­rau­guans with the das­tard­ly idea of self­-de­ter­mi­na­tion in their head­s. A fre­quent vis­i­tor to the Cob­web Palace was William Walk­er, the fa­mous Cen­tral Amer­i­can fil­i­buster who, with his long, black cloak and big flop­py hat, was a fa­mil­iar fig­ure in San Fran­cis­co for sev­er­al years. Once when Walk­er poked with his cane at a cob­we­b, [Abe] Warn­er re­marked: “That cob­web will be grow­ing long af­ter you’ve been cut down from the gib­bet.” It was on­ly about three years lat­er that Walk­er was shot by a fir­ing squad in Hon­duras. — from The Bar­bary Coast by Her­bert As­bury

Abe Warner

For forty years, Abe kept the Cob­web Palace at Meigg’s Whar­f. It was called such be­cause Abe re­fused to hurt a spi­der and let them have their way with the dec­o­ra­tions. He al­so dis­played an ex­ten­sive col­lec­tion of stuffed an­i­mal­s. De­spite his sloven­ly tav­ern­keep­ing, Abe took pains each morn­ing to wash, trim his beard, and don a for­mal out­fit crowned by a plug hat.

Zodiac

Not all San Fran­cis­co ec­centrics make you laugh. Zo­di­ac ter­ror­ized the city in two dif­fer­ent episodes, de­scrib­ing his kills in tele­phone calls and let­ters to prom­i­nent news­pa­per, tele­vi­sion and ra­dio per­son­al­i­ties. Zo­di­ac claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for 37 mur­der­s. He was nev­er caugh­t, un­less the ru­mors about the Un­abomber are true….