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36 Perfect Hours in San Francisco with Nicolas Cage

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Today is Nic Cage Day across the Curbediverse, a day for celebrating The Legend and his legendary real estate hijinks. Why? Because Nic Cage. What follows below is a work of Nicolas Cage fan fiction by writer Andrew Dalton. All Nic Cages appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to the real-life deeds of real Nic Cage, living or dead, is purely coincidental.


Saturday, 9:30 a.m. Nicolas Cage is about to land at San Francisco International Airport. Or rather: the plane Nicolas Cage is on is about to land. Unfortunately, there had been no need for Nicolas Cage to commandeer the aircraft during the six-hour flight from New York, which was disappointing.

10 a.m. Nicolas Cage quietly thumbs his iPhone from the backseat of a black Town Car racing a reasonable and prudent three miles per hour above the speed limit up Highway 101 toward San Francisco. Nicolas Cage isn't quite sure what iPhones are for. He's not even sure how he got in this car. Nicolas Cage has never been good at making plans. He asks the driver to play "Low Rider" to get pumped up for a big weekend in the city, but the cab driver doesn't know what Nicolas Cage is talking about. This makes him very disappointed.

11 a.m.: On the terrace outside the penthouse suite at the Fairmont Hotel, Nicolas Cage has hired a sassy stylist to cut has hair. Nicolas Cage does his best Sean Connery impression while talking to no one in particular. Nicolas Cage is disappointed when no one threatens his life or tries to dangle him over the balcony.

Noon Nicolas Cage rides a cable car down two blocks of California Street. He spends the brief ride asking everyone on board if they know where his uncle's coffee shop is. When no one knows what he's referring to, Nicolas Cage becomes irritable. He gesticulates wildly in a way that can only be described as "over the top." As he steps off the cable car, he secretly wishes for a Humvee to come knock it off the tracks and send it flying 30 feet into the air in an inexplicable fireball. When this doesn't happen, Nicolas Cage is somewhat disappointed.

2 p.m. After a lengthy lunch spent mostly disappointed that none of his movie posters were featured on the walls at Cafe Zoetrope, Nicolas Cage heads to the Ferry Building. He is disappointed to learn that he has just missed the farmers' market; the vendors are packing their cases. "You know, I could eat a peach for hours," Nicolas Cage says to no one in particular. "Excuse me?" offers one girl, packing up a crate of nice cheeses.

4 p.m. Nicolas Cage spends two hours watching YouTube videos of himself while sitting on a park bench.

6 p.m. Nicolas Cage hires a salty local fisherman to take him on a sunset cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge. As the captain rounds Alcatraz and the sun begins to set out over the Pacific, Nicolas Cage considers The Rock as a condemnation of the American government and its poor treatment of veterans, while also recognizing that General Hummel's attempt to right those very same wrongs only upset a balance of power as precarious as those green orbs of VX gas themselves and ultimately threatened to destroy an entire city of innocents, including Dr. Stanley Goodspeed's own unborn son. Mostly, Nicolas Cage was just thinking about how he really loved the fact that Dr. Stanley Goodspeed was a huge Beatlemaniac.

8 p.m. Nicolas Cage returns from his sunset sail only to have the everliving Christ scared out of him by San Francisco's famous Bushman.

10 p.m. Nicolas Cage drives the winding back roads of Marin County in a convertible with the top down, listening to "Wicked Game" on repeat. Nicolas Cage wonders if Chris Isaak wants to hang out, and then goes on to steal exactly zero cars before morning. Which is a little disappointing.

Sunday, 5:30 a.m. Nicolas Cage awakens to find himself in the backseat of his convertible, which is now parked at turnout overlooking the San Francisco Bay. In the deep purple predawn, Nicolas Cage secretly begins to wonder if he might actually be a vampire. As the light starts to break, Nicolas Cage considers finding shelter someplace dark. He makes an obscene face when he checks the rearview mirror and only sees the glint of the sun rising over the hills behind him. He points the convertible, which he has now named Eleanor, in the direction of the Francis Ford Coppola winery and its sprawling poolside complex. There's a cabana there with his name on it.

Noon: Sitting in his cabana, which doesn't actually have his name on it, Nicolas Cage feels OK in assuming that SPF 50 is enough to save him from the damaging effects of the sun's rays even if he is, in fact, just a little bit vampire.

1 p.m. Nicolas Cage sips Diet Coke out of a can through a straw while sitting on the edge of a diving board over the pool. His hair is wild and he's padding the water with his feet, looking around expectantly, not unlike a lost child. He is wearing the worst pair of sunglasses you could imagine.

3 p.m. Wondering what became of the previous two hours of his life, Nicolas Cage suddenly realizes he is sitting in a hot tub, holding a hurricane glass filled with something sloshy and a neon straw. (Do they even serve those here?) Everything seems kind of dizzy. Off in the distance, there's the sound of girls screaming, either out of fear or maybe excitement.

5 p.m. Nicolas Cage blinks and finds himself in a hotel room. He is running in place on the bed while punching the air wildly. Someone has installed a strobe light in the corner, and it flashes with nightmarish intensity while death metal blasts from the combination iPod dock/alarm clock that the hotel so helpfully provided. Nicolas Cage makes a mental note to leave a favorable review on TripAdvisor.

7 p.m. Nicolas Cage takes a nap on the hotel bed while listening to Terry Gross on NPR. He dreams softly about a world where he plays every role in every Sofia Coppola movie, including The Virgin Suicides.

Sunday, 9:30 p.m. Nicolas Cage orders a grilled cheese sandwich from room service—crusts cut off, please—and falls asleep watching reruns of House Hunters International. He is not disappointed.

—Andrew Dalton