The San Francisco Citizen

Lots of people would like to live in San Francisco, but rents can be high. So, some just get an RV and just put it in a place where it’s free to park overnight. Which is pretty much everywhere in San Francisco.

Get a quiet Blue Max generator (chugga chugga chugga...) to keep your laptop charged up (but don’t tell the CARB!) and find a free source of WiFi, and then you’ll stay connected when you’re living rent-free in the City. Off the grid.

Still life in mobile homes.

You should be fine as long as you don’t try this in the Sunset district, where they’d run you out of town in a New York minute.

Details are a little sketchy, but the San Francisco Bomb Squad has just picked up a “package” and is taking it on a slow tour through Golden Gate Park. [UPDATE: The whole affair ended "peacefully" per KGO-TV]

Why the scenic route? So if it goes kaboom, it won’t hurt you all.

This was the scene at 6:30 PM, near the de Young Museum. Click to expand:

The starting location on Carl between Frederick and Williard:

Sarge in the front, mortar in the back:

The sticker on the red metal bucket says: “I HEART EXPLOSIVES.” (Don’t we all.) From a couple hundred feet away:

A bald eagle, sticks of dynamite and the Golden Gate Bridge:

Keep up the good work, San Francisco Bomb Squad!

It’s been printed in the San Francisco Examiner, (so it must be true):

Captain James Dudley of Central Station in North Beach plans to ask the San Francisco Entertainment Commission to consider making mandatory handstamps specific to a bar or club so police can more easily make connections between specific locations and drunken behavior.

According to the Cap’n, “it would be helpful to be able to track people.”

Will this idea pass constitutional muster? Is it justified? Feel free to read the Captain’s weekly newsletters to see what he’s dealing with  on a nightly basis in the world-famous North Beach area.

Will mandatory handstamps make your San Francisco bacchanal safer? Adamcomerford via Flickr

Be sure you don’t spend too much time showing off all your temporary tracking stamps to your friends on the street, as loitering too long in front of a club will soon get you into hot water as well.

Stay safe and have fun!

Yesterday’s Haight Ashbury Street Fair in San Francisco came with sunny skies and lots of attendees.

The alcohol ban of recent years has changed the character of this event somewhat. These days, the boozy Union Street Festival might have an edge in the number of inebriated. No matter, a good time was had by all in the Haight.

So, dig the colors of David Yu and look at a bunch of photos from SFWeekly. 

A mass of humanity:

 Could this man with marijuana garland be famous artist Harry Shearer trying out a new character?  

Hookahs! Get your hookahs! Hookahs.com was in the house:

A dancing baby grooving on Haight Street:

Cindy Sheehan had more than a few acolytes gathering signatures for Cindy’s windmill-tilting House campaign against Nancy Pelosi:

See you next year!

Be careful when attending the alcohol-free (really?) Haight Ashbury Street Fair today, as parole agents are on the scene. That’s not too crunchy.

Cheese it, the cops!

Bike messenger Kirk Janes was killed yesterday morning in a collision with a truck at Fulton and Steiner in Alamo Square. San Francisco’s Ride of Silence, already planned for yesterday evening, was then hastily altered to start at this intersection.

The Ride of Silence occurs on the third Wednesday in May in almost 300 cities around the world.  It’s a bicycle ride to commemorate cyclists killed or injured while riding on public roads. It helps to raise awareness among motorists of the dangers they pose to cyclists. Unlike a Critical Mass event, Ride of Silence rides are not designed to stall traffic or create conflict with motorists.

A KTVU channel 2 news crew spoke with riders as they assembled:

Friends of Kirk Janes were on hand with flowers:

It’s unusual to see a group this large not chatting and making noise. At the infamous intersection of Fell and Masonic:

Well, it appears this will be how B2b 2008 will be remembered:

“It’s often called the world’s longest party, but this year’s Bay to Breakers race through San Francisco was anything but fun for the residents, cops and public workers who bore the brunt of the drunken young “runners” who staggered around Golden Gate Park and the city’s west side, relieving themselves wherever it proved convenient.”

Imagine that!

Turkeybot ably captured a fine moment:

The Golden Gate Park Panhandle had far more than ten portajohns set up and waiting to go the night before the big race. But, Matier & Ross report that there were only ten there on the big day. Mmmm, how did that happen?

Speaking of the Panhandle, the half million dollar bathroom in the Panhandle was closed and surrounded by yellow police tape while racers were passing by during the early part of the day. Why was that?

This might have been the only place in Golden Gate park where people weren’t urinating. That’s all part of the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the longtime footrace. Most people had fun though, purported MUNI Meltdown or no.

See you next year!

You already know about the Good of B2B 2008. A good time was had by all.

But what about the Bad? Muni didn’t appear to be working very well north of Golden Gate Park in the afternoon following the big race. It wasn’t like all the buses were packed with people, it was like there didn’t seem to be any buses around at all throughout the Richmond. Must be tough to get drivers working on a Sunday.

And finally, the Ugly. Garbage everywhere, and more so than usual. Check the Flickr to see Drunken Douchebags Trash the Panhandle. Reopening Fell Street was such a chore that the DPW’s Mohammad Nuru called the cops to get some help.

Heading back uphill to the acme of the race course in Golden Gate Park (which is no where near Hayes Street Hill, the purported highest point on the race route): 

The cold dawn of day reveals a lot of trash still out there on the Streets of San Francisco. Maybe the people from Dutch financial institution and B2B sponsor ING could come down from their aerodynamic house and lend a hand with the cleanup? Just asking.

Hopefully, things will go more smoothly next year. Speaking of which… 

See you next year!

[The Panhandle is much cleaner now around 11:00 AM Monday morning. Yay.]

Why’s that?

You’d think a “drug free” area would be bereft of scoring opportunities, but that doesn’t appear to be the case around Hippy Hill in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco.

Just saying…

Let’s compare two recent events in San Francisco. This was the plan for the San Francisco Jewish Community Center the other day, but here was the result: Protests mark Israel’s 60th Anniversary at San Francisco Jewish Community Center.

Here’s what it looked like when people got hauled away. This was the scene a little later with dozens of cops settling in for the afternoon:

Management at the JCC was still uptight after the arrests, actually sending a security guard to threaten to call the cops on a photojournalist standing 25 yards away across the street. Bad form.

Compare that with the mellow Nabka at 60 Years, Free Palestine Peace and Solidarity Festival in Civic Center yesterday:

Things were just getting started, but it looked to be more like a street festival what with the smooth jazz stylings of Steely Dan on the P.A.

This more open approach would appear to be superior, if your goal is to get your point across to the general population.