Scenes from a weekend-

-Guy on the corner of 16th & Valencia sets up a stand on the corner to both register people to sign petitions but also to read their tarot cards.

-While getting the paper on Saturday morning, some guy starts running up and down Valencia asking for change. I get the feeling that he probably actually needs the money and is having some sort of possible car emergency as he doesn't look like your typical homeless person and is way too frantic. Still, I don't give him money. That's the thing about living where I live, the crackheads kind of ruin it for people who need the money. I also have to say that I got a bit snippy when he asked me money for me the second time. Note to homeless people: if you ask someone for money, try and remember with whom you asked the money from. If we say no once, we're not going to say yes a minute later.

-Tweaker couple on BART, all twitchy and spastic, get on the train lugging some huge laundry bag, so heavy they can't carry it. They argue the whole time about which BART station to get off and after going one stop, they get off the train and go stand on the track to go back in the direction to which they came.

-Standing outside the Glen Park Station bar, a local neighborhood dive bar if ever there was, a friend gets into a conversation with one of them, a blue collar sort in his 40's who proceeds to go on a long rant about pretty much everything. As soon as the guy started, I got that queasy feeling you get when you know somewhere along the way, the rant would get ugly. And it did. Five minutes into it, blammo, out came the racism. Had this weird feeling that I was staring at the ghost of Christmas Future- a cranky borderline alcoholic whose life consists of drinking at the neighborhood bar with all the regulars and going on long winded, half sane, totally insane rants.

-After talking to racist guy, we start talking to the clerk at the video store. He's kind of young-ish (early twenties) and white, walking home from closing up the shop and drinking a jack & coke. Dude starts telling us that he's a film student at UCSF and that one day, he's going to be a famous film director and we'll all soon learn his name. I ask him if he's actually done anything or directed a student film. He tells me he hasn't gotten around to it yet because he's been to busy studying Japanese so he can hit on Japanese girls. Start to think that right there that sums up the cities art scene and why with all the talented and creative people who live here, nobody really does anything.

-Saw a guy walking around Haight street with the familiar Che t-shirt but with the phrase "I Have No Idea Who This Guy Is" underneath the visage. Hah! Works on so many levels of irony.

-Then walked past one of the new fangled Cannabis club that now exists in the city only to notice that not only were the doors wide open, but that you could totally look inside the place. Let's just say there weren't a lot of sick looking people in there. Or at least, if they were sick, it must have been a coincidence that most of them were wearing dreadlocks.

-On SFist, guy starts posting comments about an interview with the wife of a local politician and calls the politician and his wife nazis. When it's pointed out that calling someone a nazi in a debate is a little over-the-top and nothing but name-calling, he attacks the other person for calling him a name and for trying to stifle his free speech. And there you have your commentary on politics in this city. Somehow, the guy who used the nazi comment didn't think that saying things like "of course, he doesn't support genocide" is not what makes a rational argument against someone. Later on, he goes on to say he can call people Nazis because he's Jewish. I wonder if he pulled a Tim Watley and converted to Judaism just so he could get away with calling people Nazis.

And then….


While taking the BART back from Orinda on Sunday afternoon, a bunch of students from Cal got on and sat around me. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that they were all pretty much stoned to the bejesus, the non-stop giggling and the wearing of sunglasses the entire ride being dead give-aways. Ahh, to be young and stoned again…

Because I was bored, I do a game I do when I'm bored and people watching so I started figuring out their types. Like the cool hippiesh guy in the back, the one in sunglasses who tried not to say anything: he's the guy pretending to be too cool and to experienced to be all stoned and giggly. They probably did the bong hits out of his bong. Then there was the hippie chick in dreads, the one who spent the whole time laughing. I'm guessing she wasn't a hippie chick in high school and only became one the moment her parents dropped her off at the dorms. She'll probably start doing heavier drugs and either come out of it okay or wind up going through some weird tofu, veggie phase. Then there was the hipster-ish girl with two-toned hair, nose piercing, and a Belinda Carlisle look. I'm guessing she's going to be ditching most of the people she was with over the next few years when she figures out that hipsters aren't allowed to hang out with hippies. She'll probably take up smoking (if she hasn't already) and as she was more big-boned than fat, she'll probably start chunking up in a few years. Ten years from now, she'll be one of many that you'll find at any Mission bar- the type of girl who's overweight yet still wears a t-shirt that shows off her beer-gut, chain-smokes, has dyed hair and bangs, and goes through a lengthy slutty period with guys with tattoes. As for the wall-flower girl wearing a really badly outdated pink shirt, she'll eventually have to choose between the hipster path or the hippie path. Or go lesbian.