Bay to Breakers 2009: The year of the swine
You know that feeling when you suddenly come up with a great idea? It could be when you're in the shower, on the toilet, making granola, or maybe just really, really stoned out of your gourd. Whenever it happens, you suddenly feel this light shining upon your mind and you believe that you have come up with with the most amazing thing in the world and no one, simply no one, has come up with this idea either.
We've all been there and as much as we never want to admit it, while we were on the toilet crafting bits of genius, some other guy was stoned in the shower, thinking up the same bit. You suddenly realize how often this happens when you go and watch (or go forbid, run) Bay to Breakers, our annual footrace in San Francisco. It's a great event that is a much sweatier version of the annual Love Parade with more beer and less drugs. Hey, it's a pretty gay city. We love our parades, costumes, and shits.
The only issue with Bay to Breakers is that after you've seen a few (2006 and 2007) it gets to be a common routine. For a friend who lives a block off Hayes Street, this means having to deal with her street being awash in urine and drunken morons (more on that later). For me, this means seeing your rather regular set of sexy nurses, salmon running upstream (which I don't get tired of), the "Elvi" (Elvises), fairy winged chicks (and dudes), a fleet of gnarly, fat naked folk, and a plethora of others standard B2B outfits. It's still fun though, because what makes it change from year to year is that there are those with the aforementioned toilet ideas who try to break out of the mold and try something new. This could mean any number of Borats, Napoleon Dynamites, or Reno 911s running around. This year, it was the swine, as in swine flu. H1N1 was represented in any and all forms from floats to costumes, to... whatever. Piggy was everywhere, but because the piggy cough was something of a nebulous load of media hype, the embodiment of "swine flu" in the race was different for all those trying it. I had to respect it.
As far as the annual drunkenness goes, I have to say that it was definitely less. Yes, there were plenty of trashy Marina and Mission/Hipster types bouncing around like idiots, but the amount of massive quantities of alcohol was definitely reduced. This article states to the contrary, but it was wrong on many counts. They were mainly trying to limit people pushing carts that were just full of beer kegs through the race. They managed this to a large extent. I have no idea as to how it went further down the course, but it was not the scene that I've known from previous years. Yeah, people were still drunk when they hit Hayes Street Hill (the 4km mark), but I think it was more limited this time. People had drank themselves out because they couldn't carry as much. Also, it was damned hot for San Francisco. A 30C day in the middle of May isn't that common. Some folks (as much as I refuse to admit it) might actually have been sensible and realized that they could have killed themselves walking 12km with only beer to hydrate them.
Anyways, B2B is over for the year and maybe, I'll actually try to run it one of these days. On the lazy note, a photo set will be following as I and #1 Fan took about 300 shots today.
17 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: bay to breakers, san francisco
Bay to Breakers 2007
In San Francisco's annual salute to everything that is just incredibly right about the city, the Bay to Breakers rolled across town yesterday. While it can be an intolerable mess of drunken fools to anyone who lives along the route, it's still a lot of fun to go and have a look.
Having attended last year for the first time (yeah, I know, pathetic), I knew what to expect. The salmon running upstream were there. Also present were the Elvi. Then you had some storm troopers, which are always one of my favorites. Naturally, there were all the folks with various implementations of the beer keg and some way to wheel it for 7.5 miles (12km). These ranged from shopping carts, to luggage racks, to wheel barrows. The creativity was pretty boundless. Then of course there were the Bare to Breakers. This group did their standard race day nudity bit. This is actually prohibited, but no one ever gets arrested or ticketed, so they hang and sway with the best of them. Unfortunately it's not as much fun as you'd think, unless you're an old gay man, because that's mostly who is going sans clothes; old men who are mostly gay. The selections of piercings (NSFW) that I got to see this year, will scar me for some time to come. Thankfully, I'll be prancing on the beaches of the Mediterranean in two days, yet sunburned Germans in thongs seems all the more terrifying. But, I digress.
One of the things about the race is that it's a pretty good mirror of popular culture. Case in point, Reno 911: Miami came out in theaters this year and thusly, there were many groups that decided to go as the posse from that show. The only downside to this is that it's funny the first time, but as the race gets longer and drunker, you realize you got the idea some time ago and if they'd kindly stop kicking you in the face with it, you'd be thrilled. But, once again, I digress.
The only really weird thing about the race was that at Hayes Street Hill (which, oddly enough in San Francisco, is the only hill on the race) ING, whom sponsored the event, ran these crowd barriers along the path up to the hill. I assume that this must have been to try and stop the throngs of people who would step out to take photos or what have you and block the race path. I'm not sure how well it did in blocking that, but it did make one poor woman completely eat it when she tripped on one of the low-lying feet of the barrier. I felt really bad for her, since she hit the ground damned hard. Upon seeing this, a guy across the street who had made it known his deep preference for no barrier started up his chant of "Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!" again. I'm rather amazed that the crowd didn't start in, but this wasn't the truly drunken group, just yet.
But, overall, a mighty good time and who knows, I might even run it next year.
20 05 2007 0 comments
Tags: bay to breakers, san francisco
Bay to Breakers 2006
So I did it. I finally dang dong diddly did it. The Bay to Breakers. No, I didn't run it. That's for people who plan ahead. What I did this year, was I got up at 7AM on a Sunday and watched the damned thing in person. I am thoroughly and truly happy that I did. You cannot really get the true feel of this race unless you are there in person. It's nutty. It's loud. It's fun. And it's definitely San Francisco.
I took my camera with me of course and so there are a many, many, photos. While there are only 42 in this set, I originally took 400. 400! Yeah, I know, out of control. But it just happens. Of course, over 100 of those were crap and I tossed them but I still had to choose from so many to get to a nice group for the site. The Chronicle has some photos as well, but of course mine are more plentiful and better.
Overall, it wasn't a good day for the race. It was muggy and crappily humid. It had been raining until the morning of. We got a small break though and the sun sorta came out just long enough for the race to happen. Then about two hours after it officially ended, the rain dumped like crazy again. Really thoughtful overall.
But, I just gotta say, if you're in SF when this happens, go. See the Elvi, the floats, the beer carts/barges, and the costumes. Oh yeah, check out the real runners as well, but they get through the thing in 45 minutes or less, so they're not really that fun. I also don't think they drink all that much, which is inversely true about the tail end of the race that is so drunk by the time they're at the end, the think they're back at the beginning. Magical really.
Oh yeah, since I was sitting at the top of the Hayes Street Hill (the only real hill in the race) if I ever hear, "You can do it!" again, I will throw a rock at the person, unless of course it's a cousin in Slovenia, in which case it's still funny.
20 05 2006 0 comments
Tags: bay to breakers, san francisco
