The 74X Culture Bus: A one way ticket to fail
Touristic creations like the Barcelona Bus Turistic are dreamy. They're a public bus line aimed at serving the needs of the tourist so that they don't crowd the other public lines that people commute on, the tourists pay properly for transportation that they don't pay taxes to support, and most importantly, they stop tourists from driving all over the city. It's a genius system and I was constantly pounding my fist on my desk about the fact we don't have this in San Francisco.
Well, it turns out that I bruised up my fist over nothing because apparently, we do have a touristic bus, the SF Culture Bus or otherwise known at the 74X. You can read all about it on their FAQ and while it may read a great deal like Chuck Norris Facts, you can get the general idea.
Reading through all of that, I quickly realized that this bus is screwed. First off, the route that it covers is quite well served by the 7 or the N Judah. These lines are a mere $4 (oh yeah, celebrate the 33% fare raise today. yay...) round trip as opposed to the $7 for the 74X. The bus runs every 60 minutes which is a joke. Also, it doesn't take credit cards, Translink or even give change, so you better have a five and two ones to pay for it on board.
Also, this route is not a popular route. Museums are fine and I like them, but the typical tourist doesn't give a rat's ass about these things. They want that "curvy street", "bridge", "pointed building", and the "Italian place". There is no touristic bus to these areas, but there are a great deal of taxis and other private operators who work to service these areas like all the taxis at Coit Tower waiting to prey of taking people to Fisherman's Wharf which is about a 10 minute walk--downhill. Can't step on their toes, can we now? I mean, just even stretching the 28 to go to Fisherman's Wharf instead of having it fart out at Fort Mason would be an improvement, but no, we get the 74X and that's it.
It reeks of people going to City Hall, showing how touristic routes would be a great idea, Mayor Prettyboy going along with it, but making sure not to touch the private operators, establishing this route in this way thus dooming it to failure as shown by the buses always being empty despite plenty of tourists being in town right now. This way, after they shut it down, they can point to it and say, "See, we had a touristic bus and it failed, so why you wanna go down that road again? Now, on to handing out more taxi medallions..."
01 07 2009 0 comments
Tags: culture, san francisco, tourism
Oh yeah, that's trashin' it for ya
When grabbing a quick bite while shopping at the IKEA in West Sacramento, I came across this large group (there were more swirling around) gettin' their eat on. Naturally, when heading out to the IKEA for your evening meal, you put on nothing but your finest sweats, comb out the mullet, and get out the trucker's hat with the least amount of chew stains on it. This, is the high life. Anyone who says differently, is far too ironic to talk to me.
09 06 2009 1 comment
Tags: california, culture, us america
Why Can't White People get to the Question?
It was in my first semester at UC Berkeley that I got fully introduced to just how dumb, rambling, and endless a "question" could be. There was this woman in my Modernist Poetry class (don't laugh, it was the best class and Thom Gunn one of the best lecturers I ever had, may that gifted man forever hyperbole (ie RIP)) who was obviously a re-entry student. These students are people that I admire in general. They're coming to college at a late point than the rest of the students (post 30's) and they're balancing a full time job and often raising kids to go to school. They are usually only at a state college level though and you don't see too many at the UC level. Regardless, there was this woman, who I think was some kind of ex druggie that had slipped her way in to Berkeley somehow. I assume this because of the ragged, negatively synaptic questions she would ask. Here's a typical example:
"Ezra Pound was a really complicated guy. I think that in your reading a lot of things make sense and a lot don't, but overall he was trying to do something new. So, do you think it was possible, that maybe, he could have, possibly been interested in attempting to wonder how it could that he was never ever thinking about how it could have been that he was ahead of his time?"
To which Gunn would usually respond, "Sure, I think that's possible. Next."
And I kid you not. Her questions were really like this and if you had been on the South Side of campus kicking back badly-mixed sangria from someone's bathtub the night before, it was all the more painful to sit through. Well, it appears she was preparing me for real life.
It seems that white people in the US can't really ask a proper question most of the time. At first I thought it was everyone and just a certain subset of population at large, but after sitting through a talk by John Francis at the SF Public Library yesterday, I realized that a) it's not everyone and b) it's freakin' white folk who can't simply get to the point of asking a question.
I mean, Dr. Francis was an animated speaker who talked about things that are relatively common sense, but are things he has had a great deal of time to think about due to a vow of not using motorized transport and a vow of silence that lasted for a good chunk of his life. But after the talk, there were the white folk stating these idiotic pontifications before actually getting to a question that was ultimately uninteresting. All these questions were blueprinted on the similar ones that the re-entry student asked back in my Berkeley days and Dr. Francis would always have to think for a second and ask for clarification on what they were asking. Whenever it was anyone nonwhite asking the question, it was just that, a question.
Now that I've realized this behavior I think that it stems from one of two possible causes:
1) Hyperactive Political Correctedness. I think that those who are more liberal in the white community at large are so scared of offending someone that this translates in to padding everything that we Caucasians say so that there is no possible way it could be taken wrong. I often get accused of generalizing by folks. And from their standpoint, it's true, I am. But, from mine, I'm just getting to the point. I'm not beating around the bush because I believe that if you have something to say: fucking say it.
2) Arrogance. A great many of these "questions" seem to start with a good deal of reaction and "insight" on the part of the person asking the question. The question seems to be merely an excuse to show off how much they know or how smart they think they are on a subject. I think that whiteness plays in to the equation as they have grown up with the benefit of someone telling them that their opinion matters or is more valid simply because of their skin tone.
Whatever the real cause, the end result is that whenever one of my white brothers asks a question in a Q&A session, I cringe. I know that in what little question there is posed, it will be so shrouded in linguistic mystery that it was better off not being asked, which is why I often don't ask question at these things because it is very rare that I feel I have anything terribly important to ask for everyone to hear.
30 08 2008 2 comments
Tags: culture, customs, language, ramblings, us america
Defining the Hipster
My mom was visiting last weekend and just about everywhere we went I had to explain to her what a hipster was because she was constantly wondering why in the hell people were dressed like crap. While there is nothing wrong with constantly wearing the finest piece of clothing ever invented (the zip-up hoodie), there is a great deal wrong with skinny jeans and buying new-vintage clothes. Oh, and irony. Irony has never been more intolerable than now.
Thankfully, some folks pulled together and made this all so easy to understand for the lay person. And despite it taking place in NYC, it all applies to San Francisco, because well, hipsters ain't original.
24 03 2008 1 comment
Tags: culture, hipsters
Día de los Muertos: Celebrating the Mission Hipster
After living in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly a decade, I had never made it down to the Mission to see the Día de los Muertos parade and celebration. I guess my general line of thinking was 1) I'm lazy and 2) It's a Mexican celebration, so I really have no business there, except as an extremely causal observer. Naturally, it wasn't until last night that I finally exercised my ability to be this extremely causal observer.
Popping out of the 24th Street Bart station, I was immediately concerned. Not because of my immediate whiteness, but because of all those around me were very much white with the face paint on that people wear for the celebration. I should probably back up a step or two and explain to those who don't know that Mission used to be a very, very Hispanic neighborhood. Oddly enough, my father grew up at the north end of it by Dolores Park and he also said that yes, it was definitely home mostly to Mexicans. At some point in the 90's, this began to change. Kids who graduated from art school or were in to making music or in to any variety of things that fall in to the more creative way of life started moving to the Mission because it was one of the cheapest places in San Francisco at the time. This had two unfortunate side effects. One was that it chased out a great many Mexican families living there because these (mostly white at the time) kids were mistakenly seen as more upscale and thusly for affluent clientèle for the landlords of the area who could thusly command higher rents. The other issue was that with the people who were actually creative came all the groupies--those with a bachelors degree in Art or English Literature whose only talent was partying with those people who actually did do something in Art of English Literature. Then the dot-com happened and the problem grew exponentially to point where you'll see more "ironic" mullets and people paying $5 for a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon at a bar (because dude, it's sooo White Trash) than you will blue collar, industrious families from Mexico and other Latino countries. Something that I feel is unfortunate because these white kids, who most commonly called hipsters, are just whitewashing out the culture and history that was in the area.
But back to the Día as I was making my way through it with camera and other photo takers around me. As sure as I had figured, there was a flood of white people in the parade. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that it is a wonderful thing to admire the culture of others, but these folks weren't doing that. Beyond the throngs of hipsters with their "traditional" face paint on, there was the constant smell of beer coming from people, others with "Impeach Bush" and anti-war signs, couples chatting not-so-silently with one another about hooking up later on. So overall, my impression from the procession was that this is just another cultural holiday that white folk have used as an excuse to get drunk and wander about under the guise of some larger cultural awareness. This seemed to be lost on the few Mexican families I did see who were trying to take part only to be beaten back by throngs of very non-Latino hipsters.
There was one silver lining in all of this, which is the only reason I'd see it again next year, and that was the shrines that people had put up at Garfield Square. These were insanely cool, interesting, and something I could respect a great deal. I took a lot less photos than I would have though because, well... the light wasn't so good and also there is something of a transcendent pall that comes over you as the reality of the situation sinks in. You see that you're walking through remembrances of the departed and as opposed to the hard, cold, stone tombstones that are common for we white folk in the large empty fields we call graveyards, these are personal. There were shoes of the departed and toys of children that were lost and any magnitude of personal effigy that made the setting something more. Naturally, it would have been super if some grounds keeper didn't think that watering the field before the weekend was going to be a great idea that quickly transformed the grounds into a muddy soup, but even still, the emotion of the shrines wasn't lost.
02 11 2007 0 comments
Tags: culture, hipsters, san francisco
Lines Ballet
A lot of people haven't heard of the Lines Ballet Company before and I don't really know why as they are without a doubt one of the most amazing modern ballet groups in existence. I've only seen two performances by them, but they were both amazing and I try to see them any chance I get, which isn't too often because even though they're based in San Francisco, they don't seem to be here all that often.
Just yesterday I saw their student group performance at the Fort Mason Center. At first, I was a bit concerned that this was going to be some kind of a kids' performance that parents attend. A free recital for the pushy adults if you will. I was a little worried after the first number which had all the students on the stage. It looked crowded and the dancing wasn't as good as what I had come to expect by the company. This perception was fortunately knocked clear out of my head once the next dance came on.
It was wonderful. The choreography was fantastic. King and his other company create amazing routines that are graceful, challenging, sad, and happy. The later was definitely true of a bit that was all about penguins. It was hillarious and vastly entertaining. I guess that's one of the things that makes this type of ballet so great is that it doesn't take itself too seriously.
There are two other performances by this group at the beginning of August and I highly recommend for anyone who can to check them out.
