Amazing! Something Weird In San Francisco That Isn't Disgusting!

Amazing! Something Weird In San Francisco That Isn't Disgusting!

There is so much about San Francisco that is repulsive, nauseating, creepy, or downright evil. I can remember when I work in Bay Area 1982-84 seeing, on two separate occasions, news stories that would have received front page coverage anywhere else--buried deep in the paper.

One was the sentencing of Satanists who had kidnapped a homeless person, drove him around in a van for several hours while they tortured, and sexually abused him with a dog, and were getting ready to sacrifice him when he managed to jump out of the car. And this was like page B15 or something of the San Francisco Chronicle. I guess it just wasn't all that unusual.

The other was the discovery of a 15 year old runaway girl who was found hanging in an abandoned church, upside down, with a pentagram painted on her abdomen. (A murder victim, of course.) But again, buried deep in the paper. Anywhere else, this would be profoundly shocking. But in Babylon by the Bay--it just wasn't that big a deal.

So it is always gratifying to see something bizarre but wholesome happening in the most depraved and repulsive city in America. From the March 8, 2009 San Francisco Chronicle:

(03-08) 17:48 PST -- It's not political, ideological or cultural, but San Francisco officials say they are seriously considering cracking down on one of the city's most popular events in the growing "flash mob" phenomenon.

This year's Valentine's Day pillow fight was, quite simply, a mess. Officials, only slightly amused, say the episode left the city holding the bag - or empty pillow case - with thousands of dollars in damage and cleanup costs due to mounds of wet, sticky feathers.

The promoters of the counterculture event, now in its fourth year, must take responsibility for future happenings or "otherwise we are going to have to find a way to shut it down," said Lisa Seitz Gruwell of the Recreation and Park Department.

San Francisco's pillow fight is part of an international fad, partly anarchistic, partly absurdist, in which a mob of participants suddenly materializes at a public place, engages in odd behavior and then disperses.

The events range from zombie marches to dances and pie fights, including a shaving-cream-on-paper-plate pie fight staged late Thursday afternoon at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets.

They are organized via telephone text messages, Web sites like Laughingsquid.com and eatbrains.com, and just old-fashioned word-of-mouth. They often have no identified leaders or sponsors.

Now, I understand the concerns of the city government about this. (Although a city government that wastes money defending clearly unlawful same-sex marriages, and a ban on handguns, is in no position to whine about irresponsibility.)

There was one comment that at first had me saying, "Typical humorless leftist."

These flashmobs are idiots. Notice how they can never get together for real political change. It's always for something trivial (and often consumerist) like some mass silent iPod dance, or "freeze-in-place" prank. Big deal. And all these pillows and feathers. Did they even think of the poor dead birds whose feathers are still used to cushion our stupid heads, while we get our rocks off in some pseudo-anarchic way by beating each other with pillows? They think they're liberated from the "man", yet they are just consumerist tools. Get a life, you "flash-mobbers"! You don't impress me. Organize against corporate America and do something serious.

Then I noticed the picture that the commenter (Filterfish) provided of himself--and it is clearly "Big Brother" from 1984, although I am unsure from which of the several film versions this clip came.