At some point Saturday afternoon, throngs of OccupySF protested marched through the Mission and Occupied Dolores Park, disrupting an epic game of catch. A few observations on the protest:
Protesters were really confused as to why I wanted to finish my beer and not stand in a circle and yell at other like-minded strangers.
Gannnnnnnnja treats.
The visible major of OccupyDolores participants love anti-choice/anti-war/anti-government Texas Republican Ron Paul and pro-bicycle/pro-create-a-public-SF-bank/pro-universal-healthcare San Francisco Liberal John Avalos.
Surprisingly, Cold Beer Cold Water was not apart of the protest.
John Avalos' motorcade rolled by the park, with Avalos sitting in the back of a convertible. I kept waiting for a second shooter to emerge from the grassy knoll, but no such person surfaced.
John Avalos will literally do anything to become mayor.
Most of the mourners, almost all men, were quiet, holding iPhones and a couple of iPads. Most seemed to be reading on their phones, but a few waved them in the air, with Apple’s home page, showing simply a photo of Steve Jobs and the dates 1955-2011, filling the screen. Later they broke into groups, mostly talking about why they were upset, the legacy Mr. Jobs left and the way he and his products changed their lives.
Dave Black, 43, founder of Thingsly, a Web site for making connections between things, worked at Apple for 11 years until last January, first as an engineer and then in education marketing. He said: “I’m still scared to talk to the press after 11 years of indoctrination.”
Wondering why your ass has been getting soaked while sitting in Dolores Park, despite three-long rainless months? Jay B. of Cyclecide, park patron who, unlike me, clearly wakes up before noon on weekends, tells us what's up:
Have you noticed that they have tripled the watering hours in Dolores? Is it an attempt to deter 40 swilling hipsters, or part of Wreck'n' Park's Grand Evil Plan? The press statement would go something like: “The drainage problem has gotten so bad that we have to fast track the $2 million irrigation upgrade which can only be paid for by turning the Historic Bathroom Building into a McDonald's immediately.”
All jokes about a conspiracy to put a McDonald's in the park aside, I've seen more soggy asses b-line out of the park in recent weeks than I did all Spring. And since it is about to become illegal to disrobe and let your damp drawers dry out while dining, we can't be having any wet asses leaving the park. So write a letter to Congress demanding justice for our flooded grass, or whatever.
Delfina's celebrity chef/hyperlocal niche god Craig Stoll just learned that Dolores isn't all sustainable ganja treats and immigrant-owned taco trucks:
He's basically a cross between an acid-crazed Hannibal Lecter fresh off a dubstep-filled Burning Man trip gone horribly wrong and a ninja warrior dead set on annihilating white-shirted dorks who perpetually stare at the ground.
Somehow this car found itself ass up on the Dolores Park Muni tracks Friday evening. Internet chatter suggests “stolen car,” “driver fled,” and “guy drove up the tracks from Church & 18th.” Others are saying a potentially inaccurate BCN report indicates a Muni street car nailed this thing. Anyone knows what's up?
The Dolores Park Renovation Team unveiled their initial draft of the rehabilitation plans on Thursday evening to a generally positive crowd. The big takeaways are two new bathroom buildings by the playground and basketball court, designed to support weekend crowds of 10,000 people. The recommended astroturf soccer field on Tallboy Terrace has been scaled back to a grassed-in “multi-use” field that will be closed off from 3-6pm for youth soccer games, will cost $700,000 (9% of the entire renovation budget) to build, and “might need” to be fenced off for two months every Spring for “yearly maintenance.” The already-designated “dog play areas” will be more formally established, with signage along the boundaries. A new bike polo court will sit adjacent to six tennis courts and a basketball court, with a subterranean Rec. & Park storage and maintenance facility beneath the courts. And they plan to demolish the old Muni stop at 19th street and sod the hillside around it.
Unsurprisingly, the originally proposed 20-foot wide road dividing the park has been reduced to 12 feet in width, with the southwest road that currently exists now being bulldozed entirely. Apparently the renovation architects intend the road to be simultaneously used by an impotent dune buggy, a college girl on the way to psych class, and an androgynous person pushing their financial future towards the toilet.
Which is cute and all, but fairly disingenuous considering anyone who's ever been to the park before knows the road's traffic will look more like this:
Mixed with this:
Of course, the plan is not all wrapped up. Thursday's meeting demonstrated there was no consensus as what to do with the current clubhouse/bathrooms (some people want to toss a stick of dynamite in it and cast it back to the foul-smelling hell from which it came, the others want to turn it into a museum dedicated to the Park's history), and the architects still need to figure out what to do with the entrance plazas, the central pathways, and food courts. So if local politics and listening to cat ladies tell you what's best for the park is your thing, mark your calendars for the next public meeting, Sept. 29th.
It's no secret that drum circles have been crashing the Dolores Park party like a plague of tone-deaf locusts for the last year or two, but Hippie Hill? Is it really getting so bad that the icon of journalistic excellence cannot even discern between the tie-dye gnargle-fest of 1968 Golden Gate Park and the flannel iPhone-party of 2011 Dolores Park?
This video has it all: dancing on park benches, facial expressions that capture the true taste of Four Loko, crowd surfing in a Shell gas station parking lot…
… and it even has Unchill AZN Bro flashing his whitie tighties:
Shit's gross as hell, but if you listen to the lyrics, there's some real gems in there. A tatted white girl talking about putting people into a hearse. Pronouncements that Four Loko never went away. Real talk.
