As you might have recalled from last fall, the Rec. & Park Department decided to lease parts of Dolores Park over to businesses without proposing the idea to neighbors and park users.  Some people supported the department, most people did not.  And then there was that small minority, primarily led by Chicken John, that talked about active resistance to the commercialization of the park.

Now I may not be a fan of Chicken, but credit to him for sticking to his guns.  This Saturday at 2pm, Chicken's organizing a “puke in” at the park in protest to the opening of a new foodie-centric taco truck:

We are having a puke in. Pukin'. We are going to collectively lose our lunch on a trailer this weekend. I've hired a photographer to document it. To show other potential stores in the park what happens when you sell the park out. When you try to be an agent of Control. When you steamroll people.

So why exactly Chicken and a few hundred other people puking in Dolores this Saturday at 2pm?

I'm gonna go puke on a trailer this weekend because no one knows that this weekend a commercial entity is going to open a store in Dolores Park and is doing it without anyone knowing. Just like last year, they are trying to sneak in like sneaky sneakers. After all the meetings, the 1,500 signatures we collected, the emails, the outrage and the vitriol we showed last year, it's the same slimy tactics all over again. The fact is that Dolores Park is surrounded on 3 sides by pavement which is designed to drive cars, trucks and trailers on. Why these people just don't put their store on the other side of the curb is beyond me. The Department of Parks and Recreation wants the revenue. Why? Because they just hired like 5 more $100,000 + a year staffers they have to pay… although that shouldn't be a problem, as they fired ALL the teachers and closed 80% of the clubhouses.

He goes on to talk about how Rec. and Park isn't listening to neighbors.  That they're commercializing the park was always done deal; that they never cared what the users of the park thought.  That DP is “a collaborative artwork, not a profit center.”  Good points, indeed.  So what happens next?

The permits that RPD issued are still valid. So very quietly, very stealthy… they went about forming alliances to put more stores in the park. They were trying to be very quiet about it, but it didn't work. Because EVERYONE they tried to form an alliance with, said they didn't want a store in the park. So we told them that we would protest. Picket. We would sue. We would pour gasoline over our heads to make us martyrs for the cause.

Whoa!  People are going to be burning themselves alive? Fucking. There.

Anyway, if you want to learn more about the protest, you can check out their Facebook page, look at the new petition being circulated around, and read all of Chicken's thoughts on the matter.

That anti-war/free Palestine/free Bradley Manning/Stand with Unions/buy-these-Che-Guevara-shirts protest in Dolores Park and Valencia Street yesterday sure was a failure.  While I have to give the organizers props for being the first people I've ever witnessed burning the American Flag on Tallboy Terrace (horribly pictured above), they clearly don't know how to promote political activism to anyone under the age 50.  Personally, I hadn't heard there was going to be a protest in Dolores until I showed up for my typical Sunday ritual of drinking Tecate and complaining about the wind, which is the first sign that Bay Area political organizers don't have a clue.  But once I found out the protest, I had the displeasure of having to listen to the protest…

I've heard a lot of reasons over the years as to why anti-war rallies have been so poorly attended by 20-somethings since September 11th: “There's no draft to motivate the youth to protest against the war.” “There are not as many photos of dead soldiers or mass destruction as there were in Vietnam.” “No Americans romanticize Bin Laden as a revolutionary figure like radicals did of Communist figures in the 60s.”  Sure, those are all valid reasons, but the real reason nobody goes to anti-Iraq war protests is because they are boring.  There's nothing uncool about standing against continued wars in the Middle East or Obama turning his back on campaign pledges, but what kind of self-respecting kid wants to hang out with 60-year-olds who wear jackets covered in oversized buttons and recite poetry before screaming about justice?  From what I'm told, protesting Vietnam was fun.  Listening to protest songs.  Doing drugs with thousands of your friends and neighbors.  Socializing with other single people your age.  Come for the protest, stay for the party.  Yesterday's protest was anything but that.

I know everyone hates yuppies and shit, but if these anti-war organizations had any sense, they'd motivate a bunch of Mission kids who work in marketing, event promotion, and tech to start organizing protests that feel less like a senior singles mixer and more like a party.

Man, watching these guys play beer pong sure was weird.  Felt a lot like spotting wildlife in the middle of a mall parking lot: on one hand, I enjoy a nice deer sighting; on the other, why the fuck is the deer eating cigarette butts marinated in gasoline?

It wasn't the beer pong in the park that was troubling, nor was it the improper use of a straw hat or the guy wearing his shirt as a turban.  Like my concern for the deer trying to make a new life for itself in field of concrete, I'm worried about the cause of these unexpected migratory patterns. Did someone clear cut UCSB?  Are developers bulldozing 'the forest' at Union and Buchanan to build a new Panera Bread?  Is there anything we can do to stop this wanton habitat destruction before it's too late?

For the sake of these displaced creatures, I hope they can evolve to digest burritos and marijuana.

People sure do love Dolores Park.  Almost as much as they love getting all ornery whenever someone spells it “Delores Park,” as if angerly correcting your East Bay friend excited to spend the afternoon in The Park will make them respect it that much more.  However, this hot new misspelling is sure to take the cake.  I can already picture hordes of otherwise well-mannered Facebook users walking past this and immediately begin foaming at the mouth as they collapse onto the sidewalk and violently convulse.

I swear, these MTA guys are just trolling San Francisco every time they fuck up the spelling of a street name.

[photo by sftrajan]