Drugs

SRO Tenants Leave Gestalt Haus Under Water

Gestalt's water-soaked pool table (GET IT? POOL TABLE) as seen late on Wednesday, November 30th, after a crazyperson pulled the fire alarm.

Known for its bike-friendly attitude and an extensive selection of German beer on tap, the Mission’s Gestalt Haus is a popular hub along 16th Street. The work of local artists decks the warm, red walls and a high-end sound system is often set at a low decibel, allowing conversations to unfold amid the clinking of liter mugs and the clacking of always-in-use pool cues.  

Such was the scene as midnight hit on a recent Tuesday: Patrons lined the bar, sausages sizzled, and an iPhone manned the deejay booth. Then, *bam* The vibe went from chill to shrill, shattered by the piercing shriek of the fire alarm and soaked with streams of water from the sprinkler system. As soggy drunks scrambled outside and SFFD sirens drew near, owner Dan Hawkins got the heads-up call. It’s one to which he has become rather accustomed; in fact, the exact same thing occurred a week prior, triggered by a false alarm set off on the building’s second floor. (The latest kerfuffle was brought to Gestalt by a waste-bin fire in the boiler room.) “This is the tenth time this has happened,” he tells me. “It’s those fucking crackheads again.”  

Hawkins is referring to city-supported inhabitants of the Sixteenth Street Hotel, which sits above Gestalt and does indeed house an array of mentally ill, alcohol-dependent and, yes, often crack-addicted tenants – courtesy of San Francisco’s Department of Human Services (DHS) and federal mandate. It is one of 50 single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels in the Mission District, which account for a significant portion of more than 3,500 “supportive housing” units throughout the city as part of the Newsom-era “Care Not Cash” program. One of the more controversial aspects of The Gav’s teetotaling local legacy, it cuts participants’ monthly welfare checks from $422 to $59 in exchange for providing shelter and other services.  

While the chronic Poors under city “Care” no longer have the cash for, say, a bottle of Newsom’s PlumpJack Cab’, the money saved ostensibly funds affordable-housing requirements. Critics, however, say the program’s success is essentially defined by the number of rooms available, not the ongoing stability of the Section-8 tenants therein or the improvement of their quality of life (from the lady taking her pants off in front of a crowded sidewalk cafe, to the dude raging on an unfortunate newspaper stand, tenants of these city-run SROs aren’t exactly under “managed care.”)

Firefighters outside of Gestalt, dealing with the aftermath caused by the errant fire alarms.

Perhaps no business owner outside of the Tenderloin is more aware of the “Care” deficiency than Hawkins. One of Sixteenth Street Hotel’s more prominent female tenants is a sporadic regular of sorts in Gestalt–that is, when she’s not sprawled out front yelling at onlookers or calling for an ambulance (yeah, that lady). “She’ll come in throughout the week, drunk, sometimes covered in shit, and try to take someone’s beer or just be a nuisance in general,” says Hawkins, who has tried tracking down her social-worker himself, to no avail.

But he, like many of us, is pretty used to encountering crazy, sometimes cracked-out peeps shuffling along city streets (it’s part of San Francisco’s unique, urine-scented charm, no?) The regular triggering of his building’s fire alarm and sprinkler system during business hours, however, is another story. “Between all the water damage, replacing electronic equipment, furniture, and–mainly–the lost income from having to shut down and clean the place, it’s cost me tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket–easily,” he muses.  

But while the oft-beleaguered business owner can rather calmly tick off various incidents over the years (the drunk-in-an-overflowing-bathtub snafu that brought down half of Gestalt’s ceiling on Cinco de Mayo ’08, the dude who fell asleep with a cigarette in hand and ignited his bed, trash thrown from windows catastrophically clogging the rain gutter…), what actually gets a rise out of him is pondering tax dollars pissed away on the constant SFFD and EMT resources needed to quell his upstairs neighbor’s constant shenanigans: “It’s unreal. I see so much time and money and manpower wasted–and that’s just on this block. The sad thing is that a lot of this crap could be avoided if the city was actually doing its job and providing the proper resources for these people. It is bullshit, man; total bullshit.” 

As if on cue, our conversation is cut off by the siren of an approaching ambulance, and–I kid you not–it stops right in front of Gestalt. Hawkins stands up and looks at me knowingly. “I’m telling you, this shit was not in the brochure.” With a half-smile/half-grimace on his face, he shakes his head and starts to head back behind the bar. “You want a beer?”

You've Had a Long Day, SF, Take Your Shoes Off, Load Up Your Weed Bong and Listen to the Police Dispatch

The weight of your messanger bag is off your shoulder and the fog is settling in. Your day was as long as it could have possibly been. But that's all behind you now, it's time to relax. It's time to listen to smooth sounds of the SF police dispatch.

In an insane leap of the mind, Eric Eberhadt decided to combine ambient music with the police scanner and it all works out surprisingly well.

Please, No Needle Drugs

Drinking, fucking, shitting, pissing, puking, bleeding, stabbing, discharging firearms, sleeping, yelling, snorting, smoking, eating Taco Bell, blissing out, making out, mumbling indiscriminately, dry heaving, dry humping, disposing of used condoms, kicking, screaming, can collecting, dancing, tripping, falling, crying, jizzing, shooting blanks, coughing, breaking, entering, thieving, selling, painting, spraying, and mugging are all O.K., just please, channel your inner-Kate Moss elsewhere.

Zero Drugs Taken At Burning Man Due To Police Presence

Captain Steve Grabowski and Lieutenant Sarah Jones are up for promotion after leading a valiant police effort that has eliminated drug use at the event known as Burning Man.

Officers Grabowski and Jones receiving accolades for winning the War on Drugs at Burning Man.

Over 50,000 artists, musicians and others wishing to experiment with “radical self-expression” gather at Burning Man each year. The event is a haven for the strange and bizarre and is notorious for the use of drugs such as LSD-25, MDMA, and Cannabis.

Our mission here is not to stop young people from having a good time but to protect them from getting hurt.” Captain Grabowski places handcuffs on a young woman. She was found in possession of a drug testing kit, a tool used to determine what kind of drug a user has bought. “We are in the business of harm reduction,” says Grabowski.

Richard Thomas, an event attendee known as ‘The Postman’, regrets spending his summer building his sculpture ‘El Pulpo Mechanico’, a two story mechanical octopus that spouts fire from its arms.

Richard Thompson's 'El Pulpo Mechanico' which will not pay the pickle man.

It’s not like I can pay bills with a mechanical beast,” says Thomas. “I’m not going to send my three year old daughter to a state school just so I could blow some people’s minds. That’s just irresponsible.” Thomas has plans to open a chain of furniture stores.

Gabriella Martinez, Director of Admissions for UCSF, has seen the impact first hand. “We have had a 153% increase in enrollment for our MBA program while the Art department is struggling to fill enrollment for next year,” says Martinez. “We can’t thank the Nevada Highway Patrol enough.”

The next Burning Man will begin on October 1st, 2012. There are preliminary plans to change the venue to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

McAllister St. Hustler Succinctly Sums Up Commuter's Frustrations with #OpBART

“Ya'll need to get jobs, take your protest to BART and ride the fuck on home.  Yeah you!  March the fuck on!  Get the fuck off my corner, can't you see I'm trying to make a dollar here?”

He's even knows to open his bag of BBQ potato chips from the bottom to optimize flavor distribution. What a goddamn pro.

Meth Heads from Salinas are Your Friends

Note: I wrote this in a frenzy at 2am last night.  At the time, I thought better than to publish this.  Now I'm not so sure.  Enjoy.

I just returned to San Francisco after spending a weekend in Downieville, Californee.  See, my friend was gracious enough to drive two of us Mission kids up to the Sierra Mountains after work on Friday for some 90-degree weather, freezing water, and physical activity that promised broken bones and bruised egos.  The problem is that she can't see in the dark, never mind drive, and my other friend decided it'd be a good idea to have a tall glass of cheap booze with dinner.  So despite the fact I haven't owned a car in two years and haven't held auto insurance in far longer, I was reluctantly deemed the most qualified to chauffeur the party back to San Francisco after a long weekend in the mountains.

That designation has left me all hopped up on Red Bull and the adrenaline of driving a 4 cylinder Honda at 75 mph through Sacramento, so I'm going to squander this chemical energy on an important lesson learned in campground minutiae.

Downieville has gone through a 160-year slump following the decline of gold mining and environmental legislation clear-cutting the lumber industry, leaving it's 282 residents to rely on being a booze and ice cream-filled basecamp for traveling mountain bikers.  Undoubtedly a good thing for the local culture and gnarly city and coastal kids looking for some alpine escapism.  The only problem with mountain bikers is that they often have money, and money breeds goblin children that don't know how the shut the fuck up at sunrise.  Ordinarily this wouldn't be an issue, but the campsites outside of Downieville are particularly close together and baggy-eyed 26-year-olds that've been awaken at 6:30am all damn week by merciless PG&E goons frolicking up and down Capp Street with jackhammers aren't ones for the barks of unleashed vaginal spawn.

So imagine my glee and surprise returning to camp after a marathon bike ride and a sleepless night on the Yuba River find all but two campsites vacated.  One lone man sat in the far corner of the campground engaged in the most epic starring contest with a waning fire.  A few sites down were two serious dudes in sleeveless shirts kicking at a fire in a camp surrounded by white plastic bags stamped with Walmart logos.

After observing my glum surroundings, I decided to build a waning fire for myself.  Laid down some flammable trash, collected some deadwood I had previously urinated on, and marinated the pyre in white gas while my more responsible friends had their backs turned.  But it was no sooner than I had the fire lit before my entire face was covered in welts from blood-thirsty mosquitoes.

This is the problem with San Franciscans.  We're so wrapped up in our “going green” lifestyle, we forget that any bug spray with less than 30% cancer-causing poison is salad dressing to hardy mountain mosquitoes, and the lemongrass spray that is sold in compostable packing from Rainbow Grocery is literally salad dressing.

It was at this point that I opted to make friends with the neighbors.  The Marlboro Man with an Accord seemed to be getting a leg up in his optical battle royal with the fire, so I figured it was best to leave him be and make small talk with the two other guys.

After shaking their hands, it was made apparent to me that they were from Salinas, were most likely involved in the frequently over-consumption of methamphetamines, and particularly disliked Latinos.  I'd generally walk away at that point, but they had The Good Stuff.  I could see the big red “keep away from children” bottle sitting right there at the table to my left and all the overpriced eco-safe perfume in the world wasn't going to will away the hurricane of bugs circling above my head.

Making small talk, I offered up that I was from San Francisco.  In turn, one of them told a wild tale about crashing his truck up on stoop in the Upper Haight early on Saturday morning while twisted on whiskey, but it was The Haight and they may have or may not have had some primo bud, so that situation worked itself out just fine.

I then explained that I was up in the mountains to huck my aging bike off small rocks.  They eagerly suggested that they'd only consider, so save your breath, riding quads in the hills.

My brain pretty much shut itself down around then, but I recall commenting on their pile of empty beer cans and learning they had consumed roughly 15 Coors Light, each, at that point.  An impressive feat  for any person, especially considering it was hardly past 5pm.

I made a quick grab for their bottle of poison purchased at Everyday Low Prices, thanked them for their neighborly hospitality, and joined my friends for dinner back at camp.

But before I could even get a fork into my pasta, a days worth of booze and various drugs torqued my new friends' minds into the familiar soupy mush of incoherence, opportunism, and bad decision making that comes with the territory of drinking too much Silver Bullet.  They quickly recalled that they were in possession of a pick-up truck with a “totally fucking sick” soundsystem, and they had music, so it was Game On as the sun fried us from overhead.

The problem was their melted minds couldn't figure out what the hell they wanted to listen to.  First it was Damien Marley, but that was quickly deemed unacceptable, so they put on some terrible reggae track within 30 seconds.  That didn't do the trick, so they switched it up to Keak Da Sneak.  45 seconds later it was some nondescript pop rap. After a few more sad hyphy tracks, one of them settled on E-40, which is generally a crowd pleaser, but the tweaker Gregg Gillis couldn't figure out what E-40 track he wanted to listen to.

About 7 cuts into Revenue Retrievin', a picturesque family cruised into the campground at the recommended speed of 5 miles per hour.

“QUIT KICKIN' UP DUST!,” howled the drunken iPod DJ as they crept past.

The van pulled up the spot next door to us and out poured two do-gooders no older than 35 in pressed North Face gear.  After seeing what I thought to be a young child in the back seat, I fixed to take my chances sleeping in the hastily-erected tent of the maddened savages from Salinas.  But before I had to snuggle with paranoia, the wife took one hard look at the evils of camp #2, said three Hail Mary's, two Our Father's, crossed her chest, climbed back into her $20,000 cathedral on wheels and sped off to whichever nearby bed and breakfast equipped every nightstand with the King James.

Sooner or later, darkness fell over Downieville, The Rockies ran dry, and the campground drifted to sleep.

I slept like a rock that night.  Woke up around 8:45.  No kids screaming.  No PG&E workers terrorizing the neighborhood.  Just two meth-heads quietly barbecuing expired chicken breasts over a 3-foot tall fire, Monster Energy Drink in one hand, lit cigarette in the other.

The Electric Burrito Acid Test

Johnny0 of Burrito Justice, a leader in iPhone photography, figured it would be good idea to invert the colors of a burrito, noting it looks like “Chipotle, inside a reactor.”  Or painfully disproportionate genitalia wearing a recycable contraceptive.

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