Real Haters

The Everyday Horrors of Minna Street

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I've developed an unhealthy obsession with reading NIMBY blogs lately.  Not that they are captivating read or anything, but I too will be 40 one day and I'm hoping to get some pointers for how to most effectively waste City Hall's time by having them deal with my petty troubles.

One such blog is Old Dirty Alley, a blog dedicated to a small stretch in SOMA's Minna Street, where every single day is full of shocking monstrosities such as having to call the police on people with their pants around their quads, a completely naked recycler laying in the street with a wine bottle shoved up his ass, pooping on Toyotas, and being forced to scold people for not peeing in a portapottie.  Just awful!

But the photo above shines the brightest.  What could possibly be going on here?  Hemming pants?  Fun with silly string?  ODA has the answer:

weird of the day: a woman getting the bandage on her buttock changed. pants ankle-high. on the street. in public. and not in the most sanitary place in town. said damage was probably caused in the first place by shooting up, or is something meth-related. i did have a moment of guilt where i wasn’t going to put up these photos. but that vanished as soon as i saw the lighter in her hand and realized she was high as hell. i know, i know, gross assumptions. but i’ll bet dollars to donuts …

420 graffiti, a sewing machine, a buttock wound and a poo stain running down the wall all conspired to create this weird of the day.

Weird indeed!  Almost as weird as posting a 23-picture deep slideshow of the occassion.  But I understand, outraged requires evidence.  A single picture can be misleading, but an entire photoset is damning.  If you're swirling that glass of merlot while scribbling an email to your supervisor, you better be sure to have an incriminating shot that will convince them to clean up the bandage-changing epidemic that is choking the life out of our city.

"San Francisco doesn't deserve to win the World Series"

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

It didn't take long for the media to turn the World Series into a referendum on red states vs. blue states / rich libural Jews and Berkeley educated communists vs. Joe the Plumber.  Just read how Steve Blow (sounds like a porn name) kicked off his column in yesterday's Dallas Morning News:

Frankly, I'm surprised they still play baseball in San Francisco.

I figured that by now someone here would have decided that baseball chalk isn't Earth-kind or that the game is overtly sexist or gender-role confining or some such claptrap.

San Francisco doesn't deserve to win the World Series . Maybe every resident deserves a Nobel Prize for being so dang enlightened. But, please, save baseball's highest achievement for a bunch of Regular Joes who earned it.

Ohhhhhh snap.  I think it's adorable that fans of a team of “Regular Joes” that has never been to the World Series want to win, but is The City's collective intelligence the only reason we don't deserve to win?  GO ON:

Here's a classic example of our differences. The mayor of San Francisco is a guy named Gavin Newsom. Yes, Gavin Newsom. And if the name isn't debonair enough, you should see him. He looks like a movie star or male model. He reeks of San Francisco effete.

Meanwhile, Arlington has a mayor named Robert Cluck. Cluck! And as for his looks, I think we can all agree that he has a great personality.

Mr. Blow, let me let you in on a little secret: even San Franciscans don't like Newsom and laugh at his looks.  Hell, Newsom's hair even has its own Twitter account.  Yeah, he pushed through gay marriage, and we respect him for doing that, but he's terrible at running the economy and bends over to business interests just like your Ranger In Chief.  You're going to have to do better than that.

[Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck] is a Regular Joe. Just like Regular Joe Barton , who represents Arlington in Congress.

Wait, Joe Barton, the Congressman who apologized to BP this summer?  Are you even trying?

But there are other differences in the cities, too. Like climate.

In San Francisco, Giants fans sip hot chocolate and wear coats and jackets to games all summer long. They're not purified into a higher state of baseball consciousness by enduring games at the Ballpark/Sweat Lodge in Arlington.

Then there are the team colors. The Giants are all decked out in Halloween black and orange – the only holiday devoted to evil spirits. What are the Rangers' colors? Let's say 'em together. Red, white and blue.

It's obvious who should win this thing.

Sigh.

(link)