Travels and Tales

The Nine Circles of World Series Parade Hell

 

Not to be all tumblry here, but Leslie over at Squid Pro Quo has put out one of the most important pieces of journalism I've read all year:

9) You’re in the very outer circle, but you’re definitely in the shit. You know this because you are starting to see little old ladies collecting aluminum cans. Here lies what I like to refer to as Parade Townies, lurkers that aren’t so much interested in celebrating baseball as they are joining in a spectacle. You have RV’s blasting music with people dancing on top. They’re charging $5 to use their restroom. They had the foresight to get there early enough to find parking for their land boats but didn’t care enough about the parade’s purpose to get any closer.

8) As you move inward, you start noticing that everyone is blazing. Hard. All of a sudden you want a hot dog and to be at home watching Planet Earth.

7) Here is where you start seeing an abundance of impromptu street vendors selling overpriced giants merch. A child is crying for an $8 mylar balloon. You buy a $50 t-shirt from a gypsy. You’ll notice later that it’s not real and actually says “Gliants”. Four loko flows freely. 

Now, I don't want to spoil the rest, but let's just say that there are drunk girls, pregnancy, and unbearable first world problems.

Read on…

"We're not in Arlington anymore, Toto..."

And so continues the “THEY'RE SMOKIN WEED!” saga…  

These Texan media outlets have seriously been acting like they just made 'first contact' with another planet. 'ZOMG! This anarchistic and godless alien civilization is so strange and carefree!'  Seriously?  Get over yourself you faux-Joe Normal neo-cons. 

Though I must say I'm looking forward to the other side of the equation when Bay Area newscasters start muckraking about lynch mobs outside the Ragners' stadium and questioning the sexuality of the Governor of Texas.  Quick, somebody buy Zennie a plane ticket to Planet Tejas! 

 

Newsflash: Arizona still sucks; local doc elaborates

Shocker, right?

Some local Bay Area filmmakers are currently in the process of finishing their documentary, Day Laborers: The Invisible Workforce, on Arizona's SB1070 bill.  

To raise the funds they need to finish their project, they're holding an event tonight (Tuesday, Oct 19th) from 7 to 9pm at the Mission Cultural Center (2868 Mission St).  The $20 ticket includes a 'work in progress' screening of the film, free food and wine, and speakers from Puente AZ, La Raza Centro Legal, KPFA and the San Francisco Day Labor Program.  More info here.

Happy 70th Birthday John Lennon, Love San Francisco

In case you haven't noticed on Google yet, today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. In honor, go ahead and feast your eyes upon this amazing footage of John and Yoko being led around San Francisco by Geraldo Rivera's mustache circa 1972. Seriously, this video is awesome.

Cool Kid Travels: Arata's Pumpkin Farm

Growing up in New England, it seemed like a significant portion of October was spent carving pumpkins/throwing pumpkins out of moving vehicles at street signs, riding in haunted hayrides, and navigating corn mazes (of course, my eight-year-old self had a shitty memory).  With the lack of foliage and farms located within 4 blocks of my house, I've never really found myself in the fall mood found pretty much everywhere in the eastern half of the country.

After talking about shit to do in the fall in SF, a friend suggested I steal a car and head down Arata's Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay.  While this place has been around since the Depression and likely known to everyone who has spent years in the Bay Area, it was new to me and a bunch of other transplant losers.  So after a night of drinking crappy beer and lackluster pizza, we hauled ass down the coast to what has to be the closest to an authentic New England pumpkin farm I've seen.  A petting zoo!  Sword fights!  A haunted barn! Pumpkins!  A maze!  Statues of King Kong!  Feral cats!  Goats!  Overpriced produce!  Adult-onset diabetes!

Admittedly the maze (not pictured because all my pictures just look like bales of hay) wasn't incredibly hard, half of the attractions were not open until October, and they didn't have kegs of Pabst or indoor bicycle parking, but it was still a quality trip out of the city.

  

  

The petting zoo was full of goats, a cow with a sore of the back of its head, a bunny, and a bunch of bird.

This cat is a real asshole.

I guess they sell pumpkins.

After leaving the pumpkin farm, we stopped off at Moss Beach to look at starfish and seals and shit.  “Walking down to the beach, I briefly step on a wide and flat rock covered in sand.  It was soft and had a bounce to it.  It was a dead seal.” - @tpaz

Bicycle Extremeists [sic] Have Invaded Santa Rosa

Stevil over at All Hail the Black Market buried this snap after a long post about Interbike, but his take on it is dead on:

I've long felt that as we (cyclists) increase in numbers, (socially) we would experience a myriad growing pains. After all, we are up against three generations worth of belief that streets exist exclusively for motorized traffic. Eking out a small slice for ourselves would be a challenge, of that I had no doubt. Going toe to toe with hysteria that would make Joseph McCarthy blush is another matter entirely.

The backstory is some 2-wheeled insurgents are trying to keep a bicycle boulevard in place, while hundreds of neighbors are up in arms trying to get rid of it.  Honestly, I wish the whiny Dolores Park neighbors could put on a show like this one.  Damn good theater.

TCB Courier Bombing Cross Country

SCUMBAG INVITE | “Fast n' Loose 2010” Benefit Race from Justin Gallagher on Vimeo.

I know we might be a little late to the party, but a few days back, Chas and Steve of TCB Courier fame set off to ride their bikes to the NACCC's in Atlanta.  Luckily for us, they're filming the whole adventure so we can look forward to a short film popping up on the internet sometime in October to distract us from our boring ass office jobs.  Feel free to follow their progress.

This Super Mario Bros. Mural Might Be the Best Mural Ohio Has Ever Seen

Guys.  I don't really give a fuck this is thousands of miles away from San Francisco, this entire wall in Cuyahoga County, Ohio is pure brilliance.  I mean, just look at how rad it is:

The mural was put together by Gargantuen, whose website's graffiti section doesn't work too well, but whatever.  Boy's spraypaint skills clearly compensate.  CROW, and it features typo, ridle, resp, lost, and arise.

(See all the images on Gargantuen Graffiti's photostream)

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