I usually have a lot of fun checking out the BYOBW race every year, but it has been raining sporadically these past few weeks and I’m old and cranky. It takes a lot for me to get out of the house these days, especially on a wet Sunday.
Fortunately my good friend Doug made it out and took some great pictures.
Such is the glory of the Internet. You never have to leave your house anymore and can still live the event vicariously through your computer.
Man, I think there’s a good chance that Sunset at Stafford Lake is going to get rained in this Sunday. Although if we pool our collective energies and prayers of restitution together, we might still be able to pull off a miracle. We’ll see.
It’s amazing how much fun you can have for free in this giant multi-billion dollar back yard.
Sundays in the park really do make it all worthwhile.
It’s neat how skaters can power up like that. That’s a move you’d normally see superheroes do right before they switch into their uniforms to go fight crime. The superhero analogy works really well with a lot of the park regulars. D has been throwing Skatin’ Place for over 30 years (!) now in Golden Gate Park and a lot of the regulars have their own unique look and signature moves.
People watching on a sunny day is like channel surfing.
Everyone’s body language is telling a different story.
D has excellent taste in music, as is evident in this special 6 hour version of Rapper’s Delight. Seriously. This song went on forever. It was the perfect soundtrack to a perfect day in the park.
Now it’s just a day later and the weather is crappy and overcast. Weird how bi-polar Mother Nature can be out here. It’s funny also how if she’s in a good mood she’ll save the sunny days for the weekend and then dump the crappy days on the start of the work week.
You must grab as many of those sunny days in the park as you can.
That’s an imperative to your urban survival.
UPDATE # 1
Local San Francisco architect Glenn Robert Lym just released an amazing documentary on the history of Golden Gate Park.
How weird, there used to be a public park on where now stands Kink. I had no idea.
How even weirder to think that a good chunk of Golden Gate Park was created and maintained just an excuse for the bourgeoisie, like that psycho motherfucker De Young , to show off all of his toys.
And there was a temporary artsy type Disney Land on the west end of Golden Gate Park that looked like Burning Man at night? How odd.
How weird to think of Golden Gate Park as not only this battleground between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, but also an organic, man-made artifact that both sides have kept alive for generations.
I’m not sure if it’s a battle where only one side can win, all I can testify too is the fact that you can be broke and still have a whole world of fun in Golden Gate Park.
Valentine’s Day was on the same day as Chinese New Years, so as I rode my bike home not only did a get a lot of devil horns and “fuck yeah!” from most of San Francisco but all of The Outer Sunset was PACKED with people taking the whole family out to eat and I got an equal amount of unique and happy expressions from my people. Especially from the kids. It’s kind of funny how all these different subcultures and foreign cultures overlap each other in San Francisco and sometimes mutate together to form a really unique pop culture experience.
Thank you, Michelle Morby and Robert Girvin.
Best. San Francisco Valentine’s Day Flash Mob. EVER.
GGP is larger than Central Park, Narnia, and Middle-Earth combined. That’s a fact, you can look it up on wikipedia. I’ve spent over a decade exploring GGP and there are still parts of the park that are new to me and fun to get lost in.
So this is my homage to the year 2009 in the greatest, free, multi-billion dollar, urban backyard that mankind has ever created.
That and I somehow managed to make it through another year without getting bit by some homeless kids dog. Yeah!
Rad chanting at Hippy Hill in Golden Gate Park on a sunny day.
Check out the football game in the upper right corner during the last few moments.
That’s what’s really weird about this part of the park. It’s a magnet, kind of like the chaos magnets in LOST, that attracts all of these stark contradictions/ opposites hanging out right next to each other.
Alpha-male team-sports guys next junkie homeless guys.
20 year old college kids next to 60-year-old guys that have been talking about nothing but Woodstock for the past 20 years.
Violent unleashed dogs and small children.
And then once in a while you’ll see something truly unique and amazing, like a Jedi Knight practicing his skills in the park.
Right around the corner you also have several different little league (I’m talking grades 1-6 little league) soccer games going on a stones throw from a permanent homeless crusty-punk encampment where people are openly selling drugs and getting wasted in broad daylight. It’s like at any moment you expect to turn a corner and ride your bike straight into the beginning of a CSI or SVU episode.
