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.
The Embarcadero on a beautiful low-70’s, Indian Summer, clear night, really is a glorious place to be in San Francisco.
That Taking Back Halloween team-up between Flashdance and Skatin’ Place was a very well-executed idea. A great Small Victory on the Death of Fun campaign.
That West Fest Woodstock day in Golden Gate Park was kind of a mess.
Here are some tips to help the promoters move forward when they plan their next, inevitable, Woodstock reunion party.
1) Make sure you have your DJ Tent, that you advertised online as being part of the line-up, set up under the boundaries of your park permit. That way they can actually play more than a few records before being shut down.
2) Invite the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to help with bicycle parking. I’ve been to several of these festivals over the years; some with 80,000+ people, and this was the first one where there was almost no regard what-so-ever for the thousands of people that rode their bike there. West Fest goons were threatening some people that locked their bikes to fences and steel barricades that their bikes would be towed and prevented others from trying to park there. I saw thousands of dollars worth of bikes locked to shrubbery and small trees. Get it together people …
Living in and surrounded by concrete & road rage, human beings need a place to balance that energy out. A place without cars and where there’s still some nature that we haven’t managed to destroy just yet. Everyone in San Francisco has access to this amazing multi-billion dollar backyard and I never have to worry about mowing the lawn. I don’t care if I sound like a crusty hippy, but Man. I love Golden Gate Park.
The Bandshell is a pretty interesting part of the park. You have The California Academy of Sciences to the south and you have De Young Museum & The Japanese Tea Gardens to the North. It’s very much a tourist magnet because of those structures but it’s kind of interesting to spend the day having a picnic at the Bandshell and overhearing conversations in several different languages. This place really is a magnet that attracts people from all over the world.
And it’s also where the local natives have had some amazing free park parties over the years. I think you could do an entire coffee table book on the free outdoor park party scene in the Bay Area. It’s a very unique and visually interesting not-so-secret club. I remember coming to my first party in the park when I moved here 14 years ago. I was living at the dorms at SF State and found myself surrounded by all these interesting, older, and experienced urban locals. I remember thinking to myself, “This is where I want to be.”
Parties like this used to happen all the time with nowhere near the level of online marketing machines that exists today. There were days that I would be riding my bike through the park and hear beats coming from the Bandshell and think “That sounds like House. Let me go investigate” And then I would spend the rest of the day dancing my ass off in the park. Here are just a few of the flyers that I saved over the years.
The Bandshell has beautiful architecture.
(The old) Funky Tekno Tribe used to dominate with their Organics in the Park.
I distinctly remember they had one to promote their upcoming Halloween Massive. It was Jeno and DJ Dan in the park and Dan spun this remixed version of Aretha Franklin’s Respect. And what’s amazing is that it was on the exact same day as Sunset’s last park party of the year at Berkley Marina. Not only did free park parties like this used to happen all the time, but sometimes you would even have different ones happening on the exact same day.
To my knowledge, this is the only time the 4 of these guys have gotten together to do a Wicked in the park.
That alone would make this party unique, but the day that it happened to fall on also cements it as a very unique gathering.
This was a really infamous party. The “special guest” was suppose to be Supastar DJ Keoki. Some big 1015 type of club had flown him out from New York and paid him suitcases full of cash to spin at their club, but when he got out here he was so annihilated on drugs he was unable to perform and unable to do the surprise park party the next day. Legend has it, someone was walking around selling a box of mixtapes at the park party (This is how old this story is, we were all listing to cassette tapes back then) when this spun-out kid rushed the mixtape seller and asked “Do you have any Keoki tapes?”
And the guy responded, “Keoki’s ego couldn’t fit into my cassette tape box.”
And then the kid looked depressed, stared at the ground, and was all “I’m Keoki”
Sunset has since taken on the tradition of parties in the bandshell. This is a really well put together video by Jayson Yagi I love how he captures the feeling of walking back from the bathrooms, through those midget trees, and into the party. You can see the cranes to the south that were building the California Academy of Sciences during this period. That was a glorious day in the park.
This day was a bit more overcast. But, hey. Welcome to San Francisco.
I love this video by Mr. Holehead because it does a great job of showing the constantly changing characters and energy right by the DJ booth that’s spinning New York Techno in Golden Gate Park.
The free parties at the Bandshell in Golden Gate Park used to happen all the time but lately they have become an endangered species. I find myself feeling very lucky to have been a part of that history and grateful that I live in a city where people will spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to make free events like this happen.
Thank you, San Francisco.
UPDATE # 1
8 minutes of video from DJ Apollo 2K of yesterdays Sunset party, the last Sunset park party of 2009, at the Bandshell in Golden Gate Park.
Because I live out in the boondocks I’m usually able to get a good seat when taking MUNI inbound and that gives me a great vantage point when playing the “Who else on the bus is going to the same block party I’m going to?” game.
Some festivals are trickier then others, but when you start talking about the Folsom Street Fair or Love Fest even Stevie Wonder can dominate in this game.
Please to enjoy, a scene from the Civic Center MUNI station during Love Fest 2009 –
Oh my Lord. It’s like a tsunami of teenage wasteland.
My favorite part of this video is that it was shot by Adam Jackson who ran the great Adam’s Block website. The premise of that site was pretty simple, he just put a webcam outside of his apartment window in the Tenderloin and streamed everything that was happening online. The site attracted an international following and the crime rate actually dropped on that particular block because whenever a junkie would break into a car someone in Idaho would see it online in real time and call SFPD. Go team.
New Belgium Ale had their annual free bike, carnival, and beer party this weekend.
It was fun, like Homer Simpson Day in Golden Gate Park.
I saw that Frank Chu was nearby so I went over to say “Hi” and talk shop.
I was all, “Frank, have you ever thought about getting another reality TV show? One where you actually get paid for this time and one where you can work out all the details beforehand? I think it could be a really unique show.”
First off, it would be a show about the Bay Area. Think of San Francisco as being one of the main characters of the show. Everyone loves those travel shows where you have an Anthony Bourdain type of guy who’s keeping it real and showing you where the locals hang out off the beaten path. I can’t think of anyone else more qualified or who knows San Francisco better than Frank. The guy has an amazing work ethic and hasn’t missed a single photo opt in the past 15 years. Also, it would be kind of funny to see a professional camera crew try and keep up with Frank. You could easily film enough footage in 1 month to fill up an entire season.
Second, it’s a show about the most famous Bay Area personality of the past 15 years and who will probably continue to be the most famous Bay Area Internet personality for the next 15 years. It’s something real, not one of those scripted teen drama shows, or looking for scripted love contest elimination shows, it’s something real and real life doesn’t always have easy and convenient answers.
Third and finally, it’s a show about how those characters play off each other. It’s a buddy show about a man on a mission and the relationship he has with Oakland or the relationship he has with San Francisco. San Francisco has a history going as far back as Emperor Norton of taking care of its eccentric types, but we expect you to have personality. Anybody who has ever traveled to LA to make a name for themselves could relate to that show.
I think Bravo or A&E could really do a show like this justice.
I told Frank I would run some of those ideas up the flagpole and see what people think.
My favorite website is now sponsoring Frank Chu by buying the advertising space on the back of his protest sign.
File under Brilliant Urban Marketing Move
UPDATE # 2
Recent picture and words from local icon Plug 1
I left work yesterday with 2 extra tix to the 7:15 pm Giants game….and….then….ran into my friend Frank Chu around 6:45pm….
“Hey, Frank. Wanna free ticket to tonight’s game?”
“Sure”
“Here Ya Go”
Frank and I find our seats and sat down. We talked sports for a bit. You gotta give him a chance: he’s got more to talk about than intergalactic mayhem, that’s for sure. After the sixth inning, we headed down to Acme Chophouse to enjoy a cold frosty one. He informed me that most of the Local Media is against him, but I already knew that. After my beer, I left. Frank said he was going to stay and have another beer before heading back to Oakland.
I took the Transported SF bus up to Stafford Lake for the first time and it turned out to be a fabulous experience.
Even before they had the online presence and it was all just phone numbers and flyers, hundreds, on some days thousands, of Bay Area kids would pilgrimage up to this sleepy suburb just north of San Francisco and transform its park by the lake into an amazing and wonderful experience.
Bruce Sterling once wrote that Burning Man is the New American Holiday.
To go with that theme, Sunset has very much become one of my favorite San Francisco Holidays.
It can be kind of difficult to put into words, but it’s a ritual that transcends a party. It’s something that we’ve all created, kept alive all these years, and means something to us… if for no other reason than it’s a celebration of the fact that you made it to see another year. Even if you lost your job and have no idea what the fuck you’re going to do with your life, you made it. I consider myself very lucky to have been a part of that constantly evolving tribe over the last 14 years.
My good friend Doug Zimmerman took some great pictures over HERE
He’s been doing an amazing job of documenting the scene over the years, which will make for one hell of a coffee table book one of these days.
The Outer Sunset 