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.
Deep just won a Best of The Bay Award for Best Block-Rockin’ Bike in the city. Score! It’s all kinds of awesome whenever someone wins one of those one-of-a-kind awards that the writers of the Guardian made up specifically for that person. That’s a very unique gift, it’s a very public compliment that was just broadcast out there for all of San Francisco to see. Definitely gives you some unique street cred as well.
I got to the Embarcadero Plaza at exactly 8PM. No flashdance party but there was something else going on. I went over to investigate and discovered that some high school kids already had their own flashmob going on and were breakdance fighting. Awesome!
That Hansel is so hot right now!
Anyhoo, my party was setting up nearby at the Ferry Plaza.
And into the night it went.
I really like this part of town. The Embarcadero is a great location for flashmob types of events. This is where Critical Mass starts every month. This is also where they had the Valentine Day pillow fight that caused $30,000 in damages to that god-ugly fountain and was the catalyst for the city’s Death of Fun campaign. It’s almost a textbook definition of how to create a Temporary Autonomous Zone. Normally it’s occupied by skaters, tourists, and homeless guys passed out in a pool of their own vomit, but I really like it. I live for free outdoor parties and it’s the renegade ones that have that added thrill that acts like a magnet and attracts some of the more interesting people in this city. This party is fast becoming one of my new favorite San Francisco rituals.
You can find out more about the next flashdance party over HERE
UPDATE # 1
Rad video of the parties Bollywood peak from raunet.
I’m telling you, The Embarcadero is an amazing place for renegade parties. It has a lot of character.
I was really surprised when I heard about this block party. San Francisco’s Death of Fun campaign has been pretty successful so far this year. Congratulations, gentlemen. You have already claimed the life of the future BYOBW block party. That was really brave of you. You almost killed the How Weird block party and don’t think we’ve forgotten about you DNA Lounge. Fuck you and the taxes you pay every year.
So when I heard that there was going to be a new block party under this hostile regime change I knew I had to check it out.
And this is what the Super Hero Block Party looked like at 2:30 PM.
What’s funny is that if this was Sunday Streets the permit would have official expired over half an hour ago.
If this was the Haight Street Fair it would have been packed.
If it was the How Weird Street Fair it would have been in what House DJ Architects refer to as the Barn Building stage of the party.
That’s another Burning Man thing that I had forgotten about. People drag thousands of dollars worth of steel and soundsystems out to this god-forsaken place, juice it up with enough decibels to kill a Godzilla, and there’s like 4 people dancing. Look at that, it’s right behind a MUNI graveyard. This is where old cable cars swim upstream, against traffic, to be gutted, rusted, and then die alone on the outskirts of beautiful Hunter’s Point.
And this was the crowded dancefloor. Let’s go back and check in the BrassTax camp.
Funny thing. I’ve been living in this city for 15 years and I’ve noticed that there’s this one demographic that seems to be permanently stuck on Hawaiian Time. It’s physically impossible for them to get out of the house before 4PM. They’re like the Twilight vampires of the San Francisco scene. I always seem to be out of step with those guys and find myself going to these amazing empty parties in weird locations and then spend half my time taking pictures of the urban decay around me. I know, life of the party…
Vanilla Ice actually lives here. He moved in 2 weeks ago when his next VH1 show fell through and his old lady kicked him to the curb. He was suppose to be performing on the Sunset stage but that fell through as well for reasons unknown to me.
And check out that boardwalk.
I actually had a hell of time taking in my cocktail and beats as the skaters and fog flew past me. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I thought it was ironic that the first annual San Francisco Street Fair was on the same day as the San Diego Comic Con. I used to go to that back when I was in junior high and it’s amazing to see how what used to be a corny convention of hard-core nerds exploded into one of the major multi-media events of the year. It’s on Goggle’s front page. It’s on youtube’s front page. When I grew up, being into comic books was like being into pedophilia; it wasn’t a very cool hobby and if you wanted to survive you were very careful whom you shared that vice with. Now it’s Hollywood. That’s what’s amazing to me. Anyone can do that. Anyone can take a corny thing and turn that into the next Burning Man, turn that into the Star Trek franchise, turn that into the next major multi-media event of the year.
Harvey Milk stencil found next to the Noriega Street Safeway in The Outer Sunset.
The Times of Harvey Milk is an amazing Oscar winning documentary from 1984 that Gus Van Sant basically just reenacted in his Oscar winning movie, Milk. There’s about 10-15 scenes that he recreates or fleshes out and there’s another 10-15 scenes where he uses the EXACT same source material and news footage as the documentary, all in the same order. And I’m not knocking that. Talk about being True to your source material.
It’s a pretty amazing documentary about a very surreal story.
What’s amazing to me is how many people from this 25 year old documentary still dominate the local political landscape. Terence Hallinan later went on to become San Francisco’s district attorney and just this week is defending a meth head who killed his baby momma with a baseball bat on his kid’s first birthday. Tom Ammiano is now in the California State Assembly and even gave Willy Brown a run for his money as a write in candidate for Mayor of SF. And Dianne Feinstein is still a cunt. But my personal favorite is Dennis Richmond. He’s been like the black Clark Kent of Bay Area TV news reporting for the past 30+ years. You know that guy goes out and fights crime once he gets off from work. That’s why he finally retired from news casting – to focus on kicking ass fulltime.
Lots of great file footage of San Francisco is all of its goofy 1970s Boogie Nights glory. Dan White with his bowl haircut (Check it out! Same style as the busted Governor of Illinois. Creepy…) and Century 21 jacket. Check out the news guy that interviews Dan White on the streets. Yep. John Holmes had a job at 7 On Your Side for a while there. Not that many people know that.
It’s pretty amazing what Harvey Milk was able to accomplish without any cell phones, twitter, myspace, or blogs. He could put people in the streets. No matter where you live on planet earth or what language you speak, anyone who can mobilize people into the streets has power. Dude was a bad ass. He would go debate his opponents in enemy territory, red zip codes, Orange County. I think that’s a big reason why Prop 6 failed and why Prop 8 passed. We don’t have any Harvey Milks on our team anymore.
I was in Amoeba the other day and noticed that The Times of Harvey Milk is now out of print. It’s going for $60 on DVD but you can watch the entire thing online for free.
This is another one that’s been sitting on my local San Francisco “to-do” list for over a decade that I can now finally cross off.
Every single drop off all Anchor Steam beer is brewed in their single location located in Potrero Hill. They offer free tours that usually book up 6 weeks in advance, although I cruised in without even having to show an ID so you might be able to crash this party if you’re feeling lucky.
After the tour there’s a generous sampling party, we got to take in
Some Anchor Steam beer.
Some Liberty Ale.
Apparently Anchor Steam also makes their own whiskey named after their Potrero Hill location?! I had no idea.
Sadly, they do not offer any tours or samples of that product… which is probably a good idea for everyone involved.
A Porter beer sample.
A Barley Wine beer sample.
A Small beer sample
And another Anchor Steam sample for the road.
Anchor Steam has a very clean and sheen tasting room. The protagonist from Office Space does the tours and seems a lot happier to be behind the counter instead of filling out TPS reports. Anchor Steam has been in San Francisco in one shape or another for well over a century, so they have more history than most museums put together. It’s a San Francisco institution that’s definitely worth checking out if you know you’re going to be in the city.
The Outer Sunset 