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150 San Franciscans Explain How Tech Money Changed Their City (sfchronicle.com)
DevNull127 writes: In a remarkable odyssey, documentary-maker Cary McClelland interviewed more than 150 San Francisco residents — including a tattoo artist, a longshoreman, a venture capitalist, and a pawnshop owner — to capture the real voices of a changing city, in a kind of oral history of the present. It becomes a magical "documentary without film... panoramic, complex — and surprisingly well-balanced," writes one reader, applauding the book's "dazzling omniscience." Legendary Silicon Valley marketer Regis McKenna speaks fondly of the days when young Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were dropping into his office, and despite the apparent challenges facing San Francisco, many people interviewed remained surprisingly hopeful.
"Idexa, a German-born tattoo artist who'd hitchhiked to the city from Los Angeles as a teenager, says despite the new displacements happening today, 'It's also beautiful. There's been a lot of money put into the neighborhood and into the buildings. Buildings that would have fallen apart have been renovated. Oh, it's the end of the world soon. We're not the first generation who thinks that.' It's an almost poetic picture of San Francisco that proves the world isn't as simple — or as discouraging — as it's often made out to be, and the book's passionate purpose seems to spontaneously find its way into the words of each interview subject."
"Until you're standing in front of someone and listening to them with your own ears, you're never going to understand them," says a survivor of one of California's recent wildfires. So Cary McClelland listens — writing in his introduction that his book asks us to hear the city of San Francisco speak in a chorus of voices, with a message for all the other cities. "The goal of the book," he says, "is to reflect people's subjective perspective, their experience — lived, visceral, emotional, intimate. The living-room experience..."
"Idexa, a German-born tattoo artist who'd hitchhiked to the city from Los Angeles as a teenager, says despite the new displacements happening today, 'It's also beautiful. There's been a lot of money put into the neighborhood and into the buildings. Buildings that would have fallen apart have been renovated. Oh, it's the end of the world soon. We're not the first generation who thinks that.' It's an almost poetic picture of San Francisco that proves the world isn't as simple — or as discouraging — as it's often made out to be, and the book's passionate purpose seems to spontaneously find its way into the words of each interview subject."
"Until you're standing in front of someone and listening to them with your own ears, you're never going to understand them," says a survivor of one of California's recent wildfires. So Cary McClelland listens — writing in his introduction that his book asks us to hear the city of San Francisco speak in a chorus of voices, with a message for all the other cities. "The goal of the book," he says, "is to reflect people's subjective perspective, their experience — lived, visceral, emotional, intimate. The living-room experience..."
More shit on the sidewalk?
How quaint.
Poop-a-Roni!
The San Francisco Treat!
Coming to a sanctuary city near you!
A deep royal navy blue. This frightens me. /even though it's just the Firehose ranking, I feel like Bender from Futuruama when he had that horrible nightmare where in a world of ones and zeroes, he thinks he saw a two.
What a tone deaf liberal cock, lecturing people about listening and hearing. Poor choice of words considering the homeless problem they have.
San Francisco is a literal shithole
Is it just me or is this just an advertisement for a book disguised as a news story?
And money destroys any place it loves too much.
I remember when San Francisco was a city with nice weather and a blowsy, affordable charm, which made it a Mecca for misfits with oddball ideas but not much money. Gays discharged at the military base in Alameda found their way into the low-rent districts; hippies established communal houses; gurus, mountebanks and self-anointed visionaries set up shop.
Any one of these groups individually were just social deviants, but collectively they brought a creative energy to the city that made it world class. Then one group of visionaries struck gold: the tech entrepreneurs. Worse than gold: a gold rush is limited by the finite supply of gold in the world.
And just like that, it was over. It's not that San Francisco is a bad place, it's just not what it was; it's a facsimile of old San Francisco stretched over a machine built to process vast quantities of money.
The same thing happened to Key West; rich people go there to play at being Bohemian, but the actual Bohemians who serve their drinks have to drive for hours to get home after their shift is done. San Francisco is a peninsula, Key West is an island; neither could expand geographically to accomodate the burgeoning financial enthalpy, and the resulting economic pressure forces out the oddballs that put the place on the map in the first place.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Nah, you're missing it completely. The Chronic is owned by the Hearst Corporation (San Francisco has no real newspaper of it's own and hasn't for some time) and has never seen a big real estate deal it doesn't like. The slant of this "review" is just that everyone *loves* our new corporate overlords because Money, and all of those complaints about how you can't actually live in the city if you're not commuting to Google or a coke-addled start-up weasel are *completely* exaggerated, and I'm sure those twenty-something programmers who are complaining that all of their high salaries are just lining their landlords pockets, they just don't Get It.
They couldn't care less if you watch this "documentary".
I shit on streets and I cannot lie,
you other hobos canâ(TM)t deny
When a bum walks in with a big ole blunt
And turds spewing from his butt
You get SPRUNG
Up through the 90s, tech companies made real products, invented entire industries from scratch. With the possible exception of Apple, the current generation of Silicon Valley companies has very little to do with "tech". They are advertising and consumer data companies which incidentally use the web as a delivery mechanism. They coast on the achievements of their predecessors and use infrastructure that they're incapable of improving or creating on their own. The best they can do is make the software rubbish heap a couple feet higher.
"Innovation" in the eighties was creating the PC industry. Now it's increasing the character limit of a tweet.
I rarely visit San Francisco.
Recently a wealth of photos and even video of SF from the time of the earthquake and fire became available on the 'web. Despite the devastation, there were signs of great prosperity and an active population forging their way into the future. Since the Gold Rush, San Francisco has attracted the ambitious and the creative people of every generation.
I lived there in 1963 along with Alan Ginsberg and the beats. Long before there were hippies, there were beats. They tended to be adults, educated, cultured, artistic, and they were travelers. They rode the rails, hitchhiked and explored from sea to shining sea.
Coffee houses were unlike your corner Starbucks. They had florescent lights, linoleum floors, Formica tables and even then they looked shabby. Coffee prices were outrageous at more than one dollar (when you could still get coffee for 25 cents in a proper restaurant). But someone would wander in and play guitar or recite poetry for tips. There would be a loud argument about Fidel Castro at the next table, or a scruffy beat with a guitar case covered in stickers from around the world. You went there to be with people who had a broad world view.
I spent much of my time at Cochran's Billiards, 1028 Market St. Hard core players from across the country, just like the movie The Hustler. My fortunes varied from poor to destitute so I walked the city rather than drive or use buses. Many people today never see the city from the sidewalk, the gutter, so to speak. Chinatown, Market street, everywhere it was dirty, noisy, grey and the weather was mild but unfriendly.
But the city was alive. People were on the move, hustling, scheming and dreaming and making things happen. This has been true since the beginning. It's what attracted Mark Twain and it's what attracts some of the most creative people on earth even now.
[Nice reminiscence of Cochran's Billiards: https://forums.azbilliards.com... ]
...omphaloskepsis often...
Presenting the propaganda arm of the West Coast Privileged Elite! Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see!
It was already in the 350k range for a narrow multistory house with no yard in the adjoining cities. People who wanted cheaper houses had to move out to Hercules or the other 'up and coming' towns far out from SF proper. When I was in Silicon Valley in the 1980s we were staying in a 500k home that sold for a million dollars just a few years later. It was 2500/mo in rent in the 1980s.
Today, it is even more insane.
See my subject BeauHD & apparently you've never had exposure to seeing WHAT it does (especially in the end - 30 days of night vampires are what you end up with).
I don't pity you that (but then again, I do).
You're lucky to NOT know.
You're UNLUCKY since hard-core opiate addicts are MASTER MANIPULATORS (oh, pity me (but give me DOPE for a 'fix')) - I don't think you'd see one coming your way & making you a fool is why I say the latter.
* I've SEEN it DESTROY families recently & my cousins in the 1970's (who were HARDCORE biker lunatics) when I was just a kid!
(1 used to play hoop w/ us & suddenly stopped! So one day - I asked his brother to get him to play w/ us, & we spotted him "nodding out" in his room & I asked "What's he doing? Sleeping?? Wake him up" & my cousin said "You can't - he's on drugs").
Pity was, the older cousin was a very smart young man & athlete before it.
DOPE GOT HIM & he DESTROYED himself. Period.
I'm seeing it for a DECADE++ now DESTROYING MY CITY causing this (murder sprees & KIDS dying) http://thecount.com/2018/10/11
Apparently, again: YOU don't SEE that - & again, I envy you BUT ALSO PITY YOU it.
I've PERSONALLY never seen ANYONE escape that drug & live (though there ARE some, I never have).
APK
P.S.=> Quote BLADE (again this week, I'm on a blade-kick having caught it on NetFlix recently & me telling you I equate heroin JUNKIES to VAMPIRES above & all):
"YOU, better WAKE UP: The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping. There is another world BENEATH it - the REAL WORLD, & IF You want to SURVIVE IT, you better LEARN, to PULL, the TRIGGER!" ... & I don't mean on a syringe plunger (anything BUT that))... apk
See subject & SEE THIS if you want to see only a SMALL PART of what HEROIN causes http://thecount.com/2018/10/11...
* THAT WAS RIGHT DOWN MY STREET & I HEARD ALL OF IT.
(In the last 10++ yrs. I have seen it DESTROY what was once a good town & DECENT section of it)
APK
P.S.=> In fact, I hear it SO MUCH (gunshots, gang fights etc. & combined w/ police sirens + ambulances I call it "The SYRACUSE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA" & Harleys are the percussion, women screaming are the Soprano signers etc.), I didn't even think to look - I would've SEEN it from high up on a small 'mountain' I live on IF I looked - I consciously do NOT even WANT TO SEE IT (yes, it scares me - & not much does anymore BUT the results do - turns men into something FAR WORSE than any rabid animal is)... apk
See subject: To ask John Carmack a question (1st & ONLY time I used it) in 2005. I want "APK" but I can't get it. Some guy Andrew K has it & hasn't posted in YEARS...
* NO point in me having another account IF I can't be MYSELF really - that & trolls have threatened me NUMEROUS TIMES they would 'downmod bomb me' to hell just for kicks... why?
THEY attack? I destroy (letting 'em DESTROY themselves publicly) https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... - they do it to themselves & BLAME ME? LOL!
APK
P.S.=> Most here? Are fine folks - the trolls though?? Not... apk
I catch 'em @ it & I also know you're NOT "THE" BeauHD editor here & I don't need a job: I haven't HAD to work for others since 2007 unless I want to doing consulting (IF a project pays right & it interests me).
See subject: IDIOTS impersonating me are FAR from "clever". IF they were even somewhat clever, they'd be doing what I do for others & to help make the internet safer https://it.slashdot.org/commen... as well as FASTER doing MORE for FAR LESS, natively!
(vs. STUPID "illogic-logic" of "Bolt-on-'MoAr'" complexity LOADED w/ security issues that uses MORE, does less, & SLOWS YOU DOWN (where I speed you up 2 ways).
IMPERSONATORS (lol, I'm speaking to one in YOU now ironically, lol) waste their time TRYING that w/ me - I spot 'em & put 'em in their place, others see it too.
APK
P.S.=> In any event, keep in mind what I said IF You really haven't seen what JUNKIES on DOPE/HEROIN become (another BLADE quote, lol):
"REMEMBER WHAT WE TOLD YOU: You keep your EYES OPEN - They're EVERYWHERE... - BLADE ... apk
What about the homeless in San Francisco?
How about the beating of the homeless?
What about the police arresting the homeless for no other reason besides being homeless?
What about the no sit or rest laws against the homeless?
What about the police stealing from the homeless?
What about those building that are empty at night, heated and have beds, but are closed to the homeless?
What about the tech companies not giving a penny to help the situation?
What about these tech companies kicking the homeless out of parks and camps?
What about the tech companies assaulting the homeless?
Is this really what society is turning into?
Do none of you see the problem?
Douchebags galore!
Can't help fellow humans out.
It is pitiful what we have turned into.
We just ignore the problems expecting other people to fix the problems.
Well they won't!
No they really won't!
It's up to you to fix the problems...
Because we'll, the tech companies sure as hell won't!
What a BALANCED record of the winner's points of view. So balanced!
DIAF Amerikuks. DIAF because firemen cant afford to live in your city.
My first trip outside my home country was to US...to San Francisco, October 1999. I was in my mid twenties.
I landed with $30...straight went to a Safeway and found a bottle of Popov. Then and now its only $10. Its fine stuff...especially when you filter it through a Brita.
On way to where I stayed those days - somewhere in Fremont - I saw the first big splashy billboard...garden.com Then and now I don't understand their business. I remember the billboard. I thought of PT Barnum...'there's a sucker born every minute".
San Francisco showed what US can be...the generosity and love which made Haight and Ashbury, the greedy blocky buildings of Cupertino, the tranquillity of Half Moon Bay and so on.
Almost two decades and many adventures later, at NYC I am still amazed by US...what a country, what an idea and imagination.
Tat Tvam Asi
Following the Gentleman Janitor robot is the Soylent Green Robot.