I Hate San Francisco!

They’re back. While real bombers are flying overhead bringing death and destruction in the Middle East and Ukraine, we have the Blue Angels putting on their show for our amusement. We’re supposed to be impressed by their tight navigation skills and sure, there is a level of artistry there. But the price is too high. Four days of non-stop sonic assault that not only makes it impossible to have a leisurely stroll out in the city and talk with a friend but rattles the walls and windows of your home almost wherever you live in San Francisco.

I shudder for veterans with PTSD whose terrors are triggered, for families with babies napping and confused elders, for dogs darting under couches and birds wholly disoriented. I don’t have a dog or baby or elder in my home and thankfully, am not afflicted with PTSD, but out walking in the park, I feel almost as if a mild case is now percolating. The sound is overwhelming, the surprise of where it will come from next disturbing and my beautiful city made ugly with this horrendous soundscape is intolerable. I’m wondering if I can make the city pay for three nights of a hotel far enough away that I don’t have to put up with this. 

 

Meanwhile, back in Covid times, I was walking in the park and stopped to listen to a little jazz band with drums, bass, quiet electric guitar and trumpet in front of the Arboretum. Here they were playing such great music that soothed and comforted all who stopped to listen and lo and behold, a Park Ranger says they must cease and desist because they don’t have a permit to make music in the park. It might disturb the passerbyes. Are you following me here? One hour of great jazz in a public place is against the law, but countless hours spread over four days of deafening thunderous noise (can we sue for hearing loss?), why, according to the SF Board of Supervisors, that’s perfectly fine. Why? Follow the money, my friend. 

 

Same deal with the building of the ugly phallus proclaiming itself above the skyline in the form of Sales Force Tower. How quickly did that project get passed and did the voters have a say? Compare it to a friend in his 80’s who made a wise choice to build an extension of his home in his backyard for his wife and him to pass their old age while their son and his family move into the new house. The amount of bureaucracy, paperwork, petitioning to multiple offices, permission from every neighbor in a 10-block radius, the various sign-offs from this department or that has drawn the whole process out to four or five years. A little extra house that will impact exactly no one else. Follow the procedure, say the city officials. Unless you’re Sales Force. Again, then all you have to do is follow the money.

 

Then of course, my pet peeve of reproducing-like-rabbits-Waymo-driverless cars that have ruined my pleasure in walking around the neighborhood. Seems benign compared to the above, but San Francisco, that hot-bed of human creativity in the form of on-the-edge jazz, world music, modern dance, experimental theater, modern art, people’s circuses, poetry reading, Zen practice, this city that has celebrated the human spirit and pushed out the edges of creative expression, is now known as the home of AI. Every driverless car is a reminder to me of our mad rush to replace humans and diminish humanity, not to mention further stick it to cab drivers and now, even Uber and Lyft drivers. Follow the money. 

Every bit of it reversable. Replace the Blue Angels show with a Hot Air Balloon Show or glider festival. Put limits on building heights and pay attention to architecture no matter how much money you have. Get these damn Waymos off the streets or at least limit them. Easy. 

 

San Francisco, I’ve been loyal to you for the 50 years I’ve lived here and kept defending you even when others have denigrated you. But now you’re trying my patience. I hate you at the moment because I love you so much and know you’re better than that. I’d love to take a walk in the park and talk to you about it, but we couldn’t hear each other with the Blue Angels screaming overhead.