Title and text by zinzin:
copters all fucking morning, woke me up around 530. no idea what it was.
around 7, a couple cruisers were moving the slumbering bums out of Dolores Park. Fairly polite, surprisingly non confrontational. none of the bullhorn / night stick tactics you’d see in NY in the Giuliani era. One yoga / exercize person shouted at the cops to “leave em alone, they’re not doing anything”. then a dog walking person who was standing right there…but out of the field of vision of the exercize person, shouted at the exercize person, and quite loudly…basically saying “shut the fuck up, it’s idiots like you that make this neighborhood (and i quote) ‘into an asylum’…”. the exercize person jumped a mile and looked sheepish. the dog walking person went over and thanked the cops. actually shook their hand.
then around 8, about 6 emt vehicles and cop cars converged on 19th between mission & san carlos. north side of the street. i peered over to get a look, and everyone was crowded around a bum, who was…literally…mastubating. “furiously” is the word that came to mind. i’d say this makes that person more of the “afflicted” mentally ill type, than the “addicted” typical mission bum…but these are never mutually exclusive…and i’m certainly no expert. anyways…i overheard one of the EMT women saying this is the 3rd time this weekend they’re picking up “this jerk off”. everyone had a nice holiday laugh over that one. poor sap, i was thinking. over 50 “advocacy” groups within 500 yards, and this guy is rubbing them out in the street – all weekend apparently, though i never saw him – with no effective mental health services within, well, it may as well be 100 miles. here’s to progressive politics.
then i came home and had toast and watched pink panther cartoons with my kid. he loves the soundtrack.