Posted on a telephone pole near what we used to call “the experimental dog park” (for experimental dogs) at Grant and Hearst in Berkeley. As befits a dog park, dogs are almost always there. We’ve taken Scout there a few times, but there’s a little bit of a weird, frenetic feeling to the place and he never seems to want to stay. Somebody in the neighborhood went to the trouble of having a professionally designed banner printed up for the dog run; it says something like, “Please consider the neighbors and stop incessant barking.”
October
The morning dog walk: The air is scoured clear and warming fast. The wind gusts down from the hills, through redwoods, Monterey pines, liquidambars and oaks. On Hokpins Street, it raises billows of dust from the middle school track. It’s a leaf-stripper wind that fills the air along Hopkins Street with gold and green.
Technorati Tags: berkeley, berkeley weather, weather
Freeway Overpass
From Friday night on Potrero Hill. From Utah Street just south of Mariposa, there’s a pedestrian overpass crossing U.S. 101 to Vermont Street on the east side. I can’t quite explain it, but I alway like walking over the freeway there. Something about getting to watch the traffic from so close by without being part of it, maybe. Last night after work I went up there and experimented with some time exposure by placing my camera on one of the railings of the pedestran bridge (there’s a fence to prevent it from falling onto the highway) setting the shutter on delay before releasing it.
This view is looking north. Interstate 80, which goes all the way to New York City, starts where you can see the green highway signs in the left center (if you click for the larger image, you can see that one of the signs directs drivers to the Bay Bridge, which is visible in the right center).
Technorati Tags: interstate 80, san francisco
Utah Door
Busy week at the radio station. Got off early tonight, and walked a little on Potrero Hill, up Mariposa and onto Utah, before getting in the car and driving across the bridge home. It was a beautiful, clear warm evening at the end of a beautiful, clear week.
Technorati Tags: puppy, san francisco
Park Bench
Live Oak Park, on North Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, earlier this week. We don’t walk through this park much, but the other day we strolled through on the way home from an errand (see Peet’s bag on bench). It’s an angsty teen mini-essay dated last month. I think virtually the entire text is legible if you click the image for the larger versions.
Dumpster Gull
City Art
On north side of 16th, near Folsom. I’m new at the genre, but the two names belong to San Francisco graffiti artists.
Not that this is a natural segue–I find the sidewalk stencils and other street art I see around the Mission and Potrero Hill pretty arresting–but if you read a little into some local blogs (here’s an example, and here’s another) shit on neighborhood streets is a recurring topic. By shit, I mean shit–what the polite but not highbrow might call Number Two. I raise the subject mostly because in the last few weeks, I’ve occasionally found myself strolling through what appears to be a well established and frequently used open-air toilet on Harrison Street between 17th and Mariposa. And today, right by the Honda motorcycle garage on 17th near Folsom, a large pile of human excrement. Notable in the latter case was the presence of a wad of toilet paper. It’s comforting to know that even those with no other facilities, or who are perhaps moved to make a social statement of some kind, are still wiping themselves.
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Urban-Wildland Interface
In California, when you hear the term “urban-wildland interface,” it’s generally used to describe suburbs that have sprawled so far into the hinterlands that whole subdivisions are in the middle of areas that are prone to burning. In fact, a little Google research suggests that the term occurs together with “fire” about seven out of eight times it’s used. But I don’t want to talk about fire. I want to talk about deer running wild in the flatlands neighborhood where we live.
In the Bay Area, as in most of the rest of California and as in most of the country, deer have become very numerous in the past 20 or 30 years. This has led to colorful side effects such as the appearance of mountain lions and coyotes on the fringe or urban areas (I’ve never seen a mountain lion; but a couple years ago I spotted a coyote loping across the road ahead of me when I was on a bike ride about 10 miles from home; and hiking in the hills I’ve come across part of a deer, in carcass form, that had been taken apart by something with good strong jaws).
Deer, on the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of. There are so many in the hills, both inside and outside town, that when you’re riding a bike back down to the flats near dusk you keep an eye out for any that might be crossing the road. I’d say the first time I saw them near our house, well below the hills, about a decade ago. A panicked looking young male went clattering by one night when I was out for a walk. The sightings have become more frequent. Our neighbor Piero set up a motion-sensitive camera in his mother’s backyard to try to find out what was destroying her flower garden. The culprits, captured in pictures just about every night, are a small but healthy deer family that apparently has taken up permanent residence in a neighbor’s untended lot. Some people here think that deer travel down from the hills after dark, moving along the creeks that run toward the bay and through our unfenced parks. In a sense, they’re moving the urban-wildland interface right into the heart of the city.
Tonight’s example: I was just out taking the dog for his final neighborhood patrol of the day. A couple blocks away, alongside a big elementary school, a deer came bounding onto the sidewalk about 50 yards ahead of us, then went springing down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. The dog followed at a trot. The deer stood at the next corner; as we approached, it trotted north down the intersecting street, followed by another deer in that vaulting gait they use to jump hedges and fences and, now, to navigate the byways of North Berkeley.
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Shakespearean
After we got done with our two little afternoon newscasts at KQED yesterday, and after I had cleared a couple stories for this morning that had been awaiting edit, I walked up to the Safeway a couple blocks away, at 16th and Bryant streets. There’s a big shopping center there that runs a full city block over to the east, to Potrero Avenue. Before the center was there, the site was occupied by a giant car dealership. Before the dealership, it was home to Seals Stadium, where the city’s Triple A baseball team played until they were kicked out when the Giants arrived in 1958.
The shopping center has a huge double-deck parking garage. The upper lot is above street level along 16th, so there’s a wall that runs, at varying heights because the street slopes, the entire block between Potrero and Bryant. Last night when I got to 16th and Bryant, there was a man lying at the base of the wall, a few feet from a bus stop at the corner.
You encounter people lying on the street in San Francisco every day. So many people have plunged through whatever gave their lives structure and support that they’ve become part of the landscape. Every once in a while, one will attract particular attention: because they’re particularly abject, because they’re acting out in some outrageous way, or because there’s something in their physical attitude that makes you wonder whether they’re still breathing.
The guy I spotted at the base of the wall last night was in the third category. He was lying on his side with his back to the wall and a blue-jean jacket pulled over his head. He wasn’t moving. He was wearing dirty jeans and some beat-looking hiking boots. I stood over him for a few seconds to see if I could see him breathing. I thought he was, but wasn’t sure. Then I walked up into the upper level of the parking lot and stood above him and decided to call 911. Since I was on a cellphone, I got routed to the California Highway Patrol; the delay was long enough that I changed my mind about the emergency call. I hung up, then called information for the number of the Mobile Assistance Patrol. MAP started back in the ’80s, I think, when the city’s homeless population first spiked and emergency services found themselves swamped with calls for destitute people unconscious on the streets.
I called MAP and got an operator and described the situation. “OK. Is he breathing?” she asked. “Yes.” “Do you think he’s intoxicated?” “Well, yeah, that’s the usual situation, right?” I said. “OK …”
At that moment, the figure on the sidewalk below me came to life. The man–he was white, middle aged, unshaven, close-cropped brown hair–said, “I’m fine. I don’t need anyone to come help me.” I was relieved, told the operator the guy was still among the living, and hung up. The man put his head back under his jacket, and I walked over to the grocery store.
My errand was to buy a couple cheap Safeway sandwiches for me and one of the reporters back at the station. I bought one for the guy lying on the sidewalk and got him one of those protein smoothies, too. When I got back to the street, he was still lying there. “I know you heard me when I made that phone call before,” I said. “I don’t want to bother you, but I’m going to leave a sandwich and something to drink right here.” He pulled the coat off his head and tried to sit up. “Thank you, thank you, I need that,” he said. I gave him a hand so he could sit upright against the wall. He thanked me again and told me his name, Charles McCue. He was disheveled and dirty but not drunk or drug-addled at the moment. I told him my name, and I asked him how long he’d been out there. “Three years on the street,” he said. He looked up and down 16th. “I used to … I don’t know how I got here.”
I asked him about his family name, thinking it might have come from Ireland. “Where are you from?”
“I’ve lived here for twenty-six years!” he said. “I’ve … I was the director of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.” The festival is a well-known company that has put on free plays in parks since the early ’80s. If this guy had been the director–well, he had had things together at some point and really–desperately–lost his way.
“Shakespeare? ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’? ‘Richard the Second’?”
“Oh, I can give you all thirty-eight of them if you have time,” he said. ” ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances. …’ ”
He trailed off. I asked him where he stayed at night. “On the street,” he said. But where–any particular place, or wherever he found himself? “Wherever I find myself,” he said. “I was so tired that I just sort of collapsed here.” He had nothing with him but what he was wearing.
I had to leave, and I told him to eat. “Have a good night,” I said. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean that ironically. I’ll look out for you when I’m in the neighborhood.”
I walked back to the office, and when the work of the shift was done, I looked up Charles online. There he was. He’d been involved with the company from its inception through 2003. I found an item from July 2003 that described his departure:
A farewell to the Bard: Just as the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival prepares to open its 21st Free Shakespeare in the Parks season with “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” it’s lost one of its primary laborers. Producing Artistic Director Charles McCue , the company’s leader since ’97 — and a member since its first season — has quietly tendered his resignation.
The reasons were not artistic but personal, festival members said (McCue was not reachable at press time). After setting the schedule and hiring Ken Kelleher to direct the summer show, McCue took a brief leave, then decided to make it permanent. With the summer opening on hand, the board of directors named managing director Toby Leavitt the executive director for now.
I wrote Rob an email about my encounter with the man on the street. He said he really didn’t know what had become of Charles McCue and suggested that his successor at the festival might.
After work, I walked back up to the corner where I’d found Charles. He was gone, and he wasn’t one of the dozen or so homeless men that I saw in the walk down to the 16th Street BART station.
Technorati Tags: homeless, san francisco
Shakespearean
After we got done with our two little afternoon newscasts at KQED yesterday, and after I had cleared a couple stories for this morning that had been awaiting edit, I walked up to the Safeway a couple blocks away, at 16th and Bryant streets. There’s a big shopping center there that runs a full city block over to the east, to Potrero Avenue. Before the center was there, the site was occupied by a giant car dealership. Before the dealership, it was home to Seals Stadium, where the city’s Triple A baseball team played until they were kicked out when the Giants arrived in 1958.
The shopping center has a huge double-deck parking garage. The upper lot is above street level along 16th, so there’s a wall that runs, at varying heights because the street slopes, the entire block between Potrero and Bryant. Last night when I got to 16th and Bryant, there was a man lying at the base of the wall, a few feet from a bus stop at the corner.
You encounter people lying on the street in San Francisco every day. So many people have plunged through whatever gave their lives structure and support that they’ve become part of the landscape. Every once in a while, one will attract particular attention: because they’re particularly abject, because they’re acting out in some outrageous way, or because there’s something in their physical attitude that makes you wonder whether they’re still breathing.
The guy I spotted at the base of the wall last night was in the third category. He was lying on his side with his back to the wall and a blue-jean jacket pulled over his head. He wasn’t moving. He was wearing dirty jeans and some beat-looking hiking boots. I stood over him for a few seconds to see if I could see him breathing. I thought he was, but wasn’t sure. Then I walked up into the upper level of the parking lot and stood above him and decided to call 911. Since I was on a cellphone, I got routed to the California Highway Patrol; the delay was long enough that I changed my mind about the emergency call. I hung up, then called information for the number of the Mobile Assistance Patrol. MAP started back in the ’80s, I think, when the city’s homeless population first spiked and emergency services found themselves swamped with calls for destitute people unconscious on the streets.
I called MAP and got an operator and described the situation. “OK. Is he breathing?” she asked. “Yes.” “Do you think he’s intoxicated?” “Well, yeah, that’s the usual situation, right?” I said. “OK …”
At that moment, the figure on the sidewalk below me came to life. The man–he was white, middle aged, unshaven, close-cropped brown hair–said, “I’m fine. I don’t need anyone to come help me.” I was relieved, told the operator the guy was still among the living, and hung up. The man put his head back under his jacket, and I walked over to the grocery store.
My errand was to buy a couple cheap Safeway sandwiches for me and one of the reporters back at the station. I bought one for the guy lying on the sidewalk and got him one of those protein smoothies, too. When I got back to the street, he was still lying there. “I know you heard me when I made that phone call before,” I said. “I don’t want to bother you, but I’m going to leave a sandwich and something to drink right here.” He pulled the coat off his head and tried to sit up. “Thank you, thank you, I need that,” he said. I gave him a hand so he could sit upright against the wall. He thanked me again and told me his name, Charles McCue. He was disheveled and dirty but not drunk or drug-addled at the moment. I told him my name, and I asked him how long he’d been out there. “Three years on the street,” he said. He looked up and down 16th. “I used to … I don’t know how I got here.”
I asked him about his family name, thinking it might have come from Ireland. “Where are you from?”
“I’ve lived here for twenty-six years!” he said. “I’ve … I was the director of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.” The festival is a well-known company that has put on free plays in parks since the early ’80s. If this guy had been the director–well, he had had things together at some point and really–desperately–lost his way.
“Shakespeare? ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’? ‘Richard the Second’?”
“Oh, I can give you all thirty-eight of them if you have time,” he said. ” ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances. …’ ”
He trailed off. I asked him where he stayed at night. “On the street,” he said. But where–any particular place, or wherever he found himself? “Wherever I find myself,” he said. “I was so tired that I just sort of collapsed here.” He had nothing with him but what he was wearing.
I had to leave, and I told him to eat. “Have a good night,” I said. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean that ironically. I’ll look out for you when I’m in the neighborhood.”
I walked back to the office, and when the work of the shift was done, I looked up Charles online. There he was. He’d been involved with the company from its inception through 2003. I found an item from July 2003 that described his departure:
A farewell to the Bard: Just as the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival prepares to open its 21st Free Shakespeare in the Parks season with “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” it’s lost one of its primary laborers. Producing Artistic Director Charles McCue , the company’s leader since ’97 — and a member since its first season — has quietly tendered his resignation.
The reasons were not artistic but personal, festival members said (McCue was not reachable at press time). After setting the schedule and hiring Ken Kelleher to direct the summer show, McCue took a brief leave, then decided to make it permanent. With the summer opening on hand, the board of directors named managing director Toby Leavitt the executive director for now.
I wrote Rob an email about my encounter with the man on the street. He said he really didn’t know what had become of Charles McCue and suggested that his successor at the festival might.
After work, I walked back up to the corner where I’d found Charles. He was gone, and he wasn’t one of the dozen or so homeless men that I saw in the walk down to the 16th Street BART station.
Technorati Tags: homeless, san francisco