Scenes From An Urban Street: Redemption For $1

1) The sky is that odd mix of sun and rain, where you think you should be able to see a rainbow somewhere, but it must be blocked by the towering blocks of concrete and glass. The sidewalks are damp, the tiles of Powell Street seeming to float. The line for the cable cars is empty this evening.

2) A bundle of human desolation sits on the sidewalk, asks, "Does anyone have any change?" He says it into the teeth of a flood of conversation, cell phones, car engines, and it is lost.

You cannot expect to move the homeless and the panhandlers away from the tourist areas. When you live upon the charity/pity/guilt of others, you go where there are people. Basic survival law: if you need to acquire resources, you go where the resources are.

They are loafing along the sidewalks, long rail-thin pieces of humanity. I don't often give, because I don't want to. The signs that say "Why lie? It's for beer" are no longer funny, nor are they original. It is a low-percentage game for them, sifting through the crowds of people who are tired and want to go home, trying to latch onto those who have the emotional energy to make contact and give them money. But it is the only game they seem to have going.

Unless, of course, they are lying, and the money they get they put into a mutual fund. That would be disappointing.

You think I'm joking, and I probably am, but not entirely. I have heard reports of wealthy Marin County teens who drive into the city to play at panhandling on Haight Street.

I'll buy Street Sheet now and then. When I can, and when I want to. I'm more apt to give to musicians.

3) Speaking of, there is a cellist at the 24th Street Bart Station, exploiting the musical properties of tunnels. His music crests and drops like a wave at low tide, mellow and slow, a pleasant transition on the escalator up into the Mission Street twilight. I give him money, because it feels pleasant to listen to his music.

I wonder if the panhandlers get annoyed when there are musicians around. Maybe the panhandlers should unionize to protect their territory.

I give the cellist a dollar, which makes me feel all better for not having given a dollar to the people selling Street Sheet at Powell Street.

Slices of San Francisco, From Recession to Absolutely Fabulous

I.

A spectacled young black man in a bulky jacket and neatly trimmed beard sits down next to me on the 49 Line.

"3 bucks for the whole bag," he announces.

"What?"

He lifts a grocery bag from the floor, sets it down between us.

"All this," opening the bag to reveal a cornucopia of potato chips and Hostess pies,"for only three dollars."

"Oh, no thanks. Don't need it."

"You sure? Okay." He turns away, moves the bag into the aisle, turns to the old bearded ex-hippie with the beret and the long beard.

"What have you got in there? Magic?" The hippie laughs, savoring the sound of the crinkle of the cellophane bags.

They fall to talking about growing up in the city, and the young black man, Nate, tells the old bushy-bearded bohemian about his temporary job, cleaning buses.

"You mean cleaning off this poetry?" he gestures at the scrawling tags of graffiti on the floor and the back of the seat

"Yup, and scrubbing the metal, peeling off the address labels."

A block on, Nate disembarks after asking for the nearest liquor store.

"What a beautiful child," the old man muses.

II.

Say what you will about recessions and economic woes in general: they do bring out the resourcefulness of the individual.

In addition to the story of Nate, the Public Transit Peddler of Junk Food--have to wonder where he got that and why he was selling it for $3--I have within the last five hours witnessed the following:

1) on the platform of the Civic Center Bart Station, a homeless man wearing a rust-colored jacket almost bigger than his body trying to sell a sealed FedEx package that he acquired somehow, somewhere, presumably illegally, to other passengers;

2) a wiry-haired gentleman in worn-out coat like a khaki army blanket and well-cared-for glasses asking for help for food in light of the economy and the historical re-occurrence of the rich exploiting the poor;

3) a young lady in newsie hat, denim jeans and jacket and scarf swiping a hunk of food off an abandoned plate on an outdoor table at Boogaloo's on Valencia.

I also heard a pedestrian telling his companions how he had just sold a van to a 50 year old man who was planning on overhauling it as a place to sleep. Shelter is shelter, and it is a pretty simple concept at its heart.

III.

In further news, I saw an office on Valencia that seems to be offering Confidential Marriages. I'm not sure what this would entail, but I like the connotations, which seem to harken to the jazz/noir age.

I also saw a poster advertising the California Lottery on a Muni shelter, written in Spanish, but I think it was saying, "If $27 million is muchmuchmuchmuchmuch money, is $12 million muchmuchmuch money? It's still plenty." The implication being, why wait for the jackpot to grow larger? Play the lottery now!

IV.

Riding the 24 Line last night, I saw a posse of five young people, three boys and two girls, all primped to look older than they were, disembarking from the bus, with talks of parties in high-pitched voices of excitement. The girls were also talking excitedly.

After the doors slid shut with a hiss, a cadre of four hip older kids, three latinos and one blonde woman, discussed the probability of the previous group being 18 or older. "And the girls probably think those guys are straight," they added.

A few minutes later, they started talking about which Absolutely Fabulous characters they would be. The guy in the baseball hat leaning against the blonde's chest said, "I would be Patsy, I think. No, wait, I'd be Edina."