Surviving San Francisco

Sometimes I question my faith in humanity.

Last night, Dokey, Double B and I were in San Francisco to see Ray LaMontagne. I had got us tickets for her birthday and we were all excited to see him perform. We opted to park on the street rather than an $11 fee parking garage that would close at midnight. We made our way to The Warfield amongst the drunks, the homeless, the drug dealers and urbanites, arriving just in time for the main act.

Unfortunately for us, there was a group of sorority-sister type girls to our right who, despite professing their adoration of every song ("THIS is my FAVORITE song!") and one of them embarassingly yelling out "Marry me Ray!", they managed to talk through every song. And when they weren't talking over the song, they were singing it. And not accurately I might add. We decided we were sandwiched between KFOG types and Greek system types. A strange situation. A strange, irksome situation. As if the "Oh My Gawd!" girls weren't bad enough, in front of me stood two guys. One bore a striking resemblance to an old classmate from elementary school though I like him. I didn't care for the beer-swigging-while-gum-chewing idiot who could not stop himself from leaning over to his buddy every few seconds to say crude, sexist, horny boy things - all the while blocking my view of Ray. I swear to God he was repeating the same assinine things, like, "Dude! We are surrounded by chicks!" It only got worse when they lit a joint. I just wish I had gotten a contact high. At least then I could have zoned out on the annoying concert-goers surrounding us.

I am a firm believer in etiquette. I think talking over a musician while he softly sings and strums his guitar is r-u-d-e. Not just to the musician but to all the fans who paid good money to see him. If you wanted to babble on with your sisters while listening to the music, for christsakes, do us all a favor and save yourself some cash- stay home, put on the cd and invite your airhead friends over. If you are a tall person, don't be an inconsiderate asshole. Pushing your way in front of someone who was a) there before you and b) is significantly shorter than you is just a set up for bad karma. Period.

(With all of that said, Ray displayed his phenomenal talent and I am more in love with his music than ever. If you haven't given him a listen, I strongly urge you to.)

When we arrived at our car, we got in like normal people do, turned the ignition and began to drive away- all thankful that we could get to bed at a decent hour. But as we pulled away from the curb we suddenly realized that we had a flat tire. Great! Luckily, Double B is a whiz at that and we were ready to rock and roll in no time. While he was toiling away, I amused myself by watching a homeless man. I can only surmise that he was "readying" his bed for the night. Like a cat who has used the litterbox, he kicked his running-shoe clad feet, pushing gravel and dirt. Over and over and over. I watched, fascinated, as he took his pants off and continued to shuffle about while spraying his entire wobbly, anorexic legs from thigh to ankle with some sort of bug repellant or disinfectant or something. He sprayed and sprayed and sprayed. He even sprayed the pants he had take off. I continued to stare out the back window as we drove away. . . I mean really, what the hell?? I had too many questions about his behavior.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it too far. About 3 car lengths past our parking spot, we realized we didn't have one flat...we had two. Someone had slashed our tires. I shake my head as I type this. I just don't get it. If you are gonna do damage to someone's car, at least get something out of it- like break a window and steal some cds. But slash tires? That is just plain malicious. The motivation to do such a thing confounds me. As we waited for over an hour for AAA to arrive, we watched as drug deals went down, as a man and woman yelled and hit one another, as people peed on the sidewalk. Ah, Market & Jones Streets. The Tenderloin of San Francisco.

We managed to get back to Berkeley around 1am, three hours after we had left The Warfield. So much for a decent night's sleep. Three tickets to concert $90. Two waters: $6.50. Towing fee: $42. New tires: $250. Total cost of evening in the city: $388.50. What a fiasco.