Its cold again, on the streets where I reside: I'm soiled again, by the streets where I preside
July 2005 Archives
Walking to work in the mornings has a different significance in the city, obviously. San Francisco has its own sort of "walking to work" experiences. On my own way, stepping over excrement from a source potentially human, I was amused to watch a homeless biker flashing his naff new briefcase to his co-homeless at the their morning coffee--at Starbucks, where else?
From Milan, to This
I like trains. I especially enjoy streetcars, and as such, I tend to ride our "F" line, which is a stretch between Castratto and Fisherman's Wharf run using vintage trams, among which the little orange boxes from Milan are my favorite. So despite the longer travel time, I am afforded a view onto the street scenes as they develop any given morning. By the time we rolled into Van Ness platform, I had my fill of homelessness, the crowning achievement being the sight of some man lying flat on the sidwalk and screwing the hell out of the griphole of a manhole cover.
Yes folks, once you've had your eyes inadvertently rest and then become impossibly fixated on that sight, nothing else will really phase you.
Free Montage
But I am not everybody. I am an especially sensitive guy, so there are always things that perturb me, like smoking. Now I am not the one to tell people they shouldn't smoke. Even I can enjoy tabacco from time to time. But my beef is with smoking in public, and smoking nasty crap quality cigarettes. I'm sure there's an issue of rights here, but it strikes me as an egregious affront to my rights not to have to inhale poison. Whether or not cigarettes are truly unhealthful is immaterial to me. My point is, they stink, and I should not have to smell them by dint of someone's invasiveness. The simple impolitesse of smokers is pretty damning--and the sight of butts all over the sidewalk is a good indication of what sort of person smokes.
So why ban it from bars? I can't think of a better place for it--people choose to drink, and can choose to smoke, and the bar provides ashtrays and a place to go. Now that its banned, one can't hardly walk a block through this alchoholic town without passing a gaggle of suicidal, orally-fixated folks busily puffing charred dirt into my personal space.
Juniper Hero
Now some years after my intital entry on the subject, and my disdain for the "type" is no less, but I see something more prevalent with time: Smokers in their cars who ash out the window. I know the world is their ashtray, and in essence their personality type seeks to "fuck over the world," but the directness of the offense is so egregious. Is there no caring and consideration for the interiors of other people's property? What do the ashes do when kipped off the butt of the smoker? Is the world meant to grow that iota filthier through the agency of this individual?
What of those who would otherwise enjoy the breeze? Or passengers who eyes are suddenly invaded by such assault? Its a shame, to live in a region of junipers, eucalyptus, and cedars--all oxidised by fresh ocean breezes, and have it all ruined by any number of the suicide by installments types.
