Urban Etiquette: Parking Wars

We open on a busy San Francisco thoroughfare.  The time is earlier this morning.  Our protagonist, ME, is just returning to his street from dropping off his adorable daughter at day care.  (Or, as she would put it, "day tare."  She can't do hard c's or k's yet.)

Our Protagonist rolls up to his block and LO AND BEHOLD there is a parking spot not 3 buildings away from his building.

[BRIEF INTERJECTION: I am #blessed enough to live on a street specifically, and a neighborhood generally, where parking isn't that hard.  You can usually find a space within 5 to 7 minutes.  On weekdays during the day, you can find a space basically anywhere you want.  I USED to live in North Beach and no fooling one Sunday night I once spent almost an hour looking for a space and finally found one on Bay Street which if you're familar with the area is NOT REALLY in North Beach at all.]

O.P. pulls into the spot and parks.  BUT WHAT'S THIS.  There's a pickup truck up ahead with its backing up lights on.  Let me illustrate our relative positions with a diagram.

I love trolling with Comic Sans. Someone is going to feel COMPELLED to say something about the Comic Sans.  The yellow thing is a bike lane BTW.

As you can see, Pickup Truck is double parked at least 3 cars up ahead.  O.P turns off his car and then sees Pickup Truck backing up towards him once the traffic clears.  Pickup Truck has his window down and is saying something.

Pickup Truck is staffed by a maybe early to mid-20's kid with a an attempt at a beard.  "Hey man," he says.  "I've been waiting for that space.  I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could back up."

"What, from all the way up there?" O.P. says.  Notice that O.P did not shrug and say "Tough shit, kid."

"Yeah," Pickup Truck says.

Now, at this point, O.P has two options.  He's already IN the space, so he could get out of his car, lock the doors, and walk away.  Like everything else in life, it's like that scene from Seinfeld.

O.P., however, chose Option Two: Roll Eyes So Broadly It's Visible From Heaven, say "Fine," get back in the car, and park around the corner.

HERE'S WHERE YOU COME IN.  Was that right?  Did Pickup Truck have any sort of viable claim on the space from 3 cars ahead?  If he wanted that space so bad, why wasn't he waiting, say, RIGHT NEXT TO IT?  Did someone pull out just as I arrived, when P.T. was already way ahead and he saw it in his rearview and decided to impose a Retroactive Space Save on a space he had absolutely no entitlement to?  What is right?  What is the nature of justice?

In a related humorous story, when The Sister lived in the Lower Haight she was getting ready to pull into a space when an angry woman pulled up next to her and yelled "YOU SAW ME TURN AROUND BITCH" implying that if you see someone turn around to get a space you lose all rights to that space.  I don't even think she saw her turn around bitch in the first place.  Life is complicated.

Urban Etiquette: Motoring in the City

Since I live in San Francisco and work in San Francisco I obviously take Muni to work since there's nowhere to park at my job that doesn't cost $18 a day.  So I never used to drive that much.  Just on weekends, pretty much.  Like, literally I would not enter my car M-F unless it was street cleaning.

Now I take my offspring to day care in the mid-Sunset area, so I drive every day.  It's been an eye-opening experience.  Everyone is a terrible driver.

1. For the love of all that is holy, USE YOUR FUCKING TURN SIGNALS

Why are you stopped in the middle of the street?  Have you died in your car and now it just sits there, unattended, while your body rots into the seat?  No?  You're waiting to turn?  Your car is almost certainly not a pre-1939 Buick and thus is equipped with a mechanism designed to let others know your intentions vis-a-vis turning.  FUCKING USE IT.

2. How Stop Signs Work

It has become apparent to me that most drivers believe that Stop signs work like this: "I see a Stop sign.  I pause briefly, then continue on.  It matters not if there are other cars at the intersection, in the general area, or anywhere else on Planet Earth.  I have paused briefly and will now be on my way."

This is not how Stop signs work, you maroon.  Print this out and tape it to your dashboard:

We cool?

3. Green light means go

Why are you just sitting there?  Depress the accelerator pedal.  The odds of the North American Plate suddenly lurching to life and moving under you so as to propel you through the intersection without you operating your car are vanishingly small.

4. Double Parking: Is It For Me?

Double parking is mostly OK if you just have to run in for a second and it's a fairly wide street so the rest of us can get around you without too much trouble.

DO NOT DOUBLE PARK:

a. Anywhere near an intersection.
b. Anywhere, at any time, on Fell, Oak, Gough, Franklin, Turk between Van Ness and Divisadero, any of those little tiny streets in Bernal Heights or those alleys in the Mission, or anywhere else you're going to royally fuck up traffic.
c. When there's a perfectly good parking space right there! What the fuck are you thinking? Take the 30 seconds and park!  Christ!

5. There is no point in tailgating.  It almost never makes the person in front of you go faster and you just look like an asshole.

I'm sure I've forgotten some big ones.  Enlighten me in the comments if you wish.

#Muniproblems

Since it's Friday, no one wants to read my thinkpiece about how the Trade Deadline is a metaphor for America, so let's keep it simple today and do some unfocused scattershot ranting about Muni.  That'll get us pageviews!

1. I sent out this #hottake a couple of days ago:

The easiest way to make Muni faster would be to eliminate any stops where there's another stop on THE SAME BLOCK
— TK (@40goingon28) July 30, 2014

Let me expand on this thought. Amazing as it may seem to an outside observer, yes, there are places on some lines - maybe every line, fuck if I know - where the bus stops at one end of the block, picks up disgruntled and/or self-medicated San Franciscans, then drives a hundred feet to the other end of the block AND STOPS AGAIN.  This is pure lunacy.

Here's an example, on Turk Street between Hyde and Larkin.  The 31 stops at both ends of Turk on that block.  Why?  NOBODY KNOWS.

Not really.  I'm sure somebody knows.  There's probably some kind of algorithm that determines how far you can go without having a bus stop and putting the stop on the next block would be 14" farther than the algorithm allows.

This is stupid.  No wonder Muni is so fucking slow.  There are too many goddam stops.

2. Every fucking day, the breezy, infuriating SFMTA Twitter sends out something like this:

ATTN: 2, 8x, 9, 10, 19, 38, 43, 48, 71 and 14x routes are experiencing longer than normal waiting times.
— SFMTA (@sfmta_muni) July 30, 2014

I can't say for sure what this shit is about, but I have a good guess: some drivers didn't show up for work.  If this happened in a normal setting, the organizational entity would account for this and bring in replacements.  With Muni, what happens is that bus run just gets skipped.  Bay Citizen explains:

Muni and AC Transit rely on an “extra board,” a group of on-call bus drivers who fill in if a driver is late or absent. Muni schedules about 1,200 drivers each weekday and has about 100 on call. AC Transit schedules about 525 drivers during the week and has 150 on call.

In the past, when all of the on-call drivers were working, Muni would pay overtime to drivers who were off to come in and cover any remaining shifts. But faced with a $29 million budget shortfall and out-of-control overtime spending, Muni decided last month to skip bus runs instead.

Got that?  Instead of replacing the drivers and keeping all the scheduled runs going, Muni just says fuck it and that's why your bus looks like this:

3. They still can't figure out how to keep the system running smoothly on days when there's a Giants game at AT&T.  OF COURSE more people will be riding Muni those days.  This has been going on for FOURTEEN YEARS.  In 14 years, one single human being can progress from mewling in a crib to flying a Cessna 172 over Toronto.  That's just one person!  Muni has a team of people, presumably, and in 14 years they haven't figured out how to move a slightly larger than normal number of people around a ballpark.

4. If I can audibly hear music from your headphones, you are going to have permanent hearing loss and in 30 years some poor minimum wage employee is going to be yelling at you "THAT. COMBO. MEAL. DOES. NOT. COME. WITH. A. DRINK."  Give that person a break and turn it down some.

Whew.  That's better.  I've relieved the pressure and now the voices will be quiet for a while.  Have a nice weekend.

Red lanes of the world, unite!

Muni Forward! RT @MrCleanSF: More red lanes coming to make traffic safer & quicker. pic.twitter.com/cS1pouRDay
— Ed Reiskin (@EdReiskin) May 7, 2014

Ed, you lovable doofus. "Muni forward!"  That sounds like either the lamest office party chant or a leftover Cold War-era Soviet Young Pioneers slogan.

ANYWAY, here's the idea.  These red lanes are supposed to be for buses (and taxis I think) only, thereby making buses go faster because they have their own special lane and don't have to sit behind cars while cars sit still at stop signs because the drivers are reading text messages or looking at Twitter on their cell phones.  I don't do that and I would never do that.

The way they work is that sensors inside the red paint can detect when a normal passenger car is driving in the restricted lane and the sensors activate a series of embedded electrical generators, which send a powerful shock up through the street, leaving the driver of the car in intense, excruciating pain.

j/k, that doesn't happen.  The way they work is they rely on the Inherent Goodness of Humanity to keep people from driving their cars in the red lanes.

THERE'S ONLY ONE CATCH: There is no Inherent Goodness in Humanity.  People drive in the red lanes all the time!  WHEEEEEEEE LOOK AT ME IDGAF!!!!

And that just happened to be randomly captured by the Google Street View car. If you ever go to the Safeway on Church & Market, you know what I'm talking about.

What's the solution?  Wait for the Sun to swell and engulf the Earth as it dies in 2.8 billion years.  Pending that, a little enforcement!  Not SFPD's strongest suit, but it's so crazy it just might work.

Muni forward, comrades!

In which I make a brief foray into baby blogging; also, a tipping question

You didn't think you were going to get off the hook completely, did you?

Baby Beyonce turned one month old yesterday.  If you recall, getting here was something of a challenge.  How have things been since?  Let's take a look!

Babies from zero to one month old are essentially inefficient, milk-powered alarm clocks that you can't set or control in any way.  They have two goals: sleeping and eating, and when the first one is completed you better be GODDAM SURE you're ready and available to assist with the second one.  Since I don't lactate personally, The Wife takes care of most of the feeding beat - and she does it with aplomb and a resolute cheerfulness that is both reassuring and somewhat bizarre, at least to a crank like me - but occasionally I pitch in with a bottle here or there.  Also, this kid can fucking eat.  Born at 5 lbs 11 oz, she climbed through 7 pounds earlier this week, and shows no signs of slowing down. For now, anyway.  I guess it slows down later or something.

The dog likes her, too.

What else?  Before she was born, other people who already have kids would gravely warn me that I better get used to not sleeping.  They love saying shit like "Better get sleep now!  YOU'LL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN ONCE SHE'S BORN!"  Well, you know what?  It's all bullshit.  People love to try and freak you out, and this is an example of that.  I used to get 6 hours of sleep a night.  I still do.  It's just not CONSECUTIVE.  Here's the actual, real deal, at least with Beyonce: she sleeps about 2-3 hours at a stretch, and then wakes up, demands SOME FUCKING FOOD RIGHT ABOUT NOW WHERE'S MY FOOD YOU BASTARDS and then goes back to sleep.  So you're essentially up for an hour, then asleep for 2 or 3.  No bigs.

All things considered, I have to say she's a pretty good kid.  Anyway, we're way past the deadline to return her.

UNRELATED QUESTION: What do you tip the person who cuts your hair?  Like, how much if the haircut is $50?

Sigh.  Yes, my haircut costs $50, but I only get it cut once every 3 months, so it's really only $200 a year, which I bet is less than a lot of you people spend.   I've been giving her $20 but now I'm thinking that seems like too much.  That's, like, almost a 50% tip.  That can't be right.  Obviously, I can't go back down to $10 NOW, but I'm just curious what you guys think.

Hey here's a question about giving up your seat on public transpo

GIVING UP YOUR SEAT ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION.  I know, seventy billion hits, right?  The only way I could stir up more interest would be to change this to "Giving up your seat to someone WITH A BIKE in San Francisco" or "Giving up your seat to GAY MARRIAGE SOLYNDRA GUN CONTROL."

ANYWAY.  I was going to do a whole Urban Etiquette post about Proper Behavior on Public Transpo but frankly I don't have the time and a topic like that requires book-length soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture treatment.  TRANSIT FUCKS II: TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING BACKPACK, in theaters this summer.

So let's confine ourselves to one specific topic: Giving up your seat.  Who do you give up your seat for?  I have a few basic categories that I always jump up to accommodate:

1. Any woman who appears to be at least 20 years older than me

Now, keep in mind, I'm pretty old, so we're talking the headscarf & dentures crowd here.  If you're young enough to not feel inappropriate at Delirium, you can probably adjust this to any woman who appears to be 40 years older than you.

2. Any old man who looks like he needs a seat

If he has gray hair but looks robust and vital, he can stand.  If he has a cane or is wheeling a portable oxygen cylinder, be my guest.

3. Anyone who appears to be pregnant or have a physical disability of some type or who at least says they do and asks

Although honestly, in 22 years of riding Muni, I have never once had anyone ask for my seat.  I never sit in those seats in the front reserved for the handicapped, though.  I always get up for the pregs.  Now that The Wife is one of them, she says that the only people who offer their seats are other womyn.  WHAT UP DUDES, why so thoughtless?  She's pregnant!  Get the fuck up! 

Other situations are handled on a case-by-case basis.  Like if some chick is struggling with a heavy parcel of some type, I'll usually at least offer. 

So here's my dilemma: WHAT ABOUT KIDS. 

This morning, a woman gets on with 2 kids and they're standing there and one guy gives up his seat and the girl in the seat next to him vacates at the next stop, so the kids get the seats with the Mom standing next to them.

So here's the question: when a Mom or Dad gets on with toddler-or-above-age kids, kids that can clearly stand and walk on their own, do you give up your seat for them?  I mean, if a Mom or Dad has a very young kid they're holding, it's a duh, of course you give up your seat.  But what if the kid is like the age of these kids above? 

Complicating this in my mind is the fact that I saw a sticker someone stuck to the inside of a bus once that said "YOUR KIDS CAN STAND. GIVE ADULTS THE SEAT."  Really!  That really happened.  Isn't that so, so San Francisco?  So many layers.

So what's the right call here?  I'm genuinely curious.

This has been your Obsessing Over a Very Minor Thing of the Day.

Email Habits of the Tightly Wound

Hey, help me figure out if I'm way off here or what.  I never can tell with these kind of things.  I'm so sensitive that when the BART guy in the glass cube is a little rude to me when I ask him something I always go away like "Why does the BART guy hate me so much?  What did I do?" 

So today's problem in navigating our Strange and Complicated World has to do with emails and texting.  I know these people - NOT YOU, OTHER PEOPLE - who are what we might call Bad Responders.  That is, they're not so great at responding to emails and/or texts.  So I'm not sure if they're just not living up to my extremely demanding standards or if they're just being rude and I have to get used to it.

Let's baseline this thing first.  Here's my rule: if you email me, and the subject line isn't something like FWD: FWD: FWD: RE: RE: RE: RE: STATIC ELECTRICITY CAN KILL, I will most likely respond.  So EXAMPLE let's say you send me an email that's something like "Hey, check out this video of a cat watching a video of another cat."  Even if it's inane, which is totally is, and even if I've seen it before, which I assuredly have, I will still take 23 seconds and email you back and say 'That video is whack. You have to check out this video of an anteater watching a video of a marmoset, that shit is dope."

These people I'm talking about are at the other end of the spectrum.  Unless your email or text is something like "HEY WERE YOU ABLE TO GET THAT KIDNEY DONATION FOR ME I'M SCHEDULED FOR SURGERY IN 1 HR", it's likely that they will not respond. NOT 100% OF THE TIME, just most of the time. Sometimes they surprise me and respond. Life is mysterious.

So let's run through some scenarios and you tell me if a response is warranted or not.

SCENARIO #1: I email you and attach an article that is highly relevant to your interests and say "hey, whilst perusing the Internet I came across this article that is highly relevant to your interests and thought I'd pass it along."  MY RULE: I at least say "Hey, thanks."  Is a response called for in this situation?

SCENARIO #2: I email you and say "You're not going to believe who I ran into this weekend.  Our mutual friend Z.  He asked after you and I told him you were busy preparing for your backpacking trip through Ecuador/playing Call of Duty/maintaining your heroin habit. He's doing well."  MY RULE: Email response along the lines of "Huh, interesting, glad to hear Z has pulled himself together."  Is a response called for in this situation?

SCENARIO #3: I email you and say "I'm heading out to the bake sale/beer party/poetry slam on Saturday, if you want to come along."  MY RULE: This demands at least a "yay" or "nay."  Is a response called for in this situation?

What do you think, Internet?  Thanks for helping to calibrate my neurosis.

Urban etiquette: Let's go to the grocery store!

It's almost Thanksgiving!  That means record numbers of Americans will enter a grocery store.  Or something.  I mean, a lot of Americans go grocery shopping every week.  Like me.  Here are some tips to help you be less of an asshole while you're buying dry goods and/or Nutella.

1. Your dog doesn't want to go grocery shopping with you.

I love dogs!  I have one.  Everyone I know has one or two.  They're the San Francisco version of children.  They're especially San Francisco because you can bring them into some bars.  Anyway, your dog doesn't want to go grocery shopping with you, so don't bring him/her.  I swear, I see a lot more dogs in grocery stores these days.  I'm starting to get used to it, which is worrying.  If you need me to explain to you why you shouldn't bring your dog grocery shopping, we have already given up as a society.

Look at the dog! With his little shopping cart! That's ridiculous. (Photo stolen from Darf Blog.)

2. Hey bitch, you're blocking the aisle with your cart while you mindlessly jabber away on your cell phone

This phenomenon, part of the broader problem of inconsiderate cell phone use, seems to be more prevalent at - HERE COMES A SHOCKER - the Marina Safeway, in my experience.  Anyway, try to be at least a little mindful of the people around you? Okay?  We can't see the Smuckers selection through you.

3. I am a real person with thoughts and feelings

True story: I am at the Church & Market Safeway selecting red peppers when a guy LITERALLY gets DIRECTLY in front of me and starts manhandling all the peppers.  Like I was Patrick Swayze in Ghost.  At first I thought he was joking and then I was just like "I'M NOT IN YOUR WAY AM I" and he looked up all startled but even this little bit of Public Shaming didn't deter him from his Rude Pepper Grasping. 

So if someone is looking at some produce you want to look at too, WAIT FOR THEM TO MOVE AND THEN YOU CAN LOOK AT PRODUCE NEXT.  Fuck.

4. I gather there are all kinds of different rules transgressions at Rainbow, but I practice basic hygiene and eat meat like a normal person so I never go there

If you have some juicy Rainbow breach of etiquette stories, post them in the comments, hippie.

5. The Whole Foods at Franklin and California is a vortex of misery and general dickish behavior.  Don't ever go there.

6. Here's the big one: 15 ITEMS OR FEWER

You know who you are, you evil little shit.  You count all boxed goods as one item or you think "Eh, 16, close enough."  NOT CLOSE ENOUGH.  Here's the rule: if it's all in one container, it's one item.  Otherwise, it is MULTIPLE ITEMS.  12 apples in a bag?  Cool bro, one item.  4 cans of Dinty Moore beef stew?  FOUR ITEMS. 

Needless to say, if you get in the 15-or-less line with more than 15 items, you are irredeemably evil and there is no place for you in society.  Quit your job and go live under an overpass with the other sex offenders, you writhing piece of human garbage.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: As is our wont this time of year, we are off to the Old Country on Monday to Thanksgive with the extended fam.  Blogging may be sporadic.  In the meantime, enjoy the Thanksgiving Schedule I threw up in 2010 and which is still mostly true except I don't think we drink as much anymore.  The Wife sure doesn't, what with the foetus and all!  Anyway, have a nice whatever it is you do.

Urban etiquette: You and Your Fucking Cell Phone

BASIC RULE: Never talk on your cell phone in public, ever.

OK, maybe that's unrealistic.  If your arm has been severed and you're gushing fountains of blood onto Van Ness and some guy is still trying to sell you a Street Sheet even as you start to lose consciousness, maybe then. 

Still too restrictive? Let's try and set some parameters then.

1. Interacting with Others: Don't Use Cell Phone

Look, maybe Walgreens clerks aren't Angels Sent From Heaven or Britney Spears or Your Mom.  Well, they might be your Mom, based on what I know about you.  Anyway, they're human beings and deserve common decency, which means interacting with them and saying "Thank You" and "Can you turn that display thing around so I can see how much my dental tape and copy of US Weekly and impulse buy Mr. Goodbar is going to cost?" instead of going blah blah blah into your phone and ignoring them. 

2. Crowded Public Transit Situation: Don't Use Cell Phone

True Story: I was on the 41-Union (which you already know this is going to be trouble, based on your 41-Union crowd) and some Jen in the back is braying into her phone about some meaningless crap and other people are talking and whatever and this Jen goes "Can you please hold it down?  I'M ON THE PHONE." 

Stunned silence.  It worked!

Don't be a Jen.  When you're on a crowded bus/train/whatever, keep your fucking voice down.  No one wants to hear about your new job or sexual exploits or family drama.  Well, it's possible I want to hear about your sexual exploits, so if you see me sidling up next to you, keep going with that.

3.  Everywhere: Turn Off the Fucking Click Sound

Hey hey hey, everybody, guess what? You can make your iPhone audibly CLICK every time you touch something so when you're texting your bros it can go CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK every time you hit a key so "idk" is CLICKCLICKCLICK and "c u l8r" is CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.  Turn that feature off.

4. Here's a Good Test to Use if You're Wondering Whether You're Being an Asshole

If you're on your cell, and you hold up one finger in that "Wait just a second" motion, you're being an asshole.

5. If There Were Any Justice or Goodness in the World, You Could Be Legally Shot for These Things

- Talking EXTREMELY LOUDLY in an airport departure lounge about NOTHING. How can you tell? If you just used the phrase "I'm at the airport now."
- Talking on a cell phone in an elevator
- Looking at your Glowing Screen in a theater of any kind during a performance/show/band/movie.  I'm not even going to address answering your phone during a movie, because that is roughly the equivalent of lowering your pants and taking a shit in the middle of the sidewalk and I assume we all know that you can't do that.

6. Why are you even talking on your cell phone anyway? Do you not know about texting?

Texting is better in every situation, always. Just remember this simple rule: Always text, always.

Two quick restaurant etiquette questions

Sometimes it's fun to shake things up and do something different for brunch, which in our case means go somewhere where the server isn't covered in tattoos and looks like a heroin addict and where everyone appears to have engaged in some basic hygiene in the past few days and the music playing isn't Black Moth Super Rainbow or Screamin' Jay Hawkins. So we walked about a mile from our house through a portal into a different dimension, namely the Presidio Golf Course Cafe (or maybe just Presidio Cafe; it gets called both on the various interlocking websites involved).

It was fine. I mean, the food was good and not overly expensive by SF standards and the bartender had a heavy pour on my greyhound, which was nice. There were a couple of guys wearing sweater vests, duh, and it was pretty much what you would think any golf club cafe would be like anywhere. Whilst there, however, two restaurant etiquette questions arose.

NUMBER ONE: This Marina-looking youngish couple went in right before us with the ubiquitous Starbucks to-go cups and had them on their table through their meal. So Restaurant People (and anyone in general), I'm curious: Is it OK to bring outside coffee into a restaurant? Does it depend on the kind of restaurant?

NUMBER TWO: We were originally seated in a kind of side room and nearby there was a table with a couple of families and maybe 2-3 EXTREMELY LOUD little Taylors or Jaydens or whatever. So after a few minutes of the piercing screams of the Young and Entitled, I went up to the hostess and asked to be moved and she said "Yeah, it's a little loud" and we got a table in the other room. The Wife said that if the situation was reversed and she was the one with the kids, she would feel bad and so she vicariously felt bad for them. I said I really didn't give a fuck, I can't sit in the same room with that Human Car Alarm going off every 10-12 seconds. Should we have felt bad for asking for another table and moving when it was obvious why we were moving?

ANYWAY, if your grandparents are in town and you want to go out to brunch at a place where they won't be scared and where the menu is written in Old and doesn't have items like "Pile O Spuds" or "Arugula and free range pancetta frittata with caramelized heirloom cipollini onions," then I can heartily recommend this place.

Urban Etiquette: On the Elevator

In 1853, Elisha Otis installed the first public elevator in a 6-story department store in New York City. I can guarantee you that the first time it was used, some asshole jumped on right before the doors closed and hit "2".



Despite 158 years of practice, it appears that a sizable portion of the population still has problems with Basic Elevator Etiquette. Let's review.

1. People get off first. Then you can get on.

The door opens. There is an elevator with people in it. Do you (a) Try and shove yourself on because goddammit I GOTTA GET ON THIS ELEVATOR NO MATTER WHAT or (b) Wait for the people inside to de-elevator? If you chose (b), you get a Gold Star and you're a cool person. If you chose (a), you're just another asshole, one of the millions.

Seriously, this isn't hard: EVERYONE OUT FIRST, THEN EVERYONE ON.

2. Doors closing? You don't get on.

As soon as the doors begin to close, even if it's just the slightest fraction of an inch, that elevator is now closed to new passengers. We do not (a) thrust our hand between the doors to make them open again, (b) frantically push the button, or (c) Say "Hold that elevator!" No. Once the doors start to close, that elevator's dance card is full. You are not on it. There will be another elevator soon. If it's an emergency and the building is on fire, you shouldn't be taking the elevator anyway.

3. The Two-Floor Down Rule

If you get on an elevator that is located anywhere near the stairs and take it down one or two floors and you are physically capable of descending a flight of stairs, you are a lazy bag of lard and you need to get some exercise, fatty.

4. No hold and talk

I can't believe I even have to say this, and I wouldn't believe it happens if I hadn't seen it myself, but you do not hold the door open so you can continue chatting with your pal or coworker outside the elevator. I mean, Jesus Christ. You cannot be serious with that shit.

Also, if you absolutely HAVE to make a joke about how often the elevator is stopping or some other zany elevator-type humor, go ahead, but just one and also think "Why am I doing this? It's not that funny." But hey, I get that there are Silence Haters who have to fill up every second with the noise of their own blathering and that's fine.

As long as we're talking elevators, two other things: (1) This fascinating New Yorker article about a guy who got trapped on an elevator for a whole weekend and also elevators in general is so worth reading that you're cheating yourself every second of your life that passes without you having read it; and (2) This guy is my hero:

People who talk through shows should be swiftly and summarily executed

Went to see the Weakerthans at the Independent last night. Fantastic show. Going again tonight, as a matter of fact. I may not have mentioned lately how much I like the Independent. Even at sold-out shows it never seems packed, the beer prices are totally reasonable, the sound is always great, and the location is perfect. (The last two things are reasons why I never go to Bottom of the Hill any more.)

Oh, and the bartender last night said "I haven't seen you around in a while." I used to go to a lot more shows than I do now.

ANYWAY. You didn't think this was going to be all sweetness and light, did you? You want that shit, go read Zooey Deschanel's blog or something. (I'm assuming here; I've never read Zooey Deschanel's blog. Does Zooey Deschanel have a blog?)

There was one, and only one, problem at the show last night, and if you go see live music with any regularity, you will recognize this problem at once: THE LOUD TALKERS.

FUCK THESE PEOPLE.

Standing by the bar was a group of four, two guys and two girls. And during the entire show, nonstop, start to finish, they were YELLING at each other. I don't think they could have heard a single song. I really just do not fucking understand this. With service fees and everything, tickets to this show were around $22 apiece. Why would you spend $22 to go to a show that you have no interest in watching and then compound your mistake by bothering everyone else around you who IS watching it? Fuck you. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you.

After a couple of songs of that, we moved further up into the crowd and that fucking frizzy-haired bitch's donkey-like braying receded, but I was treated to a fresh round of her shrieking every time I had to go to the bar, which was often. Fuck.

They left during the encore and the same frizzy bitch bumped into The Wife on her way out and kept walking. Throat cancer for her. Crippling arthritis for the other 3. That is my decree.

But it's hard to bitch too much. We had a great time.

Anyway, if you go to a music performance, don't talk through the whole thing.

Urban etiquette: Modern Air Travel

Lo, we are here in Peak Travel Season. You know what the busiest travel day of the year is? WHATEVER DAY I'M FLYING. On the one hand, the availability of reasonably-priced airline tickets has made the convenience and speed of air travel available to Americans of all income classes. On the other hand, the availability of reasonably-priced airline tickets has made the convenience and speed of air travel available to Americans of all income classes. Now that I have seen (1) a guy spitting tobacco juice into a bottle, (2) mouth-breathing mall rats loudly comparing their sexual and alcoholic misadventures, and (3) people wearing what appear to be their pajamas and taking off their shoes, all within 2 rows of me, the Ship of Air Travel Decorum has long since sailed, crashed into an iceberg, and come to rest at the bottom of the Southwest Airlines Ocean.

Perhaps if we all agree to follow a few simple tips we can make the experience more palatable for all of us.

IN THE BOARDING AREA

Here is our first chance to get a look at our fellow passengers up close. Ew, that's enough. Say, could we maybe silence the feature that makes your cell phone keyboard audibly CLICK every time you type a letter? Because your CLICK CLICK CLICK is slowly driving me insane. Otherwise, go to town: this is your chance to get the ya-yas out of your system before we're all imprisoned together in a metal tube at 39,000 feet.

ON THE PLANE

No issues here! Just sit back and enjoy the complimentary gourmet meal we will be served.


Not really. What I need you to do is sit quietly in your seat.

Unless you're Miranda Kerr or Freddy Sanchez, I probably don't want to talk.

If you're in the window seat, you get one trip to the bathroom per flight, so plan accordingly. I would go in the airport right before you board and then think dry thoughts.

It's fine to carry on your luggage - fuck, since it takes a minimum of 30 minutes at SFO for them to get the luggage on the goddam carousel, you should always carry on unless you're going to Tibet or something - but if you somehow manage to sneak one of those sarcophagus-sized rolling monsters past the gate agent and then fill up an entire overhead bin with it, there is a special place in Hell for you where you keep getting bumped from your flight over and over again for all eternity.

Are you trying to have a conversation with the person across the aisle from you? Do you know why you have to YELL? Because you're 35 feet away from a 40,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney jet engine. You are not going to win this fight. STFU and talk about it when you get to Raleigh-Durham.

Did you just laugh out loud to something you saw in "Mr. Popper's Penguins"? Now the whole world knows. That's sad.

WE HAVE ARRIVED AT OUR DESTINATION

OK! We've landed. EVERYONE JUMP INTO THE AISLE. Our latest scientific research has shown that standing in the aisle increases your chances of getting off the plane sooner by around ZERO FUCKING PERCENT. I know you're going to do it anyway, but next time, ask yourself, "Why am I standing in the aisle?"

Once you get your bag and make it down the jetway and into the airport, make sure you FREEZE AT THE DOORWAY and look around at this strange and magical land called Phoenix Sky Harbor and MAKE SURE no one else can get around you. Now you're doing it right!

We look forward to serving you again soon.

What are your Panhandler Rules?

If you're like me (and there is almost no chance of this, I realize that, it's just an expression), on your daily perambulations through the City, you encounter a variety of panhandlers, homeless and otherwise. As with most things in my life, I'm often perplexed about how to handle this fraught situation and so I'm croudsourcing this issue to find out what it is you do.

As I work in the Civic Center area, which is part of/maybe just immediately adjacent the Tenderloin, I see some of the same panhandlers every day.

There is the oddly well-put-together woman who I've written about before who posts up at the corner of Grove and Larkin during commute hours (she's there roughly 7:30-9 am and then 4 to about 6 pm) silently holding a sheaf of Street Sheets and who doesn't look homeless or even really troubled in any way; in fact, she would not be out of place waiting on you in a diner or something. NOT HOLDING THAT AGAINST HER; I'm just saying, it's kinda weird.

(I wrote that prior post about her in 2009. She's still out there, basically every day. I continue to be really curious about what her deal is but I really don't want to stop and talk to her because I pass her every day, usually twice a day, and I don't want to set up a thing where I have to stop and talk to her every day. It has nothing to do with her being homeless; I don't want to stop and talk to anyone twice a day. I'm not one of those people who hangs around their corner store trading neighborhood gossip or that kind of thing.)

(OH SNAP I just looked at the Google Street View for Grove & Larkin and thought I saw her but it's just some chick with a coffee. Goes to show how normal she looks.)

There's the Bearded Disheveled Guy Who's Always Reading a Paperback Book. He can be found in Civic Center Station pretty much all the time. I've actually given him money before.

There's a whole crowd that hangs out around the Main Library. One of them is a guy who wears Rollerblades all the time and skates around passing a football back and forth with one of his comrades. In all fairness, I've never seen him ask anyone for money, so maybe he just likes to wear Rollerblades and throw the rock around and hang out by the library.

UNRELATED: Check out the cool Street View Dog on the corner of Larkin and Golden Gate! AWWWWW, PUPPY!!!!

And so on. My point is, when you see your Regular Panhandlers, what do you do? Do you give them money?

Or I guess, what are your usual Giving Money to Panhandler Rules? I mean, in SF, you probably get hit up for money 5 to 12 times a day unless you're Richie Rich and live in Pacific Heights and drive your Volvo to work and your secretary brings lunch to you. So what are your giving money rules? When do you toss a buck at a panhandler?

(RELATED STORY - I remember reading somewhere years ago about an invitation to some fancy-ass party in a part of town where there were obviously panhandlers and the invitation asked guests to not give money to the "outdoorsmen." Outdoorsmen! FAVORITE HOMELESS EUPHEMISM.)

Have a nice holiday weekend at Burning Man or whatever it is you do. I guess if you're at Burning Man you're not reading this anyway.

Also, I'm still on jury duty but hopefully only for another week and then everything will be back to normal.

Also, we're trying out Boxing Room tonight and I'll totally tell you if it's good or what. Smoked Chicken & Andouille Gumbo! FUCK YEAH. Speaking of restaurant websites, THANK YOU FOR NOT AUTOPLAYING DIXIELAND JAZZ ON YOUR WEBSITE BOXING ROOM. I KNOW THAT MUST HAVE BEEN NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST.

OK, I'm done now.

This is a partial list of things that unaccountably enrage me and probably shouldn't

1. People who take up 2 parking spaces

2. Perfectly able people who push the handicapped door opener button and then stand there and let the doors majestically swing open like they're the Queen of England

3. Recycling poachers

4. People who yell into their cell phones

5. People who chatter away obliviously on cell phones while they're blocking an aisle in the grocery store or blocking the sidewalk or something

6. Pretty much anyone talking on a cell phone in public, ever. Text, you bastards, text.

7. People who walk more than two abreast on a sidewalk. BONUS: They're walking slowly. DOUBLE BONUS: They're walking four abreast and all talking on cell phones.
8. iTunes
9. "There is a new version of iTunes available. Would you like to download?" Hey Apple, how about saving up the changes and just releasing a new version once every six months, instead of every other day?
10. The bagger at Safeway yesterday who put my bread at the bottom of the bag
11. Fox Sports

Urban etiquette: an occasional series

Today's topic: Neighbors.

Fucking neighbors, am I right?



If you're reading this and you live in a city, you probably either have or have had problems with some annoying fucking neighbors. I have had some bad experiences myself, like:

- When I lived (unfortunately and sadly) in Santa Cruz, I lived in this condo building near the beach and the next door neighbors were this old white couple from Walnut Creek that perfectly summed up and embodied "old white couple from Walnut Creek" with the fucking late-model Caddy and the condescending attitude and the whole 9 and they would come down to their Weekend Place which happened to adjoin my Everyday Place and they would fucking BLAST THEIR TV LIKE THEY WERE TRANSMITTING MATLOCK INTO SPACE and I had to have a talk with the old lady and she couldn't understand what the fuck was wrong. Bitch.

- Oh and as I alluded to last week, my place in North Beach was directly above a Divorced Mom Who Became a Lesbian and her two right-around-teenage kids and Mom used to jet off on the weekends to do lesbian stuff or whatever and leave the kids alone right around the time they discovered metal and you can guess where it went from there. Now, I'm not exactly a go-to-bed-when-the-sun-sets kinda guy, especially on weekends, but when the Metallica starts up at fucking 9 am on a Saturday YOU BET YOUR ASS WE'RE GONNA HAVE A PROBLEM. Little fuckers. I hope they're both in juvie now. GREAT JOB PARENTING ABSENTEE MOM.

We lucked out and have a place now that only has one wall in common with another place and so we don't really have neighbor problems any more except for the Creepy Old Guy whose back stair landing faces our back door. COG looks to be maybe late 60s and is bald and bearded and British, apparently, and typically wears suspenders and a t-shirt and comes out to smoke on his back landing and also FUCKING BLARES music outside to the whole fucking neighborhood, shit like Bob Dylan and Cab Calloway and scratchy old blues records. For the life of me I can't understand why he has to open all his doors and treat the entire neighborhood to his stupid fucking music but he usually turns it off by around 8 so I guess I don't have to kill him and his family YET.

ANYWAY. I don't want to hear this bullshit about "It's a city, if you don't like it move to the suburbs." Fuck you. This is about common courtesy. We all live on top of each other and a little bit of thoughtfulness goes a long way. So here's how to be a good neighbor:

1. When you come home shitfaced at 2 am, don't fucking blast "California Gurls." If you want to rock out to some guilty pleasures, you have headphones. Use them.

2. Do you live above someone? Any time something hits your floor, I guarantee it sounds like a bomb going off through the ceiling to your downstairs neighbor. Watch it with clomping around in your Doc Martens.

3. Why are you hanging pictures at 1 am on a Tuesday? If you're not spun out on meth, you have no excuse. Driving nails is a Daytime Activity.

4. I know "According to Jim" reruns are funnier when you can hear them in every room of your apartment, but give us a break and turn the fucking TV down a little bit.

Life is tough and we all have our own struggles to work through. But we can all get along better and be happier and more productive citizenbots if we just look out for each other. Take 30 fucking seconds and think about someone besides yourself, OK?

I'm going to randomly put money in parking meters today. Random acts of kindness, you dig?

Important tipping-related issue to give you a break from constant updates on the Big Thing

[Let me preface this by saying that I don't really have a lot to say about the Big Thing that would be anything you haven't already heard, i.e., the world is better off without that guy but I still found the frat-boy celebration outside the White House a bit unseemly.]

Instead, let's talk about tipping, since I haven't brought this up since December 2, 2008. This story now has me kind of confused:

If you're ordering in tonight and you live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, watch out: Some vigilante bicycle delivery guy has set up a blog posting the names and addresses of people who give him crappy tips.

The Tumblr "≤15%: a bunch of shitty tips" is dedicated to outing bad tippers. One entry:

No tip [redacted address] last night, in middle of third monsoon of evening. elevator opens, i drip on floor, he laughs at me. i say 20 dollars, he says here's 20 dollars. [full name redacted]

This seems to be the art project of some dude named Larry Fox. Fox, a "20 year old designer and developer" told Gothamist that "I just got tired of all these big companies, these TV shows and movie sets giving us two or three dollar tips on a $90 order. The excuse is that 'we can't tip because that's what corporate says' is wrong. I find it disrespectful. And I wanted to make people aware of that." Sure, one entry is about Fox getting stiffed by the wardrobe department of the Good Wife, but a lot of these just seem to be like individual cheapskates.

Wait a minute. You're supposed to tip delivery people 15% or above? Fuck, have I been shorting delivery people for years now? I'm a solid 20-percenter in restaurants, but I've always operated under the assumption that you tip delivery people around 10% or so. Is that wrong? Delivery people are supposed to get 15% or more? And isn't it a lot less work to deliver something than to wait on a table for an hour?

Also, I really need an answer to this: How much do you tip when you pick up at the restaurant? I do this a fair amount and I'm always unsure. I usually end up tipping about 10% when I pick up. Sound good?

[OK, you can go back to reading about OBL now.]

What Would You Do?: Muni Edition

Let's play ABC Primetime's "What Would You Do?" for a second.

(Incidentally, ABC, what's up with the "go.com" domain names? ESPN, too. Stuck in 1997, are we?)

OK, so let's say you're on the, oh, I don't know, 48 Quintara at around 5:30 yesterday (or the L Taraval or, fuck, the 6 train to the Bronx for all I care) and you take a seat near the back and then realize you're sitting in the middle of a group of baggy-white-t-shirted skateboard-holding kids. Like 4 or 5 of them, maybe 13 years old, maybe 14. The first thing you notice is the heartwarming (for a San Franciscan) multicultiness of this group - there's a white kid, and a vaguely Hispanic kid, and a black kid, and man, it's like MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech brought to life.

Then the next thing you notice is that the Bieber-haired white kid is very slowly and deliberately carving something into the seat with some kind of implement. Like, obviously defacing the bus seat with whatever kind of graffiti 13-year-old white kids are motivated to write these days.

Or let's take another (also actually true) example that also happened on the 48 Quintara on another day with a different Pack O'Yoots (though older, maybe mid to late teens) and one of them is using a fat black magic marker or whatever to mark one of the windows with a big, looping tag.

What do you do?

I'm serious. I never know how to react in these situations. I know that Muni Belongs To All Of Us and that We As Citizens must stand up to protect out property, but I also know that people get killed trying to stop this kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's rare for that to happen and blah blah blah but IT ONLY TAKES ONCE when it's happening to you.

So what's the call here? What do you do? Say, "Hey, you damn kids, stop messing up my bus!" or whip out the cell and call 911 or go up and talk to the driver or what? Furthermore, what's most likely to avoid me getting hit in the back of the skull with a skateboard?

Cause I'll tell you what actually happened: nothing. I didn't do anything. The lady next to me didn't do anything. The semi-yuppie guy reading The Economist didn't do anything. Now I feel vaguely bad about it! I don't know.

The Incredibly Common Muni Chicken Story Reappears

Soon after I moved to SF years ago, I heard a story that went something like this:

My friend's brother was on the 30 Stockton one time near Chinatown when this little Chinese lady tried to get on board with a live chicken. The driver says, "Hey, you can't bring a live chicken on the bus!" So she snapped its neck and just walked on.

Quite a tale, huh? Over the years, I've heard it at least 4 or 5 more times, each time recounted as having happened to a friend of a friend of the narrator. (In the universe of urban legends, this person is called a "FOAF," an acronym for "friend of a friend.") It surfaced on Muni Diaries not too long ago.

So yesterday, on one of SFGate's super-duper-look-Ma-I'm-doing-New-Media blogs, a variant of the story appeared yesterday. In this one, thankfully, the chicken escapes its premature transit-occasioned demise:

Muni buses may be getting less crowded when service cuts are partially rolled back in September, but there still won't be room for loose chickens on board.

That's what a guy tried to do today on the 30-Stockton bus line in North Beach. He hoped to hop onboard at the corner of Union Street and Columbus Avenue with a fully grown, brown-feathered chicken tucked under one arm.

The driver shook his head, saying, "You can't bring that bird on here."

After a futile moment of pleading, the birdmaster, looking a little scruffy and sporting a baseball cap turned backwards, replied with a curse.

The morning commute continued.

First off, note the completely unsourced nature of the story. Did the author, "John Cote," witness this event personally? Did he hear about it from someone else? A FOAF, perhaps? It's suspicious from the get-go. Imagine if real journalism could get away with shit like this!

The three guys at your corner store are actually Al-Qaeda members.

When they say they are going in the back to get more Yoo-Hoo, they are actually working on a bomb to blow up Cha Cha Cha.

Anyway, nevermind that the wretched fowl escaped unscathed in the SFGate blog version. Unleash the SFGate commenters, eager to recount the urban legend again and again and again!

joeyjess 2:40 PM on July 7, 2010

This happened many years ago on the same line, when I was a little kid....when the bus driver told the lady she couldn't bring a live chicken on the bus, the chicken's owner promptly broke its neck and tried to re-board.

sockmonkey 2:44 PM on July 7, 2010

Years ago I was riding the 30 Stockton when the driver pulled up to a stop and an old Chinese woman started climbing the steps to board. That's when the driver noticed the bag she was carrying was moving and squawking. "Lady!" he said, "You can't bring a live chicken on this bus!" She quietly stepped off the bus, reached in the bag, snapped the chicken's neck, climbed back on and that was that.

phreakshow 2:51 PM on July 7, 2010

my sister saw this happen once with a little old chinese lady on the 30 Stockton. She was told she could not board with a live animal. She broke the chicken's neck and boarded the bus.

capdragon 3:03 PM on July 7, 2010

True Story.......

A couple of years ago my wife was riding on a bus headed towards the Haight. A Chinese woman got on around Powell. She was carrying a live duck. The driver told her she couldn't bring the duck on board. So in front of everyone she proceeded to twist the duck's neck until it cracked. There was a collective gasp from the passengers, but the driver then let her on with the dead duck.

Wouldn't it be nice if immigrants who come to America had enough respect for our values that they learn, not only English,but some of our cultural values as well, like common courtesy.

Vampirella 3:37 PM on July 7, 2010

About 10 years ago I was on the 30 Stockton when this same thing happened. Only is was a little old Chinese lady who promptly wrung the chicken's neck and then got on the bus.

sandiegopete 4:04 PM on July 7, 2010

I was riding a Muni bus years ago when an Asian woman started to board the bus with a live duck in a bag. The driver told her no pets were allowed on the bus. She said it wasn't a pet it was dinner. He still wouldn't let her on so she reached into the back and snapped the duck's neck and said to the driver, "Now its food". He let her board.

scientific 4:44 PM on July 7, 2010

There is an old, old story going around about a lady in Chinatown (probably on the 30 Stockton) trying to get on the bus with a live chicken. When the driver told her she couldn't bring a live chicken on board, she simply wrung its neck. Problem solved!

That's a lot of dead chickens! Let's see here. Joeyjess, Sockmonkey and Vampirella all say it happened to them - always "years ago." Capdragon doesn't go all the way to FOAF, but goes with the more conventional "happened to someone I know." Maybe it's easier to just skip the FOAF when you're an anonymous Internet commenter.

You also have to love the fact that Capdragon, being an SFGate commenter, can't resist a little side of xenophobia with his entree of urban legend. Yeah, why can't the fake people in my made-up story stop acting so, y'know, foreign?

Anyway, I think the story persists for a couple of reasons. At the root of it, it's kinda funny, and shows a clever way to solve a vexing problem. It's got that surprise twist ending that all good urban legends have. Plus, it plays on the general unease white people have about foreigners in general and Chinatown residents in particular. My kids'll probably hear this story one day.

Some SFGate commenters have it figured out!

bridgeofbardo 6:07 PM on July 7, 2010

There must have been, like, a million people on that 30-Stockton bus "years ago" when that "old Chinese woman" got on with a live chicken and the driver said et cetera, and then she et cetera. You guys who re-posted that ancient urban myth here today (that everybody has heard) just lost all credibility. Ha ha ha!

Who knows? Like many urban legends, there's probably a grain of truth in there somewhere. The fact that people bring live chickens on Muni has been pretty well-documented:

My slate of ballot propositions

Film Commission? School Facilities Tax? BOR-ING. Wake me up when these are on the ballot:

PROP 5.2% ABV: Requires that the Giants offer at least one regular-sized beer priced at 5 dollars at AT&T Park. Can be Black Label, PBR, or Red White & Blue, if they still make that. Appropriates funds for a committee to investigate whether Red White & Blue is still being made.

PROP F: Makes it a misdemeanor to remove footwear on Muni or BART, punishable by fines of up to $500 and a requirement that the violator wear penny loafers the rest of the week. Flip-flops restricted to the Marina and Cow Hollow. Those found wearing flip-flops outside of those areas are issued visors and returned to Balboa Cafe.

PROP S: Each resident receives a free shot of their choice on their birthday. If he or she does not drink the shot, he or she must buy shots for everyone else within a 10-foot radius.

PROP W: No whining.

PROP B: All panhandlers must have a skill, such as singing or doing a magic trick. Having a clever sign is not a "skill." If a panhandler chooses to sing, they have to mix up the songs and not sing the same one every time, like those 3 guys in the BART stations who have been singing the exact same song for like 8 years now. No juggling.

PROP E: No small talk on elevators.

PROP E-2: For the LAST FUCKING TIME, it is STAND RIGHT, WALK LEFT on the fucking escalator. First offense results in being thrown down the escalator. Second offense is death. If the offender isn't dead already from being thrown down the escalator the first time. This includes you, grandma, so heads up and look alive. If you're too grizzled to hoof it up to 24th Street, stand on the fucking right side. Seriously people.

PROP F: Every other Friday off.