I called it twice. I said the Giants would win and I said to stay away from downtown last night. Well the second part was slightly off, but I was pretty close. This time it was the Mission that was hit. I never understood when the the celebration party after a big win turned into a celebration riot, but it usually does. Cars were turned over, trash cans set on fire and even a Muni bus was set on fire.
It’s the grumpy old man talking once again, but I don’t understand why SF has a big win so let mess our city up. They were lighting fires in the middle of the streets on Mission backing up traffic and destroying everything they could. Everyone had a smile on their face from the pictures and to me this is not how you celebrate. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Back in the 80’s the 49’ers won a Superbowl and a friend of mine invited me out with her friends and family to celebrate. It was complete chaos. I still remember to this day the line of Police marching up Columbus with batons in their hands and shield pushing back and beating down anyone in their way to break things up. It didn’t work too well and the people celebrating [who weren’t breaking anything] got incensed and started fighting back.
Now if you want to know how you should have celebrated the victory I’ll have to hand that over to my blogger friend Greg of njudahchronicles.com. He has been spending the evenings at the Blackthorn Tavern and it was much different. After the win the people in the bar ran out and were dancing in the streets. Nothing was broken, no cars were trashed and I’m probably sure there were a few people drunker than those tossing stuff in the Mission.
I did read an article today on some people who were interviewed in the Mission and everyone was listed as John Doe [city other than San Francisco], so it looks like it was mostly out of towers [the bridge and tunnel crowd] who basically came into our city to get drunk and break shit. Yes, I didn’t edit that because it makes me mad. This is a part of the reason I like being at home.we’re boring out here to people in the Mission and I like that. I worked with a girl once who said I could never live in the Sunset, it’s too boring. I like the activity of the upper Haight. I really should have punched her in the face and told her that’s what you’ll get if you come into the Sunset.
Now the usual custom after an event like this is that the two Mayors exchange gifts of their local products. I suspect that Mayor Ed Lee will send Mayor Bing some crab and our other locally farmed shellfish and Bing I guess will send Lee a car. Not sure who is better off in that deal.