This is one of the reasons why I love San Francisco. Of course, I'm a big fan of that dude who made gay marriage legal (if only for a little bit), so that helps.

Rumor says he's going to make a run at the Governor's seat soon.

Earlier today, I watched KTVU's footage of the kid who was shot by the police in the BART station on New Year's Eve. It has been haunting me.

I had heard about the shooting earlier, but only in passing, and several key details were missing from my understanding. Most notably:

a) The kid was handcuffed, face down on the floor, and docile
b) The cop just drew his weapon and shot him in the back.

This was done in front of a couple hundred people on the BART train. At least two of them recorded the incident with video cameras. These videos were broadcast by KTVU (a local station here in the Bay Area).

(I shall leave the discussion as to whether or not it is in the public's best interest to air something so inflammatory, thus making the public the jury, for another time. Especially since, by all accounts, the videos have not been delivered to the police or any investigative committee.)

The videos are not bloody or anything like that, but they do show someone being shot. So, as a favor to those who may not wish to see it, be aware that the next link has the videos.

It is available here.

Nothing has shocked me like this since I watched Rodney King get a police beatdown on national television.

This event is screwing with my head and here's why: I cannot make sense of it. At all.

For real.

These police were armed with all sorts of non-lethal tools - including tasers. If the kid had been fighting the cops, they should have tased him. Why did he even draw his sidearm at all?

In San Francisco at least, police sidearms do not have safety switches. So I can see there being a situation where the gun could go off or something. . . BUT HE DREW THE WEAPON WHEN HE CLEARLY DID NOT NEED TO. There were maybe five or six people who had been detained and what looked like at least ten police officers there. They had the situation under control. No one was fighting.

It looked, honestly, like an execution.

Why draw? Why?

I cannot find a motivation for this and it frankly horrifies me.

I am friends with many police officers. More than I can count on my fingers. Some of them are bona-fide heroes with the scars and recognition to prove it. Others have had to do some really unsavory things (I know one of the men who had to shoot Titania the tiger last Christmas).

These are not evil men. They're not bullies or thugs. It can be a popular opinion to think of the police as "pigs" trying to oppress everyone but I don't think that's true. If it were true, I could understand the shooting. It would make sense to me.

But it doesn't.

And now my brain is running in circles, trying to put together a puzzle to which I don't think there is a solution.

I pray that it was an accident, and I pray that there is a reasonable explanation.

I'm just not seeing it yet.

This pisses me off more than you can possibly imagine.

Edit to add:

I love love love love San Francisco. I cannot imagine living anywhere else in the world.

Love.

Four-One-Five Forever.

Well, I only got one photo that was anywhere close to good (below).

I cannot begin to estimate how many there were. I know that they were driving past the intersection of Portola/Woodside/O'Shaughnessy for at least half an hour.

Today is the funeral for Mark Guardado.

Mission violence has been on the rise. It's probably smart just to avoid the area tonight if at all possible.



(Edit: Changed link above to story about funeral specifically)

Watching several thousand Hells Angels ride up Portola.

Pictures later.

We have another death this morning.

Authorities described Lechado as a "mid-level" member of the MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, street gang. They believe the slayings of two men later Thursday night may have been in retaliation for his shooting.

This brings the total deaths to seven. Lechado was shot last night, with his wife (also shot) and kid (uninjured) in the car (two other guys were killed as well last night).

I have more information about the troubles that are likely to brew up in SF's Mission district that I wrote about earlier.

From three different sources (two cops and a member of a Hell's Angels affiliate gang), the number of Hell's Angels and affiliates that will be coming to the area over the next week is expected to be between fifteen and twenty-five thousand.

This will likely have it's "head" on Monday, September 15th. Why? Because that is the date of the funeral for Mark Guardado, the leader of the SF chapter of Hell's Angels who was shot and killed last week.

There have been several shootings every day since the initial incident in the Mission. Not all of these may be related.

I have heard the following, though take this with a grain of salt:

* There has been discussion of a dusk-to-dawn curfew (unlikely, and shot down because of the impact to business)
* Police officers are going to be pulling 18 hour shifts (possible)
* Additional police officers from the surrounding cities and counties are going to be brought in (likely)

Another thing that I got clarification about (and was incorrect on): MS 13 is not "moving into the area." They're already here and have been, but we call them Sureños (this, and not "Sudenos", is apparently the correct spelling).

I was told by both cops and gang members that it "is going to be bad" and to tell my friends who live in the Mission to stay indoors at night over the next week. To wit: "no one is gonna get shot sitting on their ass watching football."

It is advised that you do not wear the color blue over the next week or so as the Sureños claim blue.

I don't want to sound like an alarmist but I'd rather my friends be a little more paranoid and cautious for a week than put into pine boxes forever because they just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This morning they started at 6:30.

Time for another fun day of loud noises, acrid smells, and being unable to leave my apartment because the roads are blocked off.

The leader of the SF branch of the Hell's Angels was shot and killed on Tuesday evening.

According to two of my cop friends, this is a bad, bad thing, as he was killed by some member of the Mongols (another gang) who are closely affiliated with MS 13. The MS 13 peeps don't screw around: they get respect points for flat out murdering cops and the like.

So the expectation is that the Mission is going to flood with members of all three, and that it's going to be a bit bloody, possibly for several months.

So be careful.

Edit: Addendum: The "heavy metal" sign - the throwing the horns - is one of the gang signs used by MS-13. Though they usually throw it horns down, as far as I know.

I am in Hell.

Or, at least, the closest thing that exists to a real "Hell" for one Brandon Bailey Harris, Esquire.

The construction along the streets, now in it's fifth week, has reached something akin to a malicious crescendo today. The various trucks and ferrous-oxide colored mechanized infantry units have multiplied. They are now a small military whose apparent purpose is to liquify the layers of solid asphalt currently laid on the street. They have a machine that does this with a startlingly degree of efficiency.

It is the more quiet of the machines.

Surrounding this beast are a series of machines (some large, some small, some driven, some held by men) that are effectively jackhammers with varying degrees of power. These are the loud machines. They are performing operations on all sides of my building.

However, the cacophony is not why I now believe myself to be dead and sent to my final resting plane. Oh no.

It is the overwhelming stench of brimstone. Of boiling tar. Of blackened air and pitchy-smoke. The asphalt machines are here. There are four of them.

I hate them. They make me sneeze. I produce a gallon of mucous. I take a fistful of anti-allergy pills. They make my heart race, which, combined with the coffee, my current stress levels, and natural accellerando of a metabolism, isn't much of a good thing. This causes my body to require additional oxygen, which makes me breathe faster. Which, combined with the aforementioned brimstone in the air, causes my lungs to fill up with mucous faster.

This is Hell because I cannot leave. They have blocked the garage entrance with their infernal machines and yellow cones.

I'm *fairly* certain that yesterday was the fourteenth anniversary of my first crossing the Bay Bridge when I moved to San Francisco.

Every Saturday morning, starting at 7:30, on a different side of my apartment, for the past month:



This is taken from my porch.

SATURDAY WHY? WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY ORANGE HELMETED PEOPLE DOING?

Are they *seriously* tearing up Portola Drive with big loud machines at eight a.m. on a Saturday Morning?

Why yes. Yes they are.

Edit to add: And wtf are they tearing up the street anyway? Does Newsome have some sort of treasure map taht is missing the X marking the spot?

I seem to remember them doing this like, three years ago anyway.

Rain? It's almost June.

Today, it is very easy to understand why our barbarian forefathers gave worship to the great yellow eye.

In other news, one of my favorite things in the world is the concept of "color". I cannot fathom the thought of enduring a black-and-white existence.

Attention all you poor suckers who happen to live where there is this thing called "winter":

Yesterday I got sunburned sitting on my porch reading.

So, it appears that these dumbasses were fucking with the tiger. One of them apparently climbed over the fence and dangled his feet down at her or something like that. She jumped, grabbed on, and then used that to get out of the pen.

I can totally see this happening, too. "Ha-hah, little tiger can't get me, hah hah OH MY GOD OHMYGOD PULL ME OUT PULL ME OUT" and his friends are pulling him back while the tiger is using this opportunity to get additional purchase and BAM! The tiger has dumbass steaks for dinner.

She bloods all three. Lets two of them run; kills the third. Stalks the remaining two at her leisure.

Unsurprisingly, what a tiger would do.

So, I'm angry about this. And the more I think about it, the more pissed off I get.

I liked Tatiana the tiger and now she's dead. I like tigers in general. They're my favorite part about the zoo. I have, in the past, made my love for tigers known.

Three kids decide to fuck with the tiger and be dumbasses and because of this - because they didn't follow basic wisdom that four year olds know (e.g., "don't fuck with tigers") - because of this, Tatiana the tiger is dead.

elderdan and I were talking and we figured that the other two kids would eventually cop to the thing, but lay the blame squarely on the dead kid. "We told him it was a bad idea, we tried to get him to stop, etc., etc." I feel horrible for the kid's parents: what a horrible Christmas.

But I feel worse for the tiger.

It's actually refreshing to actually be angry about something new for a change.

Today, a work crew came up and blocked off two lanes while they installed these humongous planters in the middle of the meridians. Have these been showing up anywhere else in the city?



(Hrm. "Middle of the meridians." There's a problem with that wording, but I can't pick it out right now.)

When I first moved to the Bay Area, I possessed three powerful charms:

* a certain amount of courage (borne of naivete - I had no idea what I was getting into)
* a faith that things were simply going to work out, and
* a not-insignificant amount of luck surrounding a few distinct events.

Upon landing here, one of the first tasks I set out for myself was to obtain access to email (email was far more important than the web, which was a pale shadow of what it would become). Back then, San Francisco's coffee houses were home to several hand-built "net" tables that would dial into a specific BBS: SF Net, the Coffee-House Network, which had email that connected outside. Anyone - and I mean anyone - could sit down at one of these keyboard, plunk a quarter into the slot, and connect to the BBS for 5 minutes.

Think about that for a moment.

Anyone.

Anyone could log in from any cafe (or from home; there were dial-up numbers), and, for less money than a newspaper, enter a chat room and communicate with other people - others who, like themselves, had just dropped in a quarter. This had the (perhaps intended) result of connecting the strangest bed-fellows: students, artists, musicians, lawyers, junkies, teachers, homemakers, retirees, nerds, hippies, religious nuts, the homeless - anyone.

Anyone.

No one could judge you by your dress or your hair. Only by your words and your "handle" - the nickname that appeared on the screen (mine was "jormungandr").

It was a bizzare community and if it hadn't existed, if I hadn't found it (or, maybe, if it hadn't found me), my life would have likely taken a far different path.

I made several friends early in that period. These were chaotic times but the bonds we had were strong - even between people who were polar opposites of one another.

I was, for lack of a better word, adopted by a few individuals: people who looked out for me, taught me not to be such a chump, to watch out for the big city. They each had their own motivations, I'm certain, but in the end it amounts to the same. I had several gaurdian angels.

One of these was a woman named Jane Weirick who went by the nom de guerre "Bud Fairy." Jane was about 10 years older than me and had a young daughter (who was about 10 years younger than me). She lived in Hayward and it was she who hooked me up with my first apartment.

Back then, Jane acted as my bigger sister.

She died in her sleep yesterday at the age of 45.

When the busted-ass car I drove out in needed to get registered in California, we all knew it wasn't going to pass smog. I was at a loss, so Jane and I took the car up to Marin, to a garage where a guy she knew worked. She bribed the guy with an ounce of pot and he passed the car without even checking it.

One year she dressed up as me for halloween. She got a wig of long, stringy hair, a Slayer t-shirt, and a flannel (I was still in the grunge phase at the time) and showed up to the part (at Brainwash) and just called everyone "fucker" all night long. I never really told her how much that tickled me - it was flattering that someone thought I was good enough, recognizable enough, to masquerade as.

The number of cook-outs we had at her place dwarf memory. We used to go to the drive-in - a whole pack of us - in Union City, loaded down with fireworks, picnic fixings, and beer.

She was the original Minister of Misinformation, Rumor, and Innuendo for EvilPeople, INC.(tm).

When my lungs failed on me, she was one of the first in line to get me to the hospital. When the meds weren't working, she set up deals to trade marijuana for morphine. When I threw a party once and didn't have time to clean up, she came over and helped.

When I sobered up, she was one of those who held my hand, brought me food, kept me company.

I was present when a guy I was living with beat her up. I didn't try to stop him; I just heard it - and to this day I regret not caving in his skull.

We eventually drifted apart. My life had become more associated with my work: I was meeting new people, making new friends. SF Net, the primary focus of our friendship, was dying. She, too, had work that took up her time (she was a heavy advocate in the legalization of marijuana in California and ran several programs for chemo patients). I was trying to stay sober, and because of that was cutting ties to older parts of my life - including her.

Who knows what started it. A slight (real or imagined, and now forgotten)? From who against who? It doesn't matter. The mechanics of the death of a friendship are never simple and rarely black and white. In the end, I had become a type of elitist (at least, that was the brush I was painted with). Is the appellation true? I don't know. Does it matter? Again, I don't know.

I do know that I could no longer associate with her or the others that were in that group. Many were addicts, most were drunks. Jane's primary causis belli - the legalization of marijuana - was, despite my own politics, at odds with my personal goals. Years later, when my brain was sorted out, it was too late.

Our last interaction was at the wake for my friend Paul, ne' Old Mole. I was in a poor spot, mentally, unwilling to deal with people. I felt that she wasn't respecting Paul and wsa instead focusing on her own impending wedding and told her so. I was a jackass: I should have congratulated her, wished her well, taken some measure of comfort in the fact that people were living and not simply dying.

I never told her that I loved her. I did, too - not any sexual way, our relationship wasn't about that - and I like to think, now, that she knew that, despite the differences that manifested in later years.

I have nothing more to say. My estranged sister is dead.