by
Gary Kamiya
(editor)
11
The embarrassing truth is I had become somewhat of a townie. I was frequently in a bad mood, disgruntled with the new expensive coffee places and the four-dollar donuts. I was scowling at fancy cars. Flipping off buildings shaped like glass pricks. Angry at air plants and hand-milled soap. Raging at salumi platters and hand- knotted rugs. I mistook a toddler in Gucci sunglasses for a robot and almost punched it. I even rolled my eyes at Burning Man and burlesque and Good Vibrations and marijuana, those mainstays of the freewheelin’ Barbary Coast, for the sheer reason that I couldn’t handle hearing them used as examples of how freaky and fun the Bay Area was by the new brand of interloping young people. I was pissed off at the rampant technology-fueled late-stage capitalism that had invaded my home turf.
San Francisco was supposed to be for everyone and the more it became clear it was not, I rebelled. Me, a person who felt like she was always down for just about anything, forever on the lookout for vibrancy in my community, rebelled by closing my eyes. (Well, first I exhausted myself complaining how tech had ruined everything, and then I grew exhausted of other people complaining how tech had ruined everything, and then I closed my eyes.) I simply couldn’t look anymore. I was unable to see beauty.
Everywhere I turned seemed to have undergone a change of which I did not approve in the least. My friend, a San Francisco native, actually brought me to eat an icy chef salad at the restaurant at the golf course in Lake Merced just so we could experience something in the city that was old that felt new to us. The hypocrisy. I was a gentrifier through and through, but then I got mad at the gentrifiers who came after me, which I knew was ridiculous. So I got mad at myself for being ridiculous.
The embarrassing truth is I had become somewhat of a townie. I was frequently in a bad mood, disgruntled with the new expensive coffee places and the four-dollar donuts. I was scowling at fancy cars. Flipping off buildings shaped like glass pricks. Angry at air plants and hand-milled soap. Raging at salumi platters and hand- knotted rugs. I mistook a toddler in Gucci sunglasses for a robot and almost punched it. I even rolled my eyes at Burning Man and burlesque and Good Vibrations and marijuana, those mainstays of the freewheelin’ Barbary Coast, for the sheer reason that I couldn’t handle hearing them used as examples of how freaky and fun the Bay Area was by the new brand of interloping young people. I was pissed off at the rampant technology-fueled late-stage capitalism that had invaded my home turf.
San Francisco was supposed to be for everyone and the more it became clear it was not, I rebelled. Me, a person who felt like she was always down for just about anything, forever on the lookout for vibrancy in my community, rebelled by closing my eyes. (Well, first I exhausted myself complaining how tech had ruined everything, and then I grew exhausted of other people complaining how tech had ruined everything, and then I closed my eyes.) I simply couldn’t look anymore. I was unable to see beauty.
Everywhere I turned seemed to have undergone a change of which I did not approve in the least. My friend, a San Francisco native, actually brought me to eat an icy chef salad at the restaurant at the golf course in Lake Merced just so we could experience something in the city that was old that felt new to us. The hypocrisy. I was a gentrifier through and through, but then I got mad at the gentrifiers who came after me, which I knew was ridiculous. So I got mad at myself for being ridiculous.
13
Almost all the people I know in San Francisco who are still making art are either people who were able to buy property decades ago or are, at this moment, knocking on wood hoping they don’t lose their rent-controlled housing. There is so much money amidst so much poverty and despair that your heart burns. Being comfortable when there is chaos and upheaval around you is never comfortable for long. It started to make me feel hopeless. It started to make me wonder who I would even be someplace else. And if that sounds too esoteric, I’m sure I also blew off San Francisco when I felt like it was about to blow me off entirely. The teenage feeling that sticks with you. So there I was, jilted and uncomfortable, and also shrinking, because defining yourself against something you resent will always make you small.
Almost all the people I know in San Francisco who are still making art are either people who were able to buy property decades ago or are, at this moment, knocking on wood hoping they don’t lose their rent-controlled housing. There is so much money amidst so much poverty and despair that your heart burns. Being comfortable when there is chaos and upheaval around you is never comfortable for long. It started to make me feel hopeless. It started to make me wonder who I would even be someplace else. And if that sounds too esoteric, I’m sure I also blew off San Francisco when I felt like it was about to blow me off entirely. The teenage feeling that sticks with you. So there I was, jilted and uncomfortable, and also shrinking, because defining yourself against something you resent will always make you small.