Key To The City.

Last week, I wrote about what I saw at Bay to Breakers. It was an easy subject; I had the photos, and it was more visceral than your average day. But when you're walking beer in hand for nearly five hours, you tire of seeing the same silvering naked people, the same road-hogging contraptions, the same sullied costumes. Your mind wanders. You have a whole morning to think. And think I did. What happened in my mind, personally, was more momentous than the mobile Mardi Gras swirling around me. So now I'm going to write about that.

Before moving here, someone mentioned that I wouldn't understand this city. For nine months, I probably didn't, or at least had enough East Coast context still built in me to turn my blinders on. But things clicked during the race.

My first significant feeling was that, for the first time, I was really a resident of San Francisco. Outlandish things were happening that did not faze me in the slightest. I was willingly dressed up in a goofy silver tracksuit, double-fisting Bud Lights in clear view of the city's finest. I chalk some of that up to a tenuous hold on sobriety, but that's the essence of the city itself. That's what people do in the city, and I was doing it. I was an outsider from the East no longer.

Citizenship in what, though? What was this mass of people-- what made it different, what made it San Francisco-- what did I have at that moment that I didn't have before, which made me one of them?

I found my answer on the beach. Looking around, I saw a man in a tank top, shoulders positively pulsing with sunburn. "Wasted John" was finishing an epic keg stand. Will, John and Campbell dropped trou and bolted into the rolling Pacific. Tigger smoked up in costume on the sidewalk, with a 30-ish woman he had just met and would later sleep with. These things could only happen on a day when the police were turning the other cheek, where people had no pretentions, and where alcohol would cloud or erase most people's memories anyway. Bay to Breakers is a day with no consequences.

And people in this city want a life free of consequence.

It starts with the geography. The city both protects and divides its citizens. The hills neatly divide the city into strikingly diverse regions, which don't have to face each other. Those in the posh Marina never see the crime-ridden Western Addition, just 15 blocks down Fillmore. It's so dense, moving three blocks away means moving to a completely different social circle, with different stores and businesses. And for the most part, people stay where they live. If I offend half of Pacific Heights, I can quickly hide in the Haight and never hear from any of the upperclass mansion-dwellers again. A fresh start or change of pace is just a short move away. Or a long one-- there's enough people moving into and out of the place that you're saying hello or goodbye virtually every month.

Public policy reflects the city's disregard for lasting consequence. Rent control favors the tenant, who is free to move or not pay his/her rent on a whim, while the landlord cannot adjust rent prices in line with real estate prices (thank goodness). The city only recently moved to build more low-income housing and shelters, instead of just doling out a monthly stipend to the city's nearly 10,000 homeless. The populace gave the green light to "medicinal" marijuana, but refused to allow Mayor Newsom to increase business and sales taxes, which has resulted in major cutbacks in education, health and transportation funding.

And of course, one only needs to look at Craigslist to discern the social nature of the city. Flaky is one thing. This is another. (I've experienced flaky, not the latter.) In a place that revolves around bars and where happy hour starts on Thursday, things are of course bound to happen. But these things are often short-lived. No harm, no foul, everyone had fun, time to move along. Life's a party, and you're in the most liberated place in the country. Don't think.

After looking around and surveying the debauchery, I realized that my initial feeling of belonging was wrong. I was acting like a native, but I wasn't really one. I didn't put on a goofy tracksuit because I didn't care about the consequences; I did it because it (a) actually looks good on me and (b) I didn't want to be the guy to drag down the spirits of the group. And I didn't go the extra mile, bolting naked into the ocean, because there would be witnesses. I was more concerned at the end about how to dispatch our cooler than anything else. My West Coast costume was a thin veil for my Eastern sensibility.

So as long as I'm here, I will always be somewhat of an outsider. Don't get me wrong-- I love the place. It's beautiful, the people are cool, the food is great, the weather's agreeable, there's tons of stuff to do, and for now, I can afford it. But I give a shit. I like accountability and consequences-- it makes people try harder, act more civil, care more about others. I believe in cause and effect, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and in the Golden Rule. And that puts me out of step with the city.

But that's OK. I can live with that. In fact, I'm happy about the discovery-- it's something I now absolutely, positively know about myself, and those tenets are rare. You can take the guy out of New England, but you can't take the New England out of the guy.

So just, like, deal.

Bay To Breakers

BTB: Downtown Keg Stand
Originally uploaded by jeffypoo.

I... I dunno. I woke up at 5:30 this morning, put on a silver Puma tracksuit and Mafia glasses, went to the Haight, then downtown, walked seven and a half miles across the city, and... well, I'm largely speechless. I guess if anarchists had their way, it would be a Sunday stroll. It was weird, but weirder that we all accepted what was going on as normal, acceptable, and natural.

I'm just going to make a list of what I saw today, and take a shower.

-- Coroners wheeling a bodybag into a truck (on Oak & Fillmore in the cab on the way to the staging area)
-- 15 people dressed up as slices of bread
-- 12 naked people
-- A mobile Keg-A-Mid with functioning radio and grill
-- Thousands of airborne tortillas
-- Costumes: dozens of Superheroes, a carousel, ketchup, mustard, crayons, gorillas, the 12 Galaxies guy, a pack of Amish, Party Boy, many bumblebees, Tigger (in our pack), Jesus, many Popes & cardinals, a take-out box, soy sauce, beer cans, and many more
-- Mobile contraptions: beer volcano, Keg-A-Mid, Transbeerica Tower, Mystery Machine, Popemobile, Kappa Sig chariot, Wright Brothers aircraft, 40-foot long train, shopping cart upon shopping cart, mobile putting green, Tiki bar
-- Debauchery: keg stands in the streets, open containers, a hippie girl totally wipe out on a path in Golden Gate Park, an avalanche of red cups, and costumed animals toking up.
-- My friends racing buck naked into the ocean for a skinny dip.

Yeah, um. OK, that's just not allowed anywhere else. Hope the government doesn't find out.

More pics here. I gotta get a hold on reality again. Have fun, kids.

Rallye!

Rally: Show 'Em What We've Won
Originally uploaded by jeffypoo.

Alright then. Story time.

So my good friend Katie impulse-traded her old Dodge Dakota pickup for a 2001 Porsche Boxster a few weeks ago. Quite the trade-up, I'd say. After all, when you purchase a Porsche (say that five times fast), you aren't just buying a car. You're entering an elite social circle to which few can claim membership-- the Porsche Owners' Club of America. This morning, with me in tow, she decided to reap the benefits of this newfound status, as we participated the Sacramento Valley PCA's Spring Flowers Road Rally.

To those unfamiliar with the concept of a road rally (such as myself until 10 o'clock this morning), let me briefly explain. The goal of a road rally is to follow a list of instructions to the letter, such that you arrive at a checkpoint at exactly the right time. There's no map (unless you bring one yourself), and the desired time isn't printed on the instructions. All you know is which streets you have to turn on, and what speed you should be averaging along the way. In more advanced rallies, there are additional tricks, traps, rules, stipulations, and surprises set up by the rally organizers. Spring Flowers was geared more toward beginners and first-timers, such as Katie and myself.

The cast of characters ranged from the recently retired to the less recently retired. Aside from a professor at Scripps and his wife, Katie and I were the youngest by about 30, maybe 35 years. Actually, this was a hoot. It seems like we stumbled upon the Secret Lives of Parents and Grandparents-- where those in their late 50s through 70s gather in a group, know their children won't be around to hear, and start acting like teenagers. The leader and organizer of this event was an affable Englishman (I presume, although his tan, muted accent, demeanor and hat made me think he spends a good deal of time in the Caribbean) named Goose. See photo above, he's got the shirt with "Goose" on it. Hell of a talker. His 50-minute long "Rally School," and his 20-minute award/mockery ceremony reminded me of John Cleese in its detached upperclass content, only significantly more mellowed out by the California and Caribbean sun. The best moment: when he addressed the winners of the Beginner division as "Mr. and Mrs. Pieceofshit," as they neglected to write their names down on their entry sheet. The whole group crackled and yelled "nice sheet, you piece of shit!" We were at RoundTable Pizza, a family establishment.

Kids these days. No manners.

The other guy I'll mention was the bully of the group, in the Expert (Equipped) class. He was there for one reason, and one reason only: to win. Armed with onboard telemetry and a wheel revolution counter that car magazines use in road tests, he guided his BMW 540i with precision, accuracy, and detached superiority. But people have their hobbies, I guess. I'm sure I'd do the same once the novelty wore off.

Anyway, onto race coverage. Goose had assured us that first-timers are always late, and sure enough, in the first leg, a jaunt through the orchards and farms of northwest Solano County, we were late. Way late. Our first-leg strategy, technically known as "eyeballing it," yielded a sterling result of two minutes and 59 seconds late (51:34 versus 48:35). The Bimmer came in two seconds late. But the free food was terrific.

The second leg was a scramble up and down a hill filled with flowers and vines, through the Yolo County hamlet of Winters, and back down to the checkpoint. We adopted a strategy of "eyeball it, but go faster," and it paid off. Still, we were 53 seconds late. At this point, I remembered that I was technically an engineer with two degrees from MIT and maybe by 1pm it would be late enough in the day to maybe do some math to figure your average speed, jackass.

And so the third leg was to be our triumphant rush to glory. However, in true Mike Bolton fashion, I screwed up a decimal point somewhere. As a result, I, the trusty navigator, had Katie rushing along at about five miles an hour faster than she should have been. We noticed this as we sped to a point just behind Atomic Time Bimmer, who was guaranteed to be exactly on time. For the next five minutes, I frantically redid my math (tougher than you would think in an open convertible with pen and paper), and computed that we should pull to the side for about 15 seconds just before the final turn. We did, and we came in... 19 seconds late.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to use my diploma as a place mat.

So that was the rally, in a nutshell. Woefully inadequate pictures here. Bay to Breakers tomorrow morning. Until then, increase the peace. Jeffypoo out.