I have always collected urban oases, forgotten little patches of dirt and rock in the heart of the city. For 35 years I have watched them disappear, one by one. There is precious little room for anonymous metal in San Francisco, where every million-dollar square inch is under the electronic control of the Trilateral Commission. But a lot of it isn't. The most egregious example is Pier 39, a tacky Olde Waterfronte Developmente sitting like a giant Bermuda shorts magnet at the end of Stockton Street.
Money is everywhere, and with the big bucks comes a certain tedious sameness.
This is good. New media central is South Park, once an elegant 19th century residential oval tucked in next to a hill that was lopped off to support the Bay Bridge. In the '70s, it was home to old bums who guzzled Night Train over fires in garbage cans. Today the boys and girls sit on the grass oval like cyberpigeons. As these butterflies flit about, the currents still make shadows in the bay and the sunset gilds Sutter Street like a warm-up for Judgment Day.