296. Outside Lands 2018 and the Transit Center opens

Outside Lands 2018

I’ve avoided working this concert in Golden Gate Park for two years, but my boss seemed especially short handed this year, so I took a Saturday shift. 

I think I’ve become known in my company as the “man who works Hellman Hollow,” which is the area known before Warren Hellman’s death, as Speedway Meadow. We have three -- possibly four -- dumpster locations at OL and I’ve always worked the ones at Hellman, behind the east most stage (which would be Banjo Stage at HSB). The layout of the dumpsters wasn’t quite as good as it was three years ago when I crew chiefed here for all three days -- and ended up with a repetitive stress injury to my right hand. Otherwise the work hadn’t changed: Most of the bags arriving are either close to pure compost bags (still don’t know how the group that subcontracts us manages that) or bags of recycling that are mostly contaminated with compostable cups. Those can be dealt with quickly and tossing the green compost bags deep into the compost dumpster is one of the pleasures of the job. Assuming the bags aren't too heavy.

The final class of bags are the ones that are mixed and need to be hand sorted. Most of these come from the vendors -- as always. I think it was between 10 and 10:30 that we finally managed to get caught up, including the pile of bags we had found when we arrived at 3pm. Almost immediately massive, end-of-the-night loads of fresh bags started arriving, many from the vendors, so when we left at 11:30 the bag pile was larger than it had been when we started. Such is life.

As much as I hate table sorting, there was one thing I was looking forward to as I headed to the park on Saturday... I wasn’t going to have to deal with the public. Our crew was consistently in a better mood than the other crew that was out in the crowd collecting bags. And there were no scavengers! Recology got all the aluminum and plastic cans and bottles for once. And we didn’t have a constant stream of thieves thanking us for letting them steal the recycling. My Golden Cynicism is still a work in progress.

One odd thing this year, we were told to not open the doors at the end of the big dumpsters because last year one dumpster wasn’t closed properly and the load was dumped on a street, after Recology picked it up. This is silly for two reasons, we open and secure these doors at most events we work -- it’s not rocket science. And most importantly, it’s the responsibility of the driver to make sure his load is secure. I guarantee that the driver this happened to last year -- if he wasn’t fired -- will be checking every load carefully for the remainder of his career. Anyway, someone had thrown a bunch of bags full of mixed recycling into the recycling dumpster before we arrived and I don’t climb in and out of these monsters anymore, so I opened the doors and sorted it out. Often it’s hard to get the doors open or closed properly because they get bent and otherwise damaged, but there were stacks of metal staging poles stored next to us and I used one to hammer the door closed when I was done. That puppy was not coming open by accident. (The doors are also secured by two chains... there’s nothing subtle about these doors.)

While it’s always nice to be working in Golden Gate Park, especially when you get to enjoy the sun going down, the mix of sound from a variety of stages, made the enjoyment of the music very hard. Still, I was surprised by how many Florence and the Machine songs I recognized.

For my generosity in working this event, I rewarded myself with lunch (breakfast) at the Pork Store and a taxi ride home when I got off at 11:30pm. By a miracle, there was a taxi waiting at the light when I reached the edge of the park, so I didn’t even have to call.

When I drove a taxi, I preferred a minivan as I could fit in large families or most anything else -- wheelchairs with the 9000 ramp vans -- but it was a Prius that I flagged down last night and it certainly had a lot going for it as a taxi. First off it was so nice and quiet, especially when stopped at lights. As I have speculated, the regenerative braking may be the best feature for a cab driver as it not only provides power but it saves on wear of the “brakes.” Back in 2002, our brakes were always a problem. I wanted to ask how much gas cost him per shift, but he didn’t have enough English to make conversation easy. If I were still driving I would be delighted to get to drive a little taxi like that.

The fare was exactly $20, so $25 with tip, which was more than I had expected, but very much worth it. I get off several hours earlier for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but I might be tempted on Sunday night if I don’t feel as strong at the end as I did last year.


One aspect of table sorting we’ve lost in the move to roving sorting, at the front end of the event, is the socializing around the table. This is, I believe, considered a loss by some people, though not by me. I was working with a guy I actually like who was talking about conspiracy theories. I had a vague recollection of our having run aground on this topic before, I can think of some other cases as well. Thinking about this seeming tendency or desire to believe conspiracy theories, I can’t help thinking it’s related to the human tendency to believe in invisible sky-fairies. It’s both a way to explain things we can’t otherwise understand -- or don’t want to understand -- and a way to bond with a group. If we both believe in a conspiracy by invisible lizard overlords to run the world, we can spend hours debating if they are blue or green lizards.

Salesforce Transit Center

(Formerly Transbay Transit Center)
I toured the new facility today. It is semi-finished. The park on top is quite nice. The bus level is great for East Bay bus drivers who can now come and go without getting into downtown traffic. 

For bus riders it’s a mixed bag: You’re protected from winter rain and shaded from the sun on those rare days when it’s hot. And you can get from SF bus to East Bay bus without crossing traffic. On the other hand, there’s no view to speak of and there’s a long escalator or short elevator ride between bus levels. Greyhound and Amtrak have not made the move yet, which is awkward if you want to make a cross country to local connection. 

The first and second levels are supposed to be retail, but no one is stupid enough to open there before all the construction in the neighborhood settles down. And the train connections intended for the lower levels of the structure are a decade or more in the future. If they happen at all.

I eventually ran into someone who seemed fairly knowledgeable about the building and asked where the escalators to the train level were going to be, as it wasn’t immediately evident. I was told they couldn’t say for security reasons. Since he did say that the area had been paved over, it isn’t clear to me how this knowledge would be dangerous. My guess is that he just didn’t know. But since he made it more interesting by saying he couldn’t tell me, I raced down and figured it out in a couple minutes. It’s not like there are an unlimited number of places openings for sets of escalators could be. I was even able to confirm my guess based on something missing in the paving in those sections. 

My favorite thing at STC was the water “sculpture.” Jets of water that are triggered by buses moving on the bus level below the park. When buses arrive, you can see the jets of water approaching until the bus pulls into its bay. But this is where it gets good -- when the bus leaves it pulls out quickly and the jets resume without warning. People standing out in this area taking photos -- and it’s tempting to do this -- can then be caught by surprise. I can see myself taking a picnic down there just to enjoy the sun (ha) and watch tourists get soaked. I predict there will be sweatshirts soon, “I Got Drenched at Salesforce Transit Center.” 

On the right is the area where the water jets shoot up. And behind that is the lower part of Salesforce Tower, now the tallest building in town.

The urban view from the park isn’t bad, and it will get better as the projects approved to fund the Transit project continue to get built. By the time they are finished, I suspect the majority of commercial space in downtown will be within a few blocks of STC and there will be a significant amount of new residential as well. (Though not as much residential as I would like to see.) 

So, was it worth all the trouble and expense? Still unclear. Economically, the STC probably requires at least one of the two planned train systems to arrive to be profitable -- and to attract retail to the first and second levels. But the odds of our ever getting both trains is quite low, and even the Caltrain extension is far from certain as it requires an immensely expensive tunnel from Mission Bay to STC. And, on top of that, the entire Caltrain route needs to be electrified and all the locomotives (at least) replaced. This might “pencil out” if the cost is shared with High Speed Rail, but if they have to fund it all themselves, I have a hard time seeing it happen.


On the other hand, the saving grace of the project is all the high rise development that got approved to fund the STC. An amazing amount of land wealth has been created in the vicinity of STC and all these buildings, and their neighbors, will be paying property taxes from now on. That is really the upside of STC. The promise of trains may prove to simply be the bait that got all these buildings built in a city that likes to say “no!”

Here are some photos of the park above the bus station,

This is from the escalators that rise from street level to the bus level.

Some views of the neighborhood from the park,

I have no idea.

This is the new bus bridge that connects STC to the Bay Bridge. The section this side of a loop where that bus in the distance is, is all contraflow, which I'm sure will result in mayhem at some point. It is possible for a car to get mixed in with the buses coming off the bridge, especially if alcohol is involved, and then the confused driver has to negotiate the intersection where he should loop around and get out, but where he could also be flummoxed by the contraflow interchange and end up making a loop around the bus station going against the traffic. 

I wonder if there's a betting pool on how long it will be before that happens?

294. Kite & Art & Soul 2018

Kite Fest 2018

I have been thinking about what I’m calling Golden Cynicism, a personal philosophy based on Golden Retrievers specifically. The Greek Cynics used dogs as a standard for living a good, simple life, and that’s fine, so far as it went, but now we have Golden Retrievers.

If we modeled our behavior on the Golden Retriever we would be much happier and less judgmental. Apparently. So I’m trying to apply this while dealing with the public, and especially the food vendors, at our greening events. Mostly it’s working. I was in a better mood and gave out fewer dirty looks on Saturday. I did have to take a mental health break toward the end of the day after the second person had thrown a diaper into the compost I was carting around, but I often forget to take my breaks so this was, in its way, a good thing. And I didn’t throw the diaper at the person, which is what we all really want to do. “Baby steps” is, I believe, a popular way to describe this degree of progress. 

Unfortunately there was a little setback at the end of the day involving a food vendor (surprise). There were two food vendors generating particularly heavy compost. The oyster guy and the fruit guy. The fruit guy in particular was leaving overly heavy plastic bags of fruit trimmings. It was a problem for us and for them. So I found them a green, rigid plastic, container to hold the trimmings and lined it with a bag because that can be useful even when you just dump the container. At the end of the day, I was amazed (which is kind of cute really) to discover that they had removed the heavy bag and set it on the ground for us to deal with. For just an instant I was an angry wiener dog, giving them the stink-eye and barking out, I mean pointing out how this creates a problem for people who are not them.

The next day I worked the Art and Soul Festival in Oakland instead, so we will never know how my tentative plan to set their tent on fire if they did that again would have played out. 

Perhaps I just haven’t thought the Golden Cynic thing through all the way. Perhaps next time I will be able to just smile through an episode like this and think, “Well, of course this is what they will do.” And then, after they’re gone, come back and piss on their tent and take a dump where they have to walk.


As an organization we’ve had a lot of turnover since last year and there were mostly new people working on Saturday, and the crew chief had never worked the event before, so I got to play my second role of walking institutional memory. I let her know that we didn’t usually put eco-stations at the more remote seating areas of the park -- too far to walk and they don’t get used anyway; and impressed on her the importance of used cooking oil disposal. This had blown up two years before, was addressed last year, and then nearly forgotten again. It’s in our contract and some of the food vendors know this. The crew chief was then able to save oil containers on Saturday and rent a truck for Sunday to haul the oil away. Problem averted before anyone noticed.

What’s especially interesting about the above is that the only reason I was working that day was that my boss, as often happens about this time of the busy season, spaced-out on posting notices for future events and by the time I knew Art And Soul was up, there were no Saturday shifts I wanted. So when she finally posted Kite Fest, I jumped on it. 

Art and Soul 2018

If it weren’t for the three and a half hour transit time to get to Berkeley Kite, I would have preferred to work both days there, but Downtown Oakland makes for an easy, half hour transit ride and I get to work with one of my favorite people, James. 

James was puzzled that I was working as early a shift as I was, but it was really perfect. I had time to go around and fix some problems (put bags in a couple eco-stations his guys had forgotten) and to sort the carts (what Oakland calls toters) positioned behind all the food vendors before the event really got going. I would have liked to have stayed another half hour to finish sorting the vendor bags at the end -- but that assumes they would give us all the bags promptly, which is not always the case. But I had time to show one of our new workers how I handle the vendor bags, so I’m sure she was able to handle it. 

The worst part was all the food we were throwing into compost. There were entire trays of prepared macaroni and cheese or of egg salad that we had to scoop out and dump because it’s hard to find a home for things like that at 8pm on a Sunday. Entire unopened bags of produce had to be cut open and dumped for the same reason. And then there was the chicken. I’ve become numb to this, but my coworker was appalled by the number of chickens represented by the cooked but unsold meat we were tossing into the compost. It turned out we were both veggies, but that doesn’t make you feel all that much better about this. And the aluminum trays all this food has been cooked in are so soiled they can’t even be recycled, so they have to go into the landfill. (Finding a way to wash these trays and other food containers is something we think about, but if you’ve ever washed dishes in a professional kitchen, as I have, you know this is not a trivial task.)

And, of course, most of the food vendors saw the three cart eco-stations behind their tents merely as the place to dump their bags of unsorted trash. Hence our end of the event sorting work that shouldn’t have been necessary.

But fewer diapers; and none thrown into compost I was actually carting around; and, thanks to the dedicated compost carts, no super heavy bags of compost. (Some pretty heavy mixed bags, but I’m trying to forget about those.)

Walking to lunch

I had to cross and then re-cross the street to get around a spray of water coming out of a residential building. When I heard the fire truck coming, I lingered on the corner to watch the show. Once they turned off the water for the entire building it was easy to see that someone had broken, but not quite broken off, the spigot serving the sidewalk. I’ve always wished we had one these on our building, but now I see there are also risks involved.

The next step up is to have the spigot under a locked plate in the sidewalk. The building on the corner of Stockton and Bush (that recently completed a seismic retrofit like ours) has one of these, and it even has this really cool armored hose. Not sure if the hose retracts into the sidewalk -- which sounds like it would be just asking for repair problems -- of if you have to bring it out and connect it. Either option would be nice.

Then, a few more blocks down Bush, I finally came upon the workmen grinding our sidewalks. I’ve been seeing the results of this work all over the neighborhood and was wondering how they were doing it -- big, hand grinders. It’s really brilliant, instead of uneven pavement sections being jackhammered up and replaced, they just grind down the raised edges. Bonus: This gives the ground down sections the appearance of terrazzo. This is one of the best ideas I’ve seen the City implement in a very long time.