San Francisco's Crumblin'

Katie took a trip to San Francisco on Friday night and was met with bums, junkies, ffffecal matter, drugs and explosives. A&G also have their own horror stories out of SF. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But I can't believe we made it till Tuesday before
he got around asking Katie Green about this now Friday's show.
I think we were talking about this, you would. Your
husband's a heavy metal music fan big time? Is that
what you call that kind of music?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's not what I call it?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
What do you.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
Call it?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I can't say it on the air heavy metal.

Speaker 5 (00:20):
It's metal in general. But there are you know, thirty
seven subcategories, sub genres.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
I know this from my son, who's crazy into it.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
I call this genre. Are they saying words?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's nice you too, You get together and you make
it work otherwise, but you have different choices.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
Tastes in music, which of course is fine.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
He humored. He humors my concerts. I humor his, so
it's fair.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
But so you went to this concert in San Francisco
and then you were texting us on you know, personally
internally on our group thread to Joe and I and
Michael Enhansen some of your experiences. Would you like to
recount those? In San Francisco?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
It was it was.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
A a puckalyptic. I mean, we we parked three. First
of all, the show was at the war Field, which
is a pretty historical venue. And it's right on Market Street,
which is the main vein of downtown San Francis.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
I've seen some awesome shows there.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Mind you.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
The warfield is within a rocks throw from the Tenderloin
and we were going.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
To a delicious what does that mean for?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, right, thank you. Sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Outside of the city of San Francisco, it's the s hole.
I mean, it's where all the drugs are, all the
bums and junkies, all of the just all the.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Gross, all the gross is there.

Speaker 5 (01:35):
Yeah, bums and junkies and hose and needles and crime
and you name.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
It, right.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
So we parked half a block, ended up walking maybe
three total in three blocks. I saw four piles of
human prequel matter precisely, Michael, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
You saw how many piles in.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
A block in three blocks, full piles of it.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
So yeah, unless one has an odd fetish, you should
not come across that ever in your adult life.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Really, no, no, And and just I mean looking around there,
there was a guy that was clearly smoking fentanyl.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
He was using tinfoil and a straw.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
The amount of people that looked dead laying along the
street were standing in the vent.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
We had just.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Gotten inside the warfield where they were checking our IDs
to put our booze bracelets on, and somebody chucked in
M one thousand, which is technically a stick of dynamite
at the front of the I mean, it was just
it was a night of what the hell is going
on here? And when we got when we got in
the car to leave, I looked at my husband, Drew,
and I went that made me really sad. Yeah, because

(02:50):
I've had some great times, you know, going to the
warfield and seeing some incredible shows and musicians there, and
now I don't want to go back.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
Wait.

Speaker 5 (02:58):
It really has the feel of I don't know, Blade
Runner or one of your one of your post apocalyptic movies.
And the guys who I've come across a couple of
times who are doing that weird fentanyl or trank or
whatever squat where they're squatting with their head and arms
hanging down and I don't know how they balanced like that,
as wasted as they clearly are. But yeah, people who

(03:19):
are just shells.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, they call that the nod. And there was one
guy that really broke my heart. He was he was
relatively well dressed, maybe my age, the early thirties.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
And he was I thought he might have been dead.
I looked at my husband.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
I want you to know, we call nine one one
for him, because he was. He looked like a corpse,
just laying out on Market Street. Clearly new to the
drug scene. He'd you know, hadn't been weathered by the
streets of San Francisco yet. But it was really really
sad and a real eye opener as to why that
city is collapsing.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Well, and remember the numbers coming out of the pandemic.
Way more people in San Francisco died a drug overdoses
than COVID wasn't even close.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Well, there's no shame in using I mean the amount.
It's free for all out there.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yeah, And occasionally you'll come across one of these people
and they're, like you say, they're not so weathered and
beat up that you can't see the little boy or
little girl that they were still in their face, in
their face rather and I'm reminded for the emptieenth time
of that brilliant essay written about the true fruits of
the policies in San Francisco making it as easy and

(04:27):
comfortable to be a junkie as possible. They call it compassion.
It doesn't look like compassion to me. It looks like
we're easing our young into death on the pavement.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, and there are many people who are very close
to just that around the city.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'm sure what you and your husband were thinking as
you were walking trying to avoid piles of human poop
to get to your concert more.

Speaker 5 (04:51):
Than one per block, Yeah, we're so according to recent figures,
one point three piles of poop per block.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, poop to block ratio was off.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
I'm sure as you were walking along there past the
people that looked like corpses, you were thinking, Man, I
wish the rent wasn't so high, because that's what's causing
all this, the unaffordable housing. It's just the rent is high,
so the only choice you have is to poop on
the street and do froentanel and look like a corpse.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
And my story of the last time we brought the
family to a Giant's game, which was it was a
couple of years ago now because they hired an America hater,
but who they then fired, thank you, but the guy
who was pantless humping the pavement as everybody was leaving
the game with a cop right across the street, ignoring

(05:44):
him in front of kids and families and everything.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
What do you mean ignore? What was he going to give?
Is there a ticket for making sweet love to a street?

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Is that a decent exposure?

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Used to be a thing, that's true.

Speaker 5 (05:54):
Well, yeah, the guy was bare ass nude in public,
simulating intercourse with the an intimate moment with an intersection.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
If it had been one of you guys, you would
have been arrested.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Let's tell you that.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Way right right, It would ruin your life. Of course,
intersection intercourse. Yeah, but anyway, so picture that guy and
he's probably you know, fruit loops and wasted and the
rest of it.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
Or the many people apparently who are defecating on the sidewalks.
What what level of lawlessness and lack of civilization are
you at? If you just squat and defecate on a sidewalk.
You need to think about that act, not in the abstract,

(06:38):
but specifically just stopping and crapping on a public street.
What level of depravity and crumbling civilization does that symbolize?

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Does that indicate?

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, astonishing the old broken windows idea that you know
it might seem minor, but if we take care of
the broken windows. That'll just you know, blah blah blah.
We all know that, and I agree with it. Yeah,
you're way down the road from a broken window when
people are just stopping and pooping in the street.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Speaking for dudes, we've all been in a situation where
we wanted to duck behind the dumpster, bushes or whatever
to relieve ourselves, perhaps after over imbibing. But you know,
you think, oh my god, if somebody comes along, I'm
going to be mortified, or I might get arrested or something.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Gross. Well it is gross.

Speaker 5 (07:28):
Yeah, you shouldn't be urinating on people's private property. But
so we've gone from I got to hold it. I
can't duck behind this dumpster too, I'm just gonna squat
on the sidewalk of a major thoroughfare.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
That exact situation happened to me after the concert. By
the way, I realized, oh, I should have I should
have gone before we left, and then I thought, ah.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
You know what this city.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
And then I went, no, you're not doing that, and
I got in the car like a civilized human being
and drove home and handled it.

Speaker 5 (07:54):
Then.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
But you know, you think about that, You're like, well,
you get away from everything here.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Right, Oh yeah, yeah, I actually my son and I
did that walking away from the Giants Dodgers game.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
He needed the go bathroom, I said, nobody cares.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I mean, look, the overwhelming smell of urine was so
strong on the street. What am I gon gonna tell
him to hold it until we can find a restroom.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
They just went.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Adding to the.

Speaker 5 (08:20):
Aggressive Yeah, way to go, nice parenting there, anyway. You know,
if they really want to make a little extra money
at venues, what they ought to do is, because everybody
can relate to this. You're leaving the concert, at the
game whatever, there are throngs of human beings leaving. There

(08:41):
are lines at the bathrooms because everybody wants totill relieve
themselves before they jump in their car, walk and go
home whatever, And especially the women's room. And you're thinking, nah,
you know, I'm all right, I'm alright, let's just go.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
But you've made a mistake at that moment.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Would you pay ten dollars to use a pristine bathroom
there has practically no line. Yeah, I'm absolutely pro pay
toilet one without hesitation.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Yeah, some sort of Perhaps this is not the name
you want to go with, but a rich person bathroom,
a privileged party. Yeah, the privileged party. Ten dollars cover charge.
You go in there, then you drive home and comfort Well.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
My experience of being in other cities and other places
in the world where they do that, it doesn't have
to be very much.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
A buck is fine.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
It keeps the riff raff out, and it's plenty of
money throughout the day with hundreds of people to keep
the place really clean.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
But it's not inclusive. San Francisco is the city of inclusivity.

Speaker 5 (09:40):
Right, Yeah, listen to mister Rockefeller, riff raff. I'm riff
raff if I don't have a dollar, mister, look at me,
I have a dollar. This is the one percent looking
down on the rest of us.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
And remember you met you. We both mentioned the San
Francisco Giants. Their manager said, one of the reasons they
miss out on the great baseball players when they're free
agents is their wives look around and think, we.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Ain't living here. I'm sure, I'm sure that's true.

Speaker 5 (10:12):
And the famously politically correct front office said, yeah, not
only do they not want to like sign a free
agent contract, they don't even want to come here for
a three game series. We've right out right, players, the
hell of a comment to make.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Players dread coming too San Francisco to for a road game,
and the and for the Giants.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Across the street from the ballpark, there's some major restaurants
that have always been there. It's Pedros, Pedros Momos, and
then now I can't remember the name of the other
one because it shut down.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
I noticed the other day.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
And those places are always packed, right, And now one
of the major restaurants across the across the street from
the ballpark closed.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's just an empty building.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
How long will it take until the bulk of the
populace as we are putting aside our preconceptions, in our
cherished political beliefs, and admitting that.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
This does not work, well, you can't go any further
than this. It's just now, it's just how long do
you sustain it?

Speaker 5 (11:13):
Because you can't really do that sounds like a that
sounds like a challenge to me, the city fathers and
mothers of San Francisco.

Speaker 4 (11:21):
You can't, we can't go any further.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
You watch, We're gonna have dead bodies piled on the street.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
We're gonna have fifteen poohs per block.

Speaker 5 (11:32):
Let's show you before we abandon our progressive precepts. First
time I ever saw this sort of thing, and I've
told this story many times, was in Vancouver, Canada. They
have a they're super progressive lefty up there, and they
had a section of town where there were no rules
on drugs, and the idea was, you know, let people
do their drugs where they want to do their drugs.
And I want to check that zone out because I

(11:54):
wanted to see what it was like, and it was
just I'd never seen anything like it. Well now that
is big junks of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Wherever, Portland, Seattle.
I think one of the marks of being a realist
or an adult honestly is admitting when you're wrong. And

(12:15):
I wasn't exactly wrong about the experiment with decriminalizing hard drugs,
but I have been shocked the extent to which a
chunk of humanity has opted for being a pathetic, sad
junkie heading directly for the grave ruining our great cities.

(12:36):
I've been just shocked how far that's gone.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
I'll be somewhat charitable in that maybe you decide initially
whether to try those drugs or not, but they're so
incredibly addictive. Your decision making is over fairly quickly.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
Right, But at that point, and I think you're right,
I think you've come across an interesting point. If you
know longer have the power of rational decision making as
a citizen, and what you're doing is bringing ruin upon
my community, at what point do I have the right
to intercede?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, throw them in somewhat jail, I guess, yeah, some
sort of compulsory something or other. Yeah, I'm at least
willing to have the discussion.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
Armstrong and