Baseball and Bicycle Bastards
On Saturday we went to see the San Francisco Giants play at SBC Park. The Muni disrupted itself so we walked from the BART Embarcadero station. I am not a baseball fan, you could say, so I brought some books along. But we had some suprisingly nice seats where you could actually see what was going on, and when we got there, in the third inning, the score was 0-0 and the Nationals were walking Giants to fill the bases. Then J.T. Snow and Moises ALOU, whom I know primarily as a popular filler in crossword puzzles, went and scored a bunch of runs.
The game was a gift from Jessica’s employer, otherwise such nice tickets would run $40 per seat. So, Yayoi, and Matt and Jessica and I bought $8 beers and garlic fries and near the end some Ben and Jerry’s ice creams and had a groovy time. Near the end of the game, the Giants were winning, and the air became thick with pigeons and seagulls, scanning the stands for abandoned snacks as the stadium began to empty. At the top of the ninth the Nationals scored a few runs, putting them ahead. The Giants . . . lost.
We went dress shopping at the nearby Jessica McClintock outlet, because Jessica wanted to get a wedding banquet dress because she’s getting married, you see, to Matt. It had all the proletarian white floursecent lighting, industrial white tiles, and naked white walls that you’d find at any other thrift store, with nowhere for the bored men to sit, but it was all fancy dresses. After much deliberation, Yayoi bought two $10 dresses.
And we drove over to the Mission for Drinks. At 18th St. and Valencia I had to call 911, because a trio of bicyclists were vandalizing a pickup truck and screaming very obscene words at the old guy inside. We gathered that he had run in to one of the bicyclists, who was now joined with his comrades at channelling a wholly inappropriate amount of self-righteous indignation at this poor guy. When the cops arrived, the bicyclists scattered, and Matt and I relayed what we had seen.
And, you know, my prejudices run more with bicyclists, and I have even been hit by a car myself, which I can tell you does get your adrenaline pumping, but even so, these bicyclists were acting like self-important children, and not like the mature adults that anyone with such self-righteousness should at least pretend to be. That they scattered like rats at the approach of the police just cemented my impression that they were in the wrong, without even a minor injury or dented rim to excuse their indignation. Street criminals. Thugs. It is because I believe that bicycling is an important alternative to driving cars that I feel so irritated at these people; Be smug. Be a self-righteous asshole. Vandalise cars. Scream obscenities at old people with disabilities. Be a bicyclist!
Well, one guy said about that, “if people would just drink martinis we wouldn’t have such problems,” we returned to our primary objectives, which were two pitchers of margaritas, and then a fantastic meal at a Thai restaurant before getting back on the BART and riding home to s–miling and sleep.
