Day 8: Surfing the Sewers

I guess Lou's Records, where I am occasionally employed, is a chain store. I was relatively certain it was a one-of-a-kind location, but the above is photographic proof to the contrary. Apparently our San Fransisco branch has in-store appearances which vastly outnumber those of our Encinitas branch...

Moving on...

The Haight/Ashbury. The birthplace of the counterculture, the home of the peace movement, the location of many a great concert back in the 60's. And now, another tourist trap. The Haight today is to hippies what Fisherman's wharf is to sailors - a grotesque corporate parody of a now-extinct subculture, which ends up bearing only a superficial resemblance to the movement it attempts to chameleon. A charicature. There is a Gap clothing store on Haight street, which of course is as "square" and "unhip" as you can get - but even worse are the string of equally overpriced "indie" clothes stores, which wear rugged names like "Wasteland" and "Villians" in an attempt to mask the fact that they carry the same overpriced jeans and t-shirts. It would be no surprise to learn that these stores are in fact owned by the same corporate entity as the Gap itself. The closest thing to a genuine thrift store in this location is Buffalo Exchange, a huge chain of overpriced vintage wear which has branches all the way down in my hometown.

Distracted by this insult of a historic block, I tripped over a sleeping vagrant and fell into the sewers below San Francisco. Is it any coincidence that these sewers were far more beautiful than the city whose waste they disposed of? It was almost as if they were not sewers at all, but rather an impressively bizarre sculpture... but that's unlikely, as it would show good taste uncharacteristic of San Fransisco to have such a momument erected.