Saucyman: Saucyman on the road: San Francisco

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Saucyman on the road: San Francisco –

Team Saucyman headed down I-5 to the bayside cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley for what turned out to be, unsurprisingly, a foodcentric weekend.

A constant, safe opinion to hold is to profess a love for San Francisco. And what is not to love? The hills, the neighborhoods, the history, the stunning views, food and culture. Perhaps it is a contrarian streak but there is little chance that my heart will ever be left in San Francisco.

This especially when stated with the heresy “I like Los Angeles” can cause a look of hurt in a listener’s face that could otherwise only be elicited by abjuring NPR, Prisus owners and strangling kittens. San Francisco is easily the filthiest place I have ever been, & I've been to Mexico City. It is a rare place where you can step in a pile of crap and pray, wish or delude oneself into hoping it was from a dog. Understanding that if it actually came from a dog, someone would have got a ticket for not picking up afterwards.

As a general rule talking about cleanliness causes your co-conversationalist to stare hard and worry harder. Rather than using facts and reason to state why the city bothers me, I’ll attempt to explain via a trope: San Francisco is like heroin. Sure it looks fun with all the seductively glamorous and rockstars doing it, but in reality it is expensive, potentially dangerous and addictive – people can’t quit until they have exhausted themselves.

This trip two things occurred that have never happened before in San Francisco. The sun came out. I have been in the city in August when the combination of cloud cover and high humidity made the whole weekend seem akin to being locked in a refrigerator for two days. But sunshine in February, unbelievable.

Secondly, there was a farmers market, in February.

We are still 6 weeks away from the start of our market in Oregon and months away from the type of selection that was on display, during of all things, the Lenten season. Tomatoes, artichokes, romanesco, citrus, baby carrots - the bounty was, well, bountiful.

Sunshine and food directly from growers are just the type of things that could sway me towards possibly of reconsidering my stated opinion. Added to the experience the food Mecca of Berkeley, where apparently there is a university or something mixed in with all those restaurants. Even Alameda offered a trip to a vodka factory more on that in the next post.

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Basketball

Since the lockout ended, I have been largely silent about the great sport of basketball. Despite Brandon Roy retiring, despite my beloved Blazer’s sprint out of the blocks to a really good start, despite my home team playing a style of basketball than can no longer be described as Van Gundying (Jeff) up the sport’s fluidity.

I don’t know, some interesting developments transpired: During the lockout, analysts and beat writers, the very people who possibly think about professional basketball more than I do, had a light bulb go on over their collective heads and across the league they discovered what everyone else pretty much already knew, NBA Commissioner David Stern is a dick. Over the last decade Stern forced bankrupt municipalities to build new stadiums for billionaires’ new play thing, this heavy handed behavior garnered nothing but praise. The writers sighed and thought eh, “we live in the suburbs, we write for suburban middle managers, our values are if anything anti-urban” - with all the weight that word carries. But needlessly locking out players jeopardizing their tenuous employment in publishing, well that is something that we might complain about except they hate the players more - Oh the conflict.

But mostly I can’t get excited about any team helmed by Nate McMillan. We’ll make the playoffs with a pretty good but not best record, maybe get home court advantage in the first round and then fail to advance. This is true until McMillan proves otherwise, 11 years a coach out of the first round once - this record while coaching some pretty good but not great teams. Along the way Nate will overplay star forwards LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace so there is nothing in the tank come playoff time and risk their health. And yo-yo Nicholas Batum’s minutes so the young player becomes a head case instead of developing into a consistent contributor.

So a predictable finish is part of the my own jejune response to the return of the sport of kings (not really, that's horse racing) maybe it's the sweet science (damnit google says that's boxing). My attitude goes deeper than a finish more predictable than one of McMillan's earth toned, triple pleated suits, if the lockout exposed a fault line in NBA coverage it's that broadcasters and writers are now PR agents for the teams - so who is left to advocate for the fan - thank goodness for blogs and the posting cyborg that is named Henry Abbott.

2nd round or bust