Rant

I wrote most of this at 2:42 on the morning of Halloween. I fell asleep on the couch again late last night...

I've noticed that people tend to lose their shit when they party in the Tenderloin, and last night was no exception. It's as if all common courtesy and general human behavior fly out the window as soon as someone steps into the Tenderloin late at night. It was at this time late last night that the bars were expelling its throng of partiers. As they left, fights broke out and hoochies screamed at the top of their lungs. This lasted long enough to wake me up, so I'm sure other people were bothered as well. I'm not against people going out and having a good time, what I am saying, is that the Tenderloin is a community where people live and if you come party in a neighborhood you should show some consideration for the people that live in that area. Families and kids and grandparents reside in these apartment buildings. So keep it down the next time you leave a bar.

The Greening

When I get home from work on a beautiful day; all I want to do is park myself outside and read a book. The Golden Gate park is too far away. And Alamo Square park is a yuppie park. And you may wonder, what about the little green area in civic center? I say, NO! That is not what I would envision as a park. That is not a calming space. Not a space where I would like to take a book and read. You may think then I am too picky, but what I want is, what I envision is, more green in this area and all over San Francisco for that matter. We need smatterings of green in the heart of the Tenderloin, not just on the outskirts. Ideally, I’d only have to walk a few blocks to get to a place I would eventually dub as “my park.” “My park” would be small and pretty with flowers of vibrant yellows and purples and reds and oranges. There will be a weeping willow. It has a few benches where senior citizens sit and feed pigeons and talk and maybe, just maybe, there will be a cute little fountain in the middle of this green oasis.
On my quest for picnics on soft green grass, I happened upon a sanctuary…



On the corner of Leavenworth and Ellis you can find the Tenderloin National Forest. It’s a quaint space tattooed with art. My favorite piece, and a reason to not only visit, but return, is a mini cabin with candid pictures hung from the walls. There’s a book on a desk and people write in it and you too can read all that’s within. Take your time, read it. It’s a living piece of work. It changes and has a life of it’s own. You might even be inspired to jot down your own little note.





While I walked around, I met a nice fellow named Ernest, who was working away on an art piece. He pulled off his mask and asked if I had ever been here and I had to tell him no. He explained that this place was renovated by the people who run luggagestoregallery.org and that he and his wife are artists in residence right now, and periodically, there are art exhibitions in this space. Ernest said that for him it is an honor to be working here, since a lot of great artists have come though there, and he meant it too. He, and this place, felt like a shining beacon away from the cold, hard streets of the Tenderloin. The vibe that emanated from this small space was electric and calming. I thanked Ernest for the information, and hopefully, I’ll be seeing his artwork soon in this tiny park, this oasis.

I Plan to be Naked By Lunch

My friend Brittonlee, along with her son, Magnus, and I were headed to the San Francisco Zoo one fine Friday morning. We live pretty close to each other and from my house it’s a quick trip down to Muni where we could catch the bus that would take us to our destination. Our little walk took us by the public library where, from time to time, actually pretty much always, there is a congregation of homeless people that like to hang out around the front steps. Today, as we pass by we hear a lady dressed in black say to her friend, “I plan to be naked by lunch.” My friend smiles at me. I ask her if I had heard that right. Yup, this lady was pretty much stating the facts at the time, which made me wonder what kind of life does this lady lead in which her plan for the whole day entails being naked by lunch. I’ve actually seen way more naked people, mostly homeless people, than I would like to while living in the Tenderloin.

The lady at the Laundromat, the guy peeing behind the car while I was on the phone at the house, the guy peeing at the civic center while I came from Muni, a stream of wee coming from his you-know-what when it should have been in his pants not waving around in the air for all to see. And the ladies, it’s happened more than once, I’ve seen pooping and peeing between cars, their asses hanging out willy nilly. The random shirt that doesn’t fit the way too skinny homeless lady whose boobs you can see when it flaps open. Look away! Look away, I tell myself frantically as an impression of what I’m seeing is being imprinted on my brain at that exact moment. It’s like a car crash really, you see it coming, you know you should look away, but for some sick strange reason, you can’t. And then it’s there, FOREVER! Or at least until I get old and am diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

The lady at the Laundromat, this is what I’m talking about when I say it’ll be there FOREVER. This day was particularly scaring and now I’m apprehensive about what I might see there every time I do the laundry, which is about every week. My Laundromat is not located in my apartment building, but rather it is on the same block. I like to do the laundry as early as possible in the morning, which amounts to about ten or eleven for me.

The day started off fine enough. I gathered my laundry in the bag; I took it down the stairs and put it in to wash. I usually feel pretty safe leaving my laundry alone while it washes since the machines are front loaders and I don’t think someone can or could open them while it’s on. They wash and then I go to transfer them to the dryer. When I get down there this time there’s a lady roaming around the place. She’s dancing and twirling and swaying around. I don’t like to leave my clothes alone in the dryer at times like these. So I sit and wait, figuring she’ll move along soon and I can go back home to get the bags that I will need to collect my clothes. She continues to dance and sway, except now she starts to sort of lift her shirt up, little by little. I’m trying not to watch. There’s only one other person in the Laundromat besides us and he’s reading a newspaper sitting between me and the dancing lady, trying not to pay attention to her. She starts to pick at the visible scabs on her arms. She has a lot of them. I try not to look. This time, as she pulls up her shirt, I see her boobs. I look away. Unfortunately, I keep looking in her direction because she’s dancing next to the dryer with my clothes in it and I don’t want her to mess with it. The next time I look over she has her pants around her ankles, her right hand shoved into her asshole and her left arm is holding her shirt over her head. Shit. I call out, “You probably should put your clothes back on.” The man with the newspaper is still reading his newspaper. He’s ignoring everything, the naked lady, me yelling at the naked lady, the naked lady. This kind of stoicism is an art only to be painstakingly perfected in an area such as the Tenderloin. I’m thinking at this point, if she goes for the clothes, she can have them, they’re hers, because there is no way I’m fighting someone with poop on their hands. I ask the gentleman to please keep an eye on my dryer and tell him that I will be right back. He nods, but doesn’t look away from his paper.

I run up stairs to get my boyfriend to come help me with my situation. I frantically tell him what is happening while I gather the bags and my phone. I make a call to the land-lady who is in charge of the Laundromat and leave her a message. I suggest that there be a regular attendant. We run back downstairs. As we get to the door I notice the lady passed out on the floor by the front door, her clothes on.

Health Advisory

One of the problems we have here in the Tenderloin apparently.

Vote Vote Vote

If I had a special power, you know that hypothetical special power we all think about in a what if way, it would be to know everything that’s happening in the world at all times. My brain would obviously have a way to process all of the information in order to prevent it from exploding! Paying attention to politics and the news is the closest I’ve come to getting my fix for ALL WORLD KNOWLEDGE. With that in mind, I am happy to report that we will be casting our votes on November 2nd in California, for candidates and ballot measures and propositions. I was elated when The Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot came in the mail. I couldn’t wait to soak up all the information available. I like voting, and there are many reasons for that.

One of those reasons happens to be my designated voting place. It’s at an old folks home a few blocks away from my apartment. I never know what will happen when I walk through those double doors. There are about two or three little old Russian ladies that speak no English, and one younger volunteer, who sit at a long table with scattered papers strew about. I greet them and tell the little old lady my name and she starts to flip through the pages as if with an agenda. She looks up at me after a few pages and I repeat myself. She flips though the pages back to the beginning. Forward and backward, she scrolls through the pages a few times. I say, “R, my name starts with an R”. That’s when the big guns are brought in, the youngest volunteer jumps in to help her find my name. She raises her eyebrows as if to suggest ah, yes, here it is, I found it. She hands me the pen and I sign my name. I always look forward to seeing these ladies. It always brightens my day.

I like filling out the little paper and taking it with me on the day of and using that huge black marker to connect the arrow to my choice. And after you’ve made your choices and connected the arrows, you get to feed your pages into the machine. It sucks them up super fast! After, they hand you this red circular sticker that says, “I voted, ya voté and the equivalent in Chinese characters.” I used to live in Oregon where all the voting is done by mail. There was no going down to the designated place to cast your vote. You fill in your choices and send it back before the rest of the country does their voting. It’s much less exciting than going on the specified day and casting your vote with the rest of the country. It’s not a perfect system by any means, and whether or not I agree with the outcome, I enjoy being part of the process.

This November 2nd I will be voting No on Proposition L. If this proposition passes it will make it illegal for people, any person, not just bums, to sit and lie down on sidewalks in San Francisco from 7am to 11pm. You may not see the problem with this proposition, as you think you’re always on the move, but my boyfriend is an artist and as he pointed out, he wouldn’t be allowed to sit on a curb to sketch if this was in effect. I believe this issue is a symptom of a larger problem, and should be fixed in another way. Also, very important to those of us that live in the Tenderloin, which is in District 6, Chris Daly’s seat as Supervisor of is up for grabs! It’s very important to me that we pick the right person. District 6 is large and encompasses the Embarcadero and the Financial District and part of the Mission, but the Tenderloin needs some TLC, so if you too live in this district, do some research and find out who you think will benefit our community. Or watch the video at the bottom of the page, which shows the candidates debating the issues. And of course remember to register to vote!

The Tenderloin:

It’s like pornography, there’s no clear definition, but you know it when you see it





I live in San Francisco in a neighborhood called the Tenderloin. When guide books refer to this area they often say it's “vibrant”. It's often referred to as vibrant because this is the neighborhood where all the crazies and bums congregate. The Tenderloin is loud and dirty and has mass amounts of pooh on the ground, but these are things that contribute to its unique charm. Because of the amount of feces on the ground, my boyfriend has taken to making a game out of it. He will point at the pile of poopy, and if I look at it, I lose. He wins if I see poop, and I lose. It’s that simple. I try my best not to look in the direction of the pointing finger, because now I know what’s in store for me. I usually lose this game. There’s another game I invented. The idea is as simple as the first, basically, it’s imperative that I make sure to step over the trickle of water flowing from the corner of the wall out toward the street. It might be pee or it might not, but most likely it is, especially when some guy has his crotch tucked into a corner of a building I’m walking by and a long stream is racing my way. Best to avoid these in any case, just in case! Despite these games, driven by avoidance of public bowel movements, I like living here. I’m centrally located and I have all kinds of transportation options all around. Plus, it’s entertaining. Only, my time here may be coming to an end.

The TenderNob, is a quaint euphemism for the area between Nob Hill and the Tenderloin. It means you’re sort of close to the Tenderloin now, but still in a “nice” neighborhood. Nice, meaning people aren’t slumped over on the sidewalk begging for change or half naked, or pooping on the sidewalk as you walk by only to smile up at you and say, “Hi,” while still in the act. I’m conflicted about the TenderNob encroaching on the Tenderloin. I’m not going to lie, I like the cleaner streets up there, but I am worried that the TenderNob spells trouble for us who live, or especially for those who want to move into the Loin. It seems to be getting closer and closer. The rents have skyrocketed all over the city, but haven’t really effected the Tenderloin, until now. When I moved in six years ago, my deposit alone was 1,100 dollars. I recently saw a posting for an available apartment in my building with a move-in deposit of $1,600. As the TenderNob creeps toward the Tenderloin, so to do the expensive rents.

There’s a project in the works for a Tenderloin museum to be located at Eddy and Leavenworth in the Cadillac hotel, which the organizers say will serve the purpose of attracting more tourists into the area, instead of them avoiding it at all costs. More information on the project can be found here. According to the website, besides issues such as needing a bunch of money and not having the logistics worked out yet, from what I read, it sounds like they maybe want to give tours of the hotel including the rooms and the people who live there. Picture, a tourist group coming through every half hour to gawk at the destitute behind plate glass windows with headsets telling of how these people have been reduced to living there. Other than these issues, my biggest compliant about the museum, at the moment, is the name. They want to call it the Uptown Tenderloin Museum. There’s really nothing uptown about the Tenderloin and calling it so, does not make it so. The development of this museum indicates a changing tide, people want to clean up this neighborhood, whether it be for the good of the city and community, or for their wallets.

I guess I should be wondering why development of this area hasn’t happened sooner, considering the Tenderloin is the neighborhood adjacent to downtown and the main shopping/tourist area of San Francisco. I’ll have to admit, I do get sort of embarrassed when tourists end up walking through the Tenderloin unwittingly, with wide-eyed expressions, trying not to show fear and disgust while at the same time looking for the next block that will hopefully take them out of this area and back to safety. I remember feeling like that when I moved into this neighborhood. I’m from a small town with only 25,000 people in it when I left. I remember when I first moved here I didn’t want to leave my house at night and I did my best not to make eye contact with anyone. Now, when I tell people that I live in the Tenderloin and they get this kind of look that emotes concern, I tell them it’s not as bad as you think, which is true. I feel safer with lots of crazies around instead of empty streets. When I go back to that small town, it’s the silence and pitch black outdoors that bothers me.

San Francisco has a rich history of emigrants coming to settle here trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, while in turn making our city a more interesting, dare I say, better place. The people most effected by rising rents in the city are immigrants, people of color, families and recent graduates from college. Neighborhoods closer to downtown like the Mission, and the Tenderloin have maintained more affordable rents in the city, for the time being. I wonder if there will be a day in the near future when these people can no longer afford to live downtown, or in the city of San Francisco at all.

I ask myself now, after considering these matters, should I be tagging the neighborhood? Should I be throwing my feces on the ground or paying the bums to stay on the streets? Should I be messing up my own neighborhood in order to keep the rents low? These people and streets may reek of ass, and it may be easy enough to dismiss this as you pass by, but what they really reek of is help needed, of a service that needs to be provided. There’s been a general lack of concern for the people here. We turn a blind eye as we walk by, hoping someone else will deal with it, but who is looking? We need to deal with the greater issues at hand. These people have congregated here for a reason. They’ve been here for awhile. So don’t push them out, this is their home. This is my home. I love it for what it is. I like living here. I say, let the restaurants and shops and museums come, but I want to stay too.

We're from Australia

One night at about five in the morning something aroused me from my couch slumber. I heard faint knockings in the distance and suddenly the noise grew louder, a rapid, bang, bang, bang. I knew immediately it was the front door to the building being harassed. Uhhh, I think, lame people, stupid, damn it. I hear these people, that I’m starting to imagine faces for them, try the buzzer. I imagine them jamming their feeble fingers on to every button available, smashing with abandon, not aware that the buzzer hasn’t worked for a very long time. I smile to myself. I hope someone just comes home with a key and decides whether or not these are the kind of people that should be let into the building. Not my problem. I tell myself, I’m sleeping anyway, it’s five in the morning. My blinds are open. The lights are on in my living room. These are the problems with the not my problem plan.

Moments later I think I hear a knock on my window. I wait to see if I really did. Yup, there it is again. I reach over to put on my glasses and that is when I see a bleach-blond, dread-lock having boy’s head at my second story window. I cannot believe this person has the audacity to climb up here and pop his head in front of my window. I’m shaken. As I start to process what is happening, I hear something muffled coming through the closed and locked window, “We’re from… Australia!”, with an accent matching his declaration. He starts in, trying to explain exactly how he has gotten to this point in his life to be hanging from my windowsill. “We’re from Australia,” he repeats, as if that is what explains the entire situation. Never having been to Australia, I think, maybe this is the way they enter their homes, or maybe he just wants to make friends. “We,” he must have a friend down there, waiting to be let in, “don’t have keys and we’re staying with some people on the fifth floor, can you please let us in.” I don’t actually remember if he said “please,” but, I’d like to think that he did indeed beg for me to let him in.

At this point, I haven’t decided whether or not I am going to let him in. A few things start to run through my mind at this moment, like, I hate it when people follow me into my building without considering the fact that I hate it. If you live here, you should have your own keys. If you don’t, and you are visiting from out of town, then your host should have graciously made you a copy, nobody will know. I’m also thinking that maybe they aren’t staying here and they might be confused. It sounds to me like he’s from Australia. I shouldn’t leave them out there in my neighborhood, but it’s five in the morning and what are they doing without keys right now, what have they been doing all night? ! Why isn’t the person they’re visiting with them? The thought that finally convinces me to let them in is none of these previous thoughts. I think, what if I don’t let them in and they sit outside for a long, long time, and then they eventually do get in to the building, I’m not their favorite person. They know where I live.

“Climb down,” I tell him through the window. From the other room my boyfriend was listening to the whole exchange and asks if I’m going to let them in and I say yes. While I slip on my flip-flops I’m thinking it’s a good thing that I was, A. sleeping with clothes on and B. not having sex in the living room. “Don’t get killed,” my boyfriend yells after me as I leave the apartment. Butthead.

I couldn’t just leave these guys from Australia outside in my neighborhood. I feel responsible for them now that they‘ve asked for my help. They both have skateboards and they look fairly harmless, so I do it, I let them in. They thank me over and over again. They’re hammered. “Thank you so much. We’re visiting from Australia and we’re staying with people on the sixth floor.” They said fifth before. I start up the stairs and mind you there’s an elevator in our building, which the taller guy points out to the wall climber. I figure they’re going to use it, but instead Dreads wants to share his evening with me, and they follow me up the stairs. Apparently, I don’t like it when people follow me up the stairs after I let them in to the building at five in the morning. I say nothing. He continues, “We were riding our skateboards and this guy was yelling at us that he was going to beat us up.” “Welcome to the neighborhood,” I say. We’re at my door now, and the taller of the two wants to shake my hand, okay we’re doing this. I shake his hand. Dreads wants to talk some more, but I say, “Okay boys, have a good night. Don’t bother anyone." They continue up the stairs as I let myself into my apartment.

You know, I learned a few lessons the night the Australian boy climbed up to my window. First, I won’t be leaving the blinds open at night anymore; there’s something really invigorating about opening the windows in the morning anyway. Also, at any given time throughout the day, or night, you never know who you’ll meet, or what you’ll see, when you live in the Tenderloin.



Welcome to the neighborhood!