Another corporate takeover of the public streets of San Francisco took place this past weekend. Out at Ocean Beach that multinational sneaker company that calls itself Nike decided to set up shop to put on an ad campaign in the name of fitness—this time women’s fitness. Streets were blocked, parking spaces swooped up, Google style buses clogging streets and of course, the participants ran their race while the ravens looked on from the trees and wires above. These events are like massive masquerade parties and you look and wonder what theme is it this time, what costumes are they wearing, what corporate logo will be affixed to the ass—of which there are multitudes.
So there they were, the followers and/or disciples of this worldwide sneaker company, pounding the pavement nice and early. Some streets were blocked off and many residents were trapped because of the anointed sneaker race in progress. I stood and watched the participants at the conclusion of the race—all very satisfied, smug and oblivious to the neighborhood trounced upon by the endless passels of sneakers. A coyote from nearby Golden Gate Park walked over to me.
“What’s up blood?” asked the coyote.
“You know how it is” I answered. “Another pain in the ass footrace”
“I hear you on that. I was watchin’ the way some of ‘em was runnin’. They was runnin’ like a coyote was chasin’ ‘em”
“Where you chasing them?”
“Hell no, today’s my day off. But this whole Nike thing is old. I heard some of these runners saying just do it. What the hell does that mean? It don’t mean nothing. I mean, payless shoes should have done this event”
“I hear you”
“I mean, it kinda reminded me of that blue grass concert shit they did in the park a month or so ago. Tons of people and I don’t know where the hell they came from. Comin’ into my home with all that noise. One of the owls came by and told me that Paul McCartney was playing and that I needed to go and check it out”
“Do you like Paul McCartney?”
“Hell no I don’t like him! Singing all that silly love song bullshit. He’s had more dye jobs than a Grateful Dead T-shirt. He should have retired a long time ago along with Rod Stewart and Elton John and that punk ass KOIT s**t”
“Who do you like then?
“Tony Bennett…now there’s a singer”
“Yeah…that’s true”
“Alright, I’ll holler at you later. I gotta get up outta here”
The coyote left and I headed to the bus stop. A sea of people was there. I had to get to a panel discussion that I was to facilitate at the SF Public Library. With the crowd at the bus stop and the crowd one and two stops before mine, I knew that getting on a bus was a long shot. Many cabs and google styled passenger busses whizzed by with people behind the tinted glass. Where did they come from?
I stood at the stop with all those runners. In the distance I saw a bus. I stood and hoped that the bus would stop close to me so I could be among the first to board. The bus approached and the bus driver took mercy on me. It was brother. He stopped and the door was right there in front of me. The only thing I needed was a red carpet. For a native San Franciscan, this rarely happens—good luck on public transit. I got on and others flooded in through the front and back doors. It was the good ship Nike. I moved my way towards the rear. I made it to the middle.
I was the only man on the bus. It was an army of nike women who—upon looking at them—I determined could likely do me some great physical harm, even with a coyote at my side. A wide variety—some looked like they could have come from a pot club vacation while others looked like another version of the burning man. My ears were flooded with the talk and voices of those providing recaps of the run, the strides, the human competition. I noticed a sameness about them; perhaps they went to the same schools, listened to the same music, colonized the same neighborhoods, ate Thai and Ethiopian food regularly or wore the same running shoes.
One of them called out to another, “I’m going to have brunch, then there’s a quaint little place we can go to get a pint of Guinness”. I looked at the folks who were, along with myself, packed in like anchovies. A few wore cape-like things draped over their shoulders. The material looked like aluminum foil. It made me thing of the old jiffy pop popcorn that used to explode from the aluminum foil casing when placed on a stove. I waited to hear a sound, a pop. And I heard them popping off about the thousand dollar training camps that you can go to to prepare for these running events, about how foggy it is out at Ocean Beach and, of course, how things are different here in comparison to their hometowns. One woman, sitting, who came to support a friend who was running said, “I didn’t run in the race”. I looked at the woman and her bulky girth of foot race support and thought: YEAH, NO KIDDING
I finally got to my stop. I felt good to be away from the corporate logos, corporate air, corporate water. I got off the bus and walked to where I had to go. Let the rest of them run back to where ever it is they came from.