My second dispatch from San Francisco is a stark change in tone from the first communique (click here to read). That initial immersion was colored in an quiet and calm. A downtown serene and dare I say unexpectedly clean. This experience, not so much. Not nearly so much at all.
Dispatch #2: Into the Heart of Darkness
My band used to play at a bar called the Blue Lamp on Geary Street back in the day, working out songs for our 1996 album Eskimo in the Sun. It was colorful. Think the Lower East Side, NYC or SoHo, London. By this I mean artists and musicians and the odd banker wandering down from the Financial District. Barflies and Bukowskies and those comfortable with the unpredictable. The neighborhood purveyors of illicit fun and fantasy would stop at the Blue Lamp as they made their rounds, checking the evening interest and taking the pulse. The pulse of the Tenderloin.
The Blue Lamp is long since closed, but further down Geary Street sits the Ha-Ra Club. When Danny Garcia asked me for an interview for his upcoming rock documentary, I thought the Ha-Ra would be the perfect venue. It provided the setting for my 2020 rock drama, Last Night at the Ha-Ra, and has the vintage dive bar feel tailor-made for a film centered on the retro fuzz/grunge music scene, circa 1980s. So to the Ha-Ra we went, Bill and his top-flight production crew (featuring Jess Magill/Cinematography and Direction, and Stella Magill/Audio and Makeup).
A brisk walk through some mean streets is enjoyed getting from the Civic Center metro stop to the Ha-Ra, through the dark heart of the Tenderloin, 2023 edition. Addicts in full view inhaling fentanyl over small squares of heated tinfoil, unconcerned by (or oblivious to) pedestrians like us or passing SFPD cruisers. Sidewalks over-spilling with filthy tents competing for small squares of concrete real estate. Men and woman old and young nodded out, leaning back, folded over, or laid out flat. Sandpaper gravel voices barking nonsense to no one. The composite of smells and sights and sounds most foul can be overwhelming.
This is not a war zone, not a Mariupol or Gaza City. Those are perilous places for all: the wolves and sheep and guardians in between. The Tenderloin doesn’t feel threatening as much as disorderly, desolate, and sad. Violent crime is mostly shared amongst thieves; those with little victimizing those with nothing. One is advised to watch the watch and wallet as pickpocketing is common, as is the Tenderloin mainstay of vice in its many splendors. And all of that is not new for this part of the city. What’s new is its concentration. And what’s new is fentanyl.
No one aspired to be destitute on these soiled streets. When young and still innocent, no one imagined themselves curled up in a passed-out ball, pants down in their own waste when dreaming about life’s possibilities. I saw preppy women and men in trendy, clean clothes huddled in Tenderloin doorways, shoulder to shoulder with the toothless and ragged. What were they thinking, okay, this is the last time?
I think of my own amazing children, full of promise and mercifully resistant to the call of the mad. And I think of the parents of those lost souls who’ve heeded the call. The words that surely fill their sleepless hours: what happened to my beautiful baby? I’m not fearful walking through the Tenderloin, I’m heartbroken.
We must be humble in the face of these challenges, resolute to real solutions, but compassionate. We can agree that everyone deserves to feel safe on their streets, protected from harassment and the assault of extreme filth and disorder. No one should be stepping over prone, possibly dead, bodies or dodging anything worse than dogshit on their way to school or work. Jess lives in the Tenderloin, which makes it even more immediate and concerning. But let us remain human and not surrender our hearts to the darkness of the jungle.
I won’t leave this dispatch on brighter note, that would feel needlessly dishonest. After this second deep dive into the Magic Kingdom I can encourage a visit, but for now avoid the Tenderloin.
Click these links to read dispatches #1 (All Quiet on the Western Front) and #3 (Across the Universe) from this San Francisco journey.