"In 2002, the dot-com bubble had already gone bust with both a bang and a whimper, and those who were left felt like they had dodged a bullet. The city was still filled with freaks and weirdos, lots of them. (Anyone remember the guy who rode around on a unicycle wearing a head-to-toe pink bodysuit?) It was still affordable enough so that you could work a few nights in a restaurant and make enough money to spend the rest of your time."
"Starting with the journals I kept for a UC Santa Cruz project while interning for Bill Graham Presents in the summer of 2002, and continuing up until this very day, I have been writing about the culture and the soul of San Francisco from the view on the street. And I should know - I've been in the thick of it. I've bartended, waited tables, organized massive protests, run for mayor and partied with billionaires."
Moved to San Francisco in 2002 after the dot‑com bust, when the city remained affordable and populated by unconventional characters, enabling service work to subsidize creative pursuits. The city later experienced a recession, a tech boom in the 2010s, a pandemic, and a fraught era some call "empire in decline." Lived roles included bartending, waiting tables, organizing large protests, running for mayor, and socializing with billionaires; municipal recognition included a Broke‑Ass Stuart Day. More than twenty years of experience contain stories of scraping by, speaking up, and falling in and out of love with San Francisco.
Read at SFGATE
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