Late To The Party

This has been plastered all over the Internet at this point, so I feel like I'm a little late to the party on this one. Then again, being late has never stopped me before. The video below is of a guy named Ted Williams. (No, not the baseball player who had his head lopped off and frozen in some cryonics lab somewhere.) He is homeless, seemingly due to drug and alcohol problems that plagued in him the past. He claims to be two years sober and is now looking for work. What makes him different from all of the other homeless guys that accost my vehicle at the off ramps? Well, this guy actually has a marketable talent that he's hoping to let people know about so that he can find his way off of the street and back into regular life. The video is below. His talent will become obvious as soon as he opens his mouth. For some reason, folks have taken to calling him the Man With The Golden Voice. I don't know what a golden voice would sound like, but it's pretty amazing regardless.

Update on this story: The Cleveland Cavaliers have offered him a full-time job and a free house. I believe that he has accepted. Congratulations, Ted! Now get to work.

Update Part Deux: Originally, when posted on YouTube, this video had garnered over five million hits. This man's story is everywhere. Naturally, that's why the video was taken down due to a copyright claim by The Dispatch, the newspaper that broke this story (I think). What gives, Dispatch? A copyright claim? Are you serious? Wow, good thing that his story got out there before you and your copyright claims took the video down. Maybe if you had done that a little sooner, the guy would still be homeless and no one would know about him. Good idea. Thanks for nothing, Dispatch.

Dollar Menu "Discrimination"

Hey, San Francisco! How's your utopia coming along? Are you making sure that you're keeping plenty of entitled homeless people around who are disillusioned about what they feel that they should be getting? You are? Ohhh. So that's why there are folks that are sans home complaining about a particular McDonald's that has done away with their dollar menu. Whatever.

Here's the deal according to SF Gate: The McDonald's in the Haight-Ashbury area on the corner of Haight and Stanyan has eliminated the dollar menu from their tasty offerings. Instead of 99 cents, those items are now $1.49, constituting a difference of a whopping fifty cents. (Now, I should probably mention that there are a gazillion homeless in the Haight area. You can't swing a dead shopping cart without hitting one. And they're far from sedate individuals. They are some of the more aggressive panhandlers that I've ever come across. You can't walk by them without them hitting you up for a "donation".) And, of course, the homeless feel that they are being (wait for it) discriminated against. Behold! The discriminatees!

That's right. They have this price hike thing all figured out. See, they're thinking that the McDonald's just doesn't want them hanging around all of the time and sitting in their patio seating. So this is "...the restaurant management's ploy to get them to go somewhere else." A simply shocking assertion. You may also not be shocked to learn that "Management locks the bathroom door and frequently calls the cops." You don't say? Yes, I'm shocked. Stunned, as it were. Uh-huh. Can you imagine wanting to lock the bathroom door and call the cops on the folks below?

I can't imagine why that would be. Why on earth would the owner of the McDonald's not want their business cluttered up with a bunch of scroungy looking homeless people who are asking your entering and departing patrons for money? Not to mention scroungy looking homeless people who take up your seats outside all the live long day. It's a mystery all right. But the owner of the franchise, a one Natalie Gonzalez, claims that isn't the reason. Well, she sort of claims that. In a statement that was issued, she asserts, "The speculation as to why I no longer offer menu items for $1 in this location is absolutely false. This was a business decision based on a number of contributing factors. And while these items are no longer available at $1, they are still available at what I believe to be a good, everyday value."

I like how she doesn't mention the "contributing factors" specifically. I'd say that having a bunch of homeless folks hanging around all of the time and pestering anyone who walks within three feet of them for their hard earned cash a "contributing factor". But for some reason, she doesn't want to say that. And I just don't get that. Why wouldn't she just say that she doesn't like the "clientele" that having a dollar menu attracts? The homeless act like they're just like everyone else, but they fail to see the obvious and striking differences between themselves and the homed. The homed tend to not ask others for money. The homed tend to wear clean clothes. The homed tend to leave the majority of their belongings in their home when they leave it. And the homed don't spend all day taking up seats in the outdoor seating area of the McDonald's. I find it to be perfectly acceptable to change your way of doing business in order to get rid of those who stand in the way of your doing business.


The other thing that really bugs me about the homeless and their fake uproar about this? That would be that they act like it is damn near impossible for them to scrounge a dollar or two. Give me a break. Get over yourself. Or get a job. Either one of those would probably work out pretty well for you. But whatever you do, just pipe down about it. You're not entitled to a dollar menu at every fast food establishment. And is that the only freaking McDonald's in town? I highly doubt it. Why don't you go be sans home outside of a different McDonald's? Say, one with a dollar menu. It's not like you've got anything else to do.

They Smoke Crack in San Francisco!

When was the last time you were in San Francisco (if ever)? Recently? Within the last year? Two years? Five years? Doesn't matter. Chances are that when you were there, you noticed that there are parts of the city (say like Haight) that are rather, how shall we say, bum ridden. That's right. San Francisco has become rather bummy. They're everywhere. Kind of like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano every year. Only the bums are always there. They never leave, so they don't have to return. But when you think San Fran, you think bums.

I might be painting the wrong picture by describing some of these outdoor inhabitants as bums. That might be too generous of a term. They're the chronically homeless by choice. They're the drug indulging. They're the publicly defecating. (That's right. Publicly defecating. What? You've never seen someone poo in public? You've clearly never been to the Haight.)

Now, the mayor of San Francisco, a one pretty, pretty Gavin Newsom, has always been a proponent of the, shall we say, "disadvantaged". (We could even use the term "underadvantaged". But really who we're talking about are the folks who lounge about on the the curbs and sidewalks and doorways of businesses and engage in their less than savory lifestyle.) But suddenly, the pretty pretty mayor has spoken out in favor of what is called a sit/lie ordinance.

What is a sit/lie ordinance? It's just what it sounds like. (And if you think it sounds ridiculous that one is necessary, you're right on!) It's an ordinance that prohibits sitting or lying on public grounds such as on sidewalks and in doorways. And up until recently, the pretty, pretty mayor was against it. According to the folks over there at SF Gate, Newsom was "telling The Chronicle editorial board earlier this month it (the ordinance) was just too divisive to support." Too divisive?

I don't know about you, but when it comes to me and those who prefer to sit and lie, I prefer a bit of division. In fact, I encourage it. Please. Divide me from that portion of society and do it now. Divisive? Hell yes, it's divisive. That's the frigging point. But if it's so "divisive", why is Gavin suddenly all for it?

It would seem that the mayor "...took his 5 1/2-month-old daughter for a stroll on Haight Street one Saturday morning." A stroll? On Haight Street? How'd that go for you, Mister Mayor? "As God is my witness, there's a guy on the sidewalk smoking crack," Newsom said. Wait. What now?

As God as his witness? Does he actually think that we need convincing of this? Has he NEVER walked on the streets of the fine, fine city that he is mayor of? What in the hell does he mean "As God is my witness"? We KNOW!

Let me get this straight. Gavin Newsom has been mayor of San Francisco since 2003 and he didn't know that people lounged around in doorways of businesses and smoked crack?! Welcome to the city, Gavin! Where in the hell have you been?! Could he be more out of touch? I don't think that he could! That is unbelievable to me.

So now that he is personally effected, now it's an issue. Never mind all of these people that have witnessed this problem getting worse and worse and worse over the years (probably most recently during the past seven years that he has been the mayor, as a matter of fact). Never mind all of their reasons that they had for wanting a sit and lie ordinance. Do you really think that NO ONE ever said to him "Hey, there are people smoking drugs in the doorway of my business." I'm pretty sure that they did. What did he think? That they were just making it up? I realize that he has done his best in an attempt to turn San Francisco into some sort of utopian haven for the displaced in the world. But I had no idea that he was THAT clueless.

Wake up, Gavin. There are people in your city smoking crack on the streets. There are people in your city defecating on sidewalks. There are even prostitutes! I know! Can you imagine?! I guess we all know what to do the next time that some sort of public issue needs addressing in San Francisco. I guess we know that we need to pull Gavin down off his high horse and give him a first hand look at what people are talking about in order for him to take any sort of action that is not nothing. What a joke. I can't wait to see how hard he pushes for this to be passed now that he is personally affected. Well, at least we know where his priorities are and they certainly aren't with the citizens of San Francisco, that's for sure.