On Sunday, we did something we very rarely do, which is visit the nearby city of San Francisco. This may seem hard to believe, but San Francisco was once the most-visited city on the entire planet of Earth. In recent years, as has been incessantly reported, it has diminished in terms of overall quality of life, particularly in certain parts of town including, ironically, this one:
This magnificent building and the plot of land in front of it is City Hall, and there is a tremendous square there known as Civic Plaza, which is popular among homeless, drunks, and drug addicts. Unfortunately, it is also near some very beautiful museums, such as the Asian Art Museum, which was our destination.
To be clear, the situation couldn’t have been nicer: it was 66 degrees, perfectly blue skies, a pleasant breeze, and the calm atmosphere of a Sunday. However, as the saying goes, hell is other people, and the beauty of the architecture and atmosphere were shunted aside by poo on the sidewalk, the persistent smell of urine, and countless dozens of supposed humans laying on the gross, on the sidewalk, or leaning up against a building.
At the risk of seeming unkind, which is something I don’t normally grapple with for very long, if every single one of the drug addicts, alcoholics, and homeless were suddenly transported to Venus, I wonder how transformative it would be for the city. I doubt anyone would miss the new citizens of Venus, who mysteriously vanished, but I suspect thanks to the likes of the unfortunately-named Mayor Breed, the vacuum they left behind would soon be filled by more derelicts from up and down the west coast.
No one nasty acted in a threatening or belligerent manner, but honest to God, every time I give San Francisco another shot, I am shown once again that, outside the meticulously tidy interior of a museum, the city has become a toilet, and the images of the fallen humans littering the plaza conjure up in my mind one vision of what Hell must be like.
