I re-watched Rambo yesterday.

(Technically, it’s called “First Blood,” from 1982, but once it became a hit, everyone just called it Rambo.)

 

 

 

 

 

My buddy Louie made the suggestion, as he swore it was a great film.

I was 8 when it came out, and Sylvester Stallone, as Rambo, became a cultural icon.

These days, it’s hard for youngins to relate to how big a deal someone/something could be, if it got caught in the eye of the monoculture.

ET, Rambo, Top Gun, The Terminator.

 

 

They defined the 80’s, much as Charlie’s Angles, Star Wars, and Archie Bunker repped the 70’s in the Zeitgeist.

I remember Rambo as a roid-head, basically, using his massive muscles as a metaphor for American dominance.

But this movie is SO not that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 7th grade, I had a teacher, Mr. Ferraro, who was the cool guy everyone loved.

He had a “cool” car, which I think was a Camaro, but I’m sure some of my classmates could correct me.

And he was totally into Springsteen. (Again, this was Jersey in the 80’s.)

One day, he broke down “Born in the USA” for us, and explained it had been misappropriated by Reagan, and politicians like him, who used the song un-ironically at their rallies.

 

 

I say un-ironcally, as the song is actually about a Vietnam Vet who comes back to his small-town factory life, and has a shit time of things.

It’s not a happy song, nor a traditionally patriotic one.

But the politicians only heard the chorus, and no one else was paying attention, I suppose.

Same thing with Rambo.

I mean, the guy was a hippie, for God’s sake!

A long-hair!

This being the 80’s, Stallone had a fluffy, feathery version of long hair, but still, we get the picture.

Wearing an old army jacket with an American flag on the lapel, he catches the attention of a smug, conservative, bigoted Sheriff, (played by 80’s stalwart Brian Dennehy,) while walking along the highway.

 

 

I’m not sure if the setting is ever disclosed, but as they’re obviously in massive, Western mountains, and at one point, we learn Portland is south, I’d say they’re in Washington.

Rambo, of course, is White, but as a hippie, he represents “The Other,” and the Sheriff literally runs him out of town on sight.

He’s done nothing wrong.

He’s just walking-while-hippie, which counts as vagrancy.

And though in the 21st Century, we all say “Thank you for your service,” every time we see a uniform, back then, Vietnam vets were treated poorly, and became one of the first populations of long-term unhoused Americans.

So that’s the premise.

Then, Johnny Rambo ends up hunting the bigoted cops up in the mountains, after they beat and attempt to torture him, and he escapes from jail. (With a pre-NYPD-Blue David Caruso playing the only skeptical cop; the one who thought it was dumb to pick a fight with a former Green Beret.)

Stallone is ripped, for sure, but not massive, so whatever they did to blow him up into a body-builder for the sequels, it came later.

 

 

He’s no bigger than when he played Rocky Balboa, and does a great job in this one too. (His early acting work is criminally underrated.)

Like Rocky, Rambo was an underdog.

But he was fighting against “The Man,” and then in sequels becomes a mass culture symbol for institutional American might.

Often, when symbols are powerful enough, people don’t even know they’re being indoctrinated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking about that, preparing the column in my mind, and went searching in my Photos for some images I want to write about today.

(But not yet.)

Instead, I found a group of pictures I shot in a Santa Fe government building back in February.

The family and I were on a rare downtown walk, and stopped in to use the restroom.

It must have been the Veterans Affairs department, where we discovered a series of photographic installations.

One drew my attention immediately, as I saw grids of dead soldiers from Vietnam.

 

 

From a distance, as a grid, we just notice the volume of people, and outlines of faces.

As soon as I saw it this morning, I flashed to the grid of images of dead children in Uvalde.

 

Courtesy of The Texas Tribune

 

But then I saw the close-up images of the soldiers, (from when I approached the installation,) and immediately you notice the individuals, and realize how many of the men who perished from here were Hispanic and Native American.

Ancient cultures, both of them, and so specific to New Mexico, but bigots would just see a wall of brown faces.

 

 

Like the people killed in that El Paso Walmart a few years ago.

Nasty business, this racism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s get to the real inspiration for this column, shall we?

(Rambo came later.)

The other day, driving my daughter back from her school’s summer camp, she told me she’d changed her mind, and decided she was offended by the kid who’d called her a “Crazy Jew” a month ago.

At first, it hadn’t bothered her, but now it did, so she was going to tell on him.

She said there’d been a discussion in camp that day, as she described anti-Semitism to her friends.

They disagreed with her, and didn’t think there should be a separate word for hating Jews.

It was just racism, they said.

All one big hatred.

I told Amelie that while there was hatred specific to Jews, (and hence a particular word for it,) I actually liked what her friends had to say.

Hatred over skin color, country of origin, religious beliefs, gender identity, sexual preference, it’s all the same thing.

And it’s all awful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It must have been that conversation, because when I went on a walk yesterday, my mind flashed to some art I saw in San Francisco, and it really stuck in my craw.

I’m sure it was a part of my overall-negative-reaction to the city, and while I’m bored of piling on, it happened.

So why not report on it?

The story is, I visited the San Francisco Art Institute when I was in SF in March, and the famed, historically important art school has fallen on hard times.

(It nearly went out of business, and was operating a skeleton program with a skeleton staff, when I was in town.)

Again, I don’t want to add to their woes, but I’d been told there was a famous Diego Rivera mural there, and should check it out.

So I did.

Three times, I had the chance to pop in, and have the gallery to myself.

I was not amused.

The mural, which as with all Rivera work looks great, is an obvious critique of Capitalism, by the famously Communist, Mexican painter.

It shows the means of production, and I later learned it’s called “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City.” 

At the literal heart of the story, the bi-laterally symmetrical, center of his composition, is a gross, stereotypical depiction of a Jewish businessman.

“Oh shit,” I thought, when I first saw it. “Now I have to write about anti-Semitic art again. What a bummer.”

And here I am, three months later, doing just that.

 

 

 

 

 

The hooked nose.
The beady, bulging eyes.
The bowler hat and round glasses.
The super-shiny suit.

He’s in the middle of the cabal, this Jew.

 

 

The other “White” guys could be from anywhere.

But not the one in the heart of it all.

(Symbolically.)

The rodent-like, dark-hair/dark-eye Jew, smaller than the other two, with a flashy, pin-striped, double-breasted suit.

Man, it made me mad.

Because as I said earlier, powerful visual symbols often subvert the conscious mind.

They propagate hatred, over generations.

What a crock of shit.

See you next week.

 

 

 

(Editor’s note: While doing some background research, I learned Diego Rivera had some Jewish ancestry, which does not absolve him of exploiting this nasty trope. Furthermore, Google turned up an English kerfuffle ten years ago, where a muralist got in trouble in London, for the same Jewish stereotypes, and was then compared to Rivera, who also had a mural over-painted for its inclusion of Lenin.)

 

 

In 1957, Miles Davis released a seminal album, “Birth of the Cool.”

Fair play to him, because by all accounts, Miles Davis was one
cool cat.

 

 

Over the years, plenty of musicians radiated cool, to such an extent, their names are dropped like a club membership.

Lou Reed, Johnny Cash, Debbie Harry, John Coltrane, Patti Smith.

(There are more, to be sure.)

When you read those names, you can conjure not just the person, and their aura, but all the times you heard someone tell you they “liked” said musician, in order to score cool points in your mind.

 

 

 

 

 

A few months ago, I read a scathing review of the new Chuck Klosterman book, “The Nineties,” in the NYT, clearly written by a Millennial with an axe to grind.

Sample quote: “Overall one is left with a shuddering sense of {Gen} X’s insignificance, its preoccupation with what more politically motivated successors deem ‘opulent micro-concerns.'”

The was plenty more snark, and I took the subtext to suggest perhaps Gen X was overly invested in the idea of cool, relative to all the other important values/traits in the world.

(That was my takeaway, in any event. Upon re-reading, it’s hard to pin down, but at the time, my reaction was strong.)

I stopped for a moment, and pondered.

Is it true?

Do today’s middle-aged Americans care more about being cool than making money, or saving the planet?

And what is cool, anyway?

How is a word so crucial to our culture so undefined?

 

 

 

 

 

 

As always, I’m asking for a reason, and we’ll get there eventually. (This feels like a long-read.)

If cool can be born, as Miles suggests, can it also die?

How do you kill cool, and what comes next?

My wife and I had this discussion throughout the winter, because our beloved local ski resort, Taos Ski Valley, used to be on the of coolest places on Earth.

A hidden gem in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where you could hang out with your hipster or hippie buddies on a mostly-empty mountain, smoke “illegal” weed on the very-slow-chair-lifts, and ski terrain that was much-more-difficult than your average tourist could handle.

Founded by Austrian Jews, Ernie and Rhoda Blake, in the 1950’s, the place oozed counter-culture, yet much of its tourist base came from North Texas and Oklahoma.

 

 

Now, before you chide me, I admit, those are not typically cool places, but then again, we haven’t defined cool yet, have we?

Folks came to Taos from there because it was the closest ski resort, so they could drive.

They’d pile the family in the pickup, haul ass for 6-10 hours, and wake up in a snow-covered paradise.

As locals, we’d joke about them skiing in blue jeans, or Oakleys with Dallas Cowboy hats, but they were down-to-Earth folks, happy to shoot you a smile, and often they ate picnic style, having brought food to save money.

So while they were not cool in the too-cool-for-school way, (which is not really cool at all,) they were cool in the way that matters to Gen Xers.

They were respectful, down-to-Earth, authentic, unpretentious, and chill.

Maybe that can function as a working definition for today?

 

 

 

 

 

So who killed the cool at Taos Ski Valley?

A hedge-fund billionaire named Louis Bacon bought the resort nine years ago.

He’s an “environmentalist” who famously fought solar electricity infrastructure in Colorado, because he didn’t want new power lines on his land.

A guy who’s best buddies with famous Anti-Vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr, and was once featured in Vanity Fair for an awful, petty beef with his perhaps-even-crazier, rich-guy neighbor on a small, Caribbean island.

Maybe in two paragraphs I’m laying out the case that Louis Bacon is not a cool guy?

At TSV, Bacon made a shrewd real estate play, by setting about to demographically replace the current customer base, and instead import wealthier, more “regular-folks” skiers.

It’s a long story as to how, (including replacing most of the Hispanic lift operators with White guys playing jam-band music, and launching an airline to fly in folks from Austin, Dallas, LA and San Diego,) but rest assured, it was a multi-step process, and as of 2022, I can say it has totally succeeded.

 

 

In so doing, he’s priced out, or chased away many locals, (who are scruffy, and don’t spend money on $18 burgers,) including me.

He bought almost all the restaurants up there, (or drove them out of business, as when he demolished some to build condos,) and owns a hotel as well as the condo developments, so the dude is practically the King of his own village.

TSV was BUSY AS HELL this winter, and his $1 million, 1 bedroom condos sold, (with private underground parking,) so it looks like his “evil” plan worked just fine.

Consider the cool dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For any other writer, that might be a long way to go to make a point… talking about Taos in an article about San Francisco.

But please bear with me.

When I moved to San Francisco in 1999, it was a hip fucking city.

We were young artists, and lived in the Southern part of the Mission District, an immigrant/hipster neighborhood, teaming with galleries, bars, and coffee shops.

Mexican markets, Guatemalan bodegas, burrito places that gave you free food for life, if you got their logo tattooed on your body.

 

 

Phil, the namesake behind the now-multi-million dollar coffee chain, Philz, used to make me falafel sandwiches in his dingy, little market, on the corner of Folsom and 24th St.

I remember, with a deep, gruff voice, he’d say, “You want the fool?” (For Fool Mdamas.)

“Sure,” I’d say to Phil. “You make it great. Hook me up however you’d like.”

 

 

As the dot-com-boom flourished, (before ultimately tanking,) early-version-tech-bros would take limousines into the neighborhood, standing through the moon-roofs, gawking at the poor immigrants.

On weekends, they’d drive in, and park in the fire lane, by the hundreds, content to pay the fine, rather than look for parking.

(Not cool, my friend. Not cool.)

But with the dot-com-crash, those folks left, artists held on for a bit longer, and the normie-vibe was mostly restricted to the Marina, Nob Hill and Pacific Heights.

The rest of the city was still diverse, and plenty cool.

In 2022, however, I’m sad to report that San Francisco cool is dead and buried.

Replaced, ironically, by a tech-bro-über-capitalist meets progressives-will-let-it-all-burn-before-they-admit-defeat style of un-hipness, and for many, a hell on Earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, let’s back up for a second.

I went to San Francisco in March, for a photo festival I won’t name today, because this is a negative article, and they’re a great organization.

(It’s not their fault their city went down the drain.)

As a journalist, I shared these theories with current and former San Franciscans in San Diego earlier this month, and they agreed entirely.

 

 

 

 

 

In 2016, I first reported here about the burgeoning, San Francisco tent cities, and how it seemed a new street class was being entrenched as a permanent way of life.

So many were denied the chance to live safely, because of the ravages of income inequality.

In 2019, I wrote a harrowing story about how bad things had gotten, with people howling in the night-time streets, and I was determined not to repeat myself this time out.

(Been there, done that.)

These days it’s national news, that the Tenderloin has turned into an IRL version of David Simon’s “Hamsterdam” from “The Wire,” so I was hoping to write something more upbeat for you, in 2022.

As such, I limited myself to the “nice” neighborhoods of North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf, (where the tourists go,) Pacific Heights, Chinatown, the Bayfront and the Marina.

In three full days, I never left that zone, in the hopes I could just write a nice-travel-story for you, and leave the misery behind for once.

(I swear, that was the plan.)

In the end, though, it caught up to me, because looking away, denying the reality in front of you, never seems to work out well, does it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s take an interlude.

Retrench.

Focus on the positive.

It is still possible to eat well in San Francisco, and you can buy really good weed too.

On my first full morning, I took a rambling, gorgeous walk, on a perfect California day, towards sparc, the closest dispensary that opened early.

I saw an unhoused man, lounging on a couch on the street, (before it was collected as trash,) and he was reading a newspaper.

 

 

He seemed content, so we can include that in the happy part of the article.

The bud-tender who helped me at sparc was cool, (thank God for the little things,) and he sold me a super-strong, horchata flavored indica joint, when I told him my mission.

“I’m about to walk for hours along the waterfront, in the sunshine, and I want to be the happiest guy out there,” I told him.

He obliged, (it was expensive,) and then I bought one more joint, to share, and they gave me a weed drink for free, because I was cool to everyone.

 

 

I’ll cut to the chase and say the pot was great, so I definitely recommend this joint, if you’re in town, or visiting.

After walking back to my hotel, it was time to eat.

So I had a double-double, animal style, from In-N-Out burger for lunch, before my big excursion, and it was excellent, as always.

 

 

You may think I shill for them because of “The Big Lebowski,” but really, it is that good.

(I even turned my Mom onto it, and she was dubious.)

 

 

 

 

 

From there, I walked for miles along the water, before parking myself in the sand at Chrissy Field. (A dog beach at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge.)

 

 

It was amazing, (as was the entire walk,) so I imagine tourists can still have a good time in SF, if they ignore the rot, and stay in the sun.

My friend Heather recommended Equator Coffees, in Fort Mason, so on the way back, I got a special turmeric latte, a brilliant almond croissant, and a flavored bubble water.

 

 

(Dehydrate, sugar up, rehydrate.)

I don’t remember exactly what I paid, but it was certainly reasonable.

Let that be today’s traveler’s tip: when in SF, stick to the street food, and you’ll eat well on a budget.

In my regular life, I never walk and eat, but in SF, I mowed down that croissant, a cannoli from  Victoria Pastry for Sunday breakfast, and a couple of slices of excellent pizza.

 

 

Otherwise, it was takeout from an incredible Chinese BBQ spot, a brilliant, bombastically big Chicken Mole burrito from Cilantro SF Taqueria, and the aforementioned In-N-Out.

 

 

I don’t think I spent more than $10 on any of it, and it was all 1000x better than I can get in Taos.

So (in conclusion,) they still have good weed, street food, and nature in San Francisco, but you have to dodge all the shit to enjoy it.

(I’m being literal.)

 

 

 

 

 

I told you I stuck to the “good” part of town.

I even overheard someone refer to Union Square, where the department stores and boutique shopping is located, as, “a bad part of town now.”

(No lie.)

Sure, I saw some unhoused people sleeping in alleys, as I wandered.

But not many, compared to what I’ve reported previously.

And I didn’t see one tent.

Not one!

I made it to Coit Tower for the first time, after hearing they had some amazing murals, which turned out to be true.

(I forgot my mask, and didn’t want to be “that guy,” so I didn’t get up close to the art for very long.)

 

 

It was almost enough to forget what was going on in many other parts of the city.

Keyword, almost.

Because on the last day of the festival, as I was walking up to the location, I saw a huge glop of human feces on the sidewalk.

It was a pretty street, with fancy neighbors, but there was no denying the turd before me.

I had a flashback to my time in the city, and how by 2002, my wife and I were so tired of dodging human poop on the sidewalk, we were ready to go.

But that was in the Mission; a concrete, low-income part of town, with few parks.

Now the shit is LITERALLY everywhere.

Including right in before of me, on the sidewalk.

Unmissable.

I came and went a few times that day, and ultimately someone dropped a tissue on part of the poop, to warn fellow pedestrians.

“That’s OK,” I thought. “I don’t have to write that up. It’s only one turd.”

But then, it got worse.

Much worse.

 

 

 

 

 

On my last day in town, I had coffee at Caffe Greco with two photo peeps I’d only known online.

It was like the pre-times, as we de-masked, drank cappuccinos, and chatted about art and life.

One companion brought up the unhoused-sanitation-issue, complaining the city did not have enough public toilets.

If you live on the street, she went on, and the government doesn’t provide you with adequate places to go, you have to find places to crap every day.

Ultimately, that means public space.

(Most of the time.)

She was empathetic to the plight of the unhoused, rather than bitching about it, but the severity of the situation was not lost on me.

After an hour or so, I excused myself, to go back to the hotel, wash up, and then head out for some more takeout.

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier that morning, as I walked down the hotel stairs, I noticed an metal-grate exterior door to the alleyway.

Someone had left it open, so I closed it, and mentally noted that could be a problem.

On my way back from the cafe, as I ascended the stairs, I could smell something so pungent, it had heat.

I’m not kidding.

The air was warm with stench.

I didn’t see anyone, or anything, and popped into my room for a few minutes.

Being stoned, by the time I walked out ten minutes later, I’d forgotten all about it.

So I was hopping down the stairs at a good clip, and came to a screeching halt, as I saw what appeared to be a pool of urine in front of me on the landing.

Maybe I missed it by a foot.

From there, my eyes traced up, almost in slow-motion, and I saw the biggest human shit I’ve ever encountered.

Right there.
In front of me.
On the floor.

So I high-tailed it in the other direction, and took the elevator.

When I reported it to the front desk, they apologized, and said someone had gotten in, and it was a problem.

By the next day, when I mentioned it upon checkout, they had changed their tune, and lied, saying it had only been a dog.

Yeah fucking right.

The biggest dog on Earth, maybe?

I don’t think so.

 

 

 

 

 

After the encounter with excrement, I walked for an hour, trying to regenerate my appetite.

And I thought about things, over and over.

All I wanted was to have a few days in the city, pretending everything was OK.

I was prepared to avert my eyes, (for once,) so as to avoid having to write Another Critical Article About San Francisco.

(Help me help you, San Francisco.)

 

 

But it was not to be.

San Francisco is no longer cool, and New Mexico is burning.

Some guy bought a house at the edge of the ocean, in North Carolina, and it collapsed into the sea 9 months later.

The world is in a precarious place, my faithful readers, and sticking our heads in the sand will not help.

Not at all.