You Know You're in San Francisco When...

SF GATE (San Francisco Chronicle) ^ | 11/24/03 | Adam Sparks

[sfwarrior]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/11/24/asparks.DTL

[Bernard Marx]

And I'll stick with my assessment of the town: it's an insane asylum.

No argument there!

[nkycincinnatikid]

you know you've found a sports bar because it has bungee sexswings

[just_living]

Not so odd, I did a search on San Francisco, and posted two replies.
The thing that makes me think my explaination is right is that many cities not just SF have a tenderloin district.
Sources are hard to come by (and what exactly was his source, I don't see it), but here is one (albeit they say there is no source):
A number of cities in the U.S. have "tenderloin" districts. Legend has it that these rough-and-ready neighborhoods got their nicknames from the police who patrolled them; these cops received hazard pay (or bigger bribes -- stories vary), and were therefore able to regularly dine on steak.
http://www.wikitravel.org/article/San_Francisco/Tenderloin?PHPSESSID=169ed8c53701108085fe62dec436a1b2

[Yeti]

"Police Corruption - a Sociological Perspective," edited by Lawrence W. Sherman, was the source he cited. I googled the subject for myself, and found basically the same thing you two have said. I also found this on someone's web page, which is a pretty good story, to my(happily limited) experience of the area:

The best Tenderloin Story

On the night of May 3rd, 1996, at the corner of Larkin and O'Farrell I saw at least 16 police cars, 2 police motorbikes, a police van, an ambulance, a hook'n'ladder, a pumper, a fire chief, and 2 tow-trucks. I was unsure what was going on, but it was like a Twilight Zone episode where San Francisco is just some gargantuan kid's train set, and he was playing with all of his emergency vehicles that night.

Sex party crasher goes on crazed rampage

A man who was harassing guests at a sex party at the Ambika hotel crashed through a window and plunged through a skylight into the restroom of a neighboring bar. The man was an uninvited guest at the party, which involved another man being paid to dress up as a woman. The party crasher, who was high on cocaine or other drugs, harassed and threatened guests.

He was asked to leave, but he refused and began threatening to stab people with syringes.

Police called to the scene tried to subdue the man with pepper spray, but he was not affected.

He then crashed through a window to continue his rampage, running from the basement of three adjoining businesses to the roof and back to the basement. Finally he wound up on the roof of the Short Stop bar, where he either fell or jumped through a skylight to the floor of a restroom. Police finally used a beanbag gun to subdue the man.

[just_living]

My mistake Yeti, I didn't even see Max's reply (it is odd we both waited to reply). I thought you were referring to your post (which is sourceless). I think the truth is in there somewhere, I think the term Tenderloin is seedy, but not as seedy as the original post makes it out to be. By that I mean that I don't think cops and newscasters are using a really vulgar term, jsut a colorful one.
Thanks for the post, and followup.

[sonofatpatcher2]

You Know You're in San Francisco When...

the heart you left in the Fall of '45 has turned into a pudnocker's rectum...

[gueroloco]

............when the steaming piles of ecrement on the sidewalk have more redeeming values than the inhabitants...............LOL

[mrobison]

...you see a black man (dressed like a woman) leading a white woman (dressed like a man) around on a chain.

True story.

[Yeti]

By that I mean that I don't think cops and newscasters are using a really vulgar term, jsut a colorful one.

You're right. And I'll tell you exactly where I got misinformed: from residents there. I guess maybe it was a common pun that became mythology, because of it's plausible resemblance to reality.

I really hate to be misinformed, and I have believed that "factoid" for 22 years!

Fortunately, I've only had occasion to spread the falsehood a few times, but they've mostly been on the internet, so that multiplies the error. Tsk.

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . when the forecast every day is "mostly queer."