SFist Raves: Fleet Week
We sympathize with you. We too get completely freaked out whenever we hear the unexpected roar of jets passing over the City. We go into panic mode and run to the windows expecting the worst. But the key word there is "unexpected." For when we KNOW that the air is going to be filled with flashy jets, well, we get excited. Indeed, there are those of us who actually love the sounds of those powerful planes as they roar above--sometimes so close to our rooftops that we can see the pilots sleeping--uh, we mean waving.
Yeah. We're gonna say it: We love Fleet Week!
While we never really understood the whole "Airshow Practice" the Blue Angels traditionally hold on Thursday and Friday afternoons, (are we not supposed to look lest we spoil the surprise of the big weekend show?) we appreciate that they do actually, you know, practice. Come Saturday and Sunday, we will hit our rooftops in gleeful anticipation of the show ahead. Maybe it's because we matured in the decade of Top Gun. Maybe it's the sheer, jaw-dropping skill of those pilots. Or maybe we just have a death wish. Whatever it is, the Blue Angels set our peacenik, anti-war hearts aflutter. But it's not just the Blue Angels that make us love Fleet Week. We also love all the other air show acrobatics over the Bay. And the sight of those ships crossing the Golden Gate? Lovely. But the one thing we love the most about Fleet Week?
Sailors.
Ahhhh. Sailors. We just adore seeing them in their cute little white uniforms and dog bowl hats. We love the eager looks on their faces as they make a bee line for the Broadway strip clubs. And most of all, we love being able to yell, "Hey sailor!" and getting a response from an ACTUAL sailor.
Of course, it's not just the boats and the jets and sailors we love. We also love the money. The whole shebang may seem to go against everything we as commie pinko liberal queer San Franciscans stand for, but we also understand that this crap is gonna go down somewhere. And if we can reap the fiscal benefits of this "bloated waste of tax dollars," so much the better. It's only one week a year. And if you really and truly don't like it THAT MUCH, please, do more than just cower under your desks in terror. Go out there and protest it. Demand a measure be brought before the City to ban the whole event.
But until that end comes, we're going to savor the spectacle of American imperialism for the brief time that it graces our fair City. Which leads us to another thing about Fleet Week we love: It's short. So we'll enjoy those jets and boats and sailors--oh, the sailors--all the while thinking, "Thank God this only lasts a week. There are only so many cases of the clap we handle."