Well then. That SF Mag piece by Salon's David Talbot about whether the new tech boom is ruining the character of SF somehow caught the attention of Rush Limbaugh. It seems Rush really loves San Francisco, at least our golf courses and pretty vistas, and he thinks people like Talbot ought to wise up and stop complaining that "the white, dot-com, 23-year-old millionaires" have replaced the "body counts" and "cans of Colt 45" and "Cuervo flasks" of yesteryear.
Talbot's argument was simply that this boom was bound to do more damage, culturally, than the dot-com boom because of rapidly rising rents, and that things like the Twitter headquarters moving into mid-Market were going to do less good than people hoped to transform the neighborhood because the workers mostly all stay on-site for lunch in the cafeteria.
But Limbaugh, well... he sees things differently.
To wit:
I've always loved [San Francisco]. I know if I ever got spotted there now, I'd be run out of town -- if I got out alive, or without being put in jail -- but I've loved it. I've always thought it was one of the most beautiful cities in the country.[But Talbot thinks] Yuppie types and their Lexises [sic] and Beamers drinking wine are just not as cool as the shoot-'em-ups with their Cuervo flasks and the cans of Colt 45 [that used to be in Bernal Heights]. I just... I found this amusing.
[Talbot quotes Bernal Heights housing activist Buck Bagot as saying,] "'There were Latinos, blacks, American Indians, Samoans, Filipinos. They had good union jobs, and they could raise their families here. Now they're all gone.' These days Bagot fights to block home foreclosures as the cofounder of Occupy Bernal, engaged in a battle to preserve the neighborhood's diverse character that he admits often feels futile." Mr. Talbot, there are homes available in Detroit, Chicago and New York that have all of that stuff you miss. You want cans of Colt 45? I'll send you some pictures.
You want Cuervo flasks? You want gangs hiding guns in the sand across the street and playing shoot 'em up? I'll send you the body counts. I just... I don't know. It just amuses me. If you read the whole thing (it's very long), he's upset with all the success. All of the white, dot-com, 23-year-old millionaires just bug the heck of the guy... This boom is not leading to neighborhood restaurants getting wealthy because, like, the Yahoo people feed their people in the building. They don't leave, and all these companies have these great restaurants. They don't want their employees leaving. They want 'em staying right there. (interruption) No, it's not that. It's not that they're afraid of anything. It's that they don't want 'em leaving 'cause they want 'em there working. They don't want 'em leaving and running around with a Cuervo flask or an empty can of Colt 45.
Who gave Limbaugh a copy of San Francisco magazine, anyway?
Previously: Glossy Mag Asks: Is the New Tech Boom Destroying the City?
How Much Tech Can One City Take? [SF Mag]
