Chuck Nevius went hunting for more victims of post-World Series win shenanigans, and he found one worthy of his this-town's-going-to-the-dogs ire: Larry Moore of Larry's Shoe Shine Stand at Market and New Montgomery. Larry's chair got torched in the revelry Sunday night, which is terrible, but it's just one more reason for Nevius to shake his fist and say, "Surely these firebugs realize they had no more to do with the victory than a local housecat."
Not to say we promote vandalism. Far from it! We find this disgusting, and all the fire-setting idiotic, and this asshole throwing a gate into a Muni bus windshield just for the hell of it needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
But we can't help but groan every time we hear Nevius kvetching about the state of the world, and "kids these days" in general. Things were set on fire, and we don't think it's because the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and nor do we think anyone intentionally was trying to destroy Larry's livelihood.
Also, this isn't the first time Nevius has exploited "dapper" Larry to his own Debbie Downer ends. He's kind of been Nevius' pet project of the past few years. See also this 2009 blog post after Nevius first discovered Larry and got Chron readers to chip in to help pay for his shoeshine permit; and this 2010 piece about a back surgery Larry had to undergo which Nevius warned "may end his shoe shining days." Anyway, Larry recovered, and then earlier this year Nevius caught him falling on hard times again, back on pain meds and about to be evicted because he'd spent all his savings after courting the "wrong woman." Nevius still thinks of him as the good sort of pull-himself-up-by-his-bootstraps homeless dude that makes for good column-writing, but we're getting tired of all this use of Larry as Nevius's stand-in for All Good-Hearted Poor Folk Who Aren't Despicable Drug Addicts and Thieves. There are probably a few other homeless people who deserve Nevius's spotlight too.
Anyway, poor Larry Moore's chair, which is part of his only source of income (the shoeshine business now helps him afford a bed in an SRO at night since he lost his apartment), got ruined, and he needs a new one if anyone would care to help.
