Scott McKenzie - Gangland TV - Raymond Chow - American Gangster TV - Drugs Inc TV - Douglas Cross - Robert Frost - Unsolved History TV - George C Pardy - Weird or What? TV - Gertrude Atherton - Jack Kerouac - Nancy Pelosi - The Summer of Love: How Hippies Changed the World TV - Secrets of the Underground TV - Black Tar Heroin TV - Rob Bell TV -
If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you’re going to San Francisco
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there … Scott McKenzie, If You’re Going to San Francisco, song 1967
San Francisco, September 1977: Gang members stormed a popular restaurant in Chinatown seeking revenge against their rivals. Five people were killed and eleven others were injured. Gangland s2e2: Deadly Triangles, History 2008
Shrimp Boy has been at the heart of China’s underworld. ibid.
They called the groups Tongs. ibid.
They called the foreigners FOBs – Fresh off the Boat. At first the ABCs had the upper hand ... The FOBs organised ... One of the first gangs to form was the Wah Ching. New gangs formed as teenagers scrambled to protect themselves. ibid.
The residents of China Town were under siege. But they rarely went to the police. ibid.
Even the lowliest gangsta was involved in extortion. ibid.
New crimes were decidedly white-collar. ibid.
I just want to be the best gangster, be the best fighter, and party. Making money and also selling a lot of drugs. Raymond Chow aka Shrimp Boy
They called it living off the land. In a city by the bay. They robbed from the rich. They did for themselves. Stayed under the radar until they went for the biggest score ever – and then everyone knew their names. American Gangster: The Smith Brothers, Biography 2007
The biggest jewellery heist [Lang Estate Jewelers] in San Francisco history. ibid.
Colby has been using Crystal Meth for thirteen years. Now he injects himself three times a day. Drugs Inc s4e1: San Francisco Meth Zombies, National Geographic 2013
Approximately 15 million people in America have tried Meth. ibid.
In the new millennium the summer of love has become the winter of addiction. And in the heart of the city the gay community is struggling to recover from a meth epidemic. ibid.
Now the Mexican cartels are intent on taking over super labs hidden in the depths of Mexico and perfecting the process of industrial meth production. ibid.
The Asian cartel has been poisoning San Francisco with meth for almost twenty-five years. Drugs Inc Compilation: Cartel Chaos
I left my heart in San Francisco. Douglas Cross, song 1954
Such was life in the Golden Gate:
Gold dusted all we drank and ate,
And I was one of the children told,
‘We all must eat our peck of gold.’ Robert Frost, A Peck of Gold 1926
Almost one hundred years ago on April 18th 1906 San Franciscans were awoken just before dawn by a massive earthquake. It lasted for fifty-five seconds killing hundreds of people and reducing huge areas of the city to rubble. After the quake came the fire-storms and further casualties. Now, Unsolved History will show that for decades the true magnitude of the disaster and its causes were covered up. Unsolved History: Great Quake Cover-Up, CBS 2003
When the smoke cleared a city was gone. ibid.
It seems that the military and the local militia were given the order to shoot to kill to establish control in the chaotic streets. In one incident that was later described as a riot hundreds of civilians were gunned down. ibid.
It [photograph] also reveals some important clues about which types of buildings survived and which didn’t. Those built around skeletons of steel fared the best. ibid.
City a Roaring Furnace. Berkeley Reporter headline
Remembering that this is not the first time that San Francisco has been destroyed by fire, I have not the slightest doubt that the city by the Golden Gate will be speedily rebuilt. George C Pardy, Californian Governor
San Francisco, December 2009: a mysterious event shocked the city. Thousands of sea-lions living on its docks suddenly disappeared overnight. Days later an earthquake hit the region. Did they sense impending doom, or is it just weird or what? Weird or What? s1e3: Cocaine Mummies, Discovery 2010
There is a happy ending. In February 2010, three months after their disappearance, the sea-lions returned to their home on Pier 39. ibid.
I don’t believe that there is a blasé person in the State. Credit that to the earthquake. The catastrophe, too, will be a great factor in the future greatness of San Francisco, just as the fires of London were in the making of that city a world metropolis. Gertrude Atherton, San Francisco Call 2nd May 1996, ‘Novelist Rescues Manuscript from Occidental Hotel’
It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time. Jack Kerouac, On the Road
As many of you know, I come from San Francisco. We don’t have a lot of farms there. Well, we do have one – it’s a mushroom farm, so you know what that means. Nancy Pelosi, The Agribusiness Club of Washington 24 July 2006
1967: The Summer of Love: Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. But not all peace, love and understanding. The explosion that summer came from a mix of naive idealism, mysticism, radical politics and chemistry. All bubbling to the surface on the west coast of the United States. The Summer of Love: How Hippies Changed the World I: The Making of a Hippy, BBC 2017
This is the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It’s the place where the hippy was born on January 14th 1967. San Francisco’s underground newspaper Oracle put a call-out for all strands of what it called the counter-culture to gather here for a party like no party in history. A party that would change the world for ever. ibid.
The hippies discovered a wonder-drug called LSD. ibid.
Along with the New Left, Berkeley was also home to those experimenting with alternative lifestyles and mind-expanding drugs. ibid.
San Francisco was a flame of protest, radical ideas and acid. The American authorities were horrified and banned LSD. ibid.
No sooner had the party began then it started to unravel. The Summer of Love: How Hippies Changed the World II: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
June 1967 and San Francisco was on the brink of a hippy revolution. ibid.
At the heart of the community was an anarchist group of artists and radicals called the Diggers. ibid.
Near San Francisco seismologists are bracing for the next big quake. Secrets of the Underground s1e6, Discovery 2017
This documentary was filmed in San Francisco, California, from December 1995 to January 1998. During this period, black tar heroin use, particularly among young adults, surged to record levels in the City. Drug overdose is now the number-one cause of preventable death in San Francisco. Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street, caption, HBO 1999
This gram is $60 a gram … Black tar heroin is the worst. ibid. addict
He’s straight. He’s not gay. He doesn’t enjoy what he does. ibid. girlfriend of addict
Tracey is back on heroin within eight hours of her release from jail. ibid. Caption
It wasn’t all that great. ibid. Tracey next morning
You want it to stop hurting, man. ibid. addict
Majestic. Dramatic. Awe-inspiring. There are the bridges that are worldwide icons as well as engineering marvels. Each of them broke new ground. The first, the biggest, the longest, and the tallest. Rob Bell, World’s Greatest Bridges s2e1: Golden Gate Bridge, Channel 5 2018
The Golden Gate Bridge, 1937: I’m in California driving along the Pacific Coast Highway … It’s more than 1.7 miles long. Its two towers rise 746 feet above the water, and between them the main span stretches 4,200 feet across. ibid.
‘There are 600,000 rivets in each of these towers.’ ibid. workman