A second recent disappointment was this year's Bay to Breakers, which was on Sunday, May 20th. It used to be sponsored by the Examiner, back when that was a second-rate newspaper and not a 5th rate conservative tabloid. Now it's sponsored by ING.
Although a small core of actual runners compete in the race, as well as teams ("centipedes", linked together by a costume, or increasingly a lame set of nylon straps) of runners, most participants are there for fun. Typically this involves either dressing up in a costume, or not dressing at all, or something in between. And while nudity seemed to be up this year (despite the now annual promises by the sponsors of a crackdown) unfortunately creativity was way down. Halloween in the Castro has certainly suffered a similar fate, but in a large part because of an influx of tube-and-tunnel brats, whereas while many half-assed frat groups show up at Bay to Breakers, there seems little reason for people to actively avoid it.
I wandered down to Van Ness and Hayes early enough to see at least one pack of Kenyans (pretty much all the serious runners are Kenyan), and I stayed long enough to see police and fire "sweeping up", although I may have missed some late stragglers. Also, it may be that some groups "start" the race further up, but I still get the feeling that there was not much going on. I remember the first year I went there was a full-sized moving Tiki bar, a full-sized Jabba the Hutt on a rolling "throne", and a two or three three-person MUNI buses, who would stop at every other intersection and turn at right angles, forcing everyone behind them to stop. Nothing even remotely that cool this year. Nothing political, nothing even topical, unless one guy dressed as Spiderman counts.
My feeling is further reinforced by the Chronicle's photos, which seem equally sad. The best group was the Salmon (they run the whole race backwards), but they've been doing that for at least as long as I have been here.
there were a couple of Pamplona groups (with a keg or a bunch of a cases in a shopping cart dressed up as a bull), which were clever, but I first saw that last year.
Grumble, grumble. I must be getting old.
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