A Neighborhood Take on Outside Lands

by Andrew Dalton on August 28, 2009

It’s that time of year again. When the massive music festival we all waited for, but still love to hate on, returns to Golden Gate Park for it’s second year of mediocre headliners and sweating it out in the crowd for bands that will most likely be back at the Fillmore in a couple months anyway. Since some of the festivities brush gently against the hem of our neighborhood, we at Aggressive Panhandler thought we’d take a moment to let you know you probably shouldn’t move your car until Monday, lest your sweet curbspace be swiped by some eager out-of-towner. That’s not the only wisdom we’re bestowing on you, read on for more tips for making it through the weekend…

On a related note: Our favorite blogging District Supervisor, Ross Mirkarimi, has let us know in a blog post this week that the festival is guaranteed to make a cool $950k for the Rec & Park department (sidenote: why don’t we call it Parks & Rec like every other town in the country?), but he’s also posted a condensed MUNI map of the crucial lines to Polo Field. Our old friend the 5 Fulton is certainly going to be packed with bridge and tunnelers coming from BART, so we’d recommend avoiding that until Monday as well, if you can bear it.

If you’re too cheap to spring for passes or you’re somehow chained to your desk all weekend, you’ll probably be excited to learn that there are several options for you to experience all of the fun without the obnoxious beer lines. Start with the live streaming video on the Outside Lands YouTube Channel. And for a more inane/witty/obnoxious stream of updates you may want to leave your browser open to SFAppeal’s We’ll Do it Live! page, which updates with comments and twitter streams of citizens out on the grass of the Polo Field.

Oh and lest we forget, as SFWeekly has pointed out it’s Critical Mass day, so if you feel like exercising your right to ride the wiggle unmolested instead of your right to do the hippie shake in a meadow, expect to be greeted by a great deal of already frustrated motorists.