What Bumping Into Dean Preston & Elon Musk Made Me Realize About San Francisco

For a bustling metropolitan city filled with tourists, billionaires and bullshit; San Francisco certainly feels like a small town sitting somewhere on the edge of sanity. The place just doesn’t feel real. Where else in the country does a casual stroll allow you to cross paths with one of the world’s most famous oligarchs and a politician that inspires his ire all within a year? This place is the fucking Twilight Zone. 

Last year, back when I lived in San Francisco, I would regularly do exercise walks along Market Street. I didn’t lose weight. Not because walking isn’t healthy, but because I’m a human trash compactor that turns fast food into fat dude. During one of my many Market Street excursions, I passed the Twitter building and I noticed two black SUVs and a car that looked very expensive that I didn’t recognize. I didn’t really think much of it as San Francisco is filled with rich people with nice cars, but then Elon fucking Musk walked out. He had a few intimidating looking guys with him who I assume were bodyguards, unless Elon Musk just hangs out with really well dressed buff dudes who wear dark suits. It was a surreal experience. I was standing there on Market Street, looking at a man worth a quarter TRILLION dollars, while the smell of stale urine, and ocean air filled my nose. 

I didn’t linger around. I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t even take a picture. I just kept walking. I faintly heard his voice in the distance as I walked away. I pondered the likelihood of the simulation theory. I couldn’t help it because Maybe two hundred feet from where I saw Elon Musk, I passed a group of people huddled around each other for warmth while they tried to sober up on the sidewalk. 

There was really no separation between the two. I saw both extremes of San Francisco within ninety seconds of walking. This isn’t typical in most major cities. It may be in San Francisco, but generally speaking, you don’t see the most powerful people in the world immediately next to the most vulnerable. It just doesn’t work like that. But it does in San Francisco. 

Fast forward to today, and I’m walking to my first in-office job since 2020, and once again, I’m minding my business. Just trying to get to work. And who do I see? None other than the man Elon Musk wants to throw in jail for not agreeing with him: Dean Preston. This time, I had to say something. I was like “yo, Dean!” And he was like “KILL THE RICH,” and proceeded to pull some affluent-looking guy out of his Tesla at gunpoint and executed him in the street. Which I personally felt was unnecessary, but after he was done, he was nice enough to take a photo with me. That first part didn’t happen, but I’m sure Fox News will run with it. 

Me and the DEAN

You’re probably wondering what the point of this article is, and I assure you there is one. These chance encounters and the people in them are emblematic of what San Francisco is and what it’s also been: a small town. Don’t let the number on the city limits sign or the census data fool you – San Francisco is only truly home to two people. There’s the man with the money and the man with the without. No one else really lives in San Francisco. They’re just temporary spectators in the audience who bought a ticket to watch the fight.

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