S.G. Browne

As the city of San Francisco (and other cities and counties throughout California) implement a Shelter-In-Place directive, closing up all businesses that are considered non-essential and restricting the movement of humans in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus in an attempt to flatten the curve of infection, I thought I’d share some photos of what San Francisco looks like on the first morning of the apocalypse…I mean the directive.

I went out to take a morning walk at 6:30am to get some exercise, keeping in mind that the directive recommends keeping a minimum distance of 6 feet from anyone else on the street, which, as you can see from the photos, wasn’t difficult to do. Plus I hadn’t showered yet, so there’s that.

As you can imagine, it’s rather surreal to see empty streets and deserted sidewalks in a major metropolitan city, even at 7:00am on a weekday. And the Marina District is usually bustling with cars and cafes and Crunch Fitness. But for now, this is the new normal.

Whenever I take a walk around the city, I like to have a soundtrack. I still have an iPod shuffle, so I don’t have playlists, just a shuffling of the songs I’ve downloaded. Normally I skip over songs that don’t suit my mood, but I decided to let the songs play without interruption to see what kind of mood they set. Below in order are the songs that provided the soundtrack to my rather surreal morning.

Feeling That Way / Anytime
One Tree Hill
Love Rollercoaster
All the Small Things
Time of the Season
Waiting
God Part II
Tired of Sex
I’m in Love with My Car
Surrender
Kiss Off
Roadhouse Blues
Smooth Sailin’
Miss You
Rehab
Personal Jesus
Love for Sale
It’s Now or Never
Hello It’s Me
Alive and Kicking
Hammer to Fall

That last one seems a little too close for comfort to the current situation, but it’s Queen so I can’t complain.

Tomorrow I’ll check out North Beach.