This blog post at Good - prompted by the release of Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price examines the idea that, “the cost of what we now call ‘content’ (i.e. words, images, video, and the like) will necessarily approach zero and that businesses can’t charge for it, they can only hope to make money around that free content somehow.”

Like a movie theater that makes 80 percent of its revenue on popcorn and Jujubees, big-name journalists - including Anderson himself - don’t make their money by directly selling the content they produce, rather they pull in millions from cross-country speaking tours.

The speaking engagement - think not just writers but Canon Shooters of Light also - used to be a means to get your name out there to sell content. Now it’s the means to pay for the creation of the content?

… and for those of us who are not famous, wealthy white men? 

Woodland adventures with Chris

Tober has been out of prison three days and already he’s back on the circuit.

Standing on a footpath next to a grove of trees in Golden Gate Park, he loudly solicits passers-by to consider purchasing his wares.

“Hey! Hey, you! You want some weed? I bet you do,” he calls out to a group of 20-somethings walking by. He’s been out of the game while serving a four month prison sentence for breaking the jaw – and puncturing the lung – of a man who was rude to his pit bull, but he doesn’t need to worry about stepping on anyone’s toes.

Tober, 29, is a leader of the San Francisco Scum Fucks, a notoriously alcohol-fueled gang with a tumultuous reputation among the homeless and runaways who seek refuge in Golden Gate Park.

“We’re drunk, crazy motherfuckers,” he says, the sparkle in his robin’s egg blue eyes momentarily distracting from the cacophony of gang insignia covering his body.

The Scum Fucks derive their name from 80s punk rock band GG Allin and the Scumfucs, a raucous group of heroin addicts known for stage antics ranging from defecation to on-stage rape. Unlike Allin, modern-day Scum Fucks ascribe to a strict moral code, regularly helping new street kids find safe places to sleep in the park and often putting teen runaways in touch with outreach programs. While drunken brawls and peddling pot to college kids are acceptable, those who come through the park slinging heroin or scamming tourists are likely to face opposition in the form of several well-conditioned fists. Pedophiles in particular are a favorite target for the SFSF.

“We may sell pot, drink booze and fight, but we have kids too,” Tober said.             

The group gets in an average of 10 fights per week, Tober said, but only half of those are regulatory. The other half?

“It’s usually for a greater good,” said 24-year-old Sarah, Tober’s girlfriend of six months, “but a lot of times it’s just friends getting drunk and stupid.”

The gang is made up of around three dozen members, about 10 percent of whom are female. Most members are homeless and spend their nights in Golden Gate Park, rarely sleeping in the same spot twice. Initiation into the gang involves a vicious beating, except in the case of female members who take little more than a few blows to the arms.

Among those who call Golden Gate Park and the streets of the Upper Haight their home, there is both admiration and fear of the Scum Fucks. One homeless man referred to them as “really honorable people,” but refused to give his name for fear of becoming a target of the group’s merciless beatings. “There’s a lot of shit that goes on in this neighborhood,” he said. “Somebody’s gotta take care of us because the cops aren’t gonna do it. This is our home.”

Mark Utter, a 38-year-old father of four from Findlay, OH, has been living in the park since 1991 when he was discharged from the military for blackmailing a dentist for nitrous to sell at Grateful Dead shows. Utter is an intelligence officer with the SF Dogs, a gang Tober considers the “older cousin” of the SFSF.

“You don’t go to the police,” Utter said. “We are the police.”

The SFSF used to have a more tangible presence in their territory but recent crackdowns by beat cops have weakened their hold on the neighborhood. Every member of the gang has some sort of criminal history, Tober said, mostly for assault and drug charges.

Late one night, an officer who declined to give his name was shooing vagrants from doorways on Haight Street. He has worked this beat for many years, he said.

“Yeah, I know the Scum Fucks,” he said in an exasperated voice. “But I haven’t seen much of them lately, thank God.”

Although many Scum Fucks are out of commission because of drug problems or prison sentences, Tober patrols his park with confidence. As the afternoon wears on, Tober’s sobriety sets with the California sun. He warns a nearby teenager peddling dime bags to back off his territory.

When asked if he would ever consider going straight, Tober looks down at the words “SCUM FUCKS” tattooed on his knuckles and smirks, remarking that the ink makes him a lifer.

“Plus,” he says, “our retirement plan ain’t so good.”

———-

Note: This piece was a part of my participation in the 49th annual Hearst Journalism Championship in San Francisco, Calif., in June 2009. If the story seems short, it’s because it is: we had a 750-word (!) limit. I’m considering writing a longer (2,000 words or so) magazine-style feature of it once my brain starts working again.