Editing Blog/2025-09-14/The Legend of Beadman

[[File:AI Conception of Beadman.png|thumb|The expression is pretty spot-on though the Beadman's fashion sense had deteriorated by the time I met him]]
A recent Reddit story that I read reminded of a time when my friend Takashi and I encountered a colourful San Franciscan who proceeded to demonstrate a fairly typically San Franciscan activity. The Reddit post itself is a fairly reasonable PSA warning others of a pickpocket but the character involved sounded like the guy we'd seen.

It all started some 6 years or so ago, when I was living in the Sunset with my friend Takashi. He'd very kindly allowed me a spare bedroom while I found a place here in the city. The Sunset is about a half hour on the N line from downtown where we both worked. Since we had a fairly big shared friend group, we'd hang out with people downtown or go to the gym downtown and then head back together. Takashi, however, had lived there a decade or so by that time and was very acquainted with the vagaries of Muni passenger demographics. I, much more familiar with [[Blog/2024-03-19/The Day I Was Superman|BART and its strangeness]], was not generally prepared for the shape of this other public transit system.

So one day, we were both riding the N Judah out to the Sunset around midnight. A Muni train of this era is laid out with most seats facing forward or backward and then some jump seats facing each other that can be raised for wheelchairs. Takashi and I were seated in one of these jump seats at the back of the car.

[[File:Muni Train Seating Diagram.jpg|frame|center]]

As we pulled in to one of the stops, perhaps the one near Duboce and Church, we saw the ginger fellow who would come to be known as Beadman standing with a deranged grin looking into the train as it pulled in. To our great (mis)fortune, he got on at the back and sat down opposite us where he spent the next four or five stops running a bunch of metal beads (similar to the ones that secure a military dog tag) along the area between his nose and his upper lip<ref name=philtrum/> while muttering. So far, this was pretty par for the course so I barely even noticed he was up to this and found it easy to avoid eye-contact.

But that's when the ante was upped. He suddenly hopped onto the seat while the train was in motion, and pulled his jeans down in one swift motion exposing his bare white buttocks. At this point, I realized that despite having lived in San Francisco for five or six years I had never actually witnessed someone pooping in front of me<ref name=public/>. I found myself entirely unable to move: my eyes were pinned to his shiny ass as if I was chosen to witness some sacred act.

My belief that I was about to be inducted into this surprisingly not-quite-select group of people was rapidly debunked. Reaching with practiced ease, he supplied the aforementioned beads to his bum, observed as said bum gratefully sucked them up, then pulled his pants up and sat down. The whole maneouvre couldn't have taken more than a few seconds. It required mastery of the act, particularly the maintenance of the grin throughout. He looked me in the eye, got up, and hopped off at the next stop with nary a change in expression.

Looking to my left I saw Takashi was looking at a far corner of the train, and I realized that I'd noticed him (in my peripheral vision) immediately turn to the far corner at the first sign of a trouser pulldown. We sat in silence until our stop, but as we hopped off I had to confirm that this act had in fact occurred. From that day on, I have told many people of Beadman, but neither Takashi nor I have seen him since. Since I have since moved to SOMA, and Takashi has moved out of town, I suspected we never would.

But these are different times, Trump is President again, and in these dire hours, the Beadman may have returned:

{{Reddit
 | url      = https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1ng7jom/pickpocket_gang_active_noticeable_red_headed/
 | author   = u/sf_observer
 | title    = Pickpocket gang active
 | text     = I was targeted by a pickpocket gang last night in the FiDi/Nob Hill/Union Square area. The ringleader looks like the red-headed guy from Game of Thrones so he's very recognizable. I think he has about 7-10 people working with him. I caught him trying to palm my ring and when I yelled a bunch of people dispersed. Keep an eye out (as always, but especially for this guy)!!!

Edit to say: saw him first in Belden Alley, then they made their way up to the Chelsea/Summer Place area and that's where he tried to take my ring. I forgot it's Giants/Dodgers this weekend so if you're by the ballpark I'd be extra careful.
 | date     = 2025-09-12
 | score    = 842
 | comments = 219
}}


== Notes ==

<references>
<ref name=philtrum>The philtrum is apparently just the vertical groove in that area, not the entire area itself, and I am nothing if not precise</ref>
<ref name=public>I was about to say "in public", but to be clear, I had not witnessed anyone do this in front of me in private either.</ref>
</references>

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