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Frisco Utopia

Frisco Bay Beach Party By Hank Hyena Frisco is hugged on its eastern shore by a spacious sea that's ringed with rolling hills and speckled with isles. This pretty pond--Frisco Bay--is praised around the planet for its gorgeousness, but really: what's so fine about a frigid, filthy pool? You can't splash in it unless you've got more blubber than a walrus; it's so polluted you'll go mercury-mad if you swallow a single shrimp; and ... it's expensive! You have to pay $2-$3 just to drive across the damn thing. Yachting is an option if you're a rich twit, and there are kayaks for the ducky--but what about snorkeling, sunbathing, swimming, weenie roasting, petting-under-the-pier, cliff diving, bikini ogling, hula dancing, shellfish shucking, crab boiling, coconut sucking and all the other healthy hedonistic pleasures enjoyed by luckier waterfronts? I want Bora Bora, Goa, Galveston, Waikiki, Bali, Rio and the Riviera right here! Believe me, it'll happen--we'll be frolicking at Frisco Bay beach parties forever if we follow the four steps below: Heat the Water: To turn Frisco Bay into the tub temperature I want (84 degrees), let's just dam up the Golden Gate channel--this'll keep cold ocean currents from churning on in. Let's sink our orange erector-set bridge to create blockage, then we'll bulldoze some windy Headlands hills in on top. The Sacramento River also creates serious cold-water plumbing problems because it drips in infinite gallons--let's divert that scummy stream by swerving its course and selling it to Los Angeles. The resulting "Frisco Lagoon" will be deeper than necessary, so let's pack in additional soil--Contra Costa County would be best, all of it. Finally, we'll have a trapped tepid puddle we can heat up with electric eels. Coral Coating: Let's steal a teeming tropical reef from a pristine archipelago--we'll strip-mine the coral and cement it to our bay floor, like kitchen tile. We'll stock it with phosphorescent tropical fish and everything else a snorkel heaven requires--if Micronesia enjoys it, we want it! Green turtles, manta rays, playful porpoises, tiger sharks, jellyfish, a sunken galleon and Amelia Earhart's airplane--our lagoon should have everything. We want the warmest, weirdest, most convenient dive spot on Earth--outlined with roasting-pig-pits, tidepools and rum bars. Every shore should be edged with multicultural beaches--white, black, brown, red and yellow sand, plus rainbow dunes for gay and lesbian bathers. Sun City: Nobody will want to play in our topnotch lagoon if our weather remains arctic with fog. What we require is a tropical climate, breezy enough to wind surf but not so turbulent that it tampers with Ultimate Frisbee. Warping the weather is woefully difficult, but my brain's just erupted with a plausible plan: volcanoes! Molten lava is boiling deep beneath us--steaming for a crack to seep out of. All we need to do is dig a deep drill into Mount Tamalpais, Twin Peaks and Mount Diablo--we'll lance them like boils till their hot guts bubble beautifully out. Several hours of lava spewed daily would fritz the fog and raise the temperature radically--we could all wear rayon, and lose our leather jackets! We should worship the volcanoes as deities, too--let's appease their appetites by annually feeding them the worst MUNI drivers. Money for Mermaids: Our languid lagoon will seduce sun-seeking tourists to vacation here, because our cuisine is better than poi. But our No. 1 lure has to be: naked pearl divers! Huge-lunged Neptunian nubiles scissor-kicking into the depths to pry gems from the jaws of oysters. Danger, sex, precious jewelry--this attraction has everything! Voyeurs aroused by harvesting sea nymphs can observe them from private submarine booths. Hate my ideas? Send your own to [email protected] [ San Francisco | MetroActive Central | Archives ]