Evidence of clandestine whipped cream making in the streets of San Francisco

Folks in San Francisco sure like making their own whipped cream in the streets.

Greg Long says, "I walked out to find this in the alley behind GAMAGO in SoMa this morning. Our cars have been getting hit with the hippie gap whippit delivery service ads. Apparently they’ve got a customer!"

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The Snowden Principle

fuzzyfuzzyfungus

Let’s consult inspector Devo to determine what might have happened here…
- http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce
  
  Perhaps a problem came along.
  - bcsizemo
    
    Obviously they whipped it good.
    - http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
      
      Before the cream sits out too long, they must whip it.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RA4AVVHBDO7ZTD3ANU6CLVQZPI pierre

Yeah, lets make a big deal out of this guys business and screw him over… HORRAY.
- Rider
  
  Umm I think the guys idiotic advertising is taking care of that for him.
- marilove
  
  “Screw him over”? Really? A bit of friendly jabbing is going to screw him over? LOL
  
  In reality, it might help. Since, you know, it’s basically free advertising.
  
  Besides, I doubt the good majority of his target advertising audience visits BoingBoing.
- i_prefer_yeti
  
  I’d be more receptive to this pusher’s biz model if he offered a paid refund recycling program for the canisters to encourage the addicts to pick up after themselves.
  
  And, perhaps, if Hippie Gap joined in some SoMa neighborhood cleanups. Nothing like a morning spent hosing human shit off the sidewalk and picking up spent needles to make you think about the direct effects of your business practices.
  - marilove
    
    You’re comparing some whippet users to intravenous drug users? Really? I don’t know that heroin users are going to be satisfied with some whippets. Just sayin’
    
    Your use of “addicts” leaves me with a suspicious feeling, as well.
    - i_prefer_yeti
      
      When I’m picking my way across the sidewalk through the mix of needles, crack pipes, whippet canisters, human filth, and general junkie detritus – it all sort of melds together.
      - marilove
        
        “Junkie”. Aaah, aren’t you a charmer!
        
        I just don’t think the heroin addicts, who deserve more sympathy than you are putting out, are going to be doing whippets.
        
        Not to mention that perhaps if people would stop talking about these people like they are scum or criminals, they would be better able to get help.
      - Rindan
        
        If the junkies cut the coke and heroine habit and switch to wippits, I am pretty sure we can call it a net win, litter aside. It is like going from playing with a gun to playing with a nerf toy.
  - Martha Bridegam
    
    Mr. Long is probably right about a new street drug trend South of Market. We live not far from Gama-Go and just this morning I found a whipped cream can by the wheel of our car on a different alley in the same block as the store. Come to think of it, lately been noticing about as many of those little pinch-necked canisters on the sidewalk around western SoMa as there were of needles and their ribbed orange caps maybe four or five and more years ago. Also come to think of it, haven’t seen a needle on the sidewalk right around our neighborhood in some time. FolSoMa is coming up in the world. Next thing we know our neighborhood drugs of choice will get to be single-malt scotches and option trades.
    
    Not objecting at all to the change from needles to canisters on the sidewalks. If you step on a canister it’s unlikely to give you a blood-borne disease. A guy who used to live in a hotel on Folsom in the ’90s claimed to have been stuck in the foot with a sidewalk needle that went right through his shoe. I have to wonder if he was just telling a story for drama but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it squeamishly.
    
    What bugs me more as a practical matter around here is, it’s pretty common to find broken chicken bones on the sidewalk. Never with any packaging or napkins or anything — just one bone at a time, all by itself, usually a leg bone with the knobby ends broken or bitten off. My husband thinks seagulls must pull them out of dumpsters and drop them. Anyway they’re dangerous attractive nuisances for the neighborhood dogs and by Mr. Yeti’s logic our local purveyors of chicken dinners should get busy out there and clean them up.
    
    On the whole it doesn’t make a lot of sense to rank drugs morally. Rank them by relative danger, maybe, but even then not in absolute terms. Kid in our college died of asphyxiation taking (apparently) one last breath of whip-its in a plastic bag over his head when his friends had left for the evening and no one was around to lift the bag away. Not a nice way to go. Nother kid who went to our college a long time ago was a notorious junkie, contributed substantially if ambiguously to society, and died more or less happily at the age of 83. So you really never know.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      The chicken bone thing is cats or raccoons pulling them out of trashcans.
      - Martha Bridegam
        
        Dunno. Haven’t seen a raccoon here in seven or eight years and it’s almost as rare to see a cat out on the sidewalk outside its yard.
        
        Rats maybe? Rats I’d believe.
      - http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
        
        They leave them on my roof here in Seattle. Kinda weirded me out when I first moved in and climbed up to clean the gutters.
    - hankchapot
      
      And gulls, definitely. There is a flock skimming trash on Sproul Plaza, where I work) every morning and they love BBQ wings(Oh the horror). Don’t think they crack the bones though.
    - Martha Bridegam
      
      P.S. to the previous: “street drug” was the wrong phrase above. Would presume it’s not street people but club kids who are leaving the canisters.
- http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
  
  *head* *desk* Really? This is like the third time this week I’ve had to do this. My forehead is getting sore thanks to you weirdos.
Rindan

Eh, whippits are like most drugs, which is to say that they are fairly safe in moderation, but if you are a dumbass, you can possibly hurt yourself. The same can be said about alcohol.

Personally, I wish that drug laws in the US were not so fucked up so that you could simply sell this stuff openly with proper regulatory oversight and include detailed instructions so you reduce the possible harm.
- retchdog
  
  if the drug laws weren’t so fucked up, would anyone be bothering with (any significant consumption of) nitrous in the first place?
  - zarray
    
    I’ve only had it a the dentist but it was like a few nice glasses of wine and a Valium, and blew off pretty quickly. I could see myself coming home from a long day of work and having a few puffs to numb the back pain and make tv more interesting.
  - jackie31337
    
    I’ve had it at the dentist and in labor. Apart from the intended pain relief/relaxation effects, I did find the effects of the nitrous oxide rather pleasant. I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to try it recreationally, but I’d be nervous about using it outside of a medical setting.
http://lectiblog.blogspot.com/ lecti

Crack cocaine and now whipped cream. What’s the world coming to?
http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius

I always thought of nitrous as an East coast drug.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I haven’t done it since I used to huff Reddi-wip cans in the Fenway Star in Boston in the 70s.
- zarray
  
  It’s like the drug of choice for jam band festivals.
  - http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
    
    Balloons – $5 in the parking lot at Nassau Colliseum. It was part of the reason we went to Dead shows even though we didn’t have tickets for the show. The parking lot was almost as much fun.
snowmentality

Proving that I am a giant dork: Until I clicked back and read the previous post, I was all “Okay, I see the whipped cream can, but why are there so many used tampon applicators everywhere? Gross.”

The More You Know ™
- zarray
  
  Well there was this…
  
  http://www.kpho.com/story/15981315/teens-using-vodka-tampons-to-get-drunk
James B

Nobody does nitrous like Frank Booth.
techbuzz

Rodgers? Heron?

Welcome to our alleys (our warehouse spans both). A pretty typical morning find. Unfortunately, needles and feces are not an uncommon find either.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_A3XRNHNAD3ZB6HY7T43BQVP2NQ Crunt
  
  People are shooting up feces now? Damn.
  - http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
    
    The recession hits hard at the lower levels.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EP2SEPYCCZMRYIAERCXDLFIRWM AnthonyI

For some reason I think of blistered up hands when I see a pile of empty whip cream cartridges…
hypersomniac

This could be the cover of a William T. Vollmann book.
gijoel

I hear kids are using it with Cake. Which is a made up drug.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbq3kc29Tmg
RJ

I imagine Sir David Attenborough talking in that soft voice of his as he’s kneeling beside that mess. “Ah! Hippie droppings! So we know we’re tracking the right beast.”
Palomino

Will someone squeeze out a straight line for me please?
B A

I’m no stranger when it comes to most mind expanders, but I’ve gotta say, N2O is by far the strangest of them all.
I’ve had some of the weirdest, familiar and insightful balloons ever.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

Apparently sold as 24 in a case :)
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_A3XRNHNAD3ZB6HY7T43BQVP2NQ Crunt

((Mushrooms + Ecstasy) x NO2)/Burning Man = Lovely roots AND branches