San Francisco Fireworks Cancellations, Drone Show Failures
San Francisco and Berkeley canceled official Fourth of July fireworks displays, citing reasons ranging from budget savings to COVID-19 precedents. While some neighboring areas like Richmond held shows on July 3rd, the lack of pyrotechnics in major hubs served as a potential economic indicator. In Seattle, a drone light show malfunctioned when approximately 50 drones fell into the water, an incident the designer attributed to GPS interference caused by solar flares.
san francisco· berkeley· fourth of july· fireworks· drones· seattle· solar flares
00:00 Everybody's bitching about the chicken. Adam Curry, John C. DeVorah. This is no agenda! You've got to be kidding me. It happened again? Not only that,
00:40 We all did dinner on the 4th of July here instead of Friday. And we're looking out and JC was commenting, well I guess there's not going to be any fog finally because it was hot. Oh he jinxed it! He jinxed it! Because it was hot the day before and today, and it was hot on the 4th. And then around 7 o'clock a huge fog rolled in! But the irony is because San Francisco would rather have people peeing on each other in public... Yes this is good They didn't even have a Fourth of July celebration to get ruined What do you mean? There were no fireworks What?!
01:22 And Berkeley didn't have fireworks either. What? It's the unpatriotic new San Francisco Bay Area, the fireworks were in Richmond on the 3rd. That's un-American! Well hold on a second... Is there an explanation for this? I didn't even know it was not gonna happen. Okay that happens but.. I'll tell you this it sounded like a war zone though with Richmond and Oakland going off, just individuals Well, I'll tell you out here we had maybe two like M-80 type blasts go off before 10 o'clock and that was it. I had the dog in her Thunder shirt... No! ...I had her doped up on Benadryl ready to go she raised her head like whatever and she's normally very nervous for this nothing. I talked to Sir Gene in Austin same thing I got text message I got emails because we talked about
02:19 almost no pre or post fireworks. It has been a very quiet year, which is clear that to me is a massive economic indicator. But you already said to me in the last show that there are fireworks stands all the way from Austin to Fredericksburg, left and right every which way so people would have been buying fireworks. And it's legal! Unlike around here where it's not. Well the good news is that Sir Gene used to consult for a couple of these companies because those are like five million dollar-a-year businesses these guys clean up on this stuff so he was gonna call around for me hasn't gotten back to me yet
03:00 he was going to call around and see if they took a total bath or what happened. But yes, 290 between Austin and Fredericksburg is just... there must be nine firework stands. They're like these big containers. And they are year round you can buy not all year round I don't think but there's obvious times when they're open but it was just nothing it was unbelievable we watched the DC fireworks on TV. It was, you know... Well that's pathetic! And then the New York fireworks there's nothing else There was nothing here I mean i'm sure that we didn't go out of course because of Phoebe but I didn't hear anything that was going on usually they have it at Lady Bird Lake so i'm sure they had fireworks but no one had any stuff going on and were pretty close to town Nothing and even the day after usually people shooting some remnants stuff off none of its
03:55 No, no. I think this is a... along with your rule of thumb which is of course the sex workers they get better looking and cheaper well I don't know if they get cheaper If the economy gets worse? If the economy gets worse! I think this is a new one but have not yet seen this and I think people were just like nah I'm not gonna blow my money up in the air And I got a lot of confirmation from around the country you know obviously They can't get anything from anywhere else because it's unique to the US, but it was stunning. And then to hear that they didn't even have a Fourth of July in San Francisco... That's amazing! Amazing! Well Berkeley canceled their Fourth of July. They used COVID-19.
04:48 as an excuse to end their fireworks. They used to have a pretty good fireworks display off the pier, right into the bay near Emeryville and they ended it then and then they haven't returned because you know it's like look at all the money we saved! And Sam is... The only one around here I mean there's some I think Pleasanton has one at the county fair and there are some other ones here and there but The only one nearby is in Richmond and they do it on the 3rd wisely because of that 4th of July fog which rolled in on the 4th of July right on time. And so they have a pretty good show but this year was kind of, it was different because they didn't have like I was commenting on this in the last show, they didn't have the hearts, they didn't have the smiley faces and they didn't have my favorite firework
05:39 piece which is a cube, which if you ever seen it. Yeah yeah you mentioned this the Cube Firehouse. It's like you look at and go wow that's a cube! I think people these days are much more enamored by the drone shows The drone shows are terrible Oh? I thought drone shows were pretty cool when they do it right Well yeah, but it's just there are no explosions. I agree! This country was birthed in the middle of explosions we need to celebrate it with explosions what is going on? Now did you hear about the drone show that went awry because up in Seattle they've... Seattle used to have some of the most advanced fireworks displays off The Needle
06:21 every year because they had this very famous Japanese fireworks designer who would do them every year. And there was fireworks, stuff like you've never seen before and that guy retired and he stopped doing it a couple years ago and then went to drones. And this year because I mean, he claims is because the solar flares They lost their GPS and 40 of them or 50 of them went in the drink I Shouldn't laugh but Come on. That's pretty funny Yeah, I thought that's funny too because you can imagine a big drone show and they lose their GPS because I guess They're all you know, they're computerized but they need GPS Oh yeah Of course they do precisely as say to all this sudden lose GPS it'll come flying into the crowds Can you imagine that no? No
