PG&E Gets No Love From Unhappy Hippies!

PG&E can't catch a break. Its service territory was battered by last weekend's storms and today the San Francisco Chronicle reported that 91,000 of its customers in Northern and Central California were still without power. If that weren't bad enough, now the company has karma issues to deal with.

The coastal hamlet of Bolinas, known for its rather unique population of recluses, bohemians, and others who have withdrawn for a host of reasons (with apologies to Jerry Garcia!: Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night, the first ones named sweet Anne Marie, and shes my hearts delight... the second one is prison, babe, the sheriff's on my trail, and if he catches up with me, Ill spend my life in jail...) apparently digs the creature comforts after all, and wants its damn power back on!!!

The Chronicle has a great article about it today that reads like a Dave Barry column. Some choice quotes for your reading pleasure:

• "I am so burned out, so tired of not having electricity," said Debbie Morrison, a 30-year resident of Bolinas, who has been huddling with her husband and five dogs in front of their wood-burning stove. (You're so burned out? Really? Wow.)

• "I'm basically always without power," said Joe, who didn't want to give his last name because of legal troubles he'd rather not go into. "I have a place I live, but to save money I don't have power, so this doesn't bother me at all."

• Roughing it is kind of spiritual, said local tree cutter Jerrund Bojeste, who drives a van reshaped into a dragon - complete with metal scales and a toothy mouth that he insists shoots fire. "It's not PG&E that is the light. It's the inner light of our own heart, the love light"... Without electricity, he said, "people go back to that earthly divineness. It's only because we are told we need electricity that we use it." (PG&E should sign this guy up for their PR department! "You don't need lights, man!")

But the quote that pretty much sums it up is this one:

"You kind of rough it when you live out here," Miller said, "but it's kind of frustrating with PG&E."

Dude, that quote applies all over the state.

Recluses in Bolinas wish PG&E would hurry up and turn on the lights [San Francisco Chronicle]