Lawyer by day, dinosaur by night: Meet the man who keeps Dolores Park weird

Love what you read? Love that it was free?

Mission Local will never have a paywall. All our articles are free for everyone, always. Help us keep it that way — donate to our end-of-year fundraiser to make Mission Local free for your neighbors.

Donate today!

On a summery, 70-degree day at Dolores Park, Trevor Mead walked out of his apartment at 20th and Dolores streets at about 6 p.m. and started making a lap around the park.

But he’s not just any pedestrian. A data privacy lawyer during the day, in the evening, Mead slips into his 6-foot-tall, 7-foot-long illuminated dinosaur costume, turning Dolores Park into Jurassic Park. “This is how I deal with my day, with my life choices that led me to become a lawyer,” he said jokingly.

In his dinosaur costume, his (big, reptilian) legs stomped comically on the ground with every step he took. The dinosaur, named Doloresaurus, radiates blue light around its contour, against the pink sky, moments after sunset. 

At the grass area behind the tennis court, off-leash dogs surrounded him at one point, some staring, others barking, most from a safe distance. When he reached the playground up the hill, some 10 kids circled around the curious creature, eyes lit up with wonder. 

“Kids above a certain height, it was their favorite thing ever. Below a certain height, they were terrified of it. Just terrified,” Mead said. To calm the kids, Mead built sounds into the dinosaur — a hello, a giggle, and Peter Griffin singing the “Jurassic Park” theme song — with two speakers in the rear and one in the mouth, controlled by two old cell phones. 

“In addition to roaring, it talks, meows, burps, farts, sings,” he said. “I mean, it’s just fantastic.”

The preset sound reactions proved to be useful. When dogs freaked out at the dinosaur on Thursday, it meowed at them. At the playground, Mead encouraged a five-year-old to put his hand into the mouth of the dinosaur. “Nom, nom, nom. Yummy,” the dinosaur said, cracking up the kids. 

Mead built the costume in the spring of 2023, after a friend showed him the work of a Dutch artist, Esmée Kramer, who created a mechanical dinosaur costume with PVC pipes, foam and a fiberglass stick. 

He was also inspired by another Dolores Park regular, the dancing robot. “I always love the interaction and the joy and weirdness that he brought,” Mead said. “He was really proud to just keep San Francisco a little weird.” 

The LED lights were added to Mead’s design later that winter. “As soon as the lights were on, it changed everything,” Mead said. “How people interacted with it, the attention it got. It’s just been amazing.” 

When Mead first started taking the dinosaur to the park, he wasn’t thinking of becoming a regular presence. “But I stepped out of my front door, and just felt incredibly goofy,” he recalled. “Then, everyone just started dying laughing. People’s jaws just dropped. And that was when I knew I had stumbled onto something.”

The costume weighs about 65 pounds. Early on, Mead hadn’t figured out how to distribute the weight properly, so he could only wear it for about 30 minutes. Wind was a major concern, especially in a city like San Francisco. “It can be like a big sail and just just pick up wind and go,” he said. “But I’ve become a lot more confident piloting it.” 

He also made changes to the design, adding more support and fixing the weight distribution. Now, Mead can stand and move around in it comfortably for hours. Last year, he even did Bay to Breakers in it; seven-and-a-half miles in six hours.

Mead is an experienced performer now. When he gets into that mode, “It’s less about how I’m feeling, and more about what’s going on around me and how I’m reacting to it. That’s just a really fun state to be in,” he said. 

On a crowded day at Dolores Park, he can hit up three different groups in a row: Roar at one, burp at the next and meow at the third. Sometimes, he turns the music down low and sneaks up behind a person, making a small growling sound along the way. “They always have friends with them who see it about to happen,” he said. “As soon as they turn around, they just lose their minds.” 

One time, an eight-year-girl walked up, looked at him and, without saying a word, reached out and grabbed the dinosaur’s hand. They just started walking together. “It was the cutest thing, and it’s touching to know how meaningful and interactive it can be for people of all ages.” 

In the summer months, Doloresaurus comes out whenever he can, once or twice a week, at times going beyond Dolores Park to Valencia Street, the Castro, Duboce Park or Haight Street, even to Burning Man. Next Thursday, Mead and Doloresaurus will be at the California Academy of Sciences for the Nightlife: Hot Dino Nights event. 

In just two years, the dinosaur has gotten a lot of wear. It has no motors. Mead controls the movement using a steering wheel to turn its head. When he flips it front or back, the head goes up or down. The jaw and the hands are controlled with brake levers, which he manipulates with his hands. 

“The whole thing is just a big rod-and-cable puppet,” he said. “It feels like every time I go out, one new thing breaks on it.” 

He became good at repairing on the fly, or just working with what he has. As the dinosaur starts to show its age, Mead is working on the next version of it: Lighter, more durable, improving the sound system and LED lights, and even more interactive. 

Eventually, he wants to expand it from dinosaurs to giant wearable puppets that lean into the LED aesthetic. “That’s what people respond to the most … the playful nature of it. You can’t help but smile when you see it.” 

He also hopes to turn it into a kit in different sizes, so everyone can wear it. When he asks for feedback to improve Doloresaurus, people usually say, “No notes. There just need to be more of them.” 

Growing up in Denver, Mead moved to the Bay Area in 2013. After living in Santa Clara, he slowly made his way up the Peninsula and ended up in the Mission in 2020, just before the pandemic. 

Mead loved the weirdness of the city. When he had just moved here, he recalled, on the same day, he saw two men walking their alpacas at Dolores Park. Moments later, someone else drove by in a “teeny tiny” Japanese fire truck with a siren blaring a Godzilla alert. 

“That’s what San Francisco is about to me,” he said. “The chance to just be living your life and suddenly, some delightful piece of art enters into your life, and makes that day special in that really transient way.” 

“But where does the dinosaur end and where does Trevor Mead begin? Where is the line?” this reporter asked. Mead laughed. “I tell people, the dinosaur’s name is Doloresaurus. Pay no attention to the human inside the dinosaur. He lives in the park. This is his stomping ground.” 

But, seriously. “It’s really half and half, between people who interact with the dinosaur and people who interact with me,” he said. “And something I love about this is, it’s so easy for people to choose their experience.”