San Francisco is My Home

25
Mar

Still carrying a torch

Author: kris, Category: News, Politics, Sports

Lots of uproar over the upcoming passage of the Olympic torch through San Francisco. The i.m. Newsom and his posse of city administrators are being tight-lipped about the planned route, which is getting the ACLU and associated protesters hot under the collar. There’s a lot of talk about protesting China’s crimes against Tibet, especially if Chinatown is part of the torch’s route.

I don’t know what to think about all that. On the one hand, I am firmly against the way China is handling their involvement in Tibet, obviously. On the other hand, there’s a nice ideal attached to the Olympics, that pretty image of there being one place where we all meet up. Even those of us committing atrocities against innocent Tibetan monks.

It’s like a family, I guess. Your brother and cousin may hate each other, or maybe your great-aunt is a racist windbag, or who knows what. Still, you all get together on Thanksgiving. Maybe pointlessly, maybe not.

Then again, China is more than an impotent windbag at this point. Maybe even in a family you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Thoughts?

24
Mar

The 680 Murder…

Author: kris, Category: News

I usually hate reading articles like this one, stuff about individual murders and other crimes that only seem relevant to the people involved. But I have to say, I’m a little intrigued by this. Maybe it’s all the Agatha Christie mysteries I’ve been reading lately, but this does sound like the beginning of a good mystery plot. An 18 year old girl killed on a freeway. The car she was driving was registered to a much older man, later found shot to death in his own driveway. What’s the rest of the story?

My interest becomes ghoulish in the extreme when you remember that these were real people. But hey, at least I don’t watch reality TV.

12
Mar

When it’s not a good idea to raise your hand

Author: kris, Category: News

Those of you who are enjoying my newly implemented Monday weekend roundups and Tuesday business reviews will be disappointed today. No structure on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are a free-for-all.

Today I want to talk about Kelly Medora. The SF Board of Supes just approved a $235,000 settlement for her after a policeman broke her arm. What was Medora doing? Selling drugs? Exposing herself in public? Nope, she was hailing a cab with a friend in North Beach (which is as far from a crime-centric ‘hood as you can get without going to uber-ritzy Sea Cliff) and a cop started yelling at her with no provocation. When she complained to a different cop, the first cop grabbed and twisted her arm until it broke.

If this isn’t enough for you, Medora is a preschool teacher. Way to help out your PR department, there, copper.

Here’s the thing: you can’t say that one incident of police brutality equals a pattern of police brutality. You can talk about other incidents, of course. A friend of mine attended a peaceful protest, sparsely attended. When the cops showed up and demanded the crowd disburse, they did so. Then the cops shot them in the back with rubber bullets, which not only hurt like a sonofagun, they can also kill you if they hit you in the wrong place. This wasn’t her only experience with cops brutalizing protesters, just the most recent.

Cops can get violent, we all know this. Just like we all know that when you’re out there in the stuff, lines can get confusing. A big crowd yelling at you can be scary and maybe you react with the wrong level of force. A panicking suspect can look like a violent suspect if you’re feeling panicky yourself. But there are levels of violence we can understand, though not condone, and then there’s breaking a preschool teacher’s arm for no reason.

I know it gets tough out there. But guys, let’s step up our peaceful negotiations classes or something. Because it’s tough out there for us un-armed folks too.

29
Feb

No loitering

Author: kris, Category: Bars and Clubs, News

On Tuesday, our Supes — call them Supervisors or Superstars, it all depends on whether they’re being idiots or geniuses on any given day — will discuss a proposed legislation banning anyone from loitering outside a nightclub for more than 180 seconds between 9 pm and 3 am.

I know what you’re thinking: what the hell is a nightclub? The closest thing we’ve got is Harry Denton’s Starlight Room. But assuming they just mean normal clubs, I still know what you’re thinking: what about smokers? Fear not, my magic dragons, for smokers will be exempt from this rule.

The legislation is an effort to cut down on violent crime. What it would essentially mean is that violent criminals would still be free to lurk and skulk where butterflies of the night gather, but they’d have to be holding a cigarette or risk being hassled. Is this a longterm death penalty from our uber-liberal Supes? Are we condemning these criminals to a life of addiction, gradually ending in horrible, cancerous deaths? And as an added side benefit, most of them would also develop fierce hacking coughs which would alert any potential victims to the skulker in the shadows.

Again, I pose the question: Supervisors? Or Superstars? I just never know.

29
Feb

Sometimes the best apples are at the bottom. Right?

Author: kris, Category: News, People, Politics

From out of the bowels of San Francisco, Nader has chosen Matt Gonzalez as his running mate. (Nader’s running again, did you know this? That sound you hear is the sound of thousands of conservative Democrats groaning in unison. They’re so cute, like little synchonized knee-jerkers.)

According to the Chron, Gonzalez, who has served on the SF Board of Supervisors and lost to Newsom in the 03 mayoral race, “is a hero to the Bay Area left.” The local anarchists I know mostly don’t like him much, but I’m guessing that’s not the left the Chron is talking about. All I know is that while playing for the Supes, he did enact legislation that forbad the SF Zoo from keeping elephants, for which he has earned my eternal love. And he used to hold wine and cheese parties in his office for any members of the public who were interested.

As a complete unknown to most of the country, even the three of them who still read the news, I don’t see how Gonzalez could possibly help Nader. And as Public Enemy Number 1 in the eyes of many Demos, I don’t see how Nader could possibly help Gonzalez. In fact, their race for the presidency will be way less interesting to watch than their race to see who can shoot the other one in the foot faster.

This image of Nader is from here.

28
Feb

Save the Palace!

Author: kris, Category: Landmarks, News, Politics

San Francisco has three important palaces. There’s the Palace of Fine Arts, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor. And then there is the Cow Palace.

The amusing name derives from its original function, which was to house large livestock at the Pan-Pacific International Expo. The idea came about in 1915, but wasn’t completed until 1941.

These days the Palace houses all kinds of stuff, from the annual Dickens Christmas Faire to political speakers to popular bands to Disney’s Princess on Ice show. But State Senator Yee is proposing to sell the Palace to Daly City, who will definitely knock it down and replace it with a supermarket and other stuff the neighborhood needs.

What kind of person tells a Daly City family they can’t have a grocery store because we want to keep our entertainment center there, right? And yet…

The thing that makes living in SF and environs good, the reason we pay such high prices for rent and food and transportation, the reason people flock here in droves, isn’t just the great weather. It’s because the Bay Area is one of those places that still has a strong personality, one that would shine through even if you removed all the kooky, lovable characters. Because we have things like the Castro Theatre and the Albany Bulb and, of course, the Cow Palace.

If you are unconvinced, consider that part of why the Daly City council wants the thing torn down is because it hosts “too many gun shows, erotic balls and rap concerts.” A strike for the Cow Palace is a strike against censorship!

If you’ve got something to say on this, whether for or against, I urge you to attend tonight’s first meeting to discuss the possible sale of the C.P.

Meeting times are:

Tonight, 7 o’clock: Bayshore Community Center, 450 Martin St., Daly City

March 8, 10 a.m.: Visitacion Valley Community Center, 66 Raymond Ave., San Francisco

March 8, 11 a.m.: Bayshore Community Center, 450 Martin St., Daly City

March 25, 7 p.m.: Saddleback Homeowners Clubhouse, 1800 Saddleback Drive, Daly City

This photo of The Beatles playing at the Cow Palace was taken by Bob Campbell.

27
Feb

SF loses a character

Author: kris, Category: Celebrities, Food, News, People

Famed restaurateur Tommy Toy died. He was known around town, and catered to several local celebrities including Coppola. His food was art (so I’ve heard), and the fact that his haberdasher described him as “outgoing” is way less telling than the fact that he had a haberdasher at all.

(If you are wondering, haberdasher = a retail dealer in men’s furnishings, as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.)

You can read the full article here, but I especially liked the ending:

“Mr. Toy is survived by his wife, Veronica, a son, Darrick, and a grandson, all of San Francisco.”

22
Feb

You put your bookstore in, you put your bookstore out

Author: kris, Category: News, Shopping

As Berkeley’s Cody’s Books moves house yet again, things continue to look dire for independent bookstores. This isn’t really news, of course. Indie bookstores have been failing for decades. Still, Cody’s was an institution for years and years, and on their new premises they’ll be seriously dialing down their selection.

“The days of big full-service bookstores are over,” said Hut Landon, director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. “The smaller neighborhood model is what’s working.”

I wonder what this means for Green Apple Books, SF’s fabulous enormous used bookstore. They appear to be thriving — they’re always packed, no matter what time or day I go. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re a block from one of the city’s hottest restaurants, Burma Superstar, which often has a two-hour seating delay, giving diners nothing to do in the interim but browse through the bookstore while they wait for a table. Still, it seems unlikely that this one mega-indie store will escape the axe, just because it happens to be the one I love most.

This artwork is by Paul Madonna, another fabulous San Francisco institution.

20
Feb

Swear not by the moon

Author: kris, Category: Nature, News

Keep your eyes peeled for a lunar eclipse tonight. Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, pah, a total lunar eclipse, big deal. I can see those anytime. Not so, dear friend. This will be the last total lunar eclipse available to us until 2010.

Also, who are you to be so cavalier about the movements of the cosmos? Shape up, kid.

It is, of course, possible that the weather, currently semi-crap, will be total crap by tonight, ruining the view of the big event. Still, it’s worth ducking your head outside to take a gander if you happen to think of it around 7 pm.

The next solar eclipse, if you are wondering, will take place in August.

29
Jan

Noise Pop 2008

Author: kris, Category: Events, Music, News

Set your watches for the countdown…Noise Pop approaches again.

Noise Pop, as if you didn’t know, is an annual festival of music, but not the kind with folk songs from around the world and hot dogs on a stick. No, this music is cool. It happens in the best local venues, and collects the most exciting indie artists around. Previous years’ performers have included harp-playing songstress Joanna Newsom, local favored Jeff Buckley sound-alike Devendra Banhart and throaty sister act Cocorosie. (They get other, bigger acts — Modest Mouse, The White Stripes — but these are the ones I liked, and who’s writing this post, anyway?)

A few of this year’s big names include The Magnetic Fields and Quasi. You can also catch The Mayfire, whom I got to review in my alternate life as a music critic. For the complete list of bands, click here.

Perhaps most interesting to me is the show of photographs of Elliott Smith, my most favorite of musicians, now tragically deceased. If this is your thing as well, click here for more info.

Noise Pop will occur in your eardrums from February 26 through March 2. Check the website for details on venues, times and tickets.