Here are some embarassing photos of Nancy Pelosi

While shooting some photos of rich and famous dignitaries today it occurred to me how easy it is to make someone look bad with a photograph. People make so many little tics, movements and suchlike even over the course of, say, 30 seconds, that it's blatantly unfair to pick the one or two shots that have someone doing something kinda dumb.

Call me blatantly unfair. Here are some embarrassing photos of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and S.F.'s voice in Washington (And if you're reading this: I'm still available for a bailout, Madame Speaker).

Deficit up your nose?

"Some people are poor, you say? Oh, Willie -- how droll!"

And... AHHH! SHE'S WATCHING YOU!

Or rather, me.


This was a little strange: once the bust of Mr. Harvey Milk was unveiled, Ms. Pelosi kept repeating, "It looks just like him! It looks just like him!" Seeing as how it was based on a rather famous photo of the man, and a professional sculptor made it, I don't know what else was expected -- but I would have to agree: the bust of Harvey Milk does look an awful lot like Harvey Milk.

Spot on.

So now what?

Corner of what used to be Larkin and Bush Streets, 9 p.m. Wednesday

Don't get me wrong -- what happened on Tuesday can only be described as "farting amazing," for a host of reasons. I, like many others, finally respected, liked and felt bad for John McCain, all at the same time and about eight years too late. I, like many others, bounced around from nervous to ebullient, sagged back down to normal and then soared back up again, dancing in the streets, hugging strangers, and swilling cheap champagne, in public, in full view of police officers who only smiled when I made eye contact.

And then I, like many others, woke up on Wednesday hung-over, and had to step over homeless people on the way to work, at a job that might vanish over the next year, in an economy where "budget crisis" is a nom du jour, and in a world where there are still two foreign wars and a corporatocracy running it all.

Because what now, indeed. Much -- in fact, everything, as a certain W is still in office -- is exactly the same it was Nov. 3. Surely what happened Tuesday is an epochal moment, and surely I have never, ever seen so many young black people completely immersed in the political process (for that matter, the same goes for young whites and Latinos, but I digress), but the fact remains: nothing has changed and there is everything yet to be done.

Worst: having won the White House in only the second national election of his life, only four years removed from the Illinois State Legislature, Barack Obama has nowhere to go but down.

Where else could he go? His followers run the entire gamut of the Democratic party, from far-left wackos like myself to just barely right of center Midwestern family people. Don't think for a second that each of his followers, each of whom believes that they've been guaranteed their personal redemption on Tuesday, expects Barack Obama to fulfill each and every campaign promise he's made. Which is, of course, impossible.

Lost in all of this is an onimous warning from Mr. "I handed the White House to Bush in 2000." Ralph Nader, for 50 years a great American -- ever since "The Safe Car You Can't Buy".



In true media fashion, the meat of the argument was lost admist the "Gotcha Gotcha!" sound-bite journalism. He is, of course, old and crazy and a bit inappropriate, but he is, of course absolutely right -- for whom will Barack Obama govern? Will it be for the millions he e-mailed on a daily basis, asking for cash and promising change? Or the corporations he's already voted to bail-out, the military industrial complex he's indicated he wants to expand, the old-money, more of the same Democratic windbags he has to thank with jobs like Secretary of State?

Some other "blogger" said it first -- once the dust settles, there's going to be an awful lot of awfully disappointed people.

The Chron's Weird Bias

Of late, local political stories in The Chronicle have been careful to use certain terms: "far-left," "ultra-liberal" and such when describing candidates for Supervisor and the future face of San Francisco politics. Almost exclusively, in fact -- today's Erin Allday piece, in describing where the next board's political leanings will be, didn't ponder whether it would go right, center or left -- but just "how far left the next board will go."

It's completely possible that the Board could swing straight to the middle if Newsom buddies Ahsha Safai, Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd win in 11, 4 and 7 -- Elsbernd is a shoo-in, Chu certainly has the most visibility around the Sunset (and is Asian like most of her constituency), and for some reason Safai is strong. That would mean, with Michaela Alioto-Pier (who often votes with Elsbernd and Chu on whatever it is Gavin wants, and all three of whom feature prominently on Newsom-sponsored campaigns, like No On H), there would be four automatic pro-Newsom votes on every Board decision.

But that's never something the Chron considered -- just "how far left the next board will go."

The fine folks at BeyondChron have already written about this, right after the so-called "Far Left" took over the DCCC in August. "Progressive" has been erased from the lexcion (I can't find the link right now, will try to find it later) at the Chronicle, and replaced instead with almost doom-sayer-like ominous warnings of "the far left," "how far left," "how left of far left the ultra-liberals!"

Is this reflective of San Francisco voters? I don't know too many actual San Franciscans, not the nutjobs who comment on Chron articles to "RECALL DALY!!", who think that this board is some sort of out-of-touch ultra-liberal collection of liberals. What the fuck does that mean, anyway? All the so-called "liberal" candidates want the same things as the not-so-liberal ones: public safety, good schools, etc. etc. But it's the non-so-called liberal ones who are taking cash from landlords and building owners, and the liberal ones who aren't -- and who are talking about keeping middle-income folks like me in town. Is that the sign of being a non-far-lefty, taking developer cash? Then count me out.

More confusing campaigning

The funders of this sign would have you vote for somebody in District 3.

They don't care if you vote Republican or Democrat, as long as you vote for their Republican or Democrat(s).

Now, clearly it is impossible to vote for two or three candidates in the same race... so who is it that would have us be so confused?

BOMA SFIE PAC, aka the Building Owners and Managers Association, aka The Man.

As far as I can recall, these three candidates were very very mum prior to June 3 on Prop. 98, which would have phased out rent control. Prop. 98 failed, and several prominent candidates in D3, frontrunner David Chiu and my onetime benefactor Tony Gantner among them, opposed Prop. 98.

D3 is ridiculously crowded as it is, and it looks like Chiu is going to take the whole damn thing -- he's received most of the endorsements -- but if you were looking for some people to oppose, for no other reason than they take money from landlords and building owners, here you go.

"Vote for someone -- no no not them! Him? No! Her? Ok. Him -- alright, fine, too. But not HIM!"

Public restroom report card #2

Today my travels and travails took me to The Panhandle.


View Larger Map

There it is, woot.

In said Panhandle, there's a little garden, some basketball courts, and of course, a shitter.

Tinkle tinkle.

Normally, having a public pee and poo hole in a public park is bad news. It attracts all sorts of people, the kind of folk who might not have homes, see, and would use above receptacle to recept... aw, fuck it. You know -- homeless people fuck shit up, dammit!

But considering I routinely empty my bladder in public, I wasn't about to be so shy as to not run in and deposit my morning coffee. I did, and then as soon as some balding guy who kept giving me odd looks left, I walked around and took some photos.

And what did I see!

Mr. Clean's been here!

Seriously, this place sparkled. This is something else. Let's continue.

Clean!

I'm not kidding. Either Rec and Park JUST cleaned it, the cleanest people in town shit here, or... damn, I don't know.

Not a spec of residue anywhere in the john, not a lot of graffy, smelt like a public building, not a privvy.

In short:

Grade: A -- and a big seal of approval.

Covering all the bases or I support the everything

Seeing as how it's Elect a Supervisor time here in St. Francis Town, it's hard not to walk down a city street without seeing a campaign sign hung from a window. Sometimes, you can't help but not see several signs hanging from windows -- sometimes the same window. Sometimes, competitors share the same window.

I always wondered how it is a candidate gets a merchant to hang his or sign. Was there a stump speech? A bribe? A healthy tip in the tip jar?

The more I think about it, the more I think, 'No. Someone just handed them a fucking sign.'

Here are some examples.


Three competing supe candidates, a Peace Mom for Peace, and a Pacific Gas & Electric Co special, on a coffee shop door. Why not? It's a Big Tent.

In District 3, we have three out of 9, or 33.3333333 percent on one corner.

Three, from left to right. Does Joe's sign's sagging mean anything for the son of an Alioto?

Social Worker, plain and... badass

Is it some sort of requirement for social workers to be ex-cons, hard and caring as fuck?
This gentleman was one of the workers from the newly-reopened Walden House, attending a usual Tuesday presser at City Hall.


Hardcore head.

It also came to my attention I saw an Obamacar and didn't post Obamacar.



So there you go.

Gavin's got a brand-new ride?

And it's more fuel-efficient than a Volkswagen?

Leave it to this guy to drive a Green SUV (ok, it's black-painted, but you know what I mean).

Today at the Union Bank of California's something-or-other, Gavin exited the proceedings and hopped into what appears to be a new ride -- a shiny new Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid SUV.



SUV? In the green city? Boo! But wait!

Lest we heap hate on the Gavster for being a gas-guzzler, consider: the normal Mayoral whip, a Lincoln Town Car, gets 15 mpg in the city. The SUV? 20 mpg, a cool 5 mpg better than the stinkin' Lincoln.

Plus, you can fit way more mayoral friends in the Tahoe. Think there might even be room for Chris Daly and Rose Pak? Nah, me neither.

"You might think so, but you are in fact mistaken" #1

Today, about 12 noon, as I sit in the sunshine outside a coffee shop to use the Internet cos I don't have it at home, looking up phone numbers so I can leave messages because I don't have an office (or at least one I can use in between assignments without wasting an hour on Muni), right after having left the fifth in about 15 messages to the police spokesman, trying to get a quote for a newspaper story that would eventually spiked (didn't get the right quote, see), I am seated next to a painter. Exchange goes as follows:

Me: (on phone) This is C, reporter from etc, blah blah blah blah blah blah

Painter: Reporter, huh? Must be cool.

Me: (who makes 550 a week, with car in shop needing repairs he cannot afford to make, sitting outside cos he doesn't have internet in his one-bathroom home which he shares with three other people, too broke to move) ::silent::

Painter: But at least you must get laid a lot?

That's two-for-two, relaxed-looking pony-tailed painter man. Wanna trade jobs?

Could always be worse, though.

49ers know where the fans are

The SF 49ers are popular through much of the greater Bay Area, which according to them includes a place called Santa Mateo County.

Observe.

While looking to see who I'd bug to get into a game free of charge just for holding a camera, I stumbled upon this on their "These are the places where we'll send an old infirm star to barbecues and youth football practices" page.




Map reproduced below, bigger size. See, says Santa.

I've been too busy to post...

...with this new job.



Pays about the same, and I don't have to shower.





Fuck you.

Damn SF pigeons

They don't even eat their crusts. Bet they drive late-model Priuses.

Hey, I witnessed history today

Sometimes the job sucks. Nobody calls you back, high school kids treat you like dirt, you lose your self respect and then a Muni train runs over your foot.

But some days, like today, for example, you get up early, you find a parking spot, and you witness history -- all before 9 a.m.


Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis, first in line at City Hall to receive a same-sex marriage license.



Who was he talkin' to? Duh -- God.


That kid in the middle? The state made an honest couple outta her Daddy and her Poppa. Fuck yeah.


Rejoice, gentlemen. That's a very significant piece a paper.

I hate street fairs

I hate them.


Hate them (but this guy was friendly enough)



Hate them (all these guys were douches)



Hate them (this band made my tinnitus worse)

Fuck. Why do I hate these things so much? Well, they're crowded by asshat scenesters, they're utterly homogeneous events with the same bbq, same tents, same booths and -- in a lot of cases -- same people at each and every one. And inevitably, I have to be the one sober guy, toting a camera through the crowd, trying to find enough PG-13 images to fill a page in some raggedy-ass paper.

That'd be why I hate these things so fucking much.

Attention, street fairs: Go away, never come back. Fuck off and die while you're at it.

Happy Sunday!

Mark it

While we wait for election results to trickle in, we take a moment to gloat.


In case you can't see -- cos, dammit, Blogger, why is that so small?? -- that's some history on the browser.

A rug for the ages

I don't know much about rugs -- Persian, Pennsylvanian or Patagonian -- but this one's kinda unique.

Behold.



I want guns and tanks on my floor. Why not?

God, the media is dumb

When I worked in small-town journalism, I hated being known as the reporter. This was mostly because I hated being conspicuous and just wanted to seep into the background unnoticed. Sometimes, it seemed, I couldn't go to the bar or Safeway without being recognized and sucked into a long-ass conversation. Other times, I was 'that faggot sports kid' hanging around the high school jocks waiting for a 16-year old Young Future Cement Mixer to drop me a nugget of knowledge on The Big Upcoming Game. In either case, I had the attention and I didn't want it.

I'd love to have that problem now I'm in the big-city game. Now, people act as if I barely exist. This extends to sources at City Hall or companies, people I meet in the street, people on the Muni, and even asshole high school kids. No phone calls returned, no e-mails read, no respect. I'm just some jackass with a notebook -- I don't even have a fucking press pass (more on that later).

Sometimes, though, I see how the prominent, legit media act -- and it doesn't matter so much anymore.

Last week, PG&E staged a media cavalcade for a rescue of some cute baby falcon chicks stuck underneath the Bay Bridge. Aww. But Mistah Birds, they dead, and the following melodrama ensued.


Ok, are you seeing this?That's three radio outlets, six (six!!) tv outlets, the Associated Press, two SF Chronicle photogs -- and my ass.


Seriously.

Quote of the morning was from an unnamed handsome, svelte broadcast journalist, whose production team mercifully cut the following nugget of brilliance:

In Gravitas voice: "It's actually... kind of.... in a way.... sad... isn't it?"

Now that's NEWS!

Public restroom report card #1

Some peoples who will remain nameless and faceless like to complain about the "now generation" peeing in public TOO MUCH. Some peoples contend that this is because there's nowheres else to go. I espouse the latter, but I can agree with the former: peeing in public is bad, but lots of times there's noplace to go.

In the spirit of pleasing all parties, we present the first in a series: the public restroom report card.

Today's inaugural entry: Dolores Park.


View Larger Map

A fine park it is, too, with great views, tons of hipster scum on single speed bikes -- and a public shitter.

Behold:


There it is.

On crowded days, like on Hunky Jesus, the line to this man's room is out the door and way down the park back to Dolores Street. I'm only half kidding. The door, as far as I know, is always open, and when I visited some asshat had ripped out the stall of the poop-place, thus making a Dolores defecation a public action.

Let's take a closer look at the piss-pot, shall we?




Yum. Points for the graffy.

So -- crowded, dirty, and a donkey show if you want to use the crapper.

Grade: D+

I picked the wrong fuckin career

Everybody knows nobody -- save a few, a few lucky few -- can get rich doing what they love. This applies to reporters, photographers, street performers, chalk artists, squirt-gun aficionados and artists.

But not this fucking guy.

Ok, or THAT fucking guy. Me like the Cinderblock stuff.

On Thursday I visited an art gallery in Hayes Valley. I shot the shit with the owner -- says back 10 years ago, before the Central Freeway came down and the area was just like the Tenderloin, he used to go outside and give crack dealers/hookers/etc. $5 to go stand across the street -- and found out a little about this artist, Michalopoulos: lives in New Orleans, loves San Francisco, loves to come up here and paint, and has his very own rum line in N.O.

Awesome. Cool guy. I'm probably going to go to this gallery opening next Friday, just to taste some rum.

Here are some of his paintings.

Guess how much one costs?


That one of the pig? 8 grand. The one with the building? 13k.

The guy just spits these things out, too -- he paints around 120-130 pictures a year. Yeah. At 5k-15k a pop.

Ffffffffffffffffffuck....

This, and I've developed a case of tinnitus. If nothing was worse than being broke, being disillusioned and being painfully sober, it's hearing a constant EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE in one's brain for about 40 hours now -- and if the Internet is be trusted, I have about 40 years left.

EEEEEEEEEEEE fuck.

My first angry phone call!

(An aside: anyone know why sometimes Blogger polarizes images? This time I'm keeping it because it makes the building on the right look like it's on fire, but usually it's kinda frustrating. Anyway...)

At my last job, which can be aptly described as "scrapbook journalism," I received angry phone calls all the time, mostly of the chickenshit variety. I didn't make someone's kid look extra-special good; I am a pedophile, a Satan-worshipper, a pillow-biter, and a really bad guy.

Today, I received my first SF angry phone call -- for the above photo, which depicts the word OZONE painted on five garage doors on a Guererro Street apartment building.

The call was from a guy who lives in the apartment, who told me that by running the photo, we were encouraging the graffiti -ists to return and tag the building again. Landowners must, by law, remove graffiti from their properties themselves or face fines, so it's a bigger deal than just "Wah wah wah, we've been tagged."

The guy was reasonable, I must say: listened to me explain, offered some advice, didn't slam the phone down. Graffy or no, this is a much nicer place than exurbia.

Unfit for publication #2

Among the grandiose ideas I had for the blog were 1. twice-daily postings (AM aggregations of the day's big news, then PM breakdowns of whatever it was I did that day) and weekly postings of either weird shit that didn't get in, or weird shit that somehow did.

We may get there eventually. Today, a moral lesson. Oftentimes I'm told to scale back what I do 'for the sake of the readers.' This ranges from eliminating all mentions of sex in a story to -- and I'm not kidding -- removing the description 'gay.' So one time I do the opposite and try for some moralizing.




And.... no.

Insert quote from Jack Nicholson movie here

Today's Chinatown Economic Forum, the eighth such neighborhood business pow-wow hosted by Our Gav (but first in the land of dim sum) was not unlike the 30-Stockton -- it was crowded, it was stuffy, I didn't understand a word and small old women kept trying to knock me over.

Maybe some of that is because two-thirds of Chinatown residents do not speak English, or because they're one of the 55 percent of households in C-town that earn less than $25,000 a year -- households, mind you, not people -- sobering facts in the city with 33 percent Asian population and the biggest Chinatown outside of Asia.

I understood that much, as Gavin himself provided some of the dirty nitty gritty, and the rest of it was pasted up on the walls. What else happened? Well, city planner Bill Lee ran around the room shushing people too intent on chit chatting in between plates of duck to listen to speakers, Carmen Chu said a whole lot of nothing in English (but may have revealed the meaning of life in Mandarin or Cantonese, damned if I'll ever know), and I met a ton of candidates for Aaron Peskin's supe seat, most of whom I'll probably never meet again.

The consensus was 1. Chinatown is crowded 2. Chinatown is dirty and 3. Chinatown has no parking. That's all that stops Chinatown from becoming more than a glorified outdoor cafeteria and deadly tourist trap. That's all. So get at it... right?

Your Monday-night downer

San Diego surf bum, Zen meditater and yoga practitioner Barry Zito was demoted from the San Francisco Giants' starting rotation to its bullpen on Monday night.

Zito, in a word, sucks: he's 0-6 with an ERA over 7.00. A little over a year ago, the onetime Cy Young Award winner (who jobbed Pedro Martinez for said award, might I add) signed a 7-year, $126 million contract, at the time the richest for a pitcher in baseball history. For the Giants and their fans, that really sucks.

In their infinite wisdom, the Chron decided to make his misery our misery, whether or not you're a Giants fan. They published a Web app that lets you figure out how long it'd take you to earn Zito's $14.5 million annual salary.

Give it a go. Here's how I did:



382 years, huh? 2390, here we come! Year of the Me!



Fuck.

Could it happen here?

Of late I'm doing my utmost to practice proper phone etiquette, which for me boils down to not answering it very often. (An aside, do a google search for cell phone etiquette and be absolutely astounded by the pages upon pages of MSM coverage on this hot topic). This meant I had 12 messages to wade through this evening, one of which was a very excited one, from a man who witnessed this shooting.

A boy waiting for the K-Ingleside Muni Metro line at Ocean and Faxon Avenues in San Francisco's Ingleside neighborhood was shot tonight.

He was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition, police said.

The shooting occurred at 6:10 p.m. There were reportedly two gunmen involved, and they ran from the scene, police said.

Many witnesses were at the scene, but gave police conflicting information about who the gunmen were and which way they fled, police said. Nobody has been taken into custody.

This means Randy is a shitty witness for not leading the po-po to the perps, but his "I was leaving the gym and gave first aid to a kid with a hole in his neck" experience will be good for several years' worth of anecdotes.

What else does this mean? Well, it was in Ingleside -- TNB, one Chron commenter commented -- and it's the first death in said neighborhood this year. The kid went to SF General, meaning he is/was in tough shape, and it's highly unlikely whoemever shot him will be found and/or prosecuted.

This happened a day after New York police detectives involved in the killing of an unarmed man received full acquittals; it's interesting to note the tenor of reactions in New York over the situation, which seems open-and-shut by my judgment: man is unarmed, man is shot 50 times by police, including one who, according to news reports, emptied a full clip before reloading and emptying the second one, man is wrongly dead.

I would venture to say SF is more racially-divided than New York; I would wager blacks here have less faith in the establishment than they do in New York; I would surmise that if that happened here, there'd be a full-on riot. Maybe?

Can't even do more less

A frequent alibi for infrequent posting is laziness. I think I'm procrastination champion; I think again.

I'm beaten by an old friend.

open google chat

he: haha! i was just thinking about emailing you

me: no kiddin

So we except the pleasantries, and say how we both is (terrible) and then why.

me: but i might have been in a bit of a stew for a while, letting myself go, as it were

he: no way?

me: i'd say, i'd give that a hesitant yes

yeah you should look at my room

he: are you balding? or fattened?

me: totally letting myself go

a little pudgy but mostly just really messy

he: we should compare rooms

he: you start with the stuff on your floor

we'll trade off

me: ok, floor. boxes i havent unpacked yet, some i have, includes cds and bathroom stuff, books, laundry basket, big pile of clothes, tons of books, letters, some bags

some more books in a box

books

bed

envelopes, and some trash

i took away the plates

he: hahaha

not bad

for an amateur

Sent at 11:51 PM on Monday

me: ok, lay it on me

what've you got that's so messy

Sent at 11:52 PM on Monday

he: my floor: frank's red hot sauce, a bowl of 2day old macaroni and tuna, netflix cases without dvd's, cd's, headphones, amp, guitar, trash, pennies, cigarette ash, cigarette packs, clothes, used napkins, 2 cups of cereal with spoon (all dried), 2 arizona ice t cans filled with used cigarettes, numerous cups, and a few plastic bottles filled with my urine. also socks with a strange "goo" caked on them

me: "a few plastic bottles filled with my urine. "?

he: and that's after i cleaned my room

yup, i'm very lazy at times

me: i think about peeing in the trash sometimes

or out the window

he: hahahaha!

me: but never have i ever actually i think

that i can think of anyway

he: how about in the sink?

i like that you said, "i think about peeing in the trash sometimes"

me: well if i had a sink in my room...

it'd be all over

he: no, the dumb thing is i have a toilet in my room

You are no longer signed in to chat.

Monday afternoon observation

Number one, I'm quickly un-learning how to spell. I struggled with 'observation' there for a split-second. Me lose brain? Uh-oh! Computer make dumb.

Two, it's impossible to be a successful journalist in this city if you are mono-lingual. You will always miss something unless you speak Mandarin, Spanish, English as well as Russian and maybe some Portuguese, and don't feel out of place on Hunters Point Blvd, but to only speak one language while pretending to chronicle SF is a lot like... oh, I don't know, a metaphor, let's see let's see... using a unicycle to try and win a bike race? Although the hipsters would LOVE that.

Three, I went to a bar in Russian Hill on Saturday for a sporting event. I had forgotten how much I hated sports bars. Thank you, vortex of humanity.

Four, it's hard enough to be a journalist without speaking anyone else's language save white, middle class and a little afraid of the world at large... but it's even more difficult when you cannot secure a press pass after weeks (weeks!) of trying and explaining to increasingly irate bosses why you need one, and when you have to duck into Bernal Heights Internet cafes to receive important documents, only to find you can't log in remotely for some inane whateverthefuck reason.

And I work for a corporation.

I, like you, didn't get to see any damn torch

What a day. What a waste. Think of it, San Francisco -- you could have been washing your hair.

Everyone who showed up on foot to catch a glimpse of the Beijing 2008 Olympic torch was, in the word of one spectator, "hosed." Unlike those crackheads who emerged from the TL onto Van Ness Avenue between 2 and 2:30 p.m., who must have figured they were getting D.Ts.

Anyway, there's nothing I can say hasn't been said already. So here are some photos.



Lot of flags out today. Lot, lot of flags. A bit of arguing, too. And some signs.


The only real excitement today came near the end. Some dude, who may have been planning this all along, took off his clothes! What a nutso! But man, did he give the SFPD an eyeful.



So, yeah: a naked dude. That's what we contributed to Western Civilization today.