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.


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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.