Last day on the job for Mr President

Final words, thoughts, prayers for Our W, the man who for better and worst has faithfully steered this country since 2001? Let us respond to him, the Decider, in kind.

We'll never forget you. Try as we may.

You know the economy's gone real rotten when...

Good god, the Bush Man of Fisherman's Wharf has been laid off!

(Alright, he was just off taking a piss. But still -- can he be far behind??)

How I told my alma mater to fuck off

Like most dudes my age (that I knew) I went off to college at the age of 18, a fresh-faced young scholar ready to read books, learn stuff, and generally make a mark for himself in academia. Four years later, I was a haggard 21 year old with numerous lost weekends (yeah blackouts!), an impending sense of doom, and lots and lots of credit hours spent learning jack-shit (thanks to the magic that is GPA and the double magic that is GPA-based hiring by corporations, students are generally encouraged to undertake such tasks as "basket weaving," "tv-watching" and "fucking one's self" when completing general education requirements).

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed myself (mostly) and am (mostly) proud of where I went to school. And I am very lucky, in that I have generous parents who took it upon themselves to pay every last penny of my (egregiously expensive) education: $120,000, or what I make in about four years (every last penny). That figure has now ballooned closer to $200,000, as the country slides further and further towards recession and those same GPA-mad companies lay off thousands.

All this was in my mind when my school came calling today -- calling (or, fine, e-mailing), but with a "hey how's it going" or "would you like to be in our newsletter." No. It was the GIVE US MONEY PLEASE.

Really. You'd like some money. Hey, I understand. I'd like some, too.

So I caved. I did it. I donated two pennies to the business school, in the honor of Corporate Graft and Greed.



If you're reading this, you're welcome, school. Feel free to come back anytime you'd like another handout. In the meantime, I'm still waiting for my "priceless education" to pay a single fucking dividend outside of football and hockey seasons.

protest at the supermarket

A supe a day keeps the AIDS away

Happy New Year. Enough with that shit. Onto the griping.

Today I visited the Castro St. Muni station, situated as it is in the middle of the Castro District, America's biggest gay neighborhood, which is NOT represented by San Francisco's biggest gay politician.

Though not even Tom Ammiano can claim this.



This gave me some pause. I mean -- what? Seriously.

There he is, the Honorable Bevan Dufty, sporting a shit-eating grin -- a face I've seen thrown my way at 440 -- asking for help in finding out if a pill a day can prevent HIV. I mean -- OK, I'm all for AIDS prevention and treatment, too. But I mean -- what? Was Gavin not available for the photo? Don't get me wrong -- I like Bevan. He's good for a quote, isn't a total slimeball and is mostly transparent in his governance. But I would guarantee you at least half of Bevan's constituents don't know who the fuck he is, and with this one he's just an anonymous... grinner? I don't know. Kinda odd, mostly.

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.