The man was running the tiniest of garage sales in the Marina -- a table, a chest, a couple knick-knacks. But also this.
He said he bought this beaut off Frank Chu, the legend himself, in a bar a couple years ago. Is it real? I've looked at hundreds of examples on Flickr, and I'm pretty sure this work is authentic. It even still has the tape remnants from where Frank hung his back-of-the-placard ad.
Seven bucks for this lesser-known masterpiece. I will frame it. I will treasure it. Always.
Christ, what was Pacino's last good movie? The Insider? I keep expecting Pacino and DeNiro to reunite for a movie adaptation of Falcon Crest or some Laser Cats thing.
In 1992, Bill Clinton used the
phrase "it's the economy, stupid" to win the White House amid a recession. Sixteen years later, his wife Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are fighting for the Democratic presidential
nomination by promising relief from more hard times.
No no no no no. I'm going to kill myself if I ever read this again.
"It's the economy, stupid" was not a Clinton campaign slogan. The phrase was one of James Carville's tenets for keeping the campaign on message, as seen in the documentary The War Room. Pinned to the wall was:
Change vs. more of the same It's the economy, stupid Don't forget healthcare
***
Here's how Carville would write those for the Hillary '08 campaign:
More of the same vs. more of the other same It's my turn, assholes Please forget Hillarycare
And for McCain:
Sunnis vs. Al Qaeda (what?) Five years in captivity, stupid Don't forget Bush hates me
Maybe it's just the joy of working in downtown SF on a gorgeous afternoon, but I'm thinking hizzoner Gavin Newsom deserves a raise after yesterday's Olympic torch relay. It could have been a murderous clusterfuck, but it was merely a wicked fiasco.
No violence, only three arrests, deservedly bad press for China, and they still got the relay done. It's a shame for the spectators and the peaceful protesters who wanted to peep some Olympic Excitement, but running down the Embarcadero would have been ugly.
Excellent work, Gav.
***
Supervisor Aaron Peskin: "Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco
the way the premier of China runs his country - secrecy, lies,
misinformation, lack of transparency and manipulating the populace. He did it so China can report they had a great torch run."
It amazes me to hear what Aaron Peskin has to say. Reminds me of -- remember the old Chinese proverb: 'Aaron Peskin, what a putz.'
Anyway, good morning, Gavin. Welcome to KGO.
The Mayor:
Well, I can't say what you just said, but amen.
***
And ladies and gentleman, say hello to my household's new rep in Congress, Jackie Speier:
Newly elected Democratic Rep.
Jackie Speier of Hillsborough was sworn into Congress this morning and
delivered a fiery speech criticizing President Bush's Iraq policy that
led some Republicans to boo and walk out of the House chamber...
Speier's 13-year-old daughter, who was watching from the House gallery, asked, "Why are they booing my mom?"
Love her!
***
Joe Klein provides a brilliant quick read in Time about Obama vs. Petraeus:
Obama's question was more diabolical. He was saying, Hey, al-Qaeda's on
the run, and Iran is probably more interested in harassing the U.S.
military than having another war with Iraq. How much better does the
situation need to be for us to leave? He had taken Joe Lieberman's dart
and beaten it into a plowshare.
***
Obama slaughtering Clinton in all online metrics. His site is getting twice the Pennsylvania web traffic of Hillary's. But does this mean he'll win the Keystone State? Facebook engagement is a sexy stat, but the third-gen miner in the Appalachian coal belt doesn't really give a shit. Projection: Hillary by 6%.
Chinese Drone: Thanks for meeting me, Francois. Am I pronouncing that right?
Swiss IOC Official: Yes. Very well. I'm impressed.
Chinese Drone: Let's get down to brass tacks. We've got this torch, and we want to run it all over the world.
Swiss
IOC Official: Of course! This is an Olympic tradition stretching back to 2004. You don't want to be the one to break that streak.
Chinese Drone: Yes. And it's also an opportunity to promote China as a virtuous superpower, while glossing over our toxic pollution, social upheaval, repression of human rights, and support of genocide in service of global energy resources.
Swiss
IOC Official: While wrapping yourselves in the spirit of global harmony through sport!
Chinese Drone: We're on the same page. So, about this torch.
Swiss
IOC Official: OK, I've had some ideas about this.
Chinese Drone: Before you get started, we're doing Paris.
Swiss
IOC Official: Ha ha! Great minds...
Chinese Drone: OK, but what about the USA? Please don't say Houston. The Rockets played so much better after Yao went down. Is he the new Patrick Ewing or what? Oops, did I say that out loud?
Swiss
IOC Official: Good thing we're not in China right now! Anyschmoo, I've been thinking about the USA, too. San Francisco!
If you ever serve jury duty or go to a public meeting in San Francisco, have a look around, and try to estimate what percentage of the people in the room are utterly batshit. I have, and I'm going with an average of 41% crazy.
Sure, every city in the world has its share of crackhead gadflies, paranoid shut-ins, and Dragonmasters, but what really sets San Francisco's crazies apart is their sense of political entitlement. Our insane, druggy liberal-Democrat-vs.-progressive-Green rancor pretty much keeps Fox "News" in business; woe to News Corp shareholders when Bill O'Reilly's prayed-for WMD attack actually wipes us off the map. He'll have to pick on poor, defenseless Portland.
But if you think that our political nutjobbery ends with naked mayoral candidates, you are sadly mistaken, my friend. The great irony of San Francisco's lefty political landscape is that its shiniest crackpot is a Republican leader, Gail Neira.
I've shared the great gifts that Ms. Neira shares with the San Francisco citizenry before every election, her majestic, jingoist, world-going-to-hell-in-a-yukbucket arguments against ballot initiatives. Well, this week Ms. Neira, in full Santa regalia, hosted a call-it-Christmas GOP dinner which was supposed to culminate with a non-binding, utterly meaningless San Francisco presidential straw poll.
But things didn't work out exactly as Ms. Neira planned, or her apparent candidate of choice, Fred Thompson.
That's right -- Gail unilaterally canceled the straw poll because too many Ron Paul supporters showed up after dinner and paid the required $5 to vote. Allowing them to vote would obviously be unfair to those who paid the full $33 for the delicious meal. And if the Paulers threw in another $28 each? Nope, still unfair. There must have been something in the food that purified their votes.
Naturally, the Paul people are pissed about how their insurgent is being treated by the Establishment. Hell, Chris Matthews is literally removing Paul from his network's poll results.
***
I was hella wrong about McCain, but I called Huckabee a year ago. I ranked him the #2 GOP candidate, behind Sen. McCain, who's looking more and more like this year's Morry Taylor (Anyone? Anyone?). I said:
Watch this guy -- The thundering Evangelicals on the right who think
McCain is the Devil will flock to Huckabee. Ordained Baptist minister
who also commutes more death sentences than
you might expect. Health nut and marathoner who lost 100 pounds.
Marriage nut. And he is -- seriously -- from a place called Hope,
Arkansas.
STUDENT: Recent polls show you surging... What do you attribute this surge to?
HUCKABEE:
There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the
same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed
a crowd of five thousand people. (Applause) That's the only way that
our campaign can be doing what it's doing. And I'm not being facetious
nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people
across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and
it has. And it defies all explanation, it has confounded the pundits.
And I'm enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out, and
until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they'll
never figure it out. And it's probably just as well. That's honestly
why it's happening.
In other words, God is working against the cross-dressing adulterer Giuliani and the blasphemer cultist Romney.
And I'm still pissed that Wes Clark is ho'ing for Hillary.
***
WaPo editorial on Romney's religion speech: So, no room for atheists in America?
***
Finally, in trying to find Wes Clark's site, I stumbled upon the site for Ron Moss for mayor of Buffalo. His platform is perfectly brilliant and brilliantly perfect.
2. I won't change anything that will affect anyone.
3. It is imperative that we preserve our past, because Buffalo's best days are behind us.
Ron Moss, I doubt you'll ever tire of life on the lake. But if you do, you've got a home in San Francisco.
Holy mackerel. You feel that mofo? That's what a 5.6 earthquake (albeit a very deep one) feels like.
I haven't felt that shaken since I watched Hard Candy. Yes, we felt it all the way up in SF. I imagine folks down the South Bay are sweeping up the precious remains of their liquor cabinets now.
This morning's edition of the Chron was a particularly dreary one, and not just because Iowa Republicans turned out to support a man whose most memorable national security idea has been to "double Guantanamo."
The front page of the Bay Area section featured an above-the-fold feature with the headline "Kids Escape to Spa Camp: Elementary schoolers learn the fine art of relaxation, plus math and science, too," but a more appropriate headline would have been: California Hopeless: America Doomed. Yes, while parents overseas are drilling their kids on Electrical Engineering and the works of Terry Riley, SF parents are sending their very, very young children to camp to learn how cucumber-seaweed enzyme lotion wraps provide refuge from a frenetic lifestyle of cursive and recess.
Forget summer camp in the woods.
In San Francisco, parents send their kids to the spa. For $150,
metropolitan elementary schoolers looking for a little escape from the
city can attend the weeklong Spa Camp at Live Oak School, where they
learn the fine art of de-stressing...
After a week of making potions,
pajama-clad Live Oak campers pampered one another in a classroom they
renovated into "Spa Oaks," complete with stations for facials,
manicures, a lounging area with big pillows for massages, a yoga corner
and a check-in desk with a service bell...
Maggie Morgan, 6, enrolled
in Spa Camp to do some field research for her upcoming birthday party,
which is going to have a spa theme. To celebrate, she and her friends
are going to the nail salon, and she's planning to make rainbow bath
salts.
"This class is good for little kids because they need to relax
more," she said, lifting her handmade lavender-scented eye mask for an
interview. She said her anxiety comes from arguments with her parents
over going to bed when she wants to stay up and read her mystery books.
Another stressor is struggling with new tasks, like washing the dishes...
Future handbag designer Aria
Berluti, 10, said she's glad she learned to spa this summer because she
now has ways to cope when her friends stress her out when they pay
attention to her one week and ignore her the next...
"I wish all my classes were like
a spa," said Kendall McCready, 9, who was flopped out in the chill
space/reception area. "Kids should know they can go to spas if they
ever get frustrated."
Should we just go ahead and sell the West Coast to China while we can still a good price for it?
***
Elsewhere...
On Market Street, Tony Montana is yesterday's news. The true O.G. is finally collecting the respect he deserves.
***
In front of CNET on 2nd Street, this Prius owner has much to say, including sweet nostalgia for a more innocent day of cigar penetration and unclean Gap dresses.
The Chron decided to play up the "poor young couple lose their DREAM HOUSE" angle instead of a far more accurate "unqualified asshole decides to DIY crumbling foundation with day labor, and then badly damages neighbor's home and adjoining mini-park while releasing a ton of asbestos into the air" angle.
Here's what the site looked like from the side last week. Note the plywood-patched hole in the neighbor's house.
Well, in spite of the still-too-innocuous headline ("Dream House Slips into a Nightmare") the Chron followed up with the rancid details yesterday.
Originally put on the market for $400,000 and billed as the cheapest
house in San Francisco, the cottage generated many offers. No matter that
the one-bedroom home was in such disrepair that
cereal boxes were used to patch wall holes and prospective buyers were
cautioned to "enter at their own risk."
Ben Coleman, the Century 21 broker who sold Lam the house, later
distributed a flyer with a photo of the cottage. It read, "We just sold
this dump for $125,000 over asking price! Imagine what your property is
worth!"
To anyone thinking about buying or selling a home in San Francisco -- take note of this before you decide to work with Ben Coleman of Century 21.
Oh, and the neighbor?
Wycko estimates damage to their place at about $30,000. If their
foundation is undermined, he believes the figure will jump by $40,000 more...
As they await news from a structural engineer as to whether their
foundation was compromised by Zhou's excavations, their insurance company
is questioning whether their policy covers damage from another structure
collapsing onto their house.
And when Zhou called a demolition crew to clear the property...
"I told her the whole house had to go as regulated waste," Wilson
said. "We are a certified asbestos contractor. We did tests. The entire
pile was hot with asbestos."
A few weeks into the project, Wilson said he was told over the phone
that he was fired. Lam had hired another contractor to complete the work... He said he hasn't "been paid a penny" of the $50,000 contract. His
company has filed a lien against Lam's property.
"The most important thing to think of is what happened out there,"
Wilson said. "This is a real serious deal. This man knew nothing about
foundations, but he was replacing the foundation. He was using Kragen auto
jacks to jack up the house. None of the protocol was followed. He's lucky
he didn't kill someone."
This just in: In California, reckless endangerment of your neighbors is legal. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some tires and newspapers to burn on my roof.
1. I went to an event at the Women's Building in the Mission last night. I was breathless with anticipation over observing how the womyn at the Women's Building would arrange the men's room.
I was not disappointed. Not one bit.
2. The Alemany Flea Market rivals even Berkeley's Ashby Market for pure density of semi-organized detritus.
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