I Repeat, THERE IS NO PARTY IN THE CASTRO On October 31

But there will be the other 364 days of they year

Pretty Lucky

Here are some pics from the Barcelona training session this morning at Kezar stadium. Probably about as close to Messi as I will ever get.

Even in training, he is THAT good.

SF Summer

From my bike ride this past weekend. Golden Gate Bridge was the front line in the battle between fog and sun.

I'm not into convertibles

so I think this might be my midlife crisis activity of choice:



I saw this as part of the bicycle film festival, which is on its way to Oakland and then Portland. If it comes through your neck of the woods, I highly recommend seeing this film, Where Are You Go. At the very least, it will make you want to go for a ride around your town.

Outside Lands Announces 2009 Lineup

With regards to the headliners, I think I would have been more excited if this were 1994.

But there are some interesting bands on there:

Calexico
Lila Downs
Dengue Fever
Thievery Corporation
Kinky
Q-Tip
Samba Da
Raphael Saadiq

I'm kind of glad there is no band that would tempt me to try and navigate the gigantic cluster fuck that was last year's Radiohead show that was, incidentally, worth the headache to experience.

Who wants to guess that even though you'd think that MUNI would have learned a lesson last year, they will do almost nothing to improve the public transportation situation to and from GG park?

Locker Room Etiquette

I'm about as "straight but not narrow" as they come, but something about my gym makes me a little uncomfortable. Specifically, how...um...well how gay it can be.

Now I don't mean that I'm bothered by the LGBT community going to my gym. Far from it. However, on any given day, you can find m4m missed connections from the men's locker room. Here are a few examples.

saw you working out at [gym]. You were wearing a purple t-shirt and Stanford shorts. Looks like you're tan from vacation. I checked you out in the locker room but you were talking to some of your buds. I gotta know who you are - does anybody else know? I was the in-shape white guy, five eleven 180lbs muscle tats on right arm, that checked you out several times. Let's bone bud - I bet you're a HOT TOP... I saw your thick dick in the showers!

Saw you today working out and then in the locker room. You are very cute. We talked for a minute but I did not want to be too forward. I would love to meet you outside of the gym. I think it was around 4:30 or 5

Ok this is SO not fair, heteros don't get a sneak peak at the goods! Although maybe being objectified by other men might be a good lesson for some of us so that we can empathize with how women feel most of the time.

Psycho Patrol?

I have now seen this car parked twice in my neighborhood. Two questions:

1) Is this for real? I mean, it looks like a real cop car of some sort, but you would think that the gov't would come up with something a little bit more technical sounding (not to mention politically correct) than "Psycho Patrol."

2) Are they looking for me?

UPDATE:

Is it this guy?

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 17 (UPI) -- An official-looking car that once belonged to the Oregon State Police is roaming San Jose, Calif., with the words "Psycho Patrol" printed on its side.

Except for the wording, the car is so authentic that when it pulls up behind other vehicles the drivers think they are about to get a ticket, the San Jose (Ca.) Mercy-News reports.

Danny Kirby, 21, bought the vehicle on eBay four years ago from a company that had purchased it from Oregon state police for use in a movie filmed in Portland

Hot and Bothered

Maybe it's because I just read the Economist's report "Troubled Waters" on how we've screwed up the world's oceans, but I am having a really hard time enjoying California's current heat wave. Seventy-four degrees in SF in January? That's warmer than it is here in the Summer on most days.

A lack of water not only screws up skiing in Tahoe, but it also does not bode well for wildfires. Especially considering that Schwarzenegger's proposed budget rests on the assumption that the state will spend half of what it did last year on fighting fires. If this keeps up, this won't be a likely scenario at all.

Image: (Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle)

Carnie Sidewalk Graffiti

in front of my old apartment. Not sure if this was a neighbor intimating that I was immortal, or if it had something to do with the circus school down the street.

Your Vector Zero-Nine-Zero for Bogey*/It Must Be That Time of (VROOOOOOOOM) Year Again

Every year, around this time, the Blue Angels come into town as part of "Fleet Week." This weekend, the Blue Angels will be part of an air show. But in order to do the air show, the Blue Angels need to practice.

And practice they do. Today and tomorrow, the Blue Angels will be "practicing" their aerial acrobatics over San Francisco for a few hours during the middle of the day.

I don't mean on the outskirts of the city. I mean directly over the city, financial district and all. And man do they fly low and fast. And loud. Three just flew over my office building in a triangle formation, causing (in addition to the impetus for this post) a "Top Gun in IMAX" sort of ffffffffVVVRRRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMmmmmmmm.

Unsurprisingly, SFers have mixed feelings (from Yelp.com) about the display of the (I think) F-18 Hornets. While I don't think I hide the fact that I am 90% dove on here, I have to say, that I get a kick out of it.

Whoa. There goes another one. Jebus they're fast. I could just see it in the spaces between the high rises.

Anyway...when I was a kid I LOVED jets, and every year my parents took me to the air show up in Reno, and I loved it. I was simply enamored with how big a B-52 was and just how freaking cool the F-16 looks. I even got to see an SR71 Blackbird once, which for a little geek like me, was pretty much heaven if you added an ice cream sundae to the experience.

So does it seem to be a waste of money when our government is in an absurd amount of debt? Yeah, it does. Am I a little afraid that one might crap out and land in a big pile of debris in the middle of the financial district? A little. But you know what? Fleet Week helps the city out by providing an economic boost (by dropping off a crap load of navy servicemen) and San Francisco has a rich history with the Navy. Plus, the 10 year old in me still gets kind of excited and I wouldn't want to deprive the REAL 10 year olds of what to many of them is awesomeness incarnate.

So men and women of the armed forces, Welcome to San Francisco!

*Other than quotes from Top Gun, I got nuthin'.

Om My God

I was not a big fan of high school. It was just ok. I wasn't picked on or anything, but I never really fit into any of the (very few) cliques we had at my small school. My school was so small that our cheerleaders weren't really the stereotypical cheerleaders that one sees at bigger schools, or maybe just in the movies, but a few of them were. And I wasn't a big fan of them either.

I do yoga now (just wait, this will make sense in a minute). Well, I should say that I attend yoga classes and attempt to do what the instructor and most everyone around me is doing with varying degrees of success/failure failure/success. One of the classes I go to is taught by a great instructor who is energetic and fun and talks about chakras and stuff, and I swear I am healthier for it.

So you can imagine my confusion when after our last class she handed out fliers for "shamanic cheerleader camp" that asked me if I was "Ready? Omkay!" At first I found it hilarious. Now I find it genuinely entertaining. Considering that I can barely make it through a normal class, I don't think I'll be attending, but you have to check this out. These girls look great at what they do. I love this city.

from www.shamaniccheerleaders.com

Urban fossil

During my bike ride yesterday, I stopped at Chino's taqueria, which was an oasis of carnitas goodness in an otherwise unfamiliar (and at around 4 pm on a Wednesday a kind of scary) Outer Richmond area. As I sat down to ingest the calories (or maybe 2x the calories) I had just managed to burn off during my ride in the form of a super burrito, I looked up and saw this.

Now, while it is comforting to know that I can still get a good hot carl any time I want to, I realized that it had been a long time since I had actually noticed a pay phone. I'm sure I've walked by a few lately, but I'd never actually been near one in recent memory. Kind of weird really. I mean this is how I used to call my parents in middle school to tell them that I was hanging out with my friends in the Carl Jr.'s parking lot and that I wouldn't be home for dinner. Now all I can think of is that I should really carry Purell instant hand sanitizer everywhere I go.

My first love and I at ocean beach

Not bad for a camera phone.

Dear politicians and members of the media,

Hi. I'm from San Francisco. Well, not originally. Originally, I am from a very small rural town in Eastern California. It is a town built for tourists generally; but a lot of the people who live there are of the cowboy/ranching/general shit-kicking type; the kind that brag about what zone they got for their deer tags.

I would stop short of going to the rodeo, but I did often go to local fairs and gander at the contemporary equivalent of Zuckerman's famous pig. It was a fine place to grow up, but at an early age, I knew it wasn't my scene.

Most of the people who live in San Francisco are from somewhere else. I can only think of two people I know who can actually say they are "from" San Francisco. Drawn by the culture, weather (ha ha), politics, or some mixture, most people who live here have generally chosen to live here. Some of them are from big cities. Some of them are from little towns like me. Some of my friends here are from Nebraska, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Ohio.

I live here because of the culture, the city's proximity to some amazing places (Yosemite, Napa/Sonoma Wine Country, Big Sur, Stinson Beach), and I like the city's general mellow, tolerant, and laid-back attitude.

I won't lie. I'm a liberal. I would venture to say very liberal by most people's standards, at least as far as social issues go. Compared to others in SF, I would probably be considered just sort of liberal. But I like living in a city that prides itself on being progressive, even when I don't necessarily agree with all of it.

But to the extent that people call San Francisco a "bubble," I must vehemently disagree.

Gas prices near my house are now $4.17/gallon, compared to a national average of $3.47. I'm not going to even bring up property prices or rent here. Ok maybe I will. My roommate and I pay over $2k a month for a very small 2 bedroom. Owning property here is not really ever in the cards for me. I have been held-up at gunpoint. Our public transportation system is severely lacking. Some of our neighborhoods are downright scary, and some of that is because shipping yards and other businesses have shut down or left town.

In sum, San Francisco, like other cities, has its share of problems and it is in no way immune or impervious to the economic shocks than others. Sure, we're liberal, but other than that, we are just like everyone else.

And just like you, I like where I live. I'm proud of my city, and I don't like people bad-mouthing it.

So to all of you politicians and members of the media who like to throw my city's name around whenever they want to really emphasize that someone is "elitist," maybe you should think about the real out-of-touch bubble that is Capital Hill before you start badgering us. Especially when a certain other democratic candidate also just had a closed-door fund raiser here herself.

Well, I was trying to find a link, but can't. Hillary Clinton was in the building next door to where I work a couple of weeks ago.

Fixies

"Fixes," or fixed gear bicycles have become an essential accessory to hipsters nationwide, on par with ironic tees and a taste for PBR and bands you're not cool enough to know. And San Francisco is no exception. One would think San Francisco would be an exception, considering that NOT having brakes or gears would put one at a distinct disadvantage when tackling the city's famous hills. Nevertheless, they are everywhere. And it is no longer just the specialists who know how to ride them out there on the streets.

Now, I understand why bike messengers have them. The financial district is fairly flat, and having no gears and brakes makes a bike a lot easer and cheaper to maintain, as well as making it less of a target for bike thieves.

But as a commuter? I'll admit they look cool, and I'll also admit, that surprisingly, you can actually make it through SF without hitting a lot of big hills (thank you whoever invented "the wiggle"). But if all you're looking for is street cred with fellow skinny jeans-wearing academy of art students, maybe you should think twice. Not having brakes on Market Street sounds like a really really bad idea.

I thought I would share this craigslist ad I found. Hilarious.

Fixed Gear Death Trap - $350

---

Reply to: sale-608546617@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-03-16, 6:34PM PDT


I'm selling a complete fixed gear. It is totally ready to ride and will probably kill you.

I pushed it into a bike shop recently to have the rear wheel trued. At the bottom of my receipt it read, 'My advice, get a new bike.' So, I am. And maybe you are too! He was reserved enough not to use the words 'death' or 'trap,' but I'm not!

The frame is probably an old Raleigh that could have been worth something. It's rattlecanned and chipping rapidly. The paint is almost completely gone where my car's bike rack grips. There are, however, parts of the bike that are still entirely painted.

Looking a little deeper, the headset is completely fucked. Unless you can ride a unicycle, you can't ride this bike with no hands. I'm expecting something terrible to happen in the headset in the next few rides that will pitch me onto the pavement. For the right price, this could be you!

Also, the pedals were never supposed to house toe cages. So, the cages are kind of ruined and inoperable. Sometimes when I'm skidding, my front foot will almost slip out and I'll get all wobbly before righting myself. During these moments, my eyes are usually plate-wide with terror. This could be your terror!

There are still front and rear brakes installed, because it was always kind of a half-assed conversion. These could definitely be removed, though. The bike shop guy even tightened up the rear brakes for me. You could be the only fixie rider in SF with fully functional rear brakes.

But the brake cables are also completely shot, so I wouldn't count on it.

The handlebar tape is falling off and one of the plugs is missing.

Also, I don't remember what kind of cranks are on it but the pedals are super long. Every now and then when you're riding they slam off the ground and get more ruined. Again, there's some aspect of terror here.

The gear ratio is 52/20. The rear tire is flat and the Presta valve is broken off.

This bike is what my brother affectionately refers to as a 'time bomb.' Why? Because there's no track hub or cog. Actually, there's a freewheel with loctite in it. So far, I've been able to learn how to ride fixed on this setup without it falling apart. But someday it will. And when it does, someone is going to get fucking screwed.

I paid $80 for it 8 months ago in Buffalo. Considering we're in San Francisco, the asking price is $350. I think that's only fair.

Why Did I Come Back From Thailand?

I've had a few disturbing things happen around me over the last week, and the only common component to these two stories is the San Francisco Police Department.

Incident #1
I walk out of my apartment last friday, only to hear loud banging coming from an upstairs apartment. I look down the stairs to the front door of our building, and I see it is propped open and there are two cop cars parked outside. Then, I hear more banging coming from upstairs, and then (presumably the cop) saying "you called us, let us in!" I decide I don't want to have anything to do with this and casually and ever so gingerly HAUL ASS out of my building. After talking with my neighbors later, I find out what has happened.

Turns out one of our neighbors has been subletting his own room (in addition to the other bedroom) to foreigners who don't know any better, and then sleeps on the couch. He demands rent up front and actually hangs out in what would be his own room until 1 am before letting the sub-leasee in to go to bed. I guess the last batch of foreigners decided to not put up with his stuff, and my neighbors response was to move all of their shit to a hotel in the tenderloin while they weren't home and then change the locks. For those of you who aren't from SF, the tenderloin is one part of the city that...how to put this...a part of the city that has successfully resisted gentrification. Or, to quote Dave Chapelle, "There ain't nothin' tender about that muthafucka!"

Holy Shit, right? But it doesn't stop there.

One of the sub-leasees returns to the building to get back the rent money that he has pre-paid, and unsurprisingly, my neighbor won't let him in. The sub-leasee insists. My neighbor calls the cops. My neighbor won't let the sub-leasee or the cops in. My neighbor tries to keep them out with a knife. He is arrested and goes to the pokie for the weekend. This is the scuffle I heard.

The entire building is wondering whether our landlord will kick him out. I think attempted assault would arise to a breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment, but then again, I don't do landlord tenant stuff so wtf do I know. I think if nothing else the landlord would be motivated by the fact that the neighbor is living under rent control.

Incident # 2
On my way home from work yesterday, there was a belligerent drunk on the N-Judah. No real surprise there. But he sat on the steps, making everyone who was trying to either get on or get off the train go around him. These steep stairs are treacherous enough without an additional inebriated obstacle. When someone commented that he was in the way, the drunk unleashed a few elbow jabs to passengers getting off the train, and then a tirade of profanity that lasted for about 10 minutes. I don't know what he said since I had my Ipod in (listening to "the Black Kids" I might add, which adds a degree of foreshadowing here) but it was enough to make the jaded SF people around me look like miffed puritans so it must have been pretty bad.

So at the stop at Carl and Cole, which is heavily trafficked, some passenger had had enough, put his foot on the drunk man's back and sort of push-kicked him off the train. Then the passenger ran off. When the drunk turned around, all he saw were a bunch of blank stares as the rest of us glared at him from inside the train. The drunk then decides that this one man, who had nothing to do with the push-kick, did in fact have something to do with the push-kick, and started throwing punches at him, and then threw some at the rest of us too.

This other guy, who was African American, then stepped up and made sure that the drunk did not get back on the train and hurt anyone. Then someone called the cops. The drunk, the African American who helped ward off the drunk, and the rest of us go up to the cops.

Who was the first person the cops tried to restrain? You guessed it! The BLACK GUY! I couldn't believe it. Here was this drunk white guy missing teeth rambling on and on about god knows what, not to mention the 9 or so other people from the train who were explaining what had happened, and they just kept on questioning THE BLACK GUY. To their credit, the cops did seem to sort things out eventually, but it was just disturbing that the default response was "restrain the black guy."

Also, kudos to all you other N-Judah riders who (I'm sure were just as excited to be going home after work as I was ) stuck around to make sure that the cops got their story straight.

Indian Gaming Propositions: Results

Propositions 94-97 passed, with about 56% of voters in favor of the propositions. Interestingly, several northern california counties provided a good chunk of the "no" votes. San Francisco County, actually, voted "no" by about 60%. I wonder if the "no" ads were concentrated up here, or if this was because of some "nor cal" v. "so cal" divide, because all of the propositions dealt with tribes in southern california. Again, why I voted on indian gaming compacts dealing with tribes in Riverside County still seems strange to me.

I'm also embarrassed to admit that the first time I even heard of Proposition C here in San Francisco was when I read it on the ballot. Don't judge me! It just took me a damn long to figure out the indian gaming propositions. Turns out it was the most "San Francisco" voting moment since Gavin Newsom was running against a nudist, a vegan taxi cab driver, and a guy named Chicken John for mayor.

Anyway, it was a proposition to "explore" and "facilitate" the acquisition of Alcatraz by SF and its transformation into a "Global Peace Center." Here's what the proponents had to say about it according to this article on SFgate.com:

According to their Web site, www.globalpeacefoundation.org, the proponents' plans for the center will be based on the geometry of the hexagram. Elements include a harmonium, employing sound techniques to impart a "deep meditative, transpersonal and transcendent experience," a medicine wheel and a labyrinth.

Da Vid, director of the Global Peace Foundation, described Alcatraz as a "major power point" where "energy moves through the planet." The vision to turn it into a peace center came to him in 1978. "It was a flash," he explained, "and I wasn't on any drugs either." We asked him where the money would come from to raze the old prison and build a new center. He assured us, "Money will come." He suggested the Bechtel Corp. might want to "create some good karma for itself" by doing the prison demolition for free.

Although it was trounced with a 72% "no" vote, you've got to love it; you can almost smell the patchouli, can't you?

Although, this is not to discount claims that native americans should have control of the island, which I think is legitimate. My roommate went to the ceremony commemorating the 1969 native american occupation of the island back that takes place every year back in November.

Maybe they could make Alcatraz into a casino when they get it back from the feds?

You heard it here first people.

And yes, I voted for Obama.

Nasty Spell of Wheather

Mother nature decided to send a vicious "welcome to 2008" gift to the bay area in the form of a series of fierce storms packing hurricane-esque winds. Ferry service around the bay was canceled for much of the day on Friday, and our bus and train (MUNI) service came to a grinding halt. As much as we bitch about the weather up here, we're not used to this. Here's a crazy before/after picture of a poor unsuspecting tree from sfist.com.

A tree in front of my apartment building was substantially pruned by the storm, with several large branches falling onto the cars parked on the street below. Only one car was damaged, which is pretty amazing considering the size of the limbs that fell. For once, I'm glad that my parking spot was inconveniently parked away from my apartment and the trees.

The tree branches tumbled on friday night, but are still occupying the parking spaces because the city has yet to come haul them away. Though my property manager was trying to cut them into pieces with a hand saw, a pretty ambitious venture considering that some of the limbs were about a foot thick.

With the streets are still littered with limbs, not to mentions some xmas trees still lying around, it looks like the city got napalmed.

Luckily for me, all I got was some wet feet and shoddy cable tv during the storm. About 14,000 bay area residents and business, though, are without power.

(Picture from SF.Gate.com)

Local Coffee Shop Makes Good (Coffee)

After mentioning one of our great local eateries, Boogaloos, when giving our city a good economic colonoscopy a while back, now one of our local coffee shops, Ritual, made it into "The Economist" for having a fancy coffee machine.

NEAR the hard-working espresso machine at Ritual Coffee Roasters, a café in San Francisco, sits a stainless-steel box about the size of a desktop computer. This box, the Clover, produces a cup of coffee with a spectacle of streaming water, whirring motors and an ingenious inverse plunger. Zander Nosler, the industrial designer who invented the Clover nearly three years ago, seems to have done the impossible: attracted a cult following for a new coffee-making machine that is both slower and vastly more expensive than other machines and requires the undivided attention of a trained operator.

Now these two establishments are actually more or less across the street from one another in the Mission. And they are, by far, two of the most hipster establishments in the city.

Boogaloos is where everyone goes for breakfast the morning after a big night out at Casanova, Delirium, Beauty Bar, Latin American Club, etc. You see some crazy hipster outfits (a la BSL) and some people who obviously never went to sleep the night before. Great breakfast, even better people watching.

And then there's Ritual. Ritual is a coffee shop, that no matter what day, nor time of day you walk into, all the tables are full with people on laptops. Sure, some of them are students, but not all of them. The rest are "writers," or "bloggers," or "trustifarians,"and most of the time all three. And again, very very hipster. You need to have at least one visible tattoo and 3 pair of skinny jeans to work there, and there are more fixed gear bikes locked up outside than are in the inventory of the worker-owned non-profit cooperative bike shop down the street. But, the coffee there is incredible.

And honestly, I can't think of anything that would make this place more hipster than a $11k coffee machine that requires a trained technician to produce an incredibly slow $6 cup of coffee.

'ello, what's that govna?!

San Francisco is currently considering adding double-decker buses, similar to those used in Vegas that have toured London's streets for time immemorial, to its public transit fleet.

I foresee this as a way of men letting each other know if they are a "top" or a "bottom."