Category / San Francisco

by DrMabuse

The Cole Valleyites

Cole Valley seems to be populated by a sizable faction of urban professionals who can kindly be described as Gavin Newsom voters, and can less kindly be referred to as smug, elitist fuckheads. I do my best to ignore these people, living by a maxim I once overheard while working at the docks (“Whatever floats your fuckin’ boat, motherfucker.”). The intent of this quote, as passed from one day laborer to another, was less benign. But the basic principle still holds water.

Despite my willful avoidance, these people accost me. They approach me as I’m scribbling shit down in a notebook. Or if I’m walking up to the Haight. I dress prgamtic. A shirt and blue jeans. Sometimes a T-shirt. And, yes, I wear a pair of Timberlands, but fuck you. How the hell was I supposed to know that these were au courant couture at the Great Mall of America? All I know is that I went to the shoestore and found a fairly robust pair to serve my needs. And then I started seeing the ads every Sunday in the New York Times Magazine. Goddammit.

I wear glasses. But some days I forget to shave. Outside of a receding hairlilne, there is nothing about me that says “yuppie scum.” Or so I believe.

Tonight, as I was walking up Cole, it happened again. Shortly after a homeless man, trundling north with a sleeping bag on his shoulder, asked me for change (my wallet was exhausted of cash and I apologized), I overheard another man behind me, a Cole Valleyite, a thirtyish man who had shaved his pate to disguise the fact that he had no hair on top, sporting some sort of bullshit L.L. Bean chamois. Cole Valley was trying to “understand” this man, but not giving him a damn thing in the way of change or compassion. His right, of course. Judging by the slow gait and the weary expression, the homeless guy had seen it all. But then Cole Valley started kvetching to the homeless guy about how many times he was panhandled on any given day.

Then the following conversation went down:

COLE VALLEY: Did you hear what I said to that guy?

ED: [ignoring him]

COLE VALLEY: I said, did you hear what I said to him? Goddam. Fuck. Biggest headache living in this City is how many times I get panhandled.

ED: The biggest headache in this City is that no one has the plan or the wherewithal to do something for the homeless.

COLE VALLEY: That bleeding heart liberal I was nineteen, twenty, he’s dead.

ED: No remnants?

COLE VALLEY: Fuck that, man. You live here long enough, you get wise. You and Michael Moore are so fucking clueless, you know that?

ED: Michael Moore doesn’t speak for me, man.

COLE VALLEY: If I lived in any other city, I’d be a liberal. Here I’m a conservative. Anti-death penalty and I’m a conservative. This is the greatest fucking country in the world.

ED: I hear you.

COLE VALLEY: You know what Howard Stern says about Michael Moore? He says he’s a left-wing Limbaugh with worse hygiene. [walking away]

If I was still a brash, choleric twenty-two, I would have beat the shit out of him. But not today. Let the guy walk away. Because one day, if he talks like that with the wrong person listening, his mouth is going to get him into some major trouble.

by DrMabuse

Rictus in Training?

rictus.jpg

newsomhair.jpgWhat disturbs me more than the mouth is that not one of his follicles is out of place. If ever there was a poster boy for pomade, Gavin Newsom is it. Too bad he couldn’t straighten his tie though. But that could be the hard front lighting.

[1/20/06 UPDATE: I should note that, at the time I wrote this post, I was looking for any kind of chinks that I could find in Mayor Newsom’s carapace, short of cracking jokes about his crumbling marriage. I voted for Matt Gonzalez (he was the long-haired, far left candidate and he lost) and to easily explain the niceties of the 2003 San Francisco mayoral race to out-of-towners, the only way I could do this without droning on for 15 minutes, delineating each candidate by positions and the like, was to concentrate exclusively on each candidate’s hair. Presumably, this spilled over after for a few months after the election and made its way here. But in light of what he accomplished only a few months later, I learned to like Gavin — certainly a lot more than Willie Brown, the slick milliner of hopeless corruption who preceded him.]

by DrMabuse

No More Politics Until March 1

Sure, I’m a bit disappointed. Derek, meanwhile, is ready to draw blood in a post entitled “Motherfucker.” I should remind Derek that in the 1999 runoff, Ammiano lost to Brown by 40,000 votes. Gonzalez, meanwhile, tonight lost by a mere 10,000 votes. Sure, it sucks. But this is progress. By all reports, the Gonzalez campaign was disorganized. The Newsom folks hit upon the brilliant idea of victory by absentees. And the voter turnout in the Bayview/Hunters Point, Visitation Valley, and Ingleside areas was nothing short of abysmal, because neither of the candidates wanted to recruit the downtrodden. But don’t listen to me. Look at the precinct breakdown on the SF Department of Elections page.

But, really, that’s enough about politics until March 1, 2004. This blog, in its return, has become polluted with simplistic liberal sentiments within its slightly more informed opinions on literature and the like. And who needs more of that? It’s about as unpalatable as suffering through another warblog. As such, I shall make every effort not to mention politics until things heat up in the inevitable Dean-Bush showdown next year. You deserve better than my chiaroscuro.

Perhaps I should mention that I’m casually drunk right now.

[8/9/05 UPDATE: Boy, there used to be a lot of posts here put up in the evenings after drinking. In the end, I finally figured out that answering email or composing blog entries probably isn’t wise after a few glasses of wine or whiskey. I should still probably drink much less than I do. One of the reasons I refrain from writing about politics (although not thinking about them) all the time is that such silly statements as the above (“the inevitable Dean-Bush showdown”) become so ridiculously dated in mere months. One of the risks with anyone I suppose.]

by DrMabuse

Viva Gonzalez?

She was across the street, curly blonde locks tucked beneath a snow white cap, flowing down her shoulders, bright teeth matching the hue of the hat on a cold rainy night. It was just close to poll’s close. She raised her arm and accosted me.

“Excuse me, do you know where the polling place is?”

“Who are you voting for?” I asked.

“Gonzalez.”

“I’ll personally escort you there myself.”

But, hey, I would have done it even if she was voting for Newsom. She was a cutie. No. Get that boat back into rational rivulets. She was a voter.

There aren’t election results up yet, but it’s looking pretty good for Gonzalez. I’ve learned that Gavin Newsom sent somewhere in the area of 150,000 abentee applications to potential voters. This despite a Clinton and a Gore endorsement. I’ve never heard of a candidate ever resorting to anything like this.

But just to be safe, I’ve conducted an informal poll among people who are, what I would call, traditional Democrats.

The publisher of a major magazine: “Gonzalez. Begrudgingly.”

A Gore voter with a pragmatic reactionary tilt: “Well, I had to vote for Matt after eight years of Brown.”

Even a person who’s normally apolitical confessed that he’s voting for Gonzalez.

Gonzalez has a momentum here that Ammiano didn’t have back in ’99. It was a hell of a coup to get people to write Tom Ammiano’s name onto the ballot and get him in the runoff. But the minute the runoff went down, momentum shifted. People became painfully aware of Ammiano’s limitations and were willing to let the pragmatic Democrats west of Twin Peaks have the final say.

But not this time. The Financial District signs are split evenly between Gonzalez and Newsom. Pragmatism has shifted. People are hungry for something new. Different. Honest. I suspect the fact that Newsom has never appeared in a photograph with his hair tousled in any way has something to do with it. What were the Newsom people thinking?

I’m amazed to say that it may actually happen tonight. 82% of San Francisco voted against the recall. We do things differently here. And we could be the first city in the United States with a Green Party mayor. If it does go down, I’ll be very proud to be a San Franciscan. Very proud to be part of a movement that tells the nation, “Politics doesn’t have to be an unctuous business. Sometimes, under special circumstances, you can have results.”

UPDATE: We lost. But it was fun ride. Tim Redmond calculates that Newsom spent $34 a vote to Gonzalez’s $4. It’s still a respectable showing.

by DrMabuse

Matt Gonzalez for Mayor

matt_oval.gifSo I voted for the hippie. And here’s why you should too:

Gavin Newsom isn’t the right-wing nut he’s been painted as. But he’s the obvious choice. A pomaded, well-oiled machine slightly better than Willie Brown, but no less accountable. A man who views San Francisco the way a ladies’ man propositions an easy Friday night lay: a quickie on the way to the top or the next one, wherever that might be. This may be putting it crudely, but would you trust this man to babysit your kids? I rest my case.

But Gonzalez, while not as specific about solutions as his supporters would contend, is perhaps the only shot in a generation at a genuinely passionate and respectable politician in San Francisco. Someone who will try something open and different, someone who actually gives a damn about the problems that plague ths City and won’t turn a blind eye the way that Willie Brown did. Even if Gonzalez falls flat on his face, or should he win tonight, at least we can’t say that we didn’t try.

The results that may come from Gonzalez’s grand experiment, good or bad, are what I’m interested in, and why any San Franciscan should give him the risky vote. Homelessness is abysmal. Apartment rental rates are out of control. You have to clear $200K a year and have the credit of J. Paul Getty to buy a home here. And the local economy’s become as neglected as the pet chihuahua left home to die while the family’s driven four hundred miles to mourn the death of a close family relative. (Remix those metaphors, baby!) Who says that thinking outside of the box won’t help matters? And, for the record, Gonzalez is pro-business. He doesn’t plan on tampering dramatically with current business taxes. He just wants people to have a living wage, and to be able to afford to live here. He’s daring us to rethink our priorities. And the great thing is that if the experiment works, it could make a difference to how things are done nationwide. All Gonzalez asks is that we reconsider our values.

I hereby introduce an eleventh-hour campaign slogan that seems to have eluded Gonzalez’s supporters:

Put Your Balls on the Chopping Block and Vote Matt Gonzalez