Kamala Harris impressed the Washington Post with her tough talk about public safety over criminal rehabilitation. “What Democrats have to do is understand that Republicans have it right” on crime issues.

Maybe she’s right I pondered, as I was stepping over a bloodstained sidewalk two blocks from City Hall this morning in front of Kamala’s alma matter UC Hastings. Gosh, I hardly noticed how safe we have it here in the land of plea bargain hunters. Gee, with an ongoing presence of illegal immigrant crack dealers controlling the very next corner with “Amnesty”, I guess I should thank everyone involved for keeping me safe. Maybe these thugs work for Kamala, whose apparently a “Hot Shot” according to organizers of her panel that was sponsored by Time magazine.

Mayor Gavin Newsom , another Democratic “Hot Shot” also appeared at the Denver breakfast, and is the host of a rock concert Wednesday night complete with VIP area that defines which acts one can see. While the general admission area includes bands like Silversun Pickups, DJ Z-Trip and Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah, a more exclusive intimate area features Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie, and actress Zooey Descanel of She & Him. One cannot just buy their way into the Unconventional “VIP Gallery” to catch Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, you have to be “invited”. Sponsors of the Gavster’s Denver shindig saluting “Young Democrats” include Pacific Gas and Electric, so you’d probably have to be up to date on your electric bill before you can expect to be invited.

The film documents the faces of the post grunge era, including interviews with the band, and their friends and supporters who include Joan Jett, Kathleen Hanna, and many local SF residents including Broken Rekids label honcho (and now Rainbow Grocery beer & wine buyer) Mike Millet.

The San Francisco screening is on Monday July 7th at The Landmark Embarcadero Cinema with a special post screening Q&A with members of Seven Year Bitch.

The Oakland screening at the Uptown tonight on Saturday July 5th offers the added opportunity to see The Gits drummer Steve Moriarty now a local resident, in action with a new band he’s just started with Dead Kennedy’s bassist Klaus Flouride.

For more info see the links

7/5 Uptown Oakland or 7/7 Landmark Embarcadero in SF

Writes Sarno:

“I’ve been wracking my brain thinking of what issues I might’ve come down on the wrong side of,” Blue told me on the phone. “There’s been no argument, there’s been no disagreement, no flame war, none of the usual things.”

Could Boing Boing really be a Stalin era throwback that wants to erase it’s own history, and somehow have the world to believe the widely read SF Gate columnist doesn’t exist?

At AdRants they speculated a possible conflict with blog ad provider Federated Media, which seemed somewhat unlikely to be involved in editorial concerns (IMHO ) since they supply ads for dozens of popular sites including the Metblogs network.

BoingBoing eventually issued it’s own terse comment and explanation after the web “sh*tstorm” lapped up on it’s serenely acerbic shores:

“[Violet's] posts were removed from public view a year ago. Violet behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her. It’s our blog and so we made an editorial decision, like we do every single day. We didn’t attempt to silence Violet. We unpublished our own work. There’s a big difference between that and censorship.”

Read the LA times blog, or for a more concise semi ad biz related wrap up read more at AdRants.

Reading the continuing saga of SF General Hospital one can only see euthanasia or perhaps the good ship privatization coming into port on the horizon…

Yesterday, Gavin “pumped on privatization, saddened by sunshine” Newsom sent his not entirely friendly pals on the Board of Supes a proposal to float an $887 million dollar public bond to facilitate construction of a refurbished General Hospital before the state’s fix the seismic stability or close it deadline of January 2013.

Even if the Supes could agree on it, then SF voters would have to approve it by a
two thirds margin in November. Then I assume simple design issues, bids and construction for the estimated $ billion+ dollar project would have to begin fairly quickly and run miraculously smoothly even if we could get a moderate 2 year extension on the state’s deadline. (By the way, legally the bond can only pay for the construction, no equipment or furnishings… so we’ll need even more money to upgrade everything)

All this just sort of happens neatly in a row, or uh, the behemoth institution just gets shuttered, ( or perhaps “privatized”).

Anyone care to surmise that is the real plan anyway?

Lil Mike’s random rant rambles on after the jump…

With pals on the SF Redevelopment Agency throwing in the towel & basically trying to hand the actual redevelopment of Hunters Point over to Nancy Pelosi’s son and his corporate profit hungry partners at Lennar, is Gavin really just hedging a bet?

Why should the city trouble itself with the health care business when it can barely even handle the school & bus business, and long ago outsourced it’s federally mandated Hetch Hetchy public power operation to PG&E…

Looks like the city would rather run the civic center farmer’s market than assume the trouble of a reinvesting in a major life saving health care facility…

In March, the City’s Dept of Public Health ignored the cries of protestors, nurses and unions and handed over the duties of the City’s own Workers Compensation Clinic to outsourced health care providers from California Pacific Medical Center, Kaiser, and St. Francis. One of the reasons cited for the closure was that city run clinic didn’t rake as much money from the Worker’s Compensation fee scale as the privately run facilities.

The city has 5 other privately run “not for profit” hospitals besides SF General, and those seem to know how to milk the system better…

Ex. recently released statistics showed that federal & state tax breaks last year pumped some $70 million into California California Pacific Medical Center’s coffers, for providing services at it’s three campuses in San Francisco, but they spent only $5.2 million providing charity care.

Now that redefines “Keeping It Real” into just “

Really Keeping It

“…

Perhaps if the city can’t rake in dough, it is simply wise for a city to get out of the over exposure to liability of the health care business, for example, recently the city settled a $5 million medical malpractice claim related to a misdiagnosis at SF General.

Los Angeles County has lost several hospitals in the past few years, 6 in the first half of 2004 alone, and in 2007, the controversial shuttering of South Central’s Martin Luther King Jr Harbor Hospital. With most of the closures on the poorer sides of town, the county basically sends a “good luck in traffic!” wish for all those uninsured workers, aging diabetes sufferers & gunshot victims needing emergency care.

Can S.F be far behind ?

Anyone else have thoughts on this public health care boondoggle?

Amongst the participating restaurants in Dining Out For Life this Thursday, April 24th are numerous joints ranging from high end to many mid priced indie run spots from the ballpark’s Acme Chophouse to Alamo Sq Grill, or Anchor Oyster Bar in the Castro.

In the chain dept. all the local Amici’s Pizza & Pasta Pomodoro locations…

Whether you like Askew or Zazil, there’s something on the list in almost anyone’s potential price range…

more info and link to the
complete list at

http://www.DiningOutForLife.com/SanFrancisco

Unlike many of the popular dancehall scene faves currently, he’s one of the few successful artists I know of in the genre who eschews the worst cliches & prejudices espoused in rap lyrics these days. He’s out promoting a new release called “No Stress Express” in which he shares the spotlight with guests including Miki Howard, Sizzla. The new single “Unity” recorded with Jack Maness formerly of Sublime offshoots Long Beach Dub All Stars is a call for harmony within the family of man.

Half Pint is a relatively humble artist active since the 80’s who’s been covered/copied by some pretty big white acts including the Rolling Stones (his song Winsome under their 1986 title “Too Rude”), and the aforementioned Sublime hit the big time in 1996 with Half Pint’s “Loving”, that you know better as the multi-platinum “(Love is) What I Got”. Half Pint is one of the few dancehall artists that consistently refrains from profanity, misogyny and negativity. The lyric book of his new CD even has section on stress relief that includes soaking one’s feet in epsom salts…

His other radical viewpoints include the horribly unhip and seemingly forgotten concepts like interpersonal respect , individuality, and (gasp!) family stability. Half Pint has even complained about the lyrics of other contemporary acts.

“There’s just raging and rebelling and they’re not realizing it’s not getting them anywhere. It’s better to be cool, calm and collective and do your homework and deal with one situation at a time. A lot of rap is still disrespectful to women, also. They’re saying things like, ‘Alright, Mama, do your thing. Keep selling your body.’ And I’m like, ‘Whoaaaah. No, mama don’t sell your body. Stick to me and let’s try to work things out without resorting to that.”

Whoa, crazy!!!

if you want to give Big Ups to the Half Pint, he’ll been making Pier 23 sweat after 10 pm til late tonight…

There’s some mp3 samples below for y’all

This song is also featured on “No Stress Express”…

Half Pint

“Just Be Good To Me Feat. Miki Howard” (mp3)
from “Past To Present”
(Ryff Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic

Buy at Amazon

More On This Album

The critters, including an ox, a sheep, a horse, a pig, a goat, and a small deer are shown being beaten with a sledgehammer by the “artist”.

The invited presenting “artist”, born in Algeria, but based out of Paris, is Adel Abdessemed, who according to his own hype:

is open and generous, sensitive albeit controversial. For materials, he relies on bodily or embodied experiences (human and animal), ordinary household objects, industrial products, and even buildings. His work consists of the stark contrasts between beauty and violence, impulsiveness and rationality, romanticism and radicality, life and death.

Whatever ya wanna say about the guy, he’s from France and his money is worth more than yours these days, so there.

I actually wanna thank SFAI’s Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and animal hammering fan Hou Hanru for bringing this unique artistic endeavor to my attention, where I once might have had to travel to a Chino slaughterhouse to see similar art. Hou’s SFAI website bio says of his curatorial and department chairing expertise :

“Hou is one of the first curators and thinkers to examine postmodern issues of nomadic identity, hybridity, globalized mobility, what he calls “in-betweeness,”

Way to go Hou !!! You impressive idea thinker you !!! Keep it up and I bet our board of supes will be fighting over which street to name after you !!!

SFO will soon have Jet Airways as a new tenant, becoming the first Indian airline to fly from San Francisco to Mumbai and only the second airline worldwide to fly nonstop from San Francisco to Shanghai. The airline which also has codesharing with American Airlines, will begin SFO flights in May, and previously launched daily service from New York’s JFK and Newark airports, as well as Toronto within the past year.

The airline, which won an award for ‘Best Full Service Airline in India’ for the year 2007, touts it’s luxury class offerings ranging from First Class suites with private closets, dining tables for two, and 23″ flat-screens. The Premiere business class features “pods” with 73″-long totally flat beds. Even the Economy seats supposedly divy up more legroom than average and all customers can fiddle with hi-tech personal entertainment systems, complete with 200+ movies, games and Bose noise-canceling headphones.

The Indian airline which was founded in 1993, also runs flights to and from Brussels, London, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat and Doha.

For more information, please visit: http://www.jetairways.com

For over 25 years, dedicated family farmers and independent food purveyors from all over California have arrived at SF’s UN Plaza at dawn on Wednesdays & Sundays, setting up their temporary tents & tables to sell their produce and sundry products til about 5pm. Whether you like the wide array of greens or roasted nuts, dried fruits, dates, baked goods, cheeses, olive oils or even fresh fish & fowl, there’s something for everyone. Unlike the more pretentious and prosperous scene at the fashionable Ferry Building, this inauspicious & authentic farmer’s market is frequented by the denizens of the neighborhood, office workers on lunch break, old Chinese folks and some occasional tourists that find it upon emerging from BART. The prices are often half of what the other fancy farmer’s market might charge, and the scene about as bucolic and community orientated as one can get in “The Heart Of The City”.

If it wasn’t for the farmers & vendors who twice a week make the United Nations Plaza a lively civic gathering spot, the place is generally a desolate, if not dangerous empty expanse populated by sleepy doped up miscreants, drug dealers, ne’er do ‘ells, tweakers, stolen property salesmen and a spectacular variety of shady criminal thugs. The same city and it’s bloated bureaucracy, which had a big hand in letting the UN plaza slip into a symbolic cesspool of urban decay in the first place, now wants to manage the sole successful independently operated revitalizing factor in the area ? How uh, original…

The “Heart Of The City Farmer’s Market” at UN Plaza has long been organized and managed by an independent non-profit that was formed in 1981 starting with just 12 farmers, and some of the same vendors have been there since the inception. John Fernandez and his mother Christine Adams help manage the market that the city now has plans to “take over” after two+ decades, and they are not amused. Neither were at least a half dozen stall operators that I spoke to in an informal survey today, some who’ve been at UN Plaza since the very early days. They already dealt with this threat back in 1995, and here we go again, with a basically bankrupt bureaucracy that’s trying to dip it’s incompetent tentacles into something that isn’t broke, so why bother to fix it?

As I left the market circa 4 pm today, rumor had it that Adams & Fernandez were already in a meeting at City Hall with Aaron Peskin and presenting hundreds of signatures of supporters they’d gathered in just the first few hours of the day this morning.

Watch a five minute YouTube overview on the history of the market presented by the folks who founded & now run it, and will likely be squeezed out of their role if the city has it’s way…

The market operators pride themselves on serving the low income community in the area, and that the market serves authentic vegetables and fish that their large Asian customer base crave including various melons, sugarcane, pea shoots and even seafood & live fowl. Amongst the regular vendors you’ll find at Civic Center are small farmers who fight the growing spectre of sprawl all around them from Sonoma, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno etc. Amongst my faves are the plentiful purveyors of citrus, or try the apples & ciders from Sebastopol via MacDonald’s Organic Farm, one of the area’s last Sonoma orchards that hasn’t gone over to the more profitable wine grapes. John Garrone of Far West Funghi in Moss Landing has great deals on many types of mushrooms including $2 baskets of fresh Shitakes. The Phan Farm of Elk Grove has wonderful fresh organic produce and vegetables of all sorts. Prepared foods include Spring Hill cheeses from Petaluma, raw & vegan options from Alive!, a rotisserie chicken truck, samosas and sauces from Sukhi’s of Fremont and delicious tamales from a Contra Costa county based truck. There’s even the option of getting the Filipino “delicacy” of fermented embryonic egg Balut for a quarter ( keep in mind duck egg Balut is .60 cents for you big spenders) …

Regular vendors at UN Plaza didn’t seem pleased to hear of the changes the city has planned for their longtime market, as many of these folks are small family farmers who have received little encouragement or help from the numerous large gov’t bureaucracies that engage in meddling in their fields of endeavor. Some of the changes the city will make are no doubt wrapping more red tape on farmers, including having them fill out more applications and forms, adding additional fees, taxes, permits and restrictions on vending, as well as enforcing additional codes and adding complexities that only bored bureaucrats can dream up.

The city already runs the bleak Alemany Flea & Farmer’s Market out by the 280 interchange since WWII and had to be forced by popular vote at the time to take responsibility for it, why would they want another one to mess up?

The guys that run the almond & pistachio stand were unabashed in their disapproval, and basically said Nuts! to the idea that the city start running the market. The “Chocolate Nut Man” was particularly vociferous in his disapproval at this idea being sprung on vendors, but was willing to pose for a late afternoon for photo the SF Metroblog none the less. His partner shook his head in dismay when the subject was broached and warned that there would certainly have to be a price raise coming if the city intends to double the rentals on the spaces, which he said already costs him $35,000 a year.

The farmer’s and vendors suggest anyone interested in supporting them stop by at their twice weekly market and sign their petition on Weds & Sun and also to contact the City, the Board of Supervisors and Mayor’s Office, and tell them they’d all be better off getting back to doing whatever it is we pay them handsomely to actually do, and leave the farmers downtown well enough alone.

Chris.Daly@SFgov.org - District 6 Supervisor
Aaron.Peskin@SFgov.org - Prez of Board of Supes
Ed.Lee@SFgov.org - City’s Chief Administrative Officer
Gavin.Newsom@SFgov.org - Mayor and aspiring Governor
Gary.Gentry@sfgov.org - SF Real Estate Division Market Manager

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

For those unfamiliar with Sugar Pie, she’s a local treasure who was raised on Buchanan street, as well as Etta James cousin and an R&B recording artist since 1955 when she got her start on Federal Records courtesy Mr. Johnny Otis.

Back in the day she recorded tracks with her cousin Etta and Willie Dixon that were hits on the Chess & Checker labels, and she’s still going strong today with her latest CD “Refined Sugar” (found on iTunes).

I caught her last year at the San Francisco Blues Festival where she stole the set she shared with the aged Jimmy McCracklin’. I was impressed with this diminutive lady’s feisty persona, with her seasoned & saucy sense of fun and frivolity.

Not bad for an old gal whose stage show with backflips was permanently curbed via lost hip movement when she was knocked over by a careless scooter operator in 2004, ( not too mention burned out of her North Oakland apartment two years later and had been left homeless…)

She’s a fighter, a survivor, and a truly fun & inspiring performer to witness…

Born to an African American momma with a Filipino father, she was a bi-racial celebrity long before Tiger Woods, Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys, Nicole Richie or even Barack Obama made such circumstances fashionable.

Here’s some mighty fine mp3 samples of music from her long & winding career which included early stints on long lost R&B labels like Jody, Rhythm, Aladdin, and Music City…

Her first taste of solo success occurred in 1959 when the Veltone label released I Want To Know.

This track established her as a name in the biz, and soon she was signed to Chess in Chicago alongside younger cousin Etta. Sugar Pie wowed them on stage, being regularly compared to dynamite, but she also knew how to control herself. Despite her sexy charms, and a two year stint on the road with James Brown, who recounted in his autobiography, that she was the only female in his revue with whom he never slept.

Sugar Pie could have been a bigger star, but for whatever reason, The Chess Bros. played the protective mogul role and held her potential at bay for seven years, keeping her busy as a writer and background vocalist, only releasing one rare 1961 album by the lady.

She cut 30 sides for Chess records, most of which were shelved and never hit the streets. While Sugar Pie got a $10,000 advance from the notoriously stingy Chicago honchos that ran the label when she signed on, they stiffed her on royalties for decades, even though she wrote many songs for other artists including Fontella Bass, Etta James, Little Milton and Minnie Ripperton.

Here’s a Checker single

Sugar Pie DeSanto - Soulful Dress

Sugar Pie went along on the 1964 Folk-Blues Fest tour of Europe, but as the only female artist, and basically an opening act… She also let the other musicians on that run including Muddy Waters & Willie Dixon know that she wasn’t part of the backstage buffet, telling the SF Bay Guardian in 2004

“I refused all them old goats,”

Here she is from that run backed by Willie Dixon and band on her answer song to Hi Heel Sneakers known as Slip In Mules.

Sugar Pie DeSanto w/ Willie Dixon - Slip In Mules
from: American Folk Blues Festival ‘64

By the early seventies she’d settled back into the San Francisco Bay Area for good, and over the next 35 some years has made some sporadic funky & bluesy tracks for her manager’s Jasman Records… Here’s one such cut from 1972 that was resurrected and licensed by the always fine & dandy crate digging Ubiquity label not long ago for their Bay Area Funk, Vol. 2 collection…

Sugar Pie DeSanto - Straighten It Out With Yo Man

See ya’ll down in the basement laters …