Like, old people are in risk, hot. Like, this town doesn’t know what to do with itself, hot. Like world upside-down, hot. I keep having flashbacks to life in San Jose then shake myself, no, this is the foggy town, the town that requires a sweater each time you go out at night, regardless. The town that freezes the nipples off of tourists, and sends them pleading for over-priced fleeces with tacky logos emblazoned on the front. The town where we constantly grouse about how freezing the wind is, how “the coldest winter was a summer in San Francisco” (fyi: not Mark Twain).

I’ve got the windows closed, the lights out, hibernating. Last night on Embarcadero, near the Ferry Building, there were at least 3-fold the amount of people I usually see, and I felt welcome cool winds off of the bay once in a while. It almost felt like any other city that has waterways- Seattle, or Miami- in summer it’s hot and you walk along the boardwalk. You can wear t-shirts and tank tops, and eat outside without your stuff blowing away.

Last night on our roof in North Beach, we saw - for some unknown reason- fireworks at pier 39. The sky was violet; it was amazing.

Hey! architecture & safety fans, look at those spanking new fire escapes in Dec 1956… possibly one of the last major revamps to aging SF General.

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…

Want to get involved with the greening of San Francisco, need to work off some of that consumer guilt you have been carrying around all year?

The 2008 NEN Clean & Green Summit will feature…

• A resource fair featuring dozens of agencies & non profits committed to helping you make a difference in your community
• Five different break out groups that you can pre-register for online
• How to use Solar and Wind to power your home and /or business
• Rainwater Harvesting: How you can capture rainwater to use in your garden
• Demystifying the community challenge grant process
• How to build community in your neighborhood around being cleaner and greener
• How to make your home more earth friendly
• Walking tours of the Mission including a stop at the “Greenest” home in San Francisco – truly an amazing structure!

Date: Saturday May 31st, 2008
Location: Cesar Chavez Elementary School (23rd St. and Folsom).
Cost: FREE

A lunch will be provided by Norcal and the California Culinary Academy to registrants.

Schedule and Links

A story in today’s Chronicle says the mayor’s office is floating a proposal to close to traffic a major street, like the Embarcadero and all the way down the side of the city to Bayview, and open it up to artists. This follows a recent resurrection of the proposal to close Market St. to automobile traffic.

While the notion of dancers, martial artists and mimes cavorting up and down the Embarcadero is a pleasant fantasy, the neighborhood activist quoted in the first story is correct: the Embarcadero is already a recreation area packed with people ranging up and down broad sidewalks and bike lanes. What would be the point of closing the traffic lanes? Is yoga better on the asphalt? (Maybe those folks who practice yoga in an over-heated room would take to it.)

Instead, go ahead and close Third St. between Market and 23rd. You’d have a fantastic pedestrian boulevard all the way through SOMA, anchored by Yerba Buena Center on one end and the baseball stadium on the other. Then south of there, through Mission Bay and Dogpatch, you could bring pedestrians to the neighborhood for the first time. There are no shops whose businesses would be damaged by the lack of passing traffic.

And the idea of closing Market St. to automobiles is stupid. Chicago provides all the example we need. During the 1980s and early 90s, State St. was a transit mall, closed to cars, open only to buses. And without car traffic, the street died, becoming a dead zone. Since they reopened State St. in 1996, it has rebounded. If they close Market St. to cars, the buses and streetcars might run faster, but watch all the shops close.

With all the video games, cell phones, vending machines and ATM’s in our midst, many people would argue humans have lost touch with their wild side forever.

I’ve spent most of my life in metropolitan areas. Though I’ve spent some time on horseback, I’ve spent 95% of my time riding urban public transportation systems instead. I buy my food in boxes, in bags, and heat it at home. Hell, for lunch, I even graze at a salad bar.

A train takes me to my job, which is as far from harvesting my own food and repairing my homestead as a job could possibly be. I work with digital media. CDs and DVDs and the computers that record them are my daily companions. I have an iPod, a few computers, a cell phone, a personal organizer and automated payments. I’m the perfect example of the city-dwelling, half-woman, half-machine that has every day of the week organized to an annoying level.

You could say I’m far from my roots as a savanna-loving homo sapien… you could say that of my co-workers too. So it was pretty interesting to see something quite to the contrary in the middle of my day-to-day technology bustle. I heard quite a ruckus on the bottom floor of our brand-new, giant-sized office. I gazed down from my loft to see a fork-lift pushing a giant machine into the corner of the production area.

Diagonally across from the machinery was the entire assembly crew, staring in wonder. I went downstairs to check it out. A brand new machine that resembles a yellow submarine attached to complete photo-developing station was being hoisted into our midst. It’s a massive tangle of steel and gears, still shining from the factory and looming large over every other machine in our company. I hear tell this was the major reason for moving to our new office. The gaggle of human assemblers were still staring at the great beast.

That’s when I realized what seemed so odd about the bunch…

they were afraid.
(more…)

By chance the other day I met Kevin Gordon, the filmmaker behind the 11-minute documentary Tellin’ It Like It Is: The Work of Elouise Westbrook. Mrs. Westbrook has been active on behalf of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood since she moved there in 1949, and it’s clear that even at the age of 92 she remains a force to be reckoned with. She was thrust onto the national stage when, in 1973, city officials failed to get the release of allocated federal funds to tear down the old barracks at Hunter’s Point and build housing there. In response, Mrs. Westbrook took a delegation to Washington, determined not to leave without getting the funding her neighborhood was due. Eventually she succeeded, and the city received its $30 million for the project.

However, Mrs. Westbrook’s greatest ongoing success probably lies in the clinic she helped to found, the South of Market Health Center, which now has three active facilities. A fourth facility is in development, with plans to break ground in the fall: Westbrook Plaza. The Plaza honors Mrs. Westbrook’s vision of affordable healthcare and affordable housing for all, by combining the two in a single development.

The short screens tonight at 9:00 at the Kabuki, and opens for the feature Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans. Tickets available at the theater.

Earlier this afternoon I got Mr. Gordon on the phone and we talked a bit about this film and his aims as a filmmaker. Our Q&A starts below and continues after the jump.

So, how did you learn about Mrs. Westbrook in the first place?

Well, I totally lucked out: I was actually approached with the film. Another filmmaker I’d just met called me about how the South of Market Health Center wanted a tribute made for their founder, and that she (the other filmmaker) was too expensive for them, but thought I might do it for a lot cheaper. Of course, that was the case. But when I met Mrs. Westbrook, I knew that I had no choice but to make the movie. She struck me immediately as an amazing person and an amazing subject, but it wasn’t until I was really into the research that I realized how significant she really was. So everything kind of happened backwards to how you’d normally expect it to happen.
(more…)

I’m sitting for 20 minutes on Embarcadero, trying to get to work. There are about 100 people slowly taking up 3 lanes, bright pink banners and a flag- though I couldn’t read any of the writing. I sat there, patiently, fixating on a toddler tripping lightly on the bumps of the painted line road, holding both of his parents’ hands. Finally impatience got the better of me and I negotiated my way out and tried to go over Telegraph Hill the other way.

I turn off to go over Stockton, and North Beach traffic is also at a dead halt.

Thing is- the protest- I couldn’t even tell what they were protesting! I saw “War=Lies,” which, due to the low turnout, made me kind of depressed. No amount of road rage could make me not appreciate civil disobedience, peacefully. But I did have to get to the East Bay, and there was no way over there (without an additional hour and a half via BART). Living in the city there’s a protest, it seems, every week. “San Francisco is the best city to protest,” a neighbor told me the other day when we were discussing the Torch issue. Is there protest-fatigue? Like too many CALPIRG kids knocking on Palo Alto homes (that’s a strange phenomenon- ivy league kids spanning out every summer night from 6-8pm, knocking on doors.)

Ah, SF Gate answers my question: May Day Parade

The Maker Faire is back again this weekend! Taking place at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in it’s 3rd year on May 3rd and 4th (saturday and sunday). Some highlights of who/what will be there:

A Lego Jeep!

A 56 Ford F100 Biodiesel!

Acme Muffineering and More!

According to CNN.com a SF resident was killed in Mexico late yesterday by a GrayTiger Shark Attack. Somewhere in the vicinity of Acapulco/Ixtapa region. The attack itself was another bite and release it seems and the man bled to death from the wounds. Sincere condolences to the family.

h/t to Surfpulse.

UPDATE: The name of the victim was released this morning, Adrian Ruiz. A well liked bartender with stints at Holy Cow, The Blue Light and Nova. More details as they come. Sad day for his family and surfers in SF.

Related:

• Tiger-shark attack in Mexico kills surf-loving bartender from S.F.
• CNN: U.S. surfer dies in shark attack in Mexico
• The Landlord, aka Great White - POLL
• Pacific Coast Shark News 2008

Wishing it was warmer? Make believe it is and get a free cone at Ben and Jerry’s today.