Watching City Hall #367  (4-25-05)

“They call it ‘Pirates Cove’ in Cleveland. It’s an old racketeers term.”

(Michael Moore)

“In Chicago, it’s called ‘Maxwell Street’.”

(Jens)

We were looking at the 2 pens I’d bought at what I call the ‘Burglars Bazaar’ at the foot of UN Plaza in San Francisco. Two great ball point pens packed in a double cellophane bag. ‘The Westin St. Francis’ read the fancy script painted on the body of each one. I give pens away all the time cause people give em to me all the time and I was running low. Two of these for a buck was a hell of a bargain.

I’d been to Trader Joe’s to grab a case of ‘Two buck Chuck’ and passed through the Bazaar on the last leg of my walk home. There is indeed, some kind of strange energy there. And, though I make it a rule never to buy stolen property, I doubted these pens were contraband. Nice, but not too fancy. The kind of thing hotels put out in conference rooms by the thousands.

Oddly, it made me feel good to finally buy something here (used to buy pot here until the pot clubs opened) .. I looked up at the huge blank wall on the back-of-the-pie side of the Renoir Hotel facing the Bazaar and thought of how neat it would be to include this Barbary Coast kind of element into the mural that will surely fill the wall that flanks the opening to Downtown. Millions pass the wall yearly in parades and demonstrations and just on their way to get laid or watch a peep show or spend thousands on one outfit for their already loaded wardrobe. It had been a good day. I love this town.

There was a cop walking the beat down McAllister for one thing. I got an email about him around 5:30pm and saw him myself when I headed over to Jens’ place an hour later. No armor. Alone. Stopping to chat with people. No stun guns or pepper spray. An old fashioned long billy club. Friggin’ ‘Officer Krupke’ lives! I got calls from the Haight that Park Station’s Captain was making his people put leather to concrete and ride buses alone too. Thanks folks, and don’t think I believe this is because of me. Every single candidate for supe in every single race said that one of their main goals vis a vis neighborhood security was to get back to having old fashioned beat cops on foot getting to know the people. The Mayor has promised it. The Chief of Police has ordered it. And, it’s finally happening. … Imagine, meeting a cop who wasn’t there to make you break up your birthday party or to arrest your neighbor.

h.: “Forgive us. We’re going senile.”  (aside to bartender)

Jens: (hears) “That’s great! I always wanted to go see the Nile.”

Then, we worked on torture jokes. That’s the kind of thing that my buddy Jens and I do all the time. I mean, this guy is a hippie Yogi Berra and I can type, so there you have a natural combination. If we can get Jonathan Richman to put music to it, we have a play. You should be so lucky to have such people as friends. They can take your most tortured broken love tale and break it down into one line that makes everyone laugh and the pain go away. And, other stuff. I just listen and drag out my note pad and copy things that simply MUST be recorded.

His off-the-cuff twist of my comment led us to Egypt which led us to the fact that the U.S. uses Egypt as a torture station for outsourced prisoners who don’t respond to ‘Law and Order’ techniques.

h.: “What the hell do you say to your Egyptian torturer to hurt his feelings even as you’re spitting out teeth? How does one show true bravado in such a situation?”

Jens: “Do you even have a green card!?!” (Yeah, a blow for American torturers who’ve had this work outsourced. That’s good.)

h.: “Yeah, if he understood, that would get his attention. What else?”

Jens: “If you get any closer, I’m gonna expect an engagement ring!”

h.: “OK. Say, that really gets him going and he starts slapping you real hard?”

Jens: “I’m from San Francisco. You wanna get a room?”

It’s not all fun and games and torture jokes though. Most of our time is spent listening to rock and roll, smoking great pot and drinking pretty much cheap liquor. Point is, if you’re serious about covering the San Francisco scene, running your experiences through the likes of Jens and Diamond Dave Whitaker is essential.

Real business

(4-28-05)

Pot clubs! … Peskin wants to see my story on pot clubs. I ran into him last night as I was headed over to Jens’ place for my evening cocktail. I’d been arguing online with Krissy Keefer cause I info’d a spin on the ‘Y’ idea to Joe O’Donoghue … because, … we’ll get into that later but for now, here I am heading toward Jens’ crib. … Then, there, across the street from me is David Owen, Aaron Peskin’s legislative assistant. My trained, attack dog, reporter’s mind is suddenly alert. It’s not midnight and David is a typical supe aide. That meaning, if the supe’s most visible assistant is around, da supe cannot be far away.

I screamed some inane insult across the street about the neighborhood not being big enough for his like and my like and things like that. I dodged 3 cars who underrated my leaping ability and asked Owen the big question.

“Your boss in there?!” Seemed unlikely, yet certain at the same time. This guy swims in the Bay every morning. He ain’t likely afraid of the Tenderloin. David just pointed and I made my way inside.

There’s the just-turning-41 Board President surrounded by a bevy of the ‘best and brightest’. In the middle of the Tenderloin (on Larkin atween O’Farrell & Ellis). It’s very good luck for me. I want to push my brainstorm on making the Golden Gate ‘Y’ into a combo Press Club/Jazz center/Dance Center protected by a 100 year land trust of some kind … I want to push this idea on anyone who can help. I don’t know what the hell he can do about it, or me either for that matter but other than Gavin, he’s the top politician in town and if press clubs and politicians don’t go together, I don’t know what does.

We started talking to each other, but couldn’t really communicate. He was nursing what looked like a serious martini and I was 10 or 12 hours into a case of ‘two buck Chuck’. We’d both just finished a long day and were unwinding in the appropriate manner for our particular breed and bent of tribe. It was like he was speaking Yiddish and I was speaking Klingon. That kind of shit happens to me lots. He was talking about the pot clubs, so I decided to try and drag him across the street to meet the City’s #1 expert on all pot, medicinal and other. I mean, really, you gotta believe in ‘happenstance’ when stuff like this keeps falling to you like low-hanging fruit. Surprisingly, he came along.

Now, my friends have been around, but they aren’t accustomed to having the President of the Board of Supervisors come visit their seedy dive with a heat on. Peskin caused a stir just walking out of the bar and across the street with me.

Winos, scavengers and pimps accosted us repeatedly on the half block walk. To say this neighborhood is intense is a very very serious understatement. A drug gang from South of the border has taken up residence here over the last couple of years and crack and heroin dealers are every 10 or 20 feet around the corner of Larkin and O’Farrell.

Hey, it’s the Barbary Coast. On one corner is the Sgt. John McCauley Park, a playground for kids (no adults allowed without kids). Across from the park is the Century Theatre, one of the more upscale strip clubs in town. … Buxom strippers in mind boggling street clothes get in and out of limos. They’re black and yellow and white and brown and every shade in between. Body guards protect flanks and boobs while the lower level street pimps and drug dealers drool. Me too. The scene is Dance Mission meeting the Mitchell Brothers.

Peskin barely notices. It’s then that I realize that this is hardly a notch or so up or down on the dial from his North Beach District 3. No need to be protective of this guy. More likely, it should be the other way around. Aside from the people who recognize him on the street (even here) and rush for a handout or a congratulations, he’s a passing anomaly who quickly loses the spotlight when the next well padded ass or perfectly rounded set of implants snakes their way out of the next limo and grinds across the sidewalk and on into the Century

“Leno’s the one!!”

I introduced Aaron to Jens whom he’d met before and Jens’ girlfriend, Leona and we launched into an hours review of pot use, policy and future regulation. All drunk. … Only way to honestly vet any issue of import.

h: “The City should sell clones and let everyone take their own risk. Am I right Jens?”

Jens: (he’s been using pot medicinally for over 35 years) “None of the clubs have any clones left. With the embargo (sic) people are afraid that the next step will be for the feds to close the clubs, so they’re starting to horde stashes and buy up every clone so they can grow their own.”

Peskin: “Talk to Leno! He’s totally into the City growing our own pot!”

h.: (emphatically – amazed to have Peskin in the same surroundings Gonzalez took to so easily) “Abso-mother fucking-lutely! Make em arrest everyone in town. Problem is, Hettrick and Halloran work for the feds.”

Peskin: (ignores my libel) “You WERE right about keeping things as simple as possible.”

h.: (nods, a dozen martinis ain’t gonna get Peskin to say anything stupid) “There ain’t much simpler than a ‘Victory garden’. It’s a great fall-back position. No one wants to go back to buying cheap ass weed full of diesel fuel and pcp. If they start busting us, throw the City behind supplying clones for a hundred thousand Victory gardens. If the feds will let us make wine and beer, we can take it a step further and provide clones in City nurseries. We already sell all kinds of plants there.”

Jens: (takes a long drag off the joint I just rolled and looks slowly over at Peskin – two experts – no one knows more about pot than Jens and Aaron is the City’s top legislative mind right now – these are your ‘go to’ guys for pot legislation) “h. says you favor complete legalization. That true?”

Peskin: (looks him dead in the eye and takes a long draw off the can of Natural Ice Jens passed to him when he entered and got settled) “I favor both medicinal and recreational pot.”

Jens: (looks over at me and smiles) “I just happen to have a little of each here. (digs through a drawer and puts a big green bud on the tray for me to reduce and roll into a joint – a 30 year ritual) Sometimes, I get them mixed up.”

“It was tobacco.

We were sharing a cigar.

Matt doesn’t smoke pot and …

I don’t roll my joints that big.”

(Peskin crunches Chron rumor in ’03)

I walked the Board prez a few blocks up Larkin when he left and made it all the way up to California before turning back. There were two themes to his conversation. First was: “My wife’s gonna kille me!” The second was: “I planted those two trees there in front of the Harcourt and the other two up there by the school almost 20 years ago.” I crossed California with him and we ran into a sweat-drenched Don Capers, head of the Civil Service Commission. He stopped and smiled at Aaron and gave me a surprised look. Peskin started to introduce us, then realized we knew each other.

“This guy cuts your salary by $30k and you still talk to him!!” … I tossed that one off to see how they’d react (one of Newsom’s first acts as mayor was to have the Capers’ crew cut the Board salary increase his billionaire buddies opposed).

“Actually, it was more like $20k.” said Capers.  “Closer to $23k.” countered Peskin. … Having done my best to start another conflict, I headed back down into the Loin to get another 12 pack of Natural Ice for Jens, a pack of Newport 100’s in the box for Leona and a pint of Ancient Age for myself. It had been a good day.

Lunch with Clemens

I’d had lunch with Alex Clemens and met Emilio Cruz who was wearing an incredible logo-decorated team-style jacket featuring, as best I could figure, team and project inspired decals. Odd, but part of getting together with Alex had been to return a sweatshirt I’d borrowed when I last sat with his cats. It reads: ‘Rincon Hill’, one of the successful projects he rep’d. It’s the way we all live.

Structure by structure. Project by project. Issue by issue. Relationship by relationship. We move day to day. Angela Alioto captured the real feeling of our lives in an exchange from 3 time zones away where she’s taking depositions or something.

“I think I broke my computer playing this game with Chiara Mia (her granddaughter) You know how you have to win for your grandkid? The game is ‘Shrek 2’ and I had to pound on the left side of the mouse over and over to kill the evil godmother. It wasn’t easy.”

Another victory for Alioto. Another battle for Keefer. Another issue for Peskin. Another confused stack of notes for me. I love this town.

Be quiet or they’ll hear you.