Watching City Hall #382 (7-15-05)

RIP Jackson Jones

(Beloved kitty cat of Alexandra Jones)

(1991 to 7/5/05)

Jackson is survived by his guardian and best friend, Bulldog columnist, Jones and good buddy, h. brown (that's me) who introduced him to all of you a couple of months back as 'the atomic cat' in a column about death and cancer. Jackson was one the furry/gilled/beaked friends I've met over the last few years along my house-sitting route. He and I were very much alike. We both liked to spend around 20 hours a day eating and drinking and sleeping and watching television. Alexandra was kind enough to give me the opportunity to say goodbye to him and I took the opportunity to send a message through him to Ben Brown, my own best cat friend who passed on 6 years ago. Jackson and I exchanged kisses for purrs and I nibbled a bit on each of his ears. He was a good one and the world is the less for the absence of his loving warmth. Save another one, Alexandra. Cut your formal mourning short and rescue another little 'Jackson' waiting for you at the Anima l Shelter. It won't be easy putting your heart out there again but you'll be saving a life and Jackson will approve.

Assessor's position

Don't you love irony? This year, Donald Fisher uses Pit bull, Duane Baughman and a Republican judge to threaten the property of District 11 supe, Gerardo Sandoval and next year ... Sandoval will get to appraise cabal bully, Fisher's house. And, all of his businesses inside the City limits! Talk about 'what goes around comes around'! I can't help but think that Warren Hellman's house is only appraised for about half of what it's actually worth. And, Walter Shorenstein!?! Don't even get me started on Walter's billions in underassessed office property.

Peace terms in the Fisher/Sandoval battle came through the intervention of Angela Alioto who got Fisher's proxy, Duane Baughman together with Gerardo in her Pacific Heights kitchen last Sunday morning. There, calmed by the sweeping view of the Bay and lulled by the uplifting chirp of the Sicilian dynamo's collection of small finches (think that's their type, whatever, they're happy as hell and breeding like Irish immigrants and she's always adopting them out) ... there, they made their deal. I don't know if Angela talked them each into taking a pair of love birds home. It couldn't hurt either of those guys.

I also don't know if Baughman knew Gerardo planned to run for Assessor. I don't know if Angela knew. I kind of doubt it. I don't do actual research, so most of the things I write are just things I can remember from conversations with friends. I exchanged emails with Angela a couple of hours ago (6am) as she was boarding a flight for Rome. I'll let you know anything else I learn that's on the record.

Related fallout

Lilian Sing went directly from her interview with the Mayor's latest screening board for the Assessor position right on down to the Assessor's office to check her new digs. Word is that Newsom promised his API wing that he'd choose an API as Assessor. Sing was a lazy, incompetent judge and she'd be an idiotic choice for Assesor but that pretty much fits into the pattern of department heads he's named for purely political purposes. This guy gets seriously flawed advice vis a vis appointments. He listens to everyone except the people who have actually worked in the departments for decades. That means that the Assessor's office will continue having worse leadership than North Korea. From Doris Ward to Mabel Teng to Lilian Sing. Not an accounting degree or shred of honesty in the lot. I'd rather work for Hannibal Lector. At least the office party buffets would be interesting.

U.S.S. Iowa idiocy

Are you a veteran with an honorable discharge? Did you do your patriotic duty? If not, shut your friggin' mouth about what should happen to the U.S.S. Iowa. I did my duty and I have an opinion. I say that the best thing you could do with the Iowa and pretty much every other single ship eating up taxpayer money in Suisan Bay is to melt the sons a bitches down and make bridges out of them. Why use expensive Japanese steel when we have a few hundred million tons of the shit just waiting for the smelter a few miles away? ... I'll get a little more specific about all this 'honor the vets' bull shit.

If Dianne Feinstein gave a shit about the vets, she wouldn't have backed the effort 2 years ago to take away the veterans building and give it along with every other City building surrounding the Wille dome to her society friends. She wouldn't have allowed Harry Parker and his posse of 80 year-old bleach blondes to squeeze the vets' offices (they are forced to put 2 or 3 posts in a single tiny office) so's the Swells could spread out in grandeur like a creeping carcinoma. She wouldn't have allowed her friends to plunder the vets' museum and send the best pieces 'on loan' to San Simeon or into their private collections. It took Rebecca Silverberg and a passel of vets to save the building whose transfer to the rich was shrouded in a phony bond proposal.

I have to say that as a fairly average vet, I feel sorry for people who define their lives by their time in the military. I 'm embarassed for anyone who looks back upon their military service as any kind of a good memory. I couldn't wait to throw away my entire military wardrobe. Watching guys wearing 50 year-old uniforms arouses only pity in me. The idea that time spent as a hired killer (I started at $78.50 a month in 1962) ... the idea that service time is their proudest accomplishment is a sad, sad thing to me. But, they've earned the right to their space and to their trophies. BUILDING space. A battleship is not something you stick in your duffle bag and carry home with you. Feinstein's real purpose is the same as it was 3 years ago. Get the vets out of the Veterans building so's she can give it to the Opera people. She's a scheming, profiteering, war-mongering bitch. Trust me, this is just another scheme to get the few remaining vets out of the Veterans building so's she can hand it over to Dede Wilsey and Harry DeWitt.

Deep, deep shame on P.J. Corkery

I like P.J. Corkery. He's a personable guy. Self-effacing. A fine writer. Unfortunately, he makes his living kissing the asses of rich people. That can't leave a very good taste in your mouth. This morning P.J. went to bat for the rich in their battle against the peoples' district-elected San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was the lowest moment I've seen in Corkery's illustrious career.

While Feinstein was using the Iowa controversy as an excuse to attack district elections ("I warned you! These are the things that can happen.") and rage against local representation, Corkery was off on a homophobic rant that ignored Tom Ammiano's Viet Nam service and Bevan Dufty's cold-as-steel observation: "As long as people like myself are barred from serving except in time of war, I cannot support such a resolution."

People, the SF Examiner was a piece of shit when the Hearsts owned it and it is returning to the right-wing toilet under Philip Anschutz. Just like at the Chronicle, Ex editors excise all balance from news stories and columns. I want to think that happened here. I'd like to think that Corkery had a paragraph in his original piece talking about his own time in the Army, hunkered down in a fire fight in Viet Nam where he won his bronze star and 3 purple hearts. Ask P.J. about his time in the war. It's what gives him the right to chime in on this issue. I'd like to think that Vivienne Sosnowski cut that out along with his description of Ammiano's service and the powerfully moving testimony against the military's descrimination toward all gay Americans. I'd like to think that he included the fact that Ross Mirkarimi's brother is an Army Major in the Special Forces who has done a couple of tours in Iraq.

I'd like to think Corkery did all that, but I don't believe it. Nope, I think P.J. ain't pretending this time. I think he's really gone over. I think he really thinks he's the new Herb Caen and that the rich just love him. I mean, the man called arguing against the military's homophobia ... called the people who oppose homophobia ... he called Ammiano and Dufty, "shameful". He called them: "disrespectful". I'll tell you who's shameful and disrespectful. That would be P.J. Corkery. He's the one in the corner wearing the little American flag in his lapel and the medal inscribed: 'Ass Kisser to the Swells'. This morning, you were a disgrace to journalists everywhere P.J..

Chief Fong shows backbone

As Deputy Chief in charge of Patrol, Greg Suhr told me that he thought that foot patrols for SFPD officers should be limited to one block per officer, per shift. That philosophy is at the very core of the problems our police department has in dealing with the public. Let me reiterate my thoughts on this briefly one more time.

The best cop in history was Officer Krupke from West Side Story. He was fictional but he was taken from a cop named 'Murphy' who walked the beat in my neighborhood in St. Louis. Or, he was taken from Officer O'Malley or Jones in your hometown. All these cops walked ALONE and they were NEVER in a patrol car. They knew everyone on their beat because 99.9% of the time, they just hung out and observed and got to know their neighborhoods. It's why the mythical Sharks & Jets both respected Krupke. They'd known him since they were kids. They trusted him.

Suhr also supported moving cops every couple of years. He also thought cops should only have to ride buses one block on each shift. You might ask, how do SF cops spend their time after they've spent 10 minutes walking a block and another 10 minutes riding a bus a block? What do they do with the other 7 hours and 10 minutes of their shift?

They sit in their cars and talk to each other. I mean, like they don't know each other well enough already!? Shit, why not go out singly in opposite directions and talk to the people? Because Greg Suhr said they didn't have to. Hopefully, that will change with a new Chief of Patrol. An example.

I live across the street from U.N. Plaza in an SRO room with a view of the 'action'. Over the past 6 months I've watched the PD presence there change while remaining the same. Now, almost 24 hours a day, there are cops in the plaza. But, they almost never get out of their cars. It's like trying to get a turtle out of their shell. I went into Carl's yesterday for a malt and there were 2 officers sitting in their cruiser in front of the door shooting the breeze. Male and female officer.

I went inside and made my order and settled back to wait and watch a huge black guy shove an equally huge black lady holding a child around the room while they both screamed and threw things. Like most of the customers, I waited for the cops to notice and come in. They were too deeply involved in some police-business type conversation to deal with the reality.

I finally went out and yelled for them to rescue the 'damsel'. They came in along with another cop who entered from the opposite side of the building. Of course, their major beef was with me for chastising them for sitting in their patrol cars shooting the shit instead of actually patrolling on foot. To my face, they denied that they'd been sitting in their car. Hopefully, a new Patrol boss can get them out SINGLY to meet the public and keep them in the same precinct forever except when they're fired or promoted. There's alot to be said for a familiar face above the mace and 9mm automatics and stun guns.

Gonzo watch

For all you hot chicks and dudes who just tune in to hear what Matt Gonzalez is doing now, I offer an update. He is helping organize a temporary (6 months or so) art gallery on the north side of Hayes between Octavia and Gough. He also just got back from a weekend in New Mexico where he and Peter Camejo and Ross Mirkarimi rallied the Green troops amongst the cactii. When Rachel found where he'd gone, she insisted that I communicate an idea to him.

"What about a contested Green primary?"

h.: "They already spend all of their time fighting each other."

Rachel: (she's having hot flashes these days and mostly goes nude) "No, really. Have Gonzalez and Camejo and Medea Benjamin all run for governor in a Green primary. It would be great publicity and great for the party."

I thought it over. It was brilliant, of course. Just like everything Rachel comes up with. I watched as she began stretching exercises in front of her triple-bay window that opened onto the lush secluded garden behind her huge apartment. Sex and politics. Passion and power. Sleeping with a clear conscience. OK, I'll never do that last thing but I nodded and picked up the phone, got Matt's answering machine and left the message. That was Saturday. Tuesday just before 2pm, I was jogging down Hayes on my way to watch Peskin do his bit before the Board and there was Gonzalez standing in front of the new gallery making a phone call.

Matt: "I suggested an open primary a couple of years ago and no one was interested. Anyway, I won't run for governor."

h.: "Says you."

Next day (Wednesday - 7pm) I'm jogging down Hayes (quickest route to Civic Center from my cat sit with Susan King's cuddly, big old loving, black and white, 'Lark' in the upper Haight) ... running past the new gallery (there are at least 100 charcoal sketches from Felix McNee hanging already) ... I glanced in and there was Mattagain. Two happenstance meetings in 2 days. I stopped to talk about Sandoval's announcement he was running for Assessor. He's endorsing Gerardo and no one else as yet which should be news to the Greens scrambling for the post.

What are the odds of running into the boy a third time in three days by accident? Well, I did. Yesterday Rachel came by to haul me and my sack of clothes and detergent from Susan & Lark's back to Civic Center and we stopped to eat at Fillmore and Haight and who should walk by but Matt and buddy/law firm colleague, Nima. I pulled them over and we went to watch them eat while I drank a beer. I pushed him on the Assessor appointment and got some things off-the-record that didn't surprise anyone at the table.

Suffice to say, Matt is still a serious player at every level of politics in this town, this state and this nation. Only hopeful idiots think otherwise. As I was writing this section the phone rang and it was him again, this time getting on a bus at Church and Market. I invited him to our friday lunch at Tu Lans and we lost our cell connect. Don't fret, Mattophiles, he has not left the room.

Rachel under attack

h.: "I haven't been writing about you because I've been afraid of hurting your business. You tell me that it hasn't mattered.'

Rachel: "I was invited to apply for a grant from the Hewlitt Foundation for 20K." (she has a large dance center) "When they invite you to apply, it usually means you fit the profile they want to support and you'll get the grant. This time, they not only didn't give us the grant, but they used the rejection to be critical of us."

h.: "What else?"

Rachel: "My landlord sent a registered letter announcing he's raising our rent."

h.: "Yeah, I looked them up. They're contributors to a group that attacked Jake McGoldrick in the last election."

Rachel: "A guy came to look over our space as part of the set for the new Will Smith movie and seemed to like it but then said they wouldn't use us."

h.: "Yeah, they wanted to see what you looked like. It's a Warren Hellman thing. He actually came to a computer class I was taking just to see what I looked like. If that prick has his way, it will be all Willie Nelson and square dancing from here on in. What do you need?"

Rachel: "A million dollars. We run on a budget of around $600k and raise all but $100k on fees and classes. When I rent space at Theatre Artaud, I pay $1k a night. That's the same thing the Opera spends for a performance at the War Memorial. They have 85 million dollars in the bank and still get over a million bucks a year from the Hotel Tax. That's unconscionable but I'm the only one who'll challenge it."

h.: "Bruzzone told me you weren't going to be on his show this week after all."

Rachel: "Yeah, he went with someone less controversial. Says I'm on for August."

Rachel is a warrior. 'Babes in Warland', that's Rachel. Fighting in the trenches for over 30 years. Chained to the door of her studios during the dot-com madness when all musicians and artists and dancers and their spaces were up for sale or eviction. I don't know what will happen to her or her 25 instructors or her 700 students. I know that BayView Opera House gets $250,000 a year for a space that's open 2 days a month with no real programs. But then, their chief is Newsom's head of the Planning Commission (Bradford-Belle). Rachel has the largest African dance programs in the City and Bradford-Belle has a ghetto front that serves no one. You'd think arts cash would go to real programs. You'd be wrong. 'Mau-Mau'ing' for City cash still works. Just ask Amos Brown.

Another total loser

Michela Alioto-Pier has been allowed to hide behind her wheelchair long enough. Her shameless use of her disability for every purpose from moving the Board President from his top seat on the sanctum's top dais to (most recently) claiming that the U.S.S. Iowa should be docked here because whe has solidarity with disabled vets ... to pushing a Charter change that would allow her to watch the Board meetings from home and weigh in by phone (can you believe this shit?) ...

She's handed her seat to the likes of consultant Jim Sutton who has her parroting his plan to dump every major progressive appointment from the Sunshine Task Force, Ethics Commission, Elections Commission and Ballot Simplification Committee. She refused to look Rachel in the face as she lobbied for Rachel's appointment to the Mayor's Joint Arts Task Force to be overturned in favor of a woman who lives out of town. "I think we need new blood." said the weasel, Pier. She's a bottom dweller with no hesitation whatsoever to exploit her disability. The most terrible thing is that she enjoys it. She giggles like a school girl when she places one of Sutton's daggers between Peskin's shoulder blades. Look for her to show up wearing shoe polish on her face next week and claim that she represents all black people too.

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