Watching City Hall #383 (7-17-05)

"I double-crossed Gonzalez
and I'll double-cross you!!"

(Phil Ting, Gavin's new Assessor)

Just as black politicians get street cred from playing the race and 'mau-mau' cards, API politicians play their 'inscutable, duplicitous' dark sides as though they are good things. Phil Ting is a back-stabbing, lying, duplicitous and completely scrutable political hack. He is, like Duane Baughman before him, yet another employee of Gap bully, Donald Fisher. Gavin Newsom thinks that's a good thing.

I gotta, yet again, give credit to beyondchron's Casey Mill's for actually attending the press conference where Newsom announced the results of his international search for a new City CPA. Turns out (according to Newsom) that the best candidate wasn't a CPA at all. AND, the best candidate had been on Sandoval hater and baiter, Donald Fisher's payroll at the Gap as a 'Consultant' for years. Turns out that this Ting guy had also done the obligatory year at Harvard paid for by Doug Shorenstein thru pappa Walter and was a member of the 'Four horsemen's' little Manchurian candidate group that includes the likes of Newsom himself (Santa Clara scholarship paid for my Shorenstein), Gerald Green (Harvard '04) and David Weiner (Harvard '04). ... It's getting to where a Harvard listing on your resume' means you're a friggin' hack. While the Chronicle or Examiner didn't mention Ting's association with Fisher (surprise, surprise, surprise) ... Mills reported that Ting we nt out of his way to stress his relationship with the Gap and Fisher. What a naive dipshit is this Ting boy. I'm sure that he got a kick in the balls from Baughman on the way off the dais.

So, the November run for Assessor will be yet another battle between billionaire super-Zionist Fisher and the poor Latino lawyer from the ghetto. At this point, I think that Sandoval may actually need a body guard to protect himself from the ruthless Fisher clan and their puppets (including U.S. Senator Feinstein).

Bulldog Assessor Endorsements:

First: Vicki Leidner, Green Party

Second: Gerardo Sandoval, Democrat

Third: Dave Wilbur, Green Party

"Take a cab!!"

(Same two cops - API female, you white male from Carl's fiasco)

I've been living in what is arguably the toughest neighborhood in San Francisco for a good part of the last quarter century. That would be the Tenderloin and its satellite portions. The police protection here has never been worse. Of course, I've never been personally targeted by the cops for abuse, so that could be part of the problem. Let me give you the latest story.

"Jens needs help!!"

(Leona Gonzales - his lady)

That was enough to break me away from watching Arthur Bruzzone reruns on my computer and spring into what passes for 'high gear' for me these days. Jens has been the front door man at Bob Martin's 'Compassion & Care' medical cannibas dispensary on 10th near Mission the last 2 or 3 years. He's also my best friend and he's also seriously disabled. "He's at Market & Van Ness. The pot club got robbed! See if you can get there before me cause you're closer!"

I shut the phone off and immediately kicked it back over and left a brief message with Matt Gonzalez who is also a close friend and fan of Jens Nielsen. Then, I tossed on a coat and headed out for the 6 block walk. A block or so away I ran into a couple of police cars stopped at the corner of McAllister & Leavenworth. It was just after 7pm. I approached the first car which was occupied by an API female in the passenger seat and a young white male (30'ish) in the driver's position.

"You going to the pot club robbery?" I asked. "My friend's girlfriend called and says he got robbed and he's stranded at Market & Van Ness. Can you drive me there?"

"We know who you are!" snapped the male driver. "We're the ones you wrote about yesterday and said we were just sitting in our patrol car at Carl's!" (they were) "We got another call!! ... GET A CAB!!!" They roared off without running over my feet which were in their path and I was grateful for that.

You know, since I've been living at the Civic Center Residence at 44 McAllister these past 7 or 8 months, the number one problem has been the cops. My apartment got burlarized and they wouldn't talk to me about it. Refused to come by and pick up the coat the 'thief' - my neighbors thought he was an assassain ... refused to pick up the coat he'd left lying on my floor. Then, when the burglar was scheduled for ID, they refused to transport me to the lineup which was a hundred miles away (what's up with that?) although they admitted that they had a detective going there and though the burglar (probably worked for them) would probably be released if I wasn't there. Twice, I had PD units toss on their sirens and feign trying to run me down. I've had two API male cops who were clearly pumping steroids confront me with the classic 'in-your-face-chest-thump), one in front of the hotel and another on 6th Street. All this shit is within a couple of hundred feet of my fr ont door. My neighbors may be ex-cons and junkies and drunks but they are one hell of a lot higher caliber people than the cops I've dealt with. Although they aren't all like this, almost every Tenderloin station cop I've dealt with has the same profile.

They are complete assholes. They are cowards and they are on steroids. And, like the people they claim to be protecting us from who ride in on BART to prey upon San Francisco citizens, they also commute from the suburbs to do the same. They are right-wing Republican pricks who want to impose the values of the Bush administration upon the people of St. Francis at the point of a gun. I say, FUCK EM!!"

On the up side

Angela is just flying out of Boston to Rome and we've promised to keep a steady conversation going during her annual sabbatical. No, she didn't know that Sandoval was going to announce for Assessor when she arranged the peace party (how totally Sicilian) at her mansion last Sunday. I relate all of my romantic entanglements to her and she laughs. We'll give each other advice online as the summer wanes into what will certainly be a fruitful harvest season. It's all about family, friendship and stories to me. It's more complicated for her. Like Rachel, she employs a raft of people and runs a business; it is tougher for them. Rachel loses accounts. Angela takes depositions. Rachel has a hit show. Angela wins a trial. Matt cruises almost silently through the fertile waters like a giant whale breathing human experience like plankton. Jens recuperates at home and the cops sit across the street and watch my window. Rachel is doing her Buddhist t hing in a secluded retreat up north. There is sun across the UN Plaza and I'm gonna go get some deep fried colon clogger and roll another joint. It is a good time to be a San Francisco writer.

I have a friday lunch thing with Adriel Hampton for the last couple of years (OK, more). We used to jog and eat and check out the City Hall scene but he's been with the City Attorney's office for awhile and off the public scene. So, we decided to do a friday lunch and invite a select group. We started with Angela Alioto. Then, we added Krissy Keefer. Then, gender balanced, we went for wonks. How many people can you have and still talk to each other? ... I'm a gabber, at least ... we quickly added Marc Salomon (City's best political brain) & Anthony Faber (Ruling Guru on Cuz, Alex Clemen's Usual Suspects best prognosticator contest) & Janet Tandy (Newsom/Alioto-Pier volunteer) & Michelle Mongan (Gonzo's bookkeeper) & we reached out to Matt Gonzalez and Rich Hillis.

We've dropped and added people over the first couple of months. How many people can meet at a table and expect to communicate over an hour or an hour and a half? Still, I gotta rate my friday lunch with Adriel as one of the top 'up sides' of these last couple of months. Ten or twelve good humored, razor-sharp minds exchanging ideas across the table. And, I get to be there too.

I want more, of course. I want a salon to rival Gertrude Stein's in Paris in the 20's. My friends certainly have the talent. Stein, not living in an SRO unit, was able to fit in a couple of dozen for lunch. Picasso did the same on the Riviera in the 40's and 50's (paid the tabs by signing doodles he'd done on the tablecloths during lunch). You'll hear more about this. Right now, we're just looking for a spot around City Hall as a semi-permanent roost. Let me know about any ideas. Tu Lans is simply too busy. Old Harrington's wasn't big enough. Tables at Obi's too small. ... A private dwelling around Civic Center? Are there hotel suites that look down on the Willie dome? ... That's starting to head down toward ice machines and strippers. Ahhhh, Gertrude would have been jealous.

Speaking of which

I get to see lots of naked bodies flash in the 80 some windows in the Renoir Hotel that face the hotel in which I live. There are probably 60 windows looking out of my own 'modest' SRO digs. The people across the street at the Renoir are mostly white and yellow tourists. Though I'm white, most of my neighbors here are black. We're all seniors. Across the street, they got firm & tall tits, buns of steel and 6 pack abs. We got crutches and walkers and looks of wonder. There's something about unintended 'peeping'. I drink and smoke all day and turn occasionally to look behind me to the street and sometimes you see the most incredible things. ...

This woman began as an inconsequential waif writing on a lap top in the window a bit across and below, maybe 40 feet away. She was on the internet. I was on the internet. It was early in the morning. I didn't pay much attention. She was wearing like, a Southern Cal sweatshirt, reading glasses and hammering away on her keyboard much as I was. I didn't pay that much attention. Then, she had a nightie. Then, she had a lover. Then, she was beautiously nude and dancing with another lover. It was one of those things where you want to pull your own friggin' blinds after awhile. I mean, shit, I'm not dead yet. Then, she was bouncing on a guy's manhood, joyfully in full view framed by the back-lit portrait of the Virgin with totally natural lobes (you can tell, cause they sag - hers, not the Virgin's) ... bouncing upon yet a third 'date'. You know, finally, that you're watching a 'working girl' and that she enjoys being watched. I love this neighborhood. ar
She did 3 guys that way while my attention went back and forth to the Giants' game with the Dodgers that was tied at 1 in the ninth finally. I wondered how many of my other neighbors were watching, torn from a morning of watching Lance Armstrong maintain his macho yellow jersey in the Tour de France while Tiger Woods pumped his arm powerfully as he captured another British Open and across the way. Across the way, the lithe hooker did what she could to remind us what was ultimately the most interesting sport. Bouncing orbs and flashing thighs. Ahhh, the better side of the Tenderloin.

Jensisms

(on one visit to Jens' place)

h.: "What do you want us to do with you after you die?"

Jens: "I want to go to medical school."

h.: "What do you think of cops who sit in their cars?"

Jens: "They just let the crime come to them."

h.: (huge background noise, screaming, cops, ambulances)
"Is it this loud around here all the time?"

Jens: "My neighbors have sirens."

That's enuff: