Watching City Hall #397 (9-30-05)

“How bad can you be at taking your clothes off?”

(Jens addresses auditioning free ‘victim’/exhibitionists)

I wanted to start you with a laugh or two today. The City will provide its own as the days passes. The Folsom Street Fair may be going already (it’s 11am). There’s some kind of ‘love-in/ecstasy/trance music event in its second day across the street in UN Plaza on up to Civic Center (don’t pay the ‘donation’ - just walk in) … But, the City scene for people who aren’t just here to party is bleak. But, to hell with that for now. Let’s pass through the laughs of the last week from the Board and others.

Ammiano returns to top form

Ammiano: (a committee hearing, McGoldrick has done his usual flake act and Tom quickly calls toward his departing torso) “Can I ‘ghost vote’ for you?”

Peskin: (never missing a beat) “Supervisor, don’t push my buttons.”

For people who push this bullshit that the Board members are stupid. Welllll, you’re stupid and me and the other 54,000 people who watch the various incarnations of the local governments agencies, boards, task forces, and the like of our elected government, know that it’s bullshit. … This exchange shows how much smarter Peskin and Ammiano are than Newsom, for instance. Don’t understand? … OK, I’ll tell you this once, but it is gutting the clown to see what makes him funny and he’s seldom funny then (except to some people I know).

… Naw, if you don’t know, I don’t care.

Next Ammiano score: (he lost this one)

The scene: It’s the MTA or some such shit and chief PUC obfuscator, Diane Hale (something like that) - trust me, this is possibly, the most boring speaker in the world - this day, she dressed appropriately - like, total Goth - from black hair, glasses, every item of clothing - Tom looks her over - he’s in a good mood and speaks off the top of his head …

Ammiano: (laughing) “I’m sorry, are you in mourning?” (now, this is a funny thing to say because he knows from a hundred hours of listening to her that she’s her to represent PG&E and to block Tidal Power and to make as many members of the people-elected Board go brain-dead as possible)

Hale: (truly a character from a John Carpenter movie) “I’m sorry, supervisor. I didn’t know that today’s color was blue.”

Skip 6 days and put me an hour over-deadline for the Sentinel (9-30-05)

“So, this woman comes up to me as I’m going into my place.
And, she says, ‘Hey mister, I’ll do anything for ten dollars.’
And, I think about it and say ‘OK’ and take her up to my room.
‘Just clean up my room.’ That’s what I tell her.
She leaves.”

(why I always end up cleaning Jens’ room)

OK, let’s get down on top of it

My week has been filled with trying to get D-5 supe, Ross Mirkarimi to be my robot in opening the Panhandle toilet, I just got back (it’s why I’m late with this, Patrick & Luke) … just got back from an evening swing that started with a date with Angela Alioto to watch an Academy Award level documentary (’San Francisco’s Broken Promise’) about the almost century-old rip-off of San Francisco by PG&E. And, Dennis Herrera (get that off your teflon!), Louise Renne, Diana (hates it when you fuck up her name) Fineberger, (our U.S. Senator) and a host of decreasingly interesting people whose only common quality was the ability to drop their drawers, bend over, and think of the Bank of England. …

Anyway, I don’t get paid to do reviews here. No, that’s not the way that it is and I’m sure that and there I am at the opening at Delancy House’s theatre and there’s Sheriff Michael Hennessey whom I respect above every other elected official in San Francisco, and he’s got his wife and I’m fumbling around trying to act not drunk and stoned. There’s Brugmann (who’s kind of the star of the piece - he and Angela Alioto and this retired wonk from Cal who didn’t look as well but actually landmarked the work)

Trying to get the District Attorney to enforce the Raker Act, that is. Angela actually speculated as she dropped me off at the Civic Center that she’d toyed with the idea of running for City Attorney just to overturn the Raker Act. … Don’t know what I’m talking about? Go back to the funnies.

“You looking at me?”

(Tony Hall to Gavin Newsom)

Talk about a mismatch. I mean, shit, let’s be real here. We got one guy here who missed the Rome Olympics by the tip of a spear and another who had their college education paid for by Walter Shorenstein through a phony scholarship. We take this one out in back of City Hall and Newsom is on his back inside of the first round.

Point is, time for Gavin to come out as the closet Progressive that he’s actually always been. Time to fire Peter (’the cave man’) Ragone and hire me as his press spokesman. I will need the keys to his apartment and sports car and Kim’s number.

Seriously, kids, I mean, what a fuck up for Newsom. It was like the top Newsom kiddie corps all got drunk while the boss was away and decided to go play rugby with Cal. This shit can, literally cost the City millions. Normally, I’d have an inside line from both sides and I only have it from one. That side says that a serious ass lawsuit against the City is a real possibility. No plans have leaked from the Mayor’s side because they have no plans. Welcome back, Gavin.

‘While you were out fucking off’

The Head of the O.E.S. (Office of Emergency Services - if someone sprays anthrax throughout the Bart system, you might need them) this lady was doing a crash course on anthrax and the like a hundred miles south, the Mayor was in Ireland slandering Tony Hall before his own native people, the Police Chief was in Washington, D.C. either having a heart attack when informed of her role in the big Homeland Security picture, having a laser face-lift that causes swelling that makes you unable to talk, or is in an early stage of some degenerative disease that makes her forget that she’s in charge of 2,300 people with guns.

So, anyway, all these people are gone. Leaving (as best I can figure) me in charge. … Oh, I asked around. No one seemed to know who was in charge. There was a limo with a chunky lady detective chatting on a cell phone sitting in Gavin’s spot in front of City Hall, but she said that whomever the Acting Mayor was (I’m betting it wasn’t Daly) … she said it was, like “classified” and that the didn’t drive them around like they did the real Mayor and even though they would definitely be in charge, especially on a day like today when everyone else in charge was ‘OUT FUCKING OFF’ … the driver didn’t know who the acting mayor was but assured me that they would be available to them just like anyone else. In other words, while Gavin was off assassinating Tony Hall’s character in front of his family in Cork, there was absolutely no one in charge of security at City Hall. Unless you count the Daly City chauffeur Gavin installed as Fire Chief.

“Where’s the nearest cistern?”

Always on the alert for an opportunity to show how well our emergency personnel are doing, I spoke to the Captains of two fire engine companies (pumpers) at a false alarm up the street last week (while the Mayor was in Cork bad mouthing Tony Hall - that’s what the Mayor did while he was there - just ask Peter Ragone) … I flashed my press credentials to put them on alert and posed the same question I ask every one of them: “There’s been an earthquake, the main line is broken. Where’s the nearest cistern?”

There are 170 cisterns in the City and I’ve never met a single firefighter on the job who could point me to the nearest one from where they were standing. They would, in fact, be useless in an emergency. Crisis? Yeah, I think so. Gavin sleeps well at night because his commanding officers have clits? He said that, I’m not making it up. Oh, he didn’t say ‘clits’. Shit, they buy the guy suits that cost thousands.

No, what he said was that he didn’t know what it was about men in uniform, but that when they were in uniform, they wouldn’t listen to anyone and only did what they wanted and that he felt much more comfortable in bed at night knowing that the women were in charge of his security?

Was this guy pants’d by the Village People? There are some very deep problems that need attending for someone who thinks that incompetent women dressed up in macho uniforms suddenly become competent.

Delagnes soaks City for $100 K

Police Commissioner Joe Veronese shocked a neighborhood (means it wasn’t televised, dammit) audience of the SF Police Commission with a substantiated charge that P.O.A. chief, Gary Delagnes has continued to claim an active front-lines pay status while spending full-time on POA activities, and thus, defrauded the City out of over a hundred grand. … Angela’s middle child, then further riled the boys in blue by phoning a precinct to report a half dozen officers having a second lunch … in another precinct (who the fuck wants to eat in the Tenderloin?). Let’s see if the majors pick that one up tomorrow. Remember, you read it at the Sentinel first. From the Bulldog. Or, something like that.

you looking at me?