Watching City Hall #400 (10-20-05)
“What do Maria Shriver, Dede Wilsey & Charlotte Schultz have in common?”
(an excerpt from: ‘Trophy brides - the new 9-11?’ by Rachel Falmouth)
Rachel likes my fire escape. She was sitting out on it in her underwear this morning reading the newspaper when she came across a picture of Dede Wilsey leading Maria Shriver and Charlotte Schultz around the ‘mile high’ zone of the new DeYoung tower. She was trying to figure out what they were talking about.
Rachel: (lighting a joint while sipping some kind of weird champagne & orange juice drink) “I wonder how many head jobs really went into raising that $200 million?”
h.: (disgusted) “Rachel, if you start out talking like that, how do you expect Patrick to publish this? Luke probably took the friggin’ pictures, for God’s sake. … They wouldn’t talk about anything so crass.”
Rachel: (laughs and tosses her long dark tresses) “Hey, don’t be so sensitive! You’d have a trophy bride in a heartbeat if you could afford one. (smiles and winks as she hoists her fluted glass) You just have to make do with your fantasies.”
OK, another week has passed. They fly by like Corvette drive-bys of late. Don’t you agree? I gotta put the opening of the DeYoung at the top of the week’s news because it produced so many clear pictures of people who should wear masks to every ball. I put it to you directly again, there is a class war on the horizon and this time it will make the French revolution look like a childrens’ outing.
That’s something the rich don’t seem to understand. Dede Wilsey is the new Marie Antoinette. She rubs her jewels into the open wounds of Aids patients who are dying in the street because their clinics have been closed to free up more money for her new party palaces. The 3 women on the front page of the Examiner have more mansions than Sadaam Hussein ever had. How much is too much?
Other ‘Girls on top’
Throughout American history, there have been many political administrations that accomplished great things despite being led by figure-head dummies who look great in a tuxedo. Unfortunately, this is not the case for San Francisco’s mannequin mayor, Gavin Newsom.
You see, Gavin, you have to appoint talented people to do the actual work of the City and you have not done this. Let’s take the bullshit job that the nation’s least qualified Fire Chief laid on you this week concerning the need for standardization of fire hydrant threads.
I can’t go easy on you on this matter. Only a stubborn idiot would accept the arguments that conclude that San Francisco doesn’t need the same standardized connections every single other major city in the United States adopted around a half century ago. You honestly seem intimidated by this well-connected political chauffeur. Are you afraid she’ll hit you with a wine bottle?
The absurdity of Joanne Hayes-White being the Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department can be capsulized in the fact that she refuses to live in the centrally located Fire Chief’s house, built for the City because of its central location. I mean, shit dude, use your brain. On the one hand, she’s running a big campaign to keep neighborhood firehouses open so that we’ll have firefighters close at hand and … on the other hand, she doesn’t think it matters if you close the Chief’s house? In fact, she refuses to live in the Chief’s house and you roll over and kick your feet in the air and surrender? How stupid do you have to be to not see that there is a bit of a contradiction here?
Let’s go to the ballot with that one, Gavin. You ready? We can ask the people if they think the Fire Chief should live in the Fire Chief’s house and you can oppose it. Hell, let’s throw in whether the people think that standardizing our fire plugs to match those of every other major city in the United States is a good or bad thing. Jeez, let’s take it further. Why don’t we make our emergency number 912 instead of 911? We don’t have to be like everyone else.
h. brown with Mayor Gavin Newsom
Supervisor Mirkarimi’s office
San FranciscoSentinel.com photo by Bill Wilson
What the Mayor should clearly do is to put an Assistant Chief or Battalion Chief into the Chief’s house on a permanent basis. The place was built for a reason. You need a central location. There are quality command level staff in the SFFD. I’ve talked to them at parties and they know their shit. Of course, they fired the best one last year (interestingly, they brought him back as a ‘guest’ speaker at a Board committee hearing earlier in the week to defend them) … put a command officer in the Chief’s house who knows how to command a disaster ground. If that means that you have to bite the bullet and appoint a male … well, look at the ceiling and think of San Francisco.
OES is worse. With Chris Cunnie moving to the D.A.’s office, we’re left with an OES command staff made up of 100% political hacks. When the shit hits the fan, we are frigged.
New candidacies
Write in Anthony Faber for Assessor/Recorder and don’t forget to connect the arrows across from the write-in slot. We should all remember how John Arntz screwed Terry Baum out of most of her votes in the ‘03 Congressional race. … Personally, I’m voting for Ron Chun second and I hope he wins. He’s the only candidate who has not only faced off and won with Downtown billionaires but also wrote the legislation insuring surviving gay spouses of the right to inherit their partner’s share of jointly held property without a complete re-appraisal. I’ll put Gerardo Sandoval third but I’d rather keep him on the Board.
Lemme give you an interesting fact about the Assessor’s race. A month or so back, the Bay Guardian ran a guest editorial from Ted Gullickson of the Tenant’s Union. Ted endorsed Gerardo Sandoval as I recall but didn’t mention that Phil Ting had done an OMI (Owner move-in) eviction on a Sunset property which he sold within a couple of years for a cool quarter million dollars profit. I asked Gullickson later, why he hadn’t mentioned the OMI in Ting’s recent past. Turns out, he did mention it.
Tim Redmond cut that fact out of the Gullickson piece! Others told me that Redmond did it because he’s afraid of pissing off Robert Haaland of SEIU who belied his own supposed tenant-friendly philosophy by endorsing the speculator, Phil Ting.
Also, I’ve just finished filling out my own application for the Police Commission. I ran the idea by Peter Ragone & Chris Cunnie whom I crossed paths with picking up agendas at da Hall and while stopping short of an endorsment, I’m thinking their loud laughter indicated that they think I’d make a fine addition to the Louise Renne - led body.
“I view, evaluate and offer good-natured criticism
of City employees and politicians…
I’m smart as hell and fearless.” (h. brown)
Gonzalez for ???
Mateo Gonzalez is a hell of a guy. When Matt called a couple of nights ago and said his pop was in town, I put my disguise back on and hurried down through the drizzly fog to their waiting cab. Mateo and I put down more than a little bourbon and scotch during the last week or two of Matt’s mayoral campaign and got to be buddies. He hasn’t changed.
It was a healthy crowd in 3 cabs winding under the freeway at 13th & Mission to come to rest at the Levende Lounge across from Walter (thanks for the PC) Wong’s. I stopped on the sidewalk to smoke a bowl of good green and phoned Rachel who wasn’t picking up. I made it into Levende for the first time and looked around. Reminded me of Mahjul’s down the street a few blocks. Huge open space. Deep reds and blues in the walls and ceiling and a striking collection of acrylic paintings. I got a huge bourbon and pushed in next to Mateo and across from Matt. Gonzo and main-squeeze, Cat Raushuber snuggled and drank two caraffes of ice water while I tried to talk him into running for Lieutenant Governor as Mateo and a buddy from Mexico listened. Half of Matt’s 6 lawyer firm were there. Ace litigator Brian Bershegian wasted his skills hitting on a pretty little Cuban bartender. I gave him a piece of Cuban currency with Che’s picture on it Matt gave me awhile back for a tip (I was saving it for Mirkarimi) … it didn’t impress much. Nima & Ali, whose last names escape me brought 3 stunning Persian women who, along with Cat, immediately doubled the appraised value of the building. Chuck Gonzalez and I drank in the scene and nodded knowingly at one another. This army still had serious legs.
Matt: “Why should I run? What does the Lt. Governor do?”
h.: “People asked the same question about the Secretary of the Communist Party’s position until Joe Stalin showed em what was possible.”
Matt: (he & Cat laugh) “OK, good analogy.”
h.: (leaning forward) “Can I float a trial balloon that you might be interesed in the job?”
Matt: “No.”
h.: (nodding in complete understanding) “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”
I think that the only thing worse for a politician than being misquoted is not being quoted at all. So, let me misquote a few of my politico friends here for a moment.
Angela Alioto: “Today is my birthday.”
Angela’s ‘Holiday Mathis - Examiner, horoscope
“Play your hunches this year .. you’re a winner!
Cycles that started a few years ago come to completion
in a matter of weeks. You’ll enjoy the fruits of these
efforts so well that you’re ready to repeat the process
again in March. You’ll get applause and love for
acting on strong impulses. Love is sweet with
Capricorn and Sagittarius.”
Then, they give her lucky numbers which are: 53, 27, 45, 19, and 47. Do you believe any of that stuff?
Sean Elsbernd: “Since none of my colleagues will apologize to you for the profanity, I will.”
Elsbernd is working very hard at completely disassociating himself from the rest of the Board. First, there was no profanity. The only obscenity was Sutter Health’s insult to our City Board and to its employees. Committee Chair, (it was probably this week’s ‘Audit’) Aaron Peskin and member, Chris Daly took turns leaving the chambers to cool off as the CPMC third level PR slugs were caught in lie after lie after lie.
Still, Elsbernd rushed forward to support the slime balls and condemn his colleagues. This guy is quickly becoming the youngest grouch in town. That’s why Tony Hall’s recall of Elsbernd will succeed. The rookie D-7 supe has cut the beds in the new Laguna Honda in half, wasted tens of millions on toys for the rich and now attacks nurses and health care workers. That’s no way to run a golf course, Sean. Next year at this time, you’re gonna be just like the Civil War and Julius Caesar. History.
Open memo to my buddy, Ross Mirkarimi
Ross, we need to talk. Do you still have those free wine things on the third friday of the month? I think I can break free from my schedule and have a bottle or two with you while we work out our differences. Also, on a related tangent & not to be seen as complaining. Last month you ran out of wine halfway through the scheduled event. I trust there won’t be a repeat of this sad state of affairs.
O’Donoghue vows to give up poetry!
(a nation is in shock)
Tossing aside the dull blade of his poetic training swords, RBA Chief, Joe O’Donoghue vowed emphatically to a nearly empty chamber at last week’s DBI Commission meeting that he’d no longer be writing poetry to his political enemies:
“I’ll be writing prose.
Hard hitting prose!”
Honest to God, he said that. Frankly, I like the guy’s poetry. I think it’s far better than his prose which is, in my opinion, also better than most people who hack at keyboards around these parts. … Having made this disturbing announcement, O’Donoghue then gave an example of his new mode of attack. Turning to face his long-lost love, he ‘hit hard’:
“Debra Walker is a perjurer!”
Joe. … Joe. … Joe. That’s near a caress. Almost foreplay under da Williedome. If you are truly seeking to master the tools of nastiness and bitter curmugeonry … you gotta do better. Let me make a few suggestions:
1. Join ‘the Wall’ chat room. They have no rules that I can discern and they’re ADA accessible.
2. Wear soiled clothing and mutter to yourself.
3. Sit on the floor even when seating is available.
4. Become a regular at my friday salons and buy me beer.
Charles Kalish, Marc Saloman, Pat Murphy, h. brown
Savannah Blackwell, Pat Murphy, Janet Tandy
Naw, that won’t work. You’re an Irish poet, fellow. That particular trait runs all the way through to your other side. … What rhymes with ‘perjurer’?
Jensisms
“Remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty?”
“In 1968 in Chicago, 3 or more people gathered
together in conversation could be considered
to be ‘inciting a riot’ and could be arrested.”
“How can you waste time having fun?”
“Bruzzone wants a philosopher/cab driver?
Well, you’re not gonna find him by looking for him.”
“So, you wanna drive in the hallway?”
(when his lady brought up sensitive topic)
“Watch out for those faux pas!”
(to 2 cops bent over a drunk)
We’ll let you out early today.
Remember: Write in Anthony Faber and connect the arrows.
