Watching City Hall #457 (4-30-06)

Watching City Hall #457

“h., you have no loyalty!!”

(Peskin phones da dawg)

It was friday night and he was in front of Jens’ crib at the time and couldn’t wait, so I missed hooking up with him for a drink. Aaron and Daly are the two most open people in City government and I love to talk to both of them. Aaron is actually the most forthright cause, like me, he drinks more.

He was talking about my efforts over the last week or so to fend off a challenge to Krissy Keefer’s Green Party endorsement for the U.S. House of Representatives. Here’s my reply.

I have loyalty, Aaron. I just don’t restrict it to politicians. I’m not, for instance, like Thomas Jefferson, who could watch his VP shoot his best friend to death in the back yard of the White House, then shmooze with the VP two weeks later cause he needed his vote in the senate. Now, though his political party needed Aaron Burr’s vote at the time, … to me, … Jefferson sinned mightily by overlooking violence against friends, just because, to stand up for the friend would mean threatening a political alliance. Some things are more important than politics, Aaron.

And, you should also know that the allies I attacked on behalf of Krissy and her candidacy weren’t alone. Friday at my Salon, one of the members (also, a friend) made a crude sexual remark about Keefer and I told him that if he repeated it in any way, shape or form that I’d punch him up side of his head. Surprisingly (to me), my response caused a stir. But, I meant it and still do. His response was not to apologize and take responsibility for his loutish behavior, but to announce that he would no longer post columns for me and that I could just finally get off my ass and learn to post for myself (good advice).

And, this is not about romance. This is about my antiquated views about sexism and feminism. This is about protecting my mother and my sisters and my daugher and granddaughter and all of my former lovers. Insult and marginalize them in print and I will answer you in print. Do it in front of me and I will do all in my feeble power to punch your mother fucking lights out.

Gonzo says I’m tilting at windmills

He’s right, of course. Men don’t open doors for women anymore. They don’t walk on the outside of the sidewalk to catch mud splatters from passing horse-drawn carriages. And, they don’t defend them from abuse from chicken shit rap artists and their cohorts. I’m from a different age.

Some good news

Last thursday I got some extremely good news. Health-wise. The great people at Tom Waddell Clinic in the bowels of SF’s Health Department, gave me the results of a battery of tests and X-rays they arranged for me the previous week (God bless UCSF Medical). The doctor shook her head. Over 6 decades of abusing my body and everything checked out normal. She hedged a bit by noting that she didn’t like the looks of my skin (for years, I’ve been treating the pre-cancerous consequences of spending a lifetime as a redhead in the sun) and I countered that I didn’t like her ear rings (actually, I did - and, everything else about her - couldn’t believe she’d just told me that I might have 20 years left) …

Then, I left the clinic and went to sit with a cat friend named Kitcha Wierzbowska who is over 10 and didn’t get such a good diagnosis. Terminal cancer. It got me to thinking.

Time for a change?

I’ve had a thousand friends. Lots of em are dead now and that bothers me sometimes. It bothers me most that, while I collected notes and stories on them over the past 4 decades, I’ve never completed a single story about any of them. They’re all buried, like Van Gogh’s ghosts, in several different informal archives whose overseers are also aging. I think it’s time that I freed some of those ghosts and released the archivists of their responsibilities. The only way to do that is to go away somewhere quiet, dig through the papers … transfer them electronically and transmit them on the Bulldog.

Your word has to mean something

Or, your life has been wasted. I always said (each decade) that as soon as things slowed down in my life and I had the chance, that I’d do the job I’m planning to do now. Go back and resurrect those dead, I mean. But, things haven’t slowed down. Year after year. Decade after decade. Wife after wife. Always collecting notes. Never a finished product. This is the time to make good. Probably, my last chance. So, I’m gonna finish out this election cycle and then retire to my files.

Still, that leaves 5 months
(5-6-06)

Sorry for the time between these columns. It is my intention to continue the Bulldog site even after I ‘retire’, so I’ll certainly weigh in with some thoughts regarding recent actions by the SF Board and the local media. So, I’ve dug through notes I made on this week’s Board meetings and media offerings. Let me start with the most disgusting performance of the week.

Let’s dye Pier black & give her an orphan

Will that cover some base Jim Sutton may have missed? … Anyone who watched the performance of Michela Alioto-Pier before the full Board this past tuesday must be similarly appalled. The dog & pony tricks Sutton had Pier (cheerfully & gleefully - this woman would tear the wings off a butterfly and chuckle as she did so) … the show was so putrid that it had other Board members walking out of the room to puke. And, it worked.

The entire point of the Pier performance was to keep poor people out of the park. McGoldrick’s Saturday GG Park closure. While sitting in her wheelchair (with which she brought down the Board President from the 150 year old podium cause Sutton don’t like Peskin) & crading her newborn, Pier shot one Sutton ammendment to pedestrian use after another until not only was Saturday trial closure delayed, but the 39 year-old Sunday closure was put in jeoprady. Then, she voted against the legislation she’d just created!! That’s when Jake left the room. It was kind of funny, really. I mean, he couldn’t hit a woman in a wheelchair holding a newborn, right?

I smiled in understanding of what Sutton was doing and mused to myself that the only way Pier could be more unassailable would be to give her another infant at the breast. Best would be a little black orphan from Dafur. Perhaps recovering from wounds from machine gun bullets.

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight. This woman is, and has been, the laziest politician elected to public office in San Francisco since Doris Ward bowed out. Given so little to work with, Sutton’s accomplishment is definitely a new frontier.

Unlike Ward, Pier cannot use the color of her skin to gain sympathy and excuse her sloth. But, oh good Lord, the other tools she has. And, Sutton has zero boundaries when it comes to exploiting gender, race, orientation, parenthood, religion … nothing.

You gotta admire the guy. But, I certainly don’t have to admire Pier. She’s a scumbag who happens to have a disability and a child. She has my sympathy for her disability and my congratulations on her new baby. Politically, she’s a piece of shit and it wouldn’t surprise me if she wheeled in the body of her dis-interred grandfather because Dede Wilsey needed a vote. Anything to avoid doing any actual work herself. Use her up Jim Sutton. I only have one major complaint. I’ll address it to Mr. Sutton who cooked up this scheme and to Supervisor Pier who went along with it:

Pier should be reported to Child Protective Services

She rehearsed a script that she most certainly knew could unleash a potentially violent response. She rehearsed it with the most unscrupulous lawyer in San Francisco. Then, with the defenseless baby as a prop, she executed the carefully planned double-cross. She voted against the legislation she’d just ammended to, ostensibly, make it acceptable to the disabled community.

She created a dangerous situation for her baby

When she voted ‘No’, Mcgoldrick (who’d done everything but kiss her ass) was so disgusted that he had to walk out of the room to compose himself. If an able-bodied adult male had done that to him, I’m certain he’d have reacted in a … different … way. Thing is, Sutton & Pier planned this and risked the baby’s welfare by placing the infant in the middle (literally - Jake sits right next to Pier! - a seat she got by bumping Mirkarimi so’s she could be closer to the press - another Sutton move) … placed the baby right next to the opponent she’d just double-dealed. Peskin, from his ‘equal access’ seat (another Sutton move through Pier) murmurred something like: “What’s up with that?”

I’m not kidding on this, folks. McGoldrick was furious, as he should have been. Ammiano was increduous. I mean, get real, if you had a newborn baby and you were going somewhere you thought there might be a fight and you, in fact, were going to precipitate a confrontation and you knew it in advance … would you take your baby? Baby’s are to love and nourish, Michela … not to use as political props. You are an unfit mother.

Happy Mother’s day,