Bulldog 2007-Article 87
(5-29-07)
I guess all my friends can’t be wrong. Even Newsom’s people are phoning to tell me to tone it down on the attacks on Gonzalez because my animosity is getting in the way of my message. They say to just give the basic facts and leave it at that. Shit, they want a fight too. Even Ken Garcia seems worried that our side might give up without a fight, leaving him with no material. He’s afraid I’m scaring my own candidates deep into the woods. They all want me to avoid personalities and stay with basic facts.
Progressives busted their tails over the past decade passing first, IRV legislation to allow voters to choose 3 candidates, then on public financing for mayoral campaigns to level the playing field for campaigns without corporate resources.
Now, the major players on the left want to toss these tools into the trash bin unused in the coming mayoral contest. In doing so, I contend that they are letting their egos get in the way of the future of the Progressive movement.
Every month the left goes without a candidate costs them a million bucks they could have drawn in public financing. Most of that money would have gone into salaries for people who are presently unemployed. Tapping into public financing could keep literally hundreds of them in the City.
No single lefty candidate can beat Newsom this year (the right combination of 3, could). Failing that, the intelligent move is to plan for the future and give City-wide exposure to promising candidates, some of whom might never run for such a post again.
But, they can run for supervisor the next time those posts come up in their own districts. That’s the case (in my opinion) with Christina Olague in D-2 and Krissy Keefer in D-9. A ‘suicide’ campaign for mayor for people like Christina and Krissy can raise their stature for the next supe races in their respective stomping grounds.
For others such as Daly and Mirkarimi, fighting the good fight now as mayoral candidates will provide well-funded tours of neighborhoods they’ve never visited. It might not count for much now, but it can be huge 4 years from now.
That’s it in a nutshell. Hey, like Garcia and every other writer in town, I need mud wrestlers out in the ring doing their thing if I’m gonna entertain my … deep breaths … deep breaths
Believe it or not, people come to me to get their spirits up. No, really, lots of em. Me? I go to Angela Alioto for perspective. Just let me take you through 2 hours I spent with her yesterday.
Angela: (my SRO neighbors at 44 McAllister watching through big plate glass window that got broken last year when the raving drunk threw the Christmas tree through it)
“You have time to go to Café Trieste?�
Dawg: (she introduces the good looking young lawyer riding next to her as ‘Josh’ Boxer – he’s an attorney but looks 18 and has been with her for 6 years – they all look like Tom Cruise – I stare at him in puzzlement and give him an idea of the level I operate on)
“’Josh’? You any relation to ‘Josh’ Wolf?�
Angela: (answers the car phone – on speaker – it rings pretty much constantly for next 2 hours)
“I’m here in the car with Josh and h. brown.� (this says: ‘
Don’t say anything to me that you wouldn’t say to the entire world and you know how I feel about that’ … that kind of thing … just my guess, but it felt that way)
Angela and Josh are coming from court and they are stoked. They are perfectly groomed and high on the adrenalin that only an open court sparring session can induce. It’s mid-morning and I’ve been up since 5am or so reading all the wires before the trees die for the dailies and weeklies and separating the electrons on the pertinent internet sites. On the downside, I haven’t showered in 2 days and didn’t get the chance to even shave. When Angela rings, I jump. Lord, I love type A women. We blast towards her law offices.
Angela never stops and, unlike Newsom, it ain’t an act. I call her ‘Queen Bee’ and I wasn’t the first to attach that tag on the neverendinglysexy North Beach trial attorney. She and Josh are on the phone and online at the same time arranging documents and research to be ready from the law office when they hit the curb in 7 minutes … documents based upon the rulings they just had 7 minutes before.
She chats amicably and the phone rings again. It’s someone named ‘Archie’ who is a vet from Southern California fronting for some kind of national effort to better the lot of all veterans. He’s in town and hanging out with Tom Callahan. Angela directs them over to the Trieste as she pulls to the curb in front of her law offices and the data she’s ordered is waiting. Without leaving the driver’s seat, she goes over the prepared trial material with young Josh. She sets ‘tabs’ on the huge binder to separate points of emphasis or something as Boxer watches her closely and flips pages. I scratch the stubble of my beard and watch the foot traffic moving from North Beach, on past her law offices, to sweep on by the Trans Am building next door. I’m starting to wake up and start wondering if I can get her to run for mayor. The coffee will be good.
The local engine companies all stop by the Trieste for coffee as they come from morning drills. They practice every day you know. Oh yeah, cops do too, but much less than firefighters.
With firefighters, the primo move is called a ‘steeple-raise’ and it’s when you raise a 45’ ladder in an open space fully extended. Some departments call it an ‘alley raise’ cause they practice in alleys to also practice how to control bouncing it to either side and to any direction. Under control.
All safety personnel are natural jocks. Oh, they get fat just like you do, but basically they are all very athletic or they couldn’t have gotten onto the forces in the first place.
And, their peers drive them further. There isn’t a cop or fire station in the country that doesn’t have some kind of exercise facility. From a simple weight bench, to a full archery range … I’ve seen it all. Because, you have to be on to of your game when the public calls for help. When it becomes time to do your job in the most extreme of circumstances.
It’s all about saving life. But, for right now, it’s impromptu PR and that’s as valid as doing a steeple-raise. The tourists grab the firefighters as they pause by the Trieste and it’s photo time. I fire barbed questions at various members of the crew as they take their times in line and all pause to greet Angela as they pass. I want to send them to Tokyo.
And, rotate them with Japanese firefighters
A shift of Japanese firefighters buying coffee at Café Trieste? I think it might be a good idea. Do an international exchange of all manner of emergency personnel with our sister cities around the world.
Clunkety, clunkety, clunk … clunk … KLUNK!
It had to be a truly embarrassing time for the mob hit man who came for Hasbro that day. He walked right into a cop bar. Across the street from a ballpark where a police league was winding down the double-header. I was the only unarmed person in the bar and this poor bastard comes in looking for a fight.
Mobster: “Who’s Eddie Hasbro?�
Bartender: (entire bar has frozen – maybe 3 dozen guys – bartender is chewing toothpick and has just a delicious inkling of what’s about to happen)
“Who wants to know?�
Mobster: (takes medium-sized 38 revolver out of pocket and slams to bar)
“I want to know!�
That’s when two things happened. The first thing was that sound of all the pistols hitting the bar (they stripped the poor guy naked and sent him running down the street) … that was first.
Second was that Eddie became a cop because that was the only way his buddies could keep him from getting killed and the went on to become a chief out in the county and he was such a jock that he was a moving force in the creation of the Police Olympics.
That’s why I told Joe Veronese that he should try to get the International Police Olympics to come to San Francisco and I related the story of my buddy Hasbro and the mob and all that stuff.
Woman on a mission, dude. Type ‘A’ woman on a mission, dude. Watch your ass. At the drop of a hat, we were making impromptu tours through the intense sand-blasting underway in the womb of the chapel that will contain an exact replica of the small chapel that St. Francis of Assisi built for himself a thousand years back, or whatever. Called something like ‘Portziculula’ (‘little retreat’ or something – she’s even gotten Dede Wilsey involved – I can’t believe I’m walking around construction debris of a project she and Angela are together on). You getting any of this?
Not surprised. Essentially, I leaped willingly into the rip-tide that is Angela Alioto as she moved from project to project. Hell, I’m one of her projects.
I don’t know what the trial is that she and Josh Boxer are working on but she processed smoothly through the transition from courtroom to office (picking me up in between) pushing the rock up the hill and adding the meeting with Archie and Callahan along the way.
Angela’s pet projects are all about God. And, she means it. Hey, I believe in God too (you can jam religion and churches though) … I believe, but I don’t … build shrines.
Oh, it’s not just a shrine. There’s an entirely practical and long-range planning side to Joe’s girl and always has been. Twice prez of the Board of supes. Staging major trials for a couple of decades. There’s a think tank involved in her plans. It will be the left flank of the church and she’ll have the U.S. President, the Pope, the Dali Lama and Angelo Sangiacomo there for the opening.
We look at the plans as the Italian import crew chief (Alfonso – genial guy in his 50’s who clears space for the charging barrister and her ducks - by this time, me and Archie and Callahan) … Alfonso has a special hardhat for Angela with her name on it.
Through the heavy dust, she talks about the plans for the Think Tank in the rectory and some NIMBY (Hi Aaron and Nancy!) and local church reservations … to the Pope and Cardinal Levada and how she measured the original Portziculu with dental floss cause you couldn’t bring in tape measures or cameras. What a woman.
She’ll get her shrine. She won Dede Wilsey over a couple of weeks ago. She won this Tenderloin scribe and Archie, the national veterans advocate and Tom Callahan, the major builder today. It will be magnificent
And, a tourists haven! The 3 church buildings occupy the entire short block across from the Trieste and they need love and money and Angela has a limitless supply of the former and is trying to reach Angelo Sangiacomo among others for the latter. She’ll succeed. Angelo couldn’t have a better legacy than this sacred shrine in North Beach. An octogenarian at the next table chuckles as he listens to us talk: “I know Angelo. What’s it cost? 2 million?� He snaps his fingers: “He can pay for the shrine by himself and will love to. Rent control and the Portziculu of St. Francis. Enough of a legacy for any man.� I shake my head and talk to Callahan about his Bridge Housing projects as firefighters and tourists gaze at the construction and study the canvas painting of the competed project.
Three days in a row, Jens’ block of O’Farrell from Larkin to Hyde has been physically clean as a pin (thanks Tenderloin BID) and clear (for most part) of hookers, pimps and crackheads. Thank you to Captain Jiminez.
Kudos to Chris Daly too for carrying the entire load of the Progressive movement on his back at the moment. While scuzz-bags like Randy Shaw continue to try and trade our surrender for more money and power for himself (note his list of surrender demands made on our behalf, begin with more money for him), Daly alone has kept the opposition fires burning.
Look up ‘loose cannon’ in the dictionary and you’ll find my picture. That makes Daly’s tolerance of my outbursts (isn’t he supposed to be a wild man?) … makes Daly letting me into his tent the more remarkable.
Those of you who know our location, make Salon tomorrow. Last week Tony Hall roared in on an enormous shiny black 1000cc hog (get rid of the gangster strategist guy – what’s his name? – O’Hara or O’Meara or something – he reflects very, very, very badly upon you) … Tony made it to talk to the poly geek blog gathering last week and we have Barack Obama this week.
If you don’t know the secret password for Salon (“Give h. a beer on me and I’ll have … “) make the Progressive convention Saturday at 674 Turk from 10am til 3pm. It’s the usual format. Just toss your house keys in the fishbowl at the door and practice safe … politics.
Gotta end this friggin’ column fore it ends me.
