Tag: Gavin Newsom

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Willie Brown…Herb Caen’s Successor

Willie Brown, what can I say. He is a career politician who was once our mayor that some people said of him, “You’re a crook, but you’re OUR crook.” He just laughed that off with a smile. A politician being called a crook and not getting outraged? Willie has cohones as big as his wardrobe of clothes from Wilks Bashford.

Now that he’s getting up there in years a bit, he’s not slowing down, but he’s moving away from politics and just talking about them. That’s why his “Willie’s World” in the SF Chronicle is one of the first things I go for in the Sunday paper. Willie has been around the block a few times and knows how things work. I get a kick when he says things like, “So I was having lunch with the Governator at the Palace hotel when Micky Rourke walked over and said hi.”

How many people could have the guts to make a statement like that? He is like the glitterati of politics which crosses over to the hollywood world of weirdness. His column on Sundays is true 3 dot journalism just like Herb Caen used to write. He starts off with the state of affairs in San Francisco and ends up with movie and restaurant reviews. I would love to be able to claim myself as the successor to Herb Caen, but I’m more of a bastard child. Willie has it down. This is probably because I spend most of my days living in the boring Sunset District which I love and Willie’s getting a table without a reservation at Tyler Florence’s new place because, well, he’s Willie Brown.

Willie has seen San Francisco’s soft white underbelly and he can still smile about the city. He was asked if he’d fill in as interim Mayor of SF and he proudly said no. He’s been there and done that so I can see that. He needs some sort of honorary title though like City Historian or Ambassador to San Francisco. I think Cyril Magnin had that latter title many years ago. Nevertheless, Willie is a cool guy who I would like to meet one day. I’m envisioning our meet up would be at the Tadich Grill for San Francisco sentiments sake. The Washington Street Bar and Grill or “Washbag” as Herb Caen used to call it was his place, so I think the Tadich would be a better choice.

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Politics! Politics! Politics!

Note to readers: Having discovered that my name server had changed a little to late when I moved things over to the new server I suddenly lost a few posts and pictures which threw me off for a bit. Now I will hopefully regain my stride and get back to more regular posts.

The only thing that got more people’s attention than the Giant’s winning the world series was the election and pretty much as I figured California mooned the rest of the country.

Jerry’s back as President Governor followed by the rest of the Democrats just showing that we’re more a blue state than we were yesterday. Queen Meg will now have to be questioned on her business acumen after investing over $100 million dollars in a campaign that failed. Think of what she could have done with that money if she hadn’t run and started the Whitman Foundation to help needy kids or homeless people or some other ennobling cause. She’d be seen as a hero, but now she’ll go down as a business woman who spent the most money in a campaign that failed.

Oh yeah, pot is still illegal.

The coastal areas were all in favor of it and the inland empire was against it.  What surprised me the most was that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin showed support for prop 19 yet Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, Kamala Haris, Barbara Boxer and the California Cannabis Association were against it. Wait, Governor Moonbeam didn’t want pot legalized? What’s he been smoking? It turns out on the against prop 19 list where a large number of pot producers who would, so they thought, lose money if it was legalized because it would drive the price down. Any quick trip online to look at prices for medical marijuana show that that’s not true.

Personally, I think it’s a shame that it didn’t pass. It would have increased the revenue that we already get from medical marijuana sales (which is currently north of $100 million) and it would have given California another reason to be a “go-to” spot. Estimates put the potential gains for the state at north of $4 billion per year.  Think of what that money would have done for our schools, our roads. It’s even possible that we could have eliminated state income tax if it passed. Nevada fortifies itself from gambling revenues so its residents don’t have to pay state income tax. Think about it. Even though our own Governator was against prop 19 he decriminalized have up to an ounce as a $100 fine.

I think the best that can be said about this was said by Richard Lee of Oaksterdam University, “Over the course of the last year, it has become clear that the legalization of marijuana is no longer a question of if, but a question of when.” I guess we just need the state to need the money more and have less people who don’t want to put their political careers on the line to support it.

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Save our JOBS NOW!

When people talk about the evils of the stimulus package by President Obama they here about the car company and bank bailouts and start pointing fingers and complaining about how Obama is killing America. What they don’t talk about is the employment stimulus that has given over 250,000 people jobs. These are jobs for unemployed parents [like me] whose wages are reimbursed by the government.

This wasn’t talked up too much and I found out about it quite by accident after reading a fairly well buried story on SF Gate. I got in and started making calls and got lots of interviews. I finally got a job in July from a very persistent employer who wanted me and kept in contact from March until the day I started my job.  The problem is that at the end of this month the program ends and I will be out of work again. The problem is two-fold here. The first is that I took the job and lost my unemployment benefits.  Unemployment is based on your earning of the last 18 months minus the current quarter. Since I’ve only worked in the current quarter I won’t be eligible for unemployment unless they make an exception for me. Second is that the our government is trying to extend it for a year, but while it passed the house, the republicans in congress have been filibustering against it.

Over a quarter of a million people will be unemployed once again because the Republicans hate Obama. The Republicans will be the cause of this unemployment because they believe that a cut in federal spending will help America. Unfortunately what it with do is put most of these people on unemployment which just moves the government spending from one room to another, so I ask you all to forward this piece to all your friends and neighbors and have them sign the online petition you’ll find here to ask the government to extend the program and keep the country from adding over a quarter of a million people to the unemployed list which will lead to an increase of the unemployment statistics, lower economic recovery because a quarter of a million people won’t have the money to spend and we’ll have more children going hungry…all because of a few Republicans, not Obama.

Think about this. A quarter of a million people unemployed, all of whom have families with kids who will have trouble living and making ends meet. I am only one, but it’s helping me provide for my wife and my daughter and we’re able to give back to our community by spending our money to purchase goods and services that in nine days will stop coming in. So we’re not talking about over a quarter of a million people being affected but closer to a million people being affected. Please, help do what is right so we can get America back on it’s feet.

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I’ve got a job!

Yes, the economy sucks in San Francisco, but I have just confirmed that I now have a job starting this Monday so food will be going on the table again and bills will be paid! YAY!!!!!

What kind of job you ask? Well, I’m not going to say as I haven’t signed any paper work and I’m sure that it’s going to involve all those non-disclosure acts, but this is a very cool company and I’ll be able to do a lot of work from home. I like this because when I used to see all these salaried employees who’d come in at 10 am then leave at 2 pm I always wanted that kind of job. When I did get a salaried position it usually meant I’d be getting called up at all hours of the day and night to come back in to fix a problem that they usually had figured out how to fix by the time I got dressed and got to work.

Not in this case. If they need something done at 10 pm, no problem. I’m at home and can handle it from here. If they need something done on the weekend I’m probably home and can do it from here [geez, maybe I need to get out of the house more.]

What I can tell you is that if you’re on the hip and cool group of mobile warriors you might be hearing some of voice and audio work in the near future. I’ll just leave it at that for now and maybe I can negotiate an iPhone in as a signing bonus. 😉

Oh, and just a last note in case you didn’t know I will not be working for tickles. I just thought that was a funny picture to add in because I’m happy to be working again.

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Big-NO Tires

While this is a nation-wide company, this post is about my experience with the local franchise on Geary street of the national corp. I used to like Big-O Tires when I went there on a whim many years ago. The tires were cheap and lasted a long time and the service was pretty quick. I’d drop my car off and by the time I’d get home they’d be calling me to come back and pick up my car. What I didn’t realize is that they had been taken over by a large corporation hell bent on scamming people out of money.

And this is where my story begins…I had a tire with a slow leak. My friend Eugene at Gene’s auto service who I’ve trusted for years fixed the tire, but also told me that the nail was at the edge and the fix might not work. Total cost…$10. In the few weeks after I noticed that the slow leak came back only it was becoming a faster and faster leak, so I figure I need a new tire. I bring the car in to Big-O and tell them the problem and they look over the tires and tell me that the wear on the sides of the tires tells them that I need all four tires replaced. Now I could see a bit of cracking on the side walls of the tires, but I had only put 15k of miles on the tires I had bought from Big-O four years earlier. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me, but Johnny the rep put some pressure on me and did a good job so I agreed to have all the tires replaced because, of course, they didn’t carry the tires they replaced any more even though they were guaranteed for 78k miles and didn’t look worn on the treads. I put my faith in Johnny and Big-O.

BIG MISTAKE.

I noticed that they also do oil changes and figured it had been awhile since I had an oil change so I asked them to change the oil as well. I like synthetic oil since I had a bad experience with a Dodge Intrepid engine that when regular oil was used it tended to blow the engine. So I went for the full package. It would take a couple of hours to swap the tires and do the oil change so I hopped on the bus to my friend Pete’s house down by the beach. Two hours later I call them and Johnny tells me that they’re under staffed that day and it’ll take another hour. Mind you I dropped the car off at 10 am and now it’s about 12:30 so I figure I’ll give them a little more time. I call back at 2 pm and Johnny tells me that my battery has problems and needs to be replaced. I did notice some build up on the terminals so I figured that made sense and told him to go ahead and replace the battery and while he’s at it since they do replace cabin air filters to replace the cabin and engine air filters.

Tick tock tick. 4 pm. I call Johnny back, note all of the calls begin with I. Johnny mentions that with the air filters and oil change that it’s all combined in package to replace all fluids in the car for just a couple bucks extra. Well gee, thanks Johnny for a couple of bucks over the $50 to change the oil and filters sure go ahead (note to self a couple of bucks extra doesn’t add up to $450).

Tick tock tick. 5:30 pm. I’m hungry and call Johnny back. “Sure come on by it’ll be ready when you get here.” So my friend Pete gives me a ride and when we get there Johnny tells me that they’re just finishing up and it’ll be about an hour. Where does it’ll be ready when you get here equal it’ll be ready in an hour? So we cross the street to the Pig and Whistle for a round of fish and chips and a Boddington’s (note: best part of the day). I go back and wait and extra 30 minutes to get my car with the final bill of $1500+!!!!!!

WTF Mate!

I went in originally to have a tire changed figuring it might run me $100-$200 at the most and discovered they had bent me over and took me for a mint. I being a nice stupid kind of guy paid them and left with a car that I figured they had done all the work on.

Wrong!

My wife notices that the car sounds funny after words and I noticed that the heating and air conditioning stopped working. I was busy so I didn’t address the problem until about a month later. I decided that some was wrong and called my Nissan rep to tell them that my 2005 Altima had problems with the HVAC. Not something I expected from a Nissan. The tech head part of me suggested that I surf the web for an answer and found, “Check your coolant levels.”

I pop the hood and find there is nothing in the coolant refill and when I pop the cover of the radiator I find I can’t see any coolant. I call Big-o and tell them that I think they didn’t fill up all the fluids that they said because they were understaffed the day I dropped my car off (and didn’t get it back until 8 hours later) and they tell me to bring it in and they’ll refill and check my connections. Beware of check my connections.

Johnny comes back after 30 minutes and tells me that I’ve got a leak in my upper radiator hose AND in my radiator and that they need to be replaced. WTF?!?! a 2005 car with a 7 year extended warranty has the radiator blow? I’ve never had a car that I needed to replace anything other than the oil. He shows me the edge of the the radiator which looks fine and he reinforces it with, “see the moisture”. My bullshit detectors pops into effect when the tech is whispering into his ear and figure you dip your finger in the coolant and rub it around the edge and say there’s a radiator leak. They reinforce that with a “pressure check” where the whispering tech holds his hand over the gauge and pumps up the pressure until coolant starts spurting out of the hose.

I tell Johnny that I have an extended warranty and that I’ll deal with Nissan on that. Oddly enough Johnny makes the mistake of saying that the warranty will cover the hoses as well. Loss for Big-O. They could have scored on a hose change, but Johnny tells me he recommends that I not drive the car if I won’t let them do the work and have it towed home. Mind you they hadn’t put coolant in the car and let me drive it home and are now telling me I have a busted radiator which for some reason never left any residue in my driveway until after I denied them so I blew him off.

At the end of all this, I’m going to my trusted friend Eugene and have him check the radiator to make sure it’s not leaking as I think the only thing Big-O did was loosen the clamp on the hose which has now caused a small amount of leakage visible on my driveway that wasn’t before.

So in the end to sum up my story, I’ve done a search on Big-O Tires on the great Satan of the internet Google and found that the words spouted off to me such as, “if you don’t want us to do it your car is undriveable and must be towed” crop up quite a bit. I remember a friend back in the 80’s who used to work at a auto chain store telling me that they were encouraged to keep razor blades in their pockets to slice lines so that they could add charges on. I should have thought of him when I first entered the shop.

So now I know. Trust in those who know you like Gene’s Auto Service, not scam artists who want to rip you off.

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California Academy of Sciences: Praise and Rants

I’ve been going to the California Academy of Sciences since I was a little kid. I’m talking before I could walk and I loved the old place. There was tons of things to do and see and oh how I remember the awful cheeseburgers and fries served in the downstairs cafeteria by a company called Duchess.

For a kid like me who was into science this was an awesome space because there was everything you could learn about, the Hall of Birds, the Hall of Minerals, Wild California, The Hall of Man, The fish roundabout, Life through Time, The Farside Gallery, the Elkus Gallery and of course the Planetarium and Aquarium. They also had a little know “Junior Academy” downstairs that offered Saturday courses to kids in the sciences from 5-18. The little kid classes didn’t work out so well, but that lead to the adding of the Discovery Center upstairs.

They also had regularly rotating exhibits that were usually pretty big. They had one on Shakespeare, Earthquakes, geez I a can’t remember them all. Then because of the 1989 earthquake there were a few problems and they just decided to rebuild the whole thing again and make it all snazzy and eco-friendly. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that they decided to twist a few heads with the bio roof and solar panels, but it’s not the same anymore. It’s all about the Aquarium.

When you walk in you get to see the Piazza which one of the places to purchase an overpriced, but healthy organic snack. You head through there and can see the tops of a Philipine coral reef on one side and the Northern California coast on the other. The old grungy hall of reptiles has gone, but they saved the swamp area at least with a couple of gators and snapping turtles. Walk down a few stairs and you get the sparse swamp area. You can look into gator tank from below and there’s a few snakes and a lizard or two there. Of course they have to have a swamp/aquarium shop there as well. Then travel down a few more stairs and the Aquarium hits you. Big huge tanks with lots of fish. Not the 10’x10′ tanks you used to see in the old aquarium. Of course to balance this they have many more 10 gallon tanks in the walls, but over all you’re going to see a lot of stuff you’ve never seen before. My daughter loves the aquarium and even though she’s only three she has her favorite tanks she likes to hang out at and stare down the fish, That’s a whole ‘nother story I’ll get into later. So pretty much, the aquarium is very, very cool. So what else is there?

Well they’ve added something new and that’s the rainforest exhibit. To balance out the global shape of the planetarium the rainforest is a globe of glass that you have to enter through special doors so none of the stuff that’s inside gets out. Inside they have birds flying around, yet while I hear them I have yet to see them other than a macaw that tethered at the bottom of ramp just before you start traveling through the jungles. Each level has a different theme to it and  in the small flattened areas to stop at they have…more fish tanks! plus some reptiles as well and it fits in nicely, but still, it’s all about the fish. When you get to the top which is the warmest place you’ll find lots of butterflies swarming around. They’re all pretty small so nothing freaky there. Now you can go back down and out so you go down an elevator after you’ve gone through a check to make sure there are no butterflies on you and that takes you all the way down to the aquarium. If you decide to go I suggest you start with the rainforest and head down to the aquarium because there are some things you’ll miss in the aquarium that aren’t too obvious when you first enter into it.

OK, what’s left? Well there’s the planetarium which I’d love to tell you about because I worked at the old one for four years, but I haven’t had the time to see it yet as I’m always there with my daughter and I’m not sure she’s ready to sit still for 45 minutes to an hour in the dark. I’ve seen videos of it and it’s real state of the art, so I’m looking forward to going once my daughter starts pre-school. They did manage to keep South African Hall, but made a few changes. Nothing too major, except for the addition of a tank of cichlids from lake Malawi and Tanganika in Eastern Africa that was originally the Charles Bange Memorial tank that was put in place by donations by the San Francisco Aquarium Society [note I was the president of the SFAS for 4 years and on the board of directors for 10 years]. Now it has someone else’s name on it so apparently the Academy has forgotten that many years ago the aquarium was kept afloat by donations from the SFAS and now the SFAS isn’t allowed to meet at the Academy anymore. The Herbst auditorium has been replaced with the Herbst Forum on the second floor and there’s also the Naturalist Center which is sort of a small library with displays of dead things or parts of dead things from the mammalogy and ornithology departments, but that’s it for the 2nd floor.

Other than that there’s a few small exhibits that don’t make up for what they didn’t keep in there. I noticed something when I was there today though. While they made it a little bit wider which is really mostly with outdoor garden areas, it’s much thinner. The swamp is at the back of the academy and that’s it. The aquarium used to run around it with other exhibits behind that. They gave up a lot that people can learn from. I’m not sure where the scientists do there work as in the old place there used to be two levels up with offices and labs and all the ichthyology and aquarium labs were down in the basement where the aquarium is now.

Now here is where the rants will begin. The real rants. When my wife and I got married in 1996 we got a family membership to the academy. It cost us…$25. With it we each got a card that would allow us to bring in a guest as well as 10 guest passes we could give out to our friends. It cost $7 to get in back then. We also got invited to a members only night where we could walk around the academy and get behind the scenes tours and feed for free.

Now, that same membership will cost you…$500! You can get the Family Plus membership, but you’ll have to pay $75 each for the behind the scenes tour. Ticket prices to get in are now $24.99 for adults, $19.99 for 12-17 and $14.99 for 4-11.

If you have kids, get a family membership. It’s $159 and you’ll get that back 10 fold in a short period of time. There is one thing to remember though, if you’re going to go you should take advantage of the members only hours of 8:30-9:30 on Tuesdays or 10-11 on Sundays. Especially if you have small kids. We went there about 12:30pm today and the place was packed. We couldn’t even let our daughter out of the stroller because we’d have lost her in seconds.

If you want to go on the cheap the last Thursday of the month is Nightlife where it will only cost you $12 to get in, but you have to be 21+ because they have bars set up all over the place. I haven’t been to one of these, but being a member I would still have to pay $10 in addition to the drinks.

I have to admit that I like the cafe that they have as they serve a wide variety of all organic meats and veggies with enough variety to suit everyone, but that all comes at a price. We tried it once and we got a breakfast quiche, muffin, coffee and an izzy’s soda for just under $15. The quiche was small, the muffin wasn’t very large, but the coffee and soda were good. Today, I noticed as we walked through the piazza that while there were people in line to buy food, most of the people there [some of which had to sit on the floor as there were no more tables] had brought their own food. The line to purchase tickets was at least 4 deep and 100 ft long. So I imagine that the wait would be close to an hour.

If you’re a member you get to put on your best smug face and walk through the members entrance where they not only ask for your card, but you ID as well to verify you aren’t loaning your card to friends. You also get a lot of other little discounts and benefits that you can find here. The funniest thing is that maybe we should have gotten an individual membership for $99 because it says you can bring a guest in with your card. It doesn’t say that with a family membership. So if you’re a couple and don’t expect to take any out of town relatives there that’s the best way to go about it. Overall, I’d have to say that the California Academy of Sciences has changed from a museum of science to a political show off piece. Gavin Newsom is even quoted as saying it’s his favorite place in San Francisco. You don’t get to talk to the scientists who are doing the work behind the scenes, but you can watch them through glass sometimes in the lab that’s open to the public for viewing, but no entrance.

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Make Me A F*cking Supervisor!

D*ck of the month club

Supervisor Chris Daly has made a new year’s resolution to include the word f*ck in every meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Such a noble venture for the most hated of all the Supervisors. He is antinomian to core. His job is just to anger people in this city by saying no to everything we say yes to and say yes to everything we say no to.

Chris serves the government less and himself more. Therefore it is at this time that announce, nay, I proclaim that I should replace Chris Daly as Supervisor of District 6! I have lived my life in San Francisco. In the Sunset District, The Mission District and Midtown Terrace. Chris Daly lives, just like Ed Jew, outside of San Francisco. He is the governing Supervisor over the Tenderloin and Treasure Island. My college thesis was on the construction of Treasure Island and I have visited it many times, probably more times than Chris f*cking Daly.

Being one of the few who was born and raised in San Francisco, I know San Francisco and you Chris Daly, are not San Francisco. I will serve this city as Supervisor as a true citizen of San Francisco, by helping to clean up the Tenderloin and create a new green community on Treasure Island by implementing the best plans that have been suggested as well as building concrete walls around the perimeter to keep the rising water from flooding our Treasured Island build in 1939 for the epic San Francisco world’s fair celebrating our city and the construction of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.

I call upon our esteemed Mayor Newsom to hear my call and replace Chris f*cking Daly for a dereliction of duties as a Supervisor of San Francisco and for his misrepresenting our fine city to the world. He has no right to besmirch our image as the great city that we are with his foul mouthed antics and disregard for performing his job as a supervisor of this great city. I shall offer to meet Chris f*cking Daly in public debate and will offer my services to the community he presides over as well as offering to replace him for under 6 figures a year since no one in the district he presides over makes that much a year. I will also attend every Board of Supervisors meeting unlike most of the board and I will walk the streets of my district proudly meeting with those who live there other than during re-election time.

If this does not happen I will do as Emperor Norton once did and proclaim myself the royal sovereign of the Tenderloin and Treasure Island and make myself the Commander-in-Chief of the area to protect it from the pompous ways of its public enemy #1 Chris f*cking Daly!