August was an interesting month, weaving all over the place.
There was a visit from an old friend from Long Island, who works in Republican politics because it's the family profession, but is in his every essence a beach-boy leftist hippie.
I took him to the peace vigil in front of the Federal Building on Thursday afternoon...
...and he was completely amused.
There were Friday lunches at h. brown's Burrito Salon...
...where his beloved Krissy Keefer often shows up, in between campaign stops, as she tries to unseat the loathsome, war-mongering Nancy Pelosi from Congress.
Ms. Keefer has smartly honed her messages to three simple soundbites, at least according to her website (click here), and they're all inarguable: "US Out of Iraq, Impeach Bush, and Stop Global Warming." Congresswoman Pelosi has already put Bush's impeachment "off the table," she's been a hideous AIPAC war-mongering cheerleader since early in her career, and she hasn't done diddly to change the corporate structures that spell doom for the planet.
Guess who I'm voting for.
At the Lone Star Saloon on Saturdays, we told everybody about our ascension in economic status with the purchase of California real estate...
...while listening to the oracles around us.
On the way to San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's monthly art party...
...we ran into a protest in front of City Hall.
There was a rap group singing away into a sound system...
...and a contingent from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence...
...along with strippers from local sex clubs...
...who were protesting the obscure but well-funded City Commission on the Status of Women...
...who had decided that "private booths" in sex clubs needed to be shut down to protect poor, defenseless sex workers.
Those same workers had been speaking in front of The Entertainment Commission, telling them that the proposed ordinance would seriously cut into their monthly income if it was passed.
The only person speaking for the ban was a former dancer who claims she was sexually abused inside the private rooms. In a quote in the Chronicle, she said, "I, as a dancer, was making fine money without a private booth. I have been sexually assaulted in these booths."
The former dancer's name, by the way, is Daisy Anarchy, which brought to mind the late, great Anna Russell's line, "I'm NOT making this up, you know."
Inside City Hall, the building was in a frenzy of preparation for a huge sit-down dinner party...
...for some corporation's fiftieth anniversary.
On the second floor, at Supervisor Mirkarimi's office...
...the art show was in progress...
...and it turned out to be kiddie art from the Booker T. Washington Summer Day Camp in Mirkarimi's District 5.
There were masks...
...and pretty pictures...
...and lots of kids clowning around.
On the way out of City Hall, we saw the remnants of the Sex Workers Protest jumping onto a motorized cable car...
...which was taking the group to their next stop, The Mitchell Brothers Adult Theatre on Polk and Geary.
A huge new mural is going up in San Francisco this month...
...on a 200 foot by 25 foot white wall on Shotwell Street between 14th and 15th Streets and Folsom and South Van Ness.
The wall is to the right of a brutal, industrial-style parking lot...
...that fronts a large discount supermarket.
The artist is a young Indiana transplant named Brian Barneclo...
...and he's a wonderful painter.
In addition, he may be one of the fastest and most prolific artists I've ever witnessed.
At an earlier, stunt-like group show at the Tenderloin's Shooting Gallery, a batch of painters were invited to create a painting in one day with onlookers watching their progress, with a party following the art creation later that night.
I stopped by the gallery at about noon, and saw a couple of dozen people working laboriously upon their various canvases, most of them with only sketched-in outlines.
When I asked where Brian was, they pointed out an area with a large, completed, accomplished painting and said, "He went off somewhere for lunch."
Partly because of his speed, Barneclo is an ideal muralist. To check out his other work, particularly the great Bay Guardian mural he completed on Potrero Hill, click here for his website.
Brian and his assistant Justin ("he's the best!")...
...started work on the mural this Monday, so what you're seeing is four days into their labors.
To get to the "Food Chain Mural" website, click here. It has an address where you can donate money to help pay for the thing, since Brian is essentially doing this huge piece for free.
Or even better, just stop by and watch the muralists at work, and slip them some cash directly.
Part of what is so exciting about this mural is that it's not a derivative, watered-down version of the great Mexican muralists (Rivera, Siquieros, Orozco, O'Gorman) like so many other murals in the Mission.
Brian has his own style...
...and it's extraordinary.
