North of the Progressive Convention at Van Ness and Sutter, a rally was being held where supporters of Gavin Newsom could pick up petitions to sign up "endorsers" from citizens around the city.
There was a fairly large contingent of union guys who seemed to prefer hanging outside than being cooped up in the low-ceiling room.
The emcee was Tom Hsieh, who did a nice job warming up the crowd.
He introduced Assessor Phil Ting, who was originally appointed by Gavin Newsom.
He was then followed by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who was also originally appointed to his seat by Newsom.
Elsbernd made a crack about how he couldn't talk long because his phone was ringing and it was Chris Daly from down the street who couldn't find a candidate so he wanted Elsbernd to run as The Progressive.
This got a big laugh from the crowd, which reminded me in a creepy way of Elsbernd's resemblance to Dan White, the San Francisco native-born supervisor who decided all the progressives of the 1970s were out to get him personally so he murdered a few.
The photogenic City Treasurer, Jose Cisneros, came up for a speech...
...and was followed by Art Torres, the head of the California Democratic Party, who made property tax jokes and who came off as a bit of a gangster.
Finally, the star of the show appeared and decided he didn't want to address the crowd from the makeshift stage but pulled a chair out in the middle of a group and stood on top of it.
Newsom exhorted the crowd to "be doers," and not to be quitters, and admitted that he hadn't done the best job in his first term but was completely determined to be a better mayor this succeeding term.
During the fifteen-minute speech, Newsom's would-be movie star girlfriend, Jennifer Siebel, stood a few feet away looking on adoringly.
Not far from her, there was also a bizarre looking gentleman (above) wearing a horse-riding cap throughout the whole thing.
Finally, Newsom took a swipe at his opponents and encouraged his supporters with, "They’re just dreaming. You’re out there doing!" I wanted to reply, "Yes, and that's part of the problem," but decided to keep my journalistic integrity intact.
4 comments:
When it comes to your self-celebrated restraint, just what "journalistic integrity" are you referencing?
Being a muck-raking, polemicist blogger? There's not a whole lot of integrity there. Go to a good J-school and pay your dues.
I guess I should of made an appearance,but I had to keep my own integrity intact.Hat and all.
Dear Patrick: Are you intimating that I could be a real journalist like Matier & Ross, or Phil Bronstein, or Judith Miller, or maybe even Ken Garcia if I went to a "good J-school"? Nah, I'll stick with "muck-racking, polemicist blogger" if you don't mind.
As for "journalistic integrity," there were a few levels of irony I was trying to convey, but you're right, the phrasing was inadequate. In the two years I've been doing this photoblog, I've gotten to see up close how EVERY journalist is completely prejudiced and shapes the story within their own prejudices and insights (or lack of them). This isn't to even mention what happens to those reporters' stories once they hit corporate headquarters and are given to a copy editor, photo editor, headline writer, etc.
Essentially, you either trust my voice or you don't. I try to get my facts as close to "the truth" as possible, and I know I do a better job than The Chronicle, for instance, because we sometimes cover the same stories. Also, my many photos help to show the truth, and I try not to overexplain them.
The real idea is to give a humorous/insightful avenue into a moment and place in time, and then let the viewer/reader come up with their own story. Sometimes it's succesful, sometimes it's not, but this blog definitely has its own integrity.
Someone should tell Elsbernd to quit dreaming. You'd need your toes to count all of the politicians at the Progressive Convention who would wipe the floor with Seany boy in a city-wide election.
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