On a Van Ness Muni bus, there was a middle-aged gentleman trying to read a history book about the Civil War while a young woman on a cell phone proceeded to bore the crap out of the entire last half of the bus with her current life story as related to a friend, in betwen "like....like....like...."
It's only the first day of September, but she wins the Most Obnoxious Cell-Phone User in Public of September award.
A new free daily, sort of the low-rent version of the San Francisco "Examiner" had an extraordinary, unintentionally funny headline about the Afghani who ran over all the pedestrians earlier in the week in San Francisco. He'd actually wanted to run over cops, but of course as anybody knows who lives in San Francisco, there are no pedestrian cops in San Francisco. They all hang out in their vehicles, doing god knows what, except when they're overpopulating parades and marches while on overtime.
So in frustration he ran over civilian pedestrians instead.
Thanks for protecting us, San Francisco Police force.
The paper also mentioned the other big news, which was that the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals demanded that Josh Wolf be allowed bail, which essentially meant that he was free of the draconian sentence that the Federal Grand Jury and the venal Federal Judge Alsup had imposed upon him, namely jail for a year unless he snitched on his friends.
Across the street from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at 7th and Mission, a huge, postmodern glass skycraper has been rising for the last three years and it's quite a doozy.
When I asked the various journalists hanging out for Josh Wolf who was actually going to be using the building, they all answered that it was going to be a Federal building, but other than that, nobody had a clue who was actually going to be using the place.
Josh showed up with his lawyer for a press conference at 1PM and the surprised smile on Josh's face at seeing so many familiar friends/supporters was delightful.
I remember bumping into Josh in the Civic Center right after FBI agents had come after him, and he told me the absurd story of his day, which involved being locked out of his own apartment because he'd forgotten his keys, while simultaneously having to waylay crazy, pushy FBI agents who wanted "original" tapes of an anarchist march from 2005 and who wanted to go into his apartment.
The media swarm at the press conference was gratifying to see.
The federal government's militarization of local police forces, through Homeland Security, is beyond creepy and everything about this case points to what is actually going on.
The only politician who showed up was the Green Candidate for Congress, Krissy Keefer, and the fact that she didn't say a word or intrude in any way was quite charming. I wish a few other politicians had done the same thing.
h. brown showed up about five minutes late, in a very good mood from a bottle of Chandon, and he said...
...surveying the crowd, "there's got to be an FBI/police undercover person in the middle of that crowd...
"...shouldn't be hard to pick him out, it's probably the guy in the green cap."
Now I'm sure h. brown was just being paranoid and is completely wrong, but if the guy in the green cap or anybody who actually knows him wants to leave a message to that effect in the comments, I'd like to hear it.
Because not only had nobody ever seen him before...
...but he kept pretending to be taking pictures of Josh while taking pictures of everybody else in the crowd, including me.
It doesn't matter.
These jerks may be on the right side of power, but they're on the wrong side of history, as h. brown would have you know.
Brian Barneclo's Food Chain Mural on Shotwell between 14th and 15th Streets is getting closer to completion.
Though "Milk" stands proudly in the center of the 200-foot mural about San Francisco and The Food Chain in General...
...the central section has also gone carniverous...
...though there's a pointed vegan-ecological joke involving a "Mad Cow Burger" in another section.
This Sunday, from noon to 3 pm, there's going to be a party with a BBQ, a DJ, a raffle, and "PAINTING for kids!" as the email invitation stated.
You are invited to stop by and meet Brian Barneclo (it's also his birthday), hang out with the neighbors, congratulate donors, and have some snacks.
Enter to win free T-shirts, dinner for two, and more! Raffle at 3pm.
The mural itself is getting more whimsical, with ant birthday parties...
...taking place underground with hipster worms crawling in and out of skulls.
can't wait to see what he does with Chinatown.
