When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, it’s a good core workout. If you’re sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
Many of us remember coming home from our elementary schools with freshly glazed pinchpots, cups, or whatever else our young imaginations could conjure up. Saturday mornings at the Randall Museum can bring that memory back, or create a new one for the youngsters. Ceramics make great gifts — especially on Mothers' and Fathers' Day. Hop on board for the Randall's once-weekly class, and for $6 and two weeks to have your work fired and glazed, you'll have all the materials you need.More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
For someone who lives in the downtown corridor — all right, the Tenderloin — the idea of going to Ocean Beach for pizza is rife with potential pratfalls: high Uber fares, lengthy Muni trips, ever-present fog, jet lag.
So you went out last Saturday night and wore those new dark-wash, skinny leg jeans that you just bought despite the fact that it's the end of the month and you should be saving that money for your rent check.
Eliot Spitzer, facing a less adoring crowd than what he found in San Francisco
Eliot Spitzer -- the former governor of New York who resigned after the world found out he paid $4,300 for a high-class, 22-year-old escort -- seemed an interesting choice for a guest speaker at the Commonwealth Club yesterday night.
Would the audience gather for "The Cataclysm of 2008-2009: Lessons Learned and Lessons Ignored," a finance discussion from a man who, as New York's attorney general, took on white-collar criminals, shady investment banking practices, and predatory mortgage lenders? Or would they be more interested in an up-close encounter with a shamed adulterer? Was it the banking or the boinking?
By 6 p.m. the Blue Room at 595 Market Street was brimming with spectators and camera crews for the sold-out event. When Spitzer took the podium in his smart black suit and wedding ring, the audience of 300 erupted in applause.
Despite his public humiliation in March of 2008, the former governor couldn't have looked more confident before the crowd. In his introductory remarks on upcoming Commonwealth Club speakers, he immediately -- though subtly -- acknowledged his misdeed. "I have to say, hearing John Yoo will be here makes me seem totally non-controversial," he said. The audience roared.
PostedByAndy Wright
on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 4:44 PM
A press release issued today by the San Francisco Police Department kind of reads like a guide of Things Not To Do If You're Planning on Entering a Life of Crime. Gang Task Force Inspectors took one Monzell Harding, age 18, into custody this afternoon under suspicion of robbing a passenger on the Muni No. 24 bus as it made its way Northbound on Divisdero. Why Harding? Because the young man was sporting a "distinctive" tattoo described by the victim.
The distinctive tattoo in question?
Police spokesman Officer Boaz Marilies told SF Weekly that Harding has the words "Chedda Boy" emblazoned across his left hand.
Now, that's just cheesy. (Sorry!)
Aspiring ne'er-do-wells, take heed: Don't wear T-shirts that read "I'm going to rob you." Don't snatch someone's purse and then hand them your business card. And if you simply must rob Muni patrons who are just going about their daily commute, maybe you should use your right hand. You know, the one that doesn't have a distinctive tattoo the whole Gang Task Force knows about.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 3:36 PM
Michela Alioto-Pier
Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier's husband, Tom Pier, moments ago confirmed to SF Weekly that his wife has dropped out of the race for state insurance commissioner.
The District 2 supervisor has not made it to City Hall since last month due to a leg injury. Pier said this injury is the reason his wife has left the statewide race.
Pier said his wife may, however, run again for the supervisorial position she currently holds. Last year Alioto-Pier told SF Weekly she may sue the city if City Attorney Dennis Herrera doesn't reverse his opinion that she is termed out of office. Pier said the "option is still open" regarding that path.
Alioto-Pier's husband -- who has had all calls regarding his wife shunted his way -- would only describe her injury as "an injured leg." He added that Alioto-Pier's "long-term prognosis is fine. She needs time to recover. However long that will be is up to the doctors to determine."
He had no idea when she would begin attending City Hall again.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 1:59 PM
The regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission moments ago voted to stay the course, applying $70 million in endangered federal funds not to the Bay Area's moribund transit agencies but a controversial, half-billion dollar proposed BART extension to Oakland Airport.
"Closer than I thought, but we ... still lose," said MTC commissioner Chris Daly of the 11-5 vote.
The federal funding became an issue earlier this month when Peter Rogoff, the director of the Federal Transportation Administration, wrote a sternly worded letter to both BART and the MTC. In it, he ruled BART had blown off a required "equity evaluation" of how the proposed Oakland Airport Connector will impact the poor, minority communities residing nearby. In Rogoff's words, to continue pushing for the $70 million in federal stimulus funds to be used for the connector -- and not local transit agencies -- presented a "considerable risk" of losing the money outright.
Civil rights activists' complaints that it is immoral to fund a prohibitively expensive conveyance for airline passengers that does nothing for neighborhood dwellers dependent on a withering public transit system dove-tail with transit activists' charges the connector is an ill-conceived, costly debacle.
PostedByPeter Jamison
on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 11:59 AM
San Francisco's iconic Grace Cathedral was a setting for the last film of the great Alfred Hitchcock, 1976's Family Plot, which featured wealthy eccentrics, a villainous jeweler, and a phony spiritualist in a topsy-turvy suspense plot. Following in this tradition, the cathedral atop Nob Hill tomorrow night will be hosting another scene in a puzzling saga involving a determined and often inscrutable cast of players: A summit meeting among pro- and anti-dog partisans to discuss leash laws at adjacent Huntington Park.
Get ready for a wild night
The meeting is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. Expect plenty of wrangling among the usual suspects in San Francisco's long-running "dog wars," including impassioned pleas for the inalienable right of dogs to roam off-leash in the city of St. Francis, or the inalienable right of human children to roam without the attentions of a curious terrier. The meeting should also showcase plenty of debate specific to Huntington Park, where the 74-year-old Nob Hill resident Marion Cope was severely injured during a dog attack in November.
One issue likely to arise is the proposal to close down the street between Huntington Park and the Pacific-Union Club, turning it into an off-leash dog run. We're not sure whether the august members of the P-U Club will deign to honor us plebes with their presence at tomorrow night's meeting, but you can bet they'll be paying attention to its outcome.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:57 AM
'One million dollars!'
According to a press release Attorney General candidate Kamala Harris fired off about an hour ago, her campaign raised more than a million bucks in the last half of 2009. But according to a poll leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle-- she'll need it.
The J. Moore Methods survey showed undeclared AG candidate Jackie Speier -- currently a Peninsula Congresswoman -- outpolling San Francisco District Attorney Harris in the race by a tally of 23 percent to 5 percent. Speier also has much more name recognition downstate than Harris.
The Harris press release, fired off in the wake of this poll and its accompanying Chron story, is as notable for what it says as what it does not. It notes that Harris was the only AG candidate to amass more than $1 million in consecutive filing periods, which brings the "total raised for the AG campaign to $2.3 million." Nowhere on this release, however, does it indicate how much money Harris has spent nor how much cash she now has on hand. Our calls to Harris' campaign manager, Brian Brokaw, have not yet been returned.
Eric Jaye, a campaign consultant for one of Harris' competitors, Alberto Torrico, called the Harris press release "cleverly worded."
"The only offense I've ever seen cited is hit-and-run," said pedestrian activist Manish Champsee, president of Walk San Francisco. "The way state law is written now, you have to prove malicious intent on the part of the driver -- and that's obviously a difficult bar to reach."
Champsee can recite numerous San Francisco instances of careless drivers sending cyclists or pedestrians soaring, yet facing as minor a charge as "illegal right turn" because there was no way to prove intent -- or even knowledge of striking the pedestrian before leaving the scene.
San Francisco Police Department Spokesman Sergeant Wilfred Williams, meanwhile, said that running over a cop in the crosswalk may not automatically be a citation-worthy offense.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 7:30 AM
I've got your Ellis Act right here...
Virtually every San Franciscan has his or her own landlord horror story. It may involve bogus move-in evictions, rent-gouging, or even housing the landlord's mentally imbalanced son in the apartment next door, where he plays the bongos for hours on end to stave off the troubling breakdowns in which he breaks the furniture and smashes the windows.
Well, a Bernal Heights tenant can top all that. On Monday, the police were called to the 700 block of San Jose Avenue to intercede in a landlord-renter dispute that culminated when "the landlord wielded a large kitchen knife at the tenant and threatened to kill the tenant."
This, we believe, would qualify as both a rent control violation and wrongful eviction.
Well, whichever candidate Daly deigns to hand a rose to is going to have to wait. For a while. The supervisor told SF Weekly that he is in no hurry to annoint a successor.
"I want the candidates to have the opportunity to prove their mettle in the district," he said. He didn't predict naming any names until well into 2010 (though he has let it slip he's no fan of Theresa Sparks).
Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
