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.
PostedByPeter Jamison
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:30 PM
Chance visitors to the conference room at Nob Hill's Grace Cathedral might have taken the proceedings therein as an odd semblance of civic engagement: Gargantuan photographs of dog turds greeted those who walked in the door, and several close-ups of a gaping leg wound were displayed on the stage at the front of the room. Meanwhile, a lot of the folks milling about wore stickers reading, "Dog Lover." Sure, it seems a little weird. But San Francisco's veteran dog gangstas know it's all in the game.
Marion Cope speaks in front of photos of her injury
Tonight was the much-anticipated summit meeting arranged by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu in the wake of the brutal November dog attack on 74-year-old Nob Hill resident Marion Cope. More than 100 attended -- the majority of them Nob Hill residents -- in a preliminary bid to hash out the dispute over leash laws that heated up after Cope was injured.
A cop and a gaggle of robed clergypersons were on hand to keep the peace, and for a time it seemed like they might be called into action. Cope, the widow of Newton Cope, former proprietor of the swanky Huntington Hotel, gave a graphic description of her injury -- a 10-inch gash to the leg, which she said became infected and carried a risk of amputation -- and a round denunciation of what she called "gross negligence on the part of city officials" who didn't adequately enforce leash laws at Huntington Park.
But no one is suggesting Muni take away the overtime enjoyed by its mechanics. Their overtime pay is actually expected to increase during the coming year.
According to a report delivered earlier this month to the Board of
Supervisors by Muni chief Nat Ford, between March 7 and Oct. 30 of
last year, 232 employees in the system's operations division -- women
and men who work on buses, rail systems, switches, and other
infrastructure -- amassed overtime hours totaling 16 percent or more of their regular hours.
While smoking weed twelve years ago in Springfield, Missouri, Perkel came up with the idea for the Church of Reality, a "reality-based" religion that embraces smoking pot as a gateway to inspire creative thinking and "really good ideas." It has since become a tax-exempt non-profit and amassed thousands of followers. The church philosophy, according to the Web site, is essentially this: "If it's real, we believe in it."
Though not necessary for Church of Reality practice, weed is apparently a really important aspect. So eventually Perkel decided to ask the Drug Enforcement Administration for an weed exemption from the Controlled Substance Act under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The DEA said no way.
PostedByLois Beckett
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:45 PM
Curious: the Russian Edition of The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger, who died yesterday at the age of 91, is being eulogized as a novelist of adolescent angst. The names of his characters are shorthand for a kind of idealistic cynicism. We associated it with prep school drop-outs, or just being 17.
What's easy to forget is that Salinger was, in his own way, a war writer, even though very little of his writing deals explicitly with World War II. (The exception, of course, is his famous short story, "For Esme -- with Love and Squalor.")
"Of all the people who served in World War II and then became writers, [Salinger] was one of the people who saw the most combat," said Scott Saul, an associate professor of English at U.C. Berkeley who lectures on The Catcher in the Rye. "He saw really intense combat in the campaign on Normandy, and he was hospitalized for combat-related stress, so he had been to the front and back when he created this story of a very privileged teen in 1950s New York."
It's an unfamiliar perspective on Salinger -- we associate Holden Caulfield more with the 1960s, the generation he inspired, than with the second World War -- but a thought-provoking one.
PostedByLois Beckett
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:30 PM
More dough that won't be spent on online journalism
Google economistHal Varian gave a primer on the economists of news last night to a standing-room-only audience at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. A lot of what he talked about has been said before: He showed slides of declining newspaper circulation and charts showing the tiny, 5-percent sliver that online advertising revenue represents in the total newspaper revenue pie.
But the statistics were even grimmer than you might be expecting : Overall newspaper circulation has been in decline since 1990, "well before the Internet," Varian noted, while newspaper circulation crossed against the nation's population has been declining since 1960; and circulation per household has been dropping since -- wait for it -- 1945. You can't blame the Web for that.
Like manyother media experts, Varian said he was skeptical that readers would or should be willing to pay for news online. (As of last week, the New York Times is banking you will.) But he provided a novel explanation for why, exactly, people won't spend money on an online product that they were willing to buy in hard copy.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 2:21 PM
Eric Green
A transgender New York woman has filed a $10 million lawsuit against a former 49ers cornerback she says forcibly sodomized her last year.
Angelina Mavilia, a male-to-female transgender woman, claims Eric Green met her at a Scottsdale, Ariz. casino on Jan. 24, 2009. Green, who spent the preseason with the 49ers this year and has also played for the Arizona Cardinals and Miami Dolphins, was a Cardinal at the time of the alleged meeting.
According to Mavilia's lawsuit -- filed last week in southern Florida, where Green resides -- he convinced her to accompany him to his condo so "he could telephone his dealer, get some Marijuana, and get high" and "introduce her to his friend, the Prince of Bahrain."
The Prince of Bahrain's puzzling cameo in this lawsuit is ever so brief. Instead of meeting royalty, claims the document, Mavilia and Green began to engage in consensual sexual activity. This, according to the suit, would not end well.
PostedByPeter Jamison
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 1:20 PM
An affordable-housing sales agent working under contract for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency has been charged with stealing from 19 Asian-American residents of San Francisco who were seeking below-market-rate homes.
Chow is charged with setting up a lucrative affordable-housing scam
Kan Yin Chow, 51, has been charged with 41 felony counts and was being held on $615,000 bail, District Attorney Kamala Harris said at a press conference this morning. Chow is alleged to have stolen roughly $35,000 from his victims.
"He took advantage of vulnerable individuals who were simply seeking to have access to better and more affordable housing," Harris said. "If he was a public official, he probably would have been charged with bribery."
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:30 AM
Joe Eskenazi
Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval and his new mohawk 'do
After taking in yesterday's taping of Inside the Clubhouse -- which really is taped in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse -- I'm left with two sparkling memories:
Team hitting coach Hensley "Bam Bam" Meulens pointing at outfielder Nate Schierholtz and telling the crowd, with a straight face, "You don't see it, because he has clothes on -- but he's a very strong guy."
Budding superstar Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval saying ... something. Anything. God help me, I couldn't understand 70 percent of what he said. Didn't matter. He was great.
Last night's taping will air on CSN Bay Area at 6:30 p.m. on February 10. The overflowing and enthusiastic audience members -- all decked out in black-and-orange caps, jackets, shirts, shoes or all of the above -- were season-ticket holders; this is one of the complimentary perks that comes with plunking down for those. Your humble narrator likes to look through AT&T Park's right field fence from time to time and twice managed to sneak six bottles of beer into the ballpark. I am no season ticket-holder. So it was only via a generous benefactor that I managed to watch yesterday's taping.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 7:30 AM
'No more loud parties down there in Apartment 3B, dammit!'
Yesterday we reported on a loud landlord-tenant dispute (normal) that culminated with the landlord allegedly wielding a "large kitchen knife," threatening to kill the tenant, and getting arrested (not so normal).
San Francisco Tenants Union head Ted Gullicksen agrees that you don't see that everyday. But, then again, you're not him. And he sees stuff like this more often than you'd think.
Asking Gullicksen -- who's been doing this since 1988 -- for his best "crazy landlord stories" would be like asking Wilt Chamberlain about the most flexible women he's met. But a few extreme cases do stick out in his mind:
The robbery and homicide occurred on the 2400 block of Moraga near 31st Avenue in the Outer Sunset. Police have told the media that other victims of the robbery were found tied up but unharmed.
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.'"
