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 a town that's been home to generations of wittily-dressed men, S.F. is rather impoverished as far as a one-stop thrift-shop for cool men's clothes.
The Ramos Fizz was invented a century ago in New Orleans, where one saloon, the Imperial Cabinet, employed 35 men to do nothing but shake up Ramoses during a particularly festive pre-Osterizer Mardi Gras.
Yes, second-hand smoke is a bummer. But the expansion of the smoking ban in San Francisco could extinguish some really great places to smoke in the city. Zeitgeist's outdoor patio, for one.
According to Linshao Chin, a legislative aid to Supervisor Eric Mar, it's going to be up to the San Francisco Department of Public Health to determine which eating and drinking establishments qualify as restaurants (and therefore fall under the new rules) and which are simply bars (and therefore exempt).
The city, she added, currently defines a bar as a drinking establishment where food is considered "incidental."
Will Zeitgeist have to choose between allowing patrons to eat hamburgers and allowing them to smoke on the patio? That would pretty much suck, some say.
PostedByChris Roberts
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:59 PM
Behold -- medical Marijuana exists. Someone tell the DA.
Medical Marijuana is not a novel concept for most San Franciscans, but it's still beyond the pale for jurists and barristers: Until this spring, a medical Marijuana cultivation case had not been brought to trial in San Francisco. That "first-of" status, as well as a recent state Supreme Court decision striking down state-mandated limits on how much medicine a patient can possess, made the recent case of Thomas and Errol Chang -- a Sunset District father and son aged 62 and 30, respectively -- doubly interesting to pot and legal advocates alike.
The San Francisco Police raided the Changs' home near 32nd Avenue at Pacheco on August 12 of last year. During the bust, cops found an indoor grow operation, two firearms, and a tampered-with electricity box. All of these are mainstays of illegal Marijuana grow houses -- of which there have been scores busted in the Sunset -- and all of this was duly noted by Chronicle crime reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken, whose story seemed to suggest that it was a lenient jury that took pity on a couple of down-on-their-luck pot growers and foiled efforts to bring them to justice.
PostedByAndy Wright
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:30 PM
Spotted at 19th and Valencia
For those of you not familiar with the Harry Potter canon (ahem, pushes up glasses) a mudblood is a wizard of Muggle-born descent. Still don't know what that means? Then you should probably stop reading, because you're never going to care. Oh, you're still here? Aren't you tenacious. Basically, it's the result of J.K. Rowling trying to jam some political undertones into Harry Potter and give it a cute name. Anyhoo, there appears to be a Slytherin alum run amok in San Francisco.
PostedByLauren Smiley
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:55 PM
Gav's counsel says politics has intruded on this political race...
You may have read this morning that would-be lieutenant governor Janice Hahn filed a complaint with the state accusing rival Mayor Gavin Newsom of shimmying around campaign spending limits. Not only is Newsom's San Leandro-based attorney Tom Willis not a bit worried, he blasts the move as more about publicity than substance. Imagine that in a political race.
"I think it's a desperate ploy to get some press and chill some contributors," Willis told SF Weekly. "It's kind of classic textbook strategy."
It's also a strategy seemingly engineered by Hahn's campaign consultant Garry South, who took the Hahn gig after his erstwhile employer, Newsom dropped out of the race for guv. "The issue was raised a month ago by Garry South," Willis said. "He tried to get play in the papers but it didn't go really far."
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:15 PM
Dan Balsam' s favorite Monty Python sketch, bar none...
Note to the world: Dan Balsam is tired of his wife receiving e-mail messages promising her a bigger penis. And he has no interest in getting larger breasts.
How much does the San Francisco lawyer hate spam? Enough to initiate the DanHatesSpam.com Web site. Enough, he says, to leave a marketing career and go to law school so he could find a way to stick it to spammers.
Earlier this week, he did just that. A San Mateo County Superior Court Judge ruled that Redwood City's Trancos, Inc. violated a 2004 anti-spam state law, and owe Balsam $7,000 -- $1K for each offending e-mail -- plus legal expenses, "which are significant." You can read the ruling here.
The legal tripping point for Trancos -- which will almost certainly appeal this ruling -- were terms like "your business" and "paid survey" on the "from" line of the e-mails. State law forbids unsolicited e-mails that misstate their source. Garbled subject lines are also not kosher; Judge Marie Weiner ruled one Trancos e-mail promising $5 if a survey was completed to be misleading.
Balsam said that one of the reasons fewer individuals are using the 2004 anti-spam law to file suits like his is that spammers don't exactly flaunt their identities.
PostedByMatt Smith
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM
When it comes to quelling housing development, there's the law and there's the law...
Pleasanton city fathers spent this week in conniption fits after a Superior Court judge ruled that the city can't cap its number of housing units at 29,000. Pleasanton now faces a choice of halting all commercial development in the city -- and thus alleviating the demand for places new workers might live -- or scratching the 29,000-unit limit from the city's code book.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch based his decision on a California law that requires cities to
make land available to accommodate their share of regional housing
needs, a standard that most communities, including San Francisco, don't meet. According to Pleasanton Weekly, city council members have planned closed session meetings where they will decide whether to appeal the decision, change the city's residential zoning laws, or ban new commercial development.
But there's a completely legal way to accomplish the not-in-my-backyard goal that Pleasanton had in mind when it created its de-facto ban against new neighbors. That city, and others such as Atherton -- whose overt anti-housing laws may be affected by the ruling -- can follow San Francisco's lead and ban new housing construction in subtler, yet just as effective, ways.
PostedByJoe Eskenazi
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 12:40 PM
It takes more than a green suit and a buzz to make you Irish...
Bridget McManus' sister-in-law is in town from Ireland this week. And, as you can imagine, today is a momentous day for an Irish visitor. Naturally, she went to church first thing in the morning. After all -- it is St. Patrick's Day. Where else would you go?
While the popular mantra on March 17 is "Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day," the San Franciscans who are Irish the other 364 days a year aren't universally comfortable with that notion. For folks who actually worship instead of worshiping the porcelain god, it takes more than a green, plastic bowler and an elevated blood alcohol content to become Irish.
"There's all that stage Irish stuff -- which gets a little old," said Washington Square Bar and Grill bartender Mike McCourt, brother of Angela's Ashesauthor Frank. As anyone who's read that memoir could tell you, there were no plastic bowlers in the McCourt household. "On one side I laugh, and on the other it just kind of pisses me off. I call 'em 'Uncle Tom Irish.'"
PostedByPeter Jamison
on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 12:29 PM
A dangerous hand-held device
Police Commissioner Jim Hammer has so far maintained a studied silence on the subject of texts 'n' TASERs. For those of you who don't follow the All My Childrenesque twists and turns of City Hall's daily news cycle, Hammer was at the center of a dust-up during the past two weeks over whether he was improperly influenced -- via text messages on his cell phone -- to vote against a proposal to equip San Francisco police officers with TASER stun-guns.
News reports have noted that Hammer, a former prosecutor, reversed his public support for TASERs during the course of a police commission meeting and cast the swing vote against them -- even after appearing alongside Police Chief George Gascon in a pro-TASER press conference earlier. Supervisor David Campos said after the decision that he had sent text messages to Hammer urging him reject the TASER plan, leading Mayor Gavin Newsom himself to call for limits on on public officials' texting during meetings.
We caught up with Hammer yesterday, who -- surprise -- rejected outright the idea that Campos had put the arm on him. He did remind us, however, of an interesting piece of context that has so far been left out of media coverage of the texting kerfuffle: Campos was the one supervisor on the Rules Committee to vote against Hammer's appointment to the police commission. Does it really make sense that Hammer would act as his pawn once in office?
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.'"
