This week's cover story, "Overexposed," dissects the growing trend of naked men taking advantage of San Francisco's laissez faire interpretation of indecent exposure laws. At SF Weekly's photo shoot, a couple of the naked men talked about the growing trend. Watch the video, after the jump.
This week, Lauren Smiley's cover story, "Overexposed," tells the tale of a group of Castro nudists who have met opposition from neighborhood residents displeased with their very public nudity. SF Weekly art director Andrew Nilsen assembled three of the men in a studio for a photoshoot with photographer Kimberly Sandie and created this video of the process. After the jump, go behind the scenes and see the shots that didn't make it onto the cover. (And, while we'd argue this video falls firmly under the category of 'art,' there are penises. Set to the Scissor Sisters. Consider yourself warned.)
An investment offer advertised in the San Francisco Chronicle by the bank Advanta promised 11 percent annual interest at a time when savings accounts typically offered less than 2 percent. As we noted in an article and blog post shortly thereafter, the offer was too good to be true.
Now comes news that Chronicle readers would have done better with a normal savings account -- or even a piggy bank. But Advanta investors could have potentially done worse, considering they'd put their money into what former bank regulators referred to as a Ponzi scheme.
According to press statements issued earlier this month, a deal reached in bankruptcy court will have the bank repaying buyers of advertised Advanta investment notes between 64.4 percent and 100 percent. While losing 36 percent of one's capital is worse than earning 11 percent, it sure beats the sob stories that go along with similarly dodgy investments.
The terms "broken hip" and "pro football" are more than a little incongruous. It's an injury you'd associate with a shuffleboard mishap at a Florida retirement home more than a gridiron malady. And yet, San Francisco 49ers star running back Frank Gore is out for the season with a broken hip. Here's wishing him a full recovery.
He'll need it -- because the team's starkly stripped-down offense appears to have only one defining mantra: Run Frank Gore until he breaks his hip.
With Gore unavailable last night vs. Arizona, veteran back Brian Westbrook -- who came into the game with nine rushing yards on the season -- stepped up run for 136 yards. Granted, the Cardinals are not the 1985 Chicago Bears -- but if you were looking for yet another reason to question the competence of the 49ers coaching staff, now you have it.
Alamo Square is one of the most photographed places in the city, if not on God's green earth. But precious few photos of Alamo Square have a gorgeous produce stand in the background. Simply put, that's because Alamo Square doesn't have a produce stand. Getting the permitting to hawk vegetables in the midst of a well-heeled tourist Mecca would require hurdles that even Jesse Owens could have cleared.
From the way the woman caught in this photograph was lovingly placing the zucchinis just so, it soon became apparent that selling the lovely vegetables wasn't the stated goal today. It turns out the produce was part of a backdrop for a forthcoming set of advertisements featuring attractive people frolicking in the grass, the ubiquitous Painted Ladies, and, for some reason, a produce stand. "They said they wanted a vegetable stand," said one of the small army of employees working the shoot.
The state of California has, once again, updated its list of California's biggest sales tax delinquents -- and the No. 1 target is, well, Target.
But not the Target you're thinking of. The big-box retailer with the checkered record regarding gay rights that has San Franciscans enraged has, ostensibly, paid up its sales taxes. A company called California Target Enterprises, Inc., however, owes the state's Board of Equalization $18.1 million.
The state may have trouble getting its money back. The headquarters of the Target in question is an office park in Downey, Calif. A call to dentist Dr. Anthony Bordas -- who owns the building -- reveals that he shares the three-tenant office park with a tax company in Suite A; and a storefront church in Suite B. And a call to Target Enterprise's listed number puts one on the line with a polite older woman who insists she's had that number for years -- and doesn't owe the state $18.1 million.
As expected, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris declared victory in her race for Attorney General this morning in her "major announcement" this morning in Los Angeles.
"I stand before you today humbled to be chosen the next Attorney General," she told an ecstatic crowd. "...I'd like to acknowledge and thank District Attorney Steve Cooley for his leadership. I have talked to him and look forward to working with him."
She could have told him right then and there. Her vanquished Republican opponent is, after all, the district attorney of L.A. County.
Don't smoke that! Get a union man to smoke that!
San Francisco is a famous union town, a reputation won on the docks. But this isn't the 1930s, and "budtenders" at cannabis dispensaries aren't the spitting image of striking longshoremen. Still, organizers with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 -- which unionized about 100 workers at Oaksterdam University in May - are at this moment actively recruiting new members in San Francisco, and are looking to add cannabis cultivators as well as sellers to its ranks.
"The medical cannabis industry is a retail, agricultural and food processing industry, and Local 5 is a retail, agricultural and food-processing union," said Local 5 organizer Dan Rush, who made this pitch to the city's patients and advocates at the Nov. 19 meeting of the Medical Cannabis Task Force at City Hall. "Local 5 is determined to bring dignity to the cannabis industry."
This all sounds well and good, but dispensary owners - or workers - don't appear to be breaking down Rush's door in an effort to get their union cards. One Task Force member present for Rush's appearance characterized the reaction as "indifferent."
The memorably named company "Goats R Us" R in trouble with the law.
Judge Paul Fogel of Alameda County Superior Court ordered owner Egon Oyarzun and herder Wilfredo Felix to stand trial; both will be arraigned next week on animal neglect charges. Their troubles stem from October arrests after animal control officers found 10 dead goats and dozens of malnourished animals on the Orinda company's pasture.
For members of the San Francisco Giants hoping to spend their $318,000 World Series bonuses -- do you know the way to San Jose?
The team -- collectively, the entire team -- will serve as the honorary grand marshal of this year's San Jose Holiday parade on Sunday.
Somehow, we get the feeling Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff won't be draining cans of Bud Lite while Huff brandishes his red thong underwear for the gathered masses this time 'round.
