Thank copyright law for bringing Green Day back to its punk roots, even though the band has sold well over 70 million records, its members helped conceive a Broadway opera, the lead singer is a family man, and the drummer still goes by the somewhat antiquated stage handle, "Tre Cool."
Today Green Day clinched a win in a snarly copyright case at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, after a three-judge panel absolved the band of charges that it unfairly filched intellectual property from Los Angeles artist Dereck Seltzer.
Yesterday we noted that the Piazza Pelligrini restaurant received a pair of unwelcome guests: Bricks, which fell from the Pagoda Palace demolition site next door.
Restaurateur Dario Hadjian was less than thrilled with the notion of construction debris coming to a rest next to his outdoor cafe tables (the bricks purportedly tumbled within the construction zone, then rolled beneath a fence). So, this morning, when he found more bricks, he was even less than less-than-thrilled.
And he called the cops.
After finding "15 to 20" brick fragments on his roof this morning, Hadjian filed a police report. He then got his insurance agent involved. "Basically, this is giving them fair warning that if this happens again they will definitely be negligent because they have been warned," said Farmer's Insurance agent Thomas Madden, who drafted a polite but terse letter encouraging the segregation of brick fragments and restaurant property.
The long-abandoned Pagoda Palace will serve as the extraction point for the boring machines digging the Central Subway. Muni spokesman Paul Rose countered that the brick fragments from the site on Hadjian's roof were very small.
While it comes as no shock that San Francisco is a sparkling gem of anything-but-vanilla sex, some residents have taken things a step further. In the wake of the "Fifty Shades" trilogy, SeekingArrangement.com -- the unabashed "mutually beneficial" dating website -- has crunched some numbers and found some fascinating facts about local ladies.
The number of women seeking a BDSM arrangement -- a "Fifty Shade" relationship -- through their site has nearly doubled to 41.5 percent. That's about 263,000 women, which represents more than 18 percent of their total female membership.
Update, 6:18 p.m. : The plaintiffs' attorney, John Burris, said he's pleased with the Ninth Circuit's decision to implicate Pirone. "It was Pirone's needless overaggressiveness that resulted in Oscar's death," Burris said. While Mehserle was culpable for the shooting, he added, it was Pirone's actions that "set everything in motion."
Original story:
The specter of Oscar Grant floated back into popular discourse this summer, and not only because Ryan Coogler's film Fruitvale Station briefly resurrected the slain 22 year-old. Earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a closely-watched civil rights case that Grant's friends and family launched against the three BART officers who were implicated in Grant's killing, as well as the transit agency and its management.
According to the court's opinion, shooter Johannes Mehserle, who served 11 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, isn't the only person who's guilty for Oscar Grant's death.
People can expect another street-clogging weekend as hundreds and thousands of people are expected to embark to the city for concerts, sailing competitions and Giants games.
About 65,000 are expected each day at Golden Gate Park for the three-day Outside Lands Music Festival. On the other side of the city, the struggling San Francisco Giants will take on the Baltimore Orioles in a three-game series which starts on Friday. Then down at Pier 27, Cheech & Chong and Train and company will entertain thousands at the America's Cup Pavilion on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
