Blogs

By John Geluardi

The last bohemian friendly valet operation in North Beach was unceremoniously shut down last week to make way for a more “professional” though troubled company that insists on time cards, good grooming and smart uniforms.

Lorenzo Petroni, the owner of North Beach Restaurant lost the lease on a nearby parking lot forcing him to sign a contract with the new company, Liberty Park Management, which has access to a parking garage several blocks from the restaurant.

On March 24, the staff of six valets relinquished the white zone in front of the restaurant at Stockton and Columbus where for 35 years dozens of artists, poets, actors, iconoclasts, free spirits and the confused were able to etch out a living as outrider valets.

San Francisco non-profit tech do-gooders, the Internet Archive, are now providing free Internet services to public housing projects. According to a press release issued by the Archive on Thursday, Valencia Gardens Housing, with 240 units, will be the first building connected at 100 megabits per second. In case megabits means nothing to you, that’s fast. Really fast. Phone companies offer service that connects at around six megabits per second.

The Internet Archive is able to achieve this high speed by connecting the San Francisco municipal fiber optic network, which runs through the public housing developments, to an Archive switching center, which connects to the Internet.

Over the next eight to ten months, the Archive hopes to wire over 2,500 units.-Andy Wright

By Benjamin Wachs

There’s a whole lot of government happening this week, kids. I know that terms like “special use district” make you turn to the numbing solace of animals on YouTube, but hey, that’s what the officials you elected care about (except for the urban hipsters among you – we both know you didn’t vote). So here’s my proposal: SF Government InAction is now a drinking game: any time a zoning term comes up, do a shot.

You might as well: that’s what I do writing it.

Fasten your seat belts and pass the bottle, because it’s a good week for a hangover.

Monday, March 31, 1 p.m. – Land Use & Economic Development Committee

Here’s probably the only funny story about zoning you’ll ever hear. A few months ago, Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval proposed banning new “Head Shops” in the Excelsior. He said this would be legal because the city already restricts new liquor stores there. But, as it turns out, the liquor store regulation he was talking about was one of his own proposals that still hadn’t gotten out of committee yet.

I’m calling this “Quantum Zoning Causality” – where future zoning is used to justify present zoning, which is then used to justify the zoning of the future. It’s brilliant: you can’t protest new zoning, because it’s ALREADY BEEN ZONED – you just don’t know it yet.

String theorists might want to take note: both measures justifying each other are on the agenda of the Land Use committee this week. If they collide at high speeds, we might be able to see the way the universe was first zoned just milliseconds after the Big Bang.

WHAT IM SEEING has an interesting interview with local skater, author, and Chronicle contributor Travis Jensen, formerly known as The SF Masher. The best part is Jensen's memories of trying to find an apartment in S.F. in 1997:

"The City had less than 1% vacancy at the time, so finding an affordable place to live was literally next to impossible. I stayed in a couple shady crack, heroin and flea infested hotels and couch and floor surfed for almost a year before securing a sectioned off hallway space in a rundown flat in Lower Haight. It was like living in freakin’ coffin. For real, the walls were so narrow that my hand-me-down futon mattress folded up on both sides resembling a taco shell. I couldn’t have been happier at the time. I was just stoked to have a space to finally call my own. I ended up living in that hallway for almost two years before I finally scored my own bedroom. Times were rough. I have definitely paid some dues to live here."

If you think the MacBook Air is cool, then check out Dell's new SuperEnvelope! created by comedy group The Bureau. (via Laughing Squid)

Listen to today's Democracy Now! coverage of Cesar Chavez Day, including a clip of Chavez speaking at San Francisco's own Commenwealth Club.(pic from Cesar Chavez Student Center, SFSU)-Andy Wright

Male birth control is no longer limited to vasectomies and condoms, according to an article in the Washington Post. Dudes can now go on a version of the pill that couples progestin, which is found in female birth control pills, and testosterone. An international consortium of physicians have declared the efficacy of the male pill on par with getting a vasectomy. The Male Contraception Information Project (MCIP), which is - surprise!- based out of sex positive SF, says that the argument that men "aren’t willing to participate is clearly out of date." So if the pill exists and men want to take it, when will it be available? Three years. Or never. Until pharmaceutical companies see proof that male birth control pills have the potential to rake in the big bucks, they have no incentive to produce them. No worries, though, guys. Hop over to the MCIP Web site where you can read about methods that utilize electrical shocks and rubber bands!-Andy Wright

The New York Times had an article in Sunday's Fashion and Style section that described the trend of hipsters in the Bay Area moving to new digs in New York and vice versa. It starts out with the story of Eve Levine, a 34-year-old Bay Area defector who runs the lamentably named workshop 'Homebuying for Hipsters' and it just gets better from there. Apparently, "there is a young, earnest population that is beating a path between artsy, gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn and their counterparts in the Bay Area, especially East Oakland and the area south of Market Street in San Francisco, or SoMa." Some dude named Richard Florida wrote a book called The Rise of the Creative Class which ranks San Francisco number one on what he's dubbed the "creativity index." New York ranked a lowly number nine. But that hasn't kept the kids from flitting from coast to coast. (click 'more')

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross wrote in their Sunday installment about the most recent developments in the Olympic torch debacle. Apparently Supervisor Tom Ammiano thinks Newsom is going to be forced to make a choice between heeding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's counsel that he speak out against China's dismal human rights record or following the advice of Senator Dianne Feinstein who is arguing in favor of discretion. And here's the terms in which Ammiano has decided to describe the debate:

"Gavin's situation kind of reminds me of that kids book, 'Heather Has Two Mommies,'…Only in this case, the moms are Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein - and they're pulling him in two different directions.What's a boy to do?"

What better way to discredit female politicians and their opinions than to compare them to carping, finger wagging mommies? Women in power. They're so controlling and they just love to infantalize their male counterparts. And what better way to kick sand in Newsom's eyes then to reduce him to a little boy that gets picked on by the girls? Hillary Clinton tears up and she's a weak, wussy, ineffective leader. Feinstein and Pelosi dare to offer their opinions to the mayor and they're overbearing "moms" who "pull" at their charge. What's a girl to do? -Andy Wright

Three men were shot dead between the time of 2 am and 2:30 am Saturday. From the Chronicle article:

San Francisco resident Derek Butch, 23, and Daly City resident Jason de la Cruz, 31, were fatally shot just before 2:30 a.m. at 19th and Irving streets in the Sunset District, according to San Francisco police.Police said that both men were pronounced dead at the scene…Police responded to reports of a shooting just before 2 a.m. at Excelsior Avenue and Athens Street. One man was pronounced dead at the scene and a second was taken to San Francisco General Hospital in critical condition, according to police.The names of those two victims have not yet been released by the police.

The weekend also saw one fatal shooting in Oakland and one in front of a Richmond church.-Andy Wright