San Francisco News Blog

PayLock

The 'Smart Boot'

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Last week, Oakland became the 14th city in the nation to ink a pact with the PayLock company, which manufactures the Smart Boot. Bart Blair, the company's director of account management told SF Weekly that PayLock has had discussions with San Francisco, too.

And yet, the first thing we thought of when we heard about the nifty devices was the joy of clapping a Smart Boot on a pal's car. Or clapping it on just about anyone's vehicle, and extorting money out of them. But, like we noted before, the company is one bootstep ahead of us. You just can't do this.

Today, our lunch break began with a terrifying encounter with a Specialty's delivery guy, Robert, who appeared to have sustained some serious injuries. That, or he bought fake scars and glued them to his face and caked it with make-up. "I'm just dead," he explained.

Robert, who called in dead for work

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Robert is not the first and certainly not the last to don costume a full 24 hours before the average trick-or-treater. In fact, our lunch break yielded a healthy numbers of early Halloween celebrators (and more than a few pre-ejack-o-lanterns).

​Around 12:30 p.m., this slightly lacking game of beer pong was on the move in front of the baseball stadium. (Ed.: Looks like the gent on the right toting the cane is dressed as Dr. House).

 

Look, you knew this was happening. It had to happen. We owed it to the general public to create a Bay Bridge-themed Fail Whale. And now it's yours for the taking!

Obtain the 1280 x 1024 version here:

View image

 Use it in good health -- and feel free to peruse these failing items as well.

Audrey Fukuman, based on original illustration by @yiyinglu

Get it while it's hot!

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What were the odds of this happening?

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In examining Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's letter to the California State Assembly in which the letters I F-U-C-K Y-O-U appear vertically down the left-hand side, it is hard to imagine that it could have happened randomly.

The letter purportedly explains Schwarzenegger's refusal to sign AB 1176 -- an ordinary piece of legislation regarding the Port of San Francisco's finances -- which happened to be sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who recently told the governator to "kiss my gay ass." Motive? Check. 

In all seriousness, we wondered what the chances were that the letters "I FUCK YOU" ended up on the page via sheer coincidence. So we called a few math professors.

Stephen Devlin, the chair of the math department at the University of San Francisco, got excited about the challenge. The first thing he had to do was estimate how frequently the letters in question generally appear at the beginning of words.

Greenskeeper Joseph Frankel tees off in his backyard

​Since we first covered the "funemployment" phenomenon in a June cover story, we here at SF Weekly have been pleasantly surprised again and again by the productive uses to which jobless young San Franciscans are turning their idle hands. From blogging to designing funemployment flare, folks in this city seem inexplicably hellbent on doing creative and useful things instead of turning to drink, television, and despair.

Time to add another all-star to the funemployment hall of fame. His name is Joseph Frankel. He's a 25-year-old resident of the Inner Richmond, via New Jersey, where he grew up. Since he was laid off from a beer distributor at the end of last year, Frankel has actually built a golf course in his back yard.

You don't exactly have to be Tiger Woods to make it on the green in one at the Richmond Country Club, as Frankel and his roommates have dubbed their idyllic golfing enclave, which was previously a fenced-off dirt lot not much bigger than a garage. The club now features several sets of turf for teeing off from different distances, a strip of lawn serving as a fairway, and a rolling green with multiple holes, each of which can be capped when not in use. Frankel has even laid out some turf on the roof of his building, where players can take a swing at their wiffle golf balls (the only kind used at Richmond CC) from par-5 range.

Perhaps you've seen this before -- but it was a new thrill to us. A pair of gents with a time-lapse camera that snapped photos every 10 seconds have distilled their cross-country automobile journey down to the above four-and-a-half minute haul from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.

In case you're wondering, this is the quickest anyone has left San Francisco since Gavin Newsom heard there were some folks in Bakersfield with an abiding interest in health care and photogenic mayors.

If you're also wondering how fast a vehicle that could tear from Mason Street to the nation's capital in four minutes and 36 seconds would be traveling, we did the math for you:

​If you happen to live in the areas bordered by Haight, Steiner, and Pierce Streets near Duboce Park and you walked outside today to find dead, injured, and/or bloodied trick-or-treaters swarming your 'hood (now coated in spider webbing and littered with jack-o-lanterns), don't panic, and for the love of God, don't call 911.

It's just the filming of a Halloween Trauma episode. Earlier today, our Online News Editor Joe Eskenazi made his way through the set, where it was impossible to tell the difference between real SFPD officers and cop actors. (Everybody was apparently working pretty hard, though, so our money's on actors).

Although nobody had been involved in any serious accidents yet, it was hard not to be concerned about what horrible fates might be in store for this adorable little Dracula boy and nearby shy puppy.

​More pics after the jump.

511 is the He-Man of websites

​Earlier today, Government Computer News named San Francisco's 511 transit page, www.transit.511.org, one of the top-10 great government websites. And not only that, but 511 was also designated fuckin' "heroic." 

"Although a number of cities offer Web-based trip planners," says Government Computer News, "San Francisco's combines the schedules of dozens of subway, light-rail, trolley and bus systems, a heroic act of interagency coordination."

Other winning websites included the USPS virtual post office, data.gov, science.gov, webcontent.com (a Web site demonstrating how to make better Web sites) and the site for the state of Utah. But none of them got the high distinction of "hero."   

If you thought the EMTs you saw downtown today were inordinately good-looking -- well, there's a reason for that. The new NBC show Trauma is filming today until 2 p.m. on Sansome between Pine and Sutter and Bush between Montgomery and Battery. The streets are blocked off to vehicle traffic, but pedestrians are free to wander through the set. (Well, on the sidewalk and designated cross walks. It's kind of hard to tell the Hollywood cops from the real ones, so jaywalking is not encouraged.)

Several large signs inform those who opt to trot past the cameras that they are, in fact, offering their image up for use in Trauma or "...any other production, in any and all media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide in perpetuity..." Sheesh -- was this agreement crafted by Mephistopheles himself? Anyway, everyone involved in filming was so friendly, it made me wonder if they'd all been slipped ecstasy at craft services. Every time I paused to take an actor's picture he or she immediately asked if I would like to be in it with them. One man helping with the production end of things commanded me to get my ass out of the shot by shouting, "Hey, you! Beautiful lady! Move back." Oh, Okay!

The ominous sign.

​More pics after the jump!

Our loyal readers, as well as those with a disproportionate interest in malodorous local flora, remember a series of articles we wrote in early July about San Francisco State's shrinking violet of a corpse flower. After holding out for days past experts' repeated predictions of its imminent stinky bloom -- an event that only occurs once in a decade, if then -- the otherworldly looking plant noxiously opened over the July 4 weekend.

We were there with our camera to document the event. At the time, we noticed a camera (better than ours) mounted directly above the corpse flower and snapping automatically every seven minutes. We finally stumbled across the resultant stop-motion video -- and, like most stop-motion videos, it was a thrill. But it caught more than just a stinky plant. It caught ... some hippies!

Going mobile

 As you heard here earlier this month, Gregory Pike, the renowned San Francisco street performer who has trained a rat to stand atop a cat standing atop a dog, has departed our fair city following a conviction and fine on a charge of "public obstruction" for drawing large crowds at Union Square. We caught up with Pike this morning in a telephone interview from Lake Tahoe, where his animal companions -- Booger the dog, Kitty the cat, and Mousey the rat -- are apparently charming folks in the Golden State's hinterlands.

Never short on showmanship, Pike is traveling to Sturgis, S.D., on a motorized bicycle pulling a trailer packed with his furry friends. "I just got them out of the trailer and there's already a big crowd," he told us. (To see our video of the mammalian stack in action, click here.) Add the name Booger to the pantheon of American travelers that includes Huck Finn and Dean Moriarty: Pike and the gang are On the Road again.

For us sedentary types, meanwhile, there's some good news. Like Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Pike told us this morning that he shall return. He said there's a film being shot this fall in San Francisco for which he has signed on as an animal trainer. In three months, he said, he'll return to our city.

Bella, a lady in search of a home

The King of Pop is dead, child predators roam the friendly skies, and California's economy is grinding to a halt while our Austrian-born governor unwinds in his jacuzzi. But it's not all bad news out there, folks. Once in a while we get wind of a project that does good in the world free from the taint of greed, pride, or ideological bias. The latest is Muttville.

Muttville is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that finds homes for old dogs. Its founder, Sherri Franklin, noticed after years of volunteering at the SPCA that older canines were frequently passed over for their younger counterparts in the adoption process, leading to loneliness, dejection, and euthanasia for furry would-be friends.

Years have brought wisdom to Dharma

Muttville takes these dogs from shelters in San Francisco and across the state -- some dogs have come from as far away as Los Angeles -- and places them in a circuit of temporary canine foster homes provided by volunteers. From there, the dogs go to permanent owners. Franklin says Muttville has rescued 400 dogs in the roughly two years since it was incorporated. (Note: The dogs Muttville works with aren't all creaking with age. Bella, pictured above, is 6; Dharma, right, is 7.)

Janine Kahn

An artist's rendition of Jeff Adachi's dump truck

Answers are trickling in from our elected officials on how they plan on cruising at this weekend's Pride Parade. Starting at the top, Mayor Gavin Newsom takes the same approach with vehicles as he does with spokesmen -- if one is good, then more is great!

A letter from staunch Newsom supporter and District 6 supervisor candidate David Villa-Lobos disseminates info from the mayor's office to the hundreds of folks expected to march in the Newsom's convoy: Leading things off is the mayor's Lincoln town car, ahead of the mayor's convertible, and followed by marchers in "Mayor's pride t-shirts" which will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Since whomever fired off this material from the mayor's office seems to have copied elements of it from the 2008 release, it's possible that the infamous hybrid SUV will be the lead vehicle, not the town car.

Going in a completely different direction is Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who will be riding in a white Chevy big bed dump truck -- "We're too poor to afford a float," notes Adachi, who has been engaged in a long-running game of "budget chicken" with Newsom and his allies on the board. "We'll have 100 in our contingent with several banners," continued Adachi. "You'll know us because we'll be blasting 'Fight the Power' (by the Isleys) and John Lennon's 'Power to the People.' We'll also have t-shirts with our signature quote: 'Getting you off since 1921.'"

Bevan Dufty's sweet ride...

In case you missed the proliferation of rainbow flags and the huge influx of prideful people heading into our fair city, things are ramping up for the big Pride Parade on Sunday, June 28.

As the knives begin to come out behind the scenes in the city's simmering budget battle, the parade offers a chance for our city's elected officials to traipse down sunny streets and toss trinkets to adoring onlookers. You'd think a politician skipping the gay pride parade in San Francisco would be like going to Hawaii and skipping the beach -- but you'd be surprised.

Quick phone calls to every member of the board of supervisors revealed that, if just under half of them have plans for Sunday, they haven't shared them with their staffs. We'll give them time to get their stories straight -- but, in the meantime, some of the supes have grand plans indeed. Adorning this story is a photograph of Supervisor Bevan Dufty's impressive-as-hell pride float, which is well on its way to becoming a fully operational battle station. And he's sharing his ride.  

Returning library books on time can be tough, and everybody has their reasons. In fact, as part of the San Francisco Public Library's most recent amnesty campaign, those who returned items were asked to give their best excuses.

It turns out, a second grader named Vanessa was too busy learning about and assisting sea creatures to return her books. A man named Gil was sabotaged by his sister, who checked out the Babe DVD under his name, hid it, and left town.

A lesbian named Gretchen said she began dating a Jewish woman in 1994, which prompted her to check out The Jewish Book of Why.

"Fifteen years and three Jewish girlfriends later, I still don't have the answers," Gretchen reported upon returning the book.  

In total, the period of amnesty, which allowed overdue items to be returned to the library in exchange for the cancellation of late fees, brought 29,228 items back to the shelves between May 3 and 16. The total value of those items was about $730,000, according to library spokeswoman Michelle Jeffers. Those who returned items saved themselves $55,165 in overdue fines -- and more than 3,000 people wound up with a clean record.

I TOLD you he was real!

Anyone of a certain age riding an F-Line trolley or bus on Market toward Van Ness can be forgiven for wondering if they've hallucinated, projecting a vestige of their childhood onto a passing wall. Many riders probably conclude that's the case; blink and it's gone.

But those walking past Market and Brady know it's true: There's a professional-grade graffiti mural composed of Donkey Kong Jr., Q-Bert, and, a treat for the careful onlooker (again, of a certain age) Ghost Monsters from Pac Man.

The San Francisco 1980s nostalgia wall was tagged on the videogame-centric Web site Pixelated Geek in a feature highlighting worldwide videogame-related graffiti. We are self-admitted San Francisco chauvinists, but we couldn't help but chuckle at the following, spotted in Halifax, Canada:
Here are some more good ones:

Well that is a new deal, isn't it?

Back in March, our favorite local memory athlete Chester Santos traveled to New York to defend his 2008 U.S. Memory Championship title. He had been training pretty hard, memorizing decks of playing cards in truly bizarre ways, but apparently, some guy from Grapevine, Texas, simply trained harder, and more bizarrely.

Ron White, a dimpled 35-year-old Navy man, memorized decks while while stationed in Afghanistan, and also while underwater -- in snorkeling gear (pictured). The point of the underwater training, according to Megan Feldman's story published yesterday in our sister paper, The Dallas Observer, was to become mentally tougher. If White could memorize a full deck of cards underwater in little more than two minutes, he could probably do it even faster on land.  

White's training technique echoes the Navy SEAL concept that "the more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in times of war," Feldman wrote in her eloquent, inspirational tale of a fairly ordinary guy who has pushed himself to do extraordinary things.

Nick Stern

A few months back, the L.A.Times published an exciting story about the advent of the EDAR. Designed with the meaning of the acronym, Everyone Deserves A Roof, in mind, the EDAR is essentially a mobile shelter with a built-in cot that collapses into a shopping cart. It's wind proof. It's water proof. It can accommodate multiple people. There's no denying that the EDAR is an extremely interesting idea.

Nick Stern

It originated in the mind of Peter Samuelson (yes, the same Peter Samuelson behind Revenge of the Nerds), a philanthropist and L.A.-based movie producer who interviewed dozens of homeless about their needs and determined that they would benefit greatly from a mobile shelter.

Created by yours truly at ACME ChuMaker.

It's all the terrible truth

It just ain't a San Francisco event until Frank Chu lopes up, toting his sign. It doesn't matter if it's an SEIU picket, a Holocaust remembrance ceremony, or a sale at Ross -- all that's important to Chu is that he can wave his bizarre message in front of the masses and spread the truth: While he was the prince of China, several former U.S. presidents in cahoots with the CIA and 12 galaxies used mind-controlling drugs to film a movie of him and his family and broadcast it to the 12 galaxies and never paid Frank a cent for being its star.

If you've ever wanted to offer Chu advice on how to print a properly jaw-dropping sign -- but were afraid to approach him -- now you can "model" a sign on Chu himself at the excellent "Acme ChuMaker" Web site. Using around a dozen different photos of Chu on the streets of San Francisco, the site allows you to enter your own text -- and can also supply "automatically generated Chuglish."

We may have followed through on Emperor Norton's suggestion to build the Bay Bridge -- but none of the Emperor's contemporaries gave him his own Web site. Warrants mentioning.

The bad news: This stellar display of HD light show projection by Obscura Digital is almost certainly the precursor to the next wave of high-tech Budweiser and Coors ads that we'll one day tune out.

In the meantime, however, the San Francisco company's recent transformation of the city's Old Mint into a 3D palate is still pretty darn cool. We can be jaded tomorrow.

H/T   |   FastCompany.com

We're not sure why, but we're mesmerized by the above map. Perhaps it's the oddly nonsensical rationale of overlapping the city's cab routes, trees, and reported crimes. Perhaps it's the notion that this is what Muni maps would look like if Georges-Pierre Seurat were hired to paint them. Perhaps the pretty colors have overwhelmed us at the end of an exhausting week.

The above map was created by local designer Shawn Allen based on data culled from a week's surfing of Crime Reports, one day of tracking the Exploratorium's CabSpotting site, and a visit to the Friends of the Urban Forest online. You can see a gigantic version of this map here.

Is there a use for this map other than staring at it and falling into a trance? Perhaps. It's interesting -- though not surprising -- to note that there's a lot more crime than trees in the city's extreme Southeast (and no goddamn cabs). It's disturbing to note the isolated crimes atop forested mountains -- and not a cab in sight to break them up.

By the way -- what color would a dot have to be to indicate a drug deal going on in the back of a cab that strikes a tree?
 

Joe Eskenazi

Shaun O'Sullivan, co-owner and brewmaster at the 21st Amendment, has crafted 372 gallons of his special "Spring Tweets" Twitter beer.

Twitter -- the now-ubiquitous San Francisco-based messaging system media outlets are struggling to mention as often as possible -- combines the unfortunate characteristics of enabling people to communicate more and more while saying meaningful things less and less. It may change society or it may end up being Northern California's least welcome gift to society since the word "hella."

But, apart from confirming once and for all that Gavin Newsom is handsome and popular among smitten co-eds, Twitter hasn't done much for the kind of folks who can't tell a fail whale from a whale tail -- until now. SoMa's own 21st Amendment brewery and restaurant on Monday debuted its "Spring Tweets" Ale, a tip of the cap to the many Twitter groups who have packed the bar (Incidentally, media types such as your humble narrator who ran like hell to make the event because of the Twitter announcement that "Sully" would be there -- thinking that hero pilot Chelsey Sullenberger would be hoisting pints -- instead were greeted by affable brewmaster Shaun O'Sullivan).

Joe Eskenazi

Like the 140-character "tweets," the spring ale is unfiltered -- and in brewmaster O'Sullivan's words "a little rough around the edges." Sounds Twitter-like to us!

And yet, the beer's disarmingly light initial offering is bolstered by a surprisingly strong and pleasantly hoppy aftertaste. No doubt about it, O'Sullivan's creation is more substantial than its namesake.

After all, Web trends come and go. But good beer is timeless.

The towering "Left-Coast Lifter" bides its time in Oakland prior to its deployment crafting the new Bay Bridge. Sorry this photo isn't exactly of Ansel Adams' caliber, but it's not easy to drive and shoot...

Earlier this month, the Bay Area media went gaga over the "Left-Coast Lifter," the massive platform-based crane brought in to, literally, do the heavy lifting for the Bay Bridge. SF Weekly made a couple of calls and, to our astonishment, we ended up on the line with Mike Flowers, the project director overseeing the whole bridge shebang (too many unheeded communiques to the Mayor's Office of Communications can lead one to forget that some people actually do answer their phones and return their calls).

Flowers explained to SF Weekly just what the massive crane -- built in Oregon and China and costing roughly $50 million -- was capable of doing. And, perhaps most intriguingly, he noted that, by next year, the Lifter's work will likely be over -- and the folks at American Bridge-Fluor Enterprises will have to ponder how to get a skyscraper-sized water crane off their hands.

In the meantime, you can catch the lifter in all its glory just before the EBMUD sewage treatment plant, right by I-80 Eastbound as you exit the section of the Bay Bridge it will help to replace. There is no shortage of cranes in that vicinity, but the Lifter stands out; its impressive size and gaudy red, white, and blue coloration make it the Super Dave Osborne of cranes.

Courtesy American Bridge-Fluor Enterprises

Seen here in a "proof-load" in China, the Lifter can handle 2,000-ton objects. Hopefully, it will soon be doing so here in the Bay Area

Courtesy American Bridge-Fluor Enterprises

The 'Left-Coast Lifter,' seen here in a 'proof load' in China, has lifted up to 2,000-ton objects. Do you have room for it in your backyard?

On what section of Craigslist would you hawk "MASSIVE CRANE! Lifts 1,700 tons -- Like New!"?

How about "Tools"? "Collectibles"? Well, certainly not "Free".

The gargantuan "Left-Coast Lifter" that will, literally, do the heavy lifting for the "Self-Anchored Suspension" span of the Bay Bridge sailed into San Francisco waters this week. The gushing fanfare accorded the crane on the pages of local papers affirmed what is, genuinely, a heart-warming notion: Even journalists and brilliant engineers with an alphabet's worth of letters following their names still retain a child's enthusiasm for amazing, oversized machinery (and, believe you me, we're going to have some great details about what this crane can do -- in a minute).

And yet, Mike Flowers, the project director overseeing the bridge's construction, says the Bay Area's newest landmark may not be here for very long. The work for which the Lifter was custom-built figures to be done by next year (knock on wood), meaning Flowers and his company will be facing a difficult question: Who wants to buy a second-hand crane large enough that -- unlike the Giants -- it could fill AT&T Park?

What's shaking -- literally.

As someone who has, for his entire existence, lived atop an earthquake fault and in buildings where "insulation" translates to "put on a sweater," the question posed in the headline has come up dozens of times. Was that the San Andreas Fault -- or Sam and Andreas upstairs?

Thankfully, however, the United States Geological Survey long ago produced this Web site that definitively reveals whether you'd have been better off ducking under the bed or thumping a broomstick on the ceiling.

This site tracks every known earthquake fault in the San Francisco area, and notes recent activity with size- and color-coded markers. The bigger the tab, the bigger the quake. And yellow, blue, and red indicate whether the temblor was recorded in the last week, day, or hour.

And, if the disturbance was indeed due to amorous neighbors -- and you wish to, say, force them onto a skiff and push it into the ocean -- then the same site comes equipped with a to-the-minute page charting Bay wind patterns.  

Fair enough. We're addicted. A co-worker recently shot us a link to Wordle.net, where you can create art via text written by you or anyone on God's green earth -- or, depending upon where you stand on biblical literalcy, God. In fact, what follows is the "Word art" for  The Book of Genesis (King James Version). Obviously, the more often a word comes up in the text, the more prominently it's displayed in the word art:

On a local note, here's Mayor Gavin Newsom's State of the City speech from 2006:
 

And this is "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" by the dearly departed John Updike:

Here's C.W. Nevius' Feb. 26 column in the San Francisco Chronicle:


And, finally, here's the script for The Big Lebowski:



Got a good one? Run it through Wordle.net and send us the links or JPGs.

Pablo Picasso

Picasso, unlike Michela Alioto-Pier, thinks that a child can indeed be a 'harlequin object'

This week Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier made a proposal that San Francisco "adopt the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and supporting its inalienable freedoms for children and youth in San Francisco."

The proposal, which includes stirring language about how "Children and youth are unique and invaluable to the human race as the continuum of our existence and livelihood" also specifically notes that a child is NOT a "harlequin object."

A what?

I'm familiar with Harlequin (the character from the Italian Commedia del'Arte) and Harlequin (the line of romance novels) ... but a "harlequin object"? I have no idea what that means.

So I called Alioto-Pier's staff and asked them to explain it to me. After a few minutes on hold, I was told they'd need to get back to me on that. 

Meanwhile, a Google search turned up zilch. 

Far be it from me to suggest that a supervisor put language she doesn't understand -- or that might not even be real -- into a proposed law, but while we're waiting for her office to explain itself, SF Weekly has decided that maybe the people should step in and help.

So here's your chance:  DEFINE A "HARLEQUIN OBJECT" in the comments section below, and explain how Alioto-Pier is right to say that a child isn't one. 

The best entry, as chosen by me and SF Weekly's online news editor, Joe Eskenazi, will win ... a Harlequin Object!  (laws permitting).  So name your own prize!

Photo of Pablo Picasso painting   |   Free Parking

By Joe Eskenazi 

The Partridge Family bus notwithstanding, not everything about the 1970s trumped today's world. Everyone wore polyester - and smoked - a combination that could very well turn you into The Human Torch. And yet, after one lit himself ablaze (or, as both my parents managed to do, independently, immolate the back seat of the car via a poorly tossed cigarette) you could count on your call to the paramedics going through. Clunky as they are to the modern eye, Sgt. Pepper-era phones were built to last.

Those young enough to have never watched childhood images of themselves placed beneath the dial of the rotary phone cartwheel to and fro as they placed a call probably don't remember this, but, prior to about 1980, one didn't buy a phone - you leased it from the phone company. In many ways, telephone technology has pushed the limits of human imagination; we're fending off commercials these days for products that are higher tech than the stuff Kirk and Spock used on Star Trek. But, now that phones are a standard consumer item, planned obsolescence has kicked in. If manufacturers figure you're going to upgrade in a year or two, there's no need to build a phone that'll last much longer - in fact, it'd be counterproductive. Not so in the olden days. Rotary phones were constructed to outlast their owners, and many of them have. Dotting the antique and curio stores throughout the city, they've taken on new lives as exotic vestiges of a bygone age.

Words and Photos By Ashley Harrell 

(Click here for a full Santacon 2008 slideshow.)

Saturday was a pretty average day -- if a little cold -- until the chanting started. Listening through an open window in my North Beach apartment, I couldn't quite make out the words. So I headed toward Washington Square Park to see what all the commotion was about, and everything became clear.

They were chanting "Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho!" and by they, I mean about 200 people dressed in some version, and in many cases a perverse version, of Santa Claus. They were also playing dodge ball, climbing trees, pounding beers, and generally inciting chaos. The defenseless Benjamin Franklin Memorial quickly became a victim of that chaos when somebody wrote "HO" in white spray paint on the base (see above photo), then climbed the monument and santafied it.

 

By Ashley Harrell

Sunday at 2 p.m., a phalanx of young scalawags armed with fresh, juicy produce descended on Warm Water Cove in Potrero Hill for San Francisco's first ever organized tomato fight. Why they had come to this particular spot at this particular time, nobody wanted to say.

"The Internet told me to," one guy offered, cryptically.

Apparently, a secret society's yahoo group was involved, and also an email of mysterious origin announcing the details of SF's first ever Tomatina (also the name of massive yearly tomato fight in Spain). The fight would last just 15 minutes, and there were three rules. Eye protection was necessary, cameramen were off-limits, and tomatoes must be squished in the hand before launch.

"Now some of you might think this is a waste of perfectly good tomatoes. No," the email went on to explain. "A waste of tomatoes would be giving them to a vegan cook so they can make sauce for their overcooked, gluten-free, expeller-pressed fettuccine. Either way the tomato is wasted, but at least you get SOME joy from the end result."