Wednesday, Oct. 14 2009 @ 7:30AM
The big news -- in print, on television, and here on the Internet -- is the one thing that even a deaf, illiterate caveman would realize if he bothered to poke his head out of his dwelling: It's raining. It's raining hard and people are getting wet. And if you take your dog out for a walk, it's getting wet, too.
But since this is the story
du jour, we decided to go right to the source. Publicists tend to become very agreeable when you hold their heads down in the toilet bowl long enough, and, just like that, we had an exclusive sit-down with the storm that blew through San Francisco yesterday and rocked everyone's world.
We met the storm -- who goes by "Leonard, just Leonard" -- at The Tonga Room. The artificial rain falling from the ceiling that usually enhances the place's kitschy charm came over and enthusiastically shook Leonard's hand -- "Man, I'd drench these bastards through and through if I could, if they let me -- but you ...
you!" he moaned, staring up at Leonard like a Little-Leaguer in the presence of Derek Jeter.
Leonard magnanimously provided all the patrons with water -- whether they liked it or not. "Plenty more where that came from," Leonard blurted out. "Don't bother waiting to see the weatherman tonight. That's a fact, Jack."
SF Weekly: So, who were your influences?
Leonard: You know, as a gathering storm, you really have to choose role models that work for you. Lots of storms want to emulate the
1900 Galveston hurricane or the
Great Lakes Storm of 1913 -- the big ones. You know,
Hugo,
Andrew,
Katrina of course.
For a while, I admit I was really blatantly ripping off
Hurricane Agnes. It's not something I'm proud of, but those were my formative days as a storm and I really hadn't found myself yet. So the notion of
flooding a capital city to the point that the governor and his family run like hell and being declared the worst disaster in the history of the state of Pennsylvania -- and, hell, this is a
state where subterranean coal fires can burn for damn near a century! -- that was very intoxicating to me.