If you ever find yourself sitting in front of the computer wondering if it's too soon to make a joke about the kid who accidentally ran over his grandmother, the answer is "yes." --Andy Wright
Playboy, preeminent purveyor of antiseptic hetero glamour shot porn, will be branching out into the gay market. Are you ready for hot, hot, hot, "professionally produced adult programs" that "shall not depict actual anal penetration, licking or anal sexual play of any kind?" We thought so.
According to a May 9 item on Xbiz.com, Playboy enterprises will begin offering softcore gay porn through an on-demand cable channel tentatively named Gay Targeted VOD Package Service. Package service, indeed.
My question is, who pays for softcore? It's one thing if you're in a hotel room and they happen to have a free channel of smooth adults with carefully concealed genitals rolling around on silk sheets, or if you're thirteen and Showtime is rerunning a Red Show Diaries episode at 3am. But who pays for softcore smut when free porno teaming with penetration exists for free on the Internet? Playboy may have a reliable customer base in straight men, but will gay men who have no fond memories of discovering Playboys under dad's bed fork over their cash to maybe see an erect penis? --Andy Wright
Chron columnist CW Nevius had a piece in Sunday’s paper about the plight of homeless women in SF, focusing on the frequency of sexual assault and the difficulty these women have finding assistance. So far so good.
Nevius writes about one woman’s plight, Carla Crandall, a 32-year-old college graduate who’s battling a heroin addiction. He interviews Carolyn Ritchie, who was a social worker at the Tom Waddell clinic for 17 years. Ritchie expresses frustration at the lack of resources for women in Crandall’s situation. And then there’s this:
"You can see by looking at her that she'd be a target," Ritchie said. "In this case, her good looks are almost a disadvantage."
Because only women who conform to certain beauty standards are targets for rape, right?
A few paragraphs later, Nevius returns to the subject of looks, writing, “ But the life takes its toll. Their hair falls out, their skin withers and scars. Without dental care, the women lose their teeth. And then who wants to take care of you?”
I didn't realize that one of the problems homeless women face is that they are too unattractive for people to care about. Nothing is more frustrating then when a discussion of women's rights and needs gets bogged down with a needless appraisal of their appearance. -- Andy Wright
Just last week, the Los Angeles Times found a nifty new answer to the age-old question "How do we milk all this free Craigslist content and use it to create page views for us and thus money!!? Money!!?!"
That answer involves videographer Katy Newton, who has been trolling the C-List's "Missed Connections" section for fractions of stories to turn into video segments for the Times' new "ICU" section. Clever or creepy? We're not sure. But we're intrigued and will be checking back on Tuesday for the next installment. Which is probably exactly what their new "innovation editor" had in mind.
Fishbowl LA has the LAT's press release if you wanna see it. --Janine Kahn
Pool photograph by Vladimir Rodionov
Standing a full 9-foot-7, outgoing Russian president Vladimir Putin presided over the today's inauguration of his favored son, Dmitry Medvedev. Putin's scene-stealing speech — he warned his foes they would soon have a size-30 boot in their asses — points to his continued hand (and foot) on the reins of government.
The inauguration (complete with a set of dwarf soldiers in adorable Crimean War-era uniforms sans gangrene) was an eye-opener for the West. Previously, we knew Medvedev was young (42) and loves Black Sabbath. Now we also know he's short — why, it's as if he'd fit right in Putin's pocket! Ho, ho ho!
In other news, The New York Times continued its arcane insistence on using middle initials: That'd be Vladimir V. Putin and Dmitry A. Medvedev. This, theoretically, clears things up for readers: "No, no, no, this is an article about Vladimir V. Putin. Not that other guy — we do get that a lot!"
Incidentally, the "V." stands for Vladimirovich; the "A." for Anatolyevich. That ought to clear things up.
— Joe Eskenazi
This is the headline that greeted SFGate readers this morning. Someone who is no fan of columnist Mark Morford appears to have thrown up a string of spammish dribble in place of Morford's usual Wednesday offering (unless of course this is the Wednesday offering). Click for more screenshots and "Kick-up porno dvd for mmorford!!! Kylie Minogue Kick-up porno!!! Penelope Cruz Stunning photo!!!"
Note: There will be no kick-up porno and no stunning photos of Penelope Cruz after the jump.
The adorably named Webby Awards were founded in 1996 and have come to be thought of as “the Oscars of the web,” although at this point they may actually be more valid than their film counterpart. (Titanic, anyone?)
The awards are the brain child of San Francisco filmmaker named Tiffany Shlain whose most recent effort is a short called The Tribe that utilizes, among other elements, archival footage and dioramas to tell a side by side history of Barbie and the Jewish people.
This year’s Webby Awards recognized several SF based sites. Wired.com took home Best Copy/Writing. Flickr garnered two awards, Best Practices and Community (in which they nabbed not only the official award, but the People’s Voice Award as well.) Digg received a People’s Voice Award for Best Practices. Numerous other SF based sites were nominated, including Burner favorite Laughing Squid and Thrillist, which offers a San Francisco edition, and purveyors of all things twee- Cute Overload.
Congratulations, guys! You all got to take home this, er, weird mounted spring thing. --Andy Wright
Photo | Joe Eskenazi
Talk about a "You and me vs. the world" attitude!
The justly proud residents of this San Francisco hovel managed to skip all talk about trespassing or noise-making or even jaywalking. Simply put, if you don't live here, put your hands on the wall and remember to duck when they put you in the back of the patrol car. They're calling the cops!
To see all of our past S.F. Signs of the Apocalypse entries, just click on "S.F. Signs of the Apocalypse" in the Tags section. And remember, you can contribute photos of unusual S.F.-area signs for to me right here.
-- Joe Eskenazi
In what may be the most unintentionally hilarious local headline-photo matchup since the Oakland Tribune obituary for former U.C Berkeley coach Nibs Price featured the headline "Death Calls Nibs Price" — and a photo of him on the phone — take a gander at the instant masterpiece from SFgate.com below:
Apparently Star Jones once roamed Yosemite! In fact, isn't that a picture of Star now? And to think: Star Jones has had an impact on the local ecology (in fact, wow! Star Jones has had an impact on anything!)
Whoever is responsible for this — thanks! You made our day.
Enjoy the weekend. And if you see Star Jones, jump up and down, make a lot of noise and maybe even throw your keys at her. Whatever you do, don't run. She can't resist the instinct to chase (especially if you're pointing a camera at her).
— Joe Eskenazi
by Benjamin Wachs
I try not to call Chron columnist Mark Morford out on his stylistic problem as a writer, because who has that kind of time? But as a fellow journalist I feel that research – knowing at least a little about what we’re writing about – is the very least we owe the public.
The very, very least.
So a few months ago I called him out on the sheer ignorance of his attacks against Christianity. Anti-Christian is fine, but hating on anyone from a position of ignorance is not. Today marks yet another Morford column that might not have needed to happen if he’d made a phone call (like journalists do), or checked out Wikipedia for Christ's sake.
Meet a very unusual man in the street…
By Joe Eskenazi
Financial District workers stream past Carl Christensen on their way to the office, shoulder to shoulder, four or five abreast. Montgomery Avenue teems like a river full of salmon headed upstream to spawn – but while there may be Starbucks and spreadsheets in the workers’ near future, there will be no spawning.
Christensen, however, does not move. As heads bob by at double-time he is conspicuous via his stillness. Well, that and the fact he’s pointing a digital camera at the rapidly retreating workers mid-sections, below head level and just above the hips. Since I have a notebook in my back pocket and it’s ostensibly my job to ask people just what the hell they’re doing I ask Carl just what the hell he’s doing. Given a million years and one day, I would not have guessed what his response would be.
Christensen, 63, is an extremely tall and thin man with a wrinkled shirt and tie and a fuller brush mustache and electric, long white hair that gives him the appearance of the rumpled love child of Albert Einstein and Albus Dumbledore.
He’s a retired cabdriver (which explains why he can film everyone else scuttling of to work). As for why he’s pointing a camera at places on the body that’d get you sucker punched at the Hotsy Totsy tavern, that’s a little less intuitive.
Christensen told me he takes his videos of San Franciscans hurrying to the office and transforms them into video teleidoscopes – that’s like a kaleidoscope without the colored glass. This is not the sort of thing you hear every day, so I asked him to send me a DVD of his work.
I was surprised when he actually did. I was more surprised when I found it to be utterly and totally mesmerizing.
By Joe Eskenazi
Barring another ship colliding with the Bay Bridge and triggering environmental Armageddon, Mayor Gavin Newsom is off next week for a 10-day "mission" to the place a disturbing number of Americans believe will host the real Armageddon (and soon!): Israel.
(Actually, don't kid yourself. He's outta here no matter what.).
On Newsom's agenda: Visits to Tel Aviv, San Francisco's sister city of Haifa and "a briefing from senior Israeli foreign ministry officials"
It's amusing to imagine a meeting of the minds between Gav and the Israelis:
— "Mayor, we need you to look handsome in the publicity photographs and avoid getting blown up."
— "I'll try not to disappoint you."
If Newsom wants to push for gay marriage in Jerusalem, well, good luck with that.
But, knowing our mayor a little, here's a few phrases he could stand to learn in Hebrew:
• Hello, I am America's sexiest mayor.
Shalom, ani ha'rosh ir hachi sexy b'artzot ha'brit.
•How much should I leave as a tip? For a taxi? For a massage? For ... something else?
Kama ani tzarich la'a'zov bishvil tip? Bishvil monit? Bishvil massage? Bishvil ... mashehu acher?
•Where can I buy hair gel?
Eifo ani yachol liknot mishchat-seh'ar?
•At home I am very popular.
Eifo she'ani gar, ani me'od pohpoolari.
•Nobody knows why.
Af echad yodeah lama.
CLICK "MORE" FOR MORE, INTUITIVELY ENOUGH...
San Francisco’s Dan Cassidy explores how some of our most ubiquitous (and filthy) words came to be
By Joe Eskenazi
Dan Cassidy smells of a heady mixture of cigarettes and mint gum intended to mask cigarettes. He speaks in the thickest New York accent since Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo slapped his palm on the hood of a car and bellowed “I’m waukin' heah! I'm waukin' heah!”
In this day and age when newscasters from Portland, Ore. to Portland, Maine all speak in the same hypnotically mellifluous non-accent, men like Cassidy – whose cadences don’t merely scream “New York” but “Brooklyn” -- are a rarity. Cassidy’s raison d’être is determining why people talk the way they talk, incidentally, so his accent fits right in.
I met Cassidy recently in Glen Park for an interview. He declined my invitation to chat in an Irish bar – he quit drinking years ago – so we instead settled into the back of a nearby bookstore. Many copies of his tome, “How the Irish Invented Slang” – winner of last year’s American Book Award – lined the shelves.
In the slowest and quietest bit of dialog he’d utter all night, Cassidy queried whether SF Weekly was an “R-rated paper.” I assured him it is. So he started right in on what sort of slang the Irish Americans have graced us with.
“You’ve heard that expression ‘Wipe that smile off your puss.’ Well, the plural of ‘puss’ is ‘pusa.’ It means lips.”
That’s right, the Irish invented “pussy.” But that’s not all. Cassidy admits the “filthiest word in my book” is “cuas” – or as we’d pronounce it, “cooze.” Literally, this means “hole.”
While Irish Americans' crafting of the two most aggressive terms for the female anatomy is not exactly the sort of thing one learns during heritage week in public schools, it’s a good example of how saturated the American English lexicon is with Irishisms – and nobody even knew.
Now is the Passover of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of Manischewitz.
By Joe Eskenazi
As you may have read here on The Snitch — and, mind-blowingly, in the Chronicle and Contra Costa Times as well — this year it has been next to impossible for Bay Area Jews to obtain matzah, the oversized, under-tasty unleavened crackers central to the holiday of Passover.
For frantic last-minute shoppers, this was a most unpleasant surprise. But it shouldn’t have been. The Bay Area matzah market has undergone more permutations than Oprah’s weight. This is just the latest matzah crunch.
A dozen years ago, the matzah wind was blowing differently. There was plenty to be had — but no one could afford it. A five-pound box of the crackers could cost as much as $19.99. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles and New York, Jews were happily buying their matzah for two bucks a pound.
"It's the forces of capitalism," explained kosher distributor Robert Sosnick at the time. "You're dealing with a marketplace down there of more than 1 million Jews. You have big chains in heavy Jewish neighborhoods. A million potential consumers is a big drawing card.
"You really don't have a Jewish neighborhood in San Francisco."
In 2001, the Bay Area matzah market was rocked once again — but in a way consumers could enjoy (with horseradish, possibly). Suddenly those $20 boxes of crackers could be obtained for as little as five bucks.
How? That can be answered in one word: Costco.
Torrey Kretschman, in happier days.
By Joe Eskenazi
You’ve probably never heard of Torrey Kretschman -- and if you have, it likely isn’t for a good reason. Back in December, Kretschman made national headlines when he fell to his death at Candlestick Park during halftime of a 49ers game.
The notion that Kretschman’s 31 years on earth would, in the public eye, be summed up entirely by a freak accident involving a four-foot high railing he judged to be five-feet tall weighed heavily on the Sacramento man’s loved ones. Here at The Snitch we delved a bit deeper, running a piece titled “A Man in Full: Despite Media Myopia and Internet Ghouls, Torrey Kretschman’s Life was About More Than His Death.” You can read it here.
And you know what? It turns out that Torrey Kretschman’s life continues to be about more than his death. His memory has inspired a band of friends and family to join together and run one last race for Kretschman (an accomplished marathon runner) while raising money and awareness for those he wished he could have helped – but couldn't.
