Hey Bay Area Dudes!

SF, Tracer.

what would it mean if he won?

I have no idea what it'll mean if he wins. He could completely fuck everything up, but he seems to be a pretty sharp and sensible guy (not a total rabble-rousing ideologue like his friend Chris Daly, who I also like, but whom I wouldn't trust to wash my car let alone run a city) so I'm inclined to believe that'll at least try to do a pretty decent job of creating incentives for businesses to stay while at the same time attempting to deal with the gross inequities in prosperity in the city. Obviously, it'll be good for the Greens to have such a high profile candidate win, but I'm not sure what's good for the Greens is really good for anyone else so. . .

Bill Clinton was here yesterday for a Newsom rally, then he ate on Van Ness at a chain steak restaurant... (wtf?) Of all the choices!

Last night I was walking home from work at about 8pm and Gonzalez and his supporters (Danny Glover included) were riding around in the back of a large truck rallying up lower Haight Street (Gonzalez lives a few blocks from me).

I live in Berkeley though so what do I care?

San Francisco 2003 is a completely different city than SF 1995. Due to the economy boom and subsequent housing crunch, formerly crime-ridden areas like the Mission, SoMa, Lower Haight and the Tenderloin are now sparkling and shiny (well not really but you get the point).

His job was made easy due to external circumstances and for him to take credit for that is pretty bold.

(The Matt Gonzalez Monday night revels included a stop at the Phone Booth on South Van Ness, with actress Keri Russell and rocker Jonathan Richman.)

...starring in Brown's Willie.

look, i am a democrat -- the greens are not democrats. it begins and ends there. i don't care if they once were, or if their views and proposed policies are close to the views of democrats. they are the opponents of the democratic party, as they themselves take great pains to point out. from that perspective, they are no different than the republicans. why should i cut them any slack, or want them to win -- ESPECIALLY when their victory would give them the prominence and legitimacy that i do NOT believe that they deserve?

concededly, i don't live in SF so i may be wrong -- but for all the squawking about willie brown and his administration, based on everything that i've read he and his people don't seem to be any worse than the people running any other big city in this country. (granted, i'm more familiar with NYC and Philly and that may skew things). and besides, had this gonzalez fellow been elected he would have to deal with all of the folks that some folks around here like to bash so much -- like yuppies, the business community, etc. again, what were his plans -- was he just gonna lecture them? propose some municipal ordinances that get torn apart by the city assembly? i understand that SF has a big problem with aggressive panhandling and that the city's way of handling them was to give them money and let them sleep and piss wherever they want -- how would gonzalez handle that, other than screaming at people who are sick and tired of that sort of conduct and want something done about it?

also the whale talk of a "homeless problem" is all afuckedup yuppie scare or was when i was there and Brown was doing shitty "clean up the streets" things to them and Newsom continuing that while attacking Brown for not doing enough looks like it was part of his campaign and I'm disappointed at Tad for buying into it.

here's an idea for how to stop people from pissing in the street -- allow some public restrooms instead of getting rid of them all to "discourage" homelessness. most other people who are in sf could use some public restrooms too (i know i always wanted to find them when i was in the city).

anyway sf streets still smell far less like piss than new york streets.

like there was this scandal years ago i remember where brown was using helicoptors with infrared detectors to find homeless people sleeping in the park and round them up?

and i remember crashing on difft. parts of the street a few times when i was stuck in the sf side of the bay after BART shut down for the night and the market st. area was really deserted in the far downtown, but then as you moved up you hit the skeezier area and it had a little traffic, but not really a lotta homeless and as i recall no bathrooms that far up. mission was where a lotta dealing was, and that area seemed like it might have a little homelessness.

like it never seemed this big deal to me though, and the cop tactix seemed really extreme and vicious and like giving the people no options.

did i just turn into dave q?

your logic frankly is exremely worthy of ridicule but it is early and I'm running to work... so if Brown style politics are accepted everywhere else in the usa and people are accustomed to being let down and ignored and bypassed so that pockets are lined, we should bend over and take it for your centric party mediocrity? nabisco has some poop for you.

(granted, i'm more familiar with NYC and Philly and that may skew things). and besides, had this gonzalez fellow been elected he would have to deal with all of the folks that some folks around here like to bash so much -- like yuppies, the business community, etc. again, what were his plans -- was he just gonna lecture them? propose some municipal ordinances that get torn apart by the city assembly?

here's where your ignorance is especially evident. trivia time: what position does Matt Gonzalez currently hold in SF politics? Bonus question, what is Gavin Newsom's?

i understand that SF has a big problem with aggressive panhandling and that the city's way of handling them was to give them money and let them sleep and piss wherever they want -- how would gonzalez handle that, other than screaming at people who are sick and tired of that sort of conduct and want something done about it?

haha, trivia question #3, what did the voters think of Prop M?!?!?!?!?!? (note: I shared my thoughts with Gavin Newsom face to face at the Duboce Park muni station about 7:00am one morning 4 months ago).

the answer: www.smartvoter.org/2003/11/04/ca/sf/meas/M/

I appreciate your concern and interest, but you really are off the mark as is sterling clover here:

but there's no real poverty-stricken ghetto to absorb that stuff so then it intrudes more on the general course of the "respectable" city?

That's because BART doesn't go to Bayview, Sterling. And Bayview doesn't have any indie rock clubs.

i'm not as shy as SaturnSean and akm, I've used the public restrooms, they are "self-cleaning", they flush out the entirety upon exit (ie, not just toilet). and they aren't clean.

haha yeah but are there homeless in that area? not as i recall when i was there coz the city really worked hard to round 'em up at night.

yes, the 8 blocks between 3rd and 11th and centered around 6th is home to the largest homeless population in SF. this has been the case since my first visit to SF (1991). in particular, 6th between market/mission is the drug/crime center of SF.

i guess a problem with a city that's so yuppie is it has a love-hate relationship with its red light district which is so essential to yuppie functioning (there's a real market for hookers and coke) but there's no real poverty-stricken ghetto to absorb that stuff so then it intrudes more on the general course of the "respectable" city?

what parts of SF do you consider the red-light district (also, how versed are you in the history of SF)?

i'm posting while on the phone, my apologies.