San Francisco Diary--Journal Of An Exile

Arctic winds off the Bay. Rain blowing sideways. If this global warming isn't stopped soon, I'll be turned into a giant ice cube just trying to get to the supermarket. The mail carrier is wrapped in so many layers of insulated clothing that he if he slipped and fell on his route, he could just roll to the next stop. How cold is it? It's so cold that they've called off the vote on the sex tents because the proponents were frozen into strange positions.

NOTE: The trial in San Francisco Federal Court attempting to overturn Proposition 8 (the "traditional marriage amendment") on federal grounds continues to drone on. Frankly, the campaign was a lot more interesting. So far, we've had opening statements that allege a violation of due process and equal protection rights under the US Fourteenth Amendment. There has been a small stir among lawyers (and other insufferable academics) that the defense should not only counter those arguments, but somehow argue that the traditional privileges and immunities clause also works in favor of retaining Prop 8.

After making gay marriage sound almost as boring as traditional marriage, lead attorney Ted Olson (former US Solicitor General under George W. Bush) called his first witnesses. Very dramatic sob stories from a lesbian followed by an equally dramatic sob story from a gay man, both of whom "felt" that they were being treated as less than equal to straight people. Sounded a lot more like a soap opera cum therapy session than anything having to do with constitutional rights, but what do I know? Wisely, David Boies representing the pro-Prop 8 defendants chose not to ask any questions of the witnesses. Why bother? One of the witnesses later spoke outside the courtroom to the legions of press reporters, saying "I'm just trying to get the rights the Constitution says I have." Since I missed those words in the Constitution myself, I guess I'll have to wait for the judge to point them out to me at some stage of the trial.

On the second day, Olson called a female Harvard professor and a male Yale professor, neither of whom testified to anything having to do with facts, evidence, law or the Constitution. But they sure know their hearts and flowers sociology. Therefore, they are experts. Feelings, nothing more than feelings. Ah, feelings of love. Oops, back to the trial. I enjoyed this phase of the trial, largely because the Harvard professor looked just like my Uncle John. Sounded a little like him, too.

The US District Court judge, Vaughn Walker, had shown heavy favoritism toward those attempting to overturn the ballot measure at the early stages, but seemed almost neutral during the questioning. Walker had announced that the proceedings would be televised, but the defenders of Prop 8 filed an emergency petition with the US Supreme Court preventing the televising of the trial because of concerns for the safety of pro-Prop 8 witnesses who had been intimidated and threatened during the original campaign. Walker had already been overruled by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals when he decided to allow a "fishing expedition" by the plaintiffs attempting to ascertain the names of all persons who had supported the Proposition originally, either as political workers or donors. The Supreme Court issued a stay preventing cameras in the courtroom, and on Wednesday made its decision final by a 5 to 4 vote. The high court said that if televised trials were ever to be allowed, the experiment should start with a more "humdrum" case which would give the courts an opportunity to evaluate the possible changes it would bring to the dynamics of the courtroom. I personally wonder how that would work, since nobody's going to watch a humdrum trial in the first place.

Thursday's testimony came largely from economists who testified that married people make better incomes and therefore pay more taxes. But no testimony about how this will affect the reality that getting more taxes merely encourages governments to spend more money on, well, government. There was also no testimony on how it will affect the divorce courts when the lovers turned married couples decide this wasn't such a hot idea in the first place. And unlike traditional marriages with children, there are the additional problems of the children of gay marriage obviously not being solely the product of the marriage. That fact is a multiplier of the problems of the already overloaded family law courts.

Because this is clearly a high-profile case providing lots of face time for proponents, the Hollywood crowd has shown up in force. Meathead Rob Reiner led the delegation from la la land. Sean Penn was not visible in the movie contingent. Maybe he got side-tracked visiting old friends in the Castro District. On the other hand, maybe Penn was in Sacramento supporting former San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano (a close confidante of Harvey Milk) who is now a state assembly person attempting to get legalization of marijuana passed by the other stoned legislators.

NOTE: Here's a typical story of the squatters who infest buildings throughout large parts of The City. The tenants of a Bush Street apartment building (near downtown and the Van Ness corridor) have despaired of ever getting any help from the police and other public authorities of ridding their building of bums and thugs who have simply taken over some of the empty apartments in the building. This has always been a problem, but it has worsened with middle-class people moving out of The City because of the outrageous rents, and only brand-new apartment buildings and condos in more yuppified parts of The City having full occupancy and internal security.

As the SF Gate writer C. W. Nevius describes it, "First the paying tenants wanted improvements, like new lights in the building's garage. Then they hoped to expel the homeless people who were using the stairwells as a bathroom and a residence. Finally, they decided to settle for enough security that their car windows wouldn't get shattered anymore." They got none of their wishes.

Now understand that these are not tenements, nor is this a cheap part of town. In order to stop the car window breakage, the tenants of the building leave their windows open these days. But these cars are not out on the streets. They are in the building's locked and gated garage, and they pay $250 a month on top of their apartment rent just to have the privilege of having their cars broken into. In October of last year, no less than fifteen cars had their side windows destroyed.

Longtime residents of the building are at a loss as to whom to turn to. The owners of the property are a real estate consortium which has been in constant violation of city codes and which is now skating on the edge of bankruptcy. Well, how about public officials? They come, they investigate, they set hearings, and nothing happens. One city inspector says that "the fire escape and stairwell is filthy and full of feces." That report was also written in October, and the feces and the smell are still there. But the officials are not ignoring the paying residents.

The building is old enough to have fully operational fireplaces. And if a resident makes the mistake of having a nice warm fire in the fireplace during our cold weather on a "spare the air day," there are plenty of city officials to show up and cite them for violating the "no burning" laws. Strange, though. They don't cite the homeless people openly burning fires in trash cans both inside and outside buildings city-wide, from downtown to Ocean Beach. One resident counted fourteen trash can bonfires one night at 10:30 PM alone, and not a city official anywhere in sight. It was a spare the air day. The Park Service officials take over enforcement at Ocean Beach from the local police, and they're equally useful. As one beach resident said, "the guys in the squad cars don't want to get their socks full of sand."

NOTE: The City is run by supervisors who promise to drop the F-Bomb at every public meeting (and like most of the promises, this one hasn't been kept so far). We have homeless people choosing to live like rats on the streets, with the support of the public officials and the cadres of "homeless advocates." The City has one of the worst dangerous crime rates in the nation for large cities. Issues critical to public safety, like gay marriage, bring out large crowds who have to be careful where they step so they don't fall into a sinkhole created by the rain that hastens the collapse of The City's physical infrastructure. The City gives a free ride to illegal immigrants, and taxes the crap out of those who actually work for a living to pay for the city services that nobody seem to actually get.

So naturally, you have figured out that vacancies must be soaring and the housing market must be collapsing here in Calcutta-by-the-Bay. Well, you would be wrong. Forbes Magazine just announced that San Francisco is the number 2 city in the nation for low vacancies and a high sales rate for both old and new houses. New high-tech fancy-schmantzy high-rises like the recently-completed Rincon Tower are in great demand, and at almost any asking price. And in a city loaded with yuppie investment people, most would put their money into real property as the far better choice for return on investment over buying even the most carefully-chosen stocks. And the more cash the real estate purchaser puts down, the better the return on the investment, which can't be said of either stock or bonds. So if you're looking to purchase a home, San Francisco's the place to do it--provided you want to have a high return on your investment, and are ready to invest buckets of cash. Alternatively, you could simply move to The City, become a squatter, and warm yourself by the gentle glow of a trash can bonfire, with no investment at all and no hassles from the public authorities. If you're middle-class, however, try Poughkeepsie or Peoria.

NOTE: Over the past few weeks the police have been called constantly into the Polk Street Corridor. Long known for sleazy prostitutes walking the street after bar closing time, the area had calmed down after major busts following a series of violent episodes, including a murder. But things have livened up again recently. And why? Well, it seems the prostitutes are having a hard time making it in Las Vegas, so there's been a big influx of the girls from the other Sin City. I tried to figure out why the police have been so efficient in picking up the girls for doing what the Board of Supervisors wants to allow in tents on various city streets. Then it hit me. The citizens are mad because the working girls actually charge for the sex. And the city officials are mad because they're not paying their fair share of the city's oppressive taxes.

When the news on local TV featured the story, they showed a picture of the area where the arrests are being made. I involuntarily said to myself "look, I can see my house from here." Well actually, it was the intersection where I had an apartment when I first moved back into The City nearly twenty years ago. I lived on the second floor, and had a great view of the activity at the intersection of Polk and O'Farrell streets. On one corner you had the female prostitute. On another corner, you had the male prostitute. On the third corner, you had the male prostitute who looked like a woman. And on the last corner, you had the female prostitute who looked like a man. If business was slow, a shouting match would start to build, eventually turning physical. At times it looked like an amateur production of West Side Story. Ah, the good old days. I still live near Polk Street, but in a completely different part of town. That late at night I'm most likely to see a well-dressed couple walking home from dinner at Harris's Steak House or an occasional tipsy patron rolling out of Shanghai Kelly's bar at Broadway.

NOTE: In his annual state of the city address Wednesday, lame-duck mayor and former gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newson announced that the city is broke (not news) and that the best way to bring it back is to create jobs (standard verbiage). Then he shocked the crowd by announcing that the new jobs should be in the private sector (now that's news). He announced plans to allow new businesses exemption from payroll taxes for two years, a suspension of those same taxes for current businesses, and the use of millions of dollars in unused federal funds from the prior administration to encourage development and growth of industry and retail enterprise zones. Welcome to the real world, Mr. Mayor.

NOTE: Yesterday we conservatives got hit with another small surprise. Tom Campbell has dropped out of the gubernatorial race and announced that he would be running instead for the Republican nomination to challenge Boffo Barbara Boxer in the senatorial race. Campbell is becoming a perennial candidate, but he is also a serious candidate. Still, this may become his last run before he becomes California's Harold Stassen. He was outspent by a gazillion dollars in the gubernatorial bid by two extremely rich RINO/moderate Silicon Valley types. Nevertheless, if he thinks Boxer's campaign is poverty-stricken, he will be in for a major disappointment. Campbell is a fine candidate, and I'll be voting for him in the primary and hopefully in the general election.

Still, I'm not holding my breath for him to win either. He will have to find ways to raise huge sums of cash, and hope that he can also count on the anti-Democrat sentiment that infests even California. He might also capitalize on Boxer's arrogance by referring to her as "Babs" at every opportunity. That will start her sputtering and looking like a character from the souls in hell portion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It's an interesting development, for sure. For those who are unfamiliar with the candidate, and would like to know a bit more about him, here's my earlier article on him when he was running for governor: Mr. Bland Builds His Dream House.