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The Maltese Falcon (a plaster version from the movie set) and some signed Hammett books are gone missing from John’s Grill. John Konstin isn’t happy.
Konstin wants the bird and the books back so much he’s willing to fork over some cash. $25,000 in cold, hard for whoever brings the stuff back to his joint.
“No questions asked,” he said.
They never are. Not in this town.
Walked over to the grand opening of the Gavin Newsom re-election campaign headquarters (1320 Sutter just west of Van Ness) today.
I hate crowded rooms, have I ever mentioned?
And yet there I was (albeit over by the windows so I had a pressing crowd only on one side). That’s me in the top picture of the set behind the link. I’m the person in front of the woman in pink. My hair’s pulled back. I’d wave but the photo was taken from behind me. My best angle.
Packed. Hundreds. Gavin worked the room before the speechifying and I swear shook hands and had a word or two with almost every soul in the room.
Gavin was preceded on stage by Supervisor Bevan Dufty (carrying his baby), John Burton (former U.S. Representative, former President Pro Tem of the California State Senate and an old family friend of Gavin’s who talked him into rehab work) and Mark Leno (Assemblyman, California’s 13th Assembly district).
Paul and Christine Pelosi were in the crowd as was Angela Alioto, as were members of Gavin’s family, honchos from some of the unions, me, McGee, Alyce and hundreds of others.
Oh, and those newshounds (AP, &c. Channel 2, KCBS. …)
Lined up on an elevated platform in back, mingling with the crowd, pressing their way to the front of the room.
Going to be a long slog through until election day.
Nothing but a tired, old, rundown crenellated building … until kink.com decided the old Armory would be a perfect site for their offices and for filming kinky movies. kink.com paid $14.5 million for the 200K sq ft landmark built in 1914.
The neighborhood’s aghast, but really has no say in the matter: kink.com is sprucing up thirty years of neglect but has no plans to alter the building and doesn’t have to go before planning or the landmarks commission. The up-in-arms folks have no one to blame but those who shot down every development proposal for the Armory that came down the pike since the National Guard vacated the building in 1975.
The kink.com purchase (and the ensuing uproar) even made the Wall Street Journal! The Journal’s article is password-protected, but the Chicago Daily Herald was nice enough to pick up the article, allowing us to read it.
Spent a chunk of the morning checking, updating and augmenting the collection of links in the Reference & Research section of Internet Resources for Writers.
The page includes over two hundred links classified in subsections:
Amazing resources out there on the Web. What a wURLd.
Oh, my. Was traffic snarled today.
We knew there’d be some problems. Yes, indeed. TPTB had set electronic signs on the Embarcadero days ahead of time warning that traffic would be a mess from Broadway to Bay.
Broadway to Bay?
Try all the way back to 280 to way past Bay … in both directions.
We swung by the Post Office to drop off a card (Happy bday, SP!) around noon. His nibs decided that traffic wouldn’t be that bad on the Embarcadero after he missed hanging a right on Filbert and a right on Kearny and heading out that way. He drove (with detours) down to the Embarcadero where we waited through four traffic signal changes to hang a right and get out of town.
… thirty minutes later we were across from the ball park and almost out of town.
The traffic was nuts. Too many people on the crosswalks so drivers couldn’t turn. An extra cruise ship berthed over at Pier 35, adding to the carnival atmosphere.
I predict Letters to the Editor in tomorrow’s Chronicle from the folks at 101 Lombard, who insist that any new anything on the Embarcadero should be squelched because of traffic concerns.
“See?!?!! See?!?!!” they’ll say.
Give it a rest, I say. Everyone else in the City tells the neighbors who complain about the traffic when the team’s playing at Candlestick that they should chill. It’s only ten days a year, we tell them. Live with it.
So we live with the cruise ship traffic jams, magnified today because there was not only a cruise ship BUT ALSO the QM2 AND all the people who came down to gawk at the QM2.
Taxis everywhere. Tour buses.
The F-line was running extra cars, which were jammed so they were running buses as well.
CurbedSF checks in and! includes a link to a YouTube video of the ship (“transoceanic liner”) coming in under the GGBridge yesterday.
We decided to return home (from a busy day of sorting stuff and victuals runs to Costco and Trader Joe’s) on a route that didn’t use the Embarcadero.
Good thing.
We double-parked at the top of the Steps and ran our purchases home at around 6P or so. His nibs took the MINI to its stall and said that while he was walking back up Union, he encountered a well-dressed woman of a certain age, talking to someone on her cell. “Didn’t I tell you several times NOT TO GO NEAR THE EMBARCADERO?”
Not a happy camper. Her ride had failed her. She was walking down Union to find a ride to wherever it was she needed to go.
I wonder how many passengers will be left behind because the bar pilot MUST leave with the changing tide some time around 8P. Passengers that are not back on board will need to catch up with the ship … somehow.
[8P] His nibs is checking with our telescope and can see the bar pilot up on the bridge. (Bar pilot’s in suit and tie.) The ship isn’t moving yet. Heck, the lines are still engaged, but at least there’s action up on the bridge.
How long can the ship wait and still make it out the Gate safely?
[His nibs is watching the action and adds that the airplane with the lighted signage is flying back and forth over the crowds watching the ship, running an ad for Big-O Tires. Someone in marketing is making their momma proud.)
The Queen Mary 2 is in port, the largest ship ever to sail into the San Francisco Bay.
We walked over to Fort Mason to have a good look from one of the piers. (… and, of course, stopped by Book Bay at Fort Mason before we walked on home.)
Thousands of people lined the shore to greet the QM2 on its way in. The bay was filled with boats. Quite a turnout considering the Super Bowl was competition for all the attention at the waterfront.
The QM2 was due in at 3P but didn’t show until 4P. Just as well for us as we’d stopped on our way at Pompei’s Grotto for some crab sandwich lunches.
The story was that the waves were a bit rugged outside the Gate and the bar pilot had difficulty getting aboard. Or it may have been a different reason. Stories scattered like pigeons in front of an unleashed puppy.
What was true was that once in port, the QM2 had to spend hours hanging around off Treasure Island until the bar pilot finally docked her at 8P. The tides in the bay are pretty strong and the bar pilot wanted to bring the QM2 in while the tide was changing for full to ebb and moving least.
Tricky maneuvering. We watched as this huge mammoth inched into Pier 27 and tied up.
The bulk of the passengers offload today to spend some time in San Francisco and then head home. An equal number of boarding passengers replace those leaving and continue with the ship on its journey around the world.
QM2 leaves tonight at 8P when, again, the tides will be changing.
 QM2 comes through the Golden Gate
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 QM2 w/ greeting from fire boat |
 QM2 Boats! and the USCG helicopter
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 welcoming crowd at Fort Mason pier
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 QM2 passing Alcatraz |
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 Pier 27 night shot while docking
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 Pier 27 Monday AM
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For those set-upon (and blessed) folks who organize writers’ conferences, Miss Snark has a most excellent post detailing the care and feeding of guest agents.
Miss Snark’s must-haves give a peek into the world of agents.
Next time you’re at a conference, take an agent to lunch or buy one a drink, just because. You may never use their services but your karma will be polished.
I have no idea why sometimes posts from back when show up again on bloglines or other RSS feed apps as “new” when I haven’t touched them for two weeks or more.
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