Dead & Company performed a free “Pay it Forward" show at the legendary Fillmore in SF Monday May 23rd featuring Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman, along with John Mayer on guitar, Jeff Chimenti on keys, and Oteil Burbridge on bass. The Red Rocker Sammy Hagar, of Van Halen, was a surprise guest singing “Loose Lucy". Starting at the early hours of the day the streets outside the Fillmore swarmed with hundreds of Deadheads trying to get “miracled” into the show.
When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, its a good core workout. If youre sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More
In the past 30 years, light artists have reimagined an art form that has always had the ability to turn the night sky, or a simple window, into luminescence. Last fall, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts turned its southern glass wall into a parade of sound-sensing lights, Lightswarm, that changes with the movements of nearby people and things. Future Cities Lab, the San Francisco design company behind Lightswarm, has originated another notable light sculpture. Located by the YBCA's steps at 701 Mission, Murmur Wall will light up in arresting ways as it incorporates local trending search engine results and social media postings. Onlookers can offer their own contributions, which will feed into the Murmur Wall's data stream and light up the sculpture. What's trending in San Francisco? If you're walking by the YBCA, you can see firsthand — at least through light patterns that reflect the city's volatile internet habits.
Murmur Wall debuts Thursday at 6 p.m. and continues through May 31, 2017, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St., S.F. Free; 415-978-2700 or ybca.org. More
December is almost over - the New Year is coming up and everyone is busy drying off from the rain or holiday shopping. Let's take a look at what's happened this month.
Posted
By Max DeNike
on Thu, May 26, 2016 at 1:30 PM
Flickr/Tax Credits
If millennials are hard to understand, it’s at least easy to grasp why they might be thrifty. The Look at Me Generation is actually the Look, Me Poor Generation.
The 18-to-34 set (by far the broadest definition of millennials) might “go out” more often, whatever that means, but is much smarter with its dollars. Big takeaways, which is essentially the entire infographic, include:
Millennials average $7.90 per transaction when going out versus $17 for the average consumer
Consumer Joe puts $4,700 a year on credit while Billy the Kid spends $3,300.
Millennials rack up $26,000 annually in discretionary and bill spending to the average consumer’s $32,000.
Posted
By Bob Calhoun
on Thu, May 26, 2016 at 12:19 PM
Randy Heinitz/Flickr
The only thing worse than waking up in an East San Jose carport on New Year's Day is being found dead in one. That's what happened to Ines Sailer, an attractive 23-year-old German kindergarten teacher on Jan. 1, 1981.
Sailer was last seen leaving a New Year's Eve party in the Richmond District. When she was found nearly 60 miles south the next day, she had been sodomized and shot five times in the body and the brain with a small-caliber handgun. Police believed that she was murdered somewhere else and then dumped in San Jose.
Posted
By Max DeNike
on Wed, May 25, 2016 at 1:19 PM
Fred Noland
But on a global scale.
In 2009, Airbnb’s second year of existence, the San Francisco-based hotel alternative facilitator boasted 3,000 listings worldwide.
This year, Airbnb offered a staggering 2.3 million housing units to rent for a day, a week, a weekday — which means its inventory grew at a faster clip than the entire hotel industry. As in all hotels, everywhere.
In North America alone last year, Airbnb added 229,000 listings to its stock compared to the hotel industry’s 139,000 new rooms, according to a recent study by 7Park Data, a mobile app data miner, that was featured in the San Francisco Business Times.
And for good measure, consider that the world’s second largest accommodations company is now Hilton — worth 25 percent less than Airbnb, which is currently valued at $25.5 billion.
Posted
By Max DeNike
on Tue, May 24, 2016 at 11:02 AM
Original photo: Kevin Montgomery. Dog photoshop job: Todd Standish.
The overwhelming sentiment.
You know you’ve touched a nerve when your cause generates two change.org petitions in less than 24 hours. But it appears fans of Dolores Park can rest a little easier — and sit upon the DoPa grass without fear of being booted by someone who paid for the privilege of securing that sod.
This month, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department began a two-month pilot program that, along with picnic tables, allows sections of grass in the park to be reserved, as SFist first reported. Picnic table reservations are nothing new, and they are allowed at parks citywide, but including the lawn space riled up the masses.
However, Castro district Supervisor Scott Wiener, in a statement posted to Medium this morning, said he worked out a compromise with Rec and Park to limit the reservations to picnic tables only.
However, if you're one of the city's nearly 150,000 voters who is registered as an independent — one who declined to state his or her party preference — you may encounter a nasty surprise when you step into the booth in two weeks. It's one you've already encountered if you're an independent who is a permanent vote-by-mail voter, with a ballot already sitting on your kitchen table: on your ballot, you will find no Trump, no Bernie, and no Hillary.
Yes, Sen. Bernie Sanders is an independent who is running for the Democratic nomination, and yes, California has an open primary system — but not for every office. For president, the state has a "modified closed primary system."
So, in order to participate in a very, very meaningful California Democratic primary, you have to request a Democratic ballot.
But fear not: you have until midnight tonight to register as a Democrat or a Republican (if that's your thing). If you want to stay independent, you can vote in the Democratic primary.
Click on through after the jump for detailed instructions on how (if you haven't already clicked links throughout this post, like this one).
Posted
By Chris Roberts
on Mon, May 23, 2016 at 12:44 PM
Sanguine news today from the state Employment Development Department. Employment — as in the opposite of unemployment, which is a bad thing — in San Francisco is at a 16-year high, and the city is closer to full employment today than at any other time since 2000. Which are good things.
The city's unemployment rate is 3.1 percent, according to the EDD. A great thing, even, as that low figure ties San Francisco with Marin County for the lowest unemployment rates in California.
Politicians are, predictably, celebrating. "We are experiencing a tremendous economic recovery from our unrelenting focus on putting people back to work and bringing opportunity and hope back," Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement. (Lee noted that unemployment was in double digits when he took office five years ago.)
What's not to love? Pessimists and pejorists, rejoice: for every job San Francisco added, two people left the workforce, according to EDD data.
Posted
By Max DeNike
on Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:48 AM
Airbnb
"Bunk bed 1" (of many) available at "Sunnyside Travel House," available to you on Airbnb.
San Francisco has regulated short-term rentals like those for offer via Airbnb for over a year, but the city's rules have done almost nothing to change the habits of the companies facilitating the rentals and those who host the properties. As in, the laws do not appear to be working.
Airbnb and other similar services were the subject of a pair of scathing investigative reports from NBC Bay Area last week in which it was revealed that Airbnb is more interested in making money than following rules and the city itself is ill equipped to handle its own regulations.
Posted
By Chris Roberts
on Fri, May 20, 2016 at 3:22 PM
New police Chief Tony Chaplin, center.
The four golden stars pinned to acting San Francisco police Chief Toney Chaplin's collar sometime in the past 24 hours — when Mayor Ed Lee named him to succeed Greg Suhr, ousted after yesterday's fatal police shooting — shined in the Chinatown sun when Chaplin arrived at a news conference in the Ping Yuen housing projects on Friday.
Ostensibly called as a "community meeting" meant to give the mostly Cantonese-speaking seniors who live in the concrete high-rises an update about an assault that occurred there in April, the meeting instead was between the media and Chaplin, who has a low political and public profile despite 26 years on the city's police force.
A veteran of the Gang Task Force, the since-gutted narcotics unit, and an inspector and a lieutenant in the homicide unit who rose from handling cases to deputy chief in charge of implementing changes to policy and practices to running the department in just three years, Chaplin made his priorities clear.
"Reform, reform, reform," he said.
That was what Suhr promised, too. Whether he'll be able to do it — and whether he'll be able to keep those stars as a full-time, permanent chief, or at least keep their luster — is another matter, not entirely in Chaplin's hands.
Posted
By Max DeNike
on Fri, May 20, 2016 at 10:23 AM
Mike Koozmin/SF Examiner file
On the campaign trail.
When he fired police Chief Greg Suhr on Thursday and appointed an interim replacement a few hours after police shot and killed an unarmed black woman suspected of stealing a car, Mayor Ed Lee was bending to the will of the public and to a growing number of politicians calling for Suhr to go. The buck stopped with Lee, who alone has the power to hire and fire the chief. (Yes, the Police Commission has to approve his appointments, but Lee can also fire police commissioners.)
It’s worth noting that the public drama over San Francisco's police chief happened this way because the position is appointed — and not elected, like the sheriff, district attorney, and Lee himself. All major U.S. cities appoint a police chief, but at least in the Bay Area, there's an elected chief: in Santa Clara.
What if San Francisco also elected the chief and made the position directly responsible to the voters, whose safety and lives they put in the chief's hands?
It might seem tantalizing for voters to have the power to pick this important position, especially in a city with an engaged voting population like San Francisco — and one that wants a direct say in how policing is carried out — but that oversimplifies the job.
Posted
By Chris Roberts
on Thu, May 19, 2016 at 5:34 PM
Hours after police shot and killed an apparently unarmed black woman in the Bayview, San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr handed his resignation to Mayor Ed Lee, the mayor announced Thursday afternoon at City Hall.
Lee met with Suhr on Thursday afternoon following the fatal shooting this morning — which was the last straw for the mayor.
"The progress we’ve made has been meaningful, but it hasn’t been fast enough. Not for me, not for Greg," said the mayor, who dismissed the hunger strike demanding Suhr's resignation as "political rhetoric" but pressed the need to "heal the City."
"That’s why I have asked Chief Suhr for his resignation."
The police department is now led by interim Chief Toney Chaplin, who is black. Chaplin served as a deputy chief, in charge of a new bureau tasked with overseeing police tactics and reform.