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You could tell Mayor Gavin Newsom came in expecting the full costumed brigade this morning at Fourth Fake Question Time-- we definitely saw Gavin flinch when SFist Elaine saw him coming into the Excelsior Boys and Girls Club right at 2 p.m.. this morning and shouted out, "Holler!" -- but it was as chicken-free as a lunch at Cafe Gratitude, for the latest installment of Gavin Newsom's town hall meeting, this one on the topic of Youth and Families.
Well, on the bright side, Gavin actually took questions at this event. On the down side, it ended up being heavy enough on the wonk side that a baby started shrieking as soon as Gavin Newsom moved towards his mother and we thought, "We totally know you feel, little one." Here's our impressions from the day:
--Gavin was totally upstaged by the adorable hip-hop dancers that kicked off the event.
--Note to Dan Noyes: Gavin is perfectly happy to take unscripted questions from children ("Why is it the Boys and Girls Club and not the Girls and Boys Club?"). If you want to ask Gavin hard-hitting questions about, say, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, can the ABC 7 I-Team hire a 7-year-old reporter?
--State Assembly Rep. Fiona Ma brought her dog again.
Pictures after the jump (including one of Fiona's dog), along with the Bumblebee status report!
--Gavin talked in his weird jive voice again -- but only when addressing African-Americans. We really wish he'd stop doing that.
--No Bumblebee today, we're sorry to report. Girlfriend Jennifer Siebel is, however, hosting a fundraising party for Gavin party in LA where she says she thinks he's going to be the next governor, report Matier and Ross.
--Here's Fiona's dog. Does she go everywhere with it, or only to Fake Question Times?
--And our blood sugar was running so low that when Gavin made a reference to Mother Teresa, we had to leave and get a burger at Joe's Cable Car Restaurant. So if anything happened after that at 4FQT, you're not going to read about it here!
Adorable dancers.
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Rita, do come over to my house and get a quick Photoshop lesson. Your photos are getting better and better, amd you just need to learn how to Adjust Levels. It's easy and fabulous.
Gavin's a weird, screwed-up creep, even though he does keep Miss Beth S. entranced, and his racist "jive" routine is distressing. Thanks for the report.
I could totally use the lesson! Every time I try to fix levels, it ends up looking all weird and grainy like that Fiona's dog picture. (It would help if I had been less cheap and bought a better camera too, of course.)
The many faces of the Gav:
www.flickr.com/photos/19417968@N00/tags/fakequestiontime/
I've been using GIMP (gimp.org), since it's much faster on Intel Macintosh type computers (and free). But, uh, yeah. Adjusting the colour curves might seem a bit more daunting at first, but works wonders for low light photography. A brief description of how to brighten up a picture with The Gimp:
world.std.com/~mmcirvin/gimp_tutorial/levels_curves.html
Does Gavin do the soul handshake too when he greets people of color? J.Sieb is already launching the campaign for Governor Gavin, huh? Jesus, he must be really good in bed.
Also, Gavin looks like Gomer Pyle in these photos. Not hot here at all.
Rita, you're making adjustments that are too large. Put the original of the dog picture up on Flickr.
I suspect that by futzing with the curves instead of the levels you'd get a better final product (in this case) -- especially if the picture is simply too dark, and not both too dark and too red. Photoshop or The Gimp will almost certainly give you more control and fewer headaches than the Nikon software.
Did anyone notice the folks in the back with the "Inner City Youth" jackets? Ahh the joys of labeling.
You guys have talked me into it! Thanks, Alex -- I'm totally going to try and figure out this gimp.org thing now. The free software they gave me with the camera does kind of blow.
As an additional bonus, and to milk this for yet another post, I'll put up the results of my color curve fixing maybe tomorrow or so and get your guys' feedback on how i did. Watch out, Fiona Ma's dog! (Does anyone know what that dog's name is?)
Governor Newsom? Jennifer, pass that thing over here. I'm sure that Gavin is not Maria Schriver's favorite person. She is a supporter of Alex Tourk and I'm sure Jen won't be welcome at the statehouse any time soon considering her railing against Alex and Ruby. Jen is amazingly stupid, excuse me naive, with these outbursts in the press. It's like watching an arrogant "natural blonde" car drive off a cliff.
Okay, in effort to keep my name dropping going I gotta say it was great to meet Elaine with her cape on and her matching dress and umbrella. Eve was cool. I felt sorry for the line of city employees in the back ...they got to remember to bend their knees so they don't faint (Hi Alex x3 he's the younger one who gave me his biz card).
I thought dogs were not allowed in YMCA (maybe that is why Ms. Swizzle Stick wasn't there).
It was awesome catching the 14 w/ You know who and I am so looking forward to the Govenor's race ...maybe by then Gavin will have learned more spanish.
Joe's Cable Car fucking rocks.
that thing was a snooze fest, and very uninformative. The funniest moment was when that one guy, speaking about the mistreatment of his neighborhood, priased former Mayor Agnos. The look on the Mayor's face was hilarious.
Assemblyman Mark Leno's event at Martuni's was way more fun. HE took any question asked, and was not afraid of those crazy bloggers. Interesting.
Gavin as Governor? JennBee, put down the crackpipe.
Tony Villaraigosa for Governor!!!!!!
'It was awesome catching the 14 w/ You know who and I am so looking forward to the Govenor's race ...maybe by then Gavin will have learned more spanish.'
Or at least the Mexican equivalent of ebonics, ese.
-marc
If you had stayed a while longer, you would have found that Newsom took questions from the adults in the audience, and gave quite long answers, even in answering the last questioner, whose concerns had been answered ealier, but who evidently hadn't paid attention to the info.
He took all questions asked.
The written questions were from folks who wrote them out on the sign-in sheets on the way in.
We thought this was the best of these events (whatever you want to call them) so far. A lot of info, more topics than the stated "Youth & Education" (not "Families") housing, middle-class jobs, children, services...
Oh, and the chickens were there, just not in costume.
Hey Jen let's not stop at govenor I bet gavey would make a super duper president too! I know, lets get all the kids together and put on a show, we can use the stage at delancy street! If we need any clowns we can get peety ragone, by the sound of some of the comments I've read lately I think he's posting again.
Jen clearly has delusions of Kennedy camelot for herself and Newsom. I expect to see her donning an Oleg Cassini suit and pill box hat in the very near future.