July 12, 2007
San Francisco's Mayoral Pick Via the Old Gray Lady
Here we have le Gav looking lover-ly while kicking it with some tired Ethel Merman tranny (excuse me, fabulous "Ethel Merman impersonator") in Jesse McKinley's stellar New York Times article about our personality-littered mayoral race. (And while a very interesting piece, why Rita's or Jeremy's brilliant coverage and point of views aren't mentioned is beyond any and all logic. We're just saying is all. We digress.) Almost all of the usual and self-consciously zany suspects are in there: Kenny the Clown (Kenneth Kahn), Chicken John (who, for some reason, I will always confuse with Big Brother's Chicken George [which, by the way, is so good this season!]), and almost the rest of the wacy gaggle. Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of journalistic martyr Josh Wolf, which we found bizarre.
Basically, McKinley points out that no "major contender" is going for Newsom's jugular this time around (a la Matt Gonzalez) -- even spot-on Chris Daly admits this as a “very difficult campaign” -- and that, of course, Newsom will be our mayor for four more years. Probably.
But you knew that already.
(Photo credit: Erin Lubin/Bloomberg News)
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Nice Big Brother reference.
Hey, Ethel (or is it Ethyl?) is awesome. She's not tired at all. (In fact, I've actually heard her sing that Pink song from the earlier post.)
At least she's got a live schticky kind of act and doesn't go about lipsyncing bad drag queen breath into our faces like some of the other SF drag queens.
Sure, her act never changes, but who cares--it's Ethel (Ethyl?)!!!
Oh, and who is the Hottie van der Hot behind Gavin in that photo.
And is that a trailer back there or are they fancy port-a-(sniff, sniff)-johns?
i found the tone and content of the piece to be pretty disappointing. i mean, i met the writer once - very nice guy - but in the article he reduces everything in sf politics to their most trivial and comical. it's like we're being pattted on the head or something for being so amusing. well, yeah, of course we’ve got a lot of whacko political stuff going on, but he makes it sound as if there aren't real issues involved in our local elections.
oh, and the thing about the progressive convention being referred to as a "hippie hootenanny"? ??!!?? is that straight from some campaign's spin? i did a web search of that phrase and a bunch of combos of sf, convention, progressive, chris daly, etc, and came up with nothing. (actually i found a reference to burning man as a "neo-hippie hootenanny" but that's the closest anything came to sf.)
even more strange - altho tony hall would not be my choice for mayor, there actually is a former elected official in the race who is not mentioned once, among the colorful canidates. the article also describes what matt g. is doing today as a part-time collage artist, as if matt is just like the rest of the folks in the article, as if he doesn’t have anything else going on, as if he didn’t start a law firm, etc. even the line describing eric jaye as "not the cuckholded one" is totally unnecessary and I think too flip in tone for the nyt...
Hippie hootenanny? What the? Nicknamed by whom? Out of touch New York Times reporters? Eric Jaye? Yeah, the Progressive Convention sure was wacky and zany. Man, those 15 elected officials (mostly Democrats) were far out. When Public Defender Adachi went off on that jam about California's recidivism rate, and then Sheriff Hennessey followed up with the same riff, that was epic.
Pathetic. I expect better from the New York Times than another cliché "look at those wacky San Franciscans" article.
#3, you should write a letter to the editor re: that article.
thx. i already did. we shall see if they run it...
Ethel Mermann- thanks I though it was Joan Crawford after her weight watchers diet failed. I particularly like that she is showing hard nipples. Must be a reaction to Gav.
Dude, you have GOT TO GET A NEW SUIT! The one you keep wearing is getting shiny.
BTW for those who don't know. NYT online is great. They have a feature that allows you to double click on any word. That links you in a new window to a dictionary and the meaning of the word you clicked on. Major great.
Lazy journo didn't have enough context to question the propaganda that Newsom polls as strongly as claimed and foolishly reports the inflated number. The Times' SF scribes used to be better; this one didn't even honor their own article history..."hippie hootenany," where'd that come from, the "be-in" archive? Cat's right, it would have taken but a simple phrase from their coverage of 03's magic to get the Matt G. characterization properly differentiated. Hopefully they'll get more chances soon to make up for this lapse...
--SocialJustice
did anyone notice how there were two other articles at the same time as this one in major national publications (bloomberg and newsweek) about the sf mayor/mayor's race?? it's like they were all part of the same push for coverage...
& no word yet from the new york times about the LTE...
Ethel Merman (aka Mark Sargent) is not transgender--he identifies as a non-transgender man, who is a musician/performer.
I know him personally, and I've worked with him many times.
Lady Champerz
"Hippie Hootenany" is new to me as well; but now that it's been said, it's not exactly inaccurate, is it?
Brock, it's really disappointing that you would mock transgendered people.
guest 12, very funny.
and how is it possible to do drag in california in 2007 and find the term "tranny" offensive. someone's drag mother wasn't doing her job.