If you live in San Francisco, you're more or less guaranteed to run in to Sean Penn at least once during your tenure. It's a rite of passage like drinking your first Fernet or spotting your first wild parrot. Unfortunately for Cuban actress Maria Conchita Alonso, who starred across from Penn in 1988's Colors, was less like a fun celebrity sighting and more like a public cursing match. more ›

The local webs are abuzz this a.m. with news that movie star and convincing Greek warrior Gerard Butler got held under water and maybe could have drowned yesterday while filming a scene for the upcoming film Of Men and Mavericks. Butler was paddling out with surfer costars Greg Long, Zach Wormhoudt, and Peter Mel when they got unexpectedly slammed by a big set of waves in the 20+ foot range. All four men "took like four to five pretty big waves on the head," according to Wormhoudt, and Butler had to get pulled out of the water by a jetski rescuer. Butler, shaken up but conscious, was taken to Stanford Medical Center for observation. more ›

Today in celebrity What the Eff news: famous figure skaters Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi are taking over KQED's twitter feed to tweet about... something. So far it's been mostly Boitano retweeting his own tweet about how he's in Greenville, South Carolina for an Improv Ice show. Yamaguchi, on the other hand, has taken to filling us in on traffic on 680 in the far East Bay. (Sent from her iPad, no less.) Observe: more ›

(By Christopher Robbins) In the midst of the most important story of our time, Alec Baldwin's spokesman wants us to know that getting the boot from an American Airlines flight was just Alec being Alec. "Alec loves Words With Friends so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it," flack Matthew Hilzik tells the Daily News. And fellow famous-person Oscar De La Hoya, who was on the flight from LAX to JFK, tweeted "I think the flight attendant over reacted…@AlecBaldwin was doing nothing wrong but playing 'words' on his phone." But couldn't this just be some celebrity Omertá? According to American Airlines, Baldwin was acting like a thoughtless little pig. more ›

On Sunday in Palo Alto, several noted folks attended Steve Jobs' memorial service at Stanford. Among the list of attendees? Rupert Murdoch, notes Gawker—Rupert, if you recall, was in San Francisco on Friday taking part in Gov. Jeb Bush's privatization of education summit at the Palace Hotel—as well as a slew of other important people paying their respects to the recently deceased Apple co-founder. more ›

The annual Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation’s (TNDC) charity pool toss happens tonight. What does that mean, exactly? It means local notables get pushed into a pool for money. Weren't you paying attention? A few confirmed tosees include D6 Supervisor Jane Kim, SF Giants Mascot Lou Seal, people from Twitter (hey, they aren't celebrities!), SF society photographer Drew Altizer, and more. But that's not the exciting part. The awesome part is that MC Hammer will help host the near-drowning frivolity along with KGO-TV/ABC7's Cheryl Jennings, chiseled Top Chef: Just Desserts champion Yigit Pura, the divine Donna Sachet (host/performer/columnist/actual star), and none other than Jan Wahl. That's right, JAN WAHL, Quentin Tarantino's favorite movie critic. more ›

You know what are great? Celebrities. This country practically runs on them and their soft, latte-holding hands. So if you're one of San Francisco's many mayoral candidates, looking for a way to stand out from the crowd and win the hearts and minds of the common folk, what better way to do so than with an endorsement from a celebrity. Let's check in and see who's endorsing who: more ›

Photographer Troy Holden (member of the award-winning Caliber SF) has always been kind enough to share shots of notables who visit the Twitter offices on Harrison Street. This week, he brings us two shots of Adrian Grenier (above), the guy from Entourage, and Carol "Fuck Off" Bartz (below), wildly awesome Yahoo CEO. more ›

Local celebrities and non-local celebrities joined many besuited gays, lesbians, and their admirers at this past weekend's GLAAD Media Awards at the Marriott. The S.F. edition of the awards, which also take place in New York and Los Angeles, featured prizes for Best Documentary (Ask Not, directed by Johnny Symons), Outstanding Digital Journalism - Multimedia (The Stonewall Riots: 40 Years Later, AARP.org), and honors given to Lee Daniels (director of Precious) and Cybill Shepard for their contributions to LGBT rights and visibility. The awards dinner, hosted by Bruce Villanch, also featured performances by newly out country singer Chely Wright — who seemed very moved to be performing for her first almost-all-gay audience — and Australian dance pop wunderkind Sam Sparro. more ›

The house featured in the opening credits of "Full House" is for sale for $4 million. Built in 1896, 722 Steiner is on Alamo Square's "Postcard Row."... more ›

While we enjoy poking fun at the Chron, make no mistake that our love for Leah Garchik runs deep. Very deep. Take, for example, this story she broke on what could possibly be the greatest reunion since... well, the the greatest reunion, ever. more ›

This weekend San Francisco hosted its first ever SFChefsFoodWine bash -- put on by the (controversial) Golden Gate Restaurant Association -- a "foodie" event that saw industry bigwigs (Paolo Lucchesi of Eater, Marcia Gagliardi of Tablehopper, Mary Ladd of SFoodie, Camper English of alcademics, and Michael Bauer of SFGate) mingle with food bigwigs (Joanne Weir, Hubert Keller, Thomas Keller, Tyler Florence, Jamie Lauren), where they foraged for some of the best food and wine that the Bay Area has to offer. And how. Mm. more ›

During the contentious court trial between (former) Bay Area married couple of note, Ginger McKenna (AKA Sharon Stone) and the Chronicle's Phil Bronstein," the former, it seems, was described as an "alarmist" who had "gone off the deep end over and over." At least according to the esteemed journalists over at TMZ, who obtained the court's "Tentative Statement of Decision" document on their recent custody battle. more ›

Forget starlets canoodling in the Marina. Ron Howard appeared at Stanford this week to screen Frost/Nixon. Coincidentally on the same day another famous redhead spoke there as well. Students had a chance to weigh in on the ending a bit, so if you hate the results, blame them. more ›

This was the scene the other day on everybody's favorite piece of landfill, San Francisco's Marina District. Larger version here Of course SUPER-visor Chris Daly took action to keep Segways off of our sidewalks about a half decade ago, but our law doesn't appear to stop folks from just driving around in bike lanes. (It doesn't seem to stop people from riding on sidewalks either, but oh well.) Anyway, you'll be seeing these things in... more ›

Honestly we have no idea what to do with this press release we just received, other than hug it and squeeze it and love it and take it to bed. The damn thing looks like a MySpace or something, and it's about as comprehensible. Something about Cloris Leachman? On a boat? With videogames? more ›

-- The Shining (1980): "Honey, I'm home," "Here's Johnny!" etcetera, etcetera, Kubrick, and so forth. (No one wields a baseball bat like Shelley Duvall. So awkward. Also, what ever happened to her?) Screens at midnight (okay, 11:55 p.m.) at the Clay. more ›

-- Unspeakable (2007): Documentary about the life of Satanic Priest Steven Johnson Leyba, "ordained by Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, is known in the underground art world as the 'Father of Sexpressionism.'" (Chortle) Screens tonight at 7:45 p.m., 9:05 at the Roxie New College Film Center; $6. more ›

All of you YouTube addicts out there are probably familiar with many of the "absoludicrous"* found video clips from Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett's touring Found Footage Festival (*Mr. T makes an appearance in the "Celebrities Who Teach" series). The critically-acclaimed event will be in San Francisco tonight and tomorrow night at the Roxie Red Vic at 7:15 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. and this Sunday at the Parkway in Oakland for a 5 p.m. matinee. Every screening features Nick and Joe's live, in-person commentary. If you can't make it to the live show, you have the option to buy the Found Footage Festival Vol. 2 DVD, which features Nick and Joe's commentary and the live audience laugh track from a screening at The Heights Theater in Minnesota. Note: This event has very adult content. There is a clip at the end that will shock, titillate, and stun -- shall we say, "flopping, full frontal?" more ›

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. more ›

With negotiations still going nowhere between JaMarcus Russell and the Raiders and the season about to begin, SFist brings you the Top 10 Things JaMarcus Russell Will be Doing this Weekend: more ›

Photo of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom behind the wheel of a Tesla Motors Roadster protoype in Fisherpersons Wharf more ›

We can't really get ourselves too worked up about the billboards or campaign finance allegations that Mark Leno's tossing around about his rival for the State Senate seat, Carole Migden (sorry) -- but we certainly do pay attention to her reckless-driving woes! The Solano County DA has decided to charge Migden with a misdemeanor based on her wild lane-changing and fender-bending ways from earlier this year. Like Paris Hilton, only without the DUI or the wonky eye! more ›

Sasha Cagen's been mentioned in these pages before. She's the author of books Quirkyalone and To-Do List. Even with those cool accomplishments under her belt, she's gone on to found (with co-founder Adam Souzis) something astonishingly addictive -- StyleMob. A very nice SFist reader sent us an invite during the "invite-only beta" -- which comes to a close today! If all goes as planned, today will start the "public beta," so cruise on over and join the 6,000 current members. StyleMob is an online community "for street fashion inspiration" where you can see "how real people put together their outfits." There are all sorts of voting, networking, and community tools. more ›

-- Using the garbage and junk-drawer debris from oh-my-God real-life celebrities (!), crafty artist Jason Mercier creates jaw-dropping portraits of A- through D-list notables, which range from Parker Posey to Heidi Fleiss. Celebrity Junk Drawer opens tonight starting at 9 p.m. at 111 Minna Galley (at Second St.); admission is free. more ›

We enjoy Yelp quite a bit. During our rare moments of free time, we often have fun slogging through the site's multitudes of oft-useful, oft-comedic opinions on local services, establishments, and especially restaurants (feel free to check out our vast [6] amount of reviews ). We were interested to hear more about the genesis of this community-based Web site, and wondered how Yelp's growth and evolution looked to those behind the scenes. The site's founders, Jeremy Stoppelman (who's the CEO, and talked to SFist once before) and Russel Simmons (the CTO), took a few minutes to answer three questions for us. Hey -- six answers for the price of three! more ›

Look! Just like we promised -- to celebrate the Frameline GLBT film fest, we're giving away free passes throughout the festival (running June 14-24). more ›

--A source passes along these pictures of Gavin Newsom and Carole Migden at a Pride event some time back. We saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus! more ›

The "Celebrities Doing Things" reality TV trend continues tonight on ABC with "Fast Cars & Superstars." This sounds almost as stupid as that show that had LaToya Jackson arresting people in Indiana. Is it any surprise the "celebrities" in this reality show/product placement vehicle include the likes of Jewel, William Shatner, and wrestler John Cena? more ›

Yesterday, we posted a contest in which we're giving away a copy of Matt Silady's "The Homeless Channel," a new graphic novel. Matt, a Berkeley resident, was both the writer and artist of this creative yet grounded fiction about the woman behind a 24-hour broadcast network devoted to covering the homeless. This Friday, the Isotope turns into party central (as it often does) to celebrate the book's launch, which anyone can attend. more ›