Knowing that the report wouldn't put the Mayor in that nice of a light, he held a pre-emptory press briefing on Friday in which he said everything was on the up-and-up, that it was nothing out of the ordinary, and the people he had given raises to were working for that department anyways. His people were so adamant that there's so nothing going on that Gavin's Chief of Staff Phil Ginsberg said the report was "bull--" and Gavin added "is it two l's? You can quote him on that." We have no idea what that means either. So concerned were Gavin's people, in fact, they took an early copy of the report (which they weren't supposed to get) and got all Chuck Klosterman with it, adding footnotes wherever possible to explain themselves (since we too got an early copy of the report too, we'll give you an example-- on Stuart Sunshine, for instance, the footnote reads: "No, Stuart Sunshine was not picked for his name and no, despite everyone's confusion, he is not Stuart Smiley Smalley, although he is good enough, smart enough and doggone if people don't like him).

Both Jake McG and Aaron Peskin have said that they won't comment on the report until it's officially released on Monday but as Peskin and Newsom appear to be fighting like cats and dogs lately, it should be rather heated. We eagerly await Aaron Peskin's next bout of drunk dialing.

The South Bay gets it.

California's High Speed Rail Authority picked the Pacheco Pass as the future route for the 200-mph train that will help you get from SF to LA in record time. According to SFGate, "without a vote, the authority accepted its staff's recommendation last month to run trains from the San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area over Pacheco Pass, east of Gilroy." Well then.

After a four-hour meeting with Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who both "pleaded for the route over Pacheco Pass," the decision was made. Newsom also recommended "campaigning for a November bond measure that would raise $10 billion to start building a high-speed rail" that goes from the nifty yet always controversial Transbay Terminal to Union Station in Los Angeles.

And now? We wait. Any guesses as to when this already-11-year-long process will result in us zipping down to LA ever so fast?

-- Aimee Mann's Second Annual Christmas Show: Paul F. Tompkins, Sean Hayes, Chuck Prophet, and Morgan Murphy join the delightfully blond songstress for a night of holiday warm fuzzies. Because X-Mas is coming and there's no way around it, come catch this wonderful singer/songwriter during the, um, recording-a-holiday-album period of her career. Show starts at 8 p.m. at Bimbo's 365; $35.50.

-- Margot at the Wedding: Fantastic movie. Just great. And whatever. It totally had an ending -- and a fitting one at that. Many critics claim otherwise, but it was a satisfying touch at the end. And we recommend seeing the late-late showing without the crowd. Whether he's being funny or not, Embarcadero audiences won't stop laughing when Jack Black appears on the screen. Annoying. Shows tonight at 6:40p, 7:45, and 10:10 at the Embarcadero Center Cinema; $7.50-10.

-- The Windy City Gentleman, Snakeleg Sideshow, and Sassy: Guess what kind of rock these bands play? If you said "indie with Bossa nova, garage, and pop notes," then you're a winner. Another winner? Sassy. Because who wouldn't want to be named after one of the greatest publications of all time? (Well, except most every single guy we know.) The music starts at 9 p.m. at the Elbo Room; $5.

[Obligatory filmed-back-in-the-1970's-before-you-were-born reference here. Waste five minutes of your life watching Chuck Rodent battle the guy who played Bob in Lost in Translation here. "That kangaroo stole my ball!" Indeed.]

Here's what NOT to bring to Thanksgiving dinner:
Cabernet Sauvignon (for the love of God, don't bring Cab)
Merlot
Petite Sirah
Chardonnay (unless there is a crab dish)
The varietals above are simply too much for Turkey Day.

DO bring:
Beaujolais Nouveau - It's in season. But be warned...Stay away from this wine if you're particularly offended by floral, aromatic varietals.

Pinot Noir - Spend $20 or more and you should come out with something pretty decent. Stick to Northern California and Willamette Valley Pinots (pre 2005, if possible).

Champagne or Sparkling Wine - Again, spend at least $20 or opt for the pink-wrapped Sophia Coppola (a bargain and a fun conversation-starter). When in doubt, bubbly is always appropriate.
The varietals above will pair nicely with almost all Turkey Day fare.

Cheers!

This reading list is the result of a conversation that started innocently enough on the SFBG's blogs, in a post about homelessness in Golden Gate Park and, tangentially, the Spanish American War. When the SFBG's Tim Redmond that "We can fix that. It costs money. Money comes from taxes," SFist_Mattymatt responded with distressed skepticism. Frankly, he was a bit of an asshole.

Stephen T. Jones, the paper's city editor, responded via email, and after some conversation, provided a reading list for the aspiring Marxist. We asked if we could post the conversation here, which we've done, minus anyone's contact info. We've also refrained from adding commentary to the emails, and in fact specifically promised not to be glib. This was an incredibly difficult thing for us to do (and as you can see, our accompanying illustration utterly fails this commitment), but it seemed like the nice thing to attempt since our "attitude and wordplay" is a point of some contention.

Ironically, both parties involved in this conversation probably believe that it proves totally opposite things about themselves and each other. But we won't say what those things are -- for if any commenting is to be done on this state of affairs, it is up to you, the readers.

-----Original Message-----
From: mattymatt
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 11:57 PM
To: Steve Jones
Subject: [Politics] New Comment Posted to 'Yes, Chuck, enough is enough'


A new comment has been posted on your blog Politics, on entry #1883 (Yes, Chuck, enough is enough).

Oh dear God. Tim wrote "Money comes from taxes." Funny, I thought money came from work, and taxes are what take money AWAY.

---

On 10/10/07, Steve Jones wrote:
Money comes from government mints...

Sorry for the delay in reading your alt-weeklies this week; there was a comical mixup in our attempts to implement the weekly switchoff between us and SFist Sarah L. We'll try again in a few weeks, and we also briefly considered just not doing something this week, and then we thought, . So here we are!

Next, the San Jose Metro: Gary Singh likes Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, even though he's not from San Jose. Too many kids in juvie. There's a hilarious picture of an person in an otter suit carrying a canvas bag!!!. Cover article: The ultimate frisbee scene in the Bay Area. This article is so South Bay! (geeky, yet sportif!) Turkish food in Menlo Park. The Rivers of Chocolate festival in Saratoga. It sounds kind of excessive ($100 = as much chocolate and wine as you can eat and drink.) The latest entrant in the San Jose alt arts scene -- authored by San Jose booster Gary Singh! The new Mos Def album deeply disappoints the reviewer, who now considers himself a former Mos Def fan. And San Jose taiko drumming.

After the jump: The East Bay Express, the SF Weekly, the weekly of the week, and the YTD count that we're probably a little overinvested in keeping up-to-date!

Also, a major highlight in the local wisdom section: The Ken Anger Restorations. That will be one wicked great screening!

LOCAL WISDOM
Artist Television Access (922 Valencia St.) has the SF Premiere of Micahel Trigilio’s newest Thanks for Giving my Number Back with director in attendance. As far as funk factor is concerned, this is a pretty nifty looking screening. Watch the trailer here

Tuesday ATA has a repeat screening of ATV Big Screen which is a great recap if you were sad you missed anything from the ATA Film & Video Fest run back in ’06. Finally, on Thursday they’re showing DEEVEEDEE, a pithy compilation of new video artistry by emerging video artists. For past DEEVEEDEE collections see http://www.deeveedee.no/

The Balboa is showing Blades of Glory and The Namesake.

FREE ADMISSION on your birthday!
Discount Cards: 5 admissions for $30.00 now on sale
SCHOOL NIGHT –Every Monday is School Night. $6.00 for Students, Faculty and school Staff (with School ID) .

Yep, San Jose wants their libraries to be Spank Free.

Or at least by decree of San Jose's mayor-elect, Chuck Reed. Reed was shown a clip of the story KGO ran on all the rampant debauchery seen in libraries and instantly moved into action. One of the first things he'll do as Mayor is call for another investigation and figure out recommendations to alleviate the issue. One of them possibly being moving the computers to areas not near children. Maybe they could put the computers in a special room that you have to get into by showing your id. Like a room behind a black drape or something and you could even charge money. Hey, it could even help pay for library funds. Anyways, they want to do something to prevent all the porn peeking and the things that come out of watching porn.

As for putting up filters, you know to prevent people from going to Booksluts.com or Spankhouse.com, the ACLU says nuh-huh, freedom of speech and all that.

Anyways, KGO called Gavin's people to see what Gavin's response would be. He has yet to return. What? He's too busy in the Philippines to respond to this crucial story?

Eh, whatever. We're just waiting for the day we walk into any library and see a sign posted there reading "This Library Has Been Masturbation Free for 7 Days."

Let's look at the ballots we've gotten so far. The state ballot this year clocks in at 192 pages, same as the city of San Francisco ballot. Let's see, that's...eight...carry the one... 384 total pages of election goodness to read through before voting. Why wouldn't people not be thrilled about all of this? To put that in perspective, our beloved "The Stranger," clocks in at 123 pages and in that book, you'll at least figure out how to discover meaning out of meaningless. "On the Road" is about 254 pages and that launched the Beatnik movement. And Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City?" 272. Voting is like having to cram for a test in that you have to set aside a couple of hours to read through really boring stuff you really don't want to read, except if you don't do a good job, instead of failing, you wind up with a Hollywood actor running things.

According to the story, another issue election officials are having to worry about is that between printing and mailing costs, ballots are getting pretty darn expensive these days.

The thing is, though, we can't really come up with a better way around this. It's all pretty much fair and equitable the way things are done. Of course, we could argue that the whole proposition thing has gotten way out of hand, but that's a debate for another time.