Big Red, the intimidating crane looming over the Transbay Terminal, started swinging it's wrecking ball this morning, which probably ruined the dustless process that so delighted Da Mayor last week. Likewise, Willie himself spent the week swinging all over town and kicking up dust with the various ladies in his life. Only one of them, however, would bring him to "a great short rib experience."
This Week in Willie Brown
Day Around the Bay
Clinton takes it in New Hampshire. [Oakland Tribune]
Day Around the Bay
-- Why, it's our very own SFist Rita kicking it in the comfy confines (and breaking down the latest season of Project Runway) over at SFGate. Awesome. [Culture Blog]
Day Around the Bay
-- Some very sad news: former SFist editor, writer, and gem of an all-around guy, Jeremy Nisen, switched addresses for now. Aw. But never fear, you can still catch his brilliance over at Curbed. Yay! [Curbed SF]
Chicken v. Wolf v. Audience
Last night's innovative Chicken John/Josh Wolf Mayoral debate brought in "a dozen or so citizens," artists, and political fetishists. Even though it was on a Sunday night, anyone who cares about politics, SF, and progressiveness shouldn't have missed it.
Day Around The Bay
-- Are you ready for the genius that is Peaches Christ and her Midnight Mass cult-film series? [Bay Area Reporter] -- Television -- glorious, warm, loving television! -- on BART cars? Hmm. [Inside Bay Area, Oakland Tribune] -- Matt Stroud takes a brief, much-needed break from his Rocky-like boxing bootcamp training. [The Snitch] -- Affordable housing advocates get pinched by the fuzz. Remember, purveyors of justice: don't drop the soap! [Fog City Journal] --...
Day Around The Bay
--Gavin Newsom angrily denies Chris Daly's cocaine allegations, calls them "sleazy," and calls for everyone in the Board of Supes to condemn them. Tom Ammiano says he thought it was one of Daly's better speeches. [The Chron (and audio clip), CBS 5 (with video of Daly at the meeting and Newsom's denial), ABC 7 (also with video), Fog City, Beyond Chron, Examiner, SF Sentinel. Watch the video from SFGov here, around item 36.]
Day Around The Bay
--Spot (at least) four problems with this picture! [zippy_monster on Flickr, from the SFist Flickr stream.]
Jennifer Siebel: The Girl Code
Before we get into the Jennifer Siebel links of the day, we'd like to put a theory out there. Remember Chron writer C.W. Nevius's theory that men were upset about Newsom's behavior with Ruby Rippey-Tourk because it violated the man code? (which is, in short, don't mess around with a friend's woman.)
The Adventures of the Superfisters: The Dramatic Conclusion
If we may be permitted to step out of subjective first-person plural for a moment:
We Read The Weeklies
Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Hey, the EBX is starting a blog -- we hear those are very trendy. But they've got us listed as a link, right below the Culture Blog, so it's all okay! Bottom Feeder mocks the errors made by the Bay Guardian in its East Bay endorsements. Would you buy expensive organic meals prepared by these folks? Confrontational atheists meeting near Walnut Creek. Cover article: the woes of air traffic controllers in Oakland. Brazilian food in Richmond. Cheap wines for everyone! The Pacific Mozart Ensemble sings in Berkeley with Sufjan Stevens, who alienates the crowd briefly by cheering for the Tigers. And Lyrics Born is playing this weekend!
The Chron In the Blogosphere
With the advent of this Internet thingamabob, newspapers are finding themselves in quite a world of Darwinian hurt. In short, adapt or die. Lately, the Chron has been adapting by having some of their most favored writers do blogs on the SFGate side. Not a bad idea really as we're sure the idea of paying $30 a year to read Jon Carroll's cat columns is not going to bring in the cash money. How they've been getting the writers to do it is a good question as we have a feeling not many of them were that psyched on the idea. We're thinking either by gun point or with long-lost incriminating photos.
SFist Reads
Wow, another year of SFist Reads seems to have whipped right by. Another year of online reserves checked out from the SF Public Library, another year of shopping at our fine local independent bookstores. As we here at SFist have eyes in the back of our heads, we happily look back over 2005 and ahead to 2006 for this year-end edition of SFist Reads.
Explosion at the Crocker Galleria
There's been an underground explosion at Post and Kearny, right outside the Ralph Lauren store at the Crocker Galleria. At around 10 a.m., people said they heard an explosion and saw the sidewalk rise up about 6-7 inches. Two manhole covers were blown off, as was a concrete cover, and the explosion blew up the glass front of the Ralph Lauren store. One woman was sent to the hospital with serious, but not life-threatening, burns. We wish her a speedy recovery.
The authorities suspect that an underground transformer blew, but the bomb squad is going in before they let PG&E look around. Parts of Post, Sutter, Montgomery, and Kearny have been cordoned off as the investigation continues.
Not a good day for PG&E, who just got hit with a possible $15 million fine for the 2003 above-ground transformer explosion. In other news, there was also a bomb scare at Civic Center (which was cleared without incident) around the same time. Meanwhile, the authorities are also worrying that the beached whale we told you about in Half Moon Bay might explode as well. (Really!)
Also -- Flickr users, ABC News 7 wants to use your digital photos of the blast if you have any.
Chronicle-flavored SPAM?
We're sorry, but that's it. We added the SFGate blog to our Bloglines feeds because we figured that we could just ignore Mark Morford and maybe there would be some good stuff. Seriously, we gave them the benefit of the doubt.

