Public art is often the butt of jokes and viewed with contempt, along with performance art and washed up aging rockers on the county fair circuit. Whatever your feelings are about the role of government in the arts, many people support public art in theory, and its civic impact is meager compared to contracts for garbage disposal, cable television, and towing. Public art controversies are noteworthy in that one sees people get twisted knickers over something being ugly or, to put it politely, "compositionally unresolved." (Personally, we wonder if Baby Suri isn¹t compositionally unresolved.) more ›

We're a little late on this, but mazel tov to newly-affianced Mayor Jerry Brown of Oakland and his girlfriend of 15 years, Gap executive Anne Gust! (We apologize for using the picture of Jerry Brown with ex Linda Ronstadt, but Linda is apparently getting an invitation to the wedding so we figure it's all good.) Brown proposed on Gust's birthday two weeks ago, in their loft on Telegraph Avenue, after he cooked her a romantic dinner of BBQ chicken and peas. He was so excited he hadn't even bought a ring yet! Awwwwwww. It's a first wedding for them both. They're tentatively planning for a June 2005 wedding. Guess if you're the mayor, you don't have to worry so much about the year-long wait lists at popular Oaktown wedding spots like the rest of us. Sen. Dianne Feinstein will officiate (here's hoping she doesn't accidentally sell Brown and Gust out to the right wing in the process). And no registry -- all gifts should be sent to the Oakland School of the Arts. Cynics may say that this may have something to do with the fact that Jerry's planning on running for attorney general next year -- but we're choosing to see it solely as a move for love! Most importantly, though, Jerry! Are you going to go the route of all engaged bloggers and fill up your blogspot account with long accounts of trying on shoes and cake tastings and ofotos of fabric swatches? We can't wait! more ›

Everyone's favorite attorney crime fighter, Kimberly Guilfoyle! Angry parolees in Oakland staged a protest at Oakland's City Hall on Wednesday, claiming Mayor Jerry Brown was unfairly blaming them for crime and failing to support them in finding jobs. When they got to City Hall, though, imagine their surprise when it turned out the City had organized a job fair for them! Quick thinking, Mayor Jerry! In kind of a Sore-Loserman move, though, some of the protesters then got in a screaming match with the fair organizers, claiming it had been set up solely to make the parolees look bad. Nonetheless, 16 people signed up for various city programs, and Jerry Brown released a pugnacious statement about not crashing people's parties. In Daly City, a middle-aged gay Asian man wearing women's clothing was found stabbed to death in his backyard. Investigators have no leads and tentatively suspect that some kind of hate crime was involved, but also note that the man had not been robbed of his jewelry and had not been sexually assaulted. more ›

Here at SFist, we like to highlight local bloggers who are at the top of their game. But sometimes we also like to use this column to show our support to kids who are new to the neighborhood. So even though this guy has only written one post (though it has gotten 46 comments so far), we want to encourage him to keep cranking away at his site. more ›