As Eve Batey pointed out in today's SF Appeal's daily newsletter, the SF Board of Supervisors just began their special meeting to choose an interim mayor for SF, which you can watch online or on Comcast channel 26. So, you know, if you're one of the 100 or so people who care about such things, be sure to tune it. (Spoiler alert: Ed Lee will be the next mayor.)

Last night's Marriage Equality Community Forum was neat! It started with a brief hello from former New Paltz mayor Jason West. We tried to get a picture, but as you can see, he is simply too dreamy and wonderful to be captured by normal photographic equipment.

The meeting was part of a statewide effort to collect data from everyone at a grassroots level. The "official" marriage activists want to compile an analysis of what went wrong and what went right. If you missed the meeting, you can still contribute -- just fill out the survey on Marriage Equality's site. Molly McKay, the forum's moderator, indicated that the report would be made public.

The evening was kicked off by some speakers: Shayna Gelender from the ACLU explained the current status of the legal challenge to Prop 8. Next, Andrea Shorter explained ... well, we're not sure. We like Andrea -- she's gentle and heartfelt -- but with all her dramatic pauses and lengthy digressions, we sometimes have trouble catching her meaning. And then finally, Sister Edith Myflesh (out of uniform!) talked about outreach. The protests were great, he said, but we need to take those demonstrations to other communities. "They need to see real queer people," he said, and mentioned an upcoming bus trip to Fresno. The audience audibly gasped.

And then, it was on with the discussions.

During some sort of pre-meeting to see if maybe, perhaps, possibly Newsom wants to throw his hat into the California's Governor race, the San Francisco Mayor held a "beta meeting" at his alma mater, Redwood High School, in Larkspur. Prefaced by the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up," more than 100 Marin residents sat in Newsom's old school library to participate in the town hall-ish meeting.

The best part is that Newsom took questions from the audience. And if you think San Francisco residents ask loony questions, well:

Newsom learned Monday night why audience questions were pre-screened during the presidential election's televised town hall meetings. Several audience members rambled on for minutes with no sign of a question in sight. Two audience participants urged Newsom to look into supposed corruption within Marin's family court system. One woman urged Newsom to make sure San Francisco's streets are washed more thoroughly, another submitted a proposal for installing public drinking fountains. Then there was the man who submitted "a comprehensive blueprint for solving the global rise in oceanic sea levels."

While we havbe no clue whether or not it exists, the corruption within Marin's family court system seems reasonable.

That clean freak had better have a Tenderloin address, and not some Mill Valley dream house, if she's making such an anal demand.

But the public drinking fountain and blueprint fellas: insane. Period.

Newsom also told the crowd that they probably wouldn't be keen on some of the cuts in San Francisco's budget that he plans to reveal by week's end. "I'm going to be making some terrible decisions," Newsom told the room. "Do not think for a moment I'm proud."

Oh, and when asked how he plans on dosing more conservative voters' cocktails, Newsom's GHB will be not mentioning that whole same-sex marriage thing. "I'm not going to lead with 'I'm for gay marriage. I get it," he promised.