It is a sad day here at SFist as we mourn the loss of one of our own — and it is the first time a full-time staffer has passed for a site that has been in existence 22 years. Joe Kukura, who began contributing to the site in its earliest days and became its associate editor in the last decade, has died at age 55. The cause was complications from gastric cancer.

Joe had continued working at SFist these last several months while undergoing treatment, and he praised the care he was receiving at UCSF Medical Center. His prognosis became dire only in the last several days as he was diagnosed with pneumonia, and he passed away early Friday at UCSF Parnassus with family members at his side.

Joe was born in Russell, Ohio on December 7, 1970. He attended West Geauga High School in Chesterland, Ohio, and attended Ohio University, where he studied to be a special education teacher, and received a bachelor's degree in 1995.

Todd Golling, a friend of Joe's since 7th grade, says, "I’ll always remember him for his Hawaiian shirts, his love for Weird Al Yankovic, and his accordion playing." Golling adds, "We even started a band together called DPZA (Dead Petting Zoo Animals)."

According to Joe's brother, Jack Kukura, "Joe was always a performer," joining a punk band in high school and playing both accordion and tuba. "In college, many people only knew Joe as Elvis," he says, a sort of alt persona that was clearly a precursor to Joe's longstanding love of costumes.

Soon he was hitchhiking from Athens, Ohio to San Francisco and back again, to decide if he wanted to live here, and quickly decided he did. "When he made his official move to San Francisco, Joe took Amtrak," his brother said, adding, "Joe always chose the more adventurous route."

Joe arrived in San Francisco in June 1996 and never left, immersing himself in the world of Burning Man and San Francisco's music scene. His appreciation for the city grew from there, as Joe fashioned himself into a bon vivant who seemed to know everyone, from late night bar denizens of North Beach to members of the city’s running clubs.

"Joe was the kind of person you would be relieved to see at a party or community event — you knew you'd be safe with him, that you didn't have to put on airs, that you could anchor yourself to him to stave off social awkwardness or feeling alone," says friend Kat Robichaud.

Joe was a pioneer in the "Wild West" days of the early blogosphere, and began contributing to SFist not long after it launched in 2004 — as San Francisco's answer to New York's burgeoning Gothamist, with a largely unpaid staff. Joe's personal Blogspot blog, Exercising While Intoxicated, was inspired by his love for Bay to Breakers, and a map he created of all the liquor stores one could find along the race route was soon reprinted on SFist in 2008, creating a modest local sensation — and leading to an annual tradition of updating this map that he continued through last year.

"He didn't just love San Francisco, as many do. He understood it with a singular, unaffected point of view," says former SFist Editor Brock Keeling. Keeling remembers seeing Joe at music shows in the late 1990s, and meeting him through a friend of a friend at Joe's railroad apartment on Florida Street.

"Much can be said of his wit and solid writing chops, but what stood out most about 'Joe K' (as he was often called), was that he lacked the standoffishness or prickly ego that many writers, myself included, can't shake," Keeling adds. "Also, during a brief time when we overlapped as roommates, my cat ate his gecko. He always reminded me of that with a smile, even twenty years later. I hope the three of them are together now, in peace, laughing about it."

Over time, Joe would become something of SFist's political correspondent, delighting in the petty dramas and minor scandals that popped up in the long soap opera of the SF Board of Supervisors. And he took a special interest in digging through financial disclosures around local elections, calling campaign finance research one of his "kinks."

From three-legged dog picnics to the Hunky Jesus contest, Joe delighted in covering the kooky, often unhinged culture of our city as well.

"Joe was so happily, unselfconsciously intent on squeezing every drop of fun from his day that I was always surprised by how prolifically and smoothly he wrote," says founding SFist Editor Eve Batey. "His signature move, in life and work, was always a wide grin and a swing from the rafters."

Batey adds, "Even after decades in SF, his enthusiasm for the city never dimmed — but that doesn’t mean he was an unquestioning booster. No one was above a nudge or rib from Joe (in person and on paper), but it never felt small or petty. He wasn’t mean, but he called it as he saw it, with a core of integrity and a little bit of a smile."

"None of that changed when he fell ill late last year," Batey says. "He grew thinner and got tired a little earlier, but his gusto and love of life never wavered. San Francisco is a little less magical without him in it."

Joe did marketing content work for NerdWallet and Pulsepoint, and was also a regular contributor to SF Weekly, Thrillist, and Broke-Ass Stuart, where his bio page states, "Joe Kukura is a two-bit marketing writer who excels at homoerotic double-entendre. He is training to run a full marathon completely drunk and high, and his work has appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on days when their editors made particularly curious decisions."

Broke-Ass Stuart founder Stuart Schuffman writes in his own obit for "dear friend, colleague, and fellow mischief maker" Joe, "Joe was a maniac in the absolutely best way possible, and we had so many shenanigans together... He always showed up in an insane outfit for any event, from birthdays to Folsom Street Fair, whether it be in little tutu and a tiara, or a ripped wedding gown."

And, Schuffman adds, "He was naughty, randy, hilarious, loquacious, extremely smart, and down for anything."

Other old friends, including those from his high school and college days, have written in to SFist with their own memories. Longtime friend Elizabeth Steiner, who first met Joe in his "Elvis" days in Athens, Ohio, says, "He was caring and thoughtful and kookie as hell," and "He loved San Francisco like it was a living breathing being and embraced every opportunity to explore its culture."

Multiple friends noted that Joe was an avid sports fan, with a particular love for Cleveland's less than stellar teams, the Cleveland Guardians (formerly Indians) and the Cleveland Browns — and he also dutifully recapped every 49ers game for SFist this last season.

Friend Doug Brown writes of watching Cleveland football every weekend with Joe at Kilowatt, going back to 2007. "The owner, Peter, would always reserve our spot on the stage, which we referred to as the kennel club, aka dog pawnd," Brown writes. "We were a loyal group until the ill-fated day that the Browns acquired a rapist, sexual predator as their franchise QB."

Brown added that Joe had his 55th birthday party at Teeth bar in the Mission in early December, where "lots of his friends" showed up to watch Ohio State football with him, "and he made chocolate peanut butter buckeyes, an Ohio ritual."

"It's hard to believe that would be the last time we saw him, but it was a joyful time, and Joe was definitely in his element," Brown says.

In the strange way of web content, Joe's legacy will live on in the many bits and pieces, silly puns, and daily news items he covered here and elsewhere.

We have also collected a series of memories and stories about Joe sent in by friends and loved ones.

"I don't give a shit about jetpacks," YACHT's Claire Evans tells SFist as the band prepares to release its album "I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler" on Downtown Records this Friday and readies for a show at the Independent on Saturday as an extension of the Treasure Island Music Festival. But if not jetpacks, what would be cool? How about, says Evans, "Fundamental equality, and accountability in our police force."

YACHT has recently embraced the future of technology, or at least subverted it, through a variety of high-concept promotions. For starters, a Google map pin directed fans to the above LA billboard announcing the album, which takes on its fair share of political causes. These days, their video for "LA Plays Itself" (whose city-centric lyrics include "Think it's expensive, baby / But all the simple things are free") plays automatically when Uber prices surge in LA. When they surge 2X, you can hear a remix.

But it's a stunt that's a far cry from company-sponsored promotion. Think of it more as a technological fire-with-fire palliative. SFist spoke to Evans, who along with Jona Bechtolt makes up the 2002-founded band. Their name? Now, more than ever, it stands for "Young Americans Challenging High Technology."

SFist: Can you tell us what started the Uber project? Obviously, it didn't come from that company, although I have to confess, I was confused at first and wondered if it had.

Evans: It's not that we want to celebrate that app or project or technology in general. Uber has an open API. It's for development, not for art projects, but it works for those too. And a lot of our technology projects, they wouldn't work if it was a Justin Bieber single. But it works for this song because it's about the rhythm and patterns of driving in Los Angeles, and we wanted to connect it to the pulse of the city.

SFist: On the album you're clearly ambivalent about these sorts of technologies. Why engage with them, then?

Evans: That's so tricky, because we want to make music, we want to make these multimedia projects, and you can't do that without engaging with these forces in our life — in Angelino life especially — just to avoid fear of being associated with a brand. We want to speak about the 21st century from the 21st century.

SFist: (Sort of rambling non-question about whether the future is actually cool.)

Evans: Well, okay, that song, and a lot of our songs do this. We'd like to create an initial proposition. It's essentially a conversation starter, "We thought the future would be cooler." Did you? How? It's one of my big fears is that people will think that we're saying, "Hey we were promised jet packs, and hoverboards." That's not it.

SFist: I was thinking about how musicians in the past have taken on the big technology shifts of their time, sometimes also with a degree of disenchantment. Sort of like, Bowie with space travel, you know? Does that relate to what you're doing?

Evans: Every generation has their metaphor. Davie Bowie was using space for the blank canvas of the future, but I don't know what our operating metaphor is right now. Today we're looking more and more inward, to virtual reality, to hands touching smaller and smaller screens.

I think that we're in a definite gold rush moment in terms of creating new convenience through technology: New ways to order food to your doorstep and be transported. But I do worry about shut-ins with laundry-on-demand. At a certain point I like going to the laundromat. That's how you live in a city, and open yourself up to spontaneity. That makes you feel alive. I want technology to connect people.

SFist: (Something vague about how recorded music is, like, itself a technology.)

Evans: Well music has always been technological in nature — instruments are technologies — and now music is increasingly made with technology. Today our laptops are a one-stop shop. They're culture-making, connection-making, conversation-making machines.

We all have to use the tools, and if your heart is in the right place [our technological world] doesn't have to be dystopia. There are incredible infrastructures, and even if you're not a hacker or a coder, there are interesting ways to use those tools without breaking open the machine. That's part of what we try to do in our projects. You can write weird difficult poems in google docs! I'm ultimately very optimistic about what's next. The great thing about the future is it's the ultimate blank slate. Nobody can predict it.

YACHT at The Independent, 628 Divisadero Street, Saturday October 17, Doors: 9:30 p.m., Show: 10:00 p.m., $22

Hey, everybody! And a special HEY to all loyal readers of SFist: We're having a party next Thursday. Yes, SFist is now 10 years old, and we'd love for you to come get drunk with us to celebrate that remarkable fact.

SFist was founded in 2004, with the help of current Senior Editor/Emerita Eve Batey, as a scrappy offshoot of then growing and popular New York City blog Gothamist. Several hundred best-of lists and several bottomed-out tech shuttle incidents later, we're still typing, and we'd love for you — and our loyal commenter crew — to come to Blackbird next Thursday, November 20 to say hi and clink glasses with us.

You'll get to meet our current staff — Editor-in-Chief Jay Barmann, Ms. Batey herself, and newly minted Assistant Editor Caleb Pershan — and who knows who else! Also, there will be some free drink tickets, some $5 carbonated drinks on tap (the Pimm's Cup is especially good), and you can grab a hot dog from Let's Be Frank when you get peckish.

There will also be some tequila tastings, and much, much more (including free SFist-branded beer koozies and tote bags... imagine how jealous your friends will be).

Just RSVP here to make sure we can get you in the door.

Update: So, those spots went quick! Due to the capacity of the bar, tickets for this event had to be limited and it's now sold out. But we promise we'll throw another party at some point.

And again, the details:

SFist 10th Anniversary Bash
Thursday, November 20, 2014
7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Blackbird, 2124 Market Street at Church
(easily accessible from the K,L,M,T, J, and N lines)

Sponsors: Suerte Tequila, Giffard USA, and St. George Spirits

SFist is seeking a full-time reporter and blogger with solid editing skills and a touch of wit who can cover a range of topics, from hard news to arts and food.

This is a paid, full-time position, with fully covered medical, dental and vision benefits. As the main Gothamist office is in NYC, SFist’s assistant editor will work from home (or wherever there's WiFi). Days and hours may vary from a normal Monday-Friday 9-to-5 job, as covering breaking news in real time will be one of the assistant editor’s responsibilities. The ideal candidate MUST be versatile and knowledgeable about San Francisco and its surrounding areas, as well as with SFist itself, its body of work, and its overall tone and voice.

The assistant editor’s responsibilities will include: On a daily basis, producing a healthy mix of informative and engaging blog posts; sniffing out original stories; calling public officials and spokespeople to gather facts and quotes; conceptualizing and executing new recurring features for the site; editorializing on subjects of local interest in a smart and preferably light-hearted way; and editing stories written by others. The ideal candidate must be as comfortable at reporting — attending press conferences and filing breaking news reports from where the news is happening — as he or she is at finding potentially viral content across the web and writing aggregated blog posts from multiple news sources. SFist’s assistant editor reports directly to SFist’s editor in chief.

Requirements: At least one year of full-time blogging or equivalent experience, an instinct for what's newsworthy and the skills to report it out, a ferocious drive and piercing wit, a deep and abiding love for San Francisco, and the stamina to create 6 to 8 well written and click-worthy posts per day while helping manage the flow of pieces from other contributors. As SFist’s assistant editor will be expected to do on-the-ground reporting, he or she must live in the Bay Area.

If you're interested, send a brief email with a summary of your experience and relevant links to jobs@gothamist.com, subject "SFist assistant editor." No need to follow up: if we're interested, you'll hear from us. No attachments, please.

Gothamist LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Well, that was quite a year, wasn't it? SFist kept winning awards (again), kept you entertained and informed (as always), and kept stoking the fires of your brain, prompting much thoughtful commentary. Everything from Marina garbage to Fox News to murderous cyclists sparked verbal handwringing, condemnation, and brilliant humor. And most — but not all — of you did it without resorting to horrid "um..." or "am I the only one here who..." prefacing. Well done, readers.

And with that, we give you SFist's top five most commented on stories of 2012:

5. Fox Nation Sees Trash In San Francisco, Fabricates Entire Story To Blame Green Activists

Fox News made an art of fibbing in 2012. When they weren't erroneously calling the Westboro Baptist Church a left-wing group, they fabricated a story about green activists in San Francisco. Why? Because Fox News is made up of lying whores for right-wing special interests.

4. Cyclist Who Struck Pedestrian At Castro: "I Just Plowed Through The Crowded Crosswalk"

A cyclist who killed a pedestrian in the Castro seemed menthol-cool about the entire ordeal. Who would have thought that a cyclist doing something bad would result in hundreds of angry commenters unleashing their own venom? Crazy world.

3. Marina Partiers Leave Behind Massive Fort Mason Mess

In 2012, we learned two important local things: hating on the Mission was bad (oh, the volumes of angry emails we received by people who identify themselves based solely on the neighborhood in which they live!), but noting what's stereotypically bad about the Marina was just dandy. Don't believe us? Just take a look at the commentary after scores of Marina partiers left behind a messy scene at Fort Mason.

2. America Comes Out For Chick-Fil-A, Gay Bashing

Very good chicken sandwiches and banana pudding shakes. Very bad values. See you in hell, Palin.

1. Large Naked Woman Stomps On Car In Noe Valley

An image — a simple one shot by a Muni passenger — of a naked woman stomping on a car in Noe Valley went, as horrible MSM journalists would say, viral. Sadly, much of the commentary shamed the mentally ill woman for being large. People (men usually but not always) cannot resist waging the war on women online as evidenced in the comments section. Alas. A glorious image that showed off the best and worst commentary.

We checked out the Renaissance Faire on Sunday in Golden Gate Park, and...it was a complete and total blast. We saw live jousting, a group of people re-enacting The Merry Wives of Windsor, the truly awesome dancing musicians pictured above, and pirates, outlaws and the odd ninja or samurai.

Afterwards, we headed (in full regalia) to Tommy's for margaritas, where we had the best conversation ever:
"Were you at the Renaissance Faire?" asked a guy at the bar.

"Yes," we said. "How did you know about it?"

"I read SFist," he said.

"Cool!" we said. "We write for SFist!"

Thanks, random reader at Tommy's, for making us feel like a personage! And...we highly recommend going to Tommy's in full costume. Margaritas taste better when you're wearing a doublet.

1) Waxed Mustaches. We've seen a few guys wandering around with this look, which takes the wispy mustaches that hairless hipsters of yore sported, and turns them into pointy weapons. Rollie Fingers did it better.

2) '70s-style tennis headbands. We first saw this last year at a Ratatat show, when we thought we had somehow wandered into a Bjorn Borg lookalike contest. This year, it got really out of control, as every eighteen-year-old with a vintage Iron Maiden shirt decided to discover his inner McEnroe.

3 through 10 after the jump!

Readers responded with light speed and razor-sharp accuracy (more or less) when it came to detailing last night's devastating -- body-wash-plummeting-to-the-earth devastating! -- 5.6 quake. We will all look back on October 30, asking ourselves, where were we when the great 5.6 quake of '07 hit?

Well, after sending out the we-hope-you're-still-alive-and-kicking call to the SFist team at large, they responded. Here are a few of the shattering moments in the lives of some of your favorite SFisters, including Cedric's encounter with a slow-food movement hero in the form of a Michael Mina waiter.

-- Dan Johnson: "[I]t happened when I was on MUNI. Duh. The M-line would
cover up anything less than a 7.0"

-- Christopher Rogers: "I felt it VERY seriously in Oceanview, near SFSU. Of course, I'm on the second floor of a wood building. Biggest quake I've felt since
'89." However, he goes on to say, "two people I talked to in San Rafael (Terra Linda and Marinwood), both said essentially 'what's the big deal? Didn't feel anything.'"

-- Emily Cox: "Could totally feel it in Palo Alto... good times."

-- Julie Feinstein Adams: "...in a prenatal infant CPR/first-aid class at Alta bates in
Berkeley...all the big preggie mommies were happy to be in a hospital, just in case."

-- Leanne Maxwell: "We didn't feel it here in the TenderNob."

* Album Of The Year: Mogwai -- "Mr. Beast"
The mostly-instrumental music of Glasgow's Mogwai has been described as big instrumental rock music for a soundtrack. The soundtrack of your whatever-you're-doing. If whatever-you're-doing really rocked.
Learned post-rock power with the rise-and-fall energy of a high tide's waves. Persuasive, intricate, enthralling.
Watch the video for the song Travel Is Dangerous here. Quicktime required.

* Song Of The Year: A.T.O -- "Break Out"
This is a mystery. No idea where this perfect piece of surf rock confection came from (perhaps Japan?), but it is the best song that we've heard in the last year. Do you have any idea who this is? What band? What album? We'd love to know.
Download the song here, and if you know anything, please let us know or speak of it in the comments section below. We'd really appreciate it.

* Movie/Book Of The Year: An Inconvenient Truth
Best horror movie in a while.
Seriously though, it's a frightening/galvanizing thing to see all the facts on global warming strung together in concussive fashion. You do good work, Al.

* Game Of The Year: Madden 07 (PS2)
A crippled, rushed, unfinished entry in the Madden NFL series that obviously suffered as EA Sports moved its flagship gaming franchise onto the next gen consoles.
Doesn't matter, it's still the best NFL video game available, and a source of simple joy to our heart. Of course, it's the only NFL video game available. Hrrrm.
Frank Gore's player ratings next season are gonna be .

* Television Programme Of The Year: Metalocalypse
A TV show hasn't had an opening sequence this good since Sky Commanders.
Super-silly metal-based amusement from Brendon Small, the co-creator and star of the wonderfully subtle Home Movies cartoon.

* Restaurant Of The Year: Absinthe
Never before had a meal driven us to tears of joy, yet that was what happened.
Susy and myself treated ourselves to oysters, goat cheese, wine, and unforeseen tears rolling down our cheeks. Incredible. Totally brightened up a dreary day.

* Website Of The Year: cuteoverload.com
Hell yeah, it is!

The colors of Christmas to me have always been green and red and grey.

Here at Hillview Park, the air is crisp and and cold and still.

When the expectations of the season annoy, you can always take a walk.

To everyone with big plans today -- Merry Christmas.

To all those who are working today -- Merry Christmas.

To everyone doing their own thing today -- Merry ________.

There've been quite a few good Questions sent to us, and we're still working on them. That means you, Justin.

Tune in Wednesday for your regularly scheduled SFist Answers.

Keep your Questions coming to sfistanswers@gmail.com and we will answer them once this whole holiday-ish thing clears up. We blame the solstice.

On with the show.

Q:

A: That version of "Ooh Child" is by The Five Stairsteps, our sources say.

Q: Does yogurt cause you to have gas? ~~~ A. Fanofyourwebsite \ San Francisco

A: After a week of "Study," no perceptible change in gas level was observed. A little phlegmy-er, but not gassier.

May you all have a wondrous holiday season that suits you as well as it can. And should have Questions, you know where to bring 'em!