Former Mayor Willie Brown, currently serving his role as the city's weird rich uncle, is at it again with the befuddling Chronicle columns this week. After spouting nonsense about MC Hammer on the rapper's birthday, Willie Brown is now claiming responsibility for Matt Cain's near-perfect pitching job in the Giants home opener. How is Willie Brown, who usually doesn't watch Giants games from anywhere closer than a corner booth at Momo's, responsible for the the star pitcher's performance on the mound? It's all in the footwear, of course. Willie's footwear to be exact: more ›

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, it seems, was one of the lucky attendees at MC Hammer's 50th birthday party at the Tonga Room. He wrote about the festivities in his Sunday column for The Chronicle. Once again, however, we leave Brown's golden nuggets of wisdom amused yet confused. Behold: more ›

Mayor Ed Lee celebrated 100 years of San Francisco's Municipal Railway today by re-launching Muni's first streetcar, the restored Car No. 1. Joining the Mayor for the dignitaries-only first ride in the century-old railcar are Senator Diane Feinstein, former Mayor Willie Brown (who would rather walk), SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin and members of the Board of Supervisors. more ›

They're everywhere together these days, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Whether dining about town, attending political parties, or just bro-ing it up wonk-style, the two power players are the Michelle Williams and Busy Phillips of San Francisco. While they once defended their relationship during Lee's campaign, they're now out in full force together about town at countless public events. Why, we have run into the mayoral duo together together at three events in 2012, including February's Miss Chinatown Coronation Ball. more ›

Also, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown will be in attendance. Far more importantly, however, is the face that Gold Dust Lounge, now beeping on life support, will offer patrons $1 vodka drinks tomorrow, Friday, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Catherine Hill will also sing a song she wrote about the historic/possibly doomed Union Square bar. more ›

Another cab driver recognized Willie Brown this week. Not only did the cabbie recognize the former mayor climbing in to the backseat, hoping to be driven down to the Hotel Vitale — but the cabbie also remembered a very specific part of one of Willie's columns. It was a bit where Brown pointed out that cabbies in San Francisco never seem to where they're going anymore. And that part is true, actually. more ›

This week, Willie checks out Chinatown for the Lunar New Year before some celebrity encounters at the Four Seasons, dinner at Pican in Oakland and ruling over North Beach's new holy trinity of dining. more ›

This week Willie Brown imports his tailgate meats from Tennessee, dispels Mirkarimi conspiracy theories and memorializes SFMOMA's leading lady. more ›

San Francisco's erstwhile mayor managed to mostly keep himself out of trouble this week. The noted 49ers fan had zero words of good luck for our boys in the NFL playoffs, but he did have plenty to say about embattled sheriff and accused wife beater Ross Mirkarimi. Determined to beat us over the head with his explanation of how domestic abuse works, Willie says, "In a case of domestic violence, there is no presumption of innocence, at least not in the court of public opinion." more ›

After our too-brief encounter with Willie Brown at the Palace Hotel the other night, Willie asked us to remind him to "never host another sit-down dinner for a mayor." Apparently, dealing with the egos of all those luminous invitees is a huge pain in his ass. Willie can only deal with one ego, obviously, and that's his own. And then there's the logistics of picking only 300 of your closest friends to come to dinner. That might explain why he went cheapskate-style with the un-hosted booze at the bar. more ›

During a weekend of inaugural festivities at and around City Hall, noted former Mayor and local gadabout Willie Brown threw a party for apprentice-Mayor Ed Lee. Held at the Palace Hotel's Garden Court just off Market Street on Saturday night, Willie's event was an invite-only affair. Assuming my invite had been mistakenly sent to the wrong address or something, I showed up to the Palace Hotel's Pied Piper Bar & Grill, arm candy in tow to down Manhattans until we could summon enough liquid courage to slip past Willie's hired goons and enjoy the privilege of purchasing a wildly overpriced cocktail while listening to a cover band play for various city luminaries. more ›

When last we left Willie Brown before the holidays, the former mayor was returning from tours of Beijing and Cuba where he apparently found things to be surprisingly hospitable. (Except for the part where he had to eat rice all the time.) So, after visiting with about half of the remaining communist superpowers, Willie needed to get in some Quality Time with the restaurants that subsidize his gadabout lifestyle his favorite places around town. So it was lunch at Le Central, Christmas Eve dinner at Bix, and Christmas Day at the Claremont in Berkeley. more ›

Willie Brown didn't write his usual food column this week, as he is currently on a world tour of communist countries. Instead of dining around town, Willie was being swept around Beijing on a day and a half business trip to the Far East. In Beijing, everyone wanted to know what the big deal was with Herman Cain porking someone other than his wife for 13 years. Willie's answered by bringing up a tired Bill Clinton joke. Other helpful cruoss-cultural analysis from Da Mayor in Beijing: the traffic terrible and the U.S. Embassy is very large. more ›

This week: Willie Brown gets lost in New York City, is forced to dine at a table near the bathroom and we debunk his latest analysis of Ed Lee's election. more ›

Still wrapping up his post-election coverage, Willie Brown gives us a glimpse in to the charmed world of a local power broker (or not) at the "Run, Ed, Run" victory dinner last week. "Rose Pak was in fine form," he says. Meaning she used her first pblic speaking time since the campaign to curse like a sailor and probably smoke an entire carton of menthols. more ›

After Willie's anointed candidate was properly secured in his seat in Room 200, Willie Brown wasted no time calling for retribution from rival campaigns. While downplaying his involvement with Ed Lee's election on KQED, to the radio audience that Dennis Herrera's attacks on the Ed Lee campaign represent a conflict of interest for the City Attorney. If this had been Willie Brown's San Francisco (which, it kind of still might be?), Herrera would have been forced to resign as City Attorney before pulling papers to run for Mayor. more ›

Over at the Chronicle, City Insider finally managed to get a word in with Willie Brown and Rose Pak at last night's gala. And the pair had some harsh words for the members of the fourth estate. Quoth Da Mayor (who, remember, considers himself to be a reporter): “You newspaper people miss everything! [Lee is] the people’s choice. He always was the people’s choice.” Rose, on the other hand, offered her own analysis of the first round results: more ›

Kamala Harris' real age, Jerry Brown's martini habits and revealing signs of mental illness: Willie reveals a lot of hidden truths about politicians in his writings this week. Plus: his latest fried chicken endorsement. more ›

This week, Willie Brown hangs out with MC Hammer, worries about Ed Lee's chances under the ranked-choice voting system, spots a possible prostitute and starts watching his weight while dining in Sacramento. Observe: more ›

For his first trick this week, Willie Brown is pointing to the grandstands and calling the Republican VP nomination for Hermain Cain. Why? Because a black pizza man is the GOP's only hope for delivering the South, obviously. Pizza, puns and politics — roll that up on a Subway Hearty Italian roll and put a fedora on it and you've pretty much summed up the content of this column for the past nine months. more ›

Last week we saw Willie shilling for his favorite sandwich shop again, this week Willie classes it up a bit for a charity dinner at Michael Mina, which you may recall recently topped Esquire's Best New Restaurants list. Such is the duality of Willie Brown, we suppose — always hopping from pedestrian life on Market Street to the heights of San Francisco opulence. And it's not just food Da Mayor is ambivalent about: he's also got a couple of very important opinions on Brad Pitt. more ›

For whatever curious reason, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown loves Subway sandwiches. And he likes to mention it. A lot. Today, the charismatic $5 foot-long deep throater wrote about his three favorite dishes around town. In addition to lavishing praise on the barbecue at MoMo's and melted cheese and ham fritter at Trader Vic's, Brown coos: more ›

In another busy week for the former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown was spotted getting his ego checked by Snoop Dogg and Sean Parker, he shared his favorite tables with us in a rare honest and open moment and he's headed down the peninsula to throw a fundraiser with the district six supe. Indulge: more ›

Willie Brown is concerned with two things this week: Food and Women. Which is actually what he's concerned with every week. But this week the objects of his carnal and carnivorous desires are, specifically: McCalls Catering and Hillary Clinton. more ›

A TV appearance, a department store event and a highly publicized restaurant opening: as the city's most conspicuous reporter, Willie Brown definitely makes his way around town. According to Friday tradition around here, here are the highlights from Willie's week, as told by Willie himself: more ›

Former Mayor, esteemed Chronicle reporter and food blogger Willie Brown went on Hardball with Chris Matthews this afternoon to discuss the President's dire poll numbers in California (He's at 46% approval rating). Matthews, drawing on inspiration from Democratic strategist James Carville, asks Da Mayor what he thinks Obama has to do to turn this campaign around, in California and elsewhere. To which Da Mayor, apparently reporting from a newsroom in the sky, responds: "he has to demonstrate that he is very, very tough... seldom, if ever, have you had a president who has waited so long to show truly his nature in terms of a fight." We're not entirely sure that sentence makes any sense, and he might actually be talking about some local bistro's poor bread service, but there it is. Video embedded below for the rest of Willie's analysis on how Obama can get back to his base. more ›

Willie had another busy week this week. After hosting a dinner for LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at Tommy Toy's, where he discovered a photograph of himself with a beard. Other than that, it sounds like Da Mayor got the standard Willie Brown treatment at Tommy's. By which we mean there were three main courses. Speaking of dining with mayors, Willie raised a bit of a stink around town when he hosted a fundraiser Tuesday night for Ed Lee at the North Beach Restaurant - a Willie Brown powerlunch favorite. more ›

Willie Brown is in high demand again: between the string-pulling behind the curtain in this year's mayor's race, Willie is now fielding calls from online retailers who need a lobbyist to fight Senator Hancock's Amazon tax bill. Willie, being pretty good at shilling online himself, would make a fine lobbyist, but he's staying above the fray in Sacramento. Besides, he's got some pressing barbecue issues to tend to on the Embarcadero. more ›