We were standing on the corner of 16th and Mission waiting for
Krissy Keefer's cable car coach, all loaded with Taiko drums and
goodies galore for our 3-hour cruise around sun-drenched San Francisco.
I doubted it possible to top our last ride when we'd crawled
around a crowd of 300,000 Halloween revelers, drank fine wine
and watched Keefer's well-drilled Dance Brigade chorus drip sweat
on Market street surrounded by glaring cops. Now, that was some
ride.
But, that was 72 hours before and then is then and now was, as
they say, now. My thoughts darted back to that last ride as I
lit a cheap cigar and took a nip. Yeah, that was some night. The
coolest and sexiest people, most in costume, wandered salaciously
around the coach. Vampires and call girls and what looked like
one of the Amish brethren.
Jens Nielsen dressed as a cab driver? His honey, Leona Gonsalves,
dressed as a gypsy girl (ooh, oooh). Robert Manes was there dressed
as h. brown! That's a first in my life. It was hilarious and I'm
forever grateful to Robert. He wore a beige baseball cap with
the big 'H' in the center and all the potpourri of bling I wear,
right down to the Bulldog Press Pass.
So, this was our second run with the cable car. This one hooked
up at the Daly HQ war room.
Busy Daly '06 campaign volunteers at Daly campaign headquarters,
16th and Mission.
The call had gone out several weeks ago that Chris needed all
the support he could get and, like other campaigns with comfortable
leads in our own races, we'd diverted resources into the Daly
base. By yesterday it was gargantuan.
Krissy offered an hour of her 3-hour rental time to the Daly
campaign for cruising District 6.
Luke Thomas and I met up and jumped on BART and met Marc Powell
who'd been walking the Tenderloin for Chris. We went into the
'Bad boy's headquarters so's I could harass a select few to try
and elicit something pithy.
Luke photographed Chris' and his mom, Mrs. Daly. Me? I was being
diplomatic (don't laugh). I went over to Anthony Faber and asked
him what it felt like to have turned the online Junto chat-room
into 'The Wall' West. I asked Bill Barnes if it was true that
he wore a Rob Black butt plug while working for Daly. You know,
the kinds of questions any good reporter might ask.
Marc Powell, Chris Daly and Mum, h. brown, Doug McAbee and 'Bear
Man'.
Meanwhile, the Black campaign was meeting in an underground Bunker
with Newsom waxing poetic to all of Black's troops (both of them)
a few blocks away.
Daly HQ vs. Black HQ
There were literally hundreds of people moving in and out of
Daly headquarters, a 10,000 square foot compound located in the
heart of Daly country. Daly signs, large and small, dominated
all four corners of BART plaza as campaign volunteers rang out
their chants.
Many of Daly's supporters arrived on bicycles, pogo sticks, and
trucks. Charles Kalish arrived in a retro stake-bed gardening
truck that had bright red 'Krissy for Congress' and bright green
'Daly for Supervisor' signs strung across cab like rubies and
emeralds on a Tierra.
I poured a half cup of coke into my life-saving bullet-dented
pocket flask to spike up the bourbon I had secreted for the festivities
and then moved out to the street to wait for Krissy and to give
some pizza to Black's paid campaign sign holders.
Black's paid campaign workers were content to holdup Black campaign
signs while wolfing down Daly's pizza.
The BART station plaza was all about politics. Jane Kim had
a cadre of young asian volunteers holding Kim and Daly's signs
along with a revolving stream of Daly workers who moved in to
tape and prop up the new style light-plastic signs everyone seems
to be using these days. I hate 'em. They're too big, too light
and I'm doubting my ass off they're bio-degradable.
Black's campaign workers told us they had no idea who Rob Black
was but that they were being paid $15 an hour to sit next to the
3 or 4 signs they had propped up in the plaza among the sea of
Daly, Kim and Keefer placards. We got along with them.
Video of Daly speaking to campaign volunteers Saturday morning.
"It's the first time anyone every paid me to sit out here,"
noted one Black campaign worker.
In the distance, we heard the sound of drums coming our way.
Taiko drums rule
Taiko guru Bruce Ghent played with Debbie Lammam and Keefer
as the motor-coach version of the classic SF cable car rolled
into the intersection. These vehicles can't be recommended enough
for these kinds of gigs. Open seating, front and back, amidst
the sumptuous brass and lacquered hardwood bench seating.
The coach is divided into three parts with front and rear open
and the center section glassed in for comfort. Essentially, the
center section is the bar car. Works nice.
The young lady driving settled the cable car into a space in
front of Daly central and Thomas took a couple of shots next to
the vehicle. Luke posed Krissy in a Leonardo da Vinci vitruvian
pose framed inside the SF icon replica.
Krissy "vitruvian woman" Keefer
Living and unliving copies of art history. Very fitting.
The tour itself was intense. We made two passes through District
6, dropping and picking up Daly workers, then stretched out to
the Marina where we posed in front of the venerable Safeway supermarket
where men meet women, women meet men, women meet women, and men
meet men, and occasionally people buy groceries.
Doug McAbee and a guy I labeled 'bear man' carried bags of Daly's
green beads and divvied them out by tossing them at people as
they smiled at all the commotion. We covered North Beach and the
Haight too. We were all super-pumped, yelling and singing and
everyone but me took a turn at the drums.
It was glorious.
But Krissy was exhausted and I looked at her from across the
coach and my heart went out to this hard fighting warrior queen.
An intense female SF State photojournalism student was covering
Krissy's campaign for a term paper and for SF State's newspaper,
clicking away as Keefer closed her eyes and rested despite the
pandemonium of thumping drums and screaming campaign volunteers.
This wouldn't be the last energy draining event to end her day.
She still had a full show to do for Mani-fest-ival at Dance Mission.
The show runs through tonight too, by the way. Dance Brigade will
perform their 'Cave Women' show at 6pm.
Conclusion
Daly will win. So will Keefer
I can hardly wait until Wednesday morning to write the, oh so
many things, that I haven't written throughout this campaign.
Krissy for Congress!
Daly - 4 more years!
h. brown is a 62 year-old keeper of sfbulldog.com,
an eclectic site featuring a half dozen City Hall denizens. h
is a former sailor, firefighter, teacher, nightclub owner, and
a hard-living satirical muckraker. Email
h at h@ludd.net.
####
Editor's Note: Views expressed by columnists
published on FogCityJournal.com are not necessarily the views or beliefs of
Fog City Journal. Fog City Journal supports free speech in all its varied forms
and provides a forum for a complete spectrum of viewpoints.
PRINT
THIS STORY
