Author: Andrew Sarkarati

caution is the path to mediocrity. gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.

Take in some wine and jazz to help an awesome SF human rights organization this Thursday!

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Did you know there was a rad organization in San Francisco dedicated to tracking down war criminals and bringing them to justice?  You didn’t???  Well, here’s your chance to get involved and help them out, all while drinking wine and listening to some jazzy melodies from our own Vic Wong!

CJA is an international human rights organization dedicated to deterring torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other severe human rights abuses around the world through litigation, policy advocacy and outreach in pursuit of truth, justice and redress for victims and survivors. 

In addition to our quarterly free speaker series events, the YPCHR puts on an annual fundraiser for our peers.  This year our event is called A Toast to Justice and will be held on December 3 at SomArts (934 Brannan St.).  Guests will enjoy wine tasting from several local and international wineries and live music from jazz guitarist Vic Wong, plus remarks from renowned artist Richard Kamler.  The exhibition in the gallery is a group show called A Place of Her Own featuring all female artists.

Tickets available here!

You can vote no on Prop F if you want, but if so just admit to yourself and the world that you’re a selfish fuck who’s patiently waiting for your own moment to profit

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Look, you can even use this handy app to effortlessly manage your vacation rental!

I mean, I get it.  AirBnB is a really neat service.  The problem I have with it is that it emboldens landlords to act like assholes in the interest of making more money on their properties, all at the expense of real city residents’ living situations.  This isn’t about some mere pastry-rating app; this is people’s homes.

While that may or may not be an outstanding problem yet, if allowed to continue to grow unchecked and unregulated it will only embolden more and more landlords to act like assholes, and before long you’ll have a city full of $450 per night vacation spots and not much else.

So why not regulate it before it comes to that?

The best way to recover your stolen bicycle

Our pal Zach, who you may remember as the infamous seeker of holiday romance, recently had a run-in with some local bike thieves that ended in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE:

HOW I LOST MY BIKE (THEN GOT IT BACK 15 HOURS LATER)

This whole situation was (most likely) avoidable and entirely my fault. But, y’all wanted a story, so here it is.

HOW I LOST MY BRAND-NEW TRACK BIKE

Do you know those once-every-three-years drunks where you do something incredibly stupid and out of character?

No? Just me? OK, well, this was one of those.

After a long day of riding and racing at Quake City Rumble, I figured I’d get my party on. Been working and training hard, plus organizing the finale race, so I felt I’d earned a good tear.

Long story short, after hopping around to a few spots I left my coworker’s birthday party sometime between 2 and 3am. (I sort-of-not-really remember leaving but apparently had promised to walk my bike home)

Now, even when I’m on autopilot, I’m pretty OCD. Phone, keys, wallet – I never lose my necessities. But when I woke up at home around 8 or 9am, and looked at the spot where I keep my bike, it was empty.

Not only did I just get this thing, I’m supposed to race it at the Wolfpack Hustle Finale Crit in Austin next weekend.

Commence freaking out.

THE INTERIM

But I can’t freak out, because today is the Mountain Lion, the biggest and baddest alleycat in San Francisco. And I won it last year, which means I’m organizing it this year. This keeps me mentally occupied from dwelling on my missing bike and hating myself too much. I post a picture of the bike describing my situation, and since bike people know all too well the pain of a missing machine, it becomes shared quickly across social media.

HOW I GOT MY BIKE BACK

The Mountain Lion ends and we’re hanging out at Potrero Del Sol Park. It’s about 5pm and I’m ready to tuck into a burrito when I get a call from my buddy Demi. He says his friend Eli is pretty sure he spotted my bike downtown; I get his number and give him a call.

“Yeah, your bike’s on Market near New Montgomery.”
“Are you sure it’s mine?”
I don’t believe this is happening but Eli rattles off a part list and now I’m 100% sure; plus it’s one of only 3 Heavy Pedal Axiom frames in the Bay Area.

“There’s eyes on my bike near Market and New Montgomery!” I yell.

Sardine, who is in charge of organizing this weekend’s events and is also great at shouting, hears me. “Oh shit, for real?” He turns to the crowd of racers and chillers, “ANYBODY WANT TO HELP THIS MAN GET HIS STOLEN BIKE BACK, HE’S GOING DOWNTOWN NOW!”

I start pedaling. Adam Shapiro, Brian Dooley, Carlos Balam, Matt Vanaman and possibly some others (sorry if I forget) are in hot pursuit; especially impressive because I just threw a hard-as-fuck race that these guys all finished (to the tune of almost 50 miles and 5500 feet of climbing).

I have my phone on loud for updates, and sure enough, Eli rings me every couple of minutes. I don’t like dipping through traffic while yakking on the phone but it’s sort of a necessity in this situation. The target is riding my bike around Civic Center. OK, no, now he’s at 5th and Market. So at this point it’s Dooley and I tearing down Market street.

I’m scanning the crowds and I spot my bike being walked on the sidewalk. I see Eli getting off his phone (he’s been following the thief this whole time) and pointing to the guy with my bike. He’s a big, gnarly looking white dude covered in tattoos and I get the feeling he’s been to prison at least once.

Well, Mr. Thief hops off the sidewalk and is about to mount up. I immediately flip a u-turn and box him in to the curb from the front and side, with Dooley pulling up right alongside and behind him.

I don’t remember exactly what I yelled in the heat of the moment, but it was just something gruff and direct like “Off the bike, man. That’s my ride.”

The dude very quickly dismounts and hands the bike over to me, spinning some bullshit about buying it off Craigslist this morning. I tell him I don’t want to hear it and just like that we’re off with the bike in hand, just as Matt and Carlos show up. The whole thing is over in 15 seconds.

I ghost ride my recovered whip back to my house, and invite my posse in for some shots of good bourbon and some beers. I put the bike back in its spot, and we roll back to the park for the weekend’s award ceremony.

I’ve never been so depressed and mad at myself, then so elated in less than 24 hours. Bike people are the best people when it comes to looking out for each other. I got incredibly lucky here, but I am eternally thankful to everyone who was keeping an eye out, and who came to help, and especially Demi for the tip off from Eli, who followed the thief like a total crime dog.

Btw, winter is coming.  Do you have a holiday girlfriend/boyfriend yet???

New Social Studies record comes out tomorrow!

Despite all the changes ravaging the city, at least we’ve still got our pals Social Studies making new records!  It’s been a while since we heard from these folks, but apparently they were hard at work the whole time crafting sweet, sweet melodies.

Have a listen to the new album here, or do yourself a favor and buy the whole thing here!

Come see an old college pal bare her soul at Adobe tonight with Sex & the Suburbs!

I’m not sure exactly what’s gonna happen, but I know it’s gonna be fun:

Here I come Bay Area! I am so pleased to offer the Bay Area debut of Sex & the Suburbs, the show that is the expression of everything creative I do right now. It is based on poems I wrote between the ages of 19 and 22, almost entirely in Berkeley, CA.

The show will feature opening set by Deirdre Stewart, sharing story and song learned and inspired by her recent residency in southern Mexico.

I am honored and humbled and proud and terrified and excited to invite you to come and experience and create this thing with me.

Check out all the details here!

Celebrate Adobe’s 2 year anniversary on 24th Street tonight!

Wow, has it really been two years already?

The Adobe Books and Arts Cooperative has been an amazing adventure, thanks for joining us on the journey. We need your help to continue to stay open and to thrive. Join us on July 24th and raise a glass to a wondrous creature known as Adobe Books, and to learn more about how you can get involved by joining the co-op.

There’ll be art from the staff, music, and treats from Tartine!  Check out all the details here.

Previously:

Google buses are out of control

Our pal Inna saw her life flash before her eyes this morning:

Ok not even funny anymore – I just had a terrifying moment with a Google bus turning from 24th onto valencia that nearly killed me and one other person. We had the green light still – it was very clearly green, and he just plowed into the intersection. Cars stopped and honked, people screamed, and even google’s minions waiting in line to board the thing looked up from their phones.

I don’t even know what to do – who do I complain to? Who will listen or care? It’s simply not safe for these gigantic buses to have complete reign of the streets. It’s a terrible feeling to not feel welcome in your own city- this is the icing on the cake.

I also experienced a harrowing moment last week while biking north on Valencia approaching 25th Street.  One of the behemoth buses pulled up alongside me and then tried to beat me to the stop on the NE corner, almost pinning me to the sidewalk.  Luckily I was able to maintain control of my bike and sprint past it, but damn!

I don’t drive, but if I did I would be livid with these buses.  I routinely see a tech bus chilling at a green light waiting for another tech bus in front of it to finish its business at the stop located across the intersection.  So imagine you’re stopped behind a bus at a green light and it just sits there for a couple minutes while the lights cycle through, and finally when the first bus is finsished unloading or dropping off or whatever does that green-light-chilling bus cross the intersection and awkwardly pull over in just enough of a diagonal to continue blocking the street.

Did we really kill the 26 Valencia Muni just so these giant out of-control buses could run wild?  I know it’s a broken record at this point, but just remember that these buses are another example of something that incoveniences (and sometimes endangers) the public and whose only benefit is increasing profit for private companies (by enhancing their recruiting efforts and employee productivity).

Essentially, all the buses really do is transfer the extra minutes that their employees would have to wait if they took regular public transportation along to everybody else.

Previously:

Celebrate the grand opening of the Tenderloin Museum this Thursday!

Yep, that’s right, the Tenderloin Museum!  And things are starting off with a bang this Thursday!

The Tenderloin Museum kicks off its evening programming on Opening Night, July 16th at 6:30pm with transgender activists Tamara Ching, Veronika Fimbres, and filmmakers Susan Stryker & Victor Silverman. Moderated by Randy Shaw, the panel takes us back to the days of the Tenderloin’s 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot when transgender women and queers were harassed by police and businesses alike.

In those days, the Tenderloin was the geographic center of the city’s emerging gay and lesbian civil rights movement. It was in the Tenderloin where the movement’s more confrontational spirit was demonstrated, and brought success. Stryker, Ching and Fimbres will describe the decades of struggle following the Compton’s riot, as that legendary act of resistance—three years before Stonewall–was only the beginning.

Check it all out here.

And that’s not all!  Stop by the following week for the first showing in 50 years of Drugs in the Tenderloin!

A stark and often harrowing look into the life of the street denizens of the notorious San Francisco district which was a haven for junkies, prostitutes, and pushers during the Sixties… it takes a real gutter-level look at its subject, the grainy night photography capturing beehive-haired hookers and turtle-necked dope dealers plying their trade against a smoky backdrop of seedy neon, while meth users pontificate about their high, and a youth worker takes a couple of shocked city officials on a walking tour of the area, pointing out such lurid landmarks as Market Street, known in the area as the “Meat Rack” thanks to the male hustlers who ply their trade there.”Join us for some incredible footage of the Tenderloin’s past.

When a stolen bicycle shows up again

Our pal Alicia takes us through it:

A year ago my bike was stolen. It was not the end of the word. Someone wonderful lent me an interim bike, eventually I bought a new bike at a very reasonable price and it had gears – and I had long needed gears. At other times on my life I would have felt that harder, I was greatful for that. Today I was walking across the street from the place where it was stolen from and there was my old bike frame- worse for the weather – and with new handlebars ex cetra but it was it. I went home, gathered the old paperwork- sure enough the numbers matched.

I did not want the old bike back. My apartment is small, the resale value would be low. It had been gifted to me in the first place and served me for 5 years. But bike theft is a big problem. Eventually-Reluctantly I called the police. …

Then it rider came down the stairs. Sweet Latino guy about my size. Construction worker with his fellow workers. Said he bought it at the flee market. They assured me he was an honest guy, I believe them. He offered it back. I told him to keep it.

Around the time that bike was stolen, I had a big flower pot of succulents stolen off the stoop. I’ve often thought how much I would like to see them again- not to have them back-but just to see if the poppies ever came up, and how they all grew and changed.

I was glad to see my bike again, glad to meet the guy who was riding it around, glad he wasn’t an asshole. Glad it was something that helped his life. This is all to say, don’t steal. Which means many things. Peace be with you dude. Peace be with you little bike. More peace guys. Spread the resources more evenly.

As Vic always likes to say, bicycles are a temporary loan from the universe, and as Alicia’s poignant artwork shows us, there’s a lot more important things out there for us to worry about.