Drowning in docs from dog dilemma
Your government at work, or here’s reading material that should keep you occupied for the rest of 2017:
Craig Dalby of the National Park Service wrote to The Chronicle’s Carl Nolte: “Golden Gate National Recreation Area has released more than 260,000 pages of records, and is continuing to process additional records, related to the development of a dog management plan for the park . ... To encourage public review of these documents, the park is in the process of posting them to its online Reading Room.”
Oh, there are a lot of disappointed football fans out there. Among them, George Miller, one of the partners in Sam’s Grill, who — like generations of verse-writers before him — drowned his sorrows in poetry.
Two of the verses: “Jed York here/ Sorry about the Super Bowl curse/ I’ve been studying Darwin/ He has evolution in reverse.” And “Jed York still here/ Here are the facts/ I am the poster child/ For the inheritance tax.”
P.S.: In the pre-Bill Walsh/Joe Montana era, Steve Rozzi remembers, “We usually had a couple of extra tickets,” so one day, after tailgating, “we left two tickets on our car windshield. When we got back, there were four tickets.”
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, presenting an array of medical investment opportunities, continues in San Francisco until Thursday, Jan. 12. Tom Sweeney, doorman at the Sir Francis Drake, says downtown hotel rooms started at $850 a night, with suites going for as much as $5,000 a night. Meanwhile, in Washington, the debate over who’ll pay for your emergency appendectomy rages on.
Mark Abramson entertained some out-of-towners over the holidays, friends who spend most of the time at Mark’s apartment, sharing meals and conversation, but bunked at the Stanford Court this year. Abramson invited them to stay with him and save money on a hotel room, but one friend declined. “That’s all right. I always sleep better knowing there’s someone down in the lobby playing a harp.” (Abramson joked about this as being typical of a true queen, but around here, we don’t like fake news. The music in the Stanford Court lobby, it turns out, comes from a CD player. Just consider that harpist figurative.)
As to the tar that covered some of the rainbow crosswalks on Castro Street when a movie was shot there last year, Andrew Marshall observed that the remaining rainbow ones are “used by gays, the tarry ones used by straights, and people who are wishy-washy jaywalk.”
The best part of the Golden Globes ceremony on Sunday, Jan. 8, came unexpectedly, during Meryl Streep’s lifetime achievement award acceptance speech. But right from the start, the failure of showbiz machinery (the teleprompter) caused the show to begin on a lackluster note. Isn’t Jimmy Fallon supposed to be an entertainer? A talkshow host speechless without pre-written remarks? Couldn’t he have faked some entertaining stand-up, and isn’t that what showbiz tradition mandates? Mariah Carey’s NYE mishap was understandable, considering the electronic necessities of performing outside. Fallon, supposedly a pro, fell short.
One of the San Franciscans who went to Washington, D.C., for the senatorial swearing-in of Kamala Harris was her friend Seth Matarasso, who reports — in a tone that can only be described as “kvelling,” that is, taking pleasure in the accomplishments of others — “she never faltered.” There were two swearings-in, one on the Senate floor, and the other a private event, the oath administered by Vice President Joe Biden.
The San Francisco pals there to witness it included Mark Leno, Cissie Swig, Mimi Silbert, Laurene Powell Jobs, Sharon Owsley ,and Charles and Cheryl Ward. After the Senate ceremonies, said Matarasso, guests watched from the gallery as Sen. Dianne Feinstein led Harris around the chamber floor, introducing her to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and others.
After the day’s official duties, there was a cocktail party at the home of Debra Lee of Black Entertainment Television, followed by a private dinner at Fiola Mare in Georgetown, at which Harris’ husband spoke about her resolve to work for her country. Of course, said Matarasso, the outcome of the national election cast a certain bittersweet shadow over the joy of Harris’ having achieved the office.
PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “I don’t know the answer, but I’ll give you my opinion.” Businessman to businessman, overheard at the Phoenix airport by Bob Epstein