Willie Brown: Donald Trump’s acceptance speech was too dark.
Up until Thursday night, I seriously thought Donald Trump was unstoppable.
No more. His nomination acceptance speech was way too dark and way too long. The humor that made Trump’s rallies so entertaining was nowhere to be found. Halfway through, he started bearing an uncanny resemblance to Fidel Castro.
If Hillary Clinton wants to be president, she and her fellow Democrats should seize on that fear of Donald the Dictator and make it the centerpiece of their convention in Philadelphia this week.
Forget about trying to make Clinton appear trustworthy. It’s way too late for that makeover. The name of the game is taking Trump apart.
Lord knows, Trump gave the Democrats enough
to work with. I’ll say one thing for him — he promised America a convention to remember, and he delivered.
There was his wife plagiarizing Michelle Obama on the values she learned from her family, like working hard and keeping your word. The ironies of that pile up higher than Trump Tower. There was Ted Cruz lobbing a nuclear bomb onto the convention floor, being booed off the stage and having his wife escorted from the arena to protect her from her menacing fellow Republicans.
And then, at the end, we got 76 minutes of what amounted to Trump shouting out his tweets. There were only two moments when he actually made sense — when he promised to protect the LGBTQ community from terrorists and when he responded to the “Lock her up” chants by saying let’s just beat her in November.
Of course, Trump proclaimed last month that Clinton “has to go to jail.” So maybe he just meant, let’s first beat her in November.
The world is a dark place for Trump and for many of those who plan to vote for him. The Democrats’ usual “We Are the World” model for national conventions isn’t going to fly. This time it’s got to be “War of the Worlds.”
The recall movement against Mayor Ed Lee just learned how one bad cell phone video can put you behind the eight ball.
In this case, it was a recall supporter telling Lee backers at a rally outside City Hall to go back to China. In politics, that’s what you call a gift — one that turns an effort aimed at a mayor with plunging popularity into something his backers can suggest is an attack on every Chinese American in the city.
Man, did they do a great job of restoring the Bayview Opera House. It really is a treasure, one I hope will become more than a neighborhood venue. It should be used as a magnet, with events that attract people from all over the city.
I went down to the reopening the other night and came back with two observations.
One, Third Street is being completely transformed, from a noman’s-land of warehouses into another condo canyon. You can no longer tell where Mission Bay ends and the Bayview begins.
Two, I don’t care what the city reports say, when the Warriors arena goes in, it will be traffic gridlock all along the Third Street corridor. And when the Warriors and Giants are playing home games at the same time, it’s going to be pure hell.
We will be saying goodbye to one of the Bay Area’s true greats Monday, legendary Warriors star Nate Thurmond.
For me, Nate was the best defender ever to play the game. He also knew how to take advice, both on the court and with his contracts.
He was the first player to have his milliondollar contract paid out like an annuity, over several years. The only things Nate wanted up front was a Rolls-Royce, a penthouse, a full wardrobe and $7,500 a month in spending money. Everything else kicked in when he turned 45, setting him up for life.
I know, because I negotiated the deal with then-Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli.
The only thing Nate wasn’t smart about was the barbecue joints. They were a lot of fun and they did OK, but no restaurant makes you rich.
Movie time: “Ghostbusters”: This female update of the 1984 Dan Aykroyd-Bill Murray buddy comedy got panned by the critics. And yes, it is a stupid, surreal, paranormal mess of a movie featuring people who don’t appear to have ever acted before.
But it’s also a lot of fun, and the ghosts are a gas. So if you have an afternoon free, it’s good for a laugh.
Last week’s hit social event was Henry Kissinger’s belated 93rd birthday party, which Charlotte and George Shultz hosted at their penthouse.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was there, along with a host of other big thinkers. The entertainment was a Barbra Streisand soundalike from “Beach Blanket Babylon,” who unfortunately wound up competing with the bigscreen TV showing Ted Cruz’s convention speech.
For sheer entertainment value, the circular firing squad in Cleveland was hard to beat.