This is the email I sent to Libby and Maxine to describe Eskenazi's interview with Scott Wiener last night, reported in the Mission Local, which left out a few minor details.  

Dear Libby,

I hope your event last night was as engaging as the one I got to go to but that Maxine missed.  (I'm cc'ing her here.)  I took a lot of notes, but I see that Mission Local covered it quite well with the exception of a couple of dramatic moments the reporter left out.  

Here's what the Mission Local article doesn't mention:

I came in with Scott Wiener--maybe because we were on the same BART train--and he went straight to the restroom.  I took your ticket and went straight to a front seat.  

Manny was there and announced that Manny's was a sushi restaurant before it became this place for "civic and artsy" events.  (Maybe you knew that, but I didn't.)

We met Mission Local's "Donor Engagement Leader," and I'm so impressed by Mission Local, particularly Joe Eskenazi, that I'm thinking of making a small monthly donation to Mission Local.  She said "Pay walls don't serve anyone, especially now."  

Scott Wiener mentioned an interview with Tik Tok.  Here's his Tik Tok Ad:  https://www.tiktok.com/@scott_wiener/video/7564070127835106615

Mission Local doesn't mention what he said about Govern Brown's being a great governor but NOT a fan of public subsidies on housing.  Gov. Newsom is.   (Both Eskenazi and Wiener mentioned that it's no longer public housing but social housing because now it's mixed-income.)

Mission Local does mention the fact that Scott Weiner, born in 1987, has never known a House representative other than Nancy Pelosi, which I thought was an interesting and amusing fact.   It reports most of the other things in my notes.  However, it doesn't emphasize what Scott Wiener said about being known for his housing bills but not as much for the bills that are even more numerous involving health care and affordability.  (That affordability is something we need to look into more.)  

He made a strong statement against Israel (as it is now)--even stronger than reported in Mission Local.  He said he would not support an Israel that doesn't stand for democracy and peace.  Not reported:  Joe Eskenazi's response, "When has Israel done that?  Scott Wiener talked about Rabin, who was assassinated by someone incited by Netanyahu. 

Close to the end, a fairly young, attractive Black woman sitting near me said, "I hope you'll let me ask a question because I flew here to ask it."  Scott Weiner agreed, and she said, "We've got to stop these men who pretend to be women from coming into our restrooms and assaulting our women" or something close to that.  She shouted transphobic comments, insisting that transwomen were men threatening women, and several in the audience shouted back "Trans women are women."  Twice or three times she turned to Scott Wiener and said, "I like other things you do, but we've got to protect women."  Wiener said "We've got to protect all women.  Including Trans Women."  Manny, who had spoken at the very beginning about the importance of being civil and accepting people's views that differed, asked her to leave.  Then he sat down on the front row and looked visibly shaken.  I think he's such an idealist that he really feels it when people aren't civil.  

Here's the link for the Mission Local article:  https://missionlocal.org/2025/11/sf-scott-wiener-pelosi-congress/

Thanks again for the ticket.  

 

At first I thought the SF Chronicle's Art and Culture columnist Tony Bravo was wearing a skirt because he has good legs, but these are really inside shorts by Comme des Garcons and the black jacket is Dries Van Noten. These are names I don't know, but I do know pink, which he encouraged us to wear to the Mechanics' Institute for a screening of the 1957 movie FUNNY FACE with Kay Thompson singing "Think Pink" in the first scene. So...The Mechanics' Institute and The SF Chronicle collaborated on this, and in an indirect way, CCSF was linked because Tony Bravo teaches journalism there. His presence and commentary elevated the movie, which has the fashion world barging into the Greenwich book store where the philosophic idealist Jo, played by Audrey Hepburn, works. Jo is shoved outside, and instead of calling 9-1-1, she waits until the fashion mob finishes with the wreckage. When she finally re-enters, the store is in shambles. Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) makes a token effort to re-shelve two or three of the thousands of books strewn across the floor before giving Jo a kiss he decides she needs.  Astonishingly, Jo appears grateful—breaking into Gershwin’s “How Long Has This Been Going On?”-- instead of slapping him and filing charges for aggravated assault.

Here's a story  that is Total SF, connecting a Muni operator with San Francisco transit riders and City College and showing how acts of kindness multiply and make long-lasting difference.

Eunice Lew, a retiree from teaching immigrants at City College of SF, showed me an article about a wonderful Muni driver, Alan Brown, who appeared in a SF Examiner article in 1999. 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Riding-with-Muni-s-man-from-glad-3238334.php

 Eunice was also mentioned in the article, and when I asked, "Whatever happened to this beloved Muni operator?"  she told me a very touching story I thought would be of interest to you.

With his permission, back in 1999, she recorded his voice as he took people through SF streets and brought the recordings to class at the Chinatown/NorthBeach campus, where she taught both because they were learning the streets with numbers that he called out (34th Avenue, for example) at the same time that they were seeing how friendly and helpful he was, this Black man, who represented a race her students sometimes feared.

A year or so ago, deep in retirement, when she was going through things she needed to discard, she didn't want to throw the cassettes away, so she decided to contact his family so they could have that as part of his legacy.  You'll have to ask her how she found his wife, but she did, and now the wife has the cassettes and, apparently, a way to listen to them and share them with others.  She also told Eunice that he had had cancer back in the days when he was being so welcoming to every one and really making their day.  He died in 2003.  

This must have been before Sam Whiting was writing his wonderful obituaries/Life Tributes to locals because this is all I found after his death:  https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/brown-alan-2656405.php

Later, in response to my questions to Eunice, here's what she wrote:

Stored with Alan's recorded cassettes, there was a letter from Alan thanking me for praising him at a City Hall award ceremony with Mayor Dianne Feinstein.   Going by his return address, I found out that his S.F. home near Stonestown had been sold.  End of the trail -- how can I find him?   I tried searching online with the name of his wife Arlene Brown who I met at the ceremony.  Their daughter has an uncommon name "Niya".   But I didn't get far with "people search" sites.  A friend with better computer skills found an Arlene Brown with Niya in Louisville, Kentucky.  I called the number and sure enough, Niya answered and put her mom on.  Arlene still remembers me.  She was really excited to hear about my plan for shipping her the cassette tapes so Alan's memories will be available for their family history collection.  What a joy that would be for a grandkid to personally experience Grandpa Alan come to life and share the fun  that he brought to so many people.   A different twist on the contemporary "bring your child to work day" -- becoming "bring Grandpa at work home".  

 https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Riding-with-Muni-s-man-from-glad-3238334.php

 

A standing ovation for Betty Traynor, who has been president of SDA (Senior and Disability Action) for 13 years and is now stepping down.  

SDA had its annual fund-raiser, a CommUNITY Celebration on Thursday August 14 from 6 to 8.  

Plot spoiler:  This is the book whose title and author I tried to conjure up today.

I don't remember why this author, whose name I couldn't remember, and book, whose title I couldn't remember came to mind, making me wonder "Whatever became of...?"  Maybe it was because I was working on a eulogy for Dana, whose urged me for years to have a memorial while still alive and bring the fun back in funeral.  It was in the 1980s that she and I took the trip to Oklahoma to search for links to our mother's birth mother.  It was also the 1980s when we had our family reunion with Daddy and I found out the musical "White Christmas" didn't conjure in us both the same sweet memories.  That was the decade I got a part-time teaching job at City College and the decade my first marriage ended.  That was also the decade I had my 40th birthday party and got quite a lot of attention from the Examiner-Chronicle--even on the front page (now framed) along with Reagan and Marcos.  

Whatever happened to...I had my iPhone with me and Googled SF writer of book about the 80s Gornick, getting Vivian Gornick.  After several failed attempts, I started an email to Leah Garchik

Dear Leah~

Thank you for recommending the film "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight."  Because of your enthusiasm, a couple of friends and I saw it before it left the Opera Plaza, and we all loved it.  (It fits in with my favorite film about childhood, "My Life as a Dog.")

I have an unrelated question:  Who was the thirty-ish local writer in the 1980s who wrote a book of essays on being single in the 1980's?  I think her last name was something like Gonnick or Gornick.  I can't remember her first name, but she was definitely not Vivian Gornick.   She also wrote a poem for the SF Chronicle in the style of "The Night Before Christmas," but I think it was about San Francisco and the times. She had a column too for a while.

Any idea?

Thanks again,

Tina

 Now I see the column was "Failing at Living."

 

So...I made it to Udupi Palace on Wednesday night in spite of my carelessness.  They'd made the address super clear--and more than once--in text messages and reminders, but I managed to key in the wrong number and was told to get off at Market and Van Ness and walk 7 minutes.  But it turned out that it was more like a 30 minutes walk to the correct address, so the SF Vistas that I saw were all a blur as I hurried past them.  They were places like Dave Eggers'-founded 826 Valencia Street and City College's Mission Campus.  I've got to go back when being on Valencia isn't an accident.  
 

I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/mystery-benches-sidewalks-20418145.php

Yes, there were other articles--many grim, sad, alarming--but this was the one I focused on!