If truly among the world's major cities, it's definitely on the smallish side... with less than a million residents, but we do have a hugely inflated sense of importance...
We pride ourselves on our snobby so called "fine dining" as rated in our very own Michelin Guide & the recent opening of a Bloomingdales store did warrant section fronting coverage & photos in The Wall St Journal.
It's almost like each resident seems convinced of their righteousness upon signing their leases of their overpriced apartments. The mayor should issue each their own bullhorn along with a Yelp user ID so they can be outspoken on nearly anything, ranging from whether marijuana is a "medicine", to who should be allowed to provide free wireless internet access, or even decide how many bike lanes each street will possibly need...
Nearly everyday, if you leave your home, you are confronted with multiple loony bin escapees begging for change, and while the mayor is busy changing his hairstyle...
the busses creak to halt so that protestors, or even corporations can block the public right of way.
After reading that Larry Ellison's Oracle sales meeting can block a major SOMA tributary to the freeway in order to provide a corporate hospitality tent for a nine day convention, I headed off to work.
I got to civic center plaza, which is a big open area surrrounded by our city hall, a library, and some other civic buildings...
It is indeed the site of many rallys, homeless encampments, Gay Freedom parades gatherings and even the occasional Opera simulcast...
Like this one last week seen on a huge outdoor screen that took two days to stage.
The High Definition Broadcast was made possible by a huge $35 million philanthropic donation & recorded for posterity and enjoyed live by a few hundred folks stretched out on the plaza one Friday night. 
Today near there, I walked past Bob Dylan's bus, it's shades pulled tight, with a black Waylon Jennings logo souvenir license plate alongside the Florida plates...
The catering crew was prepping the pre-show meals, while the faint bleatings of an early possibly Kings Of Leon soundcheck procedure that could be heardfrom within the cavernous Bill Graham Civic Center hall...
Across the plaza I met the stink of porta johns being emptied, and a group of Nation of Islam practitioners, hands held in a chain, with a speaker on a platform praising Farrakhan & praying for Fidel Castro into the mic...
Across the street was a smaller group of Asian Americans with some media rallying for a school board candidate and the publisher of Asian Week newspaper who is campaigning to be re-elected to the board of the regional commuter rail system that refuses to operate past midnite...
I sauntered through the campaign rally & entered City Hall where I quizzed by some oblivious and young hispanic security staff stationed at the metal detectors about who the protesters were...
They shrugged as they had heard of neither group... and likely weren't big Dylan fans either... and then I went down into the basement to pick up my absentee ballot, which is five large pages...
The best part was having the concept of ranked choice voting explained to me even though the only two races eligible for this electoral procedure, have only one candidate... go figger SF in nutshell...
Now for somethings completely different...
One of Britain's fastest rising downloadable music groups is The Beatfreakz, can they follow Gnarls Barkley from I-Tunes to success on this side of the pond? Their gimmick is milking Motown , but not the classic Temps/Supremes period
Here's the radio edit mix of this stalker-iffic fave that hit number 3 in the UK download charts in May, that redoes an 80's Motown number by Berry Gordy's progeny Rockwell...
Beatfreakz - Somebody's Watching Me
And of course the ubiquitous remixes are about...
Beatfreakz - Somebody's Watching Me ( Hi Tack Mix)
Here's a longer 9 minute revved up remix for the inexhaustible...
Beatfreakz - Somebody's Watching Me ( Dennis Christopher Mix)
Their new single has risen to the top of the UK charts, their 2nd stab at updating an 80's motown hit, this time it's Superfreak, originated by Rick James and heavily sampled in the early 90's by by the bad ass Oakland A's bat boy Stanley Burrell( aka MC Hammer)
Here's their streaming video
:Hammer, now a minister, has himself reissued some of his classic club material that put him in fine cars & a hilltop mansion, only to lose it all to bankruptcy proceedings a few years later...
Don't Hurt Him, go download some of that wackness & support his brother Louis' righteous efforts to put the empire back together...this time for Jeeeeeeezuz...
Here's Hammer from his heyday about 15 years ago & the lead song off the soundtrack to Rocky V now reissued via his brothers' Bringemback Records
MC Hammer -That's What I Said"
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at RealNetworks / Rhapsody
Buy at eMusic
Speaking of funky Jeeeeezuz music...There's a cult sensation of a lady known as Sister Gertrude Morgan...
Sister Gertrude Morgan... here's a self portrait she did back in 1975.
Her heartfelt amateurly produced and only album of self composed religious songs has shown up as a cult fave all over the web since her death...especially championed at WFMU
I first saw it in the 365 Days Project
On it she plays guitar & sings, and provides the cover art...
Sister Gertrude Morgan - Let's Make A Record
Sister Getrude Morgan - Take The Lord Along With You
But now it seems the hip label Rope A Dope has actually licensed it
and of course what good would that all be if they didn't frickin' REMIX it!!!
REMIXXXXXX
King Britt Presents: Sister Gertrude Morgan
Sister Gertrude Morgan - Let's Make A Record
The original LP
Let's Make A Record
Sister Gertrude Morgan
Ropeadope Records
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