I don’t know how long you’ll be able to watch this one – all the action is in the first part and then it just goes on and on. (“Aagh, I can’t breathe!” “Get off of him!” ”Aagh, I can’t breathe!” “Get off of him!”)
Not sure if the shoplifter had an actual iPhone. Seems as if he had, at the very least, some kind product endorsed by Dr. Dre, anyway:
And, indeed, those can retail for up to $350, so one of the security guards got that part right. As far as everything else though, there’s just too much to inventory – this is like a video on how not to detain a shoplifter. (Should you let go of the perp temporarily to show off the booty to sway the crowd? Probably not. I could go on, but, as always, You Make The Call.)
It ended up requiring the attention of both the SFPD and the SFFD. (I wonder if there’s an official report or two on this incident.)
Now, the problem I had last night was being too ambitious, thinking I could drop by the First Birthday Celebration of The Bay Citizen and then hustle it uphill to the Specfic Whites neighborhood by nine-ish, thinking that this year’s party would be like last year’s, you know, the one they had in the Twitterloin. That one was off the hook.
Anyway, here it is at the stated 8:00 PM starting time. (A dozen people to park your car, but only one to check you into the place.)
(Why, yes, Terra _is_ 200 feet away from a bridge and two miles away from a tunnel – why do you ask?)
And here are your food trucks. (Everything seems to taste better when it’s from a truck, non?)
Click to expand
I guess things got going later in the evening. But I’ll tell you, if you skipped the first hour of last year’s soiree, which was off the hook, you would have missed a lot.
The good thing is that The Bay Citizen produced, as designed, a lot of good stuff the past year.
They literally rolled out the red carpet in the Tenderloin last night:
Who was there? Everybody. (Everybody excepting some of the hAtERz in local media who feel any new investment should go to existing concerns, you know, the ones that employ the hAtERz themselves. The hAtERz that showed somehow even managed to generate, with noticeable effort, Mona Lisa smile/smirks for the camera.) The place was packed from the get-go, baby. Check out the Party Pix from E.B.Boyd showing who all was there.
Standing room only:
Bay Citizen CEO Lisa Frazier (pronounced fraze-yah) started things off by inviting Founder Warren Hellman to play a song.
Lois Beckett snapped the chorus and here are the full lyrics to the sing-a-long tune Hardly Strictly News. Note the A-A-B-B rhyming scheme. Also note:
“We met with Lisa Frazier who pronounced ‘for now it will be free’/
A multi-layered news hub is the only way to be.”
What, “for now?” Uh oh:
Click to expand. It’s quite legible at 1200 pixels.
A big thank you to all the founding investors, founding members, patrons, and corporate sponsors. Notably, Dede Wilsey’s name isn’t on this list, so perhaps she just recently kicked in her seven figure donation? (Or let’s call it a $500,000 donation with Uncle Sucker kicking another half mil., mas o menos. That’s the thing with non-profit journalism – the federal govmint lowers your taxes by about 50 cents for every dollar you donate, assuming you pay a lot of taxes in the first place. This is the Unfair Advantage that the Chronicle people complain about. Speaking of which, nothing yet about TBC from the SFC – check for yourself.)
Anyway, had to bail early to get down to Massive Attack at the Warfield while Arcadio was playing the TBC party. The booze was flowing and the place was still packed when I left, anyway.
CEO Lisa Frazier today extends a final invitation to get on board before launch. See below; und
Kevin Montgomery gives us a sneak peek* on what the site might look like.
That’s the wind-up, and here’s The Pitch:
Dear LADIESMAN217:
The Bay Citizen’s launch is just two days away, and we can’t wait! Some exciting things have happened over the last few weeks:
We now have fourteen journalists in our newsroom, including twelve full-time journalists and two paid summer interns from the UC Berkeley Journalism School;
Our reporters are busy producing stories on topics including the environment and land use, health and science, education, arts and culture, and more;
We’ve started hosting partner meetings to explore collaborations with local independent media organizations, bloggers, and writers;
We recently moved into our new office at 126 Post Street in San Francisco
Become part of Bay Area history
You still have time. Until midnight on Wednesday, you can become a Founder of The Bay Citizen by donating $50 or more. As a Founder, your name will be permanently listed on our website and you’ll also receive two tickets to our launch party this Wednesday evening at the Great American Music Hall, where you’ll get the chance to meet hundreds of other founding members.
Become a Founder now!
And, don’t forget to check out www.baycitizen.org on Wednesday morning when it goes live.
With thanks,
Lisa Frazier, CEO
P.S. Our long-term sustainability depends on support from community members like you. Thank you for supporting The Bay Citizen.
See you there!
*I had a similar experience over the weekend when I decided to visit my giant Toyota sitting in the shop getting fixed. Even though the place was closed I was able to walk right in and take it for a quick test drive – now they told me last week my car would be ready this coming Wednesday but I wanted a sneak peek. Fuck man, the brakes sounded like shit! All screeching metalicky and whatnot. I called them up today and it turns out that they’re saying the new pads are coming in Tuesday. I don’t know, man, maybe they’ll get it done proper, but that’s a lot of work they still have to do…
The blogger meeting you weren’t personally invited to last week via scented, hand-delivered letter. Actually, you don’t need to go to tonight’s alternate meeting either if you don’t want. But you can still get in the game.
Click to expand
So, here’s the thing: If you don’t want to make a deal with The Bay Citizen, then don’t make a deal with The Bay Citizen, in’nt?
Seems pretty simple.
Also it seems that some reporters could report more better. For instance, “….rumors that reporters were being paid huge salaries are untrue.” Um, how do you know that? In fact, there were out-of-hand rumors about what reporters would get paid. And, in fact, there was a lot of disappointment around town when people found out that:
The salaries for reporters aren’t going to be all that high; und
It matters not because lots of people didn’t get hired anyway, owing to the competitive environment
Oh well. (In addition, the office is just regular, nothing fancy or nothing, right?)
So, with Mother Hellman’s contractions coming faster and faster, things are the way you’d expect for our soon-to-be-bouncing baby Bay Citizen, with:
**Could it be that the replacement for the old San Francisco Chronicle will be the current leaner and meaner San Francisco Chronicle? Yep, it could be. Certainly.
