Pretty much. The basic idea was to take out a few parking spaces. Getting that done in touchy, touchy San Francisco took about a half-decade
So, it used to be all like this:
Click to expand
And now it’s all like this, on a busy day:
For whatever reason, probably something to do with gasoline prices, this station doesn’t seem to get long lines on Fell as much as before.
Anyway, case closed for now…
Now it was a little funny earlier this year when a high level person at Rich King* Casting started quoting sub-minimum wages for extras in that new Contagion movie starring, I don’t know, everybody, you know, these people right here (and let’s throw in Famous Movie Director Steven Soderbergh too – he’s a luminary as well):
But then somebody, no not somebody from the local Film Commish and not any MSM reporters (who don’t seem to be aware of what the minimum wage is in the place where they live and work), but somebody up here in the 415 got word down to Los Angeles County about The Law ‘n stuff.
So fine, the RKC people changed their minds and decided to pay extras “$80″ for up to eight hours (and then they finally did the math and decided that $79.36 would be the wage, cause, you know, después de todos, dinero es dinero.)
But now word comes that RKC thinks it’s OK to pay people up to six weeks** later?
And the extras still haven’t all been paid?
And RKC is ignoring contact attempts from said extras?
Could all this be true?
Well let’s hear from a Real Life Contagion Extra:
“I got in the film as well, but its now mid April, and I have not seen the payment in the 6 weeks that the casting company stated. Got my work receipt right here – would be nice if someone from this casting agency would follow up with my contact attempts.
“It was still a really cool day either way. I got to see an amazing set up of the set @ Candlestick and didn’t mind standing/sitting around all day. That is what background extras do. All of these girls were being very rude that day saying “when are we going to meet the stars”, and “I can’t believe they are making us stand around”, and “come on! I wan’t to be in the movie already!! Shortly after one of the assistants heard those remarks, our group was dismissed for the afternoon. It is like they never listened to what they told us at the casting meeting at Fort Mason, or the information the casting directors told us over the phone when they offered us the part. I did not get an email confirmation after that day, but a personal phone call.
“Would be nice to see my check, but I will give them a bit more time to respond since I bet the other 5,000 are hounding them as well. I mean come on – I am on unemployment – it would be nice to have the $79 bucks right now, but I can wait a bit”
Now, isn’t it ironic, dont’cha think, that a company what has a cavalier attitude about at least one kind of wage and hour rule would drag its feet about making payments? (Well, maybe not, in my experience.)
Anyway, all you non-union extras ought to form a union or something so you can start playing hardball with the Hollywood vanga vanga.
So why don’t you pay all your extras ASAP, Rich King Casting? Like posthaste or something.
Now, speaking of Hollywood, wouldn’t you like to see a list of all the movies that Steven Soderbergh has seen the past twelve months? Sure you would. See it after the jump.
*Forget about Obama’s birth certificate – I want to see the one with “Rich King” printed on it, and oh, Sandy Beach too, I want to see one of those as well – I think Hollywood still has a few guys around with that name.
**I should make a horror film – it’ll be about the horrors of Regular People dealing with Hollywood People. It’ll be called 42 Days Later.
[As best I can figure, the website that Jude Law is promoting on his flyers in Contagion is TruthSerumNow.Com. Someone in LA just registered it just last month, so there you go.]
Now, of course the CDC LIES, of course. But here’s what Hollywood has gotten wrong:
1. First off, doesn’t this fellow Jude Law appear awfully fit and thin for a blogger? That just doesn’t look right.
2. Now, I’ve notified all 14 of my readers to four or five contagion alerts over the years – thank God each alert has been a false alarm but I’ll tell you from experience that Jude’s contagion suit is ALL WRONG!! You can’t just put a belt around your tummy and then call it a day. In fact, this set up would actually increase the chances of a user contracting any possible contagion, so this is just ridiculous. And also, Hollywood, that see-through helmet rig would condense up in a New York minute when actually used in the field, particularly when you’re running from the SFPD, or more likely, the fake SFPD. (They’re really Feds! All of them! Well, most of them would be, during a real contagion.)
Presenting Ridiculous Actor Jude Law on the Streets of San Francisco. (I’m smelling Oscar!)
Oh, wait a second! Aren’t bloggers the ones who generally debunk conspiracy theories (yes, it’s the Gerald Posner, straight outta UC Hastings Law School) and isn’t Hollywood the one what promotes ridiculous conspiracy theories? OMG, YES! We’re through the looking-glass here, people!
[Man, I got this all wrong at the top. Somebody call Rewrite, I gotta go to work.]
Oh my.
From the BOMA comes word of Supervisor Sean Penn’s Elsbernd‘s big new commercial for Proposition G MUNI Reform. (The shoot for this bit was epic, I understand.)
Now, last time I saw vowel-deprived Mr. Elsbernd he was alighting from a pumped-up BMW 5-series, the kind you might expect a lawyer to have, but maybe he shreds on the weekends at Ocean Beach…
Anyway, here’s the new spot:
The banjo player looks happy, but it’s only a temporary thing. Sean’s triple-finned thruster looks improbably small – perhaps MUNI drivers won’t let his longboard aboard:
From SF FYI Net came the news of the kickoff of the Yes on Prop G HQ down in the Castro this AM. See?
August 21, 2010 – Saturday
Fix Muni Now – Yes on G Headquarters Opening
When: August 21, 2010 – Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to ll:30 a.m.
Where: 538 Castro, San Francisco
What: Kickoff Headquarters opening for Yes on G.
Information: info@fixmuninnow.com
A throng gathered at 538 Castro* near 18th Street to hear Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, District 8 Supervisor hopeful Scott Wiener** and others get the volunteers fired up.
Frankly, I can’t see this one losing. Check out Prop G propaganda/news links after the jump.
*Shared with Scott Wiener – he has the left-side window box and the rear of the space while Yes on G has the right side and the front. It’s quite cozy.
“*Wiener dogs come from Vienna” – that’s how you remember how to write his name. Maybe this spelling will come naturally to me before the race against Rafael Mandelman and Rabecca Prozan ends come November.
The evening drive is still going on every day at 7:00 PM on Fell Street and the famous gas station is still open for business every day, so why do we allow drivers to park their cars in the new gas queue lane starting at 7:00 PM every day?
Couldn’t the no-parking hours be more closely matched to the ARCO station’s operating hours instead of just being 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM? Sure it could.
Just after 7:oo PM, when all the City’s recent hard work is for naught:
Click to expand
Are a handful of rich NIMBYs more powerful than the City and County?
Oh well.
Well BIKE NOPA and Streetsblog SF were out there on Fell Street yesterday to see DPW painting the Fell Street bike lane, or the bulk of it, green.
And here’s the result, cars queueing up in a special lane created earlier this year. See? They seem to finally be figuring things out:
Click to expand
Find some history mastubatory fantasies of one Joshua Hart here. (Apparently, he’s a Golden God, or something: “Fix Fell Wins Green Bike Lane on Fell Street“) Anyway, the real history is out there if you want to look for it.
Is this MISSION ACCOMPLISHED for the Fell Street ARCO? I don’t know. The whole idea was to take out parking spaces so that drivers waiting for gasoline wouldn’t queue up in the bike lane and that appeared to be how it was working yesterday. The big issue was getting the residents in the area to give up a few parking spaces – that was one of the hold ups.
It’s not immediately obvious what more the City can do at this point. The open question is how drivers will behave over the coming days, weeks and months.
On it goes…
We certainly could sense it in San Francisco, anyway, but it definitely was smaller than what occurred on March 30, 2009. No reports of injuries or damage so far. See the deets below. It felt very small in San Francisco. It felt “short and sharp” to those a mile away from the epicenter in the East Bay. At least one “weenie Texan” transplant “thought it was a five.” And Commenter Jane says “It felt like a big truck drove up the street in Point Richmond.”
Those in the State Building in San Francisco’s Civic Center probably didn’t feel a thing. Mayor Gavin Newsom would probably like to remind you about upgrading your “soft story” structure. And good thing City Attorney Dennis Herrera is Suing for Seismic Safety Upgrades at the Mirant Power Plant, right?
Gaia is stirring…
An earthquake occurred at 3:30:56 PM (PDT) on Saturday, June 6, 2009.
The magnitude ? (not yet determined) event occurred 1 km (1 miles) NE of El Cerrito, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 6 km ( 4 miles).
| Magnitude | 3.2 |
|---|---|
| Time | Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 3:30:56 PM (PDT) Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 22:30:56 (UTC) |
| Distance from | El Cerrito, CA – 1 km (1 miles) NE (37 degrees) Kensington, CA – 2 km (2 miles) NNW (330 degrees) East Richmond Heights, CA – 3 km (2 miles) SE (139 degrees) Berkeley, CA – 6 km (4 miles) NNW (345 degrees) Oakland, CA – 16 km (10 miles) NNW (339 degrees) |
| Coordinates | 37 deg. 55.5 min. N (37.925N), 122 deg. 17.6 min. W (122.293W) |
| Depth | 6.1 km (3.8 miles) |
| Location Quality | Excellent |
| Location Quality Parameters | Nst= 25, Nph= 25, Dmin=4 km, Rmss=0.1 sec, Erho=0.2 km, Erzz=0.5 km, Gp=39.6 degrees |
| Event ID# | nc40237749 |
| Additional Information | map with fault names Google Earth KML (Requires Google Earth.) Waveforms |
According to the airlines, via that lapdog of the Air Transport Association of America known as Stop Oil Speculation Now, there is a:
…force at work that, like gravity, is invisible yet powerful. This force is rampant speculation. Every time you buy products such as food or gas, you are impacted by unregulated, secretive and often foreign commodities futures markets. Speculators in these markets are increasingly buying and selling commodities such as oil even though they have no intention of using the product.
First of all, who wrote this copy? Bob Shrum? Second of all, Hillary Clinton didn’t intend to use all that sugar and eat those cows when she speculated in the commodities markets and nobody complained about that, right? Speculation is now supposed to be a bad thing?
Our corporate overlords are worried:
Could there be a more likely explanation for high prices for avgas? CBS News offers a few. Is it possible Bill O’Reilly might be wrong? Or, maybe all this talk of speculation being the cause of high fuel prices is just a Nixonian Fallacy.
Check it out and decide for yourself. Maybe you’ll agree that both you and the airlines are being victimized by those invisible, powerful, secretive, foreign forces.
The airlines have to come up with something to explain all those fees and surcharges, right?
I shift the blame
To the worm in the bottle
I shift the blame
To anyone standing before me
