Meet Broke Ass Stuart of San Francisco

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com



Short on money? Trying to figure out how to make it in New York or San Francisco after having just lost your job? Want to find the best pizza slice for cheap? That's where Broke Ass Stuart comes in. I met him a while back when he was just getting his business going and now its become something of a small success, and he a micro-celebrity. But one thing's clear..

He's got a great idea.

"Who are we?" He asks. Then Stuart provides this manifesto:

We write for busboys, poets, social workers, students, artists, musicians, magicians, mathematicians, maniacs, yodelers and everyone else out there who wants to enjoy life not as a rich person, but as a real person. Namely, we write for you.

The website is geared toward living the cheap life. It has tips on everything from shopping to dating. For example, Stuart's section on "sex and dating" has the quirky perspective of a set of writers who've seen one too many off-the-wall dates.

There's "What Your Girl’s Male Celebrity Crushes Say About Them", next to What Your Dude’s Female Celebrity Crushes Say About Them, and both by Anna G, since no male Broke Ass writer has bothered (or is it dared) to take on the task of speaking up for the men of the Bay Area.

Then we have "Dating and Life Lessons from Mad Men’s Peggy Olson" and creatively presented by (again) AnnaG, who instructs women to...

Sleep with someone younger just for shits & giggles

Though you don’t have to act like an Ann Margaret-25-year-old-acting-like-a-14-year-old to do it, but generally, more often than not, it’s a totally fantastic idea to go to a bar, pick up a younger, hot dude and have a one-night stand on your own terms. Mention that you work on Madison Avenue if he wants to find you.

As you can see this is almost all in fun. The San Francisco section of the website lists events you can attend for free, or for a wee fee where noted.

Finally Stuart, who calls himself "The Editor in Cheap" features the "Broke Ass Of The Week", featuring Jesika Gorton as this week's winner. Who knows? Next week it could be you -- if we avoid the Tsunami. (Well, you, not me. I'm in Georgia.)

In all, "Broke Ass Stuart's goddamn website" is a fun take with some really good ideas for things-to-do roped in.

Calvin Klein SF Union Square store front poll: 12 percent, racist - 36 percent questionable

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com



On YouTube.com

Calvin Klein SF (San Francisco) Union Square store in San Francisco Shopping Center has as of this writing a display front that triggered an email from a viewer and the video above presenting its design. Personally I think it evokes racist images of lynchings, but its boarderline, so I put the question to a poll vote.

As of this writing 12 percent believe it to be racist, 36 percent questionable but not racist, 7 percent report nothing wrong with it, 22 percent don't care, and 22 percent think it's not racist at all.

The store front's a standout in a San Francisco Center dominated by mannequins that are generally white in color and positioned in normal poses; Calvin Klein's mannequins are a shade of grey so dark, it's almost black. But its not the color so much as how they're positioned and the kind of rope and knots used in the display.

Check out the video and take the poll yourself.

Poll

More fun polls on pollsb.com

SF Homeless man assaulted for no good reason

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

This happened today in San Francisco as I was walking up Sansome toward Bush at about 1:14 PM PST. Two men were arguing for some reason - one homeless - then the other man chased him and started to throw him but we asked him to stop and walk off. Later, the homeless man admitted to me on camera he made fun of the guy (for some reason) but that didn't mean he had to try and assault the guy.

Moreover, the police came later, but threw the Homeless Man's items away. Why? He says someone called security, gesturing to the building on the corner of Sansome and Bush. Unfortunately, my camera's batteries ran out, so I went to buy new ones at the Walgreens accross the street; when I returned the Homeless Man was gone.

But the bearded, long-haired guy in black clearly had some problems himself. Total anger management issues as all he had to do was ignore the Homeless Man and walk on, but it was clear that before I arrived he was already in an argument with the guy which (my guess) has to do with the kind of camp site the Homeless Man set up on the corner. Wrong, yes. But it was much more "wrong" to assault him.

If you feel like you've got to take that kind of action against a helpless person, you're one sick dude in my view.

San Francisco Happy Hour: Aventine is raging! (video)

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



On YouTube.com

The evening of Friday June 26th started in a rather routine way for me: meeting friends after work at the outdoor patio setting that the restaurant Cafe Americano provides on the corner of Howard Street and The Embarcadero in San Francisco (now, yes, I live in Oakland but as any dweller knows, Oakland, San Francisco and all cities as far north as San Rafael and as far south as South San Francisco make up what I call "The Inner Bay Area": a place of with a population of 2 million people, one college town, Berkeley, and two downtowns in Oakland and San Francisco, both served by BART.  It's common to see the same people anywhere within the Inner Bay Area, from a Cal football game to Friday nights in San Francisco, or a concert at Oakland's Fox Theater.)

Paul, one of my associates who's always on the hunt for the ultimate party. knew of one and said "Let's head over to Aventine. It's going to be raging tonight." (For you older types, "raging" is a term used to decribe a well-attended event with a lot of dancing and socializing.) So he rounded up the group of us gents and we grabbed a cab over to 529 Washington Street, next to the TransAmerica Pyramid.

I'd never officially visited Aventine, so this was a treat. When we arrived I asked one of the owners Adam Snyder, if I could use my video camera to record the festivities there and he not only gave permission he opened the video with an introduction.

Nice.

Aventine itself is a restaurant and bar I've not yet eaten at that shares series of blocks occupied by a number of good eateries and nightclubs which make up Jackson Square where San Francisco's Financial District ends and North Beach begins. With places like Bix, Kell's, and The Bubble Lounge near by, it's important to have an "angle" - something that draws people.

A Happy Hour in an alley

 

Aventine's revelers on Friday evening

The owners of Aventine took over an alley that connects Washington and Jackson streets, closed it off to traffic with the help of the San Francisco Police department, installed a set of turn tables operated by a disk jockey, added two bars and a pizza vendor, and encouraged non-profit neighborhood groups to set up places where party-goers could sign up to donate to their organizations. The result is a cross between a convention for do-gooders and a nightclub in the day, a street fair; and around 7 PM on a hot summer day like Friday was, the combination's electric, drawing a 1,000 people according to Snyder.

Michael Jackson, the amazing force of music talent, tragically passed the day before, so the record-spinner played a number of Jackson's best known hits: Billy Jean, Thriller, Pretty Young Thing, etc. At first, one or two people danced, most notably "D" who holds court with her rhythmically frenetic dancing, but eventually two turned to twenty, and twenty turned to 40, then 40 turned to 80. Now, I've attended a lot of street fairs, parties, and other events in San Francisco, and this one is one of the best I've seen. It's a perfect after work place to go to have good clean dancing fun.

Now some people don't like to dance, but my observation is once they have a few cocktails they start movin' and grovin' like there's no tomorrow, and badly. That was certainly the case for some at Aventine, but others like me just like to dance and need little excuse (or drink) to do so, especially since I just recovered from the worst flu of my life.  I was celebrating!

And for those who just like to socialize and not move their hips, there's the occasional only-in-San Francisco character to talk to. In Aventine's case, that person is the colorful "Emperor Norton" a uniformed chap who claims to own Mexico and California. Give him your attention and he'll write a bond for you he claims you can trade for money!

Aventine's Friday Happy Hour's a cool place for singles; the guy / gal ratio gets better - that is, even - as the night approaches, everyone's nice, and the folks are attractive (and the women who comes to Aventine look like models). But that written, it's San Francisco, so the event draws both Gay and straight and no one cares. We can thank the the energy of the event for that; there's just something, well, joyful about seeing people have fun. It's the best attraction element in the world.

YouTube As-One Meetup in San Francisco

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!'



On YouTube.com

A few months ago, a few vloggers (that's video-bloggers), most located in the SF Bay Area, and a few from other parts of the country came to meet in North Beach for the San Francisco YouTube As-One Meetup.

Now you're probably thinking "What's the heck is that." Well, the idea was started in 2007 by Cory Williams, AKA "Mr. Safety" who's current claim to fame is something called "The Mean Kitty Song" and who's knack for making viral videos has earned him celebrity status in the vloggerverse, if there is such a thing.

Ok. There is. The vloggerverse.

Anyway, the idea is for YouYube vloggers, or YouTubers, to get together at one place and get to know each other in a real-time physical environment. Mr. Safety organized the first one of these at Pier 39 in San Francisco and included then then major star of YouTube, Renetto, who flew out from Ohio to be a part of the event.



That gathering, helped along by YouTube's marketing staff, attracted about 200 people, 60 of them YouTubers, and was a ton of fun. There have been "As-One" meetups in New York, London, Australia and other cities I'm not aware of. (But frankly it hasn't really caught on as I thought it would for reasons I'll get into later in this post. ) The San Francisco As-One held in March was a new stab at re-establishing the trend of events like this. The organizers even made a cool video:



Personally, I really loved meeting all the vloggers and the wanna-be vloggers, but something's missing from the concept.

I think that something is a thing to do other than just standing around. The first As-One was really cool because the YouTubers that arrived really just re-started online conversations offine before the cameras, thus putting them online again. For example, Renetto's great at talking about race without bringing his emotions into it. He's a talker and an idea exchanger; that shines through in his videos. But a lot of that conversational activity that used to gain viewers has been replaced by fake sex tape videos, music videos, the Associated Press, and Oprah.

For Renetto, YouTube adding Oprah was the last straw. He helped start a new vlogger community of which I'm a part called Vloggerheads. There, the kind of conversations Renetto enjoyed on YouTube before it got big have been replicated on Vloggerheads. So now, the kind of community energy once there has gone to a degree and that's reflected in the As-One meetups.

What's the answer?

Well, having something to do is one. That could mean having the events at restaurants or bars which helps market those places. The As-One concept's also perfect for events, too (especially street fairs). In other words, when we YouTuber's come to As-One's the producers should have a plan for us. All that camcorder firepower's a waste just pointing them at each other.

So, if you're getting the view that I have a plan of my own, I do.

Something completely different.

Stay tuned.

Widgetbox.com - On Widgets and The Web

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



YouTube , Yahoo, MySpace, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, StupidVideos, Sclipo and Viddler


Widgets are identified as the next hot "app" by many in the digital media industry, and from an upcoming video episode of "The Blog Report With Zennie62" created by Producer Sierra Choi, widgets were the talk of the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica. But what are widgets? Why are they important?

I recently had the pleasure of visting San Francisco-based Widgetbox.com. There, I talked with Ryan Spoon, the Vice President of Marketing for the company, a visit faciliated by my friend Steve Kloft, a Widgetbox consultant whom I call "The Legendary Steve Kloft" for his Internet marketing exploits.

Our interview, captured in full in the video that accompanies this blog, was aimed for those who've never heard of "widgets" and don't know what they do. And after our talk, I was treated to a look at Widgetbox's "hack day" staff preparation. But first, a few observations about the culture of the company itself.

What I like about Widgetbox is the same for almost every Internet company I've ever visited or been involved with in some way: it's fun. There seems to be this standard format where the staff is a mix of the techy programmers and the people doing other business functions in one place - programming is not outsourced.

Also, Widgetbox, like many Internet firms in the Bay Area, is "young" not just in age - three years - but in that the staff is young. All of the Widgetbox people I met looked to be in their 20s and 30s. And, of course, there's always a remote staffer or two, in Widgetbox's case, in Boston. There's a dry-erase board with notes on whatever, and in general an open, freeform environment of people who really seem to like what they do.


What's a Widget?

According to Spoon, widgets are "portable pieces of content on the web." Any content that can be shared on a website, a blog like this one, or a social networking page like Facebook. (For the reader, "content" is anything posted in a website for your consumption: text in a news article, or photos, or videos, or sound as in a music podcast.)

The idea with widgets is for you to not have to go to a particular site to see that site's content. Regarding their value to society, "Widgets help with communication," Spoon says, "Communication can mean you pulling in content: SF Chronicle, ESPN, that can be my personal blog. It also allows two-way communication, where people taking content and putting it in places where it can be read from both sides. That would be Facebook."

Spoon talks about Widgetbox's most popular product, "The Baby Ticker", shown here:



The Baby Ticker is an interesting device that allows one to establish a countdown to the birth of an expected child; an animated baby actually grows in a "womb" in the widget itself. Spoon says "three-quarters of a million" people have downloaded the widget since its creation.

Widgets play a central role in the establishment of "web-portability" and many data-aggregation companies are "widgetizing" their services. For example, I use news widgets on the blogs in my network, including Zennie62.com, Oakland Focus, and the NFL Business Blog. Those widgets consists of the headlines of the day from other news organizations. So you don't have to go to those sites to get their news. You can "pull" their content from the widget; on the other hand, the maker of the widget is "pushing" their content to you using the widget. This is a widget made for me by Widgetbox consultant Steve Kloft for me, and is a combination of all of my most accessed feeds, from YouTube.com to SFGate.com, CNN, and Zennie62.com:



As you can see, the widget serves as a portable one-stop place on the web which can be embeded anywhere and as many times as possible, up to millions of times. Anyone who has a website that subscribes to a feed, or a blog site, or videos or podcasts and place (or "aggregate") their feeds to one widget of their own design.

Because of this portability of online information, widgets serve as a threat to the idea that people will go to one place on the web for news or information: that's less so and widgets are driving this process of fragmentation even as much as RSS(Really Simple Syndication)feeds.

Spoon says that site traffic (called "hits" on the street) is always going to be important in this era of web-portability but the business model is different, and there has been talk of micropayments (Which I personally think is a terrible loser of an idea and I'll explain why in a separate post.). "News is based on what my network is telling me is popular, or what's relevant to me", he says "If the content is good, ultimately you can do a lot with it."

Spoon then used his personal widget from his blog Ryanspoon.com as an example of Widgetbox's latest product "Blidget Pro."



As Spoon explains, "what is appearing here is RSS". What appears on Spoon's widget is what he wrote on his blog, yet the widget is here in this blog post; again, we don't have to go to his site.

The propagation of widgets actually increases total traffic to the main site. The widget serves as a kind of satellite website. But if the widget's not monetized you don't make money from the increase in traffic. That's the problem facing content producers from newspaper organizations to bloggers.

A Tour of Widgetbox on "Hack Day"

After my talk with Spoon, I was introduced to the staff of Widgetbox and the company's founder and Chief Technology Officer Giles Goodwin who walked with me and talked about the staffers and "Hack Day." As the video shows, the staff sits in a closet-set group of interlocking desks with computers and rolling chairs that facilitate interaction. The group consists of programmers specializing in Java, and Ruby, and an operations manager and web designers, support and "user interface" specialists and content developers (which calls for a knoweldge of HTML and Flash coding).

The day of my meeting was called "Hack Day" where the staff members works on their individual projects for the entire day (rather than other work), then presents them to each other at 4 P.M. Some of the interesting work includes a new way to embed widgets into websites and a new search system. That reminded me of a visit to Pixar in 1996 when I worked for the Mayor of Oakland and the digital animation firm was based in Richmond, CA (it's now in Emeryville, CA). Pixar, known for its creative staffers, had a similar kind of Friday event which was part happy hour, stage theater, and "hack day."

Widgetbox is one of several companies in a segment, widgets, of a growth industry, digital media. As more publishers and now television networks move online following the growing number of people who get their information from the web, there will be more ad dollars moving toward web-based sources. While widgets may fragment information on the web, they open new opportunities for revenue-generation and usher in a new era of digital media.

Bay To Breakers Rauchy Party Solution: Concerts

 

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



In my last Bay to Breakers post we looked at an amazing race of top talent from around the World. Some of you thought "Well, who's interested in that part of The Bay to Breakers; it's all about the parties in the streets and the booze." Well, I've not forgot that perspective. Here it is.

Overall, the event was a success and the people in my video said so. Moreover the new regulations didn't pose the huge roadblock to a day of fun that the Citizens for The Preservation of The Bay to Breakers feared would happen. Still, something was missing: concerts.

The problem with the 2009 Bay to Breakers was "Footstock", the annual giant gathering place and party held in San Francisco's Polo Grounds, was closed at 2 PM. That's too early and the halting of the event midway through the Bay to Breakers caused a bottleneck that pushed people out into Golden Gate Park and led to massive parties in the streets and people sneaking past barriers to relieve themselves in the nearby pools. It was a hot day; having a big name concert to go to at Footstock would have caused people to want to get their and not hangout and clog the park's streets and roads.

No example captured the magnitude of this problem better than the "Spring Break" float started by a group of guys called "The Godfathers" (someone believed the float was started by Citizens for The Preservation of The Bay to Breakers head Ed Sharpless, but I could find no evidence to back that claim), and according to John Cote in the San Francisco Chronicle, the float makers planned to move the float into the course midway through it, rather than having it at the stating area as the race organizers wanted. The tiki-style creation had a DJ spinning pulsating tunes and women in bikinis dancing on it, and booze.


UPDATE: Ed Sharpless responded to my email by stating the float was did not start in the middle of the route, which is contrary to the information I was given. But the responses of those in the video would objected to the float's impact on traffic were unplanned and real and underscore the need for extended Footstock hours.

Midway through the floats march through San Francisco, police came and confiscated the alcohol they had on board, but that didn't curb a thing and only pissed off the crowd. The float continued through Golden Gate Park, where its operators took refuge under a bridge and the crowd following it started a massive rave-like event which looked every bit like the dirty-dancing nightclub-turned-day it was. Ok, it was fun to watch, but because it took up the entire street, cars and in particular emergency ambulances carrying heat-stroke victims (it was that hot) could not easily pass through. It took almost five minutes just to clear a space for them to pass through. That's valuable time. Plus, the street head was still filled with people.

Toward Big Concerts and Big Planning

That would not have happened if Footstock remained open and a band like "Coldplay" were the headliner, with a local group serving as the warmup entertainment. That's the way we used to do it. People were convinced they had to get through Golden Gate Park to be there; instead, in search of fun and with nowhere else to go, they made the park their own rave party. The Bay to Breakers should be the scene for big concerts and formed by big planning.

What's happening to our society? A "hook-em-and-book-em" mentality has swept America and found its way into the Bay to Breakers. Time to put on the breaks! We have to go back to actually planning large-scale events around the idea of getting people to do something rather than preventing them from doing something. We have this desire, it seems, to want to control each other; why? It causes an irrational level of frustration that's contaminating our society, leading to policy brutality, assaults on students by teachers, and a backlash of social unrest that causes a cycle of government versus the people to develop.

Nuts.

The Bay to Breakers is a celebration of people having fun. The planner and the community should work together to make it so. My solution is to have a $5 charge at Footstock for those who don't have a Bay to Breakers number, a pass, or a pass that they could purchase online or at the "runners expo" held the days before the race. Then back that with a big name, big deal-of-a-concert that starts at 2:30 PM, just as the crowds are streaming in from a long walk. The money could be used for cleanup and the concert.

That would restore a lost luster to one of the events that makes San Francisco a place people want to be.

Bay to Breakers - A Race To Remember

 

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!



My Bay to Breakers Sunday started unlike any in the past 19 or more years and it was even better than the "KGO coolness" of the last seven years. From 2002 to 2007, I'd get up at 4:30 in the morning to meet my friend Beth at the KGO Radio "Morning Stretch" held in the lobby of One Market Street before the start of the run. The basic advantage of being with KGO Radio was the free coffee and orange juice in the morning, plus we were at the start of the line, right where I could get hit by flying tortillas and giant beach balls. Sadly, in 2008 KGO Radio pulled its sponsorship of the event but we still managed a front-line position.

This year was just plain different. My constant trips between California and Georgia where my Mom lives made planning for the B2B difficult this time around. I'm not complaining, it's just the fact of family life right through here. But just by asking I managed to score a press pass to the event, and Mom being understanding (and in good health), I flew back to the Bay Area Thursday and got in by the skin of my teeth; the press conference was the next morning.

That luncheon and media-op was a fun look at the other side of the Bay to Breakers, but just when I thought I'd seen it all, Sunday gave me an experience impossible to forget and captured on video here.

Unlike past B2B mornings, I got up at 5:50 AM, worked on a blog post, talked to a friend, and worked on a tech issue, all the while mindful of the passing of time; I needed to arrive before 7:30 AM. I decided to take BART to the Embarcadero Station then walk over to Howard Street and the race starting line area. Just as I was making my way to downtown Oakland BART station, I got a call from Eva, one of the B2B media relations staffers that they were waiting on me and the press truck was getting ready to leave!

Yikes! It was 7:13 already?!

I called and said I was headed toward BART and to "Hold the truck. I'll be there." That was a request I must have repeated three times. And all the time, I later learned Eva was certain I would miss the truck. I got on BART at 7:24 AM. I was running late.

A Really Crowded BART Train Car

The train car I was on was too crowded for words; we were literally "smushed together" as a friend would say, and it seemed any inch of space was occupied by an arm or a leg. It was clear BART didn't put enough trains on the Sunday morning schedule to comfortably take all of the patrons heading over to downtown San Francisco. Still, just as I was on my way and confident I was going to arrive without a hitch, there was one.

We arrived at Embarcadero BART and as we did I called Eva, who said I had three minutes to get to the press truck or they were gone (Which reminded me of Balok's famous "THREE MINUTES" warning to Captain Kirk and the crew of The Enterprise in the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver .") So I high-tailed it, but forgot one thing: I had to add money to my BART ticket, which would have eaten the "three minutes" I had.

I went to a BART Policeman for help, but the very relaxed officer told me to talk to the station agents, so I ran over to the agent booth, and one man dressed in what looked like a Kangol cap said "Why do you say you have a press pass?" I could not believe it especially because it was around my neck; I frantically explained my situation and begged for his help. The internal clock in my head turned into an alarm; I said "I've got to go; I talked to the cop." And I bolted.

I jetted up the stairs and onto Market Street, cell phone in hand, calling Eva that I was "running to ya." I arrived at Howard and saw the red truck with Eva on it, and yelled into my phone "Look for the bald black guy" and waved frantically. She spotted me and told the police to let me in; they did. I ran over and jumped onto the truck, feeling like I could just collapse.

But the race was about to start.

My focus turned to the "ING" branded start line, and so did my camcorder, and with the intent to follow-up on a story line I was interested in: the 2008 Bay to Breakers Champion Lineth Chephurui from Kenya, versus the challenger Deena Kastor from the USA. Yes, it wasn't the "battle of the sexes" storyline the race organizers were advocating (even to the point of having the elite women runners start 4 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of the male runners just to "even out" the race at the end) and that's because I have a personal hatred for such contests. With the rate of divorce so high and all of these forces pushing men and women apart, why a "battle of the sexes?"

I just hate the concept in any form. Sorry.

Besides, the race organizers managed to lure the 2004 Olympic Bronze Medalist and American Kastor to participate, and let's face it, African runners, and particularly Kenyans have taken over the Bay to Breakers. Kastor was billed as the best chance for someone representing the "Stars and Stripes" to win the race in a long time. The women held the most compelling story.

A Group of Speedsters

The women were so fast they actually caught up to the truck which must have been going around 15 MPH at the time. Someone said "Speed up! You're too close" (you can hear this in the video) and suddenly we lurched forward with such force, I thought I was headed off the truck! At that point, the women were right at the rear of the first press truck, so they must have been running at around 20 MPH just to catch us. Whatever; they were moving!

Here, Kastor and Chephurui were the leaders of a dense pack of runners including Teyba Erkesso of Ethiopia and the party remained intact for much of the first two miles of the run.

Katie Takes Over

For the first two miles I was just talking into the camcorder explaining the action, then pure instinct said I should brave standing up in the truck bed and talk to this woman who seemed to know a lot of the course and wasnt shy to share her knoweldge. So I just pointed the cam at her and asked questions.

The "her" is Katie Harrar, who's a veteran runner and now Manager of Event Sales and Logistics for the Bay to Breakers, and possesses a voice for commentating. Aided by the spotters in the truck cab, and her great eyesite, Katie was able to spot where the runners were at a distance, which was useful when we got so far away from the runners it was hard for the untrained eye (mine) to determine who was who without my camcorder.

Kastor Falls Back; Chephurui Takes "The Hill"

The Hayes Street Hill is the hardest part of the Bay to Breakers course. It's known around the World as "The Hill" and can test even the best runners, and that was true on Sunday. Harrar informed me that it has an "11 degree incline" but I must add it has the added pain of being situated in such a way that the morning sun beats right down on it and its victims. One of them was Kaptor.

Deena started out well ahead but by the top of the Hill there was only Chephurui, who would win the $5,000 prize for reaching the "summit" (as if Hayes Street were a mountain to climb.) But the problem with reaching the top of Hayes Street is even those who've ran the Bay to Breakers before think it's all over from that point; they've got five more miles to go, as Harrar reminded me. The way to take the next five miles if you're a normal runner is to coast as it is mostly downhill, unless you're an elite runner in a race, where you look for any opening to increase your speed. Chephurui relaxed and for the moment she did, Kastor raced past her, veered from right to left on Fell Street as they approached Golden Gate Park and for the next mile appeared to be the new women's champion of The Bay to Breakers.

Then it got hotter.

I've ran the B2B on hot days before, and Iv'e done it with 15 pounds on my back (as Beth reminded me) but I was happy to be in the press truck Sunday. It' wasn't just warm it was humid and in Golden Gate Park the unusually warm weather took its toll. the younger legs of the Kenyan Chephurui and the Ethiopian Erkesso (21 and 26 years old respectively) caught the American, Kastor (36), passed her, then dusted her.

It was down to those two.

For a time, it looked like the idea of giving this gifted group of women the 4 minute, 40 second headstart would result in a female overall winner. But after seeing one police motorcycle pacing the women and behind us for most of the race, suddenly another one was only 50 yards behind the women's escort, and closing fast. It was the men's escort which meant the male runner were gaining: fast. There was one man running quite literally like the wind: Sammy Kitwara.

Now, I've seen a lot of things, or would like to think so, but I've never seen anyone run as fast as Sammy did after the six mile mark. He would set a course record of 33 minutes and 31 seconds for the race, which means at 7.46 miles he was averaging a mile every 4.46 minutes, or about 13.45 miles-per-hour, average. (Double check that if you want.) But it seemed he was going at about 20 miles per hour over that last stretch.

Why?

The "Breakers" of the Pacific Ocean and that nice cool breeze. Kitwara admitted as much later: "Yeah. Yeah. When I came down the hill it was cool; I just went."

His blazing speed caused our truck to accelerate to around 40 miles per hour just to get to the sideline area so we could get out of the truck and over to the finish line. Getting from the truck to the finish line was a blood-rush of a trek I'd like to see Ray Ratto try sometime. We arrived just in time to see Kitwara glide in the winner, followed by Tilahun Regassa a full minute later at 34:15 and John Yuda of Tanzania at 34:23. Then the women, Erkesso, Chepkurui, and Kastor came in at 38:29, 38;35, and 39:05 respectively.

Erkesso, the very shy Ethiopian woman with the lovely braided hairstyle was the surprise winner but she only beat Chepkurui by just 6/100ths of a second; they were that close. That means Chepkurui placed first and second in consecutive years running the Bay to Breakers and should be the favorite for 2010. Why? She says she's coming back, whereas Erkesso said to me "Maybe. I don't know."

Kastor indicated she may return and given this was her first "go" at the course, I'm sure she wants another crack at it.

But the overall winner was Kitwara and he says he's definitely coming back. Why not? He won something like $25,000 in prize money overall, taking the Hayes Street Summit Awards for the men (Chepkurui was the women's winner), winning the "Battle of The Breakers", then taking the men's prize as well. While runners like San Mateo's Peter Gilmore complained of the heat, Kitwara said "It wasn't hot." Well, not for him, but for us mere mortals the weather was the only thing hotter than his amazing performance.

Back To The Future

For me the Bay to Breakers didn't end with the race - I wanted to see how the revelers were responding to the new policies I discussed in an earlier post - so after brunch at the Beach Chalet I went to "Footstock" with friends and through the park with my camcorder and their antics (That's another blog post to come). Later in the day, I went back to BART, told another station agent what happened that morning with the "Kangol Guy" and he reset my ticket and let me through. Nice. That made up for that one miscue in an otherwise incredible, unforgettable experience.

98th ING Bay to Breakers Has Interesting Race Battle

 

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter!

The 98th running of what is now called the ING Bay to Breakers (I have to admit I was used to "The San Francisco Examiner Bay To Breakers" because the name "San Francisco" was in it) kicks off tomorrow (Sunday, May 17th) and for the first time, I'm not running it; I'm covering it. It's a weird feeling but a totally new experience. As media you get to attend a very cool press conference, as I did on Friday at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.  You also get to talk to the main celebrity runners and the race organizers and sponsors. You also get a lot of great food and drink. But back to the race itself.

I've ran 19th of these events - yes, 19 straight times with my best time 1:04.30 - so I feel qualified to talk about how crazy the day is.  In fact, the day's gotten so out of hand in the recent past, that earlier this year ING's race organizers tried to put a break on some activities by floating the policy of a ban on beer, floats, and nudity.  That decision set in motion a large online protest movement, which after a period of heated exchanges with the race organizers, agreed to a new set of policies.

(But before I show them, I've got to say I think there should be a ban on people who have no business shedding their closthes, going nude!  Hey, if we're serious about physical fitness, let's start with the Bay to Breakers: if you're a hardbody you can go naked, otherwise don't even think about it!)

The Major New Policies:

1 - If you've got a can of beer or a bottle of wine on the race course, or your really toasted, or both, you may get tossed into the whoskow.  Fascinating! Let's see the SFPD enforce that one this year!  There's not enough police to corral the thousands of drinkers blowing off team from losing their jobs and some of them may be former cops too.  Still, it's policy.

2 - Floats must be registered and at the start line at a designated place. 

3 - Start line has a "corral" system so if you're a slow runner, you go in one area; fast runners another.

So folks, you can take your clothes off, and considering how hot it is, there's gonna be a lot of that. But please if you're not in great shape, keep your clothes on and bring a fan with a block of ice!

The Serious B2B Race

A serious race battle starts just before the craziness that is the Bay to Breakers, and in attendance at the press conference Friday were returning men’s winner John Korir (Kenya). Bay Area and Northern California runners are James Nielsen (Palo Alto), Peter Gilmore (San Mateo), Brad Poore (Davis) and Midori Sperandeo (Folsom).

But this year the race features 2004 Olympic Gold Metalist, Deena Kastor in the position, as the race PR specialists wrote "to bring the race title back into the hands of an American since 1993." Kastor takes on the defending women's champion Lineth Chepkurui of Kenya.I talked with both runners at the press event.

While Deena's an Olympic Champion, she lacks the course experience Chepkurui has and frankly, the Bay to Breakers course (called Bay to Breakers because it goes from Downtown San Francisco near the San Francisco "Bay", to the west side of the City and The Great Highway next to the Pacific Ocean, or the "breakers") is not only challenging, featuring the Hayes Street Hill, which is a one-mile incline, to the occasional human walking into the race course and the bands playing along the way.  How Deena deals with all of that will be the key to her performance.  She told me she mapped out the course and went along it earlier in the week, but there's something about race day and all that human energy that one can't simulate.

Kenya v. America (Again)

I also talked to 21-year old Lineth Chepkurui, who's hails from Kenya and is just plain ready.  She's quiet, really kind of shy, but possesses a great smile and energy.  I asked her why Kenya specifically and Africa in general has such a great record of winning Bay to Breakers races, "We have a lot of athletes who train", she explains, and went on to explain that running is for all practical purposes a way of life there.

For the men, the competition is "intra-Africa" with the Kenyans versus the Ethopians where 2008 Bay to Breakers champion John Korir and 2005 and 2006 winner Gilbert Okari - both from Kenya - are the favorites to win but will be challenged by Sammy Kitwara.

I'm looking forward to my video trip and watching the race from the press truck. I've ran the Bay to Breakers fast, slow, walked it, and seen bands and rolling bars, but I've never seen it from the media perspective. I'm excited.


Bay to Breakers on Twitter

If you want to follow the Bay to Breakers on Twitter, you can do so at:

http://twitter.com/INGB2Breakers. It's also on television: ABC TV, Channel 7 at 7:45 AM.

The Elite Runners (list courtesy of Edelman PR):

FEMALE



Bib # Name
1 Lineth Chepkurui (Lih-neth Chep-kuh-ruh-ee)
 Kenya 
 21 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: 1st 2008
 2009:  1st Cherry Blossom 10 Mile; 1st Crescent City Classic 10K; 1st Kenyan Army
Championships; 4th World Cross Country Championships; 1st Bloomsday 12K
 2008:  1st Cherry Blossom 10 Mile, 1st Bloomsday, 6th World’s Best 10K; 4th National
Championships Cross Country
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 32:07; 10 mile, 53:21; Half Marathon 70:09 
Highlights:  Defending ING Bay to Breakers 12K Champion; fastest 10 mile run in the world for
2009

3 Deena Kastor 
 United States (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.)
 36 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Bupa Great Edinburgh; 1st Shamrock Shuffle 8K
 2008:  Olympic Trials Champion, Marathon; 1st National Championship 15K; 3rd NYC 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 14:54 (former World Record); 10K 31:44; 15K 47:15 (American
Record); Half Marathon 1:07:34 (American Record); Marathon 2:19:36 (American
Record)
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 14:51.62; 10,000m 30:50.32 (former American Record)
Highlights:  2004 Olympic Bronze Medal (Marathon); 2002 World Cross Country Silver Medal;
2003 World Cross Country Silver Medal; winner of Chicago and London Marathons; holds eight
American Records, one World Record, winner of 20 National Titles

4 Edna Kiplagat (Kip-lah-gaht)
 Kenya
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  1st 2007
 2008:  Maternity leave
 2007: 1st Bloomsday 12K; 1st BAA Half Marathon; 1st Virginia Beach Half Marathon; 1st
Bolder Boulder 10K; 1st Bellin Run 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 15:37; 10K 32:02; Half Marathon 1:09:32
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 15:57.3; 10,000m 33:27.0
Highlights:  First woman to win the ING Battle to the Breakers bonus; 1998 World Junior Bronze
Medal (3,000m); 1996 World Junior Silver Medal (3,000m); married to Gilbert Koech

5 Jane Kibii (Kih-BEE)
 Kenya
 24 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  3rd 2008 
 2009:  1st Carlsbad Half Marathon; 5th Crescent City Classic 10K; 5th Carlsbad 5,000m; 9th
Bloomsday
 2008:  1st Woody Wilson 5K, 1st Davis Twilight 5K, 2nd Carlsbad Half Marathon, 3rd
Newport Beach Half Marathon 
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 32:23; Half Marathon 1:12:26 
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 16:15.67   
Highlights:  Strong finish at 2008 ING Bay to Breakers 12K to grab 3rd; lives and trains in Davis,
Calif.

6 Mariya Konovalova (Mah-ree-yah Koh-noh-vah-loh-vah)
 Russia
 34 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Moscow Indoor 3,000m; 4th Indoor National Championships (3,000m); 2nd
Galan Indoor 5,000m
 2008:  5th Beijing Olympics 10,000m; 4th BUPA Half Marathon; 2nd & 3rd National
Championships (10,000m & 5,000m)
 Road Personal Bests:  1:10:58 Half Marathon      
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 14:38.09; 10,000m 30:35.84
Highlights:  5th Beijing Olympics 10,000m; fastest 10,000m personal best in the field; 2006
European Cross Country Silver Medal

8 Liliya Shobukhova (Lil-leeh-yah Show-boo-koh-vah)
 Russia
 31 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  3rd London Marathon; 6th Bloomsday
 2008: 6th Beijing Olympics 5,000m; 1st National Championship 5,000m; 1st New Balance
Games Mile; 1st ING Philadelphia Distance Run
 Road Personal Best:  1:10:21 Half Marathon
 Track Personal Bests: 8:27.86 indoor 3,000m (former World Record); 14:23.75 5,000m
(European Record) 
Highlights:  6th Beijing Olympics 5,000m; 2006 World Indoor Silver Medalist (3,000m) and World
Outdoor Silver Medal (5,000m); fastest 5,000m time in the field; one World Record, two
European Records

9 Kiyoko Shimahara (Key-yoh-koh Shim-ah-har-ah)
 Japan
 32 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Osaka Half Marathon; 6th Tokyo Marathon
 2008:  1st Honolulu Marathon; 3rd Chicago Marathon 
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 15:54; 10,000m 32:54
 Road Personal Bests:  Half Marathon 70:16; Marathon 2:26:14
Highlights:  6th place at the 2007 World Championships (Marathon); won the 2008 Honolulu
Marathon

10 Meskerem Legesse (Mehs-kehr-em Leh-geh-see)
 Ethiopia
 22 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  3rd Carlsbad Half Marathon; 7th Cooper River Bridge 10K
 2008:  5th NYC Fifth Ave Mile; 3rd Healthy Kidney 10K; 13th San Jose 5K 
 Road Personal Bests: 5K 15:45; 10K 33:59; Half Marathon 1:15:51
Highlights:  2004 Olympian; World Junior Record holder indoor 800m (2:01.03); three-time
National Champion

11 Tania Fischer
 United States (Santa Monica, Calif.)
 43 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  2008, 2007 1st Masters
 2008:  4th United States National Cross Country Masters Championships; 4th Jim Bush
5,000m
 2007:  5th Santa Monica 5K; 10th Pacific Association Championships
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 15:44; 3,000m 9:03
Highlights:  Coaches track and teaches art at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, Calif.;
two-time Swiss National 5,000m Champion

12 Michelle Simonaitis (Sih-moh-nih-tis)
 United States (Draper, Utah)
 43 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  21st 2005
 2009:  3rd Master National 15K Championships  
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 35:06; 15K 55:20; Marathon 2:40   
Highlights:  World Championship Marathon Team member 2001

13 Midori Sperandeo (Mih-doh-ree Sper-ahn-deh-oh)
 United States (Folsom, Calif.)
 43 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd Valentine’s Day 4 Mile
 2008: 1st Run to Feed the Hungry 5K;  1st Cowtown Half Marathon; 8th California
International Marathon
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 34:52; Half Marathon 1:18; Marathon 2:41 
Highlights:  Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier 2000, 2004, 2008; 1st in 2008 Southern California
5K Road Race Championships

14 Teyba Naser (Teh-bah Nah-ser)
 Ethiopia
 19 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd Cooper River Bridge 10K; 3rd Cherry Blossom 10 Mile; 4th Azalea Trail Run; 8th
Crescent City Classic 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 15:35; 10K 32:38 Half Marathon 1:13:38
Highlights:  Improved 14 places in Cherry Blossom race from 2008; very consistent in 2009


15 Teyba Erkesso (Teh-bah Ehr-keh-soh)
 Ethiopia
 26 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Houston Marathon; 2nd Bloomsday; 9th Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 31:33; 10 mile 51:44; Half Marathon 1:09:37; Marathon
2:24:18
Highlights:  World Cross Country Bronze Medal 2004 (4K); Houston Marathon course record
holder

16 Katie McGregor
 United States (St. Louis Park, Minn.)
 31 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd National Championship 15K; 2nd Brutus Hamilton (Berkeley) 10,000m; 4th
Carlsbad 5,000m
 2008: 2nd National Championship 8K, 10 mile, and 15K
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 32:17; Half Marathon 1:12:01; Marathon 2:31:14
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 15:22.60; 10,000 31:21.20
Highlights: 2007 National Champion 25K; 2005 National Champion 10,000m; 2005 and 2006
National Champion 10K (road); member of nine U.S. National Teams.

17 Emily Bates
 United States (Salt Lake City, Utah)
 32 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  Has run on elite centipede teams
 2009: 1st Moab Half Marathon
 2008: Pacific Association short road race series champion
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 37:03; Half Marathon 1:22:06
Highlights: Invited to participate in the Greatest Race on Earth marathon series in Nairobi,
Kenya, in 2007.

18 Jodi Suter
 United States (Spokane, Wash.)
 37 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Spokane area finisher in Bloomsday 12K
Highlights: Won a spot in ING Bay to Breakers 12K field by finishing first among Spokane, Wash.,
residents in 2009 Bloomsday 12K

MALE

Bib # Name
21  John Korir (Kohr-reer) – Defending ING Bay to Breakers 12K Champion
 Kenya  
 33 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  1st 2008; 1st 2007
 2009: 10th World’s Best 10K
 2008:  3rd Bloomsday, 5th Bolder Boulder 10K; 7th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile, 10th World’s
Best 10K
 2007: 1st ING Bay to Breakers 12K, 1st Bloomsday, 1st Steamboat 4 Mile, 3rd Puerto Rico
 10K
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 27:47; Half Marathon 60:47
Highlights:  23 road racing wins since 2000, 2003, 2005; Road Runner of the Year from Running
Times

23  John Yuda (Yooh-duh)
 Tanzania
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  3rd 2008; 5th, 2007 
 2009:  1st Bloomsday
 2008:  6th Bloomsday; 4th Bolder Boulder 10K; 5th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 28:37; Half Marathon 1:00:39
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 13:03.62; 10,000m 27:06.17
Highlights:  Fastest 5,000m, 10,000m, in the field; two-time World Half Marathon Bronze
Medalist (2001, 2002); 2002 World Cross Country Silver Medal

24  Sammy Kitwara (Kit-wah-rah)
 Kenya
 22 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st World’s Best 10K; 1st Fortis Half Marathon; 2nd Kenyan Police Championships
 2008:  1st L’Hu Half Marathon; 1st Rabat Half Marathon; 1st Dam to Dam 10 Mile; 1st
Utrect 10K; 1st Paris 20K
 Road Personal Bests:  10K 27:26; 10 mile 45:17; Half Marathon 59:45
Highlights:  Beat the great Haile Gebrselassie at Fortis Half Marathon, 2009 Fastest 15K in world
and 2nd fastest 10K in the world; brilliant 2008 season concluding with a number two world
ranking at 10 miles (45:17)

26  Feyisa Lelisa (Feh-yee-sah Leh-lee-sah)
 Ethiopia
 19 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  2nd Cherry Blossom 10 Mile; 2nd Crescent City Classic 10K; 12th World Cross
    Country Championships
 2008:  1st Lugano 5,000m; 1st Rovereto 10K; 3rd World Half Marathon Championships; 1st
Agadir Half Marathon
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 27:38; 10 mile 45:58; Half Marathon 1:02:26
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 13:34.80; 10,000m 27:46.97
Highlights:  Strong showing in first two races in United States (both 2nd place); great cross
country strength


MALE:

27  Gilbert Okari (Oh-kar-eh)
 Kenya
 30 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  1st 2006; 1st 2005
 2009: 4th Bloomsday; 7th Fortis Half Marathon; 18th World’s Best 10K
 2008: 1st San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon; 2nd BAA Half Marathon; 12th Bloomsday
12K
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 13:38; 10K 27:28
Highlights:  Undefeated in 2006; back to serious racing after battling an injury in 2007

28  Tilahun Regassa (Til-ah-hoon Reh-gah-sah)
 Ethiopia
 19 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009:  1st Ukrop 10K; 1st Cooper River Bridge 10K; 8th World’s Best 10K
 2008:  2nd Metropole 5,000m; 2nd Tanger 5,000m; 1st Lille Half Marathon; 4th New Delhi
Half Marathon
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 28:21; Half Marathon 59:36
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 13:12.40; 10,000m 27:23.60
Highlights:  Brilliant blend of speed and strength; fastest Half Marathon in field

29  Josh Moen
 United States (Readlyn, Iowa)
 27 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2009: 1st Edison 5K, 14th National Championship 15K
 2008: 3rd National Championship 10K; 8th National Championship 8K; 14th Peachtree 10K
 Road: 15K 44:34; 1:04:37 Half Marathon 
 Track Personal Bests: 5,000m 13:34, 10,000m 28:31
Highlights: Member of three U.S. National Teams; five-time College National Champion
(Wartburg) 

30  Gilbert Koech (Koh-ech)
 Kenya
 28 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  None
 2008:  4th Dresden Marathon
 Road Personal Best:  10K 27:32; Half Marathon 1:02:05; Marathon 2:19:09
Highlights:  Married to Edna Kiplagat; back to racing after taking most of 2008 off

31  Linus Maiyo (Mih-yoh)
 Kenya
 26 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: 6th 2007
 2009:  4th Azalea 10K; 6th Cooper River Bridge 10K; 12th World’s Best 10K
 2008:  5th World’s Best 10K; 6th Azalea 10K; 6th Cooper River Bridge 10K; 9th Healthy
    Kidney 10K 
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 27:36; Half Marathon 1:02:40; Marathon 2:12:53
Highlights:  Veteran of ING Bay to Breakers 12K course; runs in part so he can eat more
chocolate


32  Justin Young
 United States (Boulder, CO)
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: None
 2009:  8th National Championship (Half Marathon); 23rd Tokyo Marathon
 2008: 1st AFC Half Marathon; 6th Himeji Castle 10 Mile (Japan); 13th Rotterdam Marathon  
 Road Personal Bests: 10K 29:01; Half Marathon 1:03:35; Marathon 2:13:54 
Highlights:  Invited by Japanese officials to compete at both Himeji Castle 10 Mile and Toyko
Marathon - rare for an American

33  James Nielsen
 United States (Palo Alto, Calif.)
 29 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History:  13th 2006; 14th 2004; 11th 2003; competed four times
as a child 
 2009:  3rd Napa Valley Marathon
 2007:  1st Eugene Marathon; 50th Olympic Trials Marathon   
 Road Personal Bests:  Marathon 2:21:01
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 14:13; 10,000m 29:52.97    
Highlights:  Eugene Marathon Champion; two-time NCAA Div III Champion at 5,000m; Kona
Ironman Finisher; earned PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford

34  Mike Sayenko (Say-ehn-koh)
 United States (Bellevue, Wash.)
 24 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: None 
 2009:  12th National Championship (3,000m); 12th National Half Marathon
 Championships; 2nd Stanford Invite 10,000m  
 2008:  5th National Marathon Championships; 8th National Mountain Running
Championships
 Road Personal Bests:  Half Marathon 63:52; Marathon 2:18:36
 Track Personal Bests:  5,000m 13:49.78; 10,000m 28:25.85
Highlights:  Has shown great improvement in last two years and is a great hill runner

37  Brad Poore 
 United States (Davis, Calif.)
 30 years old
 ING Bay to Breakers 12K History: None
 2008:  7th Austin Marathon; 2008 Olympic Trials Qualifier
 2007:  Injured (malaria)  
 Road Personal Bests:  5K 14:39; Half Marathon 1:07:06; Marathon 2:21:51;   
Highlights:  3rd Humbolt Half Marathon 2006; dual citizenship with Great Britain – represented
Great Britain at Austin Marathon

Page Mill Properties, Zennie Abraham, and Middle Ground

 

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter!



YouTube, MySpace, Blip.tv and Viddler

I just received a call from Paul Hogarth who's a tenant activist, lawyer and a singer. He seemed interested in why I would write anything even half-way supportive of Page Mill Properties, which has been embroiled in controversy surrounding tenants and the rent control system in East Palo Alto. To recap, Page Mill Properties now owns over 1,700 units that they took over (not built) and rehabilitated. I got a tip that was a hot story and so went down to get information via video. What I found was that Page Mill would talk to me but the tenant activist at the center of the story, Chris Lund, would not.

That did not stop Lund from calling me every day sometimes four times a day asking about my association with Page Mill. Each time he never wanted to go and talk with me on the record. Then via a weird set of associations, Julian Davis who I helped on the Prop H Campaign told Andy Blue that I was a paid blogger and so must be in this case -- not true. Again, at the time, no one from the tenants side would talk to me, and Page Mill did on video.

I've called Tenants Together and hope that they will sit down with me; I'm told by Page Mill Properties Tenants Together has never sat down with them to help resolve anything at all. But as for Paul, I think he's less interested in telling the story which includes the East Palo Alto Redevelopment Agency and more interested in shutting me up.

As for me, and perhaps this will help, I'm pro-developer and pro-Redevelopment Agency but not anti-tenant. I believe governments should do the work of making it affordable to develop and maintain affordable rents. My good friend Kofi Bonner runs Lennar Development here in San Francisco and while the project is not perfect and the Redevelopment Agency needs to merge all of their project areas (more on that latter) I know what the issues are and how to solve them. I am an expert on how redevelopment agencies work and what they do. I know how to make and read housing development balance sheets. And I have a right to my point of view without harassment.

Paul Hogarth can try to shoot this messenger, but I'm going to keep talking and pointing a finger at the East Palo Alto Redevelopment Agency.

What bothers me most is every week I get an email from someone using the "N" word and that I can't identify. Hogarth asked me "Why are you with SFGate?" as if I should not be here and while I don't think it's him or anyone associated with him, given their behavior how do I know?

What's going on, I do not know.

It's not a good thing to have to delete these emails let alone get them; how do I know where they come from, especially if I get weird treatment from activists? As to how I make money, I'm a YouTube Partner. More about that later.

Ad:Tech SF - Digital Marketing's Must-Attend Event In San Francisco

 

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter!



YouTube, Metacafe, Blip.tv and Sclipo

When we first established Sports Business Simulations, we launched the new site on June 22, 2003 and got just three unique visitors all day long.  I had the stupid idea that if you build it -- the website with sim games -- they will come.  I realized within one day I was totally wrong.

In my quest to find answers to improve our traffic I discovered for myself an event that I at first wasn't sure I should go to, but then was glad I did.  That event was Ad-Tech, which takes place Tuesday through Thursday of this week at Moscone Center West..

Where Web 2.0 conferences are more about glitz and gitter and parties, Ad-Tech is more about nuts-and-bolts website marketing and promotion.  It's where you find affiliate marketers and shopping cart software makers and website ad creators actively trying to find a fit with you and your web business.

I'm not taking anything away from Web 2.0, which is a fantastic networking event, but Ad-Tech is a place to do deals for your web business that can help you in some way.  But if it's your first Ad-Tech and you don't have an understanding of what digital marketing is or how to separate the good vendors from the "ok" ones, I have some advice for you.

Just take the time to go to the keynotes speeches, look around, and get to know the vendors.  Get a bag and stuff it with material.  And learn who wants to deal with you and who acts like you're gum shoe.  I'm serious, because that happened to me two years ago.  One company that places ads on websites like mine just made me stand around waiting for five minutes (think about it) to talk to someone; when they finally realized I was an Internet site builder and operator and not the Roto-Roter man, they talked to me, and even then they didn't take me seriously.

"Well, we only deal with people who have blogs and websites", the rep said.   No kidding.  You can imagine where it went from there.  After all, why would he assume I don't have a blog or a website, rather than a lot of them?

Huh? 

Now I was dressed business casual so no problem there, right?  And here's where the matter of race could come into play, right?  Because what logical reason would anyone have for ignoring me?  None. Then they would say, "you're playing the race card" to which I would respond, "racism is a form of rejection without reason other than skin color; what logical reason did you have for rejecting me" -- in fact, that's what happened.  (Hey, women go through this crap, too!) I gave them a piece of my mind and then walked away.  I found another ad placement company to work with.

That's the beauty of Ad-Tech and a good reason why you should "kick the tires" of the personalities first.  Learn who you want to deal with and don't want to deal with.  If that example I gave happens to you, don't argue as I did, just walk away.  

The other good reason to check out Ad-Tech SF is just to learn what the state of the art of thinking in digital media is.  This year's event looks exciting, as Jimmy Whales, the founder of Wikipedia will speak at a keynote adress, as well Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, and Jason Kilar the CEO of Hulu (an awesome site).  There's also the AdSense Publisher Forum on Wednesday, which is an event for all of my friends who I tell "You've got to sign up for Google AdSense" so they can place ads on their blogs. 

Also, go to as many parties as you can.  For example there the "Advertising 2.0" party Tuesday night at the "W" Hotel, who's lobby is the "in" place to hang for the tech community at these events.  And there's the Affiliate Summit Beer Garden, which is a must, because affiliate marketers are without a doubt the most fun folks in the digital media industry.  You'll find many of them are from places like Vegas or Florida, or Colorado, and are an interesting mix of "smart" and "party", which makes their events smart parties to attend.  But to be sure, according to the AdTech folks there's the ad:tech SFAMA Mixer, Digital Social Media Networking and Oldtimers Foundation parties to check out, too.

To sign up, just click here: Facebook Invite Page 


So, go to Ad-Tech SF and follow my instructions, I guarantee you'll have a blast and learn a lot.

As for me, I had to travel to Atlanta for family matters so I will not be able to attend but in order to blog about it, I've asked my friend Molly Fuller, the founder of the cooking class company "Hands On Gourmet", to go in my place and use Twitter to tweet what she sees and her impressions.  That material will be used for my blog.  It will be great to get her view of Ad-Tech as a first-timer.

Alex Shoumatoff's Vanity Fair Article On The Bohemian Club Reveals His Unfortunate Reporting Approach

MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Crackle, Sclipo, Viddler and Howcast

Bringing an end to a story that made my blogs famous, infamous Vanity Fair (VF) Contributing Editor Alex Shoumatoff finally published his work on the Bohemian Club’s timber management plan and how he got snared by police for tresspassing at its private retreat near the town of Monte Rio, Calif.

If you remember, Alex Shoumatoff set out last year to help his Harvard roommate Jock Hooper do a smear job on the Bohemian Club, which is a kind of resort home for many San Francisco luminaries, and not all of them male. Hooper was someone described as a "disgruntled former member" of the exclusive gentlemen’s club that has is favored by the business elite, former presidents, international leaders, and men who enjoy music, wine and song, and ok, I know at least two women who've recently been there (with their boyfriends). The club's lightened up a lot over the years.

Anyway, Hooper quit the club when it wouldn’t approve his forest management plan (read: major ego) and then became the leading critic of the club’s plans to preserve and protect old growth redwood trees on its property. He then got Alex and Vanity Fair to do some dirty work for him, or try to.

Now I write this with the full expectation of being invited to the 2010 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, rather than having to sneak into it. Hear me talking Graydon!

This story started last year when Shoumatoff managed to sneak in to the Bohemian Grove during the annual event the club holds in July. But his wandering, covered in detail in his story, only lasted 40 minutes before he was arrested by security guards and a part-time service employee at the famed Grove who quickly spotted that the kind of sloppy, preppy Topsider-wearing editor was not one of their own.

In VF, Alex writes that he was trying to fit in with that style of dress, but folks I talked to say he wasn’t hard to miss: he was dressed like a caddy wearing a Pebble Beach pullover and apparently asked off-beat questions that proved to be his downfall. Most of which he mentions in his article.

He was quickly captured cowering behind a bush, but his large body gave him away. He was then arrested by the Sonoma County Sherriff’s Department, spent the night in county jail, and forced to pay a fine for trespassing. His arrest was captured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Gawker, Huffington Post, and, of course, here at zennie62.com and the San Francisco Sentinel .

Shoumatoff’s piece in Vanity Fair this month may be the first case of a hatchet job that turned into a hachet boomerang: Club members say Shoumatoff’s piece is so dramatized and so full of factual errors (that I will detail in a follow-up post), that it proves to be an embarrassment for him and well as Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. And they refered to being attacked by "right wing bloggers"!

I'm neither right of center, nor posessing wings like a bird, but I am a blogger. As an Oakland guy who hangs out in San Francisco a lot, has worked for and helped many local politicians both Democrat and Republican (but I'm a Dem), and gotten to personally know a number of "Grovers" as Alex calls them, I can tell you they're more than a little tired of people putting them into this "conservative White male" box, especially since this "liberal Black male" has been invited to visit and by members who are not all White, and aren't at all conservative.

I'm happy to come to their defense to be frank.

I'm glad Alex got caught because he could have just used the contacts he was developing to visit the club in a legitimate fashion. Instead, he bozoed his way in and looked like a clown in doing so.

And the club's forest plan? According to several sources, it's going through the review process well. But what I find so interesting even over the important consideration of the trees, is how one blue-blood institution, Vanity Fair, can muster the gall to call another blue-blood institution The Bohemian Club "elitist" when VF's not even invited me to its Oscar Party, and Graydon Carter will not take my calls.

This'll teach 'em!

BREAKING: A's Owner Lew Wolff Calls Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums To Request Meeting

I have it from a very good source that Oakland Athletics Owner and Managing Partner Lew Wolff called Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums today to request a meeting to "explore options to keep the A's in Oakland".


That's great news and it comes on the heels of Monday's report that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig formed a committee to determine why a baseball stadium deal was not struck in Oakland, and Selig did so with wording that could have been read as a forecast of a move to take the A's out of Oakland.


But Wolff's phone call to Dellums today signals a new start to a recommittment to Oakland by the A's owner. Meanwhile here's the stadium proposal the Mayor's Task Force saw last Thursday:

Journalist Union End Game for Chronicle Could Be Purchase: News: SFAppeal

More at SFAppeal: “As the California Media Workers Guild at the San Francisco Chronicle prepare for a ratification vote on job and compensation concessions to Hearst Corp., the union leadership is exploring potential partnerships to eventually acquire the newspaper.

"In 16 months," said Carl Hall, local Guild representative at The Chronicle, "we should be talking about buy in and not buy-outs."

In an interview Tuesday, Hall was looking past the painful week of negotiations that produced the tentative agreement on concessions that Chronicle publisher Hearst had been demanding under threat of a sale or closure of the 144-year-old paper.

"We are working on it," Hall said. "We hope to form an investor group that would be prepared to step in."”

-- Can they come up with the money, that's the question? And can they generate enough revenue to operate it -- second question. They should team up with Craigslist.

SF Chronicle Owned By Craigslist? A Possible Future

According to Real Clear Politics, The San Francisco Chronicle is one of ten newspapers in trouble.  The total list in order from "still alive" to "almost passed on" is:

10. NY Daily News
9. LA Times
8. St. Paul Pioneer Press
7. Chicago Sun-Times
6. Detroit News
5. San Francisco Chronicle
4. Miami Herald
3. Philadelphia Daily News
2. Rocky Mountain News
1. Seattle Post-Intelligencer





The San Francisco Chronicle, at number five, may cease to exist if management and union can't get together on an adjustment to the collective bargaining agreement.  (UPDATE: Seattle P-I reported close to closure).  That did happen on Monday, with Thursday of this week set as the day for a large meeting for the Chronicle Guild to ratify the agreement.  As of the making of the video, no place was secured but that was to happen today, Tuesday.  It did according to Mediaworkers.org.

The day and time of the meeting is Thursday, March 12,  5-8 p.m respectively and the place is Cyril Magnin room, Parc 55 Hotel, 55 Cyril Magnin St in San Francisco (north from the Chronicle building on Fifth Street and across Market),  and discussion will be from 5:30-7:30 p.m.  They expect to have the vote at 7:30 p.m.

The Chronicle is threatening to cut 225 or more guild positions if the union that represents journalists and other employees doesn’t meet the company’s demands, according to Mediaworkers.org.

The paper has about 500 total guild members, according to a source at the Chronicle.

If the union does agree to concessions, then the paper would cut at least 150 guild positions. The paper wants workers to give up senority rights, cut back vacation and sick leave.  So the paper lays off employees, agreement or not. 

While this is happening, people are steadily moving online to get news.  The number of people visiting newspaper Web sites in January reached a new high,  according to the Newspaper Association of America.  During that month, 74.8 million unique visitors went to newspaper Web sites, an increase of
11% year-over-year and due to the interest in the Obama Inauguration.  It is the highest number of unique users recorded since the association started tracking online industry stats in 2004.

Meanwhile, San Francisco-based social listing site Craigslist drew  26.7 million unique visitors in May 2008 alone according to Nielsen Online.  That's just over one-third the total number of new visitors for all of the newspapers in their best month in history.  Craigslist earned $81 million in 2008, $55 million in 2007, and could "easily top $200 million" with some small increase in fees.  All of this with a staff of about 20 people. 

Craiglist is a giant, dwarfing the New York Times and SFGate.com in unique visitors by a large margin claiming 60 percent of daily page view traffic in an Alexa comparison with the two sites.  Why did the SF Chronicle not copy Craigslist?

Or more to another point, is the SF Chronicle going to merge with Craiglist?  I can tell you from a good source that conversations have taken place on some kind of relationship.  Will it lead to Craigslist
buying the Chronicle is anyone's guess, but it's a possible future.


YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Crackle, Sclipo, Viddler and Howcast

Bowoto v. Chevron Is Back In Court Feb 6th 2009

Bowoto v. Chevron Is Back In U.S. 9th District Court, Northern California, San Francisco, Feb 6th 2009 and for the purpose of the plaintiffs explaining why a new trial is needed. 


The plaintiffs (Bowoto) believe that the core idea that claims Chevron acted in violation of the Alien Tort Act was not understood by the jury, but given the nature of the incident -- tresspassing by Bowoto -- it's hard for me to see how they can make that claim.

Hangar One Vodka Macy's San Francisco Cocktail Event

I was a special guest of of Liza "The Wine Chic" Zimmerman at this Hangar One Holiday Cocktail Mixing event at Macy's SF and which introduced Hangar One Vodka and Mixologist Scott Beattie. Hangar One is made in Alameda, California

NextArts' Tony Imperial Sends Threatening Emails To Blogger Zennie Abraham

Regardless of my constant written requests for him to stop, NextArts' Tony Imperial , the producer of the planned San Francisco Obama Inauguration Simulcast, continues to send threatening emails to me.  I've sent a simple "please leave me alone" reply to his emails, five times as of this writing. 

NextArts' Tony Imperial claims that I was using my blog to try to stop his planned program from taking place, when in point of fact I have written that it was a great thing to do, but Imperial has some massive political cleanup work to do.  He's upset Obama volunteers, SF movers and shakers, and now this blogger, which he claims to have filed a baseless lawsuit against. 

Imperials just will not stop and now I consider him to be a threat.  The only reason I'm making this public is to prove that he can't "chill" this blogger and also to inform the general public of his behavior and to protect myself. 

Pro-Israel Activist and Friend Dan Kilman Will Be Missed On Oakland's Grand Avenue And In The Bay Area

If you remember a year ago in November, I went out with my video camera and talked to two groups: SF Women in Black and SF Voice for Israel. If you shop at the Oakland Farmers Market, you remember a man carrying a large Israeli flag in front of the Grand Lake Theater. That man was Dan Kilman.

This is that video series:

Part One:








Part Two

Well, the person in the video with the beard is one I came to call a friend; this a key part of Oakland culture, died recently. He supposedly died from falling down an elevator shaft after trying to climb out of a car stuck between floors. According to the website for "SF Voice for Israel" and where Dan was an active member, Kilman was found dead on December 1st at the bottom of an elevator shaft in a building located at 55 New Montgomery Street in San
Francisco called the Sharon Building.  

But some think fowl-play in the form of a hate crime had been committed. Red County reports that Kilman had been assaulted by anti-Israel activists before.

Some have made an issue of the fact that Dan was Gay and that perhaps his orientation played a role in his death. I don't think so.  When I met Dan to do the video above, he didn't reveal that he was Gay at all, in fact he was with a woman and a small boy he seemed to tend to with great care, so I assumed he and she were married -- they certainly acted that way -- and I didn't think twice about it (but then I don't know what to look for in those matters anyway).  I later asked Dan about that and he said she was a friend.  The point is Dan didn't wear his sexual orientation on his sleave, that was reserved for his pro-Israel stance. 
  

The investigations under way center on the strong chance Dan's death was a hate crime, a case of antisemitism.  More on this later. 

There's a memorial planned for Dan at this adress:

Please join us Sun, Dec 14, 7:30 PM at
Beth Jacob Congregation
3778 Park Blvd
Oakland, CA 94610

email:  office@BethJacobOakland.org

There's also a Facebook page dedicated to Dan here:  Dan Kilman Memorial on Facebook