Email Author Matt Smith

Awards

• 2011 - Peninsula Press Club Awards

  "Distressed Properties"

• 2011 - Peninsula Press Club Awards

  "City Hounds the Homeless"

• 2011 - Peninsula Press Club Awards

  "Hypocritical Mayor"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 17, 2009

  "On Thin Ice"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 3, 2009

  "Domestic Spouses"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 6, 2009

  "Bumping Frights"

• 2009 - Peninsula Press Club Awards

  Matt Smith columns

• 2008 - Peninsula Press Club Awards

  Matt Smith columns

• 2007 - Maggies: The Magazine Awards of Western Publishing, published April 26, 2006

  "Bank of Indifference"

• 2007 - Peninsula Press Club Awards

  Matt Smith columns

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2003 Stories by Matt Smith

• Pumping Irony

  published December 17, 2003

  About a month ago I invited Gavin Newsom to the movies through his campaign spokesman, John Shanley. The invitation didn't get anywhere, but I'm... More >>

• Subwaylaid

  published December 10, 2003

  Because my deadline required writing this column last week, I had no way of knowing how Tuesday's mayoral election turned out. But I had a dream.... More >>

• According to Plan

  published November 26, 2003

  Over the past two decades, Vancouver, British Columbia, has become famous for an urban-design experiment. Planners there drafted strict guidelines... More >>

• Derailing the Jaye Train

  published November 19, 2003

  As the son of preachers, I've always fancied great oratory. I'm also a fan of Biblically proportioned drama. So I felt quite content as I... More >>

• The Looking-Glass Campaign

  published November 12, 2003

  News reports were correct: On Nov. 4, 2003, 111 Minna was the heppest, grooviest, raddest spot this side of Amsterdam. There were so many... More >>

• Lee Way

  published November 5, 2003

  I wasn't present last month when Sunset neighborhood political broker Julie Lee and her dutiful son, Andrew, entered the office of Supervisor... More >>

• The Migden Chronicles

  published October 29, 2003

  Dozens of cadavers lie piled in the rutted grass. One body stirs. Then another. Several push their torsos from the mud. It's unclear whether... More >>

• Sounds of Silence

  published October 22, 2003

  Seven years ago Regi Harvey decided to clean house -- for good. "People would come over to my house on a Friday night, and I got tired of the... More >>

• Using Arnold to Get Gavin

  published October 8, 2003

  Though the pageant of the recall race that ended Tuesday was wildly entertaining, it also represented a quandary for public-service-oriented... More >>

• Vapidity Fair

  published October 1, 2003

  A month or so ago I found myself in a North Beach eatery sharing drinks with charming and talented Chronicle food columnist GraceAnn Walden... More >>

• The Past and Future Fraud

  published September 24, 2003

  Civil rights advocates, partisan Democrats, and liberal academics are pleased with the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals... More >>

• Total Future Awareness

  published September 17, 2003

  In the past, people organized conferences devoted to the future. They discussed things like the New Economy, changed paradigms for social linkage,... More >>

• Son of Super Swindler

  published September 10, 2003

  Rarely does a journalist happen upon a question that's magical, eliciting a response so extraordinary as to hint at truly untoward goings-on. For... More >>

• Recalling Reagan

  published August 27, 2003

  When witnessing the pageant of political alienation afflicting our state, I blame the recall. When I see the signature-gathering zealots rubbing... More >>

• The Chick Factor

  published August 20, 2003

  To hear Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez tell it, his recent decision to run for mayor and infuriate left iconettes Tom Ammiano,... More >>

• Gimme Shelters

  published August 13, 2003

  Talk about your Wall Street accounting scandals: The new budget passed by the California Legislature is so fraught with financial chicanery that... More >>

• Uncle Sam Needs You to Be a Suspected Terrorist

  published August 6, 2003

  Ordinarily, I'm not one to advocate boarding a flight to London wearing a button that says, "Suspected Terrorist." Nor, ordinarily, would I... More >>

• Recalling a Historical Mistake

  published July 30, 2003

  Last Thursday evening, when the headlines were announcing that our first gubernatorial recall election would be held Oct. 7, I leaned toward a... More >>

• It's the Economic Development, Stupid

  published July 16, 2003

  Five years before he died last February at age 91, I got a chance to speak with Hal "Snake" Perry, an ebullient retired foreign-service agent who,... More >>

• In-laws You Can Live With

  published July 9, 2003

  I have a fantasy about my neighbors. Mind you: I don't have any real reason to believe they're anything more or less than ordinary people.... More >>

• Playing Pool

  published July 2, 2003

  When diagnosing complex societal malaise, the simplest and most obvious symptoms can be telling. Where beat cops solicit bribes, there's... More >>

• First SF Weekly Sharpie Literary Awards

  published June 18, 2003

  On Geary Boulevard near Arguello, just before dawn, a ragtag band of repo men stakes out a shyster's luxury auto dealership. In a makeshift... More >>

• Hey, Man, Got Any ID?

  published June 11, 2003

  Imagine a health care system in a republic we'll call Doobieland, where public health is overseen by frightened, distracted bureaucrats who don't... More >>

• Making Scents at SFO

  published May 28, 2003

  On Thursday, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown tapped Eleanor Johns, a woman long known for handling Brown's personal, financial, and political... More >>

• SFO My God

  published May 21, 2003

  The president, the national congress, and the business leadership of Honduras have spent a good part of May attempting to unwind a financial... More >>