Joe Eskenazi

SF Weekly Letters

Possible Explosive Found in Financial District, Bank Of America Building Evacuated

Police blocked off part of the Financial District this afternoon after the bomb squad was called in over a possible explosive near New Montgomery and Market streets. SF Weekly Staff Writer Joe Eskenazi was passing by when he spotted the drama in downtown. He tells us that police evacuated the bank b ... More >>

SF Weekly Reporter to Talk America's Cup on KQED's Forum

​This week's SF Weekly cover story is an analysis of the America's Cup deal as it now stands -- and the issues our elected officials will be confronted with when they give the Cup final approval at the end of the month, or tell organizers to take a hike. That story's author, Joe Eskenazi, is a sch ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

​This week's SF Weekly cover story is an analysis of the America's Cup deal as it now stands -- and the issues our elected officials will be confronted with when they give the Cup final approval at the end of the month, or tell organizers to take a hike. That story's author, Joe Eskenazi, is a sch ... More >>

Coffee with 40x Caffeine: Drugs for Breakfast

50 ml does of Funranium Labs' "Black Blood of the Earth"​Thanks to the potent combination of radioactivity and government grants, the Bay Area has more than our share of mad scientists. And now, one of them has done something really useful: he created coffee with 40 times the caffeine of regul ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

50 ml does of Funranium Labs' "Black Blood of the Earth"​Thanks to the potent combination of radioactivity and government grants, the Bay Area has more than our share of mad scientists. And now, one of them has done something really useful: he created coffee with 40 times the caffeine of regul ... More >>

Who Shows Up to Demonstrate on Day *Two* of Prop. 8 Trial? In the Rain?

Joe EskenaziFive minutes before the gavel on Tuesday, and no one's showed up to say anything about it...​There were folks huddled outside the city's federal courthouse today whose views and behavior decidedly do not fall within the bounds of "San Francisco values." With the gavel about to fall, i ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Joe EskenaziFive minutes before the gavel on Tuesday, and no one's showed up to say anything about it...​There were folks huddled outside the city's federal courthouse today whose views and behavior decidedly do not fall within the bounds of "San Francisco values." With the gavel about to fall, i ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: A Novel Way To Clean Up This City

Joe Eskenazi​"I'm gonna clean up this city," was growing to be a hackneyed phrase even in the days when city residents were hop-scotching over mounds of horse shit as a matter of course. But cleaning and drying the city? That'd still be a fairly novel thing to do. Sighting appliances littering cit ... More >>

Ain't No Party Like a Green Party

Joe EskenaziGreen Party state co-chair Barry Hermanson brought his own beer -- literally​Members of San Francisco's Green Party refused to exude the blues last night in the farewell bash for the party headquarters they can no longer afford to keep, dousing the place in one last coating of spilled ... More >>

Next Stop: Oz. There's No Place Like Muni, There's No Place Like Muni...

Joe EskenaziNo Toto, though...​ While riding tornadoes over the rainbow is the preferred route to Oz, it turns out the Muni train is ever so slightly more reliable. And, as we've documented numerous times in the past, they'll even take your little dog, too. Our eye-catching Dorothy Gale stepped on ... More >>

Virginal Green Composting Bins Dot San Francisco

Joe Eskenazi'That new composting bin smell...'​With yesterday being day one of San Francisco's mandatory composting era, the city was speckled with verdant, virginal green composting bins, all of which had that new composting bin smell. This is as clean as they will ever be; they will never be mor ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Motorcycle Converted to Recycling Bin

Joe EskenaziMeals on wheels?​Just in time for mandatory composting, an inadvertent green statement has been made by a tippler waddling past this stripped-down motorcycle. Instead of burning fossil fuels, now the bike is serving as a recycling container. And while the city likely won't be fining yo ... More >>

Revamped Harvey Milk Library Looks Like Hugh Hefner's Crash Pad

Joe EskenaziYep, it's the only working fireplace in the San Francisco library system. Sadly, hot toddies are not permitted.​Make of this what you will: The Harvey Milk Memorial Library in Upper Market, which will reopen on Saturday after a 20-month retrofitting and renovation, looks as good as it ... More >>

Frankenstein's Van/Truck Rolls Through San Francisco -- Was This Once Kenny Rogers' Ride?

Joe EskenaziIt's a van...​San Francisco is a city where an art car apparently designed by H.R. Giger can roll by and no one bothers to look away from Navy jet planes roaring between the skyscrapers. And yet, the vehicle pictured here threw us for a loop. From the front, as you can see, it's 100 pe ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Cute Duckies -- Or Are They Swans? -- Grace S.F. 'No Parking' Sign

Joe EskenaziSay what, bird?​One can sympathize with Clark Griswold's impulsive display of fisticuffs at the conclusion of Vacation. No one enjoys being told what to do by inanimate cartoon animals.That being said, we'll be less charitably inclined toward anyone who drop kicks these duckies (or are ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Just In Case You Were Wondering, Here's What a Water Main Looks Like Before it Breaks

Joe EskenaziYou don't see that every day​After being traumatized by Trauma, the Lower Haight has been torn to shreds by the Water System Improvement Program. SF Weekly previously noted that this operation involved a pair of giant pipes sheathed in what looked suspiciously like mega-condoms.  ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Childhood's End -- Trove of Nostalgia-Inducing Toys Left, Broken, on Street

Joe Eskenazi​There's a well-worn old joke about a gorgeous young woman walking into an elderly man's hotel room, gasping, and exclaiming "I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong room." The old man laughs and assures her she's in the right room. "You're just 50 years too late." Your humble narrator was only 25 ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Mascot for City's Tree-Inspired Football Team?

Joe Eskenazi​Yesterday we reported that the city's entry in the fledgling United Football League will be named after the largest sedentary organisms in the world: The California Redwoods. It would seem that the city's trees, long neglected as source material for professional sports franchises, are ... More >>

Serendipity: At Almost Exact Moment Muni Safety Hearing Commences, Muni Crash Stops Up N-Line

Joe EskenaziA train's worth of Muni patrons take an impromptu summer stroll after a car and the N-Judah they were riding collided​If Bevan "I'm Mad As Hell (at Muni) and I'm Not Gonna Take It Anymore" Dufty had a remote feed -- by God it would have played well in the peanut gallery. Right as the s ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: City's Open Door Policy Gone Awry

Joe EskenaziInsert your own 'show them the door' joke here​If there's anything that makes neighborhood residents feel secure in their own domiciles, it's the sight of a door someone has evidently kicked clean through propped up against a tree for all the world to see. The innards of this mortally ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Clumsy Muni Patron Doesn't Stick Around to Cry Over Spilled Wine

Joe Eskenazi​Perhaps we have to thank the klutz responsible for the above scene at Church Street Station. After all, if he'd pulled his drop-the-merlot act on board an actual train it would have been that much worse -- but not just for the obvious reasons. Suppose a tourist had someone splatter mi ... More >>

Gorgeous Aston Martin, Pontiac Collide, Wedge Tightly in Parking Garage Entrance. Fire Department, Cops, Paramedics, National Guard Come Running.

Joe EskenaziThe Aston Martin is James Bond's vehicle of choice. But nothing like this ever happened to 007. ​When a bevy of fire trucks, ambulances, and squad cars noisily descended upon the China Basin building moments ago, we thought Laura Ling and Euna Lee had come home on the Concorde and were ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Behind the Green (Okay, Silver) Door

Joe Eskenazi -- taken on Fell and Fillmore​It is said that when God closes a door, He opens a window. But what happens when he tears the hell out of your door? And what happens if you mention God to your claims adjuster after something like the above happens to you? Not good things, we can imagine ... More >>

S.F. Merced Branch Library Rapidly Regressing Back to Nature

All Photos | Joe EskenaziThe Merced Branch Library returns to the jungle from whence it came...Only a month after closing its doors for a renovation and seismic upgrade, the Merced Branch library is looking eerily like the last building a mounted Charlton Heston would gallop by before being conf ... More >>

Muni Station Ad Full of Indesipherable Tech Gibberish Makes Us Feel Old

Joe EskenaziThis ad made us realize we're too old to know what is being discussed here -- or to careThere comes a time in every person's life that you realize that you're no longer in the desired advertising demographic. During the Dark Ages, you figured this out by suddenly becoming dead; folks the ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Joe EskenaziThis ad made us realize we're too old to know what is being discussed here -- or to careThere comes a time in every person's life that you realize that you're no longer in the desired advertising demographic. During the Dark Ages, you figured this out by suddenly becoming dead; folks the ... More >>

Giants Can't Hit, But Copy Editor Scores a Home Run

Joe EskenaziNo arrests made by the grammar police todayA little while back we wrote about how baseball fans unfazed by donning the name and uniform number of a player recently cut off the team or unceremoniously packed off to Kansas City at the trade deadline can save a lot of money at the Giants' D ... More >>

Arrrrgh, Matey! Thar Be Photos of NorCal Pirate Fest Ahoy!

Joe EskenaziShiver me timbers! It be Mendozer hisself!Arrrgh, me mateys! Rum, sodomy, and the lash! Insert some other pirate cliche here (pieces of eight, keel-haul, MENDOOOOOOO-ZER!). This weekend marked the Northern California Pirate Festival in Vallejo -- a fitting locale; the city has faced its ... More >>

SF Weekly's Joe Eskenazi on KQED's 'Forum' Program Tomorrow

Be sure to tune into "Forum" tomorrow morning (88.5 FM) at 9 a.m. and hear our very own Joe Eskenazi talk about his provocative feature on wacky -- and sometimes temperamental -- service animals, "Service With a Snarl." We're not sure who the other guests will be. We hope they are better-t ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Be sure to tune into "Forum" tomorrow morning (88.5 FM) at 9 a.m. and hear our very own Joe Eskenazi talk about his provocative feature on wacky -- and sometimes temperamental -- service animals, "Service With a Snarl." We're not sure who the other guests will be. We hope they are better-t ... More >>

Pat on the Back: SF Weekly Cleans Up at Peninsula Press Club Awards

It's awards season yet again, and the SF Weekly took home a grand total of eleven at this weekend's ceremony for the Peninsula Press Club Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards. (All awards were granted in the Non-Daily Newspaper category.) Want to peruse our award winning stories? The whole list is bel ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Man With City's Smallest Bow Tie Quite Pleased With His Look

Joe EskenaziMeet Jim Lunney. The denizen of Church and Market "cleans up refuse in Golden Gate Park" for a living -- and "I'm very good at it." The hardest thing about wearing a bow tie so small you could swallow it, he says, is matching it to the rest of your ensemble. When asked what his sartorial ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: A Clean, Well-Lit Place -- For Tacos

Joe EskenaziTacos that sparkleLeslie Nielsen -- you know who he is -- had an interesting observation about humor. He was a man famous for saying unfunny things in an unfunny way. And the result -- was funny. The same goes with signage. You can take two patently unfunny signs, juxtapose them together ... More >>

Hurry! You Have T-Minus Three Hours To Get Your Dog-Eared Copies of Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy (and Lots of Great Stuff).

Joe EskenaziGot lunch plans? Change 'em.Who are the patron saints of rummage book sales? So many to choose from -- but, then, there are so many saints. Leon Uris, James Michener, Tom Clancy, Tony Hillerman, Ed McBain, Robert Ludlum, Harold Robbins, the authors of Time-Life hardbacks (such as Reptile ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Whips, Leather -- and a Mini?

Joe EskenaziDoes the Geico Gecko know?Our very own Matt Smith recently enraged those who engage in the self-described "BDSM lifestyle" for, among other transgressions, referring to film depictions of water-boarding and the application of car batteries to the genitalia as "torture porn." That wasn't ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Korean Language Apparently Mastered, Curriculum Left For Next Seeker of Knowledge

Joe EskenaziSearching for an Asian language to master? Like sifting through trash cans? Today's your lucky day!It turns out that those foraging through San Francisco can not only eat like green royalty, they can also become worldly, cultured, and impress the hell out of friends in Korean restaurants ... More >>

Seen in San Francisco: Copy Editors' Union Not Consulted On Labor T-Shirt

Joe EskenaziLook, all I'm saying is that if you wanted to hire a copy editor, now's the time to do it -- cheap. So, if you're printing a menu, posting a handbill, or like this gent at yesterday's building and construction trades San Francisco demonstration, donning a strike T-shirt, do yourself a fa ... More >>

Seen In San Francisco: Unlike Moses, Firefighters Extinguish Burning Bush

Joe EskenaziSan Francisco firefighters discover a light roasting flowers in a planter at the PUC buildingNew dimensions in mixed metaphors -- Shakespeare and the Old Testament (get ready): San Francisco Firefighters came to extinguish the burning bush, not to praise it. Very late on Friday, your hum ... More >>

Advance Notice Regarding Homicide Catching On

Elmo gets it.Earlier today Joe Eskenazi encouraged transparency and openness from all of San Francisco's would-be killers. He was kidding and all, but later in the day, we noticed that at least one guy may have actually read our blog and followed Eskenazi's advice.  That would ... More >>

S.F. Artist Says Adios to 'Douche Bag' in Chief

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

News & Booze: Pre-Election Smackdown

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

Take a Hit on Some Office Products...With S.F. Signs of the Apocalypse (Last 'O the Year!)

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

Ten More Things Gavin Could’ve Done to Blow the Election

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

S.F. Signs of the Apocalypse...Take Two

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

R2D2 -- It IS You!

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>

Hey, big spender! (Craigslist is ridiculous)

This one really is worth a thousand words.Our thanks go out to San Francisco resident Laura Szewczyk for capturing the above expression of inauguration zeitgeist in Hayes Valley. (Szewczyk snapped the shot on her cell phone.) For an explanation of what may have driven this anonymous artist, click he ... More >>