It must really suck to be one of the self-proclaimed “progressive” majority on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. Here we are, in one of the most “progressive” cities in the United States but we have a “moderate” mayor who keeps vetoing the “progressives” repeated attempts to impose their radical left-wing agenda on the city. Worse for them, when they put measures on the ballot like the one last year that would have allowed illegal immigrants to vote in elections for the school board, they’re usually defeated. So much for their dreams of creating a workers paradise on earth here in San Francisco.

But I think what really gets the “progressive” majority, especially the Madame Defarge of the Board - Chris Daly, is that their power is limited to the City and County of San Francisco. See, Chris Daly imagines himself as a holy progressive prophet, but in reality he represents the ass-crack of San Francisco’s electoral districts, District 6.

Poor, poor Chris Daly, the epitome of “delusions of grandeur.” When he’s not trying to force the poor city recorder to read the name of every single American serviceperson killed in the Iraq war into the City’s official record (yes, it’s true, he’s actually tried to force this to happen more than once.) he’s screaming at homeowners, calling his fellow city supervisors “punk ass bitches” and portraying himself as some Green party messiah, when in reality he’s a pathetic boob.

There is a whole list of reasons why politics in this city are so fucked up, but I think one of the main reasons is the imposition of district-based elections. We have a Board of Supervisors who have become so ferociously dedicated to the maintenance of their district’s interests that there is no citywide vision emanating from the board. Instead the mayor is the one who advocates for the city as a whole, and his ideas are usually shot down because they clash with the supervisors narrow “what’s in it for MY district” self-interest.

You also have a Board of Supervisors who imagine themselves as a sort of national shadow government, so they spend a lot of time passing inane resolutions on issues over which they have no power, things like the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, immigration reform, nuclear power and human rights in China.

In the meantime we’re becoming a city where it’s impossible to build anything, there is no architectural vision and anyone who proposes to build anything that doesn’t include dormer windows and a set-aside for the “working poor” is branded a “capitalist inroader” and hounded out of the city immediately. Our streets are full of holes and the Board’s solution is more mass-transit. Maybe they think that if San Francisco’s roads resemble those in Kinsasha we’ll all get out of our cars and start taking MUNI.

Tom Ammiano has all the time in the world to attend Leather Pride festivals and hold hearings on helicopter traffic but can’t seem to look beyond his district to see that San Francisco is already a city of the rich, and there’s really nothing he can do about it. His attempts to force every business to provide health insurance isn’t going to ensure more coverage, it just forces business to relocate beyond San Francisco’s city lines.

People here consider themselves to be so “progressive” and liberal, but try getting approval to build any building taller than 100 feet, it’s almost impossible. Does anyone think that the Transamerica Pyramid would have been built if this Board had been in power in the late 1960’s? The answer is: it wouldn’t have. At least not without a multitude of “dormer windows” and 1/4 of the building’s space set aside for “the poor.” In short - it wouldn’t have been built.

Yes it’s true, the smug sense of self-righteousness that South Park recently lampooned with amazing accuracy is one of San Francisco’s least admirable traits. We may have beautiful views, nice weather and pretty victorians but we also have a government that is the opposite of everything being “progressive” used to stand for. They’ve instead become a strange sort of self-parodying version of the right-wing, opposed to most everything and never coming up with any new ideas other than attempts to further restrict the rights of San Franciscans to live our lives how we please.

One of the maddening things about going back to school in a city 3,000 miles and across the country away from you is having to make multiple trips to said city to take tests. Tests which are required before the university to which one has been admitted will offer one any advice as far as academics.

Because said university offers very few of these tests during the summer I’m going to have to take another trip to New York in mid-July for one day to take a damned writing test. It doesn’t matter that I already have a degree, I must take this writing test before the advising department will offer me any assistance, and because they’re giving it only twice a month and I’ve already scheduled my first test-trip in June (Math) and the apartment-renting trip in July I’ll have to fly back to New York and stay overnight to take the other test in between those two other trips.

I’ll be so happy when I finish with these absurdities. I don’t have time for tests, especially when they involve a 3,000 mile flight each way.

Hey fuckwits that keep e-mailing me asking me why I created this site to idolize the always-hot Shane Keogh.

MY NAME IS SHANE. I didn’t create this site to idolize the other Shane from Orange County. I’ve had a blog since 2003, this iteration has been around since November 2004. Get it, there is more than one Shane in the world and there are actually a number of other gay bloggers who are also named Shane, like me.

So please, pay attention to your studies (I can see a lot of these e-mails are coming from UMass, aren’t you guys done with school yet?) and stop fucking e-mailing me!

From the 15th of June until the 3rd of July I’ll be in either New York, Santa Fe or Maui, with only two days in San Francisco during that whole two week period. Following that my niece was going to spend the whole month of July with us and now she’s going to come to Maui as well, so I’ll again be a father from June 27th through August 1st. Confused? Lemme ’splain something to you now..

1. First trip is to New York to meet with my apartment broker, take an admittance exam for NYU and meet with academic advisers. That trip lasts from June 16th through June 19th.
2. Second trip is to Santa Fe for a wedding. I’ve rented a house in Santa Fe and am staying for 5 days because I love New Mexico and rarely get a chance to visit. That trip is from June 22 through June 27th.
3. Third trip is to Maui with my boyfriend and my niece. We were going to spend a whole month in Greece in August but because the Good Doc has found a new job we’re no longer able to do so. So we compromised with a 6 day, 5 night trip to the Four Seasons in Wailea, and we’re bringing along my 10 year old niece for some extra fun. That trip is from June 27th through July 3rd.

But wait. If I’m flying back from New Mexico on the 27th and leaving for Maui the same day how is that going to be possible? Answer - I’m flying into San Francisco, the city I call my home, and staying at the airport for the three hour wait until my flight to Maui. That’s right, not even coming back to my house.

Then we should have a little peace, except we all are taking another trip to New York the last weekend of July when I will actually rent an apartment (versus just looking at them to see what I can get for my budget).

From the concrete canyons of Manhattan to the mesas of New Mexico to the white sand beaches of Maui.

Memo to: The skanky Russians that sat in front of me at last night’s showing of The Da Vinci Code in the AMC theater on Van Ness.

From: Shane

Dear Russian Mafia members,

1. When entering a theater in the United States it is customary to turn one’s cell phone OFF. It is considered hugely impolite to have your phone ring during a movie and also considered inappropriate to flip your phone open every 5 minutes to check messages. I understand you have stolen cars and drugs to move around as well as Ukrainian women to kidnap for the sex slave trade, but even the world of vice can be put on hold for two hours.
2. One spray of cologne is usually enough, two is generally overkill, three is nauseating and four requires a chemical protection suit for bystanders.
3. No one is interested in your views on the movie while it’s playing, even if you are speaking English and not Russian.
4. Track suits make you look like… Russian mafia members.
5. Gold chains with track suits make you look like… Russian mafia members.
6. The skanks that travel with you should learn that pulling their hair back so tight that their face is stretched tighter than a bongo drum (aka: the Russian Face Lift) is disgusting, even if they all weren’t wearing tacky Versace zebra-print smocks from 1999.
7. Please go back to your country, we don’t want you here.

The Iranian Parliment has passed a law requiring all non-Muslims in Iran to wear an identifying strip of cloth on their clothes which marks them as a “non-believer.”

According to the National Post of Canada “Iran’s roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.”

Nice, this is the tolerant and open Islam we’re always hearing about? Just exactly where does that kind of Islam exist?

The latest scandal to erupt amongst the Hollywood kidz who Perez Hilton covers with such slavish devotion is the video of Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis in which Davis makes a whole slew of remarks on Lindsay Lohan’s clitoris, vagina, pubes, personal hygiene and finances. It’s all right here if you want to watch it.

Now Mario… errr… Perez is on his own personal jihad against Brandon Davis, publishing cartoons showing him as “bloated, sleazy, entitled” etc… you get the picture. The funny thing is that in the video Paris Hilton, Mario errr… Perez’s personal hero, is seen laughing her ass off as Davis spouts on and on about Lindsay’s twat and pubes, at one point she’s laughing so hard she almost falls over (probably a combination of too much booze and coke, we all know how that goes) and at another she roars with laughter as Davis states that “Lohan’s latest movie is a bomb.”

So why Mario errr.. Perez’s rage against Brandon Davis’s “racist” and “hateful” remarks? Does he think Paris Hilton is innocent in this whole disgusting spectacle? And even if he thought she wasn’t would he dare risk his “best friends 4ever” status with the Nightlife Queen of Skank that is known as Paris Hilton? Me thinks not, but you can make up your own mind. Look at the video and decide if Paris Hilton really seems that disturbed by what her friend is saying.

When you’re the homophobic and increasingly shrill right-wing it is.

Insane Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, said that after the shareholders of Ford Motor Company voted by 95% to retain Ford’s anti-discrimination policies towards gay men and lesbians that he was “pleased” that he got 5% of the vote for his position of stripping gay workers of their anti-discrimination protection, and that he would try again next year.

Only in right-wing fantasyland is 5% considered “pleasing.” In the rest of the normal world 5% would be called “humiliating” or “crushing” or how about “embarrassingly devastating?”

These people never give up, they’re tenacious like insecticide-resistant termites but eventually they’ll be stopped.

Last week I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to see a pre-screening of Peaceful Warrior, a movie based on the well loved book The Peaceful Warrior’s Way by Dan Millman.

I don’t want to give the premis of the film away, because if you haven’t read the book (like me) you’re definitely in for a surprising and amazing experience. This film touches on themes of perseverance, of overcoming adversity and of achieving your dreams.

Starring Scott Mechlowitcz and Nick Nolte the movie was filmed here in the Bay area with many scenes shot on the campus of UC Berkeley. The performances are well crafted and executed perfectly, in particular Scott Mechlowitcz has shown himself to be very capable in this film, particularly as the film involves a lot of hard physical involvement in each scene. Previously seen in such cinematic gems as Eurotrip - Nude Beach Exposed Scott has shown in this work of art that he’s capable of becoming a leading film star, and not just on the basis of his looks.

This movie represents an important milestone in the creation of cinema that aims to have a transformative effect on its watchers, rather than one which aims to make as much money as possible by providing as many cheap thrills as possible. Peaceful Warrior, like the book on which it is based, asks you to reach outside yourself for an hour or two and consider the possibilities of what may be, rather than what is.

I left the screening feeling enlightened and emboldened. Take a risk and see it when it comes out, you’ll definitely not be sorry.

Absolutely hilarious article in Slate on the newest front in the nanny state’s war against our personal freedoms: tanning salons. You may think they’re harmless but the health cops are lining up bills to ban tanning salons entirely, in their minds tanning salons are dens of death, akin to ritualistic human sacrifice chambers and they must be STOPPED!

First they came for the smokers, but because I wasn’t a smoker I said nothing

Then they came for the fast food eaters, and because I didn’t eat fast food I said nothing.

Then they came for the tanners, but because I didn’t tan I said nothing.

Then they came for me…