Fires in the hills, Black charred landscapes, moonscapes.
California burns…#climatechange #jerusalemfire pic.twitter.com/Y8tK4RRMbE— Steve Villano (@Stevevillano11) August 11, 2015
The Hills Are Exploding With the Sounds of Fire
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Category Archives: Featured Content
Twitter Madness over Roger Ailes’ Mr. UniWorse Presidential Pageant: “Think about God, Yeah!”
My 21-Tweet Tornado as a running commentary on the funniest reality show of the season: The Fox News Presidential Mr. Univworse Pagaent, produced, directed and manipulated by Roger Ailes (former Phil Donohue producer, former New Nixon creator, former Willie Horton creator, and eternal hate-monger). Ailes masterful split-screen of Kasich/Rubio–which Fox lingered on a while–telegraphed his dream ticket. Then only thing missing 
was a swimsuit competition. Just picture, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump in Speedos…
Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 1h1 hour ago
And the winner of the #FOXNEWSDEBATE: #RogerAiles! The Producer of the “New Nixon”, Willie Horton, and Fox News is pushing #Kasich/#Rubio
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 14h14 hours ago
The #GOPDebate candidates make their closing statements on the #FOXNEWSDEBATE : Think about #GOD, YEAH!
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 14h14 hours ago
If there is a #God, she is changing the channel from the #FOXNEWSDEBATE and tuning in #JonStewart on #comedycentral. She is so F’en pissed
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#FOXNEWSDEBATE : Are they all coming out in bikinis yet?
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#markzuckerberg : Tell us again WHY did #Facebook co-sponsor this carnival called the #FOXNEWSDEBATE ??
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
Steve Villano retweeted Matt Taibbi
#MikeHuckabee : Hucksterbee on the purpose of the military: Steve Villano added,
Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi
Kill people and break things! Be all you can be!
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
Steve Villano retweeted CNN
Can anyone blame #Trump for not pledging to endorse any of the 9 stooges on stage next to him? #FOXNEWSDEBATE . Steve Villano added,
CNN @CNN
.@realDonaldTrump refuses to take pledge at #GOPDebate: http://cnn.it/1hmtxRx
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
At #FOXNEWSDEBATE the #GOP candidates opine on social issues:
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#scottwalker needs to have a yellow ribbon tied tightly around his neck to remind him that the #IranNuclearDeal is about peace. #LEARN.
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
“This country owes $19 Trillion, and they need someone like me to straighten it out,” #DonaldTrump talking about his bankruptcy acumen. LOL.
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#DonaldTrump hilariously calls bankers “total killers.” Do you hear that #JamieDimon?
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
Food being served to participants at #FOXNEWSDEBATE.
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
Spllit-screen of #Christie /#Huckabee has broken my big screen.
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#BenCarson & #RandPaul remind me of know-it-all MDs who think they are experts on everything outside their area of medical speciality.
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#markzuckerberg : what were you smoking when you agreed to have #Facebook co-sponsor the #FOXNEWSDEBATE?
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Steve Villano retweeted
Frank Rich @frankrichny 15h15 hours ago
Jeb Bush is not happening, at any level.
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#JebBush, as former Gov. of #Florida bragging about educational excellence is like #ISIS talking about #compassion. #Florida? #Education?
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 15h15 hours ago
#DonaldTrump detonates the #FOXNEWSDEBATE by exposing the pay-to-play system of American politics: “I give, then I get.” #campaignfinance
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 16h16 hours ago
YES! #DonaldTrump reiterated his opposition to the #WarinIraq, and his historic support for a #SinglePayer system on #FOXNEWSDEBATE! Perfect
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 16h16 hours ago
#FOXNEWSDEBATE : Did #ScottWalker just volunteer to personally fight in the sands of Saudi Arabia?
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 16h16 hours ago
#FOXNEWSDEBATE : Why is #Facebook a co-sponsor of this carnival?
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 16h16 hours ago
#FOXNEWSDEBATE : The best #GOP ticket that won’t emerge from the #FoxNews Follies is a #Kasich/#Rubio ticket. Split screen shot is #Ailes
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Steve Villano @Stevevillano11 16h16 hours ago
#FOXNEWSDEBATE : The opening is like a Miss Universe competition, so AWKWARD, for all but #Trump. I wanna see #Christie in a swimsuit. ugh
My Brother, Not Make Believe
My brother Michael would have been 75 years old this week, and he has been on my mind a lot lately.
Somehow, I think my 6-year old granddaughter must have known that. At dinner on the night before my brother’s birthday, I was telling a make-believe story about “Peter, Peter Pasta Eater,” and another boy. My granddaughters, ages 6 & 4 love hearing my made-on-the spot stories the way my brother’s oldest daughter and son did, when they were the same ages. And, I love telling them, vamping along the way, watching their eyes grow as big as pizza pies, suspense building.
I was searching for the name of the other boy in the story, when my granddaughter asked me for it, and “Michael” was the first name that popped into my mind, and came from my mouth.
“Wait,” my oldest granddaughter said, stopping the story cold. “Is this real or is it a make-believe story?”
“It’s a make-believe story,” I said, surprised by her question. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” she said, looking at me with her saucer-sized eyes, “isn’t Michael one of your brothers’ names?
I was stunned. Was she reading my mind? My face? Were my emotions that evident to this sweet, sensitive child?
“Why, yes—yes it is,” I said. And, before I could correct myself and say, “yes, it was,” the story moved on, and my granddaughters wanted to know how it ended. On the eve of what would have been my brother’s 75th birthday, his name found it’s way into a story I was creating for the two human beings who are everything to me.
It got me thinking of how my brother would have smiled warmly, quietly at my granddaughters, the way he glowed softly as I watched him observe each one of his four children when they were babies, and the world was still fresh and innocent.
My brother Michael was my first hero, a calm gentle presence in my chaotic early life, the opposite of my father whose temper could explode as quickly as the steam boilers he worked on all his life. Gifted with patience, my brother would assemble all of my toys that my father had no patience for putting together.
My first real visual memory of my brother was through the split front seat of a 1958 Ford Fairlane, when I was 10 or 11 years old. He had taken me to a drive-in movie one night, along with his girl friend, who later became his wife. They sat in the back seat; I sat in the front. I was curious about what my brother was doing back there. But, fatigue conquered my curiosity, and I fell asleep while I tried to sneak a peak of a show that I was convinced was more fascinating than the movie on the big screen in front of me. My brother, nine-years older than I, carried me back into my parents house and up to my bedroom that night, and, for years, laughed gently at my invasion of his privacy.
I always saw my brother through my mother’s eyes, and that view was rose-colored, gentle and perfect, even when my brother’s life took on a far different, more tumultuous tone in later years.
To my mother, to me, my brother was always there, ready to help, to calm the waters. He could build anything—a four-poster bed, a bicycle, a house. I once watched him cook a meal from scratch for two dozen people, each ingredient carefully chosen, each choice delicately considered, each course, better than the one before. I was mesmerized by his short, stubby fingers and how much they looked like our mother’s.
My brother’s life and mine, diverged sharply over the years, and my idolization of him turned into sadness, anger, sorrow and then, in the end, love again. Whatever he did, and he did plenty, he was always my mother’s son, and early in his life, the very model of how I believed a man, and father, should behave.
To my granddaughter, who never met him, Michael was my brother. He was real, not make believe.
Pier 14 and a City’s Priorities
Ignore the toxic gasbag Donald Trump.
Be outraged over his intentionally inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants and illegal immigration, but don’t let them confuse you with the facts in the case of the terrible gun murder of 32-year old Kathryn Steinle on San Francisco’s Pier 14, who crumpled to her death in her father’s arms.
I walked or rode my bike on Pier 14 nearly every single day for four years. I lived across the Street from the Pier, when I lived in the Gateway Apartments, facing the Embarcadero. In all that time, morning, noon and night, I never saw one SFPD beat cop walking on the Pier. But, I did encounter many menacing, mentally ill characters who could have easily mistaken me for a sea lion and decided I was a threat to them. Armed, they would have been dangerous.
In the four years I lived facing Pier 14, San Francisco’s mentally ill and substance-abusing homeless population skyrocketed and became increasingly aggressive. Sue Bierman Park and Ferry Park off Drumm and Washington Streets became urban encampments of cardboard boxes, makeshift tents, and shopping carts. When a children’s playground opened in Sue Bierman Park, I was relentless with local police and told them that if one of my granddaughters was threatened with violence, I would not be able to control my response. The SFPD response was swift and constant, and, for the first time, “community policing” came to SF.
I called the local SF precinct several times a week to report violations of the 8 pm Parks’ curfew, incessant screaming coming from folks in need of medication, and drug deals being done in the middle of the day. Woefully understaffed for a City of nearly 800,000 from the days of Mayor Gavin Newsom, the SFPD could only respond to emergency calls. Lack of cooperation from the DA’s office—under both Kamala Harris and George Gascon– left SF’s cops to play a game of catch and release, arresting repeat offenders 60 or 70 times, only to have the DA’s office release them, claiming that they didn’t have the resources to prosecute.
Early one evening, on my way to make the #1 Muni bus at the corner of Clay and Drumm Streets, I spotted at least a half-dozen disheveled looking men, hunched over a park bench, igniting something in bottles. Using my cellphone on the spot, I called the SFPD emergency line and strongly urged them to send over some police since “Molotov Cocktails” were being lighted.
“You’re calling us because they’re having cocktails in the park?” the dispatcher said.
“Not cocktails,” I shouted into my cellphone in my best Brooklyn accent. “Molotov Cocktails! Bombs.”
As it turned out, the men were lighting their make-shift Meth pipes, a common occurrence in Ferry Park, especially after the SF DA’s office eliminated San Francisco’s Narcotics Division.
“There’s just no support for law enforcement or public safety in this City,” a local police officer told me when he came to answer one of my calls.
“I’m further to the left than most of the people in this City,” I told the SFPD member. “But without public safety, there is no City. There is no civilized society.”
During that same four-year period of 2010-2014, property crimes in SF increased nearly 30 percent, and my bicycle—stolen from my third floor terrace—was one of those statistics. That theft was a tiny, yet tell-tale sign of a troubled town, as was the growing graffiti and grime on the inside of Muni buses. Nobody cared. Whatever.
There’s lots of culpability to go around for Kathryn Steinle’s death, and it goes far beyond Mayor Ed Lee’s fingerpointing at the shameful actions of Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who finally proved himself unfit for public office. The Sheriff’s inexcusable negligence of duty, and the refusal of two successive Mayors and DAs to forcefully face San Francisco’s growing crime rate and deteriorating quality of life issues, have resulted in the tragic death of a young, vibrant daughter of all of us.
After a lifetime of living in New York, I learned to ignore the toxic, tasteless, temper tantrums of spoiled little rich boys, like Donald Trump. Neither their politics, their pouting, nor their wealth, matters.
What does matter is the health and safety of everyday people who define a city by the life, work, vitality, energy and joy they bring to it. What SF doesn’t get, is that a “world-class” City can be both safe and respect individual freedoms, the foremost of which is life.
San Francisco needs to decide whether Kathryn Steinle’s life mattered.
Fireworks Fizzle, Books Burn
I never understood the fascination with fireworks, even though I illegally sold them as a kid growing up in the working class enclave on North Babylon, Long Island. My brother brought home “mats” of firecrackers, loose cherry bombs, bottle rockets, and exploding “ashcans” that could blow off your hand. I was his underage “dealer”, selling the stuff to any of my friends who would buy them.
For a poor kid who sold my toys and comic books for pennies to spend in the summertime, I was mesmerized by the money I could make by marketing this madness. As July 4th approached in the Year I Lived Dangerously, sales were so outrageously brisk that my schoolmates were swamping our stoop, waving $20 bills in their fists for any scrap of fireworks I had left. The clamoring crowd grew so noisy out front, that our next door neighbor threatened to call the cops and report us. I went to sleep with several gross of firecrackers under my bed, worried that either the police were going to raid us, or our house would catch fire, and light up like a rocket in the night. “Controlled” fireworks displays—or controlled anything for that matter– were not part of our consciousness. Our lives were completely out of control. Chaos reigned. We wanted to create something out of our own explosive imaginations. Fireworks were an easy, accessible art form.
Fast forward to today, more than 50 years later, in the posh wine country town of St. Helena, CA, in the heart of the Napa Valley. The entire State of California is as dry as tinder. We are in the fourth year of a drought that has raised the fire danger to extreme levels. Water rationing is mandatory. Statewide, individual water users have cut their use of water by nearly 30%, except for the very rich of Beverly Hills or San Diego County or Tiburon, Marin County, who insist that if they can afford to pay for water they should be able to use as much as they god-damned want . The rich, enamored with controlling everything, LOVE controlled fireworks displays.
In swanky St. Helena, some wealthy benefactor was willing to bankroll the entire $50,000 cost of a “controlled” fireworks display to make sure that July 4th was celebrated with a bang. Leveraging that gift, even more money was raised for a fifteen-minute fireworks festival where the money quickly goes up in smoke, and awed on-lookers argue whether this year’s fireworks show was better than last. Like it matters.
At virtually the very same moment that wealthy fireworks fans forked over private funds, St. Helena City leaders cut nearly $250,000 of public funds from the budget of a terrific local library, which also serves as a community center for this small City of 5,000 people. The City Manager fired the full-time Library Director, who built the small library into one of the best in the country. The City Council caved in by reducing the hours the Library is open to the public, including a complete shutdown on Sundays. No one thought to ask the wealthy fireworks donor to put the $50,000 gift to better more lasting use, to keep the library doors open, and provide access to books which last a lifetime, rather than fireworks which fizzle in a few minutes.
People say that public funds are one thing, but wealthy donors have the right to put their private money anywhere. I disagree. Municipal, state or national leaders ought to step up with a list of vital community services that are in dire need of funding: rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, water recovery, libraries, schools, fire-fighting equipment, police services, teachers, nurses, eldercare, affordable housing, food, sustainable living.
Wealthy donors attention needs to be directed to the necessities of community life, not narcissistic nostalgia. Scarce funds are fungible. Money spent on fireworks won’t be spent on books . I know. I saw it in the eyes of my schoolmates throwing money at me for fireworks 50 years ago. If books could have given them the same kind of buzz, they’d have burned them too.
Reinforcing Marriage & Human Dignity
The moment we were waiting for, worked toward for decades, had finally arrived.
John and Ignatius, dressed in matching outfits, stood atop a raised platform in front of the spacious, soaring wood-ceilinged room at San Franciso’s Delancey Street Foundation. The setting was perfect for these two men, known well throughout San Francisco and across the United States for their generosity to causes far bigger than themselves. Delancy Street Foundation was created 44 years ago to help people rebuild their lives. John & Ignatius, by adding there enormous credibility and example of commitment to it, were helping to rebuild the institution of marriage.
Together for 25 years, the two of them have devoted much of their time, talent and personal resources to helping others, whether in the areas of public health, or in gaining and strengthening equal rights for the LGBT community or advancing fundamental human rights for all. To know these men was to love them, and a few hundred of us honored to be witnesses at their wedding, were testament to that.
Unlike many other weddings—same sex or opposite sexes–Carol and I have attended in our 43 years of marriage, this one was unique. There were no stretch limos, no lavish floral arrangements, no flowing-lace wedding gowns with receipts as long as their trains, nor any Long Island-style, over-the-top cocktail hours which could feed the entire homeless population of San Francisco.
Everything about the wedding, like the lives of the two men legalizing their long-standing commitment to each other, was centered around service to others. The choice of the location, the non-profit they established to receive donations in-lieu-of gifts, and the simply wonderful way they entered the room: barefoot, walking on a thin, white scrim that made them appear to be walking on a gentle cloud.
When they reached the platform at the front of the room, both paid tribute to the photos of their parents, deceased, which were placed up high in positions of honor. Then, they sat facing each other. With a room full of friends looking on, John & Ignatius performed the most basic act of humility and service, rich in symbolism and religious meaning: they slowly, lovingly washed and dried each other’s feet.
They weren’t elevated in their chairs and paraded around the room; they weren’t surrounded by bookends of bridesmaids and groomsmen, whose dresses, or shirt collars, were uncomfortably tight. It was just Ig & John up there, elevating the institution of marriage by stripping it down to its’ bare essentials—love, honor, sacrifice, service, commitment, community, family—of what mattered most.
I watched them and the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Majority decision in the marriage equality case, handed down just 12 hours earlier, danced in my head:
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union two people become something greater than they once were…marriage embodies a love that may endure, even past death…they respect marriage so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves…They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
I touched Carol, who was standing next to me. Our marriage of 43 years—our life-long partnership– took on an even deeper meaning. The power of love in our case, and theirs, had overcome all obstacles.
Tears flowed; cellphone cameras created their own cacophony of clicking. Then silence, as the judge proclaimed:
“And by the power vested in me by the State of California, AND the United States Constitution, I now pronounce you married!”
Everyone erupted into wild applause and cheers. I whistled my loudest New York whistle, as if I was rooting on Buster Posey at AT&T Park. It was the first time in 66 years of life, I had ever heard the U.S. Constitution receive raucous reverance at a wedding.
Carol and I looked at each other again, grateful that the uncomplicated love, respect and fundamental rights we were fortunate to share with family and friends four decades earlier, at our simple, little civil ceremony, were finally available to all.