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p. joseph potocki
p. joseph potocki
I've been paid to caddy, lecture, mop floors, slice meat, sell liquor, write news, reviews, feature articles, grants, columns and short stories, dig ditches, promote business, landscape, drive limos, trucks and busses, rock n roll, sell shoes and pillows, archive films, build espresso drinks, guide tours, count parts, produce, edit & direct film and video, pick fruit and vegetables, book literary talent, load hay, wait tables, work wood, keep shop, manage a restaurant, tend koi, run a non-profit organization, graft trees, produce multi-media extravaganzas, bartend, sell newspapers, work on a Russian film, explode dynamite, cook, clean die-cast machines, bend tubing, install insulation, manage studio productions, hoe strawberries, raise political funds and break down engine blocks.
By p. joseph potocki on February 14, 2011
While Calpine is the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world, geothermal is just a tiny fraction of its energy wholesaling portfolio.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged earthquakes, fumaroles, geothermal energy, Geysers Resort Hotel, Healdsburg, Lake County, Luther Burbank, Mayacamas Mountains, PG&E, San Francisco area earthquakes, Sonoma County, Sonoma's Eighth Wonder of the World, The Geysers
By p. joseph potocki on February 13, 2011
The Geysers gained renown from the Indian Geysers Legend with its grizzly bear phantom and from novelist Robert Louis Stevenson squatting just over the hill.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged Eadweard Muybridge, Guiseppe Garibaldi, J.P. Morgan, King Edward VII, Lake County, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sonoma County, Teddy Roosevelt, The Geysers, The Witches Cauldron, Tom Thumb, Ulysses S. Grant, William Jennings Bryan
By p. joseph potocki on February 12, 2011
The Geysers are the legacy of ancient volcanic incidents which occurred long before humans came into being.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged ancient volcanoes, fumaroles, geothermal energy, Lake County history, Mayacamas Mountains, Miwok, Pomo, San Francisco Bay Area, Sonoma County history, The Geysers, Wappo
By p. joseph potocki on February 11, 2011
Did you know that with each flush of the toilet North Bay residents both power their homes—and provoke earthquakes?
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged earthquakes, geothermal energy, green energy, Lake County, San Francisco area earthquakes, Sonoma County
By p. joseph potocki on February 10, 2011
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
—Jack London
“(Jack London writes) as if his digestion, like his politics and rhetoric, was out of order.”
—Ambrose Bierce
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged alcoholism, Ambrose Bierce, Ambrose Bierce quotations, Bohemian Club, Bohemian Grove, Devil's Dictionary, George Sterling, Jack London, San Francisco history, William Randolph Hearst
By p. joseph potocki on February 9, 2011
1996—Baghdad-by-the-Bay’s Herb Caen plucks “Pullet Surprise” for It’s News to Me…
1884—Sugar Daddy snaps, shoots Chronicle owner Michael de Young smack dab in the books
Posted in FEATURES, Timeless Twists | Tagged Ambrose Bierce, Armistead Maupin, Herb Caen, James King of William, Mark Twain in San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco history, San Francisco journalism, San Francisco newspapers, William Randolph Hearst
By p. joseph potocki on February 6, 2011
The most entertaining speculation into Harding’s death comes from The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency. They claim that Harding was first bitten by a vampire on a boat ride on the San Francisco Bay – and then poisoned to put him out of his misery.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, COLUMNS, FEATURES | Tagged Ambrose Bierce, attempted assasination of Gerald Ford, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency, George W. Bush, Palace Hotel, Presidents Day, Rutherford B. Hayes, San Francisco history, U.S. Presidential visits to San Francisco, U.S. presidents in San Francisco, Warren G. Harding, Warren G. Harding death, William McKinley, William Randolph Hearst
By p. joseph potocki on February 5, 2011
1880—”Mammy” Pleasant said to pull brains from cracked nut in House of Mystery
1937—Golden Gate Bridge opens, suicides celebrate
1978—Elivis imitator, Jim Jones, botches big batch of Kool-Aid
Posted in FEATURES, Timeless Twists | Tagged Bloody Thursday, Fatty Arbuckle scandal, Golden Dragon Restaurant Massacre, Golden Gate Bridge suicides, Jim Jones Kool Aid, Mary Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant, Pisco Punch, San Francisco history blog, San Francisco vampire, William Sharon
By p. joseph potocki on February 3, 2011
“Negros playing it. Eye shades, sleeves up, cigars in mouth. Gin and liquor and smoke and filth. But music!”
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged American jazz, birthplace of jazz, black music, Herbert Asbury, Jazz on the Barbary Coast, San Francisco history, San Francisco's Barbary Coast, the Barbary Coast, Tom Stoddard
By p. joseph potocki on February 2, 2011
In addition to California, treaty terms cede Texas to the U.S., along with Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and a portion of Colorado.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged 1848, Chinese immigrants, Chinese in San Francisco, February 2, John C. Fremont, Mexican American War, San Francisco blog, San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco history, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
By p. joseph potocki on January 30, 2011
“Haute Living is a highly exclusive publication; if you do not fly private, stay in five-star properties, or own homes valued in excess of $3 million, you do not have access to our magazines.”
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged contemporary San Francisco, Haute Living Magazine, Nappin' Alley Winestyle Magazine, satire, the Tenderloin, wealth
By p. joseph potocki on January 24, 2011
“We were getting the real international lechers now, in the spring of ’45. The United Nations delegates were very large stuff in San Francisco.”
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, COLUMNS, FEATURES | Tagged "The Fortress", 65th Anniversary of U.N. Conference of International Organization, Sally Stanford, San Francisco bordellos, San Francisco history, San Francisco sex industry, Sausalito, United Nations in San Francisco
By p. joseph potocki on January 20, 2011
“…during the rainy season of 1849-50 horses, mules, and carts were sucked down into the mud and drowned; and many men, trying to cross the streets while drunk, narrowly escaped similar deaths.”
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Barbary Coast, San Francisco blog, San Francisco history, San Francisco weather
By p. joseph potocki on December 31, 2010
Happy Jack Harrington was the Barbary Coast’s own Beau Brummel, Bacchus and P.T. Barnum all rolled up into one… Happy Jack loved everyone, and everyone loved Happy Jack.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Barbary Coast, delirium tremens, dive bars, Happy Jack Harrington, New Year's fable, San Francisco history, temperance
By p. joseph potocki on March 2, 2010
Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning agreed today…to participate in a new study which compares the IQ’s of elected Republicans with those of flatworms.
Posted in NEWS | Tagged atheists are smarter, IQ, Jim Bunning, liberals are smarter, satire, U.S. Senate, unemployment benefits extension
By p. joseph potocki on February 27, 2010
1877—”Sandlot riots” led by anti-Chinese agitator Denis Kearney burn Chinatown businesses.
Posted in Used News | Tagged Angel Island, Anti-Coolie Club, Arnold Genthe, Big Four, bubonic plague, Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigrants, Denis Kearney, Leland Stanford, San Francisco Chinese history, San Francisco Chinese New Year, San Franciso Chinatown, Sandlot Riots, the Richmond, the Sunset, transcontinental railroad
By p. joseph potocki on February 21, 2010
“It’s about seeing the world as what it can be, and not what it is.” —K.R. Sridhar on 60 minutes, back in February 21, 2010
Posted in FEATURES, Newz Futures | Tagged 60 Minutes, Bloom Box, clean energy, corporate power, fuel cells, K.R. Sridhar, Newz Futures, personal energy independence, Tea Party
By p. joseph potocki on February 20, 2010
“Conservatively, one out of every three homeless men who is sleeping in a doorway, alley or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served this country.”
Posted in FEATURES, NEWS | Tagged Beyond Chron, Care Not Cash, Gavin Newsom, L.A. Times, National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, San Francisco homeless, San Francisco Public Library, SFBG Blog, The Savage Nation
By p. joseph potocki on February 10, 2010
WASHINGTON — In a move Fox News is calling “brilliant statesmanship” and “the best use of their time,” Senate Republicans have dropped a political bombshell by ripping pages from Lewis Carroll.
Posted in FEATURES, NEWS | Tagged Barack Obama, Fox News, Harry Reed, Mitch McConnell, Republican filibuster, Republican obstructionism, Sarah Palin, satire, Senate Democratic weakness, Tea Party
By p. joseph potocki on February 3, 2010
Times are heady for train travel proponents here in the San Francisco Bay Area… Is this enhanced rail service a 21st Century economic boon for the Bay Area, and, perhaps for the state?
Posted in FEATURES, NEWS | Tagged 1869 Transcontinental Railroad, BART, California High Speed Rail, San Francisco Bay Area news, SF Muni
By p. joseph potocki on January 31, 2010
“Reality” is as dead as the slide rule – and as barren as sterile rock. The nerd, who once was shunned…is today’s celebrated Digital Conquistador.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Cooking with Bubbie, Digital Nation, PBS Frontline, The Matrix, World of Warcraft
By p. joseph potocki on January 29, 2010
Wretched — In cannibalism, when some guy named Ed simply won’t stay down.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged comic definitions, humorous definitions, Neal O'Jizzum, twisted definitions
By p. joseph potocki on January 27, 2010
2003—Gavin gushes green from Getty’s gobs
1880—Big Bertha outweighs Oofty Goofty in Romeo and Juliet
Posted in FEATURES, Timeless Twists | Tagged Abe Warner, Alcatraz, American Indians, Big Bertha, Gavin Newsom, Gordon Getty, John Muir, Oofty Goofty, Raker Act, Sally Rand, Sally Rand's Nude Ranch, San Francisco Giants, San Francisco history, the Cobweb Palace, the Grateful Dead, Trips Festival, World Series
By p. joseph potocki on January 26, 2010
Nearly 50 North Bay activists rallied Tuesday evening demanding congressional Democrats follow-through on enacting progressive health care reform.
Posted in FEATURES, NEWS | Tagged congressional Democrats, health care reform protest, MoveOn.org, Santa Rosa, Sonoma County
By p. joseph potocki on January 16, 2010
Though an infamous miser, Lick paid his workers well. He was an unassuming man whose monument to himself—an immense pyramid dwarfing even the Great Pyramid at Giza—was to be erected in downtown San Francisco.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Catalina Island, Ghiradelli chocolate, Gold Rush San Francisco, Great Pyramid at Giza, James Lick, James Lick freeway, James Lick Observatory, Lick House, San Francisco history, Santa Clara Valley
By p. joseph potocki on January 10, 2010
Here, nature’s sublime perfection is re-imagined into Pixars and Lucasfilms, into oil refineries, cargo ports, nuclear arms and biotech labs; re-imagined into freeways and collapsing bridges, into internet communes and staid financial houses built on mud.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Left Coast, robber barons, San Francisco Bay Area history, Wild West
By p. joseph potocki on January 8, 2010
They, like Emperor Norton, garnered reams of newsprint, but Bummer and Lazarus didn’t give one guttural growl about Joshua Norton.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged animal cruelty, Bummer and Lazarus, California Gold Rush, Edward Jump cartoons, Emperor Norton I, Joshua Abraham Norton, San Francisco history, San Francisco legend, The Three Bummers
By p. joseph potocki on January 7, 2010
Long before Rupert Murdoch’s quest for media hegemony spawned Fox, our nation marveled at a vast media empire built by San Francisco’s own prodigal son—William Randolph Hearst.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER | Tagged fascism, mass media, media consolidation, media moguls, propaganda, Rupert Murdoch, San Francisco history, San Francisco news, wealth, William Randolph Hearst, yellow journalism
By p. joseph potocki on January 2, 2010
1927—San Francisco’s Philo T. Farnsworth invents boob tube. Civilization ends
Posted in FEATURES, Timeless Twists | Tagged Emperor Norton, Frank Chu, Philo T. Farnsworth, Sally Stanford, San Francisco history, Sister Boom-Boom
By p. joseph potocki on January 1, 2010
O’Brien family legend holds that he landed his Riptides column, promoted as the “blend of California’s brilliant past and present” after he’d penned a short ditty about a moth’s lone ferry ride across the bay.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Riptides, Robert O'Brien, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, San Francisco history
By p. joseph potocki on December 30, 2009
“Tom could hardly keep his smoke down. He doubled over and seemed set to roll on the floor in a fitful outpouring of uncontrollable hilarity.”
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged Arkansas, Coyote, NORML, Ozark Mountains, resurrection, Tom Snyder, Tom Snyder show
By p. joseph potocki on December 24, 2009
The entire SF Bay Timeless team flies to the North Pole tonight to help Santa pour coal sludge into corporate stockings.
Posted in FEATURES
By p. joseph potocki on December 23, 2009
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, joined by House counterpart, John “The Brown Bruiser” Boehner, promise to “kiss the mat for Republicare.”
Posted in FEATURES, NEWS | Tagged comic news, congress, health care reform, humor, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, NEWS, Republicans, RNC, robust public option, satire
By p. joseph potocki on December 21, 2009
The newest, truest scoop on SF icon Mary Ellen “Mammy” Pleasant
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged Beltane Ranch, House of Mystery, John Brown, Mammy Pleasant, Mary Ellen Pleasant, Mother of Civil Rights in Califonia, San Francisco Call, San Francisco history, Sonoma Valley, Teresa Bell, underground railroad, voodoo
By p. joseph potocki on December 17, 2009
Vallejo invites the rebels in, theatrically surrendering his sword to them. The Bear Flaggers puzzle his gesture, but fully saavy Vallejo’s brandy and wine offerings.
Posted in FEATURES, Timeless Twists | Tagged Agoston Haraszthy, Korbel brothers, Mariano Vallejo, Sonoma history, Sonoma vineyards, Sonoma wine
By p. joseph potocki on December 13, 2009
A near-double of Frank Chu, world-renowned billionaire and star of the hit television series, The Richest Family, has been apprehended.
Posted in FEATURES, NEWS | Tagged comic news, Frank Chu, San Francisco eccentric
By p. joseph potocki on December 12, 2009
Exceptionally hungry buyers dance for the chance to buy foreclosed East Bay scraper.
Posted in NEWS | Tagged home foreclosures, satire, Wells Fargo
By p. joseph potocki on December 10, 2009
Now, as for you capital-fetishists out there who oppose taxing the rich because you expect to be a billionaire yourself one day—wake up!
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged Ayn Rand, bankruptcy laws, banks, Charlie Chaplin, corporate welfare, fascism, jobs, labor unions, Milton Friedman, Miwok, Mussolini, Ohlone, San Francisco Bay Area, socialism, the economy, Wappo, work
By p. joseph potocki on December 9, 2009
I’d live mere steps from Vesusio’s— where an entire generation of Beat poets and writers had been 86ed after long, windy nights of grossly over-served swill.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Beats, City Lights Books, Francis Ford Coppola, Green Tortoise, Harmid Karzai, Howl, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lenny Bruce, North Beach, Vesuvio
By p. joseph potocki on December 7, 2009
************************************************************************************** February, 2010 OAKLAND — Wacky-weed warehouse weighs-in with working widgets CONTRA COSTA COUNTY — Christian wants Mt. Diablo renamed to honor St. Iran Contra WASHINGTON — California’ s $2.3 Billion high speed rail future funded SAN FRANCISCO — Prop 8 backer claims marriage for couples who can have kids. Gays and lesbians can. Sterile [...]
Posted in NEWS, Used News | Tagged looking back in time, recent news, recent San Francisco Bay Area news, recent San Francisco news
By p. joseph potocki on December 6, 2009
…one survivor still insists that Altamont’s Rolling Stones-headlined free concert was “way cooler than Woodstock.”
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged 1969, Altamont, Hells Angels, hippies, LSD, MK-ULTRA, Rolling Stones, Rupert Murdoch, San Francisco Bay Area history, Speedway Boogie, Wavy Gravy, Woodstock
By p. joseph potocki on December 5, 2009
Critics puzzle how a good Mormon farm boy could afflict us with everything from William Hung to The Flying Nun.
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged Adolf Hitler, Charles Herrold, Eadward Muybridge, Goebbels, Google, Joseph Pulitzer, Leland Stanford, Mussolini, Philo T. Farnsworth, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco history, Silicon Valley, Thomas Edison, William Randolph Hearst, Yahoo!, yellow journalism
By p. joseph potocki on December 3, 2009
Other dead assholes are always asking me—why do I still miss The Rock? I guess, mostly, it was the grub. Seconds, too!
Posted in FEATURES | Tagged Alcatraz, Machine Gun Kelly, San Francisco history, satire
By p. joseph potocki on November 29, 2009
1939′s Golden Gate International Exposition. A Castle Film documentary from the Prelinger Collection at the Internet Archives.
Posted in Archival Film, VIDS | Tagged 1939, 1939 World's Fair, Archival Film, Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco history, Treasure Island
By p. joseph potocki on November 28, 2009
1500′s–Nudist Natives live la-la-la-like in Bay Area Nirvana
1542—-Aspiring Conquistador Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo blows by Bay
1579—-Pirate (not yet Sir) Francis Drake plugs holes in his Hinde at Point Reyes
Posted in FEATURES, Timeless Twists | Tagged 16th Century, California Indians, English history, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area history, Sir Francis Drake, Spanish history
By p. joseph potocki on November 27, 2009
Archival soundless film shot traveling down San Francisco’s Market Street in the aftermath of the 1906 Earthquake.
Posted in Archival Film, VIDS | Tagged 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Archival Film
By p. joseph potocki on November 25, 2009
…what can you say about someone with a Bohemian Grove Lakeside Chat entitled “Who lives, Who dies, Who pays”? Considering compassionate lectures like that, the cynic might expect Califano to hold a jaundiced view of cripples demanding their civil rights.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER | Tagged Bohemian Club, Bohemian Grove, civil rights, Department of Health Education and Welfare, disability rights, eugenics, Joseph Califano, Leroy Moore, performance art, Rehabilitation Act, San Francisco Bay Area, sex, Sins Invalid, Sparta
By p. joseph potocki on November 20, 2009
On November 20, 1969 Indians from all over the nation took back a tiny rock pile that had long ago been stolen from them. But this story isn’t about Alcatraz.
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER, FEATURES | Tagged 1969, Alcatraz, Bloody Island Massacre, Clayton Earl Dunca, Gold Rush, Indian Occupation, Lake County history, Miwok, Pomo, San Francisco Bay Area, Wappo
By p. joseph potocki on November 18, 2009
Harold Wobber suddenly stopped midway across the span, removed his jacket and told his new found friend, “This is where I get off.”
Posted in BAY TIME INFORMER | Tagged Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge suicide, Guyana, Jim Jones, Jonestown, KKK, MK-ULTRA, Peoples Temple, San Francisco history