The always entertaining Bill O'Reilly has once again reached into his reliable ammo bag of O'Reilly Factor slugs, peppering San Francisco with the usual stew of foul condiments: we're dark, radical, seedy and dangerous. Come on, Bill, just surrender to your inner rebel and do a sister city deal between your show and SF. If we didn't exist, you'd have to invent us.
This time Bill sent a young, wide-eyed documentarian, Jesse Watters, to video the degradation of our streets. It's all shots of homeless street schizophrenics and transgender hookers and tsk-tsking expressions of fear by some residents. It looked like an HBO series.
"Every single neighborhood has a dark underbelly that seeps in...", Mr. Watters tells Bill, who himself said he "wouldn't go into the Presidio at night." Unless of course he lived in one of those great houses or worked for George Lucas.
While Bill is stuck on SF as the paragon of "radical Left government" and "secular liberal culture" like a girl with a crush on the bad boy, he actually missed the best recent radical scandal by about 800 miles.
The Seattle Parks and Recreation board just voted to let people go naked in public parks, something even Bill O'Reilly's camera didn't capture here. Actually they decided not to charge nude people in city parks with criminal trespass. Seattle has no laws governing public nudity (attention Bill!). To add further flame to an O'Reilly-style fire, the issue came to the city's notice after a World Naked Bike Ride happened a few months ago.
A little south on the Left Coast, more social and cultural naughtiness. The mayor-elect of Silverton, Oregon used to be called Stu Rasmussen when he had the job 20 years ago. But now he's been restored to the city's top job by the voters as Carla Fong. Despite the tight skirt, lipstick, major breast implants, high heels and a Duane "Dog" Chapman hairdo, the locals still call Carla, Stu. Some old habits die hard, and he was Stu for so long.
He'd change his face, too, if he could, the mayor-to-be says. "A face like this only a mother could love." But apparently there's plenty of love for him in Silverton.
Carla/Stu is the country's first openly transgender Mayor, according to an LA Times story. And he beat the incumbent mayor 52 percent to 39 percent. His opponent accused him of "dressing like a $3 hooker." Where are the cameras to document this, Bill?
And while we're on hookers and mayors, Mr. O'Reilly's documentary also failed to zero in on same sex marriage champion Gavin Newsom. Maybe that's because Mr. Newsom was busy prepping for an appearance on the "Dr. Phil" show for broadcast today. The mayor is not getting therapy for a change but he is talking about Prop 8.
I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that, also today on network TV, Ashley Dupre, the relatively high-end courtesan ($1,000 an hour, according to court records) who brought down New York Governor Elliot Spitzer spills herself out for ABC's Diane Sawyer. Ms. Dupre was - wait for this - "shocked" to discover she was servicing the highest official in the State at a DC hotel. It was "just the TV and I" when she found out, she says. The "Girls Gone Wild" alum seems genuinely upset in her Monica Lewinsky moment in front of the cameras and expresses remorse about the difficulty she caused. She also insists she's an "escort", not a prostitute. Watch the show to learn the difference.
So, a busy time for Sodom and Gomorrah all around.
Back in SF, a visiting business student from a less sinful place, here to go to the Stanford-USC football, was stabbed in the Marina's Bermuda Triangle outside Mayor Newsom's PlumpJack restaurant and the Balboa cafe. (He'll be OK, according to the police.)
Since the Dr. Phil show was taped earlier in the week, Gavin could not share with the host how he feels about that - but I bet Bill O'Reilly would.
For more, see Bronstein at Large.