Sad Francisco

Toshio Meronek
  • 4.9 (54)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

Covering the end of capitalism from a "far Left" trans/queer POV.

  1. 4h ago

    The White Night Riots: No Apologies

    May 1979: queer protesters set cop cars ablaze in San Francisco's Civic Center, in response to cop-turned-politician Dan White's relatively light sentence for the assassination of gay politician Harvey Milk and the Mayor, George Moscone. Four people who were there describe the riots, and the related police riots where cops stormed the lesbian bar Peg's Place in the Richmond, and the Elephant Walk, a gay bar in the Castro, during a time of heavy state surveillance and repression—so not unlike today. Event organized by Left in the Bay and PINKO magazine. Recorded live at Et Al in the Mission 6/24/2026. Left in the Bay: leftinthebay.com PINKO: www.pinko.online On this episode (in speaking order): Jen Reck, moderator: Sociology & Sexuality Studies professor at SF State who recently published a history of the Castro with Gerard Koskovich: The Castro: The Story of San Francisco's Best-Known LGBTQ+ Neighborhood. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Castro.html?id=uu2Z0QEACAAJ Ruth Mahaney worked for years as a member of the Modern Times Bookstore Collective, and as an LGBT Studies professor at City College of SF. Randy Alfred is a journalist who cofounded the Bay Times, edited the San Francisco Sentinel, and hosted The Gay Life radio show. Revisiting The Gay Life, on Queer Power Hour / KALW: www.kalw.org/show/queer-power-hour/2026-06-18/revisiting-the-gay-life-e01-history-of-lgbtq-radio Charlie Hinton: co-founded Magnus magazine and has worked on campaigns against the World Bank/IMF and to free Leonard Peltier. Episode with Charlie on BAGL (Bay Area Gays and Lesbians): www.patreon.com/sadfrancisco/posts/gay-liberation-f-95946813 Charlie on solidarity with Haiti: www.patreon.com/sadfrancisco/posts/why-us-fears-f-98899594 Gwenn Craig worked on the Harvey Milk campaign, and against the Briggs Initiative. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    1h 18m

  2. Jul 6

    Hope You Like Burning Man Sculptures with Max Blue

    Max Blue is one of San Francisco's few remaining art critics in legacy media (see: his column in SF Examiner); he also contributes regularly to Hyperallergic.  Max gives the best brief introduction of the big art movements San Francisco is most well known for, and names names including:  BXP, the company that benefited from the Vaillancourt fountain's removal)  CIA Operation Mockingbird, the US government's mission to spread abstract expressionism across the globe KAWS's hold on the Instagram background niche  Randall Kline, SF Jazz founder behind the upcoming low-income artists' housing on Market Street Sid Sijbrandij, the tech billionaire and art patron flooding public space with Burning Man installations Max Blue: https://maxbluewriter.com Max's Substack: https://maxblue.substack.com/ Max for the San Francisco Examiner: https://www.sfexaminer.com/culture/private-funding-of-public-art-prompts-questions-about-intent/article_89b311c0-108a-4464-b676-73548d51471f.html Max for Hyperallergic: https://hyperallergic.com/author/max-blue/ Episodes:  Hanky Code Art NSF Trash Cans with Christen Cioffi: https://www.patreon.com/sadfrancisco/posts/78664457 The Technofascist Plan for an Elite City in Solano County with Anna Kirsch: https://www.patreon.com/sadfrancisco/posts/audio-planning-f-107037093 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    49 min

  3. Jul 1

    I Love Boosters (Sad Framecisco #3)

    Brutal honesty is all we have for Boots Riley's overstuffed filmic ode to shoplifters and maybe communism, I Love Boosters. Topics discussed include: The Coup's early work Betrayal by union leaders Megan Ellison, the alleged black sheep of the Zionist Ellison dynasty Tax credits they give you to film a movie set in the Bay in Georgia The Leaning Tower of Millennium A vow for the next episode to feature a movie we would actually recommend dee(dee) c. ardan, Jemma DeCristo, and Ralowe T. Ampu return for what turned into a roast of an episode. - Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    2h 7m

  4. Jun 17

    FKA Bornstein & Bornstein

    A monologue revisiting a Truthout piece I wrote back in 2014 for this solo episode and stroll down memory lane featuring a Gay Shame action, crying in eviction court, and one of eviction lawyer Daniel Bornstein's boring-ass webinars where he explains the tricks of his trade. Daniel (who runs Bornstein Law—formerly known as Bornstein & Bornstein) is a white guy who's used his adopted Black kids as a cynical marketing tool, and describes landlords as the state's "whipping boy." He counsels his clients on the best ways get around tenant laws so they can smoothly empty their properties of lower-income people, and jack up the rent till life is unaffordable for everyone except Zionist property owners like himself.  Truthout: Tutors in the Fine Art of Eviction Under Fire in San Francisco Gay Shame documentation of a direct action at the Bornstein & Bornstein offices, then located off Polk Street Bornstein Law's webinar: Creating Vacancy Without an At Fault Eviction 'Villain' eviction attorneys Bornstein & Bornstein break up, sue each other (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez in SF Examiner) Oakland landlords hold rally demanding end to eviction moratorium (CBS News) Bay Area Legal Aid (free lawyers for tenants) Eviction Defense Collaborative (also free lawyers for tenants)

    24 min

  5. Jun 1

    Home Sweet Surveillance State with Ian Firstenberg

    Ian covers local oligarchs and the surveillance state for 48Hills and The Phoenix Project. We talk about FLOCK adding microphones to their camera network, state repression after the anti-cop protests of summer 2020, and how crypto oligarch Chris Larsen bought off the Trump regime. Ian in 48Hills: "Flock keeps spying on us all, and state and local officials aren't protecting us": https://48hills.org/2026/05/flock-keeps-spying-on-us-all-and-state-and-local-officials-arent-protecting-us/   And previously: "Inside SF's private surveillance state": https://48hills.org/2025/10/sfs-private-surveillance-state/ Ian at the Phoenix Project on Chris Larsen and his billionaire friends' latest mission: to kill attempts at a billionaire tax https://www.phoenixprojectnow.com/phoenix-review/blog/special-report-the-billionaire-tax-revolt Episodes: Erin McElroy on landlord surveillance tech: https://www.patreon.com/posts/landlord-tech-f-109663054 Jeremy Mack on The Phoenix Project's report on the rightwing rascals behind San Francisco's Doom Loop: https://www.patreon.com/posts/rise-and-fall-of-147853607 Get tickets to our live podcast show in San Francisco on 6/25: QUEERS AGAINST ZIONISM with Judith Butler, Mama Ganuush, and more (a benefit for Bay2Gaza Mutual Aid) https://buytickets.at/heritageactivistsliberationartists/2224123 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    46 min

  6. May 25

    The ADL is An Actual Psyop with Emmaia Gelman and Mama Ganuush

    The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) started as a civil rights organization for Jewish people in the US. It's now a pro-Israel group that spies on Leftist organizations and defends Elon Musk when he does a white power salute. Emmaia Gelman's new book The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State details the history of the Zionist group that influences everything from the history written into American textbooks, to the way headlines are written in mainstream news. Next, Mama Ganuush returns to discuss two gay Zionists running for election in the Bay who have helped manufacture consent for genocide in Palestine who you will know well if you're a regular listener, Manny Yekutiel and Scott Wiener. 'The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State' releases 6/16/2026, pre-order with code UCPSAVE30 at University of California Press https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-anti-defamation-league-and-the-racial-state/hardcover Emmaia's site https://emmaiagelman.com/ Past Palestine episodes https://www.patreon.com/collection/383604 *** Get tickets to our live podcast show on 6/25: QUEERS AGAINST ZIONISM with Judith Butler, Mama Ganuush, and more (a benefit for Bay2Gaza Mutual Aid) https://buytickets.at/heritageactivistsliberationartists/2224123 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    1h 12m

  7. May 18

    Sweaty DesperAzn with Chris Lee and Jasmine Lee-Ehrhardt

    Two Wasian Americans and one classic, everyday Asian American, all millennials, try to make sense of East Asian American discourses in the zeitgeist of the past six months. Recorded shortly before the cursed Wasian meetups in SF and NY. 1. CS graduation rates fall off a cliff. For a particular class of Asian Americans, computer science degrees were a step in the direction of the American Dream. Now that tech oligarch's true nature as warmongers who hate humanity and want to replace workers with data centers has been revealed, where will they go? See: DailyCal, "UC Berkeley CS major enrollment on pace to drop by 59% as part of nationwide trend" https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/uc-berkeley-cs-major-enrollment-on-pace-to-drop-by-59-as-part-of-nationwide/article_8ceded3c-d939-4f60-8aa4-110be003c4e3.html 2. Is the Laufey music video starring Alyssa Liu, Hudson Williams, a Katseye member and other Wasians of Hollywood a Wasian supremacist cultural object? See: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/1sodav8/wasian_obsession_in_the_western_media/ 3. Benjamin Champagne Song is a political prisoner convicted as part of Pam Bondi (RIP) and Andy Ngo's effort to kill dissent and funnel more money to the white power movement and DHS contractors. Fanmail to (as of May 2026): BENJAMIN HANIL SONG, #11137-512, FMC Fort Worth, FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER, P.O. BOX 15330, FORT WORTH, TX 76119 4. 2025 ended with Asian (and to an extent, Black) TikTok Gen Z thru Gen X consumed by H-Martgate, which started as a joke questioning non-Asian peoples' place in Asian grocery stores. See: Madeline Qi's original TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@say_qis/video/7546343858146118926 5. The birth rate in the US is now well below "replacement rate": Are Hell Joseon (South Korea) and other East Asian countries a window into our future? See: Namuwiki: https://en.namu.wiki/w/N포세대 Chris on the anti-trans, red scare Falun Gong cult (known for its Epoch Times newspaper and Shen Yun anti-communist dance troupe spectaculars): https://www.patreon.com/posts/falun-gong-and-122689473 Jasmine on the problem with Waymos being personified and racialized as Asian: https://www.patreon.com/posts/waymos-arent-lee-120643766 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    1h 34m

  8. May 16

    Sad Framecisco #2: Electric Dreams

    dee(dee) and Jemma return to dissect another vintage film set in the Bay. Did Hollywood predict Sam Altman would meet his husband in Peter Thiel's hot tub? Seeking an answer in "Electric Dreams" (1984), an extremely 1980s rom-com in which a young architect working out of the Transamerica Pyramid programs an early PC into a Frankenstein-ian monster. Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder: Together in Electric Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVJYBPQyFTQ Previously: Watching "Dirty Harry" https://www.patreon.com/posts/movie-club-dirty-152490581 AI is Being Force Fed to Students and Professors with Martha Kenney https://www.patreon.com/posts/ai-force-feeding-144687776 Aesthetics of the New Rightwing Tech Intelligentsia with Jimmy Wu https://www.patreon.com/posts/aesthetics-of-wu-148707467 Stop AI https://www.patreon.com/posts/end-agi-before-127632638 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

    2h 22m
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4.9
out of 5
54 Ratings

About

Covering the end of capitalism from a "far Left" trans/queer POV.

Information

  • Creator
    Toshio Meronek
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    161
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Sad Francisco

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