All the big local news outlets were live-streaming today’s memorial service for the West Coast’s first Black female TV reporter, Belva Davis, after the trailblazing 92-year-old’s death in late September.

If you’re a fan of Belva Davis, the first Black woman TV reporter on the West Coast who died on September 24, listen up: Davis’s epic memorial took place Monday at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. And you can watch the full video now, via KTVU.

Davis had worked for KTVU in the late 1960s, and for KPIX and KRON4 (when it was an NBC affiliate), before her epic 35-year stint at KQED.

Davis started as a freelancer for Jet magazine in 1957, getting $5 an article and receiving no byline on her work. By the 1960s, she was writing and editing for Bay Area Black newspapers Bay Area Independent and the Sun Reporter. She bounced around as a reporter for several AM radio stations, until KTVU hired her as a TV reporter in 1963. Her first assignment was to cover a beauty pageant.  

But that made Davis the first Black female TV reporter on the West Coast. Her first big assignment came in 1964 when she covered the Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace. According to the New York Times, followers of the nominee Barry Goldwater threw garbage at her, and a glass soda bottle hurled at her nearly hit her in the head.

Undaunted,  Davis would move on to KPIX, and became their main evening news desk anchor. She moved to that same position at KRON4, and then to KQED in 1977, where she hosted A Closer Look, Evening Edition, and This Week in Northern California, until her retirement in 2012.

Over that time, Belva Davis won eight Emmy Awards, and in 2008 was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Hall of Fame.

Related: Beloved Longtime KTVU Anchorman Dennis Richmond Dies at Age 81 [SFist]

Image: BEVERLY HILLS, CA-OCTOBER 14: Journalist and award recipient Belva Davis speaks at the International Women's Media Foundation's 15th Annual Courage in Journalism Awards on October 14, 2004 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

Public TV and radio icon KQED was already deep in red ink even before Trump came back to office, but is now laying off at least 45 more employees, as corporate contributions dry up and Trump is likely yanking more of their funding.

It had to have been awkward for KQED reporter Vanessa Rancaño to write Tuesday’s article about KQED laying off 15% of their staff as the public TV and radio station struggles with a $12 million deficit. But it was probably similarly awkward for KQED reporter Erin Baldassari to write about KQED’s 34 layoffs in May 2024, which tells us that the station’s financial predicament is not exactly new, and definitely predates Donald Trump coming back to office.    

But the Chronicle’s reporting on the KQED layoffs notes that the station will surely be hurt by the Trump funding cuts, as the US Senate is soon to vote on rescinding $1.1 billion from NPR and PBS that had already been already granted (that proposal has passed the House of Representatives). And the station’s corporate contributions and financial grants have been dwindling, as Trump has successfully bullied corporate America into not making donations toward causes he does not care for.

“KQED is in the midst of one of the most difficult moments in the 71-year history of the station,” KQED said in a Tuesday statement released once the layoffs started making news reports. “There are a number of concurrent attempts to eliminate or impair federal funding for public media. Meanwhile market conditions and the possibility of a recession have brought downward trends in the key revenue areas of corporate sponsorship and underwriting as well as foundations and grants.”

According to KQED’s own report on the layoffs, there are 45 people losing their jobs, and “the cuts impact every level of the organization, from top executives to custodial staff.” In addition to those 45 people being pink-slipped, 12 more employees took voluntary departure buy-out deals. The station also plans to stop contributing to employee retirement plans and temporarily freeze pay raises.

It is tempting, and probably fair, to say that maybe KQED should not have splurged on that $94 million renovation of their headquarters just four years ago, as their current $12 million deficit is just a drop in the bucket compared the to pricey renovation.

But KQED has been around for 62 years, gets some of the highest ratings of any public TV or radio station in the country, and they’ve been through a few rough patches before. The current downsize plan is projected to eliminate KQED’s deficit in a little more than a year, so this probably does not represent an existential threat to the legendary Bay Area institution KQED, and the station may be fine in the long run.

Related: Longtime 'Forum' Host on KQED, Michael Krasny, Announces Retirement [SFist]

Image: Elaine Y via Yelp

Night of Ideas, a free, global “nocturnal arts and culture marathon,” which brings together leading scholars, activists, and artists for a night of performances and activities, will take place on April 5 in SF’s Civic Center, with a family program earlier in the afternoon.

This year’s Night of Ideas theme, “(Un)Common Ground,” dives into what unites communities—exploring real connections in a digital world, dialogue in a divided society, and ways to protect our planet in the face of extreme weather.

The event will include a wide array of discussions, performances, and interactive activities (see a PDF of the lineup here) including dance-along ballet, drag story hour, and a puppet show during the family program, and a BART fashion show, zine-making and screenwriting workshops, lip-syncing with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and a slew of panels and performances later in the evening.

The family program will be at the Main Library from 4–6pm, with food trucks starting at 5pm at the newly illuminated Fulton Plaza. The main portion of the event will be from 7pm until 1am throughout Civic Center, including the Main Library, Fulton Plaza, and the Asian Art Museum.

The event is free, but registration is encouraged.

Night of Ideas is organized by Villa Albertine San Francisco, KQED, the Asian Art Museum, and the San Francisco Public Library, with artistic curation by Circuit Network.

One of the most consistent voices in the Bay Area radio sphere of the last three decades, Michael Krasny, has just announced that he will relinquish the program he hosts and retire in February.

Krasny has been a fixture in the local media going back to the 1970s, when he hosted a program on a Marin County station called "Beyond the Hot Tub" — as if a 1970s Marin County talk show could ever be called anything else. He later worked for KGO-AM and ABC 7, and took the job as the host of "Forum" on KQED in 1993. As the Mercury News notes, with his doctorate in English literature, he soon earned praise as "the thinking person’s talk-show host" among local journalists.

"Michael is a Bay Area jewel," said KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan, in a statement. "His is a model public service career and he has brought depth, compassion and the expertise of a literature professor to the airwaves on a daily basis. Forum shows how a regional public affairs program can serve listeners with reasoned and thoughtful dialogue that cuts across so many disciplines and important issues."

Krasny will retire on February 15, 2021, which is 28 years to the day that he started in the job at "Forum."

"I like the symmetry of going out on the anniversary of the day I started,” he tells the Chronicle today. "I’ve always liked Mark Twain’s comment that age is mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it shouldn’t matter. But I turned 76 in September and realized that age does matter."

Krasny is known for his cogent and thoughtful interview style, and a voice that expresses both the wisdom of his years and a particular type of West Coast intellectual engaged with many subjects. And his experience as a teacher likely helped in fielding calls from Bay Area residents on the call-in show — some of whom aren't always so calm, collected, or cogent.

Some of his notable interview subjects over the years include former President Jimmy Carter, President Barack Obama, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Noam Chomsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Jerry Garcia, Allen Ginsberg, Werner Herzog, John McCain, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Bernie Sanders, and Camille Paglia.

In his 2007 memoir Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life, Krasny revealed that he still had not achieved his own personal dream of literary success. But over the years he established himself as an ace conversationalist with literary greats and political figures alike, both generous and always in control of the conversation — no small feat in itself.

As local author Michael Chabon said of him in a blurb on the book, "Michael Krasny sets the standard by which all public affairs and cultural radio is measured. He is a Bay Area institution."

"Forum" remains a popular program, drawing about a quarter million weekly drive-time listeners and another 70,000 online according to KQED. And the station says it will now conduct a "thorough national search" for Krasny's replacement.

Into the Big Surreal: 36 Hours in California’s Isolated, Lonely Island https://t.co/Kggyi9xAQL

— KQED (@KQED) June 5, 2017

California Report reporter John Sepulvado, along with a friend, decided to spend his Memorial Day weekend checking out the weird quietude of Big Sur as it exists in the spring/summer of 2017. Hiking in on a trail that's supposed to be just for locals, traversing Pfeiffer Canyon where Caltrans hopes to build a new bridge by late September, he tells the tale of walking and hitchhiking the entire, secluded 36-mile stretch of Highway 1 that's currently all but cut off from civilization — save for helicopter travelers and a single, twisting, over-mountain road that the brave can take to and from Highway 101 in Salinas.

Locals are still hanging out in the only pub that's open, Big Sur Taphouse — and one Catholic missionary who's been living in the area tells Sepulvado that there's an empty sheriff's squad car parked along Highway 1 just as a deterrent from drunk driving.

Residents are also telling stories of "mountain lions walking in the middle of empty roads, and longtime recluses sunbathing naked on the highway." And Sepulvado and his companion get a close-up look at Paul's Slide, the other section of unstable earth that was dropping pebbles and rocks onto the roadway even as they passed. Also he reports that there were 30 families who braved the treacherous Nacimiento-Fergusson Road to camp in Limekiln State Park over the holiday weekend. And while the area is mostly empty of cars, he observed the "occasional Audi and BMW, having made it over the mountains, [speeding] past with an abandon usually reserved for splashy car commercials."

Separately, KQED reports on the plight of residents and school kids who are having to commute sometimes significant distances on foot — with the kids, who now are about to be on summer break, catching their bus just on the other side of Pfeiffer Canyon.

But check out the video below, shot by Sepulvado, as he tries to depict the scale and sheer enormity of the Mud Creek slide, standing at the spot where Highway 1 emerges from underneath it on the north side.

Related: Big Sur Landslide Added 13 Acres To Coastline

The Bay Area's public radio and TV broadcasting station KQED is selling six megahertz of broadcast spectrum to the FCC for $95.4 million — a figure that's seriously in excess of its $70 million annual budget, the Business Times relays.

"KQED is in the unusual position of holding three FCC television broadcast licenses comprising 18 megahertz of overlapping spectrum in the Bay Area, broadcasting from towers in San Francisco, San Jose and Salinas," the non-profit organization said in a statement. The federal government and wireless providers want to ease congested wireless networks and help enable 5G services, and the broadcast spectrum was sold to the FCC at auction.

Why did KQED have all those megahertz in the first place? "This extensive coverage made sense earlier in the 20th Century when television used analog technology and most viewers received the signal over the air. Today, the vast majority of Bay Area residents receive their television via cable or satellite services, and digital broadcast technology now supports multiple channels of programming from each tower."

Those who fear losing service can save their concern for, say, the Trump administration's threatened cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In fact, the profit from the sale will come in handy. 90 percent of the 3 million people who tune into to KQED's TV station — the set using cable, satellite, or internet — won't need to do anything to continue receiving it. The 10 percent who still use an antenna might have to refocus their ranges on San Francisco or Salinas instead of San Jose. "KQED estimates that less than 1,000 might have reception issues after the change, and the station will work directly with those viewers to mitigate any problems," the release explained.

“The KQED Board carefully evaluated the opportunity presented by the auction and we retained outside financial and technical counsel to advise us. After many months of deliberation, the Board decided this was a unique opportunity coming at a pivotal time in KQED’s history,” KQED board chair Chuck Kissner said in a statement. The bulk of the proceeds are to be invested in KQED's endowment — doubling its size.

Related: Watch The Trailer For This Maya Angelou Documentary That Premieres Tonight On KQED

A documentary that's been on the festival circuit but hasn't yet premiered to the general public, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise might, as the New York Times points out, "seem redundant to those who’ve read her autobiographies, notably I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

Nevertheless, "the photographs and film footage here add another dimension to her stories, as do interviews with her son" and artists who worked with her, the Times goes on. In particular, documentary directors Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack, who began this portrait of Angelou before her death in 2014, linger on moments those less familiar with Angelou may have glossed over: Her acting, and yes, singing ability, for example.

The documentary about Angelou, "a redwood tree," as the quote goes, "with deep roots in American culture,” might have particular resonance with those of us in San Francisco, as some of those roots can be traced back to the ground here.

You can learn more about the film here from PBS. The film premiers with KQED on Channel 9 this evening at 8 p.m.

Finally, a little extra on Angelou's encounter with another, if vastly different, Bay Area-born poet.

Related: How Maya Angelou Became San Francisco's First African-American Female Streetcar Conductor

Film School Shorts, KQED's half-hour weekly series showcasing short student films from across the country, returns this month for a new season. With a lineup of rock star talent, including Bay Area filmmakers, and incredible performances by Hollywood actors like Patrick Fugit (Gone Girl), Kaori Momoi (Memoirs of a Geisha) and Anna Camp (Mad Men), the fourth season is its strongest yet.

This year's eclectic season delivers thought-provoking and original work by students at the nation's top film schools. Unlike in Hollywood, 43 percent of the films in Film School Shorts were directed by women, and many have screened at prestigious film festivals like Sundance, SXSW and Cannes. From Sequin Raze, which evolved into Lifetime's award-winning television series UnREAL, to Hypebeasts, exploring racial tensions among a line of sneaker enthusiasts, to a love story unfold during a dinosaur invasion of Earth inThe Life and Death of Tommy Chaos and Stacey Danger, this season is not to be missed.

Film School Shorts airs Fridays at 8:30pm beginning September 9 on KQED 9. If you miss the television broadcast, you can watch full films here.

This post is brought to you by KQED.

As part of their Truly CA series, KQED has just shared this documentary short about San Francisco drag star and Oasis co-owner Heklina. It's a little odd, with a Bergman-esque opening sequence involving a mirror in the middle of some sand dunes, but it's nonetheless a fun profile of the man beneath the wig. Much of this footage appears to be a couple years old, since before Oasis opened — and back when Trannyshack was still called Trannyshack — but filmmaker Brian Favorite takes us through the course of Heklina's life and drag career in a few short minutes.

As she puts it, "Heklina is not a woman. Heklina is me in drag. I don't think anybody looks at Heklina as a woman."

Two local archivists recently triumphed after a six-year treasure hunt, trying to locate an existing copy of a 54-year-old documentary that aired on PBS stations called "The Rejected." Made in 1961 and produced by KQED, with funding from New York's WNET, the film is obviously very dated, featuring a lot of talk about the "unpleasant" problem of homosexuality, however it is also weirdly progressive. In the film's intro, KQED Station Manager James Day reads a letter from California's Attorney General, Stanley Mosk, in which he says that a frank discussion of homosexuality may, at least, "lead to a broader understanding of the condition."

KQED describes the lengthy journey to locate an existing copy of "The Rejected," which was thought to be lost completely, and existed only as a transcript. KQED archivist Robert Chehoski worked with local film archivist Alex Cherian (San Francisco Bay Area TV Archive) and Professor Bob Connelly at American University in Washington, D.C., and ultimately they found a copy of the hilm right under their noses, at the Library of Congress — whom they convinced to allow them to clean up and upload the footage, which you can now watch here, via SF State's DIVA Film Archive.

The one-hour film features statements by the likes of Margaret Mead (arguably herself a lesbian), who at the time was a curator at the Museum of Natural History in New York, who says bold things like, "Homosexuality is not only found in great civilizations like the civilization of the United States, but is found among people at every level of culture... [and] there's a kind of playful homosexual behavior that is found in a great many societies."

It's mostly a dry discussion by "experts" in the field, with multiple references to the pioneering work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, which in 1961 was barely a decade old. (Kinsey himself died in 1956.) But perhaps the most amazing sequence comes about 22 minutes in which three well dressed, openly gay members of the Mattachine Society speaking about their early gay rights work. One of them even answers the question whether marriage to a woman is a "good idea" for homosexuals as a "cover-up," and he says, obviously, no.

The late producer Irving Saraf, who died in 2012, told Cherian that another cut of the film may exist somewhere that has some very rare footage inside an early 1960s gay bar, possibly in San Francisco. But that copy of the film has not been found, and may have been destroyed.

Cherian tells SFist that he is "working with the Library of Congress and the film's copyright holder WNET to try and produce a better video copy of The Rejected."

Happy Pride Month, everybody!

This article has been corrected to clarify the involvement of Mr. Cherian in the project.

PBS has revived their defunct Victory Garden series with the help of The Perennial Plate and Edible magazine, and the result is The Victory Garden: Edible Feast. The newly released episode 5 of the series focuses on the Bay Area and people doing good work in the food realm like local food writer Samin Nosrat, Adrionna Fike of the Mandela Food Co-op in West Oakland, and preserves maker Dafna Kory of INNA Jam (available at Bi-Rite).

Check your local listings for air dates on PBS.

How exciting! San Francisco mayor Ed Lee was on KQED's Forum this morning, ostensibly to "discuss the economy, the future of MUNI [sic], the city college accreditation crisis, State Senator Leland Yee's corruption case and other issues" with host Michael Krasny.

Lee is known for his challenges speaking extemporaneously, perhaps one of the reasons that he rarely gives one-on-one interviews or speaks without abundant preparation. Good for KQED for making it past Lee's notoriously protective press office to get him today! In celebration of this banner event, Eve Batey liveblogged this interview with SFist pal Aaron Sankin, a former editor at Huffington Post San Francisco and current reporter at the Daily Dot. (Sankin says that he "has a fake start-up with an app that automatically puts Ed Lee's mustache on a picture of your face. The company is called Stshr and is looking for investors." He's kidding, we assume.)

9:40 AM (Aaron Sankin): I know it's 10 AM on a Monday, but that's no reason not to turn listening to NPR into an awesome drinking game. Take a drink every time the following happens:

- Ed Lee shows up 20 minutes late to the interview and the first thing he says is, "F*cking Muni"
- Someone uses the word "techie" in a pejorative
- Someone uses the word "techie" in a positive way
- You realize the world would be a better place if no one used the word "techie" ever again
- Ed Lee loses his train of thought while answering a question because he is "still recovering from an epic 4/20, man."
- Ed Lee loses his train of thought while answering a question because "4/20 isn't just a day, it's a state of mind, man."
- Someone calls Google Glass a "Segway for your face"
- Ed Lee insists only the reason he went back on his word and decided to run for a full term is because he is really a time traveler sent from the future to stop Leland Yee from becoming the mayor of San Francisco
- Ed Lee begins answering a question about evictions by reminding everyone he used to be a housing rights attorney
- Ed Lee begins answering a questions about turning off parking meters on Sundays by reminding everyone he used to be a meter maid
- Ed Lee pauses before answering a question because he has to lean over and ask permission from Rose Pak, who is standing behind him smoking a cigar
- Ed Lee thanks Michael Krasny for the interview by naming him an honorary survivor of the 1906 earthquake

10:06 AM (Eve Batey): Lee jumps right in by basically recapping his State of the City address points, ending with his concerns that city agencies are "nickel and diming everybody." I think I know what this (cough Sunday meters cough) is about!

10:08 AM (Eve Batey): Lee answers Michael Krasny's question on how tech people are snapping up housing by talking about how he's the jobs mayor. OK? Then he dives into development, saying that a lot is being built, but seems to be more focused on talking about mortgages and down-payments, not about apartments.

10:11 AM (Eve Batey): First mention of changes to Mid-Market. Is that part of the drinking game?

10:11 AM (Aaron Sankin): Ed Lee says: ‟Obviously affordable housing cannot be made without market rate housing because the developers of market rate housing are the ones paying for the affordable housing.”

San Francisco says: ‟Voting against the 8 Washington project proves we don’t believe you.”

10:13 AM (Eve Batey): Lee thanks Mark Leno for his statewide Ellis Act loophole closure legislation, talking a lot of smack about speculators who are dumping long-term renters. Local legislation to close Ellis Act loopholes, as proposed by Supe David Campos, goes unmentioned. Burn?

10:15 AM (Aaron Sankin): Ed Lee backs off pushing for a $15/hr minimum wage for San Francisco and instead says he’s ‟open for anything up to $15.” Ed Lee mentions his history as a tenants’ rights lawyer. DRINK!

10:18 AM (Batey/Sankin): Ed Lee’s response to a critic who charges that he focuses too much on making tech companies happy and not enough talking with nonprofits. ‟She should look at my schedule.” Mr Mayor, we in the media have been trying to get a look at your full calendar for ages! INVITATION ACCEPTED! When and where?

(Aaron Sankin) This is what I assume is on Ed Lee’s personal schedule:

8am - Wake up

8:30am - Spin class

9:45am - Professional mustache waxing

10am - Start being mayor

10am-6pm - Do mayor stuff

6:15pm - Twitter happy hour

7:30pm - Yogilates

8:45pm - Professional mustache waxing

9pm - Sleep

10:19 AM (Eve Batey): Lee brings up "struggling" Twitter employees who are making only $50K a year, and are "worried about the schools."

10:22 AM (Aaron Sankin): Ed Lee says that he spends a lot of time talking to employees at tech companies like Twitter to understand their concerns. He notes that a lot of them aren’t making millions of dollars. I assume this is why he wants to increase the city’s minimum wage: to help all of the poor Front End Javascript engineers get off the streets.

10:24 AM (Eve Batey): "Mark Farrell and I are talking very intensely" which sounds sexy! But he's actually talking about changing how SF deals with the homeless.

10:25 AM (Eve Batey): Lee pimps his $500 million bond measure for "safer streets," which is a new spin on a plan to get that money to repave streets, fix Muni vehicles, and a lot of other transit initiatives! (Because how can you question "safer streets," you monster?) He's "so sad" about our rash of pedestrian fatalities, which is why we need to spend this $500 M.

10:26 AM (Eve Batey): Madeline from SF calls bullshit on city hall promoted pedestrian safety slogan "be nice think twice," tells the mayor he's cut the funding for safety, says "it really has to be in place now." Lee says he's increasing funding, not cutting. Blah blah "vision zero."

10:31 AM (Eve Batey): Morris from SF calls in to ask about payroll taxes, but doesn't seem to understand how they work. The Mayor offers a gentle correction, talks about plan to end payroll taxes and initiate business taxes instead. Plus, more about $15 minimum wage, which, if that had been a drinking game item, I'd be in the ER right now.

10:33 AM (Aaron Sankin): One important question that has thus far gone unasked: What is the city of San Francisco doing about the fact that Thee Oh Sees, the city’s best garage band, broke up/moved to LA? LA?!

10:34 AM (Eve Batey): Banner moment. In answer to Twitter question, Lee makes first mention of Marc Benioff, says SF USD middle schools will be "all wified up." Someone please make a disgusting definition of that phrase in the Urban Dictionary so I can link to it, thanks.

10:35 AM (Aaron Sankin): Ed Lee’s solution to the ‟exodus” of students from the city’s public school system: ‟The only way to invite more students into the public schools is to make sure that they’re the best.” The mayor apparently forgot that middle school is the WORST.

10:36 AM (Eve Batey): Oh my god, this is why I can't stand call-in radio, it's so squirm inducing. Guy tells loooong story about how much it sucked when he went downtown and couldn't find anything he wanted to buy. I think it was in support of getting rid of Sunday parking meters but it kind of made NO SENSE. If this is the poster child for why Sunday metered parking is good to eradicate, smdh.

(Aaron Sankin) BREAKING: Caller who lives in San Francisco admits he drives his own personal car in the city on a regular basis/is a terrible monster who should be shunned from polite society.

"TL;DR Just in case I get a serious progressive challenger in my next election, I want to make sure my moderate, car-owning Western base knows on which side of the gas tank their bread is buttered." -- Ed Lee

10:40 AM (Eve Batey): Tech worker crows that her current job is better than her previous one as a public school teacher, and that she shouldn't be villainized for riding a shuttle. Given the tone of your note, I am sure there are plenty of other reasons to villainize you, madam.

(Aaron Sankin) Questioner: ‟I’m a 5th generation San Franciscan who went to SF public schools and a school teacher who is also a musician and now make a good salary working at a tech company.” Questioner claimed she just wanted to say she shouldn’t be vilified for making money, but probably wanted to brag about being the best San Franciscan ever.

10:41 AM (Aaron Sankin): ‟If the talent stays in San Francisco, the companies will always be here.”

- Ed Lee, who also argued it was extremely important to give tax breaks to ensure that tech companies stay in the city

10:43 AM (Eve Batey): "it's for the larger good" Ed Lee says regarding the eradication of Sunday parking, claims that residents are yelling at him for asking for support for the $500 M bond measure, even as they receive parking tickets. It's so true, everyone on the streets is talking about bond measures! HAHAHA no they are not.

"It's a surprise and shocking" when you get a parking ticket. "It's hurtful revenue...if we stop nickel and diming you, will you support us on the big ticket issues?" Lee rhetorically asks.

He says "why can't we have a day" where you don't have to pay for things. Great! Then Muni's going to be free on Sundays, too? Hellooo?

10:46 AM (Eve Batey): Caller tells Lee that Muni sucks, that people don't pay fares and that it's generally a mess. Lee seems surprised, asks what lines she rides, says he'll "take your comments seriously." It was so weird, it seemed like Muni being a mess was news to him. That can't be, right? Anyway, I am sure that $500 M will fix that, never mind.

(Aaron Sankin) Ed Lee makes a promise to ride Muni with a caller who complained about shoddy service. It’s a date! Does Mrs. Lee know that her husband just asker another woman out on the lamest date ever?

10:48 AM (Eve Batey): Questioner asks about homeless crackheads," Lee asks if the questioner is talking about the homeless, about "crackheads," or about "homeless crackheads."

10:50 AM (Eve Batey): In answer to question about residents being evicted by unethical landlords, Lee says he wants to make sure rent controlled properties remain rent controlled. I don't have any shit to talk about this.

10:52 AM (Eve Batey): OH SNAP KRASNY "techies won't even take the same buses as us!" (also, DRINK)

(Aaron Sankin) Ed Lee reminds everyone that all of the private shuttles clogging the pubic bus stops don’t just belong to tech companies—some belong to hospitals or schools. He’s right. There’s the Google Flu Trends Bus and the Google Scholar Bus...

10:54 AM (Eve Batey): Caller seems mad about micro-apartments. Lee punts to Supervisor Scott Wiener, says looking at them was his idea. Sharing credit or casting blame? YOU DECIDE.

10:56 AM (Eve Batey): Why didn't Lee OK Board of Supes resolution to divest from fossil fuels? Because he doesn't approve every resolution, Lee says. Is that a tautology?

(Aaron Sankin) Ed Lee says he has a practice of not signing every non-binding resolution that the board puts on his desk, which is why he didn’t attach his name to a letter urging the city to divest from fossil fuel companies. Although, when the Board passes a non-binding resolution declaring ‟Ed Lee is actually a really fun guy when you get to know him, also his hair always smells like strawberries,” he’ll change his tune.

10:58 AM (Eve Batey): "We're trying to create an in-migration of African-American families," then talks about development in the "southeastern corridor" (that's Bayview and Hunters Point). I'm not gonna touch that one.

And that's it! Not a lot of surprises during the hour: Lee was very focused on his talking points, ($15 minimum wage, $500 transportation bond, development), wedging them in even when they didn't really fit the question. I'm definitely bummed that we never got to the KQED-promised topics of "the city college accreditation crisis, State Senator Leland Yee's corruption case and other issues."

Or, as Aaron Sankin says: The biggest takeaway from this interview is that Ed Lee is excited for everyone to look at his personal calendar. On one hand, actually digging through the mayor’s to-do list will likely show how dreary the day-to-day reality of running what one real estate blog labeled the fourth best city in America actually is. On the other hand, it may reveal he spends every night putting on a skin-tight costume and fighting super villains.

Thanks for reading, everyone! You can listen to the full interview here, how do you think the Mayor fared?

Really, Check, Please! Bay Area is such choice TV viewing. Not only do you yearn to punch the guests for their inane commentary ("It's noodle crack!" "Holy mother of comfort food!" "Craft!"), you want to be one of said punchable guests making dippy comments. That, in addition to the wonderful and luminous Leslie Sbrocco, is what makes the KQED restaurant critiquing show so special.

Here's what you need to know about CPBA, which we already told you about in 2012, but you probably need a refresher so here's the condensed version:

- By and large, any guest from San Francisco sucks. Think engineers who describe themselves as "coffee snobs" in their Twitter profiles or, far worse, Tony Bourdain wannabes. They fancy themselves purists (they usually aren't) and have trouble with empathy/registering basic human emotions.
- The lesbian nonprofit worker from Berkeley — who clearly doesn't use conditioner, but that's fine — will make the others guests drive to a Pakistani vegetarian spot in Fremont.
- Sassy mom from Walnut Creek just wants to eat tuna ceviche from a martini glass. She hates trying to find parking in the city and can't stop smiling. She will lose her collective shit over a chocolate-dipped strawberry. She's the best.
- None of the guests in the Season 9 premiere episode fit any of the descriptions above. Whatever.

Did I mention that everyone is also fucked-up on wine? It's fabulous.

Full list of Season 9 restaurants are:

Bacon Bacon
Señor Sisig
Pläj Restaurant
Contigo
Paradiso
Old Skool Café
Perbacco
Paulie’s Picklings
The Little Chihuahua Mexican Restaurant
Maykadeh Restaurant
Baker Street Bistro
Old Jerusalem Restaurant
M.Y. China
Capo’s
La Mar
Shanghai House
20 Spot
Cocotte
King of Falafel
East Bay’s Smoke Berkeley
Paradiso
Federicos’ Tapas & Wine Bar
Zut! on Fourth
Pican
Masimo’s
Italian Colors Restaurant
Bistro Liaison
Pinole Creek Café
Lanna Thai
Luka’s Taproom and Lounge
South Bay’s Evvia Estiatorio
Sakoon Chalet Ticino
La Costanera Restaurant;
North Bay’s Marin Sun Farms Butcher Shop & Restaurant
Murray Circle
Hana Japanese Restaurant

Season 9 of Check, Please! Bay Area started on Thursday. This week's list of restaurants under scrutiny were Bacon Bacon, Pläj Restaurant, and Evvia Estiatorio. You can check out the season premiere below:

Watch it on KQED 9.

Now in its seventh season, if you are not watching Check, Please! Bay Area, you are dead to us. Or, perhaps, you are dead for it is quite popular—especially with the local foodie sect (not to mention the famewhores who make cameos). Basically, four local commoners appear on the show. Said guests go to each other's favorite Bay Area restaurant, and then have a round table discussion critiquing their respective tastes in food and eatery selectional while getting lit on red wine. It stands as a brilliant review of our encapsulated area's class, gender, and wacky socioeconomic issues.

Among so many entertaining reasons why you should watch Check, Please! Bay Area, here are the show's greatest habitual archetypes:

5) Mr. Summer's Eve from the Mission who must recount his ordeal at a shopping plaza eatery in Walnut Creek where he dined on tuna tartare from a martini glass. He's very shitty about it, and then bitches about how vegetables should always be served crisp. Ha. Dipshit.

4) Mom from Corte Madera tells the chilling tale of venturing to a soul food joint in Bayview or the Tenderloin. She's freaked, not pleased, and couldn't find any goddamn parking. "Nothing you would cross the bridge for, that's for sure," she chirps.

3) The lesbian who makes everyone eat at a Berkeley vegetarian shed. No one wants to hurt her feelings about the mashed yeast or the [insert name of developing-world ethnic cuisine here] paste wraps. You can smell the liberal guilt emanating from the screen.

2) The engineer. There is always an engineer.

1) Host Leslie Sbrocco. Not only humorous with a delightful on-camera presence, she maintains poise in the face of prickdom or shyness while moving the conversation along swimmingly. (The guests are plied with wine before the cameras roll, which also helps.) We have nothing but praise for her and the show. She knows her stuff and yet also possesses a sense of humor—something so refreshing when to comes to the food scene's mix of self-importance minus self-awareness. Sbrocco is this SFist editor's spirit animal when he attends food events.

Season seven already aired, but you can check out episodes of Check, Please! Bay Area Thursdays on KQED 9 at 7:30pm. You can also view them online.

Also, you can meet Sbrocco and the entire Check, Please! Bay Area crew in person on Friday, September 14, at SOMA StrEat Food Park. According to Tamara Palmer, "At this special event celebrating the show, a crew will be filming and soliciting stories about your favorite food experiences for an upcoming episode." Admission, a mere $15, will include a glass of wine, with food available for purchase from such food trucks as "Garden Creamery, Kasa Indian, Smokin Warehouse BBQ, Golden Waffle, Slider Shack, Tres Truck, and Iz It Fresh Grill."