A WiFi Café: Apart, together. Or together, apart.

Across town is the neighborhood of North Beach, traditionally the center of Italian-American life here, beloved by locals and popular with tourists who seek the Beat generation haunts of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Ferlinghetti.

Historic and energetic: San Francisco's North Beach.

But this area is more than just a collection of memories past. Despite gentrification and a growing Asian influence, it continues to be one of the more exciting and energetic parts of the city, full of trattorias and pastry shops. The coffee houses, opened by Italian immigrants, remain historic and authentically Italian.

Even though the tide of WiFi cafés is rising, these old-style cafés keep their vitality and loyal clientele by encouraging participation in the tactile world: the smells of roasting coffee, the sounds of cappuccino milk being foamed, the taste of focaccia, the feel of a newspaper.

Caffé Puccini's Graziano Lucchese -- in person.

A customer might hear live music, or strike up a conversation with the owner. That’s not possible at a modern coffee chain. The CEOs of those companies can’t compete with the independent characters and personalities behind the following cafés. (All but one are on Columbus Avenue.)

Caffé Puccini – The legendary composer Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca. So was Graziano Lucchese, the owner of Caffé Puccini, who has devoted the interior to his homeboy and favorite composer. A portrait of the Maestro and posters from Puccini’s operas are on display.

Lucchese's musical recommendations for customers, right here.

Lucchese has also stocked the famous Puccini jukebox with an eclectic assortment of opera and Italian pop. It is almost impossible to sip a cappuccino here without hearing an aria from “La Boheme” or Modugno’s “Volare,” originally from 1958.

As befits such a cultured café, there is no wi-fi available here.

Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store – Cigars really were sold here at one time, back when this was a men’s-only establishment in the 1920s. When Mario Crismani, born in Pola (Croatia), came along in 1972, he simply added his name to the sign.

Mario's. Everything but the cigars.

Younger family members have replaced Papa Mario at the reigns of the business but it remains a quirky, triangular spot where focaccia sandwiches are formulated on the spot. Kerri, a waitperson there, says she doesn’t imagine Wi-Fi will be added any time soon.

Caffé Roma – Three generations of the Azzollini family stand behind this neighborhood institution. Papa Sergio opened the first Caffé Roma in 1977, as an immigrant from Molfetta in the Apulia region of Italy. His son, Anthony, was five years old when he arrived in the United States, but returned to Italy to learn the art of coffee roasting.

Roasting coffee at Caffé Roma.

He and his father opened the current Caffé Roma in 1986, where he personally roasts the coffee every week right on the premises. Yes, there’s WiFi here, and even laptops. But customers come for the coffee and the experience.

Caffé Greco- There’s a famous and historic Caffé Greco in Rome, but its red velvet and stuffy interior are far more formal than the Caffé Greco in San Francisco. Tourists and locals come for a cup of Illy coffee, one of the premiere Italian brands.

The unstuffy version of Caffé Greco.

That’s partly why Cristiano, a somewhat regular visitor, says the Greco is like a slice of Italy, minus the long plane trip.

Caffé Trieste – When Giovanni Giotta and his family left their native Rovigno (now Croatia) for San Francisco, they were nostalgic for the coffee houses of Trieste. And so, In 1956, they opened Caffé Trieste. It became a Beatnik hangout, and has attracted poets and artists ever since Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg sipped coffee here, on Vallejo Street at Grant Avenue.

Shades of beatnik coffeehouse culture at Caffé Trieste.

When Papa Gianni was asked how to run a successful café, he answered, “It’s no big deal. You buy the best beans and roast them yourself.” And then he added, “and brew each cup like it’s for you.”

Every Saturday, the Giotta family continues to host a concert for professional and amateur singers alike every Saturday. It’s a peculiar mix of opera, jazz and Italian standards.

Live music with Caffé Trieste's lattes.

Some of these cafés do offer wi-fi service, and some of the customers work on their computers. But one North Beach regular, Mindaugis Bagdon, swears the traditional atmosphere is too firmly established to be threatened. “It’s pretty much business as usual in these places,” he says.

Roberto Soncin Gerometta is an established travel and corporate photographer based in San Francisco.

By 10:00 a.m., a crowd had gathered by the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. They awaited word of the Court’s decision.

The decision, to uphold voters’ passage last year of the ban, wasn’t entirely unexpected. But it was a blow that affected even public officials. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, second from right, held a press conference.

“Today’s ruling doesn’t mean marriage equality will never be achieved,” he said. “It simply means that, in the end, we can’t rely on the courts to secure it.” He added, “The final decisive round will not be won in the legal arena, it will be won in the electoral arena.”

The effects of strategizing and organizing began to take shape almost immediately. Protesters blocked traffic on nearby Van Ness Avenue, a main traffic artery. There were between 100 and 200 arrests, which were processed relatively efficiently.

Early that evening, a rally gathered.

A march started by the domed City Hall…

…and passed by the state Supreme Court, where police remained on watch.

Quite a number of protesters found powerful and inventive ways to make their point.

At one point, emotions and alcohol set off a limited confrontation.

And that led to an unpleasant arrest of a companion.

Which then led to about 500 people diverting themselves to an unplanned route, leaving hapless drivers unexpectedly surrounded.

Marriage equality activists expect to achieve their goal in California via the ballot box in 2010, or 2012 at the latest.

Luke Thomas is editor and publisher of Fog City Journal, where a version of this story is concurrently posted.

At this early hour, though, only the bakeries show signs of life inside and pedestrians are few.

Green Apple Books, a neighborhood institution for new and used books, hasn’t opened yet for the day’s business. But their banner stands out, part of a campaign by indiebound, an effort of the American Booksellers Association to support disappearing independent bookstores.

Rebecca Hartog, who snapped these photos, says it’s her favorite bookstore.

Medium or well-done?

Richard Tamm, 61, a former computer programmer for the Federal Reserve Bank, said “Some of these companies are bankrupt and they won’t admit it. We need to wake up to what actually is happening — to force Obama to do the right thing.” Tamm added that trying to support the existing “failed financial oligarchies” was a move in the wrong direction.

No arrests necessary. No spelling corrections needed, either.

About 20 law enforcement officers present made no arrests.

“We are here to say loudly, as a nation, that we want to bail out the people, not the banks and the CEOs,” said Nancy Mancias, of CodePink Women for Peace.

All photos by Luke Thomas. A version of this article is available at FogCityJournal.com.

Jackson hasn’t been getting important mail. Checks from the government, reimbursing him for heating costs, went missing two months in a row. His beloved science magazines haven’t made it, either. And before she died, his mother told him she had just mailed him a letter. It never arrived.

“You have tremendous turnover among the desk clerks,” says Jackson. “Some of these people are not very well educated, or they’re illiterate.” So he is supporting a planned lawsuit against the United States Post Office, brought by San Francisco’s city attorney, to require delivery of mail to individual mail receptacles at residential hotels.

Such a move brings up very basic questions, like what, exactly, the difference might be between a hotel and an apartment building, and why one might get direct delivery to individuals in an apartment but not in an SRO hotel. In a memo last December, Noemi Luna, the Postmaster General of San Francisco, was very clear that it no longer mattered. Citing “current fiscal shortages,” she wrote that “the Postal Service will not offer individual mail receptacle delivery” to any SRO that had not been getting such service for less than 90 days. A few SROs, it seems, had managed to install regulation boxes by the city’s imposed deadline in 2007. The rest, like Jackson’s residential hotel, didn’t comply and are expected to continue to rely on the traditional open pigeon holes.

“It’s not a black and white issue,” said James Wigdel, spokesperson for the postal service. “I can’t say this defines an apartment or this defines an SRO. But at face value, an SRO is a hotel according to the postal service.”

Jeff Buckley, a tenant organizer in San Francisco’s scruffy but historic Tenderloin district, finds the entire business “discriminatory against poor people.” When the mail carrier comes by, he says, “They get buzzed in, and they drop a big bundle of mail on the first or second step.” From there, the bundle is at the mercy of the on- duty desk clerk. He feels the pending law suit could have been avoided had there been a regulatory body that enforced the city’s, and now the state’s, requirement to install individual mailbox receptacles. Besides, “the Post Office fought this from Day One,” he adds. He wants SROs to be recognized as legitimate housing stock for members of the lower middle class like Jackson, who worked as a janitor for many years after he quit his post office job.

The City Attorney is currently gathering evidence for a possible argument based on First Amendment rights. “The fact that they live in an SRO hotel doesn’t make them any less entitled to receive mail than someone who lives at the Four Seasons,” said City Attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey, referring to a new luxury highrise hotel and condominium tower. “This is more than a minor inconvenience — for many of the tenants, the loss of a check or a form for their medical care can be devastating.”

A call to the Four Seasons revealed that neither hotel guests nor condominium tenants had the compliant mail receptacles required by the Postal Service for delivery. A mail truck pulls up to the loading dock and the mail is then under the care of the private staff, as with the SROs.

The difference is, of course, the expectation of prompt and reliable service.

Cross-posted at FogCityJournal.com.

Tom Jones in the 1970s.

One fan dressed in a cheerleader’s costume shook her pom-poms and cheered. Tom Jones loved his audience right back with a nonstop set that included the classics, “She’s a Lady,” “Sex Bomb,” and “What’s New Pussycat?,” and songs from his latest album, “24 Hours.”

What’s surprising isn’t that this senior singer is still a sex icon at 69, or that he still has that virile Vegas voice, or that his fans adore him as much now as ever. The real point to ponder is what may now be a growing panty problem.

While the 11-piece band and its full horn section charged on, Mr. Jones, with a well-balanced flick of his foot, swept aside a bright pair of undies that landed in his center-stage dance space. One fan, a grandmother from Peru, admired his “pound and a half” but worried he might trip and fall. Mr. Jones may still be the sexy, chest-baring crooner selling out venues here and abroad, but slipping at this age could mean breaking one of the world’s most famous hips.

The danger seems to be growing, as ladies are trading in their fairy-light thongs and bikinis for underwear with more yardage and heft — big knickers are much better for throwing long distances. Those who didn’t catch on saw their tiny panties fall short of the stage and onto unsuspecting heads. Mr. Jones has likely inspired countless starry-eyed women to toss off their undergarments spontaneously, but these days it looks like those same girls are packing the larger, more tossable sizes of their best lingerie in their handbags.

Nobody needs to worry that Tom Jones is driving middle-aged women to go “commando.” And all the panties, large and small, had been cleared away by the time the house lights came up.

Front page photo of the Warfield Theater concert by QueenDork.

The Rich, the Strong, and the Detested (Photo: FogCityJournal.com)

After all, the beaming hosts who greeted the guests and urged them to help themselves to the ample bar food and flowing booze were the very same ones who had terrified them not so long ago. They were the Residential Builders Association, known to not a few San Franciscans as strapping lads with Irish accents who would threaten opponents to their building projects with lawsuits, criminal investigations, and worse.

The other hosts were Platinum Advisors. For such a powerful outfit, with massive contracts to develop such gems as Treasure Island, it seemed strange that nobody knew who was from Platinum, much less what they looked like.

Local politicians who had called for reform of one kind or another over the past eight or so years made short, humorous remarks. The atmosphere was at times almost giddy, with the thought that developers and neighbors might, at long last, have achieved their own detente, their own post-partisan cooperation. If Ireland and Northern Ireland could do it…

On his way out, former Mayor Willie Brown stopped to deliver a jolly parting riposte to Supervisor Chris Daly, who was possibly the biggest nail in the rolling rubber tire of San Francisco development. Brown’s face was alight with the joy of loading a killer punchline about to be delivered. “You know the real reason they threw this party?” he asked, and paused, making sure he had the attention of his very small audience. “The real reason was so they could finally tell all of these people: ‘Fuck you!’”

And with an immediate explosion of mirth, he went off into the evening.

Local talk of the event here.