19 - Reverse Brolic (Frolic) Joseph Alioto and the SF Police and Teachers Strike

In the first reverse Brolic (A Frolic), sitdown comedians and cousins Evan Mastronardi and Chris Bojemski examine the life of lawyer, politician, and mayor of San Francisco, Joseph Alioto, and his handling of the 1975 SFPD and teachers strike.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Now we are. There we go. Boys, you're listening to All Things
Broke Network. Bitches still broke.This it's a New York history podcast.
Wait, what's happening? What thefuck is going on today? This is

(00:22):
a frolic. This is a Thisis a this is a San Francisco Bay
Area podcast where I rent payer apartmentdweller, traffic traffic dweller. Chris read
a story about San Francisco in theBay Area to my cousin, Evan Masonardi

(00:47):
who had the tables turned autumn andthere's no idea now has no idea what
the story is going to be about. It's interesting because actually, today,
h there's a there's a significant partof this where I still don't know what
the story is gonna be about.But we're gonna we're gonna get to that.
I'm gonna talk about that at theend. All right, So here

(01:11):
we go. This is this isa Frolic episode. Boys, I hope
you're ready for all. Who areyou listeners? Who who are looking forward
to this one? Finally time,It's finally time to fra It's uponst us.
I'm gonna be through the streets.Okay, well, this will be
interesting. Now I don't. Iwon't be sifting through my notes. I
won't have to see what otter Aihas dictated from the background and the thinness

(01:38):
of my walls. No. Um, I'll just uh yeah, I'll just
be along for the ride, Sitback, relax, and enjoy the utter
fucking chaos of my home. Okay, all right, I'm strapped. All
right, you're strapped, strapped.Let's do it. Two. Uh,
start things off for for the listenersat home who perhaps don't all three of

(02:02):
them three and a half three pointone four, who who may not even
be watching us on a screen rightnow? Um, and you, I
want you to try this. Iwant you to hold out your right hand
m and close close all your fingersexcept for your index and your thumb,
and just sort of point make thosekind of parallel but separated the way I

(02:24):
got them. So push them.So push them like that? Right?
So you want you want there tobe like a space between this camera this
kinra makes my index finger? Lookhow long? That's fucking wild? Yeah?
Uh, ladies, I'm not single, so don't reach out. Um.
Okay, so what you're looking atright, uh your thumbnail. I'm

(02:51):
gonna say like the top right handcorner of your thumbnail right now, okay,
used to be the size of SanFrancisco on the peninsula. So right
now, what you're what you're lookingat your thumb is the is a San
Francisco peninsula, the correct peninsula,the Bay area, and your index finger

(03:13):
is kind of like the rest ofthe contiguous US just sort of whatever extends
off to the east whatever. Okay, But the space between those things is
the bay so okay. So SanFrancisco is the top right corner of your
thumbnail, and all the all thespace to the right, like where your
actual thumb meat is to the rightof your thumb, thumb skins didn't used

(03:37):
to be there. It's actually it'sactually a fairly new development in the grand
scheme of things, because we weadded a bunch of land. We used
a bunch of shipwrecked ships to extendthe size of the peninsula next to San
Francisco, so that that probably thatwasn't even there one hundred something years ago.
You shipwrecked ships to extend the sidewe have, would they would use

(04:00):
it as as like the kind offoundation for more land. And there's some
interesting places I can point you too. About that at the end. So
my my, my point is I'msaying that, No, I mean,
we used to be used to doa lot more fishing, you know what
I mean, like shit, shitgoes wrong anyway, and and failing at
it apparently because they're fucking shipwrecks.Yeah. Well yeah, okay, all

(04:21):
right, So the city is verytiny. Uh and uh did you yell
the year yet? No? Notyet, I'm getting there, okay,
okay, all right, all right, so it was very small and it's

(04:42):
a small city, but it housedactually didn't look up the population around this
time. But anyway, nineteen ohsix, it's all fucking destroyed. Forget
it, it's all gone. Theearthquake hits. And I say that because
again, if you look at yourthumb in the like the center of that
top right corner of your thumb isa very tall hill upon which today,

(05:06):
as as I believe, back then, rests Quoite Tower. Yes, Tower
of Coitas. Yes, I knewyou were going to say that the joke.
Every eighth grader who hastens us isgonna love sure, sure, whatever.
And it's it's interesting because there's picturestaken from from that hill. Okay,

(05:33):
then, and when I tell youthat the city was fucking destroyed,
I think the estimates I saw weresomewhere between eighty and ninety percent of the
city was leveled. So you haveto imagine today everything on your thumb from
like the top joint and above isSan Francisco County, right, But back

(05:54):
then, the whole city just fitinto a little part of your thumbnail,
and the whole thing was fucking decimated. Okay, just gone right, all
right, I say this, yep, d yep that on that day,

(06:17):
um right, Wait that there wasa year, but what is the date?
The date is, well, theexact day of the earthquake is April
eighteenth, nineteen o six. Allright, you're of our lords on on

(06:40):
this faithful day. Okay um aJaytown, Moses, it's Jaytown himself.
Jaytown. Jaytown was not present inSan Francisco on this day. Yeah,
he was busy. Cupid might havebeen because quite faithfully. Uh, a
man by the name of Giuseppe Aliottomm hmm okay, a Sicilian immigrant okay

(07:05):
um. And a woman named Domenicamay Lazio, who I believe it was
also Italian, but born in thecity of San Francisco. That sounds Dominican
sounds Dominicans. Dominicans works for meproceeds. Met on a vessel that they
took because he owned a bunch ofuh fishing and cannary businesses around San Francisco.

(07:30):
Met on a boat that was fleeingthe city to escape the earthquake,
and they fell in love, andten years later they had quake. Oh
with you, No, No,if I die, I'm already in heaven.

(07:56):
Okay, okay, die in peace. I wanted to illustrate that,
with literally everything you have known collapsingaround you, it would not be a
crazy thought to look at the firstperson you're attracted to on a fucking fishing
boat and think to yourself, thisis fate. We gotta get fucking married,

(08:20):
right. I mean, at thatpoint, you're gonna like, you're
gonna troum a bond so hard thathe almost you almost should just give it
a try. Just what's like,Yeah, let's do this crazy thing.
Yeah, fuck it? What's theworst that could happen? The last ten

(08:41):
percent of said, he's gonna crumblewhatever. Yeah, yeah, and you
have the best story of how youmet. They did. In fairness,
I don't have a lot of detailson the earl. There's there were no
sources that I could find on this, but they did take some time,
I'm to produce their first child thatI know of, because it was about

(09:03):
a decade later. Uh, AndI think I think a big part of
that was just like the Cidy neededto rebuild, and he needed to get
his businesses back off the fucking ground, literally back off the ground again.
And I don't know what. Doesit mention what she was doing? Nope,
doesn't mention, doesn't mention her professionor anything interesting because those things hadn't

(09:24):
necessarily stopped Italians from making children thepast. But like you know, I'm
sure I have to fucking uh,how am I forgetting the fucking atrocity Mussolini
him? Yes, fuck, youknow, the fucking volcano, the big

(09:48):
thing. How am I forgetting thisfucking name Vesuvious? Yeah? Yeah,
but the Pompeii Okay, Pompey Wow, I should have thought of that too.
All right, I'm sure I haveto pomp hey whose were just popping
out babies like tomorrow. Yeah.I think they've actually shound skeletons of people,

(10:09):
people boning down They're like we're gonnaget melted to death, we might
as well. Yeah right, exactly, yeah, yeah, so all right,
well I must leave at the impatof a penis under this bed,
into the bedrock. He must mustdie trying to produce the next generation classic

(10:35):
Italians. Yes, all right,so has a lot of restraint here,
he does have seems to have alot of restraint here. Anyway, ten
years I actually don't know if hewas an only child, but ten years
later, Joseph Elioto is born mhmuh. Joseph Ellioto uh has quite a

(10:56):
few interesting things happening in his lifebesides the point that I'm going to get
to here. So I just wantto touch briefly on some of those because
I just thought they were very interesting. He was almost vice President of the
United States. He was asked torun under see I'm sorry he made the

(11:20):
announcement speech for Hubert Humphrey, whowas veep under lbj oh. So we
fast forwarded quite a bit, yes, because there's there's interesting stuff that happens
earlier in his life, but notnot that interesting, and I just kind

(11:43):
of wanted to get to the actualpoint of the episode. But I just
I found I found the trivia aboutAlioto very interesting. So he made the
announcement speech for Hubert Humphrey, whohad his own campaign presidential campaign, and
it was strongly suspected that Aliyoto wasgoing to be selected for to be Hubert

(12:05):
too Sorry to be Humphries Vice President. Uh, and it just didn't end
up happening, which I thought waskind of interesting. Um, it kind
of stood out to me because orwhat what we talk about early in his
life and I'll get into this alittle bit um, is that he was

(12:26):
born to Italians, unsurprisingly Catholic,and uh, you know, the world's
America really not super prepared for Catholicsto do things. I think I think
JFK was the first Catholic to takeoffice. There was a big deal.
It was a very big deal,and I don't I think that genuinely probably

(12:48):
stood in his way for getting theVP nomination for Humphreys for Humphreys, So
that I just found interesting. Butanyway, well, motherfuckers didn't want Mario
Cuomo running for president. Some peoplepeople said, yeah, too many vowels.
Understand, we're such a fuck upcountry. We can't even we can't
even have too many vowels like likeour racesm is just so we have diverse

(13:13):
racism. We we we we justwe just can't help but discriminate in just
about every fucking category known to man. Like nah, real Americans got more
consonants. Ye, so yeah,no surprise, no surprise there, right,
So this was in This was innineteen sixty eight, So there you

(13:37):
go. Anyway, okay, sixtyeight sixty eight, So we've when like
all of our leaders died. Isthat when I'm okay got assassinated. Yeah
it is, isn't it. RFKAwas assassinated, I believe in sixty eight.

(13:58):
Yeah, I think you're right,and I know this. Yeah,
so je, So a lot wasgoing on. Maybe maybe my man was
just like yo, I don't know, maybe it's not just about other people.
Maybe it was like, you knowwhat, it's okay, if y'all
know, walt me, I justmight sit this one out because if he
gets in and he gets knocked out, then it's me. And I don't

(14:20):
think a hardtop convertible is going tobe enough, so I might just go
yack. Yeah. They might havethought through a few things after after JFK.
But yeah, anyway, okay,so it doesn't work out for vpple
home, so it doesn't work outfor VP. But part the reason,

(14:41):
the reason why he's under consideration isfor one thing, because he is quite
an accomplished antitrust lawyer. Okay,and later in his career. Um,
it's interesting a lot of the caseshe takes are actually four large companies,
but against even bigger companies. Um. So he works at the State.
I'm starting of the State Department,the Justice Department, in the antitrust division.

(15:03):
There. Wikipedia says for a theBoard of Economic Warfare, which is
interesting. I had never heard ofthat before. And it has a very
board of economic Warfare. Yes,well, that's that's what I said.
And there's a there's a big Idon't know, but there's a big boo

(15:24):
board economic pew boo. You gotit, Ben boo. It is stupid
anyway, he just just a coupleof interesting things. Um. He uh
represented the O. This is muchlater in his career. U. It's

(15:48):
actually after the story that I wantto cover. He represented the owner of
the Oakland Raiders in an antitrust casebecause because Al I'm sorry, I'm mixing
these two up. He represented AlDavis, who previously owned owned no Am

(16:12):
I mixing this up. He wasa coaching executive oh and principal owner and
manager of the Yes Raiders, andalso later his father in law Billy Sullivan,
who by that point had also ownedthe Raiders, because I believe both

(16:33):
were both were forced by all theother owners of NFL teams to sell their
team, the Raiders for significantly lessthan what the team was worth, and
he won because it was like,hey, your other corporations cannot force this
corporation into a shitty business deal.Makes sense very I just thought it,
really it said it felt prescient becauseright now I think everyone wishes that was

(16:57):
possible for the mL be so thatthe Days would get fucking sold for like
five dollars to someone who gave ashit um. But instead they're moving to
you know, Vegas. So that'svery goal where you know baseball town since
day one, right right right,everybody loves it there. I'm pretty jo
it's gonna be just just aside,it's gonna be a fucking chaos because baseball,

(17:19):
well, you know how crazy thestatistics are with baseball, there's stupid
statistics. You're gonna have fuckers sayingI bet on days where this picture right
left handed pictures who eat fucking scrambledeggs for breakfast, all right, to
get wins on fucking tuesdays, You'regonna have fucks who are coming in from

(17:40):
all over the country betting their child'seducation. Mind that fucking Edwin Diaz on
his return, had a certain typeof fucking mofungo and is gonna strike out
two people and pop someone up.And because of that, my house won't
I really, I really, Ireally do think that having a pro baseball

(18:03):
team in Vegas is going to leadto some terrible like the legitimizing of like
in person sports betting for baseball,they are going to bet on ship while
it happens in the stadium, likelike draft Draft Kings is going to be
plastered all over the stadium. Onethey're gonna like in between innings, dudes

(18:30):
are gonna go to their bookies thejump the JumboTron will will have betting on
it. Strongly, strongly believe this. The A's are just gonna be like,
what are we kuinea pigs? Now? Like what what what are we?
Like? Imagine you imagine you're trainingyour whole fucking life to be a
professional baseball player. You finally getthere, and it's just behind whole plate.
There's just some sleazy fuck that wantsyou to do something very specific in

(18:56):
that like you could even hit ahome run. He won't beat you're supposed
to found the third pitch off.All right, that's how I that's how
I bo had buddy on that youside of a bitch anyway, all right,
this could be its own thing.But yes, okay, so he
won the case that that they weretrying to short the cell. Yeah.

(19:19):
So so for the later case forhis father in law, he won.
He won his father in law onehundred and fourteen million dollars apparently. Uh.
This was interesting partly because um uhhe is uh later accused by a

(19:40):
magazine that no longer exists called Look. Um. He was accused by Look
of accepting uh, I think ofaccepting bribe money, right because of how
these things were paid out to himafter he became a government official, which

(20:03):
did happen. We're about to jumpinto that, okay, but part of
the allegations there and I just thoughtthis was ties in with the fucking Catholic
like Italian Catholic slander, which isfunny that I'm talking about that seriously for
once. Yes, what Look allegedwas that he had clandestine meetings with uh
mafioso's for for the for purposes thatI have not actually seen described anywhere,

(20:29):
which is another issue I'm going toget into. But anyway, this random
magazine was like, Hey, thisguy who has who could potentially run for
vice president has ties to the mob. And he was he doesn't. He
was like, no, like absolutelynot, and and he's and he sues
them for libel and wins. Andyears later, Uh he alleged that they

(20:56):
that Look received false story he's leakedto them by the Nixon administration because they
don't leak things, right, AndI was sitting there and I was like,
that's a that's a bold claim tomake. But we are talking about
Nixon. No, No, Iwas an honest guy, famous, famously,

(21:22):
never famously, never fucked with informationin any respect, incarcerated anyway.
Um. So he's uh, youknow, so okay, So he's a
he's he's a well established uh lawyer. Uh he um has various gigs throughout

(21:49):
the San Francisco government also, UM, I think leading up to some of
his time with the Justice Department.I might be getting some of this backwards
when he served with the Justice Farm, but it's pretty ancillary to what he
served as what a US attorney.Yes, yeah, so he continued being
an antitrust lawyer, just in afederal capacity. It was it was all

(22:11):
it was. It was pretty muchalways in a federal capacity. It was
just it was just that. Eventually, I think he kind of made some
private cases and and what what's interestingif you're if you end up don't do
it now. If you look atthe Wikipedia page for Joseph Valiotto, it
describes this as eventually turning him intoa millionaire. Um. So he uh,

(22:32):
he does eventually have his own practicewhere he represents larger companies against other
larger companies and so he gets kindof rich out of that. And that's
what I think feeds into some ofuh, some of the some of the
hate. But anyway, so he'she's around San Francisco. Never happened before,
he's doing he's doing his motherfucking thing. Um. And he is tapped

(22:56):
to become a finance and pain chairmanfor the mayoral candidate of a senator in
California. State Senator in California whowas named Jay Eugene McTeer. Um.

(23:19):
However, uh, this is goingfine right up until McTeer fucking dies playing
a game of handball. Okay.See, this is one of those things
that I've always wondered if one coulddie playing the game handball, because I've
been passing handball courts since I waslike seven, So of course a boy

(23:42):
wonders is this possible? And nowclearly it is possible. I guess someone
smacked the It's just going to getmore pause from here. Someone smacked the
ball just with such force. It'sagain, um, a big, big

(24:03):
I'm going to talk about this again, A big, big problem with me
researching this, So this, thisis not this is not where I wanted
to start this story, but whatI wanted to talk about was hard to
find reliable sources for yes, describingany of it. I'm good. It's
kind of like seafood City, exceptthat this is a matter of national import.

(24:26):
Well, I won't take that awayfrom is known globally, so all
it is it is a global import. So anyway, I'm sure, I'm
sure I could find the specific reasonwhy. But it just says that mccatier

(24:49):
simply collapsed, and so I stronglysuspect that he had a heart attack and
just at the handball. Shit,he didn't. He died, Yeah,
he died, Okay, I understanding. He died. Game, he died
whild playing. It wasn't a resultof the procedure of the process of handball,

(25:11):
specifically, it was doing. It'snot it's not a particular it's not
a particularly dangerous sport. He I'mI'm I'm sure I'm in. Should I
go? Let me just let mejust see if I can find a picture
of this guy. There's no picturesI can. It's safe to assume he's
a fat fuck and he just hada heart attack. And guy so anyway,
so so so the guy who's actuallyrunning to become mayor of San Francisco

(25:37):
dies somewhere in San Francisco. Sothat kind of puts the kabash to things.
But um Eliotta is sitting there andhe's like, well, I'm perfectly
qualified to become the mayor of SanFrancisco. Why don't I just run?
So he does, and actually heruns on a pro development, pro housing.

(25:59):
San Francisco's always had a fucking housingproblem. He runs on this and
he's expected he's expected to do uhso well that his let me see,
um the uh Shelly uh the theincumbent for the race, John Shelley UM

(26:26):
decided to just not even bother um. He I think, I think publicly
chalked it up to his health.But Alioto was just very popular, um
and so uh Shelley was also expectedto lose against the Republican opponent. So

(26:48):
Alioto UM quite handily beat the opponent, which is Republican. He's a Democrat.
He's a Democrat that which can geta little bit dicey in, I
know, because here, you know, yeah, I know, some people
believed women should have autonomy and somepeople believed not right, you know,

(27:08):
so it was like a whole youknow. So for for example, the
segregation to Humphrey, right, Humphrey, who was the LP right, Um,
I believe, I believe Humphrey actuallysupported the Vietnam War. He may

(27:30):
have in the capacity of vice president, but Humphreys, Humphrey leading up to
that was very left of LBJ.Humphrey was one of like the most where
did I see liberal politicians of histime? Ah anyway, but probably as
VP he did of course. Umanyway, so so he uh Eliotto becomes

(27:56):
the mayor of San Francis. Comeso okay, um, so this is
this is all going well, thisthis happens in Let make sure I can
so this was in nineteen sixty seven. Mm hmm, so he wins.
Everything's great, m Okay. Thisis where the story gets very fucking strange

(28:19):
because all right, so we're in, We're in, We're the year,
but we went back to the yearbefore fucking all catastrophe happens in sixty eight.
Yeah, okay, I was justI was just giving interesting trivia because
because I thought I thought this wasa great topic. But the reason why

(28:41):
this is such a weird episode becausethis is this is where things get fishy
because um, right around and again, as best as I can tell,
during nineteen seventy four, right,so, so we are now in uh
we are now in Alioto's second termas mayor in seventy four, the public

(29:10):
workers of San Francisco are begging thecity for a cost of living adjustment.
So, as best I can tell, the starts with teachers. The teachers
of the s public school system arelike, please, God, like you
have to give us a raise,Yeah, and that power has changed or

(29:33):
right, or we're going to strike. Yeah. Separately, Other places in
California are also having this problem.Okay, so in I know I'm jumping
here, but just trust me.So the next year, in nineteen seventy
five, the LA Police Department verysuddenly announced is that they will have a

(30:00):
pay hike. Right, so theydo start paying the police department. They
do a cost of living adjustment forthe officers of LAPD. Okay, back
in San Francisco, people hear aboutthis, and there's a cop specifically hear
about this s FPD, and they'relike, excuse me, but what the
fuck? We also want more money. You want that cost of living adjustment.

(30:26):
You can't just do that, youget they can't just do that and
not give it to us too,right, So they ask and they're denied,
and this immediately turns into a strike. What's interesting about this is that
so now we have I believe,both teachers and police officers striking at the

(30:48):
same time, which I never foughtit. Thought i'd fucking hear my wife.
Ever, Yeah, I was shocked. I was like, what the
fuck has happening? They both wantmore money. They don't want to help
each other. Yes, but butthat is kind of the point of unions
in a certain respect, right,is that union union is supposed to talk
to each other a little bit,But the police unions do always kind of
stand out as you know, getit done fucking weirdness. So okay,

(31:12):
So, but but who did theyask? They asked the mayor, they
asked Eliota. So so in SanFrancisco, generally speaking, negotiations like this
and a lot of legislation is doneby the supervisors of the city. So
I'm gonna I'm gonna get this wronga little bit and probably oversimplified a lot.

(31:33):
But there's just a handful of supervisorsand every time, every time public
workers want something from the city orwant to negotiate something, they have to
bring it before the supers, right, and the supers take a vote.
I believe there's currently five supervisors forSan Francisco, and that might have even

(31:56):
been true back then. Odd numberswould help, right, Yeah, but
they're in, but the mayor doesn'thave control over them. They the mayor
is is more like the president,whereas the supervisors are kind of like Congress.
Okay, so they kind of worktogether but they don't necessarily answer to
the mayor, right, the mayoras initiatives and it kind of wants to

(32:20):
work with the supervisors to get itgoing. And they're separate. There's also
a council, and it's there's alsostate senators, there's all these other things
too. Bodies, yes, butbut this is this is like this is
this is like in San Francisco.Yeah, okay, yeah, so so
the so first throughout I believe seventyfour and into seventy five, all these

(32:46):
different public agencies, including SFPD havebeen showing up talking to the super as,
being like, hey, like wewant to put this on a ballot,
we want to pay raise. Youdon't get it, like it's it's
dangerous out here, like it's livinghere is expensive and difficult. Right,

(33:07):
and the supers, the supers,city government whatever, keep turning them down.
Right. I don't know if that'snecessarily all all on the supervisors plate,
but yeah, for one reason oranother, these this is denied over
and over again. Then the thingin La happens, and everybody's like it's
fucking possible, Fuck you, we'regonna strike, okay, And this is

(33:30):
where I seriously lose the plot becauseI have I have quite a bit of
trouble determining exactly when everyone starts strikingfor something. It's it's crazy because I
thought about this a little bit.I was, like I today, you
would kind of expect that every likemainstream news outlet would be churning out shitty

(33:52):
articles about the current state of thingseverywhere, just because like you, you
expect constant updates about everything all thetime, right, And if you go
to like a local news source,would expect a more well written but not
as easily found description of these things. I can't find shit, just to
be honest, because it was stilllike the past times. There was still
fucking paper saying man falls right,and and also it's like it's like and

(34:17):
also a lot of stuff just returnswith new wig. It doesn't seem to
be indexed very well, yea ifit if it exists, and I think
there's a good chance just a lotlesship wasn't written, because I think that
I have a strong suspicion that backthen San Francisco was considered it was.
It was still an important city inthe seventies, right, and like I
think things clearly happened there. Wealmost had a vice president from there,

(34:38):
like it was important, right,but like I don't think it was the
I don't think it was, Likeit certainly didn't, to my knowledge,
have the kind of scrutiny that itattracts today because it's been such an important
city for decades. Right to me, it seems more like San Francisco,

(34:59):
as as a port city and asa place where important things happened, would
kind of be comparable to Like,like I wanted you to think about how
often Indianapolis comes up in conversation today. It's an important city. There's a
lot of military shit there, butlike I don't find myself talking about fucking
Indianapolis all that often, right,So there you go. Um, so

(35:21):
it's not quite congruent. But anyway, that's what's going on. And so
there's just not a lot. There'snot a lot written about the lead up
to this, right, Like nothingthat I could find suggests that maybe I
should have tried a few other things. But anyway, so this I'm just
saying this. Motherfuckers couldn't write it. But it's it's just funny good because

(35:44):
like it jumps from like at once, like these things are cross referenced the
teachers and the police, but they'rebut it. No one ever says like,
oh, because the teachers and allthe other public works agencies we're complaining
about this, then the police didit. It doesn't you know anyway,
just saying, so the strike happens. I believe it starts on like that

(36:09):
the beginning of August in nineteen seventyfive, right, okay, or towards
the beginning of August, the policesay, hey, you know what,
we're not showing at the fucking workanymore. Right. What's interesting about this
is that, at least back thenand again this was a very difficult thing
to verify. There's actually was alaw in California that prevents the police from

(36:36):
going on strike. They're not allowedto do that. I know, I
know in New York has something likethat too, and I and I tried
looking into this. A matter offact, I even fucking asked chat GPT
and it named a specific law andI was like, can you quote it?
And it was like no, Sothen I went Then I went looking
for it, and it was verydifficult to find a specific text online that

(36:57):
said like this is the section thatsays you can't do it, so it
might have been removed in the timesince chat gpteam might have been lying to
me. Nothing is truth anymore,which is a very cool thing about being
alive in twenty twenty three. Yeah, there is there is no reality.
I can't. I can't. Ifit was already hard to determine what happened,
now we just have bullshit and thecomputer is literally fucking Why do we

(37:19):
need to know what laws are?Remember? Who the fuck? Why would
we need to know what laws arefor a major police force. I mean,
I told you when I was researchingresidency requirements and I wanted a four
year request. But before that,I was like, let me call a
department, and the lady and thedetective picked up, and she was like,
we're trying to saw mart Is outhere, all right, but you're

(37:42):
on the phone with me. Andwhile you're on the phone with you,
you're you're you're the person. You'rethe person who answers the fucking phone.
Okay if yeah, you're answering meand you don't know my numbers, so
you're answering randos um. And itisn't unheard of for research to be done
on the police department in one ofthe largest cities, literally the largest police

(38:02):
department in the country and the largestpopulated city in the country. Isn't unheard
of for someone to like get information. You could just say, give me,
give me two minutes. Yeah,I mean so and then yeah,
And that was just to figure out, you know, the residency requirements.
Ultimately I found them out without therequests, and motherfucker's from Putnam can come

(38:28):
to the Bronx and then go backbecause that makes perfect sense. I can
live in fucking Montauk and and andpatrol fucking ma Haven and then be like,
I I care about the community,mind, I don't know about these
fox Yeah right anyway, Yeah,well, and it's interesting, Actually,
it's interesting you mentioned that because whatthe what the police? So what the

(38:52):
police are saying, right, Ijust I just found it kind of interesting
because we would give a lot,I think, today, to have the
police live in the communities where they'regoverning, Like we want to make that
happen in today's world of twenty twentythree. Jay and Jaytown's post Jaytown's birth.

(39:12):
Um, we got to stop usingtheir jokes in but what they're asking
for is like, yo, it'smad expensive to live here, like we
would like to continue living here?Right, Like, can we get a
cost of living adjustment? And onits face not that bad? Right,
we will we will get we willget into that makes sense. But we
will spen for all of us,right, Um, So anyway, okay,

(39:40):
So so we can't find the lawthat is governing the police. I'm
sure it exists on existed, Itexists, it did, it did at
one point exist, and we usedin nineteen seventy five. Okay, and
we know that somewhere because of someone. It's like right next to the nuclear

(40:05):
launch codes and and like a polaroidof of fucking lbj's dick. Um.
So it's like this just should beeasy to access, but instead it's like
any anyway, Okay, So there'sa slaw. They're not supposed to go
on strike. They're not supposed togo on strike because because the it amounts
to such a destructive thing it wouldbe it would be such a disruptive,

(40:30):
it would be such a disruption tothe lives of all the people that are
governed, right that you're just notsupposed to do it. Right, So
this isn't what happened. People wouldn'tget being killed unjustly, all these things
would happen. I did. Idid find in an article about today's SPD.
I did find comments on an article. Uh yeah, comments on an

(40:52):
article about the current issues with SPD. And one of them was from a
person who claimed to be alive backthen and said that though was like two
weeks or whatever that the police wereprotesting were actually some of the most peacefully
in the fucking city. It's andit's funny if you visit, if you
visit, if you visit the Wikipediapage for SFPD, it starts with like

(41:15):
a quote from someone about how youknow, in the eighteen ate eighteen forties
when SPD was founded, that itwas all just like former bandits who wanted
to get their friends out of troubleif they were caught doing shit, and
they were. It was just amob, just a huge extortion racket for
all the businesses and anybody really whohappened to live in San Francisco and tiny

(41:39):
more. Yeah, and it wasand that was just the original thirty officers
who served in the fucking you know, uh, you know base swamps that
would eventually become the city. Yeah. So anyway, fun fun stuff.
Um a couple of days into thestrike. Uh, the matter of the

(42:01):
strike is brought before Judge Robert Drew'swho on August nineteenth orders the police back
to work because their strike is illegal. Mum, this doesn't work, and

(42:22):
it's getting to be a problem becausewhatever that guy on that one news article
said about it being peaceful, itwasn't peaceful on the picket line where all
the cops were, because oh,you're saying that the violence is surrounded,
like they the cops. What you'resaying, See, it seems like wherever
they go. Uh, massive amountsof what type of president has been set

(42:45):
for this? I've never heard ofthat. It's very interesting that I can
find, Genuinely, I think I'ma miracle that I can find no instance
of someone dying during these protests becausethey covered it up and we didn't fucking
google, because enough days go onhere right with these guys protesting. Oh.

(43:06):
Also, I want to say,notably, the I believe the figure
was forty or forty five black officerswho served on SFPD at the time might
have started striking, but otherwise refusedto. They they just stayed on the
job because they were like, weprobably have to do as much protecting now

(43:28):
as ever in the history, becauseI think about it, the cops are
like, we're no longer cops duringthis period, So if we want to
be racist and brutal, we coulddo it without having to have any sort
of investigation. We could just takeour badges off. I mean, it's
like it's like then, like bothextremes of the street crime and the crime

(43:51):
from the police can just easily descendon the most vulnerable communities. So I
definitely understand that. So they stayon the job. And actually that comes
up later. Okay, the policewho are picketing, um are after a
couple of days, decide, uh, let's just have some fucking fun with

(44:15):
it, and they start getting blitzed. They just start drinking. They start
housing beer, um hosing beer ratheruh while they're out picketing. So they're
just drunk. A lot of theseguys are just drunk running around with backwards
are Things weren't going the way theywanted to, and they were like,
all right, it's time to bringout the fucking you know, the Trump

(44:37):
card here, Let's get fucking let'sget fucking slashed. Then they'll be taken
more seriously, not only are theygetting hammered while you know, I guess
slurring their yelled words at if.I don't know where they were picketing,
it might it might have been thatit might have been at city Hall,
but it might have also been atthe police department anyway. Um, not

(44:58):
only that, they are uh takingtheir guns with them to protest, and
they are shooting out things like streetwise, they're shooting, they're shooting city property
basically, right, they're destroying cityproperty while they protest. I thought that
was called the criminal elements. Drunkenpeople shooting just chaos, yep. Yeah,

(45:22):
but they're doing it. It's it'sit's a little bit crazy because even
with all the well crazy shit happensin San Francisco today. But I actually
one of the things I don't hearabout all that often is a drunk person
waving a fucking gun around. Yeahmore more, pay more beer with this

(45:45):
buds on. Yeah that would betaken seriously. So uh, at some
point during I don't I don't yetbelieve, I don't yet believe the U
has hit the judge's desk on Augustnineteenth yet, but sometime during this protest,

(46:06):
like sometime between August first and thenineteenth, the ACLU brings a suit
against the SFPOA, the Police OfficersAssociation, because they're they're not arguing against
the police uh and their ability orlack thereof, to strike, but they

(46:28):
are saying, if you're going tostrike, you can't bring your fucking weapons
to it. Yes, okay,you have to leave the guns at home
if you're going to strike. Okay, we found our hero. Um.
The decision on that muh reaches thesame judge's desk. The day after he

(46:50):
declares, he reminds everyone that thestrike is illegal. So on the nineteenth
he's like, hey, by theway, this strike is a yeah,
great job. This guy has.Right, he's he's probably get his Google
islander on lock because he's got hecan't he can't miss either of these meetings.
All right, Well, but butagain it's hard to know when these
things were filed. It could behappening in five minutes, it could be
happening over five days. I reallyit's very difficult for me to ascertain.

(47:13):
Yeah, but dropping on his desksome reasonable Yeah, in full fairness,
I could also be doing a kindof shit job of researching things or Google
sucks dick, which it does.So, um So on the NINETEENES he's
like, hey, just a reminder, this strike is fucking illegal. Go
back to work, right, theydon't. On the twentieth he's like,
the ACLU is right, you can'tbring your weapons to go strike here.

(47:37):
They don't care. They keep theirguns while they're protesting, right, because
the strike doesn't exist, so theguns don't. Right. So also on
or very near to the twentieth,a little city supervisor by the name of

(48:00):
Ian Feinstein. Yeah, uh,calls or or I couldn't quite tell if
she if she called him or hada press conference where she urged him to
do so, because again, whythe fun would there be any articles written
about that urges may Or Alioto?Okay, who actually she ran against in

(48:21):
seventy one and lost, right,So that's part partly who he won against.
Right. So this is where atthe beginning of of sort of the
beginning of Finstein's career here, whichis interesting because it's you know, she's
literally falling off her own bones.Um, the me describing somebody describing somebody
as ribs, Yeah, yeah,yeah, she has somebody as as a

(48:44):
smoked rib. She's a she's ashe's a chuck ross. That's been that's
been, that's been roasted for fivehours, except the five hours is the
like five decades between then and now. Yeah, and she is, uh,
she is really anyway that that can'ttaste good? Um so the um

(49:09):
yeah. At any rate, sheurges the mayor. She's like, listen,
what are you doing? You haveto call the fucking governor, who
at this time I believe is JerryBrown. I believe his name is Governor
Jerry Brown of California. Does JerryBrown not know what the fuck is happening
in this city? Well, Ithink the governor needs to wait until the

(49:32):
mayor declares that there's a problem,right, But he could check in which
is which is what? Well,that's what? Okay, But that's what
Finstein's doing. She's calling him,right, And she's like, bro,
declare a state of emergency. Callthe governor, tell him to send the
state troops in. Right. Soshe's telling she Finstein is telling Auyoto,

(49:53):
right, ask him for two hundredstate troopers to get down here, a
fucking sap, right, Because thenI believe the implicit this isn't said in
any any of the references that Icould find. But I believe what she's
saying is if we get the statepolice down here, it's not just for
the safety of the city. It'sbecause if we have state troopers on hand,

(50:14):
right, and we know now,we know what the fucking rules are,
which is why I believe that thiscall happened in August twentieth, right,
that the strike is illegal, andthat no one's supposed to have their
fucking guns because it's a pensive publicsafety issue. That now the issue is
the state troopers can show up andbe like, Okay, either you're going
back to work or you're getting arrestedby us, and we answer, we
answer to a higher power than youdo. Motherfucker. Right. That's the

(50:37):
true Jaytown, So Governor Jerry Brown, Jay Town. Governor Jay Brown,
Jaytown, j Brown, Jay Brown. Boys, Okay, I understand what
you're saying, that he's supposed tobe called in. This is like criminal
minds, all right, there's amurderer on the loose, there's seven people,

(50:58):
all right, but Hodge, wecan't go in until the municipality gives
us a call. It's like,damn, I guess we'll just watch it.
Happen. But I'm just like Jerrycould just say, so, uh,
how's it going. He could checkin for all I know. But
this is the again, this isthe problem with the research that I did

(51:20):
here is because I suspect that's happening. The problem is that from from for
all intents and purposes, I thinkwhat Elioto is trying to do is he's
trying to He's trying to say,like, look, some decision can be
reached here, right, like,like none of this shit has to happen.
I just I just need you motherfuckersto like calm down, Yeah,

(51:42):
right, do your fucking jobs.Like let's let's let's kind of reset a
little bit and then we can talk. Right But like I can't if you're
doing something illegal, what I'm not. I can't just acquiesce to you doing
something legal because that sounds a badprecedent. Right. So he's I think
he's I think he's trying I thinkhe's trying to de escalate ship with the
police on one side, and soon the other side, he's trying to

(52:07):
get the probably talking. If he'stalking with the governor, trying to be
like hey, look like just holdon, like I'm I'm, I'm a
fucking lawyer, like I can dothis, right, just hold on,
I think, is what's happening.Right, But all the while he still
has to deny the requests, oror he has to he might have to

(52:28):
throw his backing behind the supervisors oror who or whoever is denying these requests.
Right, So m August twentieth aswe don't know what time. I
believe it's at night, Alioto isso anyway anyway, so the state poet
so fine Stain is out there,like the state police should be here,

(52:51):
right. Uh. Because of this, Alioto greeted at his home by a
sign planted in his yard that verysimply says, don't threaten us m by

(53:13):
the police. Right, they canwrite that sentence, okay, microsoft word
and then and then a bomb isdetonated in his front yard. Wow.
So so we go, we golike zero to one hundred here, real
fucking fast again, he he Hebarely has time to consider the fucking message

(53:37):
being sent, right, which isalready which in itself is threatening enough.
Right. Yeah, It's like whenthe light goes to green and the New
Yorker hanks. It's like there wasno time for the car to accelerate.
It just green honk yeah, andagain sounding nothing like the type of thing

(53:58):
that the police are con suddenly fuckinggetting roided up about someone else doing to
our city. They're coming into ourcity, rain and terror, yep,
shooting the lights, blowing up ourlawns where our families are. But aren't
you kind of doing that? It'sit's crazy. It's a little bit crazy

(54:22):
because I mean, yeah, they'reliterally I mean it's sort of funny because
like we want, we want thepolice to live in the places where they
govern so that they give a shit. But it is funny because they're saying,
hey, we live here, wewant to cost a living adjustment,
and then when they don't get it, they literally start destroying the very city
they live in, you know whatI mean. Like it's not that that

(54:45):
doesn't they're not even thinking that fuckingthat fucking critically about it. They're just
they're just like firing guns in theair and shit, you know what I
mean? Yeah, yeah, whathappened to like that ship that they yell
at people when you know, unarmedshootings just go completely unchecked and and police
I go with, you know,impunity and like a few CBS is get
their windows broken and the cops arelike, you're destroying your own city,

(55:07):
and it's like it's they get theyget. No one even died, they
just didn't get a raise, whichI agree people should get raises, but
it's like, how many people onthis earth I want to raise don't get
it and don't go around shooting thingsright right? Incredible? All right,
So it's it's I think it's worthI think it's probably worth mentioning that it

(55:30):
does seem like there is a schismit not. I don't just mean with
the with the forty black officers whodidn't strike. There also does seem to
be some kind of reference, andI'll get to this again later on,
in a schism between two different sortof factions within the police department. Of
those who are like, yeah,okay, well we should probably just go

(55:50):
back to fucking work, and thenthe other assholes who are like, no,
fuck you get drunk, shoot shit, protest right right right? And
also you detonation in the mayor's frontone so there has kids and is married
too. That's I meant to lookthat up before we started this episode.
Not that you know, he stilldeserves safety and just just wondering. He

(56:13):
yes, he certainly does. Hegot married during the bomb, like like
decepted during the fucking earthquake. Hethe bomb goes off of the frit He's
like, honey, we got abone. No, no, no,
the bomb goes off and then helocks eyes with like a woman across the
street, and like again, justhow Italians get married in San Francisco.

(56:37):
It's funny you mentioned that because hewas married. He was married to one
and Jelina Jannaro for thirty six yearsuntil two years after this happened. For
someone that's being accused of mom affiliations, not the best last name. Uh,

(57:00):
that is a crime family. Ofcourse, they probably all come from
the same place centuries ago, soI'm sure there's many Gennaros. But now,
yeah, just just not great soundbites, okay, So so anyway,
so yes, so yes, yes, And he has eight kids.

(57:20):
Eight so he has. If thisman has eight children, it does not
describe, It doesn't say who they'reall too, But judging by the age
he would be by the time hedivorced his first wife, I'm guessing most
of, if not all, ofthose kids were to his first wife.
Yeah, okay, wow, that'sterrible man. This okay, So this,
this happens right right there. Soso the next day, August twenty,

(57:49):
first, he advises all the supervisorsthat they need to concede to the
striker's devance. He's like, Yo, that shit happened. We should just
go now, right, like,just just talking, do it right you
by, it's not we can talkabout whether or not it's the right decision.

(58:10):
I don't think it is, butyou might understand why he thinks that.
Yeah, yeah, right. Soso he tells the supervisors this,
and all the supervisors, including dyingfine Stein, are like, no,
it's an illegal strike. We we'renot saying yes to this, right,
Sorry, are the teachers getting anyattention? No, they're not. Not.

(58:34):
To the best, to the bestof my abilities, they're not.
And I and I and I haveabsolutely no idea if they ended up at
the costume of living adjustment because ofthis. I'm telling you, the cops
a few things don't go their way. Everybody suffers incredible Ye okay, So
that happens. And now this iswhere shit gets, you know, square

(58:55):
away, because because he then,uh, instead of making the fucking phone
call that Feinstein told him to make, which I think was what would have
been the right decision, right,But then again, you know again,
like you said, everybody's getting boppedout here, right. So he,

(59:16):
I think part partly was running throughhis head is like, Okay, well
I can make that phone call andhave the state troops in here, but
that's going to take a couple ofhours. And well, now a lot,
a lot can happen in a coupleof hours. Right. They know
where they know where he lives,They've they've obviously don't give a shit about

(59:38):
threatening him, They've already detonated aliteral fucking bomb on his property. I
think I think he's I think he'slike, Okay, you know what,
I'm cooked here, We're we're good. So I think he's I think he's
so. Anyway, so he doesfinally just declare a state of emergency,
but rather than making that phone call, he uses it to assume the legislative

(01:00:00):
powers of the supervisors, so they'reout of the picture. You can do
that, yes, and he grantsthe strikers demands. Wow. Uh,
And there's just a little bit offollow up there. I mean them,

(01:00:23):
the supervisors representing basically all of thetaxpayers, from what I can tell,
sued. But the problem apparently wasthat the even though the strike was illegal,
the contract they asked for was notright. It was just a fucking

(01:00:44):
contract that happened to be delivered duringan illegal strike. So the court was
like, well, yeah, itwas an illegal strike and that sucks,
so you shouldn't have listened, butyou did and you signed it. So
it's a eally minding contract. Sothey got their cost of living adjustment.

(01:01:05):
It's basically like it's basically as ifhe gave them a new contract while they
were working, almost because the strikedoesn't exist. I'm guessing that isn't I'm
guessing that's how I went down.Yeah, it's like it's like it's essentially
he can give them a new contract. They can they can want a raise,

(01:01:25):
and he can grant that raise.They just can't go on strike in
the meantime. But it's like thestrike didn't exist in legal terms, it
didn't exist, so it can't beit can't be granted on the basis of
the strike, but a contract canbe offered at any point. So that's

(01:01:45):
interesting. Um, and and thenhuh so they so anyway, so this
so the supervisor. Basically, thepeople and their supervisors are like, we
have to sue. They try andthey lose, but the supervisors aren't fucking
done because fine, scene and theother I don't know how many there are.

(01:02:07):
I'm guessing it's I'm guessing it's four. Um are like, Okay,
well, we're putting a measure onthe ballot that takes away the mayor's emergency
powers so that you can't ever fuckingdo something like that again. And also
if the police ever fucking strike again, they all immediately get fired, so

(01:02:29):
they you know, but effectively thesame thing would happen. You understand that,
because if they all get fired,you have no police. But I
think you need you need to hireall the police again. Yes you would,
but I but I believe, Ibelieve the idea is the same as

(01:02:50):
like you know how in other countriesthat work properly. Um when the when
there normally would be a government shutdownbecause no one can decide on things like
funding. What it causes is notsome emergency that the public has to pay
for. It's an emergency for thelegislators themselves, because suddenly they're all out
of a job and immediate elections areheld. This, this happens in a
lot of countries. Yeah. Right, So if you if you can't,

(01:03:15):
if you can't find a way ofrepresenting everybody, right then fuck you right
now you have to reapply for yourjob. And that basically is what they're
trying to do to the to thepolice further saying like, hey, if
you can't find a way of servingthe public while fighting for your own interests,
then you have no job, Soget fucked. Okay, And this

(01:03:37):
measure passes by unbelievably high margins.Okay, understandable, And that's it as
far as elite Eliotto is concerned.He continues serving as mayor with no future
threats against his life until nineteen seventyfive. I believe it's his last day

(01:04:02):
in sorry, seventy seventies. Thevery beginning of nineteen seventy six is his
last day in office. He decidesnot to run again. I think he.
I think he had that and hewas like, I'm good, I'm
I'm golfics. We're finished. Um. And that was very good for him,
because the next person to take hisplace was he was. He was
succeeded by George Muscone. Musconi,who quite famously was assassinated along with Harvey

(01:04:29):
Milk in the eighties. Oh yeah, so um, so you know,
the threats, threats against the livesof the of the people at the very
top of the city. Uh,didn't stop for quite some time afterwards.
So. UM. I think hekind of saw the writing on the wall
there and figured, all right,we're where If it's not the police,

(01:04:51):
it'll be something. San Francisco seemslike a reasonable bunch, you know,
we're great. Um and uh andyeah, so that that's his mayorship.
Like I said, later on,he went on to he went back to
private practice. Um. He counseledfor the Oakland Raiders against the City of

(01:05:13):
Oakland. Um he um he.Interestingly, he and his own son fought
each other in court against the legalfees from that case about the Oakland Raiders.
That sucks. That sucks, right, UM, But I don't know,
I don't know who's I don't knowwho sucks more. You know.
Yeah, I just didn't I didn'tcheck in on that. Um. And

(01:05:38):
he lived to the very beginning ofnineteen ninety He died on January twenty nine,
nineteen ninety eight, of prostate cancer. So there you go. He
actually he actually outwaived the next mayorof the city. Uh yeah, so

(01:05:58):
there you go. He um hesaw he uh put again. Uh he
was. He saw a lot ofreally crazy shit. I think that that
this. I'm just gonna basically readright off the Wikipedia article for this because
it does a great job summing itup. Um. He saw a lot
of wild shit in his you know, two terms in in in mayoral office.

(01:06:21):
Um he uh was there for theanti Vietnam demonstrations in the city,
the start of the uh cash Rowdistrict and its gay community, the Black
Panther marches throughout the city. Uh, the Zodiac killings. I was just

(01:06:43):
about to say, wasn't that fuckrunning a monk? Yep? This time?
Um he Uh was a big proponentof three things, two of which
I don't think really matter, buthe was. He was a proponent of
the transmer Pyramid, which I thinkshould probably be its own episode sometimes.
Uh. He was a proponent ofthe Embarcadero Center, which you have been

(01:07:09):
to. It's it's actually near theTransamerica Pyramids, so it's basically just a
bunch of office buildings. Um.But for a long time people were very
as as they are now, andthey talk about it fucking endlessly. People
in San Francisco are They used tobe quite concerned about the manhattanization of San
Francisco um and so they did notend as a negative verb. They certainly

(01:07:32):
do and I see that, andI don't like it. And they and
they did not want any tall officebuildings crowding the San Francisco skyline. So
you can see where that was aprevailing attitude today comes from. In terms
of housing. Something worn't. Imean, I understand not wanting skyscrapers and

(01:07:54):
shit, but it's just like oncethat spreads to not building I don't know,
apartments. It's really you can havedifferent areas, like there still going
to be a ton of San Franciscothat's very low and that's fine, but
you can have an area that looksmore like a metropolis and then you don't
have to live there if you don'twant to. Anyway, I'll stop being
in New York. So he ranon those two and also my personal favorite,

(01:08:17):
he ran h quite heavily on thedevelopment of the Bay Area Rapid Transit
System, or BART, which hadnot yet been built by the time he
initially assumed office, and it wasit was decidedly more ambitious back when it
was proposed than it actually ended upbeing by the time it was built.

(01:08:40):
But uh, just very cool thathe you know, gave enough of a
ship. There were other things thathe ran on that sucked, like you
know, lowering taxes and whatever.I mean that it's just usually talking affordable
housing. Uh he cared about that. I don't. I don't know that
he necessarily cared about affordable hou him, but I think I think he knew
that the city needed to be developedfurther in order to accommodate more housing,

(01:09:02):
which is why he put energy intoa corporate you know space, because you
need more people wanting it in orderto fucking get it, which we're sort
of in the middle of figuring out. That is not um and and what
happened to Gieseppe not much as mentionedZeppe. I'm i'm uh oh, there

(01:09:28):
is a section on his family.I forgot. I forgot the um I
forgot the arc here of just upto Hellyoto. All all we know,
uh is about his parents is thatis where they met and when they had
him, as far as I know. UM. But interestingly, his so

(01:09:50):
he he divorces his wife in nineteenseventy seven. Um, and he marries
a he marries another one and namedKathleen Sullivan. Uh. Yeah, Kathleen
Sullivan. Who this is? Um, the son this is? But just
Seth is the father? Doeseppe isthe is the the father who is an

(01:10:11):
immigrant? Who who? Uh?Who gave birth to the mayor Joseph Valiotto?
Right right, but but that's allthat's all we know about. That's
all we know. Okay. JosephValiotto divorced in seventy seven and then married
Kathleen Sullivan, who was a politicianin Boston. Interestingly, Uh, they

(01:10:34):
they were married, but um,because they had both been divorced. Uh,
their marriage was not approved by thechurch and therefore needed to be performed
by an excommunicated priest and an activistby the name of Joseph O. Rourke.

(01:10:55):
That's some that's some nice peacemaking Italiansand Irish yep, and his one
of his seven children, Angela andAlioto Yes, sorry, one of his
eight children. Apologies, maybe heforgets. Tom served on the Board of

(01:11:17):
Supervisors for San Francisco. She servedeight years as a member of as a
super and there's some legacy there,and one of her three sons campaigned for
a California State Senate seat in twothousand and eight. One of his granddaughters,
MICHAELA. Alioto Pierre, was appointedto the Board of Supervisors in two

(01:11:42):
thousand and three by San Francisco atthe time Mayor Gavin Newsom, and then
was elected to the board the followingyear. His grandson ran unsuccessfully for a
seat on the supervisor's board in Districtthree. Several of his sons, as
well as many of his grandchildren,our successful attorneys and business people in the
San Francisco Bay area, and thatis the Auiota family, all right.

(01:12:09):
So that is the story of howa bomb was detonated during which is what
I really wanted the story to beabout. During the nineteen seventy five Policeman's
sfpn SO police did everything by thebook, followed all the rules to a
t, absolutely no worries. Everythingthat they talk about. They walk that

(01:12:30):
blue line to a new contract.Yep, yeah, they you know,
they just did it right, youknow, And that's that's that's why they
went. And I'm sure they wouldsupport any other group and demographic doing the
exact same thing for the same humanneed of a living wage. I'm sure

(01:12:54):
if even if it was just theblack officers who did that, I'm sure
they would be completely on board,especially if they were out of uniform.
Oh boy. Sources for this wereunfortunately mostly Wikipedia. Um. I've hinted
at this a lot. But areally really big issue that I suspect is

(01:13:15):
not entirely unintentional with researching this isthat, uh, the links are fucking
dead. There's a lot of linkrot if you try to, like there
were there were papers about this writtenallegedly by uh within or held by Berkeley,
which um, historically is really reallygood with you know, fucking software.

(01:13:36):
Um. You know, it's onlylike it's only like the leader and
whatever, uh gone couldn't find it. Um, the cops love Berkeley.
All of the all of the articlesthat you think would be written about the
lead up to this didn't really seemto get written. The chronicle I've cover

(01:14:00):
for this, they might have,and it just this is the other fucking
problem is that, like, I'msure that local outlets were writing things,
but the chronicle is I believe,paywalled. And also I couldn't find anything
from it because Google is of heapingpile of fucking flaming shit these days,

(01:14:21):
which is super cool and um,and researching anything about existing laws is also
really hard because a lot of alot of the easy, easy to find
answers are also paywalled. Even thoughyou know all that stuff is open somewhere,
it's just difficult to actually fucking geta hand on it, and it's
difficult to tell. And it's difficultto tell when the laws change when all

(01:14:44):
you have access to is the currentset um, so then there needs to
be a record of it having beenchanged, and that was a very difficult
thing find. One I do wantto highlight though, um the one good
sort of prime very source that Ifound here? Can I Can I find
it? I don't even have thefucking tab open anymore? So cool.

(01:15:09):
I love when that happens. Goddamn it. I had a tab open,
I guess too long ago for myshitty ass computer about uh sorry rather
published by the SF Police Officers Association, and it was the first call post

(01:15:31):
strike by the Association for a UnitedPolice Department and SF because they were like,
listen, we need to we knowa lot of you descended to the
fact that we went on strike.We know a lot of you didn't agree
with the methods, which is kindof funny that any of that could be

(01:15:54):
described as methods. But we needto as as police officers, shit for
us as hard, and we needthe public to see a unified police force
when it comes to, you know, actually walking up to the ballot and
hopefully voting for us. So sothis whole there's a there's a whole issue
of this fucking thing dedicated to likethis is what we should get. And

(01:16:16):
to be honest, I can't evenbelieve I'm saying this. A lot of
it is is would be considered progressivenow, like the fact that the fact
that someone was even thinking about itback in seventy fucking five when it was
published kind of crazy because I'm sure, I'm sure plenty of police departments don't
have anything approaching the kinds of resourcesthat the that uh, you know,

(01:16:40):
the POA wanted for SFPD back then, which included things like, hey,
maybe we should have some fucking therapistson staff. So like, no,
no, it was, it wasit, it had it had I was
only flipping through it um because itwas it was surprised and Wong, But
it really didn't seem to include muchabout, you know, the It didn't

(01:17:03):
seem to include almost anything about whatwould eventually become the militarization of the police
under President Bush, right, whichis when a lot of that shit happened.
It was just it was just like, hey, uh, you know,
we're left to deal with the fuckingcrazy people. Our job is fucking
stressful. Uh, we need tobe able to Like there's a significant amount

(01:17:27):
of copaganda thrown in there too,where it's like, yeah, you know,
there's just no way for the stressof a of a dangerous situation to
escape, and it's like, well, it does escape, and you beat
the shit out of people for nogood fucking reason, right, And you
know that's that's a story as allthis time. You could ask all about
that, but you know, they'relike, it's it was interesting to see

(01:17:48):
them ask for an actually productive wayof being like, hey, you know
what, if this job is stressfuland shitty, like, maybe we should
do uh, maybe we should haveeven though we're worried about numbers, we
should probably have more selective vetting becausesometimes people find out that they were never
cut out for this job. Inthe heat of the moment and like a

(01:18:08):
gunfight is not the time, right, And then there's some less and there's
some less progressive things in there wherethey're like, hey, everybody reading this
at some point another has been inhot pursuit of a car and it's like,
okay, that's not even that's genuinelynot even allowed today. And ssp,
you're not allowed to do police chase. No, I can't do it

(01:18:30):
right because it's it's more it's actuallymore dangerous to bystanders. Yeah, exactly.
So, uh so it's like abad guy, right, we've all
needed to just chase down the badguy. And it's like, all right,
all right, maybe all of ushaven't. And also slow your roll,
right, like wait, let's soanyway, don't worry, we're the
good guys. My leg right,right, my leg? Yeah, yeah,

(01:18:57):
I just find it funny, like, all right, regardless of our
methods, we need to be aunified for uns. That makes it sound
like either we all didn't eate thebomb or no one didn't. It doesn't
make it sound like. It doesn'tmake it sound like, guys, we
got to talk about what happens.You didn't make a fucking bomb. On
Discuy's lawn, that that can't happen. That's what a normal fucking person would
say that cared about public safety.Very very Notably, the whole first page

(01:19:24):
is dedicated exclusively to being like,look, we all have to just sort
of be in lockstep going forward here, and not like we need to kind
of resolve our differences and talk aboutwhat happened because of how fucking insane it
was. Yeah, yeah, talkabout what happened and that. Yeah,
So anyway, they gloss over itcompletely. And actually, I'm sorry,

(01:19:45):
I don't think I don't think themethods were ever really brought up. I
think it's just whether they strike orwhether they don't. Was a was a
big conflict within the department itself,and that's what they want to talk about,
not you know, the actual fuckingbomb that went off or the street
lights that got shot out or anything. So do you have it? So

(01:20:06):
the police deescalated, that's what Iexpected the story was about. Indeed,
indeed they did. They could havegone with the fucking f one jet.
They said, we're gonna restrain ourselvestoday, boys, Yeah, we're gonna
drop a bomb in some way.I almost think we're lucky that all they

(01:20:30):
did was shootout street lights instead ofpeople. They were also drunk, they
were cold. For all I know, they could have been aiming for people,
and they're just like, ah,you know all the way up all
right? Well, uh I feelthe same today, and that happens anyway.

(01:20:55):
Thank you for tuning in. Thiswas first frolic. Hope everybody I
did, Evan, hope you enjoyedit. M I did. I'm glad
I wasn't frolicking during nineteen seventy fivein San Francisco. I think I genuinely,
knowing what I do about the seventies, think anyone who lived through it
is lucky to have lived through it. Mhm. So there you go.

(01:21:16):
All right, Well I'll go backto my manhattanization. Yep, getting your
getting your tall building you've under fall. Drinking my Manhattan in my cocktails Mark
teenis okay instead of what much?M all right anyway, So long ago