Sad Francisco
Sad Francisco
Toshio Meronek
Covering the end of capitalism from a "far Left" trans/queer POV.
I Love Boosters (Sad Framecisco #3)
Brutal honesty is all we have for Boots Riley's overstuffed filmic ode to shoplifters and maybe communism, I Love Boosters. Topics discussed include: The Coup's early work Betrayal by union leaders Megan Ellison, the alleged black sheep of the Zionist Ellison dynasty Tax credits they give you to film a movie set in the Bay in Georgia The Leaning Tower of Millennium A vow for the next episode to feature a movie we would actually recommend dee(dee) c. ardan, Jemma DeCristo, and Ralowe T. Ampu return for what turned into a roast of an episode. - Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco 
Jul 1
2 hr 6 min
FKA Bornstein & Bornstein
A monologue revisiting a Truthout piece I wrote back in 2014 for this solo episode and stroll down memory lane featuring a Gay Shame action, crying in eviction court, and one of eviction lawyer Daniel Bornstein's boring-ass webinars where he explains the tricks of his trade. Daniel (who runs Bornstein Law—formerly known as Bornstein & Bornstein) is a white guy who's used his adopted Black kids as a cynical marketing tool, and describes landlords as the state's "whipping boy." He counsels his clients on the best ways get around tenant laws so they can smoothly empty their properties of lower-income people, and jack up the rent till life is unaffordable for everyone except Zionist property owners like himself.  Truthout: Tutors in the Fine Art of Eviction Under Fire in San Francisco Gay Shame documentation of a direct action at the Bornstein & Bornstein offices, then located off Polk Street Bornstein Law's webinar: Creating Vacancy Without an At Fault Eviction 'Villain' eviction attorneys Bornstein & Bornstein break up, sue each other (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez in SF Examiner) Oakland landlords hold rally demanding end to eviction moratorium (CBS News) Bay Area Legal Aid (free lawyers for tenants) Eviction Defense Collaborative (also free lawyers for tenants)
Jun 17
24 min
Home Sweet Surveillance State with Ian Firstenberg
Ian covers local oligarchs and the surveillance state for 48Hills and The Phoenix Project. We talk about FLOCK adding microphones to their camera network, state repression after the anti-cop protests of summer 2020, and how crypto oligarch Chris Larsen bought off the Trump regime. Ian in 48Hills: "Flock keeps spying on us all, and state and local officials aren't protecting us": https://48hills.org/2026/05/flock-keeps-spying-on-us-all-and-state-and-local-officials-arent-protecting-us/   And previously: "Inside SF's private surveillance state": https://48hills.org/2025/10/sfs-private-surveillance-state/ Ian at the Phoenix Project on Chris Larsen and his billionaire friends' latest mission: to kill attempts at a billionaire tax https://www.phoenixprojectnow.com/phoenix-review/blog/special-report-the-billionaire-tax-revolt Episodes: Erin McElroy on landlord surveillance tech: https://www.patreon.com/posts/landlord-tech-f-109663054 Jeremy Mack on The Phoenix Project's report on the rightwing rascals behind San Francisco's Doom Loop: https://www.patreon.com/posts/rise-and-fall-of-147853607 Get tickets to our live podcast show in San Francisco on 6/25: QUEERS AGAINST ZIONISM with Judith Butler, Mama Ganuush, and more (a benefit for Bay2Gaza Mutual Aid) https://buytickets.at/heritageactivistsliberationartists/2224123 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco 
Jun 1
46 min
The ADL is An Actual Psyop with Emmaia Gelman and Mama Ganuush
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) started as a civil rights organization for Jewish people in the US. It's now a pro-Israel group that spies on Leftist organizations and defends Elon Musk when he does a white power salute. Emmaia Gelman's new book The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State details the history of the Zionist group that influences everything from the history written into American textbooks, to the way headlines are written in mainstream news. Next, Mama Ganuush returns to discuss two gay Zionists running for election in the Bay who have helped manufacture consent for genocide in Palestine who you will know well if you're a regular listener, Manny Yekutiel and Scott Wiener. 'The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State' releases 6/16/2026, pre-order with code UCPSAVE30 at University of California Press https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-anti-defamation-league-and-the-racial-state/hardcover Emmaia's site https://emmaiagelman.com/ Past Palestine episodes https://www.patreon.com/collection/383604 *** Get tickets to our live podcast show on 6/25: QUEERS AGAINST ZIONISM with Judith Butler, Mama Ganuush, and more (a benefit for Bay2Gaza Mutual Aid) https://buytickets.at/heritageactivistsliberationartists/2224123 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco 
May 25
1 hr 12 min
Sweaty DesperAzn with Chris Lee and Jasmine Lee-Ehrhardt
Two Wasian Americans and one classic, everyday Asian American, all millennials, try to make sense of East Asian American discourses in the zeitgeist of the past six months. Recorded shortly before the cursed Wasian meetups in SF and NY. 1. CS graduation rates fall off a cliff. For a particular class of Asian Americans, computer science degrees were a step in the direction of the American Dream. Now that tech oligarch's true nature as warmongers who hate humanity and want to replace workers with data centers has been revealed, where will they go? See: DailyCal, "UC Berkeley CS major enrollment on pace to drop by 59% as part of nationwide trend" https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/academics/uc-berkeley-cs-major-enrollment-on-pace-to-drop-by-59-as-part-of-nationwide/article_8ceded3c-d939-4f60-8aa4-110be003c4e3.html 2. Is the Laufey music video starring Alyssa Liu, Hudson Williams, a Katseye member and other Wasians of Hollywood a Wasian supremacist cultural object? See: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/1sodav8/wasian_obsession_in_the_western_media/ 3. Benjamin Champagne Song is a political prisoner convicted as part of Pam Bondi (RIP) and Andy Ngo's effort to kill dissent and funnel more money to the white power movement and DHS contractors. Fanmail to (as of May 2026): BENJAMIN HANIL SONG, #11137-512, FMC Fort Worth, FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER, P.O. BOX 15330, FORT WORTH, TX 76119 4. 2025 ended with Asian (and to an extent, Black) TikTok Gen Z thru Gen X consumed by H-Martgate, which started as a joke questioning non-Asian peoples' place in Asian grocery stores. See: Madeline Qi's original TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@say_qis/video/7546343858146118926 5. The birth rate in the US is now well below "replacement rate": Are Hell Joseon (South Korea) and other East Asian countries a window into our future? See: Namuwiki: https://en.namu.wiki/w/N포세대 Chris on the anti-trans, red scare Falun Gong cult (known for its Epoch Times newspaper and Shen Yun anti-communist dance troupe spectaculars): https://www.patreon.com/posts/falun-gong-and-122689473 Jasmine on the problem with Waymos being personified and racialized as Asian: https://www.patreon.com/posts/waymos-arent-lee-120643766 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco 
May 18
1 hr 34 min
Sad Framecisco #2: Electric Dreams
dee(dee) and Jemma return to dissect another vintage film set in the Bay. Did Hollywood predict Sam Altman would meet his husband in Peter Thiel's hot tub? Seeking an answer in "Electric Dreams" (1984), an extremely 1980s rom-com in which a young architect working out of the Transamerica Pyramid programs an early PC into a Frankenstein-ian monster. Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder: Together in Electric Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVJYBPQyFTQ Previously: Watching "Dirty Harry" https://www.patreon.com/posts/movie-club-dirty-152490581 AI is Being Force Fed to Students and Professors with Martha Kenney https://www.patreon.com/posts/ai-force-feeding-144687776 Aesthetics of the New Rightwing Tech Intelligentsia with Jimmy Wu https://www.patreon.com/posts/aesthetics-of-wu-148707467 Stop AI https://www.patreon.com/posts/end-agi-before-127632638 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco 
May 16
2 hr 22 min
3 Things Landlords Loathe: Land Trusts, Rent Strikes, and Taxes with Kyle Smeallie
Until Land Back, there's land trusts. Kyle Smeallie from the San Francisco Community Land Trust on removing land from the speculative market and the clutches of real estate industrialists. San Francisco Community Land Trust https://sfclt.org/ Proud Stutter (Maya's podcast) https://www.proudstutter.org/ Episode: Abolish Rent with Leonardo Vilchis and Tracy Rosenthal https://www.patreon.com/posts/abolish-rent-and-119757781
May 6
32 min
Have a Happy Anti-Technofascist May Day Workers' Tour of the Mission with Gay Shame
May Day 2026, QUEER & TRANS NON/WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE for a tour of some historically significant sites in the Mission, detailed on this episode. All hookers, loiterers, shoplifters, street sellers, truants, 1099 queens, gig workers, students, time theft recidivists, hustlers, welfare fags, & SSDI dykes are encourage to attend. May 1 at 7pm, 16th BART Plaza in San Francisco Gay Shame  https://gayshame.net/ Map of Technofascist Terror in the Mission Gay Shame on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gay.shame/ Gay Shame: The Podcast: Anti-Sex Worker Barricades at Capp Street https://gayshame.net/index.php/gay-shame-podcast-episode-9-anti-sex-worker-barricades-at-capp-street-update-and-whats-to-be-done/ Valleywag: Dropbox Dudes Tried to Kick Children Off a Soccer Field https://web.archive.org/web/20200220131518/https://valleywag.gawker.com/dropbox-douchebags-tried-to-kick-children-off-a-soccer-1644947724 Mission Local: SF teacher says she was tricked into 'I Am Not a Monster' BART campaign https://missionlocal.org/2018/01/sf-teacher-says-she-was-tricked-into-i-am-not-a-monster-bart-campaign/ By Hook or By Crook trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvl07NwTIM Episodes: The Redstone Labor Temple f/ Rick Gerharter and Tiny Gray-Garcia https://www.patreon.com/posts/redstone-labor-f-97275952 Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco 
Apr 28
47 min
Black Anarchism vs. State Terror and Billy Porter with Prince Shakur (The Dugout)
Prince Shakur is an anarchist political educator with a book dealing with how he was politicized (When They Tell You To Be Good), a big library of video essays on YouTube, and a Black anarchist podcasts he co-hosts called The Dugout. Prince's site https://www.princeshakur.com/ The Dugout's site https://www.thedugoutpodcast.com/ On YouTube: How To Be A (Better) Organizer in 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWpoN0H2YY More episodes on anarchism https://www.patreon.com/collection/2086623
Apr 24
46 min
AIDS Nonprofit to Gays: Stop "Sexual Mixing" with Michael Scarce
Michael Scarce worked at a now-defunct nonprofit called the Stop AIDS Project till in 2007, he blew the whistle when it began suggesting that to end AIDS, we need to "prevent sexual mixing." Michael's Substack: 'A Parable of Second-Hand Sodomy: Lessons Learned From San Francisco's Failed Attempt at Viral Apartheid in the Name of HIV Prevention' https://gettingbeyondzero.substack.com/p/a-parable-of-second-hand-sodomy-lessons Center for HIV Law and Policy's project against HIV surveillance https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/basic
Apr 20
58 min
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