Sad Francisco

Morgan Bassichis brought the 1977 queer cult fairy tale "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions" back to print and stage a few years ago. Its messages about how to live under patriarchy feel extra prescient in 2026. The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions By Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta With essays by Morgan and Tourmaline https://nightboat.org/book/the-faggots-their-friends-between-revolutions/ Morgan's website https://www.morganbassichis.com/ Can I Be Frank? - Morgan's show, coming to New York this summer https://www.canibefrank.nyc/ Morgan's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/morgankindof/ Love in a F*cked-Up World Podcast (with Morgan and friend of the pod Dean Spade) https://www.youtube.com/@Dean_Spade/podcasts Episode: "Marsha P. Johnson Beyond Stonewall with Tourmaline" https://www.patreon.com/posts/marsha-p-johnson-129316368

Mama Ganuush is back home in San Francisco after hosting the first JAHA Film Festival in December in Lisbon. The festival features all trans-focused films from the Global South, and begins screening online starting this Friday, Feb. 14.

JAHA Film Festival

https://www.jahafilmfestival.com/

Trans Liberation Film School

https://www.jahafilmfestival.com/transliberationfilmschool

Trung Nguyen teaches Asian American and ethnic studies at San Jose State. His presentation at the last American Studies Association conference covered how the interests of US empire, Airbnb.org, and refugee landlords market property ownership as a humanitarian act. Trung's site https://tpqn.org/ Iyko Day: The Yellow Plague and Romantic Anticapitalism (Monthly Review) https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-yellow-plague-and-romantic-anticapitalism/ Eric Tang: Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the New York City Hyperghetto https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C3280280 BDS Movement's BDS Guide https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott Toshio's 2-minute explainer on Balaji Srinivasan's Network State https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8fRrpxF/ Related episodes: Urban Alchemy with Brooke Lober and Norma Azucar https://www.patreon.com/posts/urban-alchemys-f-109662919 Silicon Valley Imperialism with Erin McElroy https://www.patreon.com/posts/silicon-valley-f-103189183

"Meet the New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia" is Jimmy Wu's recent piece for Bay Area Current, a new publication covering labor, culture and politics based in East Bay. In it, Jimmy beautifully describes some of the aesthetics and icons preoccupying the tech elites and their media mouthpieces right now. "Meet the New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia" https://bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new-right-wing-tech-intelligentsia/ Related: Soleil Ho on anti-poor influencer Michael Shellenberger https://www.patreon.com/posts/michael-thinks-f-97015564 The AI industry must be stopped, with Stop AI https://www.patreon.com/posts/end-agi-before-127632638 Garry Tan must be stopped, with Emily Mills https://www.patreon.com/posts/stop-garry-tan-90552668

Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

In 2022, rightwing influencers began using the term "doom loop" to paint San Francisco as a crime- and fentanyl-ridden hellhole that whose downfall was due to too much woke progressivism. It didn't matter that the doom loop narrative wasn't based in reality: the media took it and ran with it. The narrative has since lost its resonance in San Francisco, but it's now being deployed in several other cities. Jeremy Mack is back to talk about the Phoenix Project's most recent report, "The Rise and Fall of the San Francisco Doom Loop." The Phoenix Project: Rise and Fall of the San Francisco Doom Loop https://www.phoenixprojectnow.com/doomloop-report SF Mayor Daniel Lurie celebrates Blackstone and private equity https://youtube.com/shorts/1MsExVGa5sY Andrew Cuomo's racist anti-Zohran Mamdani ad https://youtube.com/shorts/y4yqFFDD650 Related episodes: TogetherSF (RIP), with Jeremy https://www.patreon.com/posts/togethersf-wants-114226580 5 Rich Guys Trying to Buy the Bay, with Jeremy and Julie Pitta https://www.patreon.com/posts/5-rich-guys-to-f-104982980

Garry Tan, with Emily Mills

https://www.patreon.com/posts/stop-garry-tan-90552668

Jenny Chan founded Pacific Atrocities Education in San Francisco after learning about some of Japan's terror campaigns across Asia through World War II. It's history that Japanese conservatives are trying to suppress.

The Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 was the chemical and biological warfare facility that conducted experiments on about 14,000 people in China. None of those 14,000 survived, while the leaders of Unit 731 were granted immunity by the US in exchange for their "research." Pacific Atrocities Education https://www.pacificatrocities.org/ Podcast / YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/PacificFrontUntold Video: Rightwing Japanese nationalist Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi doesn't love politician Taro Yamamoto's suggestion that Japan is an American colony https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRE4Bm7EUoR/ Related episodes: Comfort Women part 1, with Judith Mirkinson from Comfort Women Justice Coalition https://www.patreon.com/posts/nationalism-vs-1-109743478 Comfort Women part 2, with Kota from Against Japanism https://www.patreon.com/posts/nationalism-vs-2-78561553 Nikkei Progressives, on how ICE detention compares to Japanese internment during WWII https://www.patreon.com/posts/internment-camps-109659819

Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

Jemma DeCristo RETURNS! Her new book The Aesthetic Character of Blackness is out, and covers how revolutionary Black art is co-opted by capitalists and the state, and art's limits as a revolutionary tool (and it's widespread use as a counterinsurgent one).

The Aesthetic Character of Blackness: Sounds Like Us (Duke University Press)

https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-aesthetic-character-of-blackness

Support Dahnoun Mutual Aid (Direct Support for People in Gazan)

https://chuffed.org/project/115245-dahnoun-mutual-aid

Previously:

Jemma on the Transgender Cultural District

https://www.patreon.com/posts/is-transgender-f-105793639

Jemma and Ralowe on the narrowness of Leftist organizing on (the app) Signal

https://www.patreon.com/posts/against-signal-123358271

Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

Janetta Johnson and zen blossom speak from the home base of Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) in SF. They speak on Miss Major (who led TGIJP for years); the year Janetta turned down the SF Pride grand marshal title; and the status of the Bay Area's reputation for being a haven for trans people. TGI Justice Project https://tgijp.org Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex https://www.akpress.org/captivegenders.html Previous episodes mentioned: Rest in Peace Miss Major https://www.patreon.com/posts/rip-miss-major-142054390 Tourmaline on her biography of Marsha P. Johnson https://www.patreon.com/posts/marsha-p-johnson-129316368

Public universities are under constant threat of budget cuts, but somehow administrators find millions to toss at extractive tech, like ChatGPT Edu.

SF State professor Martha Kenney describes how administrators at the CSUs spent $17 million on a contract with OpenAI without asking students or professors if it was a good idea—subsidizing an industry built on hype and plaigiarism.

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Martha Kenney and Martha Lincoln: "Let Them Eat Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence And Austerity In The Neoliberal University"

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6z5pa_v1

MIT Study

https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf

Library of Babel Listserv

https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/assembly

Episode with Stop AI

https://www.patreon.com/posts/end-agi-before-127632638

Martha Lincoln: "It's Time to Pull the Plug on ChatGPT at Cal State"

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/11/25/chatgpt-poses-risk-student-mental-health-opinion

Martha Lincoln on BlueSky

https://bsky.app/profile/heavyredaction.bsky.social

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Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco

San Francisco tried to atone for the war on drugs with a DEI program for recreational weed store owners. In the end, the real winners were rich white dudes like London Breed's old roommate, Conor Johnston. Chris Roberts—America's top cannabis journalist and historian reporting from America's number-one cannabis producing region—returns. We go deep on his recent Chronicle piece detailing how it all went wrong.

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"San Francisco's first 'equity' weed store was an epic failure. City Hall insiders may still pocket millions" sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/marijuana-weed-legal-shop-haight-21063653.php "White Weed Entrepreneurs Are Gaming Programs Meant to Help People of Color" (Chris for Vice) vice.com/en/article/white-weed-entrepreneurs-are-gaming-programs-meant-to-help-people-of-color/ Previous episode with Chris, on the radiation disaster at Hunter's Point patreon.com/posts/radiation-at-132819458

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Sad Francisco is produced by Toshio Meronek and edited by Tyger Ligon. Support the show and get new episodes early on Patreon: https://patreon.com/sadfrancisco