Brody Qat has turned out this awesome Frank Chu Valentine greeting where Frank’s famous sign now reads “I Chu-Chu-Chuse You, Happy Valentines.” It’s a great take on the “Choo-choo-choose me” Valentine card that Lisa gave Ralph in The Simpsons.

via Simone Davalos

photo by Thomas Hawk

original art by mrockz

One last post to cap our coverage of the great San Francisco snow controversy of 2011. It has been widely quoted that this was the first snow in San Francisco since 1976, but we have a few pieces of evidence that there has been tons, literally, of the cold white stuff in SF between now and then–some in the air and some on the streets.

Notably there was a very localized snow event in the middle of San Francisco in August of 2005. Two-hundred tons to be precise, enough to make Norwegians smile, covered a couple blocks of Fillmore Street to celebrate US Olympic skier Jonny Moseley‘s 30th birthday. He and his friends decided to produce a surreal summertime ski and snowboard jump event called ICER AIR in the midst of the tony Pacific Heights neighborhood.

It was controversial and sparked neighborhood outrage, but then-Mayor Gavin Newsom was willing and the event was approved. By all accounts, it was a blast, dude. Jumpers launched from one of those fake San Francisco trolleys, Frank Chu even showed up. But the SF street hassle was apparently more than the producers wanted to deal with again. The event was produced three more times in San Francisco, but after that year it was held in the AT&T Park baseball stadium.

Golden Gate Weather Services lists a total of 11 days with snow of .1 inches or more from 1856-1976. TheStormKing.com has a great article on the history of snow in San Francisco including the image above from 1882.

More modestly, this video shot near Golden Gate Park shows what certainly looks to me, and numerous on-camera bystanders, like snow back in 1999. I don’t think the fact that it seems to have been shot outside a bar in the middle of the day should at all take away from the visual evidence that it offers.

Whatever it was (and however much of it) that fell in 2011 was not recognized as snow by the official flake-counters at the National Weather Service. Though they did confirm that the city matched a record low temperature for the day.

If you feel this whole precipitation definition stuff is unjust and poorly handled, you can go from weather crank to certified weather witness with training by SKYWARN a volunteer program with nearly 290,000 trained severe weather spotters run by NWS.

Previously:

• Is It Snowing In San Francisco?
• Yes, It Did Snow In San Francisco… Sort Of
• The City of San Francisco Snowbound in 1952

If you are still wondering if it snowed in San Francisco, you are not alone. Last night Michael Cuffe of Warholian shot the video above which would seem to be definitive proof that it did snow in San Francisco. And yet controversy rages on.

Reports surfaced late Friday on the main sites tracking this story isitsnowinginsanfrancisco.com & isitsnowinginsfyet.com that, yes, we had flake. Local TV station KTVU has video. And The New York Times covered it, too:

Predictions had called for the possibility of the first significant snowfall in San Francisco since February 1976, when all of an inch fell, according to the National Weather Service. And just before midnight, several high-lying city neighborhoods, including Twin Peaks, at some 900 feet, reported light snowfall.

But in the morning The San Francisco Chronicle (which is some kind of “paper”?) reported “Record cold weather but no snow day for S.F.” and MSNBC.com also dumped rain on the snow parade:

No snow was observed in downtown San Francisco and AccuWeather.com meteorologist Dave Samuhel said the dusting would not count toward official records that show the last measurable snowfall in the area 35 years ago.

Don’t tell that to the cranks & madmen (aka our friends) who frequent the short-word-burst service known as Twitter:

.

The Twitterature is all a-flurry with talk of potential snow in Frisco-town, for details follow the trending topic #snowsf where the likes of @Mike_FTW are fomenting a revolt against reality with tweets about blizzard conditions in the Bay Area that, while often very funny, are in no way true.

Finally the National Weather Service SHOUTED inconclusively in its typical unsentimental style:

AS OF 4:10 AM PST SATURDAY…SHOWERS AND EVEN A FEW THUNDERSTORMS CONTINUE OVER THE OCEAN [...] WE HAVE HAD SPOTTER REPORTS OF SNOW SHOWERS ABOVE 400 FEET IN SAN FRANCISCO…SNOW SHOWERS IN FELTON…A MIX OF RAIN AND SNOW IN CARMEL VALLEY…AND A MIX OF RAIN AND SNOW AT THE FORECAST OFFICE IN MONTEREY.

The bottom line? Even if “technically” we didn’t rock Mohs Snowness Scale, some frozen white stuff appeared, but not that much. None of it stuck. Nobody sledded. Nothing to ski here, folks, just keep moving.

A San Francisco prankster has modified a piece of street art attributed to the infamous graffiti artist Banksy.

The modification, which appeared late Tuesday night in San Francisco’s Mission District, transformed Banksy’s Native American – ironically holding a “No Trespassing” sign – into beloved local eccentric and 12 Galaxies protester, Frank Chu.

The prankster, who remains at large, is unknown and presumed snarky.

via ninjakittysf

original photo by Charles Kremenak

From the grace of heaven and Jef Poskanzer of ACME Laboratories comes the ACME Chu Maker! Now you can type in some magic words into a text field and then the powers of the internets will place your words on one of Frank Chu’s legendary protest signs.

Here are a few photos I shot today at the 31st Annual Saint Stupid’s Day Parade.

Photo Gallery: Saint Stupid’s Day Parade 2009

Video: Wavy Gravy On How We’re All Stupid

Video: Frank Chu Talks About St. Stupid’s Day

Video: Saint Stupid’s Day Parade 2009 Begins

Video: Get Back To Work Right This Moment

Video: Michael J. Peppe Speaks About Stupidity

More Coverage:

- BerDerp

- SFist

- SFAppeal

- History Mythology Fiction News

photos by Scott Beale

Each year on the initial day of April The First Church of the Last Laugh stages a singular parade through the streets of San Francisco to celebrate their one holy day a year Saint Stupid’s Day.

This Wednesday, April 1st will be no exception…

Bring PINK SLIPS and EVICTION NOTICES for the HQs of the not so free market…print your own money for bail outs, pay offs and buy ins. Fun for all ages! Drums and other noise production devices encouraged. Attend at your own risk. Watch your step. Spread the word.

Free lunch. RAIN OR SHINE. War and peace. free!! Hotcha!

Wednesday, Noon, April 1th, foot of Market st. SF. Ca. USA

This will be the first year that Saint Stupid is on Twitter: @ststupid.

Led by church founder, Bishop Joey (aka Ed Holmes, actor, non-mute mime, fake Dick, and seaman of some repute), some hundred plus ordinary members of the human race and three abnormally large dog heads embrace their inner, outer and median stupid nature.

Here’s a little motion picture taste of it:

The parade makes its Stupid way through North Beach on years when April 1st falls on a weekend, and on weekday 4/1′s the Stupid massive meanders through The Financial District, chanting Back to work! Back to work! at those who peek out their office windows as the thumping Stupid horde goes by.

The parade features a number of rituals along the way, The Stations Of Stupid, that include throwing socks in the air at the old Pacific Stock Exchange and knocking on “The Tomb of Stupid” to see if he’s home–he never is.

It is a truly great and serentypical San Francisco happening each year as Frank Chu, multitudinous motley cacophonists, and the ghost of Emperor Norton all stroll the streets proudly in their finest buffoonery.

Much more visual evidence of past parades is available on Flickr, including Scott’s images and video from last year. But the earliest photos of the event shot by our primary tentacle are from 2003 and you can see them here.

There’s also a post-parade Stupid afterparty at The Elbo Room on Wednesday night, featuring numerous SubGenius luminaries including Dr. Hal and Michael Peppe, plus Los Banos, Fluff Grrl, Brian Kenny Fresno, David Apocalypse, and Karla LaVey.

photos by Scott Beale, Electricity Mule & Rigphoto

Last weekend at Santacon in San Francisco, Santa’s Little Secret Service was hard at work protecting luminaries like Jesus Christ and Frank Chu.

E. D. W. Lynch has some background info on the Santa’s Little Secret Service which was first deployed during Santacon 2006.

More photos can be found in the Santa’s Little Secret Service Flickr group.

photo by Mitchell Aidelbaum, E. D. W. Lynch & gastronomicdiva06

Hugo Kobayashi has created a wonderful painting of Frank Chu based on photo I shot of Frank at Macworld 2006. The painting is part of the art show and auction for Winterfest 2008, the 13th annual fundraiser for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) which takes place Sunday, December 7th at SomArts in San Francisco.

Over 1,000 SF bicycling advocates of all stripes — SFBC members, corporate sponsors, local artists and politicians coming together for a festive evening to celebrate the growth of San Francisco bicycling. An occasion to raise a glass to the SFBC & our members for being 10,000 current-members strong!

painting by Hugo Kobayashi

Frank Chu makes a guest appearance in a new FON commercial “Matador El Café” that was shot in San Francisco, featuring Matador Joselito and his quest for free Wi-Fi. Frank seems to have a difficult time making the distinction between a British and Spanish accent.

Thanks to tongodeon for the tip!

Allan Hough just made an amazing discovery. He found the legendary Frank Chu on the streets of San Francisco using the new Google Maps Street View feature that was released yesterday. Frank’s image was captured at 24 Willie Mays Plaza outside of AT&T Park during a San Francisco Giants game. Frank is always trying to get on camera, so he should be pretty happy about this new outlet to help get the world out about his ongoing saga of the 12 Galaxies.

Could it be that Frank Chu is a Google Maps easter egg? That would be great.

Something tells me that this is just the beginning. People are going to start digging up all kinds of interesting stuff people will start using new image data tools like Street View.

UPDATE 1: Niall Kennedy points out that the Street View team at Google posted for a photo that can be found while navigating the Google campus. [via Simon Willison]

UPDATE 2: Christine has found Bushman’s bush, but where is San Francisco’s world famous busker Bushman? Maybe he scared the camera crew away?

UPDATE 3: Far out man, Mark Celsor found a hippie icon in Berkeley.

UPDATE 4: streetviewr just launched, tracking all kinds of interesting locations on Google Street View.

UPDATE 5: RICK! points out a possible break-in in progress or maybe he just locked himself out.

Click To Play

So many of you have probably seen Frank Chu around San Francisco. In fact he’s a well known local eccentric and minor celebrity. He often shows up at events with his famous protest sign, whose slogans are constantly mutating. The venue 12 Galaxies was named as a tribute to Frank Chu and Frank can often be found there after hours, enjoying a Budweiser and winding down from a hard day of protesting. In fact Frank opened up our big 8 1/2 Year Anniversary Show there back in 2004.

Here’s a video I shot of Frank Chu opening up the Ask Dr. Hal Show on December 27th (Chicken John often invites him up to the stage to kick off the show), where he gives us an update on the 12 Galaxies.

For more info, see my previous posts on Frank Chu.

“Lunch Inside the 12 Galaxies” by James Dirschberger (84 Films) is a fascinating documentary about Frank Chu, San Francisco’s most famous eccentric who is mentioned quite often on this blog. The documentary digs into Frank’s background and attempts to explain the mystery behind the “12 Galaxies”.

UPDATE: Speaking of Frank Chu, Todd Lappin shot a photo of him today at the World Cup 2006 Finals in Dolores Park.

via Eddie Codel

Hilarious, omnipresent San Francisco eccentric Frank Chu has his own profile on the übergeek dating service Consumating. He’s pretty popular, 19 people like him and only one doesn’t.

Special thanks to Niall Kennedy for the tip!

So what’s a perfect way to end a day at Macworld? Running into Frank Chu, of course.

Who’s Frank Chu you ask? He’s a San Francisco icon and legend. Wikipedia is a good place to start. SFGate even published a Frank Chu FAQ earlier last year. The best way to find out what Frank Chu is all about is to ask him directly when you see him on the street. Here are some more Frank Chu sightings.

Frank opened our Laughing Squid 8 ½ Year Anniversary Show back in 2004 at 12 Galaxies, a venue who’s name is tribute to Frank Chu.