No politics at the turkey table: 8 absurd SF stories to discuss instead

Thanksgiving can be a wonderful holiday — the only guaranteed four-day weekend many Americans get! — but a big meal with extended family comes with a unique set of hazards. The challenge of maintaining a demilitarized dinner between MAGA uncles and ultra-woke cousins has been de rigueur for almost a decade now — but even if an uneasy peace holds, someone’s got to steer the conversation away from transgender bathroom bills and RFK Jr. until it’s time to nap in front of the football game.

Luckily, San Francisco provides the solution. This city generates enough wild headlines to enable anyone to neutralize a gravy-boat shouting match before it gets going. Here are The Standard’s eight suggestions of conversation topics for anyone in need of a smooth redirect, along with potential pitfalls to avoid. Best of luck, and happy Thanksgiving!

“Man tries to ride Muni with dead raccoon” is one of those headlines that tells you everything, yet who among us could resist clicking? It was a Tuesday morning aboard a K Ingleside streetcar. The trash panda had a bloody head injury. Passengers screamed. Honestly, you might as well read the whole thing aloud off your phone.

Pitfall to avoid: You’re giving the people who hate San Francisco a juicy target here, but everyone who witnessed it firsthand is probably still dining out on this anecdote.

The year’s most controversial automotive topics — autonomous vehicles and cars that do high-speed doughnuts — nearly collided in the Mission early one morning as a Waymo came within inches of a misbehaving driver. The passenger in the self-driving car, who was on her way to work, pressed the button to contact customer support, although it’s unclear exactly what that might have accomplished.

Pitfall to avoid: If your uncle starts raising his voice about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving capabilities, you may have to, um, steer the conversation toward how Bay Area cities are experimenting with anti-sideshow infrastructure.

In August, tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a statue of his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg, that puzzled observers, because the art is about as tall as (and only slightly greener than) a Na’vi from “Avatar,” sheathed in a liquid-y metal like some advanced type of Terminator. Sculpted by Daniel Arsham, the Jeff Koons of the NFT set, its manifest oddness gave art snobs a platform to sound off. Take it from there!

Pitfalls to avoid: Mockery of Zuck may generate a spirited defense of Elon. And keep in mind that many Boomers enjoy Facebook and check it regularly. 

The comic didn’t just bite the hand that fed him during his September set at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual conference. Mulaney severed the whole arm, then used it to smack down his hosts, lampooning the self-congratulatory tendencies of those in the AI industry. “The fact that there are 45,000 ‘trailblazers’ here couldn’t devalue the title any more,” the stand-up comedian and writer said. It went on like that for 45 minutes.

Pitfall to avoid: Salesforce CEO and would-be benevolent billionaire Marc Benioff appears to be getting red-pilled in real time, so be ready.

Occasionally fired tech CEO and new mayoral adviser Sam Altman bought a $27 million Russian Hill mansion only to discover that — in addition to century-old olive trees, an infinity pool, and a “Batcave”-like garage — it was marred by poor craftsmanship and design flaws. Yes, the AI apostle who’s hoping to pioneer one of the greatest advances in human civilization couldn’t send a contractor over to do some due diligence.

Pitfall to avoid: Altman is simultaneously lobbying the city, aspiring to work for its mayor-elect, and extending tepid congratulations to Donald Trump. Don’t lose the plot: Stick to the schadenfreude that is eight-figure buyer’s remorse.

Only a few years ago, a coyote sighting in SF was a relatively rare occurrence. But the cunning canines have grown adjusted to urban living and now seem to be everywhere but the Tenderloin. Coyotes’ territorial ways and habit of gently carrying their pups in their teeth have caused residents to call 311, and now a near-miraculous tale about humans and wildlife living in harmony is slowly sinking into a morass of conspiracy theories.

Pitfall to avoid: Encountering a tasteless joke about the coyotes who shepherd undocumented people across the border? Fake a coughing fit and talk about the weather.

Almost everyone can bond over a bad-landlord situation. Shanghai Kelly’s, the corner bar on Polk Street and Broadway, recently dealt with fallout from the single-room occupancy hotel above; specifically, a horrendous stench from accumulated garbage and dead rodents. The building owner blamed the tenants, but either way, patrons downstairs were forced to endure the malodorous miasma. “It’s straight butt,” one loyal boozehound said.

Pitfalls to avoid: If anyone bashes the homeless, remind them that these low-income residents are the very definition of housed.

When a guy in the Castro who was dressed like a pirate menaced a Brazilian tourist with a blowtorch, two men dressed in nothing at all leaped into action. Cellphone video shows them distracting the pirate long enough for another individual to disarm him — and then there are some fists until he’s down in the street. As they say, not all heroes have capes. Some, in fact, don’t have even a penis sheath. 

Pitfall to avoid: The queer community is a lightning rod no matter what, so emphasize the heroism and hope for a collective “only-in-SF” chuckle.