Sam Barry's Blog
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May.14.2011
This year is the 100th annual Bay to Breakers run in San Francisco, the oldest consecutively run footrace in the world today.
Founded five years after the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the race is named for the fact that the course runs from the Embarcadero, on the bay side of the city...
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May.02.2011
The English language is under siege. When I was young there were rules that everyone understood, such as “i” before “e,” except after “c,” except for February, which has 28 days.
Not anymore. Nowadays anything goes. There is no one accepted grammatical structure. Case in point: the speech...
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Apr.18.2011
There have been moments of doubt in my run for mayor of San Francisco. It’s a big job. At times I wasn’t sure I was the right person for the job. There are others candidates—good candidates—people like Leland Yee, Bevan Dufty, Dennis Herrera, Phil Ting, Jeff Adachi, Kamala Harris, Tim Lincecum...
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Apr.10.2011
Many of San Franciscans have been asking me where I, Sam Barry, future mayor of San Francisco, stand on the budget mess. Perhaps you feel I have been ignoring this looming problem—playing my harmonica, as it were, while Rome burned.
Fellow Romans, I have this to say about that: I am really sorry...
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Mar.21.2011
I just spent four days at the Religion Education Congress in Anaheim, California—also known as the L. A. Congress—an event sponsored annually by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles that boasts an attendance of 20,000 adult Catholics and several billion teenagers.
I know what you’re thinking: religion...
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Mar.15.2011
There is a new food movement afoot out there. Tired of the same old cuisines and choices, people are experimenting as never before, inventing playful, nutritious ways to eat. There is even a song about it (sung to the tune of “Dancing in the Streets”):
Everyone around the world, are you ready...
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Feb.27.2011
My campaign manager, international man of mystery Shahram Shirazi, recently reminded me that I am running for mayor of San Francisco. Shahram graduated from MIT and Stanford. If we know nothing else about Shahram, we know this: back in the day he was a damn good student.
This will be the...
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Feb.19.2011
So, you’ve decided it’s time to do some social media networking, but you feel “behind the curve” and confused by all the sites and terminology. Don’t worry! It’s really very simple. If you just dedicate a little time each day to the major social networking sites, which include Facebook, Twitter...
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Feb.16.2011
Last Friday night I had the honor of judging a Literary Death Match at the Elbo Room in San Francisco. If you haven’t been to a Literary Death Match, you’re missing out on one of the more vibrant literary events happening today. The one I attended featured host Alia Volz, a natural-born...
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Feb.06.2011
I'd like to take a moment out of my busy campaign schedule to share some of the wisdom I have gleaned over the last 229 years of my life with my two children, Daniel (22) and Laura (18).
Dan and Laura, as you begin your adult lives it is important that you understand that life is like a football...
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Jan.28.2011
As mayor of San Francisco I intend to teach every man, woman, transgendered person, and child how to play the harmonica. But I won’t stop there: I will teach the seals how to play. “A harmonica in every pocket and a box of Rice-A-Roni in every cupboard” will be the motto of my administration,...
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Jan.21.2011
A lot of people (two, one from Miami and one from Texas) have wondered if I am serious about running for mayor of San Francisco. “You’re kidding, right?” they ask me. I want to reassure you, my fellow citizens, that I am not kidding. I am the best possible candidate for mayor of San Francisco,...
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Jan.13.2011
Today marks the continuation of The Harmonica Chronicles, an intermittent, halting series in which I intend to explain why the harmonica—more than any other instrument in the civilized world or the United States—is the answer. But before I begin the groundwork must be laid, because you...
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Jan.01.2011
One day many years ago, when I was graduating from college, my mother handed me a piece of paper with a list of resolutions carefully printed in what I immediately recognized as my own early adolescent handwriting. My mother had found this hallowed document in my room years before and had kept...
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Dec.23.2010
The meaning of Christmas grows hazier with each passing year. When I was young it was clear enough—we were celebrating the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ child, the Son of Man. I was taught that Jesus was God on earth and the son of God. I didn’t dispute this claim—it came from...
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About Sam
Sam Barry is the author of How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons and coauthored Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now with his late wife, the author and founder of the Rock Bottom Remainders, Kathi Kamen Goldmark....
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