The Republic of Molossia is the city of your adolescent, Candy Land dreams, where the currency is cookie dough and the nation’s leader officially outlawed spinach.
 
How does a place like Molossia, located about 45 minutes from Reno, exist within the confines of the United States? The self-described independent nation, ruled by President Kevin Baugh and first lady Adrianne Baugh, is actually a micronation within the United States.  

Molossia is enclosed within a small Nevada town called Dayton, on an 11-acre property with a total population of 38 souls. Three of the citizens are dogs.

President Kevin Baugh of Molossia inside the Presidential Office in August 2023.

Nora Heston Tarte Special to SFGATE

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Molossia is an artistic expression with shades of outlaw libertarianism, and it owes its entire existence to a San Francisco icon who was a pioneer in “fake it till you make it” social entrepreneurialism. 

The micronation accepts tourists but on specific terms. I rode over the desert brush to find it on a recent August afternoon. Before embarking on the journey, I somewhat expected an unhinged social vigilante with a political agenda, but what I discovered instead was a seemingly well-meaning couple with a solid sense of humor and a love of entertaining the masses with their clever takes on what it means to run a micronation.

I left knowing it was a place I would need to bring friends, if only to experience the hilarity and downright weirdness firsthand. Without seeing it, it’s hard to say who will believe a place like Molossia exists.

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Tours are held one day a month between April and October, usually, but not always, on a Saturday. During this time, anyone can visit Molossia. A passport isn’t strictly required, but if you bring one, you can get it stamped at the customs office.

Molossia tours are held one day of the month, between April and October, and if you bring a passport, you can get it stamped at the customs office. (Nora Heston Tarte Special to SFGATE}

Molossia is smaller than 10 football fields but can draw worldwide attention. During my visit in August, I met people from Canada, Washington and Texas, as well as many from other parts of Nevada. In total, there were about 20 attendees. It’s customary to bring cookie dough to exchange for the local currency, called Valora, which is Latin for “brave or courageous.”
 
It’s important to abide by the laws when moving about Molossia. That means no contraband like tobacco, incandescent lightbulbs, plastic bags, catfish, onions, walruses and, of course, spinach.
 
Other laws prohibit citizens from causing catastrophe; torpedoes may not be set off inside of the country, and percussion instruments are barred from every bathroom. It’s also illegal to detonate a nuclear device within the nation and offenders incur a 500 Valora fine.
 
President Baugh is also considering outlawing hurricanes, but the weather in these parts of Nevada tends to be sunny.

“Molossia weather is always perfect,” he boasts. He says the problem is that “we’re so close to the U.S. border that their crappy weather blows in all the time.”
 
A tour guarantees access to all of Molossia’s main buildings, including a post office, Tiki bar, the president’s office, a trading post and a jail cell. You’re subject to arrest if you bring in unpermitted items, but the president doesn’t make a habit of keeping anyone past the end of their tour (or for more than a few minutes).

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Molossia’s main street featuring a post office, Tiki bar, a trading post and a jail cell. (Nora Heston Tarte Special to SFGATE/Courtesy of Travel Nevada)Molossia’s main street featuring a post office, Tiki bar, a trading post and a jail cell. (Nora Heston Tarte Special to SFGATE/Courtesy of Travel Nevada)

Although Molossia is still at war with East Germany — there’s a long-winded explanation to this involving an argument suggesting East Germany still exists as a small island off the coast of Cuba — the micronation resists the need for a military to defend itself (in part because that East Germany island is uninhabited). 

Nevertheless, Molossia does have a naval program composed entirely of inflatable kayaks that explore nearby lakes, including Lake Tahoe on flexible biannual excursions. There are also annual and public events including a dry land boat race.
 
The space program is predictably limited, but you can launch a small rocket when visiting, which earns yourself a designation as an honorary Molossia space cadet.

Molossia is enclosed within a small Nevada town called Dayton on an 11-acre property with a total population of 38 souls. Three of the citizens are dogs.

Nora Heston Tarte Special to SFGATE

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If Molossia seems absurd, that’s the intention of its founders.

President Baugh created his first micronation in 1977 alongside his friend “King” James Spielman. They called it Vuldstein. The duo was inspired by the movie “The Mouse That Roared,” a British comedy centered around a war between a European micronation and the United States.
 
“We were really struck by the imagination and creativity of this tiny country idea,” Baugh says.
 
In 1998, Vuldstein was in Portland, Oregon, when President Baugh changed the name and uprooted the location of that micronation. He established the Republic of Molossia in Dayton, Nevada, that same year, drawing inspiration for the name from a Hawaiian word for peace and serenity.

Western artifacts, old cars and other collectibles sit among hillsides in an area called “The Yard” in Dayton, Nev., in July 2017. 

The Washington Post via Getty Images

Molossia began hosting tours in 2009, and the nation steadily grew. Because the president is a fan of Disney, you’ll notice several influences from Walt Disney himself, such as an Adventureland-themed trading post to buy souvenirs. Several addresses on Molossian buildings reference famous Disney films, and his name is pasted across the heroes monument.

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The micronation built its own miniature railroad, designed a flag, wrote a national anthem and established a time zone (39 minutes ahead of Pacific Standard Time).
 
“We like doing unusual things here,” Baugh laughs.
 
In addition to the property in Dayton, there are other outposts of Molossia sprinkled across the universe. The Protectorate of New Antrim is in Pennsylvania, and the Desert Homestead Province is in Southern California. Neptune Deep is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and Molossia stakes claim to a 49,000-square mile chunk of the planet Venus.
 
While micronations are not common, there are dozens across the world, and twice a year, the leaders of those nations gather to discuss micronation rule at a conference called Microcon. This year, the meet-ups were held in Belgium and Chicago.

The Principality of Sealand, some 7 miles off the coast of England, in September 2021. The metal-and-concrete platform in the North Sea has been run as an independent micronation in defiance of the U.K. government for decades. 

Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images

Some of the names are posted on a wooden directional sign near the front gates of Molossia, including the Antarctic micronation Westarctica, founded in 2001; the Principality of Sealand, made up entirely of an offshore platform in the North Sea; and the Conch Republic, a playful nod to the secession of the Florida Keys.

As one of the oldest running micronations in the world, President Baugh is famous among newcomers. He’s received more than 100 medals from other nations (and gifted to himself). Since he rules under a dictatorship, this is allowed.
 
While it’s clear to see that Baugh sees his micronation as all in good fun, there is a serious side to his rule. Micronations need currency and laws. Most agree they have to file a formal declaration proclaiming how and why the sovereign state was created. A micronation does not need a legal basis to exist, and most rely on neighboring government agencies for emergency services.

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FILE: A photo of Emperor Norton in a store window on Kearny Street, San Francisco, in September 2020.

San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Baugh calls him “the first micronationalist,” and in Molossia, Norton Park is named in his honor.

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The post San Francisco impressed a ‘sovereign nation’ within the Nevada desert appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The Canyon, a 23-story mixed-use building designed by MVRDV, officially opened recently. With its jagged wall, textured red-brown facade, and a publicly accessible “canyon” providing a route through the site, The Canyon is reminiscent of the dramatic geology of California, inspired in part by San Francisco’s charismatic topography.

The opening happened in a ceremony in June attended by San Francisco Mayor London Breed. The project was built as part of a masterplan that transforms a windswept parking lot on San Francisco’s waterfront into a new sustainable neighborhood, known as Mission Rock, with housing for middle income residents.

Located opposite the Giants’ Oracle Park stadium, The Canyon is one of four buildings that form the first phase of the neighborhood, which is being developed through a partnership of the San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer, and the Port of San Francisco. These buildings were designed in a collaborative process in which four internationally renowned design firms—Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, WorkAC, and MVRDV—worked simultaneously, creating designs that worked together, with each having a distinct appearance.

One benefit of the simultaneous design process is that the four buildings share critical energy and water infrastructure. For example, based in the building designed by Work AC, is a water recycling plant that will process black water from the whole neighborhood for reuse.

For its part, The Canyon hosts the key mechanical elements of an efficient district heating system, hidden away in parts of the ground floor and basement. The proximity to the San Francisco Bay provides the site with the opportunity to utilize bay water for both cooling and heating of Mission Rock via a water exchange system. The system leads to a reduction of CO2 and lower water and energy usage and thus, lower bills for the tenants.

Also located in the basement is bicycle parking, encouraging residents to take advantage of healthy and sustainable transport options. Together, these shared systems and interventions allow the neighborhood to significantly reduce its carbon emissions.

With its position in the northwest corner of the neighborhood, The Canyon is the first thing visitors see when crossing the 3rd Street Bridge, and it will soon be fronted by China Basin Park, a waterfront park and cultural centerpiece for the community.

The building comprises a five-story plinth, topped by a 73-m (240-ft) tower in the western corner of the plot, through which the landscaped public “canyon” runs. Like all the buildings of the masterplan, the ground level of The Canyon hosts small-scale shops and restaurants that will help establish a community feeling in the new neighborhood. In the case of The Canyon, the ground floor is topped by two floors of offices, and then 283 apartments.

The Canyon also offers a shortcut from China Basin Park to the heart of the neighborhood. The walls of the building and the eastern side of the tower are jagged with step-backs and overhangs, giving the impression of steep rocky walls. These have the added benefit of creating bay windows and small balconies for 40 apartments, taking advantage of the views over the San Francisco Bay. The roofs of the plinth are also landscaped with abundant greenery, creating communal spaces for residents to relax, exercise, or meet friends.

“With our design, we introduce a feeling of topography to make the building very much connected to its location,” says MVRDV founding partner Nathalie de Vries. “Crucially, this approach also enabled us to contribute to a lively neighborhood: with the public ravine as its

focal point, The Canyon creates a landscape of activity where the public realm connects to the shops, offices, and homes to keep Mission Rock busy and alive. And, thanks to the inclusion of below-market-rate rentals, it’s a neighborhood that will be accessible to the city’s nurses, teachers … and other essential workers that keep the city running.”

The post San Francisco’s sustainable waterfront tower is impressed by California’s geology appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

This story originally appeared in the March/April 2013 issue of Guitar Aficionado magazine.

Albert King was a giant among bluesmen, and not only for his immense talents on the guitar. A 250-pound giant of considerable bulk, King stood between six-four and six-seven and made any guitar he held in his massive hands look like a child’s plaything.

But the notes and tones he tore from the instrument were anything but small. In the middle years of the 20th century, King grabbed hold of a Gibson Flying V and boldly went where no blues guitar player had gone before, or has gone since.

A left-hander, he flipped a right-handed guitar upside down, put it in an unorthodox tuning, and forged a style steeped in steely drama and epic note-bends that evoke the vertiginous blood rush of powerful emotions.

King’s impact on the blues and rock guitar legacy is prodigious. Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan have been among his greatest admirers. Each drafted huge chunks of King’s fiercely original style into his own playing. Clapton famously nicked the solo from King’s Oh, Pretty Woman and inserted it in Strange Brew from Cream’s wildly influential 1967 album, Disraeli Gears.

Jimi Hendrix cited King’s Crosscut Saw as one of his favorite tunes. Mike Bloomfield covered King’s Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong, and Cream recorded their own version of King’s signature tune, Born Under a Bad Sign. As for Stevie Ray Vaughan, he outdid his King-crazed predecessors by recording an In Session television special with his hero in 1983.

His influence on many of the world’s most revered guitarists is sufficient to make him a national treasure of American music. But in many ways, his own achievements outshine those of his acolytes. After all, he did it first. And he certainly did it his way.

True to his name, King is arguably the monarch of upside-down-lefty guitarists, a distinguished company that includes Otis Rush, Doyle Bramhall II, Elizabeth Cotten, and Coco Montoya in the blues-folk realm, and everyone from Babyface to Bob Geldof in other genres.

The barbed-wire minimalism of King’s searing leads makes an ideal counterpoint to his husky, gospel-inflected vocal style. It’s a true call-and-response passion play. King was nicknamed the Velvet Bulldozer, a name that resonates once you realize that he once made his living driving a bulldozer. Albert King lived the blues. That’s why he played and sang them so beautifully.

He had a remarkably wide perspective on the blues as well, crossbreeding more traditional 12-bar forms with everything from sweet Stax soul to big-band balladry.

Like a lot of left-hand/right-brain creatives, Albert King didn’t play by any rulebook but his own, nor would he suffer fools gladly. Possessed of a notoriously bad temper, he would lay into band members onstage if things weren’t going his way. In one famous public display of anger, he chewed out John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, who were backing him, for playing too loud.

(Image credit: David Warner Ellis/Redferns)

Luthier Dan Erlewine, who made King one of the Flying V guitars that he played throughout his career, had a few occasions to witness the Velvet Bulldozer in high dudgeon.

“The first time Albert was playing at the Grande Ballroom, I was backstage after the show,” Erlewine says, referring to Detroit’s legendary Sixties rock venue, just a few miles from the bridge to Windsor, Ontario. “And Albert was pissed at the promoters, who were trying to pay him with Canadian bills. He wouldn’t take them. ‘I don’t want none of that funny money,’ he said. And they got him what he wanted.”

King was known to pack a gun, so people were reluctant to cross him. But his hot temper was only one aspect of a complex and gifted artist. Erlewine puts the anger down to a combination of impatience and competitiveness. 

“I’d say Albert was more competitive than some, certainly more so than the older folks out there, like [his blues contemporaries] Mance Lipscomb and Johnny Shines. As a person, though, Albert had a softness and kindness inside. But he kept it hidden a lot.”

Along with B.B. and Freddie, Albert King is one of the three kings of the blues, although the man born Albert Nelson was related to neither of those great bluesmen by blood. He was, however, born in B.B. King’s hometown – Indianola, Mississippi – on April 25, 1923. 

While he may not have literally been born under a bad sign, his birth date does put Albert King in the contentious and creative zodiacal house of Taurus. Later in life, he would assume the regal surname King as a stage name, some say in homage to B.B. King.

King’s family moved to Forrest City, Arkansas, when he was eight. He spent some time as an agricultural laborer, picking cotton, but set his sights on making a life for himself in music early on. He once joked that he didn’t learn from studying any other guitarists, saying, “Everything I do is wrong.” But that isn’t strictly accurate. King also spoke often of being influenced by Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Elmore James.

“I listened to the slide guitar of Elmore James and a couple of more people I knew way back there,” he told one interviewer. “Then along came T-Bone Walker, and that did it. So I just mixed it all together, and I couldn’t get it exactly like they had it, but I just put my own thing to it.”

It may have been the open slide-guitar tunings of players like Jefferson and James that inspired King’s own use of alternate tunings. He is mainly associated with an E minor tuning (low to high, C B E G B E). But he also tuned to the same intervals in both C# and D. He was known to use open F (low to high, C F C D A D) as well.

For guitarists accustomed to playing in standard, none of these tunings are as intuitive as, say, open G or E. But remember that Albert King was holding a right-handed electric guitar the “wrong” way around. This yields a different perspective on the instrument, one that is, in a way, more in tune with nature, with the low strings closer to the ground and the high strings nearer to the sky. But even upside down, some of King’s open tunings are mighty strange, which also accounts for the unique beauty embodied in some of his phrasing.

“I knew I was going to have to create my own style,” he told guitar journalist Dan Forte, “because I couldn’t make the changes and chords the same as a right-handed man could. I play a few chords, but not many. I always concentrated on my singing guitar sound – more of a sustained note.”

(Image credit: David Redfern/Redferns)

King also enjoyed what’s known as the “lefty advantage” when it comes to bending notes. With the strings’ vertical arrangement flipped, you bend notes on the critical higher-pitched strings by pulling the string downward, which is much easier than pushing upward to execute a bend. 

King exploited this capacity to particularly dramatic effect, sometimes bending notes as much as four tones up. His huge hands were another factor in this aspect of his style, as was the slackness of the strings in the low-slung tunings King favored.

As if all this weren’t unconventional enough, King didn’t use a pick. He mainly used his thumb to pluck the notes. But his first finger would also sometimes come into play in helping shape the steely pinched tones that are another hallmark of his style.

“I never could hold a pick in my hand,” King explained to Forte. “I had started out playing with one, but I’d be really gettin’ into it, and after a while the pick would sail across the room. I said, ‘To hell with this.’ So I just play with the meat of the thumb.”

The core elements of King’s riveting style are all evident, albeit embryonically, on his first recording, Bad Luck Blues, recorded in Chicago in 1953 for Parrot Records. 

By the time he cut this disc, King had paid plenty of dues, singing lead tenor with gospel quartet the Harmony Kings, fronting his own group – the Groove Boys – in Osceola, Arkansas, and playing drums for seminal blues guitarist and singer Jimmy Reed. But Bad Luck Blues lived up to its name by not providing King with the hit he might have been hoping for.

King didn’t score big until eight years later, when he released Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong in 1961. The record climbed to Number 14 on the R&B charts and put him on the map. It also became a featured track on his very first album, The Big Blues, in 1962.  

A study in pinched, plucked passion, the lead guitar intro to Don’t Throw Your Love on Me So Strong makes it clear from the start that Albert King ain’t about to do things in a small way. 

This is the lowdown slow blues at its finest, and the guitar-and-vocal interplay is exquisite. King’s biting leads alternate with a vocal performance that scales the full emotional range, from a mournful croon to a high-pitched gospel wail. The symbiotic relationship between King’s guitar and voice is one of the blues’ greatest treasures.

By the time the disc was released, King had found his instrument: a 1958 korina wood Gibson Flying V. There has been much speculation as to why he favored this particular guitar, but upside-down lefties tend to seek out instruments with symmetrically shaped bodies and headstocks, as they look much less awkward when flipped. And among symmetrically shaped guitars, a Flying V certainly has far more flash and panache than, say, an SG or 335. 

Along with Lonnie Mack, King was one of the earliest guitarists to popularize Gibson’s angular, V-shaped masterpiece.

(Image credit: Jordi Vidal/Redferns)

Like many archetypal bluesmen, King was often on the move, particularly in the early phases of his career. By 1966, he was down in Memphis and had been signed to Stax, the premier mid-Sixties R&B label, then riding high with hits by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, and Wilson Pickett. 

The marriage of King’s 12-bar blues with the funky Stax backbeat is a true revelation on his 1967 hit, Born Under a Bad Sign. On it, he is supported solidly by Booker T. & the MGs and the Memphis Horns as well as Isaac Hayes, whose piano vamp sets the groove strutting at a pimp-crawlin’ pace. 

The deep, dark Memphis Horns reinforce the driving bass line, and funky off-beats walk up to the V chord. King’s guitar sounds crisper and more incisive than ever, his voice plumbing the desperate depths of this ultimate hard-luck narrative.

Stax had one of the greatest-sounding recording rooms of the period as well as a brilliant pool of staff musicians, producers and tunesmiths, including Hayes and Booker T. & the MGs – consisting of organist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Duck Dunn, and drummer Al Jackson Jr. 

It was at Stax that King’s maverick talent found an ideal home. His Stax years yielded the lion’s share of his signature recordings, including Laundromat Blues, Crosscut Saw, Personal Manager, and As the Years Go Passing By, all of which were collected on King’s first album for Stax, also titled Born Under a Bad Sign.

This was a new sound in the blues – urgently contemporary, no mere exercise in the kind of purist reconstructionism that had come into vogue at the time. The Stax tracks helped King cross over to a wider audience than he’d ever reached before.

By this point, his original 1958 Flying V had gone missing, allegedly lost by the guitarist in a game of craps. It was replaced by a 1966 Flying V presented to King by Gibson. This instrument accompanied the guitarist onto the stage for his many appearances at Bill Graham’s legendary Fillmore venues in San Francisco and New York City. 

These shows found King sharing bills with rock and blues titans like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Byrds, the Allman Brothers Band, Van Morrison and B.B. King. After years of hard work, Albert King found an appreciative audience among the era’s blues-crazed rock fans.

One of these incendiary Fillmore nights was captured on King’s seminal live album Live Wire/Blues Power. In many ways, King is best understood through his live recordings. The spontaneity and uninhibited abandon of live performance, as compared with studio recordings, seemed particularly suited to the man’s blues muse.

But one aspect of King’s work that typically drew a puzzled response from his new young fans was his love of schmaltzy balladry. His cover of the American songbook standard The Very Thought of You that closes Born Under a Bad Sign was easily the disc’s most frequently skipped-over track. It probably still is, for that matter. But King refused to conform to anyone’s notion of what he, or the blues, should be. 

(Image credit: David Redfern/Redferns)

In 1969, he performed with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Why shouldn’t a bluesman have full symphonic backing? Albert King was the first to go there. And why shouldn’t a bluesman record an album of Elvis Presley covers, should the mood take him? King went there too with 1970’s Blues for Elvis: King Does the King’s Things.

In the early Seventies, King acquired his third iconic Flying V, the instrument custom-built by Dan Erlewine. This was his only truly left-handed guitar, with the tone controls and output jack on what would be the lower bout for King. With his previous, flipped-over right-handed Vs, the volume tone controls were awkwardly located on the upper bout. 

Erlewine recalls King mentioning that it was annoying for him to reach up to adjust his tone or volume. “That was one of the reasons he wanted a lefty,” he explains. “He also wanted his name on the fretboard in pearl and abalone, so it would flash under the lights.”

Fashioned from a 125-year-old piece of black walnut, this guitar would be King’s main ax from 1972 until his passing, 20 years later. ’72 was an especially good year for King, witnessing the release of another landmark recording, I’ll Play the Blues for You, a soulful minor-key outing much in the vein of B.B. King’s The Thrill Is Gone. 

On I’ll Play the Blues for You – both the song and entire album of the same name – King is backed by members of two other great Stax outfits, the Bar-Kays and Isaac Hayes’ backing group, the Movement.

King stuck with Stax throughout the company’s decline in the early Seventies, moving on to several other labels after the company went bankrupt in 1975. 

His Seventies recordings didn’t have quite the same impact as his Sixties work, although there are some fine tracks to be discovered among the 10 or so albums that King released between 1970 and 1978. And while King remained active as a recording and touring artist throughout the Seventies, he began to slow down in the Eighties, moving into semiretirement from the studio but continuing to play select festivals and other live dates. 

Constant touring under far less than five-star circumstances was one of the things said to exacerbate the guitarist’s irritability and bad temper. But one very important gig he was able to perform – and which seemed to put him in quite a good mood – was a 1983 date with Stevie Ray Vaughan for the Canadian music television series In Session. 

It is a true passing-the-torch moment, two guitar legends from very different generations seated comfortably side by side and trading licks on blues standards and some of their own most-loved tracks. Vaughan’s admiration for his six-string idol is palpable, and King really shines in this welcoming environment. The DVD document of the performance is highly recommended.

Fortunately, and unlike many of his peers, King lived to see his work embraced by several generations of blues and rock guitarists. How much this meant to the irascible bluesman is hard to say. 

At times he seemed more interested in going fishing and smoking his pipe, two of his favorite leisure-time pursuits. But he was a road warrior to the last: Albert King died of a heart attack on December 21, 1992, at age 69. He’d played his last show two days earlier, in Los Angeles.

Albert (left) and B.B. King, seated together backstage in Cleveland, Ohio on February 20, 1991 (Image credit: Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

It was fitting that the Memphis Horns, who had backed King on some of his greatest musical triumphs, accompanied his body on its journey down Beale Street and across the Mississippi River to King’s final resting place in Edmondson, Arkansas.

They played When the Saints Go Marching In. One likes to think that SRV, Hendrix, Bloomfield and many of King’s other gone-beyond acolytes were lined up to greet him at the Pearly Gates – or whatever serves as the musicians’ entrance to heaven.

The post Customized Flying Vs, unusual open tunings and large bends: how Albert King created his personal pressure of the blues – and impressed Hendrix, Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The misery experienced on San Francisco’s sidewalks has long offered a case study in the failure of California’s mental health care system. Now, the dire situation is inspiring a proposal for a sweeping overhaul.

gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan, to be unveiled Thursday, seeks to tackle two big flaws in the system: the shortage of desperately needed care and the strict limitations on compelling treatment for people who are too sick to understand they need help.

His proposal, called Care Court, would create a mental-health-focused arm of the civil courts in every county. For the first time, the state would require counties to provide comprehensive treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis — and risk sanctions if they don’t. The people in the program, in turn, would be obligated to accept the care.

In an exclusive interview Wednesday, Newsom grew visibly angry as he discussed his hometown — the city he presided over as mayor more than a decade ago — which prides itself on its so-called compassion as it lets people wither and die on its streets.

Previous efforts to compel treatment have often run into opposition from mental-health advocates who worry about a return to institutionalization, and say governments should focus on expanding voluntary care. But the governor said there’s no more time to debate people’s civil rights as they endure degradation, and no more time to argue about how to fund the much-needed help.

“There’s no compassion with people with their clothes off defecating and urinating in the middle of the streets, screaming and talking to themselves,” Newsom said. “There’s nothing appropriate about a kid and a mom going down the street trying to get to the park being accosted by people who clearly need help.

“I’m increasingly outraged by what’s going on in the streets,” he said. “I’m disgusted with it.”

Newsom, who has battled homelessness and mental illness in his official capacities for two decades — and has faced pressure to do more — sounded optimistic that this proposal could yield dramatic change.

Under his vision, people suffering from psychosis — whether from a mental illness such as schizophrenia or triggered by severe drug addiction — could be brought before a Superior Court judge under three scenarios: either they are suspected of a crime, an involuntary hold in a psychiatric emergency room is ending, or a family member or outreach worker believes they cannot care for themselves. A public defender would represent them.

A county clinical team would create a care plan with input from the person and their “supporter,” a county case manager who would help them navigate the process and make decisions.

The plan would likely include clinical services such as visits with a psychiatrist, prescriptions for medications and housing such as at a board-and-care facility. The person wouldn’t need to be homeless to qualify. If a judge ordered the plan, the county would be mandated to provide what’s needed and the person would be required to accept it.

If the person suffering from psychosis refused at any point to participate, their criminal case would proceed. If no crime was committed, they could face the existing state process, in which people who are gravely disabled or deemed to be a danger to themselves or others are placed under involuntary holds and eventual conservatorship. Medication could be court-ordered, but would not be forcibly given.

Failure to take mandated medications could mean the person reverts to the criminal court or eventual conservatorship. The idea is to help people long before either of those outcomes is necessary.

Care Court would need legislative approval, which Newsom hopes to secure by June for implementation in January. The legislative process will include debate over how much additional money to provide to the courts.

A loud contingent has fought increases in involuntary treatment and conservatorship for years—and may fight the governor’s plan, too. They include advocates for homeless and disabled people who say forcing people to accept treatment is cruel, as well as some politicians and mental health clinicians who say increasing the number of conservatorships without far more treatment beds and staff isn’t viable.

Newsom brushed off those concerns Wednesday, saying the status quo is intolerable.

It’s unclear whether his sweeping, expensive idea will pan out, but what’s certain is that the current system is failing miserably.

Every week in San Francisco seems to bring new, horrifying stories of people suffering because they are experiencing crippling mental illness or drug addiction. Last week, a homeless woman and mother of three whose ex-husband said she suffered from severe drug addiction, and whose friend said she had behaved erratically, died in a fire while taking shelter from the cold under a freeway overpass in Glen Park.

On Sunday, Leonard Krubner was riding a Muni train when another passenger shoved him, screamed about him being in the FBI, called him anti-gay slurs and brandished a switchblade. Krubner darted off the train and reported the incident to a Muni agent — who said a similar report had been made the night before.

“Hello! Someone, do something!” Krubner said in an interview. “I try to be sympathetic to people with problems. Nevertheless, we just can’t have them coming onto public transit and brandishing knives.”

On Saturday, a group of seven women and girls were celebrating a birthday at Ocean Beach when a man who said they seemed profoundly ill or high approached them, grabbed their food and threw it into the sand. He then grabbed a can of soda and hurled it into the face of Karla Flemmings, one of the celebrants, who passed out.

“I laid there and I literally asked, ‘God, am I dying today?'” Flemmings, 50, said. “Then I thought I’d lost my eye. I didn’t think it was even still there.”

A man sitting nearby called 911. Police responded and booked a 46-year-old man on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor vandalism. He remains in jail.

Flemmings was diagnosed with a concussion and multiple fractures in her nose. Her face was severely swollen and her eye was shut for days. She spoke compassionately about the assailant, who said she appeared to be homeless and clearly needed help.

“I’m born and raised in San Francisco, and I’ve seen the drastic changes that have occurred firsthand,” she said. “So many people don’t have money when there’s so much wealth and opulence in the Bay Area. Something better has to be done — real services and real support.”

Last year, the state approved spending $12 billion to address homelessness and mental health. Newsom’s proposed budget for this year includes another $2 billion. Of the $14 billion total, $4.5 billion is tagged specifically for mental health treatment.

The state’s Mental Health Services Act, a 1% income tax on the wealthy that passed in 2004, will provide another $3.8 billion this year to counties for treatment, a pot that’s grown significantly from last year as incomes of the wealthiest Californians have soared.

Whether the money will be enough to provide the huge amount of care Newsom envisions is a big question, but the governor’s team says the program would save money elsewhere in pricey jails and hospitals.

Darrell Steinberg, the Sacramento mayor who authored the Mental Health Services Act when he was in the state Legislature, said he supports the Care Court concept because it would finally compel counties to provide services on the state’s dime.

“Everything that cities and counties are called upon to do in providing help and treatment is voluntary and optional,” Steinberg said. “We don’t say to our local communities, ‘You know, provide a free public education to kids or don’t, whatever you choose.’ We require it.”

Clearly, the up-to-you approach for counties when it comes to mental health isn’t adequate. Under Laura’s Law, the program designed to compel outpatient treatment for seriously mentally ill people, just 218 people in the entire state were subject to enter court-ordered treatment in 2018-19, according to the governor’s office.

The foundation for mental health treatment remains the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967 in a bid to empower people experiencing mental illness. It allows for short, involuntary psychiatric holds if a person is deemed potentially dangerous, and allows a judge to appoint a longer-term conservator to make decisions for people who are “gravely disabled.”

But in 2019-20, though there were more than 55,000 short-term holds around the state, just 5,584 long-term conservatorships were put in place. Some of those could have been renewals in cases that are years or even decades old.

Last year, judges found 4,531 people incompetent to stand trial on felony charges, meaning they couldn’t understand the nature of their case or assist in their defense. Two-thirds of them were homeless, and nearly half had received no mental health treatment in the previous six months.

In June 2019, San Francisco opted into a controversial state law to expand eligibility for conservatorship to include those suffering from severe drug addictions and mental illness. But nearly three years later, just two people have been preserved.

Newsom called all of these initiatives “small ball” compared to Care Court, asserting that many of them involved years of fights for few results.

“This is a moral exercise,” he said. “The risk here is not taking one.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight usually appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

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Like many new homeowners, Kevin Sawyers and Peter Steinauer knew they wanted to make some changes when they bought a house in the Dolores Heights neighborhood of San Francisco in 2015.

And as an interior designer, Mr. Sawyers, now 53, the founder of Sawyers Design, figured he might go further than most in updating the look of the place. (Mr. Steinauer, 51, is a software engineer at Apple.) But even he didn’t realize how much the project would eventually expand — that it would include a top-to-bottom, almost total rebuild of the house.

“It was very rustic, with a lot of wood, and sort of dilapidated,” Mr Sawyers said. The house had been updated and expanded in fits and starts after the original portion was built in the early 1900s, which had created an awkward hodgepodge of architectural styles.

Kevin Sawyers, left, and Peter Steinauer renovated a house in San Francisco with help from the architecture firm Jones Haydu. Credit…Matthew Millman for The New York Times

Nevertheless, he and Mr. Steinauer liked the way the home was set back from the street on a steep hill, and they were awe-struck by the enormous Monterey cypress tree in the backyard. They bought the property for $2.1 million that March, knowing that the loose floor tiles, beige carpeting and 1970s appliances would all have to go.

“I wanted to put a modern layer on the house, for sure,” Mr. Sawyers said. “I had grand ideas for what we could do on the inside — basically gutting it, which we did — but everything eventually changed on the exterior, too.”

The couple moved in before starting the renovation, and the longer they lived there, the more they sensed opportunities to make some big architectural moves. For help, Mr. Sawyers contacted Hulett Jones, a partner at the architecture firm Jones Haydu, whom he had worked with at the architecture and design firm Gensler before the two founded their own studios.

“I went with an architect instead of just trying to do it on my own, because I did want that bigger vision,” Mr. Sawyers said. “I had some ideas about what it could be, but they really just took it somewhere else and created a much larger project than we had anticipated.”

The footprint of the house, which wouldn’t be permitted under current zoning regulations, provided some unique opportunities, Mr. Jones said: “The nice thing about the house being sited at the rear of the property is that it gets these amazing views downtown and north, and great views from different angles, which became a driving factor of the design.” He and his partner, Paul Haydu, also wanted to create sightlines to the big tree in back.

Jones Haydu eliminated many interior walls and added new floor-to-ceiling windows, along with decks at various levels, to open up the home. At the first floor, which was elevated above the street and had been used as a stand-alone workshop, they added a cantilevered addition on the front that contains a guest suite and shades a new patio below. Behind the guest suite, they designed space for Mr. Sawyers’s home office, which is large enough to accommodate a few employees, and added a staircase that connects it to the rest of the house.

In the second-floor living room, they blew out walls that had just a few windows and replaced them with floor-to-ceiling expanses of glass under a cathedral ceiling, again pushing a few feet closer to the street. To create more headroom for the third-floor primary suite, they raised the roof and changed its pitch. In the primary bathroom, they positioned a free-standing tub in a nook with glass walls.

“That’s probably my No. 1 favorite thing in the house,” Mr. Sawyers said. “You’re sitting in the tub and can look out the window up to Twin Peaks. It just makes you feel like you’re in this glass box.”

For exterior cladding, Jones Haydu replaced the old cedar-shingle siding with a mix of standing-seam metal, used as roofing and siding, and cedar slats.

With such a modern, clean-lined architectural envelope, one might expect a series of pristine white boxes inside. But that wasn’t going to happen on Mr. Sawyers’s watch. To create a personal color palette, he drew inspiration from unusual sources: a luxurious Tibetan coat and the sets of the 1980 movie “American Gigolo.”

“I was thinking about making ourselves look and feel as good in this home as we could,” Mr. Sawyers said, much the way the sets in “American Gigolo” flattered Richard Gere. “I wanted to create this set that was for us — for me and Pete.”

The result includes walls painted in Benjamin Moore colors like Grape Juice (inspired by the saturated tones in some of the movie scenes); kitchen cabinets finished in teal (which served as a foil for the warm colors, as it did in the movie); a leafy wallpaper mural on one kitchen wall; and a living room fireplace surround Phillip Jeffries grasscloth painted with gauzy clouds.

It took two years of construction, at a cost of more than $1,000 a square foot, but the couple finally moved back in to their largely rebuilt 3,200-square-foot home in September 2020, confident that they had created a one-of-a -child acc.

“It’s fun, it’s open and it embraces the outside as much as possible,” Mr. Sawyers said. It’s also filled with unexpected personal touches, which is the point: “It just really fits our lifestyle.”

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