{"id":187584,"date":"2026-02-21T14:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T14:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187584\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T14:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T14:17:07","slug":"sam-and-dario-cringe-jon-hamm-sightings-and-gay-tech-mafia-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187584\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam and Dario cringe, Jon Hamm sightings, and gay tech mafia backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tongues are always wagging in San Francisco \u2014 and The Waggle is your straightest shot to gossip. Got a tip or some tea to spill in our new weekly gossip column? Email us at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Celebrity watch: The private jets may have flown away en masse (opens in new tab)<\/a> after last week\u2019s Super Bowl Bad Bunny concert, but the celebrity sightings didn\u2019t stop. Jon Hamm stuck around long enough to dine at Foreign Cinema.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another Irishman, singer-songwriter and Covid denier Van Morrison, held a cozy, 80-minute private launch party Monday at The Chapel to debut his album \u201cSomebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge,\u201d which features North Bay octogenarian Elvin Bishop. Joan Baez will join Morrison onstage Saturday at the Masonic.<\/p>\n

F1 racer Yuki Tsunoda is in town for Red Bull\u2019s takeover of Marina Boulevard, and for once he doesn\u2019t have to come in second to his more famous teammate, Max Verstappen. The F1 team had a party at the top of the Transamerica Pyramid this week, with armed guards staged on the 47th floor to stop the uninvited from getting in, according to one tenant.<\/p>\n

Awkward aborted handshakes: The award for cringiest refusal to hold hands goes to our local Sharks and Jets gang leaders, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. At an AI summit (opens in new tab)<\/a> Thursday in New Delhi with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two refused to hold hands while every other tech leader onstage clasped for a triumphant kumbaya moment. The resulting video is \u2026 awk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The runner-up for least handsy photo op comes from the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Castro\u2019s grand reopening, where state senator and congressional candidate Scott Wiener seemed to refuse (opens in new tab)<\/a> to shake with Mayor Daniel Lurie. After being snubbed, Lurie ducked into the crowd while Wiener greeted others. Double awk!<\/p>\n

Hot goss: While we\u2019re on the topic of male genitalia, a well-placed source tells us that Gen Z men in SF saunas have been seen placing ice packs on their balls \u2014 taking Bryan Johnson\u2019s advice to do whatever they can to keep their sperm count high. (opens in new tab)<\/a> (We asked our local genitalia expert, Dr. ChatGPT, if there is any risk from putting ice on your testicles and learned that it\u2019s fine for up to 20 minutes. Stay safe out there, health bros.)<\/p>\n

American royalty: In early February, San Francisco socialites Mary and Steven Swig hosted a reception for Jack Schlossberg \u2014 the grandson of JFK who is running for Congress in New York\u2019s 12th congressional district \u2014 at their Italianate mansion in Lower Pacific Heights. Former \u201cLate Show\u201d host David Letterman was the special guest. Spotted among the supporters was art-world insider Sarah Wendell Sherrill, wife of District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, who recently launched an SF culture Instagram publication (opens in new tab)<\/a> with former Gap VP Jessica Farron.<\/p>\n

Hyphy in Milan: At the Winter Olympics, amid confessions of infidelity (opens in new tab)<\/a> and robbed hotel rooms (opens in new tab)<\/a>, two Bay Area locals have emerged as stars. The pride of Oakland, Alysa Liu, became the first U.S. woman to win Olympic figure skating gold in 24 years. More important, she\u2019s the first Muni ambassador (opens in new tab)<\/a> to win gold ever, as far as we can tell. Meanwhile, Eileen Gu, pride of Seacliff and Stanford, became the most decorated female skier in Olympic history \u2014 and went viral for shutting down a reporter who asked whether she considered her two silver medals \u201ctwo golds lost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now the two athletes have become a local meme, with Gu, who competes for China, cast as the villain to Lui\u2019s patriotic heroine. \u201cEileen Gu growing up in Sea Cliff and being the villain and Alysa Liu growing up in Richmond and being the hero is perfect scriptwriting,\u201d SF startup guy Deva Hazarika tweeted (opens in new tab)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Move to Miami, please! All week, tech Twitter \u2014 The Waggle refuses to call it X \u2014 has been awash in people saying they are bailing on San Francisco for Miami. These folks want to be just like the billionaires, apparently: avoid taxes and drive their boats up to their private mansion docks. \u201cMiami is quickly shaping up to be NY x SF bundled into one,\u201d startup investor Max Reiff tweeted Feb. 17. SF enthusiast and menswear guru Derek Guy responded wryly (opens in new tab)<\/a> by detailing the real estate he\u2019d love for Reiff to vacate pronto. At least one person claimed that the \u201cmove to Miami\u201d posters are part of a psy-ops campaign to drive down real estate prices in San Francisco. \u201cMy friend who is trying to buy a single family house in SF is running 7 burner accounts talking about how Miami is the next big tech hub to free up housing inventory in SF,\u201d wrote serial founder Chris Bakke.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Influencer watch: The Bay Area\u2019s favorite richfluencer, Becca Bloom, was spotted (opens in new tab)<\/a> outside the Ferry Building handing out red envelopes stuffed with $100 bills for Lunar New Year. Let\u2019s go, Year of the Horse!<\/p>\n

Overheard: A Gen Z woman, talking to a friend in the Sunset: \u201cI went on a few dates with a guy. We really hit it off. He met my friends, then told me we had to stop seeing each other because he needed to retain his semen for his startup. I checked his LinkedIn recently, and his company is taking off. It looks like he made the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berkeley mystery concert: UC Berkeley\u2019s Superb Productions has been teasing a high-profile mystery concert next week. The smart money is on recent best progressive R&B album Grammy winner Durand Bernarr. If the whispers are true, expect \u201cyour favorite cousin on your daddy\u2019s side\u201d to turn Upper Sproul Plaza into a full-on dance hall revival.<\/p>\n