RIP Steve Harwell

Plus: Injunction junction, what's your function

September 05, 2023

[Extremely Kurt Loder voice]

The rock world was shaken yesterday by news of the death of Steve Harwell, the gravelly-voiced frontman of Smash Mouth, the San Jose band best known for songs like “All Star” and their cover of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.” Harwell, who struggled with alcohol for years, succumbed to complications of alcoholism at his home in Boise, Idaho, the band’s manager confirmed.

Now that my Gen X brethren and sistren’s neurons are activated and firing, let’s take a minute to reflect on Steve Harwell and Smash Mouth. In their later years, Smash Mouth became something of a joke, but their debut album sold over a million copies, and that was before “All Star.” The lead single was the retro-flavored “Walkin’ on the Sun,” which, to this day, I maintain is a fantastic pop song.

If that doesn’t scream NINETIES I don’t know what does. The band started as a ska-punk kind of outfit, a big thing among classic car culture bowling shirt rockabilly revival guys in the 90’s. The rest of that debut album, Fush Yu Mang (I know, groan) doesn’t really like up to “Walkin’,” but it has its moments.

“All Star,” the hit that made the band a galactic sucess and the butt of a thousand jokes, was originally recorded for the soundtrack of Mystery Men, an odd, offbeat superhero movie which features probably the last collaboration between Janeane Garofalo and William H. Macy. If we could strip off all the baggage the song has I think we could agree it’s actually a good song! There’s a reason why someone can say “SomeBODY” and the rest of the song will start playing in your head, because it’s catchy as fuck.

The rest of the band were all talented musicians, but it was definitely Harwell’s raspy singing that was the calling card. Smash Mouth definitely had a “let’s party dude” vibe and Harwell was its living embodiment. Unfortunately, it seems like the line between persona and reality was a little blurred and Harwell lived the party-all-the-time life a little too well.

The end for Harwell and Smash Mouth came recently, after a disastrous 2021 concert at a Bethel, N.Y., beer festival. Harwell was clearly fucked up and said some weird shit (“I’ll fucking kill your whole family, I swear to God”) and did a Nazi salute. Fellow 90’s frontman Max Collins of the band Eve6, who has been sober for years and is a bright light on X/Twitter, was eerily prescient after the show:

I don’t think Harrell took this sage advice. He was clearly in a lot of pain (Harwell lost his six-month-old son to leukemia in 2001, and I can’t even imagine) but he was a good sport about everything and seems like a solid dude. R.I.P., Steve, you made a lot of people happy.

IN OTHER NEWS, if you follow the SF Homeless Narrative like I do, you’ll know that for months now the villain du jour has been Judge Donna Ryu, who issued an injunction in December 2022 banning the clearing of homeless encampments in certain situations. That last phrase, however, has become completely disregarded and now Judge Ryu is the reason we can’t have nice things, as if the homeless situation was almost all wrapped up until she stuck her big nose in it.

This article in Mission Local - which, if you’re not familiar, is an absolute bright spot in local journalism - by the inestimable Joe Eskenazi, goes a long way towards debunking the popular injunction narrative:

In the run-up to that court battle, does the injunction give homeless people carte blanche to do whatever, wherever, whenever? Actually, no. It specifically does not allow cops to cite or threaten street-dwellers with four sections of the penal code and two sections of the police code regarding, among other matters, public lodging or sitting upon the sidewalk.

But it does allow authorities to move or dismantle encampments based on three other sections of the penal and health codes, including “willfully and maliciously obstruct[ing] the free movement of any person on any street, sidewalk, or other public place or on or in any place open to the public” and “Any accumulation of filth, garbage, decayed or spoiled food, unsanitary debris or waste material, or decaying animal or vegetable matter.“

So, there appears to be a divergence between what the city is doing under the injunction and what it could do. Could police still intervene in problematic situations? Well, this Police Bulletin says they sure can.

Wait, are you trying to tell me that SFPD is using this as an excuse to not do their job? *faints dead away*

The biggest misconception about the injunction, and one I’ve seen repeated on Elon Musk’s hellsite and elsewhere, is that as long as there are more homeless people in SF than available shelter beds, the city can’t clear an encampment. Eskenazi smashes the bullshit button on that:

If someone has access to a shelter bed, housing or hotel room “the injunction does not cover them,” says [ACLU attorney John] Do. The plaintiffs, in agreement with the city, state that the injunction does not apply to anyone who “has a specific offer of realistically available shelter but chooses not to use it.”

Do also says the city doesn’t need to have 8,000 beds ready for 8,000 homeless people (or however many there may be) before it can begin citing homeless people or coercing them to move under threat of law.

“There is not a bright line rule that San Francisco has to have enough shelter beds for everyone in San Francisco before it can enforce some of these laws,” Do says. “What San Francisco does need to do is provide a realistically available shelter opportunity.”

Well, that should clear it up! I expect the politically motivated misinformation will cease immediately. Ha ha.

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