Classes Archives — Page 3 of 32 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

New arts high school would cost $240 million

Michael Redmond

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January 14, 2014

Art advocates have tried to move the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts high school to its new home on Van Ness street since 1987. On Jan. 7, the dream moved one step closer, the only barrier is cost.

At a packed San Francisco Board of Education meeting, planners revealed the move’s sticker price, and it’s a big one: $240 million. Board of Education President Rachel Norton’s face sunk into one hand as she heard the news.

“There’s a big challenge going forward,” said David Goldin, chief facilities officer of the San Francisco Unified School District. “I don’t want to minimize that challenge for one minute. But for the first time in a long time, we’re close to having an architectural reality.”

The school is named for one of its founders, artist Ruth Asawa, with deep roots in San Francisco history as an arts and education activist. It has a unique education model: students attend academic classes in the morning, but spend two hours every afternoon learning a specific art discipline.

SotA is currently housed at the old McAteer campus on Twin Peaks, with its sister school, the Academy of Arts and Sciences (disclosure: I taught students video editing at SotA as a contractor until last summer). Collectively they have 1,000 students enrolled.

The cost of moving the school to the site on Van Ness is steep for a number of reasons, SFUSD spokesperson Gentle Blythe told us. SotA’s new home was formerly the High School of Commerce, and was granted historic landmark status — meaning the facade, at the very least, must be preserved. The building needs a seismic retrofit as well.

Most importantly, though, the cost is so high because the new site would be crafted with the arts in mind.

“It’s a high school for the performing arts with non-standard design considerations, including height of ceiling, and sophisticated electronics,” Blythe said. The building will be crafted for dance studios, orchestra rooms, multimedia facilities and more. It’s also not just a school: the district would also build an on-site auditorium that could seat 47,000 attendees.

By comparison, the new Willie Brown Middle School comes is budgeted at $55 million, Blythe told us. But the chief facilities officer said the price to move SotA was comparable to the cost of newer public arts schools in the US.

San Francisco artists came out in force to advocate for the move. First up to the podium to speak was the music director of the San Francisco Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas.

“I’m 10,000 percent behind this idea,” he told the board. “My dream is to do a Big Brothers Big Sisters program with all the grades, to share that vision with younger people.”

Find friends, find mentors, find your music

Maria Poblet

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January 9, 2014

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In 2014 everyone should be a player, and Blue Bear School of Music has a class to make it happen! Play guitar: no need to read music, just you and your guitar will do. Sign up now for small group acoustic and electric classes, lead guitar and jam classes or our guitar/ukulele Acoustic Rocksemble. Learn to sing: Blue Bear offers Singing for People Who Can’t Sing plus intermediate/advanced classes in rock, pop and jazz vocals. Write a song: get inspired and fine-tune your skills with our songwriting classes with Peter Case. Join a band: sign up now for our Blue Bear Band Workshops – rock, blues, jazz, roots, contemporary – and in 10 weeks you’ll be playing live onstage in a San Francisco club!

At Blue Bear you’ll find experienced teachers, small class sizes and an inspiring learning environment. All ages and all levels welcome. Winter classes at Fort Mason Center and Lennon Studios (SOMA) start January 13. Save $25 on winter group classes with coupon code SFBG. Find the schedule and more info at bluebearmusic.org.

SFUSD sticker shock: new art school to cost $240 million

Erica Hanna

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January 8, 2014

13

SFUSD sticker shock: new art school to cost $240 million

Art advocates have tried to move the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts high school to its new home on Van Ness street since 1987. Last night the dream moved one step closer, the only barrier is cost.

At a packed San Francisco Board of Education meeting, planners revealed the move’s sticker price, and it’s a big one: $240 million. Board of Education President Rachel Norton’s face sunk into one hand as she heard the news.

“There’s a big challenge going forward,” said David Goldin, chief facilities officer of the San Francisco Unified School District. “I don’t want to minimize that challenge for one minute. But for the first time in a long time, we’re close to having an architectural reality.”

The school is named for one of its founders, artist Ruth Asawa, with deep roots in San Francisco history as an arts and education activist. It has a unique education model: students attend academic classes in the morning, but spend two hours every afternoon learning a specific art discipline.

SotA is currently housed at the old McAteer campus on Twin Peaks, with its sister school, the Academy of Arts and Sciences (disclosure: I taught students video editing at SotA as a contractor until last summer). Collectively they have 1,000 students enrolled.

The cost of moving the school to the site on Van Ness is steep for a number of reasons, SFUSD spokesperson Gentle Blythe told us. SotA’s new home was formerly the High School of Commerce, and was granted historic landmark status — meaning the facade, at the very least, must be preserved. The building needs a seismic retrofit as well.

A student, an SFUSD arts advocate, the school’s principal and Ruth Asawa’s son talk about the need for a new SotA site.

Most importantly, though, the cost is so high because the new site would be crafted with the arts in mind.

“It’s a high school for the performing arts with non-standard design considerations, including height of ceiling, and sophisticated electronics,” Blythe said. The building will be crafted for dance studios, orchestra rooms, multimedia facilities and more. It’s also not just a school: the district would also build an on-site auditorium that could seat 47,000 attendees.

For comparison, the new Willie Brown Middle School comes is budgeted at $55 million, Blythe told us. But the chief facilities officer said the price to move SotA was comparable to the cost of newer public arts schools in the US.

San Francisco artists came out in force to advocate for the move. First up to the podium to speak was the music director of the San Francisco Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas.

“I’m 10,000 percent behind this idea,” he told the board. “My dream is to do a Big Brothers Big Sisters program with all the grades, to share that vision with younger people.”

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas to the SFUSD board of ed: “I’m 10,000% behind this” on new school of the arts bldg pic.twitter.com/HlNGsMvH6y

— Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) January 8, 2014

Outside the meeting he told the Guardian that he said it was a “strong possibility” there’d be a formal program for students to work directly with the orchestra were SotA to move to Civic Center.

Many more artists and politicians came up to the podium: from the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Ballet, an artist from the Mission, Susan Brown (Willie’s daughter), HOPE Director Bevan Dufty, former City Attorney Louise Renne, and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu.

Former students spoke as well.

“I’ve had some time the past couple minutes to reflect on my time in high school, given the amount of teachers and former mentors in this room,” said Alexander Jones, a class of 2011 graduate of SotA. “It was an experience that shaped who I am today, and shaped who I am in the world. I can’t wait for a future when SotA is a shining beacon of hope.”

He now studies dance at The Juilliard School, in New York.

SFUSD Superintendent Richard Carranza made a promise that history would not repeat itself — if the move is approved, the school will be built quickly. “It’s our intent that this will not languish for 20 years,” he said. “It’s our intent that this will be a reality in a very short time frame.”

Still, despite the love for SotA on display, $240 million is a steep bill. The school has $25 million total on hand for the project, Chief Facilities Officer David Goldin said. San Francisco voters approved a bond for $15 million to build the school in 2003, but it’s sat there unused ever since.

At the meeting, the commissioners answered a question staring everyone in the face: Why did moving the school take so long?

“The price tag was so high, and we got scared, and we put it in the drawer. It was in a time when money was scarce. It wasn’t the time,” Commissioner Hydra Mendoza McDonald said to the crowd.

The commissioners also said the remaining costs would likely not come from the school district.

“It’s probably going to take a ton of private money,” Commissioner Sandra Lee Fewer told the Guardian in a phone interview. “I don’t know what the fund raising plan is yet. I think we’re figuring that out now.”

The Board of Education will vote next Tuesday whether or not to build a new home for the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.

Theater Listings: January 8 – 14, 2014

Michael Redmond

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January 7, 2014

0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Major Barbara ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-140. Previews Wed/8-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 7pm. Opens Jan 15, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (Jan 21, show at 7pm; additional shows Jan 22 and 29, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Feb 2. American Conservatory Theater performs a new production of George Bernard Shaw’s political comedy.

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $60-90 (add-ons: casino chips, $5; dance lessons, $10). Opens Fri/10, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Runs Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Through March 15. Boxcar Theatre presents Nick A. Olivero’s re-creation of a Prohibition-era saloon, resulting in an “immersive theatrical experience involving more than 35 actors, singers, and musicians.”

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Wed/8-Sat/11, 8pm (also Thu/9-Sat/11, 4:30pm); Sun/12, 1, 4:30. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Avenue Q New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/8-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the Tony-winning comedy.

The Book of Mormon Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 1 and 6:30pm. Through Jan 19. When approaching the oeuvre of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it’s best to check your political correctness at the door. That’s certainly no less true of their 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, co-penned with Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q fame), despite the clean-scrubbed appearance of their fumbling albeit well-intentioned missionary protagonists. Sent to Uganda for two years, top mission pupil Elder Price (Nic Rouleau) and his clumsy but affable partner Elder Cunningham (A.J. Holmes) are faced with a village oppressed by a scenery-chewing warlord, a demoralized coterie of fellow missionaries who have yet to have a successful conversion, and their own fraught, odd-couple dynamic. Rouleau’s Price is an appropriate blend of smarm, charm, and secret self-doubt while Holmes excels in his portrayal of a perennial-loser-turned-prophet (his power ballad-esque solo in “Man Up” is one of the show’s best). Of their hosts, the wry Mafala (James Vincent Meredith) and his sweet but strong-willed daughter Nabulungi (Syesha Mercado) get the most stage time, but it’s the crude and caustic General (David Aron Damane) who grabs the most attention. The gleefully profane “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” a Forbidden Zone-style “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, and the deliriously blasphemous “Joseph Smith, American Moses,” round out the entertaining, and strangely informative, score. Though it’s (very) unlikely to convert you to the Church of Latter-Day Saints, there’s a good chance you’ll want to convert to the church of Parker and Stone, if you haven’t already. (Gluckstern)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Road Show Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Jan 19. This Stephen Sondheim musical has suspiciously gone by several previous names, like someone on the lam: Gold! (in one incarnation), Wiseguys (in a workshop form), Bounce (in still another production), and then Road Show (in the revised form that was finally presented at New York’s Public Theater in 2008). It gets its first Bay Area airing in this unevenly cast but not uninteresting staging by Theatre Rhinoceros and artistic director John Fisher. No fan of the great Sondheim will want to miss this, no matter what problems it may have structurally (and it has problems structurally) or in performance (it has those too). Given the context of Sondheim’s brilliant career and unmistakable genius, Road Show proves an intriguing evening even where it disappoints. Set in the opening decades of the 20th century, it’s the story of Addison Mizner (a boyishly gruff and musically solid Bill Fahrner, well known veteran of 42nd Street Moon productions) and his somewhat rascally brother Wilson (a sure Rudy Guerrero), charged by their late father (a nicely animated Kim Larsen) with making something of themselves. This instigates their tempestuous entrepreneurial journey from the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida Real Estate boom of the 1920s, with trips home to their devoted, doting mother (Kathryn Wood) whenever they fail or fall out with one another. Musical director and piano accompanist Dave Dobrusky (also of musical mavens 42nd Street Moon) gets hardworking performances from the cast (some of whom can nevertheless stray at times much further than the rambling brothers at the center of the story). But the love-hate relationship between the brothers, or the doomed big romance between Addison and a handsome scion of an industrial magnate (an inconsistent but charming Michael Doppe), never makes much dramatic sense. Everyone seems too disagreeable to be considered somehow irresistible. However, some shaky singing aside, there is much to admire in the musical — it’s a Sondheim after all, witty and often beguiling to the ear and imagination. But if Sondheim’s music and lyrics are the road, John Weidman’s book is all over the place. By the end it seems as if a four-hour saga had been folded up like a roadmap along all the wrong creases, a doubtful package best tucked once again into an out-of-the-way drawer. (Avila)

Storefront Church San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Wed/8-Thu/9, 7pm; Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 3pm). Weighty themes come leavened by sharp comedy and engaging characters in this 2012 play from New York’s John Patrick Shanley (Doubt), now enjoying a strong and lively Bay Area premiere at SF Playhouse in director Joy Carlin’s well cast production. Ethan, a gregarious retired accountant and professed secular Jew (a hilarious and endearing Ray Reinhardt) tries to get some relief for his Puerto Rican wife, Jessie (a bubbly Gloria Weinstock), who is perilously behind on her loan payments. But it’s like getting the proverbial blood from a stone during his meeting with her humorless and immobile — indeed, partly paralyzed — loan officer (a quietly shattered Rod Gnapp). Ethan appeals to morality; loan officer Reed sticks to the rules of the system. Enter Donaldo (an admirably sure yet understated Gabriel Marin), the Bronx’s upstanding borough president and the son of Jessie’s old friend. Donaldo has much bigger business with the bank underway (a proposed mall deal that will bring jobs, if at the expense of local character) and at first begs off — until he learns his mother has co-signed the loan. Soon, Donaldo is visiting the source of Jessie’s money problems: a somber Pentecostal preacher and Katrina-refugee named Chester (a gently solemn Carl Lumbly) who has installed a traffic-less church in the storefront below her apartment but remains himself paralyzed by depression and uncertainty. Donaldo, himself a preacher’s son, and Chester soon engage in a fiery and captivating debate that turns on the contradictions between moral conviction and worldly compromise. From there on, a fractured congregation of sorts begins to form around the preacher and Donaldo, including the unctuous yet aloof CEO of the bank (played with bounding confidence by a fine Derek Fischer). It all leads to a rousingly funny and tender scene that makes good on the season’s usual lip service to fraternal feeling and communal values. (Avila)

The Tempest Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.doitliveproductions.com. $15. Thu and Sun, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Jan 18. At the outset of Do It Live! Productions’ staging of Shakespeare’s late play, scenic designer Yusuke Soi sums up a serene faraway landscape in an exquisite single stroke — a sloping, flat-topped dodecagon of buffed wood occupying the vast center of the small stage. Wooden hinges provide several footholds for climbing, and a thick rope dropping from the flies allows rapid motion across the surface, down which actors can also slide from peak to floor with practically the velocity of a fall. That impressive structure is unfortunately the smoothest aspect of the production, however, since the unfurling of the story and speech is by contrast too unsettled in co-directors Will Hand and Kenny Toll’s compact staging. They find opportunities here and there for the actors to take flight in dynamic relation to the set, but not as many as you might imagine, and the cast — led by a capable but somewhat colorless Bill Peters as Prospero — is not equally up to the dramatic flights either. Themes of revenge, subjugation, love, and service mingle fitfully here, without any clear distillation of the many-hued drama. The high comical scene with Stephano (Nick Medina), Trinculo (Anthony Agresti), and a terrified, then soused Caliban (a sinewy, tattooed Caleb Cabrera) comes off as one of the more effective scenes (thanks especially to Medina’s robust performance), but it stands out more by contrast than anything else. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Feb 2. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Note: review from an earlier run of the show. (Avila)

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed/8-Thu/9, 7pm; Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. Shotgun Players performs Anthony Neilson’s comic romp set in “a sensual Edwardian world of top hats, fantastical puppets, and flash powder.”

Sherlock Holmes: The Broken Mirror Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Jan 26. Jeff Garrett portrays all the characters (Sherlock, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Moriarty…) in this adaptation of William Gillette’s Holmes play.

Tristan & Yseult Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $17.50-81. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Jan 18); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Extended through Jan 18. Kneehigh presents an innovative take on the ancient love-triangle tale.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“After the Light” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.lissfaindance.org. Thu/9-Sat/11, 8pm; Sun/12, 2pm. $15-35. Liss Fain Dance presents its 2014 home season, featuring a world premiere.

“Attractive Camp” Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; Facebook: Attractive Camp. Sun/12, 8pm. $10. Stand-up comedy with host Nicole Calasich and performers Caitlin Gill, Anna Serengina, Dave Ross, Scott Simpson, and Matt Lieb.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/11, Jan 19, 25, Feb 1, 8, 14, 16, 22, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Comedy Bottle” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/10-Sat/11, 7pm. $10. Comedy with Enrique Casolla and Kyle McFadden.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Tom Wopat in “I’ve Got Your Number,” Thu/9, 8, $35-45. Cheyenne Jackson in “I’m Blue, Skies,” Fri/10, 8pm; Sat/11, 7pm, $50-65.

“FRESH Festival 2014” CounterPULSE UnderGround, 80 Turk, SF; www.artsbuildingconsortium.org. FRESH Perspectives community events, $5-10; performances, $15-20. Through Jan 19. Performances from Violeta Luna, Brontez Purnell, and Sara Kraft (Fri/10-Sat/11), and Abby Crain, Jess Curtis, Laura Arrington, and viv (Jan 17-18). Community events (dates and times vary) include music and dance mixers, showcases, discussions, and more. The festival also includes classes ($400-750) for performers.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Feb 7, March 7, and April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Sea of Reeds” Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 3pm). $25-35. Josh Kornbluth performs his solo comedy about his decision to get bar-mitzvahed at age 52 — in Israel.

“Shotz: Unisex” Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.amiosnyc.org. Tue/14, 8pm. $10 (includes a beer). AmiosSF presents six short plays, five minutes each, related to the theme “Unisex” and including the phrase “such amazing options” and “a reference to a stop sign of some sort.”

BAY AREA

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” JCC of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut, Berk; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/12, 11am-noon. $8. With The Bubble Lady. Also Sun/12, 11:30am-12:30pm, $8, Kanbar Center for the Performing Arts, 200 N. San Pedro, San Rafael. With the Comedy Pirate, Cap’n Jack Spareribs.

“reveries and elegies” Milkbar, Sunshine Biscuit Factory, 851 81st St, Oakl; www.maryarmentroutdancetheater.com. Sat/11-Sun/12 and Jan 18-19, 4:30pm; Jan 25-26, 4:45pm. $20. Mary Armentrout’s new site-specific project is timed to coincide with sundown on each performance day. *

Build a bot

Michael Redmond

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January 7, 2014

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culture@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED For most of the working world, cardboard represents little more than a recyclable material, something to hold your pizza. But to Jutiki Gunter, cardboard is a construction material with near-limitless potential.

Gunter, founder of Robotics for Fun (www.roboticsforfun.com), an Oakland-based robotics retailer and workshop, can seemingly build anything out of it. He can then take that anything and program it to move on its own. After that, in an exhibition of what is arguably his most impressive talent, he can teach you to do the same.

All it requires is some digestible training, an easy-to-assemble kit, and a bit of imagination. And while Robotics for Fun offers popular adult workshops, it’s the youth program that stands out. “My goal has always been to teach kids what I learned at a professional level,” said Gunter, who holds degrees from Cornell and Harvard in architecture. “If we can introduce them to those concepts early, they’ll be able to move things much further along.”

Dominating the entryway inside Robotics for Fun are dozens of colorful home-cut creations hanging on the walls. A scorpion is proudly displayed next to a penguin perched near an owl. An alligator sits beside a pterodactyl, flanked by a frog, shark, and rhino. The taxidermy-like display might seem morbid if these animal-like cardboard creations didn’t also come to life robotically. But nearly all of them do — and their little Dr. Frankensteins are usually fresh out of kindergarten.

“We’ve found that the kids can understand it conceptually as young as six, but they can’t really retain the information younger than that,” said Gunter. “By six, seven, eight, they can do the projects.”

Those projects start off simple: Most of the beginning classes center on preconstructed “kits” that are made in-house, composed of either Lego pieces or cardboard. The students conceptualize the project, construct the model, then do the requisite programming and circuitry to mobilize their robot, if the model they’re working on is capable of handling motorization.

But in the advanced classes, things get more intricate. And far more creative. “We used to work with Legos, but once the kids started wanting to make their own designs, we started showing them how to make robots out of cardboard, so they could learn to prototype and create any piece that they want.”

Results: awesome. Students have built climbing “rescue robots,” artificially intelligent vacuum cleaners, rovers that run on auto-pilot, even a car-like vehicle that can travel within a 30 mile radius at 15 miles an hour.

Gunter manufactures the parts onsite. His supply room is one part artist’s studio, one part Silicon Valley. Prototype robots lie about half-realized; sketchbooks lie open atop a workbench revealing dreams in the process of actualization, computer code sharing the same page as hastily drawn lines.

Behind the workbench is his most important piece of equipment: an Epilog Legend EXT laser system. The laser-etcher is necessary to create parts with the precision robotics require, and the process itself looks like a microscopic manifestation of the laser-obsessed Archimedes.

The fewer limitations Gunter has when it comes to what he can do, the fewer limitations the kids have when it comes to creation. And for Gunter, fewer limitations is what this is all about. “We’re teaching kids skills here that they’re not even learning in first year college, and why not? They love it, they have the ability to do it, they have the capacity to understand it. Of course, we want to give kids a fun experience. But my real, ideal goal is to give them advanced skills at a young age and see what they can do with it.””

Ignore less

Michael Redmond

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January 7, 2014

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culture@sfbg.com

CAREERS AND ED Often called the first feminist, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz could well be your guiding spirit heading into this bright new year. Born in 1651 in colonial Mexico, Sor Juana defied societal expectations about women at the time to study herself into becoming one of the smartest people in New Spain. She became a nun rather than marry, and eventually amassed one of the largest libraries in the Americas.

One of Sor Juana’s enduring catch phrases was “I don’t study to know more, but to ignore less,” a prettily humble bon mot from a woman who constantly had to defend her right to learn. Sadly, threats of censure by the church slowed her educational roll — but nonetheless, her unlikely influence on the fight for women’s rights is still honored today.

Will you ignore less in the new year? Surely there are fewer obstacles in your way than Sor Juana’s. Here are some excellent ways to engage with the world around you in 2014.

FEMINIST BOOK CLUB FOR MEN

So you say you’re a boor? For all the menfolk — or anyone, really — boggled by feminism, this monthly book club may be the ticket. Held at Noisebridge, the Mission’s tech learning center (check its calendar for amazing, mainly free classes and meetups), the club will start with bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody and feature conversations about how to be the best ally possible. All gender identities welcome.

Second Wednesdays starting Wed/8, 7pm, free. Noisebridge, 2169 Mission, SF. www.noisebridge.net

BEGINNING STAND-UP COMEDY

The stand-up school with the most working comedians on staff of any similar institution in the country wants to get you in front of an exposed brick wall talking about your boyfriend’s crazy roommate.

Wednesdays Jan. 8-Feb. 12, 6pm, $239-279. SF Comedy College, 442 Post, Fifth Fl., SF. www.sfcomedycollege.com

REGGAETON FUSION DANCE

Instructor Tika Morgan explores the hip-hop, dancehall, Cuban salsa, and other influences that create the pounding rhythms of reggaeton.

Wednesdays, 8-9:30pm, $13. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF. www.dancemission.com

LGBT COUNTRY-WESTERN DANCE

Two-step, skiffle, country swing, and waltz your way through these inclusive country-western lessons and dance parties run by community advocates Sundance Association.

Thursdays 5:30pm, Sundays 7pm, $5. Sundance Saloon, 550 Barneveld, SF. www.sundancesaloon.org

CHOW QIGONG BASICS

Learn about qigong, the Chinese chi-balancing practice that involves breathing, other physical movements, and mental exercises. This free class is taught by Effie Chow, a qigong grandmaster who founded her East West Academy of Healing Arts here in 1973, and has served on White House advisory boards concerning alternative medicine.

Fri/10, 7-9pm, free. Polish Club, 3040 22nd St., SF. tinyurl.com/qigongsf

MEDIA LITERACY

Support your local community college through its battle to retain its accreditation by enrolling in one of its class offerings — there’s no charge for non-credit courses (though you may have to buy books and materials). This class examines the hidden and explicit messages sent out through mass media, and helps students pinpoint how these cues affect the decisions that they and other members of society make.

Fridays Fri/10-May 23, 8am-12:50pm, free. City College of San Francisco, 1125 Valencia, SF. www.ccsf.edu

STAND-UP PADDLING

Start at the Aquatic Center next to Fisherman’s Wharf where you’ll learn safety and equipment basics, then head down with this SF Rec and Park class to Lake Merced’s scenic bird estuary to get down on some core-strengthening, stand-up paddle boarding action. Bring your own wetsuit, kiddies — it gets cold on those waters!

Sat/11, 1-4pm, free. Aquatic Park, Beach and Hyde, SF. www.sfrecpark.org

INTRODUCTION TO GRAPHIC AND WEB DESIGN

To do anything these days, you need a website. To have a website, you need a web designer. So basically, you may need to sign up for one of the Bay Area Video Coalition’s intro courses on dynamic layouts and client interfaces so that you can continue living your life as a functional citizen in 2014.

Sat/11-Sun/12, 10am-6pm, $595. Bay Area Video Coalition, 2727 Mariposa, SF. www.bavc.org

MAGNIFICENT MAGNOLIAS

With 51 species of this lovely, placid bloom sprinkling the premises, the San Francisco Botanical Garden is the perfect place to learn about the majesty of the magnolia. The garden offers daytime walks if you’re scared of the dark, but we think the nocturnal stroll sounds divine.

Jan. 16, 6-8pm, $20. Register in advance. SF Botanical Garden, Ninth Ave. and Lincoln, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.sfbotanicalgardensociety.org

INDOOR CANNABIS HORTICULTURE

Sure the price tag is steep for this class on raising buds in bright indoor light, but you’ll be supporting your green thumb and your local pot movement institution, which has surfed the tsunami of federal persecution and will live to blow clouds right through legalization (we reckon).

Thursdays Jan. 16-March 20, 10:30am-1pm, $1,195. Oaksterdam University, 1734 Telegraph, Oakl. www.oaksterdamuniversity.com

HYPNOTIC RESTORATIVE YOGA

Accessing the subconscious’s potential for healing is the name of the game in this extremely mellow yoga class, during which you’ll be put into a trance-like state through a hybrid method developed by a Reiki, yoga, and hypnotherapy professional. The dream state is said to be highly beneficial for psychic health -– and sounds hella fun.

Jan. 18, 2:30-5:45, $40-50. Yoga Tree Telegraph, 2807 Telegraph, Berk. www.yogatreesf.com

MEZCAL MASTER CLASS

Each month La Urbana, the chic new taqueria on Divisadero, hosts fancy mezcal tastings. But you’re not just getting your drink on: A different producer of the agave-based spirit comes in each time to present a signature mezcal alongside tales of its production. Educated boozery, this is it.

5-6pm, $10-15. La Urbana, 661 Divisadero, SF. mezcalmasterclasses.eventbrite.com

FAN DANCING

Valentine’s Day (sorry for any unwanted reminders) is on its effusive, heart-shaped way, giving you the perfect excuse for you to drop in on this class with Sin Sisters Burlesque co-founder Balla Fire to learn how to swish, conceal, and reveal with the best of them for your sweetheart.

Jan. 21, 7-9pm, $30. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

INEXPENSIVE AND INCREDIBLE: HOW TO SPOT GREAT VALUE WINE

Does paying $40 to learn how to parse affordable wines make sense? Depends on how many bottles of Cab Sauv you’re consuming — and one would think that after partaking in this one-off seminar with Bar Tartine’s old wine director Vinny Eng, that tally will increase.

Jan. 22, 7-9pm, $40. 18 Reasons, 3674 18th St. SF. www.18reasons.org

WORLD OF FISH

A full weekend of learning about ways to cook fish from around the globe will go on at this friendly North Beach cooking school (which tends to book up its workshops early, so book now). On the menu: black cod poached in five-spice broth, brodo di pesce, and much more.

Feb. 1-2, 10am-3pm, $385. Tante Marie’s Cooking School, 271 Francisco, SF. www.tantemaria.com

PORTRAITURE UNVEILED

Do you have a staring problem? Fix your gaze on this 10-session course including anatomy tips, representational tricks, and a focus on the art of portraiture.

Thursdays, Feb. 6-April 10, 6:30-9:30pm, $360. California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. www.cca.edu

THE BASICS OF BUDGETING AND SAVING

If the only thing you can depend on in this wacky 2014 is yourself, it’s time to hone those financial security skills. This free class is held once a month at the LGBT Community Center, and should give you a couple things to think about when it comes to money management.

Feb. 11, 6:30-8:30pm, free. LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market, SF. www.sfcenter.org

HERBS FOR FLUS AND COLDS

In addition to a more long-running courses and a by-donation, student-staffed herbal health clinic that is open to the public, Berkeley’s Ohlone Herbal Center offers practical classes in Western herbalism for regular folks. Your loved ones will thank you for brushing up with this one — it teaches preventative anti-cold and flu measures, and home remedies for when you inevitably catch something. Yes, tea is provided during classtime.

Feb. 12, 7-9:30pm, free. Register at ohlonecenter@gmail.com. Ohlone Herbal Center, 1250 Addison, Berk. www.ohlonecenter.org

AIN’T I A WOMAN? MY JOURNEY TO WOMANHOOD

If you are looking for educational opportunites as to changing the face of culture, look no further than this public lecture hosted by the California Institute of Integral Studies. For two hours, Orange is the New Black breakout star Laverne Cox will discuss her journey to becoming the most visible black transwoman on television (not to mention the first ever to produce and star in her own program with VH1’s “TRANSForm Me”). The talk won’t be lacking in looks-ahead to the important activism that still remains for Cox and her allies.

March 19, 7-9pm, $25-75. Nourse Theater, 275 Hayes, SF. www.ciis.edu

EVENT SPONSORSHIP

You will finally be able to get that organic farmstand delivery service to sponsor your yearly watermelon seed-spitting contest (or whatever) after you take this crash course on getting money to hold events. The secrets to obtaining event sponsorships are divulged during this one-day class: how to pitch potential partners, going market rates, and more, all in a group discussion-centric format.

April 26, 9am-5pm, $300. San Francisco State University Downtown Campus, 835 Market, SF. www.sfsu.edu

Laboring for better health care

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

2

Gardening, plumbing, construction, janitorial work and washing dishes: the jobs day laborers perform for San Franciscans are done with their bodies. Their physical fitness is their gateway to work.

It’s that physicality they risk on the job every day. Undocumented Latino laborers have a hard time reaching options for medical care though, even in a sanctuary city like San Francisco.

To be clear, San Francisco has gone far and beyond many cities to provide medical care. The city’s Healthy San Francisco program, UCSF, and a smattering of nonprofits all provide medical care to undocumented immigrants, which often includes day laborers.

The problem is not a matter of options, but a matter of trust.

James Quesada, an anthropology professor at San Francisco State University who studied health care options for day laborers, said even when options are available, many day laborers actively avoid them.

The specter of deportation is always lurking, he said, stopping many from seeking clinics in the first place.

“Despite the fact that we’re a sanctuary city, there’s always that fear and threat that someone could come at any time,” Quesada said. “There are do-gooding public health services for them, public health contracted satellite clinics and the like. But one of the hardest things is to really convince them that they’re not in peril by going.”

At the U-Haul rental facility near Bryant street, laborers stand in pairs waiting for potential customers to drive by. When a customer comes into sight, they’ll start toward the passing car in huffing sprints. Their work is unpredictable and never guaranteed.

One man the Guardian spoke to, Gonzalo Moran, 62, cited one health care center as a timely godsend: the Mission Neighborhood Health Clinic. The wait there is only half an hour, he said, and in an emergency they make referrals to SF General Hospital.

But heading to SF General for care can carry a high price tag in both time and money, and results are not guaranteed.

“One day I had a toothache, I went to the emergency [room], was there from about four o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon,” Moran said. “I told them I was homeless, that I didn’t have no income, I have no immigration papers or nothing. A nurse came to check on me, my tooth. They just gave me a prescription for Tylenol, but then a month later they sent me a bill for $300. For Tylenol.”

Moran isn’t necessarily out on the streets, but crashes regularly at different places. Whenever he tried to get a credit score the bill would come up in searches.

The hit wasn’t only monetary. The day he spent at the hospital was a day he could have worked.

Moran’s story reflects findings made by Quesada in his research. Though many providers claim to help the undocumented, the level of service can depend on just which doctor or nurse you happen to get that day. Service and safety are uneven, and there’s no way to keep track of it all.

“It’s a patch quilt, a moving target,” he said.

Moran told his story with strong English skills gained through City College classes, but he’s had the time to learn — the El Salvador native landed in the United States in 1976 to earn money for his family. Others Quesada talked to were not as lucky.

In his research on undocumented day laborers and health care, he found many who avoided clinics and hospitals for fear of being deported. Quesada found the laborers in the streets, and spent time in clinics and hospitals to find what kept them away from medical care. What he found was fear.

Some men would jump even at the sight of a rent-a-cop security guard, he said.

In an academic paper he published on the subject, Quesada related the story of Juan, a day laborer in his 50s who suffered terrible tooth pain. He refused to seek help.

“Look Jim, if I show up at the clinic [nearby public clinic] I cannot be sure I won’t be arrested and taken away. You know, it is more dangerous now. I can never be sure when it is safe to go [get medical attention]. But, you know what it is, I do not want to be like those others [Latinos] who have “no shame” [sin verguenzas] and want what they want for nothing. If I can I will pay my way, and if I can’t, I can’t. I’ll withstand the pain and take care of it myself, even if I have to pull them [his teeth] out myself. “

Juan would medicate the gaps in his teeth with Tequila soaked cotton balls, and aspirin.

Quesada tried to get him help, but Juan had to cancel dental appointments repeatedly when jobs became available. Day laborers never know when the next opportunity may drive up to them.

This is what pushes Quesada and others to push for a merging of social work and health care. Some facilities in San Francisco have already moved that way, as hospitals like UCSF visit churches and community centers on weekends to reach out to undocumented people in need of medical attention. Still, there’s room for change.

“Doctors shouldn’t have be social workers, but social workers should be there in the room,” Quesada said, saying that would go a long way towards helping undocumented workers find the help they need. But despite a lack of options, they carry on.

“They’re valiantly making a go of it, and don’t want to dwell on the negative,” he said. “They don’t want to be seen as fighting for basic human rights, as not fully human.”

The man we met outside the U-Haul on Bryant, Gonzalo Moran, has three trade school certificates, one of them in floor tiling. But he longed for one thing: time to attend school so he could get ahead.

“I go to school all the time, you know, if I have it,” he said. “But it’s hard, we’re always getting a lower wage.” And it’s a barrier. A barrier to health, a barrier to education, and a barrier to a better life.

Development must protect the arts

Michael Redmond

-

December 3, 2013

139

By Stephanie Weisman

OPINION Recently, the Bay Guardian ran an article critical of The Marsh theater’s position on the condo development proposed for 1050 Valencia St. (see “Street Fight: Driving us crazy,” 11/12). It incorrectly claimed that we oppose the project. Thank you, Guardian, for now giving us the opportunity to set the record straight.

The Marsh does not oppose a proposal to develop condominiums and commercial space next door to us at 1050 Valencia St. Rather, we are trying to get conditions attached to the project’s building permit — for both during and after construction — that reflect that this developer chose to build up against a world-renowned, community-based theater. We believe it is reasonable to expect the developer to be a good neighbor.

For almost 25 years, The Marsh has developed solo performances, presenting nearly 700 performances annually with 400 in our Mission location alone. We also offer solo performance workshops and year-round after-school classes and camps for youth where no child — toddler through teen — is turned away because of lack of money. We foster risk-taking and diverse artists from novices to those with worldwide acclaim, giving voice to the vital stories of our times.

The construction plans for 1050 Valencia directly affect our theater space and our ability to continue to host live performance. As currently designed, the plans for both construction and occupancy could mean noise that would drown out unamplified solo performance. The project will also reduce theater lighting and ventilation.

We’ve seen the history of new affluent residents in fancy SoMa live/work lofts who didn’t like living next to the loud music and milling crowds they chose to move near. These wealthy newcomers could afford to hire lawyers and fight expensive legal battles, and they successfully closed down entertainment venues that had defined SoMa for decades. We seek conditions to prevent this from happening to us.

We are requesting the large open deck adjacent to our building be moved behind a sound barrier. We are concerned that when residents have a party or open their windows with music blaring, the sound will disrupt our performances. This endangers our existence. We are also asking for conditions prohibiting the commercial space next to us from having live entertainment that would impact our performances.

Without specific legally enforceable conditions attached to the permits, we have no recourse if the developer or subsequent property owners lack good faith. To date, based on developer Mark Rutherford’s treatment of us, we have no reason to believe in his good faith. San Francisco’s development history shows that only legally enforceable conditions really protect the public interest over the “lifetime” of a building’s construction and use.

The Marsh is a metaphor for the current displacement of people and culture in the Mission District. Miraculously, we were able to purchase our building in 1996, a market low, with the support of our artists, patrons, board, and forward-looking foundation and nonprofit and commercial loan entities. Otherwise, The Marsh would not exist today. We would never have been able to afford today’s market-rate rent.

We are now a safe house for artists to develop their work at our space, for the children who take our affordable classes, and the audiences who attend our critically-acclaimed shows. But we are not indestructible. If protective conditions are not written into the building permit, and we end up with disrupted programs and performances, we will not survive artistically or financially.

Will The Marsh go the way of our neighbors? Will we be developed into a bunch of two-bedroom condos selling for $1.75-2.25 million, like the ones at 19th and Valencia? With maybe two below-market rate units set aside, as planned for 1050 Valencia, where “below market” could mean $1 million. But where will the artists go? Where will young aspiring performers go? The audiences?

Please join us and stand up for The Marsh at the Board of Appeals Hearing, City Hall, Dec. 11, 5pm.

Stephanie Weisman is the founder and artistic director of The Marsh

How the Bay Area is celebrating #GivingTuesday

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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December 3, 2013

1

Today (Tue/3) people are switching gears from the consumer madness of Black Friday, the shopping kickoff of the holiday season.

Dec. 3 marks the second annual #GivingTuesday, created to encourage generosity in support of positive change rather than materialistic consumerism.

According to this website, the 92nd Street Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, was the catalyst and incubator for the #GivingTuesday initiative, billed as “a new day for giving back.”

And throughout the Bay Area, nonprofits and arts organizations are taking advantage of the opportunity to solicit support for a wide range of worthy causes, with mini fund drives being helped along with social media.

So go ahead, pry your eyes away from those YouTube videos of Black Friday Walmart stampedes — and have a look around instead at what local causes you might want to support. Because it’s the giving season, and Tuesday isn’t over yet.

(Almost) FREE dance classes for all! #GivingTuesday from our performing arts director @bamuthi: http://t.co/CKJ6itl0wp

— YBCA (@ybca) December 3, 2013

Support your local museums on #GivingTuesday! @Jewseum @asianartmuseum @ybca @calacademy @deyoungmuseum @SFMOMA @oaklandmuseumca #museumlove

— Exploratorium (@exploratorium) December 3, 2013

Happy #GivingTuesday from the advocates who brought you this new #Folsom lane. Support more: http://t.co/3k03F1BROV pic.twitter.com/VjEbzTyOm5

— SF Bicycle Coalition (@sfbike) December 3, 2013

We’ve set a #GivingTuesday goal to raise $2500! Help us reach that goal by contributing! http://t.co/BMUWbj5pAx RT & share with friends!

— Sunday Streets SF (@SundayStreets) December 3, 2013

Happy #GivingTuesday! Take the time to donate to or volunteer for one of the many local #SF charities today. http://t.co/JKCt25cEq5

— David Chiu (@DavidChiu) December 3, 2013

On #GivingTuesday your $ is worth 2x. Help us educate, empower and employ #SF youth http://t.co/aknlgOBkRV #BAYCATbyYou

— BAYCAT (@baycatSF) December 3, 2013

Imagine a world without art! Support artists living with breast cancer: http://t.co/ExcgmsdL #BreastCancer #GivingTuesday #SF

— Visual Aid Gallery (@visualaid) November 27, 2012

It’s #GivingTuesday — you can help provide life-saving care to Bay Area women.#SF #womenshealth #Donate: http://t.co/xBPVZcAFMo

— WomensComClinic (@WomensComClinic) December 3, 2013

Join WIRED in supporting @Heifer International on #GivingTuesday. Learn about the org’s important work: http://t.co/sOL8hIzw5O

— WIRED (@WIRED) December 3, 2013

Today is giving #GivingTuesday! As our 5th year anniversary comes to a close we invite you to give the gift that… http://t.co/Qr81LULG90

— Oakland Rising (@OaklandRising) December 3, 2013

Support Oceana’s work this #GivingTuesday by texting OCEAN to 50555 to give $10. http://t.co/oxZokYKE99 Terms: http://t.co/iX3BAm3moO

— Oceana (@Oceana) December 3, 2013

Support independent reporting that makes a real difference. Donate $5 to nonprofit Mother Jones this #GivingTuesday http://t.co/NK1yE4WMwh

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) December 3, 2013

This #GivingTuesday, donate to @MapLight for free! @GivingLibrary is giving us $5 for every share or tweet: http://t.co/7ifWs0iZJW

— MapLight (@MapLight) December 3, 2013

Studies show a positive feedback loop between happiness and giving! Donate to #LPFI #GivingTuesday. http://t.co/zUW4THycVY

— Van Jones (@VanJones68) December 3, 2013

Today is #GivingTuesday! Show your support for the Drug Policy Alliance and give today! http://t.co/WLtxpAeiRY #NoMoreDrugWar

— Drug Policy Alliance (@DrugPolicyNews) December 3, 2013

#GivingTuesday is 4 days away. Support our anti-poverty work by making a donation of any size: http://t.co/gDB3UpXtKR

— Womens Foundation CA (@womensfoundca) November 29, 2013

For #GivingTuesday, here’s a shoutout to great #SF Bay #nonprofits: @SaveTheBay @TMMC @TheBayInstitute @SeaTurtles_org #marine

— SF Boat Show (@SFBoatShow) December 3, 2013

This Week’s Picks: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond

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November 19, 2013

0

Gossip! Guns! Girl power!

THURSDAY 11/21

Shipwreck: The Hunger Games Edition

Erotic fanfiction writing gets competitive at Booksmith’s monthly literary event, Shipwreck! Six writers are given a popular literary work to destroy in whichever filthy ways their hearts desire, and the audience votes for its favorite. This month’s sacrificial prose is none other than Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic, YA novel The Hunger Games. Pregame for that midnight screening of Catching Fire with hilarious, smutty fiction and an open bar. All works will be read by Shakespearean Thespian in Residence, Sir Steven Westdahl, to ensure that voting is done fairly. The winning writer gets to pick the next ship to wreck and will defend his or her title. Will Katniss find time to choose between Peeta and Gale while she’s, you know, fighting a war? Will Peeta and Gale choose each other? Anything is possible! (Kirstie Haruta)

7pm, $10

Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

www.booksmith.com

THURSDAY 11/21

BiteLife

Thursdays provide a portal to unpredictable adventures for those who wander into the weekly NightLife series at Cal Academy. This week’s 21+ event, BiteLife, allows attendees to snack and sip while learning what the hell is happening while they snack and sip (internally). Get a backbone and learn about your guts from Gladstone Institute’s associate investigator Dr. Katie Pollard. Guests will also be able view their own microbes with Academy researcher James Angus Chandler and dance their butts off to music by ’80s-spinning soul-funk DJs, Sweater Funk, in the same night. Local, bite-sized, sustainable food from Earl’s Organic Produce, Whole Foods, and 4505 Meats will be available for the gourmands in the crowd. (Hillary Smith)

6pm, $12

California Academy of the Sciences

55 Music Concourse Dr., SF

(415) 379-8000

calacademy.org/events/nightlife

THURSDAY 11/21

“Behind the Scenes: Randy Thom on Sound Design”

Music is the ultimate mood-setter, not only in our iPod, laptop, and stereo-spotted lives, but in the lives we escape to on the big screen. Academy Award-winning sound designer Randy Thom, who’s worked on films ranging from Cast Away (2000) and The Incredibles (2004), discusses his use of sonic design to cut through the endless possibilities of noise, in order to set the stage, manipulate a mood, and craft a unique, cinematic story. He’ll take examples from Wild at Heart (1990) starring Nicolas Cage, where an overtly sensual sound design, along with Angelo Badalamenti’s entrancing score, transform the realism of a Southern fugitive romance into a lyric, tender escape. Stick around after the discussion to enjoy the film! (Kaylen Baker)

7pm, $9.50

Pacific Film Archive Theater

2575 Bancroft Way, Berk.

(510) 642-1412

bampfa.berkeley.edu

THURSDAY 11/21

Marijuana Deathsquads

Indie “super group” GAYNGS, dedicated to delivering a tongue-through-cheek tribute to ’80s easy-listening R&B and white-suited soul, represented “The Gaudy Side of Town.” This other project from Poliça’s Ryan Olson must reside in the darker part of, well, Minneapolis. Its latest LP, Oh My Sexy Lord, sounds like something that crawled out screaming from the same sort of despairing (yet somehow cozy) pit Crystal Castles call home. A cavern crowded by an excessive amount of drums and haphazard wires supporting any number of laptops, controllers, and a Nintendo. (Plus a couch for guests like Justin Vernon or Har Mar Superstar to crash.) (Ryan Prendiville)

With Poliça

8pm, $25

Fillmore

1850 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

FRIDAY 11/22

“Let Us Compare Chronologies”

Even if you are not doing aerial work — for which Joe Goode Annex’s two-story ceilings are ideally suited — the studio’s spaciousness makes it a welcome option compared to other local performance venues, which can too often hem the dancers in. Now with risers in place, even the sightlines have improved. Katharine Hawthorne, a fiercely intelligent thinker, debuted as choreographer at the Annex last February. She is now returning in a double bill with dancer-choreographer James Graham, still best known locally as a Gaga teacher. Calling their joint endeavor “Let Us Compare Chronologies,” since both works examine the concept of time, Graham’s quartet Guilty Survivor takes a look at what the 1980s represented in a gay man’s life; Hawthorne’s Timepiece delves into the connection of time to order and disorder. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/23, 8pm, $15–$30

Joe Goode Annex

401 Alabama St., SF

eventbrite.com/event/9028407209

FRIDAY 11/22

“3-Minute Reads”

Though “the Writer” almost always calls to mind a solitary figure — J. D. Salinger wrapped in a blanket by his Cornish hearth, Jane Austen bent and scribbling over a desk — most writers agree that having a community of peers creates unparalleled motivation and feedback. The Grotto creates such a space, while offering classes to new writers on topics like the short story and the memoir. Come cheer on more than 50 of these fledglings as they each read fresh, cheeky three-minute snippets from a variety of works-in-progress. (Baker)

6pm, free

Book Passage

1 Ferry Building, SF

(415) 835-1020

www.bookpassage.com

FRIDAY 11/22

“All Good Things Must Come to An End”

We hear it for every lost keepsake, graduation, and heartbreak. Usually, the words fall short of comforting and land somewhere closer to stale. But SOMArts is breathing new life into the phrase with “All Good Things…,” an ephemeral art exhibition featuring such pieces as a caramelized sugar installation, a sand mandala, and a massive camera obscura throughout the gallery that choreographs the sun’s changing light. The opening reception will glorify transience with edible art, chess with melting pieces, and a performance piece in which the audience shatters dishes. The expression “once in a lifetime” has never been truer; the only record of the exhibit will be audience impressions dictated to cassette recorders. (Janina Glasov)

Through Dec. 21

6-9pm, free

SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

(415) 863-1414

somarts.org/allgoodthings

SATURDAY 11/23

9 to 5

Pour yourself a cup of ambition and head to the Castro for Peaches Christ’s first tribute to 9 to 5, the 1980 comedy about three office mates (Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda) battling their sexist pig of a boss (Dabney Coleman). The movie has it all (gossip! guns! girl power!), so the stage show that accompanies the screening, Work!, should be one to remember, especially with Pandora Boxx (of RuPaul’s Drag Race), Heklina, and Peaches filling the leads — three among few performers with hair bigger than Parton’s. (Cheryl Eddy)

8pm, $25-55

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

SATURDAY 11/23

Magic Makers Queer Art & Crafts Fair

Love arts and crafts? Tired of running up against heteronormativity and cultural appropriation in art spaces and craft fairs? Then join Magic Makers for a stunning array of arts and crafts in a safe, queer-friendly space. From the zines of womyn, trans*, genderqueer, API collective Moonroot, to the herbal remedies of Shooting Star Botanicals, to the dazzling accessories of burlesque beauty the Lady Miss Vagina Jenkins, Magic Makers will feature some of the Bay’s craftiest queer artists. This fair is all about storytellers, healers, and dreamers, so come on out and support these friendly, socially aware creators, and get inspired to create something of your own. (Haruta)

1pm, free

Temescal Art Center

511 48th St, Oakl.

www.themagicmakers.wordpress.com

SATURDAY 11/23

The Entrance Band

If the sometimes sing-song lyrics of this recent Mazzy Star opener feel superfluous (the latest maudlin goth single “Spider” off new album Face the Sun or earlier jam “Still Be There” being notable exceptions) it’s to the credit of the instrumentals. Singer Guy Blakeslee’s guitar, hung upside-down and strung in a manner that perhaps only he understands, singularly emits distinctive, appropriately captivating sounds. When given space to just play, as is the case on the latter half of “Fine Flow,” Blakeslee exhibits exactly that, speeding off towards psych horizons and looping back on himself effortlessly. With drummer Derek James and bassist Paz Lenchantin fitting so comfortably in that groove with him, words often can’t help but break the spell. (Prendiville)

With Raw Geronimo

9pm, $12-15

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

MONDAY 11/25

PAWS

In its purest form, pop music is the sound of growing up. It doesn’t require a theory for what matters; if it feels significant, it must be. On Cokefloat!, the debut from Glasgow’s PAWS, the lessons come quickly but at cost. Opening with “Catherine 1956,” Philip Taylor regards the loss of his mother and her lasting words, “Toughen up because/Life goes on/You can’t live your life in fear.” If the ferocious fun trio fearlessly cribs its riffs from decades old alternative rock — Dinosaur Jr., the Breeders, Violent Femmes — at least it does that old guard justice. I’d like to say it sounds dated, but I must not have outgrown this yet. Does anyone? (Prendiville)

With Surf Club, Tiaras

8pm, $10

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

TUESDAY 11/26

The Moth: “Temptation”

Temptation is otherwise known (at least according to the dictionary) as “the action of tempting or fact of being tempted, especially to evil; enticement, allurement, attraction.” While the desire to do and obtain things is universally shared, this definition can’t begin to explain why humans find evil so attractive, nor why our vices come to us in such personal, wrapped-and-beribboned shapes and sizes. Audience members at this round of the Moth StorySLAM should come with a their own tale of temptation in mind, because names will be pulled from a bag throughout the night, giving 10 people the chance to tell wicked, funny, failed, or won stories of allure for five minutes onstage. Each storyteller gets a score, and the winner gets a chance to perform in the GrandSLAM. (Baker)

6pm, $8

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 779-6757

moth.org/events

Richmond resident saved from deportation at the last moment

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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November 19, 2013

7

Felipe Valdes has lived and worked in the United States for 23 years. Two weeks ago, he received a letter ordering his deportation. Valdes reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in downtown San Francisco yesterday (Mon/18) morning as he instructed and prepared to say his final goodbyes to his family before boarding one of ICE’s deportation buses at noon. Instead, he was released after five hours and allowed to return to his home in Richmond.

“It’s one in a million,” stated Marie Vincent, Valdes’ attorney. She had filed a stay of removal on her client’s behalf to delay his deportation, but such claims rarely get reviewed quickly. Vincent believes Valdes was awarded additional time in the US at the last moment because of media attention he received in recent weeks.

“His case was very compelling,” she explained. “He’s been here so long, and he has contributed greatly to the United States. He’s worked the whole time, he’s active at his church, his children are here. This is his country.”

While Valdes met with ICE officers inside, more than 50 local faith leaders, community members and reporters assembled on the street outside the office, with supporters there to protest the deportation. According to Vincent, this pressure was critical in influencing ICE’s decision to approve Valdes for a one-year work permit, temporarily halting his deportation.

That year may prove to be enough time for the currently pending residency visa application that Valdes recently submitted to be reviewed. His application is the latest in a long history of attempts to become a legal resident of the U.S. stretching back to 1997, seven years after he immigrated here from Mexico with his wife, their baby son, and their unborn daughter. Now, Vincent thinks he finally has a strong case that will earn him legal status in the US.

If Valdes is forced to return to Mexico, it could result in major consequences for his family. His wife, their three children, and their granddaughter all depend upon his wages as a plumber to survive.

“We would have really struggled just to buy food or make rent,” his daughter, Mayra Valdes, reflected after the family received the news that Valdes would not be deported that day.

Mayra’s younger brother suffers from severe scoliosis. The family does not have medical insurance and without Valdes’ earnings, they would be unable to afford the specialized chiropractic and medical care that he needs. With his father gone and no one to pay for his costly weekly treatments, there would be weeks when the boy would not even have been able to walk.

The family depends on Valdes for more than his income too.

“He really pushes me and my siblings to keep going to school,” says Mayra, a Contra Costa Community College student. Her older brother is at the University of California at Davis, and her younger brother is a senior at Richmond High School. With a four-year-old daughter and a second child on the way, Mayra relies on her father to babysit after he gets off work so that she can attend classes.

Valdes’ victory on Monday was a bright note in the sad story of deportation in this country. His single case may not mean much in the broader fight for immigration reform, but for his family, it has meant the world.

“I wanted today to disappear from the calendar,” Mayra recalls, “but now I feel like it was the happiest day of my life. My father was able to come home today—it’s the best present I’ve ever received.”

O+ Festival trades health care for music and art performances

Sasha Cuttler

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November 14, 2013

0

Artists struggle for their art, but they shouldn’t also have to also sacrifice their health. That’s the basic premise behind this weekend’s three-day O+ Festival in San Francisco, where musicians and other artists will perform in exchange for medical, dental, and wellness services at a pop-up clinic at The Center SF art space on Fillmore Street and other offices around town.

“Bartering the art of medicine for the medicine of art,” is the tagline for a festival that is making its debut outside of New York, where it began. The lineup includes local folk rockers Papa Bear & Friends, soulful singer Quinn DeVeaux, mashup DJ Zack Darling, and many more, performing in venues that include Inner Mission and the Make-Out Room.

The festival began in 2010 in Kingston, NY, when painter Joe Concra had a dentist friend who had the idea of bringing a band he liked up from Brooklyn and paying them in free dental services. The idea resonated with Concra, who knew well how much New York’s artists struggled to make ends meet.

“Artists are not only being pushed out, but they’re not able to get the healing they deserve,” Concra told the Guardian, saying the first festival was such a hit that it took on a life of its own. “Once we do it, once people go, then they really get it. And it goes back to the age-old idea of trade.”

Long before modern health insurance debacles, doctors and dentists were members of their communities, and people would pay them with whatever they had to offer. But today, larger and larger companies providing care in collaboration with insurance companies, even the basic community clinic is becoming a thing of the past.

“We’re breaking down that access to care barrier, because some many people don’t know where to start,” Concra said, saying he was surprised at the flood gates opened by his simple idea. “Now, we’re at the point where we have 220 bands applies for 40 spots…We were not prepared for the amount of need in the artist community.”

Concra had started thinking about where to expand the festival when he was contacted by Deborah Gatiss, San Francisco-based artist and event coordinator, who had heard about the concept from a friend in the Burning Man Project.

“It goes back to May of last year, and I was lamenting the fact that I have no health care, because I had a really bad toothache. I was talking with a friend of mine and we were discussing things people could do for health care when they have no dental insurance and this was one of the things that came up,” she told us.

Concra was already talking about a Bay Area event with Aimee Gardner, who he knew from an art gallery in Kingston before she moved to California, and Gardner and Gatiss ended up spearheading the creation of O+ Festival-San Francisco.

“Coming from New York, I feel like San Francisco is going a similar direction,” Gardner said of artists who can’t afford to live here. “I think it’s a really revolutionary idea. It’s activism in a very thoughtful way.”

The pair managed to line up sponsors and a list of volunteer health practioners from a variety of disciplines, people that Concra called “the real rock stars of this event.” So while the performers get free health care, those who buy the $25 tickets get three days of free music and art, discounted drinks at various venues, and even free yoga classes at Yoga Tree’s new Potrero Hill studio.

The festival opens tomorrow (Fri/15) at 6:15 at The Center SF, 548 Fillmore, with a health care panel discussion featuring Concra, Artist Xavi Panneton, Dan Kitowski of the Actors Fund, and me, Guardian Editor Steven T. Jones.

Gatiss said it’s been a challenge to pull together such an ambtious festival and she hopes that Bay Area residents — who love art and music and are accustomed to gift and barter economies through things like Burning Man — will turn out to show their support.

“I thought that people were used to that mindset, so they’d be up for the idea of bartering their musical talents for health care and vice versa,” Gatiss told us. “It’s been harder than I thought. But it’s been fulfilling and magical and I’m glad that I did it, and I think Aimee would say the same thing.”

Move freely

Michael Redmond

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November 12, 2013

0

arts@sfbg.com

Was Kunst-Stoff’s 15th anniversary concert this past weekend its last show in town? Perhaps, perhaps not. Yannis Adoniou, who founded the company with Tomi Paasonen, chooses his words carefully a couple of days before the shows. He acknowledges talking with local presenters about maybe “having an annual season here” and about “stabilizing our presence here.”

But for the time being, Kunst-Stoff is gone. The questions are “why?” and “why now?” In some ways, Adoniou has become a victim of his own success. He, together with La Alternativa and the Off Center, has run a successful studio space — the envy of many a struggling company — which has become what he calls a “sanctuary.” Besides classes and workshops the place has offered performance opportunities, not just for local artists but also for dancers from abroad like Anthony Rizzi and Constantine Baecher. “These conversations have been fantastic,” Adoniou says. “I could stay here as institutionalized Kunst-Stoff, but that’s what not what I am supposed to be doing. I have not done a major work in a theater for a long time because I have wanted to be available [to the artists working here].”

Adoniou, a ballet dancer originally from Greece, came to the Bay Area in 1993 after having seen Alonzo King set Without Wax on the Frankfurt Ballet. What impressed him was the equality between the sexes in King’s work. “I wanted to dance,” he remembers, and he knew that most ballet repertoire (at the time) reduced the male dancer to support the ballerina. He also liked that the Bay Area “does not have institutionalized names and technique as there are in New York and Europe.” So this was a good place for him as a young artist — but like many others, he finds it “very, very hard” to get support once you have developed beyond a certain level. So back to Europe it is, where he feels he can take his own work where it needs to go.

The easy riding 98-13, the second of the three pieces which formed the 15th anniversary retrospective, offered a good overview of Adoniou’s perspective on dance. He has long passed the restrictions of his ballet training not be rejecting but by transcending it. Some of 98-13’s individual moments did ring a bell — Repetika, Less Sylphides, the moment you stood — but for the most part they toppled over each other as if spilled from a bag of toys. This was an affectionate, lighthearted look at the past.

The fun was in seeing the dancers take shape. Leyya Tawil resembled a huge bird on the tip of her toes. Daiane Lopes da Silva is a fierce mover but also a comedian. Katie Gaydos told us that giving birth is no more difficult than doing a rond de jambe en l’aire. I’ll take her word for it. Parker Murphy, as the only male, of course got to lift some obstreperous females. In the end, Adoniou, in a business suit, offered an intricate, determined walking combination that included a lovely arabesque. Maybe he was taking measure of what has passed, or perhaps of what lies ahead.

If 98-13 was full of surprises, the trajectory for the opening Solo for Yannis could be foreseen. Strongly danced by Lopes da Silva with the assistance of Widon Yang, Ivo Serra, and Tomi Paasonen, the piece posed questions about navigating unstable ground if you have no point of reference. Blinded by a hooded garment, she rolled, stretched, and recoiled on a rug that kept being yanked away, her fingers becoming antennas, her head sniffing the air. Precarious for the men and the dancer, Solo derived its interest from the tiny shifts of give and take, limitations set and rejected. The moral of this story? Keep going even if you end up being naked, vulnerable, and alone.

Paasonen’s ironically named Those Golden Years may have been inspired by a dream about his mother but it also threw a mirror at Adoniou. The work opened with composer Yuko Matsyama, a flower garden in motion, carefully tracing a path along the edge of a mound of what turned out to be crumpled sheets of gold and silver Mylar. Her rhythmically intriguing score, which included a narration by Paasonen, set the tone for what became a seductive, but also touching visual feast.

Predictably, Adoniou emerged from this heap of plastic — one limb at a time. Yet Golden’s airy, glittering artifice contrasted seductively with the solidity and warmth of the human body. The dancer smashed, admired, hugged, and hid in it. He donned it as a fairy prince’s garment but also as a garbage bag. Eventually he too was left naked — even deprived of his manhood. *

Home from prison

Michael Redmond

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November 5, 2013

3

rebecca@sfbg.com

Danielle Evans, director of Women’s Services at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, likes to tell the story of a woman who managed to turn over a new leaf after spending a year in a residential support program.

The client was found on the streets of San Francisco, pregnant, after an overdose. She was over 40, had never graduated from high school, and had a string of drug offenses on her rap sheet. She had multiple children who had been given up for adoption, and she was homeless.

But after getting emergency treatment at San Francisco General Hospital and entering substance abuse counseling and transitional housing from there, she was able to overcome her drug addiction, regain custody of her daughter from Child Protective Services, and enroll in a vocational program for janitorial work.

The woman was aided through a yearlong stay at Cameo House, a transitional home for homeless pregnant women and new moms run by CJCJ. After living there with her daughter while getting pointers on parenting from the staff, she’s now working toward her GED and has a goal of landing a job — something she’s never had.

“I’m like, look where you came from and where you are today,” Evans reflected. The client’s daughter is now a healthy two-year-old, Evans said, and “she is so motivated to be a good mom.”

It’s not a typical narrative. A recent event hosted by New America Media focused on the personal stories of Bay Area youth who’ve grown up with parents entangled in the criminal justice system. More often, those parent-child relationships are strained or nonexistent, especially in cases where parents are far away from home, serving out prison sentences.

CHILDREN OF REENTRY

For many, having a parent behind bars has the potential of becoming a vicious cycle, but new realizations about how harmful that childhood experience can be are giving rise to a new way of thinking about how to deal with parents in the criminal justice system.

New approaches include alternatives to incarceration, something that’s gaining momentum in this era of prison overcrowding and realignment, which has shifted some responsibility of housing inmates from the state to California counties.

Children of incarcerated parents are three times as likely as their peers to wind up in the criminal justice system, Jessica Flintoff, director of the Reentry Division at San Francisco’s Adult Probation Department, said at the New America Media forum in downtown San Francisco. Some policies that the county has embraced are designed to factor in long-term youth impacts, at the time when key decisions are being made about their parents’ fates.

The event featured a series of short films and multimedia projects spotlighting the experiences of youth and their formerly incarcerated parents, with a focus on what happened when the parents returned home.

Young producers, working with the nonprofit Silicon Valley DeBug and community newspaper Richmond Pulse, created the projects through hours of interviews in which parents and kids divulged intensely personal details about their experiences. The idea behind the Children of Reentry media project was to open up a conversation that kids with incarcerated parents often shy away from, because of an associated stigma.

The project conveyed intimate narratives about an experience that an estimated 2.7 million children of incarcerated parents are familiar with nationwide: A son who got to know his father in a prison visitation room; a mother who gave birth to her daughter in prison only to be separated until completing her sentence; a father who barely knew his daughter before her 21st birthday because he’d been in prison for the duration of her childhood.

WHAT DO KIDS NEED?

In San Francisco, the mission of the San Francisco Adult Probation Department explicitly includes a goal of “breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration,” Flintoff explained at the forum.

The city tries to take a child’s needs into account before the parent is sentenced, she said. Under this system, a deputy probation officer is required to conduct an investigation into the needs of the affected children, and even maps out a genogram of the convicted person’s familial ties, to convey to a judge what kind of situation the child will wind up in once their parent is imprisoned.

The sentencing then takes this background information into account. “The criminal justice system is a series of decisions,” Flintoff said. “We can make different decisions at every turn.”

The impact of parental incarceration on youth has been a hot topic lately. In August, a White House conference was devoted to understanding the problem, which is fueled by an American incarceration rate that’s four times higher than it was in the 1970s.

Research has yielded sobering data. According to the American Bar Foundation, which hosted the White House conference, roughly half of all inmates serving time in U.S. prisons are parents. Communities of color are disproportionately impacted — nationwide, one in four black children has had a parent behind bars at some point. These youth tend to have a tougher time once they reach adulthood, with typically lower rates of academic achievement, decreased chances of graduating from college, and a higher percentage facing unemployment.

“I feel like I saw both of my parents in each video,” Mailee Wang said after the series of short film screenings, tearing up a little. Wang, whose mother and father each spent time in prison, is now program director at Project WHAT! (We’re Here And Talking), an initiative run by local nonprofit Community Works that aims to assist these impacted youth.

“Having a prison mentality is real,” she added. “How do you lock somebody up, and keep them from their kids, and release them, and expect that prison mentality to turn off? It’s chaos when the person returns home. People talk about family reunification, but what does that look like?”

SERVICES INSTEAD OF PRISON

Meanwhile, a new partnership between San Francisco and CJCJ seeks to eliminate the traumatizing effect of parental incarceration by swapping out time behind bars for a different rehabilitative approach. That option involves sending would-be inmates to Cameo House, the transitional home that already helps homeless moms to get on track as providers for their young kids.

Housed in an 11-unit Victorian in the Mission, the center offers group therapy, parenting classes, training for job seekers, and other kinds of support services to help put women in the position of being able to provide for their kids. Cameo House contracts with the Department of U.S. Housing and Urban Development to provide the services, and receives local funding and assistance from private donors.

Under this alternative, pregnant women or mothers with children under six who are facing prison or jail time could be placed in Cameo House instead of being made to spend time behind bars away from their kids.

“It’s an option on the table, where before it was, ‘you’re going to county jail, and there is no other option,'” Evans said. “But we’re saying, ‘hey, let’s try this. Let’s intervene where intervention is needed. Let’s not re-traumatize this family.'”

Ultimate Towner Obstacle Course Race

Maria Poblet

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October 31, 2013

0

The Ultimate Towner Obstacle Course Race is a benefit for Project Open Hand and was built upon the desire to celebrate life and overcome obstacles, while supporting and promoting local business in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2012. The overwhelming response led the Grand Dynamics team to bring the benefit to other communities across the nation.

Ultimate Towner a 4 mile course with Fast and Fun classes and 25 obstacles! Climbing over walls, crawling through mud, zig-zagging over wine barrels… it’s going to be AWESOME! Come run, walk, climb, or just come and be spectator and have a complimentary beer from Lagunitas. Sponsored by Grand Dynamics Interantional, The Sports Basement, Lagunitas Brewery, GU Energy, UpOut, Ghirardelli Chocolate, SF Fire Dept, and others.

Visit ultimatetowner.com for more info and to register. To save money, use Guardian40 code when registering.

Saturday, November 2 at 8am (on-site registration begins) @ Treasure Island, SF

Tragedy follows strike

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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October 23, 2013

2

news@sfbg.com

On Oct. 19, the second day of a BART strike that hobbled the Bay Area transportation system, two BART workers were struck and killed by a northbound train in Walnut Creek, adding a tragic and surreal element to the charged blame-games that have characterized this labor impasse.

Both the striking unions and BART management struck respectful tones following the accident, even as sources privately told journalists that the district may have been secretly training replacement drivers aboard the ill-fated train to offer limited service during the strike, a charge first printed by the San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 21.

NTSB investigator in charge James Southworth confirmed at a press conference on the afternoon of Oct. 21 that the train was “in operation for training and maintenance purposes,” and that two of the six people on board were trainees, one of whom was driving at the time of the accident, although the train was in automatic, not manual, mode.

Asked whether the drivers had their safety certification, Southworth said, “the training is part of the certification process,” and refused to elaborate further. He said the train was going 60-70 miles per hour at the time, and it attempted an emergency stop. Just hours after the NTSB press conference, BART reached a tentative deal with its unions, ending the strike.

The district’s decision to run the trains without their regular operators was against the safety advice of the three striking unions, one of whom — Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 — even filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent BART from doing so.

A helmet at the scene of the crash, which a source says is possibly from one of the workers fatally struck.

“The use of uncertified training personnel to provide uncertified managers with a crash course in how to operate BART trains also presents a public safety issue,” the union’s attorneys wrote in the suit, which was filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Oct. 7.

BART workers undergo 15 weeks of safety training every three years, the suit said, training that saves lives. “All three of us, time and time again, told BART it would be unsafe to operate the system without trained current personnel,” SEIU Local 1021 Political Director Chris Daly told the Guardian.

BART officials have avoided directly answering the question about whether Saturday’s accident involved a training run, saying only that the train was on a “maintenance run,” initially reporting it was on its way to Richmond Station for graffiti removal and that an experienced driver was at the helm.

“The Board of Directors would need to approve limited passenger train service and at no point was this on an agenda to take up. The Board President has made comments saying it would be a decision for the board and that they had no plans to take up that issue at this time,” BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told the Guardian by email when we asked whether managers aboard the train were being trained to drive it, before the NTSB press conference, ignoring follow-up questions seeking a more direct answer.

When we asked BART Board President Tom Radulovich about the issue, he told us, “We were all told that BART would be running infrequent maintenance or inspection trains during the strike, in part to keep the system ready for re-start when workers return. Running passenger trains during a strike would be a decision for the Board, and we haven’t been asked to approve that.”

Daly stopped short of charging BART with compromising safety to train replacement workers, but he told us that union members have heard from managers for weeks that the district was considering operating with replacement drivers. And he said it “would fit BART management’s entire campaign to bust the unions.”

Pushed to strike

The belief that BART intentionally provoked what could be a long and costly strike was widely held and expressed by union members that gathered outside the Lake Merritt BART station to picket and rally on the first day of the strike. Many of them still openly grappled with the previous day’s surprising turn of events that put them in the position of going out on strike for the second time this year.

That morning on KQED’s Forum program, both Trost and SEIU Local 1021 President Roxanne Sanchez confirmed it was the district’s 11th hour demand for more authority to set work rules that caused negotiations to break down after days of intensive talks had gotten the two sides close to an agreement on the other issues.

BART officials publicly cast the work rule issue as about the district’s ability to modernize, citing how the district is still using fax machines and paper pay stubs rather than fully converting to electronic communications, blaming the requirement to consult with unions on procedural changes.

An NTSB spokesperson confirms that the train was being run for training purposes at a press conference Oct. 21.

But Daly told the Guardian that Trost and Radulovich had “completely mischaracterized” the conflict, and he speculated about whether Radulovich — who must approve the contracts but hasn’t been a party to the talks — was “being lied to” by BART’s management team and high-priced labor consultant.

Daly and other union leaders say work rules such as requiring union approval for changing past practices related to scheduling, hours, and the kind of tasks workers perform are essential to protecting things like the eight-hour workday, worker safety, and whistleblowing and free speech rights.

“It gets to the heart of workers having a voice on the job and what a union is,” Daly told us, acknowledging that “it’s an inherently unpopular move” to go on strike and a decision forced on the union by the district’s bargaining tactics.

“We had a basic framework understanding on the economics, but then BART illegally tied that to this work rule change on past practices,” Daly said. “And what that meant for us is in order to get a reasonable economic package, we needed to swallow this poison pill.”

George, a train engineer at the rally who wouldn’t give us his last name, said the work rules have been developed over decades, but that they shouldn’t be a barrier to modernizing.

“We have long term work contracts because we’re here for the long haul and the employer is here for the long haul, so we try to work these things out,” he told us, saying that the workers strongly support their union leaders and have told them, “Do not bring us back a lousy offer to vote on, do your job.”

But not all BART workers feel that way, and some have supported the district’s demand that the union put its “last, best, and final offer” up for a vote of the membership.

“I’m really pissed. Obviously there’s been a decision in our union. I don’t think the union is representing us, the [transit vehicle mechanics]. Nobody wanted to strike, not us,” said Robert Earl Bright, a BART engineer/mechanic profiled in the Guardian this summer. “None of the TVMs wanted to strike. Work rules, I have no concept of them.”

SEIU Local 1021 Executive Director Peter Castelli told the Guardian that he understands the concerns of workers like Bright, but that he think most members will support the decision to strike once they get more information.

“It’s a fast evolving situation, with the stewards and union leadership saying ‘we gotta go out.’ So explaining things to our own membership takes time,” Castelli told us.

He ridiculed statements by district officials that the unions are resisting modernizing the system. “Some of the people in BART have technology degrees,” Castelli told the Guardian. “They’re keeping the trains from wrecking, so we’re not afraid of technology.”

Instead, both Daly and Castelli said that the district was deliberately trying to provoke a strike by making a last minute demand that it knew would be unacceptable to the unions. “It’s to make us strike. The public is devastated by this, and for good reason, and we’re very sympathetic. So they’re thinking that, ‘Maybe we make them strike one more time and they’ll fold,” Castelli told us. “Our only other option is submission and surrender.”

Safety issues

On the second day of the strike, Oct. 19, two BART workers were struck and killed by a northbound train in Walnut Creek, and the NTSB investigation could take as long as a year to draw conclusions about what happened.

What we do know is this: Christopher Sheppard, a BART manager and member of the AFSCME union, and Larry Daniels, a contractor, were inspecting a “dip in the rail” before they were hit by an oncoming train. There was a camera inside the train facing the cabin, but no camera facing out towards the track.

Longtime BART safety trainer Saul Almanza arrived at the scene shortly after the public was notified of the accident. He described the site of the crash as gruesome, in an interview with the Guardian. He had Sheppard and Daniels in his safety classes. He knew them. He stared downward as he remembered seeing the forms of his fellow workers under yellow sheets.

Shortly before NTSB’s Southworth revealed that the operators were in training for their safety certification, one longtime BART safety expert sat with the Guardian to explain the rules that protect workers lives out on a track — rules that have been a big part of the labor negotiations, with unions insisting on better safety protections.

Almanza spent years training workers in the rules that may have failed the workers who died over the weekend. Much of training revolves around safety procedures of BART’s Simple Approval process, meant to protect workers on the rail.

Simple Approval keeps the Operations Control Center “aware of the presence of personnel in a specified location in the trackway,” according to a BART safety manual. When workers are preparing to work on a track, they must recite the simple approval to the control center, also known as central control. It works like signing a waiver, saying that you understand the rules of safety, and more importantly, that you can work on the track without diverting trains.

Cars of steel can whip by at any moment, so it’s important for workers to use simple approval to signal to central control that they are prepared. But it’s also a warning system. Once simple approval is given, train operators are supposed to be notified that someone is working on the tracks.

When central control enters that information into the computer, an automated message is relayed to all of the BART system, including trains, warning which tracks have workers in harm’s way. Alarmingly, audio from BART dispatch, obtained by journalist Matthew Keys, revealed that the automated message from central relayed that there were no workers on the tracks.

It was wrong.

Freelance journalist Matthew Keys captured dispatch audio from BART erroneously reporting no workers were on the tracks.

“A message from BART operation: there are no personnel wayside,” the automated message said in a female tone (wayside means on the tracks). Afterward, a voice piped up on dispatch to correct the automated message. “Disregard, attention all personnel, we have personnel wayside,” said the next message, this time by a human worker.

But the erroneous message could have confused the train operator, Almanza said, and possibly led to a fatal error.

A more experienced operator may have caught the subtleties in the communication, he said, but someone who was refreshing their skills might not have caught the second message. Catching shifting commands quickly is “one of the nuances” of train operations, Almanza said.

Even if the train operator wasn’t expecting the workers to be on the tracks, there were still measures in place to ensure their safety. One of these is the 15-second-rule.

BART’s 15-second-rule says a worker can’t work somewhere on the track from which they can’t see a train coming 15 seconds away — like around a curve, elevation, or track shrouded by vegetation. If they need to work in a section of track with less visibility, they have to follow a different set of procedures by obtaining a work order.

Almanza said a lingering question is whether the section of the track Daniels and Sheppard worked on fell under the standards of the 15-second rule. Having a sight line is important, he said, because you can’t use your ears to hear a train coming.

“It’s like a jet flying over you, you don’t hear it until it’s past you,” he explained. “I always teach in my class: ‘You don’t listen for trains, you look for trains.'”

When the workers follow the letter of the 15-second-rule to a tee, he said, they see a train coming and retreat to safety. Yet Almanza said the accident is perplexing because these workers had years of experience. Paul Oversier, BART’s head of operations, also confirmed the men in the accident were experienced professionals.

“They understand the railroads and understand moving trains, they were doing today something they’ve done a thousand times,” Oversier said at a press conference just after the accident.

But even experienced workers need to be recertified in safety protocol, Almanza said. With most of the experienced transit workers on strike, the BART train that struck the two workers was used for training. It’s still unclear what role that played in the tragedy.

Tim Daw contributed to this report.

NOW: Bay Area Rapid Transit workers gather for vigil for those killed in train accident http://t.co/yICELBkMXE #BART pic.twitter.com/bbXwqGAbNH

— NewsBreaker (@NewsBreaker) October 21, 2013

And joysticks for all

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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October 23, 2013

2

joe@sfbg.com

GAMER Video game heroes often fit the same bland archetype: a hetero white dude with short hair and just the right amount of manly stubble. But now some Bay Area game advocates are pushing that burly soldier with the suspiciously large gun out of his closet.

It’s time to queer up video games, but it’s not just about sexual orientation. Rebel game designers and academics in the tech industry’s backyard are starting a discussion on representation in video games, calling for more women, more people of color, and more than the usual binary gender roles.

This weekend’s Queerness in Gaming Conference, or QGCon, welcomes a collective of indie game designers, coders, and academics to Berkeley, all with one goal: to discuss and celebrate ways to make games represent the people who actually play them.

Roundtable discussions abound, like one on race in fantasy games. But there’ll be workshops too. Tired of blasting away faceless aliens? They’ll show you how to make a claymation video game oozing with charm. Sick of staring at a screen? There’ll be workshops on making traditional dice and card games, too.

The conference follows an indie game revolution that started here in the Bay Area, according to QGCon organizer Mattie Brice. “This is the time,” she says. “It’s a rising tide.”

No need to hack the GDC Vault: Lost Levels Conference is up on Youtube! http://t.co/nkWBP7FQjr via @youtube

— Different Games Conf (@DifferentGames) April 8, 2013

First came Lost Levels, an “unconference” held outside the mainstream Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in March. Brice was there too. Much like at a campfire, participants gathered ’round and leaned in as she told tales of alternate reality games where players explore living in poverty in gentrified neighborhoods like the Mission.

GaymerX was next. The July event was the nation’s first LGBT video game convention, a space where “gaymers” could meet and form a new community.

Matt Conn, who organized GaymerX, said the Bay Area was the birthplace of the queer gaming movement because of an intersection of cultures — tech and the LGBT community. “We are a city that strives on disrupting the norm,” he said. “I think the Bay Area is the perfect place for queer geeks, especially ones who want to make an impact.”

Brice wants QGCon to elevate the discussion. “I think QGCon vaults that,” she said. “We have a lot of these workshops so non-developers can make games. Something very important to the queerness aspect is do-it-yourself development.”

And broadening the spectrum of new game developers is important, because the video game industry has historically struggled to offer stories with any real diversity in its protagonists. A 2009 study by a USC researcher took a census of video game avatars and compared them to the actual US census. Eighty-nine percent of avatars in video games were male, the study found, and most of them were white. When women are featured, they tend to be used solely as plot devices.

Anita Sarkeesian is a game blogger and critic whose site, Feminist Frequency, rallies against game clichés centering around women. In her popular series of video essays, she points out that some games, in an attempt to be edgy and mature, feature what she calls the “euthanized damsel in distress,” where in a dramatic moment the gamer (often controlling a macho male action hero) performs a mercy killing on the kidnapped damsel.

This trope shows up in multi-million dollar games like Gears of War 2, Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, the Grand Theft Auto series, and Dante’s Inferno. It is unfortunately entirely too common. “They will often beg men to perform violence on them, even saying thank you with their dying breath,” Sarkeesian says in one of her essays. In God of War, the main character’s mother thanks you for killing her.

Bonnie Ruberg, one of QGCon’s organizers, is a journalist whose articles arguing for better representation of women and queer folks in video games have incited death threats. “People feel really intense about games, and people feel attacked when you say something they love is not okay,” she says.

But she has hope that that discussion has elevated in recent years, and is confident that the discussion between academics and game designers at QGCon will be constructive. “The people making these games are very smart people,” she said.

Anita Sarkeesian’s video series on the “damsel in distress” video game trope.

Robert Yang is a panelist who’s flying in from New York for his “Queering Game Development” talk at QGCon. He teaches coding and game design at New York University and Parsons School of Design, where he’s seeing more women and people of color taking his classes.

More diversity in game designers means more diversity in mainstream games, he said. In the Walking Dead series, for instance, gamers play as a black man named Lee Everett.

“I think a lot of games would ignore he’s black, but Walking Dead confronts that,” Yang said. “He’s a black man from the south. Other characters in the game narrative are racist and discriminate [against him].” The game lets you choose how to react.

Brice agrees Walking Dead is a sign of progress for mainstream games, but that featuring a person of color as a main character is a “super, super low bar.”

Mattie Brice, game critic and designer, is one of the organizers of the Queerness in Gaming Conference. Photo by Amanda Rhoades

The indie titles in QGCon’s arcade may raise that bar just a bit. Anna Anthropy’s Triad is an allegorical puzzle game about fitting three lovers together in one bed, and Deirdra Kiai’s Dominique Pamplemousse is an adventure game featuring a singing gender-ambiguous detective.

Indie games may be light years ahead in offering more inclusive narratives, but Ruberg hopes those who come to QGCon will apply their lessons to mainstream games too — and that the conference will kick the ongoing discussion into high gear.

“For me it’s not an assumption, it’s just a fact: Sexism and homophobia are all very real things in games, in the games industry and the games community. The question is, what do we do about it?” *

Sitting in at a panel at #GaymerX. Adorable. pic.twitter.com/oEQKvSiG6q

— Fox Van Allen (@foxvanallen) August 3, 2013

QGCON SAN FRANCISCO 2013

Fri/25, 7-9pm; Sat/26, 9am-10pm; Sun/27, 9am-6pm, free (registration requested)

South Hall, UC Berkeley, Berk.

www.qgcon.com

BART chief outlines rules for avoiding Saturday’s fatalities UPDATED

Erica Hanna

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October 21, 2013

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BART chief outlines rules for avoiding Saturday’s fatalities UPDATED

UPDATED 5:30 PM: Guardian News Editor Rebecca Bowe filed a report from the latest NTSB press conference on the BART accident that claimed the lives of two workers in the midst of the BART strike, which can be read here.

For more on the concerns around safety training and certification for track inspection workers, read the following piece, which was published this morning but has not been altered to reflect new information.

After two BART workers were struck and killed by a northbound train in Walnut Creek on Saturday, there are many questions to be answered: Why was the train moving in a district shut down by a labor strike? Were normal safety procedures being followed? And, most importantly, what could have prevented this tragedy?

Those of the some of the many questions that are now being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board, which it said could take as long as a year to answer publicly.

That’s a year without answers. “This is going to take a long time to investigate,” Grace Crunican, BART’s general manager, said at a press conference after the accident.

The investigation won’t be conducted entirely in the dark, an investigator said. For the first few weeks the investigation will focus solely on fact gathering and be reported to the public without opinion. Jim Southworth, an NTSB investigator, hammered that home at a press conference on Sunday.

“I will not speculate,” he said, with the site of the accident just nearby.

What we do know is this: Christopher Sheppard, a BART manager and member of the AFSCME union, and Larry Daniels, a contractor, were inspecting a “dip in the rail” before they were hit by an oncoming train Saturday afternoon. There was a camera inside the train facing the cabin, but no camera facing out towards the track. The two workers were required to go through what’s called a Simple Approval process to get permission to work on the track, and the NTSB will be looking at how that and other safety rules were adhered to.

Longtime BART safety trainer Saul Almanza arrived at the scene shortly after the public was notified of the accident. He described the site of the crash as gruesome, in an interview with the Guardian. He had Sheppard and Daniels in his safety classes. He knew them. He stared downward as he recalled seeing the forms of his fellow workers under yellow sheets. Four workers have died on the job at BART before this, he said.

Drawing on his many years teaching safety to BART workers, Almanza explained what safety rules should have been adhered to when workers were out on a track.

Automated message error

BART has a brochure for workers outlining trackside safety procedures, called The Wayside Safety Program. This February 2013 manual lays out how workers signal to train operators that they’re about to work on the tracks.

Simple Approval is a process workers use to keep the Operations Control Center “aware of the presence of personnel in a specified location in the trackway,” according to the manual. When workers are preparing to work on a track, they must recite the simple approval to the Operations Control Center, also known as central control. It works like signing a waiver, saying that you understand the rules of safety, and more importantly, that you can work on the track without diverting trains.

Cars of steel can whip by at any moment, so it’s important for workers to use simple approval to signal to central control that they are prepared.

But it’s also a warning system. Once simple approval is given, train operators are supposed to be notified that someone is working on the tracks.

When central control enters that information into the computer, an automated message is relayed to all of the BART system, including trains, warning which tracks have workers in harm’s way. Alarmingly, audio from BART dispatch, obtained by journalist Matthew Keys, revealed that the automated message from central relayed that there were no workers on the tracks.

It was wrong.

Radio dispatch reveals an erroneous automated message. Audio by freelance journalist and blogger Matthew Keys.

“A message from BART operation: there are no personnel wayside,” the automated message said in a female tone (wayside means on the tracks).

Afterward, a voice piped up on dispatch to correct the automated message. “Disregard, attention all personnel, we have personnel wayside,” said the next message, this time by a human worker.

But the erroneous message could have confused the train operator, Almanza said, and possibly led to a fatal error.

A more experienced operator, like the ones BART uses every day, may have caught the subtleties in the communication, he said, but someone who was refreshing their skills might not have caught the second message. Catching shifting commands quickly is “one of the nuances” of train operations, Almanza said.

Even if the train operator wasn’t expecting the workers to be on the tracks, there were still measures in place to ensure their safety. One of these is the 15-second-rule, and there’s a chance this process could have saved their lives if it had been observed.

15 second rule

BART’s safety policies outline that if an inspector working on the track obtains simple approval, they must adhere to the 15-second-rule. Basically, a worker can’t work somewhere on the track from which they can’t see a train coming 15 seconds away — like around a curve, elevation, or track shrouded by vegetation. If they need to work in a section of track with less visibility, they have to follow a different set of procedures by obtaining a work order.

But under Simple Approval, they just notify central dispatch and set out to work. A worker also needs to set a predetermined, safe, and clear location to move to once he or she sees a train coming.

Almanza said a lingering question is whether the section of the track Daniels and Sheppard worked on fell under the standards of the 15-second rule.

He said the track near the accident “crested the hill a little bit.” Having a sight line is important, he said, because you can’t use your ears to hear a train coming.

“It’s like a jet flying over you, you don’t hear it until it’s past you,” he explained. “I always teach in my class: ‘You don’t listen for trains, you look for trains.’”

It’s not clear at this point if the workers tried to get out of the way of the train or were caught completely by surprise. But when the workers follow the letter of the 15-second-rule to a tee, he said, they see a train coming and retreat to safety.

A helmet at the scene of the crash, which a source says is posisblyfrom one of the workers fatally struck.

Relearning

Another rule explicitly outlines that for every five or fewer workers present on the tracks, at least one must be a “watchperson.” It was created only after another unfortunate accident, in which a train fatally struck a BART worker.

“This was a new rule that came out in 2009 after James Strickland was killed,” Almanza said, darkly.

The rule is explicit: BART workers can get simple approval to work on a track without a watchperson only when “a person is moving from one location to another and the person’s full attention is focused on watching out for trains or other on-rail vehicles.”

It is not yet known if the workers inspecting the rail were inspecting the rail while moving, or if they were stationary.

Audio from the dispatch when the fatally struck workers were discovered, obtained by freelance journalist Matthew Keys.

Even more perplexing, though, is why their watchperson missed the oncoming train, Almanza said, because these workers had years of experience. Paul Oversier, BART’s head of operations, also confirmed the men in the accident were experienced professionals.

“These are two long-term railroad track specialists, I cannot overemphasize how long they’ve been in the business,” Oversier said at a press conference just after the accident. “They understand the railroads and understand moving trains, they were doing today something they’ve done a thousand times.”

But even experienced workers need to be recertified in safety protocol, Almanza said.

BART employees are required to test for safety certification once every three years, and contractors must test for safety annually. That leads to a lingering question: were all of the workers involved in the accident certified in safety? There were three sections of workers involved, Almanza said. The train operators, central control, and the workers on the tracks themselves. With most of the experienced transit workers on strike, BART has not yet revealed if the replacements were all up to date on safety protocol.

In fact, when a reporter asked Oversier at a press conference if he knew who the driver was, he replied, “no, we don’t,” adding, “we believe the train was under (Automatic Train Operation).”

A computer was in control of the car, essentially.

Flowers left near #BART tracks where 2 workers killed yesterday. @ktvu pic.twitter.com/7bAA5DEfFi

— cara liu (@CaraSFBay) October 20, 2013

While the BART community continues asking questions, it also prays for those it lost. A vigil was held for Sheppard and Daniels yesterday, and flowers can be found on the fence near the accident. For a short time, the bitterly divided BART union and management have an unfortunate common ground.

They’re both grieving the loss of their own as they look for answers.

Vigil at Walnut Creek #BART station for two men killed in yesterday’s track accident @ktvu pic.twitter.com/a5Kjv4zhNs

— cara liu (@CaraSFBay) October 21, 2013

INFOGRAPHIC: Brown signs legislation creating two tiers of college tuition, for the rich and the poor

Erica Hanna

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October 17, 2013

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INFOGRAPHIC: Brown signs legislation creating two tiers of college tuition, for the rich and the poor

For six California community colleges, when the classes get crowded, those with money will get in, and the poor will struggle.

On Oct. 10, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 955, allowing six allegedly overcrowded community colleges to charge $200 per unit instead of the state-mandated $46 for their most in-demand classes.

The bill was sponsored by Assemblymember Das Williams (D- Santa Barbara), and would effect College of the Canyons, Crafton Hills College, Long Beach City College, Oxnard College, Pasadena City College, and Solano Community College. But state officials and local activists fear this is the first step towards steeply increasing community college fees.

At a California Community College Board of Governors meeting last month, state Chancellor Brice Harris said the tuition hikes could lead to less funding from Sacramento.

“The next time the budget goes in the tank, they’ll tell (us), ‘we can’t give it to you, tell your colleges to raise fees,’” he said. “We have had historically free and open equal access. This bill fundamentally changes that equation.”

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Harris said he was unavailable.

Shanell Williams, student trustee at City College of San Francisco and an activist who’s fought student inequality at the state level before, echoed Harris’ sentiments back when AB955 was first on the table. “AB955 creates a system of haves and have nots,” she said. “Students that cannot afford to pay more will essentially be denied access.”

A two-tiered payment system was tried once before at Santa Monica College last year. Students protested and were pepper sprayed in an incident that blew up in the news media.

In light of the new tuition hike, we’ve created an infographic to help put the new costs in context. Check it out below, and link to it directly here.

For our previous coverage on AB955, click here.

COLLEGE FOR THE RICH AND FOR THE POOR | Create infographics

Hunx on running into Elvira, life in LA, and his all-time favorite punk bands

Tony Robles

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October 17, 2013

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Hunx (aka Seth Bogart) is something of a hometown hero in San Francisco. While technically he grew up in Tucson, Ariz, his name and music became synonymous with the Bay Area underground garage sound. A former member of electroclash cheerleaders Gravy Train!!!!, he collected the chant-worthy fun elements of that group and added Wall-of-Sound backup singers, doo-wop, and party punk layers to his next group, Hunx and His Punx.

Since then, Hunx has released a handful of Hunx and His Punx records, a weepy solo album (Hairdresser Blues, Hardly Art), a few naughty singles, and a line of eye-popping t-shirts, along with other people’s records through his own label, Wacky Wacko. And in the midst of all this, that hometown descriptor slipped away: Hunx moved to LA and says it kind of saved his life.

But Hunx still returns to the Bay on occasion, like on this tour behind spring-released snotty punk record, Street Punk (Hardly Art), which brings him to the Chapel this coming Monday night. In anticipation of that show, I asked Hunx about his most recent releases, his personal favorite punk bands, what he loves so much about LA (note: running into icons), and if there’ll ever be a Hunx X-mas album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOM5jKK9pSU

SF Bay Guardian What changed for you between your solo record, Hairdresser Blues, and Hunx and His Punx release Street Punk?

Seth Bogart I moved to LA, basically quit my job and found a drug that made me stop getting depressed… Hairdresser Blues is kinda like an embarrassing suicidal teen diary entry? I was so sad.

SFBG What (or who) influenced the songs on Street Punk? Can you tell me about the song writing process for that record?

SB The crazy short punk songs were inside joke songs we made up on tour that turned into the real thing. The rest Shannon [Shaw] and I basically wrote in the “studio” aka my friend Cundo’s warehouse while she visited me in LA. Making this album was extremely easy and fast and fun.

SFBG Who are your favorite punks bands (living or dead)?

SB Bikini Kill, X Ray Spex, the Germs, Frumpies, Kleenex, the Dicks, Limp Wrist, Neo Boys, Nasty Facts.

SFBG What was the inspiration for “Everyone’s a Pussy (Fuck You, Dude)” off Street Punk?

SB Amy and Shannon wrote that when we were touring around our “Too Young To Be In Love” tour. But personally for me it’s like #1 fuck you to guys who use that word and #2 if I’m a pussy, so are you so shut the fuck up, man.

SFBG The Wacky Wacko shirts you create with Peggy Noland are brilliant — I saw Kenny Mellman wearing one at the Julie Ruin’s SF show. Where do you come up with the ideas and how do you and Peggy collaborate — who does what? Also, any more designs on the way?

SB Yes, I just put out a monster one and a Perfume Maniac one. I just think of a theme that would be a cool pattern and start painting and scanning. Peggy designed a couple for me back when I launched it earlier this year. It has become my job — I am totally obsessed. It’s really fun to tell companies like Urban Outfitters no and to see your shirts in a store like Patricia Field. I’m looking into moving into towels and sheets next.

SFBG “I Vant to Suck Your Cock” is now a Halloween anthem — do you have any intention of releasing more holiday records?

SB I love Christmas music. It’s only a matter of time…

SFBG What’s the best part of living in LA? What do you miss most about the Bay Area?

SB I miss my friends so much. And running into people wherever I went. LA is oddly anonymous but kinda saved me! Plus the other night I hung out with Pee Wee Herman and Elvira!

SFBG Can you take us through your typical day in LA?

SB The only thing a typical day always has almost no matter what is my boyfriend bringing me coffee and immediately having sex with me (he’s perfect). Then I go to Daddy’s Gym, work at the Wacky Wacko office or go to one of the weird design classes I just started taking. I try to make time to paint or do a creative activity — the secret to happiness

Hunx and His Punx
With Wet Drag
Mon/21, 9pm, $14
Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com

Best of the Bay 2013: BEST COMMUNITY BOARDS

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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October 16, 2013

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Best of the Bay 2013: BEST COMMUNITY BOARDS

While there can be no debate that surf shops, in general, are selling a lifestyle, few are hawking a way of living as healthy as Mill Valley’s beloved Proof Lab. Need proof? The nine-year-old store (whose owners used reclaimed and reused materials wherever possible in its construction) stocks the best in sustainable men’s and women’s clothing, surfboard brands, and skateboard fixins, of course. But it also hosts a passel of community-minded offerings: sustainability workshops, toddler art classes, a native plant nursery, a biodiesel fuel station. On the lot next door you’ll find a teaching garden co-founded by Proof where one can take the occasional canning seminar, and buy fresh local produce. Plus: a new Equator coffee bar, to keep you up for those waves.

244 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley. (415) 380-8900, www.prooflab.com

BEST OF THE BAY 2013: LOCAL HEROES

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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October 16, 2013

0

Bruce Brugmann, Jean Dibble, and Tim Redmond

The San Francisco Bay Guardian — which has had a significant impact on the Bay Area’s cultural and political dynamics and dialogue over the last 47 years — was largely the creation of three people with complementary skills and perspectives, an amalgam that gave the Guardian its voice and longevity.

Although they are no longer involved with running the paper, we’re honoring their contribution and legacy with a form of recognition they created: a Local Hero Award in our Best of the Bay issue, an annual edition that has been adopted by almost every alt-weekly in the country.

Bruce Brugmann and Jean Dibble launched the Guardian in October 1966 after years of planning by the married couple, and they ran it as co-publishers until the paper’s sale to the San Francisco Newspaper Co. last year, with Dibble running the business side and Brugmann in charge of editorial and serving as its most public face.

“We were one of the few husband and wife newspaper teams, a real mom and pop operation,” Brugmann told us. “We couldn’t have done it without the two of us, we needed both of our skill sets.”

They met in 1956 at the University of Nebraska, where Brugmann studied journalism and served as editor of the Daily Nebraskan, starting his long career as journalistic rabble-rouser. Dibble studied business, which she would continue in graduate school at Harvard University’s Radcliffe College while Brugmann got a master’s in journalism at Columbia University.

As graduation neared, they started talking about forming a newspaper together, an idea that percolated while Brugmann served in the US Army, where he wrote for Stars and Stripes, and Dibble moved to San Francisco with their two kids to work in personnel and administrative positions.

After the Army, they settled in Wisconsin, where Brugmann worked as a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal before moving to the Bay Area to work on launching the Guardian while Brugmann supported the family working for the Redwood City Tribune.

“We came out here with the idea of doing it and we immediately started planning. Jean did the prospectus, a damn good prospectus,” Brugmann said.

The Guardian published sporadically in the beginning, but it tapped into a vibrant counterculture that was clashing with the establishment and began publishing important articles highlighting inequities in the Vietnam War draft and exposing local political scandals, including how Pacific Gas & Electric illegally acquired its energy monopoly.

“A lot of it was just keep your head down and keep going,” Dibble said. “We never talked about alternatives, it was just what we were going to do.” The Guardian covered the successful revolts against new freeways in the city and plans to build Manhattan-style skyscrapers, publishing the book The Ultimate Highrise in 1971. In the mid-’70s, the Guardian won a successful unfair competition lawsuit against the Chronicle and the Examiner over their joint operating agreement, allowing the paper to become a free newsweekly. “Eventually, things got better, and we got some large advertisers in the ’80s and they really helped kick us off,” Dibble said. That was also when Tim Redmond, a journalist and activist steeped in radical politics, started writing for the Guardian, going on to serve as the paper’s executive editor and guiding voice for more than 30 years. “Tim was always more radical than I was,” Brugmann said, giving Redmond credit for the Guardian’s groundbreaking coverage of tenant, environmental, and economic justice issues. “Every publisher needs an editor who was more radical than they are to push them.” The two journalists had a prolific partnership, mentoring a string of journalists who would go on to national acclaim, turning the Guardian into a model for alt-weeklies across the country, exposing myriad scandals and emerging arts and cultural trends, and helping to write and pass the nation’s strongest local Sunshine Ordinance. “We always wanted to make things better,” Brugmann said of what drove the Guardian. “Even the battles that we lost, we got major concessions. Yerba Buena is much better because of the stories we did at the time, same thing with Mission Bay…San Francisco is much better that we were here. And we’re really proud and we appreciate the work of the current Guardian staff in keeping the Guardian flame alive.”

LOCAL HEROES: Kate Kendell

The night Proposition 8 passed was one of the hardest of Kate Kendell’s life. She remembers it with startling detail — and she should, because she was one of the most prominent opponents of the measure to overturn marriage equality in California.

“I was hopeful right up until the end that Prop. 8 would be defeated,” she said, speaking slowly as she pulled her thoughts from what sounded like a dark place. “Our initial polling numbers said we’d probably lose, but I really hoped in the deepest heart of my heart that when people got in there that they’d punch their vote in favor of the person they knew.”

But as the voters of California showed in that 2008 election, sometimes the good guys lose.

Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, fought the good fight since she started there in 1994. The NCLR litigates, creates policy, and performs outreach for LGBT civil rights on a national level, with headquarters in San Francisco. After years of anticipation, she poured herself into the campaign against the proposition that would make her marriage illegal, and then the measure passed.

That night she hung her head in disbelief. She felt physically ill, and her mind roiled in grief equaled only by the death of one of her parents. “It felt like that,” she said.

Kendell and her wife, Sandy, went home without speaking a word, and when she got in the door she tried to pull it together. Steeling herself to face her family, Kendell walked out of the bathroom and burst into tears. Her son said simply “this just means we have to fight more.”

So she did, and we all won.

That led to the moment for which Kendell may be remembered for a long time to come. When Prop. 8 was overturned by the US Supreme Court this year, a flock of San Francisco politicians descended the steps inside the rotunda at City Hall. Kendell took to the podium and spoke to the nation.

“My name is Kate Kendell with the National Center for Lesbian Rights,” she said, “and fuck you, Prop. 8!” The crowd erupted into cheers.

She regrets saying it now, but history will likely forgive her for being human. For someone whose own marriage’s validity was threatened and who spent two decades fighting for equality, she earned a moment of embarrassing honesty.

Kendell’s infamous declaration may be how she’s known, but one of her key decisions behind the scenes shaped the LGBT equality movement as well. When then-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration wanted a couple to be the first in his round of renegade gay marriages in 2004, it was Kendell who suggested Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

The two were in a relationship since 1953, pioneers of LGBT activism in San Francisco. Kendell said it was only right that they were first to read their vows in the city they helped shape. “Were it not for their contributions, visibility, and courage in the ’50s and ’60s, we wouldn’t be in that room with Newsom contemplating marriage licenses,” she said. “I’m just happy they said yes. It was absolutely appropriate.” And it’s with that sense of history that she herself pioneers forward, pushing in states across the US what Harvey Milk fought for in California — workplace protections for the LGBT community. “In 38 states, you can be fired from your job or being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. That has to change,” she said. “When the next chapter of history is written, it will be about a nation that treats the LGBT community as equals.”

Theo Ellington

Last year, when San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee floated the idea of implementing stop-and-frisk, a practice that many civil rights advocates say amounts to racial profiling, Theo Ellington stepped up to create a Change.org petition to oppose the idea — and won.

The policy would have given San Francisco police officers the authority to stop and search any individual who “looks suspicious,” in an effort to get guns off the streets.

“I found it was basically a predatory policing practice that didn’t belong in a city like San Francisco,” Ellington told us. His petition garnered a little more than 2,300 signatures, “enough to show policymakers we were paying attention,” he guesses. Faced with mounting pressure and a community outcry, Lee ultimately abandoned the idea.

“That was a win, I think, for everyone fighting for what’s really a civil right,” the 25-year-old, native San Franciscan told us in a recent phone interview. “It’s not a black issue or a white issue,” but it did strike a nerve and provide Ellington with some momentum for coalition building.

Ellington was born and raised in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, home to a significant portion of the city’s dwindling black population. The campaign against stop-and-frisk helped catalyze his still-evolving political organization, the Black Young Democrats of San Francisco, of which he is president.

Go to BYDSF’s website and you’re confronted with some startling statistics about the experience of black San Franciscans: In the last 20 years, the African American community has dwindled to only 6 percent of the city’s population; meanwhile, the high school dropout rate stands at 38 percent, the unemployment rate is 18 percent, and the level of poverty stands at a disheartening 20 percent.

To tackle these looming challenges, BYDSF now faces the hurdle of getting local elected officials to care. “Since then, we have been trying to build our membership and figure out where we fit in the political climate of SF,” Ellington says.

His group’s chief concerns include closing the achievement gap in San Francisco public schools, doing something about the escalating cost of housing, and finding better solutions for public transit. “There’s the housing need, obviously. It’s a need that working class folks in general are facing,” he said.

He’s pursing a master’s degree in urban affairs at the University of San Francisco, and says he’s taken it upon himself to learn everything he can about how cities operate. To that end, he often ponders vexing questions: “How do you figure out a way to give those same opportunities to everyone? How do you provide opportunities for all income levels?”

His successful opposition campaign to stop-and-frisk didn’t stop Mayor Lee from appointing him to the Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure, which oversees the successor to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. A major project under that body’s purview is the Hunters Point Shipyard development, a massive undertaking led by construction firm Lennar Urban, practically in Ellington’s backyard. Having grown up in the neighborhood, he sees himself as being in a unique position to ensure that the developers are providing jobs for local residents as required under the agreement. “It allows me to speak to both sides — on the community level, and in City Hall,” he said. “There are certain social dynamics you won’t understand unless you have lived in the community.” Ultimately, Ellington says, his goal is to push local politicians to find ways of making San Francisco a place where people of all income levels can find their way. “There’s a lot more work to do,” he said. “I think San Francisco is at a real pivotal point, where we can choose to go in the right direction … or we can choose the opposite.”

LOCAL HEROES: Shanell Williams

Shanell Williams is a chameleon activist, spearheading the effort to save City College of San Francisco from many fronts.

When City College fought off a statewide initiative to save money by stigmatizing struggling students, she defended the school as an Occupy activist. With a banner raised high, she faced down the California Community College Board of Governors, shouting their wrongs aloud at a meeting attended by hundreds. The board was stunned but her fellow activists were not, because that’s who Williams is: an uncompromising defender of San Francisco.

Now, as City College faces a fight for its existence, Williams is defending it again, this time as a duly elected CCSF student trustee.

Williams is at the forefront of Save CCSF, an Occupy-inspired group publicly protesting the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges, the body trying to shut down City College. San Francisco is holding its breath until next July to hear if the accrediting commission will close the city’s only community college — and Williams was one of the key organizers helping students’ voices rise up to decry the decision to close the school.

She has reason to fight hard, growing up watching her community ravaged by those in power who purported to do good. She is a black woman and San Francisco native raised in the Fillmore and the long history of redevelopment and its role in the flight of The City’s African American population shaped her ethos. To Williams, there are forces that care about money at the expense of communities and those forces need to be fought.

“How are we supporting people to have a decent quality of life?” she said, and that’s the way she’s approached saving her community since a young age.

In 2003, while in high school, Williams got a taste of politicking as a member of San Francisco’s Youth Commission, appointed by then-Mayor Willie Brown. “I think he’s a very interesting character with a lot of influence over the city,” she said, with just an edge of steel to her voice.

As a teenaged politician, she discovered the work of the Human Rights Commission and was inspired. While a student of Washington High School and then Wallenberg High, she had a tough home life and entered the foster care system, getting a firsthand look at how the state takes care of its youth.

It galvanized her, honed her, and made her yearn for change. “I just innately had a sense of wanting to see justice and fairness,” she said.

Energized, she joined the Center for Young Women’s Development, the Youth Treatment Education Court, Urban Services YMCA, the Youth Leadership Institute, and more. She joined so many organizations and taught so many youth and government officials that even she can’t remember all of them off the top of her head.

At one point, she even taught judges across the country about cultural competency. “We had this whole spoken word performance thing we did,” she said, laughing.

In 2010, as Williams took classes at City College, she waved the banner defending San Francisco’s community college students. She pushed for city-level minimum wage requirements for City College workers, who earned dollars less. She also pushed back against state requirements to cut off priority registrations to those who took too long in the community college system — because she’s been there herself.

“They need a few chances to get it right and become a good student,” she said. When the struggle to save City College is done, win or lose, Williams sees herself remaining an advocate for students for years to come. At 29 years old, she’s still a student herself, and she eagerly awaits the day she’ll transfer to Cal or Stanford as an Urban Studies major. It all comes back to defending her city. “We have to broaden the movement,” she said. “The enemy is not about color, it’s about wealth inequality. It’s not just about City College either. It’s about the austerity regime that doesn’t care about working class people and poor folks.”

San Franciscans for Healthcare, Jobs, and Justice

When the San Francisco Mayor’s Office cut a deal with Sutter Health and its California Pacific Medical Center affiliate for an ambitious rebuild of hospital facilities — which would shape healthcare services in San Francisco for years to come — community activists began to find serious flaws in the proposal.

So they organized and banded together into a coalition to challenge the powerful players pushing the plan, eventually helping to hash out a better agreement that would benefit all San Franciscans. Representing an alliance between labor and community advocates, the coalition was called San Franciscans for Healthcare, Jobs, and Justice.

When the whole affair began, it seemed as if the CPMC rebuild would incorporate a host of community benefits — but those promises evaporated after the healthcare provider walked away from the negotiating table, unhappy with the terms.

Then a second agreement, with much weaker public benefits, came out of a second round of talks between CPMC and the Mayor’s Office. But by then, so much had been given up that “we were stunned,” said Calvin Welch, who joined the coalition on behalf of the Council of Community Housing Organizations. “We met with [Mayor Ed Lee] and told him, this is absolutely unacceptable.”

But the mayor wasn’t willing to address their concerns at that time. When the deal failed to win approval after a series of hearings at the Board of Supervisors, however, “the unacceptable deal that the mayor created melted in the sun of full disclosure,” Welch said.

That plan would have allowed St. Luke’s Hospital, a critically important facility for low-income patients, to shrink to just 80 beds with no guarantee that it would stay open in the long run. CPMC’s commitment to providing charitable care to the uninsured was disappointingly low. And while the project was expected to create 1,500 permanent jobs in San Francisco, the deal only guaranteed that 5 percent of those positions would go to existing San Francisco residents.

Enter the movers and shakers with San Franciscans for Healthcare, Housing, Jobs, and Justice. The coalition took its place at the negotiating table, along with CPMC, a mediator, and an unlikely trio of supervisors that included Board President David Chiu and Sups. David Campos and Mark Farrell. Over several months, the coalition put in some serious time and energy to push for a more equitable outcome.

“We pushed so hard for a smaller Cathedral Hill [Hospital] and a larger St. Luke’s,” Welch said, describing their strategy to safeguard against the closure of St. Luke’s. They also pushed for CPMC to make a better funding contribution toward affordable housing, a stronger guarantee for hiring San Franciscans at the new medical center, and improvements to transit and pedestrian safety measures as conditions of the deal.

Under the terms that were ultimately approved, St. Luke’s will remain a full-service hospital, and CPMC will commit to providing services to 30,000 “charity care” patients and 5,400 Medi-Cal patients per year.

CPMC also agreed to contribute $36.5 million to the city’s affordable housing fund, and promised to pay $4.1 million to replace homes it displaces on Cathedral Hill. Under the revised deal, 30 percent of construction jobs and 40 percent of permanent entry-level positions in the new facilities would be promised to San Francisco residents.

One of the greatest victories of all, Welch said, was how well coalition members worked together. “This was the most straight-up equal collaboration with labor and community people, equally supporting one another, that I’ve ever been involved with,” Welch said. Even though they were motivated to participate by different sets of concerns, the two sides remained mutually supportive, Welch said. During the long, grueling hearings, “The nurses never left,” he noted in amazement. “The nurses stuck around for all the community stuff.”

Photos by Evan Ducharme

Best of the Bay 2013 Editors Picks: Shopping

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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October 15, 2013

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SHOPPING

BEST PLACE TO PARK YOUR CARD

Get that paper, paper, paper — printed. Holed up in a cozy garage with a cute dog and a hunky Vandercock proof press (a rare specimen last produced in the 1960s), the letterpress-loving ladies of Western Editions create and design paper goods for all occasions and situations, from badass business cards with handmade charm to colorful and direct wedding invites that may just get your flaky San Franciscan friends to actually attend the soirée. “Letterpress is magic,” is the motto of Western Addition residents Taylor Reid and Erin Fong, two friends turned business partners who are down to customize and open to suggestions, meaning you can make all the cute shit your ambitious heart desires, or purchase some one else’s great idea from their online store. Oh, hey, and they offer supercool DIY workshops, too — just in time for the holidays.

555 Rose, SF. www.westerneditions.com

BEST BE-SPOKED FASHION

We’re constantly on the hunt for the perfect outfit that will make it through our daily transition from work serf to night owl. Reversible scarves, tear-away skirts, all black outfits — those work OK. But what about then shoes? What pair of hoofers can glide us from the workbound bike lane to the underground dance floor? Welp, a local company has the solution to our woes: DZR Shoes, an SF-based (though they manufacture overseas) outfit that creates sneakers that can clip to all manners of pedal types, but look fly as all getout. Whether you go for high or low top, fully vegan design or whole grain leather, knee-high lace-up or slip-in, chances are you can find the kicks to complete your Lycra-free lane look in style. Our current favorite? The sleek, all-black Minna, designed by artist-DJ Jeremiah Bal.

www.dzrshoes.com

BEST FLORAL HUNTRESS

Her eyes scanning the abandoned lots and hillsides of the Stinson area and East Bay, Louesa Roebuck of Louesa Roebuck Flora isn’t afraid to snoop, sneak, or hustle in the name of foraging for flowers. Her mission: fetch that wild flora and arrange it in ways that exemplify the plant’s natural majesty. Gleaning armloads of budding branches, floppy magnolias, brilliant poppies, sweet mallow, bright berries, and sharp citrus from both public and secret locations, Louesa finds beauty in imperfection, a sublime bouquet in nature’s fantastic mistakes. She lets the blooms and leaves curl, crawl, and droop as they will, showcasing the fascinating juxtaposition between life and slow, dreamy decay. Visit her tiny Hayes Valley shop to see the day’s treasures and meet some of the gorgeous plants living right beside you.

597 Hayes, SF. (415) 686-5482, www.louesaroebuck.com

BEST ONE-STOP SCOTCH SHOP

Like a sweater for your insides, the names warm your gray matter: Broichladdich, Glayva, Mackillop’s, Benriach, Balvenie, Glenmorangie. Standing in the sweetly crammed back bottle room of downtown’s Whisky Shop can be a meditative experience for scotch lovers — the selection of malts and blends vies for the city’s best, with employees as helpful as their kilts are fetching. And should the Whisky Shop staff’s sartorial motif inspire, the front portion of the store is stocked with a rainbow of tartan, wool, and waxed fabric wardrobe. Score kilts and genuine, betasseled fur sporrans you’ll use to stash your new perfectly heart-shaped silver flask. And possibly a novelty gift or two — the Whisky Shop is also flush with crest-adorned coasters, canned haggis, and artisan lotions from the United Kingdom.

360 Sutter, SF. (415) 989-1030, www.whiskeyshopusa.com

BEST COMMUNITY BOARDS

While there can be no debate that surf shops, in general, are selling a lifestyle, few are hawking a way of living as healthy as Mill Valley’s beloved Proof Lab. Need proof? The nine-year-old store (whose owners used reclaimed and reused materials wherever possible in its construction) stocks the best in sustainable men’s and women’s clothing, surfboard brands, and skateboard fixins, of course. But it also hosts a passel of community-minded offerings: sustainability workshops, toddler art classes, a native plant nursery, a biodiesel fuel station. On the lot next door you’ll find a teaching garden co-founded by Proof where one can take the occasional canning seminar, and buy fresh local produce. Plus: a new Equator coffee bar, to keep you up for those waves.

244 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley. (415) 380-8900, www.prooflab.com

BEST CLAWS CARTEL

We bow down to the business acumen and sharp eye for trends possessed by Floss Gloss duo Aretha Sack and Janine Lee. These two California College of the Arts grads eschewed inward-looking artistic exploration, instead embarking on a mission to paint the world with the sizzling neons and kick-ass, vintage-inspired shades that haunt their minds eye. Their canvas? The fingernails of the Bay Area’s young, hip, and gifted. How did they take their line of animal cruelty-free nail polishes from late-night study sessions to indie and corporate retailers around the globe? (All while remaining 100 percent free of DBPs, formaldehyde, and other harmful chemicals — these colors may scream “heavy metal,” but contain none.) Let us count the ways: perfect nacho cheese orange and bikini coral lacquers; irresistibly chic tones like Party Bruise, Dimepiece, Black Holy, Faded, Pony, and Blood, Suede, and Tears; endless pop-up nail salons, hard work … and the knowledge that you can do anything when you’ve got a perfect 10 to point the way.

www.flossgloss.com

BEST BLADE RUNNER

It is a satisfying, luxurious — if fundamental — satisfaction, settling in to make dinner with a hiss-sharp passel of well-honed knives. Fans of cutting-edge pleasures will want to slip into Nob Hill’s Town Cutler, a well-hewn, immaculately organized shop of blades both wildly fabulous (a $1,050 Wilburn Forge Japanese chef knife, its silver nickel sharp marbled and lovely) and craftily utilitarian (a $100 handleless Takeda Kogotana meant for woodworking). Owner Galen Garretson will sell you these, sharpen the utensils you already own, teach you to work your own knives in a sharpening tutorial or informative class, and even help you get a handle on blunter culinary objects — the back of Town Cutlery is an elegantly hung array of those most-unsharp kitchen friends: spoons.

1005 Bush, SF. (415) 359-1519, www.towncutler.com

BEST BOOKS FOR THE BROKE

These are the facts: Reading is cool, books are rad, free books are even radder, and the best combo of all of these is the Bay Area Free Book Exchange. At any given moment, the space — run cooperatively by a cadre of indie booksellers and printed-page junkies — houses some 10,000 books, all free for the taking. (“It’s like an ever-changing treasure hunt among thousands of books,” its website declares, and we have to agree.) Since opening in May 2009, the Exchange has given away over 350,000 books during its weekend hours, with an ultimate goal of handing out a million, and beyond! Since it survives on donations, consider adding your own previously-read tomes to the stacks proudly bearing this stamp: “Not for Resale, This is a Free Book.”

10520 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 705-1200, www.bayareafreebookexchange.com

BEST ROUNDABOUT OF FOUND GEMS

A compellingly curated combination of artwork by some of San Francisco’s eye-catching countercultural artists — with noteworthy post-industrial tinge courtesy of the Burning Man diaspora — and intriguing flea market finds by diligent shoppers with an eye for the urban aesthetic, Carousel Consignment SF is an oasis of great pre-found finds. This welcoming and decidedly funky Mission whirl, set in motion by co-owners Kelley Wehman and Illy McMahan (who bonded over their passion for all things circus and vintage), can turn a quick fly-by into an afternoon-long exploration. Furniture, toys, lighting, textiles … Its quirky assemblage of wares preserves its surroundings’ penchant for the wacky and weird.

2391 Mission, SF. (415) 821-9848, www.carouselsf.com

BEST SOLO STARTUPS

You know how it goes: surfing the www.aves of one’s sleek laptop, a stray image distracts. Suddenly, you’re no longer typing that return email — your mind has fixed on a different kind of click entirely. For you, sweets, SoMa brand Crave‘s line of tech-happy sex toys. Designed and produced by Ti Chang and Michael Topolovac, and assembled in the land of SF startup, each of the company’s gorgeous, whisper-quiet specimens have all the design and functionality of your favorite Apple toy. Our favorite is the Duet, a vibe with a double-pronged, silicone clitoral approach available in gold plating and with the option of eight or 16 GB of data storage thanks to a USB charging battery. That’s right: there is a USB port up in this vibrator. Adventurous souls can wear their pleasure out in public: Crave’s “Droplet” lariat necklace doubles as discreet nipple vibrators.

www.lovecrave.com

BEST HORROR HOUND DECOR

To some, a house full of Alex Pardee visual art would reap naught but disturbed sleep and missed meals. A living dream catcher made of exposed sinew and dripping eyeballs dangling from tendons, ready to snatch a soul; a roaring “Sharkasus” with razor teeth, four legs, and wings; an endless parade of your favorite horror icons rendered somehow even more terrifying by his spindly, precise strokes. But given the fact there are now two Bay Area shops stocked primarily with his prints, originals, and tees — in addition to the unnerving yet painterly work of other artists like Dave Correia — plenty of us are digging it. While shopping for the creep-craver in your life, you’ll do no better than the Oakland or Lower Haight location of Zero Friends, which has become a ground zero of sorts for the street art marketing scene.

419 Haight, SF. (415) 418-9912; 489A 25th St., Oakl. (510) 735-9405 (open first Fridays of the month or by appointment only); www.zerofriends.com

BEST REPAIR GRAND CENTRAL

Should you need a custom cabinet, a staircase rehab, perhaps a new cupola on your clock tower, you can turn to Clipper Construction’s Mathieu Palmer. But 501 Waller, the storefront Palmer owned and used as storage space — as he told local blog Haighteration — wasn’t the best use of a neighborhood-facing corner shop. Enter Palmer’s friend Dan Daniel, who created Clipper Repair from this clutter, a friendly place for fixing up, designing, or refurbishing anything you could imagine: lamps, cabinets, antique furniture, electrical things. The interior is a gorgeously organized wonderland of screws, nails, tools, gears, and random curiosities. And then! Garret Peters turned Clipper’s back storage room into a bike shop called Wiggle Bikes, conveniently located off the Wiggle, our crosstown thoroughfare for the two-wheeled. Could there be a more useful stop-off for lovers of sustainable transportation and reuse than the Clipper Repair-Wiggle Bikes complex?

501 Waller, SF. (415) 621-4733, www.clipper-construction.com

BEST GIVING FACE, FLAWLESSLY

You could find no better brand rep than Swagger Cosmetics‘ Blake Karamazov. The tiny club kid (who came to us a few years ago fresh from the female drag-friendly land of Seattle) rarely leaves the house without her face immaculately, fantastically done — think ruby red 4mm glitter lips, sherbet orange eyebrows, or an exaggerated, smoky cat eye. The woman lives for everyday drag queen. But as a vegan, Karamazov bridled at many heavily pigmented makeup lines. Lucky us, because the Sanrio-obsessed entrepreneur started designing her own one-woman line of glitters, lipsticks, eye shadows — and most recently, fake eyelashes — manufactured 100 percent sans animal cruelty. Having recently made up one of her genderbending idols James St. James, there’s no question this babe’s got swag. Check her wares online, and don’t miss her wildly popular, glam inspiring Instagram game.

www.swaggercosmetics.com

BEST WAY TO THROW SHADE, PART I

You don’t care if they work from home or not — the neighbors are taking too much pleasure from your lax approach to towels on the post-shower strut from the bathroom, and you sense an overeager, extra pair of peepers when you and your sweet are snuggled up watching Jessica Lange chew the scenery on American Horror Story: Coven. Thank goodness for Christine and Jeff Vidall, whose Art Shade Shop has been keeping neighborly boundaries firm in a densely-packed city since 1934. Wood slats, pleated blinds, sunbrellas, fabric coverings — this Castro couple has it all, perfect for the moment you need more privacy than those gorgeous bay windows will afford on their own. The basement shop (nook, really) also offers bead and reel clutch mechanisms, bottom-up lock pulleys, and Hauser roller shades. If you don’t know what any of that is, they’ll gladly install it all for you anyway.

698 14th St., SF. (415) 431-5074, www.artshadeshop.com

BEST WAY TO THROW SHADE, PART II

And then there are times when you just need a retreat from harsh illumination. Perhaps the fluorescent bars at the office seared your retinas too deeply today, or maybe you wish to give your date a softly lit, haloed-in-shadow version of ever-romantical you. These are the moments in which you’ll be grateful for Lamp Shades SF and its colorfully appointed showroom, ready to shield you from the ever-burning light. A leopard topper for that candlestick fixture? Modern puce shades for the chandelier in the foyer? A pair of matching onyx horse head bedside numbers? You will find them all here. Bring the base or bulb for which you need a topper, ring the doorbell to be allowed entrance, and let the decidedly unshady staff help you select the level of lighting best suited for your look.

199 Potrero, SF. (415) 431-6720

BEST RIFFS KEPT REAL

If you’re looking for a vintage instrument with a personal touch, Panhandle Guitar hits all the right chords. Rock fiends will swoon for the intimate, nicely overstuffed shop’s collection of prime and shiny vintage guitars, basses, amps, and effects. Panhandle buys old instruments too — on consignment, or trade-in — and offers on-site repairs. Owner Robert Williams is known for his encyclopedic knowledge, and there’s a laid-back and welcoming vibe we dig, charmed by store windows cluttered with neon signs and a child mannequin in an oversized Panhandle Guitar T-shirt. Guitar Center this is not; the stated store hours seem more like vague suggestions of when it might be open, and Mondays are simply listed as “some times” open with a smiley face. This kind of store is sadly uncommon these days — a unique, owner-run vendor of rare instrumental goods, tuned into the needs of fellow artists.

1221 Fell, SF. (415) 552-1302, www.panhandleguitarsf.com

BEST RING-A-DING STYLE

When Cable Car Clothiers — venerable haberdasher to dashing gents since 1946 — announced it was vacating its Sansome and Bush location in 2012, our hearts sank. Was this incredible emporium of all things Mad Men-Rat Pack-Nautical Chic-Dressy Preppy about to vanish, like so many other San Francisco institutions? Where, oh where, would we get our crushable Trilby fedoras, handsomely polka-dotted navy blue ascots, and elaborate cherry-handled horsehair brush sets? Never fear: the relocation a few blocks away signaled a snazzy revamp. Jonathan Levin, grandson of original Clothier Charles Pivnick, had returned to the family business, determined to pump some classy 21st Century zazz into the joint. The large, handsome new showroom retains all the charm of the former space — but decks it out in voluminous racks and shelves of exquisite menswear treasures. Another reason to spend your entire afternoon here: the in-store barbershop with master barber Nicky and associates providing hot lather and straight razor shaves, hot toweling, scissor hair cuts, and more. You want full-service swank? This is the place, my man.

110 Sutter, SF. (415) 397-4740, www.cablecarclothiers.com

BEST DREAMY DRESSMAKER

Wiggle your bike down to this sweet little corner shop near Duboce Park for lessons in fine and lovely things. Aline’s Closet is the three-year-old queendom of a one Aline Dazogbo, a seamstress whose French-inflected takes on dresses, skirts, and blouses may just lead you to the customized wardrobe item of your dream. Dazogbo designs and creates nearly everything in the shop: yoga pants, handbags, column skirt-tube top combos, and more. Though many items are ready-to-wear, a rack along one wall of the sunny store showcases the garments she can tailor-make just for you: a lace-paneled velvet slip, a clingy, cap-sleeved onesie. Should her sweet, sassy patterns stray even one iota from your fantasy outfit, don’t fret: Dazogbo loves to help customers concoct one-of-a-kind wearables based out of nothing more than their own visions.

101 Pierce, SF. (415) 312-3468, www.alinescloset.com

BEST CULINARY GEPETTO

Powerful chrome and polished enamel parts, operated by hand, executing a series of swift cuts and swooping motions. Classic design masterfully crafted, all building to — gasp! — the perfect slice of salami. Welcome to the world of Emilio Mitidieri, the man who brings the Bay Area’s venerable Emiliomiti “culinary toys” to life. Though his company is playfully named, Mitidieri’s creations mean business — wood fire and gas brick ovens that yield perfectly cooked pizza pies, pasta machines that extrude dreamy strands of fettuccini, and specimens like the Slicer Mito 300, an elegantly crafted meat slicer that mimics the classic designs of the deli of yesteryear. Mitidieri has been supplying restaurants and dedicated chefs with the tools needed for success for decades now, so chances are you’ve already sampled some of his playful perfection topped with marinara or nestled in a hoagie roll.

www.emiliomiti.com

BEST HAVEN FOR HEARTS OF GLASS

Bolivian-born David Forte’s SoMa workshop has one mission: to light up your life, and colorfully at that. Opened in 1971, Forte’s San Francisco Stained Glass Works is the place to go for those who would have blooming lilies twinkling above a front door, or an Art Deco Emerald City to enliven the upper strata of one’s workspace. The shop turns out devotional works for pane-minded churches and synagogues and extravagantly lovely flatware sets. Others flock to learn the craft themselves. A course on glass fusing and a stained glass 101 are both offered by Forte’s staff, not to mention monthly space rentals for artists in need of a communal glass grinder, firing kiln, and place to indulge a penchant for transcendent translucents.

1246 Howard, SF. (415) 626-3592, www.sfsgw.com

BEST SF TO A TEE

Local artist Amos Goldbaum hand-draws and hand-prints some of the most recognizable, SF-centric t-shirts (and hoodies, tanks, and baby onesies) available on the streets — literally, on the streets, since he also hand-sells his wares from wire racks on Valencia, near the Ferry Building, at street fairs like the recent Castro Street Fair, and other open-air spots. Goldbaum’s complete repertoire goes far beyond the familiar tourist-friendly landscapes he’s known for: his web portfolio is packed with psychological, fantastical illustrated scenes you’d spot immediately in a gallery — but probably never witness out a Muni window. When it comes to uniquely Bay gifts, though, you won’t want to miss his quirky, amazingly detailed and vibrant line-drawing takes on local landmarks like Dolores Park, with old-school playground intact, and Bernal Hill — or his illo of the old-timey Sutro Baths, complete with Cliff House aflame in the background.

www.amosgoldbaum.com

BEST JUNK BONDS

Inside the massive American Steel building, a relic of Oakland’s industrial past repurposed and managed mostly for the Burning Man art world, there’s a beautifully intricate two-story Western saloon made from recycled materials, originally built as the Dustfish Bordello for Black Rock City in 2009. In the intervening years, the structure has matured into what is now known as American Steel’s Oaktown Hall, an art gallery and event space that became a hub this year for a variety of ventures within what its organizers call the salvage and reuse arts. Skate ramps! Haitian art tours! Crazy, old-timey auctions! The hall is a gathering place and focal point for those who would find creative reuses for so-called junk, and build relationships among West Oakland’s diverse communities.

1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakl. (415) 794-1827, www.oaktownhall.com

BEST TIP-TOP SPIFF UP

It has been remarked that West Portal is quite the happy village in the middle of this teeming city. We concur. Tucked into the side of a hill topped by a Twin Peak, slung happily along a leafy central promenade, the neighborhood is not the worst model for Main Street, USA. Tip and Top Vacuum & Shoe Service, particularly seen in this light, is an all-American gem. Bring in your dirt sucker for a fix-me-up and the capable staff will get it back to dirt bunny-busting in two shakes of a dusty rug. And like any good member of a small community, Tip and Top is a multitasker, as evident from the boots in the window. The shop also repairs shoes, and will even custom-cobble you a boot or slipper. To recap: Tip and Top fixes vacuums and shoes, it’s cute as a button, and you kind of need to check it out.

173 W Portal, SF. (415) 664-9320

BEST FRESH FLOWERS

All over the news last year: Medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and other cities were being shut down by a spasm of overzealous and anachronistic enforcement by the federal government (see “Why?” 8/14/12). But a wave of young clubs were undaunted by the headlines. Indeed, many went through the entirely navigable local approval process for cannabis clubs and threw open their doors, come what may from Kamala Harris, Eric Holder, and the rest of the “drug warriors.” Among the best of the bunch? Bloom Room, an elegant establishment just a stone’s throw from hoity-toity Mint Plaza and the Chronicle Building in the heart of downtown. “Where medicine blooms wellness follows” is its somewhat logically fuzzy yet totally cromulent motto. Bloom Rooms got great weed — strains like Grape Romulan (I), Girl Scout Cookies, Chem Dawg, Pink Lemonade, and a special Bloom Blend — at decent prices, weighed out by super-nice and knowledgeable employees, in a classy, exposed brick interior. Here’s hoping Bloom’s given enough room to put down some roots.

471 Jessie, SF. (415) 543-7666, www.bloomroomsf.com

BEST 78S OFF HAIGHT

“I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book,” SF literary legend Kenneth Rexroth once supposedly said. Many share his sentiment when it comes to music — especially as our city rapidly empties itself of neighborhood record stores (and book stores, too, for that matter). Rexroth himself used to live above Jack’s Record Cellar, one of our longest-operating vinyl concerns — since 1951! — and also one of the most poetic spots in the city. Packed with the rarest of 33s, 45s, and, miraculously, stacks of so-desirable-we-can’t-stand-it 78s, Jack’s has all the jazz you want — plus soul, opera, country, doo-wop, standards, and classic pop. Memorabilia papers the walls, and piles of records spill out onto the aisles. Like many spots in the area, it’s more of a relaxed hangout than a capitalist venture. Conversation is prized over cash receipts. Open hours are spare and unpredictable. Saturday afternoons are a good bet, proprietor Wade Wright might be there to let you in. Unlike Rexroth, he values the love over the sale.

254 Scott, (415) 431-3047

BEST READING REVIVAL

After a 25-year stint on 16th Street in the now-teeming Valencia Corridor, and years of rumors of impending closure, a steep rent increase nearly caused literary, cultural, and artistic hub Adobe Books to shut its doors for good. But supporters launched a fundraising campaign using crowd-funding platform Indiegogo and succeeded in raising $60,000, enough to secure a new home on 24th Street — which, along with the re-situated Modern Times Bookstore, has become somewhat of a haven for gentrification-fleeing libraries. “Adobe has been such an important part of our lives as artists, writers, book lovers, and Mission dwellers,” the bookstore and gallery’s boosters wrote, in what turned out to be a wildly successful pitch. “We couldn’t see the Mission without it.”

3130 24th St, SF. (415) 864-3936, www.adobebackroomgallery.com

Lock-up shake up

Michael Redmond

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October 15, 2013

21

rebecca@sfbg.com

Should San Francisco spend $290 million on a modernized jail to replace the old ones that will be demolished when the Hall of Justice comes down?

That’s been the plan for years, but the Board of Supervisors Budget & Finance Committee started to ponder that question at its Oct. 9 meeting, setting the stage for a larger debate that hinges on questions about what it means to take a progressive approach to incarceration.

The Department of Public Works, in collaboration with the Sheriff’s Department, is preparing to submit a state grant application for $80 million to help offset the cost of rebuilding County Jails 3 and 4, outmoded facilities that are located on the sixth and seventh floors of the Hall of Justice.

That building is seismically vulnerable, and slated to be razed and rebuilt under a capital plan that has been in the works for the better part of a decade. With a combined capacity of 905 beds, Jails 3 and 4 were built in the 1950s and are in deplorable condition.

At the hearing, when supervisors considered whether to authorize the $80 million grant application, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said the current state of affairs is so bad that his department had to convert a bathroom to a visitation area because there was nowhere else for inmates to spend time with their kids in the same room. In other areas of the jail, temporarily vacant holding cells sometimes double as classroom space, since the department lacks dedicated areas for conducting classes.

The new jail would be built with somewhere between 481 and 688 beds, based on a lower calculated projected need, and more space would be devoted to programs like substance abuse education, parenting programs, or counseling.

San Francisco currently has five jails, but only one — a San Bruno facility built in 2006 — has what the Sheriff’s Department considers to be adequate space for rehabilitative services. Inmates there can opt to earn a high school diploma or take a course in meditation, and the department wants to build on that design in the new facilities.

Mirkarimi urged committee members to sanction the funding request as a first step toward that goal. “Whether it’s parenting programs or something that goes much deeper, then we need that space to make it happen,” he said.

At the same time, some community advocates questioned the very premise of spending millions on a new jail, arguing that scarce public resources could be better spent on services to prevent people from winding up in the criminal justice system to begin with.

In late August, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area called for the plan to be reexamined. “We agree that Jails 3 and 4 in the Hall of Justice should be torn down,” they wrote, “[but] we question the need to replace them with a new facility.”

Micaela Davis, criminal justice and drug policy attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, told the Guardian that advocates are seeking to reframe the debate by questioning why a new jail should even be built, rather than focusing on what kind of jail should replace the old ones.

She and other advocates are pushing for the county to explore alternatives to jailing arrestees who haven’t yet gone to trial, or look at ways of reorganizing housing for existing inmates. Given that the jail has been in the capital plan for so many years, she said, “it just seems necessary to reevaluate before moving forward with this project.”

While Sup. David Campos hasn’t taken a position so far, he submitted a request at the Oct. 1 board meeting for a hearing “to have an open discussion about what is being proposed, and to really examine if what is proposed makes sense,” he said. It’s expected to take place in early December at the Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee.

If San Francisco is awarded the $80 million in state funding, it must agree to dedicate $8.9 million of its own funds toward the project, which would be spent on preliminary designs, studies, environmental review, and other early costs, according to a board resolution approving the request.

Speaking at the Oct. 9 committee hearing, Sup. John Avalos responded to activists’ concerns by saying: “The last thing I want to do is build out the prison industrial complex. … I’ve always wanted to make sure we were minimizing what would lead to incarceration of more people.” While he did support the idea of applying for the grant, he did so with a caveat. “I would certainly want to uphold the right to vote against a jail in the future,” Avalos said.

Sup. Eric Mar, on the other hand, would not consent to allowing the funding request. “I can’t, under clear conscience, support this,” he said. In the end, the committee authorized the grant application with Avalos and Sup. Mark Farrell supporting it, and Mar opposed.