Health

SF and UC systems dragging their feet on fossil fuel divestment

Sasha Cuttler
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56
SF and UC systems dragging their feet on fossil fuel divestment

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System and University of California Board of Regents — two local entities targeted by campaigns urging them to divest of their fossil fuel investments — remain resistant to the change despite official statements of support.

In April of last year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to push SFERS to divest from fossil fuels. Now, more than a year later, sponsoring Sup. John Avalos questioned Mayor Ed Lee during the July 15 Board of Supervisors meeting about what needs to happen to move toward divestment. Groups such as Fossil Free SF and 350 SF are asking the same question since the issue of climate change is nearing a critical threshold.

Kimberly Pikul and Jed Holtzman of 350 SF told the Guardian that now is the time for action. “There is only so much carbon that we can release before we cook the planet beyond a level to which we can adapt,” Holtzman told the Guardian.

Pikul and Holtzman explained that carbon reserves owned by publicly traded fossil fuel companies represent five times what would be required to “cook the planet.” Only 20 percent of owned reserves can actually be used without massive environmental consequences, so they say stock in a fossil fuel companies is overvalued, making it a risky investment.

“To protect the long-term financial health of the pension fund and the benefits of city workers and retirees, it is a certainty that SFERS needs to divest from its fossil fuel holdings,” said Holtzman.

Despite the unstable investments and risk of environmental change, Mayor Lee seemed more concerned with jobs and green projects when Avalos questioned him about the Retirement Board’s progress at the Board of Supervisors meeting.

Lee told Avalos: “Our commitment of $4.5 million a year to GoSolarSF will continue to create local green collar jobs and … contribute [to] the creation of locally produced 100 percent green energy. These are the kinds of meaningful investments that actually deploy dollars, create jobs, and move the needle on green energy.”

Despite SF’s support of green jobs, Avalos, Fossil Free UC and 350 SF see divestment as one of the pathways toward long-term environmental change and more sustainable energy projects.

But, as Avalos pointed out, the Retirement Board has “yet to take any steps to divest from fossil fuels or limit the retirement fund’s exposure to the financial risks posed by climate change.”

The only step taken so far is to initiate “Level 1” shareholder engagement with fossil fuel companies. Pikul and Holtzman explained that Level 1 engagement “is largely cosmetic and only calls for SFERS to vote their proxies on climate-related shareholder votes.” The next step is Level 2: shareholder advocacy and engagement with fossil fuel companies. The ideal is Level 3, or investment restriction/divestment.

SF isn’t the only city to seek divestment. Oakland and Berkeley are also pursuing the cause, as are Portland and Seattle. The University of California has also been deliberating the issue and plans to vote on divestment in September.  

But the UC Board of Regents seems skeptical, despite the push from students. UC President Janet Napolitano told the Daily Bruin, “Using divestment as a tool is something that should be done rarely, if at all.”

An open letter from faculty to the UC Regents, posted on Fossil Free UC’s website, bases the argument for divestment on students’ well-being: “Current students will be at the peak of life in 2050, identified by numerous studies as a point at which the global community will have either adequately responded to climate change, or will be suffering horribly from it.”

When Harvard rejected divestment in 2013, University President Drew Faust told the San Francisco Chronicle that she found “a troubling inconsistency in the notion that, as an investor, we should boycott a whole class of companies at the same time that, as individuals and as a community, we are extensively relying on those companies’ products and services for so much of what we do every day.”

Stanford University had a similar dependence issue, which is why it compromised by divesting from coal companies, instead of all fossil fuel companies. Before divestment, the university received $19 billion from coal-related investments, money that will now be invested in other things.

While the partial divestment is a step in the right direction, Fossil Free UC student organizer Silver Hannon said, in a press release following July 16 Regents meeting, “While partial divestment could stigmatize the dirtiest energy source, we need to see the Regents take a real leadership position on the issue by adopting a comprehensive fossil-free investment strategy.”

As for SF, Mayor Lee promises that divestment will happen after the Retirement Board has considered the consequences. Since there doesn’t seem to be a study currently underway, the best course of action is to keep Lee and other officials accountable for SF’s climate and clean energy goals, said Pukil and Holtzman.

Lee seems confident that SFERs will divest, even if the timeline is currently unclear.

“I know the commission does seriously consider the fiscal consequences of divestment, and sometimes they decide the benefits outweigh the costs,” Lee told the supervisors. “I trust the Retirement Board and staff to make the right decisions in this regard.”

Housing supply and demand theory on trial at City Hall

Erica Hanna
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43
Housing supply and demand theory on trial at City Hall

The November ballot is shaping into a housing supply theory showdown, and yesterday’s [Thu/17] Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing was the first round.

The committee hosted two hearings on rival housing proposals for the November ballot: Sup. Jane Kim’s City Housing Balance Requirement and Mayor Ed Lee’s Build Housing Now initiative. The two purport to set similar goals for building affordable housing, but Lee’s proposal contains a poison pill that would invalidate Kim’s measure. 

The mayor’s philosophy on housing, a strict supply and demand argument, was on full display. 

“[Housing] is a competition based on who has the most dollars in their pocket, and the ones with the most dollars win,” Olson Lee, director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing said at the hearing. “If we limit the supply, the people with the most dollars will win.”

The arguments are a little complicated, but let’s try to break them down: Kim’s initiative lays out a requirement for new construction to build 30 percent affordable housing and 70 percent market-rate housing. Currently, new construction projects can build on-site affordable or pay a fee into a pot, known as the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. If new construction needs to be exempt from the balance requirement, under Kim’s measure, that can be decided by the Planning Commission. 

But the mayor and his deep-pocketed development allies are shrinking away from this like the Wicked Witch of the West from water. Affordable housing doesn’t make a dime for developers, and the mayor fears Kim’s policy will slam the breaks on market-rate housing construction. 

Activist and San Francisco historian Calvin Welch argues supply and demand housing theories won’t solve the San Francisco housing crisis, via 48hills.

Yet Kim’s measure is based on what many progressives in San Francisco believe: San Francisco’s housing market is hot, profits are high, demand is insatiable, and building lots of market rate housing that will never be affordable to most San Francisco won’t solve the city’s affordable housing crisis. The construction pipeline won’t slow down with a few dings to profit margins, she argued. 

“I just have to say if building 30 percent affordable housing will halt development, we’re in a whole lot of trouble,” Kim said to her critics. “We have to build. Even people that make money leave San Francisco every day.”

No one is saying Kim doesn’t believe more housing needs to be built. But Lee’s staffers emphasized a belief that more housing construction alone is the solution to the city’s ills, a strategy that hasn’t exactly netted stellar results recently. They also defended the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, as the Mayor’s Office of Housing is funded about “40 percent” from developer’s fees, Olson Lee said. Sarah Dennis Phillips, from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, argued sharply that any hit to developer’s fees, even marginal ones, would result in a loss of dollars for the city’s General Fund, the funding pot feeds most city services.

The mayor’s ballot initiative essentially asks for a vote of confidence in his plan to build or rehabilitate 30,000 housing units by 2020, which some in the press have pilloried as depending heavily on already-existing units. While 30,000 sounds like a lot, the Controller’s Office said San Francisco would need as many as 100,000 housing units to even make a dent in San Francisco’s skyrocketing housing prices, according to the SF Examiner (though he has since written the Examiner to say his sentiments were misconstrued). The city’s Civil Grand Jury recently released a scathing report of the mayor’s 30,000 housing unit goal, saying “While the residential real estate market is enjoying a strong recovery, it is doubtful the city can build its way out of the current affordability crisis.”

Meanwhile, people are losing their homes and fleeing the city. Some who are holding on by a thread came out to speak at the dueling hearings. 

“I have health challenges including cerebral palsy,” Justin Bennet said during public comment. He spoke with a difficulty in his jaw, haltingly and with much effort. He said the housing market made it difficult to move from the dangerous areas of the city he calls home. “I’ve been robbed outside several residences I’ve lived in, so I’m hoping for a change in my housing situation in the future. Thanks for letting me speak.” 

A family came up to the podium to speak, with two young housing activists, a brother and sister, 9 and 6, saying they didn’t want to see so many lose their homes.

Advocates from the SEIU 1021, South of Market Community Action Network, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and the Chinese Progressive Association, to name a few, were on hand at the hearing. They were also on hand for a press conference on the steps of City Hall shortly before the hearing. Ed Donaldson from ACCE called out the mayor’s housing measure, saying its only intent was to torpedo Kim’s. 

“I say we should play chicken with the mayor,” Donaldson said at the podium. Metal bands have sung with less volume than the baritone he used while booming, “Let’s see if he has the gall.”

Inside the hearing, Patrick Valentino (who championed luxury development on the waterfront) and Tim Colen of the Housing Action Coalition spoke, defending the mayor’s measure.

“As San Francisco, as a city in affordability, we’re failing. Our rate of failure is accelerating,” he said flatly. He criticized Kim’s plan and asked, “Where’s the money? No one disagrees we need it. The shortcoming I see in the housing balance measure is its premise that if we increase restrictions on market rate housing, it helps subsidize housing.” 

He argued instead to gather more stakeholders together (i.e. deep pocketed developers) to negotiate more private funding, a strategy he said that worked in the past. 

As others came to the podium to argue against developer greed, Colen watched on, shaking his head, seemingly in disagreement. When someone in public comment argued that developers so far have shirked their responsibilities to build affordable housing, he shook his head again and left the hearing room. 

There’s a stark divide in housing philosophy, and supply and demand’s ability to save San Francisco will soon see a trial by voter if Kim’s charter amendment can win six vote at the full Board of Supervisors. 

The mayor’s policies seem to be more of the same, Kim said, and now the city seems to be fighting over the crumbs of developers’ fees. Despite opposition from the mayor, Kim told the Guardian she’s open to new ideas from the mayor. 

But she also said she won’t back down. 

“We’re on a two-fold path right now. If there’s a compromise to get [the city] to 30 percent affordable housing, like new revenue, we’re open to that compromise,” she said. “But we always intended this to go to the ballot.”

#TBT: That time we called for California’s break-up

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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13
#TBT: That time we called for California’s break-up

So another scheme — in a long and rich history of such schemes — is attempting to break California into more digestible parts, and gaining national attention. Venture capitalist Tim Draper’s Six Californias is all but on the ballot, attempting to rechristen the Bay Area as Silicon Valley. Good luck with that! (Although we have to say, it might create the first openly weed-driven state economy — Northern California — which would be fun to see.)

In 2009, we, too, put forth a proposal to split California up — building on an idea from conservative Central California, and echoed in Daily Kos. It was a doozy, but a logical one, with some actual Six Californias affinity.

Our May 27 cover story, written by Rebecca Bowe and Tim Redmond, proposed to split Cali up for better management, representation, and economic/social justice, creating the playfully named states of Greenland, Sierrastan, Pinkostan, Coastland, Palm Sprawl, North Mexico, and Disney. (The accompanying cover, designed by Ben Hopfer and shown above, aped the New Yorker’s famous “New Yorkistan” cover.)  

The cover story itself grew from a Politics Blog post Tim Redmond had written in March of 2009, asking “Should California be split up?” — read the post below. As for creating states, we’ll be dreaming of Puerto Rico …

SHOULD CALIFORNIA BE SPLIT UP?

By Tim Redmond

It’s an interesting question. Nothing new, really — folks up in the northern part of the state have been talking about secession since the 1940s.

But these days, the talk has shifted from North-South to Central Valley-Coast.

There’s plenty of discussion going on — the New York Times
reports on a move by farmers in Visalia, who say those of us in the more liberal western regions don’t understand what it’s like in the center of the state:

Frustrated by what they call uninformed urban voters dictating faulty farm policy, Mr. Rogers and the other members of the movement have proposed splitting off 13 counties on the state’s coast, leaving the remaining 45, mostly inland, counties as the “real” California.

The reason, they say, is that people in those coastal counties, which include San Francisco and Los Angeles, simply do not understand what life is like in areas where the sea breezes do not reach.
“They think fish are more important than people, that pigs are treated mean and chickens should run loose,” said Mr. Rogers, who said he hitched a ride in 1940 to Visalia from Oklahoma to escape the Dust Bowl, with his wife and baby son in tow. “City people just don’t know what it takes to get food on their table.”

A former Assembly member is pushing a vertical split, too :

“Citizens of our once Golden State are frustrated and desperately concerned about the imposition of burdensome regulations, taxation, fees, fees and more fees, and bureaucratic intrusion into our daily lives and businesses,” declares downsizeca.org, the movement’s website.

And all of this comes as reformers form both the left and the right are talking about a new Constitutional Convention.

Athough some of the proponents are clearly nutty, the idea isn’t. As the noted political economist Gar Alperovitz wrote two years ago

The United States is almost certainly too big to be a meaningful democracy. What does “participatory democracy” mean in a continent? Sooner or later, a profound, probably regional, decentralization of the federal system may be all but inevitable.

He was talking about California becoming its own nation, but I’d argue that the same problem applies here. The budget crisis, the gridlock in Sacramento … all of it suggests that maybe California itself is too big to govern. There’s also clear evidence of dramatic regional differences. If you take the Central Valley from about Redding on down, and wrap in Orange County, you have a red state within a blue state where most of the residents say they want lower taxes and smaller government. Along the coast from about Sonoma County down to the southern part of Los Angeles County, you have people who generally would like to see taxes pay for public services. If the coast were a state, we could repeal Prop. 13 and build world-class schools. We’d have same-sex marriage and single-payer health insurance. And we’d still be one of the biggest states in America.

Now, I’m not sure the people in the central valley quite realize the problem with their plans, which is illustrated in this wonderful chart that comes from the office of Assemblywoman Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa (PDF).

The chart shows that the people who dislike and distrust government and don’t want to pay taxes are in fact the beneficiaries of the tax dollars that the rest of us pay. In California, tax money from the coast winds up paying for services in the central valley.

But that’s okay — if they don’t want our money any more, maybe we should tell them we’re fine with that. Maybe we should split the state not just in two but into three: Let the northern counties become the state of Jefferson, where pot will be legal and the residents will be so wealthy from taxes and exports of that cash crop that they’ll make oil-richAlaskans seem like paupers. Pot will be legal in the coastal communities, too, and will generate tax revenue.

We’ll have a Democratic governor, and overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, fewer prisons, better schools, cleaner air, no Ellis Act, rent controls on vacant apartments, more money for transit, strict gun control, support for immigrant rights … and no more of these ugly battles over budgets held hostage by right-wing Republicans.

And in the central valley, they can have their low taxes and conservative values, and watch their roads, schools, and public services go to hell. Maybe eventually they’ll figure it out.

Of course, we’d have to figure out the water rights. The folks in Jefferson would have control over much of the water that now goes South, and there would have to be some long-term water contracts between the states, but that shouldn’t be an insurmountable roadblock.

And the solution would create its own problems; The GOP would control the central state, and would move to abolish the Agricultural Labor Relations Act and make life even more miserable for farmworkers. But then, maybe Jefferson would turn off the water and big agribusiness would be SOL anyway.

As part of the break-up, all parties would have to agree to create a special relocation fund to help lonely, sad liberals from Modesto come west and to help lonely, sad Republicans in San Francisco to move east. I wonder which way the net migration would go.

Meanwhile, Evans has introduced my favorite tax bill of the year, AB 1342, and it’s related to this entire discussion. She wants to allow counties to levy their own income taxes and vehicle license fees. “We went through this difficult process of trying to arrive at a budget,” her spokesperson, Anthony Matthews, told me. “For those communities that have a different view of government [than the Republicans], this bill would let them raise their own taxes to fund their priorities.”

 

More funding promised to Central American child refugees, Lee warns of new influx

Erica Hanna
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43
More funding promised to Central American child refugees, Lee warns of new influx

Thousands of Central American children fleeing drug wars and poverty are overwhelming the San Francisco nonprofits who care for them, but new information from the mayor shows this may just be the beginning.

Yesterday, just hours before Supervisor David Campos’ resolution to bolster funding to aid the incoming refugees passed, Mayor Ed Lee warned the Guardian and other journalists that San Francisco is bracing for another influx of even more children in need.

“I met with the federal Health Service System to prepare our city for the possibility of a higher influx [of refugees],” he said. “The numbers seem to be coming in, though they haven’t reached us yet.”

Campos’ measure to focus funding on the needs of Central American child refugees passed by unanimous vote, likely because its sorely needed. Nonprofits in San Francisco like the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) and other sounded the alarm: there are too many refugees, and not enough caregivers and legal aid to help them. More than 36,000 Central American children (often unaccompanied) entered the US illegally between Oct. 2013 and May this year, according to widely reported federal data. The number of Mexican children entering the US dropped to about 17,000. 

But why are they coming here? Many reasons, but mostly they’re fleeing violence. Honduras, for instance, was the murder capital of the world, with 79 people murdered in every 100,000, according to Reuters. Neighboring El Salvador didn’t do much better, with the second highest murder rate per capita in the world. 

“I am from Honduras and I just turned 16-years-old,” a teenager named Juan said, in a statement from CARECEN, “I came after my father was murdered and I feared for my life that I was next. If I go back I’m not sure that I can go back and live a good life. I want to go to school and live so I can grow up to do something good.”

False rumors in Central America that the US is offering permisos, meaning, permanent status, also spurred an influx of refugees. 

CARECEN’s Washington D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco locations are advocating for President Barack Obama to declare a state of emergency and aid these refugees. But as the federal government grasps at possible solutions, local government is stepping in to help those reaching the city. 

“There’s a long history on this board on calling out against injustices we’ve seen in different parts of the world,” Campos said at the board yesterday as he introduced his measure, adding “They’re escaping not just political turmoil but violence in their lives.”

“These are children,” he said. 

Lee said one of the biggest challenges in helping these children may be a cultural one.

“I’m trying to wrap my arms around the fact that many of these kids don’t speak Spanish,” Lee told the Guardian yesterday. “They speak Mayan and different languages. This will test our cultural competency.”

Campos is planning a hearing on how best to focus funding to aid the child refugees, but hasn’t yet settled on a date for said hearing. 

San Francisco to study dropping speed limit to 20 mph for pedestrian safety

Erica Hanna
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30
San Francisco to study dropping speed limit to 20 mph for pedestrian safety

As a part of a citywide effort to eliminate all pedestrian deaths by 2024, San Francisco will study the impact of reducing speed limits to 20 mph. 

“This is a reasonable issue to look into making San Francisco streets safer,” Sup. Eric Mar said, in a public statement. “There is too much excellent work and research going into it nationally and internationally to ignore.” 

The study was proposed by Mar as part of Vision Zero – a Swedish concept adopted by San Francisco at the behest of Sup. Jane Kim earlier this year. The initiative aims to reduce pedestrian deaths to zero within 10 years, with a focus on educating drivers, engineering roads for safety, and enforcing traffic laws (which the SFPD agreed to reform ealrier this year). Data from the study should be available in early fall. 

Where the speed changes would occur is the subject of the study. “We’re going to the experts,” Peter Lauterborn, Mar’s aide, told the Guardian. That’s the whole point of the study, he said, to figure out where and by how much speed could be reduced in the city to save lives. 

Modest adjustment to speed limits lowered pedestrian mortality rates in cities across the world.

Paris, London, cities in Sweden, and New York all implemented speed limit reductions to save pedestrian lives. According to the British Medical Journal, serious traffic-related fatalities or injuries decreased by 46 percent in 20 mph zones in London. 

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the San Francisco Police Department got on board with the Vision Zero pedestrian safety plan, proposed by Sup. Jane Kim, earlier this year. 

According to California’s Office of Traffic Safety, San Francisco was ranked number one for traffic fatalities and injuries in 2011, compared to other similarly sized cities. 

“The overall frequency of traffic fatalities in the City of San Francisco constitutes a public health crisis,” the SFMTA warned in its Vision Zero web post. 

The statistics the SFMTA presented may seem dry, but tell the tale of preventable pain pedestrians suffered at the mercy of autos: Over the ten years from 2002 to 2011 the City lost a total of 310 lives to traffic fatalities. Each year alone on average 800 people are injured and 100 severely injured or killed while walking in San Francisco.

Sweden also saw fewer pedestrian crashes, despite increased traffic density. 

Walk SF has repeatedly advocated to fix intersections that are known to be especially dangerous, as only six percent of SF intersections are responsible for 60 percent of pedestrian crashes. Most of these areas are located in SoMa and the Tenderloin districts, the latter is where 6-year-old Sofia Liu was killed on New Year’ Eve. 

Walk SF’s Executive Director Nicole Schneider told us 20 mph zones would make it easier for cars to stop, expand drivers’ view of streets, and decrease the force of impact. 

In 2011 the city instituted 15 mph school zones after strong advocacy from Walk SF and other groups. While Schneider didn’t have any statistics about the impact of the speed limit on hand, she did say that there is a “perception of change” in these zones. 

But there are environmental benefits of slower speeds as well, Lauterborn told us: driving slower uses less gas. 

The U.S. Department of Energy says that speeding, rapidly accelerating, and frequently braking can decrease gas mileage by 33 percent. A lower speed limit would decrease driving costs as well as protect pedestrians. 

Lauterborn said even if the study shows a 20 mph speed limit would be beneficial, there are state laws that might prevent SF from lowering the speed limit. Local governments can only set the speed limit lower than 25mph on streets smaller than 25 feet wide or in business, residential, or school zones. To lower the speed limit to 20mph on a street like Sunset, the city would likely need state permission. 

At a fiery Board of Supervisors hearing on Vision Zero in January, a pedestrian who was hit by a car in 2013 named Jikaiah Stevens offered a scathing critique of current vehicle collision policies. “What is their incentive to drive safely when there are no consequences?” Stevens asked the board that night. A 20 mph limit may go a long way towards preventing pedestrian injuries like Stevens’.

This Week’s Picks: July 16 – 22, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

Brrrr-illiant!

WEDNESDAY 16

 

 

Jessica Hernandez

Since Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas recorded a full set of tunes for an album two years ago, long stints of touring, writing, and other facets of life delayed their complete release. An excellent EP, Demons, came out last year, and gave fans a taste of what is to come when their new full-length album Secret Evil (Instant Records) is finally released next month. The Detroit-born band plays a tasty blend of blues, jazz, soul, rock and more retro-roots goodness, all building a perfect foundation for Hernandez’ gorgeous and powerful vocals. (Sean McCourt)

With Hungry Skinny, The Tropics

9pm, $12

The Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

 

 

THURSDAY 17

 

 

Summer Slaughter

While there are plenty of outdoor music festivals and tours crisscrossing the country this summer, metal fans with an aversion to the sun can rejoice that there is one such touring package that hits indoor venues — so you don’t have to worry about a searing sunburn on top of your ringing ears. The promoters of Summer Slaughter 2014 are billing it as the “Most Extreme Tour of the Year,” and it may well be, with death metal legends Morbid Angel headlining the day-long session of debauchery. Joining them will be Dying Fetus, The Faceless, Thy Art Is Murder, Goatwhore, Origin, Decrepit Birth, Within The Ruins, Fallujah, Unhailoed, and Boreworm. (Sean McCourt)

3pm, $29.50-$32

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

 

 

San Francisco Symphony: Pixar In Concert

While the films of Pixar Animation Studios may have revolutionized the way movies and cartoons are made with their innovative use of computer animation and their resulting reputation for gorgeous visuals, music also plays an important part in the company’s artistic arsenal. Pixar director Lee Unkrich, CCO John Lasseter and writer-director Brad Bird will act as hosts this weekend as the San Francisco Symphony performs parts of the scores from fan favorite films live, including the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, A Bug’s Life, Wall-E, Cars, Up, The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc., Brave, and Monsters University. (Sean McCourt)

Through Sun/20

7:30pm Thu-Sat; 2pm Sun, $35-$150

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

 

 

 

Dark Entries 5th Anniversary

Labels like Josh Cheon’s Dark Entries exist to remind us that no matter how much (or how little) good music might be coming out presently, there are always gonna be underappreciated gems from the past to discover. With this digger’s mentality and assistance from prolific mastering master George Horn, the San Francisco label has been attentitively re-releasing ’80s dance obscurities. Hi-NRG, Italo disco, minimal, post-punk, etc: If it’s avant, analog, and (obvs) dark, it’s perfect. Starting off on a anniversary tour, Cheon will be joined by some of the label’s contemporary artists including REDREDRED (Michael Wood) and Bézier (the live synth project from Cheon’s Honey Soundsystem collective-mate, Robert Yang.) (Ryan Prendiville)

With Max+Mara

July 17, 9pm-2am, $8

The Eagle

398 12th St, SF

www.sf-eagle.com

 

July 19 +Flora Palmer

9pm, $7

Terminal

3957 San Leandro St, Oakl.

 

FRIDAY 18

 

 

 

Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival

The name says it all: Pretty much any mode of transport — even, probably, roller-skating or Segway-ing, though maybe leave your team of draft horses back on the farm — is acceptable conveyance to the Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival. Once you arrive, settle in (BYO lawn chair or blanket) for an old-school drive-in experience, with films projected on a big screen and sound provided by FM radio as well as amplified speakers. What’s not old-school is the programming: genre-spanning shorts and the occasional feature (this year: a Bollywood pick!), mostly of the “underground” variety, which means you might not catch ’em anywhere else. (Eddy)

Fri/18-Sat/19 and July 25-26, $12

NIMBY

8410 Amelia, Oakl.

www.brainwashm.com

 

 

Erk tha Jerk with Kev Choice

June was a busy month for Erk tha Jerk, the Richmond rapper and producer known for his clever wordplay and catchy, often intensely sexual hooks. On the 12th, he dropped a new video produced by frequent collaborator Fly Commons called “Blast Somebody.” A smooth beat finds Jerk getting existential about his stresses while a near-nude woman gyrates on his bed. The video premiere was bolstered by the announcement that the duo’s upcoming EP, Food and Vegetables comes out on July 15th — the gig doubles as a release party. Fellow East Bay MC Kev Choice opens for Erk. Where Erk often embraces an id-driven and autobiographical style, Kev is far subtler and more socially conscious. A prodigious pianist and bandleader, his set should provide a soulful introduction to Erk’s intensity and bombast. When two of the most idiosyncratic and up-and-coming Bay Area rappers come together, sparks will inevitably fly. (Kurlander)

8pm, $15

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

 

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

Foggy days, windy nights — yep, it’s summer in San Francisco. No need to the seek air-conditioned comfort of a movie theater in this town, unless the films on offer are as tempting as this year’s San Francisco Frozen Film Festival lineup. The two-day fest offers a stack of shorts by indie, international, and youth filmmakers, grouped into thematic programs: dramatic shorts, animated shorts, LGBT shorts, experimental shorts (including at least one music video), documentary shorts, and the sub-category of short environmental docs, spanning locations as close as Mt. Tam and as far as Antarctica. Brrrr-illiant! (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/19, $12 (fest pass, $20)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.frozenfilmfestival.com

 

 

SATURDAY 19

 

 

Sara Lautman at the Cartoon Art Museum

Macrogroan, Sara Lautman’s ongoing booklet series and accompanying blog, is remarkably diverse. Lautman, July’s cartoonist-in-residence at the Cartoon Art Museum, deconstructs tiring pop culture trends (one illustration includes a speech bubble by a young woman sitting a desk with a computer: “If you heard Matthew Sweet in some bar he’d fit right in but you’d be like Holy Fuck!” Near the bottom right corner of the same illustration: “Gross. I sound like Marc Maron.”) and larger societal issues (“Clothes People We Are Afraid of Becoming” is made up of four sketches of archetypes Lautman fears, with corresponding labels that describe their respective outfits). Her self-referentiality and distinctive, often experimental drawing methods — she has created entire comic books using a crude drawing program on a flip phone — has earned her spots in publications as varied as Bitch Magazine and The Hairpin. Lautman will present her work and discuss her process with visitors to the museum. She sums up her vision of the experience on her site: “Come see me yammer for a while, then hang out.” (Kurlander)

1pm, free

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) 227-8666

www.cartoonart.org

 

 

Jimmy Cliff

Bob Marley may adorn more stoner dens with his smiling face, but the credit for bringing reggae to a worldwide audience goes first and foremost to Jimmy Cliff. As the star and main soundtrack composer of the 1972 Jamaican film The Harder They Come, Cliff brought the once-obscure Caribbean pop style to national attention and broke open the door for the genre’s success in the 1970s. But he couldn’t have done it without a set of killer songs — the film’s title track included —and a voice that puts nearly every stateside soul singer to shame. At 66, he’s still a respected live performer, appearing frequently at festivals — as well as at the Fillmore, where he’ll play on the 19th. (Bromfield)

9pm, $39.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, San Francisco

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

 

 

SUNDAY 20

 

 

The Hole

Sometimes landlords just refuse to openly admit that they’re renting you a dilapidated apartment. On the surface, the similarities between modern life and the 1998 Taiwanese film The Hole end there — unless you think our tenacity for lining up in the rain for day-old bagels imported from New York is a sign we’d prosper in a post-apocalyptic world. The screening is the first in this summer’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts series comprised of obscure movies selected by local cinema aficionados. There’s just something about the renter’s dilemma (a modern twist on the prisoner’s dilemma) and a fondness for hoarding toilet paper that resonates with viewers. (Amy Char)

2pm, $8-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF (

415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

TUESDAY 22

 

Say Anything

Like many pop-punk bands, Say Anything caught their big break with a completely ridiculous, comically sexual earworm. “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too,” a song about phone sex that includes zombie references and the word “interweb,” is still the band’s most popular track and a mainstay in teenage bedrooms, but Say Anything’s catalog is anything but shallow and kitschy. Through a decade and a half of mental health issues, drug habits, and music crit’s endless ridicule of pop-punk, Max Bemis and company have continued to turn out catchy and lyrically sharp and funny records. It is perhaps their distinctly un-hip and unapologetically self-aware musical style (they released a record called In Defense of the Genre) that makes the band most earnest and entirely loveable. (Haley Zaremba)

With The Front Bottoms, The So So Glos, You Blew It!

7pm, $23

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com


White Lung

Who said music writers can’t make music? When Mish Way isn’t busy freelancing as one of America’s most passionate and hilarious music writers, she’s rocking harder than any other architecture-dancer since Patti Smith as the leader of punk outfit White Lung. After making a splash in Vancouver’s punk scene with its debut It’s The Evil, the band found its profile substantially increased when Rolling Stone included sophomore effort Sorry in their top 10 albums of the year — no small feat for a punk album, least of all one that barely runs 20 minutes. They’ve added Wax Idols member and Bay Area native Hether Fortune on bass for album number three, Deep Fantasy, whose hearty reception should secure the band’s footing in both the critical and the die-hard punk worlds. (Bromfield)

7pm, $12

The Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, San Francisco

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 835 Market Street, Suite 550, SF, CA 94103; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Events: July 16 – 22, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 16

“The James Webb Space Telescope: Science Potential and Project Status” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Way, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. Tom Greene of NASA Ames Research Center discusses the highly advanced James Webb Space Telescope.

“Lyrics and Dirges” Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. Monthly reading series curated by Sharon Coleman, with Joyce E. Young, Monica Zarazua, Joshua McKinney, Katayoon Zandvakili, Rusty Morrison.

Celeste Ng Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. The author shares Everything I Never Told You, her debut novel about a mixed-race family in 1970s Ohio.

THURSDAY 17

“The Heights of Birding in Colombia” First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin, SF; www.goldengateaudobon.com. 7-9pm, $5. Photographer and birding instructor Bob Lewis shows images of birds he observed in the Colombian mountains. Sponsored by the Golden Gate Audobon Society.

LaborFest 2014 Meet at M stop at 19th and Holloway, SF; www.laborfest.net. 2-3pm, free. Park Merced Housing Walk led by members of the Park Merced Action Committee. Also 518 Valencia, SF. 7pm, donations accepted. “FilmWorks United: International Working Class Film and Video Festival:” “The Plundering” (Ressler, 2013), “Made in the USA: Tom Hudak’s Plan to Cut Your Wages” (Gillespie, 2013), “Judith, Portrait of a Street Vendor” (Pirana, 2013),” and “High Power” (Indulkar).

FRIDAY 18

“Bay Area Now 7” opening night party Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 8-11pm, $12-15. Celebrate the opening of YBCA’s signature triennial, an exhibit highlighting works by local artists who capture “the spirit of now,” with tunes by Honey Soundsystem.

LaborFest 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin, SF; www.laborfest.net. 7pm, donations accepted. “FilmWorks United:” Empire of Shame (Hong, 2013).

SATURDAY 19

“East Bay SPCA Pet Adopt-a-Thon” Jack London Square, Washington at Embarcadero, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 10am-3pm, free. Meet your new best friend at this event highlighting East Bay adoption agencies — and the dogs, cats, bunnies, rats, guinea pigs, birds, and reptiles they care for that need new homes. The event also features canine demos and $10 microchip implants.

“GeekGasm” Club OMG, 43 Sixth St, SF; geekGasm.eventbrite.com. 9pm-2am, $5 (free with advance RSVP and before 11pm). Let your inner geek out with fellow nerds, dorks, cosplayers, furries, sci-fi fans, gamers, and gaymers at this party, which features dancing, a costume contest, drink specials, and more.

LaborFest 2014 ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 Second St, SF; www.laborfest.net. 10am-1pm, free. “Life and Death! The Attack on OSHA, Workers Health and Safety, and Injured Workers” public forum. Also National Japanese American Historical Society, 1684 Post, SF. 2pm, free. “ILWU and Japanese Americans” presentation. Also ILWU Local 34 Hall. 7:30pm, donation. “Movement Energy: A History of May Day and the Eight Hour Day,” performance by the Rockin’ Solidarity Chorus, Sat, 7:30.

Sara Lautman Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; www.cartoonart.org. 1-3pm, free. The July cartoonist-in-residence shares and discusses her work.

“Meet Your Maker” David Brower Center, 2150 Allston, Berk; www.browercenter.org. Noon-6pm. Free. Celebrate the alternative economies of the Bay Area at this event featuring artisans from Treasure Island Flea, educators from Institute of Urban Homesteading, Urban Ore scavengers, and more, plus a craft market, food trucks, workshops, presentations, and more.

SUNDAY 20

“How a Chinese Game Shaped Modern America” Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. 1-2pm, free with museum admission ($10-12). Stanford’s Annelise Heinz discusses mah jongg’s journey from China to America’s Jewish community, with a focus on the Catskills and San Francisco. Part of the CJM’s new exhibit, “Project Mah Jongg.”

LaborFest 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin, SF; www.laborfest.net. Noon-2pm, free. Reception for “Union Artists and Labor Art,” with works by Attila Cziglenyi, Carol Denny, David Duckworth, and others. Also 240 Second St, SF. Noon, free. “Irish Labor History Walk.” Also Niles Station, 37001 Mission, Fremont. 2pm, $7-12. “All Aboard the Niles Canyon Train and Films,” train ride and film screening at the Edison Theater.

TUESDAY 22

“We Are CA: Glen Denny and Yosemite in the Sixties” California Historical Society, 678 Mission, SF; www.californiahistoricalsociety.org. 6-8pm, $5. Veteran Yosemite climber Denny shares photographs and recounts his experiences climbing with the 1960s icons of “Camp Four.”

*

 

Elder care facility under pressure not to move forward with evictions

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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34
Elder care facility under pressure not to move forward with evictions

A group of senior citizens, mostly in their 80s and 90s, faces eviction from the University Mound Ladies Home, a San Francisco elder care facility serving residents of modest means that has been in operation for 130 years.

The University Mound Board of Trustees has said the nonprofit organization that runs the home is too far in debt to keep the doors open.

Nevertheless, interim director Bill Brinkman and members of the Board of Trustees have rejected the city’s offer of temporary financial assistance. University Mound has entered into an agreement to sell the facility to Alta Vista School for $5.4 million as a way to pay off its debts, making it clear at a public hearing that it would not reconsider this plan despite the city’s attempts to intervene on behalf of the impacted residents.

At the Board of Supervisors’ Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee today [Thu/10], Sup. David Campos put board treasurer John Sedlander on the spot.

“The city has given you every opportunity to stay open,” Campos said, referencing offers made when his office met with University Mound leadership shortly after the closure was announced. “We are willing to put money on the table, to keep this open temporarily, until we find a long-term viable solution. Are you willing to accept that?”

But Sedlander insisted that this was not a viable option. “We’ve been financing our operations for the past six years … with debt,” he said. “We are unable to make the payroll unless we were to close this facility. … It’s one of those things that’s just a model that doesn’t work.” 

The closure has sparked widespread community concern, in part because it can be very dangerous to force people in frail health to move.

“They’re playing with people’s lives,” Eddie Shine, whose mother is 97 and lives at University Mound, told the Bay Guardian. “A move would be devastating, which is why I’m so passionate about this,” she added.

Speaking during public comment, Anna Stratton said she was concerned that her 87-year-old mother would “feel isolated and alone” after being transferred to a Hayward retirement home. “When we transferred her [to University Mound] she did not eat for seven days,” Stratton explained, noting that this would arise as a concern yet again with the pending move.

In May, residents were issued eviction notices indicating that they would have to move by July 10. That date has since been extended to July 31.

Campos said the city would explore every possible route to prevent University Mound from closing down and evicting the seniors, including the possibility of rezoning the property to be maintained as a retirement home since the benefactors behind the original endowment established that it should function as such. After public comment was over, Campos called Sedlander back to the podium.

“You heard the testimony,” he told the University Mound board treasurer. “You know the city is going to do everything we can to block you” from moving forward with the July 31 eviction. “I am going to give you the option to do the right thing here,” he went on. “Are you prepared to call that deadline null and void?”

Sedlander responded that he was not prepared to rescind the evictions.

The item was continued and will likely come up for discussion again before July 31. “I will fight to do everything I possibly can till hell freezes over to make sure we stop the closure of this facility,” Campos said. “If the city has to fight to make it happen, then the city will fight to make it happen.”

San Jose cracks down on pot clubs after eschewing SF’s regulatory approach

Sasha Cuttler
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16
San Jose cracks down on pot clubs after eschewing SF’s regulatory approach

San Jose’s current (and harsh) crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries contrasts with San Francisco’s decade-old (and still working well) regulations.

Over the last five years, cannabis club after cannabis club sprouted throughout San Jose while the city’s local government debated, wavered, and faltered over the best way to regulate their pot clubs. But last month, San Jose City Council members, citing an abundance of pot clubs as the cause of a surge of marijuana use in schools, got tough. They voted to enact regulations that would make it too costly for more than 70 of their pot clubs in the city to operate. Only about 10 would survive.

Meanwhile, San Francisco pot clubs rest easy, undisturbed, and untouched — at least by the San Francisco officials who pioneered regulations in the city early on. In fact, the city’s Planning Department has recently recommended expanding the so-called Green Zone where dispensaries are allowed to operate by allowing dispensaries closer to schools.

As it stands, getting a permit to open a dispensary in San Francisco is no easy task. San Francisco regulations mean dispensaries are limited to less than 10 percent of all of San Francisco.

“Because zoning is so limited, the biggest struggle is finding a location,” Shona Gochenaur, director of Axis of Love SF Community Center, told the Guardian. “I’ve known collectives that have searched for over two years for a space correctly zoned. If you get through all those mindfields and to your Planning Commission hearing, it’s smoother. Very few permits have been denied if they survive to that point.”

But San Jose’s proposed regulations take it a step farther: they would limit pot shops to industrial areas that make up roughly 1 percent of San Jose. Plus, under San Jose’s proposal, San Jose’s pot shop owners will have to grow their own cannabis and produce any topicals and edibles in house. For that, they’ll need kitchens, labs, health inspections, and a host of costly equipment. Also unlike San Francisco, no concentrates will be allowed, causing many marijuana patients to suffer from lack of access to the medicine they need.

After San Jose approved the relegations, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to enact a temporary moratorium on the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated Santa Clara County. David Hodges,  a member of the Silicon Cannabis Coalition and owner of the All American Cannabis club, says he has until July 18 to put forth a referendum that would undo San Jose’s vote.

“I want regulations that work,” he said. “We want to remove the language that makes it impossible for dispensaries to operate and to keep everything else.”

The problem, he said, is that San Jose hadn’t enacted regulations soon enough. San Francisco was way ahead of them.

Gochenaur worked on some of San Francisco’s early regulations, recognizing that the feds would step in if cannabis activists didn’t act first.

“[The] San Francisco movement came with the AIDS crisis with city electeds that were both empathetic and personally affected by watching loved one’s suffering, our ZIP code being hit the hardest,” said Gochenaur .“We had the risk takers and the trail blazers willing to open their doors.”

Risk taking for San Francisco included regulating dispensaries in ways the state has since failed to do. Since San Francisco began regulating dispensaries in 2004, anyone wanting to open up a dispensary in San Francisco has had to jump through a series of tough bureaucratic hoops while also garnering neighborhood support.

San Jose, instead, opted for the laissez faire approach, allowing their dispensaries to grow, and then regretting it later.

When San Jose attempted to enact similar regulations back in 2011, Hodges used a referendum to stop the council’s plans. But, once he succeeded in defeating San Jose’s proposal, no new regulations were proposed.

“The cannabis movement in San Jose is back at square one,” Hodges wrote on his website after his referendum succeeded.

John Lee, director of the Silicon Valley Cannabis Coalition, said his organization’s biggest mistake was repealing, rather than revising, San Jose’s proposal 3 years ago. “We just knew that we couldn’t do with what they were proposing,” he said. “We just wanted to stop their relegations. But we had no idea how to regulate this back then. Now we want to.”

Having narrow relegations to begin with leaves San Francisco with room for revision later. For instance, Sup. John Avalos is working with the Planning Commission to help expand the Green Zone by bringing dispensaries 600 feet away from schools rather than 1,000 feet now. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Santa Clara Deputy County Executive Sylvia Gallegos has claimed before that San Jose’s dispensaries, totalling over 90 at the time,  caused a 106 percent increase in drug abuse-related suspensions of students in East San Jose schools in 2011-2012.

“I was smoking pot in high school before I even knew what a cannabis club was,” Hodges said. “Keeping dispensaries away from schools won’t stop that.”

If Hodges referendum fails, he says he’ll leave the cannabis industry for good.

“Right now, this could happen anywhere. There’s no safe place,” he said. “Save for Oakland – kind of. And San Francisco. But they have the territory well-covered in those areas. There’s no need for me there.”

San Francisco dispensaries may have local support, but without statewide regulations, they’re not immune to federal crackdowns, either, as the closures of Vapor Room and HopeNet made clear back in 2012. For years, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has been trying to create statewide regulatory framework for California to help limit the crackdowns. In May, his most recent bill to address statewide regulation failed to pass the Assembly Floor. Since then, Ammiano has backed a bill from Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) that would force dispensaries to obtain local approval prior to obtaining state approval.

David Goldman, a former member of the San Francisco Medical Marijuana Task Force, told us, “It’s basically the only sensible approach towards state framework. The US Attorney is less likely to go after states with a strong structure. The tighter the regulations, the less the feds will go after dispensaries.”

For now, cannabis owners in San Jose must focus on their own, local battle to save themselves. As for the San Francisco cannabis owners who’ve passed their bureaucratic tests and received their golden permits, business resumes as usual.

New classics

Leo Herrera
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1
New classics

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE It took Los Angeles-born Melody Takata, founder and artistic director of Japantown’s GenRyu Arts, four years to convince her parents to let her study dance. It was her older sister’s “fault” — she had studied ballet for a while but didn’t like it and stopped. “So my parents didn’t want to go through that experience again,” Takata remembered. But Takata was living in a Japanese American community that embraced traditional arts, and ballet wasn’t what she had in mind.

When she finally got her way, she went all out, starting at eight with Odori (Japanese dance), including Bon Odori, a popular circular community dance integral to the Odon festival that honors the ancestors. At 10, she began studying Nihon Buyo (Japanese classical dance) and did so for a decade. During that time, she acquired a repertoire of some two dozen solos drawn from Kabuki. “Some of them, I perform excerpts only; they are too long for an audience to sit through,” she observed. They are also expensive to perform because they have to be licensed, and the elaborate costumes (up to $10,000 a piece) are costly, even on loan. Yet recently, Takata reprised her studies with her 93-year-old Nihon Buyo teacher, wanting to deepen her insight into this noble art.

So what attracted her to this rigorous and highly stylized form that includes — besides dancing from within heavy costumes — an intricate gestural vocabulary of fans, swords, scarves, umbrellas, and even canes? “I just liked becoming all these different characters,” she smiled.

Adding to her dance studies, at 13 she started on the shamisen (“three-stringed”) instrument; at 15 she joined the Taiko group Los Angeles Matsuri. “Dance is my first love, and music is part of that,” she explained. Taiko sharpens rhythmic acuity, but for Takata, it’s also part of a communal experience.

She creates multifaceted works in which she wants “to explore our story” through Taiko, spoken word, contemporary movement, music, traditional Japanese dance, and video. Regular collaborators include Francis Wong and Asian Improv aRts, as well as actor-comedian Todd Nakagawa and Chicago filmmaker, bassist, shamisen expert, and Taiko drummer Tatsuo Aoki.

Though steeped in tradition, Takata doesn’t want these practices to become enshrined as museum pieces. In 2012, as part of Chicago’s annual Taiko Legacy festival, Takata — dressed in a black evening gown and elbow-length white gloves — performed her solo Yodan, which melded dance and Taiko. Her works may examine issues particular to her community, but they also resonate with broader audiences. In 2010, Tsuki no Usagi (Rabbit in the Moon) was created to mark the centennial of the Angel Island Immigration Center, where 60,000 Japanese passed through 1910-1940. The work is rooted in a popular myth in which a rabbit was willing to sacrifice its life for others. As a reward it was lifted to the moon where, Takata said, “it can be seen on either side of the ocean.”

The themes of 2011’s Fox and Jewel — which added jazz, animation, and poetry into the dance-and-Taiko mix — no doubt resonated with Bay Area audiences. Fox is a magical shape-shifting being who comes to the aid of humble folks; in this piece, it’s a mochi-shop owner who takes on real estate speculators who continue to threaten the existence of the local Japantown.

Takata’s newest work, Shadow to Shadow, premieres Sat/12 as part of this year’s Japan Week. The hourlong piece draws inspiration from Junichiro Tanizaki’s poetic In Praise of Shadows, in which he wistfully looks at Japan’s increasing Westernization and the essential differences between two cultures that are still learning to coexist.

 

BE THERE

Physically, Enrico Labayen may be small, but in importance, he stands tall. Faced with multiple physical challenges and exorbitant medical bills, the choreographer and artistic director of Labayen Dance/SF is in the fight of his life. So the dance community is stepping up with “Encore for Enrico,” a benefit performance to help one of its own. Though he was an early member of Lines Ballet and a longtime ballet teacher, Labayen may best be known as a prolific and wide-ranging choreographer for his own company. But he also is a generous supporter for those who come here from other places, as he did. Recent arrivals like Victor Talledos and Daiane Lopes da Silva found an early home in his company. Health permitting, Labayen will perform a new solo, Will You Still Be There? *

SHADOW TO SHADOW

Sat/12, 2 and 7:30pm, free (donations accepted; sign up for free tickets at brownpapertickets.com/event/704453)

Tateuchi Hall

1830 Sutter, SF

www.genryuarts.org

“ENCORE FOR ENRICO”

Sat/12, 7:30pm, $25-$30

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St, SF

http://labayendancecompany.com

Workers’ new website demands: Hey, Tech, do better

Sasha Cuttler
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8
Workers’ new website demands: Hey, Tech, do better

Can Silicon Valley tech companies “do better?” With the launch of a new website, the tech industry’s security guards are coming forward with tales of inequality in Silicon Valley, and asking Google and other big tech companies to do just that.

Protesting security guards outside Google’s IO conference last week used the annual developers’ conference to demand tech companies pay them living wages — as well as to broadcast their new website, TechCanDoBetter.org.

“We’re trying to change the conversation, because so much of the narrative is around tech and what good it’s doing,” said Alfredo Fletes, communications specialist for Service Employees International Union. “Our website is a safe space to learn more about workers who face the challenge of making it.”

Fletes said a Google spokesperson recently agreed to meet with SEIU to address the security guards’ concerns, but also mentioned this was the first the union heard from the spokesperson since last year.

Google hasn’t yet addressed the issue head on. The tech giant’s spokesperson wrote in press statement: “Thousands of Googlers call the Bay Area home, and we want to be good neighbors. Since 2011 we’ve given more than $70 million to local projects and employees have volunteered thousands of hours in the community. We’re excited to be expanding that work in 2014 with the recent Bay Area Impact Challenge winners – several of them have even joined us at I/O!”

The spokesperson added, in reference to the protestors’ Darth Vader-themed attire, “May the force be with them.”

Google’s Bay Area Impact Challenge means that Hack the Hood, Health Trust, Bring Me a Book, and Center for Employment Opportunities will all be receiving awards of $500,000 each. But donations aren’t the same as fair pay: The average Silicon Valley Security guard, Fletes said, will be receiving $22,000 this year.

 

Charles Justin Wilson, a security guard in Silicon Valley, speaks out about pay equity at the Google I/O conference last week. Photo by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez.

In TechCanDoBetter.org’s video game (aptly named Dream Crushers), users are invited to play the role of a struggling security guard. The gameplay forces the player to make tough budget choices. Maybe, for instance, you’d like your security guard to eat. Maybe you’d like him to pay his utility bills. But if you try to do all the basic necessities – transportation, food, utilities, child care – you lose.

“You’re not meant to win. Security officers who played the game said it was frustrating,” Fletes explained. “But they also said their lives were way more difficult.”

It’s not just about wages, either. “Look at at Apple and Google’s security contractor record of harrassment, discrimination, and surveillance,” Fletes said. Those are the kinds of stories security guards are invited to send to TechCanDoBetter.org. Workers can also fill in surveys on the website to help SEIU advocate for them, and sign up to receive text message alerts from SEIU.

Charles Justin Wilson, 31, moved from Chicago to Silicon Valley to build a life for himself. Now he’s a security guard, and he spends his days “dealing with everything from giving someone directions to a [fighting a] knife-carrying nut job.” He said he’d like to see Silicon Valley tech workers “even try to do” what he does. Like many security guards, he makes $12 an hour.

“Anyone who thinks you can survive on $12 in Silicon Valley is either out of touch, really stupid, or just plain evil,” he said.

Google has been the center of a series of protests since January when San Francisco residents began blocking the company’s buses. Google’s profits rose 36.5 percent to $2.9 billion last fall. The average worker wages in Silicon Valley dropped 3 percent even as the cost of basic needs for a family of four in Silicon Valley rose by nearly 20 percent between 2008 and 2012.

“They’re not doing a lot,” Samuel Kehinde, another security guard, said outside Google’s conference. “So, we are just asking them to pay attention to their home and to give back to their community. They cannot turn a blind eye on the community.”

Maybe they can. Or, they could do better. For tech giants, there are options.

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez contributed to this report.

Pumping up awareness

Michael Redmond
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7
Pumping up awareness

Warning! This is just a friendly reminder that your petroleum habit is hurting us all.

Berkeley’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission recently approved the concept of stickers to be placed on gas pump handles that warn drivers that greenhouse gases such as those emitted from automobile tailpipes contribute to global warming. If it makes sense to warn that cigarette smoking increases the likelihood of developing lung cancer, then hey, why not remind drivers that by using fossil fuels, they’re increasing the planet’s temperature and volatility.

The campaign is led by 350 Bay Area, a grassroots environmental organization affiliated with 350.org, a global climate movement. The name reflects its main goal: follow scientists’ warnings to reduce the amount of C02 in the atmosphere from its current level of 392 parts per million to below 350 ppm, a crucial threshold of climate instability.

While Berkeley has gained the most political traction for 350 Bay Area’s “Beyond the Pump” campaign, 350 Bay Area is also working on getting San Francisco to adopt the gas pump stickers and other planet-saving tactics.

Since last year, advocates with 350 Bay Area worked in collaboration with Sup. John Avalos on a 10-Point Climate Action Work Plan that was officially adopted in April. This plan commits the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. The group has also been in contact with Avalos and his legislative aide Jeremy Pollack about sponsoring an ordinance to place the warning stickers on gas pumps in San Francisco.

“I think it’s great. We need reminders about the impact of fossil fuels on an individual basis,” Avalos told the Guardian. “We have choices, and this is a great way to build awareness of those choices.”

Avalos said that his office has already started looking into the idea of putting stickers on gas pumps. Right now, he’s still waiting on enough research to ensure the stickers can pass legal muster against any challenges by the petroleum industry.

“Hopefully it will work out. The City Attorney is looking into it, and we’re waiting to see what happens with Berkeley,” Pollack told the Guardian. “We tried something similar with warnings about cell phone radiations, but the court struck it down.”

He’s referring to the nearly three years of legal battles with the mobile phone industry group CTIA over a San Francisco law passed in 2011 that had required every store selling cell phones in the city to display the specific absorption rate of radiation expected from each phone model.

CTIA took San Francisco all the way to the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals, saying the law interfered with their free speech rights. And, it won. Finally, last May, San Francisco gave in and killed the warning law. Those legal battles are not something San Francisco is likely to forget, no matter what environment-happy warning labels come along.

Yet the San Francisco public might not mind a gentle push. According to a recent poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, 77 percent of San Franciscans think that residents should be doing more to address climate change. The stickers could serve as a gentle push in that direction, and though Avalos is confident his city will get stickers eventually, it looks like Berkeley residents will get their warnings first.

“We’re not going to stop at Berkeley,” Jack Lucero Fleck, 350 Bay Area Steering Committee member, told us. “Right now, there’s no clues in gas stations that fossil fuels might be a problem. But advertising works. That’s why corporations spend billions on it. The human mind can’t ignore it.”

The campaign — the only one in the country with political fraction — is parallel to a Toronto campaign called Our Horizon. But unlike the stark, graphic warnings in Canada, 350 Bay Area takes heed from failed attempts by the US Food and Drug Administration to pursue graphic cigarette warning labels.

Right now, thanks to tobacco advocates who’ve aggressively protected their free speech rights, warnings on US cigarette packaging are tame. But if you go to Canada for a smoke, you’ll find packaging that reads, “This is what dying of lung cancer looks like,” followed by the image of an emancipated, corpse-like body. The least graphic image is of a gentle crib, but even that’s followed by information about the connection between smoking and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Berkeley could opt for similar, hardcore carbon emission warning graphics (picture it now: baby polar bears balancing on ice, fish washed up on shores, massive dust clouds about to drown villages), but 350 Bay Area is more mindful of the legal fallout that would likely follow.

Instead, the Berkeley warning sticker samplers are downright peppy. In hot pink, the sticker shouts, “Global warming alert!” followed by a pastel blue that informs drivers, with the gentle nudge of a concerned parent, “Burning gasoline emits C02. The City of Berkeley cares about global warming.” Then there’s a picture of a cute little car emitting a cloud of murky C02.

“We wanted the language to be careful and the facts noncontroversial,” 350 Bay Area Campaign Manager Jamie Brooks told us. “We have to be as gentle as possible. It’s tough love.”

One sticker sampler reads, “The State of California has determined that global warming caused by C02 emissions poses a serious threat to the economic well-being, public health, natural resources, and the environment of California.”

You can’t really argue with that, it’s even enshrined in California law. Plus, the stickers aren’t anywhere near the gruesome Canadian samples that show famine in deserts and unhappy kids suffering from smog-induced asthma.

Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington, who sponsored the council item in support of the stickers, said, “We made sure we had language that wasn’t questionable and that it wasn’t pre-emptive to state or federal law. The language in the stickers is language already law in the state of California.”

Sure enough, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, adopted in 2006 as Assembly Bill 32, already states that emissions are harmful to humans and the environment.

Yet Western States Petroleum Association’s President Catherine H. Reheis-Boyd isn’t pleased. She issued what Brooks called a “love letter” to the advisory committee. Just as tobacco lobbyists argued that cigarette warnings are forced — and therefore not free — speech, Rheis-Boyd ignores the global warming debate and instead focuses on the US Constitution.

“Far less restrictive means exist to disseminate this information to the general public without imposing onerous restrictions on businesses and forcing unwanted speech in violation of the First Amendment,” she wrote.

Reheis-Boyd goes on to appeal to Berkeley’s history in the Free Speech Movement: “Perhaps no city in our nation has as rich a tradition in the exercise of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech as the City of Berkeley.” She also accuses 350 Bay Area of advancing messages that are not “purely factual” but a “policy determination by the State of California.”

This is true; the stickers do reflect policy determination from AB 32, which mandates the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s why they’re likely to stick.

Besides, the stickers will likely only appeal to global warning believers; they’re meant to remind drivers that there are ways to curb their appetite for gas, such as by choosing public transit or other alternatives modes of transportation. The campaign’s technical advisor, Dr. Kirk R. Smith, said, “The cigarette analogy isn’t perfect, because gas is only one factor in climate change. But individual decisions are important.”

The question is whether or not such peppy stickers can get drivers thinking about the implications of their transportation choices.

The campaign in Berkeley isn’t done yet. After the Energy Commission votes in July, the sticker proposal will head to the Berkeley City Council in September. And from there, 350 Bay Area will see if those in San Francisco might like some friendly warning stickers on their gas pumps.

A benefit series aims to keep the unique Meridian Gallery afloat

Sue Vaughan
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In 2001, interns at Powell Street’s Meridian Gallery planned and painted a 13×48 foot mural on the wall of the SRO Hartland Hotel, a few blocks away in the Tenderloin. The mural, a colorful and sunny street scene showcasing the multiculturalism of the neighborhood, was revered by residents and and left untouched for 10 years until it was vandalized by graffiti. In response, former interns who had worked on the project came back together and, alongside the current kids in the program, repainted the piece. The artists’ lasting willingness to help Meridian in times of need reemerges in a broader sense this week, which marks the climax of the gallery’s June Benefit Series (tonight’s entry: “16 Years of Meridian Music,” a diverse program of new music). 

Meridian Gallery, whose name comes from its mission to focus on hemispheric and cross-cultural interactions, is facing eviction. As rent around Union Square has skyrocketed, from $400 per square foot in 2007 to up to $3,000 today (according to retail consultant Helen Bulwik, quoted in a KQED report), many galleries have been forced to close their doors. The stately Perine Mansion, the three-story French Second Empire brick building where Meridian makes its home, is an especially attractive and lucrative piece of property. Instead of throwing in the towel, Anne Brodzsky, the dynamic co-founder of the gallery who has overseen its operations for over 25 years, has reached out to her friends. 

The original eviction notice was handed down in April. Some close to the gallery are convinced that despite any efforts, the rent will be impossible to pay. Others, Brodzky chief among them, think that the response to the bad news suggests a potential long-term rally from Meridian. Her optimism is fueled by two forces. First, on May 13, the SF Board of Supervisors beefed up affordability programs, including supplemental displacement funds and health benefits, for struggling art non-profits in the city. “I’m amazed by how they’ve managed to come together to help arts programs,” Brodzky exclaimed. 

More effective and instantly helpful than any bureaucratic assistance, however, have been the programs put together by artists affiliated with Meridian. Around the time of the Supervisors’ decision, Brodzky asked her gallery-mates if they were willing to stage an auction. The response was staggering; over 60 artists put up works. More astonishing to Brodzky, though, was the kind of excitement many of the participants exhibited for further events. “Bob Marsh, among many others, approached me and asked if they could stage fundraisers.” 

 Tonight, Marsh is one of the main attractions at the “16 Years of Meridian Music” showcase. An avant-garde visual artist and musician, Marsh discovered Meridian shortly after his arrival in San Francisco 14 years ago. “I started visiting galleries and found that Meridian had a wonderful monthly music series,” he says.

Marsh was inspired by the political sharpness of the organization. “I thought early on, ‘They’re not purveyors of bourgeois wallpaper,’ like so many galleries can be.” For Marsh’s offering, “The Visitor,” he’ll don his Sonic Suit #9, a wearable sculpture made from empty water bottles and other modern detritus, and engage in narrative movement to a musical accompaniment.

“He’s a visitor from another dimension,” Marsh says. “He arrives here, looks around, and has different reactions to the confusing environment that is our world.” Marsh debuted the ever-changing character at the Meridian and feels that its a fitting tribute to the openness and experimentation that the gallery fosters. 

Despite his excitement about the benefit, Marsh turns somber when discussing its necessity. “They have given so much with such passion,” he says. “It’s sad to see them persecuted by blind greed … I don’t think its personal, but everyone just wants a lot of money. Everybody thinks that’s some kind of virtue.”

Neither Brodzky, Marsh, nor other performers and Meridian affiliates with whom I talked  were quick to link the gallery’s financial troubles to a larger ill in San Francisco. They seemingly eschew that brand of macrocosmic victimhood and instead zoom in on what they can do to stay open, one step at a time. Their optimism may be healthier, but it does not mask the sad fact that rising rents are making grassroots galleries a thing of the past. If the artists continue to come together with the intensity of the mural renovation, auction, and benefit series, however, Meridian may just buck the trend.  

 

16 Years of Meridian Music: Composers in Performance

With Bob Marsh, Andrea Williams, Bryan Day, Phillip Greenlief and Jon Raskin’s 1+1, David Samas, Tom Bickley, and the Cornelius Cardew Choir

Thu/26, 7-10pm, $35

Meridian Gallery

535 Powell, SF

meridiangallery.org


Nob Hill neighbors seek to block mental-health clinic relocation

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Nob Hill neighbors seek to block mental-health clinic relocation

A San Francisco mental-health clinic that has been in operation since 1975 is in danger of shutting down if it can’t find a new place to operate. But its possible relocation to medical offices on Hyde Street, subject to city approval, has prompted neighbors to organize in opposition.

Cindy Gyori, executive director of Hyde Street Community Services, has been scrambling to find a new home for her organization since being hit with the news of a pending rent increase. Its Tenderloin Mental Health Clinic serves about 1,200 clients per year, making it the third-largest outpatient clinic in the city.

Rent in its current space, on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, is about to increase to almost double, Gyori said. Larkin Street Youth Services, another service provider in the process of consolidating to a single location, is lined up to rent the entire building. That means the clinic must relocate by Sept. 15, Gyori said.

When she first began the search, “It was impossible to find an adequate space,” she explained. Several possibilities would have required months of renovation, impossible to accomplish given the time constraint. But 815 Hyde Street, a medical office building connected to St. Francis Memorial Hospital, seemed viable. “We’ve really been focusing on moving there,” she said. Negotiations have been underway for several months.

The clinic serves individuals dealing with mental illness, past exposure to trauma, or substance abuse problems, making it just the sort of facility that’s needed to stabilize a population that’s at risk of homelessness, or in recovery from life on the streets.

But neighborhood resistance to the clinic’s planned move is proving to be problematic. “We’re getting pushback from some individuals in the community, who are concerned about our clients, and their behavior, and whether it would be disruptive to the community,” she said. The new facility would be at the Nob Hill intersection of Hyde and Bush streets. A boutique hotel is located nearby, and the area is regularly saturated with tourists.

Hyde Street Community Services is contracted with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to provide care for Central City residents. That means the Health Commission must sign off on any relocation proposal. But at a June 17 committee meeting, health commissioners opted to delay approval in the face of vociferous neighborhood opposition. They directed the nonprofit to hold community meetings about the planned relocation, tabling the vote till July 15.

Robert Garcia, president of Save Our Streets, is organizing neighborhood opposition. “This area, lower Nob Hill, is an historic hotel and apartment district,” he said in an interview. “There are a lot of tourists here.”

He described Save Our Streets as a “not-for-profit neighborhood group” that for years has engaged in “fighting crime, and [fighting] a lot of prostitution.” He added, “We live here. This is our neighborhood. We’re not asking for anything, just trying to protect what belongs to us – and that’s our neighborhood.”

“We just don’t need any more problems here,” Garcia went on. “When they’re bringing in people with behavioral problems, that says something.”

The delay has left Gyori in a bit of limbo. “The time crunch is really problematic,” she said, emphasizing that if the move to 815 Hyde Street does not go as planned, and the clinic cannot find any other options, then it could be forced to shut its doors.

“We want to respond to the community as best we can,” she added. “People said they were afraid they would see streams of shopping carts headed up Hyde Street,” she noted, but sees this notion as a misinformed reaction to the people who congregate on the sidewalk on Golden Gate. “We have to convince the neighborhood people that the people on the street in the Tenderloin aren’t the same as our clients,” she said. “The number one complaint from our clients, mostly, is that they have to run the gauntlet to get through the door,” she added. 

The first of the community meetings will be held tomorrow, June 26, at the Hotel Carlton, 1075 Sutter, from 6:30 to 8pm.

This Week’s Picks: June 25 – July 1, 2014

Michael Redmond
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WEDNESDAY 25

 

 

‘Football Under Cover’

Unofficial festivities for World Cup fans whose allegiances lie with Die Mannschaft (rather than with The Yanks) begin the night before the Germany-USA match. Don’t expect the Goethe-Institut San Francisco’s screening of 2008’s Football Under Cover to include any headbutts directed toward German athletes. The documentary follows the first match between the Iranian women’s soccer team and a German women’s club team. In spite of cultural differences, the two teams are united by a universal love for soccer — or in that part of the world, football. In that mindset, it doesn’t matter which team wins Thursday’s match&ldots;right? Thomas Müller will be noticeably absent tonight to convince you otherwise. (Amy Char)

6:30 pm, $5

Goethe-Institut San Francisco

530 Bush, SF

(415) 263-8760

www.goethe.de

 

 

‘Yours For Eternity’ with Damien Echols and Lorri Davis

In 1996, Lorri Davis attended a early screening of Paradise Lost, the first in what would become a trilogy of documentaries about the West Memphis Three. Haunted by the film, she dashed off a letter to Damien Echols, who’d been sentenced to death for a brutal crime all evidence suggested he did not commit. They soon became passionate pen pals, and she left her successful career in NYC to devote herself to proving his innocence. Echols penned best-selling memoir Life After Death after the WM3 were released in 2011; now comes the intimate Yours For Eternity, a collection of missives Davis and Echols exchanged over 16 years. The WM3 tale is well-known, but this angle is not, and it makes for one of the most unusual and genuine love stories you’ll ever read. (Cheryl Eddy)

6pm, free

Book Passage

1 Ferry Bldg, SF

www.bookpassage.com 


Also Thu/26, 7pm, free

Copperfield’s Books

850 Fourth St, San Rafael

www.copperfieldsbooks.com

 

 

 

Zvuloon Dub System

Despite hailing from Tel Aviv rather than Kingston, Zvuloon Dub System is committed to the sound of classic roots reggae. The band’s two albums, 2012’s Freedom Time and this year’s Anbessa Dub, eschew the tight production sheen of contemporary reggae artists like Rebelution in favor of a spacious sound evoking the classic soundboard wizardry of Lee “Scratch” Perry and King Tubby. Yet Zvuloon is hardly conservative. Anbessa Dub finds the group collaborating with Ethiopian-Jewish artists, wrapping the sounds of modern Ethiopian music in a dense cloak of dub. Though some of the sounds on Anbessa Dub might sound alien to Western ears —particularly set against the more familiar sounds of reggae — the melange of styles and sounds rapidly starts to make a whole lot of sense. (Daniel Bromfield)

9pm, $15

Brick & Mortar

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com


THURSDAY 26

 

 

Kit Hinrichs

Five years removed from the founding of his independent graphic design outlet, former Pentagram partner Kit Hinrichs is still going strong. His recent work includes crafting new brand identities and aesthetics for the University of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary, and the Walt Disney Family Museum. Add that to visual consultancy work with the San Francisco Zoo, the California Academy of Sciences, and a bevy of other local institutions, and one begins to understand the extensive cultural influence that Hinrichs wields in the city. He takes to the stage of the Contemporary Jewish Museum to discuss the legacy of Paul Rand, the late Modernist designer responsible for the ABC, IBM, and UPS logos. Hinrich’s lecture, which is part of San Francisco Design Week, will focus on Rand’s uncanny ability to adapt to trends over the course of his half-century career. (David Kurlander)

6:30pm, $10

Contemporary Jewish Museum

736 Mission, SF

(415) 655-7881

www.thecjm.org

 

FRIDAY 27

 

 

Daria Kaufman farewell show

When she graduated from Mills in 2008, Daria Kaufman decided to stick around. The Bay Area seemed a good place for the kind of choreography she had in mind — interdisciplinary, flexibly structured, collaborative, site-specific. Now she is going to another, reportedly hot city for experimental dance on the western edge of another continent, Lisbon. The upcoming concert is summing up and looking forward. The reprise of Product examines the type of job that used to be routinely offered to women grads: marketing assistant. (The other was editorial assistant). She is also taking with her two world premieres, a solo for herself, Restless Myth, and an ensemble piece, In Her Tower, for longtime collaborators and colleagues Bianca Brzezinski, Rebecca Chun, Aura Fischbeck, and Karla Quintero. (Rita Felciano)

Also June 28, both 8pm, $20

Joe Goode Annex

401 Alabama, SF

www.inhertower.brownpapertickets.com

 

 

‘What Stays’

Home is where the art is in this site-specific dance-theater piece presented by Right Brain Performancelab and Dance Up-Close/East Bay — a final iteration of Right Brain Performancelab’s What Stays, which explores the subjects of home and the passage of time in a literal and metaphorical treatment that has the audience moving about Berkeley’s Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (once a craftsman house, now a series of spacious studios). Performers include Right Brain’s John Baumann and Jennifer Gwirtz along with Lisa Claybaugh, Laura Marsh, and Jennifer Minore. David Samas accompanies on instruments of his own invention, performing original compositions by Dave Rodgers. (Robert Avila)

Also June 28, both at 8pm, and June 29, 5pm, $20-25

Shawl-Anderson Dance Center

2704 Alcatraz at College, Berk.

www.whatstays.brownpapertickets.com


SATURDAY 28

 

No Happy Endings

Even without the guarantee of any happy endings, Granny Cart Gangstas’ one-night-only comedy show promises to deliver. Feeling uncertain? The “granny cart” will steer you in the right direction. In fact, the members of this women-of-color comedy troupe have even reclaimed the very notion of strolling in San Francisco’s streets with one of those recognizable carts. It’s commendable —”gangsta,” even — in their eyes. The group will also wheel in other stereotypes, such as glorified consumerism and sexist media depictions, to satirize during tonight’s show, promising a night full of laughs, regardless of your gender. (Amy Char)

8pm, $15

Little Boxes Theater

1661 Tennessee, SF

(415) 603-0061

www.littleboxestheater.wordpress.com

 

 

Dave and Phil Alvin

Hailing from the working class town of Downey, California, brothers Dave and Phil Alvin grew up absorbing a host of varied musical influences, among them old-school blues. Forming scorching roots-rockers extraordinaire The Blasters in 1979, the siblings eventually went their separate ways when Dave left the band in 1986 — until now, that is. Following a health scare for Phil two years ago, the duo has gotten back together and returned to one of their first musical loves, paying tribute to bluesman Big Bill Broonzy on their excellent new LP, the aptly titled Common Ground (Yep Roc). This is a family reunion you won’t want to miss. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $22

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

The British Invasion

Dust off your best mod outfit and head over to this Inner Richmond haunt for The British Invasion, a night of tunes and dance from Anglophilic local bands. Topping the bill is Chick Jagger, an energetic, female-fronted Rolling Stones tribute band. Known for an oeuvre-spanning set that includes tracks as disparate as “It’s All Over Now” and “Beast of Burden” — not to mention a delightfully gimmicky “Moves Like Jagger”), the group’s Stones scholarship and appreciation is palpable. Also performing are The Landbirds, who are first and foremost a Beatles cover group but may also offer hits from The Kinks, the Who, and the Yardbirds (from whom they take their name). Dancer Rasa Vitalia offers a choreographed set of additional upbeat British classics. The nostalgia and pastiche will be flowing along with the drinks late into the evening. (David Kurlander)

8:30pm, $10

Neck of the Woods

406 Clement, SF

(415) 857-2725

 

www.neckofthewoodssf.com

 

SUNDAY 29

Roxie Kids

By now, even childless people are sick of Frozen and every song that filled last year’s Disney sensation. Take a break from Elsa and company and introduce the kids to Papa Panda and his wee son, stars of Panda! Go, Panda!, an early entry in Hayao Miyazaki’s filmography (he wrote the 1972 film, which came out over 10 years before Studio Ghibli was founded). This gentle adventure — about a young girl who befriends the roly-poly zoo escapees — kicks off the Roxie’s “Reel Kids” Japanese animation summer series, a co-presentation with CAAM. Future entries include Miyazaki’s directorial debut, The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), in July; and four episodes of Osamu Tezuka’s classic manga series Astro Boy in August. (Eddy)

Also July 27 and Aug 24

2pm, free for kids under 12 (adults, $7.50)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.roxie.com

 

Sharon Van Etten

Less than a month removed from the release of her acclaimed fourth album Are We There, Sharon Van Etten is already on a summer-long world tour. The new album, on which she is also the lead producer, sounds remarkably live — extended jams and minimal overdubs make the songs feel kinetic and ready for the stage. The Brooklyn-based folk-rocker sticks mostly with her favorite subject, the torture and confusion of love and relationships, but couples her angst with hilarious and confrontational lyrics like “I washed your dishes, then I shit in your bathroom.” Van Etten is looking increasingly consistent and prolific, as the shockwaves from her gorgeous and hyped 2012 album Tramp had barely settled before talk of Are We There began. Add constant touring, including a summer 2013 stint with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Van Etten begins to look almost supernatural in her output. (Kurlander)

8pm, $20

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


MONDAY 30


Future

One of modern hip-hop’s greatest eccentrics, Future takes the Auto-Tuned rapper-turned-singer template established by T-Pain and Lil Wayne in the aughts and runs wild with it. While those artists use the oft-derided vocal software to make their voices slippery and smooth, Future wails, growls, and shrieks maniacally, leaving the Auto-Tune to bubble up over his voice like a pie crust. By all logic, such an unhinged artist should be an underground curiosity. But he’s a rising star, with names as prestigious as Pharrell, Kanye, and Andre 3000 gracing his new album Honest. Even if you still blast “Death of Auto-Tune” in your car every day, there’s no denying Future is — and will likely continue to be — one of the most interesting figures in contemporary hip-hop. (Bromfield)

8pm, $30

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Events: June 25 – July 1, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 25

Damien Echols and Lorri Davis Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. The husband-and-wife authors discuss Yours for Eternity, a collection of letters they exchanged while Echols, a member of the West Memphis Three who was freed in 2011, was imprisoned on Arkansas’ Death Row.

Joyce Goldstein Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post, Rm 406, SF; www.milibrary.org. 6pm, $15. The chef and cookbook author discusses Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness.

THURSDAY 26

Joshua Weil City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The author reads from The Great Glass Sea.

FRIDAY 27

Ken LaZebnik University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft, Berk; http://universitypressbooks.indiebound.com. 6pm, free. The veteran film and TV writer shares his new book of essays, Hollywood Digs: An Archaeology of Shadows.

“MarinScapes Fine Art Exhibit and Sale” Historic Escalle Winery, 771 Magnolia, Larkspur; www.buckelew.org/marinscapes. Today, 5:30-8pm; Sat/28-Sun/29, noon-6pm. $15. Buckelew Programs (including Family Service Agency of Marin and Helen Vine Recovery Center) benefits from this showcase of work by 30 artists and photographers whose work is inspired by Marin County. Author Anne Lamott gives a talk Sat/28, 12:30pm.

“Pancakes and Booze Art Show” 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.pancakesandbooze.com. 8pm-2am, $5. Also Sat/28. Over 100 emerging artists showcase their wares at this party, which also features live body painting, live music, live art battles, and an all-you-can-eat pancake bar.

SATURDAY 28

Jennifer Coburn and Cindy Arora Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 4pm, free. The authors discuss We’ll Always Have Paris and Heartbreak Cake.

“Hand to Mouth/Words Spoken Out #67” Rebound Bookstore, 1611 Fourth St, San Rafael; www.reboundbookstore.com. 4-6pm, donation requested. Poet Gerald Nicosia reads with special guests.

Art Peterson Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 2pm, free. The author discusses his San Francisco tale, Why Is That Bridge Orange?

El Tecolote benefit Cesar’s Latin Palace, 826 26th St, SF; www.accionlatina.org. 9pm-2am, $10. Raise money for Mission district bilingual newspaper El Tecolote at this dance party, featuring music by Cesar’s Latin All-Stars and Bahia Son.

SUNDAY 29

“Reimagining Progress: The Power of Word” David Brower Center, Goldman Theater, 2150 Allston, Berk; www.browercenter.org. 5:30pm, free. Fourteen acclaimed poets, including Patricia Smith and Josh Healey, read works addressing “environmental health, social justice, and the notion of progress.”

“We Shape Our City” Old Mint, 88 Fifth St, SF; www.sfhistory.org. 1-4pm, $5-10. Ongoing every Sunday. The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society hosts docent-led tours of the historic landmark, as well as showcasing a number of exhibits, including photographic explorations of various SF neighborhoods and the new “We Shape Our City,” dedicated to local innovators.

MONDAY 30

Bill Hillman and Tim Kinsella Books Inc., 601 Van Ness, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. The authors read from The Old Neighborhood and Let Go and Go on and on.

TUESDAY 1

LaborFest Art Show ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 Second St, SF; www.laborfest.net. Today through July 12, (4-6pm weekdays; noon-4pm, Sat-Sun). Free. LaborFest honors the 100th year commemoration of the Ludlow mining strike in Colorado with this art exhibit themed around “Extraction.” Artists include Philippe Barmoud, Sherri Craven, Mike Conner, Peter Hudson, and others. *

 

Events: June 25 – July 1, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 25

Damien Echols and Lorri Davis Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. The husband-and-wife authors discuss Yours for Eternity, a collection of letters they exchanged while Echols, a member of the West Memphis Three who was freed in 2011, was imprisoned on Arkansas’ Death Row.

Joyce Goldstein Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post, Rm 406, SF; www.milibrary.org. 6pm, $15. The chef and cookbook author discusses Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness.

THURSDAY 26

Joshua Weil City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The author reads from The Great Glass Sea.

FRIDAY 27

Ken LaZebnik University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft, Berk; http://universitypressbooks.indiebound.com. 6pm, free. The veteran film and TV writer shares his new book of essays, Hollywood Digs: An Archaeology of Shadows.

“MarinScapes Fine Art Exhibit and Sale” Historic Escalle Winery, 771 Magnolia, Larkspur; www.buckelew.org/marinscapes. Today, 5:30-8pm; Sat/28-Sun/29, noon-6pm. $15. Buckelew Programs (including Family Service Agency of Marin and Helen Vine Recovery Center) benefits from this showcase of work by 30 artists and photographers whose work is inspired by Marin County. Author Anne Lamott gives a talk Sat/28, 12:30pm.

“Pancakes and Booze Art Show” 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.pancakesandbooze.com. 8pm-2am, $5. Also Sat/28. Over 100 emerging artists showcase their wares at this party, which also features live body painting, live music, live art battles, and an all-you-can-eat pancake bar.

SATURDAY 28

Jennifer Coburn and Cindy Arora Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 4pm, free. The authors discuss We’ll Always Have Paris and Heartbreak Cake.

“Hand to Mouth/Words Spoken Out #67” Rebound Bookstore, 1611 Fourth St, San Rafael; www.reboundbookstore.com. 4-6pm, donation requested. Poet Gerald Nicosia reads with special guests.

Art Peterson Book Passage, 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 2pm, free. The author discusses his San Francisco tale, Why Is That Bridge Orange?

El Tecolote benefit Cesar’s Latin Palace, 826 26th St, SF; www.accionlatina.org. 9pm-2am, $10. Raise money for Mission district bilingual newspaper El Tecolote at this dance party, featuring music by Cesar’s Latin All-Stars and Bahia Son.

SUNDAY 29

“Reimagining Progress: The Power of Word” David Brower Center, Goldman Theater, 2150 Allston, Berk; www.browercenter.org. 5:30pm, free. Fourteen acclaimed poets, including Patricia Smith and Josh Healey, read works addressing “environmental health, social justice, and the notion of progress.”

“We Shape Our City” Old Mint, 88 Fifth St, SF; www.sfhistory.org. 1-4pm, $5-10. Ongoing every Sunday. The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society hosts docent-led tours of the historic landmark, as well as showcasing a number of exhibits, including photographic explorations of various SF neighborhoods and the new “We Shape Our City,” dedicated to local innovators.

MONDAY 30

Bill Hillman and Tim Kinsella Books Inc., 601 Van Ness, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. The authors read from The Old Neighborhood and Let Go and Go on and on.

TUESDAY 1

LaborFest Art Show ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 Second St, SF; www.laborfest.net. Today through July 12, (4-6pm weekdays; noon-4pm, Sat-Sun). Free. LaborFest honors the 100th year commemoration of the Ludlow mining strike in Colorado with this art exhibit themed around “Extraction.” Artists include Philippe Barmoud, Sherri Craven, Mike Conner, Peter Hudson, and others. *

 

American revolution: Smith Henderson talks ‘Fourth of July Creek’

Sue Vaughan
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0
American revolution: Smith Henderson talks ‘Fourth of July Creek’

Smith Henderson is all smiles. His debut novel, Fourth of July Creek, has been receiving rave reviews since its release two weeks ago, has a 100,000 copy pressing from HarperCollins, and was recently called “the best book I’ve read so far this year” by Washington Post critic Ron Charles.

“I was not expecting the Ron Charles thing … that was amazing,” Henderson says, sipping his beer on the outdoor patio of Farley’s East in Oakland. (He’ll be reading from the book Tue/17 at San Francisco’s Book Passage.) While the degree of success that the book is receiving tickles Henderson, he doesn’t pretend to be shocked that people are enjoying his work. “When people tell me ‘I love your book,’ I’m happy, but not chagrined. I wrote the book toward my interests, so of course I like my book.” Henderson smokes a cigarette as he chuckles. 

His novel explores the plight of Pete Snow, a Montana social worker who discovers a feral boy, Benjamin, and his survivalist father Jeremiah Pearl. While dealing with the dissolution of his own family, several other cases, and a tumultuous romance, Snow uncovers Pearl’s revolutionary ideas and begins to question his own safety and that of his entire community, the rural town of Tenmile. Henderson’s intertwining plot confronts a plethora of contemporary societal ailments, including alcoholism, suspicion of government, child neglect, cultural polarization, and the gift and curse of religion. 

Much of our conversation concerned the intricate plot points that Henderson somehow manages to sew together seamlessly. Such a combination of topicality and technical flourish has led Charles and several other high-profile critics to throw around words like “Great American Novel,” meaning work consistent enough and broad enough in  political scope to say something profound and lasting about the nation. 

Henderson isn’t one to label his own work, but he doesn’t entirely laugh off the potential hyperbole either. “I think it’s tricky to use words like ‘Great American Novel’ because it’s set in Montana — it’s a very white state. There’s a lack of diversity that I think is necessary in talking about the whole country.” After a moment of rumination, however, he offers a partial refutation of his own point. “That being said, the novels that come to mind are pretty regional as well; Beloved is pretty focused on a single location and group.”

While Montana might not be the optimal mirror for America, it’s a place that Henderson knows quite well. A native son, he grew up in the state and went to college, like Pete Snow, in Missoula. (He now lives in Portland, Ore.) “My whole family are cowboys and loggers. My dad is still a logger,” he says proudly. “Montana is a weird place … there’s a libertarian streak that is pretty unique in how it manifests itself.” 

Henderson cites the 2004 election, in which Montana voted for George W. Bush, legalized medical marijuana, and constitutionally banned gay marriage all on the same ballot. The odd mix between “live free or die” and socially conservative practices in the state provided an ideal climate for the confrontation between Snow, a government employee with the Department of Family Services, and the fiercely anti-authority Pearl. The eventual escalation between the government and the community is easy to believe. 

“Things are always liable to get a bit wacky and out of control up there,” says Henderson. 

Yet Henderson, while by no means conservative or religious, isn’t trying to write a book about extreme zealots. “At first it’s possible to look at Pearl and think he’s completely insane. But a lot of his paranoia is not entirely unfounded.” 

Near the end of the book, Pearl uses an example of government agencies  replenishing the Montana wolf population as an example of how dangerous Federalism can become. “Pearl basically suggests, ‘You may think your wolves are pretty, but they are liable to eat me.’ That lack of practicality is real.” 

While Henderson set Fourth of July Creek in the early 1980s, he was inspired by the rhetoric going on in national politics today. “Arguments like those of Pearl’s are all over the place right now, and initially they may seem just as paranoid. But when you have unmitigated drone strikes and NSA surveillance it isn’t impossible to see where people are coming from.” 

He does, however, see the value of government intervention — Helena pays his ultimately heroic (or at least likeably anti-heroic) protagonist, after all. “On the other hand, you have health care, gay rights, the environment, all receiving meaningful support.”

Though informed and interested in the modern state of affairs, Henderson was very intentional in his chronological setting of the book. He leans forward and takes on a quieter, more intense tone as he talks about the era directly succeeding Carter’s economic and military failures. “1980 was an inflection point. Obviously Carter, while getting a lot right, struggled a ton in the implementation. And the backlash to that, coming in the form of the Reagan Revolution, has really defined modern society … We learned how to make wealth out of thin air — at least for some people.” 

Reagan’s election and the surrounding rhetoric takes center stage in the book. Judge Dyson, an aging and alcoholic Democrat, openly weeps as he watches the election results with Snow. “It was the death of the LBJ, rural-big-government Democrat. And that’s something I’m not sure we’ll ever get back.” 

In addition to highlighting the philosophical shifts that have led to the urbanization of liberal thought, Henderson also uses the relatively unorganized pre-digital bureaucracy as a major plot device. “There was no concept of secondary trauma in 1980 Montana. There was no social worker to help Pete deal with the horrific things that he sees on a daily basis.” 

The dearth of support systems fuel Snow’s drinking bouts, depression, and difficulty in handling his daughter’s disappearance and ex-wife’s instability; he may be a great social worker, but the state’s inability to track his emotional progress and casework eats away at his life.

A fascinating storyteller and political force, Henderson is also often  technically experimental. The portion of the book that details Snow’s daughter’s descent is done in the form of an anonymous question and answer. “When I write, I almost always write questions to myself: ‘Where is Pete Snow from?’ ‘Choteau.’ ‘Why Choteau?’ For the Rachel section, I just left it in that form.” 

But the section is far from unfinished. Henderson left the section as is because of the intensity of its content — in a pure third-person narrative it felt too stilted. “The voices are full of an anxiety and intensity that couldn’t be captured with the more impartial voice in the rest of the book.”

The frenetic 90 minutes that we spent discussing Fourth of July Creek further convinced me that the book cannot be distilled to one message, but is rather a varied rumination on insecurity, suspicion, and government. When I asked Henderson what he thinks the primary takeaway is, however, he was remarkably candid and quick in his response. He pointed me to the Thoreau quotation that opens the book: “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.” 

Henderson then highlighted a passage in which Snow is likened to a priest for how much he gives up to help dysfunctional families. “America in the ‘80s was losing trust for institutions, and continues to. Despite all of his flaws, Pete is worthy of our trust, and hopefully represents a powerful refutation of Thoreau’s instant suspicion for government or those who come to help us.”

Henderson’s creation, while transcending political ideology, powerfully shows the potential for altruism even in a country as broken as the US.

 

Smith Henderson

Tue/17, 12:30pm, free

Book Passage

1 Ferry Building, SF

www.bookpassage.com

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