On the Move

Guardian on the move: Into the mall, under new management

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There were a couple of big changes for the Bay Guardian this week. We and our sister newspapers within San Francisco Media Company — San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly — moved into the Westfield Mall. Yes, the mall, but in the fifth floor business offices formerly occupied by the San Francisco State University School of Business extension program.

The company, owned by Black Press in Canada and Oahu Publications in Hawaii, also named Glenn Zuehls as the new publisher and Cliff Chandler (who worked for the Examiner for years) as the senior vice president of advertising. Zuehls, who comes from Oahu Publications, replaces Todd Vogt as the head of SFMC. Zuehls and Chandler told the staff of all three papers that their primary goal is to grow the company’s revenues, a point that Black Press CEO Rick O’Connor also echoed during the annoucement this morning: “It’s all about revenues.”

Oahu Publications President and Publisher Dennis Francis will also serve as president of SFMC, which now has the same owners as the Black Press and Oahu Publications after Vogt’s ownership interest was bought out by his partners in May. The combined company owns newspapers throughout Canada and Hawaii, as well as around the continental US, including Seattle Weekly and the Akron Beacon Journal. 

Editorially, the Bay Guardian remains an independent publication under the leadership of Publisher Marke Bieschke and Editor-in-Chief Steven T. Jones, yours truly.  

 

 

Theater Listings: March 26 – April 1, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

Every Five Minutes Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Previews Wed/26-Sat/29 and April 2, 8pm; Sun/30, 2:30pm; Tue/1, 7pm. Opens April 3, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also April 9, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm (also April 6, 7pm). Through April 20. Magic Theatre presents the world premiere of Linda McLean’s drama about a man’s homecoming after years behind bars.

The Habit of Art Z Below Theatre, 470 Florida, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Previews Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through April 13. Theatre Rhinoceros performs a “very British comedy” by History Boys author Alan Bennett.

I Never Lie: The Pinocchio Project Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.99stockproductions.org. $15. Previews Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat and April 10, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 12. 99 Stock Productions performs Meredith Eden’s bold fairytale retelling.

“Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/26-Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 27. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs short plays about marriage equality by Mo Gaffney, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, Paul Rudnick, and others.

BAY AREA

East 14th Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through April 26. Don Reed’s hit autobiographical solo show returns to the Marsh Berkeley.

Johnny Guitar, the Musical Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond; www.masquers.org. $22. Opens Fri/28, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/30). Through April 26. Masquers Playhouse performs the off-Broadway hit based on the campy Joan Crawford Western.

Sleuth Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.centerrep.org. $33-54. Previews Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 2:30pm. Opens Tue/1, 7:30pm. Runs Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also April 26, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm. Through April 26. Center REPertory Company performs Anthony Shaffer’s classic, Tony-winning thriller.

Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma Live Oaks Theater, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.viragotheatre.org. $28. Previews Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 19. Virago Theatre Company performs Charles Busch’s outrageous double bill.

ONGOING

Bauer San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); April 13, 2pm. Through April 19. San Francisco Playhouse presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s drama about artist Rudolf Bauer.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (Sun/30 show at 2pm). Extended through May 4. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

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

Hundred Days Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $10-100. Wed and Sun, 7pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Married musical duo the Bengsons (Abigail and Shaun) provide the real-life inspiration and guiding rock ‘n’ roll heart for this uneven but at times genuinely rousing indie musical drama, a self-referential meta-theater piece relating the story of a young couple in 1940s America who fall madly in love only to discover one of them is terminally ill. As an exploration of love, mortality, and the nature of time, the story of Sarah and Will (doubled by the Bengsons and, in movement sequences and more dramatically detailed scenes, by chorus members Amy Lizardo and Reggie D. White) draws force from the potent musical performances and songwriting of composer-creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson (augmented here by the appealing acting-singing chorus and backup band that also feature El Beh, Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, Geneva Harrison, Kate Kilbane, Jo Lampert, Delane Mason, Joshua Pollock). Playwright Kate E. Ryan’s book, however, proves too straightforward, implausible, and sentimental to feel like an adequate vessel for the music’s exuberant, urgent emotion and lilting, longing introspection. Other trappings of director Anne Kauffman’s elaborate production (including an inspired set design by Kris Stone that echoes the raw industrial shell of the theater; and less-than-inspired choreography by the otherwise endlessly inventive Joe Goode) can add texture at times but also prove either neutral figures or distracting minuses in conveying what truth and heft there is in the material. Ultimately, this still evolving world premiere has a strong musical beat at its core, which has a palpable force of its own, even if it’s yet to settle into the right combination of story and staging. (Avila)

Lottie’s Ghosts Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Fri/28); Sun, 3pm. Through April 6. Dancer, storyteller, and Brava artist-in-residence Shakiri presents a new work based on her novel of the same name.

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through April 12. Theater artist and comedian Marga Gomez presents the world premiere of her 10th solo show, described as “a rollicking tale of incurable romantics.”

Mommy Queerest Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. $15-25. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Sex scenes in solo shows might sound a little onanistic, but in the right circumstances a door jam or a love seat can serve as a fine co-star. Stand-up comic and actor Kat Evasco demonstrates as much in this raunchy and high-spirited story of her sexual awakening as a lesbian-identifying bisexual, coming out in a household dominated by her closeted mother, a Filipina American drama queen with a long-term female companion she insists is the “gay” one. Presented by Guerrilla Rep and the Exit Theatre’s DIVAfest, and directed by Guerrilla Rep’s John Caldon (who co-wrote the play with Evasco), the story follows a familiar and predictable arc in some ways — familial hypocrisy giving way to inspirational cross-generational understanding — and the characterizations and set-ups (including a family feud on Jerry Springer) come with not always inspired choices. Moreover not all the jokes land where they should in a performance that starts as stand-up but immediately shifts into the style of a solo-play confessional. (A more thoroughgoing subversion of the stand-up format might have produced more complex, less foreseeable results.) At the same time, there’s no denying Evasco’s charm and energy, or her buoyant comedic talent, which makes it easier to forgive the play’s structural shortcomings. (Avila)

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Thrillpeddlers present the fifth anniversary revival production of its enormously popular take on the 1971 Cockettes musical.

“Risk Is This … The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating). Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Five new works in staged readings, including two from Cutting Ball resident playwright Andrew Saito.

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-60. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 18. In his latest solo show, Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black ManThe Waiting Period) explores an infamous crime in his hometown of San Leandro: the 2000 murder of three government meat inspectors by Stuart Alexander, owner of the Santos Linguisa Factory. The story is personal history for Copeland, at least indirectly, as the successful comedian and TV host recounts growing up nearby under the common stricture that “rules are rules,” despite evidence all around that equity, fairness, and justice are in fact deeply skewed by privilege. Developed with director David Ford, the multiple-character monologue (delivered with fitful humor on a bare-bones stage with supportive sound design by David Hines) contrasts Copeland’s own youthful experiences as a target of racial profiling with the way wealthy and white neighbor Stuart Alexander, a serial bully and thug, consistently evaded punishment and even police attention along his path to becoming the “Sausage King,” a mayoral candidate, and a multiple murderer (Alexander died in 2005 at San Quentin). The story takes some meandering turns in making its points, and not all of Copeland’s characterizations are equally compelling. The subject matter is timely enough, however, though ironically it is government that seems to set itself further than ever above the law as much as wealthy individuals or the bogus “legal persons” of the corporate world. The results of such concentrated power are indeed unhealthy, and literally so — Copeland’s grandmother (one of his more persuasive characterizations) harbors a deep distrust of processed food that is nothing if not prescient — but The Scion’s tale of two San Leandrans leaves one hungry for more complexity. (Avila)

She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $15-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 12. Crowded Fire kicks off its 2014 season with the world premiere of Amelia Roper’s dry comedy about financial disaster.

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Last fall’s San Francisco Fringe Festival began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, Tipped & Tipsy, and the Best of Fringe winner is now enjoying another round at solo theater outpost the Marsh. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life both vividly and with real quasi–Depression-Era charm. She’s a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the series of oddball outcasts lined up each day at Happy’s before bartender Candy — two names as loaded as the clientele. After some hilarious expert summarizing of the do’s and don’ts of bar culture, a story unfolds around a battered former boxer and his avuncular relationship with Candy, who tries to cut him off in light of his clearly deteriorating health. Her stance causes much consternation, and even fear, in his barfly associates, while provoking a dangerous showdown with the bar’s self-aggrandizing sleaze-ball owner, Rico. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz. (Avila)

Twisted Fairy Tales Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 5. Left Coast Theatre Co. performs the world premiere of seven one-act LGBT-themed plays based on classic children’s stories.

The Two Chairs Bindlestiff Studios, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.performersunderstress.com. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Performers Under Stress performs Charles Pike’s new play, described as “No Exit as a love story set in Napa on the Silverado Trail.”

Venus in Fur Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-120. Opens Wed/26, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat and Tue, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; Tue/1, show at 7pm); Sun, 7pm. Through April 13. American Conservatory Theater performs a new production of David Ives’ 2012 Tony-nominated play.

The World of Paradox Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.paradoxmagic.com. $12-15. Mon, 8pm. Through April 7. Footloose presents David Facer in his solo show, a mix of magic and theater.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Extended through May 25. The popular, kid-friendly show by Louis Pearl (aka “The Amazing Bubble Man”) returns to the Marsh.

Wrestling Jerusalem Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.theintersection.org. $20-30. Thu-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 6. Intersection for the Arts presents Aaron Davidman in his multicharacter solo performance piece about Israel and Palestine.

BAY AREA

Accidental Death of an Anarchist Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show April 18; also Sat and April 17, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 20. Berkeley Rep presents comic actor Steven Epp in Dario Fo’s explosive political farce, directed by Christopher Bayes,

Arms and the Man Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $13-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Ross Valley Players perform George Bernard Shaw’s romantic comedy.

Bread and Circuses La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Impact Theatre performs “a cavalcade of brutal and bloody new short plays” by various contemporary playwrights.

The Coast of Utopia Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35 (three-show marathon days, $100-125). Previews Wed/26-Fri/28. Opens Sat/29. Part Three: Salvage runs through April 27; Part One: Voyage runs March 26-April 17; Part Two: Shipwreck runs March 27-April 19. Three-play marathon, April 5 and 26. Through April 27. Check website for showtime info. Shotgun Players performs Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia trilogy, with all three plays performed in repertory.

Fool For Love Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 6. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Sam Shepard’s iconic play, about a pair of former lovers who reunite at a lonely desert motel.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 26. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The Lion and the Fox Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 5pm. Central Works performs a prequel to its 2009 hit, Machiavelli’s The Prince, which depicts a face-off between Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia.

Once On This Island Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Wed/26, 7:30pm; Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs the Tony-nominated musical about a star-crossed love affair in the tropics, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/29-Sun/30, April 6, 12, 19, and 30, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dance Anywhere” Various locations; www.danceanywhere.org. Fri/28, noon. Free. Add yourself to this international public-art happening — or catch performances by local pros, busting loose at public venues like the Yerba Buena Gardens (Lizz Roman and Dancers) and the Embarcadero in Oakland (Pink Puppy Project). Check the website for a complete list.

Dandelion Dancetheater with Ysaye M. Barnwell ODC Theater, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.dandeliondancetheater.org. Wed/26, 7:30pm. $7-12. One-night-only collaboration between the dance company and the Sweet Honey and the Rock vocalist, performing Tongues/Gather.

“Drag Queens of Comedy” Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; thedragqueensofcomedy.eventbrite.com. Sat/29, 7 and 10pm. $35-100. With Coco Peru, Sasha Soprano, Lady Bunny, Shangela, Pandora Boxx, Bianca Del Rio, and DWV, plus hosts Heklina and Peaches Christ.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/26, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, and more.

Daisy Eagan Society Cabaret, Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.societycabaret.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $25-45. The Tony winner performs her new solo show, One For My Baby.

“Honest to God” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. $20. Dance company Number9 performs its latest evening-length work.

Jim Jeffries Warfield, 982 Market, SF; www.thewarfieldtheatre.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $37.50. The actor-comedian (Legit) performs his new live show, Day Streaming.

Sean Keane Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 7:30pm. $10. The SF comedian performs.

“A Killer Story” Mechanics’ Institution, 57 Post, SF; www.milibrary.org. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7pm. $15-25. Staged dramatic reading of Dan Harder’s noir play.

“Luster: An American Songbook” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Wed/26, 8pm. $25-75. San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performs works by Gershwin, Porter, Ellington, and Berlin, as well as the world premiere of a tribute to Tyler Clementi.

“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.

Mona Khan Company Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; ticketfly.com/event/475517. Sun/30, 5:30 and 7:30pm. $20. The Indian contemporary dance company presents Soch, a night of vignettes.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/29, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs a completely improvised play.

“ODC/Dance Downtown” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7:30pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 4pm. $20-75. The acclaimed contemporary dance company marks its 43rd season with world premiere boulders and bones, inspired by the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy, among other works.

“Pilot 64 — Sound Bodies: New Dance and Live Music” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $15. Choreographers work in close collaboration with composers and musicians.

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

Push Dance Company Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission, SF; push.eventbrite.com. Sat/29-Sun/30, 1 and 3pm. $10-25. The company presents the premiere of a dance installation, Point Shipyard Project, inspired by the community living near the toxic Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.

Right Now Improv Trio Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; therightnowatexittheatre.eventbrite.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $20. The all-female comedy improv troupe performs, plus special guest Huge, an improv musical comedy duo.

“The Romane Event Comedy Show: Grand Hiatus Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/26, 8pm. $10. Comedian Paco Romane hosts his ninth-anniversary show, the last regular entry in his “Romane Event” series, with an all-star lineup that includes Marga Gomez, Joe Tobin, Kaseem Bentley, Sean Keane, David Gborie, and others.

“Women on the Move” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $15-30. Singers Holly Near and Gina Breedlove, plus Dance Brigade and Grrrl Brigade, perform at this Grrrl Brigade benefit. Come early (7pm) for the silent auction and raffle.

“Work MORE! #6” SOMArts Gallery, 934 Brannan, SF; cargocollective.com/workmore. Fri/28, 7pm. Free. Mica Sigourney (a 2014 SOMArts Commons Curatorial Residency recipient) presents the opening-night party and interactive drag show to celebrate a new exhibit of drag performer and artist collaborations.

BAY AREA

“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.

“Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.sfiaf.org. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. $12-40. Ric Salinas of Culture Clash stars in Paul S. Flores’ acclaimed play about one man’s struggle to keep his family together amid street violence in the Mission. *

 

Best of the Bay 2013: BEST LADY-LOVING BIKE GANG

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Roll up hot and cruise in the cool company of other bike-loving women who make up Fixed With Out Dix—a nonexclusive weekly ride for female-identified folks and their two-wheeled BFFs. The crew meets every Wednesday at the Lake Merritt BART station and pedals around parks, crushes hills, and rolls through town with the wind in its grinning faces. Whether you straddle a flashy fixie, speedy road bike, rusty cruiser, or your aunt’s muddy mountain ride, FWOD welcomes your wheels and the company. Share a snack, make new friends, and discover fresh trails for adventure. They’re pumped to empower women and encourage cycling, and these badass biker babes want others to feel good, be safe, and revel in camaraderie on the move.

Weekly rides meet Wednesdays, 6:30pm, free. Lake Merritt BART station, Oakl. fwodoakland.tumblr.com

Honey Soundsystem ending Sunday parties: SF so over now :/

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That sound you hear right now? Every cool gay and/or techno nerd in the city rending their exquisitely positioned garments. Honey Soundsystem has just announced via newsletter that Oct. 20 will see the end of its weekly Sunday party at Holy Cow, one of the best overall club nights in the world. 

“We started out wanting to make house and techno a regular thing for queens — and we did that and now it’s time to move on,” DJ P-Play of the collective told me. “We’re glad the party is so good right now, and we’re stopping it while it’s hot.

“We’re confident enough to move in a direction where people have to think again. Where we’re going with the music, together and individually, is too complicated for a weekly night.

“Now it’s up to the queens of SF to decide if they want to continue to keep this city interesting, or if they’re going to settle for the same top 40 bullshit.”

The importance of the five-year-old Honey Sundays can’t be overstated — starting with the fact that they filled the gaping hole in SF Sunday nightlife left by the End Up’s death spiral, and climaxing with an absolutely insane weekly lineup of challenging international underground artists, gay and straight, brought to a hungry, globally hooked-in audience here. Basically, you’re nothing if you don’t play Honey now.

The weekly family affair also introduced a new generation to the intellectual art of throwing a party: the soundsystem was unafraid to get hyperconceptual and subversively arty with its promotional material, themes, decor, and one-off locations. And the sheer diversity of the people behind the decks each week was almost single-handedly holding up SF’s rep as a cultural Mecca. (I’m kidding about SF being totally over — there are still some great parties. Look, though, we are getting a bit same-y in the nightlife department.) 

Honey Sundays took the effort. But yeah, maybe it’s time to move on. “Jason Kendig is being recognized on an international level,” P-Play says, rattling off the Honey members’ accomplishments. “Robot Hustle is touring live as Bezier. Josh Cheon runs one of the most respected labels in the world right now. And my work with Luther and as Jackie House is taking off.” (P-Play’s being modest — he was actually behind about five of the biggest and best Folsom parties this year.) He also compared the ending to the finale of Kontrol, SF’s mainstay techno party, some of whose promoters went on to become world-famous DJs. 

Plus Honey’s ending on a high note. “It’s an inevitable, poetic idea that we want to give back, give something really back,” P-Play said. “Our last night is the release party of our double album of Patrick Cowley’s lost gay porn soundtracks, School Daze, something we feel really completes a kind of journey for us. We’re going until 4am. It’s the day after what would have been our idol Cowley’s 63rd birthday — it won’t be sad, it will be a celebration.”

Breathe, queens, Honey’s not totally dispersing — they promise to be back soon with great things. And they’ll be teaming up with the No Way Back crew to bring in Norwegian heavy hitter Rodhad for Halloween, and then in November are doing something big for Bear Pride Weekend, which is an actual thing happening.

“We’re not giving people their weekly fix anymore, they’re going to have to stir the pot,” P-Play said.

And what of the poor souls who show up the Sunday after Honey’s ended? “They’re idiots,” P-Play declares. “They’re not our crowd, and not the people we want to play for anyway.”

Get the memo, honey. I’m gonna go cry now. Here’s the full release from Honey HQ:

Dear Honey Bee,

It is without regret we inform you that the next 3 Sundays will see the end of our 5 years as a weekly party.

In our 7 year history as a crew we tasked ourselves with reinventing queer nightlife for all our friends, allies and supporters. We have and will continue to bring the highest quality sounds from the underground and create a safe space for people of all walks to mingle, dance and be free.

But in order for us to grow even further, we need to shed our old skin to create a new one. The party itself – whether at the Holy Cow, the Paradise Lounge or those that can recall back to our days at The Transfer or the Mineshaft Basement Parties – has always been a party on the move. We will be going back to our roots, but with a more direct line to the future. This is not a disappearing act, this is taking ownership of the destinies of everyone who has participated, supported and danced at our parties. This farewell is quite temporary, for you will soon be transported back to our dance floor as though it were all a dream…

For the final Honey Soundsystem experience at Holy Cow on October 20th, 2013 we pay tribute to Patrick Cowley’s life in our third installment of Megatron Man to celebrate the release of the 2×12” “School Daze”! The release features soundtracks to John Coletti’s pornographic films from FOX Studio that were long forgotten but now resurrected for your listening pleasure. Restoring these tapes to our fans marks the full cycle of what Honey has strived to achieve – bringing you timeless sounds from all eras of dance music, grounded in foundations of queer history.

See you on the dancefloor,

Honey Soundsystem

 

 

Street Fight

218

(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our new monthly transportation column by Jason Henderson, an urban geography professor at San Francisco State University and the author of Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco (UMass Press, 2013). Onward!)

San Francisco is in a mobility stalemate that is becoming increasingly inequitable.

In this supposedly “transit-first” city, the political establishment can’t bring itself to just say “no” to vocal minorities of over-entitled motorists. In the process, it is breaking decades-old promises to improve Muni, enhance bicycling, and make the city more walkable — creating dysfunction on the streets of San Francisco.

This dynamic is on vivid display in several planning initiatives now underway, including the SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project (for which public comments on the EIR are due Sept. 17) and the overly complicated efforts to establish Bus Rapid Transit on Van Ness Avenue and Geary Boulevard and cycletracks on Polk Street.

In each case, officials are dancing around the sensitivities of a handful of motorists and merchants — even to the point of ignoring actual data showing that San Franciscans just aren’t as dependent on the automobile as some believe. For example, studies show 85 percent of people arrive to the Polk Street corridor without a car.

Not only does this disconnect leave San Franciscans stuck in traffic, it is making our city less equitable for car-free households (which make up 30 percent of the city), as well as bicyclists and transit passengers who own cars but use them sparingly.

On Van Ness Avenue, buses crawl along at 5.2 miles per hour, on average. Mixing with cars slows buses, causes bunching and irregular reliability for the 16,000 passengers boarding along this two-mile corridor, and the 38,000 who ride the 47 & 49 routes daily.

Half of the households on Van Ness between Market and Lombard are car-free, yet they have poor transit service and are saturated with other people’s car traffic and pollution.

Franklin and Gough are car sewers and Van Ness is not much better, as the city historically prioritized moving cars over all else. Now the city plans to modernize the corridor by creating bus-only lanes in the middle of Van Ness, providing extensive pedestrian improvements and landscaping, and large, visible bus stops that dignify the transit experience.

Buses will be faster and more efficient, carrying 36 percent more people than each mixed traffic lane and cutting operating costs by 30 percent. Giving a lane to buses will also smooth traffic flow for cars and trucks, because buses would no longer be shifting in and out of mixed traffic in the third outside lane, a classic win-win solution.

But for the plan to work, it also comes with a tradeoff of limiting left turns from Van Ness (except at Broadway) and removing 105 parking spaces, causing a small minority of car activists to howl.

Yet these are the sorts of tradeoffs it takes to become a functional city. Will San Francisco prioritize the wishes of a few dozen drivers over tens of thousands of transit riders? That’s the choice, along this and other key corridors.

On the 5-Fulton, it now takes 50 minutes to go from the Transbay Terminal to Ocean Beach, about the same time it takes to get from San Francisco to Pittsburgh/Bay Point on BART. During rush hour, the buses are often jam-packed, so the 20,000 daily passengers on that line receive less than dignified service.

Muni proposes to fix the 5-Fulton with a practical, modest approach to re-allocate street space. By reworking bus stops and removing some curbside parking, the 5-Fulton pilot proposal will improve reliability and make the bus 10 minutes faster, and add 20 to 30 percent more capacity to the route during rush hour.

Improving the 5-Fulton would relieve traffic on the parallel Fell and Oak corridor. Like Van Ness BRT, this is the transit we were promised when the Central Freeway was removed and the city approved massive amounts of new housing in its place.

The 5-Fulton pilot is critical for the 60 percent of households in the Western Addition that are car-free, and the project would remove just 30 parking spaces. Assume that each of those parking spaces turns over four times per day (a generous assumption considering that cars sit for days in some parking spaces), that’s 120 car owners. Compare that to the 20,000 bus passengers on the 5-Fulton, and we start to see the glaring inequities in the effort to preserve street parking.

At two recent public meetings on improving the 5-Fulton, motorists predictably protested the lost parking. Like the “Save Polk” debacle that sank cycletracks on that street, some of the opponents of the 5-Fulton plan tried to block the Fell-Oak bicycle improvements last year and are currently trying to sink safety improvements on Masonic.

The city will likely bend over backward to placate these motorists. Already it has considered introducing angled parking, as was done at the Panhandle on Baker, to ensure no motorist is inconvenienced. But that makes no sense given the goals that the city has set for itself of 30 percent of all trips by transit and 20 percent of all trips by bicycle in the next decade.

The city should consider the tens of thousands of car-free households and hundreds of thousands of transit passengers before caving in to the automobile extremists.

If the city caves to a minority of parking enthusiasts, as it did on Polk Street, there really is no hope for improving Muni for the majority. Ask any parent, rewarding whiners only leads to more whining — and in this case, more gridlock.

Pumped up

3

marke@sfbg.com

ON THE MOVE The epic Pacific Crest Trail winds 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada, through sun-roasted desert expanse and snow-covered mountain pass, past rushing waterfalls and over wildflower-studded Alpine plateau, roughly tracing the Sierras and Cascades, always out of sight of civilization. It takes most hikers roughly half a year to make the whole trip, an isolating, immersive communion with nature that foregrounds self-reliance, endurance, and more than a little ingenuity when it comes to where you’re going to sleep and what you’re going to eat.

On June 21, Alex Falcioni, a massage therapist and teacher, took to the 1,230-mile leg of the trail running from Tuolumne Meadow, Yosemite, to Portland. In high heels.

“I’d always dreamed of doing the trail — but the most I could take off would be three months, so I knew I couldn’t do the whole thing” he told me over a “beat-up” phone from Ashland, hitchhiking his way back to the Bay Area after completing his high-heeled hike on Aug. 31st at Cascade Locks, Ore. “And then I heard that my dear friend Sarah had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was having trouble covering her medical bills, so I decided to make the hike a fundraiser.

“I needed a gimmick, though, to draw attention. And that’s where the pumps came in — it really just came to me one day. I’d start in Yosemite, and wear the pumps to Portland. Mostly for the alliteration, ha ha.”

Falcioni’s project, Pumps 2 Portland, was partly inspired by Hiking26, a 2012 performance art piece by Ron Ulrich, who completed the entire PCT wearing 26 wedding dresses along the way. So far, Falcioni has managed to raise over $2,500. (Interested parties can still donate and read firsthand about Falcioni’s adventures at www.pumps2portland.com.)

The first obvious question: What kind of pumps were they? “Oh, a strappy white pair of size-12 slingbacks from a drag queen shoe store. They’re completely destroyed,” Falcioni said. “My toes look like little Vienna sausages. But my calves are rocks.”

The second obvious question: Come on, did he really wear high heels the whole time?

Falcioni laughs. “No way! There are ascents up to 10,000 feet and sometimes I felt afraid for my life in hiking shoes. Plus, often ‘trail’ is a relative word — it’s not like clicking down a paved sidewalk. But I wore them when I could, and I strapped them on my backpack for all the other hikers to see when I couldn’t.

“They were there to keep me inspired and add a little spark when the trail got so monotonous it was like sensory deprivation — like, ‘if I see another Ponderosa pine I’m going to go insane!'” With the heels it all became a outdoor runway.

“The pumps really opened doors, too,” Falcioni continued. “People I’d encounter on the trail would ask about them and that would help along a conversation. Or when I’d go into town… One of the ways you survive the trail is to mail food ahead for yourself. (You learn little tricks, like mixing spicy ramen with a spoonful of peanut butter equals Thai food!) So I’d have to go down into towns to pick that up, and I hadn’t bathed in a week — same shirt, same pants, covered in dirt and smoke. But showing off these huge pumps.

“That not only got the attention of the Trail Angels — people who dedicate themselves to opening their homes and helping out PCT hikers — but of random strangers, too. I made so many real friendships, had so many actual conversations about real things in these places of enormous beauty. Not to mention some free showers.

“It was an incredible experience to just put yourself out there at the mercy of nature, other people, and even yourself. I’d urge anyone to do it, giant man-heels or no.”

Nevertheless: Hey, Rupaul — I think we have your next location for Drag Race.

Where’s my car?

8

By Rebecca Bowe

rebecca@sfbg.com

There’s a great scene in The Big Lebowski that my friend reminded me of when I lamented that the San Francisco Police Department didn’t seem to care that my car had been stolen.

Of course they don’t, silly, this friend responded with a hearty laugh. It’s like when The Dude asks a Los Angeles cop whether there are any “leads” on the whereabouts of his stolen car (along with the briefcase full of money inside).

“I’ll just check with the boys down at the crime lab,” the cop responds, a grin spreading across his face. “They’ve got four more detectives working on the case. They’ve got us working in shifts!” Then he bursts into peals of laughter.

When a San Francisco police officer arrived to take a report three hours after my initial call reporting a stolen vehicle, he seemed sympathetic. And he was totally honest: “We’re not going to look for it,” he assured me. “But we’ll let you know if we find it.”

Fair enough, I thought. It was a Saturday night in San Francisco. The SFPD probably had bigger problems on its hands, like shootings or armed robberies or naked acrobats. Clearly, the last thing SFPD was going to focus on was ferreting out my poor little mid-’90s Honda Civic.

Car theft, it turns out, is extremely common in San Francisco. Crime stats provided by SFPD show that from March 1 to Aug. 31 of 2013, a grand total of 2,784 cars were either stolen or almost stolen in San Francisco (the stats include attempted theft). The Ingleside District was the most heavily impacted, while the Mission and the Bayview weren’t far behind.

Why do people drive off with other people’s cars? “Suspects that steal cars have used them for other crimes,” SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy explained. “There are also suspects that steal cars simply to ‘joy ride.'”

Another lesson learned the hard way: If you think your car will not be stolen just because it looks like crap, you are mistaken. Shyy said that, nationwide, Hondas made in the 1990s are the most stolen vehicles.

“The reason being that the ignition is worn out over time, and a shaved key or other similar apparatus can be used to start the vehicle easily,” he explained.

Becoming a victim of car theft was an eye-opening experience. For one, it appears that the closed circuit cameras blanketing my neighborhood were basically functioning as seagull perches, taken out of commission the day before for maintenance. So those expensive-looking security cameras served neither as a deterrent for car theft, nor a crime-fighting tool. At least I can rest easy in the knowledge that Big Brother has not, in fact, been recording my every movement.

SFPD stats show just 139 vehicles were stolen and recovered from March 1 to Aug. 31, roughly 5 percent of the total stolen (or almost stolen) in the same time frame. I got lucky, mine was recovered.

SFPD gave me just 20 minutes to retrieve it before calling for a tow truck, notifying me that my Honda had been located as I was on Muni. Looking for an exercise in futility? Promise that you’ll be somewhere in 20 minutes, and then rely on Muni to get there.

But here’s where faith in humanity was restored. Not only did the officers agree to accommodate me by staying put until I could get there, but a random fellow bus passenger — by the name of Carma (for real!) — offered me a lift.

And just as I got to the place where my Civic had been found, a neighbor who lived in an apartment just above the street popped his head out the window to ask if it was my car. I told him it was, and he said it had been sitting there abandoned for days, so he’d phoned the police. Lesson learned: Forget surveillance cameras. If your car gets stolen, just hope somebody out there is paying attention.

Waiting for BRT

18

By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

joe@sfbg.com

You’re on Muni’s underground line, the train stalled just shy of your stop, just stuck there, the light at the end of the tunnel right in front of you. It’s a frustrating feeling, right?

With more than six years worth of delays in three major transit overhauls — the Van Ness, Geary and Geneva Bus Rapid Transit Projects — it’s beginning to feel just like that.

The projects are designed to speed up the most trafficked transit routes in the city by making the buses run like trains. For the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit, the 47 and 49 would drive in dedicated bus-only lanes shuttling riders north and south, reducing travel time by a third, according to project estimates.

Van Ness BRT was initially announced in 2004 with a planned unveiling of 2012. Eight years later, the new debut is set for 2018. The Geary Project is even worse, with a completion date slated for 2020.

The Van Ness BRT is finally getting its wheels turning this month, with the Environmental Impact Report set to be approved by a number of governmental bodies: the Van Ness BRT Citizen’s Advisory Committee, the Transit Authority board, and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority.

Why the hell has this bus project taken nearly a decade to start its engine? As is customary in politics, fingers are pointed at all sides.

At a citizen’s meeting for the Van Ness BRT on Sept. 4, two angry factions gathered in the Old First Church Fellowship Hall on Van Ness. The SFMTA’s spokesperson for the project, Lulu Feliciano, wrapped up her presentation to the crowd of about 100, and that’s when they pounced.

“Van Ness’ three lanes will be limited to two, but it’s a highway, isn’t it?” asked Carole Holt, owner of Russian Hill Upholstery. “Why do cars have no consideration?” She told the Guardian she worried her customers from Marin would have trouble getting to her store.

Another Polk Street activist, Kelly Gerber, walked right up to Feliciano’s face and gestured with his hand like an angry schoolteacher. “Why has no one ever heard of this?” he bellowed, telling us he opposes the loss of parking spaces.

Ironically, transit planners say car traffic would move faster, partially because of the elimination of all left turns along Van Ness except Broadway.

“They’re just angry and zooming in on every little detail,” Mario Tanez, spokesperson for the SF Transit Riders Union, said of BRT’s opponents.

The mostly younger crowd of transit activists showed up in equal force to counter the Polk Street merchants, hoping to stem the tide of NIMBYism.

“We’re the generation that will actually see these improvements,” Teo Wickland told us. He’s an urban planning student who hopes to see Muni running on time.

Feliciano said the project was complicated by having to coordinate multiple city agencies, all with their own goals.

Instead of digging up the same stretch of concrete a dozen times in a decade, San Francisco tries to include as many agencies as possible when cement is broken in any part of the city, she said. Since the Van Ness project is a two-mile stretch between Lombard and Mission streets, many are involved.

infographic showing different city agencies involved in the reconstruction of Van Ness

Graphic by Brooke Robertson

Peter Gabancho, the project manager for Van Ness BRT, said that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will put in new water lines, institute a rainwater catch system, and do sewer work. The Department of Public Works plans to repave, and the SFMTA will replace overhead bus lines and light poles.

When asked how much the city would save by combining work, he couldn’t give an exact dollar amount but said it was in the tens of millions, at least.

He also said that the process requires community meetings at many steps in the process. City officials visited Mexico City to see how they planned and built its BRT in just three years, and Gabancho said it’s because that city didn’t really consult the community.

“We can’t do business like that in San Francisco and I don’t think we want to do that in San Francisco,” he said.

All of that governmental insanity had a member of the Geary BRT’s Citizen Advisory Council calling it quits in a fury — he even wrote about it in his blog.

“What I’ve seen in the past six years has been a severe disappointment during which I have lost trust in America’s regulatory framework to enact effective transit improvements,” Kieran Farr, the CEO and co-founder of VidCaster, wrote. He described the process as fraught with starts and restarts, slips and delays, mostly due to a lack of leadership. And that’s the rub: There is no point person on this project with strong political will, according the SFTRU. “The mayor is not saying this is high priority,” Tanez told us. “He’s at all the Central Subway events, but getting political clout behind this by writing to our supervisors is the only way to do this.” The Van Ness project runs through the districts of Sups. Mark Farrell and David Chiu, who were both unavailable at press time. The SFMTA is slated to approve the Van Ness BRT EIR on Tue/17 at 1pm in City Hall, Room 400.

A bridge so far

46

By Steven T. Jones

steve@sfbg.com

Pedaling onto the Bay Bridge over the weekend, I was suspended between our industrial past and sleek present. But my ride into the future was abruptly stopped just before I reached the island.

All the experts say we should all just be happy with the world’s longest bike and pedestrian pier, and it certainly is a wondrous thing to behold, this spacious and beautiful two-mile path that pasted big grins on the dozens of faces that I rode past on its sunny first Friday in operation.

But just as the duality of riding between the old Bay Bridge and the new invoked myriad metaphors, so too did the fact that my fellow taxpayers and I just spent $6.4 billion on a bridge from Oakland to San Francisco built almost exclusively for the private automobile.

Is this the future we’ve embraced? Are global warming, economic equity, and collective responsibility such distant abstractions that we can fill this beautiful new bridge with people sitting alone in expensive, deadly, polluting, space-hogging machines?

I looked into their work-weary eyes as I rode my bicycle out from Oakland with a few of my friends during rush hour, on a path wide enough to facilitate conversations among a pair of cyclists in each direction and strolling pedestrians, six abreast. It was lovely, like we had finally arrived in the civilized, people-powered present that we Guardianistas have been working toward for decades.

And then it ended, a vivid reminder that we’re not there yet.

 

SHARING THE ROAD

The past is blocking our progress, literally and metaphorically, at least for now.

The old Bay Bridge stands between the stubbed-off end of the new bike/pedestrian path and its intended touchdown spot on natural Yerba Buena Island, the conjoined twin of the artificial Treasure Island, where developers dream of building high-rise condo towers buffered against the rising sea.

Officials tell the Guardian that the path will likely be completed in early 2015, after the old bridge comes down. Then, we’ll be able to ride our bikes onto the island and cruise our way to the west side, with its beautiful views of our beloved city, San Francisco, shimmering just out of reach.

Next month, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will release its latest study of how to complete the ride/walk, examining the placement of pathways balanced on either side of the Bay Bridge’s western span, their added weight compensated for with lighter decks for the cars, all at a cost approaching a billion bucks, with a capital B.

“Everything about this is going to be hard,” MTC spokesperson John Goodwin told me when I asked about allowing cyclists and pedestrians onto the Bay Bridge’s western span, citing an array of engineering, financial, and political obstacles.

“It’s a 10-year project even if a local billionaire decides to put up the money,” Goodwin said, noting that there is no public funding identified for the project except for maybe raising automobile tolls again, which would be a tough sell to voters for a bike and pedestrian project. “It’s an uphill climb and I’m not sure it will ever reach its intended goal.”

But completing this journey is really only as difficult as we make it. Just ask local activist/author Chris Carlsson, who says that he and some of his buddies could fix the problem in a day for a few thousand dollars. All we need to do it take the righthand lane, install some barriers, done.

“The bridge is more malleable than people treat it as and we need to have this discussion publicly,” Carlsson, a founder of Critical Mass and author of Nowtopia, told us. “Let’s solve this problem today. The idea that they would open this bridge without completing this path is insulting.”

To Carlsson and others of his radical ilk, this is an equity issue, and the opening of a car-only bridge is symbolic of our societal myopia. To believers in the automotive status quo, the idea of giving up one of five traffic lanes for the final, two-mile-long descent into San Francisco makes their heads explode.

“That’s just wildly unrealistic,” Goodwin said of Carlsson’s idea, even instituted on a temporary basis, noting that the Bay Bridge handles more than 270,000 cars per day, by far the busiest state-run bridge in California.

To many modern minds, automobiles are essential to our personal freedom and economic vitality — bikes are toys, public transit is for the poor, walking is what you do in your neighborhood or on the treadmill at the gym — but San Francisco is a voter-approved “transit-first” city that supposedly gives each of these modes priority over cars.

“The idea that the five lanes of automobile traffic is inviolable is ridiculous,” Carlsson said, calling it a relic from the days before the freeway revolts of the 1950s and ’60s, when San Franciscans rejected the conception of The City as just another stop along the fast and efficient interstate highway system.

In fact, it was that cars-first vision — before it was rejected by a populist revolt — that helped lead officials to remove the passenger trains that operated on the lower decks of this New Deal/WPA bridge for its first 17 years of life, turning the whole Bay Bridge over to cars, trucks, and the occasional bus.

The era of unfettered automobility had begun, and the idea that capitalism/industrialism and the health of our world might someday, somehow come into conflict with one another also seemed wildly unrealistic.

 

BRIDGING THE GAP

The Bay Bridge was my bridge growing up in the East Bay, our link to the big city that I traversed while safely cocooned in the backseat of my parents’ car, windows up, car filled with what we’d later call secondhand smoke, buffered against the wilds of West Oakland as we launched over the bay.

Today, my perspective has changed and so has my access through the old industrial waterfront, which has been opened up to all by a pair of new paths leading bikers and hikers to the bridge, both short rides from the West Oakland BART station.

One starts on Maritime Street, near the Port of Oakland and the remnants of the old railyard on what the Realtors have started calling Oakland Point; the other starts on Shellmound Street right across from Ikea, best accessed from West Oakland along 40th Street, where crews were in the process of placing tall cones to protect the bike lane as we rode past.

After the trails merge, it proceeds past the yards for the government agencies set up to serve the motoring public: CalTrans and its freeway maintenance facilities, and the California Highway Patrol, which has doubled its local bicycle brigade (which had worked just the Golden Gate Bridge) to police the new path.

“Best job in the world,” a smiling Officer Sean Wilkenfeld told me as he arrived at the end of the Bay Bridge path, where a couple dozen people stood watching the new Bay Bridge and the old, which took on a ghostly feel as we hovered next to its newfound lifelessness.

Personally, I really like the new Bay Bridge, with its elegant modern architecture and unobstructed bay views. But some of the friends and strangers that I chatted up there at the end of the line disagreed, singing the praises of the old, industrial, seismically unsound original.

“The new bridge is beautiful, but in some ways I like the old bridge better because you can see its functionality,” Joel Fajans, a physics professor at UC Berkeley, told me.

Conversation among the cyclists turned to our beautiful new path and its untimely end. “What a dream come true to have a bike path on the Bay Bridge. I already wrote to my representatives about completing the route to San Francisco,” said Kurt Vogler, a 47-year-old environmental consultant from Oakland who rode the bridge with Fajans.

That was the phrase that everyone used, this notion of completion, conveying the sense that we’re somehow stuck between where we were and where we should be, suspended between the old and the new, waiting to catch up.

“I think it’s beautiful. It’s an engineering marvel, a miracle,” Garris Shipon, a engineer from Berkeley, said halfway through his bike ride on the Bay Bridge. “I’m glad they launched with a bike path at all, and I hope they finish it because I’d love to ride all the way across.”

 

 

TWO BRIDGES

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges were built at the same time, started in 1933. But the Bay Bridge — the industrial, utilitarian bridge connecting The City to its biggest, most diverse nearby population centers — was done first. The tall, pretty one — with its Art Deco flourishes and tourist appeal — took longer.

On its opening day, the Golden Gate Bridge was filled with pedestrians, while the Bay Bridge hosted its first traffic jam as it was unveiled, “with every auto owner in the Bay Region, seemingly, trying to crowd his machine onto the great bridge,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

It’s been the same story ever since, with cyclists and walkers crowding onto the Golden Gate daily, salty winds howling through their hair, while travelers on the Bay are caged behind steel and glass.

But not anymore. In fact, it’s far more pleasant to ride on the Bay than the Golden Gate, where the bike path is narrow and cluttered. Now, it’s the golden one that seems to belong to another age, with the Bay Bridge designed to be personally experienced.

“It’s really a spectacular excursion,” Renee Rivera, executive director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, told me. “I was taken by surprise by what fun it is to be on a bike on that bridge.”

But the stirring sensation of riding or walking the Bay Bridge only accentuates its main shortcoming; at least the noisy, harrowing Golden Gate Bridge goes all the way across.

“We just spent $6 billion on that,” Fajans said, gesturing to the new Bay Bridge, “and you’re saying we can’t spend a little more to complete the bike lane? That’s not fair.”

Goodwin and others say that motorists paid for the new Bay Bridge with their tolls, but Fajans calls bullshit, noting that BART passengers pay more than drivers for a round trip across the bay without buying exclusive access in the future.

In this age of austerity, with government funding for transportation projects drying up and people reluctant to raise their own tolls or taxes, it’s hard to do what’s needed. That’s one reason cycling advocates take what they can get, such as an expensive western span proposal with one of two paths reserved for maintenance vehicles to smooth the automotive flow.

“If we have to sell it to the public to increase tolls, we’ll have to show that it benefits everyone,” Rivera said.

Completing this path, somehow, is a top priority for the cyclists.

“It was a little tough to get people’s attention on the western span for the last couple years, but now is the time,” Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told us.

Neither director seems willing to embrace Carlsson’s radical approach of simply seizing a lane.

“Like Chris, we feel strongly about equity on the bridge,” Rivera said. “At the same time, it needs to function smoothly as a bridge and I would be concerned about it bottlenecking at Treasure Island.”

Carlsson rejects the neoliberal approach of begging for scraps as we ride into a future that simply can’t continue to be dominated by automobiles. He says the Bay Pier must not rest there for another decade.

“Both bike coalitions have a resistance to appearing anti-car,” Carlsson says, “so they aren’t willing to say the obvious thing.”

Carlsson talks about the Bay Bridge as part of the free Shaping San Francisco lecture series at 7:30pm, Sept. 11, Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia, SF.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


On the Cheap listings

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Submit items at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for listings, see Picks

WEDNESDAY 6

RayKo’s sixth annual plastic camera show RayKo Photo Center, 428 Third St., SF. www.raykophoto.com. Through April 22. Opening reception: 6-8pm, free. You’d never these cameras’ non-pro status by the breathtaking images they are capable of creating. Highlighted in this year’s RayKo show is LA-based artist Thomas Alleman, who began using a Holga camera in 2001 to document the aftermath of 9/11. His dreamy, dramatic prints perfectly pinpoint the dysfunctional beauty of these toy cameras.

“Beyond THC: Cannabidiol and the future of medical marijuana” Commonwealth Club of California, 595 Market, SF. www.commonwealthclub.org. 5:30pm, $12 members, $7 students, $20 nonmembers. Martin A. Lee, author of Smoke Signals — which focuses on the social history of cannabis — will be speaking about the benefits of cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of marijuana that lacks the “high” effect of THC and contains key medicinal benefits. Lee will discuss how the medical marijuana industry has responded to the discovery of CBD and sign copies of his book afterward.

THURSDAY 7

Robot NightLife California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6-10pm, $12. This beloved weekly museum soiree delves into sci-fi this evening with a focus on robots. Managing director of Silicon Valley Robotics will speak to the local innovation and commercialization of robots and Academy curator Gary Williams will show off footage of deep-sea corals from Pillar Point Harbor. A robotic performance by art group Survival Research Labs and exceptional designs by robot design studio BeatBots are also on tonight’s schedule.

“Art Star” Otis Lounge, 25 Maiden Lane, SF. www.otissf.com. 10pm-2am, free. If you’re looking to submerge yourself into the city’s art community, head over to Otis Lounge to meet and network with artsy individuals at this monthly first Thursday event. Whether you make, buy, sell, or just love art, all creatives are welcome.

Community dinner St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, 2097 Turk, SF. www.saintcyprianssf.org. 7pm, free. Hungry, cash-strapped health nuts listen up. This free dinner created from USF’s garden and local farmers markets is open to everyone and anyone interested. The event lacks any motivation beyond a heartfelt effort to bring the community together through wholesome food.

Writerscorps Live with Tamim Ansary Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF. www.sfartscommission.org. 6:30-7:30pm, free. Award-winning youth writing program WritersCorps has partnered with the CJM for a multi-generational live reading. Author Tamim Ansary will read from his memoir West of Kabul, East of New York, based on his family’s immigration from Afghanistan to San Francisco. The reading will also showcase WritersCorps teaching artist Minna Dubin and students from Downtown High School, Aptos Middle School, Mission High School, and more.

First Thursday with OM Cocktails Hang Street Gallery, 567 Sutter, SF. www.hangart.com. 6-8pm, free. Organic mixology — premixed in the bottle? Will wonders never cease. Check out this brand’s coconut-lychee cocktails and more at Hang Street’s First Thursday reception.

FRIDAY 8

East Bay Bike Party, location TBA. 7:30, free. eastbaybikeparty.wordpress.com. It’s time to go green, literally. The theme of this month’s East Bay group rideout is the favored color of enviro-fans and Kermit the Frog alike. Whether you want to channel your inner leprechaun or bike around as giant pot leaf, the possibilities are endless. If you’re a Bike Party virgin make sure to also look over the code of conduct to help keep the event as community-friendly as possible.

SATURDAY 9

White Walls gallery 10th anniversary show White Walls, 886 Geary, SF. www.whitewallssf.com. Through April 6. Opening reception 7-11pm, free. Town’s best-known “urban art” gallery hosts this retrospective of a decade of boundary-breaking work within its wall (kind of — the gallery recently moved to a larger space on Geary Street). Check out works from Shepard Fairey, ROA, Apex, Ferris Plock, and of the best who have plied works there.

“Doctors on Board” Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakl. www.pmfmd.com/doctors-on-board. 6am-6:30pm, free to students. Application required. The Physicians Medical Forum is hosting a day of workshops and skills training session helping African American students to attend medical school and residency programs. Prominent physicians will provide information about medical school preparation, medical specialties, and life as a physician.

“Quilt San Francisco” Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St., SF. www.sfquiltersguild.org Also Sun/10. 10am-4pm, $10 for two-day pass. This two-day exhibit, organized by the San Francisco Quilters Guild, vividly showcases the revitalization of the traditional art form. 400 quilts and special exhibits will shown the many artistic dimensions of wearable art and modern stitching. There will also be a children’s corner, where kids can get marching orders for a treasure hunt that will lead them to special quilts in the show.

Irish-American children’s hour of music, song and dance San Francisco Public Library, Fisher Children’s Center, 100 Larkin, SF. 11am, free. www.sfpl.org. Crossroads, an annual Irish-American festival timing to open up St. Patrick’s Day season, invites the kiddos to learn traditional Irish dance taught by instructors from the Brosnan School of Irish Dance.

Fourth annual World Naked Bike Ride Meet at Justin Herman Plaza, Market and Embarcadero, SF. www.worldnakedbikeride.org. 11am-4pm, free. Protest global dependency on oil and find out what its like to pedal through Fisherman’s Wharf in the buff. All are welcome to take part — even clothed riders — but those in the buff earn extra badass points, given the uncertain status of the ride under the city’s new anti-public nudity ordinance.

“Permutation Unfolding” Root Division, 3175 17th St., SF. www.rootdivision.org. Opening reception 7-10pm, free. Bring the kids to the opening of this group exhibition exploring the biomorphic formations that can spring from the artistic process (we’re not sure what that means either.) There will be an all-ages creativity station, a perfect place to craft while Markus Hawkins spins an auditory web in an 8pm performance.

SUNDAY 10

Exploratorium’s On the Move Fest Mission District location: Buena Vista Horace Mann School, 3351 23rd St., SF. 11am-4pm, free; Bayview location: Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, 4705 Third St., SF. 11am-4pm; Embarcadero location: Pier 15, 11am-10pm. www.exploratorium.edu. All locations offer free admission. Everyone’s favorite on-hiatus science museum is sending 10 trucks tricked out with the kind of wacky, hands-on exhibits its know for to the Mission, Bayview, and the Embarcadero for a day of science, music, and food. In both Bayview and the Mission, enjoy itinerant filmmaking, projects that encourage attendees to sport costumes and act out a special script which will then be chopped, screwed, and shown to the public.

TUESDAY 12

“Stars of Stand-up Comedy” Neck of the Woods, 406 Clement, SF. www.dannydechi.com. 8pm, $10. Comedian and pencil musician (exactly what that means we are not quite sure, please report back if you go) Danny Delchi is hosting tonight’s show. Long-time Niners field announcer Bob Sarlatte and the quirky Mr. Mystic will be performing alongside a number of other top Bay Area comedians.

Persian New Year Festival Persian Center, 2029 Durant, Berk. www.anotherbullwinkelshow.com. What better way to welcome spring than to jump over a bonfire? Head over to the Persian Center to take part in this ritual that has been passed down since Zoroastrian times. Accompanying the fiery activity will be Persian food, music, and dancing.

Sunday Streets hits the Embarcadero March 10

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We love the ocean breezes of Sunday Streets Great Highway, the jampacked activities of Sunday Streets Mission, the general feeling of being on the main thoroughfare of a neighborhood you don’t usually hang out on with thousands of your city neighbors. Once again, the car-free family day is taking over the Embarcadero for its March 10 season opener.

More centrally located than the beach, more of a novelty than the at-times Mission version — this could be a good one, and it’s high time to re-acquaint yourself with the strip in these last days before America’s Cup swoops in, anyway. Here’s five ways to spend your SS Embarcadero:

– Chances are good that you’ll spend most of your time at the Exploratorium On the Move fest. They’ll have live music going on all day — the last set, El Radio Fantastique, goes on at 9pm — which may end up playing a supporting role to the joys of aquatic cars, motorized Mission Pony horses (see below), a mechanized Burning Man octopus, and the San Francisco Lowrider Council, among other Exploratorium offerings like cow eye and heart dissections. Eek! 

“Mom, Dad, you look foolish.”

– Pay a visit to Capt’n Jack Spareribs‘ noon, 1:20pm, and 2:40pm shows at Pier 39’s “Sunday Streets Treasure Hunt” — pirate festivities like arrrr. 

This =/= Johnny Depp (Capt’n Jack Spareribs!)

– Check out the yoga, hip-hop classes, rock climbing wall, roller disco, and ditch-the-training-wheels lessons that Sunday Streets is orchestrating like Michael Tilson Thomas.  

– Lounge in the 60 degree weather. 

– Grab dinner and stick around to check out “Bay Lights”, the Bay Bridge’s ludicrously elaborate new light installation, which will be illuminated for the first time on March 5. 

Sunday Streets Embarcadero

March 10, 11am-4pm, free

Embarcadero between Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 52, SF

www.sundaystreetssf.com

Art Basel diary: SCOPE-ing, Context-ualizing, and a quick dip in Fountain

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Last week, Miami was swept up in Hurricane Art Basel and goddammit if we weren’t there to cover the thing. Check out Caitlin Donohue’s past posts on the scene in South Beach, and the rundown on Wynwood and Art Asia. Here’s her take on SCOPE, Context, and Fountain

SCOPE: This fair focuses on contemporary art, and always has some mind-blowing, large-scale stand-outs (check out my run-down from last year.) I even ran into my old friend, rhinestone hamburger — who was joined by his friends this time around, rhinestone can of Spam, rhinestone bagel sandwich, and more. America!

In terms of artists I actually wrote the info down for, Galerie Art Felicia from Liechtenstein had a glorious, one-woman show of Anke Eilergerhard’s cake freaks, made of highly-pigmented piped silicon. You need to see these vaguely threatening odes to domesiticity. They were a great counterpoint to Oakland artist Scott Hove‘s fanged cakes, pastries menacing on totally different levels. 

Other winners: Edgartista Gonzalez‘s mega ink drawing, Ferris Plock’s banquet paintings at the White Walls’ booth, Carlos Aires’ “La Vie En Rose” collection of pink record singles cut into skulls, geckos, triumphant figures, and soldiers — and the turbans that the boys from London’s fledgling gallery Ivory and Black were wearing. Madeleine Berkhemer‘s electric blue “Fruitbasket” (a statue of some stunning gams, stilletos, fringe-y underwear, sans torso) fit in perfectly with my current love of stripper homage. “Art that has no sexual connotation has no reason to exist,” says the Netherlands artist on her website. Here, here. 

Context: We braved the crushing crowds of Sunday afternoon for this fair with one goal alone in mind: to see the Banksy walls. I’ll write more about them in my Street Seen column next week, but here’s the basic rundown: Banksy did his soul-crushingly popular stencil art on five public walls around the world (two in Bethlehem), and those five walls found their way to Miami this week, presented by Context and a new photosharing platform called I PXL U. Who actually owns these walls? Did Banksy approve their relocation? And, why

I’m hoping to track down someone from Context to explain the finer points of all this, but for now I’ll just say it was really something to see all those walls behind red velvet ropes, each with their own oddly-attired (what was up with those pointy hats?) security guards, for all the world like some kind of performance art… hmmm… well anyway, more on that later. 

Besides Banksy, Context and the attached Art Miami (Context was another one of them fair-in-fair thingys) were too crushed with people to really enjoy by the way-too-late hour we got to them on Sunday afternoon. I did, however, manage to appreciate Cuban multimedia artist and woodworker Alexandre Arrechea’s looping skyscrapers and Eva Bertram’s photo series capturing the maturation of her daughter Herveva. 

Fountain: This was my first time at this seven-year-old Wynwood fair, and it provided a much needed counterpoint to the flash and fade of the rest of the mega-expos on our voyage, even if there was no complimentary St. Germaine spritzers at Fountain art fair. What it did have was tons of community-oriented art, at price points that were actually, actually thinkable for your average alternative culture journalist (unlike the others. Sample sign at NADA Art Fair: “signed, numbered edition of 100. $1,000 for all six prints. Bargain!” And maybe it was?)

You enter Fountain through a grassy lot rendered dusty and tired by our late-in-the-game arrival. There was Ryan Cronin’s giant inflatable pink bunny in one corner by the stage where New York’s Tiki Disco played earlier in the weekend, and a geometric, angled sculpture equipped with battery charging stations for the fest-goer on the move. The lot’s wooden walls were covered with murals coordinated by Atlanta’s Living Walls street art conference. 

Inside, it was a creative hothouse. Really, like sweaty. But the art was a lot fresher than at some of the other fairs: spray paint canvases by Los Angeles’ Annie Treece, Amy Winehouse prayer candles by Miami heirloom conjurer Evo Love (Amy Winehouse occult, it seems, is big this year — read my post on the Untitled art fair for news of Winehouse tarot readings), and of course, not-poop.

“I just want you to know, it’s not poop.” I had been examining New York artist Virginie Sommet’s walls of small glass boxes, decoratively arranged in an ornate frame and filled with the results of three colonics she did in one week, when the artist herself popped up at my elbow.

“It’s undigested food, stuck in the colon due to fear and stress,” she continued. If a child sees a scary dog while eating a piece of bread, Sommet explained, that bread doesn’t make it to the toilet, instead staying in the colon until one does an experimental art piece. What inspired the work? “I wanted to go forward in my life,” she said calmly. And as luck would have it that year, boutique chain Cream Hotel was putting together a group project for Fountain in which 11 artists explored their relationship with the bathroom (“a place of unique significance on a personal, cultural, and social level,” the company’s press release put it.)

Thank god for art. Until next year, BASEL BASEL BASEL

Possessions and concessions

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arts@sfbg.com

THEATER A general store in a factory town is the deceptively concrete setting for playwright Christina Anderson’s purposefully nebulous drama, which conflates a range of 20th century African American experiences in a supernatural tale of characters and a town variously “possessed.”

Crowded Fire (which produced the world premiere of Anderson’s DRIP in 2009) takes the premise and runs with it, artistic director Marissa Wolf helming the production with a sure grasp of Anderson’s fluid structure, where time (“between 1961 and 1994”), place (“the side pocket of America”), and position (social, sexual or otherwise) are all on the move and yet passingly specific, as in some Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of history and identity.

As the story opens, Good Goods proprietor Stacey Good (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) has recently retuned to town to take over from his father — the original Good — who we learn fled under vague circumstances seemingly connected to a recent “invasion” that has left this exclusively African American community in some sense (again purposely vague) occupied.

Meanwhile, the store itself is contested terrain. Longtime employee Truth (David E. Moore) holds a grudge against Stacey, who was supposed to be born a girl — promised to Truth by Good-the-father along with the keys to the store. But as a male heir, Stacey is instead Truth’s boss (although, as we learn in some of the clunky exposition at the top of the play, he’s obligated to keep Truth on the payroll no matter how ill tempered he may get).

The allegorical air of this premise grows apace with the arrival of Patrick, nicknamed Wire (Armando McClain), and Patricia (an assured and persuasive Mollena Williams), his twin sister with a stalled career as a nightclub comedian. Patricia has just returned this day — Wire’s birthday but not yet hers, since she was born after midnight — with a runaway bride named Sunny (a fittingly bright and captivating Lauren Spencer), who she met on the bus ride to town. Sunny’s innocent, childlike radiance captures Truth’s ardor but it’s soon clear she’s already smitten with Patricia.

As it further becomes obvious there’s some lingering romantic history between Patricia and Stacey, as well as between Stacey and childhood best friend Wire, a horrible accident at the local factory intrudes. The outcome of this tragedy is the supernatural arrival of another member of the community, whose family has earned some resentment for having gone AWOL during the recent invasion. As a local medicine man named Waymon (Anthony Rollins-Mullens), channeling the spirit of the Hunter Priestess, arrives to sort the matter out, history and solidarity, ownership and desire, masculinity and femininity, tyrannical convention, and casual nonconformity are all mixed ever more thoroughly together.

Without giving away too many details of the plot’s central twist, it’s fair to say that who gets to possess whom and under what circumstances (that is, with or without the consent of the other party) is a question that rises and sinks amid the play’s convoluted action like a stone skipping across a roiling pond. If Anderson sacrifices some dramatic coherence along the way, there are productive questions thrown up merely by flouting a more realistic time/place continuum, since not making an issue of the characters’ fluid sexuality, for example, is already to draw attention to the usual regime while toppling its violent logic.

Crowded Fire’s production at Boxcar Playhouse is somewhat erratically paced and has sightline challenges, but it offers scope for some nicely tailored performances (with the most consistent work coming from Williams and Spencer, who anchor the proceedings with fine, vital turns). Emily Greene’s half-open half-realistic scenic design, buttressed by Rebecca Longworth’s mix of still and video backdrops, meanwhile strives with limited success to capture the play’s particular mix of naturalism and supernaturalism.

That mixture is ultimately both a weakness and strength. The action can feel too mysterious, contradictory and diffuse to be as hard-hitting as it wants to be. But the boldness of Anderson’s formal strategy and its deliberately spongy sense of history also invite an invigorating play between necessity and possibility. 

GOOD GOODS

Through June 23

Wed.-Sat., 8pm, $15-$35

Boxcar Playhouse

505 Natoma, SF

www.crowdedfire.org

 

Oakland gets jilted

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By Frank Artrage

news@sfbg.com

After a secret whirlwind courtship that lasted a mere five months, Mayor Ed Lee and the Golden State Warriors tied the knot May 22 at Piers 30-32, announcing their unexpected union at the site they intend to occupy with a new basketball arena by 2017.

The Warriors’ entrepreneurial new owners — Joe Lacob and Peter Guber — say they love this “iconic site” and promised to build a “spectacular sports and entertainment complex” that is “architecturally significant.”

But what about Oakland, the team’s unceremoniously jilted current homemaker? The perception from the East Bay is that Lacob and Guber were duplicitous and underhanded in their dealings with city officials that were desperately trying to retain the city’s three main sports franchises — the Oakland Athletics baseball club, the Oakland Raiders football team, and the Golden State Warriors basketballers — all of whom have recently signaled interest in moving.

Several sources told us that the Warriors’ new owners have been lying to Oakland officials about their intentions for months. For example, Oakland City Councilmember Larry Reid told me “that when our staff had conversations with the new owners, they always indicated they hadn’t yet come to a final decision.”

Reid told me what happened next. “I get a call Sunday night at 9:30 telling me about their move like a thief in the night.” Reid said. “It’s upsetting.”

On the fan site GoldenStWarriors, Lacob seemed to belittle Oakland. In an 18-minute video, Lacob predicts that Oakland will be left with only one sports team someday. “I think they’re challenged,” he said when asked what’s wrong with Oakland, adding the city is in “a difficult situation.”

Sports talk radio hosts, fan sites, and bloggers, however, seem to be evenly divided on the move. Even hardcore Oakland and Warriors blogger Ethan Sherwood Strauss prefers the San Francisco site. At his Warriorsworld site, Strauss wrote: “I’d never leave Oakland…. I have everything at arm’s length. There’s food from around the world, teeming farmers markets, lush green hills, Redwood trees, Mosswood Park, Grand Lake Theatre — this is all within two miles.”

But: “Guess which is the better place for the Golden State Warriors? It’s that west bay city national broadcasters keep showing during Warriors games while pretending Oakland doesn’t exist.”

Thus far, neither Oakland Mayor Jean Quan nor Mayor Lee have made any comments regarding the other side’s situation or whether their mutually reported “good relationship” has been strained. But it must be devastating to Quan, given all of her work and hoopla over her recent announcements surrounding her ambitious plans for the “Coliseum City” project.

Not unlike the Warriors’ “world class arena” planned for their new San Francisco home, Coliseum City, according to Quan, will be a “world-class sports and entertainment district.” Ryan Phillips, writing on the Oakland North blog in March, said that the project includes “building hotels, retail, office and residential space in the Coliseum complex…as well as building an Oakland Airport Business Park just across the freeway on the way to the airport. The business park will be developed to attract tech companies.”

Mayor Quan issued a press release following the Warriors’ bombshell to announce that she remains “bullish” on her Coliseum City project. Her new spin is that, “Coliseum City is a long-term development project that was never dependent on any one tenant. It was always a larger project than just one sports team.”

But if there’s even one team missing from the original trinity, then they have no choice but to lower their expectations and scale back their plans. Therefore, the Warriors’ move could trigger a complete unraveling of not only her recent plans to keep the Oakland A’s baseball team in Oakland, but also efforts to keep any team there.

For example, a case study published by the Airport Area Business Association (AABA) in conjunction with Coliseum City principal and manager Oakland-based JRDV Urban International, and students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business found, The Coliseum complex presents a unique opportunity to prepare a pioneering business model that generates revenue for both public and private interests.”

Presciently, in the wake of this announced move by the Warriors and how that hurts Oakland, the study asked: “Are the withdrawal of redevelopment monies, the negative perception of Oakland (and especially Deep East Oakland) by investors and the soft commercial real estate market insurmountable? Can the City of Oakland and Alameda County garner the public support required to approve the necessary public financing and inspire investor confidence?”

Manning up, Councilmember Reid told me that Oakland bears some responsibility for this fiasco. “I’ve been agitating for 10 years to get this Coliseum project going. But let me tell you about two critical mistakes Oakland has made over the last decade,” he said. “One, Oakland has always taken the position that these teams had no place to go. Well, you see where that thinking got us today…Two, 10 years ago the decision was made to invest in the old [Oakland] Army Base. Yet, to this day, not one spade of dirt has been unearthed to symbolize any kind of progress is underway there. In fact, the whole project is at a standstill.”

Maybe, but Oakland and Warriors’ fans should not despair. It is not a done deal because a million things could go wrong. For example, this will be the fifth attempt to develop Piers 30-32 into something spectacular over the last several years.

Also, environmental groups and local activists are already squawking about the site. It has to pass a notoriously tough approval process of at least four major agencies. Financing might fall through, at least until Warriors ownership present to the press, government, and citizens some details: Tuesday’s press conference was basically a pep rally — the only thing missing were the pom-poms. Finally, Pier 30-32 and the site have yet to pass muster over the environmental and safety concerns and myriad other requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

If any obstacle dooms the Warriors’ plans, Oakland’s Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell said they’d keep the door open for these prodigal owners: “And in the end, we will leave a space for the Warriors after they are exhausted from the CEQA litigation and cost increases required to be on the San Francisco Waterfront.”

“In a nutshell,” according to a City Hall press aide, Blackwell “means that waterfront development is expensive and requires an extensive and complex environmental review and permitting process involving review and approval by a number of local, state, and sometimes federal agencies.”

But what if it is a success? Oakland loses even more than just the Warriors. At least one politician pointed out, and I also heard this on 95.7 FM The Game, that what’s to stop circuses, ice shows, and major rock stars from ditching Oakland and following the Warriors to this splashy and scenic new entertainment venue?

 

Man/machine

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arts@sfbg.com

Year in Music "Here in my car / I feel safest of all / I can lock all my doors / It’s the only way to live in cars." — Gary Numan, "Cars"

Are friends electric? In 2011, synthpop sounded like a safe vehicle with which to whirl forward, one wheel in the quickly receding past and the other in the fast-coming future.

As the light turned green on ’11 and roared on through 11/11/11, those binary 1’s pointed to the synthetic pleasures harking back to Human League, Yazoo, and Depeche Mode. Early in the year, La Roux’s Elly Jackson took home a Grammy for her eponymous debut — signifying the U.S. music mainstream’s approval.

You could detect the synths popping beneath the beckoning, bright textures of Vetiver’s "Can’t You Tell," the Paisley Park-meets-"Enola Gay" washes of Nite Jewel’s "One Second of Love," and the Doppler effect textures of Toro y Moi’s "Talamak," while the much lamented departure of James Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem from the intersection of synth beats and rock squall threw up yet another sign that synthpop was on the move. Tellingly, Holy Ghost!, on Murphy’s DFA imprint, cast its eyes back longingly to the chilly dreamtime of the Ministry’s "I Wanted to Tell Her," lodging it in a busy thicket of bumping, rumbling bass and keys.

Don’t fear the ’80s: Yesteryear synth populists the Cars released its first LP with Ric Ocasek since its ’88 split, and the year closed with Gary Numan getting the avant seal of approval as an honored guest at the recent Battles-curated ATP show. Adding fuel to the firing pistons, locally, was a look back at the real Bay underground article: this year’s comp BART: Bay Area Retrograde (Dark Entries) wiped the "Clean Me" messages written in dust from tracks like Voice Farm’s "Voyager." The latter almost seemed to lend its synth tone directly to the sinewy, eerily sensual "Nightcall" by Kavinsky and Lovefoxxx off the Drive soundtrack (Lakeshore).

Much like that violently dreamy film’s Danish-American hybrid, "Nightcall" and College’s "A Real Hero" teetered between the almost OTT strain of romanticism and superchilled detachment embodied by the best of synthpop— the simple hooks and breathy, girlish vocals perfectly complementing the propulsive, forward-thrust mechanism of the tracks. You can’t drive those songs from your head.

In one of the strongest contenders for (double) album of the year, M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (Mute), synthpop was only one component of the deep, ambitious, magnificent sprawl, a recording much like French transplant Anthony Gonzalez’s adopted L.A. home. Its breakout single, "Midnight City," tapped both the brooding nihilism of Grand Theft Auto and the noirish retro-epics of Michael Mann in collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, as leader Anthony Gonzalez emotes wistfully, "Waiting in a car /Waiting for a ride in the dark / Drinking in the lounge / Following the neon signs / Waiting for a roar / Looking at the mutating skyline / The city is my church / It wraps me in the sparking twilight."

Cue the orchestral, rollercoaster synths, faux bird calls, and reclaimed-from-the-cheese-bin skywalking sax. It may say as little as Numan’s "Cars"—making it the perfect tabula-rasa fodder for both Victoria’s Secret commercials and capitalism-happy How to Make It in America —but like a European native finding inspiration in the simultaneously alienating and freeing highways of El-Lay or J.G. Ballard, both songs prove that you needn’t rely on language to move a listener.