Volume 41 [2006–07]

Cut off war funding

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EDITORIAL On Jan. 12, a couple months shy of the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the secretary of defense, Robert Gates, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and put to rest any question of whether the conflict in that country can be declared a civil war:

"We face, in essence, four different wars," he said. "The war of Shia on Shia, principally in the south; sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad and the environs of Baghdad; third, a Baathist insurgency; and fourth, al-Qaeda."

The Pentagon made it official March 14, when a report declared that "in some ways" Iraq is in the throes of a civil war. The report also noted that October through December 2006 was the most violent three-month period since 2003.

The carnage is horrible: more than 3,000 US troops have been killed. The United Nations, according to Reuters, says some 34,500 civilians were killed in 2006 alone. About 2 million Iraqis have fled abroad, and another 1.7 million have moved elsewhere in Iraq to escape violence and sectarian cleansing.

The cost is spectacular and almost unfathomably tragic: more than $400 billion so far. The money that San Francisco alone has spent on the war could have paid for 12,000 affordable housing units, the National Priorities Project estimates. All of that money has come in special supplemental budget requests, so it hasn’t been a part of any rational budget discussion.

And yet while the Democrats have offered an alternative plan to withdraw from Iraq, party leaders are still refusing to do what Congress has every right to do: demand that no more money be spent on combat operations in Iraq, set a timetable for pulling out the last troops — and specify that not a single dollar will be spent on anything except safely removing US personnel.

Hillary Clinton, by many accounts the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, even said last week that she thinks the United States will have a military presence in Iraq for years to come.

The opposition party has to do better than that.

Seventy percent of Americans oppose the war. The allies are getting ready to bail: Prime Minister Tony Blair just announced the British have set a timetable for withdrawing troops. The protests in the streets during the past few days should be a signal to Rep. Nancy Pelosi: Congress can’t pass nonbinding resolutions and come up with plans that the president can simply veto. George W. Bush has no intention of listening to what the public wants. In a March 19 speech he proclaimed that "the fight is difficult, but it can be won." Translation: the war will continue as long as Bush is in office — unless Congress forces him to stop it. And the only way to do that is to cut off funding.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma) has introduced legislation that would block further war spending but fully fund a deliberate withdrawal aimed at pulling the last US troops out by the end of this year. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) is a cosponsor. Pelosi needs to sign on and put the power of the new Democratic majority behind the only feasible plan to end what the New York Times is calling an "unnecessary, horribly botched and now unwinnable" war. *

The giant extension-cord plan

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EDITORIAL It’s only because of a dark moment in San Francisco’s history that city officials are trying to figure out what to do about an underwater electricity cable that’s slated to run from Pittsburg onto port property and provide additional power for the tip of the Peninsula.

San Francisco was supposed to have its own power cable, carrying its own power over the bay from the hydroelectric dam at Hetch Hetchy. In fact, in the 1920s the city built 99 miles of cable, from the high Sierra to the South Bay … and mysteriously ran out of copper wire a few yards from a new Pacific Gas and Electric Co. substation in Newark.

That was a key moment in the Raker Act scandal, the ongoing violation of federal law that has allowed PG&E to operate a monopoly private power agency in a city that’s supposed to have public power.

But now PG&E controls all the power coming into town — and the California Independent System Operator, which is responsible for the state grid, says the supply coming into San Francisco is too limited and not sufficiently reliable.

As JB Powell reports in "Power Play" on page TK, Babcock and Brown, an international financial firm based in Australia, has put up $300 million for a Trans Bay Cable that would link the city to the East Bay. Ironically, a public power agency — in Pittsburg — would wind up making money off the project by selling power in San Francisco. Other than rent at the port, this city will get nothing out of the deal.

There are some basic conceptual problems with the project. Most of the power shipped along the 57-mile, 400-megawatt line would be produced by fossil fuel plants. That’s contrary to the direction the city is trying to go: San Francisco is in the process of building solar projects and is looking into using tidal energy. The Hetch Hetchy project, of course, is hydropower. And critics say that the new line would flood San Francisco with an oversupply of electricity, discouraging the environmentally sound approach of conservation.

But there’s a larger problem here: a private venture firm will own the cable — and could sell it to another entity, perhaps PG&E. So the city’s energy future under this scenario will still be tied to unaccountable private interests.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, whose Local Agency Formation Commission held a hearing on the cable plan in January, asked San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) staffers why the city doesn’t have its own line. The agency, staffer Barbara Hale said, has been looking into that — but any project would be years away.

Still, this line, if the city goes along with the deal, will be with us for decades — and the Board of Supervisors shouldn’t just approve it without looking at its role in a long-term municipal energy program. San Francisco is moving inexorably toward public power — too slowly, but inexorably. How, exactly, does this cable fit into a municipal power system? Does San Francisco even need it? Is a publicly owned transbay power line something that ought to be on the agenda? Why would the city want to go along with this private venture if there is (or ought to be) a city project in the wings?

Nobody has answered those questions, because the city still lacks a detailed public power plan. Before the supervisors approve this cable, the SFPUC needs to look at all the energy options, prepare a long-term plan, and evaluate whether this giant extension cord fits into it. *

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Four years ago we shut down the city. None of us who were there will ever forget it: so many peaceful protesters showed up that the police had to close down Market Street. Mission Street was pretty much the same way. You couldn’t get anywhere downtown; nobody seemed to be at work. The police were, in more than a few instances, out of control — but there were no water cannons or rubber bullets, just a lot of arrests. Overall, it was a day of joy: the United States was going to war, and San Francisco would have no part of it.

The anniversary protests, while exuberant, weren’t quite that dramatic. I understand: it’s been a long, long war, and we’ve all be fighting for a long, long time, and things just seem to be getting worse. The antiwar movement, and the frustration of the nation at a conflict that has dragged on longer than US involvement in World War II, tossed the Republican majority out of both houses of Congress, but the Democrats are still talking about nonbinding resolutions and incremental plans that can’t be backed up. The war seems to be without end. Even the New York Times, that voice of mainstream moderation, is starting to sound pissed off: the March 18 lead editorial referred to "the unnecessary, horribly botched and now unwinnable war."

I know this doesn’t help the families of the more than 3,000 already dead soldiers or the tens of thousands more who are still stuck in a desert quagmire, but the good news is we’ve won the debate. Almost nobody running for president wants to say the war was a good idea, has been handled well, or ought to continue much longer. The only question on the table now is how best to get the hell out. And in the long term, this really has become the new Vietnam — just as the very name of that southeast Asian country struck fear in the hearts of American imperialists and military adventurists for a quarter century, the legacy of Iraq will almost certainly be stricter controls on the ability of rogue presidents to invade countries for their own geopolitical agendas.

So let’s keep the pressure on the likes of Nancy Pelosi (it’s so heartwarming to see protesters camped outside the house of the new House speaker — and it’s stunning that Pelosi has been such a jerk and refused to be civil to them). And take heart: we can still end this war — and go a long way toward preventing the next one.

And on a totally different note: I was somewhat amazed to see that the Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group — the companies that own all the major newspapers in the central Bay Area — have come up with a new tactic to get rid of that pesky antitrust suit filed by Clint Reilly.

The suit charges that the deal giving two giant corporations control of so much of the region’s media will deprive readers of diverse viewpoints and advertisers of competitive alternatives. The evidence in favor of Reilly’s claim is pretty strong.

So now the newspaper barons are taking a new tack, arguing that Reilly has no standing to sue. He’s just one person; what’s the harm to him?

Well, gee, if one person who cares about the community has no standing to sue, who does? Hearst and MediaNews, I suspect, would like to leave that to the state and federal attorneys general. And look how that’s worked out. *

Power play

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› news@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will soon decide the fate of the Trans Bay Cable (TBC), a privately financed, underwater power line that would plug the city’s electric grid into power plants in the East Bay.

Backers call the cable the best way to avoid blackouts, like those the city saw in the wake of the energy deregulation debacle of the late 1990s. But green power activists argue that the developer of this 57-mile extension cord is cashing in on California’s blackout fears and that approving the project would go against the city’s commitment to finding sustainable sources of energy.

Australian financial firm Babcock and Brown has staked $300 million on the cable’s construction and offered more than $28 million for a community benefits package if the project is approved. The developer plans to profit on its investment with a guaranteed 13.5 percent rate of return, granted to it by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the sale of power running through the cable. Power plants in and around Pittsburg would generate most of the juice going though the 400-megawatt-capacity line. Ratepayers across the state would foot the bill.

The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), the public benefit corporation in charge of the state’s electric grid, has asked for San Francisco supervisors to approve the cable as soon as possible so that it can begin service by 2010. Cal-ISO’s sole mission is to keep the lights on, and when there isn’t enough power in the system, it coordinates the dreaded rolling blackouts that most Californians remember from the energy crisis. CAL-ISO representative Larry Tobias brought up those dark days at a San Francisco Port Commission meeting Feb. 27. "Without the Trans Bay Cable project," he warned, "we will be back in that situation again." Electricity from the TBC, Tobias told commissioners, will give the city’s system the "reliability" to prevent blackouts.

Tobias said if supervisors reject the cable project, CAL-ISO will have to seek alternative proposals. At a January meeting of the city’s Local Agency Formation Committee (LAFCo), Tobias brought up a plan previously put forward by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which looked to bring power across the bay from a substation in Moraga. In 2005, PG&E asked for more time to finish its design. CAL-ISO rejected its request and chose the TBC instead.

But some local activists say the city does not need the cable, or any other privately funded power line. Steven J. Moss of San Francisco Community Power told the Guardian a 400-megawatt cable would flood the power grid with "an enormous oversupply" of electricity. "That would be a waste of resources," he said. Moss claims CAL-ISO is understandably obsessed with reliability but the probability of its doomsday blackout scenarios is incredibly small. How small? At the Port Commission’s March 13 meeting, Moss said his calculations indicate there is only a "0.0002 percent chance that the [TBC] will be needed."

Even in the worst-case scenario, Moss told us, the city is only "looking at a 50- to 60-megawatt gap [in energy supplies] 10 years from now." His figures, he said, are based on Cal-ISO’s own estimates, adding, "The real way to plug that gap [is] demand management — solar, wind, all the things that San Francisco talks about constantly and that are good for us."

At the January LAFCo hearing, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi questioned officials from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) about the city’s plans to acquire its own power line from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir’s hydroelectric stations. The city already owns most of the 200-mile transmission route from the Yosemite power stations, but PG&E possesses the last 30 miles and charges the city fees to bring electricity up the Peninsula from Newark. "Why can’t we have our own cable?" Mirkarimi asked SFPUC staffer Barbara Hale. She said the agency has been "studying the feasibility" of the proposed city-owned line but cannot yet commit to a firm "coming online date" like the TBC’s developer can.

For years the city has been seeking a way to secure full ownership of the Hetch Hetchy lines as a step toward forming a public power utility, independent of PG&E control. Ironically, if the TBC is built, a public power agency would own the cable and profit from it, just not San Francisco’s power agency. Pittsburg’s municipal utility is slated to take over the line once Babcock and Brown finishes its construction.

At the same hearing in January, Moss pointed to such projects as the proposed Hetch Hetchy line, as well as the city’s evolving plans to implement more renewable power sources, as proof that supervisors should reject the TBC. Calling the cable a "potlatch," Moss said, "Time is our friend" in power matters. "Technology will change and improve, [and] we’re potentially rushing into a very expensive project." Mirkarimi did not return calls for comment, but at the hearing, he indicated he is still studying the cable and has not yet formed a position on it.

Philip DeAndrade, chair of the city’s Power Plant Task Force, expressed concerns that Pittsburg’s power plants burn "very available fossil fuels" for their generation and that these cheaper sources of electricity "might take out of the market mix" more renewable energy. DeAndrade also brought up the four gas-fired combustion turbines, known as peakers, that the city is in the process of bringing online. With these generators scheduled to go into service in 2009, as well as several PG&E transmission projects either in the works or already operational, DeAndrade said, "I’m not convinced [the TBC] is a good deal for San Francisco. What it looks like is a good deal for Babcock and Brown and the City of Pittsburg."

CAL-ISO insists that the TBC is the best reliability option for the region. Spokesperson Gregg Fishman said the peakers and other local energy projects will allow the system operator to stop relying on the inefficient Potrero Hill Power Plant. "But all that really does is keep us even in San Francisco. It doesn’t improve the reliability of the system at all — and in fact, with load [demand] growth we are actually falling slowly behind." Fishman later mentioned the added benefits of having power come in from a different direction. Currently, all power lines feeding the city travel up the Peninsula.

On March 13 the TBC cleared its first local regulatory hurdle when the Port Commission approved a licensing agreement for the cable’s facilities. Port officials, along with staff from the Mayor’s Office and other city agencies, spent weeks negotiating the terms of the deal with Babcock and Brown. The agreement grants the port annual rent payments in excess of $1 million, a needed cash infusion for the strapped agency.

The community benefits package gives the port an additional $5.5 million, with an as yet undetermined portion of those funds to be spent on open-space and energy-related projects on port-owned land. In addition to payments to the port, Babcock and Brown pledged more than $23 million to the SFPUC for sustainable energy programs, such as solar, wind, and tidal power initiatives.

Despite passing the licensing and benefits packages, port commissioners and their staff said they were not ruling on the project’s merits in terms of energy policy. Port special projects manager Brad Benson, who spearheaded the negotiations, told us, "Port staff does not believe we have the required expertise to rule on energy policy aspects [of the TBC]. We believe the Board of Supervisors is the preferred venue" to settle those questions.

Reached for comment, several San Francisco supervisors, either directly or through staff, told us they are still making up their minds about the project. Sup. Sophie Maxwell told us even if the cable is built, the city will not allow the new power line to sidetrack its efforts to use more environmentally friendly energy. "The city’s policy is renewable energy. Fossil fuel is not our first and primary desire." But, she added, Cal-ISO "determine[s] our power needs, and so we have to go along with that. We can’t say, ‘No … you’re wrong.’ "

Babcock and Brown vice president Dave Parquet praised the Port Commission for approving the licensing agreement and benefits package, telling us, "We are very pleased with the port’s [approval] and look forward to the Board of Supervisors’ decision." Samuel Wehn, the TBC’s project manager at Babcock and Brown, said, "I don’t think San Francisco [officials are] going to put their city in the position where they’re not going to be able to provide the kind of energy that’s needed to keep this city running."

Moss said those kinds of arguments are "business as usual" for the state in terms of energy policy. "Here [we] go again with another large infrastructure project that doesn’t contribute to solving climate change or moving our energy agenda forward."

He added, "It’s classic political science. Out of [the average ratepayer’s bill] it’s pennies per month, so nobody cares about it … but that doesn’t mean it’s not an expensive project. It is." Babcock and Brown, he said, "saw an opportunity to make a very fat profit margin, and they went for it like any good profiteer." *

Scene

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Mission: fresh-air beer

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Listen up, troops: Spring is here and decent weather may be on the radar. It’s time to escape from the barracks and attack life with a blitzkrieg of beer and BBQ. Below is a list of checkpoints that are reported to condone and encourage the outdoor consumption of alcohol.

Good luck, soldier. Now get out there and knock ’em back!

Big guns

ZEITGEIST


The HQ of patio bars — the grand pooh-bah, the big cheese. Hands down the biggest, baddest patio west of the bay. Although owing to the line of porta-potties, it’s probably one of the stinkiest. This is your safe station, no matter what company you’re signed up with. Zeitgeist’s commissary will stock you up on burgers and fries, and its Bloody Marys will keep you flying.

199 Valencia, SF. (415) 255-7505, myspace.com/zeitgeistsf

EL RIO


Outer Mission hideaway El Rio is big enough for large outfits but romantic enough for a date while on leave. A portion of the yard is sheltered by a tent for rainy-day ops — and there’s nothing to stop you from lighting up. Mmmm — gotta love the smell of cigarettes in the midafternoon.

3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325 www.elriosf.com

PILSNER INN


Few cantinas can muster as many features as the Pilsner Inn. Twenty-four beers on tap, two pool leagues, and a lush, landscaped garden patio with two koi ponds should be enough to make anyone stand at attention. A strong contingent here flies the rainbow flag, but the Pilsner welcomes troops from all outfits to its relaxed environs.

225 Church, SF. (415) 621-7058, www.pilsnerinn.com

Smaller outposts

PAPA TOBY’S REVOLUTION CAFÉ


This little Mission spot will flash you back to life as a guerrilla fighter in Cuba or Guatemala. A beer and wine café with a secluded backwoods feel and a heated streetside patio, Papa Toby’s Revolution Café offers a variety of troop entertainment, from free trade to tango lessons. With enough alcohol here, you may be able to brainwash your copilot into believing he or she is the reincarnation of Che Guevara.

3248 22nd St., SF. (415) 642-0474

FINNEGAN’S WAKE


An enclave of Cole Valley regulars is keeping Finnegan’s Wake top secret. The back patio is a mini-Zeitgeist, equipped with a grill and picnic tables. Surrounded by apartments, this little retreat goes on lockdown after 21:00 hours, making this site good for daytime expeditions only.

937 Cole, SF. (415) 731-6119

GOLD CANE COCKTAIL LOUNGE


The patio of this Haight Street joint has a nicely elevated rear portion — high ground, easy to defend from marauding tourists and the like. And if you can’t successfully pilot your hand-rolled smokable through the crowd, you’ve no business flying so high, soldier.

1569 Haight, SF. (415) 626-1112

MAD DOG IN THE FOG


Bright red and green paint often makes the Mad Dog in the Fog’s vibrant little patio hard to handle without a pint or two. Local hostiles have managed to shut down maneuvers here after 22:00, so your best bet is to set up a happy-hour camp during the soccer off-season — around World Cup time, soccer insurgents outfitted in reversible jerseys and knee-high socks seize the position.

530 Haight, SF. (415) 626-7279

THE AXIS OF BURGERS


Taken together, Flippers restaurant and Marlena’s bar in Hayes Valley can provide a prime afternoon drinking and lounging target. Flippers serves burgers, beer, and wine. Its patio is outfitted with a variety of flora: lilies, trees, and lawn. Right next door, with a full bar, Marlena’s has a minimal cagelike smoking facility with just three benches gated off from the street.

Flippers Gourmet Burgers, 482 Hayes, SF. (415) 552-8880

Marlena’s, 488 Hayes, SF. (415) 864-6672

MARS BAR AND RESTAURANT


A secluded SoMa bar and restaurant often overrun by hordes of concertgoers and workers from the neighboring Concourse Exhibition Center in the evening, Mars Bar and Restaurant makes for an excellent outdoor lunch break. Late at night you’ll often locate barkeeps from other watering holes gathered here to blow their tips.

798 Brannan, SF. (415) 621-6277, www.marsbarsf.com

Coast Guard

PIER 23 CAFE


This waterfront bar and restaurant features live music most nights of the week. Its outdoor area is an expansive field of patio furniture flanked by the bay. A popular evening destination for locals, Pier 23 Cafe just underwent a complete remodel, now ready for inspection.

Pier 23, SF. (415) 362-5125 www.pier23cafe.com

RED’S JAVA HOUSE


Little more than a kitchen shed up front and a tent with bar in back, Red’s Java House is nestled beneath the Bay Bridge on Pier 30. The only thing that might obstruct your skyward reconnaissance is the occasional SUV parked next to the fenced-off, bare-bones patio. There’s a widescreen TV for sports fans in the tent and a menu of burgers, dogs, and fish and chips.

Pier 30, SF. (415) 777-5626

MOMO’S


Right next to PhoneCompany Park, Momo’s has a limited view — the baseball stadium and a massive apartment complex obstruct most of the horizon. The bar is incredibly well equipped, but Momo’s is a restaurant, which may impair smoking operations. While there, enrich yourself with the art installation in the front garden box: a giant heart-shaped olive. Enriching!

760 Second St., SF. (415) 227-8660, www.sfmomos.com

Eastern Theater

JUPITER


Just a short flight east of San Francisco, Jupiter is the majordomo outdoor operation of the East Bay. This two-story brewpub and pizza restaurant in downtown Berkeley is attached to a giant compound replete with heating lamps and ivy. You’ll have to stow those stogies, though: this place is a restaurant and doesn’t take kindly to smoking.

2181 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-8277, www.jupiterbeer.com

BECKETT’S


The two-story Irish pub is equipped with two fireplaces and two functional bars. Its patio is a small balcony above a cobblestone alleyway — the perfect size for an elite task force to secure a position and commence a-blazing.

2271 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 647-1790, www.beckettsirishpub.com

OASIS RESTAURANT AND BAR


Deep into East Bay territory is the Oasis Restaurant and Bar. By day this Oakland position operates as a Nigerian restaurant; at night it becomes a grooving outdoor lounge with DJs and two dance floors. A staggering canyon of cement surrounds the small rear patio. The heated paradise has multiple tables and chairs, a stage, a massive sound system, and a wraparound grass-covered overhang.

135 12th St., Oakland.

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MORE OUTDOOR DESTINATIONS

Carmen’s, Pier 40, SF. (415) 495-5140

Cinch, 1723 Polk, SF. (415) 776-4162, www.thecinch.com

Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF. (415) 552-4440, www.theyankee.com

Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880, www.sfeagle.com

Jay ‘n Bee Club, 2736 20th St., SF. (415) 824-4190

Kennedy’s Irish Pub and Curry House, 1040 Columbus, SF. (415) 441-8855, www.kennedyscurry.com

Lone Star Saloon, 1354 Harrison, SF. (415) 863-9999, www.lonestarsaloon.com

Lucky 13, 2140 Market, SF. (415) 487-1313

Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF. (415) 550-9055, www.medjoolsf.com

Mix, 4086 18th St., SF. (415) 431-8616

Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 503-0393, www.theeparkside.com

Il Pirata, 2007 16th St., SF. (415) 626-2626

Ramp, 885 Terry Francois, SF. (415) 621-2378

Red Jack Saloon, 131 Bay, SF. (415) 989-0700

Rosewood, 732 Broadway, SF. (415) 951-4886, www.rosewoodbar.com

Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. (415) 647-3099

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Dance dance revolution

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"If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution" is a club-friendly sentiment traditionally attributed to estimable anarchist Emma Goldman. But even if she didn’t put it in quite those words, the message is clear: changing the world doesn’t have to be a grim slog. Why struggle at all if it doesn’t result in a world we can actually enjoy? That’s where these benefit-hosting, rabble-rousing, community-oriented bars, clubs, cultural centers, and performance spaces come in. Like the spoonful of sugar that masks the medicine, a nice pour and a few choice tunes can turn earnest liberation into ecstatic celebration.

DANCING QUEENS


Billing itself as "your dive," El Rio defines "you" as a crowd of anarchists, trannies, feminists, retro-cool kids, and heat-seeking salseros as diverse as you’re likely to find congregating around one shuffleboard table. Whether featuring a rawkin’ Gender Pirates benefit show or a rare screening of The Fall of the I-Hotel as part of radical film series Televising the Revolution, El Rio encourages an intimacy and camaraderie among its dance floor–loving patrons less frequently found these days in an increasingly class-divided Mission.

3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE SANITIZED


Although it’s really an aboveground Mission storefront, Balazo 18 has a great "in the basement" underground vibe, and within its gritty labyrinth, upstart idealists lurk like scruffy Minotaurs. The low overhead and inclusive ambience has proven fertile ground for local activist functions such as the recent Clarion Alley Mural Project fundraiser and December 2006’s Free Josh Wolf event (freedom still pending). The dance floor’s generous size attracts top-notch local bands and sweaty, freedom-seeking legions who love to dance till they drop.

2183 Mission, SF. (415) 255-7227, www.balazogallery.com

STARRY-EYED IDEALISM


Applause for the Make-Out Room‘s green-minded stance against unnecessary plastic drink straws (it doesn’t serve ’em), its championing of literary causes (Steven Elliott’s "Progressive Reading" series, Charlie Anders’s "Writers with Drinks"), and its calendar of benefit shows for agendas as diverse as animal sanctuary, tenants rights, and free speech. Plus, not only are the (strawless) drinks reasonably priced, but the wacked-out every–day–is–New Year’s Eve disco ball and silver star decor hastens their effect.

3225 22nd St., SF. (415) 647-2888, www.makeoutroom.com

STOP IN THE NAME OF ART


The Rickshaw Stop hosts progressive literary luminaries by the library-load, raising the roof and the funds for programs such as the 61-year-old San Francisco Writer’s Workshop and the reading series "Inside Storytelling." Other beneficiaries of the Rickshaw’s pro-arts programming include SF Indiefest and Bitch magazine, and the club calendar is filled with queer dance parties, record release shows, and even an upcoming "Pipsqueak a Go Go" dance party for l’il kiddies with the Devilettes and the Time Outs. If teaching a roomful of preschoolers the Monkey isn’t an act of die-hard, give-something-back merrymaking martyrdom, well …

155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.rickshawstop.com

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS


A dancer- and activist-run performance incubator, CounterPULSE hosts a diverse collection of cutting-edge artistes ranging from queer Butoh dancers to crusading sexologists to mobility-impaired aerialists. It’s also home to the interactive history project Shaping San Francisco and a lively weekly contact jam. But it’s the plucky, DIY joie de vivre that pervades its fundraising events — featuring such entertainment as queer cabaret, big burlesque, and an abundance of booty-shaking — that keeps our toes tapping and our progressive groove moving. Best of all, the "no one turned away for lack of funds" policy ensures that even the most broke-ass idealist can get down.

1310 Mission, SF. (415) 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org

MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS


Sometimes a dance club, sometimes an art gallery — and sometimes not quite either — 111 Minna Gallery is pretty much guaranteed to always be a good time. Funds have been raised here on behalf of groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the West Memphis Three, and Hurricane Relief as a plethora of local and big-name artists and music makers — from Hey Willpower to Henry Rollins — have shown their stuff on the charmingly makeshift stage and the well-worn walls.

111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com

THE HUMAN LAUGH-IN


It’s true — the revolutionary life can’t just be one big dance party. Sometimes it’s an uptown comedy club adventure instead. Cobb’s Comedy Club consistently books the big names on the comedy circuit — and it also showcases some side-splitting altruism, such as last month’s THC Comedy Medical Marijuana benefit tour and the annual "Stand Up for Justice" events sponsored by Death Penalty Focus. Even selfless philanthropy can be a laughing matter.

915 Columbus, SF. (415) 928-4320, www.cobbscomedyclub.com

OLD FAITHFUL


The headless guardian angel of cavernous, city-funded cultural center SomArts has been a silent witness to countless community-involved installations and festivals, such as the "Radical Performance" series, a Day of the Dead art exhibit, the annual "Open Studios Exhibition," and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. And plenty of fundraising celebrations have been hosted beneath its soaring rafters on behalf of organizations such as the Coalition on Homelessness, Survival Research Labs, and the Center for Sex and Culture. We’ve got to admit — nothing cries "community" like a space where you can drink absinthe and build misfit toys one night, dance to live salsa the next, and attend a sober seminar on pirate radio the following afternoon.

934 Brannan, SF. (415) 552-2131, www.somarts.org

STORMING THE CASTLE


Even if the Edinburgh Castle were run by community-hating misanthropes, we’d come here for the craic and perhaps a wistful fondle of the Ballantine caber mounted on the wall. But general manager Alan Black has helped foster a scene of emerging and established writers, unsigned bands, and Robbie Burns lovers in the lively heart of the upper TL. The unpretentious, unflappable venue also hosts benefits for causes such as breast cancer research and refugee relocation. And the Tuesday night pub quiz, twice-monthly mod-Mersybeat dance nights, and annual swearing competition keep us coming back for more (except maybe the haggis).

950 Geary, SF. (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com

SHAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT


Turning martini shaking into charitable moneymaking, Elixir has been the go-to drinks dispensary for fundraisers of all varieties since it launched its unique Charity Guest Bartending program. The concept is simple: the organizers of a fundraising effort sign up in advance, beg or bully a hundred of their best buddies to show up early and stay late, get a crash course in mixology, and raise bucks behind the bar of this green-certified Mission District saloon (the second-oldest operating bar in San Francisco). Did we mention it’s green certified? Just checking. Barkeep, another round.

3200 16th St., SF. (415) 552-1633, www.elixirsf.com

SPACE IS THE PLACE


A 2006 Best of the Bay winner, CELLspace has weathered the usual warehouse-space storms of permit woes and facility upgrading, and yet it continues to expand its programming and fan base into some very far-flung realms. From roller disco to b-boy battling, hip-hop to punk rock, art classes to aerial performances, the CELL has been providing an urban refuge for at-risk youth, aging hipsters, and community builders since 1996. Though we mourn the loss of the Bike Kitchen, which moved to its new SoMa digs, we’re glad to see the return of the Sunday-morning Mission Village Market — now indoors!

2050 Bryant, SF. (415) 648-7562, www.cellspace.org

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Attack of the killer Ts

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

"Ironic T-shirts — where the lameness of my T-shirt is in inverse proportion to my hipness!" comedian Patton Oswalt shouted at a recent sold-out Noise Pop show, pointing out in particular one special Salinas lass in a skull-and-hearts T. "I’m so cool I can defeat my own T-shirt!"

You know T-shirts have arrived — and by now may even be taking the last BART train to Fremont — when they’ve crept into the routines of comics desperate to warm up a 6 p.m. crowd. Is there anything more appropriate for every occasion, barring the most obscenely uptight cotillion? Be it basic formal and fiendish black, all-purpose "what are you rebelling against?" white, or any hue in the spectrum between. Be it worn on the chest, sleeve, or belly. Be it decorated with words and pictures so promo, pomo, and porno, with bands and teams, mugs and slugs of the sheer truth, alliances and affiliations, affirmations or fighting words — there’s no place like the homely T-shirt. Provided you have the right cut, cult, or message, you can throw it on and rock that bod with just jeans and trendoid footwear — consider yourself done.

Ts are our wearable tabula rasa, once underwear suitable only for soldier boys circa World War II, later campus and business iron-on throwaways in the ’50s, and even later rock band promos ready to be gracefully defaced with pins and zippers during the punk years (and now we’re back to white Ts for gangstas dodging crippling colors). Remember when the only T-shirt sizes available were L and XL? Remember when the sole women’s Ts around were toddler ready, fit for showing off every chub roll acquired from here to the nearest bakery? Whether you break them down between screen prints and iron-ons or between skate-beach-BMX, rock–metal–punk–pop–hip-hop, and TV-film-cartoon-advertising specimens, as Lisa Kidner and Sam Knee do in their 2006 book, Vintage T-Shirts (Collins Design, $19.95) — there’s an unsnooty, democratic beauty to a T.

Long after those faux–feed store and John Deere–logoed T-shirts have evaporated and aeons after the not-so-ironically offensive faux-Asian biz T-shirts have been yanked from Abercrombie and Fitch, we can still fall for a few artfully decorated scraps of tissue-thin jersey — and not just those by newbie local hotshot T designers such as Turk+Taylor (www.turkandtaylor.com) or My Trick Pony (www.mytrickpony.com). Only a few months ago I was bewitched into purchasing a $9 Flying V–bedecked shirt with a factory-frayed neck and sleeves at Le Target, of all places — the ideal block-rockin’ New Year’s Eve outfit with a black chiffon tiered skirt and boots. Why did I fall? It never fails to get compliments and fits like a teenage dream, and I can always make room for another music T in my collection, which encompasses an ’80s Sex Pistols reproduction purchased from the back pages of Creem, a boxy Poison pachyderm rewarded after a gig loading out for the hair metal combo, and a Scottish-slurred "Where am I and what the fuck’s going on?" Arab Strap T.

Lucky us, living at ground zero of the rock-T explosion: in 1968, the late Bill Graham began printing shirts regularly for the first time, an effort that distinguished him from fan club and individual band merchandising designs, according to Erica Easley, who cowrote Rock Tease: The Golden Years of Rock T-Shirts (Abrams Image, $19.95). Bill Graham Presents still sells vintage articles and reproductions on its Wolfgang’s Vault site (www.wolfgangsvault.com), though if you want the real thing, you might have to settle for the Doobie Brothers and Exodus rather than the Stones and Hendrix.

A buyer for one of the largest buy-sell-trade clothing stores on the West Coast, Red Light Clothing Exchange in Portland, Ore., Easley can pinpoint the beginning of the recent rock-T trend to the late ’90s when designers began buying vintage shirts and modifying them with grommets, trim, and patchwork. "They were able to do that because they were so cheap," she explains, citing Lara Flynn Boyle as one of the first celebs to sport a T (Bob Seger) on the red carpet, and attributes the longevity and cultural relevance of the rock-T trend to the resurgence of new bands such as the White Stripes.

American Apparel’s sexy softcore ads and no-logo trendy styling haven’t hurt either, while street artists have taken to embellishing Ts as they might a skateboard, and fashionistas continue to layer short-sleeve with long-sleeve Ts in what Easley calls the "Spicoli surfer look." To her eye, the urban art trend "raises all sorts of sociological questions. It’s from the street and supposedly authentic and tends to be pricey — it’s not what a street rat can really afford. There’s the price of a shirt and who’s wearing it and who’s supposed to be wearing it — you’re buying into a lifestyle." Personally, she’d "love to see a resurgence of do-it-yourself T-shirts, writing on T-shirts making personal statements."

Easley confesses the overall rock-T trend is waning. "It was such a fashion fad and so oversaturated. The sense of exclusivity that made it really hard at any other part of this decade to find T-shirts is gone," says the writer, who got into collecting by way of a Mötley Crüe obsession. "But I think long term it has been great for rock T-shirts and put them into the collectible realm."

Steven Scott, the manager of Aardvark’s Odd Ark (1501 Haight, SF; 415-621-3141), agrees that the trend for music Ts seems to be ebbing, while morphing from a ’70s to an ’80s focus. The store’s personal best: a Michael Jackson "Thriller" T, which sold for $125. "You can’t get that for it now," Scott says. "But [the appeal] is like San Francisco rents — they never go down, and landlords keep hoping people will come back."

T-SHIRTS, WEAR EVER

When shopping for a vintage T — or really any T — Rock Tease coauthor Erica Easley says, "It’s all about the image. I don’t care about the band, even though I’m always excited about a good Alice Cooper T. It’s all about a strong image, colors, and, personally, a shirt where I don’t have a sense of computer-generated graphics."

When looking for oldies, do, however, beware of fakes. "The colors won’t be correct, the green is too bright, or the cut wasn’t being produced at that point," Easley warns.

AARDVARK’S ODD ARK


Ringers, jerseys, worn-soft garb adorned with Firesign radios and corny sayings: Aardvark’s re-creates the thrifter’s thrill of discovery with a jam-packed rack of oldies.

1501 Haight, SF. (415) 621-3141

AMERICAN APPAREL


The most fashion-conscious print-free Ts around, regardless of how you feel about the jailbaity marketing campaigns. Gotta love me some blouson and dress-length styles.

2174 Union, SF. (415) 440-3220; 1615 Haight, SF. (415) 431-4028; 2301 Telegraph, Berk. (510) 981-1641. www.americanapparel.net

BANG-ON


Customize your own cool: this international chain provides the iron-ons, puffy wood-panel lettering, and brightly fierce ’80s accessories. Where else can you get spanking new-old "Cheer up, emo kid," Mr. Snuffleupagus, Roxy Music, and Johnny Wadd Ts in one fell, freshly ironed swoop?

1603 Haight, SF. (415) 255-8446, www.bang-on.ca

FTC URBAN LIFESTYLE STORE


Get your Ipath Bigfoot and Western Edition Mingus shirts right here, along with oodles of other contenders.

1632 Haight, SF. (415) 626-0663, www.ftcskate.com

GIANT ROBOT


The large-livin’ API groundbreakers still peddle locals Barry McGee and Mark Gonzales as well as Daniel Johnston shirts and the ever-popular Geoff McFetridge 2K "I’m Rocking on Your Dime" T.

618 Shrader, SF. (415) 876-4773. www.gr-sf.com

HELD OVER


A rail of vintage Ts beckons, from a ’70s-era "Natural Gas" number to a Morrissey You Are the Quarry lovely.

1542 Haight, SF. (415) 864-0818

PARK LIFE


Marcel Dzama’s frail ye olde comic critters, Ferris Plock’s sketchy characters, Neckface’s doom metal demons, and Clare Rojas’s folkloric scenes populate Park Life.

220 Clement, SF. (415) 386-7275, www.parklifestore.com

STATIC


Joining the Gucci knockoffs, denim, and ’70s leather are soft-as-my-55-year-old-uncle’s-midriff surfer shirts.

1764 Haight, SF. (415) 422-0046

SUPER7 STORE


Poppy yet pretty in-house screens by, for instance, store co-owner Dora Drimalas coexist with Bawana Spoons, Spicy Brown, Hedorah, and Gama-Go Ts.

1628 Post, SF. (415) 409-4700, super7store.com

TRUE


Urban outfits cry "Brother, please" for a Zoo York T sporting a Ruthless Records’ NWA single, Parish’s pop art Popsicles, Akomplice abstractions, or Free Gold Watches’ splashy ’80s evocations. Ladies, check Ts by Tens, Palis, Heavy Rotation, and Blood Is the New Black, as well as Mama T’s pseudo-airbrushed ghetto sweetness.

True Men, 1415 Haight, SF. (415) 626-2882; True Women, 1427 Haight, SF. (415) 626-2331; True, 1335 S. Main, Walnut Creek. (925) 280-6747. www.trueclothing.net

UPPER PLAYGROUND


The hella loyal cult that follows this pioneer of urban styles can stock up on all the Muni and Miles UP and Fifty24SF Ts it can stand now that the shop has split in two for men and women — with fresh Jeremy Fish, Sam Flores, and Estevan Oriol for all.

220 Fillmore, SF. (415) 252-0144, www.upperplayground.com

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Emergency exits

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› marke@sfbg.com

I’ve got one copy of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace strapped under my right foot, one strapped under my left. The new 1,400-page Penguin Classics translation by Anthony Briggs makes for a great pair of platforms. My fantasy party posse’s at my side: Felicia Fellatio rocking a hot red bandito bandanna, a full white tutu, and a number 5 Tim Hardaway jersey; Baby Char Char in an oversize pajama-print homeboy hoodie and a pair of random, paint-spattered Levi’s; Nova all angles on her retro-future ’80s Nagel dangling neon banana earrings, turquoise ruffled skirt, and shoulder-padded acid-washed cropped jacket trip; and Hunky Beau in Juicy Couture pipe pants and war paint.

Somebody else is in the corner, wearing pink panties on his head and a giant chain, but no one knows his name.

I feel great. I just finished six weeks of Third Street Gym boxing boot camp, and you could bounce a full congressional subpoena off my abs, darling. (OK, that’s a lie — but I think about going to the gym every time I light up a smoke. That should count for something, no?) We’re out the door to my drag idol Juanita More’s weekly Saturday all-nighter, Playboy, at the Stud (www.juanitamore.com), when suddenly it hits me: today is Saturday, right? I better check the Internet.

I put down my flask of Cuervo and log on, and this little box of "gay news" pops up. (How does the Internet know? Oh, that’s right: all my online porn accounts.) "UN Confirms Anti-Gay Death Squads in Iraq" the top headline reads. Kidnappings, mutilation, charred bodies found by the road. Hmm. A few clicks later: "Iraqi Leaders OK Gay Pogroms." According to activists, Shiite militias are engaging in one of the "most organized and systematic sexual cleansings in history" with the government’s two-cheeked kiss of approval, and the US is refusing asylum to gay Iraqis.

Oh dear. Suddenly the thought of whooping it up while my gay Iraqi rainbow family burns seems kind of, you know, gross.

I’m so fucking sick of feeling powerless against this stupid war. Of always tucking the grief of it somewhere in the back of my mind as I down another shot and hit the dance floor. Not only is it a major buzzkill among other omnipresent buzzkills — global warming, fundamentalist terror, constant surveillance, government-sanctioned queer discrimination, bad hair days — but, as a citizen of the allegedly participatory democracy that started the whole thing, I feel somehow responsible, no matter whom I voted for however many times. And just admitting that, I feel like a spoiled American. It sucks.

On top of that, I have to watch myself and many of those around me struggle to keep the flame of resistance sparkling. It seems exhaustion has seeped into our consciousness and may actually be taking root. I fondly recall the first exhilarating flush of protest — of taking back the streets until my pumps wore through on the first night of "shock and awe," of lying down and blocking traffic in an orange jumpsuit (on purpose for once) as the bombs continued to rain down on civilians half a world away, of wildly dancing with Code Pink and cute Puerto Rican socialists in the NYC streets during the 2004 Republican Convention, hoping the nets the cops threw over us wouldn’t snag my weave. Sure, I still bang my pan with a stick at the occasional ANSWER weekend protest, despite my massive hangover. But after four years of war, it often seems I’m banging fruitlessly. If a club freak chants in a vacuum, will the killing please stop now?

Thank goddess I’ve got the beautiful souls I’ve met at the clubs around me. The kind of nightlife I love is inherently subversive: when one kind of music, location, or style becomes dominant, a host of alternatives immediately springs up. That energy refuels my rebellious spirit and keeps my fight up during the day. Yes, yes, partying is an escape from reality — but it’s also a play space, a way to work out the anxieties of the world by fooling with your identity, a place to push the boundaries of society into a personal utopia.

To me, underground nightlife can also be a fascinatingly warped mirror of the problems facing the world, its trends the raw expression of deep-seated angst. As W. consolidated his political power in the early ’00s, nightlife fashions and music (and drugs) returned to the tastes of the Reagan and Thatcher ’80s, when angular pop and cold synths were a loud rebuke to false sincerity and hubris. The recent explosion of pre-AIDS-era disco and imagery in many gay clubs may be an unconscious wish to transport ourselves to the time before the Republicans’ disastrous "morning in America." And the vibrant local hyphy scene is based on auto sideshows: literally wasting gas (use it while you got it!). Now, well into W.’s second term, we’re reliving the rococo styles of Bush the Elder without irony. Dance floors are looking like a punk rock Cosby Show, and I’m into it.

But that’s all theoretical musing. The most important thing about nightlife is community, whether you’re a full-time club kid or just going out for a drink after work with your friends. You want to be around other people, to not feel so alone in this crazy world, to make a connection. You walk into a bar, and suddenly you’re in a minisociety, one you hope you can handle better than society at large.

Can this community make a difference? Sure. The nightlife community, gay and straight, was instrumental in the fight against AIDS (and still is). It banded together to defeat the antirave legislation of the early ’00s. Tons of parties raise money for good causes. Currently, party-oriented groups such as the League of Pissed Off Voters (sf.indyvoter.org), which reaches out to young people through DJ events, and the SF Party Party (www.sfpartyparty.com), which influences local politics by combining education with clubbing, are doing their best to change the world.

"People on the left these days seem to think that denying themselves pleasure is the only way to take back the government. The early energy of protest against Bush has turned into a kind of self-punishment. That’s so dry and boring — and ultimately useless," says Dr. Stephen Duncombe, editor of the Cultural Resistance Reader and author of the new book Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy. I called him because I wanted to talk about the guilt some of us feel about partying when the world’s going to shit. He’s been a prime mover in theatrical resistance groups such as Reclaim the Streets, the Lower East Side Collective, and the utterly fabulous Billionaires for Bush. (He’s also kind of cute in a young-professor-at-NYU way.)

"We should be using the positive energy of nightlife to show people that politics can be both entertaining and transformational," he continues. "Politics should be a fun, interactive spectacle, like the kind nightlife provides. No one wants to get involved with something if it seems like more work."

Yet still I worry. What would life be like if the war were here? What if I were a gay Iraqi? I trolled the Internet gay hookup sites to find a gay Iraqi to talk to about it. All I could find at first were half-naked American soldiers stationed in the Middle East (we are everywhere!). I eventually came upon a Western-educated gay Iraqi refugee living in Jordan who identified himself as Arje. He said I was being foolish. "Go out and have fun," he replied when I wrote that I didn’t feel like partying off the weight of the world. "Have a dance for me."

Building the bomb

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It seems to be a matter of when, not if, another terrorist bomb will go off in the United States. One day we’ll come across the headline and let out an anguished "Oh, fuck" — a little later we’ll watch a stately funeral in St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, DC. After such tragedy, will I ever be able to walk into a bar and order a nifty Irish Car Bomb again? What’s the buffer zone of alcoholic irony? With limited time before the next blast, I’d like to devote some space to bomb cocktails — in which a shot of something is dropped into a glass of something else — before it’s too late. Something about the plop of the shot and the glup of the drink always leaves a grin. And since I go drinking to get giddy, I’m all for drinks that make me giddy by their mere inception.

Because bombs fall below the purview of many published cocktail guides, there’s actually some debate about what to call them. Johnny Raglin, the bar manager at swanky Absinthe, insists they’re called boilermakers. But that seems to be too general a term: most mixologists say a boilermaker refers only to a shot with a beer. Many bombs don’t involve beer. Gary Regan, author of The Joy of Mixology, told me that he thought "depth charge" sounded good. But ordering a depth charge makes me feel like I’m at a WWII-era flea market. Mark Petrus of the Haight’s Gold Cane Cocktail Lounge may agree; he said he’d probably just call them bombs as well. Below are some of my local favorites — raise a glass and set it off.

BROSEPH


(Mandarin vodka in Sparks)

The arrival of Red Bull led to a proliferation of bombs in America. It was long accepted that the receiving ingredient (what’s in the glass) ought to be carbonated. So before there was Red Bull, beer, champagne, soda, and sparkling water were the only available mediums, and the latter three were rarely used. When Red Bull blew up, it became the bomb tinkerer’s experimental plaything. The Tic-Tac (mandarin vodka dropped in Red Bull) is one of the better leftovers from this heyday of discovery. But now its 2007, and Sparks energy drink has proven its mettle by tasting better. Commendations, then, to the Knockout for upgrading the Tic-Tac to this new formula.

Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.theknockoutsf.com

ORANGE-CICLE


(Baileys and mandarin vodka in Red Bull)

Like the Broseph, the Orange-cicle is just one permutation away from the Tic-Tac. Yet the two couldn’t taste further apart. When tossed back with the proper intensity, the Orange-cicle is creamy and full-bodied and definitely deserving of its name. Aub Zam Zam is also one of those perfect bars for enjoying bombs. With simple decor and a convex bar taking up much of the front room, the cocktail lounge makes it easy to remain focused on drinking.

Persian Aub Zam Zam, 1633 Haight, SF. (415) 861-2545

LA CUCARACHA


(Amaretto and Kahlua, with a flaming floater of 151 rum dropped in cerveza)

The Flaming Dr. Pepper (amaretto and rum dropped in beer and set on fire) is one of the oldest bombs outside a shot of whiskey dropped into some cheap beer. It is also the most notorious: numerous novice drinkers (most of them rowdy teens) have found themselves in the emergency room with second-degree burns after gulping down too many rounds of FDPs. It seems best to avoid the drink, out of fear not for one’s delicate lips but for one’s reputation — who wants to look like an amateur? Fortunately, La Cucaracha at Bahia, which just adds a little Kahlua to the mix, is even better than the original. First of all, it disposes of the pretension that the drink tastes like Dr. Pepper. More important, though, the Kahlua gives it added bite — round after round, this bomb never fizzles out.

Bahia Restaurant, 3239 22nd St., SF. (415) 642-7224, www.forored.com/bahiarestaurant

WISCONSIN LUNCHBOX


(Amaretto dropped into Pabst with a splash of orange juice)

I slowed down halfway through gulping back the Wisconsin Lunchbox at Mauna Loa Club because it tasted so good. The nutty tones of amaretto mix great with the citrus kick of the OJ, but the tastes blend even better with the sweet starchiness of Pabst. Two sips later, though, and I knew my lax pacing was a mistake. When the cocktail’s drunk slowly, all the flavors that once sailed off hand in hand became boorish. It tasted like a way-too-fruity beer. Throw this one down quickly.

Mauna Loa Club, 3009 Fillmore, SF. (415) 563-5137

ABC


(Soju in champagne)

In Korea business deals are consummated over a drink called Poktanju ("alcohol bomb," or "bomb shot"), which is whiskey or the less expensive Soju dropped into beer. Seeing as we don’t have the same thirst for beer as Koreans, I wouldn’t feel comfortable completely copying them. It’s better we go our own way with this sprightly and slightly tangy bomb. Hitherto, I’ve only been able to chug champagne in those moments when I recognize how boring my friends are and start daring myself to see how many gulps of bubbly I can take in a row. On this occasion, at Bar 821, after the clank of the shot glass and the fizz of the drink, I just got caught up in the bliss of it.

Bar 821, 821 Divisadero, SF. www.bar821.com

SUICIDE BOMB


(Red Bull in Jägermeister)

What tonnage! The Suicide Bomb will definitely lead you into some mischief. Pops Bar doesn’t regularly serve this cocktail — I found it while screwing around on Wikipedia, and Pops was willing to serve it to me at a reasonable price. You could probably ask for a shot of Red Bull to drop into a half glass of Jäger almost anywhere. Just as a grain of vermouth does wonders to bury the edges of gin in a martini, the Red Bull brings precisely enough luster to this drink. That’s not to say it tastes good. But with a little Red Bull, you at least have something else to focus on while you pour flat, heavy, extremely alcoholic goop down the hatch.

Pops Bar, 2800 24th St., SF. (415) 401-7677

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Politics Blog – Obama Rally

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Whistle blower axed

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Dan Cooke, an educator and historical interpreter who guided tours of Alcatraz Island for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, has been fired in the wake of a Guardian article that quoted him complaining about a sewage spill in the Bay.

On March 3, 2007 Cooke was informed by his supervisor, John Moran, that his position had been terminated because there weren’t enough hours available to keep him employed.
However, the day before Cooke was fired, and for several days after, the GGNPC website was advertising an immediate opening for the same position as Cooke’s. That posting has since been removed from the web site.
Cooke has filed an administrative complaint with the United States Department of Labor against GGNPC and NPS, claiming he should be protected under the whistleblower provisions of several federal environmental and health safety acts.

Cooke was a source for an article about possible sewage spills on the island (see “Smelly Situation,” Dec. 27, 2006) and told the Guardian that on Oct. 13 he witnessed Alcatraz Cruises boat crew hosing raw sewage into the bay from an overflowing holding tank on the island. The spill was also witnessed by the captain of a passing ferry boat, who reported what he saw to California’s Environmental Protection Agency.

National Park Service spokespeople dismissed those claims in interviews with us for the article and said it was their understanding the spill in question was just salt water.
Cooke was a part-time, “on-call” employee and his hours often fluctuated with the seasons. In December, he took two months off to visit his family in England, but since his return in late January he had not been scheduled for any shifts.

He contacted his supervisor, Moran, to find out why. According to the administrative complaint filed by Cooke’s lawyer, Eleanor Morton, “Moran told Cooke that Cooke’s statements in the San Francisco Bay Guardian article had ‘caused a big flap’ at GGNPC and NPS. Moran said that there had been multiple meetings about the article. Moran said that there was a high level of anger and resentment at GGNPC toward Cooke for his statements, that NPS was very concerned and that Moran himself had felt pressured to say that he also was angry at Cooke.”

Cooke says he noted the spill in the NPS logbook because that was protocol, and spoke to the Guardian because he was concerned about public health and safety. “My training is if you see things that concern you, write them down and inform your supervisor,” he said.

When contacted by the Guardian, NPS spokesperson Chris Powell said, “the National Park Service has no comment at this time. We just can’t talk about things like this.”

GGNPC also refused to comment on personnel issues.

Cooke remains concerned about conditions of the sewage system on the island and whether or not what he and others witnessed on October 13 has been properly investigated. “I’ve never been asked a question about this once by anyone at the National Park Service. Nobody’s ever asked me what happened,” he said. He said that the park’s superintendent, Brian O’Neill. “needs to say when these events occur we will do a proper investigation.”
Assemblymembers Mark Leno and Fiona Ma agree. After reading the Guardian article, as well as receiving additional evidence of possible E. coli-riddled bilge water from a boat in the Alcatraz fleet, Leno and Ma called on the NPS and San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to investigate the island and ferry service sewage issues.

In a joint letter drafted Jan. 17, they wrote: “The Alcatraz Ferry Service is one of San Francisco’s major tourist destinations with international visibility and the volume of these trips is significant. For these reasons, we would like to know if the problems …have been thoroughly or should be thoroughly investigated by your agency with assistance from the appropriate federal or local officials.”

Superintendent O’Neill responded that “the investigations were closed as ‘unjustified complaints’” and questioned the origin and verity of the E.Coli test sample, which obtained by Marina Secchitano, regional director of the Inland Boatmen’s Union, who has been protesting Alcatraz Cruises ferry contract with the NPS (See “Casting off,” Sep. 26, 2006).

O’Neill questioned Secchitano’s ability to gain access to the bilge of the boat from where it’s claimed the sample hailed, and also said the results were from a lab where “this was not the kind of testing that they do.” But in fact, someone with access to the bilge gave the sample to Secchitano – and the lab in question, Brelje and Race, confirmed that this is, in fact, exactly the kind of testing they do.

“We received a copy of your letter discrediting our laboratory results,” wrote Ann Hill to the NPS. “Although we can’t vouch for where this sample was collected from, we do stand by our results….We did not tell Alcatraz Cruises that this was not the type of testing we do. I talked with them and told them we did not collect or pick up samples that far away.” Which wasn’t an issue in this case, since a spokesperson for the union told us Secchitano brought the sample to the lab.

As far as what Cooke and an anonymous captain witnessed, O’Neill continued to maintain it was just sea water. “This complaint is erroneous and unjustified; allow us to clarify what happened,” he wrote, submitting as evidence a written statement from the island’s facilities engineer, James L. Adams — except the incident Adams cites, of a parted salt water line, was four days after the overflowing shit tank that Cooke and the captain saw.

“The letter kind of skirted the question,” said Ma spokesperson, Nick Hardeman, summing up O’Neill’s response. “The Brian O’Neill letter to Fiona and Mark is all the more reason there needs to be an independent investigation. There are disputing facts here. We need to find out what’s going on.” Hardeman has met with Cooke and is in discussion with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office to determine the proper jurisdiction for a full and independent investigation of the sewage system on Alcatraz and handling of it by Alcatraz Cruises.

Cooke says that’s the only reason he ever noted the spill in the first place. “I want an investigation. I want to go back to work. And I’d like the toilets to get fixed on the island. It’s a basic right for workers and visitors to the park,” he said. “If the net result is the termination of a person related to the leaking of the information, if that’s the only follow-up instead of an investigation, that’s a problem.” At this point, he is considering further legal action but is demanding only that the job he loves be reinstated and the appropriate back pay granted.

“The firing of Dan Cooke clearly raises a red flag,” Ma said in a statement to the Guardian. “My hope is that the National Park Service is committed to the protection of the fragile ecosystem of the Bay. If even some of Mr. Cooke’s allegations are true, it’s clear that NPS mistakenly thinks their reputation matters more than our environment.”

Noise Blog – SXSW Journal

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The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (3/15/07)

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Casualties in Iraq

U.S. military:

4 U.S. soldiers were killed today by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-US-Casualties.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

3,433: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

For the Department of Defense statistics go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/

For a more detailed list of U.S. Military killed in the War in Iraq go to:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.01.html

Iraqi civilians:

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

58,862 – 64,682: Killed since 1/03

For a week by week assessment of significant incidents and trends in Iraqi civilian casualties, go to A Week in Iraq by Lily Hamourtziadou. She is a member of the Iraq Body Count project, which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq.

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 11 March 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/35/

For first hand accounts of the grave situation in Iraq, visit some of these blogs:
www.ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com
www.healingiraq.blogspot.com
www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

Antiestablishmentarianism attitudes among Iraqi religious groups is fueling intolerance and violence towards homosexuals in Iraq, according to the UN.

Source: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/february/0202071.htm

Iraq Military:

Despite the Bush administrations promise to empower Iraqi women, opportunities remain limited, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Source

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

151: Killed since 3/03

Source: http://www.infoshout.com/

Refugees:

The Bush administration plans to increase quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. from 500 to 7,000 next year in response to the growing refugee crisis, according to the Guardian Unlimited.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2013034,00.html

Border policies are tightening because one million Iraqi refugees have already fled to Jordan and another one million to Syria. Iraqi refugees who manage to make it out of Iraq still can’t work, have difficulty attending school and are not eligible for health care. Many still need to return to Iraq to escape poverty, according to BBC news.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6293807.stm

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

Many refugees were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimates.

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html

U.S. Military Wounded:

47,657: Wounded since 3/19/03 to 1/6/07

Source: http://www.icasualties.org/

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (3/15/07): Bush asks congress to approve $622 billion for 2008. So far, $408 billion for the U.S., $51 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly

Bush asked congress to approve $622 billion for defense spending, most for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a $2.9 trillion budget request for 2008, according to Reuters.
Source: http://today.reuters.com/

Here is a running total of the cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayer, provided by the National Priorities Project located in Northampton, Massachusetts. The number is based on Congressional appropriations. Niko Matsakis of Boston, MA and Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, MD originally created the count in 2003 on costofwar.com. After maintaining it on their own for the first year, they gave it to the National Priorities Project to contribute to their ongoing educational efforts.

To bring the cost of the war home, please note that California has already lost $46 billion and San Francisco has lost $1 billion to the Bush war and his mistakes. In San Francisco alone, the funds used for the war in Iraq could have hired 21,264 additional public school teachers for one year, we could have built 11,048 additional housing units or we could have provided 59,482 students four-year scholarships at public universities. For a further breakdown of the cost of the war to your community, see the NPP website aptly titled “turning data into action.”

Scene: Nightlife during wartime

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SCENECover.jpg

Big wheel

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› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Perhaps Fall Out Boy said it most succinctly: this ain’t a scene — it’s an arms race. Joe Boyd — Hannibal Records founder, producer, general 1960s-era scenemaker and welcome arm for many an intrepid musical tourist, and now author of White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s (Serpent’s Tail, $18) — has seen battle on the front lines of UK rock. He knows when to drop his fascinating bombs, when to jump into the fray — such as when he stage-managed Bob Dylan’s landmark electric Newport performance — and when to step back and let nature or L. Ron Hubbard take the course — like the time his discoveries the Incredible String Band glommed on to Scientology. Battle-scarred but unbroken, Boyd has soldiered on down the road with Muddy Waters and Coleman Hawkins, scored early production credits overseeing Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse’s “Crossroads” and Pink Floyd’s first single, discovered Nick Drake and Fairport Convention, and gone on to make records for songwriting enlistees ranging from Toots and the Maytals and REM to Billy Bragg and Vashti Bunyan, in addition to organizing inspired scores for films such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller. So trust that Boyd knows whereof he speaks when he says that when it came to writing his first book, it was best to take a long view.
“Of course, I have read a lot of music books in my time,” the 64-year-old says on the phone from London, “and there’s a lot of books that I’ve read that are full of interesting information, but they’re very stodgy, and they’re very crammed with information that only guys who live alone with 8,000 LPs really want to know about. So I was very conscious of wanting to write a book that, every once in a while, occasionally, a young person or a female might want to read.”
Is Boyd trying to say that most music books seem to cater to male collectors? “Yeah, I’ve done a lot of book signings, and I can tell you what the queue looks like. There’s a lot of beards. There’s a lot of bald pates. There’s a lot of gray hair, and every once in a while there’s a twentysomething woman in the queue, and then you kind of make sure your hair is combed straight,” Boyd says mirthfully. “Then she comes up to the head of the queue and says, ‘Will you please sign it “To Peter”? It’s for my father for his 60th birthday.’<\!q>”
Of course, in attempting to dodge the earnest fan, Boyd has taken fire from the obsessives who say he didn’t include enough about, for instance, John Martyn. And some women, as luck and long lines would have it, have griped that he didn’t include enough about his love life. Guess they didn’t get to the end of a chapter deep in where, almost as a punch line, he allows that his on-and-off girlfriend Linda Peters — who was with him when he was producing his sole number one hit, “Dueling Banjos,” for Deliverance — eventually married Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson.
Telling his tales plainly as if, he confesses, he’s “sitting at a table with a bottle of wine, dominating the conversation,” Boyd throws out his take on the fetal ABBA; the quasi-resident combo at his UFO Club, Pink Floyd; artists less known stateside, such as the Watersons; and crazy diamonds in the elegant rough such as the painfully shy Drake. Boyd produced 1969’s Five Leaves Left and 1970’s Bryter Layter (both Hannibal) and witnessed some of Drake’s sad decline, going as far to write, “There is certainly a virginal quality about his music, and I never saw him behaving in a sexual way with anyone, male or female. Linda Thompson tried to seduce Nick once, but he just sat on the end of the bed, fully clothed, looking at his hands…. Yet Nick’s music is supremely sensual: the delicate whisper of his voice, the romantic melodies, the tenderly sad lyrics, the intricate dexterity of his fingers on the guitar.”
“I don’t really say anything that isn’t already out there,” Boyd says now. “In a way what I’m saying is his privacy remains inviolate.” Boyd’s ear has also remained inviolate, as seen with the ’90s attention to Drake, whose “Pink Moon” Boyd licensed to Volkswagen, although “by the time the commercial came out, the records had been selling more and more,” from the initial 3,000 to 100,000 a year. “My feelings are best described as ‘what took you so long?’<\!q>”
Regardless, he continues, “I never made the sort of records that you put into the normal process. You had to come up with original strategies and eccentric ways of presenting a group in order for the kind of records that I made to sell.”
These days Boyd prefers to battle the page (his next book is on world music) rather than run a label after all he has been through with Rykodisc, which bought Hannibal, and Palm Pictures, which in turn swallowed Rykodisc. Still, the feisty music lover isn’t above a parting volley. “I’m optimistic about the music industry,” he says, equal parts wag and curmudgeon. “I think the dinosaurs will go to the tar pits and that will be fine. And all their distant cousins will turn into birds.”<\!s>SFBG
JOE BOYD
Tues/20, 7:30 p.m., free
Black Oak Books
1491 Shattuck, Berk.
(510) 486-0698
Also March 21, 7 p.m., free
Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
LISTEN, DON’T BE DISSIN’
DR. DOG
We All Belong (Park the Van) finds the Philly psych-swamp canines breaking out some toothsome songcraft. Thurs/15, 9 p.m., $10–<\d>$12. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016
PINK CLOUDS AND THE PSYCRONS
Gnarly SF psych rockers caterwaul alongside paisley-drenched Kyoto kids — all hail garage skronk, mademoiselle. Sun/18, 8 p.m., $10–<\d>$12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455
UNDER BYEN
Does this highly touted sprawling ensemble boil down to Denmark’s Bjorkestra — with kalimba, strings, and tuba? Mon/19, 8 p.m., $13. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750
SNAKE FLOWER II
Matthew M. Melton (Memphis Break-ups, the River City Tanlines) was stranded by his bandmates in San Francisco but has managed to peel out the muy groovy reptilian garage punk once more. March 26, 8 p.m., $5–<\d>$20 (Mission Creek fundraiser). 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF.

On grappka

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A small peeve of mine is grappa served at or near room temperature, as if it’s cough syrup. Perhaps I am churlish to complain about tepid grappa when having the chance to order grappa at all is a rare treat; even many Italian restaurants don’t offer it. On the other hand, ice-cold grappa is simply sublime — at least for those of us who find it so — and keeping the bottle stashed in the freezer under the bar doesn’t seem like a terrible burden. Can it be that grappa is widely, if dimly, assumed to be just another brandy, like cognac, and, like cognac, is best appreciated in a lukewarmish state?

I keep my own bottle of grappa (at the moment a moscato distillation, from Italy’s Antica Distilleria Negroni) in the freezer, where it was recently joined by a bottle of Swan’s Neck grape vodka. Grape vodka has been, until recently, a minor curiosity whose center of production was France. Most vodkas are produced from grains and potatoes; grape vodka, by contrast, is distilled from wine. (Swan’s Neck uses French wines made from undisclosed varietals and distills them in traditional copper alembics.) The unaged spirit is something of a cross, then, between cognac (distilled from wine but aged in oak) and grappa (distilled from fermented grape-crush remnants instead of wine but not aged), though its mountain-stream clearness seems to put it nearer grappa on the spectrum of spirits. I find myself thinking of it as grappka.

And how do the two cousins compare? I thought I would find little or no difference between them, but a brief taste test revealed that grappa and grappka can be pretty easily distinguished. The latter, despite its vinous origins, is still a vodka and, even when chilled overnight in the freezer, retains vodka’s distinctive edge, smooth and precise as a just-sharpened chef’s knife. And grappa is still grappa and still has a slightly unkempt bouquet of fruitiness, like that of a neglected bramble patch heavy with berries.

I could not say I prefer one over the other, especially when both are ice-cold. The grappka has a grander pedigree and, while potent, is silken in the throat. Grappa is fierier and maybe a little cruder, as befits its roots as a leftover; it must be one of the world’s most lovable overachievers. For digestif honors, I call it a dead heat.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

TUESDAY

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March 20

EVENT

“Four Years Later: American Soldiers Share Their Stories on the Anniversary of the War”

Once a skilled firefighter, National Guard Sgt. Brett Miller was unable to dial a phone number after a roadside blast in Iraq left him with a brain injury. But Miller is one of the lucky ones. After four years of war in Iraq, more than 3,000 soldiers have died and countless others been permanently disabled. Miller and fellow veterans Army Sgt. Camille Evans and Infantry Officer Paul Reickhoff will mark this grave anniversary trading traumatic war tales at InForum’s “Four Years Later.” (Joshua Rotter)

6:30 p.m., $7-$20
Commonwealth Club of California
595 Market, second floor, SF
(415) 597-6705
www.commonwealthclub.org

MUSIC

Two Sheds

There are clips floating around YouTube of Two Sheds performing in a San Diego television studio. The cameras track across the soundstage and dissolve between Unplugged-style close-ups of fret boards and musicians, who look perfect under the parcan lighting. Though they clearly nail renditions of “Perfect” and “For Theresa,” the sterile TV-land setting seems an unbefitting package for Two Sheds, whose charm lies in the direct, personal effect of singer Caitlin Gutenberger’s lyrical inventions. (Nathan Baker)

9 p.m., $7
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888
www.makeoutroom.com

SUNDAY

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March 18

FILM

Avenue Montaigne

The essayist Phillip Lopate once noted the “genius for formalizing the unformal” that is particular to the French. Danièle Thompson’s Avenue Montaigne – an airy comedy played in a round – offers one such example. English-language critics can be expected to run through their French dessert vocabulary describing its confection. It goes down easy enough, and its interlocking story scheme prefers the farce of La Ronde to the hardcore histrionics of another exercise in simultaneity (Babel). And with theaters filled with that kind of feel-bad windbag, one can be forgiven for seeking out the occasional bonbon. (Max Goldberg)

In San Francisco theaters
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

MUSIC

Pink Clouds and Psycrons

Gnarly SF psych-rockers caterwaul alongside paisley-drenched Kyoto kids — all hail garage skronk,
mademoiselle. (Kimberly Chun)

With Vomica and Mothballs
8 p.m., $10-$12
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
(415) 621-4455.

SATURDAY

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March 17

VISUAL ART

Jim Campbell, “Home Movies”

When I think about SF artist Jim Campbell, I also think about the Icelandic musician Jóhann Jóhannson and his recent album IBM 1401, a User’s Manual (4AD). In particular I think of the final song, “The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black,” in which Jóhannson creates a final aria for the extinct computer for which his father once served as chief maintenance engineer. The uncanny mix of emotion and inhuman chill in that composition takes on more effective forms in some of Campbell’s pieces. In fact, a few of his early works perform similar variations on paternal and maternal ties manifested through technology. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Through April 28
4-6 p.m. reception, free
Hosfelt Gallery
430 Clementina, SF
(415) 495-5454
www.hosfeltgallery.com

MUSIC

G3

On the shoulder of every guitar player, there resides a small elf who whispers into the guitarist’s ear, “Shred! Shred as hard and as fast as you can every second of every day until the combination of your fingers and a fret board results in an explosion of rock so epic and grandiose that it would wake Jimi Hendrix from his heavenly slumber.” Most guitarists ignore the elf and end up writing songs about their feelings. Not the gentlemen of G3 (Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and Paul Gilbert), a rotating tour of guys whose elves were so big that the rockers strapped sequined white leather saddles on them and rode off into the sunset. (Aaron Sankin)

8 p.m.
$45-$85
Berkeley Community Theatre
1900 Allston Way, Berk.
(510) 664-8593
www.satriani.com/G3

FRIDAY

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March 16

MUSIC

Fukwerk Fridays with DJ Limacon

If you’re like most office workers, you’re already working for the weekend as soon as your alarm unleashes its first thumpings Monday morning. Then why not get the weekend started early at Fukwerk Fridays, the Bay Area Beatdrop-run happy hour dance party featuring local DJs who share an affinity for minimal Berlin techno? This week’s guest, DJ Limacon, a.k.a. Santa Cruz’s Christopher T. Lee, has released synth-heavy, tech funk discs Muster Funk (Intrinsic Design, 2006), which are great late-night grooves. (Joshua Rotter)

5 p.m., free
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna Street, SF
(415) 974-1719
www.babd.org

MUSIC/EVENT

Hotel Utah 30th Anniversary Weekend with the Culver City Dub Collective

It’s hard to believe but true: that venerable venue of low-key, low-cost live music, the Hotel Utah, hits the big 3-0 just in time for St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Don’t expect any jigs or reels, though, as the Culver City Dub Collective take the stage – their mellow beats are tinged with the tonal colors of old Jamaica rather than the cool green of the Emerald Isle. (Nicole Gluckstern)

With Pollo del Mar, White Thighs,
and Thao Nguyen
Also Sat/17 with the Mumlers
8:30 p.m., $10
Hotel Utah
500 Fourth St., SF
(415) 546-6300
www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

THURSDAY

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March 15

THEATER

H 3-D: The True Tale of the Haddonfield Babysitter Murderer

Film critics always get asked to name their favorite movie. My twisted, popcorn-flavored heart belongs to Halloween, John Carpenter’s 1978 horror masterpiece. Gods of gore be blessed, the Primitive Screwheads are mounting H 3-D: The True Tale of the Haddonfield Babysitter Murderer. It’s being presented in something they’re calling Screw-U-Vision, with special specs provided. With the Screwheads in the house, audience members will be hosed with stage blood every time a certain trick-or-treater draws his butcher knife. Mixed holiday alert: on St. Patty’s, the blood’ll be green as a whistle. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through March 24
Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m., $20-$25
Xenodrome Theater
1320 Potrero, SF
www.primitivescrewheads.com

MUSIC

Dr. Dog

“We All Belong” (Park the Van) finds the Philly psych-swamp canines breaking out some toothsome
songcraft. (Kimberly Chun)

9 p.m., $10-$12
Cafe du Nord
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016

WEDNESDAY

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March 14

EVENT

Pi Day

How hot is math right now? Hot enough for me to date a geek just so I can leave him and upgrade once he becomes a billionaire. Right now I’m breaking out my high school textbooks in preparation for Pi Day at the Exploratorium on March 14 (a.k.a. 3.14). And it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday! The museum will celebrate with a gathering around the pi shrine at 1:59 p.m. to sing Pi Day songs and make a beaded pi string. (Elaine Santore)

1:59 p.m., $8-$13
Exploratorium
Palace of Fine Arts
3601 Lyon, SF
(415) 561-0360
www.exploratorium.edu

MUSIC

Dead Science

After signing to Berkeley’s Absolutely Kosher Records, Seattle’s the Dead Science are running as pop weirdos, though the band’s sometimes silky, sometimes scuzzy jazz rock dynamism reminds me more of groups such as the Dirty Three and Tin Hat Trio. Whatever its correct classification might be, the trio cooks up the kind of dense, dreamy sound that could score a nightclub scene in a David Lynch movie. (Max Goldberg)

With Parenthetical Girls
8 p.m., $7
21 Grand
416 25th St., Oakl.
(510) 444-7263
www.21grand.org

Siebel meltdown

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