Volume 42 [2007–08]

Creature feature

-
0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

Nature — in its many contrived or bizarrely hybridized forms — has ways of rearing its at-times-grotesque, at-times-seductive heads in Misako Inaoka’s work. Are her cunning mutants little monsters — be they chirping mechanical birds with propeller beaks or flowery pincushion pates, or donkeys or cattle mermaid-merged with John Deere tractor parts? Miniature extras from a lost installment of Ultraman? The petit-four-size stuff of surrealist nightmares? Or bio freaks in search of a new species to call their own?

It’s easy to get carried away by the puckish black humor of these critter creations or simply their kawaii — or cute — qualities, before sinking deeper into Inaoka’s query into the nature of authenticity vs. artifice, an idea that also crops up in her mossy or AstroTurfed environments, one of which will receive prominent placement in the glass-enclosed hall facing Mission Street during "Bay Area Now 5." "I’m interested in the way we mimic nature to create an urban landscape. When we can’t have access to real nature, we have AstroTurf. Or these birds that people purchase for amusement or as a pet," says the deeply tanned, elfin 31-year-old in the sweltering Dogpatch studio she shares with about six other artists. "Even I forget when I go to the park. I think, ‘Oh, this looks beautiful and smells great and looks green.’ But it’s all manicured."

If, in less than four decades, humans are expected to vault beyond pacemakers and merge with machines and some form of artificial intelligence, thereby erasing distinctions between organic, animate beings and inorganic, inanimate objects, as scientists like synth inventor Ray Kurzweil have theorized, then Inaoka’s small sculptures — created by chopping apart dollar- and toy-store creatures and reconfiguring them with resin, toy parts, and flower-store detritus — resemble harbingers of the new hybrids we all might be rushing toward in the quest to adapt to a rapidly shifting environment. "This is my fantasy — what if they can change quickly and if they could adapt easily," says Inaoka, as she shows me another piece she created specifically for "BAN 5" (she also has work in Stephen Wirtz Gallery’s "Summer ’08" group show, through Aug. 23): white birch branches scattered with silver-coated bird-mods sporting jet wings, machine parts, and, in one case, a walker.

The Kyoto, Japan, native received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from Mills College, where, on that beauteous, highly controlled campus, she first began to experiment with making moss-clad environments. Since then her work has received its share of stereotypical responses: comparisons to Zen gardens, ikebana, or bonsai. But Inaoka prefers to find inspiration in common, everyday objects she might find in her Mission District habitat: a tree-shaped cell phone antenna or the little flowers that push through the cracks of the sidewalk. "I try not to think too much," says Inaoka of her process. "I just make and make like I was five years old again. Then the thinking process or research follows. ‘Why did I make this shape? Why did this come up?’ When I have too many concepts, it just kind of kills the energy."

Super Wofler

-
0

Super Wofler! That’s as good a nickname as any for artist, curator, teacher, and creative tornado Jenifer K. Wofford. In Denmark, a Super Wofler is a mass-produced ice cream cone — as Wofford discovered during a recent artist-in-residence stint near Copenhagen, where she also tracked down a version of Planters’ elusive and endangered CheezBalls, as well as a school named Wofford College, founded in 1854.

But in the Bay Area and in the Philippines, the Super Wofler of Wofford College is Wofford, whose project Galleon Trade invokes and revises Spanish colonial trade routes to forge new cultural and critical exchange. Sparked by Wofford’s curatorial and organizational acumen, Galleon Trade kicked off one year ago in Manila, the Philippines, where art by 12 Californians — including Michael Arcega and Stephanie Syjuco — landed at two galleries, accompanied by many of the artists. Last year, the Guardian gave Goldie awards to Wofford and Arcega, but many other Galleon Trade participants — such as Jaime Cortez and Gina Osterloh — have made equally striking and impressive work.

Wofford has a large San Francisco installment of Galleon Trade planned for the Luggage Store Gallery next year. For the moment, the "BAN 5" version will spotlight some local Galleon Trade–ers, and some Filipino artists — like Norberto "Peewee" Roldan of Green Papaya Art Projects — who Wofford met last summer. "A couple artists are doing work that is phenomenological as opposed to overtly political," she says, during a phone interview that includes an only half-joking reference to "carpetbaggers" when the touchy topic of including non–Bay Area artists is broached. "I could see people getting pinched about the fact that we’re expanding the idea of what should be included." Who says the Bay Area only resides in the Bay Area, anyway?

GALLEON TRADE Sept. 5–Oct. 19 in the YBCA Terrace Galleries. Opening party, Sept. 4, 5–8 p.m.

Book ’em

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Michael Swaine is contagious. Whether investigating Reap What You Sew/Sewing for the People (2001, ongoing) in the streets of the Tenderloin, using braille to make a Plea for Tenderness (2007) at the Southern Exposure Gallery, or joining forces with Futurefarmers and the interdisciplinary design studio’s founder, Amy Franceschini, with whom Swaine began collaborating in 1998, the San Francisco artist brings a driven curiosity and sense of aesthetic detail to every project he touches. If you experience his work, you can’t help but get involved. He has been dubbed Futurefarmers’ "analog anchor," and his involvement in "BAN 5"’s Ground Scores: Guided Tours of San Francisco Past and Personal, guest-curated by Valerie Imus, is an ideal real-world interactive piece in a city of book lovers.

Swaine hopes his walking tours of individual home libraries, How to Organize a Public Library, elicit new audiences for art. He wants to reach "outsiders who don’t go to museums, who perhaps don’t want to go to museums," he said recently on the phone from his SF studio. "Maybe they just happen to love books." Everyone on the tour will be an "active participant," he said. To sign up, people will fill out a survey and must agree to include their own home library on the tour — if it fits the grid of walkable homes that weekend.

The artist is no stranger to walking tours. When he first moved to the Bay Area, he worked at the Exploratorium and fell in love with Bob Miller’s "light walks." These inspired Swaine’s now-legendary "weed walks" that he co-leads with botanist Archie Wessells, and first developed in the Exploratorium parking lot. For his 30th birthday, Swaine organized a 17-hour walk around San Francisco, meeting a different friend each hour and "connecting the dots."

I could connect with Swaine’s vision: my father, an architect in Santa Cruz, has long dreamed of building a library structurally based on the Iliad. What this means, exactly, neither of us knows, but talking about it has been a great bonding ritual for years. Maybe I can convince my dad to come up to the city and turn my sporadically gathered collection of 1970s poetry books and photography monographs into a Homeric fort. If I can, you are all invited to come by with plastic spears and knock it down. Then, with Swaine’s guidance, we might begin to farm the future, collaborating with the books at our feet.

HOW TO ORGANIZE A PUBLIC LIBRARY Walking tours Aug. 23 and 30 (also Sept. 20 and 27), noon–4 p.m. Locations to be announced. For reservations, call (415) 978-2710, ext. 136, or go to www.apleafortenderness.com

Nailing it

-
0

Queens Nails Annex has long had its street-level glam talons on the pulse of the Mission District art scene — one that so often melds visual art, music, film and video, and performance — so it’s fitting that unexpected connections are emerging from its curatorial contribution to "BAN 5": "Estacion Odesia," a four-parter named for a metro stop that will present visual works by artists and musicians at QNA and their audio pieces at YBCA listening stations; produce a limited-edition box set of music and visual artifacts; and throw a music club with downloadable playlists, an opportunity to share tracks, and monthly meetings. One surprise at the QNA show has to be the video piece by Renee Green, the dean of graduate programs at the San Francisco Art Institute, which QNA cofounder Julio César Morales describes as an extremely media-ted portrait of Green’s brother Derrick, the vocalist-guitarist of Sepultura, painted with magazine stories and radio interviews without using any of the metal giants’ actual music. "It’s an interesting mix of documentary and her personal connection to her brother," Morales muses.

ESTACION ODESIA Sat/19–Nov. 16, YBCA, first floor galleries. Also July 25–Aug. 30, Queens Nails Annex, 3191 Mission, SF. (415) 648-4564, www.queensnailsannex.com. Music club happens Aug. 15, Sept. 15, and Oct. 17, 7 p.m.

Nuclear fallout

-
0

› sarah@sfbg.com

As the US Navy prepares to deal with its radioactive past at the Hunters Point Shipyard (HPS) — inviting folks to submit comments by July 28 on its proposed cleanup plan for Parcel B — community members are struggling to understand the threat and its implications.

Bayview–Hunters Point residents and environmental and public health advocates gathered July 8 at City College’s Southeast Community Facility to hear from and question Navy officials, but few came away satisfied. Most expressed doubts about the Navy’s credibility, or confusion about the exact risks to human health and the environment from the plan to clean up radiological, soil, and water contamination.

For the past 25 years, this 59-acre property has housed a colony of artists in the site’s Building 103, in studios rented through the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. In September the artists will be ejected, either to portables and buildings on the shipyard or to an offsite location, so the Navy can excavate the building’s storm drains and sewers where low levels of radiological contamination have been found.

HPS Base Realignment and Conversion Environmental Coordinator Keith Forman explained at the meeting that when the Navy first presented a cleanup plan for Parcel B in 1997, it had not surveyed for radionuclides, remnants of the shipyard’s military past.

That 2001 survey revealed that there are 14 sites on Parcel B that may have been exposed to radiation, including Building 103. The Navy’s 2004 Historical Radiological Assessment reveals that while Building 103 began as a non-nuclear submarine barracks, Operation Crossroad personnel subsequently used it as a decontamination center after an atomic test went awry in July 1946 in the South Pacific.

In that test, the Navy detonated two bombs the size used on Nagasaki in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll. One bomb, the HRA notes, was an underwater burst called Shot Baker, which "caused a tremendous bubble of water and steam that broke the ocean’s surface."

"Then a huge wave, over 90 feet high … rolled over target and support vessels as well as the islands of the atoll," the HRA records. "Vast quantities of radioactive debris rained down on the target and support ships, islands and lagoon."

Seventy-nine ships were sent to the Navy’s radiological center at Hunters Point Shipyard for decontamination, a site chosen in part because University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University were nearby to support the radiation studies.

The following year, from April through August 1947, the Navy burned 610,000 gallons of radioactively contaminated ship fuel at HPS. Also, workers sandblasting contamination at the shipyard’s dry docks showered in Parcel B’s Building 103, raising the current concern that cesium-137, cobalt-60, plutonium-239, radium-226 (from radioactive decay of uranium-238) and strontium-90 could be present in underground drains and sewers.

The 2004 HRA also identified two plots on Parcel B, IR07 and IR18, as having been used as dumps for radioluminescent devices and possibly more sandblast debris. It also listed a discharge channel between a pump house and Drydock 3 as radiologically impacted.

Currently the Navy is proposing to excavate soil from IR-07 and IR-18, including known mercury and methane spots, and ship it to dumps in Idaho and Utah; fill and seal the suspect discharge channel; cover potentially radiologically impacted soil; and stipulate that these two areas be used as open space in future plans for the base.

The cost of the Navy’s proposed radiological cleanup is $29.6 million. The Navy also proposes spending $13 million on amended soil and sediment cleanup, and $2.7 million on amended groundwater remediation.

Forman told the crowd that the Navy’s old soil remedy was a "bad fit." Excavations were larger than expected, Forman said, and showed no pattern of release. "There was no end in sight for the Navy," Forman said. "It didn’t look as if we were doing what we were meant to do: namely, find Navy-caused spills."

Forman also criticized the Navy’s old groundwater remedy as being "very passive." He proposed a remedy that includes more monitoring along the shoreline and using contaminant-eating bacteria to cleanup groundwater contaminants.

"The old remedy did not consider risks to wildlife and aquatic organisms at the shoreline, whereas the amended remedy will," Forman noted. "It was silent on this issue, yet we know the area has a shoreline."

Ultimately, amending the Navy’s cleanup plan is "about protecting human health and the environment," Forman said.

Green Action’s Marie Harrison was critical of the Navy’s failure to explain the risks in simple terms. "You talked about risk assessment, but you never told us what the risks were," Harrison said. "What is the risk to human life? How is capping going to stop it going into the bay? I’m not a scientist. I don’t have a PhD. I was hoping you were going to give me some kind of knowledge."

Harrison also worried that the Navy was not factoring in the cumulative risks for people living and working in the surrounding community who visit the shoreline to relax. Told that manganese, nickel, and arsenic are present in risky quantities, Harrison was referred to online information at www.bracpmo.navy.mil and to documents housed at the San Francisco’s Main and Third Street libraries.

Other community members criticized the Navy for not doing enough outreach to the Samoans, Latinos, and Asians in the community, and for having taken too long to acknowledge radiological impacts.

"Do you really want us to believe that no one was aware of nuclear waste and spills, given this was a Superfund site?" said Espanola Jackson, a BVHP resident since 1948.

"What I expect you to believe," Forman replied, "is that until 2002, no one who had technical and scientific expertise had looked at the evidence, sifted through history, and done an analysis to put together a radiological assessment."

Jackson also accused the Navy of "fast-tracking the cleanup in order for Lennar to build houses," referring to the efforts of Mayor Gavin Newsom, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and others to hasten the shipyard’s cleanup and early turnover to the city so the area can be turned into a massive development project pursuant to the voter-approved Prop. G.

"We are not going to accept anything less than total cleanup," Jackson said. "If you have to move that dirty dirt, do it. We need $10 billion. You said $60 million. You can’t even scrape the surface with that amount."

Melanie Kito, the Navy’s lead remedial project manager, replied that the Navy is "chartered to clean up releases of spills from Navy activities. Whatever remedy we put forth, we have to demonstrate that we are protecting human health and the environment."

Kristine Enea, a member of the community-based Restoration Advisory Board, told the Guardian that she felt that the Navy did not do a great job of explaining the risks of contaminants in, say, a major earthquake.

"If there’s an earthquake, would the risk be like getting 10 x-rays at once, or having a three-headed baby?" Enea said.

Pamela Calvert, deputy director of Literacy for Environmental Justice, told the Guardian she’s worried about shipping the contamination elsewhere.

"I’m really concerned that we don’t solve problems in Bayview by creating ones for another community," Calvert said. "It’s best to deal with it here. There is no such thing as ‘away.’ It’s someone else’s backyard."

Saul Bloom, executive director of Arc Ecology, which does contract work for the Redevelopment Agency, said that Calvert’s concerns strengthen the argument for simply capping Parcel B so that the contamination can’t escape rather than removing the material.

Bloom said he blames the Navy’s "incompetence" for the city losing the opportunity to transfer Parcel B early and speed development. "If we’d got rid of Parcel B in 2004, we would have been part of the housing boom, not the housing bust," Bloom said.

He believes the Navy’s proposed plan is acceptable, feasible, and protective, but that "whether it’s the best use given the needs of the BVHP is another debate."

While some residents are arguing for a total excavation of the site down to the sea floor, Bloom disagrees: "I think the covering strategy is a protective solution." He criticized the Navy for only having scheduled 11 days between its July 28 public comment deadline and its final draft, due out August 8.

"I’m concerned about the length of time they’ve allotted for the question that comes up and that no one has the answer to," Bloom said. "I don’t think it is adequate or seemly from a ‘we take your comment seriously’ point of view."

Shipyard artist Rebecca Haseltine, who has rented at Building 103 for 18 years, says that she has consistently trusted Arc Ecology’s advice on the shipyard cleanup. "But I also feel that we still don’t know the half of what happened on the shipyard. The Navy denied that any radioactive material had been used at the base, until a reporter with the SF Weekly published a story about it in 2001."

How “Now”?

-
0

How to sum up the ever-changing arts scene of the Bay? Yerba Buena Center for the Arts bravely attempts the near-impossible once again with its multidisciplinary triennial, "Bay Area Now 5," sweeping the local visual art scene to present 21 emerging and established makers in addition to four guest-curated off- and on-site exhibitions as well as performing arts, film, and community-engagement components. Behold, a snapshot of a few faces, places, and ideas.

BAY AREA NOW 5

Sat/19 through Nov. 16

Opening party with Port O’Brien, TITS, Bronze, and more, Sat/19, 8 p.m., $12–$15

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

See Web site for complete schedule




>>Biennialmania
For regional survey exhibitions, it’s location, location, location
By Glen Helfand


>>You’re going to myth me, baby
Ala Ebtekar rises above while tapping into persian and personal mythologies
By Kimberly Chun


>>Doing what comes naturally
Donald Fortescue And Lawrence Labianca take to the tides
By Stacy Martin


>>Creature feature
Misako Inaoka mashes together animal-vegetable-machine hybrids
By Kimberly Chun


>>Super Wofler
Hitching a ride with Galleon Trade
By Johnny Ray Huston


>>Book ’em
Outside the white box with Michael Swaine
By Ari Messer


>>Nailing it
The Queens Nails Annex snares “Estacion Odesia” in its glam talons
By Kimberly Chun

Campaign pain?

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

November’s presidential election already looms on the horizon like a herpes outbreak, promising nothing so much as a painful, shame-filled denouement to a drunken and ill-conceived flirtation with someone you thought you knew. So it’s refreshing that the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s seasonal offering of free, rabble-rousing political theater is an election-year special in which the opposing candidates from the two monopolizing parties are conspicuously absent. Instead, Red State, which opened by tradition July 4 in Dolores Park, focuses on the screwed-if-you-do/screwed-if-you-don’t quandary of voting itself, and does so with populist gusto tinged with a reddish hue — a thematic color imbuing everything from the design scheme to the pointedly funny dialogue’s New Deal–style social-democratic slant. It also reflects the rising blood pressure that results from underlying but palpable frustration and outrage.

Reclaiming red from the dusty color wheel of history, Mime Troupe head writer Michael Gene Sullivan’s smart and consistently funny script — brilliantly delivered by a uniformly sharp and charismatic cast and fueled by composer–band leader Pat Moran’s eclectic set of apt and catchy songs — posits FDR’s small-town America as marooned at Francis Fukuyama’s end of history. Set in a puny Kansas ‘burb named Bluebird, Red State casts November’s "Countdown to Armageddon" (as the play’s CNN reporter colorfully advertises his network’s election coverage) in the screwball style of Depression-era comedies as Bluebird becomes the unlikely tiebreaker in an electoral dead heat.

Suddenly the nation’s eyes are riveted on an otherwise microscopic microcosm of average American life at the beginning of the 21st century. This focus on the lives of the town’s humble and much abused citizens throws everyone for a loop, not least the government’s smarmy and ambitious election official (Velina Brown), who is so obsessed with thoughts of a cush Washington, DC-based promotion that she has difficulty remembering which state she’s even in.

For its part, Bluebird feels like a town under siege, but just who the enemy is remains initially hard for the inhabitants to fathom, or agree on, anyway. Is it the wrath of God? The communists? It all depends on whom you ask among the locals, a population whose representative eccentrics include a God-fearing, Jesus-toting fundamentalist (Noah James Butler, bearing cross and life-size Christ) and a rabid (and equally anachronistic) anticommunist named Eugene (Robert Ernst).

What is clear enough is that jobs have dried up (the local pencil factory — the onetime pride of the town, which liked to promote itself as "the Number 2 pencil capital of North Central Kansas" — just relocated to the cheap labor environs of Uzbekistan), public services have dwindled to nil, and the dilapidated sidewalks and roads are a physical menace (nearly undoing a local soldier, played by Adrian C. Mejia, who’s just returned in one piece from Afghanistan).

If that wasn’t enough, the town’s only electronic voting machine is on the fritz. But this little debacle, in the context of an electoral tie, ends up being an opportunity that gets the town thinking and the earth trembling beneath Washington, DC. Deciding to withhold their votes until the proper share of their tax dollars gets re-diverted back to their community where it belongs, and away from endless war-making and corporate welfare, Bluebird manages (in the most unlikely but coruscating of Capra-esque scenarios) to hold a corrupt and hubristic system at bay, spotlighting the government–big business alliance that for decades has fleeced towns like Bluebird of their taxes, able-bodied military-age youth, and everything else not nailed down. Or so to speak: before the town turns the tables on the system, even Bluebird’s fundamentalist is driven in desperation to ask the Antiques Roadshow host, "How much for Jeezus?"

RED STATE

Through Sept 28, free

Various Northern California locations

Visit www.sfmt.org for schedule

Tres Agaves

-
0

› paulr@sfbg.com

If you’re one of those people who’s always on the lookout for the next big thing, and you think the next big thing might be tequila bars, you might feel a pang about Tres Agaves, the brick cathedral of tortillas, margaritas, and fun that opened about two and a half years ago in the ever-more-crowded environs of AT&T Park. Tequila is, at its best, a New World riposte to the single-malt scotches and fancy brandies of the Old World: a carefully made and indigenous essence worthy of thoughtful appreciation. Its source plant is the agave, a succulent that is often supposed to be a kind of cactus but is really a member (along with garlic and onions) of the lily family.

Tres Agaves does have a tequila tasting lounge, and maybe tequila geeks really can get some pondering done in there — but maybe not. Tres Agaves isn’t about cozy spaces or nuanced discussions of a pedigreed drink; it’s a huge party full of sports whoops, big plates of likable food, and plenty of semiblitzed people. As parties go, it’s not bad at all. True, prices are on the high side; some of the dishes are ordinary; and most of the tequila goes into margaritas, which, for all their many innovations, are basically fruit drinks to get plastered with. But if, like me, you have a vestigial fondness for Chevy’s, Tres Agaves will seem pleasantly familiar.

The sense of déjà vu makes itself felt early, once you’re through the front door and past the host’s station, which is screened from the rest of the immense dining room by a half-wall that reminded me of an oversized ant farm, with stones instead of grains of sand (and, presumably, very large ants). The restaurant opens out around you like another country: a rolling plain of tables bounded by a line of booths, another dining area behind that, and, to the left, another province of tables. Far in the distance: a wall of exposed brick rises two stories high.

Now that the airlines have decided to start charging passengers for water, we must be extra grateful for those freebies that remain, such as chips and salsa in Mexican restaurants. Tres Agaves’ offering is especially good here: fresh, delicate, still-warm chips (as good as Chevy’s) along with two kinds of salsa, tomatillo and chipotle. The latter was deliciously smoky and bristling with chili heat but perhaps too salty. When we vacuumed up the first bowl of chips, another was swiftly brought, no questions asked.

Much of the food is exactly what you would expect to find in this kind of setting — guacamole ($8), for instance, served in a pestle-like bowl and notable not only for its price but for a freshness that goes a long way toward justifying it. The guac was a wonderful bright green (avocado flesh begins to turn a gray-brown on exposure to air, so color is an important index of freshness) and carried a definite chili kick. Queso fundido ($9.50) — a shallow bowl of melted white cheese suitable for scooping into warm corn tortillas or up with chips — was dotted with chunks of pork rather than chorizo, and while I love chorizo (in both its Mexican and Spanish guises), it can be overbearing. The pork here was better-behaved.

At $19, a plate of chiles rellenos seems a little pricey, but at least you get two peppers (poblanos) — big, fresh, and a vivid green — stuffed with corn kernels, mushrooms, zucchini slivers, and melted white cheese. Like Newfoundland dogs, the poblanos look formidable but are quite mild-mannered (i.e., no discernable chili heat). They’re also charred and peeled, not batter-fried, which makes them less caloric and greasy-looking.

A few of the dishes were news to me. One, costillas ($9.75), consisted of pork knuckles braised in an ancho chile broth, and the result was something like a spicy osso buco. (The meat disappeared considerably faster than the broth, which we mopped up with a trayful of warm corn tortillas.)

Another, carne en su jugo ($17.50), turned out to be a kind of beef and bean stew traceable to the Mexican state of Jalisco (which is, not coincidentally, the heart of tequila country). The meat was obviously an obstinate cut that was going to require some serious tenderizing; it had been carved into ribbons, then simmered with red beans in a broth of lime juice, cilantro, and onions, almost like a cooked beef ceviche. The final product was puckeringly flavorful and nearly too salty — I almost never say such a thing — but was redeemed, in the end, by the acidity of the citrus.

A common experience in Mexican restaurants (at least for me) is to have done so much front-loading on chips, salsa, and the sundry delights known as antojitos at the beginning of the meal that, approaching the end, the mere thought of dessert becomes unbearable. Particularly if the dessert is flan, which it often is. Mexican flans aren’t bad, but I’ve never had one to compare with a good crème caramel or panna cotta. A simple solution to this problem, if it is a problem, is to offer something else, and Tres Agaves does, several times over.

Nonetheless, we didn’t quite warm to a chocolate-cinnamon cake ($6), despite its reasonable price and its attractive disk shape. The cake appeared with suspicious swiftness after we’d ordered it, leading us to suppose it had been sitting around for who knew how long, just dying to be summoned — like an anxious junior-high-schooler at a dance. And it was dry — from undue refrigeration? My kingdom for a flan! *

TRES AGAVES

Dinner: Mon.–Wed., 5–10 p.m.; Thurs.–Fri., 5–11 p.m.; Sat., 3–11 p.m.; Sun., 3–10 p.m.

Lunch: Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m.

Brunch: Sat.–Sun., 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

130 Townsend, SF

(415) 227-0500

www.tresagaves.com

Full bar

AE/DISC/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Darkest hour

-
0

>>Click here for more Guardian film reviews

So much of what will be written about The Dark Knight will focus on Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, and rightfully so. Every time the character appears onscreen — robbing a bank, crashing a party, gleefully explaining the origins of his perma-smile — the movie veers into supremely sinister territory. But even when the Joker is tucked away for a chunk of time, Christopher Nolan’s sequel to his 2005 Batman Begins is a grim affair, living up to the "dark" in its title in both style and tone.

That’s not a diss, though — Nolan’s Batman, embodied by Christian Bale, faces daunting circumstances. His alter ego, Bruce Wayne, may be a jet-setting playboy, but he ain’t no cheeky, cheeseburger-scarfing Tony Stark. Wayne Manor burned down in the first film, so Wayne’s living in a Gotham penthouse. Ex-squeeze Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Batman Begins‘ Katie Holmes) has taken up with Gotham’s new D.A., Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, nearly as strong as Ledger in a less showy role), who joins forces with the idealistic Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) to rid the city of its gangster element. Operating on his own all-madness, all-the-time frequency, the Joker (who is called a terrorist more than once) manipulates all involved, with utter chaos as his ultimate goal.

The script, co-penned by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, offers a tangled, complex plot that asks more of its audience than, say, the relatively straightforward Iron Man does. Knowing this, Nolan staffs even bit parts with familiar faces, including Eric Roberts as a mafioso and Anthony Michael Hall as a talk-show host. But it’s not all talk — there are plenty of sweet vehicles and nifty gadgets (supplied, as before, by Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox), car chases, people flying out of windows, and every comic book villain’s dream prop: a giant pile of money.

That said, however, The Dark Knight has more heft to it than the average superhero flick. Some may find it too hefty — besides a few zingers from Michael Caine’s Alfred, its only moments of levity are supplied by a psycho in face paint. Personally, I’m glad to see The Dark Knight presented like a drama (with, uh, capes and explosions) instead of a toy commercial. And though it may ask some obvious superhero-movie questions, it places them in a world where the stakes are too high not to wonder: should Batman have limits? When, if ever, can the "masked vigilante" step aside and let cops and courts take over? And at what cost? There’s a sense of futility in The Dark Knight that feels odd for a summer blockbuster — probably because it so matches the mood of the real world. Maybe the film’s one easy question is when the Joker asks, "Why so serious?" For that, there are plenty of answers. (Cheryl Eddy)

THE DARK KNIGHT

Opens Fri/18 in Bay Area theaters

San Francisco’s undocumented children

-
0

OPINION The recent news stories criticizing the city’s juvenile probation department for sending undocumented children home instead of handing them over to the federal immigration authorities has ignited a firestorm of negative attacks.

However, the stories missed a key fact: the city’s practice of transporting youth home was enacted with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service 12 years ago.

San Francisco’s 1989 voter-approved sanctuary law specifically forbids city officials from providing information to federal immigration authorities to aid in deporting noncitizens. While the law does not protect adult felons, it’s silent on the issue of what the city should do with undocumented children after their juvenile cases are concluded.

In 1996 the city’s Juvenile Probation Department drafted a set of policies declaring that undocumented children were entitled to due process of the courts. The policies stipulated that juveniles who wanted to return to their families would be given an airline ticket home after completing their sentences. Children whose families could not be located would be released to halfway homes or foster care, consistent with the way other minors were treated.

In 1993 the INS was sued in the class action suit Flores vs. Reno for unlawfully housing undocumented minors in juvenile correction facilities without access to their families or legal representation. The case settled in 1997 with the INS agreeing that detained children should be placed in the "least restrictive environment," and that every effort would be made to reunite minors with their families.

Prior to the Flores settlement, juvenile probation officials and an attorney for the SF Public Defender’s Office met with representatives from the regional INS office to review San Francisco’s policies.

In 2002 the INS was subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security and became Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While ICE was given the task of prosecuting undocumented children, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, was given the responsibility of protecting these children. Unsurprisingly, in the post-Sept. 11 era, ICE took a more aggressive stance against immigrant youth, particularly those involved in the juvenile justice system.

Meanwhile Congress began debating what to do with unaccompanied children who are taken into ICE custody. In 2002, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act, stating that "unaccompanied alien minors are among the most vulnerable of the immigrant population." Feinstein noted that "many of these children have entered the country under traumatic circumstances … they are young and alone, subject to abuse and exploitation."

San Francisco’s solution of sending kids home to their families, while imperfect, served at least one purpose: of the seven children represented by my office who were sent home in the last 18 months, none have been rearrested in the United States. San Francisco’s reunification policy was legally justified, fair to youth and their families, and cost-effective.

Jeff Adachi

Jeff Adachi is San Francisco’s public defender.

Red ink stains green rhetoric

-
0

› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Environmentalists are pondering the state’s seemingly schizophrenic approach to fighting climate change after a recent state report encouraging increased use of mass transit came out at the same time that the governor’s budget proposal denies the state’s public transportation fund more than $1 billion.

The California Air Resource Board’s June 26 Draft Scoping Plan to combat global warming, released pursuant to Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is at least the second major report this year to recommend expanding public transit. But the governor’s latest spending plan redirects that sizeable chunk of money — gasoline tax revenue that voters who approved Prop. 42 in 2002 directed toward transportation projects and agencies — to help reduce the state’s $17 billion budget deficit.

"There’s a lot of misallocation of resources going on," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Livable Cities. "The governor on the one hand wants to say, ‘You should all ride mass transit.’ But on the other hand, he is taking away [transit] support from the state budget."

The governor’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, said the budget proposal spares transit from cuts faced by other programs during these tough economic times.

"Funding for public transportation stays level in the governor’s budget proposal. That’s in the face of a $17 billion deficit. The fact that it remains level is better than a lot of cuts we’ve had to make," McLear said. "We wish we could increase it, because it certainly is something the governor believes in. But again, the state is facing a $17 billion shortfall. We can only spend the money that we have. There will have to be some tough decisions to be made."

The CARB plan calls for California to lead by example by encouraging state employees to take advantage of public transportation during their commutes. It notes that transportation accounts for 38 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, most of which comes from cars and trucks, and that curbing these emissions is critical to reaching California’s goal of reducing total emissions by 30 percent over the next 12 years.

"Overall I think this is headed in the right direction. For better or worse, this really does put California ahead of any other state if we fully implement this plan. Of course, having a good plan does not guarantee that it will be implemented, but this is a very serious attempt," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, of the state’s global warming plan.

Yet he also said that reaching the plan’s ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gases means people will have to drive less and use transit more, and that local governments will need to stop approving urban sprawl projects.

"The easy answer that most Americans would rather have is to keep driving just as much as always, but have alternative fuels. And that just is not going to work. AB 32 has a major land use change component. Is it enough? No, it is not. But it is at least an acknowledgment of what we have to do," Metcalf said. "Overall I’m pretty impressed, but they’re not proposing enough land use change and they’re not proposing transit funding increases. They are still unwilling to face facts about the role of the automobile and climate change."

Yet instead of increasing funds for mass transit, the governor has redirected billions of public transportation dollars into the general fund, maintaining status quo transit funding in the face of increased gasoline prices and the new climate change mandate. At the same time, billions of dollars have been allocated to highway expansion programs, exacerbating the global warming problem.

"Anybody’s budget should be a reflection of their values, whether it’s an individual or an agency," said Carli Paine, transportation program director for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. "The state is saying, ‘We value public transportation as a climate friendly choice.’ Yet when it comes to expressing those values in the budget, we say, ‘It doesn’t matter that much,’ so we’re actually undermining those original statements."

The governor’s revised state budget allocated $306 million to the State Transit Assistance Program, the state’s source of funding for mass transit operating costs such as maintenance, drivers, fuel, and mechanics.

This is the same amount that was allocated last year, even though transit ridership is the highest it has been in more than 50 years, according to a June report by the American Public Transportation Association. And factor in that crude oil is about $140 per barrel now compared to about $73 per barrel this time in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency. "The budget is kicking transit in the teeth when it needs it [money] the most," Radulovich said.

The $306 million allocated to the State Transit Assistance Program comes from funds generated by Prop. 42, the voter-approved gasoline tax measure. But Paine said the STAP should also be entitled to what is called "spillover" money. Spillover refers to additional funds generated when the price of gas rises faster than inflation on other goods, leading to unusually high revenue from the tax.

The governor’s budget predicts $1.77 billion in spillover for the 2008–09 fiscal year, but he decided to put the money toward shrinking the deficit instead of funding public transportation. The current fiscal year was the first time since the proposition passed that the spillover did not go toward public transportation.

Radulovich said he believes the state is hesitant to fund mass transit — even though it recognizes the importance of reducing the number of cars on the road — because building more roads and freeways leads to more expansion and urban sprawl.

"Sprawl makes a lot of people a lot of money," he said, including oil companies, car companies, homebuilders, construction firms, and trucking companies. "These are political questions, not policy questions. The policy answers in many ways are very clear. The question is whether there is the political will to deal with it, and that’s what we’re going to find out."

Radulovich said this reality is why many California business groups support outward expansion and put pressure on the government to fund highways over mass transit. The Bay Area Council, for example, pushed aggressively for highway expansion during the last budget cycle.

Paine said she believes political pressure also comes from structural flaws in the state’s budget system.

"It’s the legacy of Prop. 13, which really froze the income our state received from [property] taxes," she said. "Public entities that are committed to social services, such as education, are still receiving property taxes at levels that are decades behind what they used to be." This puts a strain on the state’s general fund, and money has to be diverted from the mass transit account to relieve the burden generated by California’s low income tax levels, Paine explained.

Paine said a new budget proposal has been submitted to the California legislature that would restore hundreds of millions of dollars to the mass transit account for the 2008-09 fiscal year by generating additional revenue for the general fund. She said that since 2000, more than $3 billion of mass transit money has been redirected to the general fund, and the number will exceed $4 billion if the governor’s current proposal goes through.

"This isn’t just a problem this year — it’s a chronic problem. And public transportation is chronically being leaned on for relief," she said. "It’s just not a sustainable system."

TRANSIT FUNDING 101

Carli Paine of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition explained the finer points of California’s complicated system for funding — or not funding — improvements to the public transit system. Transit’s main account is called the State Transit Assistance Program. This money is flexible, but is mostly used for transit operations (maintenance, operations, fuel, mechanics, drivers, and so forth). Sometimes, though, it is used for capital projects (such as buying new tracks or replacement cars).

The STAP is the largest portion of the public transportation account, and the funding is critical. As Paine put it, "If you can’t even operate the system that you have, it doesn’t help much to have money to lay new tracks." The STAP is therefore often the focus of discussions about transit funding.

Prop. 42, which directs California’s gas tax to transportation projects, funds the STAP, although not all Prop. 42 money goes there. For example, 25 percent of Prop. 42 revenue goes to a special account for transit capital projects.

Prop. 1B is another big source of transit funding. It is the 2006 measure that allowed California to sell $19.9 billion worth of bonds to fund transportation programs. Only about $4 billion of that was allocated to public transportation, with the lion’s share of the money going toward new freeway projects.

This is where things get a little complicated.

California originally had a sales tax on all goods except gasoline. In the 1970s, voters passed Prop. 42, which decided that it would be more equitable to reduce the sales tax rate by a fraction of a percentage point, but expand the sales tax to include gasoline.

This was expected to be revenue-neutral for the state, so it wouldn’t cost people more. That was true unless gas prices rose quicker than the cost of all goods, which it eventually did.

Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan argued that it was important to return the extra revenue to public transportation because when gas prices rise, more people use public transit. As a result, this "spillover" has been set aside for transit expansion.

Last year was the first year in which the spillover was diverted to the general fund instead of being given to the STAP. It was redirected to help close the state deficit, and the 2008–09 budget proposes doing the same thing this fiscal year. (Janna Brancolini)

Editor’s Notes

-
0

› tredmond@sfbg.com

Back in 2001, San Francisco came within 500 votes of approving a public power system in an election marred by lingering evidence of fraud. Ballot boxes were removed from the Department of Elections (under a bizarre, never-documented threat of anthrax poisoning) and box tops were later found floating in the bay. I still think we actually won that election. And it’s hard to see how we could have done it without organized labor.

The Central Labor Council backed public power. Service Employees International Union Local 790 poured resources into it. The labor-environmental coalition that came together around building a city-run system that would rely on clean energy was unprecedented.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. knows this. That’s why the company is trying mightily to keep labor from backing this year’s Clean Energy Act. And at the center of that battle is Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief political consultant and close advisor, Eric Jaye.

The Clean Energy Act, as we point out on page 5, would give the city control of its energy future and put San Francisco at the forefront of national efforts to reduce carbon emissions. It also opens the door to public power — and Jaye has been hired by PG&E to try to keep the supervisors from putting it on the ballot, and to defeat it if they do.

He has a powerful weapon to use: labor’s determination to pass a giant bond act to rebuild San Francisco General Hospital.

A billion-dollar bond act is a tough sell, and harder still during a recession. Labor is also making a big push for progressive supervisorial candidates in Districts 1, 3, and 11. And the labor council director, Tim Paulson, tells me that he really wants to keep the city’s disparate and sometimes fractious labor unions united around those goals.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, PG&E’s union, will oppose any public power measure, any time, no matter what it says, and IBEW walked out of the labor council in 2001 over the issue. Now Jaye is telling labor people that the Clean Energy Act (and other issues that are "crowding" the ballot) may undermine public support for the hospital bond. "I have an early poll showing that these other measures have a negative impact on the hospital," Jaye told me. "I have been pointing to that fact and asking if we really need to do [the Clean Energy Act] this year."

John Whitehurst, who is running the SF General bond campaign, says his polls show that there was no correlation between an affordable housing set-aside measure and the hospital bonds, and presumably the same is true of the Clean Energy Act. On the other hand, he says, "if Jaye runs a campaign that says ‘Gee, the city can’t do anything right,’ it could create problems for the hospital measure."

Would Eric Jaye threaten the SF General bonds (which his client, Gavin Newsom, strongly backs) to keep labor from backing public power? He insisted to me that he would never do that, and that he and the mayor fully back the bonds. But PG&E, I think, cares nothing about the hospital — or the city — and will do whatever it can to scuttle this measure.

So will labor be intimidated by the threat of divisiveness (from the IBEW) and the political scare tactics from PG&E — or will labor leaders tell the mayor to knock it off?

Newsom and the Clean Energy Act

-
0

EDITORIAL A progressive measure that would make San Francisco one of the greenest cities in the nation will be on the ballot this fall. It’s designed to lower energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote green-collar jobs. It has all the elements that Mayor Gavin Newsom has been talking about in his high-profile speeches, press conferences, and celebrity appearances. It’s a perfect vehicle for a mayor who wants to stand out as a candidate for governor of California. It has the backing of some of Newsom’s close allies, like state Sen. Mark Leno.

That’s why Newsom ought to support the Clean Energy Act.

The charter amendment, sponsored by Sups. Aaron Peskin and Ross Mirkarimi, seeks to make San Francisco more energy independent. It sets ambitious goals for renewable energy and would put the city on track to create its own public power system. It’s not a radical measure — in fact, it’s milder than we would have liked. It doesn’t mandate an immediate takeover of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s facilities. It doesn’t turn the Public Utilities Commission into an elected body. And no matter what lies PG&E puts out, it won’t raise electric rates or cost the taxpayers money.

It does, however, mandate that the PUC look at the best ways to ensure that by 2017, 51 percent of the electricity used in the city comes from renewable resources. By 2040, that number should be 100 percent. And the evidence from across the nation shows that the best way to promote renewable energy is to shift from private control of utilities to public power.

Again, that’s hardly a radical notion: more than 2,000 cities in the United States have public power. Palo Alto is among them; so are Alameda and Santa Clara. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District provides reliable service to Sacramento County at rates 30 percent below what PG&E charges customers in adjoining areas — and SMUD has one of the best records in the nation for promoting conservation and renewable energy.

Of course, the very existence of any sort of plan to consider energy alternatives for San Francisco seems to terrify PG&E. Already the giant private utility is pulling political strings and retailing outrageous lies to try to scare the supervisors away from placing the charter amendment on the ballot. And we expect to see a savage, multimillion-dollar campaign against the measure this fall.

That’s because PG&E wants no hint of competition, no chance that the city might actually consider the benefits of public power. It’s no secret why. When you look at the facts, compare how public and private systems have fared in the past decade, and line up the financial figures and the prospects for sustainable energy policies, public power wins.

The biggest misinformation PG&E is putting out these days involves the cost of creating and running a public power system in San Francisco. The company is throwing out numbers like $4 billion, and suggesting that the taxpayers would be on the hook for all of it if the city tried to take over the company’s system.

For starters, there’s nothing in the Clean Energy Act that requires a takeover. It might turn out to be more prudent, for example, to slowly build a new city-owned infrastructure. More important, if the city did decide to buy out PG&E’s wires, poles, and meters, the cost would be nowhere near what the company is claiming.

How much is the system really worth? Well, one way to find out is to check the assessed value, the figure the state uses for property-tax purposes. And as Amanda Witherell reported July 2 (see "The dirty fight over clean power"), the state says all of PG&E’s property within San Francisco city limits is worth only $1.2 billion — and that includes the company’s downtown office complex, which is worth at least several hundred million. So the actual cost of the system might wind up at less than a quarter of what PG&E claims.

And none of that money — none — would come from taxpayers. The PUC could issue only revenue bonds, backed by future electricity sales, to finance any buyout or construction. No tax money would ever be in play. And our past analyses have consistently shown that the city could buy out PG&E’s system, cut electric rates, and still wind up with a sizable surplus every year.

Newsom is aware of all of this, and has said that he’s willing to consider supporting public power. Now there’s a measure heading for the ballot that would also mesh with all of the mayor’s environmental goals. The only argument against it is that PG&E — in the past a backer of the mayor — doesn’t want it to pass.

Newsom needs to support the Clean Energy Act. If he doesn’t, it will demonstrate that he lacks the backbone to stand up to special interests — and has no business running for governor of this state.

A kickoff press conference on the Clean Energy Act will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 22 on the steps of City Hall.

Taste the Mochi

-
0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "If you build it, they will come!" A few famous first words from David Wang — otherwise known as the ever-fruitful laptop lothario Mochipet — when we spoke recently, and something to ponder as I gazed around his so-chill, so-frolicsome, and oh-so-free Fourth of July barbecue bash in Golden Gate Park. In a green, leafy nook near the fields where the buffalo roam, a DJ tent is up and housing such pals as Phon.o and Flying Skulls. Funk ‘n’ Chunk fire the grill with impressive flamethrower action, and Christian of the Tasty crew plunges fish-sauce-marinated chicks into the hot grease for Filipino fried chicken. Throw a Tecate on the whole thing, pet your mochi, and call it an awesome party despite the fact that, as Wang confides, "we did get started a little late because there were some rangers sniffing around."

Mochipet, “Get Your Whistle Wet”

Wang is accustomed to building where few have ventured before — and as a collaborator extraordinaire who has worked with everyone from Spank Rock to Ellen Allien, he’s brought together communities of sorts in the most unlikely of locales (hence the name of his label, Daly City Records). Earlier that week we chatted by phone in lieu of digging into Hong Kong deep-fried pork chops and a sweet, cheap Filipino breakfast ("It’s like soul food for Asians — everything’s either deep-fried or smoked") at Gateway restaurant near the literal and spiritual home of Daly City Records. The occasion is his forthcoming Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, an improv-y and likely collaborative performance, as well as a whopping release show at Club Six for his latest disc, Microphonepet (Daly City).

A formidable gathering of all of Wang’s work and collaborations since 2001, Microphonepet overwhelms with its awesome sonics, roving from "Tangle" with Salva and Epcot and "Get Your Whistle Wet" with the Hustle Heads, to "Vnecks" with 215 the Freshest Kids and "Lazy Days" with KFlay. Where has Wang been hiding his crazily deep-fried, deliciously bleepy hip-hop production skills all this time? "Guess it got to the point where last year I got 20 tracks, so I just put them out as a record, because some of them are really cool," he explains. "I thought they were really diverse and it would be a good segue to my next record."

Wang has been pouring plenty of energy into that coming disc, which may be released on Daly City or an imprint like Ninjatune. He describes it as more personal: he’s skating progressive, jazz, and South American musical influences off trad Korean and Chinese sounds, and acoustic guitar off heavy electronics. "I’ve always written traditional songs but I’ve never really been comfortable releasing it," says Wang, who describes his early aural interests as veering toward jazz and salsa. "All my records before this have been experiments — me trying new things. But they haven’t been as personal as this next record. I think of it as my first record, really. I’m a slow bloomer." *

MOCHIPET

MCMF show with Yoko Solo, Patrice Scanlon, and Blanket Head

July 18, 8 p.m., $7

Million Fishes Gallery

2501 Bryant, SF

millionfishes.com

Also Aug. 9

Microphonepet release show with Raashan, Mike Boo, Cikee, Daddy Kev, Dopestyles, Kflay, and others

9 p.m., $10–<\d>$15

Club Six

60 Sixth St., SF

www.clubsix1.com

BATTLE OF THE FESTS: MISSION CREEK VS. DIAMOND DAYS?

No need to create a faux feud: fests that clash by night and warehouse shows are no problem. In response to learning that Diamond Days — Heeb magazine’s hoedown, newly transplanted from Brooklyn to Oakland — goes down the same week as this year’s Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, founder Jeff Ray said, "I think it’s great. I like Heeb magazine. We haven’t completely settled on those dates, and I randomly picked this weekend — normally we do it in May. Next time we might do it the first week of August." OK, so both fests also happen to include some of the same performers — each has its unique attractions as well. Sparkling offerings at DD’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights fundraiser include Los Angeles’ punky-garagey Audacity, Seattle’s rousing Whalebones, Ventura’s thrashy Fucking Wrath, and a mother lode of intriguing folk from the LA area ranging from the sibling sublimity of the Chapin Sisters to the resurgent pop of "Windy" scribe Ruthann Friedman.

July 17 and 20, Mama Buzz Café, Oakl.; July 17–19, Ghost Town Gallery, Oakl. For details, go to www.myspace.com/diamonddaysfest

LOUDER, FASTER, STRONGER

APACHE


The garage rockin’ good times stream off this Cuts–Parchman Farm supergroup’s debut, Boomtown Gems (Birdman). Wed/9, 9 p.m., $6. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

KODE 9


The London dubstep artist and Hyperdub label owner with a doctorate in philosophy gives a shout out to his boroughs. Thurs/10, 9 p.m., $12. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

QUITZOW


The multi-instrumental wiz grabs for Solex’s crown with some goofy fun, like kitty-sampling "Cats R People 2" off her Art College (Young Love). With Settting Sun and the Love X Nowhere. Thurs/10, 8 p.m., $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

RATATAT


A kinder, gentler Crooklyn combo? Rabid fans can expect polyrhythmic rock from LP3 (XL). Thurs/10, 9 p.m., $20. Slim’s, 33 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

20 MINUTE LOOP


The SF indie rockers chime in on tabloid culture with their new, self-released Famous People Marry Famous People. Fri/11, 10 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

“Top of the Structure Is Not Empty”

-
0

PREVIEW The Garage is the kind of tiny, funky, out-of-the-way theater we all thought wouldn’t be able to survive the dealings of cutthroat real estate moguls. Fortunately choreographer and arts entrepreneur Joe Landini failed to buy into the pessimism. In 2003 he founded SAFEhouse (Save Art From Extinction) and last year moved his operations into a former garage at 975 Howard Street, a block still industrial enough to have available parking at night. Drawing on his programming experience with the now-defunct Jon Sims Center for the Arts and Shotwell Studios, he has filled the space with events (dance, multimedia, theater, and performance art), workshops, and residencies — including one specifically for the LGBT community. For the first time, the multidisciplinary space hosts SAFEhouse’s third Summer Performance Fest. Through August 28, Landini presents more than two dozen choreographers in shared evenings of edgy new works that should satisfy any aficionado wanting to take the pulse of the city. Top of the Structure Is Not Empty, with choreography by Rebecca Bryant, Cathie Caraker, Kelly Dalrymple, Sonshereé Giles, Hope Mohr, Don Nichols, Jerry Smith, and Andrew Wass opens the series. What do these ever-so-different-from-each-other artists have in common? They all investigate ideas on plagiarism and authorship in their work. Expect to see references to Trisha Brown, Miguel Gutierrez, Mark Morris, Nijinsky, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Max Roach, and Meg Stuart.

TOP OF THE STRUCTURE IS NOT EMPTY Fri/11–Sat/12, 8 p.m. The Garage, 975 Howard, SF. $10–$20. (415) 885-4006, www.975howard.com, brownpapertickets.com

Port O’Brien

-
0

PREVIEW A little more than a year ago, a "too-pretty-to-refuse-you" friend dragged me to a Bright Eyes concert. I remember almost nothing of the group’s set, and I wasn’t the drunk one. Connor Oberst, so hipster-slim you know he’s a lightweight, strutted on stage, Corona in hand, his stage presence as deflated as his sound, unsure of the notes in his repertoire’s half-octave range. His reputation as a talented musician debunked, he nevertheless justified his holding the helm at the label he founded, Saddle Creek, judiciously booking Oakland locals Port O’Brien as his opening band. Oberst isn’t the only A&R man with his eyes on O’Brien — just last year the band toured Europe with Modest Mouse, and for good reason.

With a quivering-lip, about-to-cry delivery held in common with Oberst, O’Brien frontman Van Pierazalowski sings log-cabin laments to the supporting sounds of soft-pedaled piano, back-porch banjo, and guitar strums. When drummer Joshua Barnhart turns on his snare, tightens his drumheads and polishes his crash cymbals, the sound morphs into an Appalachian anthem, the folk instrumentation swallowed by vocals sung together by the audience and the entire band. O’Brien leaves its audience members wishing their hearts had ears in one instant, and bouncing on the balls of their feet, arms held high and voices raised in song the next. If Oberst specializes in wrist-slitting emo, O’Brien cleans the wounds with a fusion of old-wives witch hazel and indie antiseptic sting: modern moonshine melodies to shout and sob our separate ways to catharsis.

PORT O’BRIEN With the Builders and the Butchers. Fri/11, 9:30 p.m., $12. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com

King Khan and the Shrines

-
0

PREVIEW Local booty-shakers are hip to the musical ruler known as King Khan: when the two-member King Khan and BBQ Show played 12 Galaxies in December 2007, the joint was packed to the sweaty rafters. A bigger band calls for a bigger venue, so when the Montreal native returns to the Bay Area with his other project, King Khan and the Shrines, the faithful will no doubt follow him to the Great American Music Hall. His just-released latest, The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines (Vice), is a compilation of sorts, including an array of songs from earlier, difficult-to-track-down King Khan and the Shrines discs. "I love playing with BBQ as much as playing with the Shrines," he told me by e-mail — a necessary interview tactic due to his cell phone–deprived status in deepest Europe. "In the Shrines, we play bad-ass, ball-crushing R&B. The influences are pretty much the same, though the Shrines are more inspired by New Orleans 1960s funk and Sun Ra."

Although both of Khan’s bands are retro-influenced, he doesn’t feel stuck in the past. "I believe this music is an everlasting tradition that must be preserved and carried on," he wrote. "I don’t think we are that retro since we mix everything from free jazz to hardcore. Music is my religion, and I wanna preach the words of the masters to the masses and throw some of my own words in there too."

Khan fans may recall that his last trip to San Francisco wasn’t all rock ‘n’ roll romance, since one of his favorite guitars was lifted by some scumbag. "I am sad I lost it because it was really a Frankenstein guitar from the 1960s made by Harvey Thomas," he wrote. "I have put a hex on whoever stole it, and if you see a one-eyed man with a piece of spaghetti for a penis dangling between his legs, then ask him where my guitar is and punch him in the face."

Fortunately, he doesn’t hold it against the rest of us: "I love SF! I love America, and am so happy to bring my soul band back to where soul was born."

KING KHAN AND THE SHRINES With Jacuzzi Boys. Fri/11, 9 p.m., $13. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com

“Viva”

-
0

REVIEW My eyes were literally popping at Viva, a time-warp back to the days of swingin’ sexploitation films by Radley Metzger, Russ Meyer, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and similarly give-the-horny-people-what-they-want auteurs. Writer-director-producer-costumer-set designer and star Anna Biller plays Barbi, a bored Los Angeles housewife circa 1972. When her Ken doll-like hubby leaves her alone on a so-called extended business trip, adventurous Barbi becomes Viva, a frequently nude muse for every pervy guy in a neck scarf who crosses her path. Plot ain’t really important here, though — Viva is either a parody or an homage (or perhaps both), executed so perfectly it’s almost hard to tell it was made in the 21st century. Bad acting, sleazy dialogue, constant porny background music, incredible outfits and hair, drug-hazed orgies, olive-bedecked finger foods, a nudist colony, a call girl subplot, and musical numbers — Viva has everything you want to see in a movie, rendered in luridly bright Technicolor and filtered through what I can only describe as an XXX-rated scramble of The Brady Bunch. Biller is my new hero. I can’t wait to see what she does next. (Cheryl Eddy)

VIVA opens Fri/11 at the Red Vic. See Rep Clock for showtimes.

Timothy Horn: Bitter Suite

-
0

REVIEW At some point this summer, you’ll likely be asked — or roped into — accompanying visitors to see the Dale Chihuly exhibition at the de Young Museum. It’s a pretty series of darkened rooms with enormous blown glass forms, lit to show off a floorshow of colors and whimsical shapes. There’s nothing conceptually difficult or politically offensive in this Willy Wonka–scale display. But if it leaves you craving craftsmanship and concept, a quick trip upstairs to see Timothy Horn’s installation "Bitter Suite" should cure that.

The Australian sculptor, known for his large-scale versions of 18th-century jewelry, also has a background in glasswork. But two of the three pieces he created for this part of the museum’s Collections Connections series sparkle with sugar crystals. Horn’s objects are a response to the not-so-happy Cinderella story of Alma Spreckles, widow of millionaire sugar baron Adolph Spreckles and founder of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Horn’s hefty 300-pound chandelier piece Diadem is a larger-than-life, rock candy–encrusted beast hanging near Sir John Lavery’s matronly oil portrait, Mrs. Adolph Bernard Spreckles (1932). Mirrors on either side of the room create that never-ending-hallway effect, with the honey-colored chunky chandelier echoing like a lost guest at Versailles. Big enough for a small princess to ride in, Horn’s carriage, Mother-Load, is also caked in sugar crystals and shellacked light brown. Looking like a giant baked cookie confection, it’s cousin to the museum’s sedan chair (circa 1760) that once served as a phone booth in Spreckles’ home. The third piece, Sweet Thing, a grossly magnified French baroque earring with big blown-glass pearl drops, drips with unwearable glamour. In this era of comically high-priced contemporary art and Las Vegas-as-the-adult-Disneyland, Horn points us to the intersection where beauty and greed mutate together.

TIMOTHY HORN: BITTER SUITE Through Oct. 12. Tues.–Sun., 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m. (Fri., 9:30 a.m.–8:45 p.m.). De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF. $10, $7 seniors, $6 for ages 13–17 and college students with ID (free first Tues.). (415) 750-3600, www.famsf.org/deyoung

Sound in the balance

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"Anger is an energy," sang John Lydon in the Public Image Ltd. tune "Rise." San Francisco electronic artist Kush Arora harnesses a similar combustible force in his live shows and on the three full-length recordings that have made him an established club fixture and touring act. "I try to do something different with music and express the frustrations of the youth in this country," says the affable 26-year-old Haight District resident, who performs with Chicago’s MC Zulu July 13 at Dub Mission.

Arora’s ragga-techno fusions have struck a chord with audiences from the Bay Area to New York, while monthly hybrid live/DJ sets at Club Six’s Surya Dub night have earned him a broad audience that includes dubstep heads, bhangra fans, experimental electronic admirers, and grime listeners. It makes sense as the former Montessori School teacher has always balanced different cultures.

Born in San Leandro and educated in Orinda’s leafy suburbs, Arora ingested death metal, punk, and experimental-industrial sounds, as well as his family’s Indian and Punjab music, learning traditional instruments like the single-stringed tumbi and algoze flute. His music experience increased after interning at his uncle Aman Batra’s Manhattan hip-hop studio Sound Illusions, and later working for sound-editing software company Arboretum Systems.

In high school he formed an experimental band called Involution, which he helmed for six years before launching his solo noise project Clairaudience in the early ’00s. But it was while attending a 14-month audio recording course at Emeryville’s Ex’Pressions that he learned a signature skill: recording live vocals. "When I was writing songs for my first album [2004’s Underwater Jihad (Record Label/Kush Arora Productions)], I wasn’t impressed with my own work or where electronic music was at the time. It wasn’t badass enough," explains Arora, who also felt there was a lack of high quality, vocal-based dance music in the Bay.

Soon Arora contacted and tracked stateside Punjabi singers and ragga MCs, including Chicago’s MC Zulu, Trinidad’s Juakali, Jamaica’s N4SA, Los Angeles’ Wiseproof, and San Jose’s Sukh and Sultan. "I wanted to work with people who were dangerous and different, especially vocalists who didn’t fall into their music’s niche or category," Arora says of the often confrontational and political artists he’s recorded on full-lengths like 2006’s Bhang Ragga and 2007’s From Brooklyn to SF, both released on his Kush Arora Productions imprint. The albums brought club bookings far and near.

Over the past several years Arora has played large Indian gatherings, small IDM shows, underground warehouse events, raves, and the monthly Non-Stop Bhangra party in San Francisco. His performance breakthrough happened in 2006 at DJ Sep’s weekly Sunday-night reggae party at the Elbo Room, Dub Mission. "That changed my whole presence in the city," he says.

Arora believes his family’s roots in the often-volatile Punjab region between India and Pakistan breathes through his music. "That’s why I like bhangra. It has an element of aggression and sadness," he reflects, acknowledging that those also are traits he looks for in his vocal collaborations. "The artists I work with have a real tug-of-war between good and evil in their lives. My music is their redemption and my redemption in a fateful balance." *

KUSH ARORA

Dub Mission on Sundays, 9 p.m., $6

(Arora and MC Zulu on July 13, $7)

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

www.dubmissionsf.com

Sneaky Creek

-
0

TORSTEN KRETCHZMAR


What is it that makes Torsten Kretchzmar so different, so alluring? Perhaps it’s that he knows what girls like — as proven in the music video for "I Know What Girls Like," where the bespectacled German wins a barroom bro-down against a bunch of pool-playing dudes. Perhaps it’s because he’s the best Teutonic electropop icon since Klaus Nomi rocketed up to the sky. Or perhaps it’s because he’s — quite frankly — hot. Whatever the case, all will be screaming with Kretchzmarmaniac glee when he takes the stage. (Johnny Ray Huston) With Freddy McGuire, Justine Electra, and Katrina Lamb. July 16, 8 p.m., $5–$15 sliding scale. New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom, (415) 626-5416

JEL


Oakland sound collagist Jeffrey Logan impressed the heck outta everyone and their brothers with his artful Soft Money (Anticon, 2006). Next up, a putf8um single, which will guarantee plastic surgery for his entire family. (Kimberly Chun) With the Sixteens, the Fucking Ocean, and NED. July 17, 9 p.m., $7. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880

EXTRA ACTION MARCHING BAND VS. WHAT CHEER?


Can’t wait for the battle of the brass? The blood-spitting firestarters of the Bay’s EAMB kick off MCMF, and the 18-piece Providence, R.I., ensemble WC closes it with oodles of horn-dog action. (Chun) Extra Action Marching Band with Nurses, Fluff Girl, and Butt holes Urfers. July 18, 9 p.m., $8. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880. What Cheer? with Tiger Honey Pot, MGM Grand, and Super Secreta Especiale July 20, 3:30 p.m. (all-ages show), $5. Million Fishes Gallery, 2501 Bryant, SF. www.millionfishes.com. What Cheer? with Super Secreta Especiale July 20, 8 p.m., $10. Amnesia Bar, 853 Valencia, SF. (415) 970-0012

ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI


He’s baaack. (Chun) With Anavan, Late Young, Rainbow Arabia, and Hecuba. July 18, 9 p.m., $10-$15. Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF. (415) 648-7562

EARLIMART


There is life after Elliott Smith. The former Fresno-nauts have scored mucho acclaim for their layered, sonically enriched new album — pun alert — Hymn and Her (Majordomo). It’s the third most added college-radio album in the nation to boot. (Chun) With Built Like Alaska and the Parson Red Heads. July 19, 9:30 p.m., $14. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016

LADY GENIUS


Volunteer Pioneer is gone but not forgotten: this SF fivesome formed in the ashes of guitarist Jason Byers’ and vocalist-multi-instrumentalist Kyle Williams’ group, emphasizing the pop bliss of boy-girl harmonies. Wait for it, wait for it: their first EP on Gold Robot Records. (Chun) With Huff This, Gwendolyn, and the Parish. July 19, 9 p.m., $7. Hotel Utah, 500 Fourth St., SF. (415) 546-6300

I’m here with lonesome

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Loneliness is invoked on three of four songs on the White Buffalo’s MySpace page: "Love Song 1" finds its narrator on an island for one, staring at the sun; "The Moon" visits the shadows and grays of solo days; and "10 ‘Til 2" revolves around hopes to screw a hooker in the morning. Yet the White Buffalo’s main man himself — a.k.a. Jake Smith — is far from some namby-pamby Elliott Smith or any number of whiny hand-me-a-tissue, I’m-not-long-for-this-tortured-life modern singer-songwriters. Though Smith admits some compositions are personal, most, he says on the phone from southern California, are "fantastic, darker, little evil journey songs that are just imagination things and aren’t inspired by anything — at least, not to my knowledge."

Venture along the White Buffalo’s dark little journeys, for they’re good ones to take — full of the character-building that comes from Greyhounding through the rolling West. You end up resigned yet hopeful, with no obligations other than dreams of your next stop. The real white buffalo is a rare creature, and the White Buffalo — at times a solo project, at others a trio — conjures a similar mythos: Smith’s bio trumpets his solid stature, heavy boozing, and ability, like that of bygone legends, to marry his lifestyle with his art. And though this sounds sort of cheesy, White Buffalo’s music is not. On the contrary, what I love about the White Buffalo is his evident sincerity. Smith’s voice plunges you into clear, deep pools: infinite, enveloping, fully resonant like Eddie Vedder at his best — by far the easiest comparison — but with hints of Cat Stevens’ whispery warble and Joe Cocker’s soulful rasp. The occasional twang is likely derived from Smith’s childhood musical diet of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. Wielding an acoustic rock, alt-country folkiness that lacks pretension, Smith could’ve written the score accompanying the vast geographical and philosophical landscapes of Into the Wild (2007).

Though he now lives in Orange County, Smith’s music may ring a bell if you were lucky enough to catch one of his handful of shows during the few years he resided in San Francisco, where he "just raised hell and waited tables." Since then he’s toured the world, developed his guitar chops — which remain simple and "just a way to get the message and the vocal across" — and recorded a self-released, self-titled 2005 EP. "Let the suuunnn / Fill me up again," he croons on "Where Dirt and Water Collide." My response? Let this voiiiccce fill me up again — and again and again. Between the sun and the White Buffalo, there’s no loneliness here, really.

THE WHITE BUFFALO

With the Blank Tapes and Agent Ribbons

July 17, 9 p.m., $10

Hotel Utah Saloon

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

Cream-colored slumbers

-
0

Thank you, Brian Martinez. Were it not for this mutual friend, guitarist-vocalist Laura Weinbach and violinist Sivan Sadeh may have never met, and Foxtails Brigade — perhaps best but weakly described as experimental folk — may never have formed. And the two 25-year-old, classically trained musicians would miss the synergy they possess playing à deux. As Weinbach raved over the phone while the pair drove around San Francisco: "What’s really cool about violin and Sivan in particular is it’s really like having two to three vocal lines. She totally harmonizes with me, melodically, through the violin. Every song she’s been a part of becomes 100 times better."

The duo met last September and immediately began performing: they’ve already logged about 35 shows, entertaining everyone from sweet old folks in Santa Barbara convalescent homes to Weinbach’s surrogate high school students (she’s a substitute teacher). Sadeh’s rocked the violin nearly her entire life, playing in ensembles as diverse as mariachi to garage, while Weinbach studied creative writing and music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which is obvious in both her seemingly effortless classical fingerpicking and her lyrical storytelling.

"Porcelain" is how their friend Uni, the one with the ukulele, dubs their unmatched sound. She’s right: the pretty melodies and flower-strewn stories conjure memories of playing dress-up in vintage finery. Yet a sharp, almost violent edge is ever-present, saving the music from sugary-sweet, indie-folk doldrums. Foxtails’ consistent intensity and experimental theatrics — think Faun Fables, an oft-cited influence — are largely due to the tension created by Sadeh. Her violin melodies dance around Weinbach’s vocal ones, taunting and tiptoeing, until they collide at each song’s climax, an act that often is as beautifully dissonant as it is gracious. "I like to screech on my violin when I have a chance, and get that kind of whiny sound that people really don’t want to listen to but are attracted to for some reason," Sadeh said, adding that she’s learning to play the similarly eerie-sounding saw.

Weinbach’s lyrics never fail on the storytelling front, whether she’s channeling a scary doll that comes alive in the dark of night or writing about a psychotic student. In the latter song, "For Leo," she sings, "But I have known your kind before / You’re linked by paper cuts and sores / Rotten green banana eyes / With chocolate milk and hungry flies." Creepy yet compelling, Foxtails dare you to turn away.

FOXTAILS BRIGADE

July 20, 8 p.m., call for price

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

(415) 550-6994

Feeding the fire of Mountainhood

-
0

Do you know the way to … Almaden? Not many know about that tiny, once-rural cowtown-now-San Jose-incorporated bedroom community. But Michael Hilde, a.k.a. Mountainhood, can map it out for you.

"I’ve never, ever played a show where I’ve told somebody that I’m from Almaden and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ No one has ever heard of it," the affable and intense songwriter swears, sitting on a log in a breezy patch of woods at a sandy edge of the Presidio. "But it’s a wild town. When I moved there, it was straight-up country. There were stallion farms and on the edge of my block there was a Harley-Davidson bar. Every Saturday night, guaranteed, you’d see two fat, wet guys just duking it out through the window."

Love of home led Hilde to name his 2007 CD-R on Finland’s 267 Laattajaa label after his town, as well as the name of his musical project (he switched to Mountainhood after a dream spent communing with Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic on a star-filled mountain). Home also brought him to City Hall when that biker bar, Feed & Fuel, was about to be torn down. "It’s funny because when I went there, right before I was to speak, they were doing this whole bill on whether cops could have the right to bust into illegal immigrants’ houses and harass them," Hilde recalls. "And I was, like, ‘I can’t believe I’m here to, like, talk about saving a bar. There were all these people with translators weeping. So I got up and gave an impromptu speech, and then afterwards, I sat back down, and people were, like, ‘You were amazing! What do you do?’ I was, like, ‘I’m a folk singer,’ and they were like, ‘Oh, that makes sense. We get it.’<0x2009>"

And folks are starting to get Hilde’s brand of cosmic Americana — a blend of delicate Banhart-esque rusticity, 1960s-era transcendental instrumentals, and modern-day home-recorded drone experimentalism. After a handful of lower-fi releases, his next two albums, Thunderpaint the Stone Horse Electric and Wings from a Storm, will be put out this summer on 180-gram vinyl, with stickers of Hilde’s impressionistic paintings by Time Lag. Yet despite the fact that Hilde has been building a community of sorts with his monthly Story night at the Stork Club — each performer adds a bit to a running narrative during their set — Hilde seems to cherish his outsider status in the local music scene as he describes one packed Lobot Gallery performance. "I’ll never forget their expressions," he says, miming a look of opened-mouth disbelief. "It’s stayed that way ever since I started playing here."

MOUNTAINHOOD

July 19, 9 p.m., $5

Argus Lounge

3187 Mission, SF

(415) 824-1447

1...121314...68Page 13 of 68

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org