Volume 42 [2007–08]

Ongoing threat

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› amanda@sfbg.com

The debate over city plans to build and own two combustion turbine power plants, a project Mayor Gavin Newsom has made a last minute effort to alter, shows that public power — and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s fear of it — is still a significant issue at City Hall.

Newsom, a past advocate of the project, pulled the plug on its progress May 13. The proposal for the natural gas–fired power plants to handle peak energy demand (called "peakers") was up for approval at the Board of Supervisors until Newsom requested a one-week continuance.

Christine DeBerry, the mayor’s liaison to the board, told supervisors the mayor would use the time to aggressively pursue better options than the peakers, even though it’s an item that spent eight years on the planning block and was approved by the Newsom-appointed San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

"What can be aggressively pursued in the next week that hasn’t been aggressively pursued in the last few years?" asked Sup. Chris Daly, one of the four supervisors publicly opposed to the plan, questioning DeBerry on why the mayor and his SFPUC hadn’t put forth the best energy project.

"The mayor engaged in a full exploration of the options over the last several years," DeBerry said, but wants to ensure the city is considering all options.

"Are you anticipating there’s going to be a new technological breakthrough in the next several days?" Daly asked before casting the lone vote against granting the continuance. As of the Guardian‘s press time, the plan’s hearing was scheduled for May 20, but sources said June 3 would be more likely. Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard would not confirm whether another continuance would be requested or discuss what alternatives the mayor’s office is pursuing.

But it appears that the new technological breakthrough being pursued by the mayor’s office is actually a retrofit of an older, existing power plant in Potrero Hill, owned by Mirant Corp.

Sam Lauter, representing Mirant on the issue, said the company has been answering questions about a retrofit from diesel to natural gas for its three turbines. Mirant already agreed to close the older natural gas units at its Potrero plant once the $15 million contract, which requires the plant to maintain the reliability of the power grid, is pulled by California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO). Lauter also said Mirant’s redevelopment of the site for commercial use would still happen if the board decides a retrofit of Mirant is a better deal than building city-owned power plants.

As of the Guardian‘s deadline, no sources could provide any solid numbers on what a retrofit would cost and if pollution would be more, less, or equal to what the city anticipates from the peakers. But, Lauter told us, "The cost is considerably less than the cost of the peakers."

The contract with Cal-ISO could mean that the costs of retrofitting the diesels would be passed on to ratepayers. As for the pollution, Lauter said it’s not an easy answer and depends on how often the units have to run: "It’s not exactly correct to say they’d be less polluting, and it’s not exactly correct to say they’d be more polluting."

Barbara Hale, SFPUC’s assistant general manager of power, agreed there are still many uncertainties about retrofitting Mirant, including permits for the plant, restraints on how much it could operate, exactly how much it would pollute, and if it would even meet Cal-ISO’s demand for 150 megawatts of in-city generation. "I’m told by engineers that when generators go through a retrofit, often their megawatt capacity goes down," Hale told us. Each Mirant diesel unit currently puts out 52 megawatts.

As for other options Newsom requested from the agency, Hale said they’re exploring how to get more demand response and efficiency from the existing grid.

That suggestion comes from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which actively opposes the city’s peaker plan and sent representatives to meet with Newsom’s staff May 5 (while Newsom was in Israel with Lauter, who said the two did not discuss Mirant or the peakers while overseas), shortly before he sought the delay.

PG&E spokesperson Darlene Chiu confirmed the contents of the proposal as presented to the mayor’s staff, which includes ways to eke more from the grid as well as a new transmission line between two substations.

Tony Winnicker, spokesperson from the PUC, said of PG&E’s plan: "We absolutely support each of these projects, think they’re long overdue improvements to the city’s transmission reliability, and hope they are committing the necessary funding to begin and complete them."

He added that there is little in the plan that differs from a past PG&E proposal that Cal-ISO rejected — except the new transmission line. But, he said, its target completion date of 2012-13 was "very ambitious, given that they haven’t even started the permitting."

PG&E’s Chiu, a former spokesperson for Mayor Newsom, didn’t respond to a question about the time frame for such a project, nor did she comment on whether PG&E considers the city’s ownership of the peakers a threat to its jurisdiction.

She didn’t have to. While City Hall scrambled to come up with an alternative that hasn’t been vetted during the last eight years of community meetings, city studies, and negotiations, PG&E was telling its shareholders that the threat of public power is alive and well.

At the May 14 annual meeting of PG&E investors, held at the San Ramon Conference Center, CEO Peter Darbee assured the assembled, "I, too, am concerned about municipalization and community choice aggregation."

He was responding to a criticism from an employee and member of Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20, who said PG&E shouldn’t be contracting outside the company because it created an experienced proxy workforce ripe for employment by another entity, like a municipality, that would be a threat to PG&E’s jurisdiction.

In responding, Darbee recalled the recent efforts in Yolo County, where the county attempted to defect from PG&E and join the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. "Peter, it’s half-time, your team is down, you better get directly involved with this," he said of the potential loss of 70,000 customers. The company mustered 1,000 employees to volunteer their time, walking from house to house and knocking on doors, prior to the November 2006 vote. "I was one of them," he said. "That vote went overwhelmingly in favor of PG&E."

Beyond knocking on doors, PG&E dropped $11 million on the campaign, outspending the competition 10 to 1.

But Darbee said it was a real victory in a state like California. "There’s always been in the water a desire for public power," he said, adding that 30 percent to 40 percent of the population approves of municipally-owned utilities.

Customer service, Darbee went on to say, is the best defense against threats to PG&E. And for the past two years, PG&E’s corporate strategy has been focused on that. To that end, its ranking in an annual JD Power customer satisfaction survey rose from 51 to 43 last year for the residential sector, and from 46 to a lofty second place for business customers.

But the JD Power survey also ranks municipal utilities, and 2007 results show PG&E was outpaced by three municipalities — the Salt River Project, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which also took the highest ranking in the nation. *

Disclosure: Amanda Witherell owns 14 shares of PG&E Co. common stock.

The threat of Proposition 98

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OPINION Just as the California Supreme Court finally recognizes queers as full and equal citizens by ruling in favor of gay marriage, a June 3 ballot measure threatens to kill anti-discrimination protections for queers. But that’s not the half of it: Proposition 98 is in fact a savage attack on protections of all kinds for all Californians.

A fraud wrapped within a fraud, Prop. 98 masquerades as eminent domain reform while only semi-covertly legisutf8g the death of rent control. But just as rent control is about far more than price alone, Prop. 98 is about far more than only ending rent control.

All Californians, not only the 14 million who rent, will be trampled under the iron hooves of this Trojan horse. In a detailed analysis, the Western Center on Law and Poverty concludes: "There is nothing in the text that prevents Prop. 98 from being used to prohibit or limit land use decisions, zoning, work place laws, or environmental protections."

Prop. 98 not only bans all state and local residential and mobile-home rent control laws, now and forever, it kills inclusionary housing requirements and ends tenant protections in the Ellis Act. But wait, there’s more! As assessed by the Western Center, other "likely" applications of Prop 98 include the end of just-cause protections for eviction, and the end of most regulation of residential rental property.

The center also rates it "possible" that Prop. 98 will invalidate all anti-discrimination protections below the federal level — including California’s LGBT fair-housing protections.

Given the potential outcome, the nearly $2 million that more than 100 apartment building and mobile home park owners spent to put Prop. 98 on the ballot, and the subsequent $291,000 that the Apartment Owners Association political action committee gave the Yes on 98 campaign represent a shrewd investment.

It would be a bargain for them at twice the price. Being able to charge unlimited amounts for renter screening and credit checks, for instance, and no longer having to provide deadbolt locks, a usable telephone jack, and working wiring means a nice chunk of change for landlords and speculators. But that’s nothing compared to the larger gains to be exploited: a landlord would be free to have you sign a lease without being obligated to disclose that he or she already applied for a demolition permit on the property. Serious defects in the unit? Too bad, the prohibition on landlords collecting rent while substandard conditions exist would fly out the (broken) window.

Unlike the tenant-backed Prop. 99, which truly prevents eminent domain abuse on behalf of renters and owners alike, Prop. 98 only guarantees the domain of the wealthiest over the rest of us. If we let this Trojan horse in, whether actively — by voting for it — or passively — by not voting — June 3 (and that’s a real danger since too many San Francisco voters assume the measure will fail anyway), all Californians will pay the price. *

Mara Math is a writer and tenant organizer.

We do

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› steve@sfbg.com

Less than two hours after the California Supreme Court announced its 4–3 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, San Francisco City Hall filled with smiling couples and local politicians of various ideological stripes to celebrate the city’s central role in achieving the most significant civil rights advance in a generation.

The case began four years ago in San Francisco when Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to have the city issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. City Attorney Dennis Herrera and his legal team built the voluminous legal case that won an improbable victory in a court dominated 6 to 1 by Republican appointees.

"In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and the central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all individuals and couples, without regard to their sexual orientation," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.

Newsom cut short a trip to Chicago to return home and make calls to the national media and join Herrera’s press conference, where hundreds of couples who got married in San Francisco City Hall were assembled on the City Hall staircase as a backdrop to the jubilant parade of speakers that took the podium.

"What a wonderful, wonderful day," a beaming Herrera told the assembled crowd, adding, "California has taken a tremendous leap forward."

Some speakers (as well as the next day’s coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle) emphasized the potential of the issue to embolden conservatives and the possibility that a November ballot measure could nullify the decision by, as a prepared statement by Rep. Nancy Pelosi put it, "writing discrimination into the state constitution."

But for most San Franciscans, it was a day to celebrate a significant victory. Herrera praised "the courageousness of the California Supreme Court." He also commended Deputy City Attorney Terry Stewart, who argued the case, legal partners such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the eight other California cities that supported San Francisco’s position with amicus briefs — and Newsom, who clearly soaked up the adulation and gave a fiery speech that could easily become a campaign commercial in his expected run for governor.

"I can’t express enough how proud I am to be a San Franciscan," Newsom said, later saying of the decision, "It’s about human dignity. It’s about human rights. It’s about time."

Newsom also emphasized that "this day is about real people and their lives."

Among those people, standing on the stairs of City Hall, was Emily Drennen, a current candidate for the Democratic County Central Committee and the District 11 seat on the Board of Supervisors, who was the 326th couple to get married in San Francisco, taking her vows with partner Linda Susan Ulrich.

"When it got nullified, something was taken away from us. It really felt like that," Drennen told the Guardian, adding that she was thrilled and relieved by the ruling. "I was just holding my breath this whole time, expecting the worst but hoping for the best."

Herrera spokesperson Matt Dorsey, who is gay, was similarly tense before the ruling, knowing how much work had gone into it but worried the court might not overcome its ideological predisposition to oppose gay marriage.

"For everyone who worked on this, it was the case of their lives," Dorsey told us. "Politically and legally, there was so much work that this office did that I’m so proud of, and I hope people understand that." *

Judge hits SF Weekly with injunction

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

SF Weekly and its parent chain Village Voice Media are legally barred from selling ads below cost for the purpose of harming the Guardian, Superior Court Judge Marla Miller ruled May 19.

Miller issued an injunction in the Guardian’s lawsuit against the Weekly forbidding the paper and its “officers, managers, agents, affiliates, parents [and] subsidiaries” from engaging in further predatory pricing. Unless the injunction is overturned by a higher court, it will be in effect for 10 years. Miller retains jurisdiction over the case.

Miller also issued a final ruling on damages, entering a $15.9 million judgment for the Guardian. That includes more than $300,000 interest going back to the date of the March 5 verdict.

The Guardian will also get attorneys fees and costs, although that amount is not yet established.

The Guardian sued the Weekly and Phoenix-based VVM, its 16-paper-chain parent, for predatory pricing. After a five-week trial, a San Francisco jury found that the Weekly and VVM intentionally sold ads below cost in an effort to drive the locally-owned competitor out of business.

The jury awarded the Guardian $6.39 million in damages. The law provides for treble damages after a jury verdict, but a recent court ruling interpreted that to mean that only a portion of the damages could be tripled. The ruling was not a big surprise: Miller had indicated at a May 9 hearing that she was prepared to issue an injunction and raise the damages to $15.6 million.

During the hearing, lawyers for the Weekly tried to argue that an injunction would violate their clients’ right to free speech. Forrest Hainline III of the Boston-based firm Goodwin Proctor, who was hired to handle the Weekly‘s appeal, insisted that the only way the Weekly could abide by an injunction would be to cut editorial costs – depriving the paper of its First Amendment rights.

That was a remarkable argument – in essence, the Weekly‘s lawyer was saying that the people could not possibly make a profit on its current product. But as Guardian lawyer Ralph Alldredge pointed out, there’s nothing unconstitutional about mandating that a newspaper obey basic business regulations.

The injunction states that the Weekly cannot sell display advertising space “at a price below the fully allocated cost of that space for the purpose of injuring plaintiff Bay Guardian Co, Inc., unless SF Weekly LP can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that an offer or sales alleged to fall within this injunction falls within an affirmative defense to the below cost sales prohibitions of the Unfair Practices Act.”

Miller’s ruling now sends the case to the next phase. Hainline indicated at the May 9 hearing that he will now ask Miller to reduce the damages or overturn the entire verdict. If she declines, the Weekly can take the case to the Court of Appeal, a move that could delay any final outcome for as long as two years.

However, the Weekly and VVM will now have to post an appeal bond of as much as $24 million to guarantee payment of the judgment and interest. The award will accrue interest at 10 percent – that’s about $4,300 a day – during the course of any appeal.

Most important, however, the court has issued an enforceable injunction mandating that the big chain do what the Guardian has been asking for all along: play fair.

The Weekly has been losing money every year since New Times – which changed its named to Village Voice Media after buying that company two years ago – purchased the newspaper in 1995. The chain has pumped some $25 million into San Francisco to keep the local operation afloat. That allowed the Weekly to cut the price of its ads so low that the Guardian had to struggle to cut its own costs to match the below-market rates.

At this point, the injunction should force the Weekly to compete on a level playing field – meaning that both papers will have a chance to survive in the market, offering readers and advertisers a choice. That’s what the First Amendment’s marketplace of ideas is all about.

Mike Lacey, VVM’s executive editor, and Jim Larkin, the company’s CEO, failed to return calls and e-mail seeking comment.

The Guardian‘s lawyers are Alldredge, Richard Hill, and E. Craig Moody.

For all the details and background on the case, go to www.sfbg.com/lawsuit.

The peakers vs. Mirant

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EDITORIAL In the late 1960s, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District made a terrible decision and began building a nuclear power plant. Rancho Seco started generating power in 1977.

But over the next 10 years, environmental activists put pressure on the elected board that runs SMUD — and in 1989, the public power agency shut down the nuke with 11 years left on its operating license.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. built Diablo Canyon nuclear plant about the same time — but despite massive public protests, it’s still running today. That’s a big difference between public power and private utilities — and its one the San Francisco Supervisors need to recognize as they debate power plants in the southeast part of town. Because right now, two big private power companies are setting the agenda for the city’s energy policy.

And if they’re in control, the environment will be the loser.

Over the past several weeks, Mayor Gavin Newsom has met with representatives of PG&E — which is desperately trying to keep the city out of the retail electric power business — and Mirant Corp., which seems quite happy to keep operating its power plant at the foot of Potrero Hill. And as a result, the mayor has changed his position, is backing away from a plan for three city-owned power plants, and is prepared to offer the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the dirty Mirant plant and keep it running.

That’s unacceptable, and the supervisors need to reject it.

The background on this issue, for those who haven’t been paying attention, is fascinating and a bit complex.

For years, residents of the southeast neighborhoods have been trying to shut down the Mirant plant, which runs a natural gas-fired turbine and three diesel-powered auxillary generators. California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), which manages the state’s electricity grid, has balked at removing the only large-scale generating facility within city limits, saying San Francisco can’t bring all of its power in from outside.

Until recently, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — with Newsom’s blessing — has proposed that the city operate three natural gas turbines, known as peaker plants, that would run only when demand for power is high. Cal-ISO says the peakers would fulfill the in-city reliability requirement, and if they’re built, the Mirant Plant would be shuttered.

The peakers (which the city already owns, thanks to a lawsuit settlement) are fossil fuel plants and release air pollution — not as much, the city says, as the Mirant plant, but not zero. So environmental justice activists want to stop the new plants, saying the city can make do with conservation, new renewable energy facilities, and a new power line across the Bay. So far, Cal-ISO disagrees, but the activists are pushing the city to try harder to make the state accept a greener option.

So PG&E and the environmentalists are both trying to stop the supervisors from approving the peakers. PG&E sees them as public power, and is funding a sophisticated lobbying and direct-mail campaign against the city peakers.

That effort has turned Newsom around: as Amanda Witherell reports on page 15, the mayor is apparently prepared to offer a new plan that would scrap the city-owned peakers in favor of retrofitting the diesel units at the Mirant plant. PG&E would bring more cables into the city and would work on conservation efforts.

Conservation is fine, and PG&E ought to be pushing those efforts anyway. But the proposal makes no sense.

For starters, all evidence suggests that even after a retrofit, the Mirant plant would still generate fossil fuel pollution, quite possibly more than the city peakers. So the southeast would continue to get dumped on, with no significant relief. And the plan would leave PG&E and Mirant in control of generating and distributing power in the city.

We’re sympathetic to the environmental justice arguments, and we’ve been consistent in our position that the city shouldn’t build or operate new fossil fuel plants unless the scientific evidence shows they’ll be cleaner than any reasonable alternative. We would much prefer that San Francisco refrain from any new fossil fuel sources and rely instead on a completely renewable portfolio. But for all the problems we have with the peakers, they would, at least, be owned by the city.

That’s a crucial issue: if San Francisco controls the plants, San Francisco can turn them off any time, the moment the city’s renewable efforts convince Cal-ISO that the peakers aren’t needed (or even before that, if we want to risk a legal fight with the state). If a private company owns the generators, the plant will continue to run as long as it makes money.

If there’s a credible way to avoid any fossil fuel generation, we’re all in favor. But if the choice is between the peakers and retrofitting Mirant, it’s a no-brainer. And the real lesson here is that the supervisors should be moving forward with Sups. Mirkarimi and Peskin’s charter amendment to create a full public power agency at City Hall. *

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

When the ruling on same-sex marriage came down, I was in upstate New York, hanging out with my brother, who runs a small construction outfit in a working-class town. His employees are the people Democratic leaders worry about; a generation ago they were called "Reagan Democrats." They make extremely un-PC jokes and insult each other with terms that would make most San Franciscans cringe.

And you know what? They couldn’t possibly care less about same-sex marriage.

"The people in my crew have families to feed and payments to make on their houses," my brother told me. "They don’t care who marries who. It’s the most ridiculous issue in the world." (My brother, who got married on his lunch hour wearing overalls covered with concrete dust, also told me years ago that "marriage is like a horse with a broken leg; you can shoot it, but that doesn’t fix the leg." You get the picture).

Yes, there are gay couples living in his little community. The framers and roofers treat them like everyone else. The construction workers are not remotely disturbed about queers being threats to their traditional values or marriages. And they’re all voting for Obama because they’re sick of the war, sick of the recession, sick of the cost of health insurance, sick of the politics in Washington DC, and ready for something totally different.

I thought about all of that when I came back and read the San Francisco Chronicle stories repeating the old argument that same-sex marriage could be the bane of the Democrats in November. It’s the same thing Rep. Nancy Pelosi says about all kinds of social and economic issues: we can’t go too fast. We might piss off some swing voters.

Sure, you might do that. And I’m not a pollster, and my focus group, as it were, is fairly narrow here. But I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that among rapidly growing numbers of Americans, gay marriage is becoming pretty insignificant as a wedge issue. I used to say that in 20 years, people would look back at this era and wonder what the foes of marriage equality were thinking. Now I suspect we’ll only have to wait 10 years, maybe less, before this is totally accepted in the mainstream of American society.

When somebody like Mayor Gavin Newsom takes the lead on a civil rights issue like this, I think it’s pretty crass to question his motives. But you can’t dispute the outcome: Newsom may have been acting out of pure principle or out of political calculation. But in the end, his career is now tightly tied to an issue that is part of the future. He will never have to say he was sorry about this, and all of the weak and trembling little Democrats who are wringing their hands will all look like idiots one day. One day very soon.

If Newsom wants to be governor, this can only help him — but it won’t be enough. My brother’s point is that the country is in a deep recession, the economy is a disaster, economic inequality is ruining the American Dream, and social issues aren’t going to carry the day. A politician who won’t tax the rich to improve the lot of the poor and the middle class, who won’t offer comprehensive economic solutions, who has nothing to say to people who make their living building houses when the housing market is in free fall … that politician’s going nowhere. *

Go directly to court

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› news@sfbg.com

After nearly four hours of debate punctuated by boos and cheers from an impassioned audience, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee decided May 14 not to release $500,000 in reserve funds for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed Community Justice Center.

The project, modeled after courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn and touted by Newsom for years, would be a tribunal for bringing in quality-of-life crime violators — usually the homeless or other street denizens — immediately after they’re cited and, in theory, getting them right into social services or community service work.

But the 3-2 committee vote against the project was based on this year’s big budget shortfall, Newsom’s opposition to other expenditures outside the normal budget process, lack of demonstrable savings or benefits from the program, and the fact that the social services it claims to offer are being cut.

"Let’s be clear here. We’re having this discussion while we’re contemputf8g some of the most draconian service reductions, at least that I’ve seen here, in seven-and-a-half years," Sup. Chris Daly said at the hearing.

He cited $3.3 million in cuts to senior services, $17 million in cuts to the Department of Health, closure of the homeless service center Buster’s Place, and a reduction in mental health services as examples.

In early May, Newsom vetoed an initiative sponsored by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi that would allocate $76,000 to record and post the proceedings of various municipal boards and commissions on the city’s Web site. The board voted 8-3 to successfully override that veto on May 13.

At the CJC hearing, Daly read a letter from Newsom dated April 30 saying he wanted to hold out on new spending initiatives like the Mirkarimi measure until new programs could be considered in the larger context of the 2008-09 fiscal year budget deliberations that begin in June.

"This is his veto message based on the dire budget situation," Daly said. "These words are directly applicable to the item in front of us."

Sup. Bevan Dufty and other Newsom allies on the board are expected to try to overcome the committee votes by introducing the proposal to the full board. Dufty told us, "I recognize there are members of the committee who aren’t comfortable with it, but I asked that the full board weigh in because I felt like everybody on the board ought to have a decision whether this moves forward or not."

Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard blasted the committee vote, telling the Guardian, "It was cowardly for Chris Daly and his colleagues to vote against the Community Justice Center. They lack the courage to support this program that will help get low-level offenders back on the right track. Why? Their fear outweighs their capacity to care: they fear the idea of agreeing with Gavin Newsom more than they care about people in the Tenderloin who are suffering and need help. They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

But critics say the proposal is rife with problems. Peter Masiak, lead tenant organizer for the Central City SRO Collaborative, said the CJC plans did not call for enough staff members to handle all the cases on its own. The staff would therefore have to refer people to service providers like his group, whose budgets are on the chopping block.

"It does nothing if you’re creating an expensive mechanism for referring people to services you’re cutting," he said at the hearing. "I’m concerned I’m going to have to tell my clients the only way they can get services is to stand on the street and smoke crack."

Deborah Newman of the City Budget Analyst’s Office said the CJC would cost approximately $2.9 million annually to operate. The $500,000 discussed May 14 originally was set aside for two holding cells — one for men and one for women — subleasing the court space, tenant improvements to the space, and social services.

Newman said that after tenant improvements, social services salaries, new cells, and subleases, new expenses would cost the city $2.4 million, even with a $1 million federal earmark supplied by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. CJC supporters said savings produced by the court would justify these costs.

San Francisco Superior Court Commissioner Ron Albers said San Francisco has used problem-solving and collaborative courts for more than a decade, citing the award-winning behavioral health court for mentally ill offenders as one example of how these courts can stop the courts’ current revolving-door system.

"This is a difficult budget time, but we can target high-end users of expensive programs and save money," he said.

Albers added that under the current system, people charged with misdemeanors must wait two days for an arraignment, while those charged with felonies wait three days. At $152 per day per bed, taxpayers spend thousands of dollars a year on people whose charges are ultimately dropped.

A representative of the mayor’s budget office told the hearing that the CJC could also save money by eliminating the need to build more jail pods, thus lowering the sheriff’s budget. But Harvey Rose of the Budget Analysts’ office said the CJC has failed to document any actual savings.

"Savings means that a budget is going to be cut, and we have seen no cuts in any budget," Rose said.

Some Tenderloin residents said that because crime is so rampant in their neighborhood, it would unacceptable for the city not to take action in some way, and they urged approval of the CJC. Yet others object to the double standard of creating what they dub the "poverty court." *

Summer Fairs and Festivals 2008

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Driving reign

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Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive (XBOX360, PS3)

GAMER Since its April 29 release, more than 6 million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV have been purchased. While Take-Two Interactive is still taking contractor bids on Scrooge McDuck–style cash swimming pools, the gaming press has worked itself into a frenzy, bestowing five-star reviews and expostuutf8g on how GTA IV will revolutionize gaming, culture, and possibly the world.

This hyperbole exemplifies gaming’s innate pathologies. Since their inception, video games have been portrayed as the puerile inferior to other entertainment media, and game designers, players, and critics have long coveted a seat at the table alongside the realist novel and the feature film. When a game as ambitious as GTA IV is released, advocates are quick to frame it as the "future of the medium," a kind of messianic product that will show those old-media Luddites what they’re missing.

GTA IV is not video Jesus. Still, by any reasonable standard, it’s an incredible game, taking the hallowed legacy of the previous GTA games, striving to be bigger and better, and mostly succeeding. At this late date, weeks after its debut, describing it as "only" the next Grand Theft Auto game can seem like very faint praise. Then again, criticizing the game using the metric of its hype is like getting a Benz for your 16th birthday and complaining that you didn’t get a Batmobile.

The GTA series is credited with inventing the "sandbox" game, which drops the player into a vast interactive world with little or no agenda. Complete the missions that drive the story forward — or don’t. Murder passersby until the police have to call in the National Guard — or don’t. Furnished with the power of today’s consoles, Rockstar Games has created a staggering sandbox, recreating New York City’s five boroughs (and a miniaturized New Jersey) in such loving, exhaustive detail that it’s hard to list all the coolness concisely. There’s a working subway system, multiple hours of fake, satirical television — one could go on forever.

In addition to the huge strides the game makes in environmental design and artificial intelligence, it also delivers the latest in interactive storytelling. You play Niko Bellic, a veteran of Balkan strife who disembarks in Liberty City hoping to escape his past and embrace the American lifestyle his previously arrived cousin Roman has touted as luxuriant and easy. Of course, it is not, and Niko is inexorably drawn into the criminal underworld he tried to leave behind.

While it doesn’t quite deliver the reinvention of the immigrant narrative parsed by some reviewers, the game provides an engrossing tale, full of three-dimensional characters (in both senses of the phrase), magnificent action sequences, and deft plot twists. The voice acting is superb and extensive; many conversations have alternate versions, expecting you to get killed and end up listening to them twice. The character animations — in a sense the game’s other kind of acting — convincingly capture the most esoteric gestures, down to the shudder of a crime boss as a line of Colombia’s finest explodes into his sinus.

The save system is still frustrating, and the prospect of replaying a long, violent confrontation after failing right at its end is often almost too much to bear. Despite GTA IV‘s unfettered gameplay, the missions are still very conventional and leave little room for creative problem-solving. Sure, there are a number of red pill–blue pill dilemmas. But in a game that allows you as much freedom as GTA, having to stick to the plan in each attempt becomes annoying. The new multiplayer mode provides a panoply of game types, ranging from traditional death-match and racing modes to cops-and-robbers high jinks that exploit what’s best about the game. Unfortunately the interface is confusing and finicky, and the online player-base seems to still be enmeshed in the game’s vast single-player story.

Grand Theft Auto IV is not without its faults. It may not establish video games as a serious medium. But if you want to have 300-odd hours of fun, there’s no better way to spend $60.

Body eclectic

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When Miguel Gutierrez left the Joe Goode Company in 1996, he was a hot dancer. He returned to the Bay Area a mature artist. In Retrospective Exhibitionist and Difficult Bodies, part of ODC Theater’s recent "For the Record: Dancers Debate the Body Politic" at Project Artaud Theater, Gutierrez worked at breaking down the invisible divide between performer and audience. Granted, this idea has been tried before — but few have taken it as far, or developed it as consistently, as Gutierrez has done. The result was an evening of dance theater that at times pushed beyond what I can stomach but nevertheless left me full of admiration for the skill with which he works the material and the audience.

Gutierrez’s focus of attention was the body, his and ours, individually and collectively. He raised questions about performers as narcissists and exhibitionists, and about the audience as voyeurs. He subverted expectations on timing, eliminated divisions of physical space (with brilliant lighting design by Lenore Doxsee), and embraced the authentic with the sentimental. It was manipulation of the first order, and totally autocratic.

In the opening segment when he futzed around, naked between his ankles and neck, assembling props, we learned only that he is well-built and has added a few pounds since his San Francisco days. When he then invited (actually, commanded) the audience to repeat after him, "I am Miguel Gutierrez," my reaction was, "The hell I am." The tone of confrontation wove through the evening like a cry, perhaps indicative of a love-hate relationship with performance.

Retrospective was a rich tapestry of episodes that raised questions about perception. What is more real, an ad lib monologue on video, or its imitation read live from a script? Where does the screaming singer stop and become the man spilling his guts? Do we direct our eyes to Gutierrez as a teen heartthrob in an archival clip downstage, or to the live dancer way off in a corner? Have the women disappeared in the glittering sequins of their gowns in Difficult Bodies?

When a burning candle was moved ever closer to Guiterrez’s naked butt, the performance became voyeurism at its worst. My instinct was to get up and grab the candle, saying "I am Miguel Guiterrez." Unfortunately, I didn’t have the guts.

Kills thrill

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› Kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "So … what kind of drugs inspired the record?"

"What kind of drugs?" Allison Mosshart of the Kills has to puzzle only briefly over that question. "Mmm … none. No, we didn’t take any drugs when we were writing the record. None. No, ate a lot of kale, drank a lot of coffee, made cocktails if we were getting bored, but no … "

Mosshart thinks I’m totally high. But I’m not: I’m just going ever so slightly deaf — thanks to all those Marshall stacks I’ve cozied up to over the years and those songs I can’t stop cranking to 13. And it doesn’t help that I’m feeling a wee bit hungover, and that the SF-UK phone connection this way-too-early Sunday morning is somewhat linty. So instead of hearing Mosshart sincerely explain that for the Kills’ latest album, Midnight Boom (Domino), she and bandmate Jamie Hince "didn’t listen to music, so we did things like read books, and watch documentaries, and cut out pictures from magazines, and type on typewriters, and take photographs, and do drawings," I semi-consciously absorb all of the above — as well as a tantalizing " … and do drugs." This is your brain on too many sidecars and Sazeracs.

That’s not Mosshart, though. "You know how when you’re trapped in a building and you don’t ever go outside for a long time?" she says of the CD’s recording. "It’s quite important that you don’t eat like shit so you don’t go mad."

Yet that inspired madness, the classic creative negativity of rock ‘n’ roll romanticism — the kind one might find in the nicotine rasps of Jennifer Herrema, hooked on the Stones as filtered through a jillion crappy boomboxes, or in the tattered valentines of Berlin-era Lou Reed, gloomed-out on jet-set trash — is just what the Kills seem to mainline. I witnessed as much at the sweaty, sizable hotbox of a Domino showcase at this year’s South by Southwest fest, where the pair entered silently and quickly, noisily conjured the outta-hand spirits that most definitely don’t virtuously devour kale or read good books. Hanging on to her mic stand like a lifeline in roiling waters, swaggering with a familiar rock pirate insouciance, and sporting big-cat spots like a lady who wanted less to drink from Keith Richards’ "Loving Cup" than to be the Glitter Twin himself, Mosshart sang, swayed, and spat. Her eyes were hidden behind midnight bangs, as if daring you to gaze at anything else.

So the vocalist-guitarist’s bare-faced honesty and earnest willingness to analyze the Kills’ work comes as a refreshing surprise. For instance, of the press literature that accompanied Midnight Boom, which pointed to Pizza Pizza Daddio, a 1967 documentary about inner-city kids and their playground songs, she complains good-naturedly: "I wish I could rip that press release up because every time I do an interview, every 15 minutes someone brings up that same thing." Mosshart and Hince merely identified with the "simplicity" of the subject matter, saw its similarity to what they were doing, and liked the juxtaposition of "these seven-year-old girls singing with these huge smiles on their faces, and the songs are really dark. They’re about murder and domestic violence and alcoholism."

More than anything, she says, they wanted a third album — which includes beats and additional production by Spank Rock producer Alex Epton — that "sounds like now. The other two records [2002’s Keep on Your Mean Side and 2005’s No Wow (both Domino)] are quite retro, y’know. The first one sounds a bit like a Velvet Underground record, and the second one sounds like a Suicide–Cabaret Voltaire kind of record."

So the Kills hunkered down at the Keyclub studio in Benton Harbor, Mich., far from the distractions of London where the twosome is based. After more than half a year and a getaway to Mexico, they came up with a clutch of songs they were satisfied with.

The scathing "Cheap and Cheerful" revolves around "just being honest with yourself and honest with other people despite hurting other people’s feelings and sometimes making a real big mess of things," Mosshart offers. "But not quite burying your emotions for the good of everybody all the time. Otherwise you’ll completely explode."

Most of the tunes were the pure product of collaboration. UK native Hince, whom the American-born Mosshart met in 2000, is "my best friend," she says. "He’s kind of like the most perfect creative partner I’ve ever had. There are no rules in this band. It’s not even a band — it’s this thing, whatever we do."

It’s something even tabloid attention — now that Hince has been linked to Kate Moss — can’t tear apart. "It’s a different world, isn’t it?" Mosshart says, sounding subdued. "It’s not my world, and it isn’t really Jamie’s world so … it’s nothing I, like, care too much about. I care about him being happy. That’s about it."

Supermodels or no, the Kills will continue to stoke the flames of that chemistry. How do they work themselves into that state? "We just get nervous, y’know," Mosshart says modestly. "There are so many ideas and so few of us. When I’m onstage, I’m, in a way, daydreaming and trying not to think about anything that’s really happening around me. Other than Jamie and not falling over."

THE KILLS

Sat/17, 9 p.m., $16

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

www.slims-sf.com

BLOW BY BLOWFLY

BLOWFLY


OMG, the OG of dirty way before ODB. Anyone with the chutzpah to turn "What a Diff’rence a Day Makes" into "What a Difference a Lay Makes" can come play by me. Sat/17, 10 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

SKY SAXON AND THE SEEDS


Marin County garage-rock legend/lurker Sky (a.k.a. Sunlight, a.k.a. Dog) Saxon at the legendary punk palais? Don’t push too hard. With Powell St. John and the Aliens, Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa, and Saything. Sun/18, 5 p.m., $8. 924 Gilman Project, 924 Gilman, Berk. www.924gilman.org

CLINIC


Surgical scrubs on wry. The sly Liverpool quartet continue to keep "funk, celebration, and soft metal" alive with Do It! (Domino) — unbeknownst to Nike. Mon/19, 9 p.m., $17. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Food and the city

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When we talk about "regional" cuisines or cooking, we often find ourselves talking about some quarter of Italy. For centuries, Italy was a politically fragmented land — a jigsaw puzzle of kingdoms, duchies, principalities, serene republics, and city-states — and did not become a modern nation-state until the 19th century.

Yet what politics could not achieve, food could. As John Dickie demonstrates in his engrossing Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and Their Food (Free Press, $26), trade among the peninsula’s cities in the late Middle Ages became the foundation for the distinctive cuisine we know today as Italian. Cooking in the Italian cities was more similar than not, Dickie suggests, and it was immeasurably better than what was to be found in the impoverished countryside, where peasants were practically boiling weeds for soup. In our time, a love of rustic Italian cooking is just one of many food fetishes — mostly harmless, but maybe not quite, since under the guise of lauding a rural bounty and style that never really existed, it subtly reinforces an American prejudice against cities. We already have Jeffersonian myths about our own countryside — as a redoubt of wisdom, rectitude, health, and happiness — that reach back beyond the founding of the republic.

We have myths about our cities too, but most are of the if-only variety. Urban utopians — the people who think cities would be little paradises if only we could rid them of homeless people or cars or Republicans or loud partiers — would do well to consider Dickie’s portraiture of Italy’s cities across eight centuries. Like all cities, always and everywhere, they are full of dirt, noise, and disease — as well as cruelty, wealth, vanity, status consumption, insecurity, and vicious politicking. They are nasty and exciting, as we would expect from any sort of social experiment that concentrates large numbers of human beings in a small space.

The lesson of cities, then, is that they are marketplaces not only of goods and services, but of ideas. They are messy with conflict among innumerable worlds and subworlds. And much of that conflict is pointless or even counterproductive — but not all of it. Sometimes a random spark will catch and burn brightly, and then we all say huzzah, or buon appetito.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

Flowers for Kathleen Edwards

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Being of so-called American Indian and African descent, I have never believed in borders. These imperial lines have only wreaked havoc and sealed our fate. Still, I’m always amused by just how much Canadian roots rockers seem to out amber-wave many Americana acts in the Lower 48. From the Band’s part-Mohawk Robbie Robertson penning classic anthems about Southern history ("The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down"), to Neil Young’s prurient praise-songs, to my much-removed kinswoman "Pocahontas" and beyond, there’s an outsider quality shared with my outlaw peoples, a sense of being on the margins that triggers keen lyrical and sonic focus. Add to this lineage Young’s aspiring heiress, Kathleen Edwards: on tracks such as the barroom gothic "Goodnight, California," she certainly makes that skill plain.

Edwards has bubbled under since her 2003 debut Failer (Socan/Factor), widely celebrated by music cognoscenti with reliable ears. But her world-weary folkie moves reminded me of Lucinda Williams and other sepia-tone, anachronist comers of the period. With Asking for Flowers (Zoe/Rounder), her finest album to date, she has finally distinguished herself from much of alt-country’s fringe-fetish ghetto . A cinematic sweep and fine Los Angeles sessioneering frame its road songs ("Buffalo") and polemical tales from the heartland ("Oil Man’s War"). "O Canada" revisits themes of drugs and mayhem from Tonight’s the Night (Reprise, 1975), by Young and his famed, unvarnished backing band Crazy Horse. I reckon we’ll be dancing round the ole maple this spring, crowing "B is for bullshit" from Edwards’ "The Cheapest Key" as it abounds on the ever more absurd campaign trail. Other Edwards lyrics should be reserved for rocker girlfriends and women saddled with tired-ass boyfriends. "I’ve been on the road too long to sympathize / With what you think you’re owed."

Nowhere is Edwards’ inherited Great North gift of odd insight more evident than on the disc’s best song: "I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory." One could almost see Ellen Burstyn’s Alice singing, "You’re cool and cred like Fogerty, I’m Elvis Presley in the ’70s" to Kris Kristofferson in some meta-American vérité — that is, if much current US indie cinema wasn’t vastly inferior to films like Sarah Polley’s Oscar-nominated Away from Her (2006). Just as Polley kicked creative ass and Feist has been anointed the "New Joni" by worshipful black Atlantic male musicians, Edwards looks poised to be this year’s sweetheart of the rodeo — although nowhere nearer to Music Row than before. Happy trails, gal.

KATHLEEN EDWARDS

With the Last Town Chorus

Tues/20, 8 p.m., $18

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1422

www.theindependentsf.com

To “Romance,” times two

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In 2006, Sally Shapiro’s album Disco Romance (Diskokaine) added a cooler shade of pale to the Nordic pop of Annie and a femme counterpoint to the boy’s own space disco zone charted by Lindstrøm and others. Shapiro — not her real name — used an understated, happy-sad vocal approach to navigate the vast, austere Europop soundscapes created by songwriter Johan Agebjörn. Tracks such as "Find My Soul" and "Hold Me So Tight" shimmered with an eerie grace. Agebjörn cited specific warm strains of Italo disco as his inspiration, but a Shapiro song sounds just as home in the Swedish snow.

Disco Romance deservedly received a deluxe North American release on the Paper Bag label last fall, with three additional songs. This year it’s getting the revision treatment through a pair of Remix Romance collections on the same label. The second one, which includes a mix by Europop touchstone Alexander Robotnick, is due next month. The first volume, out now, isn’t as solid as the original recording, but has its unique charms. Annie’s roommate Skatebard strips down one track, and the Cansecos’ version of "Hold Me So Tight" is the best Saint Etienne track that Saint Etienne never recorded. The Junior Boys, whose glacial crooner’s laments might be the masculine counterpart to the Shapiro sound, entreat the vocalist to speak instead of sing on "Jackie Junior." But the spoils go to Holy Fuck, whose take on "Find My Soul" magnifies the source material’s already potent sense of lost-in-space loneliness. Who is Sally Shapiro, and where is Sally Shapiro? I don’t know, but I like how she sounds on my stereo. (Huston)

www.johanagebjorn.info/sally.html, www.myspace.com/shapirosally

That girl

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› johnny@sfbg.com

The saga or psychodrama of Britney Spears mirrors the crash-and-burn George W. Bush era like a reflective toxic bio-dome. Robyn is that girl on the outside whose story is so vast and smart that it’s been invisible to everyone hypnotized into suffering blackouts.

Back when the Swedish star first kicked her way onto an MTV that played music videos in the summer of 1997 (around when Bill Clinton became a horny lame duck), the writer-producer partly behind the perfectly calibrated beats of her semi-hit "Do You Know (What It Takes)" was none other Max Martin, the man about to bring a little ditty called "(Hit Me Baby) One More Time" to the ears of the world. Spears soon took that abuse victim’s idea of first love to the top of the US pop charts, ushering out the Spice Girls’ version of girl power in the process. As for Robyn, she wound up resonating on a different level.

While reviewing 1997’s Robyn Is Here (RCA/Jive), I joked about a sub-coincidence: vocalists named Robyn and Robin S were both vying for success with tracks called "Show Me Love." Unlike me, the movie director Lukas Moodysson recognized dissent beneath the slick surfaces of Robyn’s music: how else to explain his use of her "Show Me Love" as the signature (and in English-speaking countries, title) theme of perhaps the best teen film of the ’90s, the 1998 girl’s coming-out tale Fucking ?mål? Though Moodysson has since veered toward anti-commercial visions of degradation, he still recognizes a talented woman stuck in conservative surroundings: he recently liberated Jena Malone from Hollywood and indieland for the unseen and just-about-unknown 2006 movie Container.

As for Robyn, a decade after her debut, she’s returning to America sharper than the Knife. The evidence is there on "Who’s That Girl," a standout track from her new — to the US — album, Robyn (Interscope). Coproduced by Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, the song has greater vitality and wit than the duo’s own critic’s-darling recordings as the Knife. After a Jacuzzi-set intro that parodies rap and R&B boasts via claims that Robyn taught moves to Bruce Lee, "Who’s That Girl" kicks off the initial 2005 version of Robyn released on Robyn’s boutique label, Konichiwa, in Sweden. The marketing wizards at Interscope have messed with that sequencing: through some additional tracks and a revised order, their version of Robyn seems out to position her as a blond MIA.

No matter. Regardless of how you shuffle recent songs by Robin Miriam Carlsson, her unpretentious humor, melodicism, and neurotic toughness remain upfront. With its casually careful cataloguing and then rejection of all the things that good girls do, "Who’s That Girl" winds up containing more everyday wisdom than Spears’ entire output. (Ironically, Spears’ team turned to Robyn for a contribution to 2007’s Blackout on Jive.) If that doesn’t seem like much of an achievement, factor in that it’s also twice as good as that old Madonna song called "Who’s That Girl" and exactly the type of effervescent catchy tune that the Material Girl is no longer capable of writing, and you have a better idea of Robyn’s talent. It’s a talent that extends from string-laden stalker confessions ("Be Mine!") to statements of independence ("Handle Me," Chris Crocker’s MySpace anthem for a spell earlier this year), staying honest all the while.

A decade since Robyn Is Here, more people in the States are wise enough to know that Sweden’s honey-dripping groups and tough alliance of solo acts could fill an ark of the world’s best pop music. Robyn is here again to prove it.

ROBYN

Fri/16, 9 p.m., $20

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com, www.robyn.com

Speed Reading

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THE TEN CENT PLAGUE: THE GREAT COMIC BOOK SCARE AND HOW IT CHANGED AMERICA

By David Hadju

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

448 pages

$26

David Hajdu is an antidote to ersatz historiographers. He’s unearthed and analyzed formative but forgotten figures (such as Billy Strayhorn) and moments of 20th-century Americana. In The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America, the Columbia University journalism professor turns his attention to Brooklyn and the Lower East Side of the 1940s and early ’50s, when a cadre of young outsiders engendered a new and controversial artistic medium: the comic book.

Hajdu surveys Famous Funnies pioneer Harry Wildenberg, eccentric militant Major Nicholson-Wheeler, Crime Does Not Pay impresario Charles Biro, psychological activist Frederic Wertham, and Superman creator Jerry Siegel. But milquetoast EC Comics owner Bill Gaines, partly responsible for the horror and sci-fi craze that accompanied the atomic age, is at the center of the book’s narrative.

The Ten Cent Plague thoroughly documents the censorship struggles and creative flourishes of a subculture and revolutionary art form, but it lacks the freewheeling energy of earlier histories. For all of his rhapsodizing about the authentic juvenile experience within comics, there is a dearth of playful and existential perspective. Instead, the writing takes on an insipid encyclopedic tone, forcing cohesion on a subject matter renowned for random creativity. Large portions of text come across as just the kind of parental lesson comic book enthusiasts might shun. Nonetheless, Hajdu provides a necessary investigation into the moment when America stepped from a black-and-white past into a Technicolor future. (Erik Morse)

 

UNCREDITED: GRAPHIC DESIGN AND OPENING TITLES IN THE MOVIES

By Gemma Solana and Antonio Boneu

Index Books

313 pages

$55

Initially, Gemma Solana and Antonio Boneu’s survey of credit sequences in movies sported the title The Art of the Title Sequence. But now it is called Uncredited: Graphic Design and Opening Titles in the Movies, a gesture of solidarity toward the legion of graphic artists, particularly in Hollywood, who have designed credits for movies without being acknowledged for their efforts. Early sections of this hardcover slab of imagery and text — which weighs a good five pounds, in case you want to strengthen your biceps — explore the white-on-black and title-as-logo roots of studio movies from the first half of the 20th century. The creators of signature sequences such as the umbrella-twirling opening of Singin’ in the Rain (1952) are praised while remaining anonymous. Even when credits were credited, as with Pacific Title and Art Studio’s splendorous text for Gone with the Wind (1939), it was under a corporate blueprint.

Uncredited‘s latter chapters right those wrongs committed by the film industry by exploring the efforts of Otto Preminger’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s frequent partner-in-design Saul Bass (probably the only credit specialist to receive exhibition and monograph showcases) and his wife Elaine, as well as Jean Fouchet (an influence on Jacques Demy?), Pablo Nuñez (who created the credits for Victor Erice’s 1973 The Spirit of the Beehive), Dan Perri, and others. A climactic section about current trends displays work that uniformly pales in comparison to the work by Arcady, Fernand Léger, and especially Mary Ellen Bute and Jean-Luc Godard in a central chapter devoted to concepts. Uncredited is lavishly, gorgeously illustrated (complete with a DVD) and playfully designed. There are errors galore in the informative text though — a sharper editorial eye was needed. And who exactly is that mysterious “QT” who seems to have provided captions for a number of the illustrations? (Johnny Ray Huston)

 

She sang, he filmed

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Perhaps you’d like a dark date with Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Bysshe Shelley. If not, you can always opt for a purple romp with Rimbaud and Verlaine, or Gertrude and Alice, or Paul and Jane Bowles. Maybe you have an ear for rock, in which case you can hit the bed or hit a vein with John and Yoko, or Sid and Nancy, or Kurt and Courtney. Really, what doesn’t fascinate us about legendary bohemian couples of various eras? They’re like Brangelina, but with a more thesis-friendly shelf life for anyone aspiring to a liberal arts degree.

We fetishize intersections between artists in any influential boho scene, from the Symbolists and the Dadaists to the Beats. Whether those bohos are hippies or punks, their brief encounters heighten each other’s retrospective glamour. Andy Warhol might be the all-time champ at making every minor contributor into a cult figure. One woman provided a bridge between the Warhol Factory and the fertile Euro boho scenes of the 1960s and ’70s. That woman was Nico (birth name: Christa Päffgen), the ethereally gorgeous model-actor turned avant-chanteuse who could transform anything — a sweet Jackson Browne ballad or one of her own inimitable compositions — into a postapocalyptic dirge.

The camera may have loved Nico, but that sentiment went unrequited. After she appeared in a few films, including 1966’s Chelsea Girls, and onstage as part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour, Lou Reed dumped her, the Velvet Underground didn’t want her, and MGM Records realized the record-buying public enjoyed listening to this bleating beauty even less than they did the variably twee, glum, cacophonous, and not yet desert island–ready V.U.

Thus, this Germanic grievous angel slunk back to the continent from whence she came, leaving behind a list of ex-lovers that purportedly included Jim Morrison, John Cale, Brian Jones, Tim Buckley, and Iggy Pop. Once there, she fell in with a heady Parisian counterculture — in particular, with the filmmaker Philippe Garrel.

The film series "I’ll Be Your Mirror: Rare Films by Philippe Garrel" cuts a swath through Nico’s and Garrel’s enduring dual magnetism, a connection that endured long after her 1988 death from a cerebral hemorrhage. Ten years her junior, Garrel was barely out of his teens when he met Nico, yet he was already finishing his fourth feature, La Lit de la Vierge. She contributed the song "The Falconer" to that film’s ripe slice of 1969 Maintenant Génération angst, which was heavily dosed on post–May 1968 disillusionment and LSD.

A look at Morocco through a black-and-white CinemaScope viewfinder, La Lit de la Vierge is characteristic of Garrel’s hard-to-find (and hard to watch, some might say) early films. It’s visually striking, madly pretentious, and a perfect time capsule of a particular cultural moment’s entwined adventure and humorlessness. Scrawny and sporting a Prince Valiant ‘do, Pierre Clémenti is the film’s hippie Jesus, who rides into town on a burro only to be knocked off his humble ride by bullies. This Jesus has some real Oedipal issues, and no wonder — the actress Zouzou (Danièle Ciarlet) plays both Mary and Mary Magdalene. In case you can’t tell by now, there won’t be a Second Coming: when Christ makes an exit, it’s to get the hell away from people.

Nico appeared in virtually all of Garrel’s subsequent movies up until their decisive 1980 split. The fallout from their less-than-healthy relationship resonates through his more conventional later efforts, perhaps most blatantly within 1991’s I Don’t Hear the Guitar Anymore. In that film, Marianne (Johanna ter Steege; cute, but lacking Nico’s goddess quality) is a maddening object of desire who abandons lovers after dragging them into her heroin-addicted spiral. "I love you like a madman," declares Garrel’s stand-in Gerard (Benoît Régent). "That means the day you cease to be crazy, you won’t love me anymore," she snaps. Later, when talking to Gerard’s stable new squeeze, Marianna seems to speak for the director and his late muse when she ponders, "Maybe I didn’t make him happy, but it was a different era. Maybe we didn’t need to be happy. We were seeking something else."

Guitar‘s posthumous portrait is more repellent than alluring. But to help the unconverted fathom Nico’s peak mystique, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts film curator Joel Shepard has also programmed The Velvet Underground and Nico, an hour-long 1966 performance directed by Warhol. Static and chaotic, it features Nico on tambourine, with little Ari (her son by Alain Delon), a noise-jamming V.U., Mary Woronov and Gerard Malanga a-go-go, and a bout of performance interruptus courtesy of the NYPD. At the box office, up until 2005’s Regular Lovers, Philippe Garrel couldn’t get arrested. But outside of it, the types he hung with always could.

I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR: RARE FILMS BY PHILIPPE GARREL

Thurs/15–Sun/18, $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening Room

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

Yo, bangerz

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Also in this issue:

Rave it tecktonik: Hard electro’s dance du jour

Bang! The clubs, the music, the mixes

Super Ego Must the French rule everything? Is Justice revenge for "freedom fries"?

Anyone who’s recently squeezed themselves into a sliced-up silver Lycra T-shirt, pushed down a pair of Day-Glo Cazals, baby-oiled their coke-spoon anklet charms, and hit the city’s glitzier underground dance floors in the past year knows that the hardcore electro sound of Paris’s laptops — lahptoops? — is everywhere they wanna be. So yeah, this shout-out to the trenchant trend is late, and the French are already being usurped by English, Aussie, and American glam-tech innovators. But I’ve got hungry drag queens at home to feed. Mama can’t afford no glittery off-the-shoulder neon silk-screen slip dry-cleaning bills.

Also, it’s taken a while for the scene to coalesce into something tangible, nightlifewise. "Electro" has always been a catch-all — as long as it emanates from adorably entangled circuitry, the genre’s sound swings wildly from lowdown industrial grind to straight-up booty smack, vocoded howl to shuddering fwump to skittery blizzard of blips. It took French duo Justice, along with a slew of other big-name like-mindeds like MSTRKRFT and Simian Mobile Disco, to crystallize some of electro’s recent, disparate past — amped-up electroclash guitars, nu-rave airhorn screech, Philly and Baltimore cybernetic cartoon sexuality, bubbly London champagne rave, and triple-filtered Daft Punk euro strip-down — into the rock-candy party sound still blowing out woofers all over town, launching a genuine style. At first dismissed as mere Daft Punk knockoffs, these earnest Ableton addicts have transformed electro into this house generation’s gleaming hair metal, complete with fussy headbands, flashing tits, and on occasion, what my bf Hunky Beau terms "the most well-scrubbed mosh pits ever."

The scene is called banger — as in Ed Banger, Justice’s Paris-based label. The sound? Warped arena rock grandeur ripped asunder by fuzzy needles, taut bass arpeggios, pounding 808s with cymbal-crash breakdowns (they’re back!), dirty childlike vocals, and anarchic Prodigy posing to — cover your ears, discriminating queens — pop-rave 2 Unlimited keyboards. Banger kids arrive stripped of quotation marks (excessive goofy accessorizing and ironic retro bombast are out), fronting the tight sheen of perfect online shopping technique, 24-inch waists, Rockstar and rye on tap, wanton pantomimed sex, and a tang of American Apparel ennui. ("I’m on the club soda diet," a model confided matter-of-factly outside one bangin’ banger club. "I need to go to the bathroom and meditate for a minute before I pass out.") If all this sounds more like "da club" then the club, well, that’s the delicious line of tension bangers like to play against.

Banger style has even given rise, in Paris at least, to a dance craze (also back!) called tecktonik. Have you seen this shit? It’s electroclash break dancing — a splash of rave liquid by way of circuit fan–twirling, coupled with random Adderall withdrawal jerks. "Tecktonik" is now a brand-name T-shirt and a haircut, of course.

The above may look iffy on paper, but it works — there’s a blinding energy to the scene, and I’m held positively rapt by some local bangers. My next column will feature a few, as well as some young upstarts taking the bang into fidgety new directions. Let’s riot.

Razzed and dazzled

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CHEAP EATS My new favorite hair chopper is a magician’s assistant named Dazzle, thanks to whom I accidentally got beautiful. I admit this defies logic, not to mention math. But defying those kinds of disciplines — with the help of elves and pixies with names like Dazzle — turns out to be one of my specialties.

I wish there was a way to use time-lapse photography in Cheap Eats. Hairstylistically speaking, in the past four years, I have gone from a 40-year-old rapidly recedingly hairlined dude, to a 41-year-old piratesexual in hoop earrings and bandanna, to a 42-year-old aging-rock-starsexual with way-too-long greasy locks, to a 43-year-old passable transsexual, to, now, a 39-year-old hot chick.

How I know is because I put one of those personal ads on the Internet one night and the next morning there were eight guys — some in their early 20s — telling me I was beautiful. And by the time I finished writing long, thoughtful, philosophical letters back to each of them, proving them wrong, eight more guys were telling me I was beautiful. I’m learning to leave it at that after two or three days.

"Thank you, dear, that’s sweet," I say. "You don’t look too much like a ham-and-potato-chip sandwich yourself!" They’re not sure how to take that, but we make a date for coffee anyway, and they stand me up.

Which I totally deserve because, as you know, I’m already dating someone. But 74.4 miles is a long way away from the woods where I live. And the woods are dark and cold, and I get pretty lonely between weekends. So I told him, over chicken soup and tortilla chips, that I was going to start dating other people too — find me a little something snuggly a little closer to home.

Last time I tried something like this was a year or so ago, and guys weren’t buying it. But that was before I had bangs. Still, I didn’t expect to have any better luck this time. And, truth be told, I haven’t. Unless by some geographical razzle-dazzle, Truckee, Denver, Florida, New Hampshire, and Belgium are now "closer to home" than Alameda.

If there’s a way to have online sex, I haven’t figured it out yet. And anyway, it doesn’t sound very warm, or snuggly. Guys keep asking for more pictures, more pictures. And I don’t know what else to do, so I take shots of my chickens. Or what’s for dinner. There’s one pic of half a barbecued chicken I find particularly attractive, myself, but, like I said, I tend to get stood up by the local boys.

The ones in Belgium, New Hampshire, and such, they’re all hooked. Packing up their houses, giving notice at work, learning English, scouring their local libraries for books about chickens…

I should probably not be allowed to do this sort of thing. Online dating. I’m serious. Sometimes I feel like a professional boxer about to get into a drunken bar brawl, like … uh-oh, this has got to be unfair, if not illegal.

Then I remember that, in the words of Clint Eastwood, "fair’s got nothing to do with it." Since when did Clint Eastwood become my rabbi? Since he said to Gene Hackman, near the end of Unforgiven, "Fair’s got nothing to do with it."

So, glory be to Dazzle (a.k.a. Karianne) at Peter Thomas in Berkeley, I’ve got all these electronic guys, all over the electrified world, e-coming all over me. Let me rephrase that. Coming on to me. Some are articulate and romantic and want to buy me dinner. Others come right out with their "thick cocks" this and "my clit" that. Don’t fear for my life, dear reader. They know what that word means, in the context that is me. And anyway, those ones go straight to the slush pile.

Someone told me it’s my natural prerogative as a woman to get to choose. That now they have to prove themselves to me. What a novel idea! Can it be true?

Clint? *

Mother’s Day don’t

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

I recently received a press release saying,

Although moms appreciate flowers and breakfast-in-bed on their special day, this year Dad should try to spice things up and not be so predictable! Booty Parlor offers items to add some fun to Mother’s Day that Mom and Dad can enjoy, together …

It went on, predictably, to hawk a number of chocolatelike items intended to be smeared on bodies (in bed, mind you) and removed in some fashion other than rigorous showering, heavily scented oils and bath bombs, and something which may or may not have been a vibrator but both image and text were too busy being coy to tell me. How do I loathe the idea of a "sexy" Mother’s Day? Let me count the ways.

It isn’t just the seXAY-fication of a faux-holiday properly celebrated by the delivery of adorably botched breakfasts made by pride-puffed seven-year-olds to mothers enjoying a morning off from domestic drudgery; it’s also that "should" sticking out there like a sore thumb that deserved everything it got: "Dad should …." Sez who? And who, we may ask, is "Dad," and what is he doing in that sentence? Either he’s your dad, who has no place in this scenario, or he’s your children’s dad, a role that only exists in relation to the people he is "Dad" to. This is not confusing. Imagine a bath that a male parent takes with his children; now think about a bath that a male partner takes with you. Who is your daddy?

While we’re counting, whose idea of sexy is this anyway? It’s not that it’s meant to appeal to a clumsily imagined male sense of what a clumsy male thinks women think is sexy (that really did make sense, I promise, go back and reread if you don’t believe me) — it’s that it’s nobody in particular’s idea of sexy. It is, as a friend put it, "the sex-related equivalent of the ‘festive hot chocolate assortment’ you give your coworkers at Christmas."

Do mothers even want sex or "sexiness" for Mother’s Day? Some would, sure. Many would welcome a reminder that Beloved Spouse still thinks she’s attractive. Fewer would welcome an additional duty ("being sexy") thrust upon them on what promised to be a day off. And yes, I do know how that sounds. As much as I may hate the popular idea of a mom doing pretty much anything to get out of having sex with her hubby, that’s exactly the sitcom-ish image this thing gives me. I picture an exhausted, vaguely shrewish, newish mom and a horny, sulky husband who’s resorting to ham-handed hinting. "Oh, God," she thinks, "chocolate sex paint and satin undies on a stick. Christ, maybe if I blow him he’ll go away and let me sleep late."

Although this ugly picture contains the usual stereotype’s tiny ring of truth, we don’t need to promulgate it. Parents in this culture hardly need any encouragement to see their roles thus, and I certainly don’t intend to promote this vision of connubial unbliss as either inevitable or permanent. I am all for sexy marriage. I had sympathy for author Ayelet Waldman when she got into that ridiculous brouhaha a few years ago when she meant to say that grown-up love and lust, not children, are the heart of a marriage, but she ended up sticking her foot down her throat and gacking up something about how she loves her husband so much she’d throw one of her children in front of a bullet for him. I didn’t say I agreed with her, mind, but I did think it was about time somebody spoke up for the hot bond that preexisted the children and, one hopes, will burn on long after the children are on their own. Just not on Mother’s Day. I think Mother’s Day is a bit silly, but if you’re going to celebrate it, it ought to have more to do with the family unit and less to do with dad’s. After the family stuff — a lovely evening out and copious oral sex, why not? — but no springing "sexy" surprises and no sticky body paint. Ever, really.

I asked a number of female friends how they’d like a bunch of sex toys (assuming nicer sex stuff than this) for Mother’s Day and only one thought she might. She retracted it, though, when I wrote, "It’s really just a come-on for a blow job by someone who feels he hasn’t been getting enough of those." "I pictured the body paint on the woman!" gasped my correspondent.

Was she right? Was I too cynical? Is it too much to ask that a man who wishes for more blow jobs say something or do something rather than buy something? Nobody loves a gift basket or a tap on the shoulder, and this is both at once.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

The Internet dystopia

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION A couple of weeks ago I went to the annual Maker Faire in San Mateo, an event where people from all over the world gather for a giant DIY technology show-and-tell extravaganza. There are robots, kinetic sculptures, rockets, remote-controlled battleship contests, music-controlled light shows, home electronics kits, ill-advised science experiments (like the Mentos–Diet Coke explosions), and even a barn full of people who make their own clothing, pillows, bags, and more. Basically, it’s a weekend celebration of how human freedom combined with technology creates a pleasing but cacophonous symphony of coolness.

And yet the Maker Faire takes place against a backdrop of increasing constraints on our freedom to innovate with technology, as Oxford University researcher Jonathan Zittrain points out in his latest book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (Yale University Press). After spending several years investigating the social and political rules that govern the Internet — and spearheading the Net censorship tracking project OpenNet Initiative — Zittrain looks back on the Net’s development and predicts a dystopian future. What’s chilling is that his dystopia is already coming to pass.

Zittrain traces the Net’s history through three phases. Initially it was composed of what he calls "sterile" technologies: vast mainframes owned by IBM, which companies could rent time on. What made those technologies sterile is that nobody could experiment with them (except IBM), and therefore innovation related to them stagnated.

That’s why the invention of the desktop PC and popularization of the Internet ushered in an era of unprecedented high-tech innovation. Zittrain calls these open-ended technologies "generative." Anybody can build other technologies that work with them. So, for example, people built Skype and the World Wide Web, both software technologies that sit on top of the basic network software infrastructure of the Internet. Similarly, anybody can build a program that runs on Windows.

But Zittrain thinks we’re seeing the end of the freewheeling Internet and PC era. He calls the technologies of today "tethered" technologies. Tethered technologies are items like iPhones or many brands of DVR — they’re sterile to their owners, who aren’t allowed to build software that runs on them. But they’re generative to the companies that make them, in the sense that Comcast can update your DVR remotely, or Apple can brick your iPhone remotely if you try to do something naughty to it (like run your own software program on it).

In some ways, tethered technologies are worse than plain old sterile technologies. They allow for abuses undreamed of in the IBM mainframe era. For example, iPhone tethering could lead to law enforcement going to Apple and saying, "Please activate the microphone on this iPhone that we know is being carried by a suspect." The device turns into an instant bug, without all the fuss of following the suspect around or installing surveillance crap in her apartment. This isn’t idle speculation, by the way. OnStar, the manufacturer of a car emergency system, was asked by law enforcement to activate the mics in certain cars using its system. It refused and went to court.

Zittrain’s solution to the tethering problem is to encourage the existence of communities like the ones who participate in Maker Faire or who edit Wikipedia. These are people who work together to create open, untethered technologies and information repositories. They are the force that pushes back against companies that want to sterilize the Internet and turn it back into something that spits information at you, television-style. I think this is a good start, but there are a lot of problems with depending on communities of DIY enthusiasts to fix a system created by corporate juggernauts. As I mentioned in my column ("User-Generated Censorship," 4/30/08), you can’t always depend on communities of users to do the right thing. In addition, companies can create an incredibly oppressive tethering regime while still allowing users to think they have control. Tune in next week, and I’ll tell you how Zittrain’s solution might lead to an even more dystopian future.

Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who thinks up dystopias in her spare time.

Renters fight back

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

A stream of perturbed tenants living in buildings owned by one of the city’s largest landlords, CitiApartments, Inc., converged on City Hall May 12 to testify that in recent years the company has engaged in an alleged campaign of intimidation and harassment against residents living in rent-controlled units.

Attendees, many wearing stickers that read "Tenants standing together for fair treatment," quickly filled to capacity a committee room used by the Board of Supervisors before the overflow was moved to two other large rooms where televisions airing the meeting were situated.

CitiApartments turned out its own army of supporters in an attempt to offset the impression that it’s unpopular among renters in the city. Dozens of people who claimed to back the company’s business practices attended the meeting wearing shirts that stated, "I support CitiApartments."

But a volunteer with the Queer Youth Organizing Project and organizer against CitiApartments complained to the supervisors that the crowd of supporters had either been paid to attend the meeting or were employees of the company. Few CitiApartments supporters filled out comment cards or spoke publicly in defense of the company.

Some CitiApartments tenants said they endured months of lingering construction work that filled their buildings with debris and garbage after CitiApartments bought its buildings, the upheaval intentionally designed to drive them out in frustration and thus give up their stabilized rent rates.

Others said vulnerable tenants like undocumented immigrants and seniors were specially targeted with intimidation tactics by a private security group working for CitiApartments that appeared at their doors asking for personal information. Utilities were frequently shut off, tenants said, or elevators relied upon by the physically disabled were left inoperable for long periods of time, all part of a campaign to scare them away from their apartments.

"This is not simply about a bad landlord," tenant Debbie Nuñez, who lives in a Lower Nob Hill building purchased by CitiApartments in 2000, told the supervisors. "This is about a well-oiled machine."

Sup. Chris Daly sponsored the hearing by the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee to receive an update on the city attorney’s lawsuit against CitiApartments, a.k.a. Skyline Realty. He also wanted to discuss the company’s swift rate of property acquisitions in San Francisco and to hear testimony about mounting alleged building code violations at some of its buildings.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the company and several of its subsidiaries in August 2006 alleging an "egregious pattern of unlawful and unfair business practices," and a "shocking panoply of corporate lawlessness, intimidation tactics, and retaliation against residents."

Five months prior, the Guardian published a three-part series of stories documenting claims by current and former CitiApartments tenants that they had been the victims of persistent, aggressive attempts to oust them from rent-controlled housing units. If such tenants vacate the apartments for whatever reason, CitiApartments can raise the rent on those units dramatically.

A recent report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office shows CitiApartments today owns nearly 300 properties here, which combined hold from 6,300 to 7,500 units and about 12,000 tenants.

Sup. Aaron Peskin, who sits on the committee with Sups. Gerardo Sandoval and Sophie Maxwell, said at the meeting that his office receives a complaint once a week or at least every 10 days about CitiApartments, a figure that has increased over the last three years.

"I don’t recall ever hearing complaints about Trinity Properties in the city," Peskin said. "They own 6,000 units."

Daly pointed to a May 9 New York Times article that reported on the rising phenomenon of "predatory equity," in which private investment funds bankroll the acquisition of a large number of rent-controlled apartments in New York anticipating higher-than-usual vacancy rates. But tenant advocates say achieving such rates requires a concerted effort, either through offering one-time buyouts, finding nuances in the law that allow for an eviction, or harassing tenants until they grow exasperated and leave.

The significantly higher revenue generated from market-rate rental prices then enable building buyers there to repay the equity firms that gave them the huge loans to buy the properties in the first place. Daly wants to find out if CitiApartments is deploying a similar "business model" in San Francisco.

According to the Times piece, developers backed by private equity firms have purchased nearly 75,000 rent-controlled units over the last four years in New York. One company that bought a group of buildings in Queens subsequently filed around 1,000 cases against tenants in housing court during an 18-month period.

A lawyer for CitiApartments, Tara Condon, promised the committee members that the company would investigate the complaints made by tenants at the May 12 meeting. She added that the company increases tax revenue for the city when it improves the conditions and appearances of buildings it purchases. She also declared that the company makes local charitable contributions and has reached out to financially troubled tenants.

"We are a business, but we try to work with [the tenants,]" Condon said. "We want to make sure they can stay in their apartments."

One former tenant, Donna O’Brien, testified that CitiApartments helped her and her husband find a more affordable apartment after the company bought a previous building she lived in at 516 Ellis St. last year. She said CitiApartments also paid for her moving expenses. "Quite honestly, CitiApartments has been very good to us."

JROTC must go now

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OPINION In November 2006, San Francisco made history when the school board made this the first big city in the nation to ban JROTC [Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps]. The board’s resolution, which called for phasing out JROTC from high schools this June, stated that “JROTC is a program wholly created and administrated by the United States Department of Defense, whose documents and memoranda clearly identify JROTC as an important recruiting arm.”

A poison pill was added to the resolution at the last minute: it called for a task force to be set up to find an “alternative” program to JROTC. The school district administration, in a particularly despicable move, set up the task force with more than 10 members supporting JROTC, and only one member opposed.

Surprise! After sitting for almost a year, the task force failed to come up with an alternative, so the school board rolled over and, except for two courageous members — Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar — voted last December to extend JROTC for another year.

In 2005, San Franciscans passed Proposition I by almost 60 percent, declaring it “city policy to oppose military recruiting in public schools.” That same year, by the Army’s own report, 42 percent of JROTC graduates across the nation signed up for the military. As this country enters its sixth year of the illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s time for the school board to go back to its original decision to kick the military out of our schools.

The school board must end JROTC — now. JROTC is currently scheduled to be “phased out,” but not until June 2009. By then both Sanchez and Mar will be off the school board, and there will be little to prevent the military from orchestrating a vote to extend JROTC indefinitely. If, on the other hand, the school board votes to end JROTC this June as their original resolution required, JROTC would be gone.

Two progressives on the board must be convinced to send the military packing: Kim-Shree Maufas and Green Party member Jane Kim.

Both received endorsements from progressives. To convince them that they risk such endorsements in the future, the JROTC Must Go! Coalition is circuutf8g the following statement: “We will look very closely at the next school board vote on JROTC and will consider the votes carefully when making any endorsements for future candidates.”

Within a week, the Tenants Union, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and the San Francisco Bay View newspaper signed the statement. If Maufas and Kim join Sanchez and Mar, we’ll make history again.

Riva Enteen is the former program director for the National Lawyers Guild and the mother of two San Francisco school district graduates. Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a southern Italian queer atheist writer and activist. For more information contact the JROTC Must Go! Coalition: (415) 575-5543 or JROTCmustgo@gmail.com.

 

Guardian lawsuit moves to the next stage

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

The news hit the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle Web site (www.sfgate.com) May 9 under a nice, subtle headline: "SF Weekly Loses Big, Again."

And while it’s not exactly a done deal, Judge Marla Miller appeared poised that day to finalize a $15.6 million award to the Guardian and issue an injunction barring SF Weekly from continuing to sell ads below cost.

The decision, expected this week, will bring the lawsuit to its next stage, as the Weekly and its 16-paper chain parent, Village Voice Media, threaten to try to overturn the 1913 California law that protects small businesses against big predatory competitors.

The Guardian‘s lawsuit charged the Weekly and Village Voice Media with vioutf8g the California Unfair Practices Act, which bars companies from selling a product below the cost of producing it with the intent to harm a competitor or reduce competition.

On March 5, a San Francisco jury found that the Weekly had engaged in predatory pricing and awarded the Guardian $6.39 million in damages. The law allows for treble damages.

Judge Miller opened the hearing by stating that, on the basis of legal briefs filed by the two sides, she was inclined to triple $4.6 million of the damages, leaving a final judgment of $15.6 million.

Although Guardian attorney Ralph Alldredge argued that the entire verdict should be tripled, the outcome wasn’t a big surprise: from the day of the verdict, we’ve been reporting that the likely final award would be around $15 million.

Forrest Hainline III, a new lawyer representing the Weekly, argued vociferously against any injunction, claming that the court would be wading into troubling First Amendment territory. He argued that the only way the Weekly could comply with an injunction would be to cut editorial expenses — and that would have an impact on the paper’s right to free speech.

But Alldredge pointed out that courts have always found that newspapers have to pay taxes and obey basic business regulations. What, he asked, would happen if the Weekly were found guilty of dumping toxic printing-press waste into the bay? Would the paper argue that paying the cleanup costs would violate the First Amendment?

The argument wasn’t new — the Weekly tried the same First Amendment claim early in the trial, when the paper filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. Judge Richard Kramer, who handled the first stages of the suit, rejected the argument. The Weekly sought an appeal of Kramer’s ruling, but the appeals court denied that as well.

Judge Miller seemed to imply in her questioning of Hainline that an injunction would only require the Weekly to do what it should be doing anyway: competing fairly. "Would you advise your client to go ahead and violate the law?" she asked.

Among the more interesting parts of Hainline’s argument was the claim that the Weekly would never be able to survive in San Francisco unless it could sell ads below cost. He essentially implied that the Weekly can’t make a profit on its own, and is in business only because its corporate parent is underwriting it.

Hainline said that he didn’t see how the Weekly would be able to sell ads at a price that covered its operating costs.

An injunction that would force the paper to operate like a normal business and live within its means would threaten the Weekly‘s very existence, Hainline argued, proclaiming that Miller was threatening to "silence a First Amendment voice." He implied that the Unfair Practices Act should never apply to newspapers and that the entire verdict ought to be invalidated.

Alldredge pointed out that it was silly to say the Weekly would be forced out of business. After all, he said, the Guardian is selling ads at a price that allows it to cover costs.

Miller took the matter under consideration and will issue a final ruling within 10 days.

The Guardian‘s lawyers are Alldredge, Richard Hill, and E. Craig Moody.

For more details on the case, the latest updates, and the dueling Guardian and Village Voice Media blogs, go to sfbg.com/politics.

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