Bay Guardian Archives Archives — Page 1002 of 1098 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

FEAST: 6 all-you-can-eat buffets

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April 3, 2007

If I have an Achilles heel when it comes to dining out, it is a persistent inability to make up my mind about the entrée. Who can ever pick just one? Wouldn’t that seafood linguine be pleasantly enhanced with just a morsel of roasted quail? Isn’t the fun of eating Chinese food in passing the plates around so everyone gets to try everything? Happily for my hardwired grazing gene, there is a contingent of restaurants in the Bay Area that cater to my need to nosh, with fixed-price all-you-can eat buffets. These aren’t Vegas-style troughs either — the quality of the food in no way suffers from the fact that there’s a lot of it. And the cuisine spans the globe, from South America to the Middle East. (Nicole Gluckstern)

ESPETUS

Rule number one for dining at Espetus: leave your vegetarian friends at home. It’s not that the restaurant doesn’t have any meatless options — there’s a whole steam table–salad bar area where you can load up on black beans and fresh fruit — but the sight of a king-size rack of ribs circling the room on a silver platter can put even the most tolerant veg-heads off their feed. However, for the eager omnivore, this Brazilian churrascaria offers more than a dozen meaty delights straight from the grill, served by wandering waiters who carve slices off skewers of salt-rubbed sirloin and Parmesan-dusted pork loin until you indicate your state of satiety by turning a tabletop dial from green to red. Even this ploy might not save you — the last time I was there and we went to red, the headwaiter marched over, turned the dial back to green, and forced us to try his filet mignon. Bless him, it was superb.

1686 Market, SF. (415) 552-8792, www.espetus.com

HELMAND

Back when I worked in North Beach, I walked past Helmand every day and tried to imagine what Afghan cuisine might entail. Content with stuffing myself with 50-cent dim sum and Cafe Trieste instead, I never ventured inside until I discovered the well-stocked, all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for $9.95. I can now report back with certainty — Afghan cuisine means yogurt-based sauces, lots of lamb, and even a mouthwateringly delicious okra-and-tomato stew (bendi). The baked pumpkin in sugar (kaddo) is universally praised, and the leek-filled ravioli (aushak) are morsels of delectable pungency.

430 Broadway, SF. (415) 362-0641, www.helmandrestaurantsanfrancisco.com

TODAI

Todai might be the best reason to take BART to Daly City. Located a hop, skip, and jump away from the station, this Olympic-size smorgasbord of Japanese food makes Sushi Boat look like the kiddie pool. At Todai you’ll find sushi aplenty (including roll-your-own), plus an array of salads, shabu shabu, calamari, unagi skewers (yum!), grilled meats, gyoza, udon, teriyaki, tempura, crab legs, and even bite-size cream puffs and green tea–flavored cheesecake chunks. The high school cafeteria atmosphere is on the cheerless side, but the inexpensive carafes of hot sake do help to alleviate any lingering flashbacks of social unease.

1901 Junipero Serra Blvd., Daly City. (650) 997-0882, www.todai.com

GOAT HILL PIZZA

Like most people who have grown up accustomed to a regional variety of pizza, I admit to pizza crust favoritism — in my case, a preference for thick and bready, Rocky Mountain–style. Goat Hill somehow manages to trump my predilection with a specialty of its own, the sourdough crust. Not only does it adequately sop up all that extraneous cheese grease, but it also complements all kinds of toppings, from the familiar (pepperoni) to the esoteric (linguica). Best of all, every Monday night at the Potrero Hill location and daily at the Howard Street address, it’s all-you-can-eat, plus salad.

300 Connecticut, SF. (415) 641-1440; 525 Howard, SF. (415) 357-1440. www.goathill.com

STAR OF INDIA

Though my love of Indian food is generally all-encompassing enough to overlook some of the more common blunders cheap Indian restaurants are prone to (too much grease, not enough spice), it’s nice to be able to sidestep caution and go straight for the gustatory gusto. The daily buffet at Star of India is blessedly low on the grease index, and at $8.95 for unlimited trips to the steam table, I can overlook the spice issue. The vindaloo is fiery enough, the sag paneer delightfully smooth, and the assorted pickled veggies a great little garnish. Chai tea and a dessert option are included.

2127 Polk, SF. (415) 292-6699, www.starofindiaonpolk.com

CLUB WAZIEMA

Vegetarians, rejoice! Club Waziema’s got the $9 all-you-can-eat platter especially for you. Boasting the most incongruous decor of any Ethiopian restaurant in town, the restaurant has a bordello-chic look — complete with crushed velvet wallpaper — that only highlights the pleasure of plowing your fingers into spongy blankets of piping hot injera and stuffing them full of collard greens, spicy lentils, and vegetable stew. Sip a glass of delicate honey wine with dinner, or wait until afterward and start in on the G-and-T’s from the full-service bar.

543 Divisadero, SF. (415) 346-6641, www.clubwaziema.com *

Josh is free! Join me at the press conference on the City Hall steps at 5 p.m. today

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April 3, 2007

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See Sarah Phelan’s story on the Guardian website at sfbg.com. Much more to come, B3

We see dead people: Traipsing through the valley of the Bay Area kings, all dead as coffin nails

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April 3, 2007

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It’s always a grand old, gruesome time visiting Mountain View Cemetery at the dead edges of Oakland. The Bay’s most historic burial ground was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who also had a hand in NYC’s Central Park and Yosemite, and encompasses so many generations, grandiose sacrophagi, weird crypts, oddball mausoleums, and intriguing headstones that one’s head begins to spin, imagining all the dead people roaming Gold Rush ‘Fisco, bunkered down during WW II, forever dying young and leaving a beautiful monument.

Busty pinup sphinxes guard one once-very-wealthy dead person’s house. All photos by Kimberly Chun.

The Moore Brothers were inspired by Mountain View to make their last album, and guarens, you’ll be similarly transported, drawn inexorably back, back, back, to visit it again, again, again, to look for more pyramids.

Believe it or not, this is one of two sizable pyramids at Mountain View Cemetary.

I’ve yet to glimpse the lasting resting spots of author Frank Norris, artist Thomas Hill, architects Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck, and railroad builder Charles Crocker, but I have marveled at the stony facade of candyman Ghiradelli’s crypt and checked out the lovely, mossy, creepy pond deeper into the grounds. You can spend hours here amid the crumbling headstones from the 1800s.

A sweet little ’30s-era angel – with a rave-ready whistle around her neck.

Disarray in the forgotten corners of the cemetary.

The tombstone reads “Rest at last, dear one.”

There was a daytime mini-rave/party going on atop one hill the day I last visited. But you can do it the official way: free docent-led tours begin at 10 a.m. the second Saturday of each month and last about three hours. The next one is April 14. You can also arrange your own tailored outing by contacting Mountain View Cemetery, 5000 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, at (510) 658-2588.

For reals? “Mother and Baby 1901”?

Gimme danger, little stranger

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April 3, 2007

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Guardian contributor and Battleship playa Gene Bae wants to sing the praises of the band Little Claw:

Rock ’n’ roll used to be dangerous. To engage in it at all was to be an outsider, a rebel unfit for genteel society. These days, however, rock ain’t much more than nostalgia – and the biggest danger is possibly throwing one’s back out lifting an amplifier. That’s why Little Claw are such a relief. A trio from Hamtramck, a little Polish American village just outside Detroit, Little Claw make rock ’n’ roll that’s once again unhinged.

Drummer Hendrik sounds more interested in beating up his kit than laying down beats. Kilynn’s and Heath’s guitars spew dissonant chord progressions and riffs too retarded to even call garage. The space between sounds is cavernous. Into this emptiness, Kilynn fearlessly wails. Lyrics such as “I killed my father<\!s>/ I wear his head like a crown” might make one think of Jim Morrison. But you get the feeling Little Claw’s psychedelic visions would probably make that poseur wet his leather pants.

Bands this volatile don’t come along too often or last too long. With only a few hard-to-find releases to its name – and with another coming on Ecstatic Peace – its three-show swing through the Bay Area is not to be missed.

Little Claw play Thursday, April 5, 9 p.m., $6. Knockout SF, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994. Also Saturday, April 7, 6 p.m. (early show!), $5. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. Also Saturday, April 7, 10 p.m., call for price. Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight, SF. (415) 621-9850

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/2/07): 500 Iraqis killed this week.

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April 2, 2007

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The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (4/2/07): 500 Iraqis killed this week.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

Suicide bombings in Iraq against Iraqi civilians have increased since the start of the year and are deadlier than ever, according to the Associated Press.

Source.

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

At least 500 Iraqi civilians killed this week, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Source.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

60,411 – 66,280: Killed since 1/03

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

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 1 April 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/38/

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

U.S. military:

7 U.S. soldiers were killed this weekend in Iraq, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Source.

3,484: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

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

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

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

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

Source: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21339

155: Killed since 3/03

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

Refugees:

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

Source.

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

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

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (4/2/07): So far, $413 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

On the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Bush asks congress to pass an emergency war-spending bill, according to the New York Times.

Source.

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

Source: http://today.reuters.com/

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

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

While McCain Walks in McNamara’s Footsteps

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April 2, 2007

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The media spectacle that John McCain made of himself in Baghdad on April 1 was yet another reprise of a ghastly ritual. Senator McCain expressed “very cautious optimism” and told reporters that the latest version of the U.S. war effort in Iraq is “making progress.”

Three years ago, in early April 2004, when an insurrection exploded in numerous Iraqi cities, U.S. occupation spokesman Dan Senor informed journalists: “We have isolated pockets where we are encountering problems.” Nine days later, President Bush declared: “It’s not a popular uprising. Most of Iraq is relatively stable.”

For government officials committed to a war based on lies, such claims are in the wiring.

When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara visited Vietnam for the first time, in May 1962, he came back saying that he’d seen “nothing but progress and hopeful indications of further progress in the future.”

In October 1966, when McNamara held a press conference at Andrews Air Force Base after returning from a trip to Vietnam, he spoke of the progress he’d seen there. Daniel Ellsberg recalls that McNamara made that presentation “minutes after telling me that everything was much worse than the year before.”

Despite the recent “surge” in the kind of media hype that McCain was trying to boost in Baghdad, this spring has begun with most news coverage still indicating that the war is going badly for American forces in Iraq. Some pundits say that U.S. military fortunes there during the next few months will determine the war’s political future in Washington. And opponents of the war often focus their arguments on evidence that an American victory is not possible.

But shifts in the U.S. military role on the ground in Iraq, coupled with the Pentagon’s air war escautf8g largely out of media sight, could enable the war’s promoters to claim a notable reduction of “violence.” And the American death toll could fall due to reconfiguration or reduction of U.S. troop levels inside Iraq.

Such a combination of developments would appeal to the fervent nationalism of U.S. news media. But the antiwar movement shouldn’t pander to jingo-narcissism. If we argue that the war is bad mainly because of what it is doing to Americans, then what happens when the Pentagon finds ways to cut American losses — while continuing to
inflict massive destruction on Iraqi people?

American news outlets will be inclined to depict the Iraq war as winding down when fewer Americans are dying in it. That happened during the last several years of the Vietnam War, while massive U.S. bombing — and Vietnamese deaths — continued unabated.

The vast bulk of the U.S. media is in the habit of defining events around the world largely in terms of what’s good for the U.S. government — through the eyes of top officials in Washington. Routinely, the real lives of people are noted only as shorthand for American agendas. The political spin of the moment keeps obscuring the human moment.

Awakening from a 40-year nap, an observer might wonder how much has changed since the last war that the United States stumbled over because it could not win. The Congressional Record is filled with insistence that the lessons of Vietnam must not be forgotten. But they cannot be truly remembered if they were never learned in the
first place.

______________________________________

Norman Solomon’s book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep
Spinning Us to Death is out in paperback. For information, go to:
www.normansolomon.com

Join the Josh Wolf vigil during mediation starting at 8 a.m. Monday at the federal building in San Francico

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April 1, 2007

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Josh’s mother asks that people turn out this morning (Monday, April 2) from 8 to 9 a.m. when Josh Wolf will be brought from his federal prison cell in Dublin to another round of mediation between Josh’s attorneys and the federal prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Liz Wolf-Spada writes to her growing email list of Josh supporters, “It would be a great show of support for Josh if we could turn out a big crowd tomorrow morning outside the federal building. At the last mediation, as Josh was being driven into the basement car entrance, he spotted a supporter holding a sign out front and it meant a great deal to him.

“A large presence of supporters would also show the feds and the press that Josh’s support is broad and that we are determined to see him released immediately. As Josh’s lawyers are under orders not to speak about the mediation process, we know very little about what will take place tomorrow, but it is certainly an opportune moment to visibly demonstrate our support for Josh and demand once again that the federal government release him from his unjust imprisonment.”

She also reports that Josh’s father has begun an ongoing vigil that will continue until Josh is released. The vigil will start each morning between 8 and 9 a.m., outside the Philip Burton federal building in San Francisco, and will be held each week day until about 6 p.m.

I plan to drop by the vigil as often as I can and I hope you do too. My wife Jean and I have just returned from the mid-year meeting of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in Cartagena, Colombia, where we were successful in getting this influential and highly respected free press organization to condemn Josh’s imprisonment and demand his release from jail. (See my previous blog item).

South of the border, the journalists are up against regimes that tolerate the murder and imprisonment of journalists on a regular basis. To deal with this situation, IAPA issues strong resolutions, sends in missions to investigate and protest and seek to get the prisoners released from jail. In the case of murdered journalists, it has a successful impunity program where it sends in missions to investigate, turn the evidence over to government prosecutors, and then beat on the government until the murderers are successfully prosecuted.

I told IAPA delegates, who have fought Peron in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, Castro in Cuba, Chavez in Venezuela, and narco forces in Columbia, that I never thought I would see a journalist imprisoned for so long in the U.S. for such a ridiculously unjust crime: Josh’s refusal on journalistic principle to refuse to release videotapes he took at a 2005 demonstration in San Francisco.

Josh’s alleged “crime” was a local issue, involving a play by the local cops and Police Officers Association, to circumvent the state shield law and take the phony case to the Bush Attorney General in Washington. To the Bushies, the case was red meat: they could send a “don’t mess with us or else” message to San Francisco, center of anti-war dissent and protest, and to journalists throughout the land. The Bush/Rove/Gonzales firing of the eight U.S. attorneys general for political reasons only makes the point in 96 point Tempo Bold that Josh is a victim of the Bush law of intended political consequences. For more on IAPA, go to its website at IAPA.com.

I think we need an IPI-type mission to free Josh Wolf. Meanwhile, join the vigil and join the Liz email tree: liz_wolf_spada@yahoo.com. B3

WHAT: Vigil for Josh during mediation

WHERE: Phillip Burton Federal Building , 450 Golden Gate Avenue, in the San Francisco Civic Center

WHEN: Vigil starts around 8 a.m. and will continue through the day.

WHAT: Daily vigil for Josh

WHERE: Phillip Burton Federal Building, 450 Golden
Gate Avenue

WHEN: Begins around 9 a.m. each weekday until Josh is released

THE COCKS OF CORPORATE WOLVERINES: Punk’s Not Dead. It’s just rotting in Dede Wilsey’s asshole.

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March 30, 2007

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By G.W. Schulz

Poor 7×7 magazine. They try so hard to sound authoritative on all the subjects they cover. And to be sure, they’re quite good at publishing photo spreads of wealthy philanthropists forcing bleached-white terrified grins like hostages hearing a your momma joke from a bank robber.

7x7.1.gif

But if the subject doesn’t involve skin-tight “Juicy Couture” maternity jeans (page 16 in the April issue), or how to get naked with a stranger using feng shui (page 54 in the April issue – it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds), then their coverage is likelier to fall flat on its face with an embarrassing thud.

For instance, punk rock is all the rage these days at San Francisco’s rag for the richest. A magazine like 7×7 understands counterculture and punk rock about as well as a dog understands irony. They’ll just never quite get it. (Do we really have to point any of this out?)

But with the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park hosting an exhibit for queen-of-the-punk-aesthetic fashion guru Vivienne Westwood, and the documentary Punk’s Not Dead appearing at the upcoming SF International Film Festival, the city’s opulently rich have decided shit is all about curling your lips and pumping your Prada purses defiantly in the air.

O’Reilly blog

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March 30, 2007

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SF Chronicle in Trouble?

By Tim O’Reilly

I hate to play Valleywag, but I’m hearing rumors that the San Francisco Chronicle is in big trouble. Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent “emergency meeting” that the news business “is broken, and no one knows how to fix it.” (“And if any other paper says they do, they’re lying.”) Reportedly, the paper plans to announce more layoffs before the year is out.

It’s clear that the news business as we knew it is in trouble. Bringing it home, Peter Lewis and Phil Elmer Dewitt, both well-known tech journalists, were both part of layoffs at Time Warner in January (they worked for Fortune and Time, respectively), and John Markoff remarked to me recently that “every time I talk to my colleagues in print journalism it feels like a wake.”

Meanwhile, Peter Brantley passed on in email the news that “a newspaper newsletter covering that industry publishes its own last copy”:

“The most authoritative newsletter covering the newspaper industry issued a gloomy prognosis for the business today and then, tellingly, went out of business.
Many newspapers in the largest markets already “have passed the point of opportunity” to save themselves, says the Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter in its farewell edition. “For those who have not made the transition [by now], technology and market factors may be too strong to enable success.”

We talk about creative destruction, and celebrate the rise of blogging as citizen journalism and Craigslist as self-service advertising, but there are times when something that seemed great in theory arrives in reality, and you understand the downsides. I have faith both in the future and in free markets as a way to get there, but sometimes the road is hard. If your local newspaper were to go out of business, would you miss it? What kinds of jobs that current newspapers do would go undone?

Click here for source and blog comments

Bulgay-rian? Just hum along

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March 30, 2007

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AZIS — the Bulgarian Romani chalga singer is delightfully gender-neutral (gender bothful?) — and recently was voted the 21st most important Bulgarian in history. YES. He also ran for Bulgarian parliament, but didn’t win enough votes to qualify for a seat. NO. Now, he’s become a YouTube phenomenon, especially among young gay bears and their admirers — or people who miss Marilyn Manson, worship Walter Mercado, are really into Turkish oil wrestling/ naked gymbunny construction workers, or just wish we had more awesome freaks in our US pop-culture roster. Where are our real freaks? Shaving your head? Please. Bulgaria’s beating us, bitches!

Watch the above clip (of AZIS’s mega-hit, No Kazvam ti stiga) … and disbelieve!

Comic pusher: Tha Funky Worm

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March 30, 2007

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Intern Sam Devine slips between the photocopied covers ….

Down by Union Square tourists clog the streets like automatons bent on material satisfaction. You can almost hear their thoughts humming beneath their skulls like the cable car cord beneath the road.

“mmm…Neiman Marcus…bzzit…shoe sale… must…buy…”

What you can hear – all too often – are the guys who ask for change:
“Spare change?” “Help the homeless, tonight!” “Street Sheet, Street Sheet.” “Would you like to buy a comic book, sir?”

Wait: what?

Thom creates beautiful art, as honest and brutal as the life he leads. You can find him pushing his photocopied mini-comics next to the Street Sheet sellers on O’Farrell and Powell. If he sounds familiar, you probably used to see him at 16th and Valencia hawking “Mission Mini-Comix.”

I picked up three of his little books the other week on St. Patty’s day: Burritos are the Best, The Sun Also Sets, and Tha Funky Worm – “You know,” said Thom in his West Coast stoner drawl, surrounded by the green, white and orange mayhem of the afternoon. “Like that Ohio Players cut.”

Healthy Saturdays gaining ground

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March 30, 2007

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By Steven T. Jones
Environmentalists and alternative transportation activists are winning some key endorsements in the run up to next month’s second annual Healthy Saturdays showdown. Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Golden Gate Park road closure to cars last year and doesn’t seem interested is pushing for a compromise on a measure he criticizes as too polarizing (ironically, his detachment from the issue is precisely what’s feeding the polarization). But last year’s swing vote on overrriding the veto, Sup. Bevan Dufty, has indicated an openness to supporting it this year. And that became all the more likely last night when the San Francisco Democratic Party County Central Committee (DCCC) endorsed the measure. They join other key Dufty allies in endorsing the measure, including the Harvey Milk Democratic Club and Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, as well as the Young Democrats club and both Senate contenders: Mark Leno and Carole Migden. The first committee hearing on the measure is April 9.

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (3/29/07)

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March 29, 2007

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The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (3/29/07): 70 Iraqi civilians killed in civil massacre.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

The Senate voted today to keep a withdrawal date of March 31, 2008 in the $122 billion bill for war funding.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/washington/28cnd-cong.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Congress passes bill requiring troop withdrawal from Iraq by fall 2008. Bush promises veto, according to NPR.

Souce: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9104337

More than 770 U.S. civilians working for U.S. firms have lost their lives supporting the U.S. military in Iraq, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703260081mar26,1,5984421.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

At least 70 Iraqi Sunni civilians were killed this week in a massacre that was meant as a retaliation for Tuesday’s bombings, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/29/MNGUHOTSGR1.DTL

At least 65 Iraqi Shiite civilians were killed Tuesday when car bombs exploded in Tal Afar markets, according to the Associated Press.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/27/international/i145909D65.DTL

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

60,187 – 66,050: Killed since 1/03

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

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 25 March 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/37/

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

U.S. military:

3,470: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

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

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

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

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

Source: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21339

155: Killed since 3/03

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

Refugees:

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

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

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

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

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (3/29/07): So far, $412 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.

Compiled by Paula Connelly

On the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Bush asks congress to pass an emergency war-spending bill, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/washington/19cnd-prexy.html?hp

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

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

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

An Experiment: Hang up that Hangover

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March 29, 2007

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By Molly Freedenberg

The jury’s out on what exactly causes a hangover. Some say it’s dehydration. Others claim there’s something in the alcohol itself that poisons you. I even had a nutritionist once tell me that it’s essentially a large-scale sugar crash (since alcohol is a sugar, it’s like eating nothing but Snickers bars for seven hours and then wondering why you feel like crap the next morning). I don’t know about any of those, but I’d like to add something to the list: our bi-annual FEAST supplement. That’s right. I’ve been editing this baby (to be published April 4) for almost a month now, and doing my job well (which translates into: eating and drinking as much as possible at as many places as possible) has meant waking up half that month’s mornings with a dry throat, fuzzy brain, rumbly tummy, and insatiable hunger for sleep.

After discussing this phenomenon with my coworkers, who I roped in to doing my “research” with me, I decided it was time to do a Guardian-wide experiment. In a building full of people who know how to play as hard as they work, someone must have the perfect hangover cure. And even if no one did, with drinkers this devoted, surely we’d have plenty of opportunities to test the snake oils we’ve all heard about but never tried (Almonds before drinking? Primrose oil? Lemon juice in black coffee? And strangest of all: running? Are you kidding me?).

And so.

La Bodega boogies forth

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March 29, 2007

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Guardian contributor Tomas Palermo knows his Caribbean beats – so check his Umoja Soundsystem when it returns with its first regular night in three years, tonight, Thursday, March 29: La Bodega!

Resident DJs Palermo, B-Love (Farmer Brown), Similak Chyld (Butterfly, SF), and guests like this Thursday’s DJ Marcella (LadyLu/SoulAfrique) promise “crucial Afro-Latin, Brazilian, reggae, Caribbean, and soul vibes” every Thursday from here on out.

It starts at 10 p.m. and goes late at Otis, 25 Maiden Lane at Kearney in downtown SF. And it’s free, free, free… so free yourself.

The Guardian Iraq War casualty report (3/27/07)

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March 29, 2007

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The Senate voted today to keep a withdrawal date of March 31, 2008 in the $122 billion bill for war funding.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/washington/28cnd-cong.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Congress passes bill requiring troop withdrawal from Iraq by fall 2008. Bush promises veto, according to NPR.

Souce: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9104337

More than 770 U.S. civilians working for U.S. firms have lost their lives supporting the U.S. military in Iraq, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703260081mar26,1,5984421.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

At least 65 Iraqi civilians were killed today when car bombs exploded in Tal Afar markets, according to the Associated Press.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/27/international/i145909D65.DTL

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

59,801 – 65,660: Killed since 1/03

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

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 25 March 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/37/

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

U.S. military:

U.S. military deaths at 3,241, according to the Associated Press.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/27/MNGRUORUHB1.DTL

3,468: Killed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq 3/20/03

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

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

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

Iraq Military:

30,000: Killed since 2003

Source:http://www.infoshout.com

Journalists:

153 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war four years ago, making Iraq the world’s most dangerous country for the press, according to Reporters without borders.

Source: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21339

155: Killed since 3/03

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

Refugees:

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

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

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

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

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (3/27/07): So far, $411 billion for the U.S., $52 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly

On the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Bush asks congress to pass an emergency war-spending bill, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/washington/19cnd-prexy.html?hp

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

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

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

MediaNews exec bails

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March 28, 2007

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By G.W. Schulz

Just caught up with the scoop that young MediaNews executive Eric J. Grilly has resigned from the company to take over online operations for Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers. The papers were purchased by a group of investors calling themselves Philadelphia Media Holdings last year for well over half-a-billion dollars from the Sacramento-based McClatchy Company.

Grilly made good money at MediaNews and it’s difficult to imagine that his $350,000 annual salary could be topped to run some Web sites, but maybe he was simply looking for fresh air and, you know, esteem. As far as journalistic reputation goes, the Philadelphia Inquirer, included in last year’s purchases, had a stellar reputation for tough investigations under Knight-Ridder, though it did suffer layoffs and bleeding.

Grilly became a MediaNews exec first in 2000 and only just last year ascended to the post of MediaNews senior vice president. His dad retired from a MediaNews corner office around the same time.

Canadians politely begin invasion of Bay Area

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March 28, 2007

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By G.W. Schulz

Word arrived today that Transcontinental, the Canadian company hired by the San Francisco Chronicle to build a shiny, new billion-dollar press, has been scouting locations in the East Bay city of Fremont for the facility. The Chronicle signed a 15-year outsourcing contract with Transcontinental, which also publishes La Presse, the Globe and Mail and the New York Times in Canada, last November.

Fremont development manager Lori Taylor confirmed they’d received calls from the company, but they haven’t heard from Transcontinental since last month. She said Newark was also a rumored location for the plant.

The Chronicle‘s deal with Transcontinental served a crushing blow to the Web Pressmen and Prepress Workers’ Union Local 4, one of the nation’s oldest such unions. Local 4’s current contract with the Chronicle, reluctantly signed by the rank-and-file last year, expires in three years and there are no assurances Transcontinental will hire any of the union’s over 200 workers meaning a possible end to its tumultuous relationship with the Chronicle and its parent, the Hearst Corp.

The weakly sunblock

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March 28, 2007

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By Tim Redmond

Yeah, so the SF Weekly is taking a swipe at Kimo Crossman (and, naturally, at us) this week. Will Harper’s item isn’t terribly insightful or funny, and just plays into the Phoenix-based paper’s general distaste for unconventional activists.

But Harper (and a lof ot the others who think it’s fun and easy to whack away at the likes of Crossman and his over-the-top battles for open government) forget where all of this came from. Kimo Crossman got obsessed with government secrecy because he had such a bad experience trying to get public records. He wanted to find out about the Newsom wi-fi deal (which, true to form, the Weekly also loves). And he kept running into brick walls.

I understand. I find the same thing at City Hall, all the time. Under City Attorney Dennis Herrera (and his excellent and principled press aide, Matt Dorsey), it’s gotten a lot better, but overall, most city departments still make it far too difficult for the average citizen to get basic information about what’s going on.

If anyone is to blame for Crossman’s somewhat unwieldy campaign, it’s Mayor Newsom, who insisted that Google and Earthlink had the right to keep their wi-fi proposals mostly secret.

There has always been an easy solution to people like Crossman: Just give them the damn records. Nothing bad will happen. Really.

PS: Someday soon, when metadata is regularly released as part of public-records requests, Will Harper or someone else at the Weekly will use that info to write a really good story about City Hall. You suppose they’ll thank that crazy Kimo Crossman?

To Helltrack and back

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March 28, 2007

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FILM I had a lot of hope for Rad. Every month in BMX Action there’d be a new scrap of news about some top pro who was going to ride in the movie, including my personal favorite racer, “Hollywood” Mike Miranda. When photos of the Helltrack — site of the film’s climactic race — came out, you could lean your ear to the ground and hear the hearts of BMX groms beat just a little faster.

I watched the movie at Cinedome 7 East in Fremont with my buddy Dave. The opening footage of pro freestylers Eddie Fiola, Ron Wilkerson, and Brian Blyther killing it at Pipeline Skatepark seemed poised to fulfill the print hype, until we became aware of the backing tune, “Break the Ice,” by John Farnham: “Getting ready to break the ice / Feels like time is standing still / Aiming right for your heart / Getting ready to take another spill.” The Rad soundtrack was cheesy even in 1986, especially to a 15-year-old punk rock kid.

And the movie? Pure Hollywood schmaltz: local hero Cru Jones (Bill Allen) beats a corporate greed-meister at his own game. But more than two decades later, Rad wears a little better. For a movie directed by a stunt performer, it did hit the crucial themes of being a BMX kid: riding your bike all day, getting chased by the cops, jumping anything that crossed your path, and having big dreams about being one of the handful who could make a living at it. It’s no wonder old-timers on the chat boards at vintagebmx.com and os-bmx.com are constantly making Rad references. Rad is the BMXers’ Rocky Horror Picture Show. It got no love in the theaters, and it hasn’t officially been released on DVD, but it’s achieved timelessness as a cult classic. (Duncan Scott Davidson)

Over the phone from SoCal, Rad star Bill Allen talks BMX, berms, and bicycle boogies.

SFBG You had stunt riders doubling for you in the film, but had you been into BMX at all before you made Rad?

BILL ALLEN I came at it from an actor’s standpoint and not a BMX background at all. The ugly truth of it is my mother wouldn’t let me have a bicycle growing up, but of course I always rode my friends’ bikes and got into trouble anyway.

SFBG How was it working with the professional riders on Rad?

BA There were a lot of actual BMX guys from the freestyle and the racing worlds and a lot of stunt guys, and they pretty much all had the same crazy blood pumping through their veins. And I tend to hang out with stunt guys anyway, so it was a great time.

SFBG Did any crazy, unscripted stuff happen while you were filming?

BA I remember fooling around on the bike and nearly cracking my skull open just before I had to go do a take. Use those helmets. They really can save you. Also, I don’t know if many people know this, but in [Rad director] Hal Needham’s style of filmmaking, he’d start off a situation like Helltrack with half a dozen cameras or more and just let the guys go at it. So a lot of the stunts that you see are not stunts — these guys really are going down hard.

SFBG What was Helltrack like in person?

BA It was unbelievable. That first drop-off would give you heart attacks just standing there looking at it. And these were teenagers having to do these things, like going into that Kix cereal bowl and off the spoon. There were a bunch of little berms where I know at least one guy broke his ankle — really incredibly dangerous stuff that had never been tried before.

SFBG I’m sure a lot of people ask you about the bicycle boogie scene.

BA Oh god. [Pause] It’s [like] being beaten over the head with an ’80s stick. It’s just very indicative of that time period, and that’s not always a great thing, if it’s the ’80s we’re talking about.

SFBG What about the ass-sliding? Another classic Rad moment …

BA It was really cold, and they gave us these wetsuits which did zero good if you’re just gonna be in and out of the water. It was one of the less glamorous parts about the job.

SFBG When was the last time you watched Rad?

BA Probably 10 years. It’s hard for me to watch anything as an actor. You just wish you could change everything. But the racing sequences are stellar, and I guess that’s why people watch the movie time and time again.

SFBG Is it true that they’re thinking of doing a Rad sequel?

BA I think that’s one of those rumors that refuses to die. They haven’t even put the movie out on DVD yet, but people ask about [a sequel] all the time.

SFBG The time is ripe for a Rad revival — did you know that, for the first time, BMX is going to be a sport in the 2008 Beijing Olympics?

BA I did not know that. That’s incredible. That’s so cool! (Cheryl Eddy)

For more on Bill Allen, visit www.billallenrad.com; to sign the online petition for a Rad DVD release, visit www.petitiononline.com/RAD/petition.html.

“Good German,” bad German

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March 28, 2007

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The title of David Wiltse’s 2003 play, The Good German, points in two directions at once: there’s the image of the individual who stands up to the injustice being perpetrated by his or her government, and there’s the image of the individual who follows the flag, however reluctantly, wherever it may lead. Of the play’s four characters, only one looks even remotely like a saint, and she’s killed early on. The other three, all of them men, have to negotiate a more twisted path between these two poles.

Wiltse’s supple and engrossing drama, now making a stellar West Coast debut at the Marin Theatre Company (and which, incidentally, has no relation to the recent Steven Soderbergh film), takes place entirely in the middle-class home of a middle-aged couple. The flawed but sympathetic Dr. Karl Vogel (Warren David Keith) is a professor of chemistry, and his wife, Gretel (Anne Darragh), is a nurse. Gretel has brought home Herr Braun (Brian Herndon), a German Jew who recently lost his wife and his child when his home was deliberately set ablaze with the intention of sequestering him. Karl is reluctant, being timid and aloof by nature and harboring an all too typical strain of anti-Semitism, which makes him "philosophically" antagonistic to the desperate man at his doorstep.

Karl nonetheless can refuse his beloved wife nothing and allows Braun to stay as a servant even after learning about his Jewish identity. Karl’s good friend Siemi (Darren Bridgett), meanwhile, initially appears only too willing to help a stranger in distress. As a member of the Nazi bureaucracy, though, he slowly gives himself over to the organized mass cultivation of hatred sweeping through the country at large. In the end, the bourgeois domesticity all three men cling to — even more so after Gretel’s death — is no guard against the spiraling madness of the outside world: sooner or later they have to face a life-and-death decision about who they are and what they stand for. Or rather, what they will and won’t stand for.

That choice — their dilemma — is very clearly our own. Wiltse’s play deliberately sets itself in Adolf Hitler’s Germany in order to address George W. Bush’s America. Although this is not the first time the Nazis have served onstage as a mirror to America’s totalitarian tendencies (John O’Keefe’s brilliant 2002 drama, Times Like These, and Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day are just two examples), The Good German proves exceptionally vital. Confidently helmed by director Kent Nicholson and featuring riveting performances, it’s a provocative mediation on questions confronting average — that is to say, flawed — individuals in extraordinary times.

WOYZECK

There is no escape into domesticity for Franz Woyzeck either. Georg Büchner’s classic antihero, a lowly 30-year-old soldier beset by the complementary machinery of the military and medical science, finds only mockery and infidelity in the home and hearth he shares with his mistress, Marie, a former prostitute, and their illegitimate child. In his fevered brain a rebellion of sorts, prompted by a blood-red moon, is on slow boil. It’s a tragedy of minor and quintessentially modern proportions that is so apt, so portentous, that it has inspired countless productions and adaptations since its unearthing in the late 19th century (including Alban Berg’s opera and at least a couple brilliant films) and still amazes one to think it was penned (and left unfinished) in 1836 by a brilliant young chemist and revolutionary carried off by typhus at age 23.

But despite its popularity, Woyzeck is not an easy play to get right. Cutting Ball’s current stab impressively conveys the work’s jagged protoexpressionist spirit. Artistic director Rob Melrose’s able new translation also serves the play’s coruscating imagery. And yet director Adriana Baer has not managed to find a compelling way into the play. Casting accounts for part of the trouble. Moreover, there’s something staid in a scene like the opening tableau, in which all the characters peek from behind the set’s back wall of shelving to whisper maddening things into the ear of a progressively agitated Woyzeck. In the end, we never quite hear what all the fuss was about. *

THE GOOD GERMAN

Through April 15

See Stage listings for show info $29–$47

Marin Theatre Company

297 Miller, Mill Valley

(415) 388-5208

www.marintheatre.org

WOYZECK

Through April 7

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m., $25

Exit Stage Left

156 Eddy, SF

1-800-838-3006

www.cuttingball.com

>

Home court advantage

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March 28, 2007

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A dance community is only as healthy as its humblest members, much the way a ballet company can never attain greatness without a fabulous corps. The team that runs Yerba Buena Center for the Arts knows this. According to associate performing arts curator Angela Mattox, "We want to nurture and support local artists and offer them an opportunity to perform at Yerba Buena." But when Ken Foster, the YBCA’s executive director, presented his first season in 2004, shock waves resulted. There was a new curatorial emphasis on bringing major performers to the Bay Area, and a legitimate fear arose among local dancers, particularly younger ones, that they were going to be shut out for good. (Larger local companies rent the theater; a few — including Joe Goode this year — have performed commissioned works.)

With last year’s "Under the Radar" program, the YBCA calmed the waters by presenting younger artists and their category-defying work. This year the shared performance event "Worlds Apart: Local Response" draws together work that aligns with the YBCA’s three-pronged seasonal theme: "deeply personal, worlds apart, and medium as message."

The participating artists are not beginners, but for both financial and artistic reasons they would not be able to present their own full-evening programs at the YBCA. So for them, a shot at performing in the YBCA’s Forum means a professional venue, exposure to a larger audience, and a paycheck. For the YBCA it’s a community-building, relatively low-risk gesture; also, highlighting up-and-coming local artists now may offer the venue an opportunity to say "we told you so" a few years down the line.

Performers at "Worlds Apart: Local Response" include Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet, surely one of the most unusual chamber music groups. It premieres 2012: A Requiem for Baktun 12 [the 13th and Final Cycle], inspired by a Mayan prophecy about the end of an evolutionary cycle in the title year. Erica Shuch Performance Project has been working on 51802, a piece in which an imaginative thinker examines the effects of incarceration on those inside and outside prison. For Clothes x Sun, performance artist Isak Immanuel of the "Floor of Sky Projects" weaves a personal narrative into installation pieces inspired by their environments. Also on the bill are Hagen and Simone, the brash, smart-aleck, and theatrically inspired Kevin Clarke and Monique Jenkinson. Their new duet, The Excused, promises to tussle with icons of common expectations. Finally, the reprise of Remote by Kraft and Purver takes a humorous, ironic, and compassionate look at how technology affects the way we relate to one another. (Rita Felciano)

WORLDS APART: LOCAL RESPONSE

Thurs/29–Sat/31, 8 p.m., $15–$20

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

>

Digging the roots

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March 28, 2007

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Whinny, moan, or emote weakly, if you will, at the prospect of so many bland acoustic guitars — singer-songwriters have it rough, warbling softly alone on a big stage, so often the first to get slapped with the "you suck" stick. The worst scenario is too easy to picture: cliché love ballads about the lady or lad up front with the wine spritzer, uncompelling bellyaching about dead pets, lame chord progressions, an unexamined affection for James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkel. You’ve got a friend — who wears khakis. So consider it a good fight when singer-songwriters and those who love them wanna bust the stereotypically sensitive mold à la Jay Farrar, Britt Govea, and Marc Snegg. The last started Nevada City’s Grass Roots Records and is sincerely trying to shine a light on songsmiths succored by the rocky, roaring shores of the sweet South Yuba River with, this week, a traveling songwriters revue including Mariee Sioux, Lee Bob Watson, Alela Diane, and Casual Fog.

Can one expect thin song stylings from clotted brains? "That’s not what’s going to be going on at our show!" Snegg protests on the horn from up north. "Each of these songwriters has strong songs, though I guess singer-songwriters sort of get a bad rap.

"The original thing came up because I’m looking around and seeing what’s happening here, what people are doing anyways. I’m trying to congeal and coalesce it into a thing that’s a tour or a record, something that’s a lasting picture of a moment."

You can’t blame the dude, with all the talent pouring out around his hometown, from Joanna Newsom and Noah Georgeson to Hella and the Advantage, many of whom are not only solo artists but bandleaders as well, as Snegg puts it. The ex–UC Berkeley art major heads his own Sneggband, has already had Watson and Hella vocalist Aaron Ross into Dana Gumbiner’s Brighton Sound studio for new albums, and plans to pull in Sioux by April. His latest project: partnering with Nevada City promoters to bring touring and Bay Area bands to the town.

FOLK YOU Snegg isn’t the only wild-eyed seer bringing together two different NorCal scenes with, in his words, "musical momentum" and a few acoustic guitars. Folk Yeah Presents’ Govea has been putting on quiet and increasingly louder shows at Big Sur’s leafy Fernwood Resort and the woody Henry Miller Library for the past two years. The Crime in Choir performance on March 24 laid the heavy down at the first show of the ’07 season, continuing the move toward the harder psych-rock that closed the series last year. "I didn’t want to barge into Big Sur making a big ruckus, but as it turns out, the locals really like to head-bang," the Monterey promoter says as he hurtles down the coast, promising a pair of Chris Robinson shows and a big outdoors bash with as yet unnamed German electronic artists. He’s also folked up about a Mt. Tam performance around the time of Monterey Pop’s 40th anniversary, a very rad, free Earth Day concert at the Henry Miller Library on April 22, and more shows in "exotic" locales closer to San Francisco, including his first in the city with Howlin Rain and a Mission Creek Music Festival night that should have Red Hash heads humming.

"What keeps it unique is the marriage of LA and San Francisco that comes — an interesting mix. The metaphysical fight goes back to Laurel Canyon and Haight Ashbury, but once everyone gets to Big Sur, it’s nothing but hugs. And other things," Govea adds merrily before breaking up amid the pine needles.

FARRAR OUT Also unfurling a louder, prouder sound is Farrar, who’s been working the other side of the folk acoustic spectrum and mining a kind of Midwestern country-soul for years, in Uncle Tupelo and solo and now once again with Son Volt. The band he cultivated while former UT cosongwriter Jeff Tweedy nurtured his Wilco has birthed an admirably multitextured new CD, The Search (Sony/BMG), full of songs seeking insight amid post-9/11 wartime ("The Picture"), soullessness ("Automatic Society"), drugs ("Methamphetamine"), and other trad forms of escape ("Highways and Cigarettes").

"I probably read too much current events in the paper," Farrar, 40, says from St. Louis. "And some of those topical issues do find a way into the writing. ‘The Picture’ is a song like that. There’s a line — ‘War is profit / Profit is war,’ and that’s kind of being borne out by companies like Haliburton moving to the Middle East where the money is being made."

The title song seemed to best tie together his thoughts about this moment. "I mean, I didn’t want to call it Methamphetamine!" he says, gracefully allowing that, yup, Uncle Tupelo once lived together, subsisting on ramen, and contrary to rumor, their house did not have dirt floors.

Farrar isn’t working "Handy Man" territory yet, but it’s safe to say his partying days are behind him. He’s currently reading S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones, about the band’s somewhat infamous 1972 tour, though not for inspiration for his own travels. "Heh-heh, it can definitely be used as a reference point. I think most people who have done as much touring as I have tend to get that out of the way the first couple years. Eventually, you find rhythm that works."

What’s working for him now is playing with a band, a new lineup that includes keyboardist Derry deBorja, who can replicate everything from a banjo to a flute. "I guess having a band," Farrar says with no little irony, "is the one true way to make sure that no one mistakes you for someone that came from American Idol." *

GRASS ROOTS RECORD CO. SONGWRITERS REVUE

Fri/30, 7 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Mama Buzz

2318 Telegraph, Oakl.

(510) 465-4073

DEAD MEADOW

With Spindrift and Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound

Sat/31, 9 p.m., $12 advance

Fernwood Resort

Hwy. 1, Big Sur

www.fernwoodbigsur.com

SON VOLT

Fri/30, 9 p.m., $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.ticketmaster.com

>

Still Waters

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March 28, 2007

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If you come away from Thomas McNamee’s riveting new book, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution (Penguin Press, $27.95), not sure whether you’ve just read the story of a woman or a restaurant, do not panic. You have read both, the twist being that the two tales are so embraided as to become one. The book makes quite clear that Chez Panisse as we know it would not exist without Waters, and it makes equally clear that Waters as we know her would not exist without the restaurant she helped launch in 1971.

"Helped" helps remind us that Chez Panisse is not and never has been a one-woman show. Waters has long been the restaurant’s public face and spiritual guide, but from the beginning Chez Panisse has been a family affair with a distinctly nomadic flavor. People — chefs, servers, investors, bakers, winemakers, managers, others — have pitched in as needed, sometimes wandering off for a time, only to wander back, usually to the mutual benefit of both wanderer and restaurant. Yes, Virginia, there are bedouins in Berkeley, and they look out for one another as well as for the worthy institution to whose vitality and fame so many of them have contributed.

McNamee’s factoid that Chez Panisse did not become profitable until it was nearly 30 years old would be more surprising if it were not widely known that the restaurant wasn’t started to make money. Its deepest impulse was and is to reconcile the aesthetic and moral — to square the joy of eating with the responsibility we all bear for minding the health of our small blue planet. This is as unradical a proposition today as it was radical 35 years ago. The indifference to money, on the other hand, while hardly remarkable in Berkeley at the end of the 1960s, seems almost otherworldly now, after more than a quarter century of supply-side evangelism and CNBC.

Waters, of course, is also an evangelist, a bringer of good news. She tells us it is possible to eat well in the company of loved ones and to know, at the end of the meal, that the circle of life on earth has been strengthened, not frayed. We might not have eaten that particular meal at Chez Panisse — but if we did, lucky us.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com