Bay Guardian Archives

Middle of the Pack

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by Amanda Witherell

The Earth Day Network just released its Urban Environment Report ranking the environmental conditions of the top 72 cities in the US. The study takes into account 200 different factors and ranks for best conditions regarding toxics and waste, air quality, health and human services, parks and recreation, quality of life, drinking water, and global climate change. Oh boy, you’re thinking. It’s going to be so cool to see how San Francisco stands out, with a Mayor who brags about how clean and green the city is.

Good thing he’s pledged to make it better. According to the weighted rankings, we’re just above average. See for yourself.

At least we beat Detroit!

Middle of the Pack

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by Amanda Witherell

The Earth Day Network just released its Urban Environment Report ranking the environmental conditions of the top 72 cities in the US. The study takes into account 200 different factors and ranks for best conditions regarding toxics and waste, air quality, health and human services, parks and recreation, quality of life, drinking water, and global climate change. Oh boy, you’re thinking. It’s going to be so cool to see how San Francisco stands out, with a Mayor who brags about how clean and green the city is.

Good thing he’s pledged to make it better. According to the weighted rankings, we’re just above average. See for yourself.

At least we beat Detroit!

Guardian Casualty Report (02-22-07)

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Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

26 civilians killed when U.S. troops battled Iraqi insurgents, according to the New York Times.

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

3 civilians killed in second chlorine bomb attack in two days feeding concerns that insurgents are developing new methods of attack, according to Reuters.

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

56,880 – 62,613: Killed since 1/03

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

Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net

A Week in Iraq: Week ending 11 February 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/30/

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

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

Source: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories07/february/0202071.htm
U.S. military helicopters are being targeted by insurgents, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/world/middleeast/12copters.html

The U.S. military said most recent of the seven helicopters shot down since January 20th was brought down by a sophisticated piece of weaponry, according to Reuters.

U.S. military:

3,375: 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:

151: Killed since 3/03

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

Refugees:

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

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

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

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

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (2/14/07): Bush asks congress to approve $622 billion for 2008. So far, $368 billion for the U.S., $46 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly

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

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.”

Politics blog: Leno vs. Migden

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@@http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2007/02/lenos_running_against_migden_1.html@@

NOISE: Grizzly good times

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Guardian contributor Chris Sabbath caught the Grizzly Bear show at Great American Music Hall on Feb. 20. Here’s his review:

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Upon purchasing Grizzly Bear’s first full-length, Horn of Plenty (Kanine), two years ago as one of those 99-cent treasures on Amazon.com or something, my immediate assumption was that Edward Droste and his Brooklyn buds would probably be one of those hyped bands that just didn’t work out. I wrote the groups syrupy, psych-folk bedroom rock off as “music for the unmasses”: a tail-feather grappler (Animal Collective, in this case) touring the country 10 months of the year and playing in rinky-dink art spaces with bad paintings and hole-in-the-wall dives to the other bands and their girlfriends.

But fast forward to Tuesday night’s sold-out show at the Great American Music Hall, and Droste and his band – comprising drummer Christopher Bear, bassist Chris Taylor, and guitarist Daniel Rossen – were all giving me the finger instead.

You really need to go

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Fried chicken, hot boys, and DJ Derek B. Oh, and that Oscar thingie.

PS — you MUST check out Juanita’s New Pornographers vid

Fake police reform

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By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco officials have finally agreed to create a much-needed Early Intervention System for problem police officers – although the threats and political power of the San Francisco Police Officers Association have led to a system with serious flaws that will allow rogue cops to remain on the streets.

How Weird is on — probably — for one last year

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By Steven T. Jones
The How Weird Street Faire, which had its permits denied by city officials a couple weeks ago, won a bittersweet victory this morning at an appeals hearing before Department of Parking and Transportation administrator Bond Yee. “It’s clear to me this event is popular, and that’s a good thing, but that’s also a bad thing,” Yee said after hearing from supporters of the event and neighbors who complained that it’s just too big and loud. So he cut the baby in two by agreeing that it was too late to find a new venue for the May 6 event and awarding its permits for this year, but attaching several restrictive conditions (most notably, cutting the music off at 6 pm rather than 8) and ruling that this is the last year the event can be held in the Howard Street neighborhood. “It’s my opinion that the event is too big for this venue,” Yee said. Yet even if event promoters can meet Yee’s conditions, they must still meet pending requirements from the San Francisco Police Department, whose commander for the region, Capt. Dennis O’Leary, spoke against the event at the hearing. “I support the community in this matter and I hear their voices. They don’t want it to happen,” he said. Yet event organizers submitted a petition signed by 100 people from the neighborhood that support the event, whereas those complaining about the event number less than 10, although many are quite upset about having up to 10,000 descend on their neighborhood for the day. Last year’s event almost got canceled after police tried to double their security fees from the previous year, although higher-ups intervened and they were brought back down to reasonable levels. Asked by the Guardian about his apparent bias against this event, O’Leary said he wouldn’t be unduly harsh with How Weird promoters: “That’s not my reputation. I’m very fair.” Yet he also said, “I haven’t made up my mind as to staffing levels.”
Stay tuned.

How Weird is on — probably — for one last year

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By Steven T. Jones
The How Weird Street Faire, which had its permits denied by city officials a couple weeks ago, won a bittersweet victory this morning at an appeals hearing before Department of Parking and Transportation administrator Bond Yee. “It’s clear to me this event is popular, and that’s a good thing, but that’s also a bad thing,” Yee said after hearing from supporters of the event and neighbors who complained that it’s just too big and loud. So he cut the baby in two by agreeing that it was too late to find a new venue for the May 6 event and awarding its permits for this year, but attaching several restrictive conditions (most notably, cutting the music off at 6 pm rather than 8) and ruling that this is the last year the event can be held in the neighborhood. “It’s my opinion that the event is too big for this venue,” Yee said. Yet even if event promoters can meet Yee’s conditions, they must still meet pending requirements from the San Francisco Police Department, whose commander for the region, Capt. Dennis O’Leary, spoke against the event at the hearing. “I support the community in this matter and I hear their voices. They don’t want it to happen,” he said. Yet event organizers submitted a petition signed by 100 people from the Howard Street neighborhood that support the event, whereas those complaining about the event number less than 10, although many are quite upset about having up to 10,000 descend on their neighborhood for the day. Last year’s event almost got canceled after police tried to double their security fees from the previous year, although higher-ups intervened and they were brought back down to reasonable levels. Asked by the Guardian about his apparent bias against this event, O’Leary said he wouldn’t be unduly harsh with How Weird promoters: “That’s not my reputation. I’m very fair.” Yet he also said, “I haven’t made up my mind as to staffing levels.”
Stay tuned.

Leno’s running against Migden

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By Tim Redmond

It’s official: I just spoke with Assemblymember Mark Leno, and he is, indeed, running for state Senate against incumbent Carole Migden. Leno will formally announce at a March 2 campaign kickoff fundraiser at Yerba Buena Gardens. But he’s in the race — and he told me very clearly that he’s in the race for good, even if the the voters overturn term limits for state legislators.

“I want to allow the voters of this senate district to have a choice,” Leno said. “My record of nine years in elected office demonstrates a very different style of inclusivity and respect.”

And that’s really what this race is going to be about: political style. There aren’t a whole lot of major issue on which Leno and Migden disagree, so while Leno told me he would “really be focussing on what I’m going to do positively,” there’s no doubt that the campaign will turn negative. Leno has to point to some of the problems Migden’s had in Sacramento — and Migden, who is a scrapper, will fight back.

The first big sign of how this race will play out will be who shows up to support Leno March 2. My bet: Mayor Gavin Newsom will be there (Leno is a big Newsom backer). Another guess: Sup. Chris Daly, who has been more friendly with Migden, will take a pass. So will Sup. Aaron Peskin.

In the end, this is going to be a bitter, ugly fight with San Francisco progressives on both sides (and caught in the middle). On the positive side, it’s a clear sign that the days of machine politics in San Francisco are over, dead, done for. Can you imagine Willie Brown letting an actual contested election happen on his watch?

And who knows; maybe Migden will decide she’d rather run for mayor.

I haven’t been able to get Migden on the phone directly, but she relayed this comment to me:

“I have not heard a credible justification for [Leno’s] candidadacy other than the fact that he’s out of a job.”

And so it begins.

NOISE: Stop the tears and open your wallet for ? of ? and the Mysterians

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Shed “96 Tears” for ? of garage rock legends ? and the Mysterians. ?’s home in Clio, Mich., burned down to the ground on Jan. 9 – and he lost five Yorkies!

So we’re asking you to shake your tail feather for ? at Annie’s tonight, Feb. 22. SLA is supposedly going to give their last performance ever, alongside the Flakes, Harold Ray Live in Concert, and the Impediments. The show starts at 10 p.m., and the sliding-door donation is $5-$10.

questionmark.jpg
No question about the loss for ? Courtesy of http://96tears.net/.

NOISE: Don’t blink – it’s Snowblink

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Save your last languid dance for them. Guardian contributor Max Goldberg has a new project, warbling with the group, Snowblink.

snowblinksml.jpg
Snowblink’s Daniela Gesundheit is in control.
her band’s most recent disc, My Oh My Avalanche,
has a firm grasp of folky prettiness too.

Tonight, Feb. 22, the band hosts a “Slow Dance Night” at the Make-Out Room with very special guests: at 9 p.m., five boys and a lady, each front-people of his and her own San Francisco band, will sing a slow-dance song with nothing more than a guitar to “eschew their machismo,” Goldberg e-mails. Performers include Martin of the White White Quilt, Nat Russell of Birds of America, Mike Sempert of Birds & Batteries, Frank Lyon of Ship, Abby G, and Joseph Childress. Dancing sweet and slow will be the guiding principle for the earlier part of the evening.

The slow dance portion will be followed by Bay Area-by-way-of-Brooklyn Dirty Projectors touring multi-instrumentalist Angel Deradoorian. At 11 p.m., Snowblink will, Goldberg, writes, “do it the way we do it.” DJ duo Ribbons will close out the night with fast dance songs.

All that aerobic lovin’ begins at 9 p.m. and costs $7. Smoochers can find the Make-Out Room at 3225 22nd St., SF.

The Guardian Casualty Report (2-20-07)

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Casualties in Iraq

Iraqi civilians:

Saturday: 11 killed in double bombing on an Iraqi street, according to the Associated Press.
Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4561621.html

Sunday : 63 killed in three separate bombings of Iraqi open-air market, according to the Associated Press.
Source : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4563491.html

Today: At least 16 killed today and over 100 Iraqi civilians killed since Sunday. 7 mourners killed at funeral by a suicide bomber. 9 killed when a roadside bomb blew up a chlorine gas tanker, according to the New York Times.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

98,000: Killed since 3/03

Source: www.thelancet.com

56,640 – 62,362: 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 18 February 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/weekiniraq/31/

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

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

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

U.S. military:

President’s Day : 2 U.S. Soldiers killed in an ambush on military outpost in Iraq, according to the New York Times.

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?ref=middleeast

3,371: 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:

151: Killed since 3/03

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

Refugees:

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

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

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

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

1.6 million: Iraqis displaced internally

1.8 million: Iraqis displaced to neighboring states

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

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

U.S. Military Wounded:

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

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

The Guardian cost of Iraq war report (2/20/07): Bush asks congress to approve $622 billion for 2008. So far, $367 billion for the U.S., $46 billion for California and $1 billion for San Francisco.
Compiled by Paula Connelly

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

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.”

NOISE: The passing of a Sun City Girl

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Guardian contributor George Chen points to this announcement by Alan and Richard Bishop on Foxy Digitalis yesterday, Feb. 20:

suncitygirls.jpg

RIP Charles Gocher of Sun City Girls

With deep regret, we must announce that Charles Gocher passed away yesterday in Seattle due to a long battle with cancer at the age of 54. He is survived by the two of us who adopted him as a brother 25 years ago and his many friends around the world. He will be missed more than most could ever know. Our thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement during the past three, very difficult years. Many of you were not aware that Charles was ill and that’s because he wanted it that way. Details of a memorial in his honor will be announced soon.

NOISE: Gallo’s fine whine on Dirt!

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Wow, imagine the thrill last night when at the end of my new favorite trash-TV guilty pleasure, the Coxuette tabloid FX dramedy Dirt, the teaser for the next episode unveiled the identity of the shadowy figure that was stalking Courtney Cox’s Goth-wax figure tab editor: Vincent Gallo! Mission Creek Music Fest folkster, filmmaker, bon vivant.

Vincent Gallo.jpg

In “This Is Not Your Father’s Hostage Situation,” Gallo’s ex-child-star character rushes the DirtNow building, trapping the sleazy publisher and equally slimy cub reporter in their supply closet makeout room and inspiring Cox to promise Gallo, “I’ll make you a star!” In exchange for letting them go, of course.

From the looks of the preview for the show – first airing Tuesday, Feb. 27 – Gallo’s crazy-eyed reply appears to be: “I’m already a star!”

P.S. And guess who’s slated to reappear at this year’s Mission Creek music fest?

Shear variety

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SF Weekly’s bizarre source

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By Tim Redmond

Whoa.
I just read Ron Russell’s big story in the SF Weekly about former Police Chief Earl Sanders, and I’m a bit dumfounded.
The gist of the story is that Sanders – the city’s first black police chief and the author of a a new book on the Zebra killings – trumped up his record as a civil-rights leader in the department and glossed over some real problems in his tenure as a homicide cop. That may be true; I haven’t read the book, although I know that Sanders was involved in a frame-up that sent two innocent young men to prison. (I know that because A.C. Thompson, who now writes for the Weekly, wrote about it for the Guardian – a fact conveniently left out of Russell’s story.)
But what left me reeling was Russell’s use of a source named Louis Calabro.
In the story, Calabro is portrayed as an entirely credible former cop whose comments about Sanders are worth legitimate consideration. He’s quoted numerous times. High up in the piece, he’s described as the emcee of a memorial for victims of the notorious Zebra killings and as “one of Earl Sanders’ staunchest critics [who] heads the European American Issues Forum, a group whose proclaimed mission is to promote the rights of persons of “European American” heritage.”
Actually, there’s a bit more to the story.
It’s not hard to learn about Calabro’s organization and his background. You can Google him and it comes up pretty quickly. This is a guy whose website eaif.org, has headlines like“Why the World Hates Jews Part 1” and “Why Do So Many People Hate Jews? He tried to trademark the term “white pride country wide” (the government demurred).
He has gone off on a tear, over and over again, against groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which provide anti-hate-speech materials to schools.
Calabro came by the Guardian office once to complain that I wouldn’t run his letters, and he tried to convince us that the real story about World War Two was the internment of German-Americans.
Calabro insists that his group is not racist and that it doesn’t condone negative comments about any racial group. And while the white-nationalist people at Stormfront post his stuff, some of the denizens there don’t particularly like him. In fact, he (properly) calls the hard-core white power people out for being racists.
Still, this is not a man who has any credibility whatsoever when it comes to criticizing the conduct of an African American cop in a complex racially charged murder case.
When I asked Russell about it, he emailed me and said: “Of course I know who he is. The story makes it abundantly clear where Mr. Calabro is coming from. I fail to see why you think quoting him was inappropriate.”
Well: I don’t think I’ve ever seen another credible media outlet refer to Calabro as anything other than someone whose opinions on race are well outside the mainstream of acceptability in a multicultural society.
Oops. I suspect that over at the Weekly, they’re having what we call the Big Cringe.

Newsom redux

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By Steven T. Jones
Ethics watchdog Joe Lynn today continues his fine wrap-up at Fog City Journal on Newsom’s vulnerabilities and shortcomings as he enters a difficult reelection year. Having reported several of the stories that Joe references, I can’t help but agree that Newsom isn’t the lock for reelection that many make him out to be. There are great narratives just waiting to be told by whoever decides to run against him — and we plan to tell a few ourselves.

Oi, oi, oh, yeah

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In a town rife with electronic DJs and mellow indie bands, what’s a poor punk lover to do? Especially on a Monday night (otherwise known at most venues as either “open mic” or “fend for yourselves, you weekday drunks” night)? Is there an alternative to driving around in your friend’s old beater listening to Minor Threat on the tape deck?

The lucky answer is “yes.” Oh, yes.766711277_m.jpg

There’s the Hemlock Tavern, that lovely not-quite-dive in the neighborhood-formerly-known-as-the-Tenderloin, with its four-year-old Monday night Punk Rock Sideshow (classic tunes and movies for those whose tastes tend more towards 7 Seconds than 30 Seconds to Mars) and its once-a-month free live punk shows (nice and early for those whose angst and anarchy is now relegated to the hours after 5 p.m. and before 9 a.m. Yes, even misfits sometimes have to work for the man…).

misledcit.jpgLast Monday, some friends and I made it in time to see Misled Citizen (like true aging punks, we were too busy napping to get there for Dead Ringers), a fast, loud, energetic fivesome playing old school punk to a crowd of spiky-haired, black-clad 20-somethings (including a great oi-oi cover of “The Boys Are Back in Town”). Afterwards, we chugged our PBR longnecks while bigscreens flashed ’80s skater videos and a Mike Ness documentary and DJ Tragic and the Duchess of Hazard spun everything from Op Ivy to Propaghandi. And, of course, we ogled the eyeliner queens and tattooed kings in the indoor/outdoor smoking room.

It was fantastic, just like those shows we used to go to in high school — minus the sticky floors and windowless warehouses and 14-year-old skinheads dominating the mosh pit. Perfect. Just the thing to get the thing taste of Bassnectar out of your mouth. (Molly Freedenberg)

UCSF Welcomes 28,000 Pound Scanner

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By Cara Cutter

Whether you agree with coach Jimmy Dugan’s facetious comment in “A League of Their Own” that the brain is simply “the lump that’s three feet above your ass,” or take the more reverent view that it is the most extraordinary and complex creation in the universe, there is little doubt that the human brain is a subject of great interest to all of us. As the organ that orchestrates the symphony of our consciousness, it dictates our motions and emotions, our passions and purposes, and has garnered much public attention. President George W. Bush, in Presidential Proclamation 6158, declared the 1990’s as “the Decade of the Brain.” Time Magazine’s January 29, 2007, cover featured a compartmentalized brain and the headline, “The Brain: A User’s Guide.” The brain is fascinating!

Scanner side profile.jpg

Here comes the neighborhood

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TRASH TV This review of E!’s The Girls Next Door started with a vision of me à la Gloria Steinem for her 1963 Bunny Club exposé, only I was doing my research sitting on my boyfriend’s couch and eating Pirate’s Booty, sans notebook. I grew up in an überfeminist house (No Three’s Company!), spent a semester writing a paper on the sexism in Pretty Woman, and went to a once-all-women’s college that had an unwritten rule about using womyn in all campus postings. So I was mentally going to note The Girls Next Door‘s sexism, infantilism, and misplaced values. Then came the eye-popping bobble-head opening and the catchy "Come on, come on to myyyyy house" theme song promising candy — and candy I got in the form of bottle blonds Holly Madison, Kendra Wilkinson, and Bridget Marquardt (Bridg, to me).

The girls of Hugh Hefner’s reality TV series weren’t the dumb bimbos I’d envisioned — OK, Kendra didn’t know polygamy is illegal in this country and deemed Olive Garden the best. They have career aspirations: Babies! Broadcast journalism! Playmate of the Year! Who couldn’t relate to jealous Holly (Hef’s official number one girlfriend) when his ex Barbi Benton sashays into the mansion and declares, "Hef still has my bust!" to her bronze likeness? Who wouldn’t ooze with sympathy when brainy Bridg has to miss the nude shower shoot because her mean old prof refuses to postpone her semester final? And she studied!

It took only an episode for me to realize I wanted to leave behind my hardworking p.c. life and monogamous relationship and live in the Playboy Mansion. I want to order fried chicken and ice cream from the butler; watch movies with my two BFFs and boyfriend, all snuggled in a California King; and slip and slide down the mansion lawns in a red, white, and blue bikini. I want a murder-mystery birthday party and girls who watch my back when the psychic who claimed to connect with the spirit I saw in my bedroom turns out to be a fraud. I want backyard barbecues and luaus and as many puppies as my heart desires. Puffin — as Holly affectionately calls Hef — hasn’t called yet, but the good news is that with such episodes as "Mutiny on the Booty," "Clue-less," and "Eighty is the New Forty" under my belt, that doctoral thesis is practically writing itself! (Anna Mantzaris)

For The Girls Next Door dates and times visit www.eonline.com/on/shows/girlsnextdoor.

You like me!

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DON’T FORGET TO THANK THE MOST HIGH "The Oscars of gay porn are coming! The Oscars of gay porn are coming!" I whinnied to my roommate Baby Char-Char, my girlish hands gesticuutf8g wildly. "Don’t you know what this means? Soon the streets will be absolutely crawling with porn stars!"

"So what else is new?" the lovely Char-Char humphed, settling back into his vegan chicken nuggets. Thus the rapturous ambivalence that greets the arrival of the GayVN Awards to San Francisco this Feb. 24. The GayVNs, which honor nominees in 38 categories — personal favorites: Best Music (really), Best Sex Comedy (you’re kidding), and Best Non-Sex Performance (you’re really kidding) — are awarded by the AVN Media Network, which also hosts the wild, mostly straight AVN Awards each year in Vegas.

AVN Media usually looses the GayVNs on a suspecting world in West Hollywood, but this year it’s holding them at the Castro Theatre. What does this mean, besides an influx of WeHo pay-for-plays with brassy home highlights shining like cross-eyed beacons through our February fog? For one, it means official recognition of San Francisco as the new ground zero of male-on-male video, the omphalos of anal erotica, if you will. For two, it means Craigslist will probably go down from all the traffic.

MCed by Kathy Griffin and also by the parts of Kathy Griffin made in South Korea ("I’m so glad that ‘My gays’ have asked me to join them for their big event," La Griffter declaims in press materials), the GayVNs — no relation to our fine mayor, alas — will keep fans and industry observers perched on the pinched tips of their seats to see just who’ll sashay away with a big fat rectangular piece of etched something in such categories as Best Actor (Shane Collins in Doggie Style? Justin Wells in Booty Thief ?) and Best Bisexual Video (Bi Back Mountain? Bi Bi American Pie 9?).

But really, isn’t it an honor just to be nominated? Sure it is!

I love gay porn — it’s ruined several of my more serious relationships, thank god — and it’s great to see the industry turn on its own and reward them. But the real question I have is what shall I wear to the ceremony? My Carnival of Venice mask with the ostrich plumes? My lace-up man corset with poly-mesh cape? One thing’s for sure: don’t even think about reaching for the leopard spots–zebra stripes guayabera–hot pants combo. Everyone will be wearing that. (Marke B.)

GAYVN AWARDS

Sat/24, 7pm, $100–$300

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.gayvnawards.com

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Worth a shot

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Sam Small (Jud Williford) is an unemployed man in a fraying bathrobe with a limp Jimmy Dean sausage in his pocket, living off the bacon brought (literally snuck) home by his wife, Mary (Beth Wilmurt), a waitress. Sam’s situation, aggravated by his well-thumbed copy of Hamlet, has led him to contemplate suicide.

Albert (Marty Pistone) — right across the hall from Sam and Mary’s apartment 86 in number 69 — is sympathetic. He’s on the rebound from a dot-bomb himself (not to mention a dead wife) but is rebuilding his future by recycling the detritus of a lavish consumer society on eBay and shooting Web-ready video with a well-worn vixen named Margaret (Denise Balthrop Cassidy). Joblessness need be no impediment, Albert proclaims. "Nobody has to hire you, Sam. It’s the 21st century!"

And then the brainstorm: Albert’s entrepreneurial instincts latch on to Sam’s suicidal tendencies to conjure a Web-based raffle for the right to Sam’s martyrdom. Soon various people-cum-causes come calling, and Sam and Mary’s fortunes are on the rise. This is the story of American Suicide, presented by Z Plays and the Encore Theatre Company.

It is also the story of American can-do despair in its most contemporary form: breathing the Internet ether of a post-postindustrial economy and the giddy dreams of the self-unemployed. That the play feels so effortlessly precise makes one appreciate even more the achievement of writer-director Mark Jackson, whose brilliantly staged adaptation of Nikolai Erdman’s The Suicide turns the Soviet playwright’s banned 1929 tragifarce into a piercingly funny satire on the American way of death.

For every individual fantasy in this country rests on the bones of some victim or other. In this case, it’s Sam, the classic American little guy, whose iconic aspects Williford expertly underscores to comic but also telling effect with a Depression-era clip to his speech. Sam’s gotta die, or no dice. But the deal is so sweet even he gets caught up in it.

Our hapless hero even finds himself pursuing a lifelong dream of becoming an actor (lifelong — ay, there’s the rub), which pitches him into the middle of another squalid little tale of diminished lives and desperate schemes. This one involves a washed-up film director (Michael Patrick Gaffney) and a 22-year-old Norma Desmond named Chloe Banks (Jody Flader), who’s bent on a comeback via a torrid suicide note from a leading man–slash–lover. Both are played, like all the characters in American Suicide, as delightfully precise caricatures by a very fine cast. This includes Delia MacDougall, whose larger-than-life turn as major thespian Gigi Bolt, a representative of the embattled American theater living down the street from Sam’s apartment building in her car, effortlessly projects to the back rows and back several times over.

The histrionic theme is one of the more self-referential of Jackson’s many original contributions to Erdman’s story line, and he clearly has fun with it. So bright is the suicide scheme’s promise to all involved that not even the scandal-starved Chloe’s willful intrusion into the conjugal poverty of Sam and Mary’s water-stained studio apartment (a principle component of James Faerron’s slick and versatile set design) throws a wrench into the works. Indeed, the hard-bitten note in Mary’s natural sweetness at the outset of the play drops away completely by the time worldly fortune and a life of leisure appear on the horizon. Wilmurt’s excellent and endearing play on the supportive wifey adopts something of the wide-eyed, guileless, endlessly grateful manner of a game show contestant.

Liam Vincent rounds out the terrific cast in the roles of two mysterious men who together push the play’s social critique a notch higher, or lower, into the realm of politics and an ever-encroaching state power.

The issue of martyrdom naturally calls forth from among the other eager suicide opportunists a certain bearded fellow (played with wonderfully dignified comic assurance by Vincent) in Middle Eastern garb. Jackson eschews cheap shots here, instead going for the jugular with some of the play’s funniest dialogue as Sam’s political ignorance (a classic American virtue never too far from an equally classic rapaciousness) before the jihadist prompts the latter to narrate a kind of preschool allegory of anti-imperialism — a story later used for cross-purposes by a shadowy government trench coat (Vincent again) who’d like to use Sam to do something about the dearth of Americans willing to die for ideas. *

AMERICAN SUICIDE

Through March 11

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m.; $25–$30

Thick House

1695 18th St., SF

(415) 437-6775

www.zspace.org

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Chorophobics, beware

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For the last decade four baseball players have been staring at me as I sit at my computer. They never say anything, but their presence is uncanny. I first encountered them in a downtown office building where I was working. Every time I walked into that sterile lobby, they looked at me. There was something about those burning eyes, open smiles, and striped uniforms that made these players look more like skeletons than athletes. I couldn’t ignore them, so I took them home.

A couple years ago choreographer Kim Epifano became similarly hooked on Fears of Your Life, a book about the dreads and anxieties that haunt our days and invade our nights. It was written by Michael Bernard Loggins, who — just like baseball-player painter Vernon Streeter — is an artist at Creativity Explored, a nonprofit that helps adults with developmental disabilities make, show, and sell their art.

Epifano proceeded to create a dance theater piece inspired by Loggins’s little red book. At the time, she had gone back to grad school and was full of her own anxieties. She asked the mixed-ability AXIS Dance Company to collaborate with her, figuring that "Michael has one kind of disability, and some AXIS dancers have [others]." She also realized that "many of Michael’s fears are also my fears — everyone’s fears. The overlap is astonishing." Fears of Your Life became Epifano’s MA dissertation at UC Davis in 2006; the piece "was just such a lovely way to bring my academic and my professional life together."

At the first stage rehearsal in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, site of the piece’s three performances Feb.23–25, large puppets (by sculptor Mike Stasiuk) sat at the edge of the stage waiting to join the show, as did clunky white shoes covered in writing, including a letter to Epifano.

Performers executed wheelies or spread on the floor like puddles; technicians hooked up cables for the boom box; dancer Katie Faulkner tuned her guitar; and Stephanie Bastos worked on her beatbox moves while coaching narrator C. Derrick Jones on his Portuguese. The atmosphere was one of relaxed attentiveness as the performers acclimated to the new environment. But then the fears begin to splatter in words and movements: fear of hospitals and needles, black cats, schools and dentists, spiders and monsters, cars at intersections, and strangers. And then there is "the fear of taking your own life away from yourself," demonstrated by Jones making a protective tent out of his raincoat.

The most moving sections of Loggins’s litany offer insights into what it means to be different in this society. He talks of his fear of the bus going too fast, being exposed to ridicule from strangers, and "people being just mean to him," Epifano says. "He gets pulled over by the police all the time because they think he is some kind of weirdo." Has Loggins come to any rehearsals? "He sure has, all the time," Epifano says. "He made us change one thing. He won’t let us say ‘shit,’ so now we say ‘aw shucks.’ " (Rita Felciano)

FEARS OF YOUR LIFE

Fri/23–Sat/24, 8 p.m.; Sun/25, 2 p.m.; $21–$25

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

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