Bay Guardian Archives

Behold! Highlights of ArtPadSF and artMKT

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In this week’s issue, Guardian visual arts Matt Fisher singled out some highlights of the big ArtPadSF and artMKT shows, which open tonight and run through Sun/19. Here’s a slideshow that shows you what he was talking about. Artist descriptions after the jump: 

ARTPADSF:

Andrew Benson, Johansson Projects

Benson’s sometimes gooey, sometimes crunkly digital video/experimental software work breathes some ragged, frenetic energy into the standard trope of “relationships between the body and technology.” His piece is scheduled to be projected from the Phoenix onto the six-story building next door at 8pm, Thu/16-Sat/18.

Justine Frischmann, Unspeakable Projects

Frischmann’s paintings look like something that one of those spiders on Benzedrine would make. If it lived inside an Etch A Sketch. And used neon spray paint. During a dust storm. Trust me, these are compliments.

David Hevel, Marx & Zavattero

Hevel makes collaged sculptures and sharp pop abstract paintings, usually riffing on American celebrity. His work at the fair will be very MTV 1983.

Scott Hove, Spoke Art

Will Oaklander Hove be showing one of his intensely drugged up fanged wall cakes, a knotted rope work installation, or a surrealism-on-meth painting? Yeah, it all sounds good to me, too.

Jason Kalogiros, Queen’s Nails Gallery

Kalogiros makes edgy, dense, cerebral, photo-based works, lately by manipulating found commercial images. I’m hoping to see a couple from his series of Cartier and Bvlgari watches.

Ed Loftus, Gregory Lind Gallery

Loftus does photorealism pretty much the right way, by marrying intense attention to detail with an obsessive and neurotic subject matter that crawls under your skin ever deeper the more time you spend with it. While you’re in Gregory Lind’s space, also check out Thomas Campbell and Jovi Schnell.

Matt Momchilov, Unspeakable Projects

Momchilov queers punk and rock fandom in the traditional sense of the word, meaning his paintings and sculpture snatch and redirect standard accoutrements of punk fanboys and girls to point that hardcore laser focus in new directions and at more fey subjects.

Gregg Renfrow, Toomey-Tourell

I won’t blame you one bit if you try to lick Renfrow’s luminous, vibrating color field abstractions. His meticulous, precise, wondrous paintings are like visual everlasting gobstoppers, and I fully expect that by the time I see ’em, they’ll have a layer of saliva all over.

Jonathan Runcio, Queen’s Nails Gallery

Runcio makes incisive 2 and 3D work that takes traditional hardedge abstraction in the art concrete vein, shacks it up with remnants of urban architecture, and has a post-formalist lovechild.

 

ARTMRKT

Johnna Arnold, Traywick Contemporary

The fair’s Collector’s Lounge will be showing Arnold’s video created to accompany the richly saturated, haunting landscape photos that will be showing offsite at the gallery.

Carol Inez Charney, Slate Contemporary

harney’s complex photographs were the single most outstanding thing I saw last year at ArtPad. That’s complex like a personality, not like your taxes. A year later, I’m prepared for the brainfreeze again.

Amanda Curreri, Romer Young

Curreri’s precisely conceived conceptual color and abstract works are subtle in that they tend to yield only small nibbles at first pass, but they’re deceptive that way, and usually end up smacking you around by the time it’s all over.

Lauren DiCioccio, Jack Fischer Gallery

DiCioccio has recently been applying her super-meticulous needlework to fastidiously x-ing out individual letters in pages of books, as an act of both scrutiny and physical redaction of the received, mediated world.

Joshua Hagler, Jack Fischer Gallery

Somewhere in the Hamptons summer home where Glenn Brown and Lucian Freud are renting with Mark Tansey and Matthew Day Jackson, Hagler is stoned on the couch making fart noises with his armpits. That is also a compliment.

Claire Rojas, Gallery Paul Anglim

Sure Gallery Paul Anglim shows Barry McGee, but I’ll be looking at the Rojas paintings, whose hard edge and off-kilter abstractions of interior architectural spaces are spot-on and mesmerizing.

Diane Rosenblum, Slate Contemporary

Rosenblum switches up hyperanalytical and conceptual works that incorporate research, crowdsourced interactions, and photography. I’m hoping to see images from a series of recent photos that work Flickr comments into the image.

Dana Hart Stone, Brian Gross

I can’t wait to examine Hart Stone’s paintings up close, which in the past have been made by repeatedly transferring or printing antique images in rows onto canvas. Also at Brian Gross are Bay Area stalwarts Roy de Forest and Robert Arneson.

Esther Traugot, Chandra Cerrito

Traugot combines found organic objects with crochet. I know what you’re thinking, but this is not a Portlandia skit. She does it the right way, promise.

Googlass: Gatecrashing Google I/O

Andrew Lam
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It would be foolish to turn down the offer of cost-free Billy Idol on a Wednesday night, but I could have remembered that I live in San Francisco and high profile rock ‘n’ roll will like as not, come served with a side of goober. 

This is to say, that I went to the Google I/O developer’s conference last night. The buffet’s waffle fries were not great and I heard the mini-chicken pot pies were worse, but I did get a chance to watch DJ Steve Aoki give shout-outs to “technooooology!”, allowing a techie or two who promised to get him a Google bus to clamber on stage and flop about next to his set-up.

Through a complicated and unexplained series of events, my date at Dave’s with a man who owns a VW van turned into a trip to the Moscone Center for what I would later learn was a $900 opportunity to hear about Big Goog’s new answer to Spotify in the yearly conference’s three-hour keynote speech.

Sadly, our posse got there too late to see Idol (Rolling Stone was on time.) But we managed to catch Aoki’s triumphant remixes of Kid Cudi and Kendrik Lamar, and the bitter end of the after-hours portion of the conference, which Google characterized thusly:

Google I/O After Hours will be a hyper-visual, heart pounding journey, providing hands-on interactive experiences and sophisticated recreation and featuring awe-inspiring technology and live musical performances like no other. We’ve teamed up with the best global visionaries to present to you their dynamic experiments, heightened realities, and magical experiences.

There was a mechanical hand that mimicked its user’s motions (these largely entailed “pointing a gun” at Steve Aoki and vaguely heil-like salutes as I watched), fake living room sets you could digitally manipulate from a touchscreen, light-up lilypads, photobooths, IPA on tap, and food offerings that would have made the house cook at any college fraternity mildly proud (three bean salad!) Many people were wearing Google Glasses. At a concert? 

I was not prepared for all the Burning Man in evidence (did that woman wear those chaps for the entire conference or was that special for Idol?), including this man yes, wearing Google Glasses. He also owns a glowing fur company. “It’s called Electro Fur,” he told me, handing me a card. “So, www.electrofur.com?” I asked politely. “You know it.” Check out his “Elegance” collection, and don’t forget a tail to top it all off. If anyone wants to buy me the $250 furkini top promising “a ridiculous amount of fun”, I’m with it.

www.electrofur.com

Party raft, set sail for white guys!

Introspection abounds, as instructed. What color Google Glasses would be best for me?

Also, peep SFist’s Andrew Dalton, who has a Vine of the Googlass

Is Larkin Street Youth Services using public funds to fight a union organizing drive?

Sasha Cuttler
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Larkin Street Youth Services does great and important social work with homeless youth in San Francisco, for which it receives generous support from city taxpayers, as well as federal grants. That’s why its employees and some prominent local officials are questioning the organization’s aggressive, deceptive, and anti-union resistance to the request by a majority of its 88 employees to be represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1021.

A majority of employees submitted an organizing petition on April 8, asking LSYS Executive Director Sherilyn Adams to honor the request and recognize card check neutrality, as other local city-supported nonprofits have done, such as Tenderloin Housing Clinic. But SEIU organizer Peter Masiak said Adams refused to even discuss it, leading the National Labor Relations Board to set a mail-in ballot election that begins May 21.

“That was two months she was able to buy by forcing this election,” he told us.

Adams and LSYS management have used that time to try to undermine the organizing effort with staff meetings and mailers that criticize SEIU in particular and the labor movement in general, using misleading scare tactics about the costs of organizing.  

“In my view, if employees become represented by a union, our organization will be significantly impacted, and not for the better,” Adams wrote in an April 23 email to staff announcing the NLRB election. LSYS management has also posted flyers with inaccurate information on the costs of joining the union and dated information about a contentious contract impasse between Local 1021 and its workers that has [since been settled. CORRECTION: Local 1021 workers rejected that settlement, with negotiations scheduled to restart May 21].

“They have been engaged in an anti-union campaign and hired outside counsel to fight this,” Masiak told us, noting how inappropriate such actions are for an organization that gets the vast majority of its funding from government grants. “I think it’s a misuse of these funds.”

Some public officials agree, including Assembly member Tom Ammiano and Sup. John Avalos, who have written letters to LSYS criticizing the tactics and urging Adams to recognize the union.

“Their desire to have a voice on the job and develop professionally in a supportive environment should be celebrated by LSYS management,” Ammiano wrote to Adams on April 30, noting his long history of advocating for increased city funding of the organization. “Unions are an important voice for employees regarding salary, benefits, working conditions, and many other issues. I strongly encourage you to accept card check recognition, to remain neautral during your employees’ organizing efforts, and not to use public funds on anti-union attorneys or consultants, so that your employees may make their own decision on whether or not to form a union.”

Eva Kersey, who works in LSYS HIV-prevention programs and helped organize the union drive, said it was driven by concerns about low wages, poor benefits, and the belief that “we don’t have a meaningful voice in how our programs are run,” she told us.

Kersey said she was disappointed at how management has reacted to the organizing drive. “What was most surprising is the general lack of respect we’ve gotten as workers and an organizing committee,” Kersey said, citing belittling management statements about how employees were being manipulated by the desperate union. “We’ve put a lot of work into this and put ourselves out there in a lot of ways.”

But Kersey believes support for the union has only grown and that LSYS employees — who are used to cutting through the bullshit they hear from troubled teens — haven’t been swayed by the speeches, flyers, and emails from management.

“I don’t think they’re very effective. They’re pretty one-sided,” Kersey said.  

Adams did not return our calls for comment, but had LSYS spokesperson Nicole Garroutte respond by asking for questions in writing, and we provided a list raising the issues and concerns expressed in this article. She didn’t answer the questions directly but offered this prepared statement: “Thank you for your interest in Larkin Street and, in particular, the election process that is currently underway. Out of respect for all of our employees and to help ensure a fair and independent process, we will confine our response to reaffirming the high degree to which we value our staff and the faith that we have in their ability to make informed individual decisions regarding the election. We recognize that there are expected differences of opinions regarding the preferred labor-management model, but we are confident that we all share a mutual passion for our mission and, most importantly, for assisting to our fullest potential the vulnerable clients we serve. We would be happy to talk further after the election process is concluded.” 

Masiak said the ballots will be mailed out May 21, they must be returned by June 5, and they will counted June 6.

Cryin’ wolf

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Cryin’ wolf

This has been a wretched stretch of brutal press for Barack Obama lately. Battered over and over by revelations of IRS malfeasance, aggressive assaults on press freedom at the AP and Benghazi ad infinitum, the hits keep on coming, amplified by the dual forces of the “Conservative Entertainment Complex” (as exemplified by this great pundit) and a “liberal media” that has realized that Internet hits are their most likely saving grace and revenue stream. It has reached such fevered pitch that the media is making a chilling analogy commonplace!

Thing is, once you get out of the fever swamps of the Internet, where seething Caucasian retirees amped up on Fox n Metamucil dominate debates with wildly incoherent snatches of reactionary-babble that sound like bizarre code to the unintiated, nobody–and I do mean NOBODY–gives a rodent’s anus about any of this. Be it at the laundromat, the gym, the coffee shop, kid’s schools, diner—general talk in my neck of the woods is a smorgasbord of the usual celeb/weather thing. And why?

Not just because none of this impacts anyone directly (certainly not as directly as this, which affects everyone that breathes, namely everyone alive), but in reality, because the Republican Noise Machine’s ceasleless elevation of every Obama falter/failure to a matter of the utmost urgency (requiring Obama’s removal) has rendered the public and even a fair amount of the blogosphere numb to their unending pounding. Benghazi–a bloody mess of a tragedy that left four Americans dead has actually been called by one of the GOP’s most repellant figureheads as more significant than 9/11. Another has called for impeachment. As the same level of outrage never existed during the Bush years (and similar attacks that left 60 people dead), this is transparent nonsense. Not to mention the hearings themselves over Benghazi, which deliberately leave out testimony from any key players that might deviate off script.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3HTaJJugwc

Of greater importance would be the IRS and AP scandals. But even these are revealed to be borderline ridiculous–the IRS didn’t single out only Tea Party groups and the AP’s claim of political persecution is no more than an attempt to deflect a legitmate inquiry into a serious security breach. Let’s get real: Using the IRS to persecute one’s opponents is serious beyond serious–but when the campaign finance laws have been upended, the IRS making legitimate inquiries into an organization’s status is to be expected.

The real issue at hand here is that for over 20 years, the Republican Party has molehilled into mountains every story that they thought would sway public opinion. And it tends to crest at the same time as well–right after a Democratic incumbent shocks them by trouncing a challenger, as was also the case in 1996. Never mind that the kitchen sink was thrown at both Clinton and Obama, whose policies themselves could barely be described as genuinely progressive, the only thing that mattered was wrecking their approval ratings in time for midterms or for the next presidential election–and as the Democrats gained seats in 1998 and their dreadful candidate outpolled the Republican in the popular vote in 2000, it really doesn’t work.

But they’ll cry wolf forever, because at this point “conservative politics” are a lucrative racket. And by playing this bait and switch game, the public tunes out even the things that are critical to them. So, “Benghazi” and the others replace “ACORN” or “Jeremiah Wright” for a spell and then roll back into the sea of noise like so many barking seals. But as the media lock that existed 15 some years ago disappears, these stories will hopefully carry less gravity in the future and pass along with the embittered folks whose panic over cultural changes has turned them into easy marks. Can’t come fast enough for me.


 

 

Why is the SF housing market “positive?”

Zelda Bronstein
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Why is the SF housing market “positive?”

It’s been a long, long time since anyone said that traffic is terrific. When there are too many cars on the road, it’s considered bad, not healthy — even if the boom in single-occupant auto travel is a sign of a recovering economy and lots of job creation.

So why do newspaper reports still talk about a “positive market trend” when home prices reach levels that no middle-class people can ever afford? Why does the Chronicle run a quote like this …

Steve Berkowitz, CEO of online listing company Move Inc., said the region “is seeing a real stabilization and a really positive market trend. There is a very solid market in all the Bay Area counties.”

… without any indication that soaring housing prices are bad for most people who want to live in the area, bad for businesses, particularly small businesses, that have trouble paying employees enough to afford to live near where they work, bad for the environment (when people have to move further and further from their jobs to find affordable housing) and generally bad for the region?

Yes, it’s good to see that people who were underwater on their homes are getting back into the black. But for the most part, what we’re seeing is the affordability of homes soar way beyond the reach of the vast majority of people who work in San Francisco. That’s not “terrific.” That’s terrifying.

Your 2013 Nasty Pig leather fetish club-streetwear lookbook is here

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Beloved former SF club denizen, fast-forward stylist, and king of fresh Frankie Sharp — who basically won New York in March — has teamed up with director Lil Internet and hot-hot-heat fetishwear producer Nasty Pig to melt our screens.

Here’s the IamNastyPig summer lookbook video, just dropped. We would like all of these, plz. Including the wave-splashed retro-boxing/board shorts. Also this:

 

 

 

Party Radar: Save Esta Noche!

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Party Radar: Save Esta Noche!

Many of us barely remember growing up there, meeting our first hot papi, trying out our first cha cha heels on stage, and living the Selena dream. And some of us go back every week to relive those experiences! Now, that many-mirrored treasure trove of characters, Esta Noche, may have to close its doors — forever.  

The city’s only (official) Latin gay bar owes the city $7,000 and may be history if it can’t cough it up in the next two weeks. But you know the fundraising party Sat/18 is gonna be fabuloso.

The whole situation’s due to a silly technicality: Last year, the Board of Supes passed widely supported legislation designed to make it easier for bars and clubs to pay their licensing fees. But there was a catch no one properly understood: bars would now have to pay all fees for the year in one large lump sum. Supervisor David Campos is working to change this, but it may be to late for the fantastic characters of this beloved bar.

So his office, via scenester mover and shaker Nate Albee, is helping organize the big time fundraiser — assisted by an all-star cast including Heklina, Anna Conda, Per Sia, Brown Amy, and DJs Carnita and Taco Tuesday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXhKc8ntBOw

More protests over Willits bypass project

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Controversy over the Willits Bypass continued Monday, as Willits protesters sought to block Caltrans contractors from continuing work on the highway construction project. Protester Robert Chevalier, 66, locked himself to a Caterpillar tractor used for hauling felled logs using a steel “lock box.” At another location, four other protesters unfurled a banner to block work trucks that were preparing for pile-driving tests. Chevalier was arrested along with protesters Sara Grusky and Ellen Faulkner, who is 75.

Meanwhile, a new tree-sitter took to the branches of a rare wetland ash earlier this month. The protester, who goes by the name Condor, stationed himself at the northern end of the bypass on May 2. Since then, Condor has been replaced by a tree sitter who goes by the name of Hawk. “Part of the message of the medium is that birds move around,” explained Naomi Wagner, a spokesperson for Redwood Nation Earth First.

Condor was the eighth tree-sitter to protest the bypass. The first five were forcibly removed by CHP with cherry pickers on April 2. Two others decamped more recently before being arrested.

In the meantime, construction on the six-mile, four-lane highway continues, albeit with a few setbacks. On April 9, an inspector for the North Coast Water Quality Control Board visited the site and found that Caltrans had violated its permits by disturbing ground within 50 feet of streams and failing to follow statewide practices designed to prevent streamside runoff.

Critics maintain that it’s typical of Caltrans to go ahead with construction, even if that means violating the conditions of their permits. Jamie Chevalier of Earth First said, “Caltrans will just do what they’re gonna do and pay a fine.”

According to Caltrans spokesperson Phil Frisbie, however, the inspection was “normal routine business.”

“[The infraction] was an oversight on Caltrans and the contractor’s parts because the vegetation is so dense you can’t actually see the creek.” said Frisbie. “It won’t happen again.”

Last week, the California Transportation Commission approved an additional $26 million for the creation and rehabilitation of approximately 2,000 acres of wetlands. Many of those mitigation projects are years down the road, said Frisbie, a fact that alarms Chevalier and other opponents of the bypass.

Frisbie also said they were aware of the new tree-sitter, and were monitoring the situation.

When the Guardian reached Condor by phone last week, the tree sitter said he’d experienced minimal contact with Caltrans employees so far. “Yesterday they limbed an oak tree about a 100 feet from me,” he said. “I guess that was their response to my presence.”

Chevalier, the protester who locked himself to the Caterpillar, is a retired commercial fisherman who worked for years in Alaska.  He said he felt compelled to take a stand: “One thing we learned from fishing is that taking care of our rivers and forests creates a booming economy that will last. These big make-work projects leave the locals and the taxpayers worse off than before. It’s just a waste,” he said. “This project is trashing the land, water, and local jobs that we really do need.”

Woods for you: Best redwood parks for family times, wowwing out-of-towners, quiet reflection

Andrew Lam
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Woods for you: Best redwood parks for family times, wowwing out-of-towners, quiet reflection

You have no reason not to explore California’s freakishly gorgeous lands now. The treehuggers over at the Redwoods League (who have purchased more than 190,000 acres of the trees for conservation since the group’s inception in 1918) have released their first-ever parent’s guide to the behemoth old-growth beauties. This means day trips sensibly arranged and explained so that even the couch-bound and fresh air-phobic can figure out which woodses are best for them. Which redwood park operates a nursery? A science center? All in the guide, available for the price of your email address.

To aide you even further, Redwoods League director of outreach Jennifer Benito gave us her top picks for redwoods to take the parentals to, the most impressive stands to wow your out-of-towner babes, etc. Click through for the League’s detailed info on visitor centers, trails, and hidden treasures in each of the parks on her list.Here’s Benitos faves:

Best redwoods you can reach by public transit? Muir Woods National Monument, Redwood Regional Park

Secluded spot? I don’t like crowds. Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve

Most accesible spot for parents and other elders? Muir Woods again, and in other parts of California, these places all feature easy access to trees and trails: Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

Most wow-worthy stand to impress visitors? Prairie Creek, Jedediah Smith (which has the densest old-growth trees in the state), and Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park (eight coastal miles of gorgeous views). 

For even more redwood adventures, check out the League’s ace interactive map, which lets you search by geographic location for your ideal redwood jaunt. The group will release its guide to sequoias in the fall. 

Can the tech boom solve our housing crisis? No, but it can make it worse

Sasha Cuttler
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Can the tech boom solve our housing crisis? No, but it can make it worse

 San Francisco Housing Action Coalition and San Francisco Magazine posed an intriguing question at a forum they sponsored last night in the W Hotel: “San Francisco’s Housing Crisis: Can the Tech Boom Help Us?” Unfortunately, it wasn’t a question they ever really addressed at an event of, by, and for developers and their most ardent supporters.

Instead, the event was mostly just pro-development boosterism supporting HAC’s goal of building 100,000 new homes in SF over the next 20 years, and the discussion seems to show that the tech boom will exacerbate the housing crisis without ever addressing it, particularly given the local tax breaks and subsidies Mayor Ed Lee keeps giving the industry.

“San Francisco must radically increase its anemic housing production,” HAC Executive Director Tim Colen said during the introduction.

The pro-development cheerleading was slightly offset by the dose of reality offered by panelist Peter Cohen of the San Francisco Council of Community Housing Organizations, who noted that market rate developers aren’t building for today’s San Franciscans, 61 percent of whom make less than 120 percent of the Area Median Income. 

“We don’t believe the market will ever touch the 120 and lower,” Cohen said, later offering, “How do we build for the kind of San Francisco we have now?”

San Francisco Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jon Steinberg, who moderated the panel, said this event grew out of an important and widely acclaimed story that David Talbot wrote for the magazine last fall, “How Much Tech Can One City Take?” that raised critical questions about the wisdom of the big bet that San Francisco has placed on an industry driven by speculative bubbles.

“We got more responses from readers than anything we published in our history,” Steinberg said of the article, before shamefully expressing second thoughts on publishing it. “I felt the writer had been a little hard on our friends in the tech industry.”

He introduced UC Berkeley Economics Professor Enrico Moretti, whose 2012 book “The New Geography of Jobs” argues for reducing regulations that hinder housing production in cities, by saying that if he’d read it before publishing Talbot’s excellent article, “I think it would have had a little different tenor.”

Yet Moretti’s presentation was an overly simplistic Economics 101 argument that housing prices go up when demand is strong and supply is weak. “It doesn’t take a degree in economics to know those workers will bid up the price of housing,” Moretti said after noting San Francisco added 21,500 job but just 2,548 new housing units last year.

That’s the basic line we hear a lot these days, that only a massive housing construction boom will keep housing prices down and prevent mass displacement. “The only answer is to radically increase the supply,” said SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, noting that means tossing out many of the city’s historic preservation and height and density restrictions. “All we have to do is get out of the way and allow housing to increase to make it normal again.”

Metcalf confidently predicted that housing prices and rents would drop if the city pursued that kind of unfettered housing boom, offering to buy Cohen a beer if he was wrong. Yet even Moretti’s research shows that Metcalf would probably lose that bet.

Moretti compared San Francisco to Seattle, which is also experiencing a comparable high-tech job boom that exacerbated a housing supply shortage, which Seattle responded to by following the prescription of HAC and building thousands of new condos in the downtown core.

The result was that rents in Seattle have increased 31 percent less than San Francisco’s, which he called significant, despite the fact that rents are still on the rise there even with a massive influx of new people and condos and all the infrastructure challenges that presents (it’s widely accepted that new development in San Francisco doesn’t pay for the full cost of infrastructure needed to serve it, which is a huge issue in the transportation sector alone).

Nobody had a good answer to Cohen’s point that building tons of market rate housing won’t actually do much to prevent the displacement of a majority of current city residents. As he put it, “What’s missing is who is that housing for, who is it actually serving?”

Metcalf welcomes the wholesale transformation of San Francisco – “It will be a change, a total change, and guess what? That could be great.” – but even he argues for the importance of policies that protect those on the bottom half of the economic scale, from rent control to more government-subsidized affordable housing production.

As Metcalf, one of the biggest market rate development cheerleaders in city, said, “If it were not for rent control, I would have been forced out of the city by now.”

Just for kicks

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Just for kicks

IN THE GAME It’s not kickball; it’s matball. Which looks a lot like kickball, with one big difference: You can have more than one runner at a time on any given base. You can have up to three, but if a fourth is incoming, someone’s got to go.

You don’t have to stop running, either, when you reach home, in some versions of the game. You can keep going — back to first, and around the bases again. In gym class, this was a way to make kids run laps without quite exactly knowing it.

Here in the adult world it’s just good, clean chaos. Jay Li uses that word a lot — chaos — talking about his co-ed pickup kickball scene.

“That’s the reason we’re playing at Dolores Park,” he said. “You have people, and other variables, that you can’t predict.”

“Like the volleyball net in left field?” I asked.

“That’s one of the variables,” he said.

The volleyball net went up in the fourth inning. Someone came, set it up, and then didn’t play. After grumbling a bit, the matballers turned it into a home run fence. A very shallow one. A “mesh monster” of sorts.

Other variables are self-imposed. There are no force-outs, for example. You have to either hit or touch the runner with the ball, between bases. Or, of course, catch it.

The kicking team supplies its own pitcher. And the kicker gets to choose from a whole menu of balls that lie scattered about the pitcher’s feet. There was a giant one, a tiny one, and a couple of different midrange sizes.

My favorite of Li’s innovations, though, is his loose interpretation of the basepath. Twice during the game runners, thinking they were out, left the field of play . . . only to find they had in fact not been called out; nor were they out for leaving the basepath. And, thanks to Li’s leniency, they had every right in the world to try and get back safely. Neverminding that the base, by that time, was being guarded by a defender with a ball.

Hilarity ensued. In one instance, a couple offensive teammates came charging from the sidelines toward the base, like pulling guards and tackles, to block for the poor, displaced baserunner.

Watching from the hill, with a picnic, I almost choked on my chicken I was laughing so hard.

“That’s the whole idea,” Li said later, when I asked about this particular play. “It hasn’t happened that much, but when it does, I let it happen. It’s entertaining. People get creative.”

Matball is not a low-scoring game. The score was 14-0 before the first out was recorded. It was 15-14 at the end of the first inning — at which point they decided to move the bases back a little.

Li, an energetic, easy-going, backwards-hatted commissioner, moderates the game, photographs the bejesus out of it, and fills in for anyone who has to leave early or turns their ankle. He also buys drinks — alcoholic or not — for the winning team after.

Before Li’s Meetup group, Bay Area Kickball, formed a couple years ago, he played on a team in a league. “I found the game a little too serious. A little too much alcohol,” he said. “It wasn’t that much fun for me.”

Now, once or twice a month, he sets up these more casual (and more sober) coed games through Meetup. If under 25 people show, they play kickball. If more than 25, matball.

The one I saw . . . there was a good mix of men and women, serious athletes and beginners. One with keys jangling from his belt loop, others in cleats. In truth, the athleticism surprised me. I saw one guy run with the ball from centerfield all the way to home plate to bean someone just as they were about to score.

“As long as there are people who can play very well, it kind of keeps the game going, and keeps it interesting,” Li said. “I’m trying to balance all these things.”

He’s doing a good job. Impressively, with all that scoring, and all the chaos, plus the almost-arbitrary divide of serious athletes and just-for-funners, it was, in the end, a one-run game.

The team called Cannibal Sheep won, 36-35. But the losers, the Winners, had the tying run on 2nd base when the final out was recorded.

Oh, and by the way, that “final out” was the fifth, not the third. You get five outs in the ninth inning, so long as both teams agree to it.

Then, before the bar, both teams pile up together for a group photo for the Web page. Which, in this case — as the only member of the press present — I had the honor to snap. Check it out.

http://www.meetup.com/BayAreaKickball

 

Small Business Awards 2013: Shameless Photography

Andrew Lam
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Y’all chose Shameless as your top small biz of the year, so I’m going to yield the floor for a moment to someone who voted for the photography outfit:

“Shameless is a female-owned and run business that promotes positive body image and self love while creating spectacular pin-up and boudoir images,” wrote one enraptured Bay Guardian reader. “Women (myself included) leave the studio feeling more beautiful and accepting of their bodies.”

Do you yearn for an Etta James glamour shot with tasteful cleavage, frothy updo, rhinestones dangling from your lobes? Perhaps a cheeky pose with your pumps in the air, gingham bikini and a “here comes trouble” gaze? Shameless would love to make those matinee daydreams a reality.

“We approach the photoshoot as an experience rather than just a means to an end,” founder Sophie Spinelle wrote in an email interview with the Bay Guardian. Photographers Spinelle and Carey Lynne are the minds behind the firm, whose aesthetic is firmly situated in high Hollywood glamour, sultry boudoir shots, and coquettish pin-up poses. It’s 1950s sexy, used to express the decidedly more inclusive ideals of beauty we revel in today. Thank goodness — we tend to think when it comes to satin bustiers, the more curves the better.

Spinelle holds that the primary aim of Shameless is to highlight the beauty of all women, regardless of whether the lady has a gap between her inner thighs. “In a culture where people, and feminine people in particular, are bombarded with advertisements designed to create feelings of inadequacy about our faces and bodies, we’re working to create a space where people can feel safe, beautiful, and empowered,” she wrote.

The space in question is a pink fortress of a building tucked away near the Legion of Honor in the Richmond District. Aspiring starlets, it is hard to miss — Spinelle describes it as “a cross between a wedding cake and the hotel that Kim Novak holes up in Vertigo.” Photoshoot packages start at $450, and include hair and makeup overhauls plus a pose-worthy loaner wardrobe.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of, and everyone’s welcome to play. “No model on a billboard nor the business she represents owns the realm of fantasy — we all do,” says Spinelle. 

600 35th Ave., SF. (646) 448-8277, www.shamelessphoto.com

Small Business Awards 2013: Babette

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: Babette

I cannot help but insert italics into Babette Pinsky quotes, bear with me.

“It didn’t dawn on me that I shouldn’t open a business by myself.”

“It was sort of survival for a really long time.”

“We have to show things the way we want them.”

Perhaps such signs of effusiveness are befitting for one of the Bay’s more experienced purveyors of fashion.

Pinsky started her line of comfortable, elegant items most often worn by town’s over-40 set of museum and travel-inclined doyennes back in 1968. She considers the eponymous line’s signature piece a pleated cream or white button-down shirt.

Her retail locations — there are eight Babette stores across the country with a ninth in the works for the Mid-West, and the company recently launched a thriving e-commerce site — is filled with outfits for “the woman who wants to look good without looking like her daughter,” says Pinsky, sitting for our interview with husband and co-owner of the company Steven in their Union Square shop.

But the Pinskys’ sartorial sense is but one of the reasons we’re honoring them with a Small Business Award. Perhaps just as importantly, the two provide healthcare and 401k’s for all of their 100-plus employees, and have always manufactured their clothes right here in the Bay Area, currently at their Oakland factory.

The two attribute their buoyancy in the fashion industry, in fact, to their local production line. Trade policies like NAFTA, they say, decimated the Bay Area’s fashion industry, once one of San Francisco’s biggest job sources. Their ability to continue producing quality product right here in California, they say, distinguished them from the thousands who lost their jobs over the last few decades.

Now, having survived the worst of times, Babette (the company and its founder) can be a role model company to those who would make beautiful clothes.

“The most rewarding part of this business?” asks Babette (the person this time, over a pair of round glasses that go nicely with those that Steven wears alongside her). “A big part of that is how happy [the clothes] make our customer. I’ll come into one of our stores and a woman will tell me ‘you’ve changed my life!’ I’m a clothing designer! It’s just clothes.”

361 Sutter, SF. (415) 837-1442, www.shopbabette.com

Small Business Awards 2013: It’s-It

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: It’s-It

What’s been San Francisco’s go-to cold ‘n creamy treat for the past 85 years? No, its not Dianne Feinstein. It’s It’s-It, that native warm weather snack, created on a deliciously fateful day in 1928 when George Whitney squished a scoop of vanilla ice cream between two big oatmeal cookies and dipped the resulting sandwich into dark chocolate. For more than four decades, Whitney sold his It’s-Its at Playland-at-the-Beach, until that legendary local amusement park was demolished in the 1970s. Fortune intervened, and the brand was reinvigorated — soon to travel beyond the Bay, throughout California, and into pretty much every western state, spreading yumminess up and down the coast.

The Shamieh family now operates It’s-It (the company, based in Burlingame, is headed by Charles Shamieh) and continues to uphold the tasty tradition of “the official food of San Francisco.” (Take that, cioppino!)

“Sure it’s always a tough to be the little guy — when you’ve got your Nestles and your Unilevers out there as competition,” vice president of sales Jim Shamieh told us. “But we have an amazing built-in fan base that includes parents, grandparents, great-grandparents … it’s the best kind of loyalty. And we keep it current by introducing different flavors.” (Those flavors include the Big Daddy — a “chunk of ice cream between two chocolate wafers” — and the Super Sundae, an ice cream dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in roasted peanuts). “And we distribute to Denver, Seattle, Portland … pretty much everywhere this side of the Rocky Mountains.” Sweet.

www.itsiticecream.com

Small Business Awards 2013: R&G Lounge

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: R&G Lounge

The R & G Lounge has been a fixture in San Francisco’s Chinatown for 28 years. Taking up three floors with a seating capacity of 225, it’s served as the backdrop for many a wedding rehearsal dinner, birthday celebration, and other special occasion bashes. But it isn’t just heartwarming memories of being surrounded by friends and family with a pleasant Tsingtao buzz that linger in diners’ minds. Just as often, it’s the taste of the establishment’s signature seafood plate: salt and pepper live Dungeness crab.

“It was love at first bite,” a 25-year-old Yelper gushes about the first time she tried the specialty, back when she was in the seventh grade. The dish is available year-round, sourced locally when in season.

The R & G Lounge is known for dishing up traditional Cantonese cuisine from the Guangdong province of southern China. Most of the workers are originally from mainland China, and live in the city.

“We have a low turnover,” manager Frank Wong says of his staff, which is 70 strong. Rather than puffing up any star chefs, Wong describes the working atmosphere as decidedly “team-oriented.” Conversations in Cantonese and Mandarin float through the air, mingling with the savory aromas of ox tail stew, chow mein, Peking duck, or steamed fish plucked straight from the tank. Chinatown activist groups laud the restaurant for its exemplary treatment of workers, and efforts to extend benefits to them rarely seen in the neighborhood.

The restaurant has deep roots in the Chinatown community, regularly donating to schools in the area. When hosting community-based functions, “we work a lot through the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce,” says Wong, adding that multiple family members and investors own the popular restaurant, including Kinson Wong.

This connection helps drive a steady stream of “locals, business people, and tourists” through R & G’s doors, and since its located along the route of the Chinese New Year Parade, the sound of drums and the sight of a dragon procession can make for delicious accompaniment for your meal. 

631 Kearny, SF. (415) 982-7877, www.rnglounge.com

Small Business Awards 2013: Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

The folks at the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies were locavores before the fancy foodies ever created that word. They were talking about a new economy more than a decade ago — and their vision involves networks that are human, not just electronic.

BALLE is the heart of the movement for localism, for building economies based on communities.

Founded in 2001 by Judy Wicks, who owned a restaurant in Philadelphia, and Laury Hammel, who owned a group of sports clubs in Boston, the group has expanded to a national operation with one of its two main offices in Oakland.

BALLE offers resources, training, and connections for businesses that want to build a more sustainable economy.

The main premise of the BALLE model is the notion that businesses are best when they are locally owned, use local suppliers, and operate as part of a local community. The philosophy of the group is ecological: living economies are like all living systems, and they do better when they’re diverse and recycle energy and resources.

Not to mention that BALLE rolled out the concept of crowd-funding long before Kickstarter ever made the scene. Its built businesses that defy the traditional model — and they’ve succeeded. The group’s dedicated to sharing that vision, and the tools they’ve developed, with others.

BALLE conferences, affinity groups, and mentoring programs help individual entrepreneurs and startups — but also play a role in trying to build a more equitable, just, and sustainable economy for everyone. 

www.bealocalist.org

Small Business Awards 2013: La Victoria Bakery

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: La Victoria Bakery

When Jaime Maldonado’s dad Gabriel opened the family’s corner bakery in 1951, it was the only Latino-owned business on 24th Street. In the years since, the story of La Victoria and its famous pan dulce has become, more or less, the story of the Mission District.

That’s never been more true than today, when the bakery’s plate glass windows are filled with Mexican classics, but also dulce de leche scones, Mexican chocolate brownies, and prickly pear beignets that reflect the neighborhoods changing palate — in addition to the conchitas, elotittos, and maranitos that made the place a favorite.

Soon, La Victoria will include a full-service restaurant that Jaime tells the Guardian will “skip over the burrito phase and to straight to original La Victoria. It’ll be the food your grandma would cook for special occasions.”

Few businesses have been able to surf the Mission’s changing demographics like La Victoria. The Maldonados found a way to thrive amid racial slurs in the ’50s. The restaurant became a gathering place and haven for Mexicans when the blocks became carved up along the gang lines delineating close-knit immigrant communities, and a training ground for bakers who brought La Victoria’s recipes to panaderias across the neighborhood. In the ’70s, the fern-filled restaurant in the back room was a habitué for SF’s movers-and-shakers — Dianne Feinstein and Cesar Chavez were known to grab tables.

Hippies, Brazilians, and Argentineans were added to La Victoria’s clientele over the years. In 1992, when Jaime took the reins from his aging pop, he was ready to make the business adjustments needed to keep La Victoria relevant. That meant focusing on the joint’s strengths — no more groceries, less reliance on wholesale business.

Maldonado survived the “cherry bomb in an ant farm,” as he refers to the late ’90s dot-com boom, and the business slowdown after 9/11. He made the kitchen available for rent, and has since attracted an impressive list of alumni through his work with Soul Cocina’s Roger Feely: Hapa SF, Sour Flour, Wholesome Bakery, Venga Empanadas. La Victoria started hosting pop-up dinners, and now looks forward to expanding into different kinds of Latin coffee drinks, and a full sit-down menu.

All in keeping with La Victoria’s Mission to connect with the ‘hood’s new techie residents, stay true to the neighborhood’s history, and connect with the “hybrid kids,” as Maldonado dubs his generation of Latinos who grew up in SF’s foodie scene, but can still appreciate a traditional Mission burrito.

“This corner is dying for someone to stand up and say ‘I’m going to show you how,'” he says. “And we’re going to do that — with Latin flair.”

2937 24th St., SF. (415) 642-7120, www.lavictoriabakery.com

Small Business Awards 2013: Hi Tops

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: Hi Tops

Would there have been a better time for an explicitly gay sports bar to open in SF than late 2012? You can bet your sweet basketballs there would not. First the Giants win the World Series, packing Castro’s spanking new Hi Tops with fans eager for some specialty drafts, juicy burgers, and same-sex camaraderie. The Niners hit the Super Bowl, and a groundbreaking pic of kissing male fans in Hi Tops’ gorgeously retro ball-court-locker room interior runs in Sports Illustrated. And now, with the Warriors in the playoffs, two major league basketballers, Jason Collins and Brittney Griner, have come out in very big ways.

But the plan behind Hi Tops’ phenomenally successful concept took several years to come to fruition — in these economic times, a gay sports bar was a bit of a tough sell, even in the Castro. Jesse Woodward, who owns the bar with Dana Gleim and Matt Kajiwara, told us back in November that he wanted to help “reinvigorate the neighborhood’s potential by opening it up to different crowds, while still respecting its heritage.” Hi Tops draws a mixed crowd of sports enthusiasts with its large-screen TVs and inventive bar menu. But it also attracts those who don’t consider themselves sports fans, through its relaxed vibe, creative cocktails, and general sense that this is the cool place to be. Also, it’s usually full of hotties.

2247 Market, SF. (415) 551-2500, www.hitopssf.com

Small Business Awards 2013: Universal Martial Arts

Andrew Lam
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Small Business Awards 2013: Universal Martial Arts

Police officers and security guards get trained in the use of firearms and batons; they know how to hurt and sometimes kill people. But most of them don’t get the sort of basic unarmed self-defense training that would allow them to subdue an assailant without dangerous or lethal force.

That’s where Universal Martial Arts Academy comes in. The only martial arts school with a full-time facility in the Bayview, Universal specializes in self-defense classes for security professionals and also offers classes for the general public.

Jim Hundon, the founder and head instructor, is an expert in small-circle jujitsu and holds multiple black belts in other disciplines. He’s been in martial arts since high school, and trained with two instructors of Chinese kenpo who were students of Bruce Lee. He’s worked with the legendary Grandmaster Wally Jay, and has since developed his own style, ju trap boxing. He’s in the US Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

In other words, he’s a total badass.

In person, though, Hundon is soft-spoken, polite, and humble. His modest-sized studio on Third Street, built from a trashed empty storefront, is clean and well-designed with immaculate hardwood floors. He has regular students as well as contracts with companies like California Pacific Medical Center and Paramount Studios, where he teaches security guards how to keep themselves — and others — safe.

“The piece always missing in law-enforcement training is the empty hand,” Hundon tells me. “You’re in a verbal confrontation and a person takes a swing at you; what are you going to do, shoot him?”

Hundon notes that most cops spend far more time on the shooting range than they do with unarmed self-defense. “Everyone has a right to defend themselves,” he says. “But you don’t always have to strike back. You can protect yourself so everyone goes home alive.”

In 2010, Hundon (who is 64 but looks about 35) received the Bayview Hunters Point Community Leadership Award for his work with at-risk youth. “I love giving back to the community,” he says. “We’re so proud to be the first martial arts school in the neighborhood.”

4348 Third St., SF. (415) 671-2055, www.umaacademy.info

No justice, no piece

Andrew Lam
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No justice, no piece

caitlin@sfbg.com

SEX Speaking as a media professional who has been subject the past month to her PR push for this year’s Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival (Sat/18-May 26), let me tell you that Carol “Scarlet Harlot” Leigh will stop at nothing to raise awareness about sex worker’s rights.

But she has a lot to talk about. The festival’s eighth incarnation is one of the biggest yet, featuring films curated by Laure McElroy, member of POOR Magazine’s board of directors, and “Whore’s Bath”, a spa day for sex workers (Sun/19) that was the brain child of Leigh’s co-organizer Erica Fabulous. Film screenings (including a mini-film fest May 25 at the Roxie), panel discussions, empowerment workshops, and performance events abound.

Poster illustration for this year’s festival by Finley Coyl

Leigh says the festival, inspired in part by the sex worker events organized by India’s Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, is meant as a repository for the formidable creative output by members of the world’s oldest profession, but also as a bid for greater visibility for sex workers.

“I look around me and see lots of people with so much to be proud of in their skills, talents, wisdom, persistence, and generosity,” says Leigh.

www.sexworkerfest.com

TOP PICKS AT THE SEX WORKER FEST

“Whorecast” Live! Sat/18, 8pm, $10-50 sliding scale. Center for Sex and Culture, 3149 Mission, SF. Ira Glass may have effectively barred sex activist Siouxsie Q from calling her sex worker podcast “This American Whore”, but under its current moniker the show is just as smart and sparkling. In this live edition, our host interviews queer porn stars James Darling, Courtney Trouble, and more.

“Oral Services” Thu/16, 7pm, $5-20 sliding scale. Center for Sex and Culture, 3149 Mission, SF. Author of vaunted sex work novel Sub Rosa Amber Lynn will use her ginger locks to seduce you into acquiescence at this night of spoken word — the fest’s first ever — by sexy pros. She’s joined onstage by Brontez Purnell, Rhiannon Argo, Juba Kalamka, and other authors who’ve turned a trick or two thousand on their life’s path.

Take a ride with Mariko Passion May 24

Whorrific Popcorn Theatre Bus May 24, 7pm cabaret $15, 9:30pm bus $30, both $35-50. Meet at Center for Sex and Culture, 3149 Mission, SF. “We did decide not to be too wild, so there is no sex on the bus, because Mariko’s dad will be there,” clarifies Leigh about this performance cabaret followed by a three-hour mystery tour around the city hosted by Mariko Passion (whose one-woman Modern Day Asian Sex Slavery: The Musical played the festival back in 2011.) “Well, maybe a little lap dancing would be okay.” We can tell you that after this evening, you’ll be a lot more familiar with the local habitués of SF sex workers, and perhaps someone’s lap.

Selector: May 15-21, 2013

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 15

Appleseed Cast

Change seems to be the only constant for Lawrence, Kansas’ meandering Appleseed Cast. Chris Crisci’s 14-year-old band has produced eight albums, dabbled in about as many different genres, and has a revolving-door lineup that would exhaust any frontperson. But Crisci shows no signs of tiring. In fact, the lyrics for the band’s most recent album, this year’s Illumination Ritual, were written over the course of three nights, between the hours of midnight and 4am. Though the band’s career has arced far from its oldschool emo beginnings, the vespertine Illumination Ritual gets back to its moody roots. With a fresh lineup and a nostalgic new sound, the Appleseed Cast’s tender instrumentals and Crisci’s earnest vocals have never sounded so good. (Haley Zaremba)

With Hospital Ships, the Dandelion War

8:30pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


THURSDAY 16

ArtPad

Here’s an idea for a surrealist film: enter one hotel room and find metal hands that respond to their viewers, enter another and find a strange light sculpture, then cut to a performance of a synchronized swimming team in a pool in the courtyard. This is no film plot, but a description of ArtPad, the arts fair that will take over the entire Phoenix Hotel for three days. With galleries from the Bay Area and beyond filling every room with experimental exhibitions, while food, drink, and performances contribute to the festive vibe, the event promises to be surreally epic. (Laura Kerry)

Through May 19

$15–$40

Phoenix Hotel

601 Eddy, SF

www.artpadsf.com

 

Liss Fain

It was almost exactly a year ago that Liss Fain Dance premiered her luminous The Water is Clear and Still at Z Space. It’s perhaps her must successful collaboration with her longtime designer Matthew Antaky, who created a translucent multi-level space that welcomed Fain’s choreography and her fine dancers. It was one of those wondrous installation pieces that you could walk around in, but most of us stayed glued to our spots in an attempt to catch everything. Water is steeped in Jamaica Kincaid’s lyrical memories of a Caribbean childhood, both painful and exotic. Fain now has added a prologue. Solid Ground, based on Kincaid’s latest book, in which she revisits those childhood memories from a mature woman’s perspective. The piece is also moving from Z Space to YBCA’s Forum, which has successfully hosted other Liss Fain Dance installations. (Rita Felciano)

Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 5pm forum, $15–$30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

www.lissfaindance.org

 

Sandra Bernhard

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment when one learned that Sandra Bernhard was amazing. The stand-up comedian has been doing the damn thing for so long (since the ’70s), that she’s always just — been around, a fixture of the alternative culture firmament. A foulmouthed, straightforward, erudite queer back when they never made it network TV, she languidly lent cameos to Isaac Mizrahi’s Stripped and Madonna’s Truth or Dare, turned in seam-busting rants for her epic performance art-concert films like 1990’s Without You, I’m Nothing, and yes, was the first regular-appearing gay character on a network sitcom on Roseanne. To miss Bernhard’s first run in San Francisco in two years would be a revocation of your cool card, don’t do it. (Caitlin Donohue)

Also Fri/17

9pm, $45

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

 

Big Boi

Any lingering notions of Big Boi as the “conventional” half of legendary Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast should be dispelled by his two solo albums, including his most recent effort Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, released last November. Aided by cameos from Phantogram and Little Dragon in “Vicious,” Big Boi dives into rock guitars, female vocalists, and electronic bass to present a fearless, kaleidoscopic vision of rap. Track “Objectum Sexuality” sees Big Boi wax lyrical about women in between Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel’s floating vocals, a French interlude, and samples of atmospheric harp plucking. And just when you think he has slipped too far into moody, indie-fusion territory, Big Boi snaps you back with a devastating, horns-laden, proudly Atlantan club banger “In the A” with T.I. and Ludacris. (Kevin Lee)

With Killer Mike, Fishhawk, Goast

8:30pm, $35

Mezzanine

444 Jessie

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

Janelle Monae at the SF Symphony

“Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror?” You can’t really blame her if you’ve caught R&B andro-angel Janelle Monae’s newest single with Erykah Badu “Q.U.E.E.N.” — the ode to iconoclasm, with its simple, catchy bass line is the perfect soundtrack to strutting and popping in front of reflective surfaces. Catch the singer’s turn with the SF Symphony tonight — the musicians have prepared original arrangements for her songs, and you’ll get tunes from her new album to boot. The ticket price is fairly astronomical, but the evening is a fundraiser for the Symphony’s educational programs, so there’s that. Plus attendees are granted access to a pre-show sparkling wine reception and after-party at City Hall. (Donohue)

7pm reception, 8pm concert, $90-$275

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

www.sfsymphony.org


FRIDAY 17

Midi Matilda

The first time I was confronted with local pop duo Midi Matilda, I was not-so-patiently waiting for Starfucker to take the stage at the Regency Lodge last September. Not expecting much from an electronic duo that was playing one of its very first shows, I was dumbstruck by the second song. Midi Matilda is the embodiment of everything that’s missing from contemporary twee-pop. It has a sense of intimacy, soul, and joy, embodied by great hooks and hilarious choreographed dances that are absolutely infectious. Operating backward from most bands, Midi Matilda wrote and recorded music before it ever established a live presence, gaining attention on the web with its “Day Dreams” music video. The duo’s catchy, dreamy pop songs make for a nice listen, but it is its goofy antics and blissful onstage presence that make a great new addition to the San Francisco music scene. (Zaremba)

With OONA, holychild

8:30pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

“You’re Supposed To Roll Your Hips In Time/ You’re Supposed To See Your Age Rewind” intones Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on the bright electronic pop track “If You Didn’t See Me (Then You Weren’t On The Dancefloor),” off its new Patterns EP. On its albums, the Detroit duo of Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein alternate between aw-shucks folksiness and the party-hearty synth-and-rock of MGMT and Phoenix. While firmly rooted in the here and now, DEJJ have shown respect to its musical inspirations with covers to classics by Madonna and the Beach Boys. The duo paid homage to Gil-Scott Heron with a shimmering, upbeat take on his funk classic “We Almost Lost Detroit,” resplendent with a video showcasing authentic locals and establishments from the Motor City. (Lee)

9pm, $16

Independent

628 Divisadero

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


SATURDAY 18

Disappears

A 16-minute song has to do a lot of work to keep its listeners invested, but the strange thing about Disappears’ “Kone” off of the band’s April EP is that it is compelling because it doesn’t seem to make too much of an effort. An experiment in Kraut and psych-rock, the song harkens back to the very beginnings of proto-punk; though it involves less muddy intensity, it recalls those stretches in some Velvet Underground songs that don’t feel the need to arrive anywhere, but simply relish the ride. And isn’t that the aim of any good concert? It certainly will be at the Disappears’ Bottom of the Hill show. (Kerry)

With LENZ, the Tambo Rays

10pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Exrays and Mwahaha

Going to the Lab is like a weekly, weekend celebration of “the other.” You might see any combination of drag, performance art interludes, or Sunday’s ritual Godwaffle Noise Pancakes, but should definitely count on some underground, experimental shit. Hidden among the crowded club corridor along 16th and Mission, at times it becomes a mini-rave cave. This Sat/18 should be no exception to those guidelines when Exrays (members of THEMAYS and Maus Haus) bring their old-school Atari-sounding glitchiness. The band hangs on to fun melodies while the frontperson delivers mopey vocals (it could just be that his voice is deep). Oakland’s Mwahaha headlines and goes for more of a sensory overload approach. It’s collaborated with tUnE-yArDs and will open for Sigur Ros in London this summer. (Andre Torrez)

With Seventeen Evergreen, Mohani

9pm, $7–$15 (sliding scale)

Lab

2948 16th St., SF

(415) 864-8855

www.thelab.org

 

Hunx and His Punx

It was a dark day here in the Bay when Seth Bogart, a.k.a Hunx, packed up his bags and moved to Los Angeles, leaving the city’s burgeoning garage rock scene a little less gay in every way. Despite this tragic loss, Bogart hasn’t slowed down at all since his relocation, with a variety web TV show (Hollywood Nailz), his own novelty record label (Wacky Wacko), a new solo album, and a brand new Hunx and His Punx record on the way. Despite the 2011 dissolution of the Punkettes, Hunx still rocks a deliciously genderqueer persona and is backed by some truly kickass ladies. This intimate show, featuring bandmate Shannon Shaw’s own group Shannon and the Clams as well as fellow SF ex-pat Ty Segall’s Fuzz is like a big, happy Bay Area reunion — and everyone’s invited! (Zaremba)

With Shannon and the Clams, Fuzz, Peach Kelli Pop, Twin Steps

8pm, $15

New Parish

579 18th St, Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


SUNDAY 19

Gothic Tropic

For a band that has released so little music — only the 2011 EP Awesome Problems — Gothic Tropic has a developed sense of itself. Part of it is in frontperson Cecilia Della Peruti’s tendency to perform shoeless so as not restrict her dance moves. Another aspect arises in her nickname for the trio, “the Sacred Three.” The primary feature, though, is the band’s sound. As its name suggests, Gothic Tropic plays sunny and exotic psych-pop tinted with some grit and darkness, and it plays it well. See the band in all of it’s fully-formed glory at Brick and Mortar. (Kerry)

With Seatraffic, Cruel Summer

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com


TUESDAY 21

“Eating Nose-to-Tail: The Whole Animal Movement”

Let’s face it, Americans loves meat. But everyday consumers and informed connoisseurs are grappling with an increasing number of unanswered health and environmental questions with their meat, questions that an increasingly centralized food industry has left mostly unanswered. Unsatisfied with the growing gaps along the production chain, farmers, butchers, and chefs have banded together under the Whole Animal movement, which emphasizes using all of an animal for preparation and consumption. At this talk, four of the Bay Area’s meat authorities slice into how the movement stresses conservation and connects local producers, preparers, and eaters. After the talk, Dave the Butcher gives a whole animal butchery lesson while diners delve into delectables at the Ferry Building, with proceeds going to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture. (Lee)

With Chris Cosentino, Ryan Farr, John Fink and Tia Harrison

6:30pm program, $12–$20; 8pm butchering demo, $80–$100

Commonwealth Club

95 Market

(415) 597-6700

www.commonwealthclub.org


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Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/15-Tue/21 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. "Other Cinema:" "Notebook Filmmaking," book release party and screening with Bill Brown, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.cinemasf.com/balboa. $7.50-10. Rockshow: Paul McCartney and Wings (1980), Thu, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. "Harvey Milk 2013: Living the Legacy," free discussion and performance by the SF Gay Men’s Chorus, Wed, 7. •Happy Together (Wong, 1997), Thu, 7, and Fallen Angels (Wong, 1996), Thu, 8:55. "Midnites for Maniacs: Dirty Little Munchkins Triple Bill:" •The Bad News Bears (Ritchie, 1976), Fri, 7:30; Gummo (Korine, 1997), Fri, 9:30; and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (Amateau, 1987), Fri, 11:30. Tickets are $13 for one or all three films. •Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954), Sat, 2, 4:30, 7, and Body Double (De Palma, 1984), Sat, 9:10. Oz: The Great and Powerful (Raimi, 2013), Sun, 2, 5, 8. •Stoker (Park, 2013), Tue, 7, and Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock, 1943), Tue, 8:55.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. The Angels’ Share (Loach, 2012), call for dates and times. Blancanieves (Berger, 2012), call for dates and times. In the House (Ozon, 2012), call for dates and times. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Nair, 2012), call for dates and times. Renoir (Bourdos, 2012), call for dates and times. Rockshow: Paul McCartney and Wings (1980), Thu, 7, and Sat, 1. This event, $15. Midnight’s Children (Mehta, 2012), May 17-23, call for times. Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012), May 17-23, call for times. "World Ballet on the Big Screen:" Giselle, from the Royal Ballet, London, Sun, 1; Tue, 6:30.

"HIMALAYAN FILM FESTIVAL" Various SF and East Bay venues; www.himalayanfilmfest.com. $8-25. First annual festival featuring narrative and documentary "films from the roof of the world," Wed-Sun.

JOE GOODE ANNEX 401 Alabama, SF; www.rawdance.org. $5-10. "One Night, Three RAWdance Films," dance films, Thu, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: Paddy Chayefsky: Scenes from American Lives:" The Goddess (Cromwell, 1958), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6-10. "New Parkway Classics:" Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004), Thu, 9pm. "Thrillville:" Foxy Brown (Hill, 1974), Sun, 6.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; www.thespaceinvaders.org. $10. The Space Invaders: In Search of Lost Time (Von Ward, 2012), Sat, 8.

"PLAYGROUND FILM FESTIVAL" Various Bay Area venues; playground-sf.org/filmfest. $10-25. Showcasing Bay Area filmmakers and writers and their short work. Through May 25.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. PFA closed through June 5.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. The Source Family (Demopoulos and Wille, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7. Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013), Wed-Thu, 9. "I Wake Up Dreaming 2013:" •Bewitched (Oboler, 1945), Wed, 6:30, 9:45, and Five (Oboler, 1951), Wed, 8; •Undertow (Castle, 1949), Thu, 6:30, 9:40, and Shakedown (Pevney, 1950), Thu, 8; •Pickup (Haas, 1951), Fri, 6:15, 9:45, and Wicked Woman (Rouse, 1953), Fri, 8; •All Night Long (Dearden, 1961), Sat, 1:30, 5:30, 9:30, and Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, 1957), Sat, 3:30, 7:30; •Female on the Beach (Pevney, 1955), Sun, 1:15, 5:30, 9:30, and Autumn Leaves (Aldrich, 1956), Sun, 3:15, 7:30; •Killer at Large (Beaudine, 1947), Mon, 6:40, 9:30, and Key Witness (Lederman, 1947), Mon, 8; •The Tattooed Stranger (Montagne, 1950), Tue, 6:40, 9:45, and My Gun is Quick (Victor and White, 1957), Tue, 8. Sun Don’t Shine (Seimetz, 2012), May 17-23, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 5).

SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY McKenna Theater, Creative Arts Building, 1600 Holloway, SF; www.sffilmfinals.com. Free. "53rd Film Finals," Fri, 7. Award ceremony and reception follows.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "Girls! Guns! Ghosts! The Sensational Films of Shintoho:" The Horizon Glitters (Doi, 1960), Thu, 7:30; •Vampire Bride (Namiki, 1960), Sun, 2, and Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (Ishikawa, 1960), Sun, 3:45.

Psychic Dream Astrology: May 15-21, 2013

Andrew Lam
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ARIES

March 21-April 19

If you can’t connect with what motivates you won’t have the energy to pull off your plans in the long term, no matter how awesome your potential is, or how tight your preparations are. Realign yourself with your values and it will remind you of why you’re trying so hard to get where you wanna go this week.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

It doesn’t matter how awesome your life is, if you feel crappy than everything is tinged with crap. Don’t fix yourself, ’cause you’re not broken, Taurus. You need a little time out so you can recuperate and rejuvenate this week. Work on getting your insides to better match your outsides, pal.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

The line between play and chaos is a fine one, Gem. You may find yourself struggling with mental blocks this week, but the good news is that you can handle it. Take responsibility for how you participate, ’cause that’s the only thing you have control over. Let everyone else do what they’ve gotta do, you just do you.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Vulnerability is sweet on puppies but can be wicked uncomfortable for us humans. Don’t let your sensitivities weave a narrative wherein you’re screwed and everyone is against you, Moonchild. Take a deep breathe and notice the difference between what you fear and what’s actually happening this week.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Dealing with your emotions constructively isn’t always easy. This week you may find yourself flooded with feelings and not be sure what to do with them. Find healthy outlets so you don’t make proclamations of love you can’t live with, or buy a years’ membership at a gym you’ll never go to. Sit on what comes up and see if it sticks.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

It’s hard to think creatively when you’re shaking in your booties, Virgo. Don’t let your anxieties make you feel trapped in a corner this week. You may have to ask others for help, but be on the look out for the creative potential in front of you, even if it’s for something as simple as letting go gracefully.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Don’t act like everything is peachy-keen if inside you’re broiling with frustration. While it is good to be diplomatic it is not good to be inauthentic. You may be battling with some hard emotions this week but it’s not the end of the world! Take some time alone with yourself to better cope with what’s upsetting you.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Stay true to what you’re feeling, Scorpio. The best way to enjoy the present is by staying here. Instead of obsessing on the past or projecting into the future, sink your feelers into what you’ve got going for you now. This week it’s important to rejoice where you can and seek to bring pleasure where there is none.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

If you act impulsively you might create a firestorm of reactions unintentionally this week. Check in with others before you go making huge changes, Sagittarius. You may feel intuitively certain of a thing but there’s nothing wrong with a little fact checking. Be as considerate to others as you would have them be to you.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Instead of grabbing hold of your situations and trying to manipulate the people and circumstances around you, you should stay focused on your own crabby self, Capricorn. Strive to embody the changes you’ve been working towards and don’t succumb to fears of failure. Focus on possibilities this week.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

There’s a battle between your anxieties and compulsions, Aquarius. In order to see what’s wrong in your situation you need to challenge your willingness to deal directly with your life. Get systematic. Break your troubles up into bite-sized pieces and deal with them bit by bit. Planning and perseverance will bring you where you need to be this week.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

It’s not your troubles that define you as much as what you make of them, Pisces. Expand your willingness to stay present with your sad, bad, and mad feelings this week. It is only by tolerating your unpleasant emotions that you can see what’s underneath them. In order to take care of yourself you need to better understand what’s wrong.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

 

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