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Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

tredmond@sfbg.com

“Taxes,” Warren Hellman told me last week, “are the third rail of American politics.” The billionaire financier was talking about my Feb. 16 column. I complained that Hellman and a group working on reforming San Francisco’s pension system were asking city employees to take more cuts — but nobody ever seems to ask the rich to take cuts.

Thing is, Hellman agrees with me. He told me that the rich in this country are undertaxed, that every other industrialized country taxes the wealthy more than we do, and that it’s unfair to ask middle-class people to take on all the burdens of a bad economy. He’s not opposed to looking at higher taxes as part of a plan to solve the city’s budget problems; he just doesn’t see how it’s going to happen.

“I’ve gotten my head handed to me three times now when I’ve supported tax increases,” he said.

Hellman’s a smart guy, and unlike a lot of the folks at the Chamber of Commerce and the Committee on JOBS, he’s actually reasonable. He’d rather work with the city employee unions and the progressive community than try to force something on us that we’d all oppose.

And when I put forward my proposal — combine pension reform with a comparable tax increase on big businesses and the wealthy — he didn’t laugh or dismiss the idea. He said it was worth thinking about. And I believe him.

I also agree that it’s hard to talk about taxes these days. Part of it is the lack of any serious national media discussion of how low taxes have ruined the country. Part of it is the California pathology: we want it all, and we don’t want to pay for it. But part of it is that San Francisco city leaders (Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom) have refused to talk seriously about local revenue, wealth disparity, fair taxation, or anything that might remotely relate to progressive tax increases. Mayor Ed Lee isn’t doing much better. And the only tax talk I’m hearing from the Board of Supervisors these days is the debate over whether to give Twitter a tax break.

And if we all just say, never mind — the voters won’t go for new taxes, the polls aren’t good, nobody wants to go there — then nothing is ever going to change.

The pension-reform discussion is an excellent forum for a new approach to taxes and city finance. Key players are at the table. Hellman, who commands respect from all sides, agrees with me on the crux of the problem. So let’s use this to change the tone of the debate. Let’s get taxes off the third rail. If we can’t do it in San Francisco, then where is it ever going to happen?

No San Bruno rate hike for PG&E

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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EDITORIAL In a Feb. 18 message to shareholders, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced that the projected costs of the San Bruno pipeline explosion could exceed $700 million. Now the company wants to get some of that back from ratepayers. That will be a huge test for Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Public Utilities Commission, and send a signal about how the new governor will deal with the rogue utility. The outcome should be simple: every penny of the costs of cleaning up the mess, repairing and upgrading the pipelines, and setting damage claims and lawsuits should be paid out of PG&E profits.

Let’s review the facts.

•The CPUC gave PG&E $5 million to upgrade the pipeline under San Bruno in 2009, but the company decided to spend the money instead on executive bonuses.

•PG&E officials fought bitterly to prevent the federal government from cracking down on natural gas pipeline inspections.

•PG&E never conducted serious inspections of a line that was past its rated use and had been poorly constructed in the first place.

•PG&E intentionally inflated gas pressure in that line beyond what regulators say was safe.

•It took PG&E more than an hour to shut off the gas after the explosion, making the resulting fire much harder to contain and quite possibly contributing to some of the eight deaths and destruction of more than 30 houses.

That’s not the sort of record that suggests that the pipeline disaster was an unavoidable accident. It certainly wasn’t caused by a natural disaster. It was corporate error — misuse of money, irresponsible monitoring of a dangerous piece of equipment, intentional efforts to blunt public oversight. The damage was PG&E’s fault.

The problem is that so far, the company hasn’t been held accountable. As John Weber, editor of The Bay Citizen, pointed out in a Feb. 5 column: “What consequences have PG&E and its executives faced for these blunders? None. The stock is doing just fine. The California Public Utilities Commission has awarded the company almost $30 million in bonuses for energy-saving targets that weren’t achieved. The company plans to hire a new gas operations executive, but no one has lost his job — except a hapless manager who thought it would be smart to spy on the online discussions of smart-meter opponents.”

Ideally, the CPUC and the federal regulators ought to levy the heaviest possible fines on the company and mandate far stricter maintenance oversight. At the very least, the commission needs to make it clear that no ratepayer money will go for San Bruno-related expenses.

The pressure should be on at every level of government. The San Francisco supervisors should pass a resolution calling on the CPUC to reject any rate hike that would force PG&E customers to pay for the accident. State Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF) has already issued a statement denouncing any rate hike. But the Legislature ought to go further and pass a bill that would state that no utility can charge its ratepayers for costs related to an accident that was clearly the utility’s fault.

Otherwise, the utility that killed eight people and destroyed an entire neighborhood will emerge unaccountable and unscathed. P.S. Go to TURN.org to sign the Utility Reform Network’s anti rate hike petition.

Who’s next?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

39

steve@sfbg.com and tredmond@sfbg.com

The seven serious candidates who have announced plans to run for mayor extends from moderate to conservative at this point, but it’s an unusual field for San Francisco: there is no clear progressive standard-bearer, and no clear downtown candidate.

But it probably won’t stay that way. Sources say others are likely to join the lackluster race in the coming months, and there’s a strong likelihood that some progressive candidate will decide to the take plunge.

Also unlike the last few mayor’s races, there appears to be no clear frontrunner — either in fundraising or in having a clear constituency base — a new dynamic that creates an unpredictability that will be exacerbated because this is the first contested mayor’s race using the ranked-choice voting system and public financing of candidates.

There was a weak field of challengers to Gavin Newsom in 2007 and no one qualified for public financing or presented a strong threat. But this time City Attorney Dennis Herrera and former Sup. Bevan Dufty already have indicated they will take public financing, and others are expected to follow suit.

In addition to Herrera and Dufty, the field includes Sen. Leland Yee, Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, venture capitalist Joanna Rees, and former Sups. Tony Hall and Michela Alioto-Pier. Those close to Board President David Chiu also say he is “seriously considering” jumping into the race and talking to friends and supporters about that possibility now.

But so far none come from the progressive political community that has controlled the Board of Supervisors for the past decade. Although Chiu is the only candidate in the field to self-identify as a progressive, he has adopted a more moderate governing style that has frustrated many progressive activists and supervisors. So that leaves voters on the left without a candidate right now.

“If a credible progressive candidate doesn’t get into the race, then we’ll see the top-tier candidates — which so far Leland Yee and Dennis Herrera — try to make friends with progressive San Francisco. And it would appear they have a lot of work to do,” Aaron Peskin, the former board president who chairs the San Francisco Democratic Party, told us.

Both Yee and Herrera have taken some progressive positions, and Yee has consistently endorsed more progressive candidates than anyone else in the mayoral field, but they have also taken many positions that have alienated them from progressives. And both have been taking in lots of campaign cash from interests hostile to the progressive base of renters, environmentalists, and advocates for social and economic justice.

“Nobody who has put their hats in the ring is really exciting anyone, so there is plenty of room for new entrants,” Peskin said, noting the progressives are actively discussing who should run. Peskin wouldn’t identify whom they’re courting, but some of the names being dropped are Sups. John Avalos, Ross Mirkarimi, and David Campos, as well as former Sup. Chris Daly and Peskin.

But Mirkarimi shifted some of that talk this week when he announced that he intends to run to replace the retiring Mike Hennessey as sheriff.

Political consultant Jim Stearns, who is representing Yee, also expects others to get into the race. “I don’t think the field is complete yet. Historically, the strong self-identified progressive candidate has come in late or surged late, like [Tom] Ammiano and [Matt] Gonzalez,” Stearns said.

Ammiano launched his write-in mayoral bid in September 1999 and Gonzalez jumped into the race just before the filing deadline in August 2003, so there’s plenty of time for progressive candidates to get in. “It’s never too late in San Francisco,” Stearns said. And unlike those two races when the upstarts were seriously outspent by the well-heeled frontrunners, Stearns said this year’s field will likely be on a fairly even financial footing.

“It’s likely every candidate will have $1.5 million to $2 million to spend,” he said. That means the keys to the race are likely to be name ID with voters and “which campaign can do the most with the least dollars,” Stearns said.

Already, some of the candidates who will be running to the center are looking for progressive support. Yee, for example, has given substantial amounts of money to progressive groups and candidates and has endorsed progressives for office.

Yee told us he’s positioning himself as “the candidate of the regular folks of San Francisco — the people who are trying to raise their families and live in this city.” He added: “To the extent that the progressive agenda fits that, we’ll be part of it.”

But he already has the endorsement of the Building Trades Council, which has often been at war with progressives, particularly over development issues.

Yee said he hasn’t yet weighed in on the local budget, but he agreed that new revenue “shouldn’t be off the table.” He said he thinks the current pension reform discussions at City Hall, involving Mayor Ed Lee, Sup. Sean Elsbernd, financier Warren Hellman, and union representatives are “the right way to go.”

Herrera said he’s going to run on his record — which includes a long list of progressive legal actions (along with his gang injunctions, which a lot of progressives question). He also told us that he’s involved in the pension reform discussions but thinks that new revenue absolutely ought to be a part of the budget debate.

Meet the new boss

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

3

news@sfbg.com

The Guardian hasn’t been invited into City Hall’s Room 200 for a long time. Former Mayor Gavin Newsom, who frequently criticized this newspaper in his public statements, had a tendency to freeze out his critics, adopting a supercilious and vinegary attitude toward any members of the press who questioned his policy decisions. So it was almost surreal when a smiling Mayor Ed Lee cordially welcomed two Guardian reporters into his stately office Feb. 15.

Lee says he plans to open his office to a broader cross-section of the community, a move he described as a way of including those who previously felt left out. Other changes have come, too. He’s replaced Newsom’s press secretary, Tony Winnicker, with Christine Falvey, former communications director at the Department of Public Works (DPW). He’s filled the Mayor’s Office with greenery, including giant tropical plants that exude a calming green aura, in stark contrast to Newsom — whose own Room 200 was sterile and self-aggrandizing, including a portrait of Robert Kennedy, in whose footsteps Newsom repeatedly claimed to walk.

When it comes to policy issues, however, some expect to see little more than business-as-usual in the Mayor’s Office. Democratic Party chair Aaron Peskin, a progressive stalwart, said he sees no substantive changes between the new mayor and his predecessor. “It seems to me that the new administration is carrying forward the policies of the former administration,” Peskin said. “I see no demonstrable change. And that makes sense. Lee was Willie Brown and former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s handpicked successor. So he’s dancing with the guys that brought him in.”

Sup. David Campos, viewed as part of the city’s progressive camp along with Peskin, took a more diplomatic tack. “So far I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve seen,” Campos noted. “I really appreciate that he’s reached out to the community-based organizations and come out to my district and done merchant walks. I think we have to wait to see what he does on specific policy issues.”

But while Lee has already garnered a reputation for being stylistically worlds apart from Newsom, he still hews close to his predecessor’s policies in some key areas. In our interview, Lee expressed an unwillingness to consider tax-revenue measures for now, but said he was willing to take condo conversions into consideration as a way to bring in cash. He was unenthusiastic about community choice aggregation and dismissive of replacing Pacific Gas & Electric Co. with a public-power system. He hasn’t committed to overturning the pending eviction of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council’s recycling center, and he continued to argue for expanding Recology’s monopoly on the city’s $206 million annual trash stream, despite a recent Budget and Legislative Analyst’ report that recommended putting the issue to the voters.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who met Lee in 1980 through the Asian Law Caucus, said Lee would be facing steep challenges. “It’s a fascinating political karmic outcome that he is now our appointed mayor. He didn’t seek it out, as he says, but the opportunity he has now is to focus his efforts on fixing some of the problems that have gone unaddressed for decades, pension reform being one of them. I think he realizes he has a limited time to achieve things of value. The question I and others have is, can he do it?”

THE RELUCTANT MAYOR

Lee identified as a non-politician, patently rejecting the notion that he would enter the race for mayor. In meetings with members of the Board of Supervisors at the end of 2010, he said he didn’t want the job.

Yet while vacationing in Hong Kong, Lee became the subject of a full-court press. “When the lobbying and phone calls started … clearly they meant a lot to me,” Lee told us, adding that the choice “was very heavy on my mind.” He finally relented, accepting the city’s top post.

Although rumors had been circulating that Lee might seek a full term, he told the Guardian he’s serious about serving as a caretaker mayor. “If I’m going to thrust all my energy into this, I don’t need to have to deal with … a campaign to run for mayor.”

Adachi offered an interesting take on Lee as caretaker: “Somewhere along the way, [Lee] became known as the go-to guy in government who could take care of problems,” Adachi said, “like the Wolf in Pulp Fiction.”

Sounding rather unlike Harvey Keitel’s tough-talking character, Lee noted, “One of my goals is to rebuild the trust between the Mayor’s Office and the Board of Supervisors. I think I can do that by being consistent with the promises I make.”

Lee’s vows to keep his promises, mend rifts with the board, and stay focused on the job could be interpreted as statements intended to set him apart from Newsom, who was frequently criticized for being disengaged during his runs for higher office, provoking skirmishes with the board, and going back on his word.

The new mayor also said he’d be willing to share his working calendar with the public, something Newsom resisted for years. Kimo Crossman, a sunshine advocate who was part of a group that began submitting requests for Newsom’s calendar in 2006, greeted this news with a wait-and-see attitude. “I’ve already put in a request,” Crossman said. “Politicians are always in support of sunshine — until they have to comply with it.”

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Pointing to the tropical elephant-ear plants adorning his office, Lee noted that elephants are considered lucky in Chinese culture. With the monstrous issues of pension reform and a gaping budget deficit hitting his mayoral term like twin tornadoes, it might not hurt to have some extra luck.

Pension reform is emerging as the issue du jour in City Hall. A round of talks on how to turn the tide on rising pension costs has brought labor representatives, Sup. Sean Elsbernd, billionaire Warren Hellman, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, labor leaders, and others to the table as part of a working group.

Gabriel Haaland, who works for SEIU Local 1021, sounded a positive note on Lee. “He’s an extraordinarily knowledgeable guy about government. He seems to have a very collaborative working style and approach to problem-solving, and he is respectful of differing opinions,” Haaland said. “Where is it going to take us? I don’t know yet.”

Lee emphasized his desire to bring many stakeholders together to facilitate agreement. “We’re talking about everything from limiting pensionable salaries, to fixing loopholes, to dealing with what kinds of plans we can afford in the health care arena,” he noted. Lee said the group had hashed out 15 proposals so far, which will be vetted by the Controller’s Office.

A central focus, Lee said, has been “whether we’ve come to a time to recognize that we have to cap pensions.” That could mean capping a pension itself, he said, or limiting how much of an employee’s salary can be counted toward his or her pension.

Since Lee plans to resume his post as city administrator once his mayoral term has ended, he added a personal note: “I want to go back to my old job, do that for five years, and have a pension that is respectable,” he said. “At the same time, I feel others who’ve worked with me deserve a pension. I don’t want it threatened by the instability we’re headed toward and the insolvency we’re headed toward.”

BRACING FOR THE BUDGET

If pension reform is shaping up to be the No. 1 challenge of Lee’s administration, tackling the city budget is a close second. When Newsom left office, he passed Lee a budget memo containing instructions for a 2.5 percent reduction in most city departments, part of an overarching plan to shave 10 percent from all departments plus another 10 percent in contingency cuts, making for a bruising 20 percent.

Lee said his budget strategy is to try to avert what Sup. David Chiu once characterized as “the typical Kabuki-style budget process” that has pitted progressives against the mayor in years past. That means sitting down with stakeholders early.

“I have opened the door of this office to a number of community groups that had expressed a lot of historical frustration in not being able to express to the mayor what they feel the priorities of their communities are,” Lee said. “I’ve done that in conjunction with members of the Board of Supervisors, who also felt that they weren’t involved from the beginning.”

Affordable-housing advocate Calvin Welch said Lee’s style is a dramatic change. “I think he’s probably equaled the total number of people he’s met in six weeks with the number that Newsom met in his seven years as mayor,” Welch said.

Sup. Carmen Chu, recently installed as chair of the Budget & Finance Committee, predicted that the budget will still be hard to balance. “We are still grappling with a $380 million deficit,” Chu told us, noting that there are some positive economic signs ahead, but no reason to expect a dramatic improvement. “We’re been told that there is $14 million in better news. But we still have the state budget to contend with, and who knows what that will look like.”

Sup. John Avalos, the former chair of the Board’s powerful Budget Committee, said he thinks the rubber hasn’t hit the road yet on painful budget decisions that seem inevitable this year — and the outcome, he said, could spell a crashing halt to Ed Lee’s current honeymoon as mayor.

“We are facing incredible challenges,” Avalos said, noting that he heard that labor does not intend to open up its contracts, which were approved in 2010 for a two-year period. And federal stimulus money has run out.

DID SOMEONE SAY “CONDO CONVERSIONS”?

Asked whether he supported new revenue measures as a way to fill the budget gap, Lee initially gave an answer that seemed to echo Newsom’s inflexible no-new-taxes stance. “I’m not ready to look at taxes yet,” he said.

He also invoked an idea that Newsom proposed during the last budget cycle, which progressives bitterly opposed. In a conversation with community-based organizations about “unpopular revenue-generating ideas,” Lee cautioned attendees that “within the category of unpopular revenue-generating ideas are also some that would be very unpopular to you as well.”

Asked to explain, Lee answered: “Could be condo conversion. Could be taxes. I’m not isolating any one of them, but they are in the category of very unpopular revenue-generating ideas, and they have to be carefully thought out before we determine that they would be that seriously weighed.”

Ted Gullicksen, who runs the San Francisco Tenants Union, said tenant advocates have scheduled a meeting with Lee to talk about condo conversions. Thanks to Prop. 26’s passage in November 2010, he said, any such proposal would have to be approved by two-thirds of the board or the voters. “It’s pretty clear that any such measure would not move forward without support from all sides,” Gullicksen said. “If anyone opposes it, it’s going to go nowhere.”

Gullicksen said he’d heard that Lee is willing to look at the possibility of significant concessions to renter groups in an effort to broker a condo conversion deal, such as a moratorium on future condo conversions. “If, for example, 1,000 TICs [tenants-in-common] became condos under the proposal, then we’d need a moratorium for five years to minimize and mitigate the damages,” Gullicksen explained.

More important, some structural reform of TIC conversions may be on the table, Gullicksen said. “And that would be more important than keeping existing TICs from becoming condos.”

Gullicksen acknowledged that Lee has the decency to talk to all the stakeholders. “Newsom never attempted to talk to tenants advocates,” he said.

GREEN, WITHIN LIMITS

Lee’s two children are in their early 20s, and the mayor said he takes seriously the goal of being proactive on environmental issues in order to leave them with a more sustainable San Francisco. He trumpeted the city’s green achievements, saying, “We’re now on the cutting edge of environmental goals for the city.”

Leading bicycle activist Leah Shahum of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition had praise for Lee on bike issues. “I’m really encouraged by his very public support of the new green separate bikeways on Market Street and his interest and commitment to creating more,” she said. “I believe Mayor Lee sees the value of connecting the city with cross town bicycle lanes, which serve a wide range of folks, including business people and families.”

Yet some proponents of green causes are feeling uncertain about whether their projects will advance under Lee’s watch.

On the issue of community choice aggregation (CCA), the ambitious green-energy program that would transfer Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers to a city-run program with a cleaner energy mix, Lee — who helped determine rates as city administrator — seemed lukewarm. “I know Mr. [Ed] Harrington and his staff just want to make sure it’s done right,” he said, referring to the general manager of the city’s Public Utilities Commission, whose tepid attitude toward the program has frequently driven him to lock horns with the city’s chief CCA proponent, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi.

Lee noted that CCA program goals were recently scaled back. He also said pretty directly that he opposes public power: “We’re not in any day getting rid of PG&E at all. I don’t think that is the right approach.”

The controversial issue of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council Recycling Center’s pending eviction from Golden Gate Park still hangs in the balance. The Recreation and Park Commission, at Newsom’s behest, approved the eviction despite overwhelming community opposition.

Lee said he hadn’t looked at the issue closely. “I do know that there’s a lot of strong debate around the viability, what that operation attracts and doesn’t attract,” he said. “I had the owner of HANC here along with a good friend, Calvin Welch, who made a plea that I think about it a bit. I agreed that I would sit down and talk with what I believe to be the two experts involved in that decision: Melanie Nutter at the Department of the Environment and then Phil Ginsburg at the Rec and Park.” Nutter and Ginsburg supported HANC’s eviction.

Welch, who is on the board of HANC, noted that Lee could be swayed by his staff. “The bunch around Newsom had old and bad habits, and old and bad policies. In dealing with mayors over the years, I know how dependent they are on their staff. They’re in a bubble, and the only way out is through a good staff. Otherwise, Lee will come to the same conclusions as Newsom.”

HANC’s Jim Rhoads told the Guardian he isn’t feeling reassured. “He said he would keep asking people about it. Unfortunately, if he asked his own staff, it would be a problem because they’re leftovers from Newsom.”

Speaking of leftovers, Lee also weighed in on the debate about the city’s waste-management contract — and threw his support behind the existing private garbage monopoly. Campos is challenging a perpetual waste-hauling contract that Recology has had with the city since 1932, calling instead for a competitive-bidding process. When the Department of the Environment recommended awarding the city’s landfill disposal contract to Recology last year, it effectively endorsed a monopoly for the company over managing the city’s entire waste stream, at an estimated value of $206 million per year.

The final decision to award the contract was delayed for two months at a February Budget & Finance Committee hearing. Campos is contemplating putting the issue to the voters this fall, provided he can find six votes on the Board.

“I know that Sup. Campos had given his policy argument for why he wants that revisited,” Lee said. “I have let him know that the Recology company in its various forms has been our very dependable garbage-hauling company for many, many decades. … I feel that the company has justified its privilege to be the permit holder in San Francisco because of the things that it has been willing to do with us. Whether or not we want to use our time today to revisit the 1932 ordinance, for me that wouldn’t be a high priority.”

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

In the last week of 2010, Avalos pushed through groundbreaking local-hire legislation, without the support of then Mayor Gavin Newsom or his chief of staff, Steve Kawa, who wanted Avalos to back off and let Newsom takeover the task.

With Lee now in Room 200, things appear to be moving forward on local hire, in face of misleading attacks from Assemblymember Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), who wants to make sure no state money is used on local-hire projects, presumably because the building trades are upset by it. And Kawa, whom Lee has retained as chief of staff, doesn’t really support the legislation. Indeed, Kawa’s presence in the Mayor’s Office has his detractors believing that the new boss in Room 200 is really the same as the old boss.

“I feel like things are moving forward in the right direction around local hire, though a little more quietly than I’d like,” Avalos told the Guardian. Avalos noted that he is going to hold a hearing in March on implementing the legislation that should kick in March 25.

Welch said he believes that if Lee starts replacing staff wholesale, it could indicate two things: he’s a savvy guy who understands the difficulties of relying on Newsom’s chief of staff Steve Kawa for a budget, and he’s not ruling out a run for mayor.

“If I was in his position, the first thing out of my mouth would be, ‘I’m not running.’ I think he’s very focused in the budget. And it’s going to make or break him. But if he starts overriding Kawa and picks staff who represent him … well, then I’d revisit the question of whether he’s contemplating a run for mayor, say, around June.”

A call to do your (jury) duty

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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By Ken Maley

OPINION For decades San Franciscans concerned and interested in the workings — and malfunctions — of city government have turned to the Guardian for insights and possible solutions. Guardian readers have developed a reputation for being community activists, and to those activist-minded readers, I encourage you to apply to serve on the San Francisco civil grand jury.

Few citizens understand that the California Constitution requires all counties to impanel a civil grand jury each year. The San Francisco grand jury has researched and issued many important findings — most recently, pertinent reports on the enormous, and growing, city employee retirement obligations threatening to consume our city’s general fund and possibly bankrupt the city in the next five years if not resolved.

Each year the San Francisco Superior Court accepts applications from citizens who want to serve on the jury. Thirty screened applicants are selected, and from those 30, 19 are impaneled as that year’s civil grand jury. Jurors serve for a one-year term, from June to July.

The full jury discusses various issues of interest, selects issues that gain 12 of the 19 votes, spends a year investigating, then writes and releases reports. The panel can investigate any function of city government — contracts, corruption, spending, tax policy .. the mandate is very broad. And the jury has tremendous power, including the ability to subpoena records and force city officials to testify. No pertinent information may be withheld once the judge approves the request.

But the dilemma confounding the court is the lack of qualified applicants. In 2009, the number of applicants was so low we were nearly unable to impanel a jury at all. What a disgrace, in activist San Francisco.

I find it so disheartening that in a city renowned for community interest and participation in almost every aspect of government activity, we have such a small number of citizens willing to make the time to serve.

So I appeal to Guardian readers to direct your interest in the workings of our city government, to consider putting your knowledge and commitment to better city governance by serving on the San Francisco civil grand jury.

Your contribution of time and energy as a juror will be well spent and personally rewarding.

To learn more about the civil grand jury, how you can do your civic duty and apply, go to www.sfgov.org, click on agencies, scroll down to civil grand jury. Applications are due by April 15 for the 2011-12 jury.

Ken Maley was a member of the 2008-09 civil grand jury and is media committee chair of the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury Association.

Mirkarimi runs for sheriff

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

2

tredmond@sfbg.com

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi filed preliminary papers to run for sheriff Feb. 22, altering the shape of the mayor’s race and giving progressives another shot at electing a candidate to citywide office.

His move also guarantees that law enforcement will be part of the discussion on the left this fall and it opens the door for a progressive sheriff to succeed retiring Mike Hennessey and continue the sorts of policies that have made him a national example of alternative ways to approach crime and punishment.

Mikarimi, a graduate of the San Francisco Police Academy and a former District Attorney’s Office investigator, has law enforcement experience and has made violent crime a key issue as a district supervisor. But he’s not part of the city’s public safety establishment.

“One of the greatest successes of Mike Hennessey was that he was an independent sheriff,” Mirkarimi told us. “That allowed him to take a progressive approach to his job.”

Mirkarimi had been talking about the job of sheriff for some time now, but he had been waiting to hear whether Hennessey would seek another term after 31 years on the job. When the sheriff announced last week that he was planning to retire, Mirkarimi moved quickly, contacting potential supporters and setting up a campaign plan.

The supervisor becomes the immediate front-runner in a race where there’s no other high-profile candidate. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to walk into the job — the last thing downtown wants is a progressive of Mirkarimi’s stature holding a high-profile citywide office that could be a springboard to a future run for mayor.

“This is going to be a top-of-the-ticket race,” Mirkarimi said. “We don’t want it to be a setback by losing the Hennessey legacy.”

Mirkarimi pushed hard for community policing as a supervisor, demanding more foot patrols in areas like the Western Addition, where the homicide rate was high. As sheriff, he told us, he would work to expand on Hennessey’s efforts at curbing recidivism.

“Eventually, almost everyone who’s incarcerated comes back to the community,” he said. “Our recidivism rate for the county jails is above 60 percent, and we have to work on reentry programs to lower that. It’s really about keeping communities safe.”

If a strong progressive gets into the mayor’s race — and somebody whom the left can support runs for district attorney — there’s the prospect of a slate of candidates who can work together, share resources, and mount a concerted campaign.

It’s likely Mirkarimi will get the support of at least five or six supervisors and other high-profile political figures. Hennessey hasn’t said anything about his successor, but if he supports Mirkarimi — which is entirely possible — the supervisor will be in strong position for November.

But the likelihood of at least one downtown-backed candidate, and possibly several law-enforcement types, in the race will make it challenging. With ranked-choice voting, Mirkarimi will not only have to win most of the first-place votes, but reach out beyond the progressive community to get enough seconds and thirds to hold on to victory.

But if he can pull it off, he’ll have done something no other solid progressive has done in years: win an open race for a citywide office.

Where were you?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

1

marke@sfbg.com

FILM Amid the worshipful bromides that attended the 100th birthday of zombie Ronald Reagan on Feb. 6, gay blogger Joe.My.God. helped bring back to light a transcript of a 1982 press briefing Q&A session between Reagan administration spokesman Larry Speakes and journalist Lester Kinsolving. It’s the first known time that AIDS was brought up at the White House.

Lester Kinsolving: Larry, does the president have any reaction to the announcement — the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?

SPEAKES: What’s AIDS?

LK: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the president is aware of it?

SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.)

LK No, I don’t …

SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)

LK: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?

The answer, as the briefing spiraled into hysterics, was yes. It’s long been a source of bitterness that Reagan didn’t publicly refer to AIDS until 1987, after the disease had officially killed 20,849 Americans, been identified in 113 countries, and started to be “normalized” by the infection of young white children and closeted Hollywood superstars. But it was the laughter as gays lay dying that brought an angry population together, and that still rings in the ears of those who survived.

Reagan isn’t mentioned in David Weissman’s important and moving new documentary about San Francisco’s early response to the AIDS epidemic, We Were Here — although his communications director Pat Buchanan and Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell get split-second references, as does the heinous Proposition 64, the heroically defeated 1986 California ballot measure that could have led the way to quarantining gays. We Were Here isn’t a political polemic about the lack of governmental support that greeted the onset of the disease. Nor is the film a kind of cinematic And the Band Played On, exhaustively laying out all the historical and medical minutiae of HIV’s dawn. (See PBS Frontline’s engrossing 2006 The Age of AIDS for that.) There’s no mention of crystal meth, the Internet, the HIV denialist movement, protease inhibitors, depression, or survivor guilt. ACT-UP and the AIDS quilt are discussed only briefly. And you’ll find virtually nothing about the infected world outside the United States or the ongoing fight against the disease.

A satisfying 90-minute documentary couldn’t possibly cover all the aspects of AIDS, of course, even the local ones. Instead, Weissman’s film, codirected with Bill Weber and full of often astonishing tidbits, concentrates mostly on AIDS in the 1980s and tells a more personal and, in its way, more controversial story. What happened in San Francisco when gay people started mysteriously wasting away? And how did the epidemic change the people who lived through it?

The first question provides the narrative framework of the film. In the beginning, we’re introduced to five quintessentially San Franciscan characters, identified only by their first names: Ed, Paul, Daniel, Guy, and Eileen. As they tell their stories about how and why they came to San Francisco, and familiar-yet-still-striking archival photos of an unfettered 1970s Castro District fill the screen, you begin to realize Weissman’s impressive canniness in choosing to focus on these wise and almost preternaturally calm people, who turn out to be major players in the horror that slowly engulfs the film. (And We Were Here is indeed structured like a horror flick, with subtle early notes of discord foreshadowing the graphic images to come. The only thing missing is the screaming.)

Guy, for example, is Guy Clark of the legendary Guy’s Flowers in the Castro. He leads the story from the “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” era through the flower-bedecked funerals of the stricken — touching for a moment on the reaction in SF’s African American community — before bearing witness to a recent miraculous recovery, a man actually rising from a wheelchair to walk again. Other participants tell the stories of SF General Hospital’s groundbreaking AIDS Ward 5B/5A, the Shanti Project, Visual AIDS, and the “San Francisco model” of multifaceted, compassionate care for people with AIDS* before contemporary treatments became available.

The tales are well told and expertly woven together, as in Weissman’s earlier doc The Cockettes. Most of these people necessarily focused on the daily work of trying to help in order to stay sane. But where We Were Here really hits home is in its foregrounding of many unspoken or buried truths about that specific AIDS period that are in danger of being lost (one of which is that people who lived with HIV back then were often scaldingly candid about what was happening to their bodies.)

AIDS was annoying — it just went on and on. Participant Ed talks honestly about how he had to give up caring for patients out of exhaustion. AIDS got gay people where it really hurt: their vanity. The whole thing really fucked with your look. AIDS was bewildering. Suddenly people who had dropped out and run away to the Gay Mecca had to become medical experts, their recreational chemicals replaced with excruciating concoctions of exotic panic treatments. And women actually existed during AIDS. One of the most touching stories is about how the lesbian community rushed to donate blood.

The biggest act of emotional archeology, however, is the acknowledgement that some good came of AIDS. Not just in the well-known sense that it brought a marginalized community together and showed gay people as humans. It also personally transformed the narrators. Most of them found their calling, maybe lifelong satisfaction, during the AIDS crisis. We Were Here will affect viewers on a deep level, perhaps allowing many to weep openly about what happened for the first time. But it’s no mere sobfest. (My dead friends would have hated that.) It’s a testament to the absolute craziness of life, and the strange places it can take you — if you survive it.

WE WERE HERE OPENING PARTY with Rufus Wainwright Fri/25, 7:30 p.m., $25. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. Film plays the Castro Theatre through March 3. www.castrotheatre.com, www.wewereherefilm.com

*An earlier version of this article used the term “AIDS victims” to refer to those who had passed away from the disease. That term has a long and derogatory history, and still offended some readers, even when not used to refer to persons living with AIDS (PWAs), so we have replaced it above. It’s good evidence of how this film is re-enlivening debates.

Pony up, kids

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS From Crawdad’s house in Berkeley, you can see Golden Gate Fields racetrack. I take her kids to the soccer pitch next door, to watch and run, and I walk their dog along the water behind the track.

When I was little, I used to circle my favorite-named horses in the sports section, then check back the next day to see how much I’d won. My uncles and aunts played the ponies. Punker and Gatorgator, they play the ponies. I have been invited. And invited.

I associate three of my favorite writers with horse racing, but have never been, not even once, to the track. Until last Saturday.

Damon Runyon, Charles Bukowski, Mike DeCapite, and now me. Finally, finally I can say with authority that I pulled a kazoo out of the septic in the sixth at Fair Grounds to show and he did! He seconded, paying 51-1.

Now, Hedgehog had a Li’l Loveable visiting from her hometown and this ‘un was marking her daughter’s 21st birthday by redefining herself, running a half marathon, eating weird things, and just getting a tattoo. Loveable was the only one of us with prior track experience, except, I think, that Hedgehog might have been once or twice too. A succincter way of saying this might be that I was the only one without track experience.

And therefore the only winner. Yep, after dropping tacos in the fourth and fifth on a couple of popular pinstripes who failed to impress, let alone deliver, I thought I would change majors — which was good timing because a can-do named Mayo was odds-on incumbent just then, and … yuck!

Hedgehog head-cheesed Mayo, and I — being a world renowned mayophobe — looked for the oppositest entrée, which was the horse called Crispy. Crispy was 20-1 when I placed my taco, but by gate was 51-1. Or, more than twice as losery in the imagination of the wagering public.

But the hard part was I couldn’t even scream as my quantum leap long-shotted across the finish line because we watched that inning from the field announcer’s booth, Hedgehog being the wig that she is. Our host was on mic, and that meant we had to be perfectly quiet, for the sake of the sport, while the unthinkable dreamed itself before my very blinkers. I bit my tongue real hard.

The integrity of horse racing thus preserved, I windowed up to collect my Cheerios. Come to think of it, I’m surprised more of my San Francisco friends didn’t come visit me in New Orleans once they got wind of the kind of column inches I was ethering home to this rag. Just Kayday, and I don’t even think she reads me.

Anyway, she was waiting at her hotel piano bar, so I nut-jobbed my winnings, kissed Hedgehog, high-fived her townie, and went. We had a two-dinner, three-bar date with Frenchmen Street, whereas Hedgehog and the Loveable were updressing for some gala or something. Oh, I was invited, but didn’t have anything to wear. Since Kayday ain’t my fairy godmother, the Cinderella story ends right there.

Things we ate that night included grilled oysters wrapped in bacon, fried crawfish, fried pickles, mac ‘n’ cheese with meatballs, and gumbo. So probably the ball-goers didn’t have anything on us, save maybe a higher dry-cleaning bill.

The next night I cooked for everybody, and the day after that, Kayday’s last, we thought we would go up to Riverbend, get a bucket of crawfish, and sit on the levee, which, my little master’s mama assured us, would be “the right thing to do.”

Except they didn’t have boiled crawfish at Cooter Brown’s, so we got raw oysters and pecan pie and that was when I blew my New Orleans food fuse. “I’m done. Tell me about home, Kayday,” I said, sitting on the grass, on the levee, watching barges on the Mississippi.

She said she had the best burger ($10.50) she ever had at Chez Maman in Potrero Hill. She said the waiter said everything in French, then English. She said the frites … the burger! she said.

“Was there peanut butter on it?”

“No,” she said.

Next week I write you from France.

CHEZ MAMAN

Mon.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.;

Sat.–Sun. 10:30 a.m.–11 p.m.

1453 18th St., SF

(415) 824-7166

MC/V

Beer and wine

Shangri-La

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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paulr@sfbg.com

DINE For many of us, the word “kosher” immediately suggests something about meat. As one of the crazy women on Seinfeld once put it, “it’s how they kill the pig.” Well, not exactly, but maybe we can give partial credit, because while there is no such thing as kosher pork — pigs are strictly off-limits, kosher-wise — the method of slaughter is an important aspect of kosher dietary restrictions.

But kosher isn’t only about meat. It’s also about vegetables and fruits, all of which qualify, provided you don’t eat any tag-along bugs. At Shangri-La, a 33-year-old Chinese vegetarian restaurant in the mid-Sunset, the cuisine is cooked “under kosher supervision,” according to the menu card. I pictured a proper authority figure back there in the kitchen, inspecting the produce like an Army medic examining freshly shorn inductees for signs of head lice.

You can’t see into the kitchen, of course. This is an old-style Chinese joint, complete with worn red carpeting, fake-wood paneling, Chinese calendars, and — an element of beautiful discord — elegiac violin music on the sound system. The music reminded me, a little, of the early scene in Schindler’s List in which the Shabbat candles are lighted. It was like being in a café in some city in central Europe in 1937, with the shadows of war gathering in dark corners. The sounds of the violin are among the most haunting and moody in music. I tend to object to almost all music played in restaurants, but that’s at least in part because you rarely hear this kind of music in restaurants any more.

Despite and because of the violin’s tones, we found Shangri-La to be atmospheric rather than moody. The service staff was cheerful and remarkably knowledgeable; we ordered by number, and our server quietly named the dish while writing it down. She knew them by heart. We even threw in a couple of extra numbers, as if giving a quick quiz. She knew them all.

This kind of intimate knowledge suggests confidence in the menu, and although Shangri-La emphasizes meat substitutes, from shark-fin soup to duck and kidney — a style I find suspect, as if most people would not even consider eating vegetarian food unless they were faked out into thinking it was made with real meat — the cooking is outstanding and reasonably priced. Not for nothing are the tables laid with placemats proclaiming the various kosher-vegetarian awards the restaurant has won in recent years.

Some of the most convincing dishes are the ones that don’t bother to pretend — a plateful of spicy cucumbers ($3.50), say, skinned, seeded, cut into lengths, then dressed with a thick, glistening sauce that began in sweetness and ended in chili heat, like spring into summer. The cucumber has to be among the most modest members of the vegetable kingdom, and hardly any serious attempt is made with it beyond slicing it into salads or raita or puréeing it into gazpacho. Here it offered a wonderful texture and a moist mildness that gently supported the sauce.

Green onion cake ($4.25) is another dish that’s vegetarian by birth, and Shangri-La’s version was big, puffy, and crisp, like a flatbread. Veggie goose ($4.50), on the other hand, did seem to try for some carnivore appeal by stuffing smoked tofu into a buckwheat pancake, rolling it into a fat cigar, slathering it with hoisin sauce, and slicing it into bite-sized pieces. It was tasty, but it wasn’t goose.

“Mu shu,” in my life, has almost always meant mu shu pork, but Shangri-La’s fleshless version ($6.95) gave proof of how unimportant the shreds of meat actually are. With some lingerie-sheer pancakes, a small dish of hoisin sauce, and a big platter heaped with a stir-fry of shredded cabbage, carrots, water chestnuts, and (optional) egg, the uninvited guest really wasn’t missed much. We found the Szechuan-style spicy noodles ($6), heavily dabbed with garlic-red chili sauce, to be equally satisfying, even though they were cold — and there is a psychological resistance that has to be overcome to eat cold dishes in cold weather, when one really wants to be bathed in fragrant steam rising from friendly bowls. Cold is dour and can be a flavor damper, but not here.

Still, we did feel a slight want of steam. The pot of green tea gave off a little. A little more would have been heaven, though not pig heaven.

SHANGRI-LA

Daily, 11 a.m.–8:45 p.m.

2026 Irving, SF

(415) 731-2548

Beer and wine

MC/V

Not noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Party of one

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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SUPER EGO Gotta say it: the weekend after a holiday weekend is the best for clubbing. Less pressure, more drink specials, fewer amateurs. Not that I have anything against newbies: like space girls, they’re easy, but please. A ton of epic shit I don’t remember happened over the Presidents’ three-day — hopefully not a Bush threeway — but if it involved the word “epic” I’m certainly glad I don’t. Crowded parties are totally my thing (and the gigs I’m recommending below will surely feel cozy). But if I get elbowed in the boob one more time at the bar, I’m gonna go Yoko Ono. I definitely look forward to the myriad hot happenings this weekend to have more room for my quick steps and sidekicks on the dance floor — and to not involve the word “sick,” either. Let’s get into it.

SHUTTER: THE MASQUERADE OF THE RED DEATH

“He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.” With a tagline that baroque, how can you refuse? This masked ball is one of the most beguilingly glamorous nights of the year, as DJs Omar, Justin, and Nako of monthly dark wave party Shutter play for a crowd that seesaws gorgeously between Louis Quatorze and Siouxsie Sioux. Powdered wigs in full effect, y’all.

Wed/23, 10 p.m., $5. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com, Facebook: Shutter Red Death

RED BULL SF THRE3STYLE

“Who’s the best on the decks in SF?” the energy drink has the temerity to ask. It also has the bulls to back up the interrogative. But this time they’re getting wingy with the straight-up DJ battle rules for its Thre3style competition: Each contestant gets a 15-minute set, but the catch is that set must contain at least three different genres of music. (Good luck identifying individual genres in this day and age, but that’s for judges Shortkut, Hakobo, Trevor Simpson, and DJ Jazzy Jeff — yes, that one — to figure out.) Before I start to sound all product placementy, the reason I’m stoked for this is because the Red Bull folks have picked competitors from scenes as disparate as dyke electro, glitch-step, and indie-breaks — and it will be a treat to see them jam out of their comfort zones. The winner will go on to rep the city at the National Finals in Las Vegas. Competing for the taurine crown: Platurn, B. Cause, Natalie Nuxx, Eric Sharp, Jeffrey Paradise, Goldenchyld, Solomon, and Dials.

Thu/24, 8 p.m., $10–$15. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

AS YOU LIKE IT

The luscious intelligent techno party emerges from the underground to get all official and stuff at Public Works. This night promises wide appeal: In the main room, Berlin techno hero Ben Klock heads up a showcase of his Klockworks label, with DVS1 and As You Like It residents Christina Chatfield and Mossmoss. Meanwhile upstairs there’ll be some disco-y deepness happening, with Rich Korach, Conor, Lovefingers from NYC, and a DJ who never fails to twist my silky sonic panties up into a ball, Parisian cutie Le Loup from the Wolf + Lamb label. (Arooo!) This party is known for its immersive visual environment, so prepare to be dazzled.

Fri/25, 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $15–$20. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

MIGHTY REAL: FRANKIE KNUCKLES

The Godfather of House beams in from Chicago with that 1000-kilowatt smile and a bag full of music history. I’ve heard him when he’s moody and orchestral, I’ve heard him when he’s raw and funky — lately he’s been epertly combining both, and throwing on a few breathtaking and unclassifiable rarities to boot. The sound of now is bending back towards his turntable style, so you’ll leap ahead just by hearing him. DJ David Harness opens up the deep soul at this mixed and welcoming shindig.

Sat/26, 10 p.m.–3 a.m., $15-$20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

EUGENE TAMBOURINE AND HARD FRENCH DJS

The fab Hard French soul-stompin’ vinyl 45s party, which overruns the El Rio patio every month, has been on hiatus for the winter. It officially returns on March 5, but until then, soak up the indoor glory as Hard French DJs Brown Amy and Carnitas hit the monthly retro Go Bang! party. Also: Highly recommended from NYC by the likes of turntable legends Danny Krivit and Nicky Siano comes the man known as Eugene Tambourine, a disco re-editor and house geneticist who knows his way around dance floor sounds of yore. Residents Steve Fabus, Sergio, and Tres Lingerie keep it all steamy.

Sat/26, 9 p.m.–late, $5. Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com

FOREST GREEN’S CUTE FANG BIRTHDAY PARTY

Possibly the sweetest DJ and beatsmaker in the universe, Forest Green (www.forestgreen.org) is surely one of the busiest. Daly City Records’ resident fuzzy bunny, she’s been hopping around the world with her high-energy, slightly spiritual brand of good ol’ techno and breaks since the big rave days of yore. Her recent music, on her label Cute Fang, is totally entrancing and brings a funky electro vibe without going overboard into easy bangers. She’ll be celebrating Cute Fang’s birthday with a lineup of lovely guests (with fangs!), including DJ Icon, DJ Denise, Dragn’fly, Influence, Smoove, Tek 9, and Lick the DJ. Who, besides the most toady among us, would pass up Lick the DJ? (I have no idea who that is but I like it.)

Sat/26, 9 p.m., $5. Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.shinesf.com

MIKEQ AND KARIZMA

Children, vogue music has changed — and 24-year-old MikeQ from New Jersey is pushing “the Ha” forward. The digital age and a more aggressive style of ball walking have thrust voguing as far away from Madonna’s 1990 halcyon days as possible. The new style, which takes its inspiration from Masters at Works’ pounding “The Ha Dance” from 1991 but chops and samples kiki beats and voices into a deliciously abstract salad, is clearing the floor for new musicmakers like MikeQ’s fellow stylists Angel X of Atlanta, B.Ames of Houston, the bamabounce collective from Birmingham, Alabama, and the mother of all contemporary vogue beats innovation, DC’s Vjuan Allure. MikeQ adds a devilish sense of humor that helps appeal to queens and beat junkies alike (and those like me, who are both at once.) As for Karizma, back in 2003 when I was completely addicted to streaming sets from DeepHousePage.com, he put some heavy Baltimore voodoo on Donnie’s “Cloud 9” that I’ll never forget. Now he’s transitioned to a smoother yet still bumping sound. The combination of these two should turn the monthly Icee Hot party out.

Sat/26, 10 p.m.–3 a.m., $10. SOM, 2625 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com

L.A. Confidential

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Patrick Warburton occupies his own special niche. He is a big (6 feet, 3 inches), hirsute, square-jawed kinda white guy — the kind who saved screaming ingénues from gorillas or Martians in 1950s B flicks — who’s flourished parodying macho blowhards. Who doesn’t love Warburton? People who don’t know who he is, obviously.

They probably know him regardless, if not by name. First widely noted as Elaine’s emotionally deaf boyfriend on Seinfield, in recent years he’s starred in successful network sitcoms Rules of Engagement and Less than Perfect. They followed The Tick, a short-lived Fox superhero parody series everyone loved but the viewing public. He’s voiced various characters on Family Guy (a man’s gotta work), as well as loftier ‘toons including The Venture Bros., Kim Possible, and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, playing Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story spinoffs, as well as endearing villain Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove (2000).

The Emperor’s New Groove reunited him with Eartha Kitt, also a costar in his screen debut: 1987’s WTF Mandingo (1975) rip-off Dragonard, in which he played a race traitor Scottish hunk on an 18th century Caribbean slaving isle populated by such punishing extroverts as boozy Oliver Reed, chesty Claudia Uddy, and creaky Pink Panther boss Herbert Lom. This campsterpiece features steamy sex intercut with chicken sacrifice, a character called “Manroot,” appalling homosexual caricatures, much library music, and other incitements to drinking-game joy. (Start trolling eBay for used VHS copies now.)

These days, Warburton is promoting a past project he’d rather remember: 1999’s The Woman Chaser, billed as both his leading-role debut (hello! Dragonard!!) It was definitely the first feature for Robinson Devor (2005’s Police Beat, 2007’s Zoo), one of the most stubbornly idiosyncratic and independent American directors to emerge in recent years.

Derived from nihilist pulp master’s Charles Willeford 1960 novel, this perfect B&W retro-noir miniature sets Warburton’s antihero to swaggering across vintage L.A. cityscapes. Sloughing off an incestuously available mother and other bullet-bra’d she cats, his eye on one bizarre personal ambition, he’s a vintage man’s man bobbing obliviously in a sea of delicious, droll irony. Warburton appears with Devor at the Roxie for The Woman Chaser‘s theatrical-revival opening night. I caught up with the actor via phone last week.

SFBG Did The Woman Chaser have a significant impact on your career?

Patrick Warburton It should have. We debuted at the New York Film Festival, an amazing experience, then went to Sundance. The film got a nice little art house release in 15 or 20 cities. But after that, there were ownership issues, [and] it never went to DVD. So the audience has been extremely limited.

SFBG Yet a whole lot of people here seem to know and love it.

PW Of course I’ve always known San Francisco and its residents to possess far more beauty and art and culture than this desolate hell-hole we call Los Angeles.

SFBG Were you at all familiar with Charles Willeford before?

PW No, my first peek was Rob Devor’s screenplay adaptation, which was originally entitled King Size, then went back to the original [novel’s] title.

SFBG: A strange title, because the hero isn’t chasing women. In fact, he’s completely self-absorbed and alarmingly misogynist.

PW No, this isn’t about a guy chasing women. I guess that’s the way you sold a pulp novel back then, putting a man with a topless woman in a convertible on the cover of a paperback with a title like The Woman Chaser — even though Willeford’s interests were much more psychological. I was [36] years old, playing this role had my sexual interest at an all-time low. I didn’t get it. Meanwhile the actor, Patrick Warburton, was probably knocking one off in his dressing room once a day back then.

SFBG: Once?

PW Well, I was eating whatever the fuck I wanted, cuz this guy is a chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking car salesman. I got heavier than I’d ever been in my life, about 250 pounds. My wife was not pleased. [This character] was certainly an odd fellow, a misogynist.

SFBG How did you get involved?

PW My agent said “Here’s a script,” I met Rob, and we clicked. What’s interesting is it was right after the ninth season of Seinfeld. Anything else coming my way was because of that. But [Devor] had never seen an episode — I still don’t know if he has.

SFBG The movie does an incredible job recreating 1960 L.A. on a budget.

PW It was a grind. We’d procured a handful of permits, but mostly just ran into locations with our guerilla crew and stole shots. Rob really did have a vision. When you’re working long hours, you’re not getting paid a dime, you’re working with a director who has such a specific idea what he wants — he’s going to be a little bit of a pain in the ass. But it’s an experience I’ve come to appreciate over time. Because I’ve been on the other side, where you can’t believe what a piece of garbage you’re a part of. That movie was what it was wholly because of Rob. He’s truly an artist. You don’t get such opportunities very often in this business. We’ve talked about [working together] again, and the right thing hasn’t come up. But I would love that more than anything.

SFBG: On another subject, I must quote 12 words of dialogue: “Sometimes being a slave is a man more dignity than being free!” So ungrammatical, for starters. Please reveal every last thing about Dragonard.

PW Oh, God. It was the first thing I ever did, and I knew after that experience … well. You have to be able to accept it. The most you can ask for [in this industry] are experiences where you learn and in the end get a great product. Like doing The Dish (2000) in Australia was great. I spent quality time with Sam Neill and Geoffrey Wright, then this delightful film came out of it. But with something like Dragonard, if you’re going to grow as an actor, you’ve got to just shit it out. You’ve got to say, not only is this the most awful movie ever made, but I am the worst thing in it.

THE WOMAN CHASER

Feb. 25–March 3, 7 and 9:15 p.m. (also Sat/26, 2 and 4:30 p.m.), $$5–$9.75

Roxie

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

This time it’s personal

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC The wee small hours of the a.m., when the rest of the world is deep in z’s, is magic time for Tim Cohen. “Most of my profound musical moments have come very early in the morning, not being able to sleep and being woken up by a weird dream or nightmare,” verifies the leader of the now-defunct Black Fiction, co-songwriter of the Fresh and Onlys, and proud papa of Magic Trick (Captured Tracks). He casts clear gray eyes — taking everything in like fully open apertures — out the front window of Cafe Abir, pint on hand and orange cap squashed over his brow while sunlight brushes away gray, stormy skies.

One such sonic turning point came in about 2002, when Cohen was visiting his parents in Richmond, Va. After buying a clutch of John Fahey LPs from a thrift store that day, he dreamt of driving through the “spiderweb-like complex” of a suburban business park. All around him women standing at the tops of the buildings were jumping to their death. Startled awake, he put on the first album he saw — Fahey’s Vol. 4: The Great San Bernardino Birthday (Takoma, 1966) — and, with his headphones on, drifted back to sleep to the sound of acoustic fingerpicking and then the backwards guitar of “Knott’s Berry Farm Molly.” This time he was driving the dream in reverse, cruising backward as the suicides jumped back onto the buildings.

“I woke up and swore off playing with a pick,” Cohen declares today. “I went on this several-year run of writing fingerpicked acoustic songs, waking up and realizing there are so many possibilities to this guitar.”

Those sorts of dawn revelations are the reason Cohen says he bolted awake in his Left Coast bed for no explicable reason on the morning of 9/11 — and why he advises susceptible listeners, in the notes for his third solo album and its accompanying double 7-inch EP, Bad Blood (also on Captured Tracks), that they should listen to the music in the comfort and terror of morning darkness. And it may be the reason why he ever-so-sweetly wails on Magic Trick‘s “Sweetheart,” “Don’t be afraid of my heart/ I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“That’s the time of day when you’re most like a sponge,” Cohen explains, as busy Divisadero Street bustles outside. “Every experience you have, whether it’s ecstatic or traumatic, it’s going to stick with you.”

There’s more than a bit of a seer in Cohen, who says he’s making a practice of being open to collaborations with, say, bassist Shayde Sartin in the Fresh and Onlys (note: Cohen refuses to cop to being either Fresh or Only) and to inspiration when it hits him, which is often. “I have a lot of songs coming out me,” he says matter-of-factly.

Fortunately, Cohen has iPhone’s voice memo at the ready to capture scraps of melody and a Tascam 388 in his amazingly tidy bedroom studio to record with, high in the gnome’s-cap fairytale tower of his Western Addition Victorian, surrounded by 360-degree bird’s-eye windows overlooking SF. Cohen’s own intriguing, intricately detailed drawings decorate the walls of the flat, much as they do the covers of his solo LPs, coexisting easily alongside Cubs memorabilia. He’s recorded much of his music here — and it’s legion, including hip-hop projects the Latter, Hattattack, Feller Quentin, and the semi-active Forest Fires Collective; psych combo 3 Leafs; and the “druggy” Window Twins, which will release a full-length this year.

With the help of bassist-keyboardist Alicia Vanden Huevel (Aislers Set), drummer James Kim (Kelley Stoltz), and Noelle Cahill, Magic Trick may be Cohen’s most refined, effortlessly endearing recording to date. His dark, pretty, strangely exhilarating lovestruck songs dip deliciously into cockeyed folk ruminations (“I Am Never Going to Die”), curious psychedelia (“New House in Heaven”), throwback 1960s pop with a three-way wink (“Don’t Give Up”‘s whimsical “When three people lie down together/ They’re trying to make a good thing better/ Good things happen all the time”), and scorched-earth country (“The Flower,” based on the songwriter’s real-life experience of eating a poisonous lily in mid-flirt), with Cohen hitting new almost-heartbreaking highs with his disarmingly rough-hewn vocals and wiseacre-y wise-fool wordplay.

Modern lovers, take heed. This time it’s personal for Cohen, who enjoys a nice, sturdy alias as much as the next MC. That’s why his name is on it.

TIM COHEN

With Holy Shit, Puro Instinct, Sam Flax and Higher Color, DJ Jimi Hey

Thurs/24, 9 p.m., $5–$8

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(888) 233-0449

www.gamh.com

Health class, without the STD slideshow

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

0

caitlin@sfbg.com

RENEW For a brief moment, we here at the Guardian are taking a break from listing the best places to host more damage to your liver to give some soapbox time to a health care professional. Meet Dr. Julie Chen, who has a private practice in San Jose that specializes in integrative medicine, an approach combining conventional Western health knowledge with holistic care options. That’s right, just like Tron‘s Kevin Flynn, Chen is able to operate in multiple dimensions when it comes to your physical well-being. We asked her some big-kid questions about health and her innovative brand of medicine that you should probably know the answers to.

SFBG What’s the most commonly held misconception about integrative medicine?

Julie Chen The fine line between “alternative” and “conventional” medicine is frequently erased and redrawn. For example, fish oil used to be “alternative.” So was vitamin D supplementation. But now we have Lovaza and vitamin D prescription versions that insurance companies will pay for.

Integrative medicine is frequently seen as “alternative medicine,” but — especially if the physician is fellowship-trained and board-certified — it is heavily evidence-based, just like “conventional” medicine. We utilize clinical research as a basis for treatment plans that integrate aspects of conventional and complementary medicine like supplements and herbs, energy medicine, manual therapy, acupuncture, and hypnotherapy. It’s not about one or the other, it’s about utilizing all appropriate modalities available out there to achieve optimal health outcome.

SFBG You’re an expert on stress-reducing mind-body exercises, so let’s get practical here. Recommend one for people sitting on Muni or at a computer.

JC Breath work is relatively unobtrusive and inconspicuous, as is meditation or self-hypnosis. You may even try abridged versions of progressive muscle relaxation: tightening shoulder and upper back muscles, then relaxing; tightening hands and arms, then relaxing; tightening gluteal muscles, then relaxing; tightening leg and feet muscles, then relaxing.

For people who say they can’t sit still long enough to do meditation or self-hypnosis, this exercise may be an option — it offers something active to focus on.

SFBG Eating healthy is hard. What are some ways people eat wrong?

JC Patients frequently think they have to make all the right changes all at once with their diet, and then feel defeated when they can’t sustain them. I’m a big fan of setting smaller, more attainable goals, and using positive reinforcement that helps you to move onto the next.

I’m also a big fan of mixing foods if you’re not ready for a complete change. For people who don’t like brown rice, mix brown and white or use less white rice and mix it with vegetables. That way you can increase complexity of the food you are eat and decrease simple carbohydrate intake with food that is still palatable. Many patients also think that as long as they eat vegetables at one main meal, that’s enough for the day. But our bodies function better if we can provide those phytonutrients and flavonoids all day long. That means that we should incorporate healthy foods like whole grains and vegetables into every meal.

SFBG We live in an age of health info oversaturation. With all the conflicting theories out there, how can we tell if we’re living healthily or not?

JC This is a great question. First, it’s important to educate ourselves about what’s considered “healthy.” At the end of the day, we physicians do not go home with you. Your readers should know that they are the most important member in their health care team, and that they should utilize their doctors as informational tools. Second, our bodies usually will tell us if we are living as healthy as we can. If you feel chronically fatigued, or have insomnia, or a “foggy” mind, there are probably steps you can take to improve your overall health by evaluating and maximizing aspects of your lifestyle, nutritional intake, or health status.

SFBG What should someone do if the advice they are getting from their HMO differs from or conflicts with what is prescribed by their holistic health care provider?

JC In this situation, it would be beneficial for the physician to speak with the holistic health care provider. The extent of training among holistic care providers can be vastly different — it can range from those who have taken weekend courses or are self-taught versus those who are board-certified or fellowship-trained. By increasing communication between physicians and holistic practitioners, it provides an additional level of protection for the patient in case the holistic provider is suggesting something medically dangerous. On the other hand, if the treatment plan from the holistic provider is medically appropriate, then it provides an opportunity for the physician to learn more about holistic care and how it can augment conventional care.

SFBG Are there real health benefits to going vegetarian?

JC There are tremendous benefits to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Plant-based diets tend to be much more anti-inflammatory and thus are more beneficial. The trick is to make sure that the diet is high in plant-based proteins, minerals, vitamins, and phytonutrients, and not processed or fried fatty foods. If the vegetarian or vegan diet is composed of things like steamed vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, it has tremendous health benefits like improving cholesterol levels, insulin sensitivity, and decreasing inflammation.

SFBG Are there positive health benefits of living in a big city?

JC San Francisco is one of the healthiest cities in America — access to healthy, organic, and diverse foods allows us to eat well throughout the year. Another tremendous benefit of living in San Francisco is the easy access to hiking, biking, and other forms of outdoor exercise. Even for those who aren’t interested in outdoor activities, the simple act of getting around the city allows us to get in regular exercise thanks to the hilly streets.

Hoop dreams

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

2

culture@sfbg.com

RENEW Christabel Zamor moves like a snake — eyes fixed, lithe body writhing, hips rippling back and forth — which isn’t really surprising, considering the number of times she’s shed her skin.

Zamor is a hoopdancer — one of those sylph-like sirens who show up at parties and raves and on the playa in order to make the men drool and the women vow to do sit-ups. She credits hooping as the secret to her sensuous shape — but if you’re thinking of getting out your snake charmer’s flute, let’s get one thing straight: in this case, it’s the sexy serpent who’s charming you.

Zamor is magnetic and incredibly talented, but what sets her apart from other Bay Area hoopers is her avid following, cultivated by Hooping! The Book!, an array of instructional DVDs and 72-hour teacher training program that has certified 570 instructors in 16 countries. Zamor is HoopGirl® — a persona that not only has allowed her to whittle her waist and tone her tummy but to explode into a fitness franchise.

An erstwhile doctoral student and one-time “heavy-set, shy academic,” Zamor says she transformed her life — and her body — through hooping’s calorie-burning workouts and confidence-building powers. She now travels the world as a fitness trainer and empowerment coach, teaching people that they can do the same thing.

“I wasn’t really looking for hooping,” she says. At 27, Zamor was a UC Santa Barbara PhD student struggling to find academic support for her interest in ethnomusicology and drumming. Frustrated, she dropped out from her program after receiving a master’s degree, traveled to Senegal to study djembe, returned to the States, enrolled in Pacifica Graduate Institute’s master’s program in mythology and depth psychology, and began working as a personal assistant. Amid the confusion, she says she didn’t have the power to envision a life outside her studies. “I wanted to be a healer but didn’t know it,” she says.

But a simple circle changed all that. At a Gathering of the Tribes conference in Los Angeles, Zamor fortuitously picked up her first hoop — and HoopGirl was set in motion.

Zamor claims she never had a hula hoop as a child, but from the first instant she picked up the plastic ring and it clattered uncooperatively to the ground, she was hooked. Despite the initial “experience of not succeeding,” she was captivated by the hoopers around her — “beautiful nymphs undulating gorgeously” — and she was determined to become one.

“I got a hoop and started practicing in the park, in rhythm with high-energy trance or electronic music,” she says, and crowds “just started gathering.” When a newspaper reporter wrote a story on her weekly spin sessions, “100 people showed up wanting to hoop.”

Hooping has provided Zamor with a means of transformation, for her physical body as well as her spiritual self. She describes hooping as the portal that awakened her to underground subcultures like the circus-arts scene and artistic communities like Burning Man.

Zamor found that she could hoop for six hours at a time and that it catalyzed a level of physical and spiritual presence she describes as a “quickening” of the body. She interprets the orbital motion of the hoop as “intrinsically about coming back to your center,” a practice that stills mental chatter.

Hooping also began to fill in for the cultural activity that Zamor had so desperately wanted to study at UCSB. She had sought to understand how tribal rituals played a role in society, but she realized that dissecting a cultural form appropriated from the third world brought up questions of co-optation that she didn’t want to wrestle with. Hooping provided the same rhythmic, percussive, ritualistic aspects and counted as an indigenous rite in California in the early aughts, when its popularity was exploding. Burning Man was where Zamor tapped into hooping as a “sacred, transcendent experience,” one that she ultimately felt empowered to interpret for a national audience.

Now 10 years later, Zamor has performed at events for Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, and Cirque du Soleil. She has been hired to represent fitness brands and health club chains. She is licensing HoopGirl® Workout teachers across Canada, England, Australia, and the United States, where her hoop regimen has been certified by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.

At 38, she is a fitness guru and the leader of a profitable exercise business. In her books and DVDs, she maintains a bubbly exuberance in describing her physical transformation. “My unwanted extra fat just disappeared and was replaced by gorgeous muscle,” she crows, describing her journey. But she leaves out transcendence at Burning Man in favor of the elation of calories burned.

Zamor admits that she has had to be a chameleon to market herself and her hooping. Unlike other elite hoopers who began to develop the art form around the same time or even earlier, Zamor hasn’t been content to limit herself to a part of the San Francisco subculture. She hopes to bring legitimacy to hooping, which sometimes means talking abs and aerobics. “To spread hooping, I have to be able to spread the lingo. I gain respect by speaking a language that people respect.”

But when she is training HoopGirl dancers, she says she still refers to hooping as a spiritual practice. Her mantra — hooping is sexy! — is as much about a sense of self-worth as a satisfying session in the sack. The once “introverted loner” has been able to use hooping to help shed her old self, literally — and she’s eager to show us that results are replicable at home.

“The hoop adheres better to bare skin,” she explains, “so I started wearing less clothing. Showing my arms, showing my legs — it’s like the hoop was asking me to take those things off. I started to feel like I didn’t have to hide who I was.”

Flipping through pages of toned hotties in her book, or watching the bootie-shorted babes in her DVDs, it might be difficult to believe that the sexiness of hooping isn’t about, well, sex. But Zamor says there is something deeply and inherently feminine about the hoop — and it’s not just that the ladies look better shakin’ it.

After two surgeries for endometriosis, Zamor is convinced that the “soothing gyrations” of the hoop against her pelvis have helped heal her. “Hooping provided the insight I needed to slow down and focus on my body,” she says, explaining that it’s also a way to strengthen her core and reproductive organs, bringing fresh blood to the pelvic region and awakening her libido. Now, six years since her last surgery, she emphasizes that her doctor was amazed at how quickly she healed by hooping through the ordeal.

Next up, Zamor will be working on bringing that whole-body healing to women who may not be willing to step inside the hoop. She has expanded her business to include empowerment classes that honor the “divine, delicious feminine” and that will help women become a more supple, radiant, and luminous version of themselves, she says.

These classes in “hooping outside the hoop” are geared toward helping others uncover the empowerment and sense of self-worth that Zamor has found through HoopGirl. Of course, unless Zamor is planning on turning out hundreds of successful fitness revolutionaries with profitable book deals of their own, it’s hard to say whether her personal transformation will be replicable. But with one irresistible smile from Zamor, it’s easy to see that the hoop has worked for her — and difficult to resist the urge to run out and buy one for oneself.

Renew yourself

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

2

culture@sfbg.com

So 2011 is a couple months in, and already your new year’s resolution list reads like so many dreams deferred? Chuck it in the flames — not all rebirths neatly coincide with the Gregorian calendar. This spring, rejuvenate your inner and outer workings with some of these excellent opportunities to renew everything from your chi, to your core strength, to the sweetness of your swagger.

HEAR THE CRY OF THE MIDNIGHT DOWN-DOG

Tripped the light cataclysmic a time too many? The toxic Fernet fumes ooze from your pores, and you’ve left not only your debit, but your credit, library, and frequent bagel-buyer card in various watering holes about time? Time to purge. Take a night off from tippling and toddle to Laughing Lotus, where Friday night’s midnight yoga class (each week from 10 p.m.-midnight) soothes abused chakras — and livers, need be. Each week even features a different live musician: Fri/25’s class will be home to the didgeridoo and sound-healing savasana of Amber Field.

Laughing Lotus, 3271 16th St., SF. (415) 355-1600, www.laughinglotus.com

PARTICIPATE IN A GROUP POKING

What’s community acupuncture, you ask? Small groups of patients are treated in recliners in a quiet, calm room. During the hour-long sessions, those waiting for their pokes receive staggered personalized care (needles are inserted into one’s limbs, face, and head: no disrobing necessary) from a licensed acupuncturist. Learned how to share in kindergarten? Perfect, because the cooperative method means that a single session will only run you $25–$45, including the initial visit’s paperwork fee. Circle Community Acupuncture, 1351 Harrison, SF. (415) 864-1070, www.circleca.com

ALKALINIZE!

Fasting, ugh. It has its place, but not eating anything is a bitter pill in the land of street tacos and gourmet coffee grounds. If you’re asking our opinion, a day of cleanse is best accessorized with Lydia’s raw green soup, a tangy elixir of kale, cucumber, dulse seaweed, avocado, ginger, and other green delicious majicks. Lydia’s sells neatly packaged soup servings, resplendent kale chips, and other yummy raw treats are favorites at the city’s crunchiest festivals, and you can pick them up at health food stores too.

Available at various SF grocery stores, www.lydiaslovinfoods.com

SWEAT IT OUT

Hidden behind hippie-wear emporium P-Kok is a small green garden and a sauna where tired city souls retreat for the store’s patchouli-heavy full moon ceremonies, complete with vibrational sauna singing. Starting in March, the hidden space will go holistic and become Tall Tree Tambo Wholeness Center. Monthly memberships (to encourage the use of the space as a healthy community hub) will be available for $100–$125 including coed and single-sex sauna access, healing events facilitated by other members, and the center’s four on-site healing arts practitioners, small-group classes in spiritual alignment, yoga, and the ever-popular full moon rites.

776 Haight, SF. (415) 430-8285, www.talltreetambo.org

TAKE INSPIRATION FROM A FEMALE FIGHTER

Forget Rocky. For true Bay Area boxing spirit, you couldn’t do better than checking out the super bantamweight championship boxing match of Ana “the Hurricane” Julaton vs. Franchesca “the Chosen One” Alcanter on Fri/25. Julaton, a Daly City and Bayview raised Filipina American, is looking to regain her standing in the pro world after a disappointing loss last year. Regardless of who walks with the belt, the ring’s high-powered punching — and rock hard musculature — is worth checking out if you’re in need of some gym motivation.

Fri/25 6 p.m., $35–$360. Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour, Richmond. www.brownpapertickets.com

SWEAT TO BOLLYWOOD BREAKS

Of course, you could saddle up your most comfortable heels and get your werqout in the club. Should you try this tactic, you could hardly do better than the rum-tum-tum stylings of Non-Stop Bhangra, a night that’s been teaching San Franciscans how to circle wrists and move hips in pure Punjabi mode since 2004. Nights begin with a hour-long class on Bollywood-style dance, continues with ample time to practice to beats by resident DJs and guest scratchers, and now attract a diverse following of races, ages, and ahem, physical aptitudes. Calorie burn and culture learn at the same time, perfect.

Next show: March 19 9 p.m., $10–$20. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.nonstopbhangra.com

READ ABOUT OTHER, HEALTHIER PEOPLE

Maria Arellano was gunning for a healthier lifestyle, so she decided to blog about it. “Accountability,” the chipper office manager e-mailed us when we asked her about Oh Healthy Day‘s providence. “Posting your workouts and healthy eating habits with others is a great way to stay motivated.” Her short, addicting posts and sunny photos of her ongoing journey to fitness are also great ways to hold us accountable — how are you going to down that family-sized bag of corn chips after reading Arellano’s upbeat prose about her delicious protein and veggie dinners or inspiring Crossfit workout? Answer: you’re not.

www.ohhealthyday.com

REACH FOR THE SKY

While the spectacularly cool House of Air has added a valuable component to San Francisco’s kid’s-activity-starved landscape (little ones can’t help but explode with glee at the very sight of the humongous “Bounce House”), there’s trampin’ for adults as well. Specifically, the Air Conditioning workout is a 50-minute fly-through that promises to “leave your cheeks just as sore as your quads from smiling so much.” At $16 for a 50-minute session, it’s not a huge leap to “yes.”

926 Mason, SF. (415) 345-9675, www.houseofairsf.com

BUFF YOUR BRAINPOWER

Feel the burn all you want in your thighs, but no fitness program would be complete without a stretching your mind. At vibrantBrains, you’ll exercise that flabby cerebellum in what amounts to a workout for your brain. Improve your memory, tackle abstractions, and fast-track your alertness, literacy, and comprehension skills with programs like “Neurobics,” “Mind Evolve,” “NeoCORTA,” and “Posit Science Cortex with InSight.” Each program concentrates on a different area of mental agility using a combination of cutting edge techniques and personal attention. Even reading about the various vibrantBrains offerings makes us feel smarter.

3235 Sacramento, SF. (415) 775-1138, www.vibrantbrains.com

IMMERSE YOURSELF IN EGGHEAD

Holy smarty-pants, Batman, there’s a ton of intellectually stimulating stuff going down at the Mechanics’ Institute. Any given day you might enjoy a screwball comedy from the 1940s, a talk by a famous fantasist-cartographer, a book club discussion centering on the Harlem Renaissance, a class in beginner Excel, or intensive chess instruction at any level. It’s also a library! The 1854 Mechanics’ Institute building is a mind-blow in itself — but with a wide-ranging and welcoming program of creatively exhilarating (and very inexpensive) events, you may not even notice your intriguing surroundings.

57 Post. # 415, SF. (415) 393-0110, www.milibrary.org

STROKE SOME FUR

Next time you’re about to calculate your checkbook in your head or cry because your (ex-)drummer stole your boyfriend, head over to the Little Farm petting zoo in Berkeley’s Tilden Regional Park. This fully-loaded snuggle gang of cows, goats, rabbits, chickens, and pigs will have you back to your cute self — because petting zoos are restorative for small, whiny children, but they also work for midsized, whiny adults.

Little Farm petting zoo, Tilden Regional Park, Central Park Drive, Berk. (510) 525-2233, www.ebparks.org

MEDITATE STUPA-SIDE

If you want to change your outlook, pay a visit to the Peace Pagoda in Japan Center, an underrated San Francisco landmark. Designed by artist and architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, the pagoda and its subtly Op Art-tinged interpretation of a Buddhist stupa made their debut in the year of the Summer of Love. Walk around and even step inside Taniguchi’s 100-foot-high, five-tiered, many-passaged structure to meditate from an infinite variety of angles. Or better yet, play a quick game of hide and seek with someone you love. 24-7.

1704 Post, SF. (415) 775-1817, www.sfjapantown.org

LET YOUR SPIRIT WANDER

Sometimes the best way to refresh yourself is to get a little lost. When things begin to spiral out of control, let the ancient spiritual meditative paths of the three Bay Area labyrinths lead you to a calmer place. Take a natural journey to the mysterious Eagle Point Labyrinth (Lands End, Sutro Heights Park, SF.). Experience transcendence — and a spectacular quiet zone — with the Labyrinth at Grace Cathedral (1100 California, SF. www.gracecathedral.org). Or amble with playful tots along the colorful circle of the Scott Street Labyrinth near Duboce Park (Scott between Duboce and Waller, SF).

MULTITASK YOUR RETRO BEAUTY FIX

If you want to feel new, sometimes there’s only one thing to do: get a fresh hairdo at Down at Lulu’s. The bass is thumpin’, the clothes are cheap and sexy, and the pop culture treasures and creative energy are abundant at this self-described “hair salon-vintage clothing-record store-junk shop” co-owned by Tina Lucchesi and Seth Bogart, where you can get hot highlights, cuckoo color jobs, and perms with panache.

6603 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 601-0964, www.downatlulus.com.

PUT CUTE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

You’ll break your lease in the land of not-so-fresh after an introduction to wonders of kawaii nail art. Let Trang Bui, the manager of Crystal Nail, facilitate your escape from the days of dull French manicures with her signature collage talons of glitter, jewels, and — so popular you should book and specify you want them well in advance — Hello Kitty 3-D art. Don’t be shocked at the price tag — a full acrylic set with designs and tip will run around $65. Worth it for such blingy digits, no? Next challenge: learning to type with horizontal fingers.

2347 Clement, SF. (415) 752-4425

STICK A FEATHER IN YOUR COIF

Still rocking the all-natural look? Shame that — freshen up your do with some feather hair extensions, slim bursts of hue that’ll set you apart from the other land-locked long hairs, but don’t involve the same commitment as a jar of Manic Panic (though they can last for months). You can get a natural or neon-colored bundle of up to four feathers for $30 or single plumes for $10 each at the Mission’s Pretty Parlor. Move fast — once these hit Dolores Park, the trend’s gonna blow up.

Pretty Parlor. 3150 18th St., SF. (415) 556-2883, www.prettyparlorsf.com

Naughty girls (need love too)

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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February 22, 2011

0

SCANDAL! Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is one of those pillars of French culture whose dismissal might well get you deported. (Deservedly.) It has inspired innumerable adaptations and co-optations, including a Hindi musical, a VeggieTales episode, and a postmodernist novel posing as a nonfiction memoir-literary homage (Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot). Its film incarnations have been reset everywhere from Portugal to Argentina to Rye, N.Y., attracting directors as celebrated as Jean Renoir and Vincente Minnelli and actresses as disparate as emotional heavy-lifter Pola Negri and chilly, twiggy Isabelle Huppert.

A few notches below that lofty company is 1969’s The Sins of Madame Bovary, a German-Italian coproduction with the era’s requisite mixture of dubbed multinationals — none very well remembered now — which is being issued this month by South San Francisco’s CAV Distributing. Despite its lurid title, this is a fairly faithful, if uninspired, version of the novel directed by journeyman Hans Schott-Schöbinger, whose less-than-illustrious prior credits included something called The Pastor with the Jazz Trumpet (1962).

It was a last career stop for him, but just the beginning for star Edwige Fenech, an Algerian-born beauty contest winner of Maltese and French extraction who would be the face that launched a thousand European exploitation movies — well, a lot of them anyway — over the next decade-plus. (Never entirely retired, she recently had a cameo in 2007’s Hostel: Part II.) Through all her giallos and sex comedies, Fenech, a brunette with a jones for heavy mascara, gamely deployed her beauty in various stages of undress, revealing a curvy figure with considerably less discretion than Flaubert allowed the tragic ninny he both pitied and ridiculed.

It’s probably on the shelf of every junior-high library now, but the original Madame Bovary was hugely scandalous — not just in her fictive world of bourgeois discontent, but in the salons, government offices, and courts of actual mid-19th century France. Couched in the most exquisite prose, her hapless infidelities — spurred by the fatal error of having married a nice, very dull country doctor — brought charges of immorality against author and original publisher (when it was serialized in a magazine) that came close to throwing the future pal to George Sand, Turgenev, and Emperor Napoleon III in prison.

Who knows how many titillated readers tried to emulate Emma B.’s suggested shag in a closed horse-drawn carriage only to discover their design in that era would in all likelihood make that exercise conducive to unpleasant contortions and muscle cramps? Perhaps that was another of Flaubert’s little jokes — as a many-mistress’d lifelong bachelor who’d explored the length of the Kinsey Scale (yet never truly moved out of his mother’s house) and had the venereal souvenirs to show for it. Yet one suspects he would have found the subsequent graphic sexualities of later banned books Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Ulysses, Tropic of Cancer, etc. to be merely vulgar.

Psychic Dream Astrology

Andrew Lam

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February 22, 2011

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Feb. 23- March 1

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Stop trying to have others come around to your needs or way of doing things and start providing for yourself. This will allow you to see more clearly and get better results. Take responsibility for you.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

This is a great week to shine a light in the darkened corners of your insides to see what kind of jewels and dust bunnies are hiding there. Get current with yourself so you get bring more realness to those you love.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Go slow without being controlling. You risk history repeating itself, and have no one to blame but yourself. Don’t make the same mistakes you usually do. Be willing to make new ones in your quest for a better outcome.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

You’re not supposed to be perfect or have everything in your life be lovely all the time. The trick is to avoid getting attached to your vision of how things are supposed to go. Focus on what you want, not how you want it to look.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Anxiety threatens to take your healthy ego and make it all defensive. Cultivate courage and pursue feeling good about yourself by acting in concert with your integrity. Be patient — healing is at hand.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

Soupy emotions have overwhelmed your thinking and now nothing is clear. Remember that you wish to be happy and pursue actions and attitudes that support that goal. Keep it simple, sweetheart.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Independence sounds better than it feels sometimes. Don’t allow neediness or a fear of your own emotions to propel you to move faster in relationships than you are ready for. Become a BFF to yourself this week.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Find someone or something to fall in love with, Scorpio. You need love and hope to keep you buoyant. Look for things in your life to get a heart-on for, no matter how big or small. A little falling will do you some good.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Strive toward evolving your ability to give and receive love by trusting your instincts. Notice how fearful thinking can compel you to shut down just when it’s time to open up. Challenge yourself to move beyond your fears.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

There’s no problem that can’t be handled by employing some hardy, healthy boundaries, Capricorn. Stop tripping over this or that worry and get clear about your limits and needs. Mobilizing from there should be a cinch.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Risk-taking and ballsy moves are awesome and can produce good times. They can also push an Aquarius too far, if you’re not careful. Balance your need for adventure with careful consideration this week.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Something needs to be let go of, and the more open-hearted you are, the clearer your choice will be. Release attachments to the people, places and things you’ve outgrown and be nice to yourself and those around you about it.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a psychic dreamer for 16 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com or contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading at (415) 336-8354 or dreamyastrology@gmail.com.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

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February 22, 2011

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WEDNESDAY 2

Hasan Elahi solo exhibition Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; (415) 626-2787, www.theintersection.org 7-9pm, free. After being falsely accused of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist plot, Elahi took the route of total transparency, personally tracking everything from his daily comings and goings via GPS, foods eaten, bank data, and other seemingly mundane information for his solo exhibition “Hiding in Plain Sight,” a series of snippets from the banal realities of everyday life that makes its debut in SF tonight. This show is Elahi’s latest installment of a much larger online project called “Tracking Transience” that began in 2004 and provocatively blurs the line that separates life and art.

THURSDAY 3

Mark Twain Project Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, www.mililibrary.org. 6pm, free-$12. Finally, 100 years after his death, UC Press is publishing as promised the memoirs of Mark Twain, compiled from 5,000 pages of notes and jam-packed into just three volumes of even more candid humor, as well as insights into his personal relationships and the truth behind his fiction. Volume one is hot off the presses, so come celebrate the life and work of an American icon as Benjamin Griffin, associate editor, presents part one of this literary milestone. Become a member of the institute, and you can attend this event as well as future literary events for free.

Sun Yat-sen in pictures Pacific Heritage Museum, 608 Commercial, SF; (415) 399-1124. 6-8pm, free. Follow the life of Sun Yat-sen, the father of the Chinese Revolution and one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century, from his childhood and rise to guiding his people toward democratic change, told through the numerous photographs taken of him throughout his life. Present will be speakers — including noted journalist, professor and author Orville Schell — as well as Sue Lee from the Chinese Historical Society and Prof. Tai-chun Kuo of Stanford University.

FRIDAY 4

Seed swap Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo, Berk. www.ecologycenter.org/basil 7-9pm, free-$10. Join local urban agrarians for a night of celebrating seed diversity with a potluck dinner and music, ho-down style. This is the 12th annual seed swap put on by a growing network of concerned community farmers and fellow horticulture nerds who are committed to preserving the genetic diversity of the world’s seed stock. They have also created a library of seeds that will be made free to the public. Yee-haw! Bring a dish to share or seeds to swap, and get in for free.

SATURDAY 5

Performance of The Prospect Bear Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 1 and 2pm, free with museum admission. Join the Cartoon Art Museum and DJ Scientific for a unique live performance of The Prospect Bear, the super cute children’s “music book” about a curious cub who follows her dream to become a DJ. The show will feature live music and narration with projected images, as well as a couple of educational presentations on Black Bears and the unique instruments used in the show.

Bay Area Now 6 conversation series Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. 1-4pm, free. Bay Area Now 6 is the sixth installment of YBCA’s celebration of local artists, and usually kicks off with conversations about Bay Area culture and diversity. This time around, expect to hear thought-provoking discussions with Marina Gorbis of the Institute for the Future, Neal Gorenflo of Sharable Magazine, and BAN6 artists on the possible economic paradigms for a sustainable environment in “Upward Spirals: New Economic Models for a Thrivable Future.”

TUESDAY 8

Conversations with radical thinkers The Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF; (415) 431-6800, www.thegreenarcade.com. 7pm, free. Tonight, Sasha Lilly and Andrej Grubacic discuss the new book, Capitalism and Its Discontents for those of you concerned with a thawing planet, the market-driven ideologies of neo-liberalism, the inherent vulnerabilities of a capitalist system and other current pressing issues. The book is a series of conversations with radical thinkers such as co-presenter Andrej Grubacic, as well as Noam Chomsky, Leo Panitch, Tariq Ali, and more, so expect some heavy content, with definite inspiration and hope for the future.

Suong Yangchareon opening reception Paul Thiebaud Gallery, 645 Chestnut, SF. www.paulthiebaudgallery.com. 5-7pm, free. Check out new works by Los Angeles-based artist Suong Yangchareon at the opening reception for his San Francisco show, “Suong Yangchareon: Paintings,” that features the artist’s established brand of realism depicting the kitsch and splendor of LA’s urban landscape. Working from his own photographs and inspiration from the likes of Hopper and Diebenkorn, Yangchareon’s work beautifully illustrates a melancholy stillness rarely found in metropolitan areas.

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam

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February 22, 2011

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OPENING

Drive Angry 3D Nicolas Cage throws his hat in the Oscar ring extra-early this year. (1:44)

Hall Pass Anyone who is married to Jenna Fischer or Christina Applegate and feels the need to step out is obviously insane. (1:38)

How I Ended This Summer SFFS Screen presents this Russian psychological thriller about a pair of scientists working on an island inside the Arctic Circle. (2:04) Sundance Kabuki.

Nora’s Will There’s certainly something to be said for the uniqueness of Nora’s Will: I can’t think of any other Mexican-Jewish movies that cover suicide, Passover, and cooking with equal attention. But while it sounds like the film is overloaded, Nora’s Will is actually too subtle for its own good. It meanders along, telling the story of the depressed Nora, her conflicted ex-husband, and the family she left behind. When the movie focuses on the clash between Judaism and Mexican culture, the results are dynamic, but more often that not, it simply crawls along. It’s not that Nora’s Will is boring: it’s just easily forgettable, which is surprising given its subject matter. Meanwhile, it walks that fine line between comedy and drama, never bringing the laughs or the emotional catharsis it wants to offer. The only real reaction it inspires is hunger, particularly if the idea of a Mexican-Jewish feast sounds appealing. Turns out “gefilte fish” is the same in every language. (1:32) (Peitzman)

Shelter A forensic shrink (Julianne Moore) discovers her patient has multiple personalities that represent murder victims. Also the devil is involved somehow. Huh? (1:52)

Vanishing on 7th Street So many supernatural thrillers lack atmosphere. When that’s all one has, it feels churlish to complain. This latest by Brad Anderson — who’s done a lot better by such varied suspense tales as 2004’s The Mechanist, 2001’s Session 9, and 2008’s Transsiberian — finds him once again constructing some impressive eeriness at the mercy of his screenplay (by Andrew Jaswinski). It lets him down as those features did not. Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, and John Leguizamo are among survivors of an apocalyptic whatsit that leaves Detroit, and perhaps the rest of the world, robbed of human inhabitation save a terrified few pursued by encroaching, extinguishing inky-black shadows. This is neither sufficiently art house abstraction nor straightforward genre exercise to satisfy. Yet it’s accomplished enough to make you sorry it doesn’t work, in the same way so many M. Night Shyamalan narratives end up flopping about like captured trout, flashing prettily on-line but hapless and grotesque when hauled up into the cold light of narrative follow-through. (1:30) (Harvey)

*We Were Here See “Where Were You?” (1:30) Castro.

*The Woman Chaser See “L.A. Confidential.” (1:30) Roxie.

ONGOING

All’s Well Ends Well 2011 and I Love Hong Kong (1:40) Four Star.

*And Everything is Going Fine “I like telling the story of life better than I do living it,” Spalding Gray explains in Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine, a tribute to the late performer that cobbles together interviews and scenes from Gray’s trademark autobiographical monologues (including the award-winning Swimming to Cambodia, made into a film in 1987). Without using a narrator or any other talking heads, Everything emerges a poignant portrait — and a masterful work of editing, considering the man left hours and hours of storytelling behind. “Behind,” that is, when he committed suicide in 2004. Everything doesn’t mention Gray’s death, but it looms over the whole movie. It’s hard to accuse Soderbergh of deliberately culling foreboding clips, since death was a theme the performer revisited obsessively. That’s not to say he was totally without joy; there’s a performance excerpt in Everything where he recreates his family having a spontaneous dance party to Chumbawumba’s “Tub Thumper.” It’s a transcendently playful moment. But as Gray fans know, the famously morbid storyteller wasn’t demon-free for long: a gruesome 2001 car accident while vacationing in Ireland left him physically mangled and mentally shaken. Three years later, he took his fateful last trip on the Staten Island Ferry. With the blessing of Gray’s widow, Soderbergh took on the mighty task of telling his friend’s life story; like Gray, Everything‘s a downer, but moving, and not without thought-provoking after effects. (1:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Another Year Mike Leigh’s latest represents a particularly affecting entry among his many improv-based, lives-of-everyday-Brits films. More loosely structured than 2008’s Happy-Go-Lucky, which featured a clear lead character with a well-defined storyline, the aptly-titled Another Year follows a year in the life of a group of friends and acquaintances, anchored by married couple Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). Tom and Gerri are happily settled into middle-class middle age, with a grown son (Oliver Maltman) who adores them. So far, doesn’t really sound like there’ll be much Leigh-style heightened emotion spewing off the screen, traumatizing all in attendance, right? Well, you haven’t met the rest of the ensemble: there’s a sad-sack small-town widower, a sad-sack overweight drunk, a near-suicidal wife and mother (embodied in one perfect, bitter scene by Imelda Staunton), and Gerri’s work colleague Mary, played with a breathtaking lack of vanity by Lesley Manville. At first Mary seems to be a particularly shrill take on the clichéd unlucky-in-love fiftysomething woman — think an unglamorous Sex in the City gal, except with a few more years and far less disposable income. But Manville adds layers of depth to the pitiful, fragile, blundering Mary; she seems real, which makes her hard to watch at times. That said, anyone would be hard-pressed to look away from Manville’s wrenching performance. (2:09) (Eddy)

Barney’s Version The charm of this shambling take on Mordecai Richler’s 1997 novel lies almost completely in the hang-dog peepers of star Paul Giamatti. Where would Barney’s Version be without him and his warts-and-all portrayal of lovable, fallible striver Barney Panofsky — son of a cop (Dustin Hoffman), cheesy TV man, romantic prone to falling in love on his wedding day, curmudgeon given to tying on a few at a bar appropriately named Grumpy’s, and friend and benefactor to the hard-partying and pseudo-talented Boogie (Scott Speedman). So much depends on the many nuances of feeling flickering across Giamatti’s pale, moon-like visage. Otherwise Barney’s Version sprawls, carries on, and stumbles over the many cute characters we don’t give a damn about — from Minnie Driver’s borderline-offensive JAP of a Panofsky second wife to Bruce Greenwood’s romantic rival for Barney’s third wife Miriam (Rosamund Pike). A mini-who’s who of Canadian directors surface in cameos — including Denys Arcand, David Cronenberg, and Atom Egoyan — as a testament to the respect Richler commands. Too bad director Richard J. Lewis didn’t get a few tips on dramatic rigor from Cronenberg or intelligent editing from Egoyan — as hard as it tries, Barney’s Version never rises from a mawkish middle ground. (2:12) (Chun)

Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (1:47)

Biutiful Uxbal (Javier Bardem) has problems. To name but a few: he is raising two young children alone in a poor, crime-beset Barcelona hood. He is making occasional attempts to rope back in their bipolar, substance-abusive mother (Maricel Álvarez), a mission without much hope. He is trying to stay afloat by various not-quite legal means while hopefully doing the right thing by the illegals — African street drug dealers and Chinese sweatshop workers — he acts as middleman to, standing between them and much less sympathetically-inclined bossmen. He’s got a ne’er-do-well brother (Eduard Fernandez) to cope with. Needless to say, with all this going on (and more), he isn’t getting much rest. But when he wearily checks in with a doc, the proverbial last straw is stacked on his camelback: surprise, you have terminal cancer. With umpteen odds already stacked against him in everyday life, Uxbal must now put all affairs in order before he is no longer part of the equation. This is Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first feature since an acrimonious creative split with scenarist Guillermo Arriaga. Their films together (2006’s Babel, 2003’s 21 Grams, 2000’s Amores Perros) have been criticized for arbitrarily slamming together separate baleful storylines in an attempt at universal profundity. But they worked better than Biutiful, which takes the opposite tact of trying to fit several stand-alone stories’ worth of hardship into one continuous narrative — worse, onto the bowed shoulders of one character. Bardem is excellent as usual, but for all their assured craftsmanship and intense moments, these two and a half hours collapse from the weight of so much contrived suffering. Rather than making a universal statement about humanity in crisis, Iñárritu has made a high-end soap opera teetering on the verge of empathy porn. (2:18) (Harvey)

*Black Swan “Lose yourself,” ballet company head Thomas (Vincent Cassel) whispers to his leading lady, Nina (Natalie Portman), moments before she takes the stage. But Nina is already consumed with trying to find herself, and rarely has a journey of self-discovery been so unsettling. Set in New York City’s catty, competitive ballet world, Black Swan samples from earlier dance films (notably 1948’s The Red Shoes, but also 1977’s Suspiria, with a smidgen of 1995’s Showgirls), though director Darren Aronofsky is nothing if not his own visionary. Black Swan resembles his 2008 The Wrestler somewhat thematically, with its focus on the anguish of an athlete under ten tons of pressure, but it’s a stylistic 180. Gone is the gritty, stripped-down aesthetic used to depict a sad-sack strongman. Like Dario Argento’s 1977 horror fantasy, the gory, elegantly choreographed Black Swan is set in a hyper-constructed world, with stabbingly obvious color palettes (literally, white = good; black = evil) and dozens of mirrors emphasizing (over and over again) the film’s doppelgänger obsession. As Nina, Portman gives her most dynamic performance to date. In addition to the thespian fireworks required while playing a goin’-batshit character, she also nails the role’s considerable athletic demands. (1:50) (Eddy)

*Blue Valentine Sometimes a performance stands out and grabs attention for embodying a particular personality type or emotional state that’s instantly familiar yet infrequently explored in much depth at the movies. What’s most striking about Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine is the primary focus it lends Michelle Williams’ role as the more disgruntled half of a marriage that’s on its last legs whether the other half knows that or not. Ryan Gosling has the showier part — his Dean is mercurial, childish, more prone to both anger and delight, a babbler who tries to control situations by motor-mouthing or goofing through them. But Williams’ Cindy has reached the point where all his sound and fury can no longer pass as anything but static that must be tuned out as much as possible so that things get done. Things like parenting, going to work, getting the bills paid, and so forth. It’s taken a few years for Cindy to realize that she’s losing ground in her lifelong battle for self-improvement with every exasperating minute she continues to tolerate him. Williams’ bile-swallowing silences and the involuntary recoil that greets Dean’s attempts to touch Cindy are the film’s central emotional color: that state in which the loyalty, obligation, fear, pity, or whatever has kept you tied to a failing relationship is being whittled away by growing revulsion. Gosling’s excellent stab at an underwritten part is at a disadvantage compared to Williams, who just about burns a hole through the screen. (1:53) (Harvey)

*Cedar Rapids What if The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) got so Parks and Rec‘d at The Office party that he ended up with a killer Hangover (2009)? Just maybe the morning-after baby would be Cedar Rapids. Director Miguel Arteta (2009’s Youth in Revolt) wrings sweet-natured chuckles from his banal, intensely beige wall-to-wall convention center biosphere, spurring such ponderings as, should John C. Reilly snatch comedy’s real-guy MVP tiara away from Seth Rogen? Consider Tim Lippe (Ed Helms of The Hangover), the polar opposite of George Clooney’s ultracompetent, complacent ax-wielder in Up in the Air (2009). He’s the naive manchild-cum-corporate wannabe who never quite graduated from Timmyville into adulthood. But it’s up to Lippe to hold onto his firm’s coveted two-star rating at an annual convention in Cedar Rapids. Life conspires against him, however, and despite his heartfelt belief in insurance as a heroic profession, Lippe immediately gets sucked into the oh-so-distracting drama, stirred up by the dangerously subversive “Deanzie” Ziegler (John C. Reilly), whom our naif is warned against as a no-good poacher. Temptations lie around every PowerPoint and potato skin; as Deanzie warns Lippe’s Candide, “I’ve got tiger scratches all over my back. If you want to survive in this business, you gotta daaance with the tiger.” How do you do that? Cue lewd, boozy undulations — a potbelly lightly bouncing in the air-conditioned breeze. “You’ve got to show him a little teat.” Fortunately Arteta shows us plenty of that, equipped with a script by Wisconsin native Phil Johnston, written for Helms — and the latter does not disappoint. (1:26) (Chun)

The Eagle The mysterious fate of Rome’s Ninth Legion is all the rage lately — well, so sayeth the wee handful of people who caught Neil Marshall’s Centurion last year. For all who missed that flawed if worthy release, The Eagle arrives with a bigger budget and a bigger-name cast to puzzle out exactly what happened when thousands of Roman soldiers marched into what’s now Scotland, circa 120 AD, and never returned. The Eagle‘s Kevin Macdonald (2006’s The Last King of Scotland) bases his film on Rosemary Sutcliff’s popular children’s book, The Eagle of the Ninth, but the theory advanced here resembles Centurion‘s: the army was wiped out by hostile (and occasionally body-painted) natives. Much of The Eagle takes place decades after the disappearance, with the son of a Roman commander (Channing Tatum) scuttling past Hadrian’s Wall to seek truth, clear his family name, and reclaim a highly symbolic bronze eagle. Providing muscle and street smarts (or whatever the equivalent — backwoods smarts?) is slave Jamie Bell. The Eagle is handsomely shot, with some semi-thrilling PG-13 battle scenes, and any spin on Unsolved Mysteries: The Ninth Legion can’t really suck outright. But while Tatum has clearly clocked in the gym time to embody a Roman soldier, he doesn’t possess nearly enough depth (or any interesting qualities whatsoever) to play a character who supposedly has a lot of big emotions to work through. Bell does what he can with his sidekick role, short of performing CPR on his pulse-free costar, but it ain’t enough. Was Vin Diesel unavailable, or what? (1:54) (Eddy)

Even the Rain It feels wrong to criticize an “issues movie” — particularly when the issues addressed are long overdue for discussion. Even the Rain takes on the privatization of water in Bolivia, but it does so in such an obvious, artless way that the ultimate message is muddled. The film follows a crew shooting an on-location movie about Christopher Columbus. The film-within-a-film is a less-than-flattering portrait of the explorer: if you’ve guessed that the exploitation of the native people will play a role in both narratives, you’d be right. The problem here is that Even the Rain rests on our collective outrage, doing little to explain the situation or even develop the characters. Case in point: Sebastian (Gael García Bernal), who shifts allegiances at will throughout the film. There’s an interesting link to be made between the time of Columbus and current injustice, but it’s not properly drawn here, and in the end, the few poignant moments get lost in the shuffle. (1:44) Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

The Fighter Once enough of a contenda to have fought Sugar Ray Leonard — and won, though there are lingering questions about that verdict’s justice — Dicky (Christian Bale) is now a washed-up, crack-addicted mess whose hopes for a comeback seem just another expression of empty braggadocio. Ergo it has fallen to the younger brother he’s supposedly “training,” Micky (Mark Wahlberg), to endure the “managerial” expertise of their smothering-bullying ma (Melissa Leo) and float their large girl gang family of trigger-tempered sisters. That’s made even worse by the fact that they’ve gotten him nothing but chump fights in which he’s matched someone above his weight and skill class in order to boost the other boxer’s ranking. When Micky meets Charlene (Amy Adams), an ambitious type despite her current job as a bartender, this hardboiled new girlfriend insists the only way he can really get ahead is by ditching bad influences — meaning mom and Dicky, who take this shutout as a declaration of war. The fact-based script and David O. Russell’s direction do a good job lending grit and humor to what’s essentially a 1930s Warner Brothers melodrama — the kind that might have had Pat O’Brien as the “good” brother and James Cagney as the ne’er-do-well one who redeems himself by fadeout. Even if things do get increasingly formulaic (less 1980’s Raging Bull and more 1976’s Rocky), the memorable performances by Bale (going skeletal once again), Wahlberg (a limited actor ideally cast) and Leo (excellent as usual in an atypically brassy role) make this more than worthwhile. As for Adams, she’s just fine — but by now it’s hard to forget the too many cutesy parts she’s been typecast in since 2005’s Junebug. (1:54) (Harvey)

Gnomeo and Juliet If you willingly see a movie titled Gnomeo and Juliet, you probably have a keen sense of what you’re in for. And as long as that’s the case, it’s hard not to get sucked into the film’s 3D gnome-infested world. Believe it or not, this is actually a serviceable adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic — minus the whole double-suicide downer ending. But at least the movie is conscious of its source material, throwing in several references to other Shakespeare plays and even having the Bard himself (or, OK, a bronze statue) comment on the proceedings. It helps that the cast is populated by actors who could hold their own in a more traditional Shakespearean context: James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Maggie Smith, and Michael Caine. But Gnomeo and Juliet isn’t perfect — not because of its outlandish concept, but due to a serious overabundance of Elton John. The film’s songwriter and producer couldn’t resist inserting himself into every other scene. Aside from the final “Crocodile Rock” dance number, it’s actually pretty distracting. (1:24) (Peitzman)

*The Green Hornet I still don’t understand why this movie had to be in 3D, or what Cameron Diaz’s character has to do with anything, but I liked The Green Hornet in spite of myself. Only in Hollywood could artsy director Michel Gondry hook up with self-satisfied comedian Seth Rogen, who stars in and co-wrote this surprisingly amusing (if knowingly lightweight) superhero entry. After the death of his father (a megarich newspaper owner — how retro!), Rogen’s party boy Britt Reid decides, either out of boredom or misdirected rebellion, to become an anti-crime vigilante only pretending to be a criminal. (And that’s about as complicated as this movie gets.) Helping him, which is to say creating all of the cool cars and gadgets and single-handedly winning all of the fist fights, is Kato (Taiwanese actor Jay Chou, taking over the role Bruce Lee made famous). As himself, Reid is so obnoxious he pisses off newspaper editor Axford (Edward James Olmos); as the Hornet, he’s so obnoxious he pisses off actual crime boss Chudnofsky, played by movie highlight Christoph Waltz — more or less doing a Eurotrash twist on his Oscar-winning Inglourious Basterds (2009) Nazi. (1:29) (Eddy)

I Am Number Four Do you like Twilight? Do you think aliens are just as sexy — if not sexier! — than vampires? I Am Number Four isn’t a rip-off of Stephenie Meyer’s supernatural saga, but the YA novel turned film is similar enough to draw in that coveted tween audience. John (Alex Pettyfer) is a teenage alien with extraordinary powers who falls in love with a human girl Sarah (Dianna Agron). But they’re from two different worlds! To be fair, star-crossed romance isn’t the issue here: the real problem is I Am Number Four‘s “first in a series” status. Rather than working to establish itself as a film in its own right, the movie sets the stage for what’s to come next, a bold presumption for something this mediocre. It lazily drops some exposition, then launches into big, loud battles without pausing to catch its breath. I Am Number Four only really works if it gets a sequel, and we all know how well that turned out for The Golden Compass (2007). (1:44) (Peitzman)

*The Illusionist Now you see Jacques Tati and now you don’t. With The Illusionist, aficionados yearning for another gem from Tati will get a sweet, satisfying taste of the maestro’s sensibility, inextricably blended with the distinctively hand-drawn animation of Sylvain Chomet (2004’s The Triplets of Belleville). Tati wrote the script between 1956 and 1959 — a loving sendoff from a father to a daughter heading toward selfhood — and after reading it in 2003 Chomet decided to adapt it, bringing the essentially silent film to life with 2D animation that’s as old school as Tati’s ambivalent longing for bygone days. The title character should be familiar to fans of Monsieur Hulot: the illusionist is a bemused artifact of another age, soon to be phased out with the rise of rock ‘n’ rollers. He drags his ornery rabbit and worn bag of tricks from one ragged hall to another, each more far-flung than the last, until he meets a little cleaning girl on a remote Scottish island. Enthralled by his tricks and grateful for his kindness, she follows him to Edinburgh and keeps house while the magician works the local theater and takes on odd jobs in an attempt to keep her in pretty clothes, until she discovers life beyond their small circle of fading vaudevillians. Chomet hews closely to bittersweet tone of Tati’s films — and though some controversy has dogged the production (Tati’s illegitimate, estranged daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel claimed to be the true inspiration for The Illusionist, rather than daughter and cinematic collaborator Sophie Tatischeff) and Chomet neglects to fully detail a few plot turns, the dialogue-free script does add an intriguing ambiguity to the illusionist and his charge’s relationship — are they playing at being father and daughter or husband and wife? — and an otherwise straightforward, albeit poignant tale. (1:20) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Inside Job Inside Job is director Charles Ferguson’s second investigative documentary after his 2007 analysis of the Iraq War, No End in Sight, but it feels more like the follow-up to Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Keeping with the law of sequels, more shit blows up the second time around. As with No End in Sight, Ferguson adeptly packages a broad overview of complex events in two hours, respecting the audience’s intelligence while making sure to explain securities exchanges, derivatives, and leveraging laws in clear English (doubly important when so many Wall Street executives hide behind the intricacy of markets). The revolving door between banks, government, and academia is the key to Inside Job‘s account of financial deregulation. At times borrowing heist-film conventions (it is called Inside Job, after all), Ferguson keeps the primary players in view throughout his history so that the eventual meltdown seems anything but an accident. The filmmaker’s relentless focus on the insiders isn’t foolproof; tarring Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, and Timothy Geithner as “made” guys, for example, isn’t a substitute for evaluating their varied performances over the last two years. Inside Job makes it seem that the entire crisis was caused by the financial sector’s bad behavior, and this too is reductive. Furthermore, Ferguson does not come to terms with the politicized nature of the economic fallout. In Inside Job, there are only two kinds of people: those who get it and those who refuse to. The political reality is considerably more contentious. (2:00) (Goldberg)

Just Go With It Only within the hermetically sealed landscape of the Hollywood romantic comedy can a man’s sociopathic impulse (to lie about being unhappily married to every gullible young woman he sleeps with over the course of two action-filled decades) be smoothed over into a laughable character defect that the right woman will see through or look past and then cure him of. But here we are in Hollywood, or rather, in Beverly Hills, where, as depicted by Just Go With It, the moral continuum seems to range from plastic surgeons who perform good boob jobs to plastic surgeons who perform bad ones. Adam Sandler is one of the good-fake-boob kinds but also the liar liar, and Jennifer Aniston is the long-suffering office assistant and single mom who joins forces with him in the cause of smoothing out a wrinkle in his ersatz romantic life. This involves the construction of an improvisatory tissue of lies so vast that it envelops an entire fake blended family (including not one but two creepily precocious children) and necessitates a trip to Hawaii and nearly two hours of penile-implant, mammary-gland, and alimentary-canal humor to be untangled sufficiently for a happy ending. Sandler and Aniston have a decent comic rapport going, at least until the sappy, sick-making moment of truth, and this reviewer may have snickered at one or two moments, or even periodically throughout the film, but is deeply ashamed of it now. (1:56) (Rapoport)

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 3D (1:45)

*Kaboom Gregg Araki’s crackerjack teen sex romp is pure verve — a return to devil-may-care form for fans of The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997). Kaboom is right: besides sneaking under the blue velvet rope for a classical mindfuck death trip (there’s even a good part for Jennifer Lynch), Araki and his winning cast let loose a fusillade of dorm-room chatter that runs metaphorical language to its limits. The cult-bidden mystery is too squarely accounted for, but then Kaboom is really as much The Palm Beach Story (1942) as Twin Peaks. Our coed heroes are Stella (Haley Bennett) and Smith (Thomas Dekker), and they’re the only platonic thing in the movie. Taken with Araki’s lasting affection for 1990s culture jamming, this rock-solid friendship is actually quite touching, but Kaboom works best when sliding up and down the Kinsey scale, huffing comic book paranoia for the fun of it. (1:26) (Goldberg)

The King’s Speech Films like The King’s Speech have filled a certain notion of “prestige” cinema since the 1910s: historical themes, fully-clothed romance, high dramatics, star turns, a little political intrigue, sumptuous dress, and a vicarious taste of how the fabulously rich, famous, and powerful once lived. At its best, this so-called Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking can transcend formula — at its less-than-best, however, these movies sell complacency, in both style and content. In The King’s Speech, Colin Firth plays King George VI, forced onto the throne his favored older brother Edward abandoned. This was especially traumatic because George’s severe stammer made public address tortuous. Enter matey Australian émigré Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, mercifully controlled), a speech therapist whose unconventional methods include insisting his royal client treat him as an equal. This ultimately frees not only the king’s tongue, but his heart — you see, he’s never had anyone before to confide in that daddy (Michael Gambon as George V) didn’t love him enough. Aww. David Seidler’s conventionally inspirational script and BBC miniseries veteran Tom Hooper’s direction deliver the expected goods — dignity on wry, wee orgasms of aesthetic tastefulness, much stiff-upper-lippage — at a stately promenade pace. Firth, so good in the uneven A Single Man last year, is perfect in this rock-steadier vehicle. Yet he never surprises us; role, actor, and movie are on a leash tight enough to limit airflow. (1:58) (Harvey)

The Mechanic Apparently The Mechanic is a remake of 1972 film starring Charles Bronson, but that’s kind of beside the point. This is simply another vehicle for Jason Statham to shoot people, set off big explosions, and make straight men feel sexually confused. And there’s really nothing wrong with that, as long as you know what you’re in for. Statham plays expert assassin Arthur Bishop, who is forced to train Steve McKenna (Ben Foster) in the fine art of killing. There’s really not much more to it than that. The Mechanic does exactly what it needs to, getting louder and bloodier with each passing minute. Statham is really just playing himself at this point — and he’s damn good at it. Foster isn’t bad at stepping into action flick shoes, although he never quite reaches Statham’s testosterone-drenched heights. If you’re looking for any modicum of complexity, The Mechanic is not your best bet. Otherwise, sit back, shut off your brain, and enjoy. (1:40) (Peitzman)

No Strings Attached The worst thing about No Strings Attached is its advertising campaign. An eyeroll-worthy tagline — “Can sex friends stay best friends?” distracts from the fact that this is a sharp and satisfying romantic comedy. Perhaps it’s not the most likely follow-up to Black Swan (2010), but Natalie Portman is predictably charming, and Ashton Kutcher proves he’s leading man material after all. They’re aided by an exceptional supporting cast, including indie darlings Greta Gerwig and Olivia Thirlby, and underrated comic actors Lake Bell and Mindy Kaling. No Strings Attached is a welcome return to form from director Ivan Reitman, who gave us classics like Ghostbusters (1984) before tainting his image with Six Days Seven Nights (1998) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). There are likely going to be many who will dismiss Reitman’s latest out of hand — and with those misleading trailers and posters, it’s hard to blame them. But I advise you to give No Strings Attached a chance: at the very least, it’ll counter the image of Portman tearing at a stubborn hangnail. (1:50) (Peitzman)

Outside the Law (2:18)

Sanctum An underwater thriller bankrolled by James Cameron, filmed using techniques developed for Avatar (2009), Sanctum is 3D like that blockbuster, and thoroughly two-dimensional. As a storm approaches, explorers are deep inside Papua New Guinea’s geological anus. Before you can say “What could possible go wrong, diving in caves?” (which a character actually does, in full Cameron-esque wank mode), everything floods and the fight for survival starts. A secondary plot concerns tension between a young diver (Rhys Wakefield) and his overbearing, tough-as-nails pro-explorer father (Richard Roxburgh), but this is a movie to watch to see who lives rather than reconciles. To its credit, the danger is mostly handled with a face smashing, drowning brutality rather than drawn-out melodrama (although Ioan Gruffudd gives a characteristically cheesy performance as a clichéd tycoon). Sanctum is at it’s best when submerged (and no one’s talking) but the atmosphere is generally robbed by David Hirschfelder’s unnecessary orchestra score. (1:43) (Ryan Prendiville)

*The Social Network David Fincher’s The Social Network is a gripping and entertaining account of how Facebook came to take over the known social-networking universe. In this version of events — scripted by Aaron Sorkin and based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires, in turn based substantially on interviews with FB cofounder Eduardo Saverin, with input from Mark Zuckerberg icily absent — a girlfriend’s dumping of Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) on a crisp evening in 2003 is the impetus in his headlong quest for a “big idea.” The film is structured around the conference-room depositions for two separate lawsuits, brought against Zuckerberg by Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and by fellow Harvard entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) for crimes involving intellectual property and vast scads of retributive money. Unless Zuckerberg decides to post it on Facebook (which he probably shouldn’t, given the nondisclosure vows that capped off the first round of lawsuits), we’ll never know what truly motivated him and how badly he screwed over his friends and fellow students. But Fincher and Sorkin have crafted a compelling, absorbing, and occasionally poignant tale of how it could have happened. (2:00) (Rapoport)

*True Grit Jeff Bridges fans, resist the urge to see your Dude in computer-trippy 3D and make True Grit your holiday movie of choice. Directors Ethan and Joel Coen revisit (with characteristic oddball touches) the 1968 Charles Portis novel that already spawned a now-classic 1969 film, which earned John Wayne an Oscar for his turn as gruff U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn. (The all-star cast also included Dennis Hopper, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, and Strother Martin.) Into Wayne’s ten-gallon shoes steps an exceptionally crusty Bridges, whose banter with rival bounty hunter La Boeuf (a spot-on Matt Damon) and relationship with young Mattie Ross (poised newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) — who hires him to find the man who killed her father — likely won’t win the recently Oscar’d actor another statuette, but that doesn’t mean True Grit isn’t thoroughly entertaining. Josh Brolin and a barely-recognizable Barry Pepper round out a cast that’s fully committed to honoring two timeless American genres: Western and Coen. (1:50) (Eddy)

“2011 Academy Award-Nominated Short Films, Live-Action and Animated” (Live-action, 1:50; animated, 1:25)

Unknown Everything is blue skies as Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) flies to Germany for a biotech conference, accompanied by lovely wife Elizabeth (January Jones in full Betty Draper mode). Landing in Berlin things quickly become grey, as he’s separated from his wife and ends up in a coma. Waking in a hospital room, Harris experiences memory loss, but like Harrison Ford he’s getting frantic with an urgent need to find his wife. Luckily she’s at the hotel. Unluckily, so is another man, who she and everyone else claims is the real Dr. Harris. What follows is a by-the-numbers thriller, with car chases and fist fights, that manages to entertain as long as the existential question is unanswered. Once it’s revealed to be a knock-off of a successful franchise, the details of Unknown‘s dated Cold War plot don’t quite make sense. On the heels of 2008’s Taken, Neeson again proves capable in action-star mode. Bruno Ganz amuses briefly as an ex-Stasi detective, but the vacant parsing by bad actress Jones, appropriate for her role on Mad Men, only frustrates here. (1:49) (Prendiville)

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide. Due to the Presidents’ Day holiday, theater information was incomplete at press time.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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February 22, 2011

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THEATER

ONGOING

The Dog and Pony Show The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. No horses in this show, actually, and no people either, just dogs. That’s the claim anyway. But while she manages to largely steer clear of ponies, in her new solo show, Michigan-based performance artist and NEA Four alum Holly Hughes ultimately segues not so subtly from her lifelong obsession with dogs to the life lessons we might glean from them. Treats along the way can take the form of amusing personal observations about Dorothy and Toto’s misadventure in the Wizard of Oz, a clip of the Obamas wagging the White House dog on Barbara Walters, or Hughes and her partner of 16 years at home in cozy domesticity—just two women, nine animals, and one sectional sofa. Her own family’s love for animals developed in the absence of much love for anyone else, Hughes tells us. Fortunately her monologue, directed by Dan Hurlin, resists being a bummer thanks to Hughes’ indomitable good nature. It’s her very cute and talented Norfolk terrier who steals the show, however, via a video segment at a Michigan dog competition. Maybe that’s as it should be in this unabashed bow to the bowwow. (Avila)

*Farragut North NOHSpace, 2840 Mariposa. www.opentabproductions.com. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 5. Former Howard Dean speechwriter Beau Willimon’s formulaic but solidly crafted 2008 play about backroom politics and the seamy side of what’s euphemistically called the American democratic process seems like it’d make a good George Clooney movie. George Clooney thought so too. He’s making it now under the title The Ides of March. You can see it sooner and without all those goddamn movie stars in this low-budget, high-octane staging by OpenTab Productions (Fishing). Stephen (Ben Euphrat) is a 25-year-old wiz of a press secretary for a “maverick” governor heading into a major primary battle on the road to the White House. But an unexpected phone call leads “idealistic” power-lover Stephen into temptation, even as it reveals the real dynamics of the electoral system he thought he’d mastered. A battle for career survival ensues with his former boss (Alex Plant), in which loyalty is a password and decency the first sandbag to drop. Opening night had one or two timing issues and some actors lost in shadow, but director Dave Sikula builds the action well and gets strong performances from an uneven but generally winning cast. Particularly nice work comes from a convincingly unraveling Euphant, a coolly compassionate Carla Pauli (as precocious intern–turned–unwitting pawn), and the formidable Nathan Tucker as Stephen’s slickly conniving counterpart and Mephistopheles of the moment.

*The Last Night of the Barbary Coast SOMArts,934 Brannan; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5 and 9pm. Through Sat/26. A fresh theatrical breeze blows in from the rank and churlish alleyways of Gold Rush San Francisco’s notorious red light district in writer/director Jessa Brie Berkner and Idora Park Theatre Company’s beautifully detailed musical tale. Set on and around a gorgeous rotating roulette-wheel stage (crafted by Simon Cheffins and Jack Ruszel, and hauntingly illuminated by lighting designer Zoltan DeWitt), Last Night of the Barbary Coast tells the story of a young Midwestern woman (Tristan Cunningham) who joins a traveling troupe of vaudevillians, searching for an unknown freedom in the chaotic landscape of the Old West as a performer and prostitute. A set of 49er archetypes (smartly outfitted by costumer Lucid Dawn) overflow the ample SOMArts stage with the all the flouncing brawn, sashaying bodices and boozy bluster of a saloon floorshow, alongside live musical accompaniment from vocalist-instrumentalist Freddi Price’s lush and moody nine-piece Alchemical Orchestra. Told in snatches of dialogue, song and pantomime (smooth choreography by Ena Dallas), Berkner weaves an inspired narrative from personal family legend and characters derived from the tarot deck’s Major Arcana. The result is a dynamically staged, alternately somber and spirited exploration of the precarious freedom possible in life and art. (Avila)

Party of 2 – The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Sun, 3pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Treefall New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctsf.org. $24-40. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/27. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents a tale of erotic attraction by Henry Murray.

What We’re Up Against Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, bldg D; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2:30 and 8pm; Sun, 2:30pm; Tues, 7pm. Through March 6. Following the popularity of Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius in 2009, Magic Theatre brings the New York playwright back for the world premiere of a decidedly flimsy comedy about sexual discrimination at a busy architecture firm. Eliza (Sarah Nealis) is the bright and brash new employee who finds herself shut out by an old boys network. Sodden boss Stu (Warren David Keith) resents her heartily for her competence and ambition, while ass-kissing power-jockey Weber (James Wagner) uses the leverage for all its worth. Gender solidarity with sole (but soulless) sister Janice (Pamela Gaye Walker) doesn’t get Eliza very far either. One guy at the firm, Ben (Rod Gnapp), alone knows better (among what amounts to an unbelievably inept staff). Eliza, meanwhile, crafts a form of revenge from her well-guarded solution to the otherwise stymieing “duct problem” in the plans for a new mall, a major account hitting the skids. Ben’s obsession with ducts is something of a key joke here, which ends up being characteristic of a play that stretches its not-very-new conceits thinly over two acts. The glass ceiling, ducts and all, is a bit too transparent in this bloodless production (helmed by artistic director Loretta Greco), leaving precious little to wonder or worry about. (Avila)

BAY AREA

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs Berkeley Rep, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/27. In his latest monologue (playing in repertory with another, The Last Cargo Cult), Mike Daisey explores the deeper implications of his own, and our, obsession with technology through a parallel look at the career of Apple’s megalomaniacal founder, and Daisey’s own reconnaissance trip to Apple’s manufacturing center in southern China. The story is well-crafted, Daisey’s delivery dependably expert—even if his humor occasionally strays into the more obvious, belabored humor of the office water-cooler wag—and the real-world vision of hell he paints in a behemoth suicide-ridden factory called Foxconn (apt if understated name there) all too salient. But the story gives us back as revelation what we already know, surely, about the horrifying labor system behind our various electronic gizmos and much else besides. It’s a kind of liberal conceit to play along with the indignation and head back out into the world fully willing to do battle against corporate capital, or at least sign an online petition. As a performer, meanwhile, Daisey has not budged from the formula he originally borrowed from Spalding Gray but made it even more his own. Indeed, to call his approach “indebted” to Gray is like saying the black market iPhone knock-offs he describes are merely an homage to Apple’s product. Beside his professed love for the latest high tech wizardry comes this uncanny attachment to the utterly low-tech, analog-monologue style of the late master.

Collapse Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through March 6. Aurora Theatre presents a comedy by Allison Moore.

Seagull Wed, 7:30pm, Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm; Tues, 8pm. Through Sun/27. Marin Theatre Company presents a new translation of Chekhov’s great play from former Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Libby Appel. The translation feels crisp and lucid, but artistic director Jasson Minadakis’s production remains fairly unmoving despite some effective moments among a skilled cast, including the dependably charismatic Howard Swain (as the doctor). The surprising lack of connection or spark between the principal characters—especially the jaded writer (Craig Marker) and the infatuated, soon-to-be-ruined Masha (an otherwise vivacious Liz Sklar)—results in a dutiful production without that pent-up Chekhovian atmosphere that should envelop and follow you for hours if not days to come. (Avila)

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through April 3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BAY AREA

Marga’s Funny Mondays The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Mon/28, 8pm. $10. Marga Gomez hosts a Monday night comedy series.

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam

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February 22, 2011

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As David Fincher prepares to collect his Social Network (2010) Oscar (place your bets at one of the assorted Oscar parties listed below), the Castro screens his 2007 Zodiac Wed/23.

Schedules are for Wed/23–Tues/1 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “Fog Tropes,” film and live experimental sound pieces, Thurs, 8. “Noise Pop Film Festival:” Pool Party (Aala, 2010), Fri, 7; Tom Zé: Astronauta Libertado (González, 2010), Fri, 9; Ivory Tower (Gonzales, 2010), Sun, 2; Miroir Noir: Neon Bible Archives (Morisset, 2009), Sun, 4.

ASIAN ART MUSEUM 200 Larkin, SF; www.asianart.org. Free with museum admission ($7-17). On Wayang: My Life With Shadows (2011), and Shadow Master (1979), Sun, 1:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $10. “Balboa’s Unique Oscar Party,” Sun, 3:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-12. •Zodiac (Fincher, 2007), Wed, 12:30, 6:15, and The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008), Wed, 3:25, 9:10. •Chinatown (Polanski, 1974), Thurs, 1:45, 7, and L.A. Confidential (Hanson, 1997), Thurs, 4:10, 9:25. We Were Here (Weissman, 2011), Fri, 7:30 (benefit premiere; tickets, $25); Feb 26-March 3, 7, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun and Wed, 2:30, 4:45). Director David Weissman in person after the premiere, 7 p.m. shows, and both Sat-Sun early shows.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-15. Even the Rain (Bollaín, 2010), call for dates and times. The Illusionist (Chomet, 2010), call for dates and times. Nora’s Will (Chenillo, 2009), Feb 25-March 3, call for times. “Oscar Night America,” Sun, 3:30. This event, $55.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. The End of Poverty? (Diaz, 2008), Wed, 7:30. To Dream of Falling Upwards (Alli, 2011), Fri, 8.

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF THE EASY BAY 1414 Walnut, Berk; (510) 848-0237, www.brownpapertickets.com. $6-8. Father’s Footsteps (Carmel, 2007), Thurs, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: New Year’s Revolutions:” This Gun For Hire (Tuttle, 1942), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema: Fantasy Films and Realms of Enchantment:” “Silly Symphonies,” (Walt Disney Productions, 1931-1937), Wed, 3:10. “Cinema Across Media: 1920s:” Rien que les heures (Cavalcanti, 1926), Wed, 7:30; L’Inhumaine (L’Herbier, 1924), Thurs, 7; “Silent Comedies of the 1920s,” Fri, 7. “Suspicion: The Films of Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock:” Merci pour le chocolat (Chabrol, 2000), Fri, 9:05. Shoah, Part 1 (Lanzmann, 1985), Sat, 5; Shoah, Part 2 (Lanzmann, 1985), Sun, 1.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. White Material (Denis, 2009), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:20. “Cinematic San Francisco: A Benefit for the Red Vic Movie House,” multi-media event with Rebecca Solnit, Christian Bruno, Sam Freen, and more, Thurs, 7:30. This event, $20. Gumby (Clokay, 1995), Sat, 2. The Adventures of Mark Twain (Vinton, 1985), Sat, 4. Meet the Feebles (Jackson, 1989), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:15. The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sun, 2, 4). Megamind (McGrath, 2010), March 1-3, 7:15, 9:20 (also March 2, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $10. “Noise Pop Film Festival:” This is Noise Pop (Werbach, 2011), Wed, 7; The Extraordinary Ordinary Life Of José González (Karlsson and Egerstrand, 2010), Wed, 9. “Laurel Nakadate: Fever Dreams” (Nakadate, 2009-2010), Thurs, 7, 9:40. The Woman Chaser (Devor, 1999), Feb 25-March 3, 7, 9:15 (also Sat, 2, 4:30). “Up the Oscars Benefit Bash,” Sun, 3:45. This event, $15. “Brushes With Fame Presented by Porchlight,” Tues, 7:30. This event, $10.

ST. AIDAN’S CHURCH 101 Gold Mine, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Lesson Plan (Neel, 2011), Sat, 8.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10. “Noise Pop Film Festival:” Look at What the Light Did Now (Seck, 2010), Thurs, 7; The Family Jams (Barker, 2009), Thurs, 9. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Volume 14: Middle East,” nine videos focusing on the Middle East compiled by ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art, Jan 13-March 27 (gallery hours Thurs-Sat, noon-8; Sun, noon-6). Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul, 2010), Wed, 7. “Around the World in 33 Films: The Jeonju Digital Project,” Thurs and Sat, 7, 9; Sun, 2, 4.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

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February 22, 2011

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WEDNESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Admiral Radley, Typhoon, Social Studies, Fake Your Own Death Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $14. Part of Noise Pop.

Chuckle Berries, Shrouds, Hondettes, Elvis Christ Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Coronas, Jamestown Revival Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Dan Deacon, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Sister Crayon, Lily Taylor Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15. Part of Noise Pop.

Geographer, Butterfly Bones, K. Flay, Funeral Party Independent. 8pm, $15. Part of Noise Pop.

New Monsoon Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $16.

No Babies, Havarti Party, Arms N’ Legs Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

+One Trio, Danny Heines, Los Angeles Television Milk Bar. 9pm, $5.

Pendulum, Innerpartysystem Fillmore. 8pm, $25.

Skinwalkers, Necronauts, Electric Shepherd El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Sweet Chariot, Travor Childs and the Beholders, Love Dimension Hotel Utah. 9pm, $6.

Trampled Under Foot Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Versus, Telekinesis, Love Language, Burnt Ones Café Du Nord. 8pm, $16. Part of Noise Pop.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Christine and Nathan Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35.

DANCE CLUBS

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*”Eighth Annual Johnny Cash Birthday Tribute” Knockout. 8pm, $10. With Royal Deuces, B Stars, Misisipi Mike’s Midnight Gamblers, Gold Diggers, Los High Tops, and Careless Hearts.

Everest, Red Cortez, All Smiles Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Film School, Apex Manor, Gregory and the Hawk, Melted Toys Café Du Nord. 8pm, $14. Part of Noise Pop.

*Floating Goat, Begotten, Hornss Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Guitarmageddon Blues Ball Slim’s. 9pm, $13.

Hood Internet, Database Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $21. Part of Noise Pop.

Led Zepagain Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $16.

Leftover Crack, Rockfight, DHC Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12.

Ted Leo, AB and the Sea, Kevin Seconds, Angel Island Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $12. Part of Noise Pop.

Pixel Memory, Kodacrome, Sex Admirals El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Johnny Rawls Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Stone Foxes, Voxhaul Broadcast, Ferocious Few, Soft White Sixties Independent. 8pm, $12. Part of Noise Pop.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Shelani Alix Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

Derek Smith Latin Jazz Band and Dee Spencer SFSU Student Bands Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Organism featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bhi Bhiman and Justin Farrin Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Bluegrass and old-time jam Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz plus guest Ohmega Watts spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Funktastique Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 986-8900. 10pm, free. Rare grooves, funk, and electro-swing with Dr. Musco.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party has a new venue, featuring video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Red Bull Thre3style DNA Lounge. 8pm, $10-15. DJ contest with a closing set by DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

FRIDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aesop Rock, Kimya Dawson Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20. Part of Noise Pop.

Apache, Vanishing Breed, Fangs Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Battlehooch, Nobunny, Exray’s, Downer Party Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12. Part of Noise Pop.

*Black Cobra, Futur Skullz, Hazzard’s Cure El Rio. 10pm, $8.

Blisses B, Fierce Bad Rabbit, Hurricane Roses, Jonathan Meek and the Mutes Kimo’s. 9pm, $5-7.

Concretes, Birds and Batteries, Magic Bullets, Psychic Friend Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15. Part of Noise Pop.

Death, Zolar X Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Leftover Crack, Vacuum, Sharp Objects Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12.

Lisa Loeb Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

Janiva Magness Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Josh Ritter, Scott Hutchinson Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Tamaryn, Black Ryder, Soft Moon, Wax Idols Café Du Nord. 8pm, $13. Part of Noise Pop.

Young Prisms Independent. 8pm, $13. Part of Noise Pop.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Sameer Gupta’s Namaskar Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

Suzanna Smith and group Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Albino!, Russ Liquid Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

“Americana Jukebox” Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10. With Magnolia Row, Snap Jackson, and Knock On Wood Players.

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Makru Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

CNY With Monsters of Bass Tour 103 Harriet, 103 Harriet, SF; www.1015.com. 9pm, $15. With MartyParty, FreQNasty, and Opiuo.

DJ Dtek Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs dub Snakr and Juan Data spinning bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Hubba Hubba Revue: Around the World in 25 Girls DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Burlesque performances.

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Teenage Dance Craze: The Number One Twisting Party in the Universe Knockout. 10pm, $4. With DJs Russell Quan, dX the Funky Gran Paw, and guest Mr. Okie Oran.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Max Bemis, Trophy Fire, Westwood and Willow, Dave Smallen Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $15. Part of Noise Pop.

Best Coast, Wavves, Hunx and His Punx, Royal Baths Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $22. Part of Noise Pop.

Cody Chesnutt Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25.

Dan Band, Diamond Dave Independent. 9pm, $25.

*Death Angel, Lazarus A.D., Bonded By Blood Slim’s. 8pm, $23.

East Bay Grease, Black, Touch-Me-Nots Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Haberdasher, Love Dimension, Chelsea TK El Rio. 6pm, free.

Headslide Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

JGB with Melvin Seals Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $25.

Joe Buck Yourself, Hooten Hallers Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Kicker, Meat Sluts Bender’s, 800 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.

Linda Kost Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

No Age, Grass Widow, Rank/Xerox, Crazy Band Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $15. Part of Noise Pop.

Santos! Knockout. 10pm, $10. With DJs Daniel and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

Earl Thomas Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Paula West and George Mesterhazy Quartet Rrazz Room. 8pm, $45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Eliyahu and the Qadim Ensemble Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15-20.

Go Van Gogh Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

“Rogues of the Barbary Coast” Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8. With Mad Maggies, Shark Alley Hobos, and Brian Belknap.

“Songbird Festival and Con Brio Present: Music to Freak To” Amnesia. 9pm. With Kelly McFarling, Con Brio, and Ben Flax.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Bootie SF: Request Night DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Breath Control, DJ Pickpocket, Dominique Leone, Ben Bracken, Damon Palermo Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; (415) 864-8855. 8pm, $7-12.

DJ Nik Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Hip-hop with guest Jeremy Sole and residents B. Cause, Mista B, A-Ron, and a performance by F.A.M.E.

Frankie Knuckles, David Harness Mighty, 119 Utah, SF; www.mighty119.com. 10pm.

Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346 – 2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Steve Fabus, Tres Lingerie, Sergio, and more.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip-hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, Tesfa, Serg, and Fuze spinning dancehall and reggae.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Martin Solveig Ruby Skye, 420 Mason, SF; www.rubyskye.com. 9pm, $15.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Younger Dryas, Death of a Legend, Heap of Stone, and more.

Biffy Clyro, Moving Mountains, Bird By Bird Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Fresh and Onlys, Growlers, Pleasure Kills, Wrong Words Bottom of the Hill. 1pm, $12. Part of Noise Pop.

Ben Gibbard, Zach Rogue Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25. Part of Noise Pop.

Glassjaw, These People, Tidal Arms Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Ernie Small Memorial Big Band Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Elaine Lucas Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Shana Morrison Rrazz Room. 7pm, $25.

Aaron Priskorn Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8pm, free.

“Women in Jazz” Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $20. With Ruth Davies, Roberta Donnay, Brenda Wong Aoki, and Destiny Muhammad; benefit for the Jazz Heritage Center.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Country Casanovas Thee Parkside. 2pm, free.

David Friedman Unity San Francisco, 222 Bush, SF; www.unitysf.com. 2pm, $27. Benefit for UnitySF.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludachris, and guest DJ Crazy Baldhead.

45Club: 100 Yards of Funky Soul Records Knockout. 10pm, free. With Dirty Dishes, English Steve, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Brilliant Colors, Hot New Mexicans, Homeowners El Rio. 7pm, $6.

Hellogoodbye, Jukebox the Ghost, Gold Motel, Now Now Every Children Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

John Popper and the Duskray Troubadours, Lisa Bouchelle Independent. 8pm, $20.

Stone Fox, Bangs Make-Out Room. 8pm, $5-10.

Steve Smith and Vital Information Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

Trifles, Twinks, Danger Babes Knockout. 9pm, $10-20. Benefit for KUSF.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

Under Raps Showdown, 10 Sixth St, SF; www.showdownsf.com. 9pm, $3. Hip-hop open mic with hosts BPos and live beats by Optik.

Valencia: 1995 Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Michelle Tea hosts this 90s party to benefit Valencia: The Movie(s), with DJs Pink Lightning and Junkyard, films by Justin Kelly, and more.

TUESDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Emilie Autumn Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $13.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Odd Owl, Laura Meyer El Rio. 7pm, free.

Shannon and the Clams, Guantanamo Baywatch, Uzi Rash, Boom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7. Swans, Wooden Wand Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $34. JAZZ/NEW MUSIC Aaron Goldberg Trio, Hip-Bones Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $16. Conscious Contact Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free. Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5. DANCE CLUBS Bombshell Betty and Her Burlesqueteers Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Burlesque performers with live music by Fromagique. Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro. Extra Classic DJ Night Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 10pm. Dub, roots, rockers, and reggae from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Alerts

Andrew Lam

-

February 22, 2011

0

THURSDAY 24

Benefit for Bradley Manning

Raise funds to support U.S. Army soldier and accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning at this events, which features discussions, updates, and special guests, including Daniel Ellsberg and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska.

7–9 p.m., $5–10 donation

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists

1924 Cedar, Berk.

www.couragetoresist.org

Eyewitness to Egyptian revolt

Ahmed Shawki, editor of the International Socialist Review and a Cairo native, shares his eyewitness account of the revolution that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

7:30–9 p.m., free

The Women’s Building Auditorium

3543 18th St., SF

Facebook: Eye-Witness to the Egyptian Revolution in SF

FRIDAY 25

Progressive senator in town

Vermont Sen. Bernie Saunders, an independent and arguably the most progressive U.S. senator, will give an overview of his work, from his historic filibuster against the continuation of George H. Bush-era tax cuts for the rich to his fight against big money interests in Washington.

7–9:30 p.m., $15

First Unitarian Universalist Church

1187 Franklin., SF

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/156941

SATURDAY 26

Iraqi solidarity

Stand in peaceful solidarity with the people of Iraq, including the many who are protesting the Maliki regime, and call for an end the U.S. occupation and demand that our troops come home.

2:30–3:30 p.m., free

Ferry Building

Embarcadero and Market, SF

www.codepinkalert.com

Coffee Party meeting

The progressive answer to the widely publicized Tea Party, this nonpartisan grassroots movement calls for more accountability from our corporate-sponsored, conflict-based political system. This meeting will focus on organizing outreach strategies and the proposed landfill in the San Francisco Bay. But anything goes, so come and exchange ideas over coffee and help take back the democratic process.

11 a.m.–12:30 p.m., free with drink purchase

Cafe La Tartine

830 Middlefield, Redwood City

www.coffeepartyusa.com

Panel discussion on censorship

This public forum titled “Censorship in the Arts: A Trend or Just a Passing Fad” is about exploring the current rise in censorship and the renewed threats to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Join the panelists and learn about the recent efforts toward censorship in the arts.

2:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m., free

Performance Art Institute

575 Sutter, SF

www.theperformanceartinstitute.org

SUNDAY 27

Who inspires you?

Attend the fourth round of the Bay Area Inside the Activists’ Studio, where you will surely be inspired by the many change-makers and leaders of local Jewish social organizations on the panel. Celebrate the many ways change that can be brought about through skill-building workshops, panel discussions, and more. A catered lunch will be provided.

10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., $8–$18 sliding scale

Contemporary Jewish Museum

736 Mission, SF

www.pursueaction.org

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

The children

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

-

February 18, 2011

0

Robert Moses may not know it, but he is a pied piper. The ability to hold the attention of 200 hormone-packed middle school students at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday in early February must qualify as some kind of superhuman ability.

But Moses, choreographer and artistic director of Robert Moses’ Kin, defers to his own pied piper, the one on stage who immortalized the German city of Hamelin. As the fabled character, Dexandro “D” Montalvo twitches, churns, and first commands the rats; then, with beckoning index fingers, he mesmerizes the “children” to follow him who knows where.

The Sunset District students may not have known the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who was cheated out of his justly earned wages and took awesome revenge. But they surely recognized the popping moves Montalvo so skillfully threaded into his character. One way or another, the kids were hooked. For close to an hour, they sat quietly and took in what Moses and his dancers had to show them from their upcoming world premiere, Fable and Faith.

As a kid, I was terrified by the Pied Piper story. No good grades or cleverness — usually assigned to boys anyway in fairy tales — were going to get me out of this scenario. No prince was coming, and there was no happy ending. I was going to be locked in that mountain. The adults had royally messed up. My mother assured me that “it’s just a story.” Well, mom, you were wrong.

Myths, fables, and fairy tales tell us about the way the world works. “Actions”, Moses explains after the performance, “have consequences. The stories talk about life, adversity and perseverance through hard times.” He admits that some of them can be problematic. Stepmothers, for instance, get a “major bum rap.”

Perhaps that’s what initially drew Moses to last year’s The Cinderella Project, which will be performed with the new Fable and Faith before going on tour later in the spring. Cinderella Project, his first collaboration with writer/actor Anne Galjour, who also wrote and performs the text for Fable and Faith, was informed by interviews with contemporary constructed families rooted in love, not blood. “Still, tough as it was,” Moses notes, “Cinderella stuck to who she was and it turned out alright.”

In the 1950s, there was a move underfoot to clean up some of these old tales; the thinking was that children’s psyches would be damaged by so much darkness and uncertainty. Fortunately, the stories have survived, though it’s good to know that Rapunzel no longer gets locked up in the tower because she was pregnant — it was just the evil deed of a jealous witch.

Moses takes a common sense, “age-appropriate” approach when he reads to his own two children, ages five and three. It was this fatherly task of sharing an imaginary world — everything from Dr. Seuss and the Brothers Grimm to African American folktales and Greek mythology — that got him to think about the contemporary resonance of some of these once-upon-a-time tales.

“Think of it,” he says. “Children are being abducted. Or today we talk about ‘the wolf at the door.’ ” In Fable and Faith, the wolf (Montalvo) goes to see a psychiatrist (Katherine Wells) to find out why he is behaving the way he does. The back-and-forth exchange in words and movement ends on a note of real poignancy.

Formally, Moses and Galjour decided on a structure “in which stories clash into each other.” The setting, they felt, had to be a village. “It’s where life happens,” Moses says. Elaine Buckholtz, who started lighting with Contraband and who has become a magician of visual installation, will do the honors on Fable and Faith. To keep a child’s presence at the forefront of these adult dances, Moses is partnering with the San Francisco Boys Chorus. They will perform, among other selections, the “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem.

As the students were leaving for their classes, a teacher turned to me and whispered, “We have been very lucky this morning.”

FABLE AND FAITH

Fri.18-Sun./20, 2 p.m.; $25–$35

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org

Print sections as they appeared in the early 2010s

Print Sections

THE RELUCTANT MAYOR

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

BRACING FOR THE BUDGET

DID SOMEONE SAY “CONDO CONVERSIONS”?

GREEN, WITHIN LIMITS

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

SHUTTER: THE MASQUERADE OF THE RED DEATH

RED BULL SF THRE3STYLE

AS YOU LIKE IT

MIGHTY REAL: FRANKIE KNUCKLES

EUGENE TAMBOURINE AND HARD FRENCH DJS

FOREST GREEN’S CUTE FANG BIRTHDAY PARTY

MIKEQ AND KARIZMA

HEAR THE CRY OF THE MIDNIGHT DOWN-DOG

PARTICIPATE IN A GROUP POKING

ALKALINIZE!

SWEAT IT OUT

TAKE INSPIRATION FROM A FEMALE FIGHTER

SWEAT TO BOLLYWOOD BREAKS

READ ABOUT OTHER, HEALTHIER PEOPLE

REACH FOR THE SKY

BUFF YOUR BRAINPOWER

IMMERSE YOURSELF IN EGGHEAD

MEDITATE STUPA-SIDE

LET YOUR SPIRIT WANDER

MULTITASK YOUR RETRO BEAUTY FIX

PUT CUTE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

STICK A FEATHER IN YOUR COIF

Benefit for Bradley Manning

Eyewitness to Egyptian revolt

Progressive senator in town

Iraqi solidarity

Coffee Party meeting

Panel discussion on censorship

Who inspires you?