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Oy-urveda

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Oy-urveda

Dear Readers:

This week’s letter of greatest interest, a well-composed rant against my supposed blind devotion to Western medicine, ignorance of same, and lack of understanding of the holistic approach to complaints such as hyposexual desire disorder, is really, really long. Here is one of the good parts:

I am an ayurvedic practitioner (traditional Indian medicine) and am obliged to look at things holistically (meaning from the perspective of the WHOLE person, not just their vaginas.) From this perspective, "HSDD" is just a name given to the complaint of low libido that could be caused by anything from poor diet to bad relationship to hormonal imbalance to stressful work-life and everywhere in between. Drugs don’t cure these things, they just give temporary "help" that you pay for in side-effects, cardiac risks, and possible worsening of the condition over time. Take away the drug, and you still have the problem. There is a cure for HSDD. It’s called education, lifestyle, diet and emotional healing, not your beloved Flibanserin.

If you want to empower women, don’t push drugs; push health, self-acceptance, and self-love.

OK, hang on there. We misunderstand each other. Keep in mind that Flibanserin doesn’t work, hence is not beloved by me or anyone else. But what’s really important to restate is this: Female desire turns out to be rather complicated and often dependant on prerequisite (feeling desired in return, fr’instance) that there just isn’t going to be a pill for. Ever.

My ayurvedic friend is completely correct when she says that many physical and emotional stressors can affect a woman’s libido, few if any of which can be addressed by a simple rearrangement of neurotransmitters. BUT. If you truly believe in a holistic approach to sexual health, you have to add those neurotransmitters to the equation — because if they are not skipping merrily across the synapses the way they are supposed to, no amount of yoga and yogurt is going to make sex happen. That’s where a drug like Flibanserin (if it worked) could be useful.

Western medicine may often overlook the importance of well-being, self-acceptance, love, and fresh vegetables in its pursuit of mechanistic fixes for poorly understood problems. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, although it surely does have its limits — Prozac isn’t going to "make" you happy if your life sucks. If you’re lucky, it may allow you to get out of your own way enough to begin to address some of the suckage.

I am more than happy to concede that a more holistic approach would vastly improve Western medicine. Let’s have one! And while we’re at it, let’s have an end to misogyny and sexual double standards and the "second shift."

I do not expect a one-size-fits-all drug to fit all. But I do think a brain-chemistry drug could have a salutary effect on brain chemistry. And while I would expect an approach like yours to be more effective than any Flibberwhatsis for complaints of the soul, I am taking my infected toe to Dr. Western, MD. Ayurveda may be ancient and time-tested, but so is gangrene.

Love,

Andrea
Got a question? Email Andrea at andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Against nostalgia

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Against nostalgia

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART/MUSIC Whether through the distorted visual crackle of old videotape or the gauzy gaze of a photograph, there is a class of artwork that challenges the spectator to engage with something not immediately present. It’s as if there is something floating behind the image at hand, which the mind is desperately hungry to grasp, but cannot perceive. This effect we call “haunting,” and often leave it at that. But 17 years ago, French philosopher Jacques Derrida developed a way of thinking about the concept of the ghost in terms of its symbolic relevance to our experience of history, and his “hauntological” approach continues to inform strains of art and music criticism as well as political philosophy.

Inspired by Derrida along with a recent spate of hauntologically inclined British electronic music, the Berkeley Art Museum’s “Hauntology” exhibit assembles an array of such unsettling works across several media. Curated by local artist/musician Scott Hewicker and BAM director Lawrence Rinder, the small but affecting gallery is composed mostly of selections from BAM’s collection that fit in one way or another into the rubric of hauntology.

Working, with a few exceptions, from within the museum’s existing collection was ultimately liberating, according to Hewicker. “I think we wanted to take it another step further in some other open direction, and kind of be very poetic about it, and not be in this defined realm that doesn’t really have a very strict … defined realm,” Hewicker laughingly explains, on the opening day of the exhibit.

Besides that circumstantial constraint, the idea of a hauntology show presents a couple other interesting conundrums. For one thing, hauntology is not a genre of art; it’s an I-know-it-when-I-see-it affair at best, more of a critical framework than a set of conventions. For another thing, there is no defined hauntological movement in visual art (though there is arguably one in music), now or at any point in the past.

What defines hauntological art is loosely derived from Derrida’s idea, as quoted in the exhibit’s manifesto, of “the persistence of a present past,” a past not immediately perceptible but always exerting itself on the present. Hewicker and Rinder interpret this in a number of ways through their selections. The 1820 painting by an unknown artist View of Providence, Rhode Island invites questions of context — who painted this? and why? — and its ominous black grids of windows necessitate a similar curiosity: what’s behind them? In Roger Ballen’s Twirling Wires (2001), on the other hand, the question has more to do with what is actually transpiring in the photograph of a blanket-swaddled man seemingly menaced by a floating mass of wires.

Besides Derrida’s foundational 1993 book Specters of Marx, the curators point to British music journalist Simon Reynolds’ writings on electronic musicians such as Burial and the various artists on the Ghost Box label. Reynolds seems to have opened up the field for discussing hauntological aesthetics in modern popular culture. Another acknowledged inspiration is Adam Harper’s blog, Rouge’s Foam (www.rougesfoam.blogspot.com), which treats music and visual art from a hauntological perspective. Hewicker elaborates: “He was sort of the motivation for the show in the sense that he called for kind of a nonstylistic approach to art in a hauntological sense — that it wasn’t just about spooky images, necessarily, but … these things that have these layered meanings beneath them.”

Perhaps the most exciting issue raised by the show is that of medium — what it communicates (i.e. artistic medium as spirit medium), and what it means to make the medium the subject of a piece. Much of the exhibit consists of two-dimensional visual art, but the few deviations stand out. On the inclusion of video, audio, and sculpture, Rinder muses over e-mail, “People don’t think in as clearly material or disciplinary categories as they used to. So it felt natural to select from this broad range of works.”

Despite the fundamental role music plays in the exhibit’s conception, only one audio piece was incorporated into the exhibit, Ivan Seal’s Stuttering Piano (2007). Seal has produced cover art for such releases as the 2008 reissue of Persistent Repetition of Phrases by hauntological ambient project the Caretaker, but none of his visual art was in the collection. His audio works often accompany his paintings, so the curators saw this as an intriguing “solution” to that unavailability.

Lutz Bacher’s video piece Olympiad (1997) is a silent stuttering image, the deteriorated quality of which makes it disorienting to watch; many works in the exhibit similarly hound the viewer via their chosen medium. Paul Sietsema’s 2009 diptych Ship Drawing, oriented as the gallery’s centerpiece, is as concerned with medium as any piece in the show. One side depicts a drawing of a ship — note, specifically a drawing of one, since the weathered paper it appears on is also rendered in ink. The other half simply shows a blank bit of the same paper. Thus, the medium becomes the subject. In this way, even the nature of their own production is part of the past that haunts these works.

So all this art, spanning centuries, cultures, and movements, brought together at BAM — why now? Hewicker cites “ghosts that people are not addressing” as evidenced by the “Tea Party movement, the sort of revisionist nostalgia, the rewriting of textbooks in Texas.” Derrida’s ideas are still relevant to today’s political world, and that resonates in how this art affects us, whether it was created in 1658 or 2008.

As one would hope from a thoughtfully curated show, motifs emerge among the included works. There are myriad obscured faces, indecipherable objects, and artworks within artworks, as well as subtler commonalities. This conspires to reinforce the sense of hauntedness in the exhibit, as if something has come down through the ages to inspire art that not only, as Rinder puts it, “[evokes] futuristic ruins, displaced subjectivities, and uncanny silences,” but more important, leaves us ill at ease.

HAUNTOLOGY

Through Dec. 5, $5–$8 (free for students and children)

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-0808

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Here’s lookin’ at you, Vic

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Here’s lookin’ at you, Vic

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Ah, Friday night at the movies: chatty mobs, unable to detach from their smart phones or fathom seeing a movie that isn’t both brand-new and unnecessarily 3-D’d. With such a bummer scene in the outside world, might as well stay home and watch edited-for-TV Seagal flicks on TBS, right?

Insert screeching needle-on-a-record sound here. Third option: head to one of the city’s most offbeat repertory theaters, collectively-run Haight Street landmark the Red Vic, which celebrates its 30th birthday this week.

“So often we hear people say, ‘Oh, we love the Red Vic! But we haven’t been there in years,'” collective member Claudia Lehan says. “That’s our biggest joke. We’re still here, we’re hanging in, but we need people to come to the movies. We’re doing our best to provide what people want.”

For the past three decades, that has meant a unique space (bench-style seating; organic popcorn and home-baked treats) with programming that reflects the theater’s eclectic spirit. Along with films skating the gap between first-run cineplex and DVD (Kick-Ass, The Runaways), a recent Red Vic calendar also lists the Burning Man Film Festival, local-interest doc It Came From Kuchar, a surf-movie night, a San Francisco Museum and Historical Society-presented program on the Haight, and the cult classic Freaks (1932).

“I think we’re a unique night out,” Lehan says. “The whole experience — the movie itself, it’s such an intimate theater, and it’s community-based.”

On a recent afternoon, I met with current collective members Lehan, Jack Rix, and Susie Bell; the fourth and newest member, Sam Sharkey (who late-night movie fans will know from Landmark Theatres), was out of town. Also joining us was Jack’s wife, Betsy Rix; she, along with Jack, Brad Reed, and Terry Seefeld, cofounded the Red Vic in 1980, with the help of other key players, including Martha Beck (who appears in the Red Vic’s adorable pre-show trailer) and Gary Aaronson.

 

RED HEADS

“We were all door-to-door canvassers in the ’70s,” Betsy remembers. “We’d go out after, and say, ‘There’s gotta be something better out there for us to do.’ We started thinking about starting a business together: a bookstore, or a movie theater. Movie theater seemed like a really good idea. At that time, there was a thriving repertory scene. We talked right away about having couches, nondisposable popcorn bowls — just to make it a totally different kind of movie theater. We plugged away on the idea for over a year.”

After some scouting, the group found its first venue, just down the street from its current location at 1727 Haight. “The Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast had an international marketplace that was closing up. It was a great big space,” Betsy says. “We got a lease for 10 years and renovated it.”

Visit the Red Vic’s cozy lobby, and you’ll see their first calendar hanging on the wall. You might be fooled into thinking the theater opened in 1980 on July 14, with a screening of the 1942 classic Casablanca. That was the original plan — until all of the projection equipment was stolen. Fortunately, the group was insured, but they had to delay their debut until new equipment could be ordered. When it arrived, they opened with the film scheduled for that day, July 25: 1977’s Outrageous!

Within the first month, Betsy says, they had their first bomb (1969 Oscar winner Midnight Cowboy) and their first hit, Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974). From the beginning, Red Vic audiences were determined to support the theater’s more unexpected film choices. A recent favorite has been Tommy Wiseau’s The Room (2003), a terrible-amazing vanity project that’s drawn hoards of devotees to its frequent Red Vic midnight showings. At $25 a pop, Wiseau bobbleheads are an in-demand item at the concession stand.

 

BIG(GER) RED

Though the Red Victorian hotel would give the Red Vic its name, the theater’s address would eventually change. “We’d had a fairly antagonistic relationship with the landlady,” recalls Betsy. “We knew for many years that in 1990, when the lease was up, we had to go.”

Fortunately, “it worked out better for everyone,” Jack Rix says. He and Betsy ended up buying the building that houses the Red Vic today, flanked by Escape from New York Pizza and the Alembic Bar. “Awesome neighbors,” agree the collective members, who tend to cheerfully talk over each other like family members. Though Jack suggests that the success of a collective is “like making sausage — you don’t really want to delve into it too much,” it’s clear the unique structure of the theater’s “management” has enabled it to thrive. The non-collective members at the Red Vic are volunteers who work in exchange for free movies.

The Red Vic’s permanent home holds 143; in keeping with the theater’s cinephile roots, “we remain committed to 35mm. We really try to show things in 35mm,” Jack says.

This dedication can sometimes lead to extremes (thanks to a distributor snafu, they once had to contact director Jim Jarmusch directly to borrow one of his films). But you’ll never see video at the Red Vic, unless the work was specifically made for it.

“If it’s made on video, and meant to be screened on video, we do have a pretty kick-ass projector,” Lehan says. “But if it’s made for 35mm … “

That projector comes in handy when local filmmakers, whose projects are often created using the more accessible video format, are on the calendar. “We really enjoy showing local films that people aren’t going to get to see anywhere else,” Jack says. “Lately something that’s worked pretty well is to rent the theater to filmmakers. It seems to work well both ways, because we get a minimum amount of business that’s guaranteed, and filmmakers get their movie shown.”

 

RED-HOT TICKETS

Though making gobs of money isn’t exactly the Red Vic’s goal, it has had some certified hits over the years. Used to be you couldn’t pick up one of the Red Vic’s signature red-and-black calendars without seeing trippy, time-lapse-heavy Baraka (1992) on the schedule. “We’re taking a break [from Baraka] for a little bit,” Lehan says with a chuckle.

Other success stories (besides The Room, as noted above) include two films coming up in August, El Topo (1970) and Dead Man (1995), plus anything by Werner Herzog, 1998 big-wave surf film Maverick’s (“Lines around the block,” Susie Bell recalls), and The Big Lebowski (1998), which returns every year on April 20, the high holiday for stoners. The Red Vic’s political leanings also draw crowds (“A new Noam Chomsky documentary will always do well,” per Bell), along with “stuff that’s really beautiful that looks good up on the big screen,” according to Jack.

For the past several years, the Red Vic has screened Hal Ashby’s 1971 dark comedy Harold and Maude on its birthday, July 25. It was a favorite of the late Steve Kasper, a friend and regular customer from the Red Vic’s earliest days. “He loved Harold and Maude,” Betsy says. “I don’t think we had really thought about showing it, but he brought it in. He was the one who started handing out daisies [after the film, a tradition that continues]. And it just really caught on.”

For 30 years, its cozy sense of community has remained unchanged. But the Red Vic, like other repertory theaters, has felt the 21st century pinch: DVDs, video-on-demand, and the Internet mean that less people bother seeking out off-the-beaten-path exhibitors. For the most part, though, collective members remain cautiously optimistic about the decades ahead.

“The first time we showed Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), which is a movie I really love, it did really well. I remember being amazed that we could show something like that and people would show up to see pure art on the wall of your funky little movie theater,” Jack says, before turning philosophical. “These are tough times for repertory theaters. To a certain extent, it’s use it or lose it. If people don’t support little theaters, they’re definitely not going to be around much too much longer.” 

HAROLD AND MAUDE

July 25–28, 7:15 and 9:15 p.m.

(also Sun/25, 2 and 4 p.m.; July 28, 2 p.m.), $6–$9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

Censored: calls for a revolution

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Censored: calls for a revolution

rebeccab@sfbg.com

The publications that have been officially banned from California’s state prisons are mostly pornographic, with two exceptions. The first is a periodical published by a white nationalist hate group, and the second is Revolution Newspaper — the self-styled “Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party.”

While there is some confusion whether Revolution Newspaper was indeed formally banned or not, it was apparently cleared for distribution after an organization that handles inmate subscriptions, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and a host of signatories on a petition, publicly sounded the alarm that prisoners weren’t receiving their weekly copies.

According to state regulations, the decision to confiscate publications that prisoners receive in the mail can be made by mailroom sergeants, wardens, or at the state level, so more publications may be getting withheld at individuals’ discretion than appear on the official statewide list of banned reading materials.

State regulations define as contraband literature containing sexually explicit content, hate speech, promotion of violence, or anything advocating rebellion against prison authorities. The Guardian and other alternative newsweeklies have often been rejected by prison authorities because of the escort and sensual massage ads in the back of the papers.

To date, no one at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has provided a clear explanation about why Revolution Newspaper was being intercepted by prison authorities. Furthermore, the state’s more recent decision to allow the paper suggests that the publication does not fit the criteria of contraband.

The outcry over access to Revolution raises questions about whether a segment of the population that is stripped of virtually all other freedoms while incarcerated can still access ideas and information.

Pelican Bay State Prison is a maximum-security lockup in Crescent City that houses some of California’s most dangerous inmates. Of the 800 inmates nationwide who subscribe to Revolution Newspaper, the largest single cluster, 45, reside there.

Their subscriptions are funded by the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF), a Chicago-based organization that sends communist literature to inmates nationwide. The paper has been distributed in Pelican Bay for at least eight years, and inmates often have their letters published in Revolution’s pages.

The publication is an arm of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), U.S.A., a Maoist organization started in 1975 in the Bay Area. While much of the paper’s content is consumed with railing against the evils of “the system,” a great deal of ink is also dedicated to effusive praise for RCP founder Bob Avakian, a cult-like figure who’s hailed as a “rare and precious leader” by party members and rumored to have gone into a self-imposed exile in France.

The RCP has weathered its share of criticism over the years, whether from right-wingers incensed by their anti-American rhetoric or from snarky columnists regarding their whole project as a yawner. Nonetheless, inmates have written to Revolution declaring the publication to be “a lifeline,” and to a mailroom sergeant at Pelican Bay, the furious calls for a revolution (or perhaps the inmates’ letters) were apparently enough to deem the newspaper contraband.

In February, the newspaper’s Chicago-based publisher, RCP Publications, received a notice from CDCR stating that the newspaper would no longer be distributed at Pelican Bay, signed by a mailroom sergeant. In a second letter, the CDCR informed publishers that Revolution would no longer be delivered to inmates at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison or any other state institution, stating, “The publication Revolution is ban [sic] from all institutions within the state of California.”

By law, each time a publication is not delivered to inmates it was sent to, the prison must notify the publishers. RCP Publications wasted no time contacting the ACLU of Southern California for help, in the meantime drafting a petition to call for a reversal of the ban. A Public Records Act request by the ACLU revealed that RCP Publications only received two letters, even though at least 11 issues were withheld from inmates.

After a few months of making the rounds online, the petition had collected the names of lefty luminaries Bill Ayers, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, and musicians Ozomatli and Saul Williams, among many others. Their collective statement included a disclaimer noting that they “may not agree with all or any of the content” of Revolution, but they were unified in opposition to the ban of the newspaper on principle.

“We strongly oppose the denial of freedom of information for prisoners, including the right to educate and transform themselves while in prison,” the petition states. “Any infringement on this right for California prisoners cannot be allowed to stand. It is a precedent that has ominous implications throughout the prison system in the U.S. and for broader society at large.”

Several months later, after the ACLU contacted CDCR with a Public Records Act request, Pelican Bay Warden G.D. Lewis responded with a letter stating: “To date, all issues of Revolution Newspaper mailed to [Pelican Bay] inmates in the past nine months have been delivered” and “No ban of Revolution Newspaper is in effect … I am considering this matter closed.”

Neil McDowell, assistant warden of Chuckawalla Valley prison, wrote in a separate letter: “This is to advise you that your publication entitled ‘Revolution’ does not have a blanket ban at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison (CVSP). The memo dated Feb. 16, 2010 authored by Sergeant L. Nunez was inaccurate in stating as such.”

In its earlier letters to RCP Publications, CDCR justified the ban by saying that Revolution Newspaper was “determined to be contraband because it promotes disruption and overthrow of the government and incites violence to do so” and mentioned that it “promotes governmental anarchy.”

Asked which issue or article in particular had led to this determination, CDCR spokesperson Cassandra Hockenson said she could not comment. “They know,” she said, referring to the publishers of Revolution. “I can’t comment. I can’t address what the content was. They should be able to identify it for you. I think the burden of proof should go to them.”

When we asked Mike Holman of the PRLF if he knew why CDCR made these statements, he said, “We very strongly want to get to the bottom of what process they used to arrive at those conclusions. We don’t know, and we are trying to learn, why they banned the newspapers.”

Hockenson insisted that there was no ban and that only a single issue had been considered “questionable,” even though CDCR documents identify at least 11 issues that had been confiscated based on information released in response to the Public Records Act request.

CDCR has come under scrutiny for censorship issues in the past. One signatory on the Revolution Newspaper petition is Paul Wright, who heads the Brattleboro, Vt.-based Prison Legal News — a publication he started after his own release from prison. Wright has won numerous lawsuits against CDCR after his own newspaper, which covers inmate rights and prison issues, was banned from California correctional facilities. Asked to comment on the Revolution Newspaper ban, he said, “It just seems to fall into the whole pattern of a trend toward further isolating prisoners.”

Growing pains

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Growing pains

steve@sfbg.com

The medical marijuana movement was born and raised in the Bay Area, and now the city of Oakland is poised to take the next big step forward by being the first city to explicitly allow and permit several massive cannabis cultivation facilities on industrial land, making millions of dollars in taxes in the process.

It’s the latest move in a growing trend toward Bay Area cities figuring out how to regulate and tax a booming industry that could really explode if California voters approve Proposition 19 in November, which would legalize even recreational uses of marijuana and give local jurisdictions more authority to control it.

Pot growing has long been the murkiest realm within an increasingly legitimate and professional medical marijuana industry (see “Marijuana goes mainstream,” 1/27/10). While Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco all have well-defined and regulated systems governing the 30 licensed cannabis dispensaries in those three cities, most of their growers are underground operations with no official oversight.

Public officials on both sides of the bay — who almost universally voice their support for the medical marijuana industry — say there can be problems associated with unregulated grows. Jerry-rigged wiring can pose a fire danger, and valuable crops can be targeted by criminals. Growers can be raided by police even when they have valid paperwork. And cash-strapped city governments aren’t able to tax or regulate an industry that has kept on booming throughout the Great Recession.

“There is no system to regulate production,” Oakland City Council member Rebecca Kaplan, who has authored cultivation regulations, along with co-sponsor Council member Larry Reid. Although the city may lack resources to enforce new requirements on growers, Kaplan believes growers will sign up voluntarily: “Every time we’ve created a permitting system, people have sought to use it. They want to be above board.”

The measure would permit growing facilities of more than 100,000 square feet, charging them each a $5,000 permit fee and $211,000 “regulatory fee,” as well as a gross receipts tax to be determined. The Oakland City Council approved the measure July 20 after Kaplan agreed to have staff also create a permit system for smaller growers, with both regulatory systems slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2011.  Kaplan has also proposed a November ballot measure to increase the current gross receipts tax on cannabis-related businesses from 1.8 percent now to up to as high as 11.2 percent, which the council is set to consider July 22.

Kaplan’s cultivation proposal initially generated a backlash from some small growers and Harborside Health Center, Oakland’s largest dispensary, because of its focus on creating mega-facilities that could monopolize the market and hurt the small growers who have been at the heart of the medical marijuana movement.

“All we’re asking for is a level playing field and a fair opportunity to compete with these factories,” attorney James Anthony, who represents Harborside and its network of growers, told the Guardian. “As medical cannabis comes into the light, it’s still capitalism out here in the world.”

Oakland developer and business person Jeff Wilcox, who is new to the marijuana industry, has been aggressively pushing to create a massive cannabis growing and manufacturing facility on his 7.4-acre warehouse complex near the Oakland Coliseum, covering 172,000 square feet over four buildings.

On May 21, Wilcox and his company, AgraMed, released a report showing how the facility could produce about 21,100 pounds of high-grade marijuana per year, generating about $60 million in gross sales and more than $2 million a year in taxes for Oakland, assuming a 3 percent tax rate (or about $3.5 million if the rate is set at 5 percent). The report was based partly on information gathered from independent local growers.

“By closing the loop and regulating the entire industry, we can ensure the healthy production and use of cannabis, and ensure its legitimate standing in our society. We’re working with public health and public safety agencies to make sure we do this right,” Wilcox, who did not return Guardian calls for comment, said in his press release.

Anthony said he was wary of Oakland politicians handing so much market power to one person: “It’s not for the government to pick the winners and losers through a regulatory scheme.” But he does agree that growers are overdue for regulation. “It’s time for cultivation to come into the light.”

State law requires growers to be part of the collective that uses or distributes the product, and the facility proposed by Wilcox would contract with many collectives, a model that hasn’t been tested in the courts yet. In fact, Council member Nancy Nadel has expressed concern that what she called “a structurally flawed proposal” could be on shaky legal ground (City Attorney John Russo, who has endorsed Prop. 19, did not return our calls with questions about the Oakland measure’s legality. His office also has not issued an opinion because it conflicts with federal law).

“Though state law allows for the operation of medical marijuana cooperatives by primary caregivers and patients, it does not legitimize large-scale growing operations. Just in the past few months, the DEA has raided two medical cannabis testing labs in Colorado. We need to retain a level of good sense and discretion,” Nadel wrote in a July 13 memo to her council colleagues, urging them to hold off on approving the measure until after voters decide Prop. 19 in November.

Yet Kaplan told us that even though the council moved the legislation forward, staff would continue to work through its myriad regulatory details and no permits will be issued until January. She also agreed that “it’s really important for Prop. 19 to pass,” giving Oakland more explicit authority to regulate the industry.

Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee, who bankrolled the campaign to place Prop. 19 on the ballot, supports Kaplan’s regulations (although he told us he would like to see a greater focus on small cultivators) and called regulation of growers “a historic next step” that further legitimizes the industry.

“I think this will help Prop. 19 pass and help Oakland be ready when it does,” Lee said, voicing support for Wilcox and other business people who seek to join this movement. “We need everyone we can get on our side.”

Most polls show that Californians are split fairly evenly on Prop. 19. Even so, several California cities are already making preparations to use the new taxation and regulation authority that the measure would bestow.

Lee said Sacramento, Oakland, Stockton, Long Beach, San Jose, and Berkeley all have been working on cannabis regulatory schemes for voters to approve. For example, on July 13, the Berkeley City Council placed a measure on the November ballot proposing a gross receipts tax of 2.5 percent on medical marijuana and a 10 percent tax on recreational pot, as well as a system for permitting up to 10 medical marijuana growing operations.

“State law is really a mess at the moment and there are a number of things happening now that violate state law,” Lee told us. “That’s why Prop. 19 is going to be a cleanup law to deal with a lot of the stuff that’s going on now.”

Kaplan, who has been working on her ordinance for almost a year and got help from students in UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, agreed that the current legal requirements for growing medical marijuana are unclear: “There isn’t a right way [to permit cultivation facilities] under state law. The law isn’t clear.”

Attorney David Owen, who has researched medical marijuana laws for the new SPARC dispensary in San Francisco and for local growers, echoed the point. “The short answer is that we know so little about the boundaries of state law.”

Prop. 215, the 1996 measure that legalized medical marijuana, was broadly written and then codified largely by Senate Bill 420, portions of which were later struck down by the courts. But enforcement of marijuana laws has primarily been done by the federal government, which backed off after President Barack Obama took office, leaving state and local officials to regulate a fast-growing industry using standards that the courts have yet to clarify.

“We don’t have appellate court decisions to interpret a lot of key terms in state law,” Owen said. “We don’t really know what state law says.”

For example, Owen said the widely used term “dispensary” doesn’t even appear in state law. Local jurisdictions often define how much pot a patient can grow. For example, Oakland allows groups of three patients to grow up to 72 plants in 96 square feet. But most of those standards haven’t been held up by the courts. And even though state law says growers must be part of the same collective as their patients, Owen said, “In theory, you could have a collective with 37 million members.”

Although Owen said a large scale doesn’t necessarily make a marijuana operation illegal, he said permitting a 170,000 square foot facility is bound to draw attention from the feds: “I guarantee the DEA will be at their doorstep the day they open.”

Council member Nadel said Oakland could be liable then as well, noting that it would be permitting a facility that would meet about 60 percent of the entire Bay Area’s demand for 35,000 pounds of pot per year. “Thus, to prevent diversion to illegal markets and collective members outside of the cultivation collective (which would violate state law), the city must act responsibly and set a limit on the total size of cultivation allowed in Oakland. While the memo from the Council members discusses the alternative method [permitting a smaller capacity], it does not recognize the problems with projecting sales to dispensaries outside the Bay Area,” Nadel wrote.

Kaplan said the ordinance is a starting point that can be further refined by staff. But she emphasized the need to regulate the industry, warning of risks to Oakland residents. Her measure’s staff report attributes at least seven house fires, eight robberies, seven burglaries, and two homicides to unregulated growing operations in 2008 and 2009. Kaplan also said she worries about the possibility of “another Oakland Hills fire.”

Yet Kaplan, who is running for mayor, also told us the taxes are important in a city that was recently forced to fire 80 police officers. “Given Oakland’s budget crisis,” she said, “the revenue for the city is no small thing.”

Deal time

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Deal time

sarah@sfbg.com

Lennar Corp.’s massive redevelopment plan for Candlestick Point-Hunters Point cleared a critical hurdle July 14 when the Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to affirm the Planning Commission’s certification of the project’s final environmental impact report, with Sups. John Avalos, Chris Daly, and Eric Mar opposed

Board President David Chiu called the vote "a milestone." Termed-out Sup. Sophie Maxwell, whose District 10 includes Candlestick Point and the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, saw the vote as evidence that city leaders support the ambitious plan. Yet many political observers saw the vote as proof that Lennar and its Labor Council allies have succeeded in lobbying supervisors not to support opponents of the project.

"I’m concentrating on pushing this over the finish line," Maxwell said at the hearing in the wake of the vote, which came in the wee hours of July 14 after a 10-hour hearing. Supervisors can still amend Lennar’s development plan during a July 27 hearing and project opponents are hoping for significant changes.

Mar said he wants to focus on guaranteeing that the city has the authority to hold Lennar responsible for its promises. "I want to make sure that we have the strongest enforcement we can," he said.

Lennar’s plan continues to face stiff opposition from the Sierra Club, the Golden Gate Audubon Society, the California Native Plant Society, San Francisco Tomorrow, POWER (People Organized To Win Employment Rights) and CARE (Californians for Renewable Energy).

Representatives for these groups, whose appeals of the EIR certification were denied by the board, say they are now weighing their options. Those include taking legal action within 30 days of the board’s second reading of and final action on the developer’s final redevelopment plan, which will be Aug. 3 at the earliest.

Supervisors are expected to introduce a slew of amendments July 27, when they consider the details of the proposal and its impacts on the economically depressed and environmentally polluted.

Michael Cohen, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s top economic advisor, admitted July 19 that all these various demands will likely delay project construction. "But 702 acres of waterfront land in San Francisco is an irreplaceable asset," Cohen reportedly told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It’s not a question of if — but when — it gets developed."

Chiu already has introduced five amendments to the plan in an effort to alleviate concerns about shipyard toxins, Lennar’s limited financial liability, a proposed bridge over Yosemite Slough, and the possibility that local residents will need more access to healthcare and training if they are to truly benefit from the development plan.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told the Guardian that he expects the board will require liquidated damages to ensure the city has some redress if the developer fails to deliver on a historic community benefits agreement that labor groups signed when Lennar was trying to shore up community support for Proposition G, the conceptual project plan voters approved in June 2008.

Mirkarimi said the board would also seek to increase workforce development benefits. "Thirty percent of the target workforce population are ex offenders. So while they might get training, currently they won’t get jobs other than construction," Mirkarimi observed.

He supports the health care access amendment and the public power amendment Chiu introduced July 21, pointing to Mirkarimi’s previous ordinance laying the groundwork for public power in the area. "This ordinance established that where feasible, the City shall be the electricity provider for new City developments, including military bases and development projects," Mirkarimi said. "PG&E was ripped when we pushed that through."

But Sierra Club activist Arthur Feinstein isn’t sure if additional amendments will help, given intense lobbying by city officials and a developer intent on winning project approvals this summer before a new board and mayor are elected this fall.

"Chiu’s amendments gave us what we asked for over Parcel E-2" Feinstein said, referring to a severely contaminated section of the shipyard for which Chiu wants an amendment calling for a board hearing on whether it’s clean enough to be accepted by the city and developed on.

But Feinstein is less than happy with Chiu’s Yosemite Slough amendment, which would limit a proposed bridge over it to a width of 41 feet and only allow bike, pedestrian, and transit use unless the 49ers elect to build a new stadium on the shipyard. In that case, the project would include a wider bridge to accommodate game-day traffic.

"The average lane size is 14 feet, so that’s a three-lane bridge. So it’s still pretty big. And it would end up filling almost an acre of the bay," Feinstein said.

Feinstein thanked Mirkarimi and Campos for asking questions that showed that the argument for the bridge has not been made. "But it’s disappointing that a progressive Board would be willing to fill the Bay for no reason," Feinstein said.

He concurred with the testimony of Louisiana-based environmental scientist Wilma Subra and environmental and human rights activist Monique Harden, who challenged the wisdom of the Navy digging out toxins while the developer installs infrastructure at the same site.

Subra said contamination is often found at Superfund sites after they have been declared clean when contractors to later dig into capped sites and expose workers and the community to contamination. Harden said the plan to begin construction on some shipyard parcels while the Navy removes radiological-contamination from shipyard sewers is "like a person jumping up and down on a bed that another person is trying to make."

But Cohen, who has aggressively pushed the project on Newsom’s behalf, countered that there is no scientific evidence to support such concerns. "It’s a very common situation," Cohen said. "It’s the basis for shipyard artists and the police being on the site for many years … It’s safe based on an extraordinary amount of data."

But Feinstein pointed to his experience working for the Golden Gate Audubon Society at the former Alameda Naval Station. He recalls how a remediation study was completed, but then an oil spill occurred at the site, which had been designated as a wildlife refuge.

"The military didn’t know about everything that happened and was stored on site, and it’s easy to miss a hot spot," he said. "And who’ll be monitoring when all these homes are built with deeds that restrict the renters and owners from digging in their backyards?"

Feinstein said he’s concerned that only Campos seemed to be asking questions and making specific requests for information around the proposed project’s financing

"Lennar is paying city staff and consultants and promising labor huge numbers of jobs. When you are throwing that much money around, it’s hard for people to resist — and the city has been co-opted," Feinstein said. "And how much analysis and resistance can you expect from city commissions when the Mayor’s Office is the driving force behind the project? So we don’t have a stringent review. The weakness of the strategy of ignoring our bridge concerns is that when we sue, we may raise a whole bunch of issues."

Arc Ecology director Saul Bloom says Chiu’s bridge proposal "screwed up the dialogue. We were close to a deal," Bloom claims. "But while that amendment allowed one board member to showboat, it prevented the problem from being solved."

Bloom is concerned that under the financing deal, the project won’t make any money for at least 15 years and will be vulnerable to penalties and bumps in the market — an equation that could lead the developer to build only market rate housing at the site.

"It’s a problematic analysis at best," he said.

"The bigger the development, the more it benefits people who have the capacity to address it — and that’s not the community," Bloom said. "So there’ll be more discussion of the bridge, and that’s where the horse-trading is going to be."

He also said the bridge has now taken on a symbolic value. "The thing about the bridge is that it’s not actually about the bridge any more," Bloom added. "It’s about Lennar telling people, ‘You will support us.’ If they get the bridge, it will give them free rein, an unencumbered capacity to do as they see fit. They are willing to make deals, but they have to have the bridge because it defeats the people who have been the most credible and visible — and then they have no opposition."

Booze or mismanagement?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Booze or mismanagement?

news@sfbg.com

The centennial celebration of the Bay to Breakers race and party is once again being targeted for a crackdown on alcohol. But many participants say the problem is mismanagement more than booze or public urination.

Organizers this month announced that all racers and revelers in possession of alcohol will be cited and possibly detained by the San Francisco Police Department. Those pushing floats or, as event spokesperson Sam Singer put it, “alcohol delivery devices,” will be cited as well.

After hearing concerns from residents along the race route and losing corporate sponsor ING, executives from organizer AEG said its decision to curb excessive drinking is an attempt to save the venerable event.

“We received significant complaints from neighbors and residents about people peeing, puking, and passing out on their doorsteps who were not registered to race but were there to take advantage of the event and stage an open street party at expense of the community,” Singer told us. “Bay to Breakers will be 100 [years old] next year and, unless we take steps to ensure public safety, we are concerned for its future.”

Drawing more than 100,000 spectators and racers annually, Bay to Breakers is one of the largest races in the world. Even greater than its size is the reputation it has garnered as one of the city’s premier street parties, where revelers wear ridiculous costumes or sometimes nothing at all.

That reputation caused ING to pull out, announcing that it “evaluates its sponsorship programs and strategies to make sure they align with the goals of the business. The decision to not renew our sponsorship was based simply on ING’s shifting priorities.”

The company and others associated with the event last year tried unsuccessfully to ban kegs and glass bottles along with alcohol carried on floats. But opposition from participants and area Sup. Ross Mirkarimi saved the party.

Yet Singer said the outcome of the failed ban only strengthened organizers’ conviction to prohibit alcohol in subsequent years. “After the ban was put forward, a negotiation between people who are the party element took place and we ultimately allowed alcohol that year,” Singer said. “However, because alcohol was originally banned and the ban was later eased, the confusion contributed to having a safer experience. Most of the drinking element stayed away, which led us to realize we have to prohibit alcohol to keep a certain type of people away from the race.”

That “certain type of people” who seek to uphold the lenient alcohol precedent last year banded together to form Citizens for the Preservation of Bay to Breakers. CPBB cofounder Edward Sharpless said the group considers the ban a simplistic distraction from AEG’s gross mismanagement of an event whose biggest problems could be easily mitigated.

“They have no respect for the event and no interest in preserving the San Francisco tradition of Bay to Breakers,” Sharpless said. “They have failed to provide an adequate amount of Porta Potties or set up appropriate barriers. It has nothing to do with booze or floats. They are merely trying to mask their incompetence by pointing the finger yet again.”

According to the race website, AEG provided only 705 portable toilets last year. Although that number may be sufficient for the 30,000 racers, it proved too few for the more than 100,000-person event. Even Mayor Gavin Newsom last year ran in the event without registering, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“They just aren’t addressing issues,” Sharpless said. “Their mind-set has been to support only the 30,000 registered runners, and once those people have gone by it’s everyone else’s problem. It doesn’t work like that.”

Wayne Lanier, a resident at 256 Ashbury St., last year tried to stop a young man from urinating in his yard, informing him that he would take a photograph and notify the police. “He responded with, ‘I don’t care, I’m from L.A.,'<0x2009>” Lanier told us. “They had an attitude that expressed their right to party and who were we to question it. It was just unbelievable.”

Sharpless said he wants to heed residents’ complaints. “The management is supposed to be professional, so something like public urination and a little bit of public drunkenness should be dealt with,” Sharpless said. “The priority is the neighbors, their private property, and their well-being. Just sticking your head in sand and turning a blind eye to the problem is not a solution.”

Sharpless and others met with officials in the Mayor’s Office July 12, seeking a dialogue between community groups, residents, city officials. and AEG. Some press coverage framed the meeting as simply about drunkenness, but Sharpless said mismanagement of the event was a key topic.

“The meeting was scheduled two weeks ago, before AEG decided to announce the ban,” Sharpless said. “The reason Sam announced the ban subsequently is because he wanted to make it look like it was about a ban on alcohol when really it was a focus group on neighborhood damage.”

AEG is expected to present a plan for next year’s event toward the end of summer. “We will be working with the police department on having a larger and more strategically placed police force to help ensure safety,” Singer said. “We are also planning on doing extensive outreach and advertising to inform the public of this year’s new rules.”

Sharpless remains confident that the party will go on. “It looks like we have a good, constructive start,” he said. “Of course we don’t support the alcohol ban. This isn’t just a 12K race. This is Bay to Breakers. This is a civic institution that represents the uniqueness of San Francisco, and we will fight to save it.”

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Barenaked Ladies, Kris Allen, Angel Taylor Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $48-75.

“Bomb Tracks n Cognac Starring Andre Nickatina” Slim’s. 7:30 and 11:30pm, $29. With Bizzy Bone and Glasses Malone (late show) and Smoov-E, Tmills, and Dot Dot Curve (early show).

Debbie Davies and Robin Rogers Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Grand Archives, S, Northern Key Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Liturgy, Common Eider King Eider, Base of Bass Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Jay Nash, Joe Firstman, Rachael Sage Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

*Jonathan Richman, Olof Arnalds Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café du Nord). 8pm, $15.

*Spits, Nobunny, Scumby, Carolyn the DJ Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Tom Shaw Trio with Laurie De Seguirant Martuni’s, Four Valencia, SF; (415) 241-0205. 7pm, $7.

Gaby V., Tracorum Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Ballyhoo, Mike Pinto, My Peoples Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Michael Abraham Jazz Sessions, Gaucho Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Drew Piston and Melissa Jones Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

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 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Darryl Anders’ AgapeSoul Coda. 9pm, $10.

*Dead Weather, Harlem Warfield. 8pm, $42.

Foreign Exchange Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $25.

Foxtail Somersault, Vir, Astral, Tomihira Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $12.

Glassines, We are Kings Road, Sunshine Factory Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Graves Brothers Deluxe, Human Toys, Juanita and the Rabbit Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Artwork Jamal Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Leela James Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

*Lecherous Gaze, Lazy Dogs, Red Handed, Mojo Hand Eagle Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Pat McGee Hotel Utah. 7:30pm, $15.

*Me in the Zoo, Sonya Cotton, Ben and Ashi Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

“School of Rock presents Live Aid Remade” Thee Parkside. 8pm, $15.

Sick of It All, Trash Talk, 50 Lions, Alpha and Omega Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Jimmy Sweetwater, Vandella Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $14. Farewell tribute to Sweetwater with various artists.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Ayme and David, Golden Aarow Holy Face Amensia. 7pm, free.

Brave New Girl Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Jeannie and Chuck’s Country Roundup Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

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

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afro-tropical, 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.

Coyu Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 515-4091. 9:30pm, $10-$20.

Dirty Dishes The LookOut, 3600 16th St., SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. With food carts and DJs B-Haul, Gordon Gartrell, and guests spinning indie electro, dirty house, and future bass.

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

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

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

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Meat DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $2-5. Industrial with BaconMonkey, Netik, and Melting Girl.

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

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

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Admiral Radley, Sea of Bees, Built Like Alaska Biscuits and Blues. 10pm, $14.

*Cynic, Intronaut, Dysrhythmia Slim’s. 8pm, $19.

Foreign Exchange Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 6pm, free.

Foreign Exchange Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $25.

Leela James Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

Candye Kane Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $22.

Neckmeat, Dylan Connor, Eli Braden Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Miniature Tigers, Spinto Band, Angel Island Hotel Utah. 9pm, $12.

Mushroom, McCabe and Mrs. Miller Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $8.

Odessa Chen Band Art Tap, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. 6pm, free.

Ray Band Coda. 10pm, $10.

Tainted Love Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $23.

Chantelle Tibbs, Sharon Hazel Township, Battlin’ Bluebirds El Rio. 9:30pm, $5.

Tigers Jaw, Sidekicks, Hard Girls, Albert Square Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Toad the Wet Sprocket Fillmore. 9pm, $32.50.

White Cloud, Red Blue Yellow, Paranoids Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“The Art of the Duo: Complex Stories, Simple Sounds” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25. With Kinan Amzeh and Dinuk Wijeratne, and Ben Goldberg and Myra Melford.

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Baxtalo Drom, The Lucky Road Amensia. 9pm, $5.

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

Mercury Falls Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco Amensia. 6pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kinan Azmeh’s Duo, Ben Goldberg and Myra Melford YBCA Forum and Sculpture Court, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 8pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

*Afrobeat Lab Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Featuring a live performance by ALBINO! with DJs Señor Oz and guests.

*Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live dance performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs DubSnakr 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.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

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

Club Dragon Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. A gay Asian paradise. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

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.

House of Voodoo Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 501-9162. 9pm, free. With DJs voodoo and Purgatory spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, glam, and eighties.

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.

Slam! Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. Electro techno costume party with DJs Havoc, Tracer, Denise, and Mean Chaveen.

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

Trannyshack DNA Lounge. 10pm, $12. Siouxie Sioux tribute.

SATURDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Fishbear, Bob Hill Band, Moonlight Orchestra Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Funk Revival Orchestra, Destruments Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $12.

Leela James Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Francesca Lee and the New Believers, Welcome Matt, Owen Roberts Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Nerv, Negative Trend, Grannies, Lewd, Nihilist Cunt Submission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 8pm, $7.

Off With Their Heads, Static Thought, In Defence Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

River City Tanlines, Top Ten, Leaders Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Robyn Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 7pm, free.

*Robyn, Kelis, Dan Black, Far East Movement Mezzanine. 7pm, $25-40.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Little Teeth, miRthkon Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $19.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Sore Thumbs, Code 4-15, Dynamite 8, Switchblade Riot Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Tainted Love Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $23.

Tang!, Crazy Ballhead Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Dinner set Coda. 7pm, $5.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Brazil Vox Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

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

Fuzzpod, Ableton Andy, Amalgamation, Freddy McGuire, DF Tram Amnesia. 6pm, $7-$10. Presented by the Songbird Festival.

Moore Brothers, Paula Frazer, Sweet Chariot Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Orquesta America The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $5-10. Eclectic 80s music with Djs Damon, Phillie Ocean, and Javier, plus free 80s hair and make-up by professional stylists.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with a birthday set by Mysterious D.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 100m, $7. DJs Nuxx and Zax spin dance music for homos and friends.

Colombia y Panama Coda. 10pm, $5. With DJs Beto, Vinnie Esparza, and Guillermo.

Gemini Disco Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Disco with DJ Derrick Love and Nicky B. spinning deep disco.

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

Smack! Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Hosted by Juanita MORE with DJs Chuck Hampton and Jason Kendig spinning underground Detroit club music.

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

SUNDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

DJ Hit Force, Thunderbleed Blind Vengeance Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $3.

Lycaon Pictus, MC Subzero Permafrost, Kemo Sabe, DJ Junk Drawer Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Memorials, Points North, Ben Nenkert, Burnouts, Seth Chapla Slim’s. 8:30pm, $15.

Nihlotep, Locusta, Argentinum Astrum, Pale Chalice Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $8.

Queensryche Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $40.

100 Monkeys, Kissing Club Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $14.

Thollem, Dieterich, Amendola, Shudder Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Toadies, Dead Country, Famous Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $16.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTY

Country Casanovas Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Forro Brazuca The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Jovanotti, Bomba Estéreo Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Alex Walsh Bazaar Café, 5927 California, SF; (415) 831-5620. 6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep, Ludachris, and guest McPullish.

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?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

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

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

Play DNA Lounge. 5pm, $35. House with Joe Gauthreaux.

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

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bear in Heaven, Twin Sister, Beach Fossils Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

“Cat’s Pajamas” Make-Out Room. 8pm, $7-12. With Dusty Rose, Mr. Lucky, Ramshackle Romeos, and Cabaret Nouveaux with Allison Lovejoy.

Dangerous Summer, Morning Of, Places and Numbers Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $12.

Warnwulf, Whiskey Thieves, Intrinsic Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Gentry Bronson and Kaitlin McGraw Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

Earl Brothers Amnesia. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

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

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

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.

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

TUESDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Michael Beach Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Delta Mirror, Borneo, Here Comes the Saviours Rickshaw Stop. 7pm, $10.

Goodnight Loving, Touch-Me-Nots, Switchbacks Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Laura Marling Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Neon Trees, Civil Twilight, Paper Tongues, Pacific Hurt Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

*Night Marchers, Obits, Moonhearts Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Prayers for Atheists, George Watsky, Aquifer Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

West Coast Singer/Songwriter Competition Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. “Stump the Wizard” with DJ Wizard and DJ Goat Leg.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/21–Tues/27 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. $8-10. "3rd I Presents: The Bard in Bollywood: Shakespeare Re-Invented," presentation with film clips by Gitanjali Shahani, Sat, 7.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF; (415) 668-6384. $10. "Rocksploitation with Citizen Midnight:" Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma, 1974), Sat, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Night of the Iguana (Huston, 1964), Wed, 2:30, 7, and Boom! (Losey, 1968), Wed, 4:50, 9:20. •A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951), Thurs, 2:10, 7, The Fugitive Kind (Lumet, 1959), Thurs, 4:25, 9:25. •Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984), and 1941 (Spielberg, 1979), Fri, 9:05. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Sat-Tues. See film listings.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Oplev, 2009), call for dates and times. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (Stern and Sundberg, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Sun Behind the Clouds (Sonam and Sarin, 2010), call for dates and times. Let It Rain (Jaoui, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Anton Chekhov’s The Duel (Koshashvili, 2010), July 23-29, call for times.

"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. The Blob (Yeaworth, 1958), Fri, 8; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009), Sat, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE East lawn, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. "Waterfront Flicks:" Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), Thurs, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. "CinemaLit: Musicals With a Message:" The Harmonists (Vilsmaier, 1997), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Akira Kurosawa Centennial:" No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), Wed, 7; Yojimbo (1961), Sat, 6:30. "A Theater Near You:" Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1970), Thurs, 7. "Criminal Minds: True Crime Cinema:" Cell 2455, Death Row (Sears, 1955), Fri, 7; I Want to Live! (Wise, 1958), Fri, 8:45. "Modernist Master: The Cinema of Francesco Rosi:" Illustrious Corpses (1976), Sat, 8:40; Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979), Sun, 7.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-9. Freaks (Browning, 1932), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:15. "TV Carnage," Thurs, 7:15, 9:30. The Good, The Bad, The Weird (Kim, 2008), Fri-Sat, 7, 9:40 (also Sat, 2, 4:30). Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971), July 25-28, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4; July 28, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-11.50. "SF Indie Presents: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival," Wed-Thurs. See www.sfindie.com for schedule. Daddy Longlegs (Safdie and Safdie, 2009), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Killer Inside Me (Winterbottom, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. "Wallace Stagner Environmental Films:" Fresh (Joanes, 2009), Thurs, 6.

"TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA" 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. Ready Set Bag! (da Silva and Jacobs, 2008), Thurs, 8. With free popcorn and live music.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com $11.50. "Another Hole in the Head Film Festival," horror and grindhouse films, July 23-29.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Behind the Burly Q (Zemeckis, 2010), Thurs-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 4 and 6. "Something From Nothing: Films on Design and Architecture:" "wow + flutter" (2009), Sun, 2.

Film listings

David Talbot
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

The 30th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival runs July 14-Aug 9 at the Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; CineArts@Palo Alto Square, 3000 El Camino Real Bldg Six, Palo Alto; and Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 118 Fourth St, San Rafael. Tickets (most shows $11) are available by calling (415) 256-TIXX or visiting www.sfjff.org. For schedule, see www.sfbg.com.

OPENING

Agora There’s a good movie somewhere in Agora, but finding it would require severe editing. It’s not that the film is too long, though it does drag in stretches. The problem is that there are too many stories being told: Hypatia of Alexandria, the central figure, only emerges as the focus well into the film. Meanwhile, there’s Davus (Max Minghella), the slave boy in love with her; Orestes (Oscar Isaac), the student who tries to win her affection; Synesius (Rupert Evans), the devout Christian. We jump from character to character and plot to plot — the conflict between the pagans and the Christians, the conflict between the Christians and the Jews, and Hypatia’s studies in astronomy. Agora is so scattered that by the time it reaches its tragic conclusion — only a spoiler if you haven’t already Googled Hypatia — there’s little room to breathe, let alone grieve. While Hypatia herself is a fascinating subject, Agora is weighed down by all the stories it’s intent on cramming in. (2:06) Clay, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

*Anton Chekhov’s The Duel Conformity vs. freedom, small-town whispers vs. the heavy hand of the law — Georgian director Dover Kosashvili successfully teases out some of the tensions in the Anton Chekhov novella, encapsulating the provincial pressures brought to bear on deviants and nonconformists during a steamy summer in a seaside resort town in the Caucasus. Dissolute civil servant and would-be intellectual Laevsky (Andrew Scott) is in the bind, as he gripes to the town doctor Samoylenko (Niall Buggy). Laevsky has everything he wants: he’s coaxed the creamy, married Nadya (Fiona Glascott) into living with him openly, yet now that her husband has died, he desires nothing more than to be free of her. In the meantime upstanding zoologist Von Koren (Tobias Menzies) simmers in the background, gaging Laevsky’s social mores and practically oozing contempt. Matters come to a head as Laevsky begs a loan from Samoylenko to escape his ripening paramour, who is also beginning to feel the gracious perimeters of the town closing in around her. From the buttons-and-bows millinery details to the oppressive dark wood furnishings, Kosashvili even-handedly builds a compelling Victorian-era mise en scene that seems to perfectly evoke the Chekhov’s milieu — it’s only when the title entanglement comes to pass that we finally see which side he’s on. (1:35) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Breathless Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Godard’s New Wave classic by checking out this restored, newly struck print. (1:30) Embarcadero, Cerrito.

Farewell In Joyeux Noel (2005) director Christian Carion’s new drama, a KGB agent slips top-secret documents to a French businessman, hoping to bring about the end of the Cold War. Fun fact: Fred Ward plays Reagan. (1:53)

*Great Directors See "Close-Up." (1:26) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

The Lottery Children from Harlem and the Bronx hope to get into a prestigious school in this doc about the education reform movement. (1:21) Roxie.

Ramona and Beezus Beverly Cleary’s squabbling sisters hit the big screen in this live-action comedy. (1:44)

Salt Angelina Jolie plays a CIA officer accused of being a Russian spy. (1:31) Marina.

ONGOING

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo (1:30) Sundance Kabuki.

*City Island (1:40) Elmwood, Four Star.

Cyrus (1:32) California, Empire, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki.

Despicable Me (1:35) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center.

*Exit Through the Gift Shop (1:27) Lumiere.

Get Him to the Greek (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*The Girl Who Played With Fire (2:09) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Smith Rafael.

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2:32) Four Star, Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Grown Ups (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*I Am Love (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki.

Inception As my movie going companion pointed out, "Christopher Nolan must’ve shit a brick when he saw Shutter Island." In Nolan’s Inception, as in Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio is a troubled soul trapped in a world of mind-fuckery, with a tragic-vengeful wife (here, Marion Cotillard) and even some long-lost kids looming in his thoughts at all times. But Inception, about a team of corporate spies who infiltrate dreams to steal information and implant ideas, owes just as much to The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and probably a James Bond flick or two. Familiar though it may feel, at least Inception is based on a creative idea — how many movies, much less summer blockbusters, actually require viewer brain power? If its complex house-of-cards plot (dreams within dreams within dreams) can’t quite withstand nit-picking, its action sequences are confidently staged and expertly directed, including a standout sequence involving a zero-gravity fist fight and elevator ride. Though it’s hardly genius — and Leo-recycle aside — Inception is worth it, if you don’t mind your puzzle missing a few pieces. (2:30) Cerrito, Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (1:24) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

John Rabe (2:14) Four Star.

*The Kids Are All Right (1:47) Bridge, California, Piedmont, SF Center.

*Knight and Day (2:10) 1000 Van Ness.

The Last Airbender (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Let It Rain (1:39) Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

Micmacs (1:44) Opera Plaza.

Predators (1:51) 1000 Van Ness.

*Restrepo (1:33) Lumiere, Shattuck.

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Opera Plaza, Red Vic, Shattuck.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1:43) Elmwood, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center.

South of the Border (1:18) Elmwood, Sundance Kabuki.

*Stonewall Uprising (1:22) Lumiere.

Touching Home (1:48) Smith Rafael.

*Toy Story 3 (1:49) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2:04) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Winter’s Bone (1:40) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

On the Cheap listings

David Talbot
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0

P>On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THURSDAY 22

RitLab Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; (415) 655-7800. 6pm, $5. Roll up your sleeves and create art with your friends at this weekly installment of the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s D.I.Y. craft workshop focusing on personalized amulets that celebrate womanhood. Featuring snacks, drinks, creative guidance, and free materials.

BAY AREA

“A Roof Full of Wild Flowers” Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk.; (510)526-5252. 7pm, free. As part of the Bone Room Presents natural history lecture series, California Academy of Sciences Senior Curator and Botanist Frank Alameda will talk about the living, growing, 2.5 acre roof on the new California Academy of Sciences building. Alameda will discuss the construction of the roof and the part that it plays in the sustainability of the museum as a whole.

FRIDAY 23

Black Rock Roller Disco SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 863-1414. 8pm; $7 in disco or playa garb, $10 no costume, $5 skate rental. Skate to some old school funk and roller disco with the Black Rock Rollers and help raise funds to bring a roller disco rink to Burning Man 2010. Participants must be 21 and over and Black Rock Roller Disco is not responsible for alcohol related crashes.

BAY AREA

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakl.; (510) 465-6400. 8pm, $5. Enjoy a true vintage movie experience complete with period newsreels, cartoons, previews, live music from the Mighty Wurlitzer organ, and audience participation games at this screening of E.T. in the classic, art deco Paramount Theater.

Ransanble! Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakl.; www.raratoulimen.com. Fri. 6pm-9:30pm, Sat. 11am-9pm, Sun. Noon-6pm; free-$20. Gather with dancers, musicians, community leaders, scholars, activists, dance and music educators, linguists, cultural and food enthusiasts and supporters of Haiti for this Haitian arts and culture festival featuring film screenings, dance workshops, Haitian cuisine, art, lectures, performances, Kreyol language classes and more.

SATURDAY 24

“The Bard in Bollywood” Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.thirdi.org. 7pm, $8-$10 sliding scale. Shakespearean scholar, Gitanjali Shahani, will explore the many adaptations, manifestations, and appropriations of Shakespeare in popular Hindi cinema using clips from Shakespeare Wallah, Maqbool, and Omkara to illustrate how Bollywood has re-imagined Shakespeare through the ages.

“Fly Trap Theater” Paxton Gate’s Curiosities For Kids, 766 Valencia, SF; (415)252-9990. 2pm, free. This kid-friendly presentation by staffers from the Conservatory of Flowers offers an up close look at carnivorous plants and how they attack and eat bugs. There will even be a fly trap dissection, so onlookers can see the plants’ trapping mechanisms, followed by bug and plant puppet crafts.

Redstone Labor and Culture Walk Meet at Redstone Building, 16th St. and Capp, SF; RSVP at (415) 841-1254. 1pm, free. Learn about the history behind the murals in the lobby of the Redstone Building, a building that was the headquarters of the 1934 General Strike, followed by a guided walk through the vibrant surrounding neighborhood highlighting the Mission’s art, ethnic history, and class struggle.

Urban Youth Arts Festival Precita Park, Folsom at Precita, SF; (415) 285-2287. 1pm-6pm, free. Over 2,000 square feet of portable wall space will be open for artists of all ages to express themselves with free paint, brushes, and aerosol paint cans to get things started. There will also be mural performances, live music, breakdancing, spoken word performances, and free refreshments.

SUNDAY 25

Prepare for the Playa Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF; www.preparefortheplaya.com. Noon-7pm, free. Over 60 burner businesses and designers will be showcasing their playa specific products and services, including lights, faux fur, goggles, dust masks, costumes, sexy playa outfits, and more. There will also be a fashion show, how-to demonstrations for playa survival, virgin burner makeovers, and more.

Laborfest Book Fair and Poetry Reading Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; www.laborfest.net. 9:30am-5pm, free. All day long, the Mission Cultural Center will feature multiple rooms where authors, activists, educators, and organizers will present labor themed panel discussions, book discussions, poetry readings, historical lectures, tabling, socializing, and more.

Symphony in the Park Dolores Park, Dolores at 18th St., SF; www.sfsymphony.org. 2pm, free.Pack a picnic basket and bring your friends and family for the San Francisco Symphony’s free concert in Dolores Park, including a special tribute to Mexico with conductor Alondra de la Parra to celebrate the bicentennial of the independence of Mexico.

Up Your Alley Dore Alley at Folsom, SF; www.folsomstreetfair.org/alley. 11am-6pm, $5 suggested donation. If you like bondage, animal role play, kink, leather straps, whips, paddles, latex outfits, suspension, and hardcore BDSM pastimes, than the Dore Alley street fair is for you! This smaller, more gay male-focused event features demonstrations, kinky vendors, and local DJs setting the mood.

BAY AREA

Last Sundays Fest Telegraph between Bancroft and Dwight, Berk.; www.lastsundaysfest.com. Noon-7pm, free. Enjoy a whole day jam packed with East Bay culture at this street festival featuring live indie pop and rock music, craft, food, and contemporary merchandise vendors, children’s exhibits, and more.

For Lit, Talks, and Benefits listings, visit the Pixel Vision blog at www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision.

Stage listings

David Talbot
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0

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.

THEATER

OPENING

BAY AREA

 

Blithe Spirit Live Oak Thatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-5999, www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; also August 19, 8pm. Through August 21. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents the Noel Coward play, directed by Hector Correa.

ONGOING

Abigail: The Salem Witch Trials Temple SF, 540 Howard; www.templesf.com. $10. July 29, Aug 5, 12, 19, 26, 9pm. Through Aug 26. Buzz Productions, with Skycastle Music and Lunar Eclipse Records, presents an original rock opera based on the Salem witch trials.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept. 4. Actors Theatre presents Tennessee Williams’ sultry, sweltering tale of a Mississippi family, directed by Keith Phillips.

Cindy Goldfield & Scrumbly Koldewyn in Cowardly Things New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctsf.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. Cindy Goldfield and Scrumbly Koldewyn in a tribute to Noel Coward.

Dead Certain Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (866) 811-4111. $12-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through August 14. Expression Productions presents a psychological thriller by Marcus Lloyd..

Gilligan’s Island: Live on Stage! The Garage, 975 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Sun, 8pm. Through August 29. Moore Theatre and SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts brings the TV show to the stage, lovey.

How the Other Half Loves Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason; (800) 838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35, Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. In Alan Ayckbourn’s 1971 comedy, a night of infidelity propels two colliding couples into menacing a third, a pair of innocents unwittingly drawn into the whole affair as alibis. The collisions are made all the more kinetic by the fact that Ayckbourn cheekily drops the two principal couples into overlapping living rooms, where they continually brush by each other in ironic obliviousness. At the outset of this droll two-act, Fiona Foster (a smart, cucumber-cool Sylvia Kratins) has just slept with Bob Phillips (a brilliantly sourpussed James Darbyshire), junior colleague of her husband Frank (Jeff Garrett, exuding the animated splendor of the full-on English twit), on the night of the couple’s wedding anniversary (pure coincidence for the forgetful, loveless Fiona). In loose coordination with lover Bob, Fiona explains her late night absence with reference to a pair of vague acquaintances, the Featherstones (Jocelyn Stringer and Adam D. Simpson). Bob does the same with Teresa (a spunky Corinne Proctor), his homebound wife and a new, deeply disgruntled young mother. Naturally, back-to-back dinner parties with said alibis ensue, much to the horror and chagrin of the adulterers. Off Broadway West Theatre Company’s production, smoothly helmed by Richard Harder, makes the most of the complex staging as both time and space collapse over intersecting dining tables. If the play is slow to catch fire, it reaches a nice sustained peak that proves worth the going. Shaky accents from Garrett and especially Simpson can distract at times, but Harder’s cast is generally solid and engaging, with particularly enjoyable work from Darbyshire and Proctor as the volatile younger Phillips with their crass bickering, canned erotic energy, and barely countenanced off-stage baby. (Avila)

The 91 Owl African American Arts Cultural Complex, 762 Fulton; 574-8908, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Nightly, 8pm. Through Thurs/22. A production of Bernard Norris’s play about the life of a San Francisco bus stop.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

Piaf: Love Conquers All Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-36. Tues-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm. Through August 7. Tone Poet Productions brings a portrait of Edith Piaf to the stage.

*Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker Dolores Park and other sites; 285-1717, www.sfmt.org. Free. Sat-Sun, 2pm; also Sept 6, 2pm; Sept 17, 8pm. Througb Sept 17. It may have been just a coincidence, but it certainly seems auspicious that the San Francisco Mime Troupe, itself collectively run since the 1970’s, would preview their latest show Posibilidad on the United Nations International Day of Cooperatives. The show, which centers around the struggles of the last remaining workers in a hemp clothing factory (“Peaceweavers”), hones in on the ideological divide between business conducted as usual, and the impulse to create a different system. Taking a clip from the Ari Lewis/Naomi Klein documentary The Take, half of the play is set in Argentina, where textile-worker Sophia (Lisa Hori-Garcia) becomes involved in a factory takeover for the first time. Her past experiences help inform her new co-workers’ sitdown strike and takeover of their own factory after they are told it will close by their impossibly fey, new age boss Ernesto (Rotimi Agbabiaka). You don’t need professional co-op experience to find humor in the nascent collective’s endless rounds of meetings, wince at their struggles against capitalistic indoctrination, or cheer the rousing message of “Esta es Nuestra Lucha” passionately sung by Velina Brown, though in another welcome coincidence, the run of Posibilidad also coincides with the National Worker Cooperative conference being held in August, so if you get extra inspired, you can always try to join forces there. (Nicole Gluckstern)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through August 28. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

*when i die, i will be dead Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.mcvf.org. $15-20. Thur-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/24. This sparkling pair of new dance-theater pieces from director-choreographer Alicia Ohs unexpectedly marks the final production at the Mission Street haunt of Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, which perforce closes its doors at the end of the month as a search for a new space continues. It’s hard to imagine a more feisty, clever and poignant way to mark the otherwise somber milestone than this final Mission Street edition of MCVF’s DIY residency (co-produced with Choyoh! Productions and THEOFFCENTER). The first piece, “New York, I Love You, I hate You . . . Now Dance!,” unfurls and unravels a dance audition in the Big Apple with insight and incisive humor—cuttingly performed by a bold, charismatic cast that includes Ay.Lin, Hana Erdman, Harold Burns, and Jose Navarrete. It amounts to a singular and low-key–sensational tribute that puts the “us” back in chorus. The companion piece, “Dokuen” (Japanese for “solo”), is another surprise, a fresh and charming meditation on creativity, communication, and communion that cycles through a series of dynamic encounters between choreographer, dancers, and domestic, all on a tightrope walk between the concrete and the ineffable. Its sublime moments of imperfect quiet and stillness say it all, since even here there’s so much going on—room yet to create and destroy. (Avila)

Young Frankenstein Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor; 551-2000, www.shnsf.com. $30-99. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm; also Wed/21, 2 and 8pm. Through Sun/25. For all its outlandish showmanship, Mel Brooks’s other movie-turned-musical is not quite as grand a beast as The Producers. Still, the adventures of Victor Frankenstein’s reputation-conscious grandson, Frederick Frankenstein—played with exceeding charm and surgeon-like skill by major cut-up Roger Bart, originator of the role on Broadway—remains a monster of a show, in more ways than one. The rapid-fire repartee, for starters, is scarily deft, the comic timing among a first-rate cast all but flawless (even when milking a line shamelessly), the fancy footwork (choreographed by director Susan Stroman) pretty fancy, and the mise en scène holds some attractive surprises as well. At the same time, and despite the fecund humor revolving around questions of size and virility, the show’s actual two-and-a-half-hour length proves a bit wearying, especially as many of the best jokes (though by no means all) are the much-loved and universally much-repeated gags from the film. Moreover, Brooks’s songs, while very able, rarely rise to memorable and sometimes feel perfunctory or a bit busy. One of the glorious exceptions is the blind hermit scene (played brilliantly by Brad Oscar), which combines the hilariously plaintive song “Please Send Me Someone” with a lovingly faithful rendition of the original spoof for a sequence that literally smokes. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Auctioning the Ainsleys Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through August 8. TheatreWorks begins its 41st season with a world premiere of a play by Laura Schelhardt about a family putting their lives up for sale.

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/24, July 31, 8pm; Sun/25, Aug 1, 7pm. Through August 1. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

*Machiavelli’s The Prince Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 558-1381, www.centralworks.org. $14-25. Thurs-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 5pm. Through August 22. Set in an intimate salon-space in the Berkeley City Club, this stage adaptation of one of the most famous documents on political power ever written gains a certain conversational quality. In fact, the script, penned by Gary Graves, is really just one long conversation—an imagined encounter between Nicolo Machiavelli and the man he dedicated his treatise to, Lorenzo de Medici II. Machiavelli (Mark Farrell) has been called by de Medici (Cole Alexander Smith)

to possibly regain favor in his court after a long banishment. With him he brings a notebook of his musings on gaining and retaining political power, which he bestows on Lorenzo for him to read. As the Duke of Florence, Smith plays his character with the measured dignity and watchful countenance of a career mobster. He protests the extremism of his former teacher’s philosophy of rule even as he is casually seduced by its implications. Farrell’s Machiavelli tries to play his position with calculated Mephistopheles cool. However, he cannot escape the obvious taint of his own failures, and eventually, for all his talk of power, he is revealed to be ultimately powerless, though his ideas remain with de Medici, long after he himself is let go. (Gluckstern)

The Taming of the Shrew Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-25. Fri-Sun, 8pm; also Sun, 4pm and 5pm. Through Sept. 26. Marin Theatre Company presents a swashbuckling version of the classic.

 

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Theatre Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, B350 Fort Mason; 474-6776, www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 31. Bay Area Theatresports presents an evening of theater and comedy.

The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Sculpture Court, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Various times. Through August 22. Charming Hostess presents a series of performances in conjunction with an interactive sound sculpture.

Bridge Builders and Other Unconventional Women CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.counterpulse.org. Wed/21-Thurs/22, 7pm. $6-12. Flyaway Productions presents its Arts and Activism Apprenticeship performance by young women.

Litquake: Fool Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; 641-7657, www.litquake.org. Sat/24, 8pm. $22.50-25. Litquake presents a staged reading from the novel by Christopher Moore.

Liz Grant Variety Pack Comedy Show Purple Onion, 140 Columbus; 200-8781, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri, 4:30pm. Through Sept 3. $10. A changing lineup of stand up comedy.

Porchlight 8th Anniversary Show Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa; 861-9199, www.verdiclub.net. Porchlight celebrates a birthday with stories from Adam Savage, Arisa White, Anthony Bedard, Kari Kieman, Scott Kravitz, Jawad Ali, and others.

Stand-up Comedy Showcase Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California; 831-5620, www.dannydechi.com. Wed/21, 7pm. Free. A showcase hosted by Danny Dechi.

Tadtarin Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St; 273-4633, www.enricolabayen.com. Fri/23-Sat/24, 8pm; Sun/25, 7pm. $25. The world premiere of a dance piece performed by Labayen Dance/SF.

BAY AREA

Hamlet: Blood in the Brain Bruns Amphitheater, Orinda; (510) 548-9666, wwwcalshakes.org. Mon/26, 7:30pm. California Shakespeare Theatre presents a one-time performance by students of Oakland technical High School.

Love Boat Capers RODA Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.gilchun.com. Sat/24, pm; Sun/25, 2pm. A dance play based on the TV series!

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

I just got back from a short trip to Canada, the land of government health care and tight bank regulations, where business is booming. From my hotel room in downtown Toronto, I could see construction cranes everywhere. The Globe and Mail had a fascinating report on a construction company manager in Winnipeg who was learning the language of the Cree tribe and creating a new apprenticeship program for First Nations people — in large part because he was facing a serious labor shortage.

Yeah, that’s right: in Canada, they can’t find enough construction workers to fill all the jobs. And there’s a good reason (which has nothing to do with zoning or taxes or fees on developers): The banks in our neighboring country to the north have always been more tightly regulated, so they didn’t have the same meltdown we saw here in the USA.

Then I came back and read that Meg Whitman, candidate for governor of California, wants to eliminate the capital gains tax in the state. I like the Huffington Post headline: "Meg Whitman tax plan: she stops paying hers."

There are two types of people in the world, the rich and the rest of us, and the rich quite often don’t work for a living. Whitman, for example, doesn’t have a day job. She pays the bills with the money she makes by investing the billion dollars or so that she racked up working at eBay.

Actually, she probably doesn’t invest much of it herself these days; she hires someone else to do that. Which means she doesn’t do anything at all to earn the money that comes in each week.

That income is called capital gains — and the HuffPo estimates that she’s bringing in enough that she’d probably owe the state about $4 million a year in taxes at current rates. If she gets elected, and manages to repeal the capital gain tax, she won’t pay any taxes on that money at all.

Which means the state will be even more broke — or that the rest of us suckers, who actually go to work every morning, will have to pay more to make up for it.

I suppose next she’ll want to deregulate the banks.

Small biz should support Chiu tax plan

David Talbot
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Small biz should support Chiu tax plan

EDITORIAL It’s rare to see a fairly conservative city agency, created in part to make it harder for progressives to push measures that might affect business, come down in favor of a new business tax. But the San Francisco Office of Economic Analysis has concluded that the proposal by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu to change the local payroll tax and impose a new tax on commercial rents would actually help local businesses, particularly small businesses. The proposal presents a crucial opportunity for progressives to make the case that the Chamber of Commerce and big downtown corporations are not advancing the interests of small businesses — and local merchant groups need to pay attention.

Chiu has taken on a problem that has lingered in San Francisco for decades. The city’s business tax is terribly regressive: Only 10 percent of the companies in town even pay the payroll tax, in part because banks, insurance companies, and financial services firms are exempt under state law. That means the burden falls the heaviest on small and medium-sized companies — the ones that provide most of the net job growth in the city.

The new proposal would make the flat payroll tax more progressive and would exempt more small businesses. It would also raise $28 million more a year for the cash-strapped municipal coffers by taxing commercial rents of more than $60,000 a year.

The commercial rent levy would force the big outfits that now pay no city taxes whatsoever to take on at least some of the burden of financing San Francisco government. Smaller companies with modest leases, and small commercial landlords, wouldn’t pay the new tax at all.

Chiu originally had proposed an even broader tax, which would have raised more than $35 million. But after the Small Business Commission expressed concerns, he changed the measure, reducing the burden on small business even further. And at this point, Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist at the Office of Economic Analysis, reports that the tax would lead to greater job creation in the private sector (because of the reduction in the payroll tax) as well as greater job creation in the public sector (because of the additional revenue to the city).

It’s the kind of idea that ought to have broad-based support — progressives looking to fund crucial services see it as a way to bring in money, and small businesses ought to see it as a way to cut taxes and create jobs in the sector of the city that most needs economic stimulus.

Unfortunately, the response from small business leaders hasn’t been encouraging. The commission hasn’t taken a stand on the measure; on July 12th, the panel deadlocked 2-2, with one member absent and two slots still vacant (the mayor hasn’t filled them). That lets the big downtown players — the Chamber, the Building Owners and Managers Association, the Committee on JOBS, etc. — in a position to claim that the Chiu proposal is anti-business.

We’ve seen this pattern far to often. Small business groups allow big corporations, which have no interest in the real issues that impact local merchants, stick the little folks out front on political issues. We’ve seen it over the years with public power, commercial rent control, downtown development, and taxes — and it needs to stop.

The Small Business Commission, the Council of District Merchants, all the local community merchant groups, and anyone else who really cares about the interests of small business in San Francisco should support the Chiu measure. It’s a tax plan that’s good for small business. And if the advocates don’t realize that, they’re hurting themselves, the customers, and the city.

Repairing the initiative process – in CA and SF

David Talbot
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Repairing the initiative process – in CA and SF

OPINION I recently participated in a research trip to Switzerland to study the alpine nation’s system of direct democracy (initiative and referendum, or I&R). Its model offers fresh ideas about how to repair the dysfunctional initiative process in California and San Francisco.

In California, it takes approximately 750,000 signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot — almost 3 percent of the statewide population — and about three-fifths that for a nonconstitutional statute. That’s an extremely high threshold, so in actual practice the only players able to qualify a ballot initiative are wealthy individuals or organizations that can pay an army of circulators about $3 per signature. It has been years since a statewide initiative has qualified through the work of volunteers.

Because of these dynamics, direct democracy in California has been captured by wealthy special interests. Proponents of Proposition 14, which was bankrolled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and big business, outspent opponents by 50:1 to pass a “top two” primary that is deform masked as reform. Even when Big Money’s measures lose — as PG&E’s Proposition 16 did — they force everyone else to play defense. Ironically, this dynamic is the opposite of that envisioned by California Gov. Hiram Johnson, who in 1911 created the initiative to allow the people to counter powerful special interests like railroad tycoons.

But in Switzerland, the political leaders have crafted an impressive practice that fosters a noisy collaboration between the people and their elected representatives. That nation has a proposal-counterproposal system. Once an initiative or referendum qualifies for the ballot, the government is given a chance either to pass that law itself or put a counterproposal on the ballot. Similarly, if the government passes a law, the people can put their own counterproposal on the ballot or try to overturn the law via a referendum.

This dynamic unleashes a process that is less polarizing and fosters a healthier debate. That in turn fosters more of an ongoing dialogue between the people and their elected representatives that, over time, forges a broader consensus on issues.

But a key reason this dynamic works is because the Swiss only require about 100,000 signatures for an initiative — a bit more than 1 percent of the population — and 50,000 for a referendum. The Swiss also allow a longer period of time for collecting those signatures, up to 18 months, compared to only five months in California. So non-wealthy interests can use the I&R process and signatures can be gathered with all-volunteer labor.

Gathering 1 percent is still a sizable undertaking; it would equal about 370,000 signatures in California for a constitutional amendment. But that’s low enough that serious efforts lacking deep pockets could still play in the game.

For example, look at the Jeff Adachi-led initiative over public pensions in San Francisco. Adachi has put his fingers on the pulse of an issue that needs addressing, but many progressives feel that the details in Adachi’s measure are too harsh and polarizing. But what if a counterproposal was put on the ballot, giving the public another choice? The subsequent multichoice campaign would be less polarizing and could help find the sweet spot of consensus.

The Swiss model isn’t perfect. Like California, when it comes to the actual I&R campaigns, Switzerland has inadequate campaign finance and transparency laws. With no public financing for underfunded campaigns, private money dominates and skews the public debate.

That’s why free media time should be provided for all significant viewpoints. And shared financing for all campaigns, pro and con, should be considered; all campaigns would be required to pay 15 percent of the amount they spend on their own campaign into a common fund that is distributed to the underfunded campaigns.

If I&R in California and San Francisco is designed correctly, it has the potential to reinvigorate this age-old invention of representative government. *

Steven Hill is author of the recently published Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.

Truckin’

David Talbot
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Truckin’

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS Jo Jo Hoot is a kind of a guru of the Bay Area taco truck scene. Fifteen years ago, the first time I wrote about him, he was taking me on a taco truck tour of East Oakland. Now he lives in San Francisco in the Mission District, and I run into his bright-eyed and brilliant wife, Ha Ha Hoot, at the grocery store.

Ha Ha and me were in a band together for 10 minutes, so we have a lot to talk about. We talk about taco trucks. Also, of course: love. I’m pretty sure she was one of my friends who shed literal tears with me over my Germany story after I came back, but it might have been some taqueria’s carne asada having gone downhill that upset her.

Either way, of this I am certain: we were standing up.

But the recurringest theme of our chance neighborly meetings, all non-sequitage aside, has been a taco truck called El Gallo Giro in their neck of the Mission that, apparently, I needed to know about. They have the best carnitas within the city limits, it happens, and how lucky are Mr. and Mrs. Hoot? It’s just a block from their house, at Treat and 23rd streets. And they both — being graphically designfully inclined — work at home!

There’s a playground on that corner, and on my way to see them, finally, one lunchtime last week, a soccer ball came sailing over the fence and bouncing across the street right in front of me. Immediately, six or 20 little boys with 60 or 200 little fingers were latched onto the chain linkage, pudging through it (in some cases) and looking at me imploringly.

It was interesting to find myself, for a change, on the street side of this most basic of human interactions. They didn’t even have to say, "Little help?" I was off my bike and onto the ball.

For kicks I threw it back to them, only I threw it like a girl. Meaning: it barely even made it to the opposite sidewalk, let alone the fence, but, while their various groans were still caught in their little boy throats, I hitched my skirt, stopped traffic, crossed the street, caught the fourth bounce on the top of my left foot, flicked it up to my left knee, transferred to the right, popped it high off my head and behind my back, and no-look right-heeled it back over my head, and the fence — except it hit one of those damn power lines and plopped back down to the sidewalk.

They were like, "Little help?"

I just stood there. "Didn’t you see what I just did?"

"Ball," they said.

I picked it up and underhanded it over the fence to them, then, while play resumed, went around that intersection collecting my scattered sandals, shattered showmanpersonship, jewelry, bike, etc.

Jo Jo Hoot was happy to see me. We used to play in some bands together, for 15 or 20 minutes, so we have a lot to talk about too. Mostly taco trucks. Ha Ha and me and him walked back down the block to this one, El Gallo Giro, or, the round bad wine, and ordered our tacos and burritos. Which we ate in the little park there.

Where the kids were playing soccer. We sat on a small wall, side-by-side-by- side, with Jo Jo in the middle, and watched them fall down at the slightest little jostle, writhing on the ground in overdramatized and underbelievable agony, emulating their recent World Cup heroes. I didn’t see one single attempted bicycle kick.

The Gallo Giro truck, I’m just guessing, is associated with El Gallo Giro Taqueria in San Jose and various even southerner California locations such as L.A.

Their tacos are $1.25 apiece, $1.50 if you want carnitas, and let me just explain: you do. They’re the best, except for one other place in maybe South City or Daly City or Pacifica, I forget, according to Jo Jo Hoot.

Who is, as I said, the expert on the subject. He also told me where the best carne asada was, and the best al pastor, but I forgot and forgot those two already too — which, don’t worry, only makes life more interesting for you and me, or at least me.

Something about an owl, or gold, or something, on 24th Street? Anyone? Little help! *

EL GALLO GIRO TACO TRUCK

Treat and 23rd St., SF

Cash only

No alcohol

Psychic Dream Astrology

David Talbot
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July 21-27

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Your breadth of vision is being challenged and you should focus on the big picture before you start freaking out over the details. Lay out your goals, then break them into pieces you can handle.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

It’s hard to be free if you’re not able to experience peace in own your head. Caution and anxiety are different impulses, so make sure you can tell the difference.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Go at things slowly this week, Gem. Things are either about to change real quickly on you or you will be the one to do an about-face! Anything good will only get better, and crappy things can always wait.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Don’t let fearful expectations drive your car, Cancer. If they insist on being a backseat driver, so be it, but bump that bitch out the driver’s seat! Take a risk and start something new and daring.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Stay focused on what you’re in it for, Leo, so that your actions can stay focused on keeping you happy. You may need to tweak your approach to reflect the things that are truly important to you this week.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

This may be a "glass is half-empty" moment, but that’s OK. All you have to do is figure out how to fill it back up. Be willing to work hard to support yourself this week.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Take full responsibility for your actions, Libra. With Saturn officially in your neck of the zodiac, it’s time for you to do an inventory check on your life and start reworking things where needed.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

If you’re feeling overwhelmed it’s probably because you’ve got too much on your plate. Don’t be scared to edit, Scorp. You’ve got to prioritize first and then organize based on that.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Make choices you can live with and set goals you can actually execute! You may have to adjust your intent to be more realistic,. Forge plans based on what you know of yourself, not on what you wish is true.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

If you let go of control and just let things happen, you may be surprised and what unfolds, Cappy. Your greatest good will come from being open to new experiences, even if they’re outside your comfort zone.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Be nice, Aquarius! You may be so focused on your worries that you stop acting kindly toward yourself or the folks closest to you. The answers aren’t as important as the journey toward them.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Take yourself out on a date this week and treat yourself extra nice, Pisces. Spend alone time with yourself and enjoy it, then get to work. It’s time to set some limits and envision a path you can commit to.

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.

Appetite: Paging through M.F.K. Fisher’s kitchen

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: Paging through M.F.K. Fisher’s kitchen

Like any self-respecting food lover (and writer), I’m well aware that, hands down, M.F.K. Fisher (Mary Frances) is our greatest food writer, and I’ve been pursuing the pleasurable endeavor of working my way through her entire catalog over the years.

As with my literature preferences, I find myself more often drawn to the classics, or, in this case, first flush of food writers who set the tone mid-20th century, like A.J. Liebling (read “Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris”) and Angelo Pellegrini (read “The Unprejudiced Palate”), though none have the impact on me that Fisher does.

She writes of food, travel, life but most importantly, she writes… drawing you in, enveloping you first and foremost with her person, heart, and poetic style.

There have been numerous books written about her over the years but one that landed on my desk was a 2008 UC Press edition of M.F.K. Fisher Among the Pots & Pans by Joan Reardon.


The book is a straightforward biography summarizing key points in Mary Frances’ (I love that Reardon calls her by the name she preferred to be called) life and complicated relationships, but through the intriguing slant of the many homes she lived in, particularly the kitchens she cooked in, from California to France.

Irish illustrator Avram Dumitrescu paints warm vignettes of her kitchens, imparting a friendly glow to the book, and complimenting photos of Mary Frances. Whether it be the cover illustration of her kitchen in Hemet, CA, or those in her St. Helena and Glen Ellen homes, one gets a glimpse into Mary Frances, the cook, though she was first and foremost a writer.

As her birthday recently came and went on July 3rd (she would have been 102), it’s as good a time as any to read and reflect on one of our most gifted writers, who just also happened to love food.

Undertaker in reverse

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Undertaker in reverse

A window in Sean Smith’s apartment looks across the street at the park. To the left of this window, inside the room, there’s an old sign that says Undertaker.

Smith is the kind of devoted undertaker who finishes what he starts. He’s a reverse undertaker: the kind that brings things to life, instead of escorting them through death. In recent years, he’s released solo albums of instrumental guitar music, and he’s also put together a pair of compilations devoted to guitarists of the Bay Area. Smith’s dedication to the instrument and its myriad possibilities isn’t selfish. Through 2006’s Berkeley Guitar and this year’s Beyond Berkeley Guitar (Tompkins Square), he’s helping to shine a light on fellow talents like Ava Mendoza, whose new album Shadow Stories (Resipiscent) can turn from Sonny Sharrock-caliber noise to skipping melody at the drop of a dime.

Smith’s own musical ability is vast and alive. He recently finished recording an impressive pair of albums with Tim Green. At a time when designer reissue labels like Numero Group are spotlighting guitar instrumentals, there should be room on a label of note for Smith’s commanding new albums, which stretch from solo interiors to epic band sounds while maintaining the same purity and high intensity. This week, at the Mission Creek Music Festival, Smith will emphasize his quieter, solo side. I recently talked with him about music.

SFBG   Sacred Crag Dancer, Corpse Whisperer (Iota, 2006) veers toward improvisation, while Eternal (Strange Attractors, 2007) has more of an ensemble quality. How was putting them together different?

SEAN SMITH I had a lot of energy towards improvisation at the of Sacred Crag Dancer. My dad bought me a guitar. He’d been wanting to contribute for a while. I found one I wanted and he bought it for me and as soon as I got it I went home and would hit ‘Record” and play. I recorded 3 hours of music and pared it down to 34 minutes.

SFBG What was the process of paring it down like?

SS It was easy. We were quick to hear what worked and what didn’t work in the improv. It’s more like spontaneous composition. I’d try to repeat things or make compositions, cohesive journeys from A to B, rather than fuck around.

There were three levels of editing: first, there’s immediate editing while you’re playing, when you just stop and say “This sucks”; second, there’s determining what works and what doesn’t; and third, determining what works to make a cohesive album that reflects the span of the work.

SFBG In terms of coming up with titles, you’re different from some instrumental artists, who will keep things stark. Some people will pour all their heart into a work and then leave it untitled. Your titles are striking, not throwaway.

SS Well, I hope none of my work is throwaway.

There’s a lot of variation and possibility in titling. You might have your own idea that you start with before the music comes to you.

With Sacred Crag Dancer, the music came first, it was sprouting forth from nothing, and titles had to be created to fit it.

“Extrance” is an exit and entrance — you’re leaving your world and entering a world where the character (of the album) dictates your experience.

SFBG There is a lot of deathly imagery in that album’s titles.

SS “Sacred Crag Dancer, Corpse Whisperer” comes from something I thought I heard Daniel Higgs say one time when I saw him play. The energy of the album was definitely inspired in part by him. I was moving in that [improvisational] direction and then I saw him play for the first time and everything just shifted.

It seems like each of my albums has a character creating the environment. The Sacred Crag Dancer Corpse Whisperer is a conjurer of a weird spiritual realm.

The title “Some Men Are Born Posthumously” is a line from Nietzsche. He was talking about how no one would understand his work during his lifetime.

SFBG I like “Jeweled Escapement.”

SS I’m sure as a journalist you have typed on a typewriter — my typewriter’s escapement key has a jewel on it. All the titles of the album are typed on that typewriter.

FBG Making the kind of music you’re making, which isn’t tied to a particular trend, I figure you probably get responses from all kinds of people —

SS Or nobody.

SFBG Yes. In a sense doing the Berkeley Guitar and Beyond Berkeley Guitar compilations is work on your part to counter that lack of a profile, and perhaps hint at a movement. It’s almost like journalism in a way.

SS It’s been a general problem in the world of solo guitar that most of the people in that world squander their talents in obscurity.

Some people who end up on these collections won’t necessarily do anything else. Adam Snyder (from Berkeley Guitar) is a brilliant musician. He’s written hours and hours and hours and hours of music. He’s obsessed. When we lived together he couldn’t hold a job because all he wanted to was be at home playing. Yet he hasn’t made a record. I don’t know if he ever will, but I’m sure he’s still obsessively playing music.

I’m more into documenting music.

SFBG Do you like Harry Smith?

SS Yes. My mentality stems from that, from thinking, “Wow, thanks to this guy, we have all of this music,” a document of a time, of people, and of culture. If it wasn’t for him, those songs would have remained on back porches. He was able to capture something so the rest of the world could hear.

SFBG It’s a generative thing.

SS And the music becomes more generous to the listeners in the process. It becomes potentially influential.

SFBG What has it been like to work with Tim Green?

SS Great. He doesn’t say a damn thing unless it’s really important, so when he does, it means something.

I’m bummed that the (Fucking) Champs disbanded — that music is like from my dreams or something, instrumental music that powerful. With music like that, no one ever says, “When are you going to start singing?” I haven’t gotten there yet — people still ask me.

This newer music I recorded with Tim is being met with a lot of confusion. Eternal was, too. People are like, “Wait, it’s not solo guitar, but it’s instrumental, and there’s solo guitar and crazy electric guitar on it.” It doesn’t fit neatly into that finger picking American primitive thing.

SFBG Will you always be shifting in relation to that sort of traditionalism?

SS Absolutely. There’s no one way for me. There never has been.

The finger picking or instrumental thing has just been a means of expression.

When I was in 4th grade, I wanted to play saxophone, really badly. They wouldn’t let me, they wanted me to play clarinet. I tried it out for a couple of weeks and didn’t like the tone of it. But I always say that if they’d have let me play the saxophone, I’d probably be a saxophone player right now.

When I found the guitar, I realized I could express myself with it. If I didn’t have a guitar I would find a way to express myself. I’m not just in some pop band. I’m never going to break up with myself. I’m always going to be making music because I’m compelled to.

I particularly don’t want to write lyrics. I’m not interested in singing, because that’s not my instrument. The guitar is my instrument and I struggle enough with that, trying to progress and expand and play authentically.

That’s a huge part of music, too — playing authentically, playing genuinely.

SFBG Figuring that out when making music is difficult. There are different challenges that sort of have to converge. There’s the struggle to make music that to you — to your hearing and intuition — sounds good so that you like it. And at the same time, you have to do that without killing it by trying to make it too good. You have to allow it to be alive.

SS A lot of that is lost simply due to the ways in which things are recorded today.

Everything is AutoTuned. Now, in pop music if it isn’t AutoTuned, people are thrown off by it.

Even more intensely, when it comes to playing honestly, my song on Beyond Berkeley Guitar is called “Ourselves When We Are Real.” That comes from Mingus’ solo piano album [Mingus Plays Piano, 1963] — the first song on it is called “Myself When I Am Real.” When I heard it, it was so disturbing, because it’s so honest. It sounds like all these little thoughts in your head, your inner monologue mixing with the outside world, the way you look at yourself in the mirror and the way your voice sounds.

I wanted to shift that title, and I wanted to call [the composition] that because it was the most authentic piece of music that I had ever written.

SFBG Is that what you were striving for with Tim Green?

SS It’s your own process. He’s not interested in telling you what to do. His question is, “What are we doing today?”

He has tons of old funky gear to work with. He prefers to record to tape, and so do I. He sleeps until around 1 in the afternoon. You never start before 2 or 3 p.m. He likes to go late, and he’s the most patient person in the world.

For the most part, if I don’t get something by the second take I move on, because I don’t want to do it to death. But there was one time when I was playing a guitar line, and I realized I’d been playing it for two hours trying to get it right, and it was making me crazy. Tim was sitting there reading a magazine and never getting frustrated. He’d say, “That one sounded alright — do it again.” He was hearing things.

There’s a drawing in the studio that someone did of Tim sitting at the board. He’s always got a leg kicked out with his black Samba Adidas, and he’s drawn so that he has these huge elephant ears.

SFBG Have you listened to (the Numero Group compilation) Guitar Soli?

SS I haven’t heard it yet. I looked at the track listing and was vaguely familiar with most of the people on it. Even though it’s super obscure I’ve spent the last ten years of my life digging around for solo guitar records. I play a George Cromarty tune, “Topinambour.” Eternal starts with it.

SFBG There are a fair amount of reissues connected to solo guitar as of late — people like Sandy Bull are getting a new surge of attention.

SS This is the age of reissues and revisiting.

I’m in a Black Sabbath cover band with three members of Citay. I find it’s probably the most rewarding band I’ve ever played in. A friend was saying that a cover band now isn’t like this 1986 cruise ship playing Top 40 hits now, it’s a legitimate type of music.

SFBG This might be overstating, but maybe it’s like a spiritual pursuit. If you decide you’re going to cover Sabbath, you know you’re going to go deep into Sabbath.

SS For me, I want to play in a relevant way, so I want to bring the experience of seeing Black Sabbath at their prime to the audience.

SFBG What’s the band called?

SS It’s called Bob Saget.

 

SEAN SMITH

as part of the Mission Creek Music Festival

with Howlin Rain, 3 Leafs, DJ Neil Martinson

Sat/17, 9 p.m., $8

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.mcmf.org

Appetite: With Campo de Encanto, SF gets its own pisco

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: With Campo de Encanto, SF gets its own pisco

You might have heard? There’s a new pisco on the streets “for bartenders, by bartenders”: Encanto Pisco, created by Duggan McDonnell of Cantina, sommelier and spirits guru Walter Moore, and Peruvian master distiller Carlos Romero. Although an authentically Peruvian pisco (distilled — and already making waves — in Peru), it’s a homegrown San Francisco product, a labor of love from locals who know their spirits.

I had the privilege of tasting this acholado (blended) pisco before its release and now with the finished product, am delighted at how balanced it is: floral, with hints of citrus and white pepper. It stands up on its own, going down smoothly much as a brandy or eau-de-vie would, but also an ideal base for cocktails, with a large number of bars around town already stocking it. Alembic was the first to do so, it’s also at pisco havens La Mar Cebichería and Pisco Lounge, while Carlos Yturria showcased it with fig, sage and lemon at the inaugural Pickled, in Absinthe’s back room.

Campo de Encanto means ‘Field of Enchantment’, a romantic spirit evident in gorgeous, vintage-style bottling to the artisanal production of this grape brandy in the Ica Valley of Peru, combining three different grape varietals: Quebranta (76%), Torontel (6%), and Italia (18%). Encanto is sustainably harvested and distilled without preservatives, sugar or even a drop of water.

San Francisco has a rich history and love affair with pisco, inventing some of pisco’s greatest drinks like the Pisco Punch, so it seems fitting that we now have a pisco to call our own. And one of the finer, more approachable piscos at that.

You can purchase Encanto at stores like Cask or The Jug Shop

www.encantopisco.com

Deja vu all over again

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Deja vu all over again

Crackdown 2

(Ruffian)

Xbox 360

GAMER In a case of super-stealthy marketing, Microsoft placed access to the eagerly-anticipated 2007 Halo 3 beta on the disc to Crackdown, a then-unknown IP. Gamers bought the unproven game for a sneak peek at the biggest game of the year, and found themselves ensnared by Crackdown‘s hyper-realistic superhero universe and carrot-on-a-stick gameplay, which rewarded gamers for exploration. Three years later we get Crackdown 2, developed by an offshoot from the original team, and not much has changed in the game’s fictional Pacific City. Set 10 years after the first title, once again you play an agent for a shady company called simply the Agency and are tasked with saving the city from destruction.

While Crackdown was a stylized take on the Grand Theft Auto series, the sequel is influenced by recent zombie successes like Left 4 Dead, trading gangsters for undead “Freaks” who now litter the city and its numerous underground caves. Other than the new enemies, Crackdown 2 is pretty much the same game we saw three years ago, with a slew of brand new problems. Setting aside the numerous bugs and frame rate issues I experienced in Pacific City, it’s disappointing to see that there remains little story beyond the above one-sentence synopsis. With no incentive for their actions, players are forced to make their own fun in an open-word environment that they probably visited just a short time ago. Repetition has always been the name of the game — dispatching foes is secondary to hunting down hidden orbs scattered throughout the city, increasing your stats and making your agent leap higher and live longer — but playing Crackdown 2 is itself an exercise in repetition, because it’s the same city and the same stats as the first game.

Crackdown 2‘s development cycle was reportedly somewhere in the range of eight months, and in that time developer Ruffian has given the game an unattractive facelift and added the ability to play against 16 other players. Granted, eight months is not long enough to build a full-blow sequel, but Crackdown 2 is a full-priced, glorified add-on to the first title and that’s likely to upset gamers expecting bigger and better. Since 2007 a number of companies have taken a stab at the idea of an open-world superhero, most notably Prototype and Infamous, but the spirit of competition has not done Crackdown any favors. If you liked the original, you might be able to look past the problems its sequel tosses at you for the pure joy of collecting stuff, which remains the series’ best feature. But if Ruffian doesn’t make a big change in the franchise’s next iteration, it’s going to find itself left in the dust. 

Point of entry

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Point of entry

MUSIC Blessed with the pipes and vocal chords of an angelic opera singer but willing and able to deliver the type of piercing wail that would shock a banshee, Rob Halford has long been considered one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time. Rightfully dubbed “the Metal God” by fans, he has been making his mark in music for nearly 40 years, from his iconic role as front man for the legendary Judas Priest, through his tenure with Fight in the 1990s, and some excellent solo ventures during the last decade.

Halford is embarking on a summer tour with his own eponymous band. It kicks off in a San Francisco club before joining the mammoth OzzFest, so local fans are in for a rare, intimate treat. “I think San Francisco is still a very important part of America as far as the music scene. And it’s a place that has a lot of great memories for me personally,” says Halford, speaking on the phone from his home in San Diego.

“I remember one of my first ever visits to the Bay Area, in the late ’70s, when [Judas] Priest came over to the States. The big climax of that was a surprise performance with Led Zeppelin. And then some years ago, the guys from Pansy Division took me around to some cool places they thought would be of some interest to me besides Fisherman’s Wharf,” he adds, laughing.

The set list for the tour promises to touch on all facets of Halford’s career, not just Judas Priest. “That isn’t what this is about for me. It’s about playing the Halford material and the Fight records,” he explains. “The music from them is still quite potent and show off what the Halford band is able to achieve, more than anything else.”

Soft-spoken and humble, Halford is still happy to discuss his old band’s accomplishments, including Judas Priest’s classic album British Steel, which received a deluxe 30th anniversary rerelease earlier this year. “Music is like a time machine in some aspects” Halford muses. “[The rerelease] just reinforces that a great song is able to last forever. If a song you wrote in 1980 can still touch people in 2010, then I think you’re doing your work well.”

Next month Halford’s own Metal God record label is releasing the concert DVD and CD Halford: Live In Anaheim, and he hopes to enter the studio later this year to record a new album with his current band before Judas Priest roars back into action in 2011. Obviously, the 58-year old rocker shows no signs of slowing down. Indeed, he says that he loves to keep busy and wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The great thing about music is that there’s no gold watch waiting in the wings,” he says. “You keep doing it for as long as you want, and I’m always grateful because I wouldn’t be able to set foot out of the house without knowing this tremendous and resilient fan base is going to be waiting.” 

ROB HALFORD

Sat/17, 9 p.m., $37–$40

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

(800) 745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com

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