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Freeing the press

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Norwin S. Yoffie Career Achievement Award

ROBERT PORTERFIELD


Bob Porterfield is a shit-disturber, an old-fashioned investigative reporter who has no favorites, no sacred cows, and no fear of offending anyone. Since his first story — a profile of a YMCA social program published in Eugene, Ore.’s The Register-Guard in 1959, when he was 15 — Porterfield has had ink in his veins. He’s shared two Pulitzer Prizes (first for an Anchorage Daily News report on the Teamsters Union in 1975 and then for a series on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for The Boston Globe), won more than two dozen other prizes and worked on a long list of major investigative projects.

He has become something of an expert in computer-assisted reporting and information systems — but is still a down-to-earth guy who never forgot the value of traditional, hands-on digging. Back in 1986, he was on a team at Newsday looking into the federal Synfuels Corp., a scandal-plagued agency that was shut down in the wake of his stories.

"I remember once we were looking for property records on a Synfuels Corp. project linked to [former CIA Director) Bill Casey," he told me. "I wound up going down to Plymouth, N.C., (population 4,000), and I found this musty old office with two older women sitting there, knitting. There was no index book, nothing computerized. But when I explained what I was looking for, one of the women remembered the parcel of land I was talking about and pulled out the exact documents for me."

Porterfield has devoted a tremendous amount of time to teaching and mentoring, showing young reporters how to use public records to find stories. "I’m glad to see [President Obama’s] new directive on openness, but I hope it trickles down to the independent agencies," he said. "Because there’s been way, way too much secrecy." (Tim Redmond)

Beverly Kees Educator Award

ALAN GIBSON


Alan Gibson is reclaiming the Founding Fathers from conservatives with

his recent book Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions (University Press of Kansas, 2007). It examines the progressive ideals that guided early American political thought.

"The Founding Fathers are often captured by conservatives," Gibson told the Guardian. "But there is no clear line of legacy. It is much more complex than that. Conservative restoration politics are dangerous and not historically accurate."

As an undergraduate, Gibson cultivated an interest in issues of separation of church and state, which led to doctoral studies on James Madison, the namesake of the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual Freedom of Information awards. "Madison was the most progressive of all [the Founding Fathers] when it comes to freedom of the press," Gibson said. "He helped develop the idea that American government should be responsive to public opinion, and the role of newspapers was to make sure that an authentic public opinion was set forth." Gibson, a political science professor at California State University-Chico, lectures at various colleges across the country. Understanding the Founding will be published in paperback later this year. (Laura Peach)

Professional Journalists

MARJIE LUNDSTROM


Journalists often get alarming tips about practices within Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies, but it has always been a nearly impossible task to overcome privacy protections and get even basic information about how CPS handles reports of child abuse or neglect.

"It’s a difficult agency to write about, for some good reasons," Sacramento Bee reporter Marjie Lundstrom, who set out in 2007 to investigate complaints about Sacramento’s CPS, told the Guardian. "They operate in such a vacuum with very little public scrutiny."

She had started to piece together some information from coroner’s records and other public documents when Senate Bill 39 went into effect in January 2008, "and it was just amazing what it opened up."

The bill reveals CPS files in cases where the child has died, allowing Lundstrom to expose the negligence of CPS workers in responding to abuse reports, even those from doctors. "I do feel like what we were able to show, because of the law, where workers made flagrant mistakes that costs kids their lives," she said.

But many CPS records are still secret. Next, after writing several stories about CPS that sparked a grand jury investigation, Lundstrom intends to expose problems within the internal accountability procedures at CPS. (Steven T. Jones)

HILARY COSTA AND JOHN SIMERMAN


When the news broke last September that 15-year-old Jazzmin Davis had been murdered by her aunt after suffering months of abuse and neglect in her Antioch home, Bay Area News Group reporters Hilary Costa and John Simerman submitted a public records request about the girl’s case history with the San Francisco Human Services Agency.

The city denied the request for nearly two months, using a privacy claim. Undeterred, the journalists took the step of testing out Senate Bill 39, a relatively new piece of legislation that mandates public disclosure of findings and information about children who have died of abuse or neglect. A judge eventually ordered that the records be released.

Although highly redacted, the nearly 700-page paper trail told the girl’s story in the form of hand-written notes, report cards, medical records, caseworker visits, and other detailed documents. The records led to a package of stories that exposed a series of failures and violations of state regulations by an HSA social worker, raising questions about agency practices and spurring a review of hundreds of other foster care cases.

"This story’s been so important to me," Costa told the Guardian. "It felt like somebody owed it to Jazzmin to find out what happened to her." (Rebecca Bowe)

Interactive Media

AUTUMN CRUZ AND MITCHELL BROOKS


Sacramento Bee photographer Autumn Cruz had been covering the trial of three-year-old K.C. Balbuena’s murder for several months when she came up with the concept of creating an interactive online courtroom. With the help of Bee graphic journalist Mitchell Brooks, Cruz made public the essential pieces of evidence and information to those outside the courtroom doors.

Viewers can take a virtual tour of the exhibits and documents, along with video and audio statements and interrogations. "As a journalist, you’re fighting every day for your right to information," Cruz told the Guardian.

Although Balbuena’s mother and roommate were found guilty of the murder in early 2008, Cruz laments her inability to bring back the child she grew to know so intimately only after his life was cut short. "I think my bringing his plight to the public will hopefully prevent similar things from happening to other children." (Joe Sciareillo)

Citizen

BERT ROBINSON


Journalist Bert Robinson is a longtime journalist who now serves as assistant managing editor for the San Jose Mercury News. But he’s being honored for his work as a citizen serving on San Jose’s Sunshine Reform Task Force.

"We set out on our sunshine ordinance adventure a few years ago. We found we were faring worse in court, and we couldn’t afford increased court costs," Robinson, a member of the California First Amendment Coalition, told the Guardian.

The project received political endorsements across the spectrum, but the initiative has had problems with the city council’s Rules Committee, controlled by San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who has supported sunshine in the past.

"We achieved progress with public meeting requirements, but when you get into public records, city staff argue that rules are ‘too cumbersome’ … They say all sorts of things might happen if they become public, [which is] entirely hypothetical," Robinson said.

Task Force work that was slated to last six months has now dragged on for two years. "The city process grinds you down," Robinson said. But he says he’s committed to seeing it through. (Ben Terrall)

Legal Counsel

JAMES EWERT


James Ewert, an attorney with the California Newspaper Publishers Association, has long battled what he calls widespread secrecy in government. So in 2004, he played an instrumental role in providing greater public access to government meetings and records, resulting in the passage that November of Proposition 59, the Sunshine Amendment of California’s constitution.

Most recently Ewert helped Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) with legislation protecting teachers from retribution from administrators when they defend the First Amendment rights of journalism students. Next Ewert hopes to allow greater scrutiny of public/press partnerships and how tax dollars are used in labor negotiations by the public university systems.

Ewert says the public’s right to know is still severely hampered by public safety concerns, including restrictions on journalists’ rights to interview prisoners and obtain information about police officers. But luckily for the public, Ewert is still on the job. (Andrew Shaw)

Student Journalists — High School

REDWOOD BARK


Before April 2008, Drew Ross had never had to defend the existence of the Eureka High School Redwood Bark, where he was the editor. But after arriving on campus one Monday morning to find that former principal Robert Steffen had removed 450 copies of a 20-page color edition of the paper, Ross and his staff fought back.

Steffen claimed that the nude, dream-like drawing by artist Natalie Gonzalez had ushered in a handful of complaints from students and parents. Steffen justified the action by saying he was "stomping out the flames before they became a forest fire."

"We told him we wanted to hold onto the paper but he recycled them," Ross told the Guardian. "We don’t make the paper for it to be thrown away. And we lost a lot of advertising on this."

Ross complained about censorship and got help from the Student Press Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. By the next day, the censorship story went front page at newspapers and Internet sites all over the country. Eventually Steffen not only sent out a public apology, he paid for the next 20-page color edition.

"We are now armed with knowledge of our rights," Ross said. "And the community knows the Redwood Bark has rights." (Deia de Brito)

SHASTA HIGH SCHOOL’S THE VOLCANO


Shasta High School student Amanda Cope speaks passionately about freedom of speech after her brush with censorship, telling the Guardian, "We are preserving the validity of the Constitution. Free speech is a protection, a safety, that lets us function normally without fear."

Cope was editor-in-chief of the Shasta High School student paper, The Volcano, when a controversy flared over the paper’s end-of-year issue, which featured a front-page image of a student burning an American flag. Shasta High principal Milan Woollard was already considering shutting down The Volcano when the issue came out and publicly stated: "This cements that decision."

But following a maelstrom of objection from Cope and the rest of The Volcano staff in what looked like a form of censorship in schools, the school district reversed its decision. "I think a lot of students feel they are marginalized in society. They’re teenagers. They don’t have many rights and they feel like they’re squished by adults and people in general," Cope said. "The student paper becomes an outlet for those feelings, and a way for students to explore their world." (Juliette Tang)

THE SCOTS EXPRESS


Last November, the principal of Carlmont High School in Belmont shut down the student paper, The Scots Express. School officials claimed that the paper lacked adequate faculty oversight after it published a satirical article about the writer’s sex appeal.

Editor-in-chief Alex Zhang fought back against what he saw as censorship and rejected school officials’ justifications. "I just wanted my paper back," he told the Guardian.

In response to the uproar over what many saw as a muzzling of the press, the Sequoia Union High School District began training Carlmont staff on First Amendment rights and mandated an overhaul of the school’s freedom of speech policy. The district is planning an expansion of its journalism programs in the school curriculum and a partnership with the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club.

Zhang is working on relaunching the publication in late March under the faculty oversight of English teacher Raphael Kauffmann. "You can’t have a democracy without freedom of information," Zhang said. "And I’m proud to be one of those young journalists who care about the freedom of information." (Joe Sciarrillo)

Advocacy

KATHI AUSTIN


As the Guardian chronicled in a cover story last year ("Hunting the lord of war," June 23, 2008), San Francisco-based human rights investigator Kathi Austin has spent almost two decades tracking down and exposing those who have made a business out of human rights violations.

Most recently, Austin helped bring the notorious Viktor Bout, a Russian entrepreneur accused of illegally trafficking weapons to brutal regimes from Colombia to the Congo.

"A human rights violation is considered a violation that is carried out by a state actor," Austin told the Guardian. "We were trying to change the whole field of human rights to philosophically say we should be going after these private perpetrators as well."

Thanks largely to Austin’s work, Bout was arrested in Thailand in March 2008 and will likely face criminal charges in the United States. Despite working in treacherous places like Angola and Rwanda, doing meticulous and time-consuming research, Austin said her approach is simple: "What’s wrong and who’s doing it?"

Her patience and persistent pursuit of international justice have led Austin to positions at the U.N., the World Bank, the Center for Human Rights, and the Council on Foreign Relations, to name a few. A Paramount picture featuring Angelina Jolie as Austin is reportedly in production — a fittingly karmic return of celebrity for someone who has worked so long under the public radar. (Breena Kerr)

Electronic access

MAPLIGHT.ORG


Once upon a time, before 2005, the only way to connect the dots between the dollars contributed to politicians and the special access and favorable laws they subsequently granted to contributors was to wade through reams of campaign finance filings. While everyone knew that money talked, few knew just how much campaign cash was dictating public policy.

But now, thanks to MAPlight.org, a Berkeley nonprofit that uses sophisticated analytical tools to produce visually pleasing, easy-to-use charts, there is now a fun, simple way to follow the money.

MAPlight began by putting up data connected to the pro-consumer bill informally known as the Car Buyer’s Bill of Rights. "The data showed that car dealers gave twice as much to Sacramento legislators who voted to kill the bill than to those who voted to pass it," executive director David Newman recalled.

Next, MAPlight pioneered the combination of campaign dollars and politicians’ votes when it launched its U.S. Congress site in May 2007. Most recently its research showed that House members who voted for the $700 billion financial bailout bill received 50 percent more money from the financial services industry than those who voted against it.

Newman plans to expand to all 50 states. "Wherever there is journalism to be done, MAPlight can provide support and help promote openness and transparency in government." (Sarah Phelan)


The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists hosts its annual James Madison Awards dinner March 18 in the New Delhi Restaurant, 160 Ellis St., SF. The no-host reception begins at 5:50 p.m. followed by dinner and the awards programs at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 for SPJ members and $70 for non-members. For reservations or information, contact Freedom of Information Committee chair David Greene at (510) 208-7744 or dgreene@thefirstamendment.org or visit www.spjchapters.org/norcal.

Newsom’s state secrets

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EDITORIAL On January 21st, his second day in office, President Barack Obama announced that he was dramatically changing the rules on federal government secrecy. His statement directly reversed, and repudiated, the paranoia and backroom dealings of the Bush administration.

"The Freedom of Information Act," the new president declared, "should be administered with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails. The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public."

The following day, Jan. 22, we sent an e-mail to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard. "Now that President Obama has made a dramatic change in federal FOI policy," we asked, "would Mayor Newsom would be willing to issue a similar executive order in San Francisco?"

Ballard’s response:

"We wholeheartedly agree with the President on this issue. The mayor has charged my office with handling sunshine requests for the executive branch of city government, and he has directed us to cooperate swiftly and comprehensively to all sunshine requests, and to err on the side of openness."

That, to put it politely, is horsepucky.

As we report in this issue, it’s difficult, and at times insanely difficult, to get even basic public information out of Newsom’s office. Take his calendar: by law, the mayor is required to make public his appointments calendar. Other public officials manage to do that — in fact, the president of the United States, who has a tad more national and personal security issues than the mayor of San Francisco, lets the press know what he’s doing almost every minute of every day.

Most days, though, what we get from Newsom’s office is a statement like, "The mayor has no public events scheduled today." Or, "The mayor is holding meetings at City Hall." Meetings with whom? What private events is he attending? What’s he do all day? What lobbyists, activists, public officials, or campaign donors is he talking to in his City Hall office? Why is that some huge state secret?

Or take the city’s terrifying budget problems. When Board of Supervisors President David Chiu began holding meetings with key stakeholders to look for a solution, Newsom refused to show up, saying there was no need. The mayor claimed he was holding his own meetings with everyone who needed to be involved.

That was news to many of the people in Chiu’s sessions. So who was the mayor talking to? The mayor’s office won’t tell us — and the limited calendar information he releases doesn’t shed any light, either.

The San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force has repeatedly found Newsom directly in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance. Legions of reporters have run across the slammed door, the ducking, the non-responsiveness, and the general hostility of the mayor’s press office. As the White House comes out of the dark ages and starts to set new standards for open and honest government, San Francisco is not only lagging behind — this city’s chief executive is actively resisting.

We’re getting tired of this. The city attorney, district attorney, and Ethics Commission all have the mandate and ability to enforce the Sunshine Ordinance, but none have made that a priority. At this point, the only way the executive branch is going to comply is if the supervisors give the Sunshine Task Force the authority and resources to do its own enforcement.

In the meantime, somebody on the board ought to introduce Obama’s exact policy statement, replacing "Freedom of Information Act" with "San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance." And the Sunshine task force should begin an investigation into how the mayor’s press office is defying, on a regular basis, both the letter and the spirit of the city’s open-government law. *

Editor’s Notes

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› Tredmond@sfbg.com

The historian and political scientist Alan Gibson argues that much of the contemporary discussion the founders of the United States misses the political point. In his new book, Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions, Gibson, a professor at California State University, Chico notes that conservatives often claim the framers of the Constitution for their own agenda — a position he calls historically inaccurate.

James Madison in particular was very much a progressive thinker, says Gibson (who is one of the winners of the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ freedom of information awards this year, see page 15). The fourth president of the United States particularly believed that a free press was crucial to democracy.

I thought about that this week as I followed the news that the San Francisco Chronicle may shut down — and read stories from the Chauncey Bailey Project and the Chronicle about the murder of the Oakland journalist. On March 7, the project reported that an Oakland homicide inspector had close ties with the head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusef Bey IV, who it now appears may have played a role in the killing. The Chronicle reported March 8 that Bailey was caught up in a power struggle at the bakery (and that the publisher of the Oakland Post was afraid to run Bailey’s stories). These detailed investigative pieces will almost certainly help ensure that Bailey’s killers are brought to justice. Without this press attention, the Oakland cops would have gotten away with bungling the case.

Without full-time, paid reporters on the job, those stories would never have come to light.

I’m as pissed at the Chron as anyone, and I’ve been watching the paper self-destruct for many years. And I’m not sure what sort of financial model will keep a daily paper going in the next decade.

But I know that a model exists — because it has to. Democracy can’t survive without a free press, and a free press can’t survive without staff to do the work. That’s something to remember as we celebrate the James Madison Awards and our annual Freedom of Information issue. * *

The livin’ on concrete

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Editor’s note: The Second Annual Poetry Luchador Battle of ALL of the Sexes on Valentines Day was a multi-generational, multi-lingual, multicultural ash-up of art, gender, poetry, wrestling, language, and theatre brought to you by the favorite revolutionary poets, media-makers, poverty scholars and cultural workers at POOR Magazine. As cosponsors of the event, we’re proud to run the winning poem. The second- and third-place winners are at sfbg.com.

When you walkin’ thru the downtown, and lookin’ in around, you see the

down of humanity, who was once somebody’s baby, layin’ down on the

concrete, street, on the ground

And do ya dare to care, and say what you want to say, step on and stare —

Double standard mind warped thinkin’, not my problem, this is where —

Ya got it wrong, think you are strong, move along, but its your

conscience layin’ there —

Cuz it is what it is — what it is — what it is

Livin on concrete —

What it is — what it is — what it is

Livin on concrete

So, call it whatever you wanna call it — at a distance

But in reality, it’s a casualty of a capitalist existence

Thru the food chain of command, it’s the plan of the man

So step off — shut the fuck up, walk on by, why take a stand?

And be grateful for what you got, even if ya been just tossed a bread crumb

Cuz the hypocrisy of democracy’s leavin’ nothing for that street bum —

What it is — what it is — what it is

Livin on concrete —

What it is — what it is — what it is

Livin on concrete

NIMBYism ideology, no apology, psychology

Haven’t ya realized, ya been hypnotized, homogenized, desensitized?

To a typical, statistical, egotistical psychology

To accept, the neglect and disrespect your own humanity

What it is — what it is — what it is

Livin on concrete —

What it is — what it is — what it is

Livin on the street.

So call it whatever ya wanna call it!

V.L. Hain is a PoorNewsNetwork staff writer and member of the WelfareQUEENS, a performance and media advocacy project of POOR Magazine.

“12”

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REVIEW In Nikita Mikhalkov’s Oscar-winning 1994 film Burnt by the Sun, set in the Stalin-era Soviet Union, a character corrects himself in addressing his companions as gentlemen, saying, "Excuse me, comrades." A reverse correction signals the changed times in 12, where Mikhalkov takes up a more modern, post-Soviet tale, using a familiar framework to tell it. Based on Sidney Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men (1957), the film follows the jury proceedings of a Moscow murder trial in which an orphaned teenage Chechen boy is accused of killing his adoptive father, a Russian army officer who rescued him from the war-obliterated village where he’d lost his parents. Throughout a long day and night, the jurors (whose foreman is played by Mikhalkov) deliberate, battle, come unhinged, and reveal, through prejudiced tirades and intelligent argument alike, a flawed legal system and a corrupt society that fail to function in tandem. In a departure from the original, 12 releases the viewer at brief intervals to visit the prisoner in his chilly cell and to witness childhood scenes of poignant and piercing clarity. But at nearly three hours, the film makes us feel the time crawling by and its effect on these men, locked away from their lives in a room they expected to sit in for half an hour before consigning a young man to life in prison. And the fractures and damage we witness in each of them as the hours pass seem to form a mosaic of modern Russian society, fractured and damaged itself by the traumas of its political and cultural history.

12 opens Fri/13 in Bay Area theaters.

“transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix”

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REVIEW Spam, napalm, and derivative pop songs weren’t quite the only legacy of U.S. military sojourns through Asia — and specifically Korea and Vietnam — as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ "transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix" exhibit demonstrates. The artists gathered by curators Viet Le and Yong Soon Min are the children of Andy Warhol and Coca-Cola.

Credit goes to the organizers for pointing to the connections between Vietnam and Korea, which are seldom at the foreground stateside: both shared a history of rapid modernization facilitated by U.S. wartime adventures, and Korea benefited economically for their hand in the Vietnam War, as the second largest foreign military and economic presence. Trade in pop culture — film, music, TV, fashion — has evidently continued between the two countries. But despite the presence of a book and zine reading room filled with Korean, Vietnamese, and American transplants’ ballads, bubblegum, rockers, and protest music, this grab bag of an exhibition manifests little of the fizzy wit and energy implied in its title. Instead it assumes a primarily somber, somewhat cryptic tone — more wall text would have helped. This solemn quality is most forthrightly and movingly manifested in Dinh Q. Lê’s video triptych, The Farmers and the Helicopters (2007).

The exceptions make their mélange of pop and politics simultaneously pointed and explicit: examples include Tiffany Chung’s video works, Lam Truong (2007) and the scooter-guys (2007), which juxtapose the frenetic movements of Viet boy bands with bands of working delivery boys; and Min Hwa Choi Chul-Hwan’s 2006 To the Rockers paintings of lost-looking urban youth, paired with Twentieth Century — 1972.6 III (2006), his blown-up deconstruction of AP photographer Nick Ut’s 1972 image of a naked Vietnamese girl burnt by napalm running toward the viewer. Would Warhol have approved? And do any works make as much of a stealth impact as Oh Yongseok’s video montages Drama No. 3 and Drama No. 5 (both 2004-2005)? Cornered by these pieced-together panoramas, which appropriate snippets of Asian films and TV, one is confronted by both the Korean tradition of landscape painting and small, startling moments of violence and disquiet that rupture the stillness at the edges of the frame.

TRANSPOP: KOREA VIETNAM REMIX Through Sun/15. Tues.–Wed., Fri.–Sun., noon–5 p.m.; Thurs., noon–8 p.m. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. $6; $3 seniors, students, and youth; free for members (free first Tues.). (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

Death Sentence: Panda!

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PREVIEW Who can bring together Bay Area noise-improv scene and tween mixtapes? Death Sentence: Panda!, that band of merry, absurdist experimentalists that sprang from the loins of Total Shutdown, NAM, and Crack: We Are Rock. The local underground-music vets are now partying up their second long-player, Insects Awaken (Upset the Rhythm), a blistering drum-flute-clarinet-electronics-xylophone-sax tribute of sorts to the bitty critters that "swarm and have sex and then die a violent death," as flautist-multi-instrumentalist Kim West puts it.

Hardcore, Chinese and Korean folk, and marching band sounds are all pitched into the trio’s dissonant sonic miasma — a blend that weirdly showed up on a mix West’s public school teacher friend recently confiscated from a 14-year-old — and though it’s been four years since the group formed, the noise hasn’t been taken down a single notch.

"We’re influenced by so many different kinds of music, whether it’s more noisy or folky or hardcore-y — is hardcore-y is a word?" asks clarinet-multi-instrumentalist Paul Costuros at the ass end of a band practice before he sets off to DJ "Ska War!" at Casanova Lounge. "Our music has gotten more noisy, and we’re dealing with more effects, atmosphere, and tone."

"I don’t think it’s noisier," responds drummer-multi-instrumentalist Chris Dixon.

"It’s louder sounding," Costuros retorts.

"We were on a bunny hill before," adds Dixon, "and now we’re on Twin Peaks."

"We were elves, and now we’re eating dragons."

Death Sentence: Panda!’s U.K. label — which released its 2005 Puppy, Kitty or Both 10-inch and 2007 Festival of Ghosts album — needed little prodding. "We told them it was done before it was started," Costuros explains. The occasion? "It was for Chinese New Year," jokes West, who also plays in T.I.T.S. But seriously, "we were entering into a different realm of music-making, and we wanted to record that. Songs got longer, and I think it’s a little more dramatic and more dynamic and not as cute and short and still a little tough."

"It redefines the genre of clarinet-flute-drum music," Costuros notes wryly.

DEATH SENTENCE: PANDA! With These Are Powers and Work. Sat/14, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com

Cut Copy

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PREVIEW Cut Copy can’t help being so likable. They’re here to dance, they’re damn happy about it, and they want you to know it — and jump in. The happy-go-lucky aesthetic worked: last year’s In Ghost Colours (Modular Interscope) debuted at the top of the Australian charts and topped scads of year-end best-of lists. The trio — a skinny bunch with swishy haircuts, delectable Australian accents, and a pathological addition to plaid — put out that luminous trove of swirly synths, Day-Glo pop, and irrepressible dance-rock groove to near-unanimous critical acclaim.

And about time, too. Downright disco raver "Lights and Music," an ecstatic summer anthem with a veritable shirt-grabber of a hook, spawned about a trillion remixes and lit up transcontinental dance floors across the globe. Vocalist Dan Whitford, who started out as a DJ and has released comps under the Fabriclive mix series, formed the band in 2001, collecting guitarist Tim Hoey and drummer Mitchell Scott along the way to the band’s 2004 debut, Bright Like Neon Love (Modular Interscope). Maybe it’s Whitford’s DJ impulses that account for In Ghost Colours‘ chimerical meldings of disparate rock and electronic elements that give the group’s music its diverse, pastiche-y textures — and, for determined music taxonomists, a certain elusive quality. Nu rave, disco-punk, synth rock? Whichever and whatever, it just sounds like a good time.

CUT COPY With Matt and Kim, and Knightlife. Thurs/12, 8 p.m. $25. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 346-6000, www.livenation.com. Cut Copy DJs a Popscene after-party. Thurs/12, 10 p.m., $10. 330 Ritch, SF. (415) 541-9574, www.popscene-sf.com

Project agora’s “With (& Without) Words”

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PREVIEW In 2006 Kara Davis and Bliss Kohlmyer Dowman founded project agora as an umbrella organization under which they could present their own choreography. Strong and experienced performers — Davis with Kunst-Stoff and Janice Garret and Dancers; Kohlmyer Dowman with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and Robert Moses’ Kin — the two got to the point where realizing other choreographers’ dances became less attractive and creating their own work grew more compelling.

For With (& Without) Words, Davis went solo. She hooked up with soprano and songwriter Kary Stephan for an evening of songs and dances in a format in which a dance may be performed in silence and a song without dance. Davis and Stephan had admired each other from afar but decided to work together when they found that they had more in common than either initially had thought. Both were classically trained: Davis in ballet, Stephan in opera. Yet both had vastly expanded their artistic interests since those early days. For Davis, the idea of performing to live music became irresistible, while Stephan had watched and taken some of Davis’ modern dance classes and found she liked the experience.

The resulting collaboration will run in something akin to a salon format at the Community Music Center with the audience surrounding the vocalists and dancers. Davis’ veteran and new colleagues Nol Simonse, Marina Fukushima, Daniel Howerton, and Sierra Stockton will perform, and Stephan will be accompanied by a chamber music trio.

PROJECT AGORA’S WITH (& WITHOUT) WORDS Fri/13–Sat/14 and March 20–21, 8 p.m.; $10 at door only. Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF. (415) 509-2124

SXSW 0320

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Appetite 032309

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Appetite: WashBag is back! Plus: Top Chef scallops, James Beard dinner, and more

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As long-time San Francisco resident and writer, I’m passionate about this city and obsessed with finding and exploring its best food-and-drink spots, deals, events and news, in every neighborhood and cuisine. I started with my own service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and am thrilled to share up-to-the minute news with you from the endless goings-on in our fair city.

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NEW RESTAURANT OPENINGS

Herb Caen glory days hang on as North Beach’s classic WashBag returns
Herb Caen would be proud. When Washington Square Bar & Grill closed last year, many mourned the loss of one of SF’s most beloved classics, a preferred hang-out of the aforementioned Caen, local writers and politicos ever since the ’70’s. Under new ownership, Liam and Susan Tiernen of Tiernan’s (www.tiernans.com), the historical spot returns with brasserie menu intact. Pull up to the long wood bar or dine on white tablecloths as you order the famed WashBag burger on Dutch crust bun. Bartender Michael McCourt is also back… so bring on the Mad Men-reminiscent martini lunches!
Washington Square Bar & Grill
1707 Powell, SF.
415-433-1188

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EVENTS – FOODIE DINNERS

March 18-20 – Jamie Lauren creates a four-course scallop dinner in honor of her Top Chef run
Ok, all you Top Chef fans, Jamie Lauren is back to her home base of Absinthe, with an ode to Fabio’s “Top Scallop” comment by cooking a special, four course Scallop Tasting menu (reserve quickly – it’s sure to fill up fast!) Beginning with Bay Scallop Crudo, moving on to Scallop Clam Chowder, then a Hokkaido Grilled Scallop with sunchoke puree, artichokes, erbette chard and Meyer Lemon, finishing up with Seared Dayboat Scallops with asparagus, creamed green garlic and fava beans. Now you can pretend you’re a Top Chef judge, giving props to our very own Jamie.
5:30pm throughout dinner service
$75, not including beverages, tax or gratuity
Absinthe
398 Hayes Street
415-551-1590
www.absinthe.com

March 16 – Splurge for a James Beard Dinner at Fifth Floor
Food fanatics, save up your pennies (and then some) for a rare James Beard Foundation dinner at Fifth Floor, themed on the Cuisine of Southwestern France. The event honors famed cookbook author (and James Beard Award-winner), Paula Wolfert. Fifth Floor Sommelier, Emily Wines, selects wine pairings for the decadent six-course meal, including dishes like Foie Gras with shallot confit and quince compote or Braised Rabbit with sauteed crepes and dried plums. Headed up by Fifth Floor and Aqua’s Laurent Manrique, each course is created by a different chef: Jennie Lorenzo and Lionel Walter (also of Aqua and Fifth Floor), Ariane Daguine of D’Artagnan in NYC, Jean Pierre Moulle of Chez Panisse and Gerald Hirigoyen of Piperade. Whew, what a line-up! That crew can cook me dinner any time.
6pm reception; 7pm dinner
$165, including wine pairings ($150 for James Beard members)
Fifth Floor
12 4th St., SF
415-348-1555
www.fifthfloorrestaurant.com
www.jamesbeard.org

3/23-3/25 – Incanto’s annual Head-to-Tail Dinner returns
Incanto has long been my favorite Italian restaurant in the Bay Area, bar none, and when it comes to whole hog and offal, Chris Cosentino was doing it long before it was trendy. As a frequent Iron Chef (www.foodnetwork.com/iron-chef-america/index.html) competitor and charcuterie master chef, his popular Head-to-Tail Dinners (http://incanto.biz/information.html) come but once a year and book up fast. That leaves three nights for you to reserve for a five-course meal including Venison Heart Tartare, Goose Intestines with artichoke and fava bean (visions of Hannibal Lecter in my head), or a fascinating “Coffee and Doughnuts” dessert of pork liver, blood, chocolate, espresso. Adventurous eaters, this one will expand your horizons.
March 23-25 – 6pm
$75, not including beverages, tax or gratuity
Incanto, SF.
1550 Church Street
415-641-4500
www.incanto.biz

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DRINK NEWS and EVENTS
Don’t forget to vote in the Guardian’s 7th Annual Best Bartender in the Bay… we’ll award bartenders in the categories of funniest, sexiest, crankiest, best cocktail invention and more… based on your votes!

March 14 – Press Club offers education on wine basics with a Saturday School Program
Every Saturday through April 11, downtown’s unusual don’t-call-it-a-wine-bar wine tasting room, Press Club, launches a Saturday School program offering informal education on wine basics. If you haven’t been to Press Club yet (and if you love CA wines, you should), it comprises eight Nor Cal wineries with tasting stations/bars in an urban-mod basement, with staff straight from the wineries offering tastings or helping you select the right glass or bottle. Five of the eight wineries host the Saturday sessions, the first one being Landmark Vineyards, who’ll guide you through smelling essentials as you sample various wines (and food bites). If you’ve ever wanted to be able to talk more eloquently about “the nose” of a wine, this is your class (sign up on their email list or check the Web site for subjects of future sessions).
Every Saturday from March 14-April 11th
1-2pm
$20
Press Club
20 Yerba Buena Lane
415-744-5000
www.pressclubsf.com

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DEALS

Just for You serves up Cajun food and happy hour specials
Dogpatch’s breakfast standard, Just for You, livens up late afternoons with a happy hour of $3 Pacificos, $2 MGD, $4 house red wine, with free chips and salsa or french fried yams. Cheap beers and wine pair nicely with their new Cajun specials like Seafood (Gulf shrimp, Washington oysters, Dungeness Crab), Chicken & Andouille Sausage Jambalaya and Shrimp Creole (all under $12 with salad and garlic bread). I’ve only been here for their popular brunch but these are some good reasons to head out for an early dinner.
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays 4-6pm (happy hour), 4-9pm (Cajun specials)
732 22nd Street
415-647-3033
www.justforyoucafe.com

Talk about the passion

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There’s an argument to be made that record love really begins when you start noticing the labels. Slumberland was one of my earliest such epiphanies. I was bit by one of the label’s groups, Velocity Girl, because, as much as anything, I felt I had come to them on my own. This secret knowledge kept me satisfied until an older friend made me a cassette mix heavy on the Slumberland set: pastel guitar music by Rocketship, the Softies, Lilys, Black Tambourine, the Ropers, and Amy Linton’s much-missed Bay Area groups, Henry’s Dress and the Aislers Set. I started paying more attention to the sleeve.

Slumberland has been a byword for the more melodic runoff of post-punk since 1989, when its premier release — a three-band 7-inch titled What Kind of Heaven Do You Want? — closed the gap between New York noise and English indie-pop. This is an area of music subject to quarrelsome subdivisions (see shoegaze, C86, dream pop), but Slumberland’s common denominator is the taste and passion of Mike Schulman, former member of Black Tambourine, Powderburns, and the underrated Whorl.

Though still associated with its initial crop of D.C.-area groups, Schulman has run Slumberland from the East Bay since 1992. After a dry spell in the early aughts, the label is disproving F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quip about second acts with a much-buzzed-about round of releases by Brooklyn pop stylists Crystal Stilts, Cause Co-Motion, and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart — an impressive slate that puts Schulman in the unusual position of encountering his own footsteps.

“I look at what we’re doing now, and I could easily imagine any of these bands being on Slumberland 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago,” Schulman tells me between sips of coffee on a gray Sunday morning in Oakland. He’s expansive about the joys of record collecting and vicissitudes of music press in spite of having been up since 4 a.m. with his new baby. Schulman’s tastes are eclectic — he ran the dance record store/label Drop Beat in Oakland’s Rockridge District from 1996 to 2000 and is happy to gab about doo-wop or Japanese noise — but Slumberland was dedicated to scruffy pop from the start. It was an obvious niche, though striking for its proximity to D.C.’s thriving hardcore scene. “I used to go see Minor Threat, Rites of Spring, and I loved those bands, but there were tons of hardcore labels,” Schulman reflects. “I couldn’t have named three labels in America that would do stuff by HoneyBunch or Small Factory. That music just seemed underserved.”

The Slumberland aesthetic was also a romance with a format. Schulman traces his own 45 rpm fixation back to his father’s R&B collection as well as a life-altering experience with the Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 A-side “Never Understand” (Blanco y Negro). “It just makes so much sense — the one great song on the one great side, something that fits in your hand. You can pick it up and carry it around. You can have a little box to take it to your friends to play it for people…. Historically, it was a very economical way to transmit the most amazing three minutes of music you’ve ever heard.”

This kind of object-oriented pleasure, along with visual aesthetics and the relative gender equity of the Slumberland bands, tends to get short shrift from blog critics who take the label to task for “playing it safe” with unabashedly melodic music. “I just think rock music is inherently conservative,” Schulman weighs in. “Everyone goes back to the same 15 references. I love the Siltbreeze stuff — those are great records — but you can’t tell me that there’s something shocking or new about them.”

Of course, a credible brand has the upshot of generating its own ancestry. The Brooklyn bands are all well-versed in the Slumberland back catalog — easily navigable on the label’s smartly designed Web site — though the Pains of Being Pure at Heart earn extra points for tapping Archie Moore (Velocity Girl, Black Tambourine) to mix their eponymous debut. Listening to the first 10 declarative seconds of every song on the album is a humbling refresher course in the elevating art of the single.

The Crystal Stilts don’t play for the same caffeinated high, but their 2008 full-length, Alight of Night, is addictive nonetheless. The disc’s zoned out, organ-laced stomps pull off the neat trick of making New York City post-disco punk sound good again. The creamiest song on the album, “Prismatic Room,” lights up the same pleasure zones in my brain as those early Velocity Girl tracks. I find myself going for seconds as soon it finishes — something I didn’t think I did anymore

www.slumberlandrecords.com

Appetite: Txistorra burgers, ultimate bar food and a new Date Night

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Welcome to Appetite, a new column on food and drink. Long-time San Francisco resident and writer, Virginia Miller, is passionate about this incomparable city, obsessed with finding and exploring its best spots, deals, events and news. She started with her own service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and plans to pass along up-to-the minute news to us. View her last installment here.

New restaurant openings

Flavors of Spain delight Noe Valley at Contigo

Noe Valley’s tastebuds awaken to the flavors of Spain as chef Brett Emerson shares his passion for and knowledge of Spanish cuisine in this week’s debut of his long-awaited Contigo. This isn’t your usual tapas joint. The gorgeous, sleek room, wood-fired oven, and charming back patio with emerging vegetable garden, set the stage for warm service reminiscent of a welcoming neighborhood hangout in Spain.

Conversing with friends over a glass of Cava, Sherry or Rioja, order fresh Anchovies straight from Spain, intriguing Oxtail Fritters, a salted Rock Cod and Orange Salad or the Txistorra Burger with manchego cheese and fried onions. If the sneak preview I attended is any indication, this will be many a local’s regular go-to for finely-crafted food that comforts as well as challenges the palate.

1320 Castro Street
415-285-0250

Pickles opens in FiDi serving gourmet burgers under a retractable roof

The closing last year of Myth, one of our better upscale restaurants, was a sad one. But Myth alum chef Matthew Kerley has resurfaced in an unexpected place: the former Pickles (the new owners kept the name) which, prior to that, was Clown Alley. I personally am happy to see creepy clown motifs and circus colors gone. The place has gone upscale, or as upscale as a burger joint can, with brown tones and wood, a fireplace and a retractable roof in the shadow of the Transamerica Building. The menu entices with bacon burgers, mini corn dogs, beer-battered onion rings, sundaes and favorites from the also-shuttered Cafe Myth menu, like deviled eggs and Brussels sprouts. I’ve heard about long lines and service issues still to be worked out, but give ’em time… gourmet burgers are the right idea for the Financial District set by day or North Beach crowd at night (Pickles will soon be open till 3am; it’s lunch only until April 1st).

42 Columbus Avenue
415-421-2540


Bar news

North Beach’s 15 Romolo re-invents itself with premium cocktails and crispy hot dogs

15 Romolo is back. The North Beach fave re-opened a few days ago, reinvented by bartenders from Coco500 and Rye. It’s in an alley, and there’s a still that speakeasy air about it, but the aqua-colored interior is gone, with a more understated look and neutral tones. $8 cocktails, like the Yellow Bicycle (St. Germain, Yellow Chartreuse) or a classic Corpse Reviver #2, are made with premium liqueurs, while there’s also a wealth of top shelf pours and gourmet beers, like local Speakeasy’s Hunters Point Porter. A kitchen is the biggest addition, with two deep fryers frying up tortilla-wrapped Crispy (hot) Dogs, Pork Sliders and Savory Funnel Cakes. Now that’s what I call the ultimate bar food.

Happy hour daily, 5-7:30pm
15 Romolo Place
415-398-1359

Events

Tre Bicchieri, Slow Food’s Italian Wine Awards, comes only to N.Y., L.A. and S.F.

Only coming to three cities – New York, L.A. and yes, S.F. — Tre Bicchieri (i.e. “three glasses”) is the Italian wine event of the year with some big names hosting. Gambero Rosso and Slow Food Nation are showcasing wine producers honored with the Tre Bicchieri award. Tickets are available through K&L Wine Merchants at $50, which includes a complimentary copy of Gambero Rosso’s “Italian Wines 2009” (a $40 value and guide to all things Italian wine). Sounds reasonable for the added bonus of being able to taste more than 100 wines at the event.

4:30-7pm
Fort Mason Center, Herbst Pavilion
415-441-3400

Deals

Cafe Maritime impresses your date with free champagne and cream pie

Cafe Maritime is one of those underrated gems that’s been around for years but many locals still don’t know about. One reason: it’s tucked in the midst of cheap motels and chain restaurants on Lombard Street, where a few unexpected spots reside (hello, the ultimate, Zushi Puzzle ?) Maritime is one of those cozy New England seafood houses serving buttery lobster rolls, crispy fish and chips and creamy chowders. Wednesday nights are now “Date Night Special” with a free glass of champagne with dinner and a free coconut cream pie to share afterwards. On top of that, there’s a new prix-fixe every night with three courses for $33, starting with New England Seafood Chowder or a salad, moving on to your choice of four entrees, ending with dessert.

2417 Lombard Street
415-885-2530

Classes

Go whole hog with Meatpaper mag’s butchery class at UC Berkeley

The Society for Agriculture and Food Ecology starts the series, “Meet your Meat,” with “The Art of the Butcher,” a class at UC Berkeley hosted by Meatpaper magazine. The meat panel is all-star: Ryan Farr, formerly of Orson, now Ivy Elegance, A16/SPQR/Urbino’s Nate Appleman, Avedano’s Melanie Eisemann and David Budworth, Mark Pasternak of Devil’s Gulch Ranch and moderator, Marissa Guggiana of Sonoma Direct and Meatpaper. Ryan Farr demonstrates how to break down an entire carcass into cuts of meat, while the panel discusses getting whole animals from local slaughterhouses to more humanely, economically use all meat instead of buying plastic-wrapped grocery store meats.

7pm
UC Berkeley Campus, 105 North Gate Hall
Berkeley
510-536-5800

www.agrariana.org/speakers

RSVP: agrofoodecology@gmail.com

Grimm tales

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "My father told me never to play covers. It’s such a hole to fall into. People want to hear stuff they’ve heard a thousand times. Especially white people — they all want to be safe, and covers just make them feel safe."

Larkin Grimm takes the briefest breath, standing beside a frozen creek next to a cowboy trading post in South Dakota’s Badlands. The ice is starting to melt, and the 27-year-old songwriter’s on a roll, talking ’bout her hippie parents — they met here, her father who once lived at the San Francisco Zen Center, and later played southern rock to "toothless hillbilly women" with an Appalachian bar band to support the family ("A huge transition from meditating all day") — as well has her studies at Yale, studies in shamanism, pals Lightning Bolt, and the Providence, R.I., noise scene she emerged from.

"My music doesn’t do that. I’m trying to do a thing where I make people feel safe and at the same time say the most brutal things I can."

She shares the name of the darkest of yarn-spinners, her music rests on a foundation of folk and acoustic instrumentation, and her sensibility — despite her queer punk past — clearly stems from the spiritual quests of her footloose forebears. But Grimm’s one of a kind — even if her soul is old, she’s been here before, and she may be here once again.

Just listen to her new album, Parplar (Young God, 2008). Songs like "Be My Host" may bear the folk-pop fragrance of Joni Mitchell’s early Beat-girl rambles and tunes like "Durge" may ring with the bared-skull minor-key drama of Kurt Cobain writing for a Balkan women’s choir. But listen closely to the lyrics of such songs as "Hope for the Hopeless": "I turned my head against the wicked world you’re in / So there you are I hope you are suffering / I hope you feel the hopelessness and you can’t bear the cost / of being an ungrateful shit," she intones. "… I hope the wind has marked your face and you don’t have a hope / You’re drifting free above the ground / Gently stretching out your rope." Beyond black, yet often alight with an austere beauty. Grimm — a veteran of Dirty Projectors (a band she met at Yale and describes as "what happens when you have an egomaniac trying to control everyone") — knows how to channel the most intense of spirits.

Parplar revolves around female sexuality. "I was going through a period of my life where I was having a gender crisis, and I wasn’t sure if I was a woman or not, but I was starting to get really attracted to men, which was new," she explains. The album was intended to fund her gender reassignment surgery. "I had this plan: get a dick and cut off my breasts."

But then she ended up writing all these tunes about women, including "other women who were having major crises at the time: Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and Beyonce. All these women are fascinating and intelligent, and they’re in everybody’s mind, and they’re archetypes, and we’ve built them all up so much. They’re sort of like virgins that have been thrown into the volcano. We’ve torn them apart," says Grimm, believing Spears "reached enlightenment for a second. When she shaved her head she was turning her back on materialism. But her publicist and record label wouldn’t allow her to go through the process of rebirth and forced her back into slavery, and it’s tragic, you know. I kind of wrote this record for her, in a way."

Sisterhood — and brotherhood — is powerful: Grimm now hopes to find other kids who lived in the SF-originated Holy Order of MANS commune, which she characterizes as "a co-ed monastic order of energy healers." "We had a very magical childhood, which we lost," she says. After a near-suicide at Yale, she says, "I just live fully all the time. Don’t let anybody tell me what to do. Coincidences and amazing things happen to me all the time." For instance, she recently created an altar with a human skull and twinkling lights in her car. "I felt like it wasn’t magical enough — we need feathers! Five minutes later I see a dead pheasant on the road. Suddenly I realize everything is connected. As soon as you lose your sense of isolation, anything is possible."

LARKIN GRIMM

Fri/6, 8 p.m., $20

Swedish American Hall

2174 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com

STICKING WITH THE TINDERSTICKS

What is this mysterious thing called a Hungry Saw (Constellation), the title of the Tindersticks’ new album and one of its tracks? "It’s one of quite a few songs on this record that I don’t understand totally and I don’t really want to!" Tindersticks vocalist Stuart A. Staples says almost jubilantly from France, where he now lives. "It’s something that drives me and hurts me at the same time." Staples has been on an intuitive tip of late — especially after the band’s last disc, Waiting for the Moon (Beggars Banquet, 2003), which took a year and a half to make. With the addition of new drummer Thomas Belhom and bassist Dan McKinna, and a directive to record in eight days, the group have come up with a fresh slice of Tindersticks tunefulness — almost breezy ("The Flicker of a Little Girl") and moodily somber ("Mother Dear") in turns. As for that tremulous instrument called Staples’ voice, he believes the best is yet to come: "I think it’s always changing and always growing," he says, citing French vocalist Léo Ferré as a discovery that raised his game. "I think it’s something that really drives me, finding my voice. I don’t think it’s arrived."

Sun/15, 8 p.m., $28. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

IN THE SPIRIT

ESTELLE AND SOLANGE


Kanye West took a Shine to his "American Boy" collaborator, whereas the Knowles scion attempted to break with the pop mold with her second CD. Thurs/5, 8 p.m., $35–$50. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

EFTERKLANG


Choral harmonies and impressionistic orchestrations rise from the Copenhagen, Denmark outfit. Sun/8, 9 p.m., $10–$12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

The big throwdown

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For someone notoriously press-shy, composer and band leader John Zorn is really a friendly, chatty mensch. The modern-music icon brings five of his working bands to Yoshi’s next week for a remarkable residency showing off the breadth and depth of his musical interests — and he didn’t mind at all talking about it.

"I’ve been doing these kind of residencies for the past couple of years in Europe because I got pretty tired of shlepping around on airplanes, as you could well imagine," Zorn said from his home in New York City.

Touring schedules dictating performances in 12 cities over 14 days had Zorn’s body rebelling, so he decided, instead of bringing one band to many places, he would bring many bands to one place and only take two planes to do it.

"I present a wide variety of my passions to the audience, and right now that’s where my commitment is," Zorn explained. "For people to know not just one aspect of what I do, but many aspects."

The alto saxophonist has often been labeled a jazz artist, but the tag has never truly fit. "It’s completely erroneous. Jazz is one of many musics I’ve referenced and studied and paid tribute to." Though his musical influences include jazz artists as varied as avant-garde saxophonist Ornette Coleman and bluesy hard-bopping pianist Sonny Clark, Zorn’s Jewish heritage has had a strong impact on his work as well.

More than anything, though, a defiant, unencumbered personal aesthetic defines the composer — a quality cultivated amid the community of kindred musicians who grew up in New York City’s Knitting Factory scene, playing new genre-less music. Both composed and improvised, his music is sourced and referenced through world culture and structural devices alternately meticulous and random. "It’s music that falls in the gaps," he said. "It’s exciting that it’s been misunderstood, but it’s frustrating."

Once an aspiring filmmaker, Zorn relates most to experiences that are both aural and visual. "There has always been a connection to what I hear and what I see — between film and music," he said. It’s not surprising that Zorn’s most essential record, The Big Gundown (Nonesuch, 1986), comprises music by Ennio Morricone written for films by Sergio Leone and Gillo Pontecorvo. "There’s always a dramatic narrative in the work that I try to do — a kind of extra, musical layer that is very important in all my music."

For his five nights at Yoshi’s, Zorn brings his definitive original Masada quartet with bassist Greg Cohen, drummer Joey Barron, and trumpeter Dave Douglas, along with two offshoots of that ensemble, the Masada String Trio and the electric Masada ensemble. His Bar Kokhba group, which he calls a "Sephardic surf band," and his group the Dreamers, which includes keyboards and electronics, also perform. The stunning array of musicians in those lineups include guitarist Marc Ribot, violinist Mark Feldman, cellist Erik Friedlander, and percussionist Cyro Baptista.

JOHN ZORN RESIDENCY

Tues/10–March 14, 8 and 10 p.m.; March 15, 7 and 9 p.m., $20–$50

Yoshi’s SF

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

Everyday wisdom

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Taking her cue from the oft-cited Socratic proscription that "the unexamined life is not worth living," Winnipeg-born director Astra Taylor returns from the success of her 2005 documentary Žižek! to offer a Lyceum of pontificating sophists. Examined Life finds the 20-something Taylor, a New School graduate turned New Waver, engaging in itinerant tête-à-têtes with some of the most venerated — and occasionally vilified — theorists of the last 40 years.

Interviewees, who appear in roughly 10-minute blocks, include civil rights advocate and cultural historian Cornell West, queer theorist and Gender Trouble provocateur Judith Butler, and Slovene Lacanian Slavoj Zizek, the so-called Elvis of cultural theory. Channeling the philosophic tradition of flânerie, Taylor purposely extracts her subjects from the academic setting in which they are usually immured and films them in mid-stride — at the street corner, boutique and even the garbage dump. The final product has a jet-setting, gonzo aesthetic, as the documentarian shuttles from London to New York to San Francisco to interrogate her subjects.

Butler, Zizek, and Michael Hardt (Duke professor and coauthor with Antonio Negri of several notable Autonomist tomes) are the most fascinating to inspect onscreen, likely because of the contentious aura that surrounds their collective work. Butler’s ambuutf8g meditation on the politics of disability has an introspective subtlety when paired with Zizek’s screed on the ecology movement, delivered amid piles of rubbish — while Hardt’s discussion of revolution is all the more odd set on Central Park’s limpid Turtle Pond. Throughout, Taylor is determined that motility (walking, rowing, driving) is a dominant leitmotif, whether it be languid and reflexive or brusque and pedantic. While the conversations self-consciously aim toward jargon-free transparency and inclusivity, the film’s attempt at hipster populism will probably fall on deaf ears outside of the university circuit.

Examined Life’s choice of celebrity theorists will, of course, provoke questions as to why certain icons were included and others were left out. So, obnoxious as it may sound, where was Paul Virilio or Giorgio Agamben or Michael Taussig? A sequel may be in order.

EXAMINED LIFE opens Fri/6 at the Sundance Kabuki.

The illuminated room

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› johnny@sfbg.com

It would be revealing, if not revelatory, to ask Nathaniel Dorsky to name his favorite times of the day in which to film — if asked to comment on seasons in San Francisco, one senses he could likely break down the differences in quality of light from hour to hour. This assertion is probably presumptuous, but a single shot in Dorsky’s Sarabande (2008) — of a woman and child and a glass door — prompts it. Just one of many of Dorsky’s moving pictures that pierces through its sheer clarity — a kind of beauty that hurts and heals — the shot is brighter than most of Dorsky’s daylit visions. It has a downtown light that is different from that of the avenues and garden paths where some of his recent work resides.

As Dorsky inspires some of the most open-mindedly and -heartedly conversant writing on film today, perhaps it’s time to claim him as a San Francisco filmmaker, acknowledging that while such a tag suits him, his films strip away such restrictive labels. In an excellent preliminary response to Sarabande and Winter (2008), the critic Michael Sicinski referred to the latter as a corollary to the "sharp, biting cold" of San Francisco winters, a description that makes me want to replace sharp and biting with wet and lingering, while adding bone-deep for good measure. Somehow, Winter makes these qualities revivifying.

Winter is bejeweled by rain — its splendor is an earthy, non-campy variant of the bedazzled visions of gay filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger, James Bidgood, and Jack Smith. I’ll switch to a confessional voice and admit that, in comparison to Michigan’s windy and below-freezing baptisms, I find San Francisco winters tortuous to endure. They’ve played host to my worst depressions. To behold and then remember a film devoted to them — Dorsky’s brief note: "San Francisco’s winter is a season unto itself. Fleeting, rain-soaked, verdant, a brief period of shadows and renewal" — is to receive a gift.

Shadowplay and reflection are the essence of cinema, and Dorsky makes cinema from their occurrence within daily life. Dorsky’s films are elemental. One can posit them as a manmade form of photosynthesis — just as sunlight passes through leaves and makes them semi-transparent (a process that attracts Dorsky’s gaze), so light passes through celluloid so it can become something on the screen. A passage in Song and Solitude (2005-06) looks up at the moon in the night sky, and what a star — the greatest movie star? — it is.

Dorsky’s films are silent. They are also songs, an inference present in Sarabande‘s title and the name this week’s San Francisco Cinematheque program, introduced by Bill Berkson. "Dark and stately is the warm, graceful tenderness of the Sarabande," writes Dorsky in his brief description of that film. Yet faster and livelier is Dorsky’s editing there, so that — as Sicinski perceptively notes — the singular montage he (and perhaps the late Warren Sonbert, in a brotherly way) developed undergoes a transformation, and certain images recur or echo in a musical or Apichatpong-like manner. The first time I saw Winter and Sarabande I had a terrible headache, and by their conclusion, I felt better than "normal," so it was funny to reread Dorsky’s book Devotional Cinema (2003–05) recently and see him relate a similar experience about attending a Mozart opera. These films are more than cinematic Tylenol, though. Composed from a singular point of view, they’re ravishing — on a human, rather than crushingly panoramic, scale.

NATHANIEL DORSKY: THREE SONGS

Thurs/5, 7 p.m.

Phyllis Wattis Theater

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfcinematheque.org

Twister

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› le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I love how, on the train, you can see into people’s backyards. Backyards are so much more interesting to me than front ones. What you don’t see from the road … it’s the same in California as Iowa as Pennsylvania: piles of colorful plastic trash, tarp-covered mounds of mysterious not-yet-trash, broken-down swimming pools with bikes sticking out of them, neurotic dogs and malicious children tied to trees …

Sometimes, just outside of cities, between the tracks and the freeway, you see tent towns or hobo jungles, cluttered camps tucked into clusters of trees or just trying to hide in weeds and bushes. Sometimes there is smoke billowing up from a fire pit and you are free to think about coffee or a can of beans.

But litter is more beautiful than people think, especially blooming in an otherwise pristine "natural" landscape. Although … I would argue that our trash is natural too, that Coke cans and candy wrappers are to rocks and leaves what Miles Davis is to wind and rain. We make stuff that outlives us, get over it. Or not. Either way, detritus makes me want to dance.

What I don’t like about train travel, on the other hand, is the museum piece doofus who gets on in Sacramento and blabs about the Donner Party and this scenery and that history, PA system crackling, fracturing, and feeding back, all the way to Reno. I tried to drown him out with my headphones but Utah Phillips wasn’t loud enough. But Abba was, thank you for the music.

After Reno it doesn’t matter. You are too rattled and fuzzy to care — about the sunset or canyons, or the Colorado River, or the Great Plains. Of course, without the voice directing you to look at this, look at that, you tend to notice every single thing.

Two nights in a row I dreamed about tornadoes. The first night I was home in bed, and the second night I was on the train. Only thing tying the two nights together was what I’d had for dinner: Zachary’s pizza. So if I dream about tornadoes tonight, after eating Zachary’s yet again, then we will know the cause.

I’ve got a little cooler and am the envy of this choo-choo train, because I’m holding Zachs.

My thinking: nothing packs more caloric and nutritional value per square inch than a slice of deep-dish pizza. One little piece is a whole big meal. Plus pizza is good hot or cold, as every rocker knows, and it travels well. Well, it travels well in a cooler on a train. Not so much so in a pizza box in the rain. I had to walk five or ten blocks in a downpour, trying to hold my little umbrella over both me and this two-ton pizza. We both got soaked, and the toppings slipped off of the pie and my hat fell off of me. But we made it, and reassembled, and dried off, and by the time I get to Chicago I will have eaten Zachary’s for four straight days, and presumably will have dreamed about tornadoes for four straight nights.

But I mean to tell you about Christopher’s burger joint, which is my new favorite burger joint by virtue of being a little closer to my house than Barney’s. The burgers are made out of Niman Marcus designer cows, but the place itself has a lower brow feel to it, which of course I like.

And they have shoestring french fries, which I like.

Just be ready with the salt and pepper and hot sauce, because nothing, not even the spicy burger, was seasoned very much.

I ate there on a date (speaking of flavorlessness) with one of those guys who only really knows how to talk about himself. You know, the one with an hour-long answer to every question you ask, but he doesn’t have one single question for you. While not exactly what I’m looking for, these dates always go well for me, because while he’s talking, I get to focus on my burger. And fries. Which is ultimately what I’m more interested in.

My date said (among 9 million other things) that he’d met the owner of Zachary’s and, ha ha, told him that Zachary’s was the second-best pizza he’d ever had. And when Zachary asked whose he liked better he said his own homemade pizza. Dude makes better pizza than Zachary’s! And I have no reason not to believe him, except that — and this is pretty flimsy as well as retroactive — I did not dream about tornadoes that night.

CHRISTOPHER’S BURGER

Mon.–Sat.: 11:30 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sun., noon–9 p.m.

5295 College, Oakl.

(510) 601-8828

Beer & wine

AE/DISC/MC/V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

An interesting turn

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I am a 39-year-old straight woman having the time of my life with sex. I have two questions for you.

First, my current somewhat exclusive (28-year-old hottie — irrelevant, I’m just braggin’) sex partner and I both know that nothing that touches the anus should then touch the vagina without washing first. However, sometimes in the course of, well, intercourse, it accidentally happens, whether an accidental brush with the anus during vaginal intercourse from the back, or an accidental penetration of the vagina during anal intercourse. Is there anything that can be done to prevent weird vaginal consequences when this happens? Douche? If so what kind would be best?

Other question: My current SESP has a rather large penis (braggin’ again) with a downward bend. This makes vaginal intercourse doggy style AMAZING, but every other position from the front that we’ve tried pretty painful. Any suggestions for positions we may not have thought of that would benefit from this kink in the dink?

Love,

Ouchie

Dear Ouch:

Excellent bragging! And who could blame you?

The anus/vagina question is eternal and vexing and probably (thankfully) somewhat blown out of proportion. There is of course a subset of women (heavily correlated with that subset of women who e-mail columnists who offend them, as it happens) who have vaginas like the princess and the pea, except the pea is anything and everything that could possibly cause a vaginal infection, and the princess is a vagina. So, pace the prolifically e-mailing vaginas, who shouldn’t be taking my advice on this, many or really most vaginas simply aren’t that delicate. You should try to avoid cross-contamination, of course you should, but as long as you stick with the front-to-back wipe and other basic common-sensical hygienic measures, honestly, you’ll be fine. Has anything bad happened yet? How long have you been back-to-fronting with this wow-that’s-young-but-hey-good-for-you hot guy, anyway?

The accidental brushing-up against I imagine must happen in so many acts of intercourse that if it were a likely route to infection we’d all be … well, ew. There’s no funny, clever way to describe the state of suffering from bacterial vaginosis. Let’s just not be.

Your other accidental exposure, the "it just slipped in" part, though: really? This I don’t think I’ve ever even heard before, that he’d be going about his anal business and accidentally perform vaginal intromission now and then. That doesn’t sound like such a great idea (although, again, have you had any problems?) but I think it could be avoided. Ask him to pay attention! Maybe he could use a hand as a sort of vestibule-guard (a doorman, if you will), or you could use yours. Maybe one of you could adjust an angle to make it less likely. Maybe you could, I dunno, insert a small device to block the entrance, which could be fun anyway?

My best advice after "don’t do that," though, is just to keep everything clean. Wash before (not douche, just wash). Wash after. Pee a lot. Cleanliness is next to, well, possibly not godliness in this case, but certainly UTIlessness. If you don’t believe me, you can ask a porn star. I was looking around for one to quote on this and found one I happen to know personally (although not that personally), being interviewed at my very own home paper. It’s Lorelei Lee, in the Bay Guardian‘s sex blog www.sfbg.com/blogs/sexsf/2009/02/ask_a_porn_star: "Shower immediately after every shoot," Lorelei says. "We are probably some of the cleanest people you know. That said, sometimes we do get UTIs or yeast infections or BV, in which case we go to the doctor like everyone else. Not too sexy, but not the end of the world either."

So there you have it. Take a shower. Take two.

Now, about your bendy guy. That’s really funny, since people who talk about women’s sexual anatomy and response (that would be me) are forever pointing out that you can have things stuck up there all your life and never have an orgasm from it because that spot, you know the one, just doesn’t get enough attention unless the penetrative device has a bend in it. Fingers (crooked) work. Purpose-made toys work. That thing most obviously intended for penetrative purposes, though, that just doesn’t work. Except when it does! You’re having the time of your life? Isn’t that good enough? I’m sorry, but there really is no other fix. Your fella’s may bend, but it doesn’t want to bend back. You don’t want to be responsible for what could happen if you try to bend it back. So I think you’re going to have to count your blessings and stick with what works. At least, in your case, it works very well indeed, and that is so much better than it works for so many other couples that all I can say is keep that guy; you’d miss him.

Love,

Andrea

Check out Andrea’s new column "Now What?" in the cool new sex zine Carnal Nation (carnalnation.com). Catch Andrea’s workshop "Is There Sex After Baby?" at Recess Urban Recreation (recessurbanrecreation.com ) March 30. Andif you have wondered about San Francisco Sex Information’s famous sex educator trainings but never did anything about it, here’s your chance. Classes start soon. Info and registration at sfsi.org.

Stimuutf8g transit

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Public transit agencies in the Bay Area are being hit with deep cuts to their operating budgets, thanks to the recent state budget deal, and are hoping to use money from the federal economic stimulus bill to maintain their operations.

That conflict played out during a Feb. 25 hearing by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in Oakland, the agency that distributes federal transportation funds to the nine Bay Area counties, which was considering how to distribute $341 million in funding intended for public transit agencies and $154 million for road projects.

Caltrain, AC Transit, Bay Area Rapid Transit, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, other Bay Area districts, and transit user groups urged the MTC board to direct most of the money to immediate needs rather than long-term projects.

Community groups urged the MTC to abandon plans to use $70 million for BART’s Oakland Airport extension and $75 million for the Transbay Terminal rebuild in San Francisco.

“People who are most affected when Muni makes fare increases and service cuts are people who are transit-dependent,” said Razzu Engen, who represents the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the Transit Justice Project. “You can have the best capital expansion project there is out there, but if you don’t have the money to run it, forget it, it’s not worthwhile.”

While the MTC voted to remove the Transbay Terminal expenditure — noting that it could tap into a separate pot of $8 billion for high-speed rail projects in the stimulus measure — they kept the BART extension project in place, leaving $271 million to be divided among the transit agencies.

“Our ongoing need is to maintain continuing operations. But maintenance doesn’t have a very big constituency on the commission. We have a firm commitment to capital programs,” MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler told the Guardian.

Judson True, spokesperson for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (which operates Muni), said the money will help offset state funding losses of $61 million over the next two years and allow the agency to “rehabilitate the system.”

Among the expenditures approved by the MTC was $11 million to install 67 new Muni ticket vending machines and money for new Muni vehicles and rail interchanges.

Jose Luis Moscovich, executive director of San Francisco County Transportation Authority, supported the MTC’s decision. “[We’re] going to see money flowing through formulas to Muni to alleviate service conditions on the T-Third, N-Judah, the L.”

Moscovich maintains that the region “needs to take the opportunity of the stimulus package to do things that are going to change the way we live. Paradoxically, these big projects like the Transbay project are the things that are going to take us in that direction.”

Yet the removal of the Transbay Terminal funding, while upsetting to Sup. Chris Daly — who serves on both the MTC board and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority board — turns out to be even more complicated than it seemed at the time.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported March 2 (“Transbay high-speed rail station hits a snag”) that both the California High Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain — systems expected to share the new Transbay Terminal rail terminus — are now expressing doubts about whether they will use the facility after all because of design flaws with its rail component.

CHSRA chair Quentin Kopp was quoted as saying, “Three sets of engineers met and concurred that the design for the station was inadequate and useless for high-speed rail.”

TJPA spokesperson Adam Alberti, who has been sparring with Kopp in recent months over whether Transbay will be the terminus for a high-speed rail system extending from San Francisco to Los Angeles (see “Breaking ground,” 12/10/08), told the Guardian, “I don’t think it’s as bad as it sounds.”

He said the TJPA is currently working to resolve the engineering problems and handle the increased volume expected from high-speed rail and Caltrain and he hopes to have a solution in place by March 12, when he said the MTC will revisit the matter.

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger also defended the Oakland Airport extension, telling the Guardian, “The challenge in transit is not one over the other. We need to address all those requirements if we’re going to end up with an effective, functioning system that continues to attract people out of their cars and into the smart environmental choice — which is public transit.”

 

Blaming the system

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› rebeccab@sfbg.com

The Grand Sheraton Hotel in downtown Sacramento was buzzing Feb. 24 as some 400 conference-goers representing myriad geographies and political perspectives gathered in one room to tackle an enormous question: should California’s constitution get an overhaul?

Hosted by the Bay Area Council, a San Francisco-based business group, the summit introduced the idea of staging a statewide constitutional convention that would grant Californians the opportunity to make major revisions to the state constitution and streamline the government reform process.

The council hopes to place a measure on the ballot as early as November 2010 to ask voters if a convention should be called. If the effort gets a green light, it would mark the first time in 130 years that a meeting of this kind was convened in California.

The state’s government is dysfunctional, Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters opined during the summit. Full of stakeholders with disparate viewpoints who are too often unwilling to collaborate, he said, the Legislature either tends to roll out "unworkable monstrosities" or have its efforts stalled by a small number of representatives who disagree with the majority. "The problem isn’t really which party is in charge," he said. "It’s the fundamental structure of the government."

The summit attracted diverse interests ranging from Chevron Corp., an icon of big business in the Bay Area, to the Courage Campaign, a left-leaning political organization cast in the mold of Moveon.org. Despite being divided on other issues, all parties seemed to be in agreement on the main point that California’s government is desperately in need of a fix.

"I think of the government in California as being like the Winchester House — you keep adding rooms, but there are no corridors," Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) joked at the summit, referring to a historic mansion in San Jose renowned for its monstrous size and complete lack of a floor plan.

The idea for holding a convention was first floated last summer, when Bay Area Council President and CEO Jim Wunderman published an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle titled "California Government Has Failed Us." Wunderman struck a nerve, and organizations such as Common Cause and the League of Women Voters signed up to partner with the business group to launch the constitutional convention effort. Clamor for government reform got louder still in recent weeks, as a disapproving public witnessed legislators sink into a debacle over the budget deal.

An arduous budget debate further intensified when it came to extracting the last vote needed to achieve the required two-thirds majority. The Democratic majority wound up negotiating with Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria), who turned his vote into leverage to force concessions on his own demands. Maldonado was able to single-handedly eliminate a proposed 12-cent increase on the gas tax, and he stipulated that an initiative be placed on the May ballot for an open primary.

"The budget was held hostage to right-wing ideology when the people of the state were demanding a real solution to a real problem," says Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association and the owner of a lobbying firm. "For example, the only way they could get the votes was to give away huge corporate loopholes."

The lesson learned? "We have tied ourselves in knots with the two-thirds vote requirement," declared Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a moderate Democrat and gubernatorial candidate, spurring a round of applause at the summit. Garamendi called for "majority rule, plain and simple, on every issue." He also suggested extended term limits, and transitioning to a 120-member unicameral legislature to allow representatives to better represent smaller districts.

Other ideas for reform that got bandied about during the summit included reinventing election procedures and considering approaches such as instant-runoff voting, establishing proportional representation, changing the number of signatures needed to place an initiative on the ballot, and establishing an automatic review process for state agencies.

In order to hold a convention, California voters would have to approve two separate ballot initiatives. The first would create an amendment to the current constitution allowing voters to call the convention, while the second would call the actual convention. Both questions could be put to voters on the same ballot, according to the Bay Area Council. Any changes made to the constitution would then have to be ratified by voters.

The process of calling a convention is clear enough, but questions abound on how to proceed from there. For example, how would convention delegates be selected? How many would attend? How would the organizers ensure inclusiveness across ethnic, gender, and economic boundaries? Would the convention open up the entire constitution to debate, or would parties agree to narrow the scope to a few key issues? How would the convention itself escape the same gridlock that critics say has rendered the Legislature dysfunctional?

Without hammering out the fine points, it’s hard to know whether the enthusiasm exhibited at the summit could survive the nitty-gritty details of actually going through with a convention. It’s also too early to say whether progressives could emerge from such a process satisfied with the results.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward the constitutional convention. "I wouldn’t tell you at this point I’m enthusiastic about it because it could be too much blah-blah and not enough action," he told the Guardian. "I do definitely support budget reform — I’m going to make that a priority — and really want to look at the budget infrastructure, certainly the two-thirds majority. I think we need to deliberate on it and make certain that it wouldn’t have any unintended consequences."

Sen. Mark Leno shared Ammiano’s view that the two-thirds majority requirement tops the list of problems. "I think we could take some modest but profound steps before we open up an entire potential Pandora’s box," he said of the convention idea. "I don’t wish to dampen the spirits of our friends at the Bay Area Council. Their intentions are very good. But should it go forward, the devil will be in the details."

Goldberg took a similar stance. "The biggest problem is the two-thirds vote requirement for taxes and a budget," he told the Guardian. "If a constitutional convention is the way that issue gets resolved, that’s positive. But the question is, how long is that going to take? How are they going to do it? There are so many unanswered questions that I would say, if that’s the only way to deal with the two-thirds vote, let’s do it."

Robert Cruickshank, public policy director at the Courage Campaign and a blogger with the political Web site Calitics.com, said he feels confident that a convention is a worthwhile pursuit for progressives. His organization conducted a poll of its membership to gauge whether there was progressive support for the idea, he said, and results showed that 92 percent of respondents supported it.

For his part, Wunderman emphasized the convention as a tool that could be used by voters rather than elected officials in Sacramento. "I’m excited about changing the game, changing the rules," he told the Guardian. "And I’m more confident than ever that if you lead Californians to revise their constitution, once they see it, they’ll know what they have to do, and they’ll do it. And the fact that it was them that did it will give rise to support for the product."

The Chronicle death watch

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Is San Francisco really the frontrunner in the race to become the first major U.S. city to go without a major daily? Or is it a victim of disaster capitalism, in which powerful corporations exploit economic meltdowns to exact otherwise unacceptable concessions from employees and/or antitrust legislators?

Media critics chewed on those questions last week, following Hearst Corporation’s abrupt Feb. 24 announcement that it is undertaking "critical cost-saving measures including a significant reduction in the number of its unionized and non-unionized employees" at the San Francisco Chronicle, and will close or sell the paper, which has 1,500 employees, 275 in the newsroom, unless these changes occur within weeks.

Noting that the Chronicle lost more than $50 million in 2008 — the worst in a string of nonstop losses the paper has suffered since Hearst bought it in 2000 — Hearst vice chairman and chief executive officer Frank A. Bennack Jr. and Hearst Newspapers president Steven R. Swartz warned that "without the specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organization, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for the Chronicle or, should a buyer not be found, to shut the newspaper down."

Two days later, the California Media Workers Guild, which represents workers at the Chronicle, reported that Hearst is seeking "a combination of wide-ranging contractual concessions in addition to layoffs, the exact number of which the company said it did not yet have."

"For Guild-covered positions, the company did say the job cuts would at least number 50," read a Guild statement. "Other proposals include removal of some advertising sales people from Guild coverage and protection, the right to outsource — specifically mentioning ad production — voluntary buyouts, layoffs and wage freezes."

Guild representative Carl Hall said he doesn’t see any reason to think Hearst’s threats are a bluff.

"The Rocky Mountain News just closed in Denver," Hall told the Guardian. "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which is also owned by Hearst, is slated to close in March, if a buyer isn’t found. We’ve seen bankruptcies and disaster scenarios all around the country, and the Chronicle has experienced some of the deepest operating losses in the nation."

Reached for comment March 2, Chronicle publisher Frank Vega told the Guardian, "We’re still in the process," while Guild treasurer George Powell said that "proposals have been exchanged and each side is evaluating them."

WHERE’S THE MONEY?


Evaluating Hearst claims is hardly an easy task. A privately held corporation, Hearst doesn’t open its books to the public. But one thing is clear, just from reading postings on the corporation’s Web site: Hearst is midway through a squeeze in which it’s trying to turn a profit on the 15 newspapers it owns throughout the country.

And that means more syndicated stories — and possibly the end of free newspaper Web sites.

As Swartz outlined in a recent press release, all Hearst newspapers will be required to allow for "efficient production or common content sharing," use "outbound telemarketing and self-service ad platforms more effectively," increase their subscription rates, outsource printing, and charge for digital content.

"Exactly how much paid content to hold back from our free sites will be a judgment call made daily by our management," Swartz stated. "Our goal is a business model that seeks, by 2011, to get more than 50 percent of our revenue from circulation revenue and digital advertising sales."

And the same day that Chronicle workers learned that their newspaper might be facing the axe, Hearst cut 75 out of 135 newsroom positions at the San Antonio Express-News in Texas.

As San Antonio Express-News editor Robert Rivard told his staff, "Incremental staff and budget cuts, we are sorry to say, have proven inadequate amid changing social and market forces now compounded by this deepening recession."

"It’s like death in here today," a source, who asked to remain anonymous, said. "Everyone who was laid off is still here, working ’til March 20."

And like the growing pool of newsroom refugees nationwide, the survivors of this San Antonio massacre have since met to brainstorm about other newsgathering business models.

"We all have kids, so we need salaries and insurance," our source confided, "but we’re going to start researching some options, see what’s working and not in other places. The time is ripe."

THE SINGLETON SCENARIO


Meanwhile, sources within the Chronicle — who asked to remain anonymous given the ongoing negotiations — claim that there isn’t much hope that Hearst will come up with innovative solutions, but that there is a chance the paper could be sold to Dean Singleton, the only other major Bay Area newspaper publisher.

Singleton’s MediaNews Group owns the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times, and has lost several antitrust cases in recent years. Any deal with the Chronicle would require Department of Justice approval — and would give one owner control of nearly every daily newspaper in the Bay Area.

The media baron refuses to comment on whether he is considering buying the Chronicle.

"We’ll just watch it play out," Singleton told Editor and Publisher’s senior editor, Joe Strupp, last week. "I am not going to speculate on what could happen."

But, as Strupp noted, "MediaNews remains highly leveraged."

Hearst Corporation currently holds a substantial amount of MediaNews debt, owns 31 percent of MediaNews Group newspapers outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, and recently took control of four Connecticut papers that MediaNews was managing for Hearst.

Former Chronicle city editor Alan Mutter believes Singleton could still be in the running.

Observing on his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog that "To wipe out a $50 million loss, let alone make a profit, the [Chronicle] would have to eliminate 47 percent of its entire staff," Mutter later clarified that he believes it’s "extremely unlikely" that the Chronicle will reduce its staff to that extent.

"But, it will try to do some serious cost cutting, and it could be sold, potentially, to MediaNews, because Singleton would not necessarily be expected to put up any money," wrote Mutter, noting that hundreds of people involved in the Chronicle‘s advertising operations could be eliminated if Singleton took over, since ads for MediaNews’ papers are already assembled in India. Another motivation for Hearst to find someone to take over the Chronicle lies in the multimillion dollar printing plant that Hearst just built.

"But no one expects the business to break even now," Mutter said. "If you want to make $20–<\d>$30 million profit over the long term, that’s not a good outcome for a business that has lost $1 billion in recent years."

Michael Stoll, director of the Public Press project, which seeks to launch a nonprofit daily paper, told us he thinks it would be "a real tragedy" if Hearst followed through on any of its Chronicle threats.

"Most San Francisco journalism is generated by reporters at the Chronicle, and its few competitors would be ill-prepared to step in and immediately fill the void," Stoll said.

Concerned that Singleton’s MediaNews could try to make the case that there is a crisis and that the Department of Justice should therefore waive antitrust prohibitions against monopoly ownership, Stoll warned that "the expansion of MediaNews ownership to nearly every other paper in the Bay Area in the last two years has proven to be an unmitigated disaster in terms of a less independent voice from Santa Cruz to Santa Rosa, and from San Mateo to Contra Costa."

The Society of Professional Journalists is calling for a public discussion of Hearst’s threats.

Worried that additional cuts to the Chronicle "will only exacerbate what SPJ perceives as an already growing vacuum of credible reporting and will further limit scrutiny of our public institutions," Northern California SPJ board president Ricardo Sandoval observed that closing the Chronicle "would mean losing the largest source of news for hundreds of thousands of readers in the San Francisco Bay Area."

Asking Hearst to participate in "a high-profile conversation with its community based on the imperative of reinvention," Sandoval said, "We urge journalists, foundations, corporations, the public, and public officials to join us in finding solutions to this increasingly urgent civic challenge."

As University of California at Berkeley journalism professor Bill Drummond warns, "this is not just the decline of the industry. If the mainstream media, which is supposed to be balanced and fair, goes away, if that scrutiny is no longer there, everything will be more partisan and narrower.

"And in this atmosphere where everyone is begging the government to fund their industry, what about the fourth estate?" Drummond said. "Maybe we need the newspaper equivalent of public broadcasting, with pledge drives and bake sales."

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