SFBG Blogs

Live Shots: KISS and Mötley Crüe at Sleep Train Pavilion

Tony Robles
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By Dillon Donovan

Reunited after having first toured together 30 years ago, KISS and Mötley Crüe having joined forces once again unleashing their mighty sound last night at the Sleep Train Pavillion.

If Mötley Crüe was indeed intended to be the opening act it was hard to tell; its set length was just two songs longer than KISS and witnessed by a much more frenzied audience being pushed to the limit thanks to the druid-style carnival theme the band has been working with for ages now.


The night opened up with a fire-breathing explosive rendition of “Saints of Los Angeles” from Crüe’s latest record, and even though the band is aging these days it was difficult to tell amongst the fire, lights, smoke, back-up dancers, and roller-coaster drum set of Tommy Lee.

Lee and his kit have always been such an essential attribute to the bands explosive sound and theatrics, which was plain to see when he launched into a two-part drum solo while spinning 360 degrees over head, even allowing an audience member to join him on his roller-coaster thanks to an extra vacant seat. Even though one new song “SEX” was unveiled live, Crüe mostly stayed true to its classic hits during the 70-minute set, signing off with an unrivaled version of one its biggest hits, “Kickstart my Heart.”

Only half of the original lineup of KISS was represented but they arrived in the full regalia, makeup, platform shoes, blood dripping everywhere, and an all-around cartoonish appearance rivaled by few bands today. I’ve never seen such a dedicated and allegiant fan base, some dressed just a well as the band on stage. 

Sure, there might be other bands I prefer musically, but the showmanship of KISS is unrivaled, Paul Stanley flying over the crowd, Gene Simmons spitting blood, rising platforms, ziplines, explosions – KISS is rock’n’roll. The crowd was torn open with hits like “Detroit Rock City” and “Shout it Out Loud” followed by Simmons belting out a blood-spitting version of “Hell or Hallelujah” off newest album, Monster, released in early July. Though my favorite part of the set was the 1974 hit “Black Diamond.”

Although their show format may seem a bit formulaic to tried and true fans who’ve followed the band since the ’70s, for me as a first-timer,  it was rock’n’roll magic. That formula in fact, is what has maintained the loyalty of those legions of fans.

KISS setlist:
1. Detroit Rock City
2. Shout It Out Loud
3. I Love It Loud
4. Firehouse
5. Hell of Hallelujah
6. Shock me
7. Bass Solo
8. God of Thunder
9. Love Gun
10. Lick It Up
11. Black Diamond
12. Rock and Roll All Nite

Mötley Crüe selist:
1. Saints of Los Angeles
2. Wild Side
3. Shout at the Devil
4. Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S)
5. Sex
6. Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
7. Home Sweet Home
8. Drum Solo
9. Guitar Solo
10. Live Wire
11. Primal Scream
12. Dr. Feelgood
13. Girls, Girls, Girls
14. Kickstart My Heart

All photos by Matthew Reamer

Eliana steals the show at Thursday’s dueling City Hall rallies

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Eliana steals the show at Thursday’s dueling City Hall rallies

Eliana Lopez once again stole the show as the Ethics Commission Thursday debated the “ethical fate” of her husband Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi inside City Hall while the Stand With Ross forces and their opponents staged back to back rallies on the City Hall steps.

Eliana sat with and supported her husband during the morning at the hearing on the misconduct case and then made an early afternoon dramatic entrance to the Mirkarimi rally. (The commission later Thursday unanimously rejected most of Mayor Ed Lee’s official misconduct charges against the suspended sheriff but voted 4-l to recommend the Board of Supervisors find him guilty of official misconduct for grabbing his wife’s arm on Dec. 31 and pleading guilty to the resulting misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment.  See Steve Jones Guardian blog.)

Eliana was greeted with cheers as the tv cameras and reporters crowded in on her.  

She spoke with ease and authority, greeted many friends, spoke in Spanish to several Spanish language radio and television reporters, and walked easily through the crowd shaking hands and talking with supporters in two languages.

“We don’t want any more hate,” she said. “We want love.” She said the case was
“about democracy” and she said that the community stands behind her husband.

I asked her about her plans.  She said she had finished her movie in Venezuela and was back living with Ross in their home with their young son Theo.   “I have good feelings,” she said.

The two groups worked out an informal modus vivendi.  The Remove Ross group had a permit for using the steps so they went first with their press conference rally with banners saying “We stand with survivors” and “The facts do matter.” Their group was largely from the three organizations leading the charge against Ross, La Casa de las Madres, Domestic Violence Consortium and Futures Without Violence.

The Mirkarimi group initially gathered across Polk Street, waved signs and chanted “Stand With Ross.” The group then got a permit to use the City Hall steps and held its rally after the first rally ended.  Sharon Hewitt, executive director of the Community Leadership project, said that the city owed an “act of apology for the violence” that it had caused to Ross and his family.

The police officer on duty estimated to me that there were 40 or so in the domestic violence group. My count was about 50 or so.  The Stand With Ross group had more people and they were more spirited in their chants and marching.   

Nite Trax: Five magickal MK moments

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Nite Trax: Five magickal MK moments

Eighty-year-olds like myself keep finding new Wonders of the Internet: despite basically living at record stores in Detroit in the early 1990s (props to Buy-Rite, Record Time, and Sam’s Jams) and working my way through college throwing raves, it is only through YouTubes, Discogs, and the recent resurgence of old-school dance music DJs and producers that we fully comprehend the breadth and scope of some of the major techno and house players. Case in point: Detroit’s MK, aka Marc Kinchen, who’s appearing this weekend on the roof of the W Hotel as part of As You like It’s second anniversary.

MK appeared here last year with his brother Scottie Deep, and they dug up some amazing, harder house sounds of the late 1990s on the Public Works dance floor. But it’s MK’s wizard early ’90s house dubs that have rightly enshrined him, along with Masters at Work, as the underground winner of that era. In the age before the Internet, when the only way to hear this music was on the dancefloor, you needed a clear and unique style to “brand” yourself instantly on listeners, and MK’s was one of the most recognizable. You just knew a new MK joint once it dropped — but only now, 20 years later, have I discovered just how many tunes of his I missed simply because I showed up at the club or the record store on the wrong day.

I heard MK kill it with a mix of all his own records at Movement: the Detroit Electronic Music festival this year, and afterwards at the KMS label’s 25th anniversary show (in the booth with Stacey Pullen, Kenny Larkin, and Terrance Parker — dreamy!!) he’ll likely bring that same warm intensity and catchy sensibility to the awesome-looking As You Like It party (don’t worry, despite the W location it won’t be douchy at all — the last one was quite wonderful with a great crowd). I wanted to share some of the memories I have of various MK joints below, in the context of growing up a gay Arab house-loving boy in Detroit and encountering his works one by one of some amazing dance floors.

1. LOVE CHANGES

I fell in love, broke up, fell back in love, broke up, got back together, and then spent a couple melancholy years alone to this track. Thing is — I couldn’t find it anywhere on vinyl. So basically I would sing myself to sleep with it, laugh and cry to it in the back of my head, and pester my poor DJ friends like D. Wynn and Butch to death to play it. And when they would I would explode with feeling. When I finally got my hands on the MK + Alana album (on cassette), which was lovely but definitely a play for mainstream respectability, thus the more slowed-down R&B tempos, I wore that shit out on my Walkman. When MK dropped this at the DEMF this year, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

2. CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?

Props for the silent Trollope pun and the absolutely brilliant lyrics, especially for a bookish queer boy obsessed with all things British (if anyone else has so skillfully deployed the phrase “cricket pavillion” in a dance song, I know not who.) But MK’s mix of the pet Shop Boys b-side is what propels this tune into my top 10 songs of all time. It’s a dub masterpiece of propulsive rhythms and surrealistic touches — and possibly one of the greatest mixes of all time.

3. BURNING

One of the theme songs of what I would call Detroit’s greatest club, DJ Ken Collier’s Heaven, an all-night gay club (“black gay club” in the homo-segregationist language of the time) out near Six Mile and Woodward, “Burning” revealed how very poor the Madonna pablum of the “white” gay clubs was at the time, and also introduced a new generation to house music. (By then enough kids had come through the rave scene without hearing proper house music to constitute a mini-epidemic.) This mix probably introduced the same crowd to dimished 7th chord structures as well. When I ran into MK outside the KMS 25th anniversary party at St Andrew’s Hall this past May, legendary radio DJ Alan Oldham dropped “Burning” from the third floor — MK cocked his ear as he posed for a photo and said, “I smell something burning.” What a kidder!

4. 4 YOU

My own theme song right here. Put out under MK’s 4th Measure Men guise, it pairs well with MK’s greatest hit from a year earlier. We all though the sample said “all hands” so we would all raise our hands when it played at Times Square.

5.GET IT RIGHT

Er, I regret limiting myself to 5 MKs here — and really I’ve only skimmed some of the hits — I’d love to include this one that sealed the New Jack Swing movement with a kiss, or this one that shows that MK is still alive and kicking, or this one, which will always hold a place in my heart. But this one, this one — I never even knew who did this one, but it followed me around during my formative house years and wouldn’t let go. I hadn’t heard it in 20 years until I started looking up MK’s works, and I could still remember every lyric (or at least every lyric I made up). I remember getting down to this joint at Menjo’s on Sunday nights in Detroit especially.

6. FINE, ONE MORE

7. GAAAH ONE MORE


Late-summer new movies: whole lotta eh (but T minus one month ’till ‘The Master’ opens!)

Sue Vaughan
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Late-summer new movies: whole lotta eh (but T minus one month ’till ‘The Master’ opens!)

A pair of new Asian films about demons, real and figural, open today: Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai and Painted Skin: The Resurrection. Dual review here. The San Francisco Film Society screens 1953 Italian omnibus Love in the City; review here.

Hollywood urges you to spend your dollah dollah bills on creaky action heroes (The Expendables 2); mystical, twee garden-children (The Odd Life of Timothy Green); stop-motion kids who see dead people (ParaNorman); and girl-group melodrama (Sparkle; review and trailer below). A few more options, too, after the jump.

The Awakening In 1921 England Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a best-selling author who specializes in exposing the legions of phony spiritualists exploiting a nation still grieving for its World War I dead. She’s rather rudely summoned to a country boys’ boarding school by gruff instructor Robert (Dominic West), who would be delighted if she could disprove the presence of a ghost there — preferably before it frightens more of his young charges to death. Borrowing tropes from the playbooks of recent Spanish and Japanese horror flicks, Nick Murphy’s period thriller is handsome and atmospheric, but disappointing in a familiar way — the buildup is effective enough, but it all unravels in pat logic and rote “Boo!” scares when the anticlimactic payoff finally arrives. The one interesting fillip is Florence’s elaborate, antiquated, meticulously detailed arsenal of equipment and ruses designed to measure (or debunk) possibly supernatural phenomena. (1:47) (Dennis Harvey)

Beloved There is a touch of Busby Berkeley to the first five or so minutes of Christophe Honoré’s Beloved — a fetishy, mid-’60s-set montage in which a series of enviably dressed Parisian women stride purposefully in and out of a shoe shop, trying on an endless array of covetable pumps. As for the rest, it’s a less delightful tale of two women, a mother and a daughter, and the unfathomable yet oft-repeated choices they make in their affairs of the heart. It helps very little that the mother is played by Ludivine Sagnier and then Catherine Deneuve — whose handsome Czech lover (Rasha Bukvic) is somewhat unkindly but perhaps deservedly transformed by the years into Milos Forman — or that the daughter, as an adult, is played by Deneuve’s real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni. And it helps even less that the film is a musical, wherein one character or another occasionally takes the opportunity, during a moment of inexplicable emotional duress, to burst into song and let poorly written pop lyrics muddy the waters even further. The men are sexist cads, or children, or both, and if they’re none of those, they’re gay. The women find these attributes to be charming and irresistible. None of it feels like a romance for the ages, but nonetheless the movie arcs through four interminable decades. When tragedy strikes, it’s almost a relief, until we realize that life goes on and so will the film. (2:15) (Lynn Rapoport)

Sparkle What started as a vehicle for American Idol‘s Jordin Sparks will now forever be known as Whitney Houston’s Last Movie, with the fallen superstar playing a mother of three embittered by her experiences in the music biz. Her voice is hoarse, her face is puffy, and her big singing moment (“His Eye Is on the Sparrow” in a church scene) is poorly lip-synced — but dammit, she’s Whitney Houston, and she has more soul than everything else in Sparkle combined and squared. The tale of an aspiring girl group in late-60s Detroit, Sparkle’s other notable points include flawless period outfits, hair, and make-up (especially the eyeliner), but the rest of the film is a pretty blah mix of melodrama and clichés: the sexpot older sister (Carmen Ejogo) marries the abusive guy and immediately starts snorting coke; the squeaky-clean youngest (Sparks, sweet but boring) is one of those only-in-the-movie songwriters who crafts intricate pop masterpieces from her diary scribblings. As far as Idol success stories go, Dreamgirls (2006) this ain’t; Houston fans would do better to revisit The Bodyguard (1992) and remember the diva in her prime. (1:56) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kx1UK7ACmw

2 Days in New York Messy, attention-hungry, random, sweet, pathetic, and even adorable — such is the latest dispatch from Julie Delpy, here with her follow-up to 2007’s 2 Days in Paris. It’s also further proof that the rom-com as a genre can yet be saved by women who start with the autobiographical and spin off from there. Now separated from 2 Days in Paris’s Jake and raising their son, artist Marion is happily cohabiting with boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock), a radio host and sometime colleague at the Village Voice, and his daughter, while juggling her big, bouncing bundle of neuroses. Exacerbating her issues: a visit by her father Jeannot (Delpy’s real father Albert Delpy), who eschews baths and tries to smuggle an unseemly selection of sausages and cheeses into the country; her provocative sister Rose (Alexia Landeau), who’s given to nipple slips in yoga class and Marion and Mingus’ apartment; and Rose’s boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon), who’s trouble all around. The gang’s in NYC for Marion’s one-woman show, in which she hopes to auction off her soul to the highest, and hopefully most benevolent, bidder. Rock, of course, brings the wisecracks to this charming, shambolic urban chamber comedy, as well as, surprisingly, a dose of gravitas, as Marion’s aggrieved squeeze — he’s uncertain whether these home invaders are intentionally racist, cultural clueless, or simply bonkers but he’s far too polite to blurt out those familiar Rock truths. The key, however, is Delpy — part Woody Allen, if the Woodman were a maturing, ever-metamorphosing French beauty — and part unique creature of her own making, given to questioning her identity, ideas of life and death, and the existence of the soul. 2 Days in New York is just a sliver of life, but buoyed by Delpy’s thoughtful, lightly madcap spirit. You’re drawn in, wanting to see what happens next after the days are done. (1:31) (Kimberly Chun)  

Pussy Riot found guilty, local and global protests today

Tony Robles
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Pussy Riot found guilty, local and global protests today

Today, three members of the Russian activist punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism” stemming from an incident in February, when the trio performed its anti-Putin “Punk Prayer” inside a Russian Orthodox cathedral

Following the verdict, there will be global protests today including one at the Russian Consulate in San Francisco at 3pm and at Justin Herman Plaza at 6:30pm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY

It’s a case that has sparked international interest, and become a cause célèbre for musicians and feminists worldwide. Those who have spoken out against the harsh treatment of the trio (who were kept in a cage during the trial, and forced, along with the entire courtroom, to stand for two hours while the judge droned on with the verdict) include Kathleen Hanna – who called the trial a farce – and Yoko Ono, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Peaches, and dozens more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJ7GzPvJKw

During that verdict reading, the judge said Pussy Riot “committed an act of hooliganism, a gross violation of public order showing obvious disrespect for society.”

According to Reuters, Moscow’s US embassy said the sentence appeared disproportionate to what the defendants did.

The women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30 (two of whom are mothers to young children) have said the performance, in which they donned colorful ski masks,was a protest against Vladimir Putin’s ties with the church. The song was less than a minute long, and now the group is set to spend two years in prison for it.

The lyrics of the “Punk Prayer” are below:

St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin
Drive away! Drive away Putin!
(end chorus)

Black robe, golden epaulettes
All parishioners are crawling and bowing
The ghost of freedom is in heaven
Gay pride sent to Siberia in chains

The head of the KGB is their chief saint
Leads protesters to prison under escort
In order not to offend the Holy
Women have to give birth and to love

Holy shit, shit, Lord’s shit!
Holy shit, shit, Lord’s shit!

(Chorus)
St. Maria, Virgin, become a feminist
Become a feminist, Become a feminist
(end chorus)

Church praises the rotten dictators
The cross-bearer procession of black limousines
In school you are going to meet with a teacher-preacher
Go to class – bring him money!

Patriarch Gundyaev believes in Putin
Bitch, you better believed in God
Belt of the Virgin is no substitute for mass-meetings
In protest of our Ever-Virgin Mary!

(Chorus)
St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin
Drive away! Drive away Putin!
(end chorus)

The case, of course, extends far beyond this activist band, questioning bubbling questions of free speech in Putin’s Russia. Thousands are taking a stand, protesting in Barcelona, Berlin, Bonn, Dublin, Hamburg, Kaliningrad, Kiev, London, M
arseille, Melbourne, Moscow, München/Munich, Murmansk, Nantes, New York City, Nice, Odessa, Paris, Perm, Reykjavik, Riga, Samara, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Toulouse, Tournai, Belgium, Tver, Västerås, Vilinus, Warszawa, Wien/Vienna  – and San Francisco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS1H8IkOm64

Russian Consulate protest
Fri/17, 3pm
2790 Green, SF

Justin Herman Plaza protest
Fri/17, 6:30pm
One Market, SF

Commission narrows Mirkarimi charges to one but recommends removal

Sasha Cuttler
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The Ethics Commission today unanimously rejected most of Mayor Ed Lee’s official misconduct charges against suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi – including abuse of power, impeding a police investigation, and dissuading witnesses – but voted 4-1 to recommend the Board of Supervisors find him guilty of official misconduct for grabbing his wife’s arm on Dec. 31 and pleading guilty to the resulting misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment.

The sole dissenting vote, Chair Benedict Hur, said he had “grave concerns” that such as a broad interpretation of what behaviors constitute official misconduct would give mayors a “strong tool” to inappropriately remove their political adversaries (or at least invite charges that they were), as Mirkarimi supporters allege is happening now.

But the rest of the commission adopted a broad interpretation of what city officials and voters intended in 1995 when they overhauled the City Charter and added a new official misconduct clause banning “conduct that falls below the standard of decency, good faith and right action impliedly required of all public officers.”

“I have a lot of concerns about where you draw the line if you don’t relate it to official duties,” Hur said, appealing to his colleagues that, “I think this charter provision was meant to be narrow.”

Commissioner Paul Renne – who in earlier hearings had taken a strong role in excluding prejudicial evidence against Mirkarimi and was thought to be a possible vote in his favor – today led the charge in interpreting misconduct in the broadest possible way, arguing it didn’t even have to be related to his official duties, while the three other votes against Mirkarimi made the case that his conduct and conviction were related to a sheriff’s role overseeing the jail and its domestic violence programs.

“I think the voters would be shocked if we were to say a public official who pleaded guilty to domestic violence has not committed an act of official misconduct,” Renne said.

But Mirkarimi’s attorneys and supporters – who outnumbered those urging his removal (mostly domestic violence advocates) by more than 4-to-1 during the three hours of public testimony taken today – say the shocking thing is for a just-elected official to be unilaterally removed from office by a political adversary for reasons that today’s proceedings showed were tenuous.

“No case has ever been upheld in court to remove an elected official for a low-level misdemeanor,” said Paula Canny, the attorney for Mirkarimi’s wife, Eliana Lopez, who sat next to and supported his husband throughout today’s nine-hour proceedings.

Indeed, the city is wading into uncharted waters and the commission had few court precedents to draw from in making its findings. It’s also possible that the charter provision is unconstitutionally vague, as Mirkarimi’s attorneys have alleged, both here and in court, with an earlier judge opting to wait until after the city’s process plays out before ruling on the question.

But first, it will be up to the Board of Supervisors, where nine votes on the 11-member body are required to remove Mirkarimi. Today’s hearing got complicated at the end – as commissioners wrestled with what it means to essentially throw out the mayor’s charges and adopt their own more narrow accusation, and how to present everything to the board – that it decided to hold one more meeting in early September to adopt a summary and send everything to the board, which will then have 30 days to act.  

“I leave this process concerned that the will of the voters is being undermined,” Mirkarimi told reporters after the hearing. Holding his hand, Lopez said, “I’m shocked to see what happened today, but we are fighters.”

 

For complete coverage and analysis of what happened today, what it means, and what’s next, read next week’s Bay Guardian.

Dick Meister: The billionaire’s bill of rights

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By Dick Meister

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

Billionaire corporate interests and other well financed anti-labor forces are waging a major drive to stifle the political voice of workers and their unions in California that is certain to spread nationwide if not stopped – and stopped now.

At issue is a highly deceptive measure, Proposition 32, on the November election ballot, that its anti-labor sponsors label as an even-handed attempt to limit campaign spending. But actually, it would limit – and severely – only the spending of unions while leaving corporations and other moneyed special interests free to spend as much as they like.

Unions would be prohibited from making political contributions with money collected from voluntary paycheck deductions authorized by their members, which is the main source of union political funds.

 But there would be no limits on corporations, whose political funds come from their profits, their customers or suppliers and the contributions of corporate executives. Nor would there be any limit on the political spending of the executives or any other wealthy individuals. What’s more, corporate special interests and billionaires could still give unlimited millions to secretive “Super PACs” that can raise unlimited amounts of money anonymously to finance their political campaigns.

The proposition would have a “devastating impact” on unions, notes Professor John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, writing in  the Hill’s Congress blog.  As he says, it would likely all but eliminate political spending by unions while greatly increasing political spending by business interests and wealthy individuals.

 Anti-labor interests are already outspending unions nationwide by a ratio of more than $15 for every $1 spent by unions. Between 2000 and 2011, that amounted to  $700 million spent by anti-labor forces, while unions spent just a little more than $284 million.

 Proposition 32 would even restrict unions in their communications with their own members on political issues. That’s because money raised by payroll deductions pays for the preparation and mailing of communications to union members, including political materials.

Unfortunately, there’s even more – much more –to Proposition 32. It also would prohibit unions from making contributions to political parties and defines public employee unions as “government contractors” that would be forbidden from attempting to influence any government agency with whom they have a contract.

That restriction applies not only to unions. It also would cover political action committees established by any membership organization,  “any agency or employee representation committee or plan,” such as those seeking stronger civil rights or environmental protections.

Proposition 32 seeks to weaken, that is, any membership group which might seek reforms opposed by wealthy individuals or corporations and their Republican allies.  It’s no wonder the measure is actively opposed, not only by organized labor, but also by the country’s leading good-government groups, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters.

Yet the proposition’s sponsors have the incredible gall to bill their measure as genuine campaign finance reform. They obviously hope that claim, which Common Cause accurately describes as a “laughable deception,” will win over the many voters who have been demanding reforms and who, in their eagerness, will fail to recognize the measure’s true nature.

“This is not genuine campaign finance reform,” as San Francisco State’s John Logan says, “but a bill of rights for billionaires.”

The losers would include teachers, nurses, police, firefighters and other union members and those who benefit from the essential services they provide – students, the elderly, and the ailing, the poverty stricken, those who work and live in unsafe conditions and other needy citizens, and consumers, environmentalists and others who also are neglected by the profit-chasing corporate interests that dominate political and economic life.

Make no mistake: Lots of money is being funneled into the Proposition 32 campaign by some of the same wealthy backers who bankrolled such anti-labor efforts as the campaign that blocked the massive attempt to recall virulently anti-labor GOP Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin this year.

Should the anti-union forces also prevail, it will undoubtedly lead to what Logan says “will promote a tsunami of ballot initiatives in 2013 at the local level and in 2014 at the state level designed to drive down working conditions in both the public and private sectors.”

Logan adds, “Lacking the ability to oppose these reactionary measures under the new election rules, California’s workers could soon face the weakest labor standards in the country”. But if the measure is rejected, it “may slow the momentum behind other attempts to increase the corrosive impact of money in politics.”

It’s true that some states already have laws and regulations seriously limiting labor’s influence. But it’s certain that victory by the anti-labor forces in California will slow any attempts at reform in other states and lead as well to attempts to impose anti-union measures elsewhere, as well as expanding those that already exist.

The stakes are huge. If the 1 percent have their way in California, the country’s largest state, other states are certain to follow.

For more from John Logan, check his piece in the East Bay Express, “If you liked Citizen United, you’ll love Prop 32.” http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/if-you-liked-citizens-united-youll-love-prop-32/Content?oid=330613

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

The Performant: Left Coasters

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Right Brain Performancelab stakes a claim Out West. (Ed Note: While the Performant is off hugging trees in Oregon, please enjoy a series of interviews with the curators of three innovative performance spaces.)

Since 1998, Jennifer Gwirtz and John Baumann of Right Brain Performancelab (performing August 24 and 25) have been haunting black box theatres and dance studios with their quirkily cerebral brand of performance art. After staging a variety show in their Richmond District living room as part of Philip Huang’s International Home Theater Festival, they decided to keep running with the concept—and the Due West Salon was born.


SFBG: What is the main purpose of the Due West Salon?

RBP (Jen): The Due West Salon is our way to produce performances in a realistic and resilient way. Performing in a home, specifically our home, is especially wonderful to me because at its core, performance creates sacred space, especially community space. In the world of DIY theater, home theater is something that makes a lot of sense right now. It feels like part of that movement to come back to the local, to create more resilient communities…it’s all of a piece.

SFBG: Talk a little about the house performances you did in New Zealand. What turned you onto the format in the first place?

RBP (John): In the late 90s, shortly after RBP was formed, we were introduced to New Zealand theater artist Warwick Broadhead.  Warwick was in the Bay Area with his traveling solo production of Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, which he performed entirely out of a suitcase complete with portable, remote controllable lights and music. (He’d) arranged to have a show in someone’s living room in the Oakland hills, for a flat fee, a place to stay, and a light supper.  We were in the audience and were both charmed and blown away by the poetry and economics of his production. We talked with Warwick after the show and began planning our trip to New Zealand, eventually deciding to perform our very first show “Not A Step” in his house in Auckland. The aesthetic of low-fi, DIY traveling theater is a terrific thing for art and for the company’s bottom line, focusing on performance rather than production value, encouraging the audience to engage their
 imaginations, and saving much money and effort.

SFBG: Right Brain Performancelab has a uniquely playful approach in a lot of its work. What inspires that, what does it inspire?

RBP (Jen): John and I have always had a playful relationship, which is where this all started. We love to make each other laugh. Then when we started to draw other performers into what we do, we realized that if it wasn’t going to be fun, or at least enjoyable and satisfying in process, then it wasn’t really worth doing. I’ve also had a deep attraction to these old archetypes of the tragic clown and the bumbling clown sorts of characters, as well as to the practice and imagery of Butoh, which can be a deep and skillful clowning practice on a certain level. At the same time, making work with lots of layers, some of them very dark where all the difficult ideas and impulses live is important to both of us.

(John): Jen and I have a deep connection with playfulness in our relationship, which grew out of our common love for The Muppets, Buster Keaton, Carol Burnett, Lily Tomlin and other performers who are playful. We have found it easier to explore weighty subject matter while deploying rubber chickens and funny hats, and it’s surprising how play can generate truly rewarding discoveries, even when working with and honoring a difficult theory or method.
 
SFBG: When is the next Due West Salon?

RBP: The Due West Salon will take place on August 24 and 25 at 8pm. The link for tickets is here: duewestsalon-aug24-25-2012.eventbrite.com

SFBG: Anything you’d like to add?

RPL (Jen): I’d love to see home-theater become a real force for great performance in the next ten years. Small is good. Bigger is not necessarily better.

 

Appetite: Delicious new cuisine and cocktail reads

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Appetite: Delicious new cuisine and cocktail reads

Fermentation and distillation, hot plats and sugar cones, sweet creams and brokeasses … These eight books were released this spring, and are among the best of what has landed on my desk this year:

TRADITIONAL DISTILLATION: ART AND PASSION by Huber Germain-Robin

Anyone who knows US craft distilling knows Hubert Germain-Robin, one of the pioneers in the American craft distilling movement. He was making world class, French-style brandies (he is French, after all) since the early ’80s right here in Northern California at Germain-Robin, which he co-founded, an example to generations after him of what true, elegant brandies should be. As he states in the introduction, “When I came to California in 1981, I realized the unbelievable potential of the New World, with such diversity in grape varietals, microclimates, and less demanding restrictions than there are in France.”

He just released his first book, Traditional Distillation, and, as the inside cover states, it’s an ode to the “passion, art and poetry” behind distillation. I’ve seen a few (there’s really not many) technical distillation books that get into still types or cutting the “heads and tails” of a distillation batch. Germain-Robin’s book (the first in a series of books on brandy production) is a thoughtful essay, covering the technical but doing so in an artistic, poetic way. The book boasts an Old World, classic look, delving into the philosophy behind distillation as much as process. A romantic sensibility pervades this book and passion speaks from the pages – there is even poetry and classic art included, doing justice to the reason people like myself (one who rarely had a drink in younger years), fell in love with the artisan craft and history behind distillation. It’s a short, succinct book, but a unique one. Hubert captures the beauty of the craft, giving concrete advice for would-be distillers everywhere, ensuring that his incredible knowledge and legacy is shared with many more.

THE ART OF FERMENTATION by Sandor Ellix Katz

Just released June 12, The Art of Fermentation (with forward by none other than Michael Pollan) is sure to be the gold standard on fermentation. Katz published Wild Fermentation in 2003, at the time dubbed the “fermenting bible” by Newsweek. As the press release states for his new, elegantly understated book, he now has an additional decade of experimentation behind this one. The first book of its kind, it contains recipes, yes, but ultimately is a 400+ page textbook on all things fermentation, its history and processes, and DIY steps in a range of categories from meads, wines and ciders to meat, fish and eggs. There’s plenty of study material for food and drink folk alike, whether an extensive section on sour tonic beverages (from kombucha to kvass) or details on fermenting beans, seeds and nuts. Katz’ book makes me want to start fermenting my own potato beer immediately.

TAKE AWAY by Jean-Francois Mallet

Take Away is a lovely photo book. Released in the US in April (first released in France in 2009), this beauty of a book is a virtual escape around the world, immersing the reader in street foodscapes and dishes from Shanghai to the Ukraine. Be warned: perusing this book is difficult on an empty stomach. And for those of us who thrive on travel and exploring every nook and cranny of a city or region, Mallet’s approachable, street savvy photography also induces travel lust.

CINDY’S SUPPER CLUB: Meals from Around the World to Share with Family and Friends by Cindy Pawlcyn

Cindy Pawlcyn is one of California’s trailblazing chefs, aiding Napa in becoming a dining destination when opening Mustard’s Grill nearly 30 years ago along with subsequent restaurants, like Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. She’s written a few cookbooks, but I particularly enjoy her newest, out this May: Cindy’s Supper Club. A book based on favorite international recipes prepared in her supper clubs with friends, the recipes span the globe from Russia and Hungary to Lebanon, Peru, Korea. Cindy’s intros to each selected country and recipe feel comfortable, like a chef chatting about their travels and technique as you sit with them in their kitchen. Though recipes tend toward the heartwarming, soulful kind, many list more than ten ingredients and aren’t exactly simple. But for cooks ready to try something new yet not fussy, adventure lies within these pages, whether Flemish meatloaf in spicy tomato gravy or white gazpacho (made of white bread, milk, almonds, garlic, olive oil, sherry vinegar) with peeled white grapes.

PLATS DU JOUR: the girl and the fig’s Journey Through the Seasons in Wine Country by Sondra Bernstein

Just see if you don’t long to move to Sonoma after spending time with Plats du Jour, a large, photographic book capturing Sonoma’s vibrancy. With a range of recipes from Sondra Bernstein’s beloved girl and the fig duo and Italian restaurant, Estate, the book journeys well beyond recipes. Sectioned by seasons, there’s highlights on wine, cheese, and produce, pairing possibilities, origins of foods, cocktail hour menus, and seasonal menus to recreate at home. Interspersed throughout are drink recipes, such as the perennially popular lavender mojito from girl and the fig http://www.platsdujour.net/#!home/mainPage. Photos and stories of trailblazing Sonoma farmers keep the reader rooted to a sense of place. Though the variety of info might initially seem disparate, it weaves into an inspiring whole urging one to seek out ingredients from their own farmers markets and entertain or cook inspired by the invigorating spirit behind Bernstein’s book and the artisans of Sonoma.

SWEET CREAM AND SUGAR CONES by Kris Hoogerhyde, Anne Walker, and Dabney Gough

Bi-Rite’s ice cream essentially needs no introduction. For those in San Francisco, it’s already an institution. For foodies nationally, the beloved market’s ice cream has been written up in most national food magazines, among the best ice creameries in the country. Thankfully this spring, founders Anne Walker and Kris Hoogerhyde, along with writer Dabney Gough, have released a book, Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, sharing many of Bi-Rite’s lauded recipes (yes, their legendary salted caramel ice cream, which spawned dozens of imitations around the nation, is included), and many more besides, including sweets far beyond ice cream, from cookies to pie. The book is grouped in ingredient-themed sections like chocolate, coffee, vanilla, citrus or nuts. I take to the herbs and spices section with recipes like basil or peach leaf ice cream, picante galia melon pops, and my favorite Bi-Rite flavor of recent years, Ricanelas (cinnamon and Snickerdoodles). Having already tried a couple of the recipes, they are easy to follow, and, of course, delicious.

SUNSET EDIBLE GARDEN COOKBOOK

Sunset has cornered DIY gardening and cooking for decades in their magazine and cookbooks, with recipes and step-by-step gardening instructions. Their latest book, Edible Garden Cookbook, just out this spring, is another winner with accessible recipes, growing-harvesting-storage-cooking tips and varietal lists on a wealth of vegetables (from peas to cucumbers), herbs (mint to thyme), and fruits (melons to stone fruit). Creative recipe twists enliven everyday dishes like an icebox salad layered in a casserole dish or kabocha squash filled with Arabic lamb stew.

THE BROKEASS GOURMET COOKBOOK by Gabi Moskowitz
(Review by Andi Berlin)

Chasing the elusive paycheck is a tiresome routine, but at least it’ll taste good with the new BrokeAss Gourmet cookbook from San Franciscan Gabi Moskowitz (not to be confused with Broke-Ass Stuart.) The former kindergarten teacher-turned-caterer-turned-Internet-celebrity founded the website BrokeAss Gourmet after seeing friends laid off from tech jobs and eating junk. Taking a conversational, gal-pal tone, Gabi guides us through the essentials of running an eclectic kitchen – from stocking a full pantry to boosting cheap proteins with flavorful sauces. Recipes like vegetable lasagna with wonton wrappers demonstrate her craftiness. The book is high on kitsch: rather than photographs, illustrations of animals stand beside cheeky anecdotes (“Because bacon really does make everything better.”) Moskowitz paints a vivid Bay Area landscape, adapting several recipes from ethnic joints and buzzy spots like Bakesale Betty. And if she relies too heavily on sriracha sauce, forgive her. When you’ve got to shove off to work early morning after morning, it’s often the call of the rooster that gets you going.

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

Guess who’s unopposed for supervisor?

Zelda Bronstein
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Guess who’s unopposed for supervisor?

Here’s an interesting fact to think about: There are exactly two people running unopposed for the SF Board of Supervisors, two people whose constituents support them strongly enough that nobody thinks a challenge would be effective (or necessary). And those are two supes who have consistently stuck to the progressive agenda and uncompromising progressive politics. They’ve done exactly what they promised to do four years ago; they haven’t moved to the center, haven’t tried to redefine their politics … they are who they are. And that works.

Just worth noting.

Finally: All-female street art takes over ATL

Andrew Lam
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As colorful and diverse as the global street art scene is these days, it’s still overwhelmingly a boy’s game. That’s why we’re so stoked to hear about the first days of Living Walls Atlanta, a street art conference in its third year that decides to step out and feature all-female artists in 2012 Wed/15-Sun/19. Its lead organizer Monica Campana and her team have attracted an ace crew for what by all accounts will be the first all-women global street art festival.

New York-New Jersey wheatpaste artist LNY is on the ATL scene now and will have a Guardian exclusive for us next week. Read on for a preview of some of the baddie artists featured at this year’s Living Walls.

 

Go here for a video a day from the Living Walls crew

Molly Rose Freeman – Memphis

Cake — New York

Tika – Zurich 

Plus! 

Hyuro – Spain/Buenos Aires

Sten and Lex – Rome

Olive47 – Atlanta

Too $hort signs on for Cow Palace sex soirée

Andrew Lam
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Too $hort luvs porn stars. In fact, sometimes he needs them. The Oakland rapper performed with a passel of them onstage at this year’s AVN Awards, and if you need more proof, this: he’s headlining next month’s Cow Palace pervfest (handily stepping in to replace the now-defunct Exotic Erotic Ball), the XO Ball and Expo.

He joins a list that also includes adult flick luminaries Tori Black, Chanel Preston, Stoya, and the puzzle tattoo-covered, chainsaw-to-the-face wielding Enigma. What else will you find at the open-to-all-sexualities soirée on Folsom Street Fair weekend, besides another change to wear your Mr. S pyramid swirl pouch? Burlesque, a freak show, aerial performances, and erotic art and fashion. No indiscriminate groping please.

XO Ball and Expo

Expo Sept. 21, 5-11pm; Sept. 22 11am-6pm; $20-35/day

Ball Sept. 22, 8pm-2am, $50-200

Cow Palace

2600 Geneva, SF

www.xoexpo.com

As classes begin again, CCSF reconsiders its mission

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As classes begin again, CCSF reconsiders its mission

Fall classes at City College of San Francisco began yesterday.  Students streamed through all nine campuses, navigating their schedules.

But they are coming back to a different school than they left. On July 3, Interim Chancellor Pamila Fisher received a letter from the Accrediting Commision of Community and Junior Colleges saying that the school could lose it’s accreditiaton, leading to its closure, unless it is able to succesfully “show cause” for staying open. The letter laid out 14 “major problems” that the accreditation board says CCSF must fix.

Now, the race is on, as students, faculty, staff, administrators, trustees, and community members rush to keep the school open without compromising its unique and succesful qualities.

Welcome Weeks

At the Ocean and Mission campuses, student organizers put on rallies that thousands of passers-by saw on their way to class. Volunteers holding “welcome weeks” events hosted music and speakers, and implored students walking past to talk into the mic about what CCSF means to them. Organized by the Save CCSF coalition that formed in July, the welcome weeks activities, which may include speakers, music, litterature, film screenings, and other events will continue until August 31.

“This is a community, not just a college. And right now, our community is under attack,” said Robert Chu, a former CCSF student who was volunteering with the welcome weeks events.

For Jason Bowden, another student who spoke at the rally, yesterday was the first day of college. Bowden said he is planning to earn his EMT certification and Associate Degree in fire science. “The dream is to be a firefighter,” Bowden said at the rally.

Bowden said he is confident the school will stay open. “Initially, I was freaked out,” he said. “But with 90,000 students, from a sociological perspective it would be disastrous. But I don’t want to say its not going to happen. Stupider things have happened.”

Chu said he was assisted by the Extended Opportunities Programs and Services Program (EOPS).“I’m actually an orphan,” said Chu. “EOPS supported me graciously and helped me out.”

The EOPS office is in a building near Ram Plaza, where the Ocean Campus rally took place yesterday. The adjacent Student Union building houses other programs that aid students, such as Students Supporting Students and the Multi Cultural Resource Center. Nearby, offices of the Veterans Educational Transition Services and Guardian Scholars program, which supports students coming to CCSF from the foster care system.  Some expressed concern that programs like these will be deprioritized for funding as the school tries to meet its accreditation requirements.

The rally’s backdrop was a banner reading “Keep community in community college. Accessibility and affordability are non-negotiable.”

Mission statement

The evening before classes began, at an August 14 special board of trustees meeting, the trustees were discussing their priorities for CCSF moving forward.

The first recommendation in the accreditation board’s report regards CCSF’s mission statement.

“The team recommends that the college establish a prescribed process and timeline to regularly review the mission statement and revise it as necessary,” the text of the reccommendation reads. “The college should use the mission statement as the benchmark to determine institutional priorities and goals that support and improve academic programs, student support services and student learning effectively linked to a realistic assessment of resources”

In the wake of the accreditation crisis, the school set up 15 working groups to focus on different aspects of the process. The mission statement working group, tasked with evaluating the mission statement, and potentially, changing it, presented their work August 14– a new mission statement for the board to consider.

The board approved the first version of the new mission statement, which will be revisted at an August 23 meeting.

The new version includes a few changes. The new mission statement lists four goals: “transfer to baccalaureate institutions; acheivement of Associate Degrees in Art and Science; Acquisition of certificates and career skills needed for success in the workplace;” and “Basic Skills, including learning English as a Second Language.”

The goals that have been cut out of the mission statement: “Active engagement in the civic and social fabric of the community, citizenship preparation; completion of requirements for the Adlt High School Diploma and GED; Promotion of economic development and job growth” and “lifelong leaning, life skills, and cultural enrichment.”

The mission statement already read “CCSF provides educational programs and services to meet the following needs of our diverse community”; the new version adds the phrasing “that promote succesful leaning and student achievement.” Another phrase was added: “the college offers other programs and services supplementrary to our mission, only as resources allow and whenever possible in collaboration with partnering agencies and community business organizations.”

The mission statement working group was one of the first to complete their initial work. As Chancellor Fisher explained in the board of trustees meeting, “We need to finish recommendation one as early as possible because it will affect out planning.”

The working group that wrote the mission statement was comprised of faculty, administrators, trustees, and community members. No students were involved, until two– Associated Students president Shanell Williams and Student Senator Diamond Dave Whitaker– were added to the working group last week. Today, the mission statement working group, with its two new additional members, meets to discuss the ongoing process of documenting CCSF’s priorties. Their meeting is public and will take place 1:30-2:30pm at Batmale Hall.

The Performant: Howard’s End

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The Performant: Howard’s End

While the Performant is off hugging trees in Oregon, please enjoy this series of interviews with the curators of three innovative performance spaces.

After five years of making the address 975 Howard synonymous with emergent dance, queer, and fringe artists, Joe Landini has packed up The Garage and relocated it further down SOMA way. Now tucked in an industrial zone next to an automotive repair shop, The Garage’s new location at 715 Bryant might lack the allure of being a hidden gem on ramshackle Howard Street, but has the distinct advantage of having fewer neighbors to annoy, a consideration no low-budget performance space can afford to completely ignore. Particularly one as active and prolific as The Garage—which has hosted over 1000 performances for some 50,000 people during its five-year tenure.

“We are awful neighbors!” Landini admits when I swing by to check out the new digs.

“We are loud. We host 120 choreographers a year, 230 shows a year, that’s a lot of music to listen to.” After looking around the Central Market area for three years without finding a space that was both affordable and allowed for public assembly, Landini set his sights on the section of SOMA he knew to have some of the lowest rental rates in the area yet was still mostly accessible via public transportation—a consideration for many of his performers and audiences.
       
After a cacophonous May Day parade from Howard Street to Bryant, led by a merry conglomerate of performers — familiar faces from The Offcenter and Garage performance series such as RAW and AIRspace — The Garage opened back up for business just 24 hours later. The space is still a work-in-progress a few weeks later (aren’t all moving projects?), but its current bare bones state will not seem unfamiliar to its fans (makeshift risers, a table over to the side for the board operator, minimal but effective lighting). What’s most important, from Landini’s POV is that they are finally ADA compliant, and they have repainted the front door red: “theatre’s love tradition.”

In addition to moving into a new physical space, The Garage is occupying a new psychic space, expanding its definition of incubation, by helping its emerging artists connect to spaces where they can create work for larger audiences. Recently, six Garage artists dubbed The WERK Collective, participated in a joint mentorship program between The Garage and ODC <www.odcdance.org>, culminating in a weekend of performance at ODC, the next step up the narrow ladder of professional possibility that defines the San Francisco Bay Area dance community.

“We’re the only free space in the city now and that does attract a very specific group of broke artists,” Joe muses. “We’ve been so lucky to have some of those artists stay with us for the whole five years, and that’s where the partnership with ODC came up, because I had to come up with a way to keep them involved, and they had clearly outgrown the space…so hopefully that’s going to be a model for the future, an artist could start here and then work their way into ODC (which is) pretty well-organized in terms of where they want their artists to go….(ODC Director) Christy Bolingbroke is very sharp, and she has a real clear understanding of the national profile, and what’s happening nationally.”

What has also changed for Landini is a deeper understanding of The Garage’s overall mission and impact on its core community.

“The old space was such a lark…we threw a lot of mud at a lot of walls and some stuff stuck, but that’s not going to work here…..we’re going to have to become a really shrewd organization. I didn’t really have a sense of the importance of the work we were doing. I mean I kind of knew in the back of my mind, because so many people were coming through…and that community rallied to move into this space…they really really got behind it.”

Stand with Ross at a major rally Thursday noon at City Hall

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The Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi forces put out a call to action Wednesday to mobilize their supporters for a show of force at a noon rally at City Hall on Thursday.

The rally is scheduled to be across Polk Street from the City Hall entrance because they fear that their opponents will be holding a rally on the City Hall steps with a sound system.

The possibility of dueling rallies comes as the Ethics Commission is set to hear closing arguments on Thursday in a fact-finding hearing in the Mirkarimi removal case.

Mirkarimi’s rally is the latest event in an accelerating grassroots effort by his supporters to put pressure on the Ethics Commission and the Board of Supervisors who will have the ultimate decision on whether Mirkarimi stays or goes as sheriff. 

I particularly like the statement of the National Lawyers Guild on Mirkarimi: http://www.nlgsf.org/news/statement-suspension-sf-sheriff-ross-mirkarimi-and-ethics-commission-proceedings

 

 

 

 

 

Hate (and free) speech

Zelda Bronstein
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Hate (and free) speech

How far can you push free speech? Is it okay for Muni to run ads that are utterly, inexcusably offensive to Arabs and Muslims in the name of political expression?

I’m pretty much always on the side of the First Amendment. And we were furious when a Bay Guardian ad campaign accusing then-mayor WIllie Brown of political corruption suddenly vanished from the sides of the local buses. It’s hard to seek government limitations on any political statement. But if the ads that appeared Aug. 7 on Muni aren’t over the line, they’re pretty close to it.

Here you have an organization described not only by the Southern Poverty Law Center but by the Anti-Defamation League as a hate group buying space on San Francisco buses for ads that effectively disparage a vast religious, ethnic and cultural community as “savages.” The campaign is obviously designed to get publicity; not that many San Franciscans are going to be convinced to join the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Nobody’s opinion on the Middle East will be swayed by this shit.

But this tiny cadre of loonies, led by Pamela Geller, who is really fucking scary, wants attention. In New York, the anti-Muslim group sued when the city tried to take down the same bus ads, and you know they’d love it if that happened here. Muni says it can’t legally pull the ads, which is probably true — although BART has a more restrictive policy.

It’s not just idle rhetoric — this stuff frightens people. “We’re hearing from people that they’re uncomfortable riding Muni,” Zahra Biloo, executive director of the Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told me.

Obviously, you can’t run ads that enourage someone to engage in violence. Is dehumanizing people and calling them “savages” the same thing? Biloo thinks it’s pretty close: “It’s important for progressive cities to say, ‘not in our city,'” she said.

A change.org petition condemning the ads has more than 2,000 signatures.

On the other hand, I don’t want to give Geller the pleasure of suing San Francisco and making this into a Free Speech cause. Because that’s exactly what she wants, and probably the reason she bought the ads in the first place. So how about this: The supervisors pass a resolution denouncing the ad and the message, and Muni agrees to give CAIR the same number of ads, free, in the same locations (gee, maybe even on the other side of the same buses) to present an alternative message.

At least it’s a start.

 

Squeeze This: accordion acts you should know

Tony Robles
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Was there anything more unexpected in season three of Mad Men than the scene in which Joan brought out her cherry-red squeezebox, and serenaded a dinner party with “C’est Magnifique?” Accordions were once a bastion of adult gatherings; there were bona fide accordion stars — Dick Contino, who played San Francisco’s Barbary Coast in the 1940s, made it on the pop charts — but in this century, they’ve left the mainstream, resurging underground in pockets of klezmer, pirate polka, Tejano music, and gypsy jazz.

In her new biography, Squeeze This, writer-musician Marion Jacobson delves deep into the history of the instrument and contemplates its place as a cultural technology. At an event this week, Jacobson will likely discuss some of her findings with the Accordion Apocalypse crew (and sign copies of her book), followed by squeezebox-filled performances by Luz Gaxiola, the Mad Maggies, and Sheri Mignano.

In anticipation of her appearance, I asked Jacobson to give us a list of her favorite accordion acts, young and old, traditionalists and rule-breakers. See her responses below:

Marion Jacobson’s Top Five Accordion Acts

Alex Meixner: my definition of an “accordion idol”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PIEyLNEdOE
 
Gogol Bordello: gypsy punk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPfeOAhDfbM
 
Five-time Grammy winner Flaco Jimenez, the soul of Chicano and Tejano music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK1OIuTNsI8
 
Dick Contino: 1950s accordion idol turned hip elder statesman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pbM9q3zbUo

Weird Al Yankovic: parody + accordion = sublime masterpieces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRJILK3NxSM
 
Two Accordionists to Watch Out For
 
Cory Pesaturo: no accordionist today has better improv chops
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfD3XNa1-6Y
 
Ginny Mac: she sings, too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQnvTHxD8Ig
 
In a Category of Their Own Making
 
Those Darn Accordions: Welcome to hell, here’s your accordion

Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion book event
With author Marion Jacobson, music by Luz Gaxiola, with the Mad Maggies, and Sheri Mignano
Thu/16, 7pm, free
Accordion Apocalypse
255 10th St., SF
(415) 596-5952
www.accordionapocalypse.com

Tastes of Cindy: Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits from SFMOMA show

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Tastes of Cindy: Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits from SFMOMA show

To celebrate the incredibly engaging Cindy Sherman retrospective at the SF MOMA (through October 8), we asked four of San Francisco’s premier drag performance artists to re-enact four of Sherman’s iconic portraits. It’s all about looking twice — or in Sherman’s case, four or five times — and we wanted to see how many layers of gaze her work could hold.

Read Matt Fisher’s review of the retrospective here and Rob Avila’s review of accompanying show, “Stage Presence” here. All re-enactment photos by Keeney + Law.

 

>> FAUXNIQUE: UNTITLED #351

 

The truly artistic Fauxnique, aka Monique Jenkinson, currently holds a fellowship through the de Young Museum: she’ll be Artist in Residence for the month of September in the de Young’s Kimball Education Gallery, working in an open studio setting, co-hosting “Dance Discourse Project #13: Working in Museums” with Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE on Saturday, September 15 at 2pm), and making new work, including “Instrument,” a solo created in an experimental collaboration with choreographers Chris Black, Amy Seiwert, and Miguel Gutierrez premiering at CounterPULSE in November.

 

>> BOY CHILD: UNTITLED #355

 

A relative newcomer to the scene, Boy Child stretches drag performance into phantasmagorical new directions, mashing neon hip-hop swagger into goth-electro darkness. Lately, she’s been representing SF in New York and the Pacific Northwest and gaining attention for her photography.

 

>> LIL MISS HOT MESS: UNTITLED #360

 

One of the only queens who could have most of SF’s colorful nightlifers dancing the hora to “Hava Nagila” at her Bar Mitzvah x2 party — or falling on their bums at her annual rollerskating birthday jam — Lil Miss Hot Mess will be stepping down as Miss Tiara Sensation during next month’s pageant (Saturday, September 29, 9pm, $10-$20. Rickshaw Stop, SF. www.rickshawstop.com) and enrolling in grad school, to begin her new life as a career girl.

 

>> LADY BEAR: UNTITLED #354

 

 

Always elegantly but firmly large and in charge, Lady Bear hosts monthly parties Hot Rod at the Powerhouse and Dark Room at the Hot Spot here in SF and Cub Scout at the Eagle in LA. As Dragoon the actress, she’s currently starring in the uproarious “Designing Women Live!” (Tuesdays through August 28, 8pm, $20. Rebel, 1760 Market, SF.) and the upcoming “Roseanne: The Play” in September. She also recently starred in a short film, Love and Anger, with Cousin Wonderlette.

 

 

Photography: Keeney + Law

Art direction: Brooke Robertson

Assistant: Caitlin Donohue

Concept: Marke B.

Is it Saturday yet? 5 (vegetarian-abled) Street Food Festival snacks we can’t wait for

Andrew Lam
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The Bay’s press has been salivating ever since July 26, when La Cocina‘s Street Food Festival hosted a passel of media types at Fort Mason Center with tables upon tables of the snacks that we’ll all get to freak out over at the festival on Sat/18. Read on for some of our favorite snacks that we’re having a hard time holding off on until Saturday.

Bonus! If mornings aren’t your deal, you’ve got options this year. On Fri/17, you can jet down to the Alemany Farmer’s Market for the fest’s Night Market. 25 vendors will be selling sub-$10 treats, including American Masala Farm’s Suvir Saran serving up Indian food, Ryar Farr from 4505 Meats, and Tijuana’s Javier Plasencia of Mision 19. Plus, craft beer and cocktails.

>>CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPLETE STREET FOOD FESTIVAL MAP

Go early on Saturday. Lines for vendors, which range from La Cocina participants who have hardly sold commercially before to some of SF’s hautest eateries, tend to be pretty long by lunch time, and this is one fest that does not award the fashionably late. You’ll also be able to pick up a paper copy in the Guardian on newsstands today. Here’s some treats you’ll wanna queue up for as soon as you fall out of bed, veggie-friendly all. We dare you to do all five — tweet their photos to @sfbg if you do and we’ll figure out some kind of reward for gluttonous you. 

1. El Buen Comer esquites

Something about corn, cheese, and mayo soup sounds vaguely unsettling, but take it from an avowed mayonaise h8r, these are cups of pleasure and you want at least one. La Cocina graduate Isabel Caudillo makes them, bringing this Mexico City recipe straight to SF bellies. Perfect if Saturday gets chilly (please no.)

2. Chiefo’s Kitchen moi-moi

Chiefo Chukwudebe makes these West African firm cakes made of pureed black eyed peas, topped with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and carmelized onions. The deliciously chewy version that was being sampled at Fort Mason was topped with flakes of corned beef, but vegetarian versions were available. 

3. Hella Vegan Eats pad thai egg rolls

The plucky Tiffany and Sylvee Esquivel of this rad catering outfit didn’t give their Street Food Fest offering quite as catchy a moniker as some of their repetoire (“vegans are better lovers” lasagna comes to mind), but no matter — this Asian-inspired nuggets are the kind of stoner snack you normally only dream of. Noodles inside egg rolls? *Eyes roll back into head, Homer Simpson-scruff sprouts instantly* Much props to these ladies for the hundreds of free vegan cookies they baked for the Dyke March this year, by the way. 

4. Clairesquares‘ deep-fried caramel pop

One quibble about these devilish, gooey, troublesome-in-a-good-way dessert snacks — is that spear in the center really necessary? After all, the first time you crunch into one the thing is going to require two hands so that it doesn’t fall off the wooden skewer onto the — NOOOOOOOOO! — ground. That’s not what you want, so this is your official reminder to pay attention to sugar bomb of satiation. Clairesquares is the brainchild of Ireland’s Claire Keene, who re-interprets traditional recipes into decadent desserts that have popped up all over town in the last few years. 

5. Sweets Collection artisan Jello shots

I went on the record last year over how much I love these things. Nothing combines a love of pastels and a love of getting drunk more than Rosa Rodriguez’s mouthfuls of booze and condensed milk flower. They are magic, and you can find them at the Street Food Festival bars, waiting for you cheefully when you’re done eating the fest’s more nutritious options. 

 

Street Food Festival Night Market

Fri/17 6-9pm, $25 entry

Alemany Farmer’s Market (free shuttle leaves from 25th St. and Mission, SF)

100 Alemany, SF


Street Food Festival

Sat/18 11am-7pm, free entry

Mission District (Folsom from 20th to 26th St., 21st and 25th Sts. from Treat to Shotwell, Cesar Chavez Elementary School parking lot, Parque de los Ninos Unidos and Jose Coronada Playgrounds), SF

www.sfstreetfoodfest.com

Reports, rally, and hearing call for more public benefits from nonprofit hospital chains

Sasha Cuttler
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7
Reports, rally, and hearing call for more public benefits from nonprofit hospital chains

A rally and legislative hearing in Sacramento tomorrow (Wed/15) will highlight how little community benefits and charity care large nonprofit healthcare corporations offer despite their tax-exempt status. At the center of that critical spotlight is Sutter Health, the healthcare behemoth that owns California Pacific Medical Center and is locked in a high-stakes standoff with the city over whether to rebuild St. Luke’s Hospital in exchange for approval of a massive luxury hospital on Cathedral Hill.

Last year, we reported on a local study that found CPMC provided far less charity care and other community benefits than any other healthcare provider in the city, despite its tax-exempt status and extraction of $744 million in profits from San Francisco between 2006-2010. CPMC reported $189 million in profits for its San Francisco operations last year, and that’s expected increase sharply if Cathedral Hill Hospital is built.

Last week, the California State Auditor issued a scathing report – based on investigating four nonprofit California hospitals, including St. Luke’s – calling for stronger demands on these supposedly nonprofit corporations. Among its findings were “The amounts of community benefits the hospitals provide cannot be used to justify their tax-exempt status” and “Neither federal nor state law requires nonprofit hospitals to deliver specific amounts of community benefits for hospitals to quality for tax-exempt status.”

Tomorrow’s hearing by the California Senate Select Committee on Charity Care and Nonprofit Hospitals, and a rally afterward by the California Nurses Association, will spotlight those problems and call for tougher new standards. CNA’s research arm, the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, will also unveil a new report that defines the problem and reinforces the need for reform.

“These hospital chains are exploiting their nonprofit status to enjoy enormous tax benefits while returning very little to their communities,” CNA spokesperson Chuck Idelson told the Guardian.

He said the problem began with the “corporatization of health care” in the late-’80s, when deregulation and corporate-friendly legislative changes encouraged the consolidation of health providers and lowering of public accountability standards, coupled with a corporate culture that began providing excessive pay and benefits to executives.

“There used to be better standards, certainly at the federal level, with what they were required to do to maintain nonprofit status,” Idelson said. “But the distinctions of for-profit and not-for-profit has become blurred and the burden is falling of public hospitals like SF General Hospital.”

Nonetheless, Sutter/CPMC continues its aggressive tact with San Francisco city officials, refusing to offer firm guarantees that St. Luke’s – which serves much of the city’s low-income population, second only to General, which would be overwhelmed if St. Luke’s closes – will remain open for at least 20 years and promising only modest improvements in its charity care standards. Despite taunts from Sutter spokespersons that city officials are endangering public safety by stalling the rebuild of St. Luke’s, which isn’t seismically sound, the Board of Supervisors refused to approve the lucrative development agreement last month, delaying consideration until after the election in November in the hopes that CPMC will offer better guarantees and community benefits.

“It’s an extremely timely issue for San Francisco,” Idelson said tomorrow’s hearing (which is from 10am to noon in Room 3191 of the State Capitol) and rally (from 12:15-1pm on the Capitol’s North Steps).

Newsom votes for — and pushes — housing for the rich

Zelda Bronstein
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10
Newsom votes for — and pushes — housing for the rich

I can’t say if the campaign contributions had anything to do with it (in fact, nobody seems to know when campaign contributions become bribery) but for whatever reason, Lt. Gov Gavin Newsom not only voted for 8 Washington on the State Lands Commission — he pushed hard to make sure the project went through.

According to former City Attorney Louise Renne, who was at the hearing making the case against the project, the director of the governor’s office of finance, Ana Matosantos, sent a proxy. So did state Controller John Chiang. Newsom appeared in person.

And when Matosantos’s person reviewed the evidence, he decided that it wasn’t appropriate for the panel to take any action — thanks to a successful referendum effort, the whole matter is in legal limbo in San Francisco until Nov. 2013. But Newsom was having none of it.

“It was very close at first, the controller’s representative went back and forth,” Renne told me. “But the lieutenant governor was very clear that the matter should be addressed today, and he swayed the vote.”

In the end, it was 2-0 to approve the deal, with Matosantos’s rep abstaining.

So as if there were any doubt, we know where Newsom is when it comes to giving public land to a developer to build housing for the top sliver of the 1 percent.

 

 

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