As shoppers scurried around Union Square yesterday, a picket that drew more than 300 people could be heard for blocks. The grand-scale noise-making was in front of the Grand Hyatt, where workers and supporters demonstrated against what they say is unsafe and unfair treatment of hotel workers.
UNITE HERE Local 2 has been supporting a boycott of a couple Hyatt locations in San Francisco for years now. But this week the national union, along with a broad coalition of supporters, has called for a worldwide boycott of the hotel chain.
Wong says the boycott will end if the Hyatt capitulates to three demands. Two of these are a “fair and mutual process for non-union workers to organize” and to “agree to a fair contract for thousands of unionized Hyatt workers that have been without contract for three years.” But the most important, according to Local 2 spokesperson Julia Wong, is to implement the workplace safety measures that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently outlined in a letter to the Hyatt corporation and its CEO, Thomas J. Pritzker.
Year after year, boycott organizers say, Hyatt adds new worker abuses to its track record.
“In 2009, Hyatt fired 100 housekeepers in Boston and replaced them with temporary workers making minimum wage,” Wong said. Rose Sia, a 31-year San Francisco Hyatt worker, recalls being alarmed that Boston workers who had held their jobs for 15 and 20 years were made to train their minimum wage-earning replacements. “They were treated like trash that day,” Sia said.
In a July 2011 incident, Hyatt workers in Chicago were picketing in 100-degree weather when their employers turned on heat lamps to beat down on them.
“They’re continuing to spread subcontracting around in more cities,” Wong said. “In Baltimore there used to be 40 or 50 in-house housekeepers. Now there are only eight or nine, and everybody else is subcontracted.”
Most recently a Hyatt worker in Indianapolis, Elvia Bahena, was fired, she believes, as a direct result of speaking out about her negative workplace experiences at a city council meeting.
Mona Wilson, who has worked at the Grand Hyatt since 1980, says that learning the difference between how union and non-union hotel workers are treated at Hyatt was an “eye-opening experience.”
Many Hyatt workers must clock in 30 every week to receive heathcare benefits, and meeting that quota can be a struggle. “I’ve met with people who work in banquets,” Wilson said. “The guys that move the tables around. They bring them all in, they’ll rush them through to hurry up and finish the job, and then send them home before the shift is over, so they never make enough hours to qualify for healthcare. I’ve met with one guy whose been working there for three years and he hasn’t been able to get healthcare.”
“He’s a regular hired worker, but it’s a non-union hotel,” Wilson said.
Even in San Francisco, where most Hyatt workers are unionized and experience relatively fair treatment, Hyatt workers have seen their workloads increase to back-breaking proportions and had to fight to get raises and benefits.
Sia says Local 2 has been instrumental in improving working conditions. “They are the ones helping us get our pension, get our raise, get everything. Without the union, we’re nothing,” she said.
Workers in San Francisco have been locked in contract negotiations for three years. One of their key issues is the freedom to protest in solidarity with other workers, which Sia says is particularly important as non-union Hyatt workers continue to suffer abuses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCbsAl4bQwM Picketers sing labor songs at yesterday’s demonstration
Hotel workers are largely women, and UNITE HERE’s Hyatt Hurts campaign has always called out their mistreatment as a feminist issue. They protested on International Women’s Day, focusing on two sisters who experienced disrespectful treatment and objectification of their bodies at the Hyatt Santa Clara. A few weeks later, the Reyes sisters met with Gloria Steinem, who pledged her support for the boycott.
Women’s rights groups like the National Organization of Women, the National Women’s Health Network, and the Feminist Majority Foundation have endorsed the worldwide boycott of Hyatt hotels. GLBT rights groups like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Stonewall Democrats, the National Black Justice Coalition, and Pride at Work have also signed on. So has the national AFL-CIO.
A more unusual supporter, the NFL Players Association, is also getting behind the boycott, promising that the organization will not spend it’s money at Hyatt and discourage players from staying there.
“Many football players were raised by hardworking men and women who punch time cards just like the hotel workers at Hyatt. This is why we decided to get in the game and support Hyatt housekeepers who suffer abuse and debilitating injuries at work,” said DeMaurice Smith, the association’s executive director.
This kind of support is keeping spirits high for union organizers and workers as they escalate their tactics, but the fight may not be over any time soon.
“It took us seven years to bid the Mariott,” said Chito Cuellar, head of UNITE HERE’s hotel division. “It took us five years to defeat Park 55. It’s been three years that we’ve been fighting the Hyatt. And we don’t know how long it’s going to take, but we know we’re going to win.”
My pick for movie of the week is The Queen of Versailles, a likely (I’m callin’ it in July) inclusion on my top 10 list for 2012. Seriously, this doc is revealing, timely, surprising, beautifully lensed (by photographer-turned-director Lauren Greenfield), and affords an insidery peek into the mysterious borderlands between extreme weath and excessive tackiness.
Hollywood would like you to see either an alien-invasion comedy with Ben Stiller or the fourth Step Up entry … you could do worse, but you could do better. Frankly, I’d pencil in The Queen of Versailles for your Saturday night, and settle in tonight for the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, which comes complete with the amusement park-ish title “Isles of Wonder.” All the buzz indicates that the extravaganza, directed by Danny Boyle (not known for his subtlety), will be one for the ages, or at least supply some juicy fodder for the meme generation.
Reviews of everything opening this week (spoiler: there’s a lot) below the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoVRetUMub0
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry Unstoppable force meets immovable object — and indeed gets stopped — in Alison Klayman’s documentary about China’s most famous contemporary artist. A larger than life figure, Ai Weiwei’s bohemian rebel persona was honed during a long (1981-93) stint in the U.S., where he fit right into Manhattan’s avant-garde and gallery scenes. Returning to China when his father’s health went south, he continued to push the envelope with projects in various media, including architecture — he’s best known today for the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ “Bird’s Nest” stadium design. But despite the official approval implicit in such high-profile gigs, his incessant, obdurate criticism of China’s political repressive politics and censorship — a massive installation exposing the government-suppressed names of children killed by collapsing, poorly-built schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake being one prominent example — has tread dangerous ground. This scattershot but nonetheless absorbing portrait stretches its view to encompass the point at which the subject’s luck ran out: when the film was already in post-production, he was arrested, then held for two months without official charge before he was accused of alleged tax evasion. (He is now free, albeit barred from leaving China, and “suspected” of additional crimes including pornography and bigamy.) (1:31) (Dennis Harvey)
The Queen of Versailles Lauren Greenfield’s obscenely entertaining The Queen of Versailles takes a long, turbulent look at the lifestyles lived by David and Jackie Siegel. He is the 70-something undisputed king of timeshares; she is his 40-something (third) wife, a former beauty queen with the requisite blonde locks and major rack, both probably not entirely Mother Nature-made. He’s so compulsive that he’s never saved, instead plowing every buck back into the business. When the recession hits, that means this billionaire is — in ready-cash as opposed to paper terms — suddenly sorta kinda broke, just as an enormous Las Vegas project is opening and the family’s stupefyingly large new “home” (yep, modeled after Versailles) is mid-construction. Plugs must be pulled, corners cut. Never having had to, the Siegels discover (once most of the servants have been let go) they have no idea how to run a household. Worse, they discover that in adversity they have a very hard time pulling together — in particular, David is revealed as a remote, cold, obsessively all-business person who has no use for getting or giving “emotional support;” not even for being a husband or father, much. What ultimately makes Queen poignantly more than a reality-TV style peek at the garishly wealthy is that Jackie, despite her incredibly vulgar veneer (she’s like a Jennifer Coolidge character, forever squeezed into loud animal prints), is at heart just a nice girl from hicksville who really, really wants to make this family work. (1:40) Smith Rafael.(Dennis Harvey)
Red Lights Skeptics and budding myth busters, get ready. Maybe. Director-writer Rodrigo Cortés blends the stuff of thrillers and horror in this slippery take on psychics and their debunkers. Psychologist Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her weirdly loyal assistant Tom (Cillian Murphy) investigate paranormal phenomena — faith healers, trance mediums, ghost hunters, and psychics — in order to peer behind the curtain and expose all Ozs great and small. Spoon-bending blind ESP master Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) is their biggest prize: he’s come out of retirement after the death of his most dogged critic. Has Silver learned to kill with his mind? And can we expect a brain-blowing finale on the same level as The Fury (1978)? Despite all the high-powered acting talent in the room, Red Lights never quite convinces us of the urgency of its mission — it’s hard to swallow that the debunking of paranormal phenomenon rates as international news in an online-driven 24/7 multiniched news cycle — and feels like a curious ‘70s throwback with its Three Days of the Condor-style investigative nail-biter arc, while supplying little of the visceral, camp showman panache of a De Palma. (1:53) (Kimberly Chun)
Ruby Sparks Meta has rarely skewed as appealingly as with this indie rom-com spinning off a writerly version of the Pygmalion and Galatea tale, as penned by the object-of-desire herself: Zoe Kazan. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris helm this heady fantasy about a crumpled, geeky novelist, Calvin (Paul Dano), who’s suffering from the sophomore slump — he can’t seem to break his rock-solid writers block and pen a follow-up to his hit debut. He’s a victim of his own success, especially when he finally begins to write, about a dream girl, a fun-loving, redheaded artist named Ruby (scriptwriter Kazan), who one day actually materializes. When he types that she speaks nothing but French, out comes a stream of the so-called language of diplomacy. Calvin soon discovers the limits and dangers of creation — say, the hazards of tweaking a manifestation when she doesn’t do what you desire, and the question of what to do when one’s baby Frankenstein grows bored and restless in the narrow circle of her creator’s imagination. Kazan — and Dayton and Faris — go to the absurd, even frightening, limits of the age-old Pygmalion conceit, giving it a feminist charge, while helped along by a cornucopia of colorful cameos by actors like Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas as Calvin’s Big Sur-dwelling boho mom and her furniture-building boyfriend. Dano is as adorably befuddled as ever and adds the crucial texture of every-guy reality, though ultimately this is Kazan’s show, whether she’s testing the boundaries of a genuinely codependent relationship or tugging at the puppeteer’s strings. (1:44) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW1aAxBG_50
Sacrifice Power-mad General Tu’an (Wang Xueqi) engineers the slaughter of the entire Zhao clan — including the newborn son who’s the last of the line. But the baby’s been swapped with the child of the doctor, Cheng Ying (Ge You), who delivered him, and the deception train pretty much goes off the rails after that. Suffice to say the Zhao heir survives while Cheng Ying’s wife and infant do not, and Tu’an is none the wiser. Revenge seems the only logical move, so Cheng Ying patiently waits years for the boy to grow up and learn martial arts from Tu’an, plotting that he’ll reveal the truth when the (kinda bratty) child becomes capable of killing his beloved “godfather” — a.k.a. the guy who massacred his family (and the family of his adoptive father). If that sounds complicated, know that this epic from Chen Kaige (1993’s Farewell My Concubine) has over two hours to get through all those plot mechanics. Also, it’s gorgeously shot, mixing the classy trappings of a big-budget historical melodrama with thunderous battles and scenes of brutal violence. (2:10) SF Film Society Cinema. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBw1PFjKnrs
Shit YearSanta Cruz artist Cam Archer’s 2006 debut feature Wild Tigers I Have Known was a texturally gorgeous but content-lite exercise that often seemed like an extended audition for the role of Next Gus Van Sant. (The real one was, in fact, its executive producer.) This sophomore effort strikes pretty much the same (im-) balance. Colleen West (Ellen Barkin) is a famous, now middle-aged actress who decides to retire — why, we don’t know, particularly since she only seems more brittle, dissatisfied, and hollow upon retreating to an isolated home in a woodsy area. (She doesn’t even seem to like nature.) There, she tolerates a sorta-friendship with an irritatingly chirpy neighbor (Melora Walters), endures a visit by the irritatingly uncomplicated, stable brother she was never close to (Rick Einstein), and recalls an unfulfilling affair with her much younger co-star in a play (Luke Grimes). She also imagines (?) appointments with a terse interrogator (Theresa Randle) offering some sort of futuristic experience-simulation service in an eerie all-white environ. While one questions whether there actually was one, per se, Archer’s fragmentary script alternates these flashbacks, surreal interludes, and present-tense expressions of existential ennui (“I’m surrounded by a world of nothing,” Colleen moans) into pretty formations. The film’s black and white photography (by Aaron Platt), editing, production design, musical choices, etc. are all impeccably mannered. But our protagonist’s bored self-absorbsion and self-pity, lacking any backgrounding psychology, is ultimately as vacuous a dead-end as it is when Vincent Gallo is baring his soul. Having a bitchy, platinum-haired Barkin do the job for Archer makes the effect a little campier, but no more resonant. That said, this movie would probably seem brilliant if watched on quaaludes. (1:35) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)
Step Up Revolution The Step Up franchise makes a play for the Occupy brand, setting up its fourth installment’s Miami street crew, the Mob, as the warrior dance champions of the 99 percent — here represented by a vibrant lower-income neighborhood slated for redevelopment. Embodying the one percent is a hotel-chain mogul named Bill Anderson (Peter Gallagher), armed with a wrecking ball and sowing the seeds of a soulless luxury monoculture. Our hero, Mob leader Sean (Ryan Guzman), and heroine, Anderson progeny and aspiring professional dancer Emily (Kathryn McCormick), meet beachside; engage in a sandy, awkward interlude of grinding possibly meant to showcase their dance skills; and proceed to spark a romance and a revolution that feel equally fake (brace yourself for the climactic corporate tie-in). The Mob’s periodic choreographed invasions of the city’s public and private spaces are the movie’s sole source of oxygen. The dialogue, variously mumbled and slurred and possibly read off cue cards, drifts aimlessly from tepid to trite as the protagonists attempt to demonstrate sexual chemistry by breathily trading off phrases like “What we do is dangerous!” and “Enough with performance art — it’s time to make protest art!” Occasionally you may remember that you have 3D glasses on your face and wonder why, but the larger philosophical question (if one may speak of philosophy in relation to the dance-movie genre) concerns the Step Up films’ embrace of postproduction sleights of hand that distance viewers from whatever astonishing feats of physicality are actually being achieved in front of the camera. (1:20) (Lynn Rapoport)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G8rzHJsWpM
The Watch Directed by Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer (famed for Saturday Night Live’s popular digital shorts, including “Dick in a Box”), The Watch is, appropriately enough, probably the most dick-focused alien-invasion movie of all time. When a security guard is mangled to death at Costco, store manager and uber-suburbanite Evan (Ben Stiller, doing a damn good Steve Carell impersonation) organizes a posse to keep an eye on the neighborhood — despite the fact that the other members (Vince Vaughn as the overprotective dad with the bitchin’ man cave; Jonah Hill as the creepy wannabe cop; and British comedian Richard Ayoade as the sweet pervert) would much rather drink beers and bro down. Much bumbling ensues, along with a thrown-together plot about unfriendly E.T.s. The Watch offers some laughs (yes, dick jokes are occasionally funny) but overall feels like a pretty minor effort considering its big-name cast. (1:38) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Z2zG6xMA0
The Well-Diggers Daughter Daniel Auteuil owes a debt of gratitude to Marcel Pagnol, courtesy of his breakthrough roles in the 1980s remakes of the writer and filmmaker’s Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring. He returns the favor with his debut directorial work, reworking the 1940s film and crafting a loving, old-school tribute to Pagnol. The world is poised on the edge of World War I; Auteuil plays salt-of-the-earth Pascal Amoretti. The poor widower does the town’s dirty work (oh, the dangerous symbolism of hole-digging) and cares for his six daughters — his favorite, the eldest and the most beautiful, Patricia (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), has caught the eye of his assistant, Felipe (Kad Merad). The happy home — and tidy arrangement — is shattered, however, when Patricia meets an inconveniently dashing pilot Jacques Mazel (Nicolas Duvauchelle), who sweeps her away, in the worst way possible for a girl of her day. “You’ve sinned, and I thought you were an angel,” says the stunned father when he hears his beloved offspring is pregnant. “Angels don’t live on earth,” she responds. “I’m like any other girl.” Faced with the inevitable, Auteuil and company shine a sweet but, importantly, not saccharine light — one that’s as golden warm as the celebrated sunshine of rural Provence — on the proceedings. And equipped with Pagnol’s eloquent prose, as channeled through his love of the working folk, he restores this tale’s gently throwback emotional power, making it moving once more for an audience worlds away. (1:45) (Kimberly Chun)
The pre-screening wine bar won’t erase the sinister implications of tomorrow’s Artist’s Television Access showing of Reconnect. On Sat/28, filmmaker Kevin Kunze will show a rough cut of the film that will make you think twice about answering your next phone call.
When East Bay father Alan Marks pegged his brain tumor on cell phone usage a few years ago, the issue of cell phone radiation had its brief moment in the limelight. But the media focus eventually fizzled out. And with so many friends to talk to, deals to make, lunch dates to plan, and distant relatives to keep at bay, our reliance on phones wasn’t so easily put on hold.
But some kept their eyes on the story. One of these believers was independent filmmaker and activist Kunze, who was deeply affected by meeting Alan Marks’ wife Ellie and later teamed up with Nobel Prize-winning author and scientist Devra Davis to make a documentary on the issue of cell phone radiation and its rather serious implications. The film picks up the story at the industry’s initial boom in 1993.
Reconnect (formerly called Disconnect) interviews experts hailing from Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and California Senators Mark Leno and Leland Yee offer their thoughts on the matter, and Kunze digs up the stories of multiple brain tumor sufferers, whose stories went oddly uncovered by the media. Though the potential for brain cancer was a projected side-effect that’s been discussed since the promulgation of mobile phones, more and more studies are popping up that suggest the long-term usage of devices cause DNA damage, blood-brain barrier damage, breast cancer, sperm reduction, and infertility.
San Francisco’s own history with cell phone health has been an intense one. The Right to Know Act of 2010 required cell phone retailers post information about possible health risks associated with phone usage. The law came under fierce attack from the telecommunications industry, however.
“Since the beginning,” says Kunze in explanation of the film on a fundraising website. “There was always talk of cell phone radiation and the possibility it could cause cancer.” Check out the screening at Artists’ Television Access this Saturday, have a drink, and take the post-film Q&A as an opportunity to ask Kunze about what life looks like post-iPhone.
Why does a new farmers market make us salivate so here in the city? Something something foodie frenzy, something something voracious next-big-thing-icitis. Fact of the matter is, such small-scale food resources keep popping up and we’re going to go along for the ride. Tomorrow on Sat/28, Forage SF’s Underground Market is back — but if you can’t stomach the lines or prefer a glass of red with your cover admission, head to urban winery and tasting room Bluxome Street Winery for its so-called Meet Market.
To aide in your shopping amidst the table of artisan food and garden supplies, Bluxome will be selling glasses of its vino, the perfect companion to the gourmet popsicles, empanadas, and traditional Indian spreads that will abound. Everything goes well with wine, right? Here are six of the local producers you’ll find.
The Meet MarketSat/28, noon-5pm, free. Bluxome Street Winery, 53 Bluxome, SF. www.bluxomewinery.com
Cocotutti
Cocotutti’s products resemble its name — that is, they are adorable little clouds of sugary delight you want to repeat over and over again. Its collection of truffles and bonbons include flavors like hot chocolate, raspberry, ginger, and cappuccino, while its series of caramels offers hints of vanilla bean and orange-chocolate confit. Browsing Cocotutti’s wares, you’ll see the adjective “roasted” used a lot, which by our reckoning is usually codeword for “delicious.” It’ll be offering wine and chocolate pairings on Saturday at Bluxome? Parfait.
Clever name aside, there’s nothing cheesy about Pop Nation’s collection of totally vegan, gluten-free popsicles. The company’s year-round flavors are strawberry lemonade, banana pudding, mango coconut with black sesame, watermelon mint, and sea-salted dark chocolate. However, you can also bet on a few seasonal additions (let’s cross our fingers for bourbon and peach, Mexican chocolate, lemon lavender cake, PB&J and — mainly because we’re curious how it pans out in popsicle form — peanut butter and fluff).
Latin America-raised and Paris-educated Cordon Bleu chef Marianne Despres provides everything one could possible want from an empanada; that is, an plethora of mouth-watering, savory ingredients and an overload of gooey cheese. Food purists can try the beefy traditional empanada, while the more fusion cuisine-inclined can feast on the French-infused Parisienne empanada, which is filled with prosciutto, chives, five kinds of cheeses, and other morsels.
You’ve tasted tamarind sauce and gobbled down chutney, but what is rotu pacchadi? It’s a traditional South Indian spread that was good enough to convince chef Sumana Pathi to quit a gig as software engineer and become a chef. The spread is traditionally used as an appetizer, but it can also be Americanized to be served as whatever the heck you desire, from a sandwich spread to a dip.
This writer is endowed with a peculiar affinity for homey bowls of warm food and dishes so spicy they make her eyes pop out, and so Kevin and Gail’s Chili Palace’s offerings seems mighty tasty. After winning over 15 chili cook-offs with its celebrated chili verde and, most recently, taking home the Marin County Fair award for best chili con carne, chefs and owners Kevin and Gail are now settling back into the world of farmers markets, serving up chili that’s steaming and ready-to-eat, and also hawking frozen packages perfect for taking home.
A San Francisco love story if we’ve ever heard one. Owner and creator Tina Calloway thought up the name for her company while working at the Bernal Heights Community Garden with her daughter, and the company unfolded just as the name would suggest. Its urban farming meets girly-girl aesthetic is evident in Calloway’s line of living wreaths of succulents, earthy artisan pots, and vertical garden boxes. They maintain an English garden, old-fashioned charm, despite being up-to-the-minute terrarium-trendy.
A few dozen rallied in front of the building that houses a branch of PNC bank July 26, demanding that the bank not foreclose on Yin Wong, an elderly Bayview resident who says the bank is foreclosing on her illegally.
Wong says she never missed a mortgage payment on the home that she and her family have lived in since 2001. She was paying through electronic transfer, where payments were automatically transferred from her bank account monthly. She says that in October 2009, she discovered the bank had rejected her previous two payments. The next month, she received a foreclosure notice for non-payment.
“I never said I cannot pay,” Wong says. She says after she was tracked for foreclosure, all efforts to pay were refused, even though she had the money.
“If it happened to another person, I wouldn’t believe it. But it happened to me,” Wong said, adding that “In other countries all over the world this wouldn’t happen…just America, of freedom and democracy.”
Protesters chanted in support of Wong and blocked the main entrance to 575 California, where PNC has offices. A security guard said the building hadn’t seen that kind of demonstration since it housed Chevron.
Activists compare Wong’s case to that of the Cruz family, who also had their electronic transfer payments to PNC rejected without explanation, resulting in being tracked for foreclosure and eviction from their Minnesota home. Their case galvanized national support and made headines when they travelled with supporters to PNC’s Pittsburgh headquarters last week.
Wong has received support from the Eviction Defense Collaborative (EDC), and two attorneys from the group were at the rally protesting on her behalf. One EDC lawyer, Deepa Varma, said that even with fairly obvious illegal foreclosures such as Wong’s, homeowners usually lose in the courts. The EDC would often warn clients that fighting against banks in these cases was a largely unwinnable uphill battle.
But she said the recent push to fight back against foreclosures, fueled largely by various Occupy efforts, has changed all that.
“A year before Occupy, the position in our office was to say, you’ll just have to move,” said Varma. “It would have felt impossible”
But now, Varma said, “there’s more of us, and people have actually made it happen. The turning point for me was seeing Josephine get back in her house,” she said. Josephine Tolbert, 76, was locked out of her home was little warning last fall. After pressure from activists, including Occupy the Hood SF, Occupy San Francisco, and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Tolbert has now received a loan modification and is back in her home.
“After that I was like, anything is possible so long as they realize we’re not going to keep quiet outside the courts,” Varma said.
Wong has been working with the EDC since she was served her first eviction notice three years ago.
California is a non-judicial foreclosure state, meaning local governments automatically enforce foreclosures that lenders call for. Foreclosure cases are generally not reviewed unless a homeowner challenges a lender legally. Then, according to Varma, lenders need only prove that they filed appropriate eviction paperwork to prove their case—not that the foreclosure itself has legal merit.
Wong wanted to go to trial to prove her case, Varma said. “She said, I did everything right. I have nothing to hide.” But PNC wanted to settle the case through a series of motions of summary judgment. “They filed motion after motion,” recounts Varma, saying that courts almost always decide in favor of lenders in these types of motion. But Wong’s case was unusual– “we kept beating them.”
After three years, PNC finally beat Wong at a bench trial last month when a judge ruled against her. Their win was only based on being able to prove to the judge that they had record of the appropriate paperwork in Wong’s foreclosure preceedings, not that Wong had missed payments, meriting the foreclosure in the first place, according to EDC attorney Josh Schieber.
Scheiber said that while he’s been working on Wong’s case, she has consistently tried to submit her payments and on the occasions offered to pay the whole mortgage. The bank doesn’t seem interested.
But Wong refuses to give up, and she hopes that the confrontation yesterday might have reopened those lines of communication.
Wong and an interpreter from Occupy Bernal waited in the building’s lobby about 45 minutes while supporters chanted “keep Yin in her home.”
“They want to make me become homeless, but they still don’t want to talk to me,” Wong said as she waited, guessing “they’re scared because they know they did the wrong thing.”
PNC sent down a representative to meet with Wong who assured her that he would fax the documents that she had brought with her, evidence of the unlawful foreclosure, to corporate headquarters
Wong and her family are scheduled for eviction Wednesday.
“I hope they postpone it so we can keep talking,” Varma said.
The surcharges that many San Francisco restaurants charge their customers – ostensibly to help cover their employee health care obligations, although in practice it has often just padded their profits – should be investigated by the District Attorney’s Office as consumer fraud, according to Sup. David Campos and San Francisco’s Civil Grand Jury, which recently issued a scathing report scrutinizing the practice.
Campos raised the issue during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, calling for a criminal investigation and City Hall hearing. He even questioned whether businesses that have been so hostile to city’s Health Care Security Ordinance – the landmark 2008 measure that created the Health San Francisco universal care program and required businesses to help pay for their employees’ health coverage – should benefit from the tax cuts it would receive under a business tax reform ballot measure the board also considered that day.
“In the restaurant industry, we have an issue that remains unresolved,” Campos said during the business tax debate, after earlier in the meeting calling for the DA “to begin an investigation for fraud against the people of San Francisco by businesses that use this surcharge.”
DA’s Office spokesperson Stephanie Ong Stillman confirmed that the office is looking at the issue: “The Grand Jury report was just released and we are in the process of evaluating the results.”
Mayor Ed Lee last year vetoed legislation by Campos that would have banned the practice and prevented businesses from simply pocketing money from Employer Health Reimbursement Accounts they create to comply with the mandate (federal law bars the city from dictating how businesses cover employee health care) at the end of each year. Lee later signed a watered down version sponsored by Board President David Chiu requiring employers to keep the money in the fund for two years, to let their employees know about the fund on a quarterly basis, and to dedicate surcharge revenue to employee health care.
Rob Black, executive director of Golden Gate Restaurant Association – which unsuccessfully sued the city over the employer mandate and appealed the case all the way to the US Supreme Court – criticized Campos and the Grand Jury, saying they were relying on data from last year and that the situation has improved since Chiu’s legislation went into effect (Chiu told us data collection from his legislation will allow the city to better assess what’s happening).
“Supervisor Campos know this information is based on data that was prior to the new ordinance,” Black told us, acknowledging that many restaurants profited from the surcharges “but that was before the law was changed.” Campos responded by saying the grand jury concluded that the Chiu legislation didn’t go far enough the prevent the abuses, which are tough to detect because they are based on self reporting by the businesses.
The Grand Jury looked at 38 restaurants, of which 25 used the surcharges and 22 use the reimbursement accounts rather than either health insurance or Healthy San Francisco, which health care experts uniformly say are better options for employees. It analyzed data submitted to the city by these 22 restaurants with a total of 1,562 employees, finding that of the more than $2 million earmarked for the health reimbursement funds, just $123,612 was paid to employees and $1.9 million was kept by the employers.
Black said the quarterly noticing requirement in the Chiu legislation is already helping with the low reimbursement rate: “My hope is, and my belief is, we’re going to see significant…improvements in utilization rates in people taking advantage of their benefits, and that’s great.”
The grand jury also looked specifically at the health care surcharges collected by 18 restaurants with almost $64 million in gross revenue. Despite collecting almost $2.2 million in the surcharges it placed on customers bills, they reimbursed their employees for $1.16 million medical expenses and kept the more than $1 million that remained as profits.
Black criticized the grand jury for selectively picking the restaurants in its study and for targetting private sector businesses rather than the public agencies it traditionally investigates. “They’re outside of what the government charter calls for,” he said.
But Mark Busse, the chair of the Grand Jury Health Committee that led the study, told the Guardian that while it’s unusual to look at the private sector, there was a legitimate public policy interest here and its work was approved and overseen by Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein (who happens to be the daughter of US Sen. Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco’s former mayor).
He also denies hand-picking the restaurants, saying he asked jurors to simply keep the receipts from all restaurants they frequented. While that may not be representative of all restaurants, he said it was a large enough sample to draw some conclusions and that he was more surprised than anyone at their findings.
“I thought our results would be totally different. I didn’t think they would be that abusive, I really didn’t. I thought we would find we have some outstanding restaurants and entrepreneurs,” Busse said, adding that he was alarmed by their actual findings. “It turned our stomachs. It makes us sick. It is not a level playing field. There are legitimate businesses that accept the spirit of the law and are taking care of their employees, but a lot of them aren’t.”
Given that these employees handle the food of city residents, he said that they should get the health care to which they’re entitled. As Busse told us, “The intention of the jury was to make sure the workers are getting health care and the customers aren’t getting deceived.”
7/27 Update: We heard back from the Mayor’s Office, whose Chief Deputy Communications Director Francis Tsang wrote: “Mayor Lee is a strong supporter of the Healthcare Security Ordinance. The Civil Grand Jury surveyed only 38 restaurants and its report restates facts we already know – some businesses add a surcharge and in the past, it was not well regulated. Working with Supervisors, Mayor Lee strengthened practices effective January 2, 2012 to ensure employees could make better use of the program. We will know the results in 2013, when we collect and report on 2012 data informed by the new regulations.”
Fountains of Wayne was exhausted, its effects pedals weren’t working, and the crowd was only half full at the Great American Music Hall last Thursday night. But for some reason, despite the band’s jet lag and the shortcomings of its borrowed equipment, the show sounded good. In fact, it sounded fantastic.
The smallish crowd had the excited energy of a sold-out show – it sang/shouted along to every word of every song the band played from its massive catalog, even the newest additions. Though the audience varied greatly in age – most were going gray, but the boys in front of me didn’t have two armpit hairs to rub together – they were unified by their enthusiasm and apparent passion for a great pop hook. “Thank you for not going to see Ray Davies at the Fillmore tonight,” joked bassist Adam Schlesinger. “He’s very talented.”
Fountains of Wayne has been churning out catchy riffs and hilariously poignant lyrics for 16 years. Despite a somewhat confusing Grammy win (the band won best new artist in 2007, seven years into its career) and the international popularity of MILF-honoring single “Stacey’s Mom,” the band never managed to break through to lasting mainstream success.
Apparently undaunted by this continued obscurity, FOW has managed to avoid a painful fadeout. After so many years together, the band members don’t seem to carry any tension – they exude an air of casual confidence on stage.
Fountains of Wayne’s tight songwriting and humble persistence has earned it a devoted core of fans, from people who have been listening to them from their first album to tweens who were born after the band was started.
And there we stood, beers in hand on a weeknight. Everywhere I looked people were smiling, hugging, dancing, laughing. Before the band had even come onstage, onlookers were singing along with the instrumental introduction to the first song, and they didn’t quiet down until after the house lights came on.
Berlin’s darkly comedic, pan-theatrical experimental performance troupe Kinderdeutsch Projekts is briefly in town, Fri/27-August 4, with new show Arctic Hysteria.
And you should go not just for the “parallel universe King Lear in a psychotic snowscape”-sounding plot, or the promise of “Nazi doctors, war-torn sets buried in ash, dance numbers of disembowelment and incest” — but also because it looks pretty dang cool in an icy home-apocalypse way.
Lively alternative arts space Bindlestiff Studio, recently remodeled, hosts the company, which is renowned for its heady multimedia fables (intense surround sound effects!), like this one, “set in a land of artificial snow and imagined Eskimos” which “follows three ungrateful daughters as they unwillingly inherit a frozen kingdom from their warlord mother — in the process descending into madness and taking the play with them.”
Fear no pure abstraction though (although there will be thrilling glimpses of that) – the play is billed as “part musical, part B-grade incest porn, part disastrous sparkle pop music video.”
Sorry I’m quoting so much of the press release here — it’s not just lazy journalism, although I am hungover, it’s because you never know what to expect with Kinderdeutsch, except a gratifyingly wiggy experience and an audience of fellow madcap adventurers. The show is produced locally by SNAP: Some New Arts Project.
Here’s a very tiny taste, captured by videographer Stephen Quinones at a recent rehearsal — “How to dive into a walrus anus and die: preparation.”
Last month, Kink.com director Princess Donna (perhaps you remember her Guardian advice column?) took a risk and made a gangbang movie featuring bad, bad pandas. Per usual, change was hard. Some members rebelled — “I haven’t even watched this because there is nothing about pandas fucking a girl that would make me get remotely aroused,” said one user in the video’s comments section.
“The reaction was exactly what I expected it to be,” Donna told us in a email interview. “Some people think it’s the best thing that ever happened, some people think it’s the worst porn ever made. That’s what happens when you take risks.” People, can’t a woman take risks every once in awhile? She didn’t get to be the director of three Kink.com subsites for nothing. “My ideas make money for the company, that is my role,” Donna said when we asked her about the part she plays at the Armory. “But my focus was never on what people would think, my focus was on feeling free to express myself creatively and allowing myself the freedom to create things regardless of what the response would be.”
The video is kind of gorgeous, especially (and perhaps this is our ignorance showing but) for a gang bang porn. You get a full storyline — panda hallucinations! Freakouts at the bank! — before porn starlet Ashli Orion is subjected to five panda penises. Well, human penises (including that of porn crossover star James Deen, whose participation is the subject of our cover story next week) sticking through custom-designed cock holes in panda suits, but you get the idea.
What would it be like to be in a Kink.com panda gang bang? To the best of Donna’s knowledge this was the first, so really only one woman knew the answer to our question: the baby-faced Ashli Orion, star of PANDAMONIUM!!! PANDA LULLABY!!! PANDA PORNO!!!!! So duh, we called her up.
SFBG:So tell me about how you found out about the panda porn.
AO: I didn’t find out I was doing the panda porn until I got to Kink that morning. I got off the plane and I saw Princess Donna and she was like “guess what, we’re going to do a panda porn!” and I was like are you serious? Oh my gosh. Because it was Gang Bang, so I was like pandas? This is gonna be great. I was so excited, I was so stoked.
SFBG: Have you shot for that site before?
AO: I have actually, I shot a scene with Lily Labeau – James was also in that one, we were actually just bound up. It was Bound Gang Bangs, there was no panda suits.
SFBG:Damn. What was it like shooting the panda porn?
AO: You know what, it was really fun. We got to do an intro, kind of like a movie monologue, like montage at the beginning. I saw the pandas, they’re so cute, and I totally forgot I was there for bondage, and then they start smacking me around. I was like oh fuck, I forgot I’m getting beat up now. I’m like, I thought pandas were nice!
SFBG: Right, I watched the movie and your lines in it were the best.
AO: I haven’t watched – only the trailers.
SFBG:You haven’t watched the thing?
AO: I watched the beginning, but I hate watching myself. You know, I don’t know I hate seeing myself naked.
SFBG: Yeah, I hear you. That’s unique, though.
AO: It was pretty cool and crazy because all the guys, they’re, you know, they’re all fit, but they have these big [panda] bellies so their cocks couldn’t come out all the way. And there was hair everywhere, in my mouth, on their cocks, in my pussy, in my ass. It was nuts, it was just like – I don’t even know how it turned out. It was like, whoa pandas!
SFBG:Pandas everywhere. Did Princess Donna tell you why she wanted to shoot with pandas?
AO: She just told me she wanted to do something crazy, like out of the box. Is there a real reason I don’t know?
SFBG: No no, I was just asking.
AO: Yeah, she just wanted to do something different because she was sick of doing the same old thing. She used me because I’m down for anything usually.
SFBG: Yeah totally. When you were shooting it did you think at all of what the audience reception was going to be like?
AO: I was actually really excited. I don’t know, I thought it was funny. I figured if I was younger and not in porn I would show it to my friends, like viral porno. Look at these pandas fucking this girl!
SFBG: Have you kept track of the member comments on the website?
AO: Yeah, I did actually. I saw how horrible they were because they were like “we want to see a Bound Gang Bang, not pandas. This is a different site, I’m canceling my membership, I’m not into furries.” And then other people were like “ooo I have a new fetish. I love furries.” Everyone has their opinions, mine is just like, we created something creative and cool and I was down for it.
SFBG:Are you open to these types of projects in the future?
AO: Oh, totally!
SFBG:Kitties!
AO: Oh my gosh, I would love kitties. I’m a crazy cat lady.
Sup. John Avalos appears to be cruising to an uncontested reelection now that Leon Chow, an organizer and executive with SEIU-UHW, has been chased out of the District 11 supervisorial race by journalist Chris Roberts, the SF Appeal, and their reporting on what appears to be Chow’s false claims that he lived in the district.
Chow had been banking on support from his union and the district’s substantial Chinese immigrant population, which he had been helping rally against new medical cannabis dispensaries that the city had approved for the Outer Mission/Excelsior area, presenting Avalos with a challenge that needed to be taken seriously.
But Roberts dropped a journalistic bomb on Chow’s ambitions a couple weeks ago when he unearthed documents indicating that Chow actually lived in Walnut Creek and that he was registered to vote at Chinatown business address – both in violation of election law – doing the solid reporting that journalists failed to do when Ed Jew was elected to the District 4 seat without living there. It wasn’t until Jew was caught in an FBI bribery sting that journalists dug into the background of a politician who had flown into office largely under the press’s radar.
As the Appeal reported this afternoon, Chow sent this email to the Elections Department: “Since I have not filed for Candidacy, I am notifying your department simply with this email, please let me know if there is any other process I will need to do. Please kindly remove my names [sic] from the Potential Local Candidate List in the department web site.”
Although it made no mention of Roberts’ story – which hadn’t gotten much journalistic traction yet, although that was bound to happen as the campaign wore on – the connection seems obvious. So, congratulations to Roberts … and to Avalos.
Localized Appreesh is our weekly thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.
San Francisco’s Rin Tin Tiger does it raw. The alt-folk trio just wrapped up recording an organic (no vocal editing here) live album at Tiny Telephone Studios.
The resulting record, Toxic Pocketbook, roars like the soul of a wild cat trapped in a faithful pup’s skin. It scoots along with twangy riffs infused with a rough rock’n’roll edge, and “a good thump” (as the band describes it below), with untouched – and gleefully twangy – vocals pumping up the natural energy.
In celebration of their respective new releases, the band co-headlines the Great American Music Hall this week with fellow locals Tumbleweed Wanderers. First, Rin Tin Tiger swipes its striped paw across Localized Appreesh’s ruddy cheek.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpIg0x_w808
Year and location of origin: 2011 – San Francisco, Calif.
Band name origin: Kevin wanted to call the band Rin Tin Tin after the dog but the name was already taken. As a joke Andrew said Rin Tin Tiger. We brushed it off and then had nightmares about it for eternity. Thus, RTT was born.
Band motto: Murk as much as possible.
Description of sound in 10 words or less: High energy, lyric heavy alt folk with a good thump.
Best part about life as a Bay Area band: Being able to busk the streets of SF as well as play all of the amazing venues in the city and the ability to play different markets like the Oakland or San Jose within a 45 minute drive.
Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: Cost of living/Rent.
First album ever purchased: Kevin: N’Sync, Home for Christmas; Sean: Weird Al Bad Hair Day; Andrew: Michael Jackson, Black Or White.
Most recent album purchased/downloaded: Kevin: I’ve been revisiting Underoath, The Changing of Times; Sean: the amazing new releases from local bands Picture Atlantic, Tumbleweed Wanderers, Owl Paws, Loquat and Dogcatcher!; Andrew: Fleetwood Mac, Rumors.
Favorite local eatery and dish: Indian Pizza at Zantes and The Classic cheeseburger at Burgermeister.
It is inevitable after reading today’s Best of the Bay 2012 issue that your heart will be swole with pride for our beautiful Bay Area By the Bay. Seize the moment! There are a plethora of arts and culture happenings this week that are perfect examples of — as our managing editor Marke B. put it in his intro to BOB — “the sheer gorgeousness, thriving alternative culture, and promise of freedom and acceptance that are unique to our shores.” Cheers!
CELLspace open critical studio
Turns out, artists aren’t always their best critic. That’s why CELLspace’s open critical studio is such a great opportunity for creatives. Come discuss your art, discover the work of others, and — hopefully — take away a dose of constructive criticism that every creator needs from time to time.
Though it’s one of the city’s premier comedy clubs, Cobb’s isn’t stupid enough to forget the little guys. This Wednesday, check out the club’s up-and-comer showcase, where you can see some of the Bay’s funniest fledglings before they hit it big and really start taking your money.
The San Francisco International Poetry Festival brings you tons of excuses to brood in a vaguely-Italian coffee house while penning lines into your journal. The series of readings from poets of international acclaim — from Iraq to Italy, Sweden to Malta — kicks off this Thursday. Set ever-so aptly in Jack Kerouac Alley, hosts Jack Hirschman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and city librarian Luis Herrera will introduce the festival’s lineup of poets with the accompaniment of a modern concert from Neeli Cherkovski, Matt Gonzales, and Jonathan Richman.
The Wizard of Oz movie night with the San Francisco Symphony
Join the San Francisco Symphony for a unique screening of America’s favorite kids-movie-that’s-not-actually-a-kids-movie. Beyond the fantastical plot line of The Wizard of Oz, the film’s striking visual elements and majestic music and score are part of what has made it the timeless classic it is today. Bridge the gap between silly and sophistication this Thursday by dressing up in your favorite Oz costume, watching the movie, and listening to the SF Symphony perform the score live.
If you missed this month’s run of Root Division’s modern story-telling art exhibit, you still have a chance to catch this glamorous culmination, closing reception, and publication release. Taking a page from Ernest Hemingway, “Re: Told” reframes cultural narratives in order to create a contemporary storytelling experience, yielding an accessible look into some very intimate realities.
Prominent Japanese nature photographer Naoya Hatakeyama shows us the dualistic relationship between man and nature in this large-scale photography exhibit illustrating man’s attempt to control nature and, in the wake of the Tohuku earthquake and tsunami. The austere power of nature over humans’ best attempts to rein it in figures prominently in “Natural Stories,” which possesses an ironically calm visual approach to such a powerful concept.
The native Californian basket collection at the Oakland Museum of Art would, from a novice’s eye, seem to be complete. Yet due to the Ohlone tribe’s tradition of burning their possessions after death, the tribe’s baskets are scarcely represented among the collection’s 2,500 pieces. To remedy this dearth, the museum commissioned Ohlone artist and scholar Linda Yamane to create a basket. After a two-year documented process, we have an opportunity to welcome the 20,000-stitch, several thousand feathers, and 1,200-bead that make up the Ohlone basket into the museum’s collection with a day of festivity, including story-telling, dance, and song.
Hey you, the one with the oversized headphones and approximately windows to burn open on your laptop, listen up. As part of its specialization in the speculative — that is, fantasy, horror, and science fiction — Borderlands Books presents Corey Doctorow and his book The Coming Century of War Against Your Computer. Copyright laws, net neutrality, and SOPA may be much more serious indicators of the technology takeover than we thought, so let this be your opportunity to decide whether you’re going to let technology-driven measures govern your life.
The Chron has pretty much signed off on the inevitability of a giant set of tunnels moving water from the Sacramento River to the San Joaquin River, screwing up even futher the ecosystem of the San Francisco Bay and Delta:
The water world has already separated into three camps: the water contractors, the federal government, the governor and the state Department of Water Resources, which support the “conveyance” as a necessary part (but only one element) of providing future water supplies;
the environmental community, which does not speak with a single voice but, conceding that the $14 billion facility probably is inevitable, is focusing on how it might be operated.
The last group, the delta residents and the Northern California congressional delegation, is opposed, seeing a loss of water and productive farmland and little tangible benefit in return.
But let’s remember: When this came up in 1982, it was voted down statewide, with something like 80 percent of Northern California saying “no.” And it wasn’t just the pumps and the Big Suck — it was the whole concept of shifting more water to unsustainable agriculture in the desert. That point hasn’t changed at all. Until we get a handle on why the state allows farmers to grow rice and tomatoes in the US version of Africa’s Serenghetti, I don’t see why we’re spending a whole lot of money to make things worse.
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass released its first of four teaser medleys today, take a listen and start tallying the acts. Everyone loves a guessing game, right?
At press time, HSB commenters have pointed out snippets of Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle, the Mekons and the Head and the Heart. Take a listen.
In 2007, then 20-year-old George Watsky and his band at the time, Invisible Inc., rented out Slim’s nightclub in San Francisco and put themselves on stage as the opening act. Sadly, Watsky spent years repaying back the loan that he lost on that show.
Flash forward five years to the present, and on Sunday, July 29 the now 25-year-old under the stage name “Watsky” will be headlining a show at Slim’s, presented by Slim’s itself. Watsky’s performance in San Francisco is part of a 22-city national tour, which kicked off on July 1 in Tempe, Ariz. and wraps up July 31 in LA (including three shows in London, England after the national tour ends).
The last time SFBG covered the Bay Area native and alumna of San Francisco’s University High School was back in 2008 when he was dominating the world of spoken word. He had recently been crowned champion of the National Brave New Voices competition and had made an appearance on Russell Simmons’ HBO show, Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry.
Since then, up until a couple weeks ago, Watsky has been at college campuses across the US, performing his highly demanded spoken word poetry. But in 2009, Watsky showed fans another side to his creativity with the release of a studio rap album titled Watsky.
I spoke to Watsky over the phone about his current rap success while Watsky and his band were en route to Illinois, for a show in Chicago the following night. “I’ve been rapping since before I started doing poetry,” said Watsky. “I’ve been doing my best to get my rap out there parallel to my poetry career it’s just taken a while to catch on to an audience.”
Well it finally caught on in 2011, when Watksy put out a Youtube video that launched himself into Youtube stardom, titled “Pale Kid Raps Fast”. The video went viral, spreading to teenagers’ computers quicker than it took for their Cup Noodles to settle. It quickly amassed millions of views (over 20 million to date), multiplied Watsky’s subscribers 20 fold, and earned him an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show.
For Watsky, the success of “Pale Kid Raps Fast” couldn’t have come at a better time. “That video came about in a time when I was really frustrated,” said Watsky, who had just moved to LA and was trying to make it as an actor, but with little success.
“When I came back to LA after Christmas I decided I was going to take matters into my own hands.” And that’s exactly what he did. Watsky boiled down all of his talents into a single video; adding elements of humor, lyrical skill, and impressive speed. “Everything just kind of came together” said Watsky “[Pale Kid Raps Fast] came out of a sense of what are kids looking for that could be shared around and can show them exactly who I am and maybe peak their curiosity to look into my other stuff.”
Along with his Youtube videos, Watsky continued to build a solid fan base with releases of mixtapes like his first in 2011 titled, A New Kind of Sexy. He followed in early 2012 with the release of a bluegrass/hip-hop EP, tag teaming with his bandmate Kush Mody titled, Watsky and Mody. And in June of this year, Watsky released his most recent mixtape, Nothing Like the First Time, which coincided with his national tour.
He’s been enjoying the support and energy he’s been receiving from his diverse audiences on tour. “I do have a young element to my fan base but I also have a bunch of older people coming out too and a lot of these kids’ parents actually like my music also. They’re anywhere from 15-years-old to 45-years-old,” he said, adding that some of the older audience members come to his shows because they’re fans of his poetry or saw him on Def Poetry Slam. “Even some English teachers come to my shows and tell me they use my work in their classroom,” he said.
Watsky offers a style that can’t really be defined. And often times critics who seem to have only heard a sample of Watsky’s work or even just seen a headshot, tend to throw him into the category of “white rapper” or the “Frat rap scene.”
“First of all, I was never in a fraternity,” Watsky joked. “I think the easiest way to go is to lump me in there with the other white rappers that are breaking right now. It’s accurate; I mean I am a white rapper.”
“But I’m different than Mac Miller, I’m different than Kreayshawn, I’m different than Bo Burnham, I’m different than Chris Webby in ways that I could go on about for a long time – and they’re all different than me. And it’s not like one of us is better or worse than the other, it’s just that we are speaking to different groups of people based on our experiences.”
Watsky is different. He offers something unique and genuine. “The one thing that I try and make sure that I always come back to is that [my music] is honest,” said Watsky. “When I go back to my earlier stuff, sometimes I feel like it’s not entirely me like my voice doesn’t sound like how it does in conversation. I always want people who listen to my poetry to feel like they are listening to the exact same person when they listen to my music and vice-versa and I think what’s really important to me is that I’m always coming across exactly as myself and that I’m not putting on any airs.”
You would think that after 48.5 million total Youtube views, two appearances on The Ellen Degeneres Show, two appearances at VidCon, and a profile on Last Call with Carson Daily, life would have changed dramatically, not really. “To be honest my day-to-day lifestyle didn’t change a whole lot,” said Watsky. “[It] didn’t change much at all until we hit the road. Until two weeks ago I didn’t see any real change in my life except for the increase in Youtube hits.”
After a decade of trying to make it on to the national scene, Watsky isn’t looking for a shortcut. Shortly after the video went viral, T-mobile offered Watsky a quarter of a million dollars to do a fast rap commercial. He turned down the deal.
Luckily for Watsky, the patience has paid off. In mid-May he was selected to perform at the 2012 Rock The Bells Festival in August, alongside hip-hop heavy weights like Nas, Jadakiss, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Kendrick Lamar, and Kid Cudi. “I’m thrilled,” Watsky said. “It’s going to be great because I’m the kid who was at Rock The Bells three years ago, fours years ago as an audience member. It’s totally unreal to be crossing over to the other side of the stage.”
At the moment, the stage Watsky is most looking forward to is the one at Slim’s. “I’m really excited to come back to San Francisco, it’s the show on the whole tour that I have been really excited about more than any other,” said Watsky.
My final question to Watsky was, what can we expect from a Watsky concert? A live five-piece band, songs from all of his projects, a little spoken word, and a lot of fun. Said Watsky, “Expect to be entertained and have a good time because we are going to put our all into it.”
Watsky With Dumbfoundead, the Breezy Lovejoy Band Sun/29, 9pm, $16 Slim’s 333 11th St., SF www.slimspresents.com
California’s biggest environmental organizations are gathering in Sacramento tomorrow (Wed/25) to call for a moratorium on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing – also known as fracking, in which a mixture of water and chemicals is injected at high pressure deep underground to increase production in oil and natural gas wells – until its impacts are better understood.
The occasion is the last in a series of workshops on the issue by the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, which is considering new rules on a practice that is mostly unregulated in California. Other recent legislative and administrative efforts to address fracking have been scuttled by the powerful fossil fuel industry.
Earlier this year, Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) discovered that state officials didn’t even know how much fracking is happening in California – while it requires state permits to drill an oil or natural gas well, fracking them doesn’t – although the industry has since estimated that more than 600 wells were fracked last year, most of them in Kern Country around Bakersfield.
But there is growing concern by environmentalists that the oil industry plans to expand its use of fracking in the Monterey shale formations that run from the Central Coast to the Central Valley, where an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil could be extracted if loosened up by fracking.
“We’re calling for the Division of Oil and Gas to slow down and not rush through these regulations,” said Andrew Grinberg, spokesperson for Clean Water Action. “We’re calling for a moratorium until we have good regulations that ensure the protection of our water, air, health, and communities.”
Other organizations joining the event – which begins at 5:30pm outside the California Environmental Protection Agency building at 1001 1st St. in Sacramento, where the DOGGR hearing will be held at 7pm – and the call for a moratorium includes the Sierra Club, Planning and Conservation League, Center for Biological Diversity, Environment California, and Food & Water Watch.
Public concerns about fracking have been on the increase in recent years, fueled by a high-profile debate in New York about ending a state moratorium against the practice and by alarming stories of groundwater contamination caused by fracking – including cases in which hydrocarbon content in drinking water is so high that people could set their faucets on fire – told in the 2010 documentary film Gaslandand other media accounts.
But Tupper Hull, spokesperson for the influential trade group Western States Petroleum Association, told us fracking has been happening in California for 60 years – almost exclusively in oil wells rather than for the natural gas fields discussed in Gasland – and that it has not caused any detrimental environmental impacts, nor has its use been increasing, despite the increased public attention to the practice.
“We understand there is a lot of interest in this topic and questions about the technology,” Hull said. “We expect there will be new regulations and whatever they are, we hope they are based on facts and science and not emotional responses.”
But he said WSPA opposes the call for a moratorium because “this is a technology that aids in the production of energy.”
Yet the environmental groups say the need for energy shouldn’t cause government to abdicate its role of studying and regulating a potentially harmful practice that was given a broad federal exemption from the Clean Water Act by Congress in 2005, when it approved the Energy Policy Act that was spearheaded by then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
Environmental groups dubbed it the “Halliburton loophole” after Cheney’s former employer, which has greatly expanded the use of fracking in the US.
“Death at SeaWorld also absolutely refers to all of the orcas who have died at SeaWorld, and continue to die at SeaWorld. To me, the whales are as important as any of the people in the book — Tilikum [the whale caused the trainer’s death] becomes a main character that you get to know. I used to tell people when I was writing the book, it’s like Jaws, only it’s non-fiction, more people die, and you actually care about the whale.”
Eclectic local eight-piece DRMS (formerly Dreams) today released a haunting video for “With You” off the band’s self-titled debut LP. The album release party takes place Sat/28 at Rickshaw Stop.
The video for “With You” was funded through – say it together now – Kickstarter. The Oakland band raised $5,000 to create it, a thousand bucks more than its initial goal.
Director Elia Vargas says the video, which depicts color-punctuacted scenes of lead vocalist Emily Ritz wandering through an old Victorian, “explores themes of transposing human ideas and human emotions onto inanimate objects. Specifically, inanimate spaces – like the home,” adding “We transformed a house to engage in a flirtatious dance with [Ritz].”
Members of San Francisco’s colorful Extra Action Marching Band and other creators of La Contessa – an authentic-looking Spanish galleon built around a bus, which appeared to sail across the Black Rock Desert – have rented a house in Reno where they’re preparing for a trial set to begin on Monday.
As we reported in a Guardian cover story shortly after the incident, Nevada landowner Mike Stewart – who had a history of conflicts with Burning Man – torched and removed La Contessa, which was being stored with permission on a property that he purchased near Gerlach, Nev., without first trying to contact its owners. The massive vehicle was too large to legally drive on the highway and its builders say they would have relocated it if they were contacted, as state law requires before destroying abandoned vehicles.
This trial has been years in coming. Plaintiffs Simon Cheffins and Greg Jones – the main designers of La Contessa – originally filed a federal lawsuit under the Visual Artists Right Act, which makes it a crime to destroy sculptures or other works of art, but a judge ruled that La Contessa didn’t qualify because it was a vehicle and therefore “applied art.”
The case is now a simple “conversion claim” in state court, alleging Stewart acted in a malicious and negligent manner, but the trial is expected to last more than two weeks as a parade of Bay Area burners involved with the project paint a picture of the long and difficult process used to create the artwork and its iconic role in Burning Man history.
Meanwhile, the appeal of Burning Man’s permits was filed last week by Christopher Brooks, who uses the Black Rock Desert for wind sailing and alleges that Burning Man is impacting the playa’s surface by creating sand dunes. Black Rock City LLC, the SF-based company that stages Burning Man, denies the charge and says the detailed environmental assessment recently approved by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) found no significant cumulative impacts created by the event.
“We’re not too concerned about it,” BRC spokesperson Megan Miller said of the appeal. “We work hard to minimize our impact on the desert.”
Regardless, the appeal won’t have an impact of this year’s event, which begins Aug. 26. The appeal will be heard by the Interior Board of Land Appeals, which is so backlogged that it still hasn’t heard BRC’s appeal of BLM’s decision to place Burning Man on probation for exceeding last year’s population cap of 50,000 on two days, which BRC filed late last year.
As Miller said, “We’re right on track for a great year.”
Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones is the author of The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture, which includes the story of La Contessa’s life and death.
So the President was late. Around the time the “Fire Melinda Haag” press conference (as it had been called in emails I’d received from the various cannabis advocacy groups) at downtown Oakland’s federally-threatened Oaksterdam University was starting, one attendee drily mentioned that Obama was reported to still be in Las Vegas.
“I mean, I know the private jets can get you places really quickly and all, but still.”
It didn’t matter — medical marijuana had assembled in Oakland, the world cannabis community was watching, and there was going to be a show of numbers, regardless of what Air Force One was doing or when the President’s scheduled appearance at the Fox Theater a block away would actually get going.
But first, the formal press conference at Oaksterdam. Grow lights warmed the pot plants on one side of the room as dispensary founders, politicians, and patients said their piece on stage.
“Name the advantages of continuing the drug war,” said Oaksterdam University president Dale Sky Jones (OU founder Richard Lee on stage a few feet to her right.) “We continue the failed drug policy that targets young people of color.”
“This is simply not the right thing to do,” said Jim Gray, a retired Orange County superior court judge and former assistant US Attorney. “It will not result in less marijuana being sold or consumed in Oakland or anywhere else.” Later on, during the march that would take medical marijuana users on a lap around the Fox, some protesters were seen lofting signs with the ex-official’s name on it — he’s the Libertarian Party’s nomination for vice president. His crowd-pleasing efforts struck gold at Oaksterdam in the form of a quip. “I think going forward, the slogan should be ‘the hempire strikes back.”
Steve Deangelo, founder of Harborside Health Center, was adamant in his call for an immediate freeze on all enforcement actions until courts deemed them consistent with the Obama administration’s policy. Deangelo and the patients that depend on his dispensary have a lot to lose should their call go unheard: a recent letter sent to Harborside by US Attorney Melinda Haag ordered the collective’s closure based on the rationale that it is a “marijuana superstore.”
“If the US Attorneys can come after a dispensary like Harborside,” Deangelo told the assembled crowd, “No dispensary in this country is safe.” Commonly referred to as the best-known dispensary in the country, Deangelo’s dispensary and its staff were the subject of last year’s Discovery Channel reality series Weed Wars.
Perhaps the most poignant voices from the day were those of the consumers who will be most affected by the loss of safe and accessible medical-grade marijuana. Yvonne Westbrook-White, a multiple sclerosis sufferer, credited cannabis with getting her out of the house that day and appealed to the President to keep his promise to leave state-legal dispensaries alone.
Jason David’s baby son has Dravet Syndrome, a rare disease with epilepsy-like symptoms. He told the crowd at Oaksterdam that a non-psychoactive cannabinoid tincture had made his boy go from acting like a zombie to being a bubbly kid that greets people at church and at home alike. His voice and hands trembled as he thought out loud about what he would do if Harborside went the way of so many other cannabis businesses in the Bay Area.
“What am, going to ask a drug dealer ‘do you have CBD?’ You’re going after the wrong drug.”
An hour later, feet from the massive Obama-as-cop “Dear Leader” design that members of Chalkupy had painstaking sketched out the same day, a crowd that police later estimated at 800 to 1000 people were ready to march for their cannabis rights. The route took us up Broadway, past the lines of Obama fans patiently waiting for their president to show, down 20th Avenue to San Pablo Avenue, and right back to Oakland’s City Hall.
Would things continue to go as peacefully through the President’s eventual visit? All signs pointed to yes when your Guardian journalist left around 4:30pm, but one protester put it rather succinctly. “Today’s not over yet,” he said.
I’ve been reading as fast as I can, catching up on all of the beach books I can find, looking for the Great Work of Summer, 2012. I still haven’t found it. There’s plenty worth reading, some decent drivel and distractions. But overall, I can’t say anything had my head spinning.
So here’s the first installment of my rundown, the good, the fair and the total waste cases.
Against All Enemies, Tom Clancy, Berkeley Books, 799 (gasp) pages, paperback $9.99. Tom Clancy doesn’t need to write anymore. He’s 65, firmly ensconsed in the top slice of the 1 Percent, owns part of the Baltimore Orioles, makes a killing off franchising his name for cheap and worthless spin-off books … he can chill. And maybe he should.
Against All Enemies has his name on the top, although there’s a tiny “with Peter Telep” down below. That should have been a warning. The first 100 pages should have been another one. But I soldiered on to the very end, and trust me: It was a struggle.
Say what you want about Clancy’s politics; the guy can tell a story. His characters are interesting, the action crisp, the plots intricate and engrossing … and this one’s a piece of shit. It’s actually boring, deadly dull. And that’s a thriller no-no.
Nice idea: The Taliban and the Mexican drug gangs have formed an alliance and are using tunnels to sneak terrorists into the US. Could be full of fascinating people. But it’s not. The hero is a loser, the drug lords and terrorists are weak parodies of themselves — and it goes on and on and nothing happens. Don’t bother.
Robert Ludlum’s The Borune Imperative by Eric Van Lustbader, Hatchette, 435 pages, $27.99.
Another cheap attempt to profit off a talented (in this case, dead) author, but Van Lustbader’s no slouch himself, and some of his earlier efforts at this have been at least entertaining, so I thought I’d see what he could do with his laterst effort at reviving one of the great thriller characters in history. Shouldn’t have bothered.
There’s an assassin with amnesia (sound familiar?), a Russian spy gone rogue, a terrorist mastermind, a global conspiracy and … what? People going in and out of freezing water while they get shot. This series is getting seriously slow.
The Affair, Lee Child, 405 pages, Delacourte Press $28.
This one’s just coming out in paper, and it’s worth the wait. It’s a bargain at $9.99, a bit of a stretch at full price.
Jack Reacher is one of the best action characters of our time, up there with Spenser and Travis McGee, (and that’s serious). Child came up with a spectacular mix, a former military cop who wanders the world like Kwai Chang Caine, doing good work, sometimes relucatantly, with superior fighting skills that make him a true badass.
The Affair is sort of a prequel, and takes us back to Reacher’s army days. It’s absolutely formulaic, completely predictable, just like all the other Reacher books. There’s a murder that puts Reacher in danger, a gang of thugs who get their butts kicked, a beautiful woman in law enforcement with whom Reacher has what we all know will be a short-lived affair … and plenty of sharp dialogue the keeps the pages turning.
With all the pablum out there, it was a pleasure to sit down and read the work of a master who is still in his prime. At a certain point, like Ian Fleming in the glory days of Bond, Reacher can get away with formula — because it’s such a good formula. It still works, still delivers. He’s just a great writer, and if we sort of know what’s going to happen when half a dozen of the local losers try to attack Reacher in the streets, it’s still fun to see it unfolding.
Don’t expect anything new or dramatic here (except what Reacher fans will realize is the absolutely critical tale of where he got his portable toothbrush), but The Affair won’t let you down.
Stolen Prey, John Sandford, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 402 pages, $27.95.
Put this one up there with The Affair. If you love Lucas Davenport and his world of twisted murder shit in and around the Twin Cities, then Stolen Prey works fine. Again, Mexican drug gangs, which seem to be the Most Evil Fuckers In The World this summer, and in Stolen Prey, they’re particularly horrible, doing a stomach-turning murder that takes place in a nice upper-middle class town. The dead family appears to have no ties to any type of criminal activity — but ah, there is much more here. Again, nothing radically new (except a suprising ending involving Davenport’s adopted daughter, Letty, who apparently has some of the step-old-man in her). But Sandford, like Child, is a master, and you can enjoy this with the guilt of a lazy afternoon of Bud Light and bourbon. Nothing wrong with that.
As President Obama arrives in Oakland for a fundraiser today, medical marijuana activists have already made a point with a rally on the steps of Oakland City Hall this morning. Protesters demanded that the President halt raids of dispensaries and other operations legally allowed by California law.
Present at the rally were representatives from Oaksterdam University and Harborside Health Center, two Oakland medical marijuana businesses that have been the target of federal attacks in recent months.
Speakers argued that Obama should use his power to stop threats to these institutions. Oaksterdam, the school that teaches the politics and history of cannabis along with practical knowledge for working in the industry, was raided April 2. Harborside, a dispensary that also offers free health services such as acupuncture and yoga, received a letter from US Attorney General Melinda Haag filing federal forfeiture action July 9.
“This is the time to show them what we’re made of,” said Harborside co-founder Steve DeAngelo at the rally.
DeAngelo emphasized that Harborside complies with state regulations and that the city of Oakland benefits from its success, not least with tax revenue.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law and is classified as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. Schedule 1 drugs “have a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” according to the DEA.
But a procession of medical marijuana patients and caregivers at today’s rallies said that their experiences conflict with the DEA’s claims. Patients recovering from surgeries and suffering from cancer and HIV/AIDS said that medical marijuana provided pain relief and lessened their symptoms without the detrimental side effects of other medication.
“If the federal government takes away my medical cannabis, I could go blind,” said David Goldman, 61, a retired teacher who uses cannabis to treat his glaucoma.
The Compassionate Use Act, which passed in California in 1996 when voters approved Proposition 215, allows both patients and designated primary caregivers to legally purchase marijuana at licensed dispensaries.
One such caregiver, Evelyn Hoch, said that she has been caring for her best friend, a survivor of stomach cancer, for more than 20 years. “She had 90 percent of her stomach removed,” said Hoch. “They gave her six months to live.”
Hoch’s friend survived, but had to choose between constant pain and medication that left her “like a zombie,” according to Hoch. She was prescribed barbituates that, as a side effect, suppressed her breathing. Hoch said her friend was resistant to cannabis recommendations that her doctors gave her unofficially, even before medical marijuana was legal, because she “just didn’t like pot. It wasn’t her thing.” But after she began using medical marijuana two years ago, she has improved significantly.
“She can’t believe the difference,” said Hoch. “She can read again. She’s got a little bit of life. She’s not in bed 24/7, compromised from the side effects of other medication.”
Hoch is a Harborside customer, and says that if medical marijuana dispensaries close, “the only choice patients are going to have is buying it illegally.”
A march was leaving Oakland City Hall at 3pm to bring the message as close as possible to the president.
Total Trash’s bodacious two-day barbecue bonanza in Oakland tops the list of must-see live shows this week, but there’s plenty more to see, including synth heavy beach-pop created by an ex-choir boy, beat punk girl gangs, and some Adult Swim-approved indie rock.
Of course, Fiona Apple at the Fox Theater is long sold out, but if that wasn’t the case, Miss-Long-Album-Title would be here too. Enjoy it, ticket-holders. Or, squire your spots now for her Sept. 11 show at the Warfield.
But in the meantime, here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:
Crystal Stilts Someone commented on the video below, “The Doors mixed with The Velvet Underground calling from the grave!” And yeah, that’s pretty much it for the Brooklyn-based jangle-pop five-piece. Wed/25, 8pm, $15 Great American Music Hall 859 O’Farrell, SF (415) 885-0750 www.slimspresents.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zIJTwhsHjc
St. Lucia Synthy beach-pop? Holidays on molly-days? Futuristic yacht rock? Sun-baked dream-pop? Yes, St. Lucia is all that, and then a little sprinkle of white sand more. There are sax solos over synth and pinging calypso beats here, people. Sip a fruity cocktail at the show at the show, and soak in the warmth of shiny former choir-boy Jean-Philip Grobler. Thu/26, 9:30pm, $14-$15 Rickshaw Stop 155 Fell, SF (415) 861-2011 www.rickshawstop.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZYM3XwgHwA
The Ettes The Ettes are like a black-leather clad girl (and token dude) gang. And bone-rattling garage revival is the name of the game for the Nashville-via-LA crew. Or wait, they call it “beat punk.” Whatever. The perpetual openers – for stadium rock bands like the Black Keys, Dead Weather, and Kings of Leon – get some deserved spotlight/headline time at Thee Parkside. Here’s a weird video they made with Patton Oswalt. Thu/26, 9pm, $10 Thee Parkside 1600 17th St., SF (415) 252-1330 www.theeparkside.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJxkN9cKQAs
King Tuff A few years back, before he made the move from Vermont to LA’s Laurel Canyon, sleazy garage guitar wonder King Tuff recorded 30 demos in the middle of the night. It just pours out of him. The result was a self-titled Sub Pop album that stood out as something only Tuff could create. He later told me, “If I’m into something, it’ll bleed into my music…so sometimes, I don’t listen to anything.” Thu/26, 9pm, $12 Bottom of the Hill 1233 17th St., SF (415) 621-4455 www.bottomofthehill.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eghg8092l_E
Wye Oak “Baltimore rockers Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner make up indie rock duo Wye Oak, a band with a folk foundation but contrasting distortion and dream pop leanings. Recently commissioned to write and record a song for the Adult Swim Singles Program — a series of summertime freebie downloads — Wye Oak came up with “Spiral,” a swirling, poppy and decidedly darker track than previous tunes.” – Julia B. Chan With Dirty Projectors Fri/27, 8pm, $25 Fox Theater 1807 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 302-2250 www.thefoxoakland.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-7dTjgn7dc
Total Trash BBQ Weekend Paint your face with tangy barbecue sauce – it’s Total Trash BBQ Weekend! What better way to celebrate summer – and all things sticky and American – than with your friends from Total Trash? Night one, do the Watusi on the swanky Continental Club dancefloor with garage doo-woppers Shannon & the Clams, surf-punks Guantanamo Baywatch, and more. And on day two (Total Trash Barbecue Bonanza), invade Eli’s Mile High Club with Oakland priestess Mom, fuzzy punks Pangea, colorful art-rockers Sam Flax, and so-many-more. Plus, there’ll be a corn-eating contest and grills for cooking. As always, bring a napkin. Sat/28, 7pm, $8-$10 Continental Club 1658 12th St., Oakl. Brown Paper Tickets: Night One
The Psychic Paramount “Spiritualized minus the spacecraft? Tortoise as a bar band? Post-rock without all the drama? The Psychic Paramount is a record collector geek’s dream band, reflecting countless sub-genres as it hammers away at a relentlessly Krautrockian insistence on mechanical groove.” — Taylor Kaplan With Phil Manley Life Coach, Barn Owl Sun/29, 8pm, $12 Brick and Mortar Music Hall 1710 Mission, SF (415) 800-8782 www.brickandmortarmusic.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeF8ksPNqXM
The NY Times isn’t exactly a revolutionary left-wing publication — and while columnist Paul Krugman routinely talks about the income and wealth divide, it’s not typically a staple of how the Times cover the news. But David Leonhardt is starting a blog on the decline in the middle class and is going to turn it into an article during the later parts of the presidential campaign — and amazingly enough, he’s got it pretty much right:
In addition to the slow growth in overall size of the pie, the share that has been going to anyone but the richest Americans has been declining. The top-earning 1 percent of households now bring home about 20 percent of total income, up from less than 10 percent 40 years ago. The top-earning 1/10,000th of households — each earning at least $7.8 million a year, many of them working in finance — bring home almost 5 percent of income, up from 1 percent 40 years ago. In the simplest terms, the relatively meager gains the American economy has produced in recent years have largely flowed to a small segment of the most affluent households, leaving middle-class and poor households with slow-growing living standards.
It’s simple, and it’s pretty clear — as is the fact that it’s not random but the result of specific policies. From one of the (many intelligent) comments (my trolls, please take note):
The middle class is an artificial construct, something deliberately created through the enactment of policy. It emerged in the U.S. largely because of political, economic and social changes that were imposed: the New Deal, the Great Society, the creation of the suburbs and highway systems, strong unions that demanded fair wages and protections, etc. All of these developments happened only because people willed them and fought to ensure economic expansion benefited regular people. It could have just as easily gone the other way; indeed, it IS going the other way now (and has been for the last 30 years or so). The choices today are different: to let the markets decide, to deregulate and bolster corporations, to exacerbate the wealth divide, to enforce an unfair tax system, to shift essential costs (healthcare, environmental remediation, etc.) to the taxpayer, and so on. And so the middle class erodes. It should come as no surprise.
What’s talked about less in this NYT piece is the role of government in redistributing income. The idea that the US tax system should take more than half of the income people earn beyond a certain point is hardly radical; as early as the 1920s, the highest earners turned over as much as 70 percent to the government — and unlike today’s billionaires, they actually paid it. The JP Morgans of the world got really really rich AND paid high taxes AND gave a lot of money to public enterprises (public libraries, public museums etc.).
That as much as unionization and post-War industrialization created the middle class.
Another interesting comment:
Our “free-market” policies of the last 30 years have favored efficiency and productivity above all else. The result has been sending American jobs overseas on a massive scale. Now we have inexpensive tee-shirts and computers, but vast unemployment and underemployment. Instead, I believe our culture should favor creating as many high paying middle-class jobs as possible without regard to “productivity”. This requires protective trade barriers. Yes, prices will go up, but for a more affluent society, it’s a cheap price to pay.
Obama talks a good line about the middle class, but he’s not offering any specific ideas that would fundamentally change the direction of US economic policy. In fact, the biggest issue in the campaign isn’t even an issue.
Oh, and by the way: I have to note that Randy Shaw at BeyondChron is now talking about the important of “class diversity.” He’s right — there need to be more tenants (and working-class tenants) on the Planning Commission and Board of Appeals. There also needs to be a consciousness of class issues in general at City Hall — and a discussion of how policies that favor high-tech companies, like those of his beloved Mayor Lee, are pretty clearly NOT in the interests of protecting class diversity in the city.
