SFBG Blogs

Will proposal to sell Hetch Hetchy power overshadow CleanPowerSF?

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Will proposal to sell Hetch Hetchy power overshadow CleanPowerSF?

Supervisors Scott Wiener and London Breed have proposed an ordinance to allow the San Francisco Public Utilities Power Commission’s Power Enterprise to sell hydroelectric energy from the Hetch Hetchy dam to retail customers — particularly large real estate developments. Sup. Wiener and Breed say the ordinance would both generate revenue for the PUC and further the city’s overall goal of achieving a 100 percent greenhouse-gas free power mix. 

But how well does it fit into the city’s other clean energy goals? Some advocates of an existing citywide green energy plan worry that this new effort could cause a far more ambitious program to fall by the wayside.

For more than a decade, city government has been working toward implementing a clean energy plan through CleanPower SF, which aims to meet the city’s goal of 100 percent clean energy by allowing all San Francisco residents the choice of switching to a green power mix through the city-administered program, instead of remaining with PG&E. But CleanPower SF hangs in limbo, largely due to opposition from the SFPUC board, appointed by Mayor Ed Lee–whose regular meetings with PG&E officials have raised eyebrows.

The legislation proposing to broaden the sale of SFPUC’s hydroelectric power supply seeks to tackle some of the problems CleanPower SF might have addressed had it not been stalled. A press statement from Wiener noted that it aims to help build a large enough customer base for the SFPUC to generate sufficient revenues to maintain city infrastructure, as well as meeting the city’s overall target of 100 percent clean energy by 2030.

“My concern is that the Mayor’s office will say it’s something that will supplement CPSF [CleanPowerSF] and say that’s enough,” said Jason Fried, Executive Officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission. “I want to make it clear that it [proposed ordinance] is really meant to compliment CleanPower SF.”

But just exactly how—and how much—the proposal would complement CleanPower SF is still up for debate. Fried said Wiener’s new proposal complements CleanPower SF because it ultimately gives people more choices. “I don’t know how you can argue with giving people more choices,” he said.

But the legislation is targeted at large, private developments, rather than renewable energy options for community members. Which is why Fried emphasized that proposed ordinance shouldn’t been seen as a replacement to the city’s existing Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program, CleanPower SF.

Eric Brooks, a long-time advocate of CleanPower SF, insists the legislation would complement CleanPowerSF only if, “CleanPowerSF was given first right to purchase Hetch Hetchy power from the PUC.” This would allow the ordinance to focus on community members rather than just large, private developments, he said.

“Being able to balance different types of power like solar, wind and hydro, and being able to furnish consistent hydro power during high usage together would also help keep rates lower so that the CleanPowerSF can deliver power at lower prices,” he added.

Officials from the Sierra Club echoed Brooks, saying that the Sierra Club “supports the legislation in concept,” but requests that the legislation incorporate the ability for CleanPower SF to purchase Hetch Hetchy power from the PUC Power Enterprise.  “You have to look at it as peeling customers away from PG&E,” said John Rizzo, Sierra Club’s political chair. “The more you do that, the greener we can become.”

Although Brooks said he plans to meet with Sup. Wiener regarding how the ordinance could work in tandem with CleanPower SF, officials from Sup. Wiener’s office indicated that the ordinance is inherently separate from CleanPower SF. “[The ordinance] doesn’t further or hinder CPSF [Clean Power SF],” said Andres Power, Wiener’s legislative aide, who was involved in drafting the legislation. “It’s neutral from that perspective.”

Responding to questions about the legislation’s relationship with Clean Power SF (and whether or not collaboration might be a good strategy), Jeff Cretan, another of Sup. Wiener’s legislative aides, said, “Innovative solutions can come from multiple directions.” He further explained that, if passed, the legislation “could prove how other clean power initiatives can be successful.”

Oakland joins other Bay Area cities in seeking higher minimum wages

Sasha Cuttler
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Oakland joins other Bay Area cities in seeking higher minimum wages

San Francisco isn’t the only Bay Area city looking to bump up its minimum wage rate. Alameda County today [Fri/27] certified a ballot measure that would raise minimum wage in Oakland to $12.25 and provide workers with paid sick days, affecting over 50,000 employees.

The initiative is the result of an effort by Lift Up Oakland, a coalition of workers, business owners, and a collection of nonprofits and local restaurateurs [Correction: The Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is not supporting the measure, as we previously reported]. Having passed muster with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, the measure must be placed on the November ballot by the Oakland City Council.

According to the Lift Up Oakland website, the initiative specifically “sets a base of five or nine paid sick days provided by the businesses, depending on their size” and “requires that the service fees hospitality employers charge go to the workers who provide the services,” in addition to setting a $12.25 minimum wage that includes a provision for annual cost-of-living increases.

Supporters of the measure believe it addresses an issue that has plagued Oakland workers for awhile now.

“Income inequality in Oakland is a crisis. Workers need relief,” said Lift Up Oakland President Gary Jimenez in a statement. “Our proposal will help low-wage workers make ends meet. Some business organizations are trying to push a watered-down proposal, but people need to be able to put food on the table today.”

Economists at UC Berkeley and experts from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research have found that the measure would have numerous important benefits for the Oakland community, according to a statement from Rise Up Oakland. Aside from giving $120 million to workers around the city, the initiative would benefit communities of color and have no foreseeable negative impact on employment. The measure is also wide-reaching—over a quarter of Oakland workers would see their pay increase.

But perhaps even more telling that the economists’ study is the strong support for the initiative shown by Oakland residents. About 45 different organizations and 253 volunteers helped to gather 33,682 voter signatures to put the measure on the November ballot, which goes to show how widely popular it is throughout the city.

Oakland and San Francisco aren’t the only cities looking to improve conditions for low-wage workers. According to Shum Preston of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, there is a strategy in place to expand the proposal to other cities around the Bay Area in what Preston calls a “regional referendum.”

Those other cities are already making progress. Earlier this month, for example, the Richmond City Council agreed to implement a $13 minimum wage by 2018, though certain businesses are exempt from that particular measure. The City Council in Berkeley recently passed the first reading of a similar ordinance, which calls for a $12.53 minimum wage by 2016, and Preston says SEIU is also in contact with activists from Concord, Hayward and Fremont.

With so many major cities on board to improve pay conditions, the message is clear. “Ultimately this is about human dignity,” said Burger King security guard John Jones. “We need more money for our people and we need it yesterday.”

A great week for (indie) sci-fi and docs: new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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A great week for (indie) sci-fi and docs: new movies!

This week, Frameline continues (our coverage here!), plus offbeat sci-fi winners Coherence and Snowpiercer are well worth seeking out … especially if you’re not in the mood for more giant robot smash-ups from the Michael Bay factory. Plus: new docs and more! Read on.

Breathing Earth: Susumu Shingu’s Dream Japanese artist Susumu Shingu has built his career through his concerted engagement with the natural world. The wise and eternally smiling 75-year-old creates angular and often gargantuan mobiles that harness the power of wind and water to gyrate in ever-changing directions. In Breathing Earth, German director Thomas Riedelsheimer crafts a deliberately paced rumination on Shingu’s life philosophy that, while devoid of the frenetic facts, figures, and trite biographical rehashes that punctuate hyper-informative pop-docs, uses a beautifully simplistic narrative arc to illuminates Shingu’s attempt to create a hilly, open-air collection of windmills. The sculptor’s impassioned narration and charming conversations with potential landlords and investors (who usually entirely miss the point of his mission to raise environmental consciousness through aesthetic beauty) make Shingu impossible not to fall in love with — he is laid-back, funny, and astonishingly youthful. Riedelsheimer’s camera is similarly relaxed, gliding sumptuously over the green and wild landscapes on which Shingu installs his works. Despite his meditative tempo, Riedelsheimer manages to explore a remarkably wide scope; Shingu’s late-life marriage to a fellow sculptor, his appeals to both Japanese and German schoolchildren to care for the earth and help to avoid environmental disasters, and his intricate technical processes all receive intimate and inspiring sections. (1:37) (David Kurlander)

Citizen Koch After quietly influencing conservative ideology, legislation, and elections for decades, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers have found themselves becoming high-profile figures — much to their dismay, no doubt. The relative invisibility they hitherto enjoyed greatly abetted their impact in myriad arenas of public policy and “popular” conservative movements. Look behind any number of recent red-vs.-blue flashpoint issues and you can find their fingerprints: Notably state-level union busting; “smaller government” (i.e. incredible shrinking social services); seeding allegedly grassroots organizations like the Tea Party; furthering the Corporations = People thing (see: Citizens United); and generally helping the rich like themselves get richer while fostering working-class outrage at everybody else. This documentary by Trouble the Water (2008) co-directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessen touches on all those matters, while also focusing on Wisconsin as a test laboratory for the brothers’ Machiavellian think-tank maneuvers, following a Lousiana GOP candidate on the campaign trail (one he’s marginalized on for opposing corporate influence peddling), and more. Any one of these topics could support a feature of their own (and most already have). Citizen Koch’s problem is that it tries to encompass too much of its subjects’ long reach, while (despite the title) leaving those subjects themselves underexplored. (It also suffers from being a movie completed at least 18 months ago, a lifetime in current US political terms.) For the reasonably well-informed this documentary will cover a lot of familiar ground—which is not to say that ground isn’t still interesting, or that the added human interest elements don’t compel. But the film covers so much ground it ends up feeling overstuffed and unfocused. (1:26) (Dennis Harvey) 

Coherence See “Vortex Room.” (1:29)

Korengal This companion piece to 2010’s Oscar-nominated Restrepo — one of the best docs about modern-day warfare to date, offering unfiltered access to an Army platoon stationed in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley — uses previously unseen footage shot during the year filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington spent shadowing their subjects. Korengal is structured as a more introspective work, with musings on what it feels like to be a soldier in the Korengal, surrounded by rough (yet strikingly beautiful) terrain populated by farmers who may or may not be Taliban sympathizers, not to mention unpredictable, heavily armed opponents referred to simply as “the enemy.” Interviews reveal sadness, boredom, a deep sense of brotherhood, and the frustrating feeling of going from “100 miles an hour to a dead halt” after the surreal exhilaration of a firefight. Korengal also functions as a tribute to Hetherington, who was killed in 2011 while on assignment in Libya. Not only does his death add a layer of poignant subtext, it also suggests why Junger felt moved to revisit this story. That said, though Korengal‘s footage is several years old, its themes remain distressingly timely. (1:24) (Cheryl Eddy)

Snowpiercer Eighteen years after an attempt to reverse global warming has gone wildly awry — freezing all life into extinction — the only known survivors are on a one-of-a-kind perpetual-motion train that circles the Earth annually, has its own self-contained ecosystem, and can smash through whatever ice buildup has blocked its tracks since the last go-round. It’s also a microcosm of civilization’s worst class-economic-racial patterns over history, with the much-abused “tail” passengers living in squalor under the thumb of brutal military police. Unseen at the train’s front is its mysterious inventor, Wilford, whose minions enforce “Eternal Order Prescribed by the Sacred Engine.” Curtis (Chris Evans) is default leader of the proletariat’s latest revolt, in which they attempt to force their way forward though the prison section (where they free Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung as the train’s original lock designer and his psychic daughter) on to the wonders of the first class compartments, and beyond. This first (mostly) English-language feature by South Korean Bong Joon-ho (2006’s The Host, 2009’s Mother), based on a 1982 French graphic novel, starts out as a sort of locomotive, claustrophobic Mad Max (1979) variation. But it gets wilder and more satirical as it goes along, goosed by Tilda Swinton’s grotesquely comic Minister Mason, and Alison Pill as a teacher propagandist in a particularly hilarious setpiece. In case the metaphor hasn’t already hit you on the head, one character explains “The train is the world, we the humanity.” But Snowpiercer’s sociopolitical critique is as effective as it is blunt, because Bong handles everything here — visceral action, absurdist humor, narrative left-turns, neatly etched character archetypes, et al. — with style, confidence, and wit. Some of the FX may not be quite as seamless as it would have been in a $200 million Hollywood studio production, and fanboys will no doubt nitpick like nitwits at various “credibility gaps.” (As if this movie ever asks to be taken literally.) But by current, or any, sci-fi action blockbuster standards, this is a giddily unpredictable, risk-taking joy. (2:07) (Dennis Harvey)

Third Person A screenwriter, Paul Haggis, pens a script in which a novelist (Liam Neeson) sits alone in a smoke-filled hotel room in Paris struggling over a manuscript about a novelist who can only feel emotions through his characters. What that psychic state would actually look like remains unclear — when the woman (Olivia Wilde) he’s left his wife (Kim Basinger) for shows up, their playful, painful, fraught interactions reveal a man with above-average emotional reserves. Meanwhile, in another hotel in another city, Rome, a sleazy fashion industry spy (Adrien Brody) finds his life turned sideways by a seemingly chance encounter in a bar with a beautiful Romanian woman (Moran Atias) in dire need of money. And in a third hotel, in Manhattan, a young woman (Mila Kunis) cleans up the suites she used to stay in when she was married to a renowned painter (James Franco), with whom she has a son she may or may not have harmed in some terrible way. The film broadly hints at connections between these three sets of lives — in each, the loss or endangerment of a child produces an unrelenting ripple effect; speaking of which, objects unnaturally submerged in water present an ominous visual motif. If the movie poster doesn’t give the game away as you’re walking into the theater, the signposts erected by Haggis ensure that you won’t be in the dark for long. Learning how these characters relate to one another, however, puts considerable drag on the fabric of the plot, exposing the threadbare places, and where Haggis offers his tortured characters redemption, it comes at the cost of good storytelling. (2:17) (Lynn Rapoport)

Transformers: Age of Extinction In Michael Bay’s fourth Transformers installment a villainous Black Ops leader (Kelsey Grammer) allies with a snarky Steve-Jobs-alike (Stanley Tucci) to build Transformers de coeur: designer impostor robot-cars they hope will reinvent the face of war. In IMAX 3D, “TransFOURmers” is packed with relentless rock-‘em-sock-‘em action, spectacular property destruction, and about as much sense as a bucket of worms. After 60 minutes, you think you’re getting more than your money’s worth. At 90 minutes, you’re tired. At two hours, confusion sets in: If Autobots get stronger together how could Optimus be in so much trouble? Who is the bounty hunting Terminator lookalike? HOW MUCH MORE COULD THERE BE? And then … the action shifts to China, Optimus rides a Dinobot, and chaos reigns. I’ve always liked the working-class poetry of the Transformers themselves — the leader is a trucker and the cast is stacked with ambulances, tanks, and the metal workforce that preserves American lives. If that’s not traditional hero worship, I don’t know what is. But Age of Extinction is the soulless designer imposter it lampoons — the whole sequel-snarking ordeal makes you long for Buzz Lightyear, who saw a thousand Buzz Lightyears on a store shelf and survived that existential crisis heroically — while also riding a dinosaur and fighting Frasier. This Transformers movie (sadly, it won’t be the final one) starts with a thesis: Mark Wahlberg walks through an abandoned movie theater and a Wilford Brimley twin (Ron Shedd) bellows: “Movies today! Sequels! Remakes! Crap!” Age of Extinction follows that moment with nearly three hours of evidence that the cause of extinction is redundancy. (2:30) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

Under the Electric Sky Hey, raver! This 3D concert film enables you to experience the Electric Daisy Carnival without punching any holes in your brain. Or, y’know, dying. (1:25)

Violette Taking on another “difficult” woman artist after the excellent 2008 Séraphine (about the folk-art painter), Martin Provost here portrays the unhappy life of Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devos), whose fiction and autobiographical writings eventually made her a significant figure in postwar French literature. We first meet her waiting out the war with gay author Maurice Sachs (Olivier Py), one of many unrequited loves, then surviving via the black market trade before she’s “discovered” by such groundbreaking, already-established talents as Jean Genet (Jacques Bonnaffé) and Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain). It is the latter, a loyal supporter who nonetheless retains a chilly emotional distance, who becomes bisexual Violette’s principal obsession over the coming 20 years or so. Devos does her best to portray “a neurotic crazy washed-up old bag” with an “ugly mug” — hardly! — who is perpetually broke, depressed, and awkward, thanks no doubt in part to her mean witch of a mother (Catherine Hiegel). “Screaming and sobbing won’t get you anywhere,” Simone at one point tells her, and indeed Leduc is a bit of a pill. For the most part lacking the visual splendors of Séraphine (this character’s environs weren’t so pastoral), Violette is finely acted and crafted but, like its heroine, hard to love. (2:18) (Dennis Harvey)

Jury find SF officer used excessive force in beating a restrained arrestee

Sasha Cuttler
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Jury find SF officer used excessive force in beating a restrained arrestee

A jury last week unanimously convicted a San Francisco police officer of using excessive and unnecessary force, although the San Francisco Police Department cleared the officer in an internal investigation and kept him on the streets.

In Magistrate Maria-Elena James’ courtroom, the jury voted 8-0 that Police Officer Matthew Sullivan used excessive force against plaintiff Eduardo Alegrett on February 7, 2012.  Alegrett’s lawyer, Panos Lagos, told the Guardian that Alegrett was suffering a “mental crisis” when he allegedly battered a woman at 88 Perry Place.

Police arrived to arrest him and called for backup when Alegrett pretended to have a gun, a bust that Lago said was appropriate, although he disagrees with what happened next. Sullivan arrived at the scene, ordered Alegrett to get on his stomach, then repeatedly hit him in the head while Alegrett was already restrained by two officers. Lagos told us that Sullivan acted too quickly for the other officers to stop him—administering “10 strikes within two seconds.”

A SFPD spokesperson told us that Sullivan is still on street duty. When we asked if they were imposing any disciplinary actions, we were told the information was not available to the public, although the spokesperson did say the SFPD’s “investigation revealed there were no wrongdoing…and there’s no reason to penalize someone that didn’t do anything wrong.”

According to Lagos, the Bane Act and Alegrett’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated in the incident. The Bane Act, one of California’s civil and criminal laws related to hate crimes, “provides protection from interference by threats, intimidation, or coercion or for attempts to interfere with someone’s state or federal statutory or constitutional rights.”   

Alegrett was awarded $3,200 compensation for his injuries, and his legal fees will be covered. Sullivan will also be required to pay a fine, which will be determined at a later trial.

“It’s very unusual to have this trial decision,” said Lagos.

Quantitative information regarding police brutality cases is limited. A 2013 San Francisco Office of Citizen Complaints report shows that out of 727 complaints, only 43 were sustained. Out of the 43 sustained, over half were for neglect of duty, 24 percent for unwarranted action, 10 percent for “conduct reflecting discredit represented,” and 7 percent for unnecessary force.

The National Institute of Justice says “police officers should use only the amount of force necessary to control an incident, effect an arrest, or protect themselves or others from harm or death.” However, there are no universal rules regulating the amount of force allowed, and officers must refer to their specific agency for force guidelines. The NIJ’s website also says that “excessive use of force is rare.”

Lagos said that the OCC  told Alegrett, when he first filed his complaint, that the case wouldn’t go to court because they saw no evidence of excessive force. We asked Lagos why this incident report managed to do what others didn’t.

“Video evidence is what made this trial different.” Two tenants, unknown to the police officers, filmed the incident on their phones.

Lagos said that the outcome of the trial should encourage police to enforce the established rules on officers’ use of force, specifically rules regarding mental breakdowns: “The SFPD has a practice of failing to train officers to recognize citizens with mental or emotional breakdowns.”

Heavy metal time machine: “Dio: Live in London, Hammersmith Apollo 1993”

Sue Vaughan
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December 12, 1993: Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston were owning the American airwaves, but over in London’s Hammersmith Apollo, a different soaring voice — one that veered more toward doom than bubblegum — was showing how it’s really done. Dio: Live in London Hammersmith Apollo 1993 (Eagle Rock Entertainment) captures Ronnie James Dio (with band: drummer Vinny Appice, bassist Jeff Pilson, guitarist Tracy G, and keyboard player Scott Warren … yep, instrumental solos abound) at his peak-wizard powers. 

The setlist is, naturally, packed with jams that were new at the time (the tour was in support of the band’s Strange Highways album), as well as plenty of songs spanning Dio’s career as solo artist and frontman of various bands: “Holy Diver,” “Stand Up and Shout,” “Heaven and Hell,” “Rainbow in the Dark,” “Man on the Silver Mountain,” “We Rock” and “The Mob Rules” (“of course, that one from the Sabs,” he points out).

The set is stripped-down — aside from the amps (SO MANY AMPS … eight Marshall stacks), it’s just dudes in black wielding instruments (and flowing hair), and youuuuu know who holding it down center-stage, wearing a subdued cross necklace but occasionally flashing the devil-horns hand gesture he’s credited with inventing, or at least introducing into heavy-metal culture. 

The DVD insert contains a short essay sharing band members’ memories of Dio, who died in 2010 (Warren recalls they had the same favorite meal: curry), and of the 1993 gig (moments before they took the stage, Warren says, “You could hear a pin drop, except for Ronnie’s occasional gentle throat clear, and the clicking of his cough drop”).

DVD extras include the 20-minute featurette “Hangin’ With the Band,” a backstage glimpse at Dio (yes! chomping a cough drop!) and company as they load in from a tour bus parked on the rainy London street outside the venue, go through sound check, prep backstage, unwind post-concert, etc. It’s a pretty PG-rated affair — no debauchery (just beer and Gatorade), no Spinal Tap-style revelations, and certainly no Satanic rituals (though a hair dryer does get sacrificed, in honor of the tour ending). It’s just a bunch of self-described “mellow” guys who are super-stoked to be playing music together.

“I look forward to playing with this band every night,” Dio enthuses as he’s getting stage make-up applied (foundation, mascara, and just a swipe of eyeliner). “After doing it for 3,000 years, as I have, it’s kind of special to be able to still enjoy it as much. More, really.”

A benefit series aims to keep the unique Meridian Gallery afloat

Sue Vaughan
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In 2001, interns at Powell Street’s Meridian Gallery planned and painted a 13×48 foot mural on the wall of the SRO Hartland Hotel, a few blocks away in the Tenderloin. The mural, a colorful and sunny street scene showcasing the multiculturalism of the neighborhood, was revered by residents and and left untouched for 10 years until it was vandalized by graffiti. In response, former interns who had worked on the project came back together and, alongside the current kids in the program, repainted the piece. The artists’ lasting willingness to help Meridian in times of need reemerges in a broader sense this week, which marks the climax of the gallery’s June Benefit Series (tonight’s entry: “16 Years of Meridian Music,” a diverse program of new music). 

Meridian Gallery, whose name comes from its mission to focus on hemispheric and cross-cultural interactions, is facing eviction. As rent around Union Square has skyrocketed, from $400 per square foot in 2007 to up to $3,000 today (according to retail consultant Helen Bulwik, quoted in a KQED report), many galleries have been forced to close their doors. The stately Perine Mansion, the three-story French Second Empire brick building where Meridian makes its home, is an especially attractive and lucrative piece of property. Instead of throwing in the towel, Anne Brodzsky, the dynamic co-founder of the gallery who has overseen its operations for over 25 years, has reached out to her friends. 

The original eviction notice was handed down in April. Some close to the gallery are convinced that despite any efforts, the rent will be impossible to pay. Others, Brodzky chief among them, think that the response to the bad news suggests a potential long-term rally from Meridian. Her optimism is fueled by two forces. First, on May 13, the SF Board of Supervisors beefed up affordability programs, including supplemental displacement funds and health benefits, for struggling art non-profits in the city. “I’m amazed by how they’ve managed to come together to help arts programs,” Brodzky exclaimed. 

More effective and instantly helpful than any bureaucratic assistance, however, have been the programs put together by artists affiliated with Meridian. Around the time of the Supervisors’ decision, Brodzky asked her gallery-mates if they were willing to stage an auction. The response was staggering; over 60 artists put up works. More astonishing to Brodzky, though, was the kind of excitement many of the participants exhibited for further events. “Bob Marsh, among many others, approached me and asked if they could stage fundraisers.” 

 Tonight, Marsh is one of the main attractions at the “16 Years of Meridian Music” showcase. An avant-garde visual artist and musician, Marsh discovered Meridian shortly after his arrival in San Francisco 14 years ago. “I started visiting galleries and found that Meridian had a wonderful monthly music series,” he says.

Marsh was inspired by the political sharpness of the organization. “I thought early on, ‘They’re not purveyors of bourgeois wallpaper,’ like so many galleries can be.” For Marsh’s offering, “The Visitor,” he’ll don his Sonic Suit #9, a wearable sculpture made from empty water bottles and other modern detritus, and engage in narrative movement to a musical accompaniment.

“He’s a visitor from another dimension,” Marsh says. “He arrives here, looks around, and has different reactions to the confusing environment that is our world.” Marsh debuted the ever-changing character at the Meridian and feels that its a fitting tribute to the openness and experimentation that the gallery fosters. 

Despite his excitement about the benefit, Marsh turns somber when discussing its necessity. “They have given so much with such passion,” he says. “It’s sad to see them persecuted by blind greed … I don’t think its personal, but everyone just wants a lot of money. Everybody thinks that’s some kind of virtue.”

Neither Brodzky, Marsh, nor other performers and Meridian affiliates with whom I talked  were quick to link the gallery’s financial troubles to a larger ill in San Francisco. They seemingly eschew that brand of macrocosmic victimhood and instead zoom in on what they can do to stay open, one step at a time. Their optimism may be healthier, but it does not mask the sad fact that rising rents are making grassroots galleries a thing of the past. If the artists continue to come together with the intensity of the mural renovation, auction, and benefit series, however, Meridian may just buck the trend.  

 

16 Years of Meridian Music: Composers in Performance

With Bob Marsh, Andrea Williams, Bryan Day, Phillip Greenlief and Jon Raskin’s 1+1, David Samas, Tom Bickley, and the Cornelius Cardew Choir

Thu/26, 7-10pm, $35

Meridian Gallery

535 Powell, SF

meridiangallery.org


‘Purple Rain’ at 30

Steven T. Jones
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‘Purple Rain’ at 30

Just over a year ago, Adam Tod Brown wrote a great article for Cracked called “4 Classic Albums That Get More Praise Than They Deserve.” Though it contained as much Yoko Ono-bashing as you’d expect from a website as frequently fratty as Cracked, it made a great argument for Ringo’s self-titled as the best solo ’70s Beatles album and contributed substantially to the recent critical revival of Neil Young’s On The Beach. The thing that interested me most, however, was Brown’s citation of Prince’s Purple Rain as a “flawless album” that gets as much press as it deserves, “no matter how many other great Prince albums there are.”

I instantly disagreed with the implication that his 1984 soundtrack to the film of the same name was Prince’s greatest album, but his article didn’t elicit a cynical “nahh” from me as much as a bolt of surprise. Sure, Purple Rain is the Prince album random people on the street will be most likely to name. But I’d been raised alongside 1999 and Sign O’ The Times as well — albums that both get well-deserved five-star ratings  but still don’t place quite as highly on critical lists as Purple Rain. I always presumed these albums were just as famous, and I wasn’t sure why this meek 9-track album was getting all the praise.

I still agree it’s not Prince’s best. But it’s his most solid — meaning the fewest indulgences, the highest masterpiece-to-crap ratio, the most content per its running time. Dirty Mind is two-thirds as long and lacks a single bad song, but its structure is a bit uneven; in my opinion, this adds to its carefree appeal, but it’s still an imperfection. Meanwhile, 1999 contains some of the most ambitious and daring pop music made during the 1980s, but a lot of its songs are about twice as long as they need to be — though not necessarily as they should be.

Purple Rain takes everything Prince does best and puts it together into a cohesive whole that’s easy to listen to front to back. All of the contradictions in Prince’s personality show up here side by side.  We see the conflicted Christian Prince (“Let’s Go Crazy”) alongside the hypersexual Prince (“Darling Nikki”), then the pop-visionary Prince (“When Doves Cry”) alongside the pop-conservative Prince (“Take Me With U”). There’s Prince the introverted studio whiz (“I Would Die 4 U,” “Computer Blue”) and Prince as the all-devouring, mic stand-humping frontman (“Baby I’m A Star”).

prince

And then there’s “The Beautiful Ones,” the ultimate workout for what might be the best vocal sound in all of music — Prince’s scream, a throat-shredding release of ecstasy that its owner wields with the same control of any of the many instruments he’s mastered. It’s as simultaneously sexy and disturbing as…well, Prince’s whole persona. It’s the thing that cemented my obsession with Prince, and only on Purple Rain does it have its own song.

Elsewhere on the album we see Prince fleshing out some of his later obsessions. “I Would Die 4 U” and “Purple Rain” both find Prince using his trademark Linn LM-1 drum machine to create that very ’80s sense of retro-futuristic isolation exemplified by Blade Runner; Sign O’ The Times would expand on this mood for the duration of a 78-minute opus. Because of how much of Prince’s personality we get on this album, it’s tempting to single Purple Rain out as the best introduction to Prince.

But it’s also the one least likely to blow a newcomer’s mind. As bold and stylistically diverse an album as it is, it’s one of the least interesting of Prince’s major albums, and the least representative of his aesthetic. It’s his least eccentric major album, its most meticulously produced, and the most in line with the “rock” ideal — perhaps a reason why the guitar-obsessed Rolling Stone staffers praised it and continue to praise it so much more highly than anything else in the man’s oeuvre.

If you took out the vocals and the awesomely detuned synth, there wouldn’t be much in “Let’s Go Crazy” to signify it as a Prince song. The production is too meticulous, too arena-rock to really be representative of the eccentricity that makes Prince so endlessly fascinating. “Purple Rain” suffers from the opposite problem. There are a million slow-burning ballads like it, and that plaintive Linn drum is the only thing really tying it to his aesthetic.

This is Prince working in a pop setting. It is worth remembering Purple Rain is first and foremost the soundtrack to a film, and much like the Beatles’ film albums, it’s an artist being as creative as possible within the medium of a stocking-stuffer item designed chiefly to promote another work of art and make some extra cash from it. Prince is one of those artists who usually scores hits on his own terms, who makes no compromises but just happens to make audacious music that people really like. Here, it’s the other way around — the desire to make something people will like is the box in which Prince’s creativity freely bounces around.

It is perhaps for this reason that “Take Me With U” is the most effective song here. Prince’s co-star Apollonia guests on this song; her vocals fit so well into the song that her presence merges with that of Prince until it’s unclear whose song it really is. Prince takes into account all the hallmarks of a great lovebird duet — playfulness, chemistry, and above all else, romance. This song isn’t explicitly sexual, but it’s incredibly sensual. Both vocal performances are bursting with excitement beneath the functional cool required of pop vocals, and by the time they reach the ecstatic bridge (“I don’t care if we spend the night in your mansion”), they’re barely able to control themselves.  It’s brilliant.

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of Purple Rain, and in mentioning this, most news outlets have inevitably mentioned the massive amount of praise this album has received. As such, people who have not previously heard Prince will be drawn to that album. But as undeniably fantastic as it is, I’d maintain that Purple Rain is not the album most likely to convince a newcomer of Prince’s genius — Sign O’ The Times is more eclectic, 1999 more diverse, Dirty Mind more did-he-just-say-that sexual, The Black Album more bizarre. If you know Prince first and foremost as that skinny pop star with the high voice and need convincing of his genius, any of those albums would work better.

Which is not to say you should overlook Purple Rain by any means. Though I would argue it’s not his most essential work, it’s the album that does the best job of proving he’s capable of just about anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-ShT9k4lzM

[Ed. note: Prince makes it notoriously difficult to find his music online, so here’s a recent interview instead. But really, if you don’t own a Prince album by now, there are worse things you could spend money on.]

Comedy without limits means ‘No Happy Endings’ for SF’s Granny Cart Gangstas

Sue Vaughan
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Sexy granny panties? Up-and-coming San Francisco comedy troupe Granny Cart Gangstas recently proved this isn’t an oxymoron. Taking a cue from the Kids in the Hall — one of member Ava Tong’s biggest inspirations — who were once photographed wearing bras over suits, the troupe decided to do something similar (one member flaunted a pair of leopard-print granny panties) for a photo shoot ahead of its Sat/28 show, “No Happy Endings,” at SF’s Little Boxes Theater. 

Founding members Tong and Aureen Almario dreamed about creating their own comedy troupe since 2006. The two met at San Francisco State University, where Tong was Almario’s teaching assistant in an Asian American studies class. “Then she ended up being one of my friends’ girlfriends and I was like ‘Oh … hey!’ and I saw her at Bindlestiff [Studio] and it was like … ‘Can’t get away from you, Aureen!’” The two finally created the troupe in 2011, with five total members, and continued to expand by inviting women associated with Bindlestiff that they worked well with. 

The name of the comedy troupe, Granny Cart Gangstas, juxtaposes two contrasting concepts. Tong said Almario, who came up with the name, was inspired by the pedestrian lifestyle of granny-cart owners in the midst of the hustle and bustle of certain SF neighborhoods. “That’s like, ‘I don’t care. I’m going to do my thing and I don’t care what anyone else thinks,’” Tong explained. 

Lauren Garcia, who joined the troupe last October, expanded on the name’s connotations. “If you have a granny cart, you know, you can’t politely, say, go through the bus or the street, and go ‘Excuse me, excuse me.’” (Tong interjected, “You’re just unapologetic.”) Garcia continued, “You just run over those people’s feet.”

When it comes to the troupe’s material, this mindset is always relevant. Its material is solely comprised of things that make its own members laugh. And even though members grapple with worries that no one else will find certain things funny, they’ll keep them in anyway.

“No Happy Endings” opens with a piece that pays homage to grannies — one of the first pieces where the members assume the role of grannies. “You’ve got to respect grannies,” Garcia said. “They’re grannies — they’ve been through shit.” In the sketch, the troupe members are nursing home residents (sans granny carts, unfortunately), comatose as a nurse administers their daily medicine. Before the nurse leaves, she switches on a radio, which starts playing classical music. But one of the grannies won’t have that and slowly trudges to the radio — with the assistance of her walker — and changes the music to something more modern: Beyoncé’s “Grown Woman.” Instantly rejuvenated, the grannies begin to dance. 

The troupe returns to this scene later to close the show. “Grown Woman” is still playing. “We actually bust out into our younger selves and we do a short synchronized dance,” Tong said, “kind of saying that every granny is young inside them. They have that young person that lived there before.” Combined with the young souls’ dance, Beyoncé’s lyrics “I’m a grown woman / I can do whatever I want” only serve to further drive this message home.

“I feel like so many people forget that older people were young once and they are people — they’re not the sacks that people treat them as,” Garcia said. As a nurse, she said she constantly witnesses incidents of verbal elder abuse where nurses and other people in the hospital condescendingly speak to elderly patients. 

Besides the geriatric piece, the group likes to write about womanhood. For their first show, “Rise of the Red Dawn,” the group performed a sketch titled “Look At This Betch.” “We’re making fun of the idea that women sometimes … have this competition with each other,” Garcia said. “They’re cutthroat and catty and will cut other women to get ahead when they should be helping other women. They know what it’s like to be a woman in this world.”

However, Tong said the group noticed that much of the last show focused on the negative aspects of womanhood. To depict women in a more positive light, it included a sketch titled “Vag Save” in the upcoming show, which also includes films and stand-up. Garcia introduced “Vag Save” to me through a mock movie trailer voiceover: “Save your best friend’s vagina. Coming soon, this Saturday, June 28, we will be saving … your vaginas.”

The sketch follows a group of women at a club banding together to protect each other from the unwelcome advances of creepy men. “Not everybody sees that world,” Tong said. “Guys definitely don’t know when other guys are being creepy — or when they’re being creepy — and this is how women see it.”

The troupe is entirely comprised of women of color. Members write cultural references sparingly — one of the lines in sketch “Spanx” plays with how similar the word “backpack” and the Tagalog word for “vagina” (pekpek) sound: “Reach into my pekpek” — because they don’t want to alienate any audience members. Sometimes they’ll include references if a character has an accent (the references are usually improv ad libs), but they stray from writing references that aren’t obvious or explained. 

At the same time, Tong and Garcia appreciate San Francisco’s diversity and open-mindedness. “I think we take advantage of that,” Tong said. “We almost take it for granted. We don’t think about having to be sensitive.” The two joked that they might have things thrown at them on stage or their citizenship papers checked in more conservative states. Most of the members are Bay Area natives, but live in cities as spread apart as Walnut Creek, San Francisco, and Hayward, which Tong admitted makes getting together for rehearsal tough.

Inspiration can hit the troupe at any time — sources range from people, such as Beyoncé, or the minutiae of daily life, such as putting in a Diva Cup. (A Diva Cup is an eco-friendly alternative to a tampon. Garcia shared some tips from a YouTube how-to video she watched, where an upside-down wine glass served as a model vagina: improper nail length can quickly make the experience unpleasant and one of the tricky things is “getting it into a little ball and making sure it goes in before it pops open … because then that’s painful and you don’t want to do that, let me tell you.” Tong was a little hesitant about this sketch idea.) Throughout the interview, Tong and Garcia effortlessly bounced new ideas off each other, assuring me they could even parody the interview we were having. “You’ll be in this,” Garcia told me. “Come watch our stuff; you’ll see yourself.”

Six days before the show, at least one troupe member’s grandmother was confirmed to attend “No Happy Endings.” Garcia’s mother purchased tickets for several family members — before her daughter explained that the not-so-family-friendly show was “mature, sexual, and raunchy.” Garcia complained that her grandmother would simply have to sit through performances such as “Octopussy,” where she sings “I’ve tried everything / You could possibly do / When you’re in bed with two / Wheelbarrow, doggy style / Missionary, 69 / It feels so fine / But he can’t make me cum.”

“We’ll apologize later if you need us to,” Tong reassured Garcia. 

Emphasis on “need.” After all, a true granny cart gangsta is never apologetic if they can help it. 

Granny Cart Gangstas’ “No Happy Endings”

Sat/28, 8pm, $15

Little Boxes Theater

1661 Tennessee, SF

(415) 603-0061

www.littleboxestheater.wordpress.com

Nob Hill neighbors seek to block mental-health clinic relocation

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Nob Hill neighbors seek to block mental-health clinic relocation

A San Francisco mental-health clinic that has been in operation since 1975 is in danger of shutting down if it can’t find a new place to operate. But its possible relocation to medical offices on Hyde Street, subject to city approval, has prompted neighbors to organize in opposition.

Cindy Gyori, executive director of Hyde Street Community Services, has been scrambling to find a new home for her organization since being hit with the news of a pending rent increase. Its Tenderloin Mental Health Clinic serves about 1,200 clients per year, making it the third-largest outpatient clinic in the city.

Rent in its current space, on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, is about to increase to almost double, Gyori said. Larkin Street Youth Services, another service provider in the process of consolidating to a single location, is lined up to rent the entire building. That means the clinic must relocate by Sept. 15, Gyori said.

When she first began the search, “It was impossible to find an adequate space,” she explained. Several possibilities would have required months of renovation, impossible to accomplish given the time constraint. But 815 Hyde Street, a medical office building connected to St. Francis Memorial Hospital, seemed viable. “We’ve really been focusing on moving there,” she said. Negotiations have been underway for several months.

The clinic serves individuals dealing with mental illness, past exposure to trauma, or substance abuse problems, making it just the sort of facility that’s needed to stabilize a population that’s at risk of homelessness, or in recovery from life on the streets.

But neighborhood resistance to the clinic’s planned move is proving to be problematic. “We’re getting pushback from some individuals in the community, who are concerned about our clients, and their behavior, and whether it would be disruptive to the community,” she said. The new facility would be at the Nob Hill intersection of Hyde and Bush streets. A boutique hotel is located nearby, and the area is regularly saturated with tourists.

Hyde Street Community Services is contracted with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to provide care for Central City residents. That means the Health Commission must sign off on any relocation proposal. But at a June 17 committee meeting, health commissioners opted to delay approval in the face of vociferous neighborhood opposition. They directed the nonprofit to hold community meetings about the planned relocation, tabling the vote till July 15.

Robert Garcia, president of Save Our Streets, is organizing neighborhood opposition. “This area, lower Nob Hill, is an historic hotel and apartment district,” he said in an interview. “There are a lot of tourists here.”

He described Save Our Streets as a “not-for-profit neighborhood group” that for years has engaged in “fighting crime, and [fighting] a lot of prostitution.” He added, “We live here. This is our neighborhood. We’re not asking for anything, just trying to protect what belongs to us – and that’s our neighborhood.”

“We just don’t need any more problems here,” Garcia went on. “When they’re bringing in people with behavioral problems, that says something.”

The delay has left Gyori in a bit of limbo. “The time crunch is really problematic,” she said, emphasizing that if the move to 815 Hyde Street does not go as planned, and the clinic cannot find any other options, then it could be forced to shut its doors.

“We want to respond to the community as best we can,” she added. “People said they were afraid they would see streams of shopping carts headed up Hyde Street,” she noted, but sees this notion as a misinformed reaction to the people who congregate on the sidewalk on Golden Gate. “We have to convince the neighborhood people that the people on the street in the Tenderloin aren’t the same as our clients,” she said. “The number one complaint from our clients, mostly, is that they have to run the gauntlet to get through the door,” she added. 

The first of the community meetings will be held tomorrow, June 26, at the Hotel Carlton, 1075 Sutter, from 6:30 to 8pm.

Grand Jury warns SF to prepare for rising seas

Sasha Cuttler
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Grand Jury warns SF to prepare for rising seas

Following its recent report criticizing the Port of San Francisco for being unduly influenced by wealthy developers and their allies in the Mayor’s Office, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury today released its second report of the current session, calling on the city to do more to prepare for the impacts of global warming.

“Rising Sea Levels…At our Doorstep” assessed recognition and preparedness in a city where projections by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission show San Francisco International Airport, Treasure Island, and parts of Mission Bay and Hunters Point inundated by water by the end of the century. The report found that while most city departments and private developers were aware of and planning adaptive responses to the problem, far more needs to be done — including adoption of less intensive development strategies for flood-prone areas, such as Mission Bay.  

“We are currently at the cusp of the future in terms of sustainability. It took the Loma Prieta earthquake to awaken San Francisco to the necessity of intensified seismic retrofitting. Let’s not wait for a major flooding disaster, like Hurricane Sandy on the east coast, to start addressing the serious threat of rising sea levels. The threat is real; the time to act is now,” the grand jury wrote. “For a start, San Francisco should, among other things, adopt a citywide comprehensive plan for adaptation to rising sea levels and amend the City’s Planning and Building Codes to include provisions addressing the impacts of sea level rise.”

The report urged city leaders to accelerate plans to implement recommendations of the Ocean Beach Master Plan, which among other things called for rerouting Highway 1 in sections where the coastline is now receding and creations of tidelands on the southern part of Ocean Beach.  

2014 CGJ Report Rising Sea Levels by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Your latest SF gentrification soundtrack: Cold Beat, Thee Oh Sees, Violent Change, and more

Steven T. Jones
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3

Is San Francisco doomed?  The legendary SF punk band Crime said so 35 years ago on their album San Francisco’s Doomed. Yet with tech money flowing into San Francisco and musicians being priced out of the city, the phrase has taken on a new resonance among those musicians who have stayed in town.

There’s been no shortage of music and other art forms lamenting the sea change in our dear city: Earlier this month, Katie Day drew accolades and vitriol with “San Francisco (Before the West Falls),” and tonight [Wed/25], cabaret singer-songwriter Candace Roberts will celebrate the debut of her theatrical “Not My City Anymore” with a party at the Gold Dust Lounge (where the music video was shot).

Stepping up to the plate for the indie/garage/punk kids is Hannah Lew, currently of Cold Beat, formerly of Grass Widow, and most recently the curator of a compilation whose name differs from Crime’s album by one contraction: San Francisco Is Doomed.  Released on Lew’s Crime On The Moon label, the compilation features 13 songs by either former or current San Francisco bands and artists, from Thee Oh Sees to Erase Errata to Violent Change, all of them dealing with the tech boom’s effect on the city and its music scene.

Lew has lived in the city since 1989, and was a first-hand witness to the ascent of the city’s garage-rock scene to international prominence as a member of Grass Widow. Though she plans to stay in the city, it’s increasingly difficult for musicians in San Francisco to keep up with increased prices. Most of the artists on the compilation have since moved.

“People are moving here to make money now,” Lew said. “It’s never really been like that before — not since the Gold Rush. Because of that there’s a lot of foodie culture…things catered to people with a lot of money. I think that creates a cultural divide.”

The compilation isn’t an act of war against the “techies,” though; according to Lew, some of the artists on the compilation actually work in the tech industry. It’s not a benefit album either. It’s simply a snapshot of the time and place in which SF musicians currently exist. 

For now, Lew and Cold Beat are still headquartered and playing shows in the city — the compilation seems timed nicely to coincide with the release of the band’s latest, Over Me, which will be out July 8 (a music video for the first single just premiered over at NPR). But it’s hard to say the band is part of a “scene” anymore. Bay Area scenes have come and gone, of course, from psychedelic rock to ’80s thrash metal, and, as others have noted, it’s increasingly apparent that the garage-rock movement is at the end of its lifespan. The question of whether or not San Francisco’s music scene is truly doomed relies on a different equation — whether musicians are willing to move into San Francisco. And according to Lew, it’s not exactly an attractive option for most.

“I can’t really imagine people moving here for a thriving music scene without the rent prices going way down,” she said. “Usually the towns with a thriving music scenes are affordable to live in. But it’s hard to even find an affordable practice space in San Francisco these days.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” she added. “[San Francisco] is becoming more of a fancy town. But we just want to talk about it and hopefully provide another voice in that conversation.”
 
San Francisco Is Doomed Record Release

With Cold Beat, Synethic ID, Violent Change, Caged Animal

July 1, 9pm, free

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Fuck Buttons on their wildly visual live show, the writing process, and bringing “fuck” to the world stage

Steven T. Jones
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Fuck Buttons on their wildly visual live show, the writing process, and bringing “fuck” to the world stage

“I think I’ve heard of them before,” is the kind of spineless response you’ll never hear if you ask someone about Fuck Buttons.  If you’ve heard them, you’ll most definitely will remember.  With music that elicits feelings of wonder and rebellion, intense live shows, and of course an, err — catchy name, Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung leave a lasting impression.

If you didn’t catch them when they played at The Independent last October, chances are you heard Fuck Buttons in 2012 when the band received arguably the most widespread kind of exposure — their tracks “Surf Solar” and “Olympians” were featured separately during the London Summer Olympics opening ceremony. Their self-produced third effort, Soft Focus, has earned the band a multitude of accolades, including an 8.7 and Best New Music honor from persnickety Pitchfork, as well as the #3 Dance Album Of The Year 2013 from Rolling Stone.

I got the opportunity to chat with Fuck Button Benjamin John Power about the process behind the band’s unique live performance set-up, as well as the AV show they’re bringing to the US for the first time.  The English experimental-electro duo are currently in the middle of a monthlong tour, coming back to The Independent this Fri/27.

San Francisco Bay Guardian So you just played North By Northeast. Taking some time off on the West Coast right now?

Benjamin John Power Yeah, that’s right.  Andy had to go home to a wedding so there is a slight break in the tour, but it’s cool.

SFBG I’m sure the time off to before the shows next week is welcomed.

BJP I get a week off in LA and my wife is coming out to join me for the time off. It’s nice to take a breather.

SFBG NXNE has such a diverse lineup, between all the acts and comedians.

BJP NXNE was great. Quick turnaround, but a really amazing crowd. I didn’t get a chance to see anyone else on the lineup, but I wish I could have seen Tim Hecker.

SFBG It’s funny you mention him. You’re familiar with Steve Hauschildt, yes?

BJP Yep, from Emeralds? I’m a fan.

SFBG I liken his and Tim Hecker’s music to your solo project, Blanck Mass. They form a genre I refer to as “lunar planning music.”

BJP Oh yeah? That’s a nice term.

SFBG I mean that in the best way possible.

BJP It is welcomed — fear not.

SFBG You recently played a show with Mount Kimbie that involved some some special visuals.  Can the stateside crowd expect anything like that?

BJP Yes, 100 percent. We have brought our full AV show with us this time — for the first time in the USA — so that’s totally in the cards. We wanted to make sure that the visual aspect wasn’t just a bunch of video loops, as a separate focus.  The visuals are interactive and in real time, so it’s a more interesting show and it’s working out really well.

SFBG Sounds great. I saw you last year at Primavera Sound, and your music translates really well on stage.

BJP Thank you. The live show and the recorded output go hand in hand, so when we write, we write in exactly the same way that we do when we play live — across the table from each other, with all the gadgets in front of us — so it translates easily into the live performance.

SFBG You also produced the last album (Soft Focus) yourselves — have other people been contacting you regarding production work?

BJP Yeah, a few people have.  We like to keep ourselves busy, and I think from working on the last record primarily by ourselves we have picked up some pretty helpful production tricks.

SFBG Last question — do you feel the word “fuck” is losing its potency?

BJP I don’t really think too much about the word fuck losing its potency. If anything, it probably makes my life easier, haha.

SFBG I can see that.  Being featured in the Olympics, you guys are like ambassadors of “fuck.”  Bringing “fuck” to the world stage.

BJP Yeah! Well, in those instances, everybody just seems to go with “F Buttons.” It’s really fine. What’s in a name anyway?

FUCK BUTTONS
With Total Life
6/27, 9pm, $20
The Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com

 

SF school board to consider minimum wage proposal tonight amid union battles UPDATED

Erica Hanna
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SF school board to consider minimum wage proposal tonight amid union battles UPDATED

Update [6/25]: The minimum wage proposal won, and is now part of SFUSD’s approved budget. “There will be a larger conversation in August when I introduce the new minimum wage policy,” Matt Haney, of the Board of Education said. Read the article to get some context on SFUSD’s minimum wage struggles.

Hundreds of San Francisco Unified School District employees stand to finally be paid San Francisco’s minimum wage, in a new proposal expected for tonight’s Board of Education meeting.

Matt Haney, a board commissioner, plans to propose requiring SFUSD to pay San Francisco’s minimum wage. He said it’s a practical move that also carries a message.

“It’s a relatively small amount of people, but a dollar fifty or two dollars more an hour is not pocket change for them,” he told the Guardian. “It’s really a step towards aligning the school district towards paying everyone a living wage.”

As a state entity, the SFUSD need only adhere to the state minimum wage of $9 an hour, which will be the state’s new minimum wage starting July 1. For now, San Francisco’s minimum wage is $10.74 an hour, though that may change under a new November ballot measure to as much as $15 an hour by 2018.

Haney is considering introducing a new resolution in August to match the City’s $15 minimum wage hike, as well.

Over 800 SFUSD workers earn below San Francisco’s minimum wage. These employees are mostly unrepresented by unions, Haney told us, and though they serve in a variety of positions, most are yard monitors who oversee recess in the city’s over 100 schools.

Haney’s minimum wage proposal is part of the overall SFUSD proposed 2014-15 budget, which the school board will vote on tonight. As Governor Jerry Brown’s new funding mechanism, the Local Control Funding Formula, drives extra dollars into disadvantaged school districts, the unions and schools are expected to put on the pressure for the district to offer raises for teachers and paraprofessionals.

“There should be some fireworks, I imagine,” Haney said.

Negotiations between the school district and the unions are at a standstill, sources tell us. The district said it is proposing a 8.5 percent increase over three years, which amounts to an approximate $1.83 an hour raise for paraprofessionals. This offer infuriated the United Educators of San Francisco, who allege that is still not a living wage.

“They’re coming to us and saying ‘this is almost the best we can offer,'” Dennis Kelly, president of UESF told the Guardian. “What the hell does that mean?”

Paraprofessionals often work in special education or early childhood education, and some are security aides. There are between 1,350 and 1,500 of those employees at any given time in the district, Kelly told us, noting they’re also a group made up largely of minorities and women.

In a statement to the press, SFUSD Superintendent Richard Carranza said the district made the best offer it could under the circumstances.

“We are committed to providing salary increases this year and in the future as long as the revenues from the state continue to grow,” Carranza wrote. “Unfortunately the state’s forecast for school budgets just got a lot worse. Governor Brown just said that he is now expecting districts to pay a bill, in the amount of several billion dollars, to cover the State’s unfunded pension liabilities as soon as next school year and every year after for the foreseeable future. This expenditure will spend a significant amount of the very same revenues we are counting on to provide services for our students and salary increases for our employees.”

As the district struggles with its bills, the paraprofessionals are facing the very real rising costs of living in San Francisco. The average pay for a paraprofessional is $25,000, Kelly told us, adding “you’re employing 1,000 of these people at poverty wages.”

The UESF will take a vote to authorize a strike vote in August, and the negotiations between the UESF and the school district is expected to be mediated soon.

In the meantime, for 800 or so employees at least, Haney’s minimum wage increase should bring some much-needed good news to a school district beleaguered with money woes. Though the raise would only bump employees a dollar fifty or two dollars an hour more, Haney said, “it’s a symbolic in some ways, but important.”

And as a school district that mostly serves poor and disadvantaged students, Haney added, “if anyone should know about poverty in schools, it’s us.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccuately cited the district’s wage offer. The Guardian apologizes for the error.

Here’s an intriguing idea for Piers 30-32

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Here’s an intriguing idea for Piers 30-32

Earlier this year, the Golden State Warriors abandoned its bid to construct a basketball arena and performance venue at Piers 30-32 along San Francisco’s waterfront, a proposal Mayor Ed Lee once championed as his “legacy project.”

The Warriors moved its ambitious project to a site in Mission Bay, to the great relief of a group of waterfront activists who viewed it as an inappropriate choice for the unique and historic 7.5-mile stretch of city waterfront that falls under the jurisdiction of the Port of San Francisco.

Nevertheless, that shift did send the Port back to the drawing board with the problem it’s encountered numerous times before: What to do with Piers 30-32, which span a 13-acre slab of crumbling concrete currently in use as a parking lot just a stone’s throw from the Bay Bridge.

In a recent Bay Guardian editorial, we called for a public process to consider the future use of that waterfront pier. Could it be turned into open space? Removed? Converted to a different use?

Turns out, others have been contemplating the same question. The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, a volunteer body tasked with investigating civic matters, introduced a new idea when it issued a report on the operations of the Port of San Francisco.

Titled, “The Port of San Francisco: Caught Between Public Trust and Private Dollars,” the Civil Grand Jury report raised a few incisive questions, going so far as to suggest that the Port operates with undue influence from the Mayor’s Office, and that its governing commission ought to be restructured to resolve that. We are going to drill down more on these issues in a different post, after we’ve had a chance to interview a spokesperson from the Port.

But for now, here’s the Civil Grand Jury’s line on Piers 30-32: Why not look into using it as the site of a marine research institute?

From the report:

“Our suggestion is to investigate the possibility of building a Marine Research Institute on the pier. The project lead could be an educational institution such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution or Scripps Institute of Oceanography (UC San Diego), a conservation group such as Cousteau Society, Greenpeace, or Ocean Conservancy, or even  government based groups such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

“With close proximity to the Gulf of the Farallones, Cordell Bank, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries to the west and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the east, a San Francisco Bay location presents a unique opportunity for marine and estuary study.

“The Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuaries today cover about 1800 square miles, but the proposed addition by NOAA will add an additional 2,000 square miles extending north.

“Funding could be derived not only from the sources mentioned above, but it may be possible to get donations from charitable foundations, such as Ford Foundation or Paul Getty Trust, and supplement large contributions by forming a coalition of the dozens of smaller advocacy and conservation groups—a form of crowd-funding on a large scale.”

A waterfront research institute that could aid scientists in studying the effects of climate change on ocean ecosystems? It couldn’t be farther from the sexy, spaceship-shaped sports arena previously proposed for that waterfront site. But it might not be such a bad idea.

Guardianistas hit the high notes on our latest edition of Alternative Ink

Sasha Cuttler
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Guardianistas hit the high notes on our latest edition of Alternative Ink

Last night’s Alternative Ink, the biweekly show that we at the Bay Guardian do on BFF.fm, may have been our best show yet. In addition to featuring great music exclusively by queer artists, we covered a lot of editorial ground, from chain stores and the Guardian’s impending move into the Westfied Mall to new developments on Google buses and Sunday meters to teacher tenure, Pride, and PG&E’s scary pipelines (when our audio mysteriously cut out for little while … hmm)  to whistleblowers and World Cup mania. So give it a listen here.  

City Attorney throws a monkey wrench into parking-space auction app

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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City Attorney throws a monkey wrench into parking-space auction app

An iPhone app that lets users auction off their parking spots might sound like a novel idea, especially in a parking-deprived city like San Francisco. Unfortunately for Paolo Dobrowolny, co-founder and CEO of the MonkeyParking app that does exactly that, the practice is also illegal.

The app violates a key provision of San Francisco’s Police Code, which states that drivers who “enter into a lease, rental agreements or contract of any kind” for public parking spots can face penalties of up to $300, according to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who has issued a cease-and-desist demand against MonkeyParking.

“Technology has given rise to many laudable innovations in how we live and work – and Monkey Parking is not one of them,” Herrera said in a statement. “It’s illegal, it puts drivers on the hook for $300 fines, and it creates a predatory private market for public parking spaces that San Franciscans will not tolerate.”

That’s not how Dobrowolny sees it. Though he’s still working with his legal team to address Herrera’s concerns, the MonkeyParking CEO said he fundamentally disagrees with Herrera’s stance.

“As a general principle we believe that a new company providing value to people should be regulated and not banned,” Dobrowolny wrote in an email. “Regulation is fundamental in driving innovation, while banning is just stopping it.”

Herrera imposed a July 11 deadline to cease operations in his letter to MonkeyParking, but the app may not even last that long. By violating San Francisco’s Police Code, it’s already landed in hot water when it comes to Apple’s guidelines for app developers, which state: “Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users.” Herrera copied Apple’s legal department onto the letter, so there’s a possibility MonkeyParking could be removed as a result.

The use of parking apps like MonkeyParking also brings up the potentially dangerous matter of cell phone use within a moving vehicle, an issue that wasn’t lost on Herrera. In his letter to Dobrowolny, Herrera wrote that MonkeyParking is “facilitating and encouraging drivers to use cellphones and other wireless communication devices in a manner that distracts them, posing a safety hazard to the public and violating state laws that prohibit using cellphones and such other devices while driving.”

But since the app already appears to be in violation of the local police code and the App Store guidelines, this is simply icing on the cake.

“Worst of all, [MonkeyParking] encourages drivers to use their mobile devices unsafely – to engage in online bidding wars while driving,” Herrera said. “People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so. But we will not abide businesses that hold hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit.”

MonkeyParking isn’t alone in its apparent violation of city rules. Sweetch and ParkModo are two other iPhone apps that provide allegedly illegal monetization of parking spots in the city, and Herrera’s office is cracking down on them as well.

Sweetch is similar to MonkeyParking, though it charges a flat fee of $5 per parking spot instead of the bidding system. ParkModo, which has yet to officially launch, will reportedly employ drivers for $13 an hour to occupy public parking spots in the Mission, according to Herrera’s statement.

SF arts funding prioritizes symphony, other stuff white people like

Erica Hanna
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SF arts funding prioritizes symphony, other stuff white people like

Disadvantaged artists might be getting the short end of the paintbrush in favor of the city’s more affluent art community in Mayor Ed Lee’s proposed 2014-16 city budget.

That’s what a seemingly endless line of advocates expressed in a hearing in front of the San Francisco Budget and Finance Committee Friday [6/20] when given the opportunity to suggest ways to better apportion funding in the budget. According to a recent report from the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office, the dissenters might be onto something.

The report details the allocation of funding from Grants for the Arts, revealing that 76 percent of GFTA’s grant money will go to art organizations with primarily white audiences. This figure is right in line with the funding priorities from 1961, when the city’s population was 82 percent white.

Today, people of color make up 58 percent of the city’s population, while the white population has been nearly cut in half over the course of the five decades since 1961. But that hasn’t stopped GFTA from devoting more than three-quarters of its funds for art organizations whose audiences are predominantly white, the report found.

GFTA’s self-proclaimed goal is to “promote and support the widest possible variety of arts and culture activities in the City,” although it’s hard to imagine it had that in mind when devising the budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

This isn’t the first time GFTA has snubbed underprivileged artists. According to the Budget Analyst’s report, GFTA actually reduced its percentages of funding to arts organizations of color from 2006-07 to 2012-13, and the agency’s funding for those organizations has not improved over the last 25 years, despite the city’s radically shifting demographics and the lip service regularly given to diversity at City Hall. GFTA has no plans to improve its grant money allocation, according to the report. Officials at the agency declined to comment when contacted for this story.

arts grants

When the Budget and Finance Committee heard public comment today about the mayor’s proposed budget, a great deal of the discussion centered on cultural equity and providing increased funding for disadvantaged citizens in the arts.

Numerous speakers cited the city’s changing demographics and the reality that the city isn’t made up of an enormous majority of white residents anymore, calling for more art funding for people of color, despite the budget’s lopsided allocation of funds to the white demographic.

In particular, the budget proposal allocates 19 percent of the 2014-15 budget to the San Francisco Symphony, which was enough for one speaker to state that “a lion’s share is going to the traditional organizations.” The message to the committee, simply put, was to “consider how you invest the money you’re spending,” as another speaker said, and that “public funding for the arts is not supposed to disempower by taking away the voice of the underrepresented.”

Allocating more funding for the Cultural Equity Grants was an oft-mentioned method for better supporting disadvantaged artists, with the project-based grant system receiving 25 percent of the commission’s budget in the 2014-15 fiscal year. The number of grants awarded each year has remained relatively stagnant in recent years, with 94 grants awarded in 2012-13, a projected 100 to be given out in 2013-14, and a target of 100 in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.

The number of street artists supporting themselves by selling their work isn’t progressing much either. The city issued 176 new licenses for such artists in 2012-13, but is projected to dole out only 122 in the current fiscal year. The new proposal targets similar numbers to those from 2012-13 (179 and 183 licenses in 2014-15 and 2015-16, respectively), further affirmation of the sluggish advancement of the mission to ensure that all cultures of the city are represented.

But disadvantaged residents in the arts aren’t the only ones who stand to be affected by the proposed budget, a fact that wasn’t lost on many concerned advocates. Lee calls for a budget of $13.9 million for the Arts Commission in 2014-15, a relatively minor 2 percent decrease from the 2013-14 budget of $14.2 million. The real drop-off occurs in 2015-16, however, when the Arts Commission budget decreases by a full 8.4 percent from the previous fiscal year. The Mayor’s Office declined to respond when contacted for this story.

Needless to say, members of the art community as a whole weren’t thrilled about Lee’s sharply declining emphasis on the arts, and they voiced their concern toward the Committee on Friday. The city’s lack of aid for the general art community, in addition to simply underprivileged artists, had many speakers understandably up in arms.

Below we’ve embedded Harvey Rose’s report on skewed arts grants funding.

"Arts inequity": San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst Report by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Happy Hour: The week in music

Steven T. Jones
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Happy Hour: The week in music

Hey you. Yeah, you. Are you still sitting at your desk, despite it being a beautiful day outside, and despite the proximity of large-screen TVs tuned to the World Cup inside multiple alcohol-serving establishments within three blocks of you in every direction?

Give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it. And you have less than an hour to go!

To help kill those last few minutes of clock-watching, here are some musical highlights of the past week, and a thing or two to do this weekend:

1. YouTube is about to fuck up 95 percent of what you and I use YouTube for. Sorry, not cat videos; I meant listening to audio and watching videos from independent artists. An executive from the Google-owned giant recently told the Financial Times that YouTube was prepared to remove videos from labels that didn’t sign their contract for the new YouTube Music Pass (a paid licensing program) “within days.” Reps from a lot of these labels (like 4AD — see ya, The National, tUnE-yArDs, Deerhunter, et al) have said they’ve been offered the extraordinarily shitty end of the terms stick.

2. If you’re sticking around the Bay Area this weekend — unlike the 8 out of 10 musicians I’ve talked to in the past few days who are all taking off for Hickey Fest — you could do a lot worse than to check out the ULUV Music Day, a festival of free music featuring more than 100 bands playing throughout the day at parklets, BART stations, and other public locations in every neighborhood in the city from noon to 5pm. At 6pm, head over to Dolores Park for a “music flash mob” and official proclamation from the City of San Francisco.

3. New owners for Yoshi’s SF (following bankruptcy under the current ownership) signal “an all-but-final blow to the original aims of the Fillmore Jazz Preservation District,” says SF Weekly.

4. Biopics are in the works about NWA and Aaliyah, though the latter’s family is none too happy about it. By contrast, Ashanti has hit the county fair circuit.

5. Jack White (who’ll be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium Aug. 22 and 23) debuted his latest, Lazaretto, at #1 on the Billboard charts, selling 138,000 copies in its first week — some 40,000 of them vinyl. That broke Pearl Jam’s record for the largest sales week for a vinyl album, a title that previously went to 1991’s Vitalogy. Let’s compare and contrast (quick, before YouTube takes them down).

Now then. Beer time?

 

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