SFBG Blogs

Sharmin Bock gets jazzed up

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Sharmin Bock gets jazzed up

The first DA numbers have just come in: Gason 48%, Bock 21%, Onek 15%. But so far a smoking little jazz trio downstairs is about the only real excitement at DA candidate Sharmin Bock’s campaign party at Yoshi’s on Fillmore. No big reaction yet, and the candidate isn’t expected to arrive until 9:30.

Yet campaign coordinator Kimberly Walz Abando tells me there’s been a lot of energy in the Bock campaign. It even reminds her a little of Chicago, where she worked on Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s last campaign before moving to San Francisco.

Rough-and-tumble Chicago is a very different place, she said, “but what’s the same is you get a lot of passionate volunteers who believe in the candidate and will work 15 hour days.”
She also has a policy background and liked how Bock raised big issues: “She was able to bring forward the issue of unsolved murders and rapes.”

The first numbers

Zelda Bronstein
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The absentees are in, and it’s no surprise that Mayor Ed Lee is in the lead. In fact, he’s way in the lead — he’s got 39 percent of the 67,000 absentees. I expected him to have a big advantage here, since he did a lot of early GOTV.

Worth noting: John Avalos, the most progressive of the major candidates, is in second in the absentees. That’s a very good sign for the Avalos campaign. But Lee is almost 20,000 votes ahead of Avalos and Dennis Herrera, and that, folks, will be very hard to make up.

The district attorney’s race is over; George Gascon has won.

The sheriff’s race is interesting; Ross Mirkarimi — again, the most progressive candidate — is actually ahead in what is looking like a very conservative absentee vote. He’s only got a slight lead over Chris Cunnie (31.7 percent to 31.4 percent, a total of a couple hundred votes) but that margin will grow as the night moves on. Mirkarimi, it appears, will finish first.

Here’s why I say it’s a conservative absentee turnout: The sales tax, Prop G, is losing 57-42 and Prop. H, the neighborhood schools measure, is ahead 58-41. Both results suggest a strong westside turnout in the absentees.

I’m surprised that Mirkarimi is doing so well with this bunch.

And I’m a little surprised that Prop. C (the “consensus”) pension reform is so far ahead of Prop. D (the Adachi pension reform). Even in the conservative areas, C is leading by 7 percent.

By the way, the school and street bonds have won. If they’re over 66 percent (and both are) in this batch of votes, they’ll win handily.

 

Numbers coming soon

Zelda Bronstein
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Steve Jones tweets that the Department of Elections is planning to release the first (absentee) numbers at 8:45. Election-day numbers will come about 45 minutes later. Which means that by 10 p.m. we’ll have a good idea what’s happening.

More good omens

Zelda Bronstein
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The author of the racist Arizona law AB 1070 was just recalled. And Mississippi voters decided that life doesn’t begin at conception. Maybe some sanity is returning to America.

Oh, and those election monitors

Zelda Bronstein
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The state has sent election monitors to SF, which sounds nice, but I think it’s a bit too late. The damage is already done; if the accounts of voter fraud and campaign finance problems are accurate, the monitors were needed weeks ago, not today.

There’s good news in Ohio

Zelda Bronstein
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The terrible anti-union measure in Ohio — which was being watched nationwide — has gone down in flames. So that’s a good omen.

It’s all about turnout

Zelda Bronstein
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Turnout in my Bernal Heights precinct tonight was pretty light, and that’s consistent with what I’ve been hearing all over town — except in Chinatown, where absentee turnout is high and the Ed Lee folks have done a great job of getting out the vote. This election may be a referendum on Ed Lee, it may be about whether any of the challengers can make a case for a change, it may be about how ranked-choice-voting works — but more than anything else, it’s going to be about who votes.

The flood of mailers was so overwhelming in the final days that I’m not sure how many people actually read them; the campaigns that put real resources into GOTV operations will probably fare better than the ones that relied on mail to reach the voters. And, of course, it’s likely that half the votes cast will be absentees.

So one of the numbers to watch tonight is total turnout. The lower that number, the better for Mayor Lee, who got a lot of votes in the bank early.

Another number to watch, and I’ll be running this for you as soon as I have data, is how the election-day votes contrast with the typically more conservative absentees. The absentees will be out soon, shortly after 8 p.m.; that will give us a sneak preview. But once the election-day votes come in about half an hour later, we’ll know where the trends are going.

The Department of Elections says the vote count will go quickly, since it’s a short ballot (only two cards).

The Guardian–and the historic elections of 1966 and 2011

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(Written on election day before the polls closed. Scroll down for our editorial positions of 1966 and 2011)

In the second edition of the Guardian, dated Nov. 7, 1966, we published our first set of editorial endorsements that were to become a trademark of our form of alternative journalism.  (Our 1966 editorial in pdf form.)

We strongly endorsed then Gov. Pat Brown, going for his third term as a progressive governor, over Ronald Reagan, making his first run at elective office as the voice of the new Republican conservatism, in what we called “our historic election.” In reading the editorial over on the eve of our current “historic election,” it was remarkably prescient.

“For the repudiation of Brown and the election of Reagan,” we noted gloomily,  “would mean that a generation of progressive legislation—in medicare, in education, in welfare, in conservation, in water resources, in bringing to account the dreadful problems of growth, population, and sprawl—would be in grave jeopardy.

“It isn’t difficult to imagine, for example, what will happen to the conservation movement at the hands of a man who talks loudly about selling off ‘unused park land.’ It is this sort of statement that shows Reagan’s naivete, his total lack of qualification for any responsible government job and his complete misunderstanding of what is happening in our state.”

We pointed out that Brown had continued the progressive policies of Govs.Warren and Knight but that this forward movement would end abruptly with Reagan as governor. Well, alas, we were right. Reaganomics was born and the Guardian and everybody else have ever since been fighting the doctrine of tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, and the economics of greed is good and greed is legal.

The result can be seen in today’s election in San Francisco and other California cities and counties.

The mayoral regimes of Brown, Newsom and Ed Lee have carried on the key elements of Reaganomics: endless budget cuts and a bushelbasket of  higher fees, no new revenue initiatives, no moves to tax the Warren Hellmans and the Gordon Gettys on the same basis as the middle class, no moves to tax the big realtors and banks and big downtown companies on the same basis as small businesses, maintaining and facilitating the galloping inequalities of income, keeping the corrupting PG&E/Raker scandal intact at City Hall and thus allowing PG&E to operate as an illegal private utility in San Francisco. On and on.

 The sad thing is that if Lee wins and the tide of sleaze keeps rising in his office, and the progressives lose even more power, things are likely  to get much worse and fast. If Avalos or Herrera win, things are likely to get better but slowly if at all. If Mirkarimi wins, he will make an excellent sheriff in the Mike Hennessey tradition and will immediately be a candidate in waiting to run for mayor as a progressive sheriff and keep PG&E and the Chamber of Commerce gang on edge. (Our position as  outlined by Executive Editor Tim Redmond in “The bad old days” in   our 45th anniversary issue of Oct. 19, 2011.) 

 In any event, the Guardian will be here to “print the news and raise hell for good causes,” to update our masthead motto of 45 years. B3

 

 

 

Dam-Funk brings modern funk and futuristic shoulder synth to Mezzanine

Tony Robles
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The Mezzanine wasn’t packed to capacity Saturday night, but there was a point about a quarter into Dam-Funk’s set when things started to get electric on the dance floor. I was in a sort of self-imposed paralysis, but looking around, it seemed as if I was surrounded by about half a dozen people, each just completely going for it. Woman in a sundress, shaking it back and forth without spilling the second half of her drink; A couple of businessmen out for a night during a layover; Short brunette busting out some fly girl moves not seen since In Living Color; Some jaw-some kid with ass length blonde hair and a complete tie-died outfit (with matching head-band), popping, locking, sliding, swerving, and whatever, all in a way that screamed drugs; A skinny guy with a flat-top and glasses, dancing with two girls and doing the robot. The fucking robot.

Everyone was getting down to the best of their ability; they were getting down to the combined forced of Master Blazter: L.A. musicians Dam-Funk, Computer Jay, and J-1. I had told my friends that we were going to a funk show, which was true in one sense, but totally misleading. Sure, the show was part of the SF Funk Fest, but for a lot of people, the term funk conjures up images of a bygone era of music, now performed by revivalists. Early in, Dam-Funk (his music’s greatest defender) got on the mic to clear this up, saying that what they were playing wasn’t “retro funk” – pronouncing retro like his wanted to spit – it was “modern funk.”

Whatever it is (some call it boogie funk), it’s got a heavy electronic sound, built on Dam-Funk’s Roland keyboards and shoulder synth (he also doesn’t like to hear people call that a keytar), Computer Jay’s beat work, and J-1’s breaks on the drum kit. A little bit of George Clinton/Sun Ra styled spaciness, mixed with some West Coast G rap cool, with some Prince style stage presence, there’s a lot of references to pick up, but the end product seems slightly futuristic. Not the reincarnation of Stevie Wonder in the year 2077, but like 14 months into the future, when all known musical genres have completed melded.

As a group, Master Blazter can jam out on a track, building it up beyond what the audience thinks it can take and holding it there, but knows when to shift and refocus attention, leading to some fairly memorable solos: Dam-Funk taking over on the drums for a super-syncopated session. Or, Computer Jay letting go of his giant console and coaxing a big, bouncy beat out of a little tiny controller with the playfulness of a child with a Gameboy. And, of course, Dam-Funk bringing his keyt – shoulder synth down into the crowd, letting the mob join in and smack the keys. The fact that the last one didn’t devolve into noise is a testament to how well the rest of the group grounded the beat.

The only lull in the evening came right before the encore moment. I don’t know if somebody actually said anything to him to occasion it, or if it was just a standard part of the show (I’m leaning this way,) but Dam-Funk went into a fairly long interlude mid-track about being called “nigga.” The beat seemed to hang on endless symbol crashes as Dam Funk asked “What makes me different from (insert black figure)?” MLK Jr., Malcolm X, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby. (I started to nervously laugh when he got to Cosby, the intensity ratcheting up out of nowhere, along with the many possible absurd answers to that rhetorical question.) This was mixed with declarations that this wasn’t just a “coon show.”* Maybe part of getting people to take his music as more than just dance music involves provocation, but in an interesting twist, and showing that he wasn’t just covering Sly Stone’s “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey,” Dam-Funk said at one point he was speaking to the black guys in the audience “I’m not your nigga, I’m your brother.” If he wanted to challenge people, he did, as the atmosphere definitely changed, and a few tired couples seemed to take it as a cue to leave.

The energy down, it wasn’t enough to totally derail the night. Mainly because even when the DJ (possibly just picking up clues from the crowd) started playing records, J-1 came to the front of the stage and – with some throat slicing motions – signaled both “cut that shit off” and “this shows not over.” Dam-Funk returned to the stage (and smaller crowd) for an encore, which included the single “Hood Pass Intact.” Among Dam-Funk’s catchiest, straightforward songs, it’s a celebration of keeping it real, and a good option for introducing people to his music. Typically one of the easiest songs to get into, on Saturday night it was also the hardest to get to.

*Google “Dam Funk Antoine Dodson” for more on this topic.

Premiere: Ramon and Jessica “Snow Day”

Tony Robles
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Here’s an exclusive new video from Ramon and Jessica, a local San Francisco duo that hopscotches folk, pop, and freaky experimental. The single, “Snow Day” was released today, the album, Fly South, comes out in early 2012.


Why Occupy? Here’s why

Zelda Bronstein
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Why Occupy? Here’s why

The Chron buried the story below an item about Chevron cutting its grants to PBS, but if you want to see the case for the Occupy movement, it’s laid out perfectly in a powerful new report by the California Budget Project. Read it here (PDF) The data is solid; the policy impacts are clear.

For starters, California’s 33,900 millionaire taxpayers (people reporting more than $1 million in income in 2010) — that’s two-tenths of the top one percent — earned $104 billion — 11 times the amount needed to lift every single California out of poverty. That’s right — a ten-percent surtax on incomes of more than $1 million could end poverty in California.

California, the report states, has the 7th worst income gap in the nation, between Alabama and Texas.

The San Francisco/Marin/Oakland metropolitan area has the 7th worst income disparity of any major urban area in America.

And it’s not the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith that caused the problem: “Public policy,” the report states, “narrow income gaps less today than they did a generation ago.”

San Francisco’s electing a new mayor today. When you go to the polls, think about economic justice. And when you hear complaints about Occupy SF, think about the fact that before the Occupy movement, the wealth and income gap was barely on the political agenda.

 

Election night coverage and parties

Sasha Cuttler
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Election night coverage and parties

As always, the Guardian will have a team of reporters in the field tonight covering the election parties and doing regular posts here on the Politics blog, where Executive Editor Tim Redmond will also be analyzing the results as they come in. But if you want to get out there mix and mingle with the campaigns yourself, here’s a list of the parties around San Francisco, most of which start around 8:30 and last until around 11. 

John Avalos for Mayor, Roccapulco, 3140 Mission St.

Dennis Herrera for Mayor, Club Mighty, 119 Utah St.

Leland Yee for Mayor, Rasselas Jazz Club, 1534 Fillmore St.

Jeff Adachi for Mayor, Harbour Court Hotel 165 Steuart St.

David Chiu for Mayor, Rendezvous Tapas, 2080 Van Ness

Bevan Dufty for Mayor, Don Ramon’s Mexican Restaurant, 225 11th St.

Ed Lee for Mayor, Tres, 130 Townsend St.

Tony Hall for Mayor, Campaign HQ, 99 West Portal Avenue

Joanna Rees for Mayor, Eastside West, 3154 Fillmore

Michela Alioto-Pier for Mayor, The Brick  Yard, 1787 Union St.

League of Pissed Off Voters, El Rio, 3158 Mission St. (mayoral candidate Terry Baum in attendance)

Yes on A, Mercury Lounge, 1582 Folsom St.

Yes on C/No on D, Slim’s, 333 11th St.

David Onek for DA, Pilsner Inn, 225 Church

Sharmin Bock for DA, Yoshi’s Jazz Club, 1330 Fillmore

Bill Fazio for DA, Tony Nik’s Cafe, 1534 Stockton

George Gascon for DA/Chris Cunnie for Sheriff, Delancey Street, 600 The Embarcadero

Ross Mirkarimi for Sheriff, Carnelian by the Bay, 1 Ferry Plaza

Paul Miyamoto for Sheriff, Pete’s Tavern, 128 King Street

 

Localized Appreesh: TurbonegrA

Tony Robles
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Localized Appreesh: TurbonegrA

Localized Appreesh is our weekly thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. Each week a band/music-maker with a show, album release, or general good news is highlighted and spotlit. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

There’s a sizable difference between a cover band and a tribute band. TurbonegrA is a thrashing, slashing, spit-in-your-eye tribute to legendary Norwegian punk band Turbonegro.

I first learned of the original, Turbonegro, not through its death-rock music, but on a huge patch neatly stitched to the back of a jacket with these words: Turbojugend.  Turbojugend would be the Turbonegro Army, not dissimilar to the Kiss Army, but a whole lot sleazier. To find there’s an all-female testimonial to that kind of debauchery in our very own city of San Francisco, it’s a devilsend. Plus, with the originators currently without SF show dates, TurbonegrA is your only chance to catch the guitar-shredding theatrical doom live, for now at least.

The ladies in leather play next at Bottom of the Hill will fellow band-fans, Ancient Mariners (Iron Maiden tribute) and Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers (ultimate ZZ Top worshipers). Should be a fist-pumping night.

Year and location: 2007, San Francisco
Band name origin: Female version of Turbonegro
Band Motto: ( Ich bin geil)
Description: An all-girl tribute to the infamous boys of Oslo.
Instrumentation: Hanky Panky – Amanda Guilbeaux ( lead vocals), Eurogirl – Shelley Cardiff ( lead guitar), Commander Col Pot – Katie Colpitts ( guitar and vocals), Happy Jom – Millie Clip ( bass), Ms. C’ass – Cassie Jalilie ( drums).
Most recent release: Shetox – 2011 and we also have a full length on Wolverine records in Germany titled – L’ass Cobras.
Best part about life as a Bay Area band: Fleet week
Worst part about life as a Bay Area band: Fleet week
First record purchased: I actually bought 12 records at once for only a penny!
Most recent record purchased: Uncommen Men from Mars ( France) – we had the honor of playing with them on our recent European tour. Locally we have to say we are big fans of Death Valley High.
Favorite local eatery : Esperpento. It’s cheap and fast – like us!

TurbonegrA
With Ancient Mariners, Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers
Weds/9, 9 p.m., $10
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St, SF
www.bottomofthehill.com

A rendition of “Self Destructo Bust” performed, coincidentally, at Bottom of the Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaJQk3d4-8I

The Chron’s Willie Brown problem

Zelda Bronstein
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The Chron’s Willie Brown problem

I’m glad someone else has noticed the problem with giving a political fixer his own newspaper column. I’ve been talking about this for years now, and the Chron doesn’t care. Brown is a walking conflict of interest — he represents clients who have business in the state and the city, and he can freely hype those clients in the Chronicle, and he can promote candidates who he is doing fundraisers for — and he never has to disclose anything.

Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee keeps saying that this is a celebrity, an-about-town column, but it’s really not. Brown mostly writes about politics, and he’s got a huge platform to help people who are paying him. It’s an embarassment.

I don’t expect the Chron to get rid of him, but at the very least, they ought to make him disclose when he has a financial interest in what he’s writing about.

The Hangover: Nov. 3-5

Andrew Lam
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Jounce with us, if you will, through the Guardian staff’s frenzied weekend. Here’s our live reviews, hot raging, random sightings.

**I’m a firm believer in the idea that whenever Atlanta’s Mastodon comes to town, you must go. The last three times I saw the band, however, resulted in nearly identical experiences (with setlists culled largely from 2009 release Crack the Skye; the tour had a special visual component in the form of a trippy video synced to each song). Granted, Mastodon is one of the best live acts today, or in any era, I dare say — no fucking around, no stage banter, just solid rocking from opening notes to “Thank you, good night!” — but the same show three times did get a little tiresome. (That’s what you get for being obsessed.) Fortunately, the band’s set Thurs/3 at the Warfield was an outstanding mix of new songs (from brand-new disc The Hunter, an album stuffed with meaty rockers well-suited for live performance), plus songs from, yes, Skye, but also Remission, Blood Mountain, and personal favorite Leviathan (“Blood and Thunder” was the encore). Portland, Ore. openers Red Fang have their own cult following, very well-deserved. Come back soon and headline, Red Fang! (Cheryl Eddy)

**It’s not every day that you recieve a commendation from the State Senate for hosting a happy hour, but then you don’t work for an alt weekly that’s turning 45 years old all that often either. The Guardian’s 45th anniversary happy hour went off at the Buck Tavern last Thursday, to the tune of $1 Bud Lights (blame Executive Editor Tim Redmond’s atrocious taste in beverages), copious political cameos (including aforementioned appearance by State Senator Mark Leno and a big plaque), and tons of giveaway vibrators courtesy of Good Vibes. The end of the night was a little fuzzy, but I do recall a lot of female Baby Boomers stoked on their new sex toys and some delinquent reporters smoking weed in the beaded curtain room towards the back. Uncalled for. (Caitlin Donohue)

**I had to be pretty stoked on Das Racist to brave the armpit of San Francisco known as Ruby Skye – where the drinks are as overpriced as the staff is hostile – on Friday night. Despite the poor choice of venue, I had a pretty awesome time. In his signature skinny jeans, opener Danny Brown made groupies swoon with some debaucherous selections from his mixtape XXX. Das Racist’s set featured a ridiculous number of cameos, the best of  which was a swagger-drenched re-work of Dr. Dre’s “Xplosive” by Boots Riley of The Coup. A close second was scraggly-haired newcomer Lakutis, who dropped his absurdly catchy track, “Lakutis In The Haus,” and re-appeared for a verse on “Rapping 2 U.” Das Racist’s Himanshu Suri (a.k.a. Heems) strutted the stage playing air guitar and flashing rock star devil horns at the crowd. Though he did a stage dive early on, Victor Vazquez (a.k.a. Kool AD) seemed a little too relaxed. He messed with his phone and remained seated for the majority of the set. I don’t really blame him, though, as the sound issues at Ruby Skye were unrelenting. The sub-par sound accommodations didn’t stop fans from going bonkers over favorites like “Power” and “Michael Jackson.” Check out a full review with photos in Noise Blog later this week. (Frances Capell)

**We all know the story: Some dude records an album in a basement, garners considerable Internet attention, tries to perform live, and totally blows it. Fortunately for the audience at the Rickshaw Stop on Thursday night, Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a bold exception to this emerging parable in modern music. The hazy, cracked psych-pop tunes dreamed up by Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s progenitor Ruban Nielson blossomed and came to life with help from bandmates Jacob Portrait and Julien Ehrlich. See full review here. (Frances Capell) 

**There’s no real way of knowing how much crossover there was between the fans of Dresden Dolls singer-solo artist Amanda Palmer and fiction writer-poet Neil Gaiman before the two married last year. Now though? Well, it would have been amazingly helpful if the seating arrangement at the Palace of Fine Arts Friday night had been his and hers to properly delineate whose fans wear more Victorian-styled coats, Sherlock Holmes hats, video game references, tucked in long-sleeves t-shirts with jeans, early ’90s Jean-Claude Van Damme haircuts, and black. But since that didn’t happen, it was up to the audience to stake their own claims. “We’ve been Amanda fans for quite a while,” one man told the people sitting in front of him, arm draped over his companion. “We’ve been with her longer than he has.” (Ryan Prendiville)

**Despite the awesome spectacle (high kicks, guitar humping) and the resumes (Sleater-Kinney, Helium, the Minders) Wild Flag‘s music stands on its own. The indie rock foursome (don’t call it a supergroup) from Portland, Oreg. and Washington D.C. ripped the Great American Music Hall to shreds on Saturday night, likely Friday night too but I wasn’t there. Jumping on stage without a word and whipping through the first three songs of the set (all off the self-titled debut), the band set the bar high early; the energy between vocalist-guitarist Mary Timony and vocalist-guitarist Carrie Brownstein was instantly electric. The two snaked around one another, in classic sex-soaked rock god movements. Janet Weiss’ complex drumming remained a blissful flurry of pummeling hits. Organist Rebecca Cole added cool retro garage charm. This is a pack of insanely talented musicians, and the crowd fed off their every lick. It was a packed, attentive, ecstatic house.  See the full review here.  

**J-pop and the Ramones; a combination you might not hear anywhere else besides a Shonen Knife show. On Friday night, the Osaka-bred trio of pop punk rockers received audience cheers as we collectively spotted them through the window behind the stage at Bottom of the Hill, making their way down the stairs outside and into the venue. The band played crowd favorites off 2010’s Free Time, including first track “Perfect Freedom” and “Rock Society” off 2006’s Genki Shock. They covered “Redd Kross,” which is Yamano’s favorite band (not the Ramones?). They also highly recommended the burgers at Bottom of the Hill (which: really?) though Shannon Shaw, during the Shannon and the Clams set did mention that on their joint seven-day tour, she’d learned that Shonen Knife “really likes burgers, especially from Wendy’s.” (Emily Savage) 

**The skies opened up just like the forecast said on Saturday, just in time to soak 2011’s last few hours of Hard French at El Rio. The good news: no one was electrocuted (way to weather-protect your 45s, DJs Carnita and Brown Amy) and the party kept going straight on into Sly and the Family Stone’s 1968 hit “Everyday People”. And like, c’mon, as if anyone ever exited the dancefloor of the two-year-old queer soul party dry? (Caitlin Donohue)

Will all those mailers really work?

Zelda Bronstein
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Will all those mailers really work?

Political consultants love direct mail. It’s a perfect way to target your message. You buy an ad in the Chronicle, you have to pay to reach all of the readers — the ones outside of San Francisco, the ones who will never vote for your candidate anyway — and the ones who almost certainly won’t vote. With the Department of Elections database and a good computer, you can limit your mailings to people who vote regularly. You can mail only to Democrats, or you can mail only to women, or only to people in certain neighborhoods. “You want gay Lithuanians who are betwen 30 and 50 years old, voted in 4 of the last 5 local elections and live on the East side of town? I can give you that list,” one consultant told me a few years ago.

Direct mail not only ensures that your message goes to the people who matter — the actual voters — but it allows you to tell any population or demographic exactly what it wants to hear. A candidate for mayor may want to talk about liberal positions to voters in the Haight and more moderate stands to people West of Twin Peaks.

And unlike door hangers and hand-delivered pieces, things that arrive in the mail tend to get read. At least, they usually do.

Over the past few days, I’ve received about 30 mailers. Some people got even more. The stack has piled up so quickly that even someone like me, who loves all fo this stuff and pays close attention to all the messages, couldn’t get to it all. Most of my neighbors just chucked it all in the recycling.

When you have this many candidates, with this much money, and all of the independent expenditure groups, the mailers all start to look and sound the same. Nothing jumped out at me; nothing made me pay attention. There was just too much of it, total overload. So I fear that a lot of the money spent on mail this year wasn’t terribly effective.

 

The Black Bloc is always with us

Zelda Bronstein
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The Black Bloc is always with us

I learned about how a handful of people could screw up a major demonstration back in 1984, when the Democratic National Convention was in San Francisco and a fairly large number of peace activists had arranged a protest called the “War Chest Tour.” The idea was to draw attention to the fact that Democrats as well as Republicans got big campaign donations from defense contractors whose business was making war. Back then, a bunch of the biggest war profiteers had offices in San Francisco, and the demonstration — which attracted hundreds of people — wound through the financial district with signs and banners. It was, generally, a great success — except in the national press.

The thing is, the protest (like occupy Oakland) was prety anarchic, which a small “a” — peaceful, but leaderless. There was no organization with an office and a phone that the press could call for comment, no easy way to identify the coalition that had put it together.

Oh, but there was one very organized group present: The Revolutionary Communist Party had maybe a dozen members marching (which may have been the entire local membership of that particular group, which has been on the margins of the American left for many years). The RCP members had T-Shirts, newspapers, people designated to speak to the media, handouts with an office phone number — all the stuff that made lazy reporters’ lives easier. So when the story broke, both locally and nationally, the first paragraph read:

“Revolutionary Communists protestested yesterday in San Francisco ….” And the whole point of the War Chest Tour, which my friends had worked on for months, was lost.

Those of us who have been around awhile knew, and know, that the RCP is always with us. There may only be a handful of them still around, but they show up for everything — and don’t seem to care if they undermine the message that event organizers are trying to put out.

The Black Bloc — the “big A” Anarchists who broke windows in Oakland —  are becoming part of the same tradition. It’s a relatively small group, but it’s always around. The marches against the War in Iraq were huge, with tens of thousands of people, and entirely peaceful — except for a few Black Bloc-ers who broke windows and set fires.

Now: I’m not here to blast the Anarchists, or even the RCP. The Maoist/Bob Avakian types have become almost a parody of themselves in recent years, but if that’s what you’re into, go for it. I’m not even going to get into the argument over whether property damage counts as violence; been there, done that, got the circle-A T-shirt. Destroying stuff and causing mayhem can be a powerful political statement, and there have certainly been times when it was appropriate, effective and considered more than acceptable.

But it’s not always the right strategy, and in Oakland in 2011, I think it wasn’t. I recognize that this is an emergency situation, that the class warfare has already begun, and that extreme tactics are necessary to fight back. And hell, I don’t think smashing a bank window is so awful; smash enough of them and you put a lot of unemployed glaziers back to work. But in downtown Oakland, that tactic can too quickly backfire and lead to stuff like this. (Here’s an idea — how about a Shop Local day at Occupy Oakland, where everyone agrees to patronize small local businesses downtown? It fits right into the plan to withdraw your money from the big banks and put it in local credit unions.)

The problem with the Black Bloc (which isn’t really a bloc at all, it’s just a loose group of people who (a) think their tactics are appropriate and (b) love this shit) is that it’s acting in direct conflict with the many, many people who worked really, really hard to organize what was supposed to be a peaceful event. Like the RCP, they’re too quick to piss in the well.

You want to get violent? You want to break stuff? Show up for the general assembly, make your case, and see if you can convince the rest of the group that this is a good idea, right now, one that sends the right message and promotes the cause. Maybe you can do that; maybe everyone agrees. But if the majority of the group says no — that respect for property (much as we may hate private property, particularly bank property, and all that) is a better way to go right now, today, in this situation — then back off, dudes, and get with the program.

Going veg at the wing shop: Wing Wings’ deep-fried oyster mushrooms

Andrew Lam
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Owner Christian Ciscle’s been trying to get me to come into his Lower Haight wings shop for a minute. I was always like “Christian (full disclosure: Ciscle took me on board as counterperson back in the days when he managed SoMa’s Little Skillet to-go window), they’re wings. I don’t eat meat.”

But then I went, and now I have to apologize because: Wing Wings‘ deep-fried oyster mushrooms.

When do you get to eat a whole tray of oyster mushrooms? And for $5? It’s improbable, really. Wing Wings’ side of them occupies a hefty paper tray. They’re crispy and just salty enough on the outside, juicy on the inside. Dunk them in some ranch dressing or Wing Wing remoulade and you’re good to go. I nearly took down the whole thing, but I had a friend there to fight me for the bottom of the tray (thank god).

They don’t really have anything to do with each other, but if you stop by for the oyster mushrooms you can also pick up a brown sugar-black pepper biscuit what that Ciscle has been baking since the Little Skillet days. Call it dessert if you’re a label person. 

Pairing suggestion: Wing Wings, limeade, and some headphones at nearby Rookie Ricardo’s LP listening stations

Of course, there’s no veggie entrees per se at Wing Wings – normally. But tomorrow, Tue/8, the counter shop will host a pop-up dinner by chef-about-town Dontaye Ball of Good Foods Catering, who has lent his culinary chops to everywhere from the kitchens at Google to Delfina and the Presidio Social Club.

Ball’s entrees will include, yes, pork belly and beef meatloaf ($15) and slow-braised chicken in a white wine-thyme gravy with cornbread dressing ($14), but also blackened tofu with roasted veggies and mashed yams ($12). Check out the evening’s menu here. 

A full vegetarian belly — at a wings shop. Will wonders never cease?

 

Good Foods Catering’s “Soulful Food” pop-up dinner 

Tue/8 6-9 p.m., check Good Foods website for prices

Wing Wings

422 Haight, SF

www.wingwingssf.com

www.goodfoodsonthego.blogspot.com

New ‘Romance’: Wild Flag stole our hearts at Great American Music Hall

Tony Robles
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Despite the awesome spectacle (high kicks, guitar humping) and the resumes (Sleater-Kinney, Helium, the Minders) Wild Flag’s music stands on its own. The indie rock foursome (don’t call it a supergroup) from Portland, Oreg. and Washington D.C. ripped the Great American Music Hall to shreds on Saturday night, likely Friday night too, but I wasn’t there.

Jumping on stage without a word and whipping through the first three songs of the set (all off the self-titled debut), the band set the bar high early; the energy between vocalist-guitarist Mary Timony and vocalist-guitarist Carrie Brownstein was instantly electric. The two snaked around one another, in classic sex-soaked rock god movements. Janet Weiss’ complex drumming remained a blissful flurry of pummeling hits. Organist Rebecca Cole added cool retro garage charm. This is a pack of insanely talented musicians, and the crowd fed off their every lick. It was a packed, attentive, ecstatic house.

Ever the dry wit, Brownstein occasionally piped up with observations — “last night they said we brought the weather from Portland” and “I watched two depressing movies before the show — Girl, Interrupted and How To Die In Oregon.” A pre-game decision that she identified as a bad idea. Playing nearly every track off the album, including standout “Racehorse” and singles “Future Crimes” and “Romance” –  plus two promising new songs – the band retreated off stage after a tight hour.

When they returned for the first and only encore, Brownstein said she’d read a story online about Danzig being too cold at Fun Fun Fun Fest, which delayed his stage time, then she remarked about his need for shawl, buttering us up for a Misfits cover. “I don’t need a fucking shawl to sing a Misfits song,” she explained. Brownstein tricked us by asking if we liked the Misfits song “’Bullet” – cheers – “Yeah, I’m not going to play that, it’s fucking offensive.” Wild Flag launched into a garage version of “She.” Someone threw a shawl on stage. This was followed by a Television cover. The band closed out the impeccable set with a tingling cover of Patti Smith’s “Ask the Angels.”

While Wild Flag is essentially brand new (late 2010), the show felt nostalgic. It was the night of my 10-year high school reunion (which I chose not to attend for obvious reasons), and there were wistful pangs of youthful abandon. Having been just a tiny bit too young for the heart of riot grrrl, on the very teetering tip of the movement, I always felt like I was on the outside wishing to break in. But when the merch woman for Wild Flag at Great American Music Hall complimented my Bikini Kill tattoo, I was filled with pride. Listening to bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Sleater-Kinney changed my young life for the better; no matter my non-traditional place in its legacy, riot grrrl brought me to feminism, to music as art, to journalism.

Yes, Wild Flag is a new –  and might I add, yet again, brilliant – project and should be judged as such, that demands a clean slate, but the members have been a part of the cultural female underground, the ongoing, endless discussion of riot grrrl, post-riot-grrrl, women in rock, and genderless musicianship for decades. It’s unavoidable and I think, a disservice to simply ignore. When do we stop talking about musicians based on sex? It’s a question I alone cannot answer but I think it starts with bands like these. I wasn’t  the only one claiming it album of the year/best show of the year –  female or not – I’ve heard that high praise elsewhere, everywhere.

Live Shots: Unknown Mortal Orchestra at Rickshaw Stop

Tony Robles
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We all know the story: Some dude records an album in a basement, garners considerable Internet attention, tries to perform live, and totally blows it. Fortunately for the audience at the Rickshaw Stop on Thursday night, Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a bold exception to this emerging parable in modern music.

The band has played here several times already this year, and I’d heard nothing short of glowing reviews. Still, I wasn’t fully prepared for just how successfully its tracks would translate to the stage. The hazy, cracked psych-pop tunes dreamed up by Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s progenitor Ruban Nielson blossomed and came to life with help from bandmates Jacob Portrait and Julien Ehrlich.

Portrait’s steady basslines provided the backbone to the band’s live set. Young Ehrlich took Neilson’s beats to new heights with playful and dynamic percussion. What impressed me most, however, was Nielson’s trippy, psychedelic guitar wizardry. Although it runs throughout the band’s debut album, I’d somehow overlooked the crazy talent Nielson fostered through years playing in his previous band the Mint Chicks. 

During opener “Little Blu House,” Nielson hunched down into the swirling layer of onstage fog and did some serious solo shredding. These face-melting moments became the highlight of each song thereafter, especially on “Thought Ballune” and breakout track “Ffunny Ffriends.” Additional weirdness came courtesy of Nielson’s super fancy microphone filtering his voice into a fuzzy, scratchy warble.

Maybe it was the rain, but the crowd seemed oddly stoic on Thursday night. Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s set warranted far more noodling than I witnessed at the Rickshaw Stop.

Opener: Denver, Colo., outfit Gauntlet Hair was a little down on its luck. The group’s first visit to California was plagued with rain, and leader Andy R. broke a guitar string during its first song. Despite minor setbacks, this flannel-clad foursome held it down for the Northwest with lots of shimmering guitars and Animal Collective-esque yelping, chant-like vocals. Drummer Craig Nice stole the show, inflicting a wild beating on a combination of acoustic and electronic drums.

 

If you missed it Thursday, both bands play New Parish this week:

Unknown Mortal Orchestra
With Gauntlet Hair
Nov. 7, 9 p.m., $8-10
The New Parish
579 18th St., Oakland
(510) 444-7474
www.thenewparish.com

Impertinent questions to Sup. Sean Elsbernd

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 At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Sup. Sean Elsbernd voted against a sensible resolution supporting regulated and safe patient access to medical cannabis in San Francisco.

He was on the losing end of an an 8-3 vote, with Sups. Carmen Chiu and Mark Farrell also voting against.

I was curious why, in San Francisco in November of 2011, he would vote against what I and many others considered a sensible but restrained resolution supporting local small businesses that are regulated and paying taxes and about the only business showing growth in the city.

So I emailed him some Impertinent Questions:

“Why do you continue to support a federal crackdown on medical marijuana? Why do you do this as a purported advocate of small business and bringing in more tax revenue to the city?”

I  also asked Elbernd who he now supported for mayor, since the last time I heard from him he said he would support Mayor Ed Lee only if there were no other candidate who could beat State Sen. Leland Yee. He replied that had not endorsed a candidate for mayor, but if I contacted him after the election he would tell me who he voted for. “Rest assured,” he said, “the Bay Guardian endorsements will certainly influence my decision making process.”

On the marijuana issue, Elsbernd objected strenuously to my statement that he “supported the federal crackdown. Please send me the recording, clip, reporter’s notes, or any other documentation you have that demonstrates t hat I specifically said I supported the federal crackdown.”

Elsbernd asked if I was referring to his note vote on the resolution. (B3 answer: I was.)

“Are you erroneously extrapolating an opinion of mine based on my ‘no’ vote. Is that journalism or is that political spin? Would not a journalist simply ask the question like this, ‘Why did you vote no” on the resolution Making assumptions without any fact to back it up seems a bit irresponsible and lazy for a journalist. While you e-mail me under the guise of being a constituent, and your certainly live in District 7, we both know that this email discussion will be posted very soon on your Bay Guardian website (hello to all of who have time in your day to read Bruce’s blog) with additional edits and snide comments to which you will not me the opportunity to respond. (B3 comment: Elsbernd knows that I send him Impertinent Questions from time to time and that the Q and A will appear on my blog. And he knows he can answer in the blog comments or in a letter to the Guardian. To his credit, Elsbernd always answers me and I enjoy hearing from him. And I keep inviting him to talk things over at tapas night on Thursday night at the Que Syrah wine bar in West Portal in his district. I even offer to buy the first flight, but alas  he never shows.)

Elsbernd then says he will answer my real question. “Why did I vote ‘no’ on the resolution?

Did you read the entire resolution? (B3 answer: yes.) Did you agree with every ‘whereas’ clause and every ‘resolved’ clause? (B3 answer: Yes.) Elsbern continued, “I do not. In particular, I strenuously object to the ‘whereas’ clause on page l, line 12-16, which implies that all licensed medical cannabis dispensaries in San Francisco are ‘clearly acting in good faith,’ and that they ‘take every measure possible to be safe and professional members of the community.’

Elsbernd then gets specific: “I suggest you talk to your neighbors on the other side of Portola/Junipero Serra who live near the dispensary on Ocean Avenue and ask them if ‘every measure’ has been taken to to be safe and professional members of their community. I suggest you read the police reports in and around the area over the last five years and compare those same reports o before the opening of the dispensaries and ask whether or not ‘every measure possible’ has indeed been taken. If you take the time and do that work, I think you’ll understand, why, as the representative of those neighborhoods, I voted against that resolution. (B3 answer: I am always take note  when Elsbernd purports to represent his constituents in his district. But he could have amended the motion in committee (he was absent on the committee vote) or at the board. Instead, he used this single example to justify his opposition to a timely resolution putting the city squarely on record as being opposed to the ridiculous, expensive, job-killing, and tax-killing crackdown by the federal government on medical marijuana and its use in treating debilitating diseases and chronic pain in thousands of patients in San Francisco and throughout the state. The resolution also resolved that the supervisors “encourage the President and Congress of the United States to enact legislation requiring federal law enforcement to respect state medical cannabis laws.”)

Elsbernd also argued that the resolution called “for a massive tax reduction for all dispensaries in its resolved clause to support HR 1985, a bill by Rep.Stark granting a tax exemption for all such businesses? I know the Guardian typically opposes all business tax exemptions. Do you guys support this one.” (B3 answer: The Stark bill is not a a tax reduction bill. It is a bill aimed at reversing an IRS crackdown on many large dispensaries—including Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the largest in Northern California, that they cannot write off normal business expenses and must pay a 35 per cent levy on those claims going back for three years. Harborside’s Steve DeAngelo told the Guardian that this IRS attack would put Harborside—or any company with high overhead costs—out of business.  http://www.sfbg.com/2011/10/11/feds-crack-down

Stark’s bill would reverse that IRS decision and allow dispensaries to deduct expenses according to state law just like all other businesses in California.
http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/Stark_bill_2011.pdf

And so my original Impertinent Question remains: why is Elsbernd (and Chiu and Farrell)  supporting in effect a federal crackdown aimed at killing off marijuana dispensaries and killing off a growing sector of small business and a valuable source of tax revenue? If he isn’t supporting the federal crackdown with this vote, what is his position on medical marijuana dispensaries?  Wine and tapas, Sean?  B3)

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