Emily Ritz and Kacey Johansing aren’t exactly strangers to the Bay’s indie-folk scene — Johansing’s second solo LP, 2013’s Ghosts, has spread like lush acoustic pop wildfire around the city since its release, while Ritz is part of the Oakland-based experimental “noir pop” outfit DRMS, which put out the ambitious American 707 earlier this year, a hypnotically weird and weirdly delightful short film and accompanying soundtrack.
But together, they make something else entirely: Dreamy harmonies layered with guitar are shaped by odd time signatures, beats that sound like they’ve stopped by to visit from the electronic/chillwave world, and vibraphone apperances (they’re often accompanied by Andrew Maguire, who also backs Thao Nguyen); it’s music for the last hazy hour of a party, when the stragglers decide to watch the sunrise, or a long slightly stoned solo walk with a lot of things to think about, maybe, or if you have the technology to listen to music underwater, it’s also be great for a swim. The duo’s debut album’s not out until June 3, but this single should tide you over.
Police Commissioner Angela Chan did not pay fealty to the proper lords and houses, sources say, and in a true to life Game of Thrones, she may now lose her office. The throne in question is a seat on the Police Commission, which Chan may be reappointed to by the Board of Supervisors today [Tues/29], but her chances don’t look good.
In a political tussle reminiscent of House Lannister’s schemes against House Stark, political machines far larger than the idealistic Chan are churning to keep her from regaining her political office. The forces of Chinatown community leader Rose Pak and her fellow power brokers are backing potential replacement police commissioner Victor Hwang, whose sudden candidacy took many off guard.
They may win, but not because Chan was a bad commissioner. Actually, the problem might be that she was too effective, and now people in power want her out.
Expanding the mayor’s power
In a Rules Committee meeting Apr. 17, backers of both candidates wore their house sigils, green or white buttons meant to support their chosen candidate, both of whom are seemingly very qualified.
On the one side, Hwang is an ex-assistant district attorney, ex-public defender, ex-nonprofit attorney, and advocate with over 20 years of experience holding police to task for their wrongdoing. He’s fought human trafficking and litigated against out-of-control cops.
But the incumbent, Chan, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, has many similar qualifications. She also has a proven track record on the Police Commission: she crafted the Crisis Intervention Team, tasked with de-escalating standoffs with mentally ill offenders; advocated language access in the police force; helped to revise rules protecting children at school facing arrest; and opposed arming police with tasers.
Both candidates have an extensive list of backers. District Attorney staffers, the Anti-Defamation League, advocates from the Chinatown Development Center, and Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic all wrote to supervisors backing Hwang. The Guardian even named him a “local hero” in our Best of the Bay issue in 2004.
But the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee, members of the Central Americans Resource Center, Board of Education President Sandra Fewer, the local NAACP, and even a retired police officer all backed Chan. The Guardian also named her a local hero, in 2010.
“I’m hoping the full board will recognize I work extremely hard,” she told the Guardian. “I look after the community, especially those who are most marginalized.”
Though many issues have political bents and political sides, one aspect of this tussle reveals the power play behind the curtain: the two candidates are competing for one empty seat on the commission, when there are actually two seats vacant.
Why fight over just one seat?
The answer lies in political motivations insiders would only outline for reporters on background. You see, in a city where many commissions (see: SFMTA) are fully appointed by the Mayor’s Office, and therefore beholden to his whims, the Police Commission has a mechanism to dilute that power — a minority of seats are appointed by the Board of Supervisors. The seat Chan and Hwang are fighting for is the supervisor appointed seat, and for now the mayor’s seat sits empty and uncontested.
Hwang was co-chair of Progress for All, which ran the Run, Ed, Run campaign for Lee’s mayoral candidacy. If the question was really just about making Hwang a commissioner, the mayor could appoint him today with a snap of his fingers. But that’s not the point.
Many insiders, including ones that seemingly support Hwang, told the Guardian that Mayor Ed Lee has plenty of reason to usher Chan out and appoint Hwang in her place. The SFPD long pushed for tasers but found a formidable opponent in Chan, and the mayor would benefit from police support next election, they said. Others said her combative style ruffled people’s feathers, a seemingly legitimate complaint until you consider more cooperative boards like the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency define “cooperative” by mostly voting in unison and with little discussion, coincidentally also often in agreement with the mayor’s positions.
Angela Chan asks an SFPD station captain if officers use verbal means to de-escalate situations.
That’s why Chan is dangerous; she’s a freethinker, and a loud one at that. By pushing the supervisors to appoint Hwang, we were told, the mayor would unseat a potential political liability, and net a freebie commission seat appointment in the deal.
Win-win.
This isn’t to say Hwang is a bad guy. He longs for public service (nicknaming his practice the Ronin Law Firm), and expressed disappointment in political power struggles beyond his control.
“For me it’s not about Angela, it’s about the police commission,” he told the Guardian. “To give Angela credit, I think the work she’s done on Crisis Intervention Team and language access are important issues.”
And for his part, he said that though many political entities aligned with political powerbroker Rose Pak are pushing for his appointment, he wouldn’t be beholden to her, or them.
“Are Chinatown issues important to me? Yes, they’re very important to me,” he said. “Am I going to answer to one or two folks just because of whoever they are? No. That would be putting my own 20 years of work aside to kowtow to one particular person over anyone else.”
Hwang told us Supervisor Eric Mar is asking the mayor to appoint him to the second vacant police commission seat, but if that effort isn’t successful Chan and Hwang will go head to head.
So the supervisors have a tough choice ahead of them, but for some, the decision is tougher than others.
Conflict of interest
Some of the supervisors have votes that are fair to guess at. Long time progressives like Sups. Mar, John Avalos, and David Campos are ideologically aligned with Chan, and have reason to vote in her favor.
Chan needs six votes to be re-appointed to the commission, and some of those votes are up in the air.
Sups. Norman Yee, and Katy Tang voted to approve Chan in the Rules Committee, the first round before today’s Board of Supervisors vote. But that’s no guarantee they’ll vote for her again.
Sup. Jane Kim has an odd conflict of interest. Ivy Lee, an attorney and one of Kim’s staffers, is Hwang’s romantic partner. The couple has three children together. He dedicated a brief he wrote for the Asian American Law Journal, “to my incredible partner Ivy Lee, who gave birth to our second son Kaiden, as I was writing the brief at the hospital.”
Is that conflict of interest grounds for Kim to recuse herself from the vote? Is it proper for her to vote to appoint her staffer’s partner to a political position? We reached out to Kim’s office but did not hear back from her before going to press.
Board of Supervisors President David Chiu’s vote is also an open question.
Chiu worked with Chan in 2011 to fight against the federal Secure Communities program, which as we then reported, was a database allowing the feds to circumvent local policies protecting local immigrants who have been arrested but not convicted of any crimes and deport them.
They were partners in the struggle for human rights. So will Chiu back his former ally, Chan, in her re-appointment?
We called, texted, and harangued Chiu to call us back, but did not hear from him before press time. To be fair, he’s running for the Assembly and was likely between one of his dozens of necessary appearances. He did have an aide call us back, but he was unable to give us a hint at which direction Chiu may vote in.
Complicating his choice is a mix of allegiances. With so many former and current allies on both sides, Chiu will make someone angry no matter which potential police commissioner he votes for, insiders told us.
And Chiu’s vote may be the deciding one. With real reform of the SFPD on the line, the stakes are higher than the fictional Game of Thrones.
Ultimately, Chiu will have to vote his conscience.
Correction 3:28pm: The article earlier identified Ivy Lee as married to Victor Hwang. In actuality, Hwang and Lee are romantic partners who decided not to marry in direct protest of the LGBT community being denied the right to marry.
Update 6:50pm: The vote was cast, and Victor Hwang was appointed to the Police Commission in place of Angela Chan. Read our full story.
California companies pouring big cash on their CEOs may be forced to tighten the spigot under a new bill that seeks to limit CEOs paid excessively at the expense of their workers.
Senate Bill 1372, authored by state Sens. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Loni Hancock (D-Oakland), would increase taxes on companies with wide disparities between CEO and worker pay, and give a tax break to companies with a low ratio between CEO and worker pay.
“History has taught us that the gross disparity between CEO and worker pay is a direct threat to American democracy,” DeSaulnier said in a press statement. “It is unsustainable and a danger to our society. We must focus on restoring the middle class and stop fueling excessive income inequality.”
Local tech companies have much reason to fear the bill. Larry Ellison, CEO of the Redwood City-based Oracle, was paid 1,287 times the median salary of an Oracle employee in 2012, according to a Bloomberg study. Ellison pulled in $96.2 million in 2012, and the median employee working for his company brought in $74,693.
That’s less pay gap, more pay canyon. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley and a supporter of the pay-disparity bill, connected CEO pay with our troubled economy.
“This growing divergence between CEO pay and that of the typical American worker isn’t just wildly unfair. It’s also bad for the economy,” Reich wrote on his website last week. “It means most workers these days lack the purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing — contributing to the slowest recovery on record. Meanwhile, CEOs and other top executives use their fortunes to fuel speculative booms followed by busts.”
The pay-disparity bill would lower taxes on companies with CEOs making less than 100 times more than its median employee. The tax rate for the company would be metered on a scale of CEO-to-worker pay ratio, with the highest penalties for companies paying their CEOs more than 400 times their median employee pay.
The bill also targets non-salaried independent contractors, a significant portion of the state’s workers.
Many local companies have wide pay gaps between CEOs and workers. In 2012, Apple had a CEO:worker pay ratio of 192:1, Wells Fargo had a ratio of 186:1, and Intel squeaked by with a ratio of 99:1, according to PayScale.com.
This seemingly forward-thinking gesture is a good PR move, but in reality CEOs still take home millions of dollars in stocks, options, and bonuses. Page owned more than 24 million shares in Google as of 2013, for instance. Ellison took in $92.2 million in stocks, options, and other pay in 2013.
Luckily, that’s a loophole that DeSaulnier and Hancock considered when crafting the bill.
The bill would calculate executive compensation based on the Summary Compensation Table the company in question reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That includes salary, bonus, grants of stock options and stock appreciation rights, long-term incentive plan awards, pension plans, and employment contracts and related arrangements.
In 2012, the average CEO pay in California was $5,054,959, according to a statement from DeSaulnier, while the median worker pay in California was $48,029.
Below is a series of graphs detailing local Bay Area CEO and worker pay disparities, as of 2012.
An unlikely coalition has formed to oppose legislation sponsored by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu that would legalize and regulate short-term apartment rentals facilitated by Airbnb and other online companies, which are now illegal in San Francisco.
[UPDATE: Some of those same opponents are also now threatening to place a rival measure on the fall ballot, the San Francisco Chronicle just reported. It reportedly shares some aspects with the Chiu legislation, such as a registration system, but it limits rentals to only commercial areas and includes rewards for those who turn in violators to the authorities].
The coalition includes landlord and tenant activists, as well as organized labor and neighborhood groups. It will square off against Airbnb and its hosts, which have pledged to lobby against limits created by the Chiu legislation — all of which could elevate this to the biggest fight of the summer at City Hall. Tomorrow [Tues/28], the coalition of opponents will rally outside City Hall at 10am, while Airbnb supporter will hold a “Speak Up for Home Sharing” rally at 12:30pm.
As we’ve been reporting, it took Chiu more than a year of negotiations with Airbnb, the San Francisco Tenants Union, affected city agencies, and other interested parties to arrive at legislation that requires hosts to register with the city, finally pay the city’s transient occupany tax, and limits stays to 90 nights per year.
But after more than two years of Airbnb’s defying city law and refusing to pay its taxes — scofflaw behavior tacitly supported by Mayor Ed Lee, who share a financial benefactor for the company in venture capitalist Ron Conway — several city constituencies pledged to oppose legislation that would now legalize its activities.
In particular, some longtime affordable housing and neighborhood activists say the legislation irresponsibly legalizes the conversion of residential apartments into tourist hotels throughout the city, creating neighborhood safety concerns and overturning decades of work to protect rent-controlled housing.
Meanwhile, Chiu’s opponent in the race for the Assembly District 17, David Campos, has been highlighting lobbying reports showing 61 contacts between representatives of Airbnb — including formers City Hall insiders David Owen and Alex Tourk — and Chiu’s office.
“Do you think tenant and neighborhood groups met with David Chiu 61 times?” Campos said during his endorsement interview with the Guardian last week, accusing Chiu of letting Airbnb write its own regulations without regard to neighborhood concerns.
Chiu didn’t immediately return our phone calls, but we’ll update this post if and when we hear back. [UPDATE: Chiu legislative aide Judson True just called and disputed how the legislation is being characterized by its opponents and rejecting calls to withdraw the legislation: “Everyone is entitled to a position on Sup. Chiu’s legislation, but we would hope they would engage in the legislative process and not just toss hand grenades. This is a serious policy issue that requires thoughtful dialogue and to simply call for the withdrawal of the legislation is irresponsible.”
True also said the legislation only legalized short term rentals “under very narrow circumstance and that legalization allows enforcement against the most egregious actors.” He also noted how Chiu has consistently opposed converting apartments to tourist uses and called for Airbnb to pay its taxes, calling the legislation a difficult balancing act: “We know that Airbnb has issues with the legislation. They didn’t write the legislation, period.”]
In the meantime, here’s the full text of the press release issued today by the new coalition, which will be holding a press conference at 10am tomorrow on the steps of City Hall:
For Immediate Release: Monday, April 28, 2014
NEWS RELEASE
SAN FRANCISCO CITYWIDE COALITION SAYS NO TO PROPOSED CHIU LEGISLATION
Board of Supervisors trying to convert residential housing to short-term rentals
Press conferenceTuesday April 29, 2014Steps of City Hall at10:00 am
San Francisco — Organizations representing usually divergent interests ranging from tenants to landlords, and from hotel workers to the hospitality industry have joined forces with neighborhood and homeowner associations to oppose legislation introduced by Supervisor David Chiu to legalize the short term rentals of residential property throughout San Francisco.
“In the face of an unprecedented housing crisis, Supervisor Chiu’s legislation to legalize the short term rentals of residential property will only exacerbate the housing crisis. This practice is detrimental to our rent-controlled housing stock”, said Janan New, Executive Director of the San Francisco Apartment Association.
“Our studies have shown that with over 10,000 units of housing being rented out over Airbnb, HomeAway and other websites this practice is having a negative impact on hotel workers and San Francisco’s hospitality industry”, said Mike Casey, President of UNITE HERE Local 2.
“The proposed legislation would rezone the entire city from residential zoning to commercial zoning in one fell swoop. We hear complaints from almost every neighborhood about the detrimental effects of short term rentals on the quality of life of tenants and residents”, said John Bardis, former President of the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods and former San Francisco Supervisor.
“Supervisors Chiu’s legislation would repeal hard won controls on Single Resident Occupancy housing, threatens current affordable housing provisions for over 30,000 permanently affordable units, would transform newly approved “in-law units” into high priced motel rooms and make “below market rate” units lifetime luxury hotels. It is the single biggest threat to affordable housing ever proposed by a San Francisco Supervisor” stated longtime affordable housing advocate Calvin Welch.
“Airbnb and other hosting platforms owe the City millions of dollars in unpaid hotel taxes. It is high time that the City collect these taxes which pay for the arts and vital city services and programs. The proposed legislation does not clearly hold Airbnb and similar organizations responsible for collecting and remitting the hotel tax”, said former Supervisor Aaron Peskin.
All of these organizations are calling for Supervisor Chiu to withdraw his legislation at a press conference on Tuesday April 29 on the steps of City Hall at 10:00 am.
University of California President Janet Napolitano deported thousands of undocumented citizens in her time as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Now, UC Hastings College of Law students want Napolitano deported from their graduation ceremony.
“As Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Ms. Napolitano spearheaded inhumane policies, including wide implementation of so-called ‘Secure Communities,’ a deportation program notorious for its conflation of the criminal and immigration systems,” the petition states. “Her actions have caused profound tragedy to members of the Class of 2014, their families, and members of the Hastings community at large.”
Napolitano was hired on as president of the University of California system last year, sparking protests from undocumented student rights groups up and down the state, which we’ve covered previously [“Undocumented and Unafraid“, 11/13]. Two student groups, Hastings Students for Immigrants’ Rights and Hastings La Raza Law Association, initially voiced concern over the choice of Napolitano as commencement speaker. When their outcry fell on the school adminstration’s deaf ears, the students reached out to Hastings alumni for help.
“I was immediately concerned,” Noemi Gallardo, a 2012 Hastings alum told the Guardian. “Students are investing a lot of money in their schooling, and graduation is a celebrant time,” she said, except now families who are immigrants, or children of immigrants, will have their commencement given by one of the most controversial figures in their community.
“Bringing Napolitano celebrates scare tactics and harmful policies,” Gallardo said.
Gallardo and a group of alumni launched the petition and an open letter to Chancellor and Dean Frank H. Wu, which was signed by 15 Hastings student organizations, including the Hastings chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. The petition garnered more than 300 individual supporters in its first few days.
Napolitano speaking to these students makes about as much sense as asking asking Mitt Romney to give a speech to Occupy Wall Streeters. Maybe that’s why Gallardo’s inbox was overflowing with students asking for help in stopping Napolitano from giving the speech.
“I’ve received phone calls, emails, Facebook messages,” Gallardo said. She and a group of fellow Hastings alum sat down for a meeting on Napolitano with Frank H. Wu, chancellor and dean of UC Hastings.
“I would like to acknowledge those from the UC Hastings community who have raised this issue—some of whom have had loved ones deported,” Wu wrote. “As the child of immigrants myself, I have experienced the effects of restrictive policies for determining who may become a citizen….as Chancellor and Dean of this law school, I want to be unequivocal: I am proud that we have trained advocates for a cause who wish to stand up and speak out. We will do our utmost to protect the free speech rights of those who wish to share their opinions, while ensuring that the dignity of the Commencement ceremony is maintained.”
But caveats aside, Wu ended the letter by reasserting his commitment to Napolitano as commencement speaker. “We do not shy away from the controversy that is integral to the progress of the law,” he wrote. “In this spirit, I look forward to welcoming University of California President Janet Napolitano to the stage for Commencement on May 10.”
For Gallardo, denouncing Napolitano as commencement speaker is not just political, it’s personal.
She’s a first generation American, and her parents are both from Mexico. “We lived very humbly,” she said. She’s worked in the immigrant community for close to a decade, from legal work to translations. She now runs a policy consulting group that works closely with nonprofits, adressing language access, legislation and education issues affecting minority communities.
“This,” she said, “hit close to home.”
Students, alumni and their supporters also spoke out against Napolitano’s speech via Twitter using the commencement hashtag #UCHastings2014
Ashamed and disappointed in Hastings’ choice of Napolitano as this year’s commencement speaker! #UCHastings2014
The National Parks Service is once again moving to limit and maybe even ban fires on Ocean Beach, replaying an episode from 2007 that was temporarily solved by volunteers and artistic new fire rings placed by the group Burners Without Borders, despite a lack of follow through by NPS’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Citing complaints about burning toxic materials, leaving messes, and people drinking on the beach (gasp!), the GGNRA this week announced a summer pilot program that would include moving the curfew up from 10pm to 9pm, installing a dozen new fire rings, and improved public outreach and monitoring of the conditions on the beach.
“We [have] over the years seen a rising problem over safety and general breaking of park rules like broken bottles. And with incidents of assault and underage drinking, mostly occurring during the night, GGNRA Area Director Howard Levitt told the Guardian.
But Tom Price, who helped create the 2007 compromise, said GGNRA never kept its end of the bargain — such as installing more rings to supplement the half-dozen created by artists, or creating visible signage so visitors would know what the rules area — and now it’s acting in a rapid, unilateral, and unreasonable way to ban beach fires.
“They never did the outreach or educaation or put out more fire rings,” Price said, urging people to let GGNRA know they support allowing fires on Ocean Beach, one of just two spots within GGNRA jurisdication where they’re allowed (Muir Beach is the other). “The Parks Service has to be reasonable, and banning fires after 9pm in not reasonable.”
In announcing the change, the GGNRA seems to admit that it didn’t do the follow-ups it had committed to: “The intent was to evaluate the program in 2009 and make a long term decision for fires on the beach. However, due to staffing shortages the 2009 review did not occur until 2013. Since 2009, the program continued as it had been originally developed in 2007. Maintenance staff continued to clean the pits and the beach, removing pits that became hazardous or non-functional, and Park Rangers continued to educate visitors engaging in beach fires and to enforce the existing regulations.”
GGNRA has set a short comment window for this new policy, from April 21 to May 16, before implementing the change starting Memorial Day Weekend. Send comments to Frank Dean, General Superintendent, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Building 201, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA 94123-0022. Then the agency says it will decide at the end of the summer how the situation is working out and whether it needs to resort to the outright ban that it had considered in 2007.
Meanwhile, in addition to trying to work cooperatively with the agency, Price said would also resist the unilateral new changes, saying the 9pm curfew is particulalry absurd: “I’m inviting all my friends down to Ocean Beach at 9pm on Memorial Day to have some s’mores.”
You might not be alone if you do a double-take when hearing José James’ new single for the first time. The song, “EveryLittleThing,” off the singer’s forthcoming album on Blue Note Records (While You Were Sleeping, out June 10), recalls a grinding club hit more than the effortless mix of jazz and neo-soul that made him famous. It is a surprise, to say the least — the driving, electric sound is nothing like the mellow and easy cool of his previous record, No Beginning No End, released in 2013.
And that’s just fine with James. The 36-year-old singer is a perpetual denier of expectations. He was born and raised in Minneapolis, maybe not the first city that comes to mind when you think of jazz. After appearing as a finalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Vocal Competition in 2004, James released two albums with a heavy influence of electronic house music, produced by British DJ Giles Peterson. His third album was a duo set of jazz standards with pianist Jef Neve, but it wasn’t until he recorded the groove-based single for No Beginning No End that he was signed to the legendary Blue Note Records.
That album and platform brought him to a broader audience worldwide, compelling listeners with its sophisticated grooves and his rich tenor voice. The presence of some of the modern messiahs of cool (the band included Grammy-winning keyboardist Robert Glasper and bassist Pino Palladino — the later revered for his work on D’Angelo’s Voodoo), cemented James’ place at the forefront of the hip young jazz and soul scene.
But even on that album there were hints of a broader agenda. Landing right in the middle of the record was a track that could only be described as guitar-driven acoustic pop, a left turn in a career of left turns. Perhaps the defining trait of his generation is the habitual rejection of genre boundaries, and James has no intention of letting up. As part of his tour to promote the new record, James will hit The Independent Saturday, April 26. We spoke over the phone while he was in Chicago.
San Francisco Bay Guardian You’re on tour previewing your new album which, based on the single “EveryLittleThing,” has a very different sound from your previous work. What was the inspiration to go in this direction?
José JamesA lot of people don’t understand the lifespan of a project. It was three years from the start of writing No Beginning No End to the last tour. By that point we had gotten really comfortable with the material. I wanted more energy. I love neo-soul and R&B, but I wanted to go back to how I used to feel about music as a teenager, when it was all about the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and Nirvana.
SFBG For this album you’ve started writing on guitar. What sparked that decision?
JJ The guitar came back into my life when I was recording the song “Sword + Gun” in Paris with Hindi Zahra (off No Beginning) because we didn’t have a band at that session. It’s how we came up with the initial riff. From that moment on I thought: “I should play guitar again.”
SFBG What’s different about the band on this tour?
JJ No horns, just keys, bass, drums and guitars. Almost everybody is doubling. If they’re not alternating on two instruments they’re singing as well. It really feels like a band now, instead of just a jazz band.
SFBGEvery album you make sounds really different. Is this an intentional decision or product of musical exploration?
JJ I think it’s both. I would never be happy just doing the same thing. Whatever I release an album I have to tour it for a year, maybe two, which is a long time. Coming from a jazz background I really need things to be fresh night after night, so it has to be material that can grow.
After working on No Beginning No End for three years, I had explored every option in a hip-hop/groove/neo-soul/jazz project that I wanted to do. It was the same with Miles and Coltrane: they would exhaust all the possibilities of a certain style, so moving on wasn’t really a choice. It’s not like I’m sitting there thinking “I’m going to mess up people’s heads with the next one” — it just kind of happens like that. For me it’s such a natural progression, but when you release a single or album it takes people by surprise, especially if they haven’t been with you for the journey.
SFBG How has the response been so far?
JJ It’s been really great. I think people are surprised by the sound and hearing me in that sound on Blue Note Records. It was cool of them to drop “EveryLittleThing” as a single. People are curious when they hear it — it makes them more interested in what the album’s going to sound like.I think honestly it’s the best album I’ve ever made. The songwriting and production are way above anything I’ve ever done, so I’m super excited.
SFBG So Blue Note has been supportive of your decision to make this kind of music?
JJ There are a lot of people who work at Blue Note. Don Was is super supportive and he’s the president, so that energy flows from the top down. There are definitely some stone-cold jazz people, both at the label and in the community, but honestly Blue Note hasn’t been a stone-cold jazz label for a long time. I think the single took everybody by surprise, especially because they were so in love with “No Beginning No End,” which is an easy album to fall in love with.
SFBGThere’s a young generation of Blue Note musicians (yourself, Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, Takuya Kuroda, etc.) that are redefining the terms of modern jazz. Do you feel like you guys are part of a community, in terms of exploring and expanding what jazz can be today?
JJ Yeah, absolutely, we all help each other along. It’s just a generational shift. It’s not such a huge deal for us; I don’t even know if it’s expansion. Hodge and Glasper play with Maxwell, and they play with Mos Def, and then they play their own stuff. It’s just the normal reality of musicians of that level now. We just want to play music. It’s different for me, because I’m not an instrumentalist, so it always comes under my name and that brings a little bit of pressure, you know what I mean? But it’s a cool scene and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
SFBG Do you expect to reach a wider audience with the new sound?
JJ I mean, that’s always the goal for anything, really. I think there’s a core José James fan who understands I’m going to do something different on every album. With each album I definitely hope to bring in different people. When I did Blackmagic, I connected with Flying Lotus and other DJs and producers. It’s not necessarily a conscious effort but the music takes it in different directions. We’re still playing some jazz clubs in the US — which is kind of funny, hearing a song like “EveryLittleThing” in a jazz club. You’d be surprised: we played at a jazz club in Boston two nights ago and people loved it. It’s all in the presentation. I don’t start with that song. I lead people to it so they understand it musically.
SFBGWhat shows did you go see when you were growing up?
JJ Mostly I would see any hip-hop show I could get to, like Das EFX or De La Soul or basically anybody who came through Minneapolis. It was a good music city to grow up in; First Avenue was still pretty fresh and Prince had a club downtown where he would play sometimes. I remember seeing Ice-T perform “Colors,” and he came out for the second set and did the Body Count stuff. It was cool to see Ice-T do heavy metal. I think people forget about that because now it’s so straight-laced: bands just do one thing. But back then people were really mixing it up in cool ways. I remember Digable Planets touring with horn players.
SFBG Did you listen to jazz?
JJ I didn’t see jazz live, but once I discovered the archives – Blue Note, Prestige, impulse! – I turned into a crazy record-buyer. I bought everything I could and became obsessed with getting the whole catalogue. It was something that nobody else knew about at my school, and I thought I was that much cooler because I was checking out all the music that Q-Tip and those guys were sampling.
SFBG What do you think about the future of jazz?
JJ Jazz is a at place where it’s going to be firmly museum-music, and there’s something to be said that as much as people can hate on new music, it’s music that people like. It speaks to them. This is the point where jazz artists need to decide whether we are going to be keepers of the flames or we’re going to stay current. I know that people like Herbie Hancock or Quincy Jones were able to take their jazz skills and make amazing music. Anytime I listen to “Off The Wall” or any of the Al Green stuff I think to myself: a jazz mind is responsible for this.
SFBGDo you have any influences that might surprise people?
JJ Kurt Cobain. I know it’s the anniversary of his death, but he’s one of the artists who really had an impact on me at an early age. His influence is like a John Coltrane or a Marvin Gaye. I think the unplugged album that Nirvana made shows what a great band they were and what a great songwriter he was.That’s what I’m focusing on right now. More so than a sound I really want to write great songs that have meaning and really mark a time and place.
French economist Thomas Piketty got a warm welcome in San Francisco last night [Tues/22] when nearly 200 people turned out to hear him discuss what is fast-becoming the defining book of this new Gilded Era of escalating disparities in wealth: Capital in the 21st Century.
“The book has been so popular that Harvard University Press has run out,” The Green Arcade owner Patrick Marks said in introducing Piketty at an event held across Market Street from the bookstore, in the McRoskey Mattress Company, in order to accommodate the large crowd.
Indeed, Capital has recently been lauded by a string of influential publications, ranging from The Nation through The New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, all acknowledging this as perhaps the most exhaustive study on wealth data ever collected — and a clear-eyed warning that capitalism isn’t the self-correcting system that its biggest boosters claim it is.
Piketty’s work shows how when the return on capital is greater than the annual growth rate of the overall economy, which is usually the case (except when interrupted temporarily by the major wars of the 20th Century, or the 90 percent tax rate on the highest US incomes after World War II), that dynamic consolidates wealth in ever-fewer hands, which is bad for the health of the economic system.
The only real cure, Piketty concludes, is a progressive global tax on wealth. Yet Piketty tries to avoid being too prescriptive, choosing to let his research speak for itself. “All I’m trying to do is present this book so everyone can make up his own mind,” Piketty told the gathering. In fact, he thinks the cure he outlines at the end of his book is less important than what comes before it: “You can disagree with everything in Part IV and still find interest in Parts I, II, and III.”
Piketty is critical of his economics profession for focusing too much on abstract theories and mathematical modeling while avoiding the real world calculations of how wealth is distributed and its implications, which he says should be the central question for economists.
He says wealth is more important than income to gauging how we live, which is why he has culled and analyzed most available gauges of global wealth distribution going back to the French Revolution of 1789. “The book is trying to shift the discussion from the study of income to the study of wealth,” he said.
That analyis is particularly illuminating for the United States, which is now experiencing one of the most rapid and extreme consolidations of wealth in history. “It is clear the rise of inequality in the US has been much more spectacular than in Europe,” he said.
Yet Piketty can’t bring himself to criticize capitalism itself, even as his work makes clear this inherent flaw in the system. Indeed, he writes critically of the “lazy rhetoric of anticapitalism” and declares in the book’s introduction, “I have no interest in denouncing inequality or capitalism per se.”
I asked Piketty about that point and about why he’s unwilling to support calls for a more fundamental transformation of the global economic system. He repeated points made in his book about coming of age during the fall of communism in 1989, feeling no sympathy for autocratic leftist regimes, and accepting private property as a basis for the economic system.
I pressed him with follow-up questions about how global warming and other externalities of capitalism seem to be call for new economic models, but he resisted going anywhere that might be seen as ideological. That didn’t play well with the San Francisco audience — indeed, about a dozen people came up to me afterward to compliment my line of questioning — but it has probably helped innoculate Piketty against criticisms that might undermine the impact of his work.
In fact, Capital in the 21st Century seems to destroy many of the faith-based economic fallacies that drive much of the political discourse in the US, from our persistent belief in trickle-down economics to the obsession with our national debt, which conservatives use to promote austerity measures that punish the poor.
Such austerity agendas don’t make sense to Piketty, who says they won’t work now any better than the did in 19th Century Great Britain, which funded its wars with public debt rather than higher taxes, thus devoting too much of the national income to paying interest to the wealthy bond holders.
“A progressive tax on public wealth is a better way to reduce public debt at a faster pace,” Piketty said in the same matter-of-fact style that he uses to apply data-driven analysis to controversial political realms. “I believe in progressive taxation of wealth, but that requires coordination among countries.”
Similarly, Piketty says he is not daunted by the political difficulties in implementing a global tax on wealth, which seems all but impossible to most political observers.
“I’m not terribly impress by people who say this can’t happen,” Piketty said of his proposed global tax on wealth, noting how the conventional thinking used to be that a progressive income tax, like the one adopted in the US in 1913, could never happen. “I am not as pessimistic as a lot of people seem to believe.”
The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office today filed a pair of lawsuits against local landlords who illegally rent out apartments on a short-term basis, units that had been cleared of tenants using the Ellis Act. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Tenants Unions has hired attorney Joseph Tobener to file more such lawsuits, and he is preparing to file at least seven lawsuits involving 20 units.
As we’ve reported, City Attorney Dennis Herrera has been working with tenant groups and others on a legal action aimed at curtailing the growing practice of landlords using online rental services to skirt rent control laws and othet tenant protection, removing units from the permanent housing market while still renting them out at a profit.
“In the midst of a housing crisis of historic proportions, illegal short-term rental conversions of our scarce residential housing stock risks becoming a major contributing factor,” Herrera said in a public statement. “The cases I’ve filed today target two egregious offenders. These defendants didn’t just flout state and local law to conduct their illegal businesses, they evicted disabled tenants in order to do so. Today’s cases are the first among several housing-related matters under investigation by my office, and we intend to crack down hard on unlawful conduct that’s exacerbating—and in many cases profiting from—San Francisco’s alarming lack of affordable housing.”
The lawsuits allege violations of the city’s Planning and Administrative codes, as well as the state’s Unfair Competition Law, targetting 3073-3075 Clay Street, owned by defendants Darren and Valerie Lee; and 734 and 790 Bay Street, which is owned or managed by defendants Lev, Tamara and Tatyana Yurovsky (founder of SRT Consultants).
Guardian calls to both parties were not immediately returned, but we’ll update this post if and when we hear back. Tobener tells the Guardian that the San Francisco Tenants Union hired him to discourage local landlords from removing units from the market.
“The San Francisco Tenants Union is just fed up with the loss of affordable housing,” Tobener told us. “It’s not about the money, it’s about getting these units back on the market.”
The San Francisco Apartment Conversion Ordinance prescribes penalties of $1,000 per day for units rented out for less than 30 days. That now applies to buildings with four or more units, although Chiu’s legislation would lower that to buildings with two or more units while legalizing such rentals and requiring host to register with the city and live in the units for at least 275 days per year, meaning rentals would be limited to 90 days per year.
Tobener’s lawsuits list 210 violations in the 20 units it targets, seeking fines totaling $210,000. But he emphasized that money is not the issue: “The San Francisco Tenants Union doesn’t care about the penalties, they just want to put the message out that we’re going after landlords who do this and we want those units returned to the market.”
Just in time for Earth Day, a renewed effort to reduce the city’s carbon emissions was introduced at the Board of Supervisors yesterday [Tues/22]. Sup. John Avalos introduced a resolution calling for a study of San Francisco joining Marin Clean Energy, which provides renewable energy to that county’s residents.
“Mayor Lee and the Public Utilities Commission objected to CleanPowerSF, but they have offered no other solution to provide San Franciscans with 100 percent renewable electricity,” Avalos said in a public statement. “With this ordinance, we can either join Marin or we can implement our own program, but we can no longer afford to do nothing.”
The resolution is the latest effort in the long saga to implement CleanPowerSF, San Francisco’s proposed renewable energy alternative to PG&E, whose current energy mix is only 19 percent renewable. Much of PG&E’s current mix is dirty and directly contributes to half of San Francisco’s carbon footprint, according to the city’s own recent Climate Action Strategy.
Joining Marin under a Joint Powers Authority would provide a vehicle for San Francisco to enact CleanPowerSF’s goals, long blocked by the mayor. San Francisco’s renewable energy effort may have lingered in legal limbo for years, but Marin made the switch to renewables in 2010.
“It’s something people want, and it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions,” Marin Clean Energy Executive Officer Dawn Weisz told the Guardian. Much of Northern California, she noted, has little choice but to use PG&E for their electricity.
“The people never chose to have a monopoly in place,” she said. “People like having choices.”
Marin chose to switch to renewable energy in 2010, and MCE offers two energy mix options: A 100 percent renewable energy option, and a less expensive 50 percent renewable option. MCE officials told the Guardian they have a 75 percent customer adoption rate, meaning most of Marin County is running on clean, renewable energy.
Using an energy bill calculator on MCE’s website, the average homeowner pays about $80 a month for their renewable energy in the summer, just $2 more than their dirty PG&E power. The program has been so successful for MCE’s approximately 125,000 customers that other cities have joined with Marin under what is called a Joint Powers Authority, allowing those cities to access MCE’s grid.
“We faced very strong opposition from the incumbent utility during our launch,” Weisz told the Guardian, referring to PG&E. “Fortunately, we have a much better relationship with them now, and they serve as a good partner.”
The renewable energy is distributed along PG&E’s existing infrastructure, so the utility still has a role to play in providing electricity to Marin. But the utility certainly has worries when it comes to generating electricity, as Marin is building new sources of renewable energy up and down California.
“We have 24 different power supply contracts,” Weisz told us. This includes new solar facilities in San Rafael and the Central Valley, and renewable energy sources in Roseville and and Placer County.
Though other cities have signed on to receive energy through Marin County’s MCE program, San Francisco joining would be another ballgame entirely, Weisz said.
MCE has a policy of incremental expansion, she told us, and defines potential affiliate cities and counties as having fewer than 30,000 customers who are less than 30 miles away. Though San Francisco is a stone’s throw from Marin County, the potential customer base is huge: San Francisco has a population of over 800,000 people.
“It would require some analysis,” Wisz said dryly.
MCE’s analysis to include Napa County in its energy mix took 60 days, she said. Notably, San Francisco may produce its own power and use its own mix, and simply use MCE’s billing setup. Basically, San Francisco would provide energy through CleanPowerSF, but MCE would be a contractor that administers San Francisco’s program.
But joining into Marin’s renewable energy program has more hurdles than just figuring out the mix. Clean Power SF is a Community Choice Aggregation program, defined by state law as exactly that — part of the community. Jumping over to Marin may create a legal mess for San Francisco, but there is hope.
Assembly Bill 2159, introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, would allow a county’s Board of Supervisors to approve joining a Joint Powers Authority with another municipality, in this case, allowing San Francisco to join up with Marin, while still creating its own CCA program.
The bill just cleared the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee yesterday, and has a ways to go.
If that sounds like a legal headache, it is. But advocates say its necessary because Mayor Ed Lee has “stacked the deck” at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, hiring people friendly to blocking CleanPowerSF on his behalf.
“The main purpose of passing it is to get through the mayor’s log jam,” clean power advocate Eric Brooks told the Guardian. “We want San Francisco to go faster and make more green jobs.”
And, of course, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Avalos’ office estimates that in the time the mayor has stalled Clean Power SF, San Francisco has generated 80 million pounds of CO2.
In the past, Argentinean singer-songwriter Juana Molina took her time to craft carefully looped and layered beatscapes before her audiences. Her approach has changed, per the artistic demands of her most recent release, Wed 21. The songs are more condensed, but the aesthetic is the same.
There is a primal quality to her music, like she is tapping into a great heartbeat and proceeds to drape the sounds of whatever instrument has ahold of her attention at that moment. Her experimental pop has gained acclaim from world music fans and critics at prominent publications alike. The performer, who is still known for her successful career in comedy back home as well as her music, will be at The Independent with her band tomorrow night, Thu/24. We caught up with her before the show.
San Francisco Bay Guardian I understand that Wed 21 was recorded only by you in your apartment. Are you self-taught on all of these instruments that appear on the album?
Juana Molina Yes, I suppose. But let me make a little clarification: All of my records were done on my own at home. There is some misunderstanding there because everybody is asking me the same thing! When I’m recording and I find a new sound, figuring out what to do with it is the key. I’m not looking for or seeking anything. There is something that happens between the sounds and me.
SFBG As a listener, it is easy to go into a kind of trance while hearing your music, you can get lost in it.
JM That’s exactly what happens to me! It’s true! I just get lost and I let the sound take me for a ride. I just do whatever the sound tells me to do and I follow. Sometimes it’s so long — and I hate it a little bit. Because I think, “Oh, I can’t have a 45-minute song that does the exact same thing the entire time.” But I’m so into it when I get there. That’s probably why some people, like you in this case, get the same effect. It is the sound that is leading the ride.
SFBG You have talked about the value of repetition, of playing something over and over again. What is that about?
JM I think the answer comes from the idea that I loop things in my recordings, which is something that I don’t do. I very much enjoy playing the same thing over and over. Because I am taken by it. So I make very long recordings because sometimes, even if it sounds like the same thing — it is not the same thing. If you put one on top of the other, you hear the difference. When it’s really nice and I want to keep it, I need to go through it part by part, step by step, because everything needs to fit with what was played at that time. Putting it together can become a nightmare because sometimes I play for hours and hours.
SFBG Does this approach make playing before an audience with a limited amount of time difficult?
JM No. Because the process of putting sounds together for a live show is a completely different process. You know what the song is about, because you worked on it for months. And then what you need to do is to figure out sounds are essential to it, what makes the song a song. This record was especially hard to put together live because of the dynamics. For previous records, where I built up layers up layers on to layers — that was easy to do in the live show. The dynamics are so different on this one that it took me forever to translate it for the live show. Now that we’ve managed to put it together, we don’t understand why it took us so long. Now it is easy, it’s obvious.
SFBGSo you and the band had a breakthrough.
JM It seems so easy now. When we compare this tour to our previous one in Europe, we can’t believe the difference. Now it’s so tight — and I say this now when it risks making the next show a mess — but there’s confidence we have gained over the months. The previous record had very long songs. I would play one loop and add layers upon layers. It was like cooking for the people, in front of the people. Waiting for the onions to be a little more brown, now I add a little bit of salt, then let’s go with tomatoes — mmm, tomatoes! What else to add? And at the end of the song, we have the dish ready. But these songs are so short, that they need to be ready as soon as you start them. The energy must be completely different, it has to be there from the beginning. That is something I had to learn.
It’s no surprise that the San Francisco Chronicle today endorsed David Chiu in his race to replace Tom Ammiano in the California Assembly, given that Chiu and the Chronicle share a business-friendly neoliberal ideology. But what the Chronicle wrote in its endorsement reinforced progressive criticisms of Chiu and could have easily passed for an endorsement of David Campos if the paper was a bit more progressive.
“They really reinforced the arguments we’ve been making,” Campos told us this morning, saying he wasn’t at all surprised by the endorsement.
“First elected as a progressive, Chiu has proved willing to move to the center on various critical issues. He backed the Twitter tax break, which is rejuvenating a seedy stretch of Market Street, and opposed re-instating Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi after his conviction in a domestic violence case,” the Chronicle wrote.
Progressives have long felt betrayed by Chiu for courting their support and then siding with the so-called moderates (aka fiscal conservatives or neoliberals) to win and hold the board presidency and appoint Ed Lee as mayor. The Twitter tax break was also opposed by progressives at the time, criticism that has widened as people question why a wealthy company should get tens of millions of dollars in corporate welfare while driving up the cost-of-living for the rest of us and leaving the city facing big budget deficits. And Chiu’s vote to remove the elected sheriff from office for a misdemeanor criminal plea seemed like political pandering that would have set a terrible precedent for the city.
“Since taking leadership of the board in 2009, Chiu has helped dial down the personal rancor and policy triviality that kept Fox News and comedians stocked with material but distracted from the job at hand. He’s also proved a productive legislator with interests spanning city finances, housing, and personnel,” the Chronicle wrote.
Being a “productive legislator” in a City Hall bent on catering to the interests of landlords, developers, and corporate interests isn’t necessarily a good thing, a point that Campos has been making on the campaign trail. Frankly, if right-wing Fox News isn’t finding legislation to mock in San Francisco then maybe we’re way off course. The progressive era that Chiu help usher out was one where wealthy corporations were asked to support their workers and the city.
It was when San Francisco required employers to provide health coverage, paid sick days, and a high minimum wage for their employees. These were all things The Nation recognized in its current cover story, “Power to the City: The progressive case for going local.”
And they were all things in San Francisco’s past, the era before Chiu came to power, and they were mostly things that the Chronicle opposed at the time. By contrast, The Nation wrote favorably of more recent progressive trends in America’s biggest and most important cities, such as New York City, Seattle, Boston, and Minneapolis, cities where leftist mayors are moving to address economic and environmental justice issues, the kind of thing San Francisco used to be known for.
We at the Guardian haven’t made our endorsement decisions for the June election yet, they come out next week. But when Chiu comes to meet with us tomorrow morning, we’ll have some hard questions for him to answer about the very same issues that the Chronicle finds so praiseworthy.
In another waterfront win, the Golden State Warriors have backed off their original arena site to another spot by the bay.
Multiple news outlets are reporting the proposed Warriors arena is moving from its contentious and hotly debated waterfront location at Piers 30-32 to what is now the home of Salesforce, in Mission Bay, a move praised by opponents of height-exceeding waterfront devleopment.
The Warriors’ original proposed arena site drew almost as much fire as the 8 Washington luxury condo waterfront project, which was overwhelmingly rejected by voters last November. Those against 8 Washington, and against the original Warriors site, argued that voters should have the right to weigh in on projects that exceed height limits on the waterfront.
Advocates against both waterfront projects praised the Warriors’ move.
“The Warriors have shifted to a smarter alternative because the people, not just the politicians, became involved in the process,” said former mayor Art Agnos, in a press statement. “Passing Prop. B is the next step to ensure that every other waterfront developer understands that the voice of the voters matters.”
Becky Evans, Sierra Club Bay Chapter Chair, evoked the imagery used to garner opposition to 8 Washington in her praise of the move. “We thank the Warriors,” she said, “for abandoning their wall on the waterfront.”
Yes on B is a June ballot initiative which would require waterfront projects exceeding height limits to seek voter approval. And importantly, the Warriors’ arena is only one of three height-limit exceeding properties currently proposed for the waterfront. Two additional projects are a large housing and retail site proposed by the San Francisco Giants at Pier 48/Seawall Lot 337 and a mixed use office, residential, and retail project by Forest City at Pier 70.
The reasons behind the Warriors’ arena move are still as of yet unclear, and we were unable to reach Warriors spokespeople before press time. Sources close to the project however indicated the motivation behind the move is likely the obvious one: they didn’t want to deal with the headache of fighting the opposition.
Salesforce recently announced a move to the new Transbay Tower in 2017, potentially leaving their site in Mission Bay vacant. The Warriors’ arena move to the old Salesforce site represents a compromise it appears Mayor Ed Lee is happy to accept.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome the Golden State Warriors back home to San Francisco with a brand-new, privately-financed arena in Mission Bay,” Lee wrote in a statement earlier today. “The new Mission Bay arena will generate new jobs and millions of dollars in new tax revenue for our City.”
Jon Golinger, Campaign Co-Chair of No Wall on the Waterfront, viewed the news as a victory.
“When the public gets involved with deciding the future of our waterfront we get better results,” he wrote in a press statement. “Passing Prop B is the only way to be sure that other crazy Port Commission schemes like the Giants’ plans to build 380 foot tall towers for luxury condos on waterfront open space, zoned for a public park, also gets the public scrutiny needed to turn them into sensible projects worthy of our unique waterfront.”
There’s something special about seeing the name Motörhead, umlaut and all, mounted on that grand Market Street marquee, next to a strip club and at the intersection of one of San Francisco’s seediest streets. If you know anything about the band, its history, and iconic frontman Lemmy Kilmister, it just feels right.
The black-clad masses had congregated outside the historic Warfield Theater well before showtime and the mood was noticeably high, as show-goers were surely thankful for either a first chance, another chance, but hopefully not last chance to see and hear the true king of metal live and in-person.
The room was about half-full for opener Graveyard’s set and those in attendance were engaged and impressed. The Swedish ’70s revival rockers played a solid set consisting mostly of songs from their first two albums, peppered with a few from Lights Out, their third and decidedly less metal offering. Motörhead’s Phil Campbell would later describe them as “the only good thing to come out of Sweden.”
Graveyard. All photos by Brittany Powell.
As the main event neared, the room packed up quickly and the mood felt like what one might expect at an appearance of the Pope at a monster truck rally, with the latter being a bit closer to the beating that our ears were about to take.
With the predictability of the tides, the loudest band in the world emerged and delivered the standard greeting:
“We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll.”
They immediately lunged into “Damage Case,” Lemmy’s head craned upward towards his trademark high mic, where it would remain for most of the show. He doesn’t move around much these days, but did he ever? Nonetheless, at 68, his gravelly snarl is still a force to be reckoned with. The floor got rowdy pretty quick and security could be seen ushering, quite roughly, more than a handful of audience members off the floor and presumably out the door. This is the effect that Motörhead has on people, and it has some significance at the Warfield, which used to have seats that went all the way to the front, until the first three rows were ripped out in 1984 at — you guessed it — a Motörhead show.
Motörhead
After the second number, “Stay Clean,” Lemmy took a moment to address the dipshit (or dipshits) in the crowd who were hurling water bottles at the stage. “Please don’t throw shit at us and we won’t throw anything at you,” he said in a polite deadpan, before Campbell threatened to walk off if it continued. One final item, a pink lighter, whose hurler Campbell called “a real star,” hit the stage — and the barrage was finished, probably thanks to crowd or security intervention, or perhaps a combination of both.
Despite the disrespect, Lemmy twice told the crowd that we were the best on the tour and that “Coachella definitely isn’t giving [us] any competition.” Maybe he was just being nice, but I believed him.
The remainder of the show went smoothly enough, with the band playing most of the live favorites punctuated by Campbell’s glowing (like, actually glowing) guitar solo and Mikkey Dee’s bombastic, elevated drum solo, bookended by blasts of smoke, both of which felt a little dated, but this is real rock ‘n’ roll ,and modern-day gimmicks weren’t needed. The guys didn’t waste much time between songs, except for the occasional intro, and a moment to dedicate “Just ‘Cos You Got the Power” to the “politicians who are stealing all of our money.”
The regular set ended with “Ace of Spades,” during which nobody missed their chance to scream “That’s the way I like it baby, I don’t want to live forever,” all the while probably wishing that Lemmy would live forever, so they would’t have to wonder how long it might be before they’re reminiscing about the times when rock gods still walked the earth.
SETLIST Damage Case Stay Clean Metropolis Over the Top The Chase is Better Than the Catch Rock It Lost Woman Blues Doctor Rock Just ‘Cos You Got the Power Going to Brazil Killed By Death Ace of Spades Overkill
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held their 35th anniversary Easter party — an “Emerald Jubilee” — at Golden Gate Park’s Hellman Hollow on Sunday. The annual event once again featured an Easter bonnet competition and a Hunky Jesus contest, plus a brand-new Foxy Mary pageant. Several Pope lookalikes graced the crowd, and a Little Bo Peep burlesque show rounded out the scheduled entertainment.
This weekend will see a convergence of two holidays that, come to think of it, overlap rather nicely given their impact on chocolate sales. Whether you’re celebrating the resurrection of Christ by donning an elaborate hat for church or the recent renewal of your medical marijuana card by finding new and creative ways to mainline THC (word to the wise: be careful in public this year), Sunday, April 20 is shaping up to be a fine day for people-watching in this city.
But hey, fellow music nerds: We all know both of those pale in comparison to what’s going down on Saturday. Yes, like the first esoteric, vinyl-collection obsessed, possibly slightly-condescending-at-times robin of Spring, Record Store Day is upon us once again. Tomorrow, Sat/19, will be a pretty good day to visit just about any (actual, brick-and-mortar, non-Internet-based) record store in the Bay Area. Now in its seventh year, the holiday — which, its website notes, was kicked off in 2008 at San Francisco’s Rasputin, by none other than the boys from Metallica — is celebrated at stores on every continent except Antarctica.
No need to pack your bags though: Here’s what’s going down at a few Bay Area establishments that sell music in all its excellent tangible, physical forms.
From the Mission’s Aquarius Records, owner (and Minor Forest drummer) Andee Connors wrote us the following when we asked what he was stoked on this year:
1. A Minor Forest, Flemish Altruism / Inindependence, 4 LP reissue on Thrill Jockey, both albums from this nineties math/post/noise rock band [acknowledgement of personal bias here]
1. The Ghostbusters‘ glow-in-the dark 10″
3. Ron Jeremy,Understanding and Appreciating Classical Music With Ron Jeremy, 7″ (only a 7″??)
4. Cardinal 2/t LP, vinyl reissue of this seminal baroque indie-pop classic
5. Scharpling & Wurster, Rock, Rot & Rule LP, vinyl reissue of maybe the funniest record ever, especially for music nerds
I think our customers are probably excited for those, but they’re / we’re also looking forward to the Heatmiser (Elliott Smith’s old band) LP reissues, the four soundtrack LPs on Death Waltz, Pussy Galore reissue, Rodion G.A. reissue, the Space Project compilation…also, we have a new release from local band Twin Trilogy, featuring Sean Smith, the first in a series, ONLY available at aQ on RSD, and on Sunday, Twin Trilogy will be playing a special in-store at aQ. Record store day part 2!!! [Ed. note: Should pair well with your other Sunday celebrations].
Across the Bay at Oakland’s 1-2-3-4 Go!, a full-day party will kick off when the store opens at 8am. “Last year people started lining up around 4:30am, to give you a heads-up if you plan on coming for the opening,” advised owner Steve Stevenson, adding that they’ll have coffee from SubRosa and donuts from Pepples (while supplies last) for those of you who line up early.
Giveaway: A test pressing of the Green DayDemolicious 2xLP, autographed by Berkeley boy Billie Joe Armstrong. The first 100 people in line will get a raffle ticket; once the 100th person has handed in their ticket, the drawing will commence.
James Williamson of The Stooges will be doing a signing and chatting with fans from 10am to 11ish. (Ed. note: !!!!)
Hella Vegan Eats will be on hand making breakfast and lunch throughout the day. “Not free, but well worth it even if you’re not vegan,” says Steve. They’ll also have a couple of kegs from Linden Street Brewery for over-21 folks, for free, after noon.
Bands: Ghoul will be playing a very special “surf” set from their RSD Hang Ten 10″ out on Tank Crimes at 3pm, with Occultist opening.
An entirely non-comprehensive list of what’s happening at other stores:
Amoeba Berkeley — In-store DJ sets from Jonah Nice and DJ Inti; 20 percent off all turntables, posters, and some other accessories; giveaways TBA.
Amoeba SF — Same sales as above, plus live silk-screening from 11am to 2pm with special RSD 2014 designs, one by Zach of Saintseneca; t-shirts and totes available for purchase, with all proceeds going tothe San Francisco Rock Project. Plus a full day of guest DJs, including folks like Andy Cabic of Vetiver and Ezana Edwards and Ryan Grubbs from Blood Sister.
Groove Merchant Records (Haight): Cool Chris’ hand-picked “batch of 300+ Rock, Soul, Jazz, Italo Disco, and Post-Punk records (LP’s, 12”s, & 7”s),” selected especially for RSD.
And now a word from your Record Store Day 2014 ambassador, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, whose duties coincide with an RSD reissue of a very fine 1988 album. Happy crate-digging!
Protests against City College of San Francisco’s leadership trumpeted grave concerns in the college community over the lack of public voice at the school. Now, some of those concerns have been resolved, and the beleagured CCSF is taking baby steps towards restoring democracy.
Special Trustee Robert Agrella announced via mass email today the return of public comment to City College board meetings, and, well, actual meetings. Local college officials praised the move as a step in the right direction.
“Perhaps the restoration of some level of openness will make people feel their voices are being heard,” said Fred Teti, the college’s Academic Senate president. The school’s senate only yesterday passed a resolution urging Agrella to restore public comment, Teti said, and with good reason.
Though the mention of board meetings may be elicit a shrug or a snooze for some, for City College students the right to speak out publicly to school leaders was important enough to be jailed over. Only last month, hundreds of student and faculty protesters stormed the school’s administrative building, and in the violent clash with SFPD and City College Police, one student was pepper-sprayed and another punched in the face.
Both were jailed afterward, and one of the students said all he wanted was a dialogue.
“We just want to have a conversation with Bob Agrella,” Dimitrious Phillou said in a video interview with the college’s newspaper, The Guardsman. “It’d be nice if he would talk to us, like a real human.”
And changes to City College are coming spitfire-fast. After they got word from their accreditors that they may close in July of this year, the school has scrambled to reshape classes offered at the school to meet the requirements, and vision, of their accreditors. Agrella was appointed by the state to take the place of the college’s duly-elected Board of Trustees — and therein lies the issue.
Not everyone agreed with the board, and many members through the years have been accused of laziness, incompetence, and worse. But at the very least, the college community had a monthly opportunity at public meetings to tell the board what was right and what was wrong, leading to many decisive turnarounds: budgets amended, classes saved, services restored or cut.
It was an imperfect process, but at least a forum existed to give the public the right to address their officials in full view of the public. Under Agrella, no such forum existed.
Student and faculty shout “let them speak!” at a City College board meeting.
When Agrella took over the powers of the board, the idea was to expedite decision-making in order to save the college. But this meant an end to the meetings. Though he posts the agendas for his decisions online, he held no public meetings, and only solicited “public comment” via email, which many rightly noted were not public at all.
“Apparently these meetings are happening in the special trustee’s head,” Alisa Messer, the City College faculty union president told the Guardian in our story, “Democracy for None [3/18].” “No one agrees that [email] comment is public.”
That will change April 24. Agrella will hear public comments at 4pm at City College’s main campus in the Multi Use Building, Room 140. Unlike meetings of City College’s full board, Agrella’s public comment session will not be televised or audio recorded. When we asked why, college spokesperson Peter Anning said he would look into it.
Anning added that Agrella did issue one warning. “He was very clear that this was going to follow board policy which will require civil discourse,” Anning said in a phone interview. “That’s been an experience in the past, where people have gotten belligerent. He said he won’t tolerate that.”
California Community College Chancellor’s Office spokesperson Larry Kamer said Agrella’s decision to restore public comment was a practical one.
“I think Bob is a problem solver, he’s a practical guy,” Kamer said. “If there was concern and discontent about public comment, I think he just wanted to deal with it before it became a problem.”
Messer applauded the decision as a step in the right direction, but cautioned that it was a small step in terms of restoring City College’s democracy.
“Of course, at any moment Dr. Agrella could — and should — restore actual board meetings,” she told us. “He could even include the voice of the voters by convening our publicly elected Board of Trustees.”
“The resolution sends a very clear message about the importance of restoring democratic decision making at City College,” Sup. David Campos told the SF Examiner.
But, as Teti told the Guardian, sometimes you need to recognize that victories come incrementally.
Thinking Agrella would restore the Board of Trustees, video airing of public comment and full meetings all at once is perhaps a stretch, he said, “That’s the pie in the sky idea.”
While Conway burst onto the political scene a few years ago with a pledge to destroy the progressive movement in San Francisco, sponsoring Mayor Ed Lee and his allies as the main vehicle for those ambitions, Benioff is a San Francisco native who seems to understand this city’s values and accept the responsibilities that come with great wealth and power.
“I say, if you want to be in this city and take advantage of all this great infrastructure—our mass transit, our schools, our hospitals, the safety and stability that we have—then also give back. These are the table stakes for doing business here. This is not a new idea,” Benioff told San Francisco Magazine Editor Jon Steinberg in this extended Q&A.
The news peg for the article was a new Benioff initiative in which he’s asking local tech companies to contribute $500,000 each to Tipping Point Community, which funds local community service programs, an effort that Benioff calls SF Gives.
“The first person I called was Ron Conway. I said, ‘Ron, what we’re going to do is get companies to give $500,000, and I’m going to raise $10 million, and we are going to give back to S.F. en masse with money from organizations, not just individuals.’ He said, ‘This is never gonna work. I run sf.citi [a political advocacy group for 500 local tech companies], and people won’t even pay their dues. You’re not going to raise millions of dollars,’” Benioff told the magazine.
The difference is that Conway is pushing an aggressive political agenda, seeking business tax breaks and special treatment from City Hall for the companies he’s invested in while being tone-deaf to the political backlash it’s causing in San Francisco, one that Benioff acknowledges and says the industry must address.
“Because this is not about any political agenda. It’s not. It’s about pure-play philanthropy: giving back to nonprofits and NGOs that can make a difference in S.F,” was how Benioff answered the question about why companies are more willing to donate to SF Gives than sf.citi.
As we documented in our profile of Conway, this guy is a old school conservative with a history of right-wing politics who conveniently dropped his Republican Party affiliation when he arrived in San Francisco pushing an aggressive pro-business agenda.
As we wrote in our article about an event seven years ago when Conway burst onto the scene and declared his intentions: “’This guy stood up and said that we have to take the city back from the progressives,’ [former Mayor Art] Agnos told us. ‘I barely knew who he was. I’ve been in San Francisco since 1966, and here he comes telling us what to do.;”
To understand this tale of two tech titans, contrast that approach with this comment from Benioff: “It’s a city of innovation, of flamboyance, of transformation, and during boom times, S.F. always changes and evolves. But tied into that has always been generosity: the Haas family, the Hellmans, the Fishers, the Shorensteins. During every one of these boom times, the people who benefited the most were also giving back the most. But this time around, we haven’t been able to talk about a broad philanthropic effort to couple with the growth. So this seemed like a great opportunity.”
Police radio dispatch records from March 21, the night Alejandro Nieto was gunned down in Bernal Heights Park by San Francisco Police Department officers, had been withheld from the public, journalists, and attorneys – until San Francisco reporter Alex Emslie obtained copies of those records via Broadcastify.com and published them on KQED’s website.
The radio dispatch files offer a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of what occurred in the moments leading up to the officer-involved shooting, which has generated tremendous controversy in recent weeks.
Friends and supporters of Nieto have led marches to protest the shooting and are planning ongoing events to keep the pressure on. The SFPD’s account of the incident is that officers opened fire in defense of their own lives because Nieto pointed a Taser at them, causing them to believe he was tracking them with a firearm.
Suhr responded, “The information that we had at the time was that he was behaving in an aggressive manner.”
Yet the audio files that have now surfaced reflect no mention of aggressive behavior, nor of a suspect brandishing a weapon.
Here are excerpts of the full sound file, originally posted to KQED’s website:
The first mention of the 221 – police code for person with a gun – is to relate a 911 caller’s description of a Latino male suspect, who has “got a gun on his hip, and is pacing back and forth on the north side of the park near a chain-linked fence.” The next description that comes over the dispatch radio, also apparently related from a caller who was in the park, is that “he is eating chips, or sunflower seeds.”
Several minutes later (here’s the full audio recording), officers can be heard communicating with one another after they have arrived at the park.
First, a voice reports that the “subject is walking down the hill.” Then, 39 seconds later, someone can be heard saying, “He is walking inside the park.”
Six seconds after that, someone says, “There’s a guy in a red shirt, way up the hill, walking toward you guys.”
Several seconds later, a voice calmly states, “I got a guy right here.”
Twenty-six seconds after that, a person can be heard shouting, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”
“What’s very telling is that none of the people are saying, the guy had a gun, he pointed it at us,” said attorney Adante Pointer of the Law Offices of John Burris, which is preparing to file a complaint on behalf of Nieto’s family against the SFPD. “It begs the question, did [Nieto] do what they said he did?”
Pointer added that the sound files still don’t offer a complete picture of what transpired. “There is more than one radio channel,” he pointed out, and added that his firm hopes to obtain other relevant documentation through a process of discovery, once a lawsuit has been filed.
“If this was a righteous shooting,” Pointer said, “then [SFPD] shouldn’t have any fear of being transparent. They shouldn’t have any fear of public scrutiny.”
At an April 14 press conference, Burris discussed the difficulty his office had encountered in its initial attempts to obtain recordings of police radio communications.
Guardian video by Rebecca Bowe
As it turns out, those files were indeed preserved – by a third party. Broadcastify.com, a San Antonio-based company founded by an IT professional who previously worked for IBM, broadcasts live audio transmitted by public agencies picked up by radio scanners, and maintains a publicly available database of sound files.
We attempted to reach San Francisco Police Department’s media relations team this afternoon to discuss these audio files. However, we were informed that all of the public information officers were gone for the day, and unavailable to speak with the press.
It’s not that Modern Family and your Gender Studies reading list aren’t doing anything for queer and trans representation — but there are still stories to be told, and ears to be reached.
Since 2008, it has been the mission of Queer Rebels founders Celeste Chan and KB Boyce to bring the art, history, and stories of queer and trans people of color to stages and screens, where it can be shared and celebrated. This weekend, Queer Rebels return with Liberating Legacies, a free, all-ages, multi-ethnic, multi-genre show at the San Francisco Public Library [Sun/20]. As the show date approaches, we caught up with Queer Rebels via email to get an idea of what to expect from Liberating Legacies, and the importance of accessibility to the arts.
San Francisco Bay Guardian What was the planning process for Liberating Legacies? What is different or new about this show compared to other Queer Rebels performances?
Queer Rebels Liberating Legacies celebrates the vibrant visions of queer/trans artists of color today. It is multi-ethnic, offering a sampling of all our different programs — from experimental film to SPIRIT: Queer Asian, Arab, and Pacific Islander Artivism, to our popular Queer Harlem Renaissance show. We’re so thrilled that Liberating Legacies is free, all ages, and multi-ethnic. We’ve wanted to do this for a while.
SFBG What is the importance of making a show like Liberating Legacies free and all ages?
QR We’re so excited to partner with the SF Public Library to provide access through this great venue. Our mission is to showcase queer and trans artists of color, connect generations, and honor our histories with art for the future. In keeping with our mission, we really want to reach youth and elders, and anyone barred access to art due to economic stress. Art has long been a tool for resistance in communities of color. It is the passing on of histories, and cultural reclamation. We do this to energize our community through the arts, to create our own culture, and to inspire hope. Art can create the world anew.
SFBG What are the current issues of accessibility in terms of art and representation of QTPOC communities? It’s a popular opinion that media and popular entertainment have become more progressive and inclusive, but what’s still missing?
QR It is true, we’re in a different place than we were 10, 20, or 30 years ago, when queer/trans of color representation was a real rarity. Now we have role models like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, but we still have RuPaul’s DragRace using slurs like “she-male,” and disrespecting trans women. Queer/trans youth of color face racial violence and homophobia. Approximately 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT, LGBT people of color face multiple barriers or forms of oppression, and LGBT elders of color face isolation. So we still have a lot of work to do. We want art that speaks to these realities, created by our communities. There needs to be space for all of us. Beyond positive representation, we need to see queer and trans people of color in all of our complexities and diverse histories!
SFBGWhat can we look forward to seeing at Liberating Legacies? What would you tell someone who has never been to a QR show to expect from your performances?
QR We’re bringing diverse arty interpretations to Liberating Legacies. From “tropical Sci-Fi” to transgressive torch singers; Afrocentric literary duets to pop music manifestos; experimental film, world class Blues — and beyond! We’ve got something for everyone, and it is free, vibrant, and alive — very much of this moment! We pay homage to our ancestors and march boldly into the future. Artist MA Brooks once told us, “you two embody your mission statement.” It really resonates now. We are a multi-generational, Queer Black and Asian artist and activist couple. Queer Rebels is our lovechild: beautiful and rebellious, aesthetic and experimental, born from our experiences as people of color in punk and DIY scenes, and created with riotously gay love and joy.
Liberating Legacies Sun/20, 2pm, free San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium 100 Larkin, SF (415) 581-3500 www.queerrebels.com
“Employers have a responsibility to ensure worker safety,” acting Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum said in a statement. “Safety standards are designed to save lives and they were not followed.”
Two transit workers were killed October last year during the final days of the BART strike. As we reported then, Christopher Sheppard, a BART manager and member of the AFSCME union, and Larry Daniels, a contractor, were inspecting a “dip in the rail” before they were hit by an oncoming train. The two workers were required to go through what’s called a Simple Approval process to get permission to work on the track.
“Employer’s control method, namely the ‘Simple Approval’ procedure, does not safeguard personnel working on tracks during railcar movement,” the citation reads. “The employer allowed workers to conduct work on the railway tracks where trains were travelling in excess of sixty-five (65) miles-per-hour.”
“The employees had no warning that a train moving at more than 65 miles-per-hour was on the C1 railway track approaching the location where they were working.”
BART General Manager Grace Crunican quickly issued a statement.
“Passenger and employee safety is our top priority at BART. BART has fundamentally upgraded its safety procedures with the implementation of an enhanced wayside safety program and a proposed budget investment of over $5 million in additional resources to bolster BART’s safety performance,” she said. “Cal/OSHA has informed BART these changes correct the concerns which are at the heart of their citations, designating the issues as ‘abated,’ meaning that none are continuing violations or pose continuing safety hazards.”
The statement goes on to say that BART meets CPUC safety standards, though as we’ve seen with PG&E (San Bruno) and Uber (the New Year’s Eve death of Sofia Liu), those standards have been demonstrated to be at times, lax.
The three violations were deemed “abated” within the citaiton. The citation tasked BART with reassigning job assignments of untrained personell, not allowing unqualified workers near energized equipment and facilities, and “controls to safeguard personell during railcar movement shall be instituted.”
Simple Approval has since been terminated, BART Spokesperson Alicia Trost told the Guardian.
“BART permanantly eliminated Simple Approval immediately following the tragic deaths,” she said. “We now require work orders for anyone who goes wayside. We are also implementing the extra layers of protection for track workers.”
The citation specifically lambasts flimsy safety process of Simple Approval, the process workers formerly used to keep the Operations Control Center “aware of the presence of personnel in a specified location in the trackway,” according to BART training manuals. When workers are preparing to work on a track, they recited the simple approval to the Operations Control Center, also known as central control. It works like signing a waiver, saying that you understand the rules of safety, and more importantly, that you can work on the track without diverting trains.
Shortly after the accident, Saul Almanza, a longtime BART safety trainer, told us the section of track the two workers died on “crested the hill a little bit.” Having a sight line is important, he said, because you can’t use your ears to hear a train coming.
“It’s like a jet flying over you, you don’t hear it until it’s past you,” he explained. “I always teach in my class: ‘You don’t listen for trains, you look for trains.’”
Below we’ve embedded the citations issued to BART.
Sup. London Breed has proposed setting aside city funding to renovate vacant and dilapidated San Francisco Public Housing units, in an effort to quickly make housing available for homeless families in the face of a dire shortage.
At the San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s meeting on April 15, Breed called for the city controller and city attorney to begin drafting a supplemental appropriation of $2.6 million, to be put toward renovating 172 public housing units that are currently sitting vacant and in disrepair.
Tragedy struck at Sunnydale, the Housing Authority’s largest housing development, today [Wed/16] when a 32-year-old woman and her 3-year-old son were killed in a blaze that started early this morning. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but a report in SFGate noted that the Housing Authority has planned on rebuilding Sunnydale for years due to its poor condition.
“There are over 40 public housing developments in San Francisco, and given the decades of mismanagement and financial neglect that public housing has endured, many units are currently not available for San Franciscans to live in,” Breed said. “As we grapple with an unprecedented affordability crisis and an acute shortage of housing, particularly affordable housing, these fallow public housing units represent one of our best and cheapest opportunities to make housing available now.”
Breed, who represents District 5, previously lived in San Francisco public housing. “Living in public housing for over half of my life has given me a perspective unlike, I think, anybody else that I know, to understand exactly what we need to do as a city to make a difference in the lives of those constituents,” she said.
She mentioned that between 25 and 50 homeless families stay in a church every night that has been converted to a shelter in her district – but there are no showers there, “only a few toilets and sinks that those families can use.”
As the Guardian has previously reported, homeless people enrolled in public services frequently discover that very little permanent housing is available – even though the Department of Public Health, the Human Services Agency, and the San Francisco Housing Authority all oversee programs that were created to assist individuals who are in need of housing.
As things stand, about 175 homeless families remain on a wait-list for housing, homeless czar Bevan Dufty told the Bay Guardian in a recent interview. And more than 300 other homeless individuals have applied for housing assistance through the Department of Public Health’s Direct Access to Housing program, which provides subsidized housing in SROs and apartments.
The San Francisco Housing Authority receives its funding not through the city, but through U.S. Housing and Urban Development, a federal agency. However, Housing Authority spokesperson Rose Marie Dennis said federal funding doesn’t stretch far enough for the agency to perform routine restoration of vacant units that have fallen into disrepair. “We have to work with the resources that we have,” she said.
According to an analysis by Budget & Legislative Analyst Harvey Rose, the city has lost $6.3 million in rent that could have been collected had empty Housing Authority units been occupied.
“From our perspective, we share the supervisor’s commitment to prioritizing the housing of the homeless,” Dennis said, adding that the Housing Authority would be “very grateful” for any support the city would lend toward renovation.
Gene Gibson, a HUD spokesperson, said that it was too early to comment specifically on Breed’s proposal since it was still in the early stages of being drafted. But in general, “If a community comes up with an innovative approach … I don’t think HUD would have any problem with it.”
City officials today announced a “comprehensive plan” to crack down on unpermitted 420 events at Golden Gate Park this Sun/20, saying it was necessary because last year’s debauchery got out of hand. That means more police, both in uniform and plainclothes, will be in the park for the greatest marijuana celebration of the year.
“Last year [on 4/20] we had a lot of challenges,” said Sup. London Breed, who is spearheading this year’s efforts since the park falls in her district. “We need to make the city and streets safe this year. We want people to come and enjoy San Francisco, but we also want them to respect San Francisco.”
The problems Breed was alluding to included underage drinking, traffic congestion, and massive amounts of trash left in the park, especially in the area known as Hippie Hill.
Last year, it took 25 city employees over 12 hours to clean up the five tons of trash left by intoxicated visitors, according to Phil Ginsburg, general manager of San Francisco Recreation and Parks. And because 420 activities are unsanctioned and without an official sponsor, the burden to pay for the cleanup falls upon the city. In 2013, the Department of Public Works spent more than $10,000 to restore Golden Gate Park.
In anticipation of an even larger crowd this year, for both 420 and Easter events happening in the park, the city is gearing up to deal with people and traffic. In addition to deploying additional law enforcement in plainclothes and uniform, officials also plan to ramp up parking control, utilize additional bus services, and employ city workers to direct traffic.
A press release issued by Breed’s office indicated that police would take “a strict enforcement approach to all code violations.”
But speaking at the press conference, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said officers will have zero tolerance for violations such as underage drinking, open containers, selling drugs, unlicensed vendors, and even walking while texting. Noticeably absent from the list of offenses he mentioned was actually smoking marijuana.
“The sale of marijuana is still a felony,” Suhr emphasized, “but I don’t think [the SFPD is] naive enough to believe that we can stop people from smoking on 4/20.”
Captain Gregory Corrales confirmed that maintaining safety is the station’s top priority. Last year there was only one violent incident and eight arrests for selling drugs, but there were zero citations for possession of marijuana.
Pot smoking, which has long been tolerated, if not embraced, in our progressive enclave, was officially deprioritized as a crime by the Board of Supervisors in 2006, barring incidents that involved driving under the influence, minors, or violence. Breed noted that while she does not “condone illegal activities,” she admits that this aspect of the 420 celebration is difficult to control.
So please, stoners of San Francisco, follow the cardinal rule of nature lovers by packing out whatever you pack in. And above all, have a safe and merry holiday.
Hiatus, schmiatus:Thee Oh Sees have been added to an already-dreamy Burger Boogaloo lineup. Catch ’em alongside OFF!, Shannon and the Clams, Nobunny, Terry Malts, and of course the inimitable Miss Ronnie Spector herself, July 5-6 at Mosswood Park in Oakland.
Who needs Coachella anyway? In between their two weekend stints at that shitshow of a music festival down south, Waxahatchee is playing a free show at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza today at 5pm. Are you in Berkeley? It’s goddamn beautiful out. You should go.
Start your itinerizing: Outsidelands just announced each day’s lineup and put single-day tickets on sale. Are you in more of a Kanye-Disclosure-Warpaint-Mikal Cronin kind of mood? Or a Tom Petty-Tycho-Big Freedia head space? These are the tough questions.
Cocktails grow up: Don’t worry, one of SF’s favorite fuzz-power-pop bands hasn’t gone and gotten lame, though. This new track, “Tough Love,” off Adult Life, suggests the five-piece has gotten a little tighter and just a little slicker, in a good way. That record won’t be out until June 17, but you can probably hear a lot of it at the Rickshaw Stop this Fri/18, when they open at the EP release party for The She’s.
