Today’s Look: Maja, 18th Street and Dolores
Tell us about your look: “I’m from Denmark. This outfit is a mix of Topshop and H&M.”
SFBG Blogs
Snap Sounds: Deerhoof
DEERHOOF
Deerhoof vs. Evil
(Polyvinyl)
Why “vs.” evil, Deerhoof? Wouldn’t Deerhoof is Evil be more challenging? No matter, while navigating familiar territory, the 12 songs here show the band is still inspired, and more graceful. The melodicism and gleaming decorative touches of “Behold a Marvel in the Darkness” and “No One Asked to Dance” match a romanticism that is winning. “Secret Mobilization” is a straight-up rocker, and the time-lapse bloom of “I Did Crimes for You” is just about gorgeous. In moving further beyond a Jane Birkin-meets-1990s-noise realm, East Coast counterparts Blonde Redhead seem to have gotten lost as of late. Not Deerhoof. A song from the album and album release show info after the jump.
Deerhoof, “Behold a Marvel in the Darkness” (from Deerhoof vs. Evil):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYK9rdkqL8c
DEERHOOF (ALBUM RELEASE SHOW)
with Ben Butler and Mousepad, Fred Frith and Prhilip Greenlief Trio
Fri/28, 9 p.m.; $16
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
Century-old smut hits the Red Vic
Sex education, y’all. Despite the fact that today’s parents outsource math lessons to Blue’s Clues, play time to iPhones, and secret homosexual programming to Gabba Gabba Hey!, the continuing furor over sex education in schools just refuses to quit talking, finish its drink, and go home. But, as a reclaimed 1900s reel of French brothel movies showing at the Red Vic Movie House this weekend (Fri/28 – Mon/31) proves, sex ed has always been around – it just used to happen in whorehouses.
The Good Old Naughty Days is a 69 (ha! Really!)-minute collection of silent shorts that were found in a well-to-do French family’s attic nearly a century after they were filmed. Most likely, according to the film’s producer Michel Reilhac, they were shot by conventional film crews on their day off. They’re low-budget affairs whose most salient expense was the fees of the prostitutes who starred in them — men and women whose bodies are un-siliconed and unaware of the histrionic boinking that would some day pass for erotic film. The movies were co-opted by brothels, who would play them in their waiting rooms as young gentleman killed time before their whoring.
Which was, of course, where young cats learned about sex back in those days. When they showed up as virgins to the bordello, berets and handlebar mustaches a-twitchin’, these were the films to at least prevent them from shouting “qu’est-ce que c’est!” when their lady of the evening shuffled off her chemise (or their gentleman of the night his breeches, lest we forget). There’s gay and lesbian couplings, even priests and nuns — these last having a good time with candles.
Judging from The Good Old Naughty Days, them last century folk even got down in ways that we cultured cyborgs might find a wee bit mutt-like – apparently there’s a scene with a pooch unconcerned with which species recieves his Rover. In an interview with the UK Guardian (our namesake, holler), Reilhac says a few women took offense at this inter-mammal consorting at an early screening, to which he had this to offer: “thank God I took out the duck scene.”
But do not mourn the loss of this duck scene, San Francisco. Go out and be ever so naughty at the Red Vic – the two and four p.m. showings on Saturday and Sunday might make for a tasty post-brunch educational session. Just remember there is no sex-for-money waiting for you by the popcorn machine. Just wooden bowls, probably.
The Good Old Naughty Days
Fri/28 – Mon/31 7:15 and 9:15 p.m. (also Sat/29 – Sun/30 2 and 4 p.m.), $8
Red Vic Movie House
1727 Haight, SF
(415) 668-3994
SFBG Radio: Obama is like the Seattle Seahawks
Okay, these webcasts have been getting long, and nobody has the time, and we get it. So it’s a new era for SFBG Radio: This one’s less than nine minutes. Here Johnny explain why Obama is like the Seattle Seahawks (really, it makes sense). Take eight minutes to check it out after the jump.
sfbgradio1/27/2100 by endorsements2010Don’t nobody still give a damn?
For the second day in a row, Aboriginal Blackmen United (ABU), a community organization that represents unemployed construction workers from Bayview Hunters Point, embarassed University of California officials by blocking the front gate of UC’s $1.7 billion Mission Bay hospital project.
ABU members claim UCSF is refusing to hire workers from local neighborhoods and they say they are prepared to go to jail if their demands aren’t met.
“At 6: 30 this morning, we were full of energy,” ABU President James Richards said on the first day of the protest. And ABU members recalled that they saw ” nothing but skunks” when they arrived outside the construction site at 6 a.m.
“They’d locked up everything and guarded back fence, so we stopped everyone from coming in this front entrance, including management and cars,” Richards said, as he stood outside UC’s 16th Street and Fourth Street construction site, while ABU members chanted, “If we don’t work, nobody works.”
Richards said the police told employees to go around to the site’s back entrance, as they made calls, trying to figure out what was going on.
“We’ve been out here every day for almost a year and nothing has changed except the paperwork,” Richards continued. “We have qualified union workers standing outside the job site that are ready, willing, and able to work and if the community doesn’t work, no one works.”
But UC officials say they want the Mission Bay Hospitals project to be a model for the nation of how to put people to work, even though, as a state agency, they cannot mandate local hire requirements or give preference to any particular domicile.
“UC is very committed to maximizing local hire where we can,” Cindy Lima, executive director of the Mission Bay Hospitals project, said. “It’s unfortunate that there is a protest because it gives the sense that we haven’t been working with the community, when in fact we have been working with the Mayor’s Office, CityBuild and every stakeholder interested in this project, including ABU.”
Richards said ABU decided to mount their protest this week for two main reasons: to challenge UC’s claims that it has been hiring more local residents at the site, and to register anger over the distribution of a flier that encouraged local residents interested in working at the UC site and other construction projects in town to sign up with a group called the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative.
The flier, which fueled suspicions that UC is trying to divide the city’s disadvantaged communities, named Dr. Arelious Walker as President of BayView Hope Community Development Corporation.
“We at the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative partnered with BayView Hope CDC are currently doing sign-ups in ALL trades to afford you the opportunity to work on these projects,” the flier stated.
Richards was particularly outraged that Walker was calling his group “the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative,” since this was the name UC used to describe its community outreach efforts last year.
“We guys were with Walker when he was fighting the Nation of Islam’s attempt to stop development at the shipyard, so it hurts so bad to see this,” he said, pointing to a copy of Walker’s flier, which listed Jan. 25 and Jan. 27 as sign-up dates at Walker’s Gilman Avenue building.
“All I know is that ABU is here for the long run and we’re prepared to go to jail,” Richards said. “Never again will we stand by and let people come into the southeast community and take our jobs. We’re going to fight until the end.”
“When Dwayne Jones was with the City, DPR [which is UC’s construction contractor] was trying to notify him about requirements for job hire, and Jones was supposed to notify ABU for job placements, but now we find out that they have brought in another consultant,” Richards said, noting that Jones has left the city and now works for Platinum Advisors. “And now all of a sudden, UC hires this company and is giving this list to DPR?” Richards continued, noting that UC has hired a consultant called Marinus Lamprecht to handle job submissions at its hospital site, but no one from ABU had been hired, despite the fact that Richards submitted five names to UC, months ago.
“We’ve been demonstrating at this site and marching down the street, and UC was telling us at that time, we’re gonna put some of your folks to work,” Richards said. ” All I know is that ABU is working diligently to try and get our people hired. We want to be the first organization, not the only organization to have people work here. After demonstrating and protesting for over a year, we feel that the people who brought UC to the table and supported the city’s new local hire legislation have the right to work first. But it always seems that the powers-that-be go outside our community to cause division amongst the community.”
“We’ve been here since 6 a.m. today and this is the community,” Richards continued. “No so-called community leaders have joined forces with us, including pastors and political leaders. And that’s why we say, don’t nobody give a damn about us, but us.”
Reached by phone, UCSF’s news director Amy Pyle clarified that in recent weeks UC has committed to voluntary hiring goals at the site. The goals start at 20 percent, and increase 5 percent each year until the completion of the project in 2014, Pyle said.
This means UCSF’s voluntary local hiring plan was put together shortly after the Board of Supervisors approved Sup. John Avalos’ mandatory local hire legislation for city-funded projects. Former Mayor Gavin Newsom refused to sign Avalos’ legislation, leaving Mayor Ed Lee to figure out how to implement Avalos’ legislation, which mandates 20 percent local hire this year, increasing 5 percent each year until mandatory 50 percent goals are reached. And UCSF officials stress that, as a state agency, UC can’t have quotas and isn’t subject to the city’s local hire mandates, since its hospital project is not city-funded. But they note that the university has set voluntary local hiring goals, held monthly meetings with stakeholders, and is currently working on carving out financial incentives to encourage contractors to achieve these voluntary goals.
“Our voluntary goals are not a result of their protest,” UCSF news director Pyle said. “We have been aware of the local hire concerns since before they were protesting. So, I don’t think people should expect there to be a quid pro quo.”
And Lima observed that UC has tried to maximize local hire on construction sites, since 1993. “It’s ranged from 7 to 24 percent, so the average has been about 12 percent,” she said, stressing that a lot has changed in recent years, regarding UCSF, local hire, and the overall economy.
“For a start, this project is six times larger than anything we’ve done,” Lima said. “There’s been a shift in capacity of community groups. The city has centralized its actions, concerning local hire efforts. And now it’s advancing its local hire goals, and then there’s the economy.”
Lima said that it’s because of this changed landscape that UCSF is ramping up its efforts to hire local residents.
“While we cannot mandate that our contractors hire locally, we are holding monthly meetings that are open to all community stakeholders,” she said. “We are doing extensive outreach to offer any stakeholders to submit names. We are keeping a list so as jobs become available. We are able to provide those names to unions for job call opportunities. And we have tried to carve out part of our payment to contractors to put it into an incentive program if they hit those goals.”
Lima said the final details of the incentive plan haven’t been worked out.
“But they are substantial,” she said.
She insisted that ABU did not succeed in completely shutting down UC Mission Bay Hospitals’ construction site in the last two days, and she claimed that if the goals of UCSF’s voluntary local hire program are reached, UC will double its historical local hire average, eventually.
Lima pointed to UC Mission Bay’s website where minutes of a Jan. 13 meeting between UCSF and representatives for the local workforce are posted.
Those minutes show that UCSF has agreed to work with its Mission Bay construction contractor DPR “to ensure that qualified San Francisco residents have access to jobs, Lima said, and that names can be submitted to consultant Marinus Lamprecht, using submission forms available here.
UCSF also intends to prepare trade-by-trade name call opportunities and has promised to report on actual local hiring progress at monthly community workforce meetings to be held the second Thursday of each month, she said.
UCSF’s news director Amy Pyle clarified that under UC’s voluntary local hire program, “local residents mean people who live in San Francisco generally.”
“Of course we are looking to be good neighbors and hire people from an area we know has been hard hit,” Pyle said.
Meanwhile, Lima said UC has not entered into any contract with BayView Hope CDC and requested a copy of Walker’s flier to see if his group “overstepped.”
“For many years, UC did have a memorandum of understanding with the community and was working with a group called the San Francisco Workforce Collaborative,” Lima clarified. “The name has lasted, but the organization has changed. It was very successful historically, and there’s been an effort in the community to resurrect that group and make it stronger, but the landscape has changed, so we decided to open the doors to everybody.”
According to Lima, any interested party can now submit names to UC’s sign-up list.
“I carry that list around with me,” Lima said, promising folks will be hired in the order their names are received, if they match available opportunities.
“The contractors talk to the subcontractors who give them their best monthly estimates,” Lima said, noting that the subcontractors arrive with a core crew and then call the unions to fill their remaining needs.
Lima said part of the current uproar over local hire at UC Mission Bay’s hospital site stems from the misperception that there are lots of jobs available now.
“Job opportunities should ramp up in May, but right now, they are installing 1,052 structural piles,” she said. “So if there is an opportunity for a carpenter or a laborer to get decks built, we call the union.”
Lima added that folks are welcome to review data that UC’s compliance officer gathers.
‘It’s in our and the community’s best interest to put people to work,” she said.
But so far UCSF’s stance has continued to angered ABU members. They note that the university’s local hiring rates hovered at less than 10 percent until a series of ABU-led community protests in late 2010 forced UCSF and its contractor DPR to request voluntary reporting of worker residency.
And while UCSF claims that local employment is on the rise at the site, ABU questions the reliability of the university’s self-reported performance at the site. As a result, ABU imembers continued to protest at the site Jan. 26, even as efforts appeared to be underway to address their concerns.
“Dr. Walker called us, he was apologetic,” ABU’s Ashley Rhodes told the Guardian Jan. 26, referring to BayView Hope CDC’s flier. “And the Mayor’s Office just called, saying they wanted to talk with James [Richards, ABU’s leader]. So, that’s where he is right now. But tomorrow we may go to jail.”
Rhodes noted that on Jan. 26, DPR hired one carpenter from ABU’s list. “And a female receptionist is being interviewed, but we still have three out of five names we submitted last year to bring in,” he said.
Outside UC’s Mission Bay construction site , Michelle Carrington, a 58-year-old Hunters Point resident, continued her protest for a second day straight.
“I’ve been out of work for ten years,” Carrington said, noting that she has over a decade of construction experience as a flagger and an operating engineer.
“I graduated from YCD in 1999,” she said, referring to Young Community Developers. “Dwayne Jones trained me. He just left the Mayor’s Office and now he is working to help us get jobs.”
What if everybody ran for mayor?
I mean, not everybody. I’m not running. Tom Ammiano isn’t running. Mark Leno isn’t running. Ed Lee isn’t running, unless he is.
But as the progressives think about the 2011 mayor’s race, there’s a strategy that’s been floating around, mostly in bars, that’s crazy and I’m not even sure I’m serious about it myself, but it might actually make sense.
See, right now there’s no one progressive candidate that everyone can get behind. And there’s no single progressive candidate who has the resources and the citywide base to win a contest where millions of dollars will be spent, not only by the candidates but by indepenent expenditure groups.
So suppose a whole bunch of people ran? Suppose the field included Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly, David Campos, John Avalos, Ross Mirkarimi (although he might want to run for Sheriff), Eric Mar … a half dozen decent candidates get in the race, each of them bringing along constituencies who might not otherwise vote. And in the end, it all comes down to ranked-choice voting, and as we know from the Oakland mayor’s race and D10, anything can happen.
Aaron Peskin gets 15 percent of the vote, comes in first, gets enough second-place votes and suddenly — he’s mayor! Take that, Arthur Evans!
Seriously, the point isn’t to elect Peskin or any other individual. It’s too see if a concerted progressive campaign, involving candidates who work together, the way Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan did in Oakland, could get enough voters excited and involved to put one of the candidates over the top.
Again: I’m not even sure this is a good idea. But it’s worth thinking about.
Hot sexy events January 26 – February 1
Glory be OneTaste. This SF-based company is devoted to the singular pursuit of female pleasure, offering lessons in their “slow sex” technique, detailed re-programming of one’s touch-stroke-lick that all but guarantees that at-times elusive female orgasm. Believe it. Fitness-business guru-crazy Tim Ferriss describes a class with OneTaste in his new book The 4-Hour Body as being highly informative and bewilderingly hands-on. He also likens the female genitalia to an Imperial Guard from Star Wars, but that is besides the point (kind of). At any rate, OneTaste is conducting a one-off course at the Polk Street Good Vibrations this week on discovering your deepest desires (Mon/31), making it but one of the can’t-miss sex events on offer out there in pervertlandia. Enjoy, kids!
Bare Chest Calendar semi-finals
For 28 years, iron-chested menfolk have bravely paraded their bulging pectorals about for a good cause – the Bare Chest Calendar, which raises money for the AIDS Emergency Fund and Positive Resources Center. You can nobly help in the effort, just attend the semi-final and final rounds of the contest that will determine next year’s calendar boys and cheer your ass off. By the looks of the contenders, that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Thurs/27 9:30 p.m.,
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
Transgender HIV/STI testing
Sure, it happens every week, but that’s no reason not to give St. James’ Infirmary a shout-out over their excellent, sensitive testing and trans-hormone-knowledgeable services that are available each Thursday afternoon. With all the scary cuts in the area as of late (see event Sun/30), it’s good to know that there are still safe, friendly places to go to stay healthy, happy, and sexy.
Thurs/27 1 – 4 p.m., free
St. James’ Infirmary
1372 Mission, SF
(415) 554-9634
email sjimedical@yahoo.com for appointment
Boots
Chaps is putting the call out for boot pigs, so oink oink Wilbur – grease up your city Stompers and cruise to Folsom Street. There’s nothing sexier for a leatherman than the threat of getting crushed under the stampede of hairy-chested hotties that will be thrusting out their steel toes for a buff by bootblack Miss V. The Stompers gang hosts and who’s that behind the bar? The sexy David, that’s who.
Sat/29 9 p.m. – 2 a.m., free
Chaps
1225 Folsom, SF
(415) 255-2427
Hotties 4 H0m0 Health Care: A Fundraiser for Lyon-Martin Health Services
Not cool. There’s not enough clinics in this city-state-universe that cater to queer women and transgendered folk, and one of the finest, Lyon-Martin Health Services, is facing closure due to serious financial problems. How much do they need to keep their doors open? Try $250,000 – which sounds like a lot, but given all the hullabaloo the community is raising to keep the place afloat, it’s totally doable. Here’s one way to support the clinic: shaking your ass to DJ Bootie Klap and wriggling in time to performances by burlesque star Dottie Lux and friends. (Here’s some other ways, too!)
Sun/30 7-10 p.m., $5-20 sliding scale
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
(415) 282-3325
Facebook: Hotties for H0m0 Health Care
Eclipse
Hey ladies, Ms. Cat (leather community stalwart and 2010 Ms. Leather runner-up) is celebrating her birthday and she needs you to reel back that hand and give her a good day-of-birth spanking. The Citadel’s female-only BDSM party, Eclipse, is back in action, which means you should pack up your toys, friends, or just come solo and open to this dungeon time-party time.
Sat/29 8 p.m. – 1 a.m., $25 members only
SF Citadel
1277 Mission, SF
(415) 626-2746
The Depths of Desire
Secret longings are all well and good, as long as the longers themselves know what they are. Local sex education group OneTaste (famed for the dissection of the female orgasm) breaks down what one can do to get at one’s deepest longings and sassiest salaciousness.
Mon/31 6 – 8 p.m., $20-25
Good Vibrations
1620 Polk, SF
(415) 345-0500
Obama can’t “win” the future
Most of the pundits in the center, like the New York Times, liked Obama’s State of the Union Speech. And for good reason: It was a centrist, cautious speech that promised lower corporate taxes, conservative education policy, lots of money for the military and cuts for everyone else. Two things, thought, that stood out for me:
1. Obama still believes in government. He made it very clear that he thinks the public sector has an important role to play, not just in regulation but in spurring and stimulating economic growth. He’s going about it all wrong, but he did remind people that government — the public sector — won the space race, gave birth to the internet, built the interstate highway system and in the process created tens of millions of jobs. The GOP is already going batshit about it; they got the message.
2. The crux of the speech, the “Sputnik Moment,” was this line: “To win the future, we’ll have to take on challenges that have been decades in the making.” Win the future. In fact, over and over, all night, we heard about “winning the future.”
But since when was the future a war, something to be fought with an enemy? To “win” the space race we had to “beat” the Soviets, which we did (ha ha, we got to the moon first). To “win” the future, do we have to beat someone else? The Russians aren’t up for winning much of anything these days, but Obama seems concerned about competing with China; do the Chinese have to “lose” the future for us to “win?”
It wasn’t a random choice of words. The White House speechwriters take this stuff very seriously. “Winning the future” is a catchphrase that the Obama administration wants to be attached to. And it’s a bad one.
The future of the planet can’t be about winning. When you look at the serious crisis facing the world — climate change that’s going to transform agriculture, put the homes of hundreds of millions of people under water and alter the way every single human being lives — beating China isn’t really relevant. Thomas Friedman says the world is flat, and he’s got a point — if Obama were able to articulate a message of cooperation, of seeking peace and working together with other nations, it would have been a remarkable speech.
Instead: Winning the future. What a loser.
Community rallies to save Lyon-Martin
Whoa, the effort to save the Lyon-Martin Health Services clinic is going gangbusters.
Here’s the link to a Facebook page devoted to the cause.
Seemingly overnight, community members have cooked up a number of fundraisers, starting tonight (Wed./26), to scrape together enough dough to keep the clinic up and running. Lyon-Martin has been providing free and low-cost health care to low-income and uninsured people for more than three decades. It’s a particularly important resource for the LGBT community, with specific emphasis on queer and transgender health care.
The voice mail for Lyon-Martin Board President Lauren Winter is full at the moment, but here’s a note from the clinic’s website: “Lyon-Martin needs to raise at least $250,000 to reduce immediate debts and be able to continue providing invaluable healthcare to its patients. Should that happen, Lyon- Martin may be able to reorganize rather than close.”
San Francisco is rallying for the cause, and there’s still a chance that Lyon-Martin can be saved.
Below are some events we found on Facebook. And remember, you can always donate online.
*Stay Gold ♥ ♥ ♥
Wednesday, Jan. 26
The Makeout Room
22nd and Mission, SF
10:30 pm
$3 GAY DOLLARS
DJ’S: 510’s Finest!!!
Pink Lightning
Rapid Fire
“Stay Gold is accepting donations for Lyon-Martin tonight! Dance your hearts out and help us keep our doors open!”
*Be the Person Who Helps Save Lyon-Martin Health Services!
Saturday, Jan. 29
Meet at 1pm at 17th and Market, SF, and split up to hand out flyers and ask for donations.
1-4 pm
“Dress to impress – catch the eyes of our richer cousins in the Castro, Noe, Bernal and Pac heights in medical (fetish) outfits, glitter bikinis and stethoscopes, whatever will show the most excellent you and ask them to donate. For those in the LGBT community who don’t access public health care – they must understand that the healthcare of the poorest folks in the community affects everyone within it.”
*Hotties 4 Homo Health Care
Sunday, Jan. 30
El Rio
3158 Mission at Precita, SF
7-10 pm
$5-20 sliding scale!
“LYON-MARTIN NEEDS YOUR HELP TO KEEP THE CLINIC OPEN. The clinic WILL CLOSE if we can’t raise over $250,000 to cover immediate debt.”
*Heart: A Loving Community Fundraiser for Lyon-Martin Health Services
Sunday, Feb. 13
2509 Bryant, SF
6-9 pm
“This Lyon-Martin fundraising reception will be held at a Mission artist’s cooperative and will highlight the local businesses and organizations that sustain our communities. The evening will include delicious appetizers catered by Queer Food for Love, a volunteer non-profit that creates organic, vegan meals for the queer community. “Mildred’s Bridge Group,” a queer women quartet, will provide music for the evening, and art by the cooperative’s artists-in-residence will decorate the space. Dynamo Donuts will be providing dessert!
Raffle prizes include a $225 tattoo gift certificate by Micah Riot of Black and Blue Tattoo, $50 to local leather artisans Project TransAction, a piece of original art by local artist Danyol, $100 to Bourbon and Branch, $50 to Flax Art Supplies, and much more!
General Admission tickets are $25, tickets for low-income attendees are $15, and VIP tickets are $50 and include 5 free raffle tickets and a Lyon-Martin t-shirt. Tickets are available here.”
Daly City Burmese, please
We found it only a couple blocks away from the Daly City BART stop on the corner of John Daly Blvd and Mission St: Little Yangon. The Burmese restaurant was almost completely empty when we came in even though it was almost 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. A restaurant with one waitress, my plus one, and I. Here there was no next-door table conversation about non-profits, no street artist bros before me on the waiting list, no hipster babies crying, and no scary lesbians except for me and my dining companion — just deeply satisfying, affordable food.
The life of a Mission kid: it might start as something to brag home about, but living the dream isn’t always as all-fun-all-the-time as it sounds. When I first moved to the neighborhood, I delighted in the variety of cheap, amazing food. Cancun was what brought me here and Sunflower was why I stayed. But two years down the road, the places that once made me joyous have become sources of anxiety and malaise. I find myself making desperate choices, like going to We Be Sushi three nights in a row. And anywhere I go I fear that I will see my ex-girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, a previous employer, someone I spilled beer on the night before, or some combination of the three.
Time for a vacation. And just as the bridge-and-tunnelers feel that they must migrate to my neighborhood on the weekends, making it louder, dumber, and harder to live in, so too must I migrate to new restaurant territory. I ventured south and only a few BART stops away I found unexplored territory in Daly City.
Little Yangon’s dining room was lined with Southeast Asian tapestries, an electronic Buddha shrine with flashing neon lights rotating around its head, the soothing sound of Thai pop music swelling around us as we sipped Coronas and leisurely flipped through the menu. I already felt about a million times better.
We ordered a feast: fried shrimp salad, prawn curry, biriyani, and the rainbow salad – noodles in a tamarind and yellow pea dressing. Most of the items on the menu are between $6.50 and $11. The rainbow salad arrived first and when I tasted it I knew I’d have to come back. The flavors in Burmese food are totally unique: a combination of citrus meets peanut meets warm spices – a variety that’s indicative of the fact that Burmese cuisine has roots in three different cultures.
Burma is bordered by Tibet, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India – anyone familiar with eating these countries’ different cuisines will be able to note the way that they all come together in Burmese dishes. Our curry and biryani were infused with traditional Indian spices like garam masala, along with a hint of tangy sweetness.
My fellow gourmand and I agreed that the fried shrimp salad was by far the winning plate. It was the kind of thing you would never be able to replicate, or figure out how to make at home – a magical assortment of fried and whole shrimp, crispy noodles, onions, herbs, and a sweet-spicy dressing drawn from the kitchens of Vietnam, Thailand, and India in one fell swoop.
A rainbow salad, a waitress, and thee: recipe for a mellow evening at Little Yangon. Photo by Alex Fine
Our waitress and a few quiet cooks started closing up shop as my friend and I finished our meal. Does this sound snobby? I care about service. Not in a demanding way, I’m just saying that bad vibes can ruin a meal. But in this arena too, Little Yangon was perfect. The service was mellow, respectful, but attentive nonetheless. For someone used to being either totally ignored by restaurant waitstaff or obliged to engage in way too much overly-friendly chit-chat (and eye contact, shudder), Little Yangon was once again a welcome break.
As we left we thanked one of the cooks, who also turned out to be a sweet Burmese guy named Soe Naing, the owner of Little Yangon who does all the cooking and menu-planning with his wife and sister. Naing started out in the restaurant business immediately after moving to the States, washing dishes in a sushi restaurant. Soon enough, he was learning the art of sushi-making from his boss and moved on to start his own Daly City sushi business called Sunrise Sushi. Little Yangon is Naing’s newest restaurant, and he opened it to cook the food that he grew up eating in Burma. His spontaneous friendliness, kindness, and generosity shined through as he shared his hopes for the future of the business. “We’re getting busier!” he informed us excitedly, before walking us out and thanking us for coming in to eat. Try getting that kind of experience at Sunflower.
Walking back home from 16th and Mission, weaving between people with no pants on and pigeons covered in sludge, I was protected by my full-bellied shield, knowing that I had finally escaped the Mission, even just for one good meal.
Little Yangon
Mon 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.; Tues-Sun10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
6318 Mission, Daly City
(650) 994-0111
Beer and Wine
MC/V
Moderately noisy
Wheelchair accessible
Snap Sounds: Reuber
REUBER
Ring
(Staubgold)
This is the most characterful techno album in a long, long while. Instead of obeying minimalist trends, Reuber goes for something epic — Ring is Kosmische, but much more enthusiastic and lively and cheerfully vulgar (the finale verges on trance) than anything that sound’s huge cluster of revivalists have put forth in the past few years. The surging syncopation is Moroder-esque or Tangerine Dream-y rather than studious, and the album’s energy verges on gonzo, from the coiling, roiling metro-ride momentum of “Ringer” — the centerpiece and highlight — to the tribal fervor that lingers at the far edges of the two tracks before and after it. Performance clips of his Tuvan throat techno after the jump!
Reuber live — Nov. 16, 2008 (clip 1)
Reuber live — Nov. 16, 2009 (clip 2)
Snap Sounds: Munly and the Lupercalians
MUNLY AND THE LUPERCALIANS
Petr and the Wulf
(Alternative Tentacles)
Munly J. Munly has long been one of the most enigmatic yet prolific figures of the Denver Music scene. And with his latest lineup, concept band The Lupercalians, he’s tapped into a treasure trove of possibility. Ostensibly the first of a series of albums focusing on the imaginary world of the “Kinnery of Lupercalia,” Petr and the Wulf is a dark retelling of the Prokofiev children’s symphony, whose characters are trapped by circumstance and each other in a deadlocked circle of vengeance and fear.
Reminiscent of, yet literal worlds apart from, the down-home fire and brimstone twang of Munly’s other projects (particularly Slim Cessna’s Auto Club), the musical arrangements of Petr and the Wulf are far closer in nature to the original symphony than to a hootenanny: strings, flute, organ, and even a tuba are represented in the mix along with multiple percussionists, a solitary banjo, and intense vocal layers. The last track, an eight-minute spoken-word soliloquy against a wailing wall of percussion-driven sound, exalts in the Wulf’s unrepentant ways: “If I am to be your reprobate,” he intones, “I shall at least enjoy the malefaction,” a phrase that seems just as easily applied to Munly himself.
Munly and the Lupercalians, “Grandfater”
Close-up: Lauren DiCoccio’s “Remember the Times”
Lauren DiCoccio is interviewed in this week’s issue. One major element of “Remember the Times,” DiCoccio’s current exhibition at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, is a trio of shelves on which objects are arranged in a manner that suggests vanitas paintings or memento mori (she’s even constructed a fabric skull) for endangered or near-extinct media and disposable or recycleable objects. Unlike paintings, though, DiCoccio’s works possess a three-dimensionality that allows one to hone in on details and view them from a variety of perspectives. Here are fifteen close-ups from the show.
Live Shots: Edwardian Ball, Regency Ballroom, 01/22/2011
Photos by Erik Anderson
Edwardian Ball 2011: a journey into the abyss, the unknown, the festering macabre just inches from the surface of everyday society. You know what it is to which we refer — where the hell are these people getting their costumes? The truly creative — the guy whose head was encased in a glass globe filled with swimming goldfish counts and DJ Miz Margo’s eye-gouged baby doll stunner among them — surely made their own, but a trek beneath the ball’s crowded main floor revealed the secrets behind the mystery behind the enigma.
Yep, the vendors. Because if you were looking for extravagant millinery, feather implants, perhaps a multi-tiered carnival-gypsy-ballroom gown, it was all there for the well-moneyed and dapper among us. Though the Vau de Vire Society’s stun-tacular performance of Gorey’s The Eleventh Episode looped and somersaulted overhead, the bustling marketplace below spoke more about the true frippery-focused soul of the evening’s Edwardians. Looking for a place to wear that mink skull hair fascinator? Never fear, the Tim Burton Ball lurks just around the corner.
DREAMer Steve Li asks Obama for a moratorium
Steve Li is a nursing student at San Francisco’s City College who narrowly avoided deportation to Peru last November, after a massive outpouring of community support and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s decision to introduce a private bill to delay his removal from the United States. Now, Li has issued a short video in anticipation of the President’s State of the Union address, in which he asks Obama if he can commit to a moratorium on deportations of DREAM Act-eligible youth.
Watch Li’s video:
then watch the President’s address to see what happens.
Lyon Martin clinic facing closure
Lyon Martin Health Services — a legendary health clinic that specializes in women’s and LGBT health, celebrating its 30th anniversary last year — is having serious financial problems and could close down as soon as Thursday.
Rumors of the closure have been circulating all day, with Sup. Scott Wiener telling the SF Appeal that a source told him the clinic was closing. And the Guardian has now learned that at least one patient, health educator Catie Magee, had an appointment for Monday canceled by the clinic and was told, “We have to cancel your appointment because Lyon Martin is closing.”
The clinic is the only free-standing community clinic in California that serves to women and transgender people in a place sensitive to sexual and gender identity. The non-profit closure of the clinic would be a great loss to the community since it also provides healthcare regardless of one’s ability to pay.
“If you’re uninsured and your trans or a lesbian, you’ve probably been to Lyon Martin,” transgender labor organizer Gabriel Haaland, who used the clinic for his transition in 1997, told us. Unlike most medical providers, he said Lyon Martin offered hormone shots and other services to anyone who sought them “without making you jump through a whole bunch of hoops.”
Haaland and other supporters of the center plan to gathered tonight at 7 pm in Room 301 of the LGBT Center (1800 Market) to discuss the center and what can be done to save it.
The clinic’s namesakes, pioneering lesbian and feminist activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, were the first same-sex couple to be issued a marriage license by the city back in 2004, and they were married by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom on Feb. 16, 2004,
In the past year, the clinic served 2,500 patients. Elizabeth Sekera, the clinic director told us that the clinic even sees patients outside the county of San Francisco and unfortunately if the clinic closes, those patients won’t even be covered under the city’s health access program, Healthy San Francisco, since they do not live here.
Sekera said she was unable to comment on why and when the clinic will be closed. She also did not give any information on where patients would be referred to but did say that the staff at Lyon Martin has opposed the closure of the clinic because there isn’t a transition of care plan and the abandonment of patients is unethical.
It is uncertain whether the clinic, which is funded solely by donations, is closing due to funds. The clinic is run by about 23 staff members, interns, and lots of volunteers. The support section in its website pleads, “We need your help! We need it now.”
Magee said the loss of Lyon Martin would be huge blow to the city, particularly after New Leaf, which also served an LGBT clientele, closed last year. “It’s a shame,” Magee said, noting Lyon Martin’s excellent “reputation as a place for women’s and LGBT healthcare.”
Charlene Hawek, who has been a patient at the clinic for two years, expressed concern for where she will go if the clinic does close. When asked if there is any other option she responded, “There’s the Tom Waddell center but it’s not the same.”
Sekera hopes to see the clinic “remain open, possibly under a different name, or a full institution to exist in the same state, live for another 30 years.”
Editorial: A timely test for new Mayor Ed Lee and four new supervisors
B3 Impertinent Question: And so we have a timely test for the new mayor and the four new supervisors. Will they support good consumer and environmental legislation, setting a major national precedent, or will they do a Newsom and go with the Chamber of Commerce and Big Pharma lobbyists from Washington, D.C., dispatched to City Hall to kill this bill?
Mayor Lee and Big Pharma
EDITORIAL A piece of simple, logical legislation that would protect San Francisco consumers, public safety, and the environment appears headed for the desk of Mayor Ed Lee — and his signature would be the first clear sign that he’s not going to let powerful lobbyists (or the legacy of Gavin Newsom) guide his decisions.
The bill, by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, would establish several secure places where people can drop off unused, unwanted, or expired pharmaceuticals for safe disposal. It seems so simple: every year, huge amounts of prescription meds are flushed down toilets or left around in medicine cabinets or drawers in the city. As much as one-third of all medicine purchased in the country is never used. The stuff that goes down the drain already has had a proven impact on aquatic life; the pills that never get thrown away are a hazard, particularly in households with small children.
But under current law, the only safe way to get rid of old meds is to return them to a pharmacy — and pay a fee. The cost of returning old drugs is enough of a deterrent that most consumers don’t bother.
If you have used motor oil in California, you can drop off and recycle it free. Many hardware stores recycle old batteries, light bulbs, and paint. Computer makers have to pay for recycling their products. Why can’t the city mandate the same rules for medication?
The easy answer: because it would cost about $200,000 a year to set up drop-off sites in drug stores and police stations — and the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want to pay.
It’s a trivial amount of money, a fraction of what the industry spends on lobbying. In fact, with Big Pharma lobbyists from Washington and Sacramento crawling all over City Hall to block the Mirkarimi bill, it’s possible that the drug companies have already spent more fighting the legislation than it would cost to implement it.
The bill would charge companies that sell pharmaceuticals in the city a very modest fee to pay for the drop-off program. Similar programs in other places (San Mateo County, Washington State) have been highly successful — but nobody yet has asked the companies that make billions of dollars selling these products to underwrite the cost. San Francisco would be the first.
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has been fighting hard against the measure, claiming it would discourage biotech firms from investing in the city. That’s a huge stretch, but the chamber’s lobbying had an impact. When the measure came up at the end of 2010, four supervisors — Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Bevan Dufty — voted with the Chamber and Big Pharma. So the bill would not have survived a Newsom veto.
But thanks to the oddities of scheduling, the legislation comes up for second reading Jan. 25, giving the new board a chance to weigh in. That will be a test for the new supervisors, but Mirkarimi is confident he’s got the six votes to give the measure final approval.
Then it goes to Lee. And if he can stand up to the chamber and the misinformation campaign from Big Pharma and sign the measure, he’ll not only help San Francisco take a national stand on an important consumer and environmental issue, he’ll also demonstrate that he’s not going to fall in line the way Newsom did every time downtown calls.
Republicans worry about their “brand”
Like every political junkie in this state, I was fascinated to hear that Republican operatives think there’s a problem with their “brand.” It’s simple: Even when the state’s voters approve horrible right-wing anti-tax measures, they don’t seem willing to vote for Republicans. The way the operatives discuss the situation, it’s all about messaging; I think Robert Cruickshank at Calitics has a better analysis: “The CAGOP has made itself unelectable by being a white man’s party.”
It runs even deeper, though. In order to win a statewide GOP primary, you have to:
1. Oppose all taxes
2. Oppose gun control, even to the point of insanity
3. Support harsh crackdowns, bordering on open racism, on immigration and immigrants
4. Either be rich or toady up to the rich
And those positions aren’t winners in a statewide race.
The Democratic Party, for better or for worse (often for worse) has no such litmus tests. Yeah, it’s hard to get elected without labor support, but the Demos are much more of a “big tent” these days. Jerry Brown is more of a fiscal conservative than a lot of Republicans (who love to cut waste as long as it doesn’t hurt their rich supporters), but the tax-and-spend types like me all voted for him. Our senior senator, who happens to be the most popular politician in California in poll after poll, is only barely to the left of Joe Lieberman.
As long as the far right controls the part in what’s very much a centrist kind of state, the GOP isn’t going anywhere. Brand or no brand.
Why is Guantánamo Bay still open?
Amnesty International reminds us that despite President Obama’s promise two years ago to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention center, it remains open. The activist organization will hold a panel discussion on torture and human rights tomorrow (Wed/26), which is the second anniversary of his promise.
The event is free and open to the public will take place at 7:30 p.m. at 2050 Valley Life Sciences Building on the UC Berkeley Campus. The panel will provide detailed summary of human rights crimes that continue to take place at the detention center. Among the panelists participating is former Guantánamo detainee Omar Deghayes, who has never been charged with or convicted by the United States. (Asaf Shalev)
Daly’s Dive has become a progressive gathering place
In the three weeks since Chris Daly left the Board of Supervisors, the bar he bought – Buck Tavern, to be renamed Daly’s Dive next month – has become a popular place for progressives to commiserate and conspire with one another. And many of them plan to gather there this evening for the State of the Union speech by President Obama, who has been a disappointment to many leftists.
“The good news is for this year’s State of the Union, we have a pub, we’ll be serving the hard stuff, and the faithful might need that,” said Daly, who will be behind the bar.
Daly and allies like Aaron Peskin were an early supporters of Obama’s presidential aspirations, back in the primaries when Gavin Newsom and most of San Francisco’s political moderates were backing Hillary Clinton. So how does Daly feel about Obama now that the president has capitulated to conservatives on tax cuts for the rich, requiring all Americans to sign up with health insurance companies, and maintaining his predecessor’s approach to “fighting terrorism”?
“I can’t say that I’m disappointed because I didn’t have the same expectations other people had,” Daly said. And he maintains that supporting Obama in 2008 was the right thing to do for the country, and a smart political move for San Francisco progressives.
“Barack Obama gave us two more years in San Francisco City Hall,” Daly said, arguing that his campaign maintained the ascendancy of progressives in San Francisco and helped Sups. John Avalos and Eric Mar (and probably Board President David Chiu, although Daly didn’t mention the man he has likened to Judas for betraying the progressive movement) win close races for the Board of Supervisors and for progressives to take over the DCCC. “Obama and the campaign around him helped us very much in San Francisco in 2008.”
But like most progressives, Daly does admit that Obama hasn’t realized his potential as president. While Daly thinks health reform was important, even without a public option, “he was too quick to compromise and the rest of his agenda is in the shitter.”
And that’s likely to be a fairly mild reaction for what could be a cantankerous crowd bellying up to the bar (1655 Market St.) for tonight’s speech, which starts at 6 p.m.
Live Shots: Circus Center’s New Pickle Circus, JCCSF, 01/22/2011
It seems that whenever I go to the circus, I leave the show wanting to join the circus. And I’m not talking about the desire to perfect my juggling skills or become an expert in improvised clowning. My circus ambitions lie in the urge to become a trapeze artist. That should be pretty easy, right?
If you happened to see the Circus Center’s New Pickle Circus this past weekend at the Jewish Community Center, you probably left the show with the same feeling.
What it really comes down to is that these gymnasts make it look so darn easy and downright doable, that it’s impossible not to want to be part of it. I mean, who doesn’t want to do three back flips in a row? Ok, I’ll stop gushing.
There were many other fabulous acts, that were also quite noteworthy. These included the Steve Martin look-a-like bubble man, who at one point actually stuck his hand into one of his soapy weightless spheres, and a pair of goofball clowns, that always seemed to be mopping up some mess on the stage. I also really loved the disco roller skate duo, complete with star-shaped glasses and skintight shiny bell bottoms.
Making its debut in the mid-’70s in San Francisco, the players of Pickle Family Circus are true veterans in the art of laughter and fun. They know how the circus works and you’re guaranteed a good time whenever you go see them. An outing to the circus is always so freeing and it’s never a bad time, unless you’re five and afraid of clowns (that used to be me). So what are you waiting for? Let’s go join the circus.
Street Threads: Look of the Day
Today’s Look: Jane, 16th Street and Valencia
Tell us about your look: “I like to be comfy, wear lots of layers and be prepared for whatever.”
Historic preservation fight at the board
The supervisors will hear a recommendation from the Rules Committee Jan. 25th to appoint Richard Johns to a seat on the Historic Preservation Commission. These things typically aren’t that controversial — but there will probably be a fight over this one. And it’s significant because of what it says about the new board committees appointed by board President David Chiu.
Background: The Historic Preservation Commission was created by the voters with the passage of Prop. J in 2008. Then-Sup. Aaron Peskin authored the ballot measure, which gave the panel real teeth, the ability to prevent the destruction of important pieces of local history — and mandated professional qualifications for six of the seven members. The goal: Prevent a mayor who cared nothing about preservation from appointing hacks and cronies to the board.
Seat number 4, for example, is set aside for a professional historian, someone with exensive academic background in California and Bay Area history. As Mike Buhler, director of the San Francisco Architectural Heritage foundation, noted in a Jan. 3, 2010 letter to the Rules Committee:
The minimum professional qualifications in history are a graduate degree in history or closely related field; or a bachelor’s degree in history or closely related field plus one of the following:
1. At least two years of full-time experience in research, writing, teaching, interpretation, or other demonstrable professional activity with an academic institution, historic organization or agency, museum, or other professional institution; or
2. Substantial contribution through research and publication to the body of scholarly knowledge in the field of history.
Just before leaving office, Newsom nominated Richard Johns, a lawyer, to that seat. Johns has been active in the movement to restore the Old Mint and create a San Francisco History Museum, and he clearly has more than a passing interest in local history — but he doesn’t even remotely meet the qualifications for this seat.
He also happens to be married to Eleanor Johns, who was chief of staff to Mayor Willie Brown.
Johns has done some good volunteer work, but according to Peskin, he’s a perfect case study in what Prop. J was supposed to prevent. “We wrote the measure to ensure high professional standards and qualifications for each seat,” Peskin told me. “If they can get away with this, the voters got bamboozled.”
Or, as Robert Cherny, an eminent professor and historian at San Francisco state, noted in a Jan. 17 letter to the commitee:
I am concerned that this nomination will set a precedent that the professional qualifications established by the charter can be ignored if a mayor wishes to do so.
The other problem with Johns became clear in his Jan. 20 testimony to the committee, when he talked about the important of the need for change and growth in San Francisco — key words that anyone who has followed local politics knows are the mantra of developers who want to get rid of historic landmarks.
I asked Sup. David Campos, who was on the previous Rules Committee, about Johns’ qualifications, and he told me that you could make a strictly legal argument either way; the charter language could be interpreted by a court to allow Johns to slide in. But he also said he didn’t support the nomination. “I had to ask,” he told me, “is this the best we can do?”
Good point — this is a city full of professional historians. Is Richard Johns the best we can do?
The current Rules Committee — with two conservatives (Mark Farrell and Sean Elsbernd) and one progressive (the chair, Jane Kim), apparently thought so. His nomination was approved unanimously.
It’s only one seat on one commission, but the precedent is important: You can’t set professional standards for commissions then let the mayor ignore them an appoint his political allies. And historic preservation is under attack in the city: Sup. Scott Wiener just announced that he’s calling for a hearing on how the city’s “prioritization of historic preservation is impacting, and possibly undermining, other key policy objectives.” In a press statement, he complained about too many things having to go through the Historic Preservation Commission.
Most nominations that get approval at Rules slide right through the full board. That’s the problem with a Rules Committe stacked with conservative, pro-development supervisors.
In this case, though, we can expect a bit of a fuss. I know the progressives on the board won’t be unanimous in approving Richard Johns.