SFBG Blogs

Live Shots: Spoon, Fox Theater, 04/13/2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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I’ll take one scoop of rock perfection, one scoop of edgy lyrics and a sprinkle of groovy drum beats. Oh, and I’m going to need a Spoon for that.


Spoon concerts are like entering an ice cream parlor of melodies and sampling a menagerie of musical flavors. The band performed at the Fox Theater on Tuesday evening, rocking out to an overly ecstatic, sold-out audience. They just came out with the new album Transference in January and are touring the US and the world to celebrate their new musical masterpiece. Spoon, which has been around since the early ’90s, is one of those bands whose music you hear in movies and TV shows and just always seem to be around. They create songs you want to dance to, sing along to and take with you as a soundtrack for your road trip. But Spoon will never be a vanilla band, I’d say they’re more mint chip with a swirl of caramel. Or maybe rocky road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVsdpqJVrJg

Hot sex events: April 14-21

Andrew Lam
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It’s spring, people. With all the life and love in the air, it’s time to take your sex to another level. Perhaps that’s why the shamans are poking their heads out in San Francisco this week — Frank Moore takes the stage with his impossible erotic performance art, and a class is being offered to endow dominants with a sense of the sublime in their sexual dealings. Not sure what it all means? Comfort yourself with a cuddle party, or the Tubesteak Connection party at Aunt Charlie’s.

The top as shaman: setting the pathway for transformation

Dominants have an excellent chance not only to transform their partner’s life sexually, but sexually-spiritually as well. Attend this class to check ways to make your lovemaking transcendent for all involved.

Wed/14 8-10 p.m, $25-30

Good Vibrations

603 Valencia, SF

(415) 522-5460

www.goodvibes.com


Exiles Munch

Exiles, the all women BDSM educational group, holds it’s first munch. Grab a latte, a sandwich, or a submissive as you see fit.

Wed/14 6:30-8:30 p.m., free

Wicked Grounds

289 8th St., SF

(415) 503-0405

www.theexiles.org


Kinky Knitters

“Geez! I just can’t get this drop stitch to set on my crotched sex swing!” “Aw honey, let me look at it.” Just another week for SF’s kinkiest coffeehouse crafters.

Wed/14 7 p.m., free

Wicked Grounds

289 8th St., SF

(415) 503-0405

www.wickedgrounds.com


Tubesteak Connection

I’m letting Aunt Charlie’s speak for themselves on this one: “Get liquored-up cheap ($2.50 well/beer all nite), and cruise your fellow cock gobblers, self-suckers, carpet grinders, and crotch-stuffers to the synthesized sounds of a forgotten era: late ‘70s/ early ‘80s gay bar and bathhouse hi-NRG, Eurodisco, NYC no-wave, disco rarities and more.” Sounds like a party…

Thur/15 free before 10 p.m., $4 after

Aunt Charlie’s

133 Turk, SF

(415) 441-2922

www.auntcharlieslounge.com



“Erotic Friction”

Frank Moore, controversial shaman/performance artist, takes the stage to shock and awe.

Sat/17 8 p.m., $5-10 sliding scale

Center for Sex and Culture

1519 Mission, SF

(415) 225-1155

www.sexandculture.org


Greener Orgasms!

You’ve thoroughly examined this week’s Green Guide for all the ways to make your life more sustainable — and a sustainable sex life, well doesn’t that just make good sense? Chat with Good Vibe’s qualified professionals on all your opportunities to lube up, vibrate out and party down in a way that makes our planet happy.

Sun/18 5-6 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

603 Valencia, SF

(415) 522-5460

www.goodvibes.com


Cuddle Party

Snuggle up to your neighbor (observing their cuddle boundaries, as always) at this exclusive hug and nuzzle get down.

Sun/18 7-10:30 p.m., $20-40 sliding scale

Registration required for location details

www.commoncircle/berkeley

Street Threads: Look of the Day

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Street Threads: Look of the Day

Today’s Look: Veronica, Polk and Jackson

Tell us about your look:  “I got this dress in the Mission.”

The bee’s knees

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1

In honor of the upcoming Earth Day — and Sarah Phelan’s indepth look at little buzzers in this week’s issue of the Guardian — we pay a visit to the San Francisco Beekepers Association.

alt.sex.column: The family that plays together

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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alt.sex.column: The family that plays together

Dear Andrea:

This summer different members of my family will be going in together on big a beach house. There’s just one thing. “Heather” used to be married to my cousin, but after they split up, my cousin moved and Heather is still invited. She also is younger. The problem? I think she’s hot.

Very very hot. Am I allowed to ask her out? It’s really hard to be around her all weekend in bathing suits and beach clothes and share a bathroom. Is this too incesty a situation? Should I just not go?

Love,

Kissin’ Cousin

Dear Cuz:

Depends on what you call a “problem. There is no legal problem here. No biological one, and no moral one, either. There may be a slight social one, though — cousin marriage may be largely legal but it is still considered freakish most places.

Cousins actually have been coupling as long as there have been cousins; in the small bands and villages of our past there may have been no other choices available. Even brother/sister incest has had its proponents, although these are few and their most famous example, the Egyptian royal families, were remarkably weak and weedy specimens, not to mention all dead now. So we won’t do that.

Ideally, we won’t all hook up with our cousins, either. The occasional intramarriage is harmless, but for the race as a whole that good hybrid vigor seems a worthy goal. Mix it up, it’s good for us! Historically, we have had a nearly universal incest taboo (for first-degree relatives, cousins are third degree and have generally been a gimme) for a reason. And not only have we historically frowned upon congress between first-degrees (people with whom you share half your genes), very few humans even seem to want to.

Does any of this have anything to do with you and your situation? Certainly not. There is no incest taboo in your case because there is no incest, period.

This is not to say that your ex-cousin-in-law will welcome your attentions, and her possible rejection, if any, will have nothing to do with incest taboos or the relative turn-on-itude of exogamy. She may just not like you that way. She may think you are old and creepy and shouldn’t be looking at young women like that. You never know. Neither can I guarantee that your real relatives, who have welcomed this young woman into the bosom of the family, will not be somewhat disgusted by your behavior. These are risks one takes any time one approaches a potential partner, of course, and if you don’t accept the risk of rejection you never get any partners at all. But most of the time when you go out on a limb and risk looking foolish, you’re alone, or in the company of friends, who might rib you a bit and then drop it. Families, as anyone who has ever taken a summer vacation with theirs can attest, never drop anything. So proceed with caution, or go to Italy this year instead.

Love,

Andrea

Got a question? E-mail Andrea at andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dogfest 2010 raises its leg on school budget cuts

Andrew Lam
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Gosh, you think. Charles Barkley just looks so dapper in his doggie vest/pocket watch/monocle ensemble. I wish more people could share in the joy his beauty brings me!

First of all, thanks for considering the rest of us. Secondly, Mr. Barkley’s time to shine has come. Just bring him down to Duboce Park this Sat/17 for Dogfest 2010, McKinley elementary school’s fundraiser excellent. The Fest offers a chance to, once and for all, determine that his bark is better, his coat is shinier, and y’all are two more identical peas in a pod than that Boston terrier and her owner down the street, those bitches.

“Last year’s event raised $25,000 — more than our school had ever raised in a single year, much less fundraising event,” says Dogfest organizer and McKinley parent, Katy Wilcoxen. In this era of deep cuts to our kiddie’s educations, Wilcoxen says that McKinley found it “couldn’t tap our own families to make up the funding gap.”

Enter Dogfest, which, unlike traditional school fundraising events, involves even members of the neighborhood who are childless — or if you will, those that don‘t have any two legged children. “The success of this was that we put it in Duboce Park to touch the Duboce Triangle/Castro community,” Wilcoxen tells SFBG. The area, which is one of the most dog frequented in the city, has responded with bright eyes and wagging tails.

So what can you expect from this year’s Dogfest? Last year brought over 100 canines to such contests as Best Trick, Best Dog-Guardian Look Alike and Best Bark — a category that Wilcoxen says has been dominated by a mixed breed named Grover for the past two years.

Sounds like a challenge to me, crazy dog people! But, if you’re furry friend free, bring your human children down for bouncy castles, face painting, and craft tables. No child? You poor darling! Sit in on a performance by the Busy Bee Dogs (the cast of which includes lots of puppies and a 225 pound pony named Benji), grub on the food vendors, bid in the silent auction, and hang on the sweeping Duboce Park lawn.

See? It’s good for you and Mr. Barkley to take a break from your standard Doobie Dolores Saturdays. Especially with the holiday coming. Woof!

 

Sat/17 11 a.m.- 4 p.m., free

Duboce Park

Noe & Duboce, SF

(415) 710-7387

www.mckinleyschool.org

 

Memorial services set for Tricia Taborn–wear a dramatic hat!!

David Talbot
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Memorial services set for Tricia Taborn–wear a dramatic hat!!

Memorial services for Tricia Taborn, the great San Francisco spirit who died April 7, have been set for Saturday, May 1, from 1 to 5 p.m.at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, just south of Solano Avenue in North Berkeley.

Her husband Gerald Baron recommends that, in honor of Tricia’s love for flamboyant hats in dramatic colors, her friends come wearing  a dramatic hat in the Tricia Taborn tradition. More details will follow on this blog.

Click here to read Tricia Taborn’s obituary.

 

The Daily Blurgh: Whither Grindr, Kitty Boots?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Daily Blurgh: Whither Grindr, Kitty Boots?

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

“Call before you come over, I need to shave my ShoCha.”

*******

That breathless traipse around Land’s End really is about (re)fighting the Battle of the Bulge

*******

All I found in my college dumpster was some stale ciabbatta and empty beer bottles: “Students at Cal State Stanislaus have discovered evidence that documents related to an upcoming speaking engagement by Sarah Palin were shredded and dumped after the university claimed that no public documents existed, a state senator said on Tuesday.” Willful destruction follows her everywhere.

Maybe part of that cool $12 million Sarah Palin has reportedly raked in since quitting her governorship is hush money from venues too embarrassed to admit they’ve booked her.

********
Attention dude-seeking-dudes with iPhones: “Grindr is pretty much just for Victorian ladies now,” sayeth Rod Townsend. (Everyone’s moved on to other “games of chance.”)

********

Shocker: actress actually talented at something other than acting.

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And finally, every cat looks better in boots.

Quick Lit: April 14-April 20

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: April 14-April 20

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week — including Alice Walker, Men and Dogs, Marin Poetry Festival, “Adapting to Climate Change,” and more

Wednesday, April 14

Louann Brizendine

Hear Neuropsychiatrist, author, and media commentator Dr. Louann Brizendine discuss her theories on the relationship dynamics that result from the neurobiology of the male and female brains, as outlined by her bestselling books, The Male Brain, and The Female Brain.

8 p.m., $20

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

 

“Let Our Words Be Heard”

Attend this queer writing workshop and open mic that will take on the empowering, interactive process of discovering the use of words for healing, sharing histories, and celebrating community. Part of CUAV’s Safetyfest.

6 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

www.mtbs.com

 

The Long Man

Best known for his work on DC Comics’ Detective Comics series in the 1970’s that produced many memorable Batman stories, Steve Englehart discusses his writing career and his new novel, The Long Man, a follow up to his first novel, The Point Man.

7 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) CAR-TOON

 

Men and Dogs

Hear San Francisco resident and author Katie Crouch discuss her new book about a girl who’s father went missing on a fishing trip in Charleston and how the mystery of his disappearance tests the whole family’s concept of loyalty and faith years later.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

The Montefeltro Conspiracy

Join a humanities forum to discuss Marcello Simonetta’s The Montefeltro Conspiracy, a Renaissance mystery uncovering a nefarious plot, a murder, and a coded letter. In conjuction with the upcoming Humanities West 25th anniversary program, The Florence of the Medici: Commerce, Power, and Art in Renaissance Italy, starting April 30.

5:30 p.m., free

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, 2nd floor, SF

www.humanitieswest.org  


Thursday, April 15

If You Can Read This: The philosophy of bumper stickers

At this reading of his new book, Jack Bowen explores the philosophical ideals reflected in the most popular bumper stickers and claims that every bumper sticker holds at least a kernel of truth.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

Noe Valley Celebrates the Book

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of Phoenix Books, an independent bookstore in Noe Valley, at this reading by local authors Allison Hoover Bartlett, Tony DuShane, Clare Willis, Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet and with music by Ted Savarese.

6 p.m., free

Phoenix Books

3957 24th St., SF

(415) 821-3477

 

Friday, April 16

Offbeat Bride

Hear Ariel Meadow Stallings discuss her new book, Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, where she offers inspiration, encouragement, and advice for brides on a budget.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

Saturday, April 17

“Adapting to Climate Change”

Attend this daylong “BioForum” about the challenges of climate change and prospective actions California could take to make a difference. Experts from UC Davis, NOAA, PG&E, and the California Academy of Sciences will be on hand to talk about impacts on local agriculture, fisheries, and energy policies. You might want to ask the PG&E representative why their company is trying to kill progressive, local Community Choice Aggregation efforts for the sake of preserving profits. 

9 a.m.; $25, lunch and coffee included

Pacific Energy Center

851 Howard, SF

1-800-794-7576

 

Melissa Broder

Hear Broder read from her first collection of poems, When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother.

6 p.m., free

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

 

Poetry at Pegasus

Celebrate National Poetry Month at this reading with poets Stephen Ratcliffe, Erica Lewis, and Benjamin Perez.

7:30 p.m., free

Pegasus Books Downtown

2349 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 649-1320

 

“The Revolution Starts at Home”

Attend this workshop on practicing community accountability in real life with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha discussing partner abuse within queer, politicized communities. Part of CUAV’s Safetyfest.

2 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

888 Valencia, SF

www.mtbs.com

 

2048: Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together

Hear about author Kirk Boyd’s plant to draft an enforceable international agreement that could allow the people of the world to create a social order based on human rights.

7:30 p.m., free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

 

Sunday, April 18

Marin Poetry Festival

Enjoy a free afternoon of poetry and music featuring Avotcja and Pedro Rosales, Dancing Bear, C.J. Sage, Adam David Miller, Michelle Baynes, and more.

2 p.m., free

Old Mill Park Amphitheater

300 Throckmorton, Mill Valley

Later in the evening, attend readings featuring San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima, winner of the 2006 National Book Award in poetry Nathaniel Mackey, and award winning poet Branda Hillman.

7 p.m., $20

Dominican University Campus

Angelico Hall

50 Acacia, San Rafael

marinpoetryfestival.com

 

“Writing and Publishing the Novel”

Attend this adult writers’ seminar lead by author Jason Roberts with panelists Vendela Vida, Daniel Alarcón, Rabih Alameddine, Andrew Foster Altschul, and Danielle Svetcov discussing the writing process, and issues relating to publishing, agents, and publishing houses.

6:30 p.m., $75

826 Valencia, SF

www.826valencia.org

 

Monday, April 19

Get Lit!

Bring your own literary contributions or those of your favorite authors to share at this candle lit, wine bar literary salon.

7 p.m., free

1550 Hyde Café and Wine Bar

1550 Hyde, SF

(415) 775-1550

 

Poetry at Pegasus

Celebrate National Poetry Month at this reading with poets Cheryl Dumesnil, Judy Halebsky, and Tiffany Higgins.

7:30 p.m., free

Pegasus Books Downtown

2349 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 649-1320

 

Tuesday, April 20

Diane di Prima

Hear San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima discuss her career as an activist in the 1960’s, a writer of the Beat movement, author of 43 books of poetry and prose, and many more accomplishments in conversation with Alan Kaufman.

6 p.m., $12

Mechanics Institute

57 Post, SF

(415) 393-0100

 

For you Mom, Finally

In her latest book, food magazine editor, restaurant critic, and memoirist Ruth Reichl examines her mother’s life, giving voice to the painful truth that many women of our mothers’ generation had to sacrifice their dreams.

11 a.m., $10-18

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

Kanbar Hall

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1233

 

Alice Walker

Essayist, poet, fiction writer, and ardent social activist Alice Walker will discuss her upcoming book, Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters “the horror” in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel, about her travels to each of those three regions, charting the aftermath of violent conflict and political upheaval. In conversation with Michael Krasny.

8 p.m., $20

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

www.cityboxoffice.com

 

 

Editorial: No free ride for developers

David Talbot
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Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers

The dumbest plan the Newsom administration has cooked up in a long time continues to make its way through City Hall. The mayor wants to defer fees for housing developers as a way to “stimulate” the economy — despite the fact that the city’s own economist concluded the plan would lead to the creation of a relatively tiny number of jobs and perhaps 40 or 50 new market-rate condos over the next two years.

And the cost would be staggering. Over the next 15 to 20 years, depending on how much the housing market picks up, $43 million worth of fees developers typically pay before they break ground could be deferred, an analysis by Fernando Marti, a member of the Eastern Neighborhoods Citizens Advisory Committee, shows. The city would get the money eventually — but buildings would go up before the cash to provide water and sewer service, public transportation, schools, parks, and other amenities is in the city’s accounts.

At the same time, information released by the city last week shows that the gap between the cost of the infrastructure needed for the Eastern Neighborhoods plan and the fees developers will pay is at least $100 million, and perhaps as much as $234 million.

The message is clear. Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers. In fact, Newsom’s administration is already suggesting special levies on property in the impacted areas to make up the difference.

In underserved areas like the Eastern Neighborhoods, where transit and open space are already inadequate to meet current needs, the situation is particularly harsh. “They want to have the Eastern Neighborhoods pay higher taxes than anyone else to mitigate the impacts of new stuff that was supposed to pay for itself,” planning activist Tony Kelly, who is running for District 10 supervisor, told us. “This is a non-starter.”

The problem is nothing new — although a lot of pro-development activists have been denying it for years: new high-end housing development doesn’t pay its own way. If more than 40,000 new residents are going to live in the southeast part of town, San Francisco will have to build schools, police stations, firehouses, bus and rail lines, parks, and in some cases new roads. Then the city will have to hire (and train) cops, bus drivers, firefighters, gardeners, and teachers. None of that is cheap — in fact, the Eastern Neighborhoods Infrastructure Finance Working Group estimates that the actual cost of providing basic infrastructure would be about $22 for every square foot of new development.

The developers howl at that sort of number and insist they can’t afford it, so the city is prepared to charge closer to $10 a square foot. To make up the difference in the Eastern Neighborhoods, the working group suggested some form of tax-increment financing — that is, the city would borrow against the expected new property tax revenues from the new development and use that to build infrastructure. The mayor took that off the table, wanting any new revenue to go right to the General Fund.

And, of course, under the mayor’s current plan, the modest fees developers actually have to pay will be deferred for several years, making the problem even worse. So the only way to pay for the costs of new housing development is some sort of special property-tax district in the affected neighborhoods.

Add to this the fact that the mayor’s proposal would mean the immediate loss of at least 400 affordable housing units, and the whole thing becomes untenable.

The supervisors have amended the fee-deferral plan to make it a bit less awful, but the whole approach is still completely backward. City fees aren’t holding up housing construction; the weak market and tight credit are to blame for that. And when those conditions change, developers will be poised — as always — to make a vast amount of money selling overpriced condos for millionaires in San Francisco. And if they can’t pay their own way, the city shouldn’t allow them to break ground.

 

Did Lennar hire an armed security guard from Andrews International?

Mary Magee
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Did Lennar hire an armed security guard from Andrews International?

I didn’t attend the April 12 hearing of the Board’s city operations and neighborhood services committee about Lennar’s decision to send an armed ex-SFPD officer to a Feb. 18 community meeting at the Nation of Islam’s mosque on Third Street.

But video footage shows that it was a packed house, during which plenty of folks stated loud and clear that they thought it was a really bad and potentially dangerous idea to send an armed ex-officer into a community meeting in the Bayview.



“What next? Concealed weapons at City Hall?” a member of the public asked.

At meeting’s end, Sups. John Avalos, Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd voted to refer a resolution urging Lennar Corporation to issue a formal, written apology to members of the Stop Lennar Action Movement (SLAM.) to the full Board without recommendation, after Elsbernd voiced concern that the ex-officer may have been threatened and had racial epithets hurled his way.

“If the gentleman was threatened, if racial language was used, in that case it should not be one- sided,” Elsbernd said. “There should be apologies on the other side as well.”

Meanwhile, it’s worth shining light on another question: Who was the ex-officer actually working for?

During the meeting, much was made of the fact that the ex-officer, who told police his name was Bob Tarantino though apparently that is not his real name, gave as his work contact an address in Miami, Florida, where PR agency Sitrick and Company, has an office.

(Lennar once sent a Sitrick employee to talk to me and my editors at the Guardian, after we published the first in a series of reports that showed that the company failed to adequately enforce promised asbestos dust mitigation plans at its Shipyard site.)

But Sitrick managing director Glenn Bunting, who oversees the company’s San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Miami offices, told the Guardian that the ex-officer in question has never worked for or been an employee of Sitrick.

“We know who is on our pay roll and we don’t provide security services,” Bunting said.

He confirmed that Sitrick recently opened an office in Miami and sublets space from another firm in the same building. “We have a very small presence in Miami,” Bunting said.

So, who could Tarantino work for who  also has the same address in Miami, Florida, where Lennar Corporation is headquartered?

The building in question looks pretty big, lies across the street from the court house and is home to Andrews International, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, and bills itself as “a full service provider of security and risk mitigation services” and the “largest private, American-owned full-service security provider in the United States.”

In October 2009, Andrews International acquired Verasys LLC, a Miami-based consulting firm focused on global risk mitigation, investigations and security services.

“The acquisition added new offices in Miami, Tampa, Dallas, Atlanta and Bogotá, expanding service capabilities in all 50 states and Latin America” an Andrews International press release states.“ This followed the June 2009 acquisition of the U.S. and Mexico guarding operations of Garda World Security Corporation (TSX: GW), encompassing 14 offices across the U.S. and abroad. Most recently in January 2010, Andrews International acquired A&S Security, a California-based full service security company, expanding operations in its Western U.S. Region.”

So, it’s possible Bob Tarantino, or whatever his name is, works for these folks?
Lennar Urban’s Kofi Bonner has not replied to this question, as of this blog posting. But in a March 15 letter to Board President David Chiu and D. 10 supervisor Sophie Maxwell, Bonner said he was “working with our vendors to prevent such an episode from happening again.”


Bonner’s letter wasn’t entirely apologetic.

“Lennar has become increasingly concerned that some community meetings have devolved into hostility accompanied by intimidation of our supporters,” Bonner stated. “For that reason, I decided against sending any employees or consultants to the meeting in question.”

“I am truly disturbed by the ensuing physical and verbal abuse directed at the security firm employee,” Bonner continued. “Not surprisingly, he is independently considering his legal options.”

Candidates for judge: Robert Retana

Zelda Bronstein
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Candidates for judge: Robert Retana

The final installment of our interviews with candidates for Superior Court Judge in San Francisco: Robert Retana


 


 

Robert Retana by Endorse2010

The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

Zelda Bronstein
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The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has released a voting scorecard on the supervisors — and it’s a bad joke. The Chamber says the scorecard shows who are top opponents of business in the city, the ones who don’t support “job creation and government efficiency” — two poll-tested buzzwords the Chamber will try to use in supervisorial campaigns this fall.


But there are only ten votes on the scorecard — and they don’t even remotely represents the most important jobs, business or economic issues the board has addressed in the past year.


Seriously: Does anyone think that naming rights for Candlestick Park has had a huge impact on the ability of businesses to create jobs in the city? How about a resolution supporting a proposed Contemporary Art Museum?


And since small, locally owned independent businesses are the single largest private-sector job generators, how does the Recurrent Energy deal — a giveaway to a big power company — help create jobs?


Of course, that’s not what this is about. The scorecard issues were carefully chosen to make the progressives look bad. And, as always, the Chamber has completely ignored the fact that the largest employers in San Francisco are public-sector agencies, and that cutting government programs and blocking new sources of revenue are the real “job killers.”


We’re putting together our own scorecard, measuring a wider range of votes on key issues in the past year. What were the most important? What really mattered to San Franciscans? The comment lines are open.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Today’s Look: Seungtaek, Sacramento and Polk

Tell us about your look: “My jacket, shirt, and pants are all from Korea.”

Officials accused of destroying public documents on Palin visit

Sasha Cuttler
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The lesson of political scandals from Watergate through Monicagate is that the cover-up is often worse than the original crime, and that could once again prove true with the simmering conflict over large speaking fees that CSU-Stanislaus has agreed to pay Sarah Palin, particularly given new revelations that university officials might have destroyed public documents that had been requested by Sen. Leland Yee.

At a press conference convened by Yee this morning, two university students told the story of being informed by fellow students that administrators were shredding and disposing of documents in an administration building on Friday, which was particularly strange because the campus was shut down for a state-mandated furlough day.

So a group of five students started digging into a dumpster adjacent to the building that was being used that day and gathered all the documents in there, some shredded, some intact. And among those documents, they say, were pages four through nine of a contract with the Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents Palin. And although they don’t mention her by name, they reference “air travel for two between Anchorage, Alaska and event city.” (Read the document here) Palin — the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate who has become a darling of the Tea Baggers and other right-wing populists — is scheduled to speak at a $500 per plate fundraising on June 25.

That was precisely the kind of document that Yee and attorney Terry Francke of Californians Aware had recently requested of the university through a California Public Records Act request, although their response from the university last week was that it had no documents responsive to their request.

So Yee asked the Attorney General’s Office to look into the matter, which could be what triggered the document destruction session, with officials fearing they might get caught in a lie. The CPRA allows for civil penalties for refusing to disclose public documents, while the Penal Code indicates willful destruction of public records may be considered a criminal act.

“This is an issue of accountability and transparency that is fundamental to our democracy,” Yee told reporters, calling the actions “unconscionable” and “reprehensible.”

Yee has been a strong critic of secrecy in the CSU and UC systems, and has unsuccessfully tried to pass laws requiring college foundations to be bound by open government and public records laws. That’s an issue in this case considering it’s the CSU-Stanislaus foundation that is hosting Palin’s visit, although Yee has pointed out that the university president and other top officials control the foundation, which uses campus facilities and resources.

“What we’re finding is with more and more of these foundations, there’s unethical and illegal stuff going on and nobody knows what’s going on,” Yee said, citing as an example the indictment of former City College of San Francisco chancellor Phillip Day for illegally laundering public funds for private use through the foundation.

But if the students’ story holds up, it now appears that the university itself was in possession of the documents that Yee requested, the first evidence that it wasn’t just the foundation that was involved with the Palin visit. 

Francke told reporters that he plans to file a lawsuit over the matter this week, depending on what the AG’s Office does. “Our purpose is to get a court decision that regards these documents as university documents and not just foundation documents,” he said.

Calls to the CSU-Stanislaus and the AG’s Office have not yet been returned, so check back for more details later.  

New media sources win Pulitzers

Sasha Cuttler
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2

American journalism’s biggest awards, the Pulitzer Prizes, were awarded today and among the honorees was a nonprofit newsroom, Pro Publica, which was recognized for groundbreaking work that it did on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Pro Publica reporter Sheri Fink was honored for “The Deadly Choices at Memorial,” which chronicled ethically questionable decisions made by medical staff about what to do with critically ill patients awaiting a delayed evacuation. The nonprofit operation partners with other newsrooms, and Fink’s story also ran in New York Times Magazine.

Although he was not part of the Pulitzer Prize, former Guardian writer A.C. Thompson has been part of the Pro Publica team covering the aftermath of Katrina, doing amazing work on troubling actions (and inaction) by the New Orleans Police Department in the wake of Katrina, partnering with The Nation, Frontline, and The Times-Picayune on his stories.

Closer to home, SFGate cartoonist Mark Fiore won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the first time that prize went to an online-only cartoonist.    

The Daily Blurgh: That cat should have won the prize

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
The Daily Blurgh: That cat should have won the prize

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

“We offer a kind of grittiness you can’t find much anymore,” said Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate and a driving force behind the idea of Tenderloin tourism. “And what is grittier than the Tenderloin?”

Now that San Francisco is going to court the tourist dollars of baby boomers descending upon the TL in search of reawakening the pleasure centers of their youth – the music! the drugs! the picturesque squalor! – perhaps City Hall should also consider starting up tourism franchises in other “gritty” parts of the city? 

(But gawking humorously at the poor, addicted, and metally challenged makes for such a sensational blog post! –Ed.)

Also: Drubbing! This headline is the second Google hit that comes up for the search: “slumming San Francisco.” Take that, spendy New York Times (which seems to have a long history of reporting on slumming in other cities).

 
There are too many golden nuggets to choose from in Roger Ebert’s account of working on the Russ Meyer-directed Sex Pistols film that never was, but this exchange is one of them:
 
Meyer opened up by informing Johnny Rotten that with his stovepipe arms he wouldn’t have survived one day in the army.

“What do I want with the fucking army?” Rotten said.

 “You listen to me, you little shit. We won the Battle of Britain for you!”

I reflected that America had not been involved in the Battle of Britain, and that John Lydon (his real name) was Irish, and therefore from a non-participant nation. I kept these details to myself.

 
The anxiety of influence: The debate going on in the comments on this Fecal Face interview with local artist Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch is heated. Holyoke-Hirsch doesn’t seem to lack faith in his abilities (he is quoted as referring to himself as, “the hardest working illustrator and artist based in San Francisco, California”), although irony is sometimes lost in transcription. Hubris aside, there is still the question of whether or not his art, as some comments posit, swagger-jacks Chris Johansson and Barry McGee. But kids, it’s OK. Put down those rocks! Didn’t you know street art has already jumped the balaclava’d shark?

(Kidding!)

We love our cat
for her self
regard is assiduous
and bland
 
Congrats to personal fave Rae Armantrout for winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Cat people, this may be finally be your salve for the incredibly raw wounds from our canine-centric Pets issue.

Youth Speaks’ young poets roar

Andrew Lam
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2

“Poetry’s made a big difference in my life. It’s allowed me to express myself in ways that I never would have been able to,” says Erica McMath Sheppard, 17, one the winners of Sat/3’s Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam at the Warfield Theater.

Her victory was the culmination of many years of hard work. Erica started participating in the Youth Speaks program when she was 13, and competing in the yearly slam competition at 14 years old. On Saturday, before a sold out crowd at the Warfield, she spoke with a light borne of a difficult adolescence, one spent in the cold bureaucracy of Child Protective Services, but through which she has nonetheless thrived academically.

“You look at America in the 21st century, who is the voice? What does it look like?” Youth Speaks executive director James Kass founded the non-profit in 1996 to provide public school kids with access to arts education in a state where such programs are rapidly being downsized into nonexistence. He says that, although professional artists have emerged from Youth Speaks’ programs, what the YS assemblies, after school workshops, and guest speakers really want to accomplish is the development of teens’ creativity, and by extension, their ability to think critically about the problems of the day. “Some kids go into teaching, go into non profit work,” he says. “This is about developing leaders.”

It’s a mission that resonates. One need only consider last Saturday’s event at the Warfield. Rows of cheering fans, hanging on their every word — would that this rapt attention were always present when youth spoke.

“It was an exciting experience,” says McMath-Sheppard, whose two poems focused on eating issues and the fallacies of Child Protective Services, whose care has shuffled her from homes in Potrero Hill, to the Tenderloin, to the Mission — where she is legally required to move from the day she turns 18. “It was so inspiring to share that love from the stage, and get the hugs and kind words afterwards. It was amazing.”

McMath will join Youth Speaks winners Bryant Phan (Oakland, age 17), Hadeel Ramadan, (San Bruno, 19), Jasmine Williams (Daly City, 19), Dominic Nicholas (Oakland, 18), and Natasha Huey (Berkeley, 19) in representing the Bay area at the Brave New Voices Festival in Los Angeles on July 23rd.

 

“I don’t really title my poems,” says McMath. “I know a lot of poets do, I just don’t label them like that.” Below, her untitled slam winning case against Child Protective Services.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my social worker

Katie said, “Children and family services will only house you until you’re 18 if you have your high school diploma or GED.”

She asked when I turn 18. I said, “June 18 th.”

I asked when I had to leave. She said “June 18th”

On my 18 th birthday I could be homeless

the only exception to this rule is if I were to decide to drop out of high school, but if I was gonna drop out, it would’ve been in 9 th grade—not 65 days before I graduate.

I just found out I will be booted from my house

Happy birthday Ericka get the fuck out

Correction—Happy birthday number 35876-b

We need you to get your shit and leave immediately

and I was angry

and I am scared

because it’s hard to recognize your own potential when know one else wants to let the fire inside of you burn

she told me if I was to get pregnant additional services would be offered

I asked if this was her suggestion

She replied, “No, but I did want you to have this information though…”

On my 18 th birthday, I could be homeless

You do not become an adult because you turn 18

you just get to buy a pack of cigarettes to deal with this shit

Why cant CPS understand that I am still a child

Or I was never allowed to be

Because I was always too busy

working

paying bills

Being active at my little sister’s back to school night

And now finding a place to stay

This is the reason that three percent of foster youth go to college and only one of that three percent graduates

My last roommate was a prostitute

And as much as I wanted to giver her a speech about how precious her body was

I couldn’t

Because she was in the same position I am in now

She was a number

and I am number 35876-b

I am not as strong as I make myself out to be

I don’t learn how to magically do shit when I turn 18

I am disorganized

have time management issues

have a hard time code switching when I need to

I need help and this system refuses to help me

And you could believe that I can help my damn self ‘cause I been helping my dam self my entire life

But why doesn’t Katie acknowledge how important it is for me to go to college (slowly)

At 18 my number turns into what’s called inactive dependency

Emancipation

Lincoln freed the slaves

Katie is freeing me

This system was set up for

People

excuse me

numbers like me live off of welfare checks,

And taste crack instead of their degree

and lay on there black and make babies

Then we can be the black Brady bunch and live on food stamps

Or purposely go to jail after all it is three hots and a cot

How do u expect us to fly with broken wings

Numbers like me are notorious for failing

Because I am black

A women

Disabled

Broke/lower class

don’t live with her mother and doesn’t know her father

And in this shady as child protective services system

But no protecting will be offered when I turn 18

I don’t want to be 35876-b

I just want Katie and the whole protective services system to notice me

Katie did you know that I will be the 1 st generation in my family to get my degree

Katie did you know that I go to two different schools one at day another by night just to guarantee that I will graduate on time

did you know that I am a poet

Katie did you know that I am a person

that my name is Erica Sheppard McMath not 35876-b

Katie I wish you where here to hear this but you don’t get paid on Saturdays (pause)

and please excuse my unpleasant attitude but on behalf of every other foster youth I need to tell you that abandonment is not a joyful feeling

I understand that to you this is just a 9-5

but for me this is my life that is being put on the line

we are in this system because we were abandon

once again I am being abandon

and I will be ok because I’ve always done what I have needed to do therefore I will survive Katie

but no thanks to you

Will Obama help Kamala Harris?

Zelda Bronstein
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12
Will Obama help Kamala Harris?

President Obama is coming to California to help raise money for Sen. Barbara Boxer, who already has more than $8 million on hand. The president has to do this; Boxer’s seat is critical to the Democrats hopes for hanging on to a majority in the Senate,and Obama will pull out all the stops in this fall’s campaign to help Dems in tough races.


And while Boxer’s not going to get an easy pass, she’s still the front-runner — whatever the polls may show, she’s always been a great campaigner and has overcome tough odds plenty of times before. And unless Tom Campbell pulls it out in the GOP primary, she’s going to face either Carly Fiorina or Chuck DeVore, and both of them are too far to the right for California.


But there’s another key race this fall where Obama could also be a huge help. I think San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris is going to win the Democratic primary for attorney general, but in the general election, she’s going to get hit hard by the GOP dirt machine. It’s going to be death penalty and cop killers all day long. Harris is tough, and knows what’s coming, but I can guarantee that race will be nasty, mean, dirty, ugly and as negative as you can imagine.


And Harris is going to need to raise a lot of money to fight back.


Now let’s remember: Harris was one of the first California elected officials to support Obama for president. She was the co-chair of his state campaign. And this fall, he could return the favor by making a visible endorsement — and by coming to town for a major Harris fundraiser. The president of the United States can raise $5 million in one night for a candidate — and that kind of boost, along with the positive press it would generate, might make the difference.


Of course, Obama, who (sadly) won’t come out against the death penalty, will have to take some hard questions and a few hits himself, in a tough national election year for Democrats, if he gets to close to Harris. And she’ s enough of a pragmatist that she’ll understand if he ducks this one.


But he really shouldn’t.

Stop mistreating working women!

David Talbot
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0

Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half century. Contact him through his website www.dickmeister.com

Although the global recession has had a serious impact on working men and women alike, two new reports make clear that women in the United States and throughout the world have suffered most because of long-standing discrimination.

The findings come from two highly regarded sources – the United Nations’ International Labor Office (ILO), and the New Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank headed by John Podesta, former chief of staff for President Clinton.

Above all, the reports show the critical need to combat the worldwide mistreatment of working women, especially in these times of economic distress. The initial blow of the recession was felt in work dominated by men, such as finance, manufacturing and construction. But the main impact has shifted to other areas of work, including service work, where women generally are dominant.

Nevertheless, as the CAP report notes, “Most of the jobs that have been lost have been lost by men, leaving millions of women and mothers to support their families.”

That’s a rough task for many women. For though they’re usually doing essentially the same work as men, or the equivalent of it, women earn substantially less than the men – internationally, 30 to 40 percent less, despite a narrowing of the gap in recent years. The gap is narrower within the United States, but even so, U.S. women average only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

The pay gaps exist in part because, as the ILO’s Sara Elder says,  “We still find many more women than men taking up low pay and precarious work, either because this is the only type of job made available or because they need to find something that allows them to balance work and family responsibilities. Men do not face these same constraints.”

And it may get worse for women, even after the recession ends, since “we know from previous crises that female job-losers find it more difficult to return to work as economic recovery settles in.”

What’s needed everywhere, of course, is equal treatment for working women – paying them the same as men doing comparable work and otherwise treating them the same.

In the United States that would mean cracking down on the widespread violations of the 47-year-old Equal Pay Act that has never delivered its promise to guarantee women equal treatment on the job.

Better yet would be the passage – and strict enforcement  – of the long stalled Paycheck Fairness Act. It would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act that have made it relatively easy for employers to discriminate against women in pay and other matters.

It’s estimated that if U.S. women were granted equal pay , they could each earn as much as $2  million more over the whole of their working lives. It’s estimated as well that equal pay would reduce the number of families living in poverty by as much as half.

Probably the most essential reform aside from paycheck fairness would be, as the CAP report recommends, worldwide updating of basic labor standards “to recognize that most workers have family responsibilities and need predictable and flexible work schedules, family and medical leaves and paid sick days.” That would assure that women “who stay employed to support their families” won’t end up unemployed because of  “family-work.

At least in the United States, those and other reforms would likely win broad public support. A recent poll cited in the CAP report showed that “a large majority of Americans support new, more family-friendly workplace policies.” Eighty-five percent “said businesses that fail to adapt to needs of modern families risk losing good workers.”

And businesses that fail to adapt will be furthering the mistreatment of working women that’s gone virtually unchecked for far too many years. No matter what the recession – or its end – brings, we will not have a truly healthy economy until working women are guaranteed their full rights.

Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half century. Contact him through his website www.dickmeister.com

Make PG&E get two-thirds for its initiative

Zelda Bronstein
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2
Make PG&E get two-thirds for its initiative

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Morain just joined the chorus of voices against Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Prop 16 with a piece that reminds us how PG&E just nine years ago last week went into bankruptcy. It’s particularly interesting to read the comments; the Bee publishes in a town that’s had public power for decades. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District offers lower rates and better service than PG&E — and while the public in general, and people who comment on newspaper blogs in particular, tend to be cynical about government these days, the folks in Sacramento seem quite pleased with their public utility.


Here’s one comment:


I used to live in a PG&E supplied house and my electric bills were unbelievably high… Now I live in SMUD house and my electric bills are sooo low. So I would definitely encourage people to vote NO. PG&E wants to monopolize the market knowing that a 2/3 vote is impossible. This is a case where a nonprofit efficient quasi govt. entity would be for our best interests. A for profit corporation like PG&E would suck us dry…

And another:

Why is this initiative known as the “Taxpayers Right to Vote” measure when it obviously should be names the “PG&E Profit and Monopoly Protection Act”? It’s the same disingenuous campaign that prevented Yolo County residents from enjoying the benefits of SMUD electricity. PG&E, along with their two-faced spokesman, the supposedly “honorable” Stan Atkinson, sold Yolo Co. down the river with a barrage of distorted facts, misinformation and scare tactics. When are voters going to stop approving these special interest propositions that are ruining this state? Quit relying on 30 second sound bites to make your decisions and see who’s really behind these initiatives and what their motives are. In fact, vote NO on all propositions unless they really have some merit. Prop 16 does not.

But here’s my favorite:


Here is an idea for a new initiative. I propose an initiative that would apply to all subsequent initiatives. For any initiative that seeks a 2/3 voter approval, or 2/3 legislature approval, that initiative itself would have to be passed by a 2/3 majority rather than by a simple majority. What is good for the goose ought to be good for the gander.

That makes a whole lot of sense. If PG&E thinks a two-thirds vote is fair, and the company wants to spend more than $30 million forcing that standard on all of us, then PG&E should have to get two-thirds of the vote for its own self-serving initiatives.

Just out of prison, Addis returns to SF with a message

Sasha Cuttler
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60

Paul Addis is a playwright and performance artist best known for prematurely igniting Burning Man‘s eponymous central effigy during a Monday night lunar eclipse at the event in 2007, a crime for which he served two years in a Nevada prison. He was recently released and returned to San Francisco, where his new one-man show debuts at The Dark Room on April 30.

Last week, Addis sat down for an extended interview with the Guardian to discuss that momentous night – when he grabbed the Holy Grail of burner malcontents, lighting the Man early, and paid a heavy price for it – and its aftermath, including developing his play, “Dystopian Veneer,” while in a prison work camp near Las Vegas.

“It’s a brand new life and I’ve got all this potential and I want to make the most out of it,” said Addis, an intense guy who exhibited a wide range of emotions during the three-hour interview, from easy laughter to frustrations with what he sees as the lack of risk-taking in San Francisco to excitement over his future to flashes of real menace when discussing those who have done him wrong.

Addis is a lightning rod whose torching of the Man still elicits strong reactions from those who attend Burning Man. Some angrily condemn an act they see as destructive and dangerous, while others appreciate the ultimate symbolic assault on an event that they think had become too orderly and calcified.  
Paul Addis's mug shot after burning The Man.

Addis’s post-burn mug shot.

“Everybody knew it needed to be done for lots of reasons,” Addis said of an action that was his sole purpose in attending Burning Man that year. “I felt like Burning Man as an event was starting to coddle people way too much.”

But the event’s leaders certainly didn’t coddle Addis, instead testifying at his 2008 sentencing hearing about the high cost of replacing the Man (high enough to bump the destruction of property charge up to a felony) and the early burn’s negative impact on the event. “They didn’t have to do this,” Addis said of Burning Man board member Will Roger’s testimony at the hearing. “Instead, they decided to deliberately take action they knew would send me to prison.”

Marian Goodell, the director of business and communications for Burning Man, declined to discuss the accusation, or Addis’ complaint that she and others have publicly misrepresented the role of Burning Man brass in sending him to prison, including statements in the film “Dust & Illusions” that the sentencing was beyond their control. “It doesn’t do us or him any good to open that wound again,” Goodell told the Guardian. “We’re not going to discuss it.”

Starting the fire wasn’t Addis’s only crime of that era. Within weeks of returning to Burning Man, he was arrested in Washington for carrying guns in public (he says they were props for the one-man play about Hunter S. Thompson he was doing at the time) and for possession of fireworks and an air gun near Grace Cathedral (which police said at the time was a plot to burn down the stone church, a notion that Addis calls preposterous). Addis has innocent narratives for each incident, blaming others for overreacting.

Yet Addis now says that he’s let go of his old grudges, describing a moment of clarity and peace that came over him while driving his motorcycle through the Nevada desert on his way back to San Francisco. He said that he feels most happy and alive when he’s on stage, a passion that he said sustained him while in prison, “so it’s imperative for me to get back to what I love doing.”

Addis posted a promotional video for his new show on Laughing Squid (whose owner, Scott Beale, Addis has known for many years). It opens with Addis looking up at the camera, his mouth covered in duct tape that he slowly rips off and begins speaking. “In a society whose foundation is free expression under the First Amendment and liberty under the Constitution, this is probably the most desperate, despicable and disgusting thing that can be done to an outspoken and risk-taking performance artist,” he says, indicating the tape in his fingers, before tossing it aside and saying, “Well, that’s over now.”

He goes on to criticize how sanitized San Francisco has become, singling out the police crackdown on SoMa parties and nightclubs that we’ve been covering in the Guardian and calling for people to join him in pushing the edge. But just how San Franciscans will greet this controversial figure is still an open question. 

I’ll have more from my interview with Addis, along with reactions from other figures in the Burning Man world, in the Guardian in coming weeks; and even more in my upcoming book, “The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture,” due out later this year from CCC Publishing.  

Candidates for judge: Richard Ulmer

Zelda Bronstein
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1
Candidates for judge: Richard Ulmer

Another candidate for judge, another interview, another sound file for your listening pleasure. This is incumbent Judge Richard Ulmer, who is facing two challengers, Michael Nava and Dan Dean.


Judge Ulmert by Endorse2010

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