SFBG Blogs

Sunday Streets returns

Sasha Cuttler
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Sunday Streets returns

The first of nine Sundays Streets events — San Francisco’s version of the car-free ciclovias that have caught on in cities around the world over the last few years, temporarily transforming roadways into vital public spaces — was held Sunday (3/14) along the Embarcadero, drawing an impressive turnout on a beautiful day.

Despite some initial resistance to the idea among Fisherman’s Wharf merchants when it started here two years ago, Sunday Streets now seems to be accepted and welcomed by most San Franciscans, even in the once-fearful business community.

Personally, the slightly sterile Embarcadero route was my least favorite route in years’ past, and I think the concept generally works better in areas with more street life, such as in the Mission, where Sunday Streets will be held June 20 and July 11. So I’m happy to see the number of events being expanded this year to include rides in Western Addition and the Tenderloin this fall.

Ecuador natives push Chevron for settlement

Sasha Cuttler
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Ecuador natives push Chevron for settlement

By Nima Maghame

The Rainforest Action Network, a non-profit organization that protests the pollution and destruction of natural habitats around the world, recently gathered on a bio-diesel bus named Priscilla with Ecuadorian tribal representative Emergildo Criollo and drove to new Chevron CEO John Watson’s home in Lafayette to deliver a petition demanding the company pay for the clean up of Chevron-owned Texaco’s contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon rain forest.

“Because of contamination in the river, I have lost two sons and my wife is very ill. I have been in this battle for over 10 years,” said Criollo, who has come to the Bay Area on behalf of the Cohan and Siona people of Amazonian Ecuador as well as the organizations Secoya Indigenous Nations and Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia. They are among the local groups battling Chevron in an Ecuador court, seeking compensation and cleanup money.  

The petition, which has been signed by more than 350,000 people from all over the world, never reached the hands of Watson. The CEO was not home when the activists arrived. The Ecuadorian did have a scheduled closed meeting with Chevron executives at the company’s headquarters in San Ramon later that day. He was accompanied by a demonstration outside the corporation’s office, where a dozen RAN members listed off names of petition signers.

“We here at Chevron, believe that this is a great first step towards an ongoing dialogue between Chevron and Ecuador,” said Gary Fisher, Chevron’s Manager of Public Policy, to RAN activists after the closed meeting with Criollo. 

Criollo lived his entire life in a remote village in Ecuador where he saw Texaco – which was later purchased by Chevron — come and go, leaving oil pollution everywhere. Consumer activists reports show that an estimated 30,000 people have suffered from contamination in Ecuador, just one country out of many who have reported illnesses and mutations caused by the reported 18 billion gallons of toxic waste dumped in the region.

“[Chevron/Texaco] chose to use pumping technology that was not as advanced as the drilling technology they use in the states, which pumps excess crude back into the ground, to save two to three dollars a barrel…There is free standing oil in this pristine rainforest. It’s hot and it just boils in the sun. You can touch it, you can smell it,” said Anderson.

Chevron executives claim that the pollution is the fault of the oil company in charge of extraction now, nationally owned PetroEcuador. They also state they have funded up to $40 million in clean up efforts, a claim that RAN believes to be false. The petition calls for the oil company to fund clean up operations in the region and is estimated to cost them more than $16 billion.

“We believe we are very far away from any resolve from this company,” said Criollo.

 

Editorial: Needed — some teeth for the San Francisco sunshine law

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EDITORIAL The San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance is a national model for open government, the first and strongest local sunshine law in the country. It was written to improve public access to government records and meetings, and to clear up some of the problems and loopholes in state law. On paper, it makes San Francisco a shining example of how concerned residents can come together and eliminate secrecy at City Hall.

But 17 years after its passage, it’s still not working. That’s because city officials routinely ignore the law — and the city attorney, the district attorney, and the Ethics Commission have utterly failed to enforce it.

Here’s how it works, in theory: A San Franciscan makes a request for records in the office of a public official. The official is supposed to make the documents available promptly — within 48 hours for immediate disclosure requests and within 10 working days for routine requests. If the records aren’t forthcoming, the resident can complain to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, which brings both sides in, holds a hearing, gets legal advice, and determines whether the complain is valid. If the task force finds that the official should have made the records available, the matter gets referred to the Ethics Commission, which can file charges of official misconduct.

Here’s how it happens in practice: Some officials, like Mayor Gavin Newsom, simply ignore sunshine requests, or delay responding well beyond the statutory limit, or refuse to release records on grounds that clearly violate the law. The task force holds a hearing, and nobody from the Mayor’s Office shows up. Then the task force finds in favor of the person seeking the records, sends the file to the Ethics Commission — and the whole thing dies.

Not once in the history of the ordinance has the Ethics Commission actually filed misconduct charges. Not once. Violating the Sunshine Ordinance is a crime, but D.A. Kamala Harris has never once prosecuted a miscreant. And public officials who disobey the law hide under the protection of advice from the city attorney — although that advice itself is secret.

The message to City Hall is clear: you can defy the sunshine law with impunity; nothing will ever happen.

The task force is offering a series of amendments to the law that would improve enforcement and give the measure some teeth. The supervisors ought to support those proposals — but the board ought to go even further.

The proposals would turn the task force into a commission, which is a fine idea. But more important, the new commission would have something extraordinary: a $50,000 litigation fund to pay for an outside lawyer — not the city attorney — to sue officials who flout the law. If those lawsuits succeed, the city would have to pay attorneys’ fees, which would replenish the fund. And the very threat of that could have a huge impact on the way City Hall responds to sunshine requests.

We support the plan — and since nobody else will enforce the law, we think the task force (or commission) needs the authority to do it. The body overseeing sunshine complaints should be able to force public officials to release records or open meetings; rulings from that body should have the force of law. That works well in Connecticut, where a state Freedom of Information Commission has the authority to order anyone, from the governor to a city council, to open up files. Government in that state hasn’t become unwieldy; officials secrets haven’t fallen into the hands of terrorists. But ordinary citizens who can’t afford a lawsuit have a forum to force reluctant public officials to do their business in public.

San Francisco should adopt that model, and the sooner the better.

“Remember Me” is — you guessed it — forgettable

Sue Vaughan
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“Remember Me” is — you guessed it — forgettable

Ominously set in New York City during the summer of 2001, Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson (of the Twilight series) and Emilie de Ravin (of TV’s Lost), pretty much answers the question of whether it’s still too soon to make the events of September 11 the subject of a date movie.

Or rather, not the subject so much as the specter waiting just off-camera for its walk-on while brooding 21-year-old Tyler Hawkins (Pattinson) quotes Gandhi, gets into brawls, gets drunk, writes letters to his dead brother, and otherwise channels despondency and rage into various salubrious outlets. One of these is romancing (under circumstances severely testing the viewer’s credulity) de Ravin’s Ally Craig, grappling somewhat more constructively with her own familial tragedy. Ally is the sort of self-possessed, strong-willed young woman whose instincts, shortly after she’s been backhanded by her drunk father (Chris Cooper), tell her to placate and have sex with her drunk boyfriend when he comes home enraged after battling his own father (Pierce Brosnan). She is there to teach Tyler, through quirky habits like eating dessert first, what director Allen Coulter (2006’s Hollywoodland) wishes to teach us: that time is short and one must fill one’s life with meaningful actions — like throwing a fire extinguisher through a window to convince a classroom of tweens to stop bullying one’s little sister. The film is seeded with allusions to an impending catastrophe that feels less integrated than exploited. And it’s uncomfortable seeing the fall of the towers used to make the ground shake under a sweet, fairly depthless depiction of love and grief.

Remember Me opens today in Bay Area theaters.

Campos on the next mayor

Zelda Bronstein
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Campos on the next mayor

Just spoke with Sup. David Campos, who has some interesting thoughts on the next mayor and whether the supervisors should seek to change the City Charter to create a special election instead of filling a mayoral vacancy by appointment.


“I don’t have a problem with people having the final say,” Campos told me. “And they will, since there will be an election for mayor next year anyway.


“But the current system has been in place a long time, and a district-elected board appointed Dianne Feinstein mayor, and nobody had any problems with it back then. It’s just now that Newsom has decided to run for another office that he’s talking about this. It’s really self-serving.”


Yep, that it is.


 

Daly for mayor?

Zelda Bronstein
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Daly for mayor?

Sup. Chris Daly just called to comment on the selection of the next mayor of San Francisco. Gavin Newsom may want to change the Charter to mandate a special election if there’s a vacancy in the Mayor’s Office (thus preventing the district-elected supes from choosing a new mayor if he’s elected lieutenant governor). Daly’s already a step ahead: He’s planning to introduce his own Charter amendment, which would mandate special elections to fill vacancies for either supervisor or mayor — and the election would be a plurality victory. That means the person with the most votes wins — no matter how many candidates or how small the actual victory total.


Under that scenario, a special election for mayor — a crowded special election, with eight or ten or 15 candidates — could go to almost anyone; someone with a loyal, organized and modest constituency could round up, say, 20,000 votes and be the next mayor.


Even, maybe, someone like Chris Daly.


And he knows that. “I will not be running for mayor of San Francisco in November, 2011,” he told me. “But I would seriously consider running in March.”


Gavin — you sure this is a good idea?

All those white judges

Zelda Bronstein
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Michael Nava, who is running for Superior Court judge in San Francisco, tipped me to a fascinating document that’s on the website of the California Judicial Council. It’s a spreadsheet breaking down the ethnicity and gender of all the justices and trial court judges in the state. And it’s pretty depressing.


In 2010, 73 percent of all trial court judges in the state are white, and 70 percent are male. A full 81 percent of the Court of Appeal judges are white, and 70 percent are male. That’s astonishing.


Some counties are even worse: The Marin County judiciary is 100 percent white. Same for Napa County. San Francisco’s a little better, at 66 percent white (but in a city with a majority non-white population, it’s hardly representative).


Check out the pdf here.


 

Take off your clothes! World Naked Bike Ride, spring edition

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Take off your clothes! World Naked Bike Ride, spring edition

Strap on your helmet and strip down to your skin— it’s time to ride bikes in the buff. San Francisco regularly participates in the ‘Northern Hemisphere’ World Naked Bike Ride each summer, but Saturday (3/13) marks the city’s first inclusion in the Southern Hemisphere’s jaunt. Spring or summer, the ride aims to expose the dangers bicyclists and pedestrians face in a car-dominated culture and to protest against “indecent exposure to vehicle emissions.”  

Bay Area bicyclists will join pedaling nudes in Sydney, Cape Town, Lima, and other Southern parts of the globe this weekend, flashing their junk on two wheels for a “critical mass with a lenient dress code.” The crowd will cruise from Justin Herman Plaza to Golden Gate Park, stopping at City Hall for a photo shoot. Because this is the virgin spring fling, the group may be small, but definitely not shy.

Interested in joining but feeling a little insecure about disrobing? Here a few tit-bits of advice from bare-skinned veteran, George Davis.

1. Wear sunscreen— sunburned genitalia isn’t sexy or fun.
2. Wear a bike helmet; decorate it and the rest of your exposed self.
3. Think of your unclothed body as freedom from speed-slowing textiles.
4. Revel in the thumbs up from police and bask in the rock star status you’ll receive while cruising through Fisherman’s Wharf.
5. You are “natural gas powered”— to hell with oil dependency.

And a few more sensitive items to consider:

1. Shoes are good. Pedals are rough on bare toes.
2. Smile! People may photograph you. Be proud and confident. Slouching is never flattering.
3. If you’re hesitant about putting your pussy on the seat or getting your long schlong caught in the chain, wear some cute undies.
4. Children are allowed— non-sexualized nudity is not harmful to young eyes.
5. Worried you’re not ‘hot enough’ to bare all? Damn Gina, everyone looks good when they’re riding green.

Southern Hemisphere Naked Bike Ride
Sat/13, Noon
Meet at Justin Herman Plaza, just North of the huge fountain with all the cubic shapes
(Market and Steuart)
www.SFBikeRide.org


 

Gav’s running for (lite) guv!

Zelda Bronstein
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Gav’s running for (lite) guv!

It’s not any big surprise that Gavin Newsom is officially running for lieutenant governor; we all knew that was in the cards. Newsom’s downtown allies don’t want him running, because he might win — which would mean a vacancy in the mayor’s office. But it’s really all about Newsom, and he doesn’t want to be termed out with nowhere to go.


Calitics makes the point that


In many ways, this race will showcase the future leadership of California Democrats. The winner of the primary will go on to defeat Abel Maldonado and will be a top contender to be the next governor, whether they succeed Jerry Brown or (god forbid) Meg Whitman. It’s to the benefit of Democrats and progressives that this race be issue-oriented, and free of the unfortunate personal attacks that would undermine all the candidates involved.


And Newsom loves the idea of being showcased as the future leader of California Democrats.


Newsom got a big bounce the moment he announced, when state Sen. Dean Florez, one of two other Democratic candidates for the office, dropped out and endorsed Newsom.


That leaves just Newsom and Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles City Council member who’s got an aggressive campaign (featuring Garry South, the asshole political consultant who used to work for Newsom).


Newsom starts off with a major lead; all the money he spent campaigning for governor gave him significant name recognition, and in a Democratic primary for a low-profile office, that makes a lot of difference. And his likely opponent in November is Abel Maldonado, a not-terribly-appealing Republican.


So the talk in San Francisco is all about who becomes the next mayor if Newsom wins — and already, the Newsom strategists are trying to figure out how to prevent the progressive district-elected board from appointing his replacement. The latest strategy: A Charter amendment establishing that a vacancy in the Mayor’s Office has to be filled in a special election.


Hard to argue against that — except that the special election would be in the spring of 2011, and the general election would be that fall, meaning two expensive elections (one of them guaranteed to have low turnout) in the course of 11 months.


There’s no way Newsom’s getting six votes on this board for his idea, which means he’s going to have to raise the money to gather 47,000 signatures. And if he does, the supervisors ought to respond with their own Charter amendment — establishing that vacancies on the Board of Supervisors (now filled by a mayoral appointment) also require a special election. That’s only fair.


And while Newsom and his allies talk about how unfair it is to have district supervisors, some of whom were elected with as few as 10,000 votes, decide on the next mayor, it’s worth thinking through what a special election for mayor would look like. For starters, a lot of people would probably run — and the results would be utterly unpredictable. Suppose everyone who really wants to be mayor jumped in: Leland Yee, Dennis Herrera, Aaron Peskin, Ross Mirkarimi, Bevan Dufty, maybe Michela Alioto-Pier, maybe Sean Elsbernd, maybe even Mark Leno … and the turnout will be ultra-low, and, well, the next mayor’s going to be elected with a remarkably small number of votes.


Assume a turnout of 100,000 — high for a special election. And assume seven candidates (there would probably be a lot more). That means the winner would be unlikely to have more than 20,000 first-place votes.


If it’s a ranked-choice voting situation, any of the above could pull it off. If it’s a simple plurality, hey: someone like Chris Daly, who has a small but highly devoted constituency, would have as good a chance as anyone.


The bottom line is that a special election doesn’t guarantee anything — in fact, it could turn out to be downtown’s worst nightmare.


Here’s the letter Newsom sent to potential supporters:


I didn’t come to this decision easily, but, after a great deal of consultation with my family, constituents and supporters, I believe that the best way for me to serve is by taking all of the many things that are right about California and applying them to fixing what’s wrong in Sacramento.  


The issues I fought for when I ran for Governor last year haven’t changed: our state still faces a massive budget crisis, painful unemployment, and rising student fees that threaten the stability and accessibility of our University system.  Too many Californians lack access to quality health care and too many schools are overcrowded and underfunded.


But, despite our challenges, I will always believe in California – the dynamism of its past and the promise of its future.  I’m also convinced that those of us who love this state have both an obligation and the capacity now to reform it and make it better. To do that, we need to embrace a new way of doing things in Sacramento and we need new leaders who are willing to stand up and change state government.


I’m proud that I have the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate President Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker John Perez, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, United Farm Workers co-founder Delores Huerta and California Nurses and teachers and I hope I can count on your support too.


And here’s some of the press coverage:


LA Times on Newsom run, including information on early fundraising.


Calitics on Florez’s exit from the race, including text of Florez
message and press release.



Newsom announces his candidacy in an interview with reporter Phil
Matier on CBS 5. (video)

 Chronice on Newsom’s chances.


 Willie Brown on who will succeed Newsom as mayor.
 
Chronicle speculates on who will replace Newsom, specifically on the
possibility of David Chiu becoming mayor.

LA Observed on Gary South vs. Newsom.


LA Times blog on awkward Newsom-Brown pairing.

Owen Pallett deals with rain, spectacularly

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The official video for Canadian Owen Pallett‘s (aka Final Fantasy) gossamer-gutwrench “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” from the new Heartland is a Ryan Trecartin-esque romp with witchy hats, hockey masks, Balloon Boy, Orange Crush, jumbly geometrical soap sculpture, and self-stabbing.

But this live vid of the song, from a downpour at the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ontario last June, shows that the effervescent one-man band needs no electro-conceptual props to get the joy across. (He’ll be here May 5 at the Independent — indoors, alas.)

OWEN PALLETT (FINAL FANTASY)
Wednesday, May 5, 8pm, $16
The Independent
628 Divisadero,SF
www.theindependentsf.com

 

Supes pass resolution protecting SF Patrol Special Police Officers

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Supes pass resolution protecting SF Patrol Special Police Officers

Jane Warner, or “Officer Jane” as she’s known throughout the Castro, had a rough Christmas Eve. It started when Warner, a San Francisco Patrol Special Police officer who was out walking the foot beat, was alerted that a fight had broken out at Trigger, a bar on Market Street. When she arrived, she says she encountered a drunk and belligerent man. “He got more excited and charged the doormen, he pushed me, I pushed him back, and I said, ‘You’re under arrest,’” Warner told the Guardian shortly after the incident occurred. “He started to walk away from me, I drew my baton, I hit him twice, and he turned around and he hit me and I went to block his punch and he broke my arm,” at which point she fell to the ground in pain. “It cracked the bone right between the elbow and the shoulder,” she said.

According to a police report, several San Francisco police officers arrived on the scene shortly after and arrested the man, James Crayton McCullough. But when they arrived at the police station and tried to get him out of the police car, according to the report, he wedged his body onto the floor of the vehicle and allegedly shouted at one of them, “I’m going to shoot you in the fucking head!” Later, he was transported to San Francisco General Hospital because he had a laceration on his head, where he allegedly threatened a nurse.

Before he was through that night, he’d amassed six felony charges and three misdemeanor charges, District Attorney spokesperson Brian Buckelew told us shortly after the incident. He somehow managed to make $250,000 bail. But he was issued orders to stay 150 yards away from Warner, as well as Castro bars Trigger and Badlands. McCullough also received an order to stay out of the entire Castro neighborhood — a move Buckelew says is highly unusual.

The incident prompted Sup. Bevan Dufty to introduce a resolution to encourage San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon to consider imposing an increase in penalties for an assault on a Patrol Special Police Officer. This past Tuesday, at the Board of Supervisors meeting, that resolution was approved.

Since Warner was assaulted, other incidents have occurred in which Patrol Special Officers were placed in harm’s way, according to a press release sent out yesterday by the organization.

San Francisco’s Patrol Special Police, roughly 40 strong, is a private force dating back to the days of the Gold Rush. In a rare arrangement, they’re authorized under the City Charter to patrol different neighborhoods, hired by private clients such as merchant associations, and they adhere to regulations set by the Police Commission. While they aren’t sworn officers, they undergo a training process similar to that of SFPD officers and they make arrests. Warner describes the patrol specials’ model as a form of “community policing” which she says emphasizes crime prevention.

When asked about Dufty’s resolution in an interview with the Guardian last week, Gascon was somewhat resistant to the idea. He said he had a problem with private policing in general. “This is more of a private police model,” he said. “Their uniforms are very similar to the San Francisco Police Department. So, quite frankly to the majority of the public, it is very hard to distinguish between one and the other.”

“I understand where Supervisor Dufty’s coming from,” Gascon added. “These are people that are certainly out there providing public safety services and they sometimes become the target of people that, for whatever reason or another, they don’t want to be subject to their authority. The problem that I have again is that it continues to blur the line of a very unusual process. … There’s no question that in some places there are people who certainly are in favor of having patrol specials. This is not to take away from the quality of service that patrol special officers provide because I think some of them are very professional and they are very courteous and very effective in what they do. ”

While it’s a felony to assault a San Francisco Police Officer, there are no special charges in the penal code for an individual who commits an assault on a patrol special officer. Dufty’s resolution asks the Police Commission and Gascon to provide Patrol Specials with “the same protections that San Francisco Police Department officers and a number of others who are protected under state code from being assaulted in the line of duty.”

Bill Barnes leaps into the District 10 race

Mary Magee
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Bill Barnes leaps into the District 10 race

The already crowded field of candidates battling to become the next D 10 supervisor just got even more crowded.

Bill Barnes, who is currently working as Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier’s legislative aide, and has previously served as researcher for SF Firefighters Local 798, legislative aide for Sup. Fiona Ma, and legislative aide and campaign manager for Sup. Chris Daly, has entered the race.

Barnes, who turns 33 on April 3, says he is working between now and his birthday, on qualifying for public financing–a vital step for anyone who wants to compete against the handful of candidates that are backed by big private money in this race.

Barnes says he decided to throw his hat into the ring because there has not been enough talk about neighborhood issues, social inequity and displacement.

“The talk is always about creating jobs, but jobs for who?” Barnes said. “Will it be for folks who have lived in the community for their entire lives, or folks from out of town?”

In the next decade or two, it’s likely that the majority of subcontracts in the city will be centered in District 10, but there are no guarantees of who will get that work.

Barnes identified UC Regent Ward Connerly‘s Prop. 209, which amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, as being a big part of the problem.

Noting that he worked to address the issue of local minority hiring while working for Ma, Barnes says race continues to play a major role when it comes to who gets the work in District 10.

“I plan to work to repeal Prop. 209, or figure out a better way to go,”Barnes said. “All too often contracts are issued that are way too big. That makes it impossible for a smaller locally-owned business to be competitive.”

Elusive finger-picker Ed Masuga reappears with five shows

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Elusive finger-picker Ed Masuga reappears with five shows

By Chloe Roth

For the past four years, Ed Masuga has consistently delivered pure folk music. His dichotomously sharp finger-picking guitar and soft melodies make for easy, pleasing listening, and if you close your eyes you might find yourself transported to a Dust Bowl-era railway car. Steeped heavily in the folk tradition, his songs are simultaneously old-fashioned, timeless, and timely. With the bare minimum of Internet presence, the elusive San Francisco-based songster, though he can’t be called a Bay Area “native,” maintains a mysterious backwoodsman identity. The almost literary stories of his youth seem to come straight out of a Dickens novel. I caught up with Mr. Masuga (that has a nice ring to it!) to ask him how his itinerant childhood has informed his work.

The youngest of 10 children, Masuga lived a rootless childhood, constantly drifting with his large family from shack to motel to forest to casino, usually around the San Bernadino Mountains and Big Bear Lake. Returning from the hospital with a birth tag on his wrist that read “Boy Masuga,” and for lack of a chosen name, his family referred to him as “Boy” for the first few years of his life. “When people started calling me Danny, my actual name,” Masuga says, “I refused, preferring to go by my middle name Eddie, after the ’70s country singer Eddie Rabbit.” Masuga grew up around music, his folks and family always singing together wherever they went. Masuga says that his father, who came from a polka-singing Polish family, “has always seemed somehow to know every song out there,” which probably helped him win a trip to Puerto Rico on an episode of “Name That Tune” when Ed was “just a tyke.” And his mother’s traveling occupation, as a cook in bar kitchens, exposed him to a whole world of juke box country music.

Out of all the places Masuga has lived over the years (the East Coast, Alaska, Ohio, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, and Montana), he says that the Bay Area, especially the trees and hills of the East Bay, “has something special that always brings me back.” Of Berkeley in particular, where he has lived sporadically since 1999, Masuga says “it’s kind of like a second home for me in a way. Or a third or fourth.”

Both his 2006 self-titled debut and his 2008 sophomore record Lonely Dog consisted solely of Masuga’s unadorned voice and guitar. His new record, Let Me Tune My Heartstrings, breaks away from the sparseness of the first two albums. Female vocal harmonies by Ed’s “longtime best friend-extraordinaire Kate Grindlay” meld flawlessly with his voice to create a new fullness, rich and soulful. Flying solo in the past, his live performance has recently evolved into a group project with Grindlay on accompanying vocals, Ethan Lee on bass, and Mike Carreira on drums.

If you check his MySpace page every now and again like I do, hoping to see a local show listed, you’ll oft be disappointed. But Ed Masuga has made a sudden reappearance in the Bay Area, with five shows scheduled over the next two months in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and Bolinas. Jump on the bandwagon quickly, for with Ed’s wandering ways, who knows when you’ll catch him in the Bay again.

Snap Sounds: Rollercoaster Project

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ROLLERCOASTER PROJECT
Revenge
(Absolutely Kosher)

A Dickens quote culled from A Child’s History of England and the note, “All songs made with careful horror and loving attention” accompany the second album, Revenge, by The Rollercoaster Project (ne Johnny White). Spectral, spooked, and downright epic in its use of tweaked audio, cassette tapes, samples, synthesizers, and piano, it gently tags the film score work by Popul Vuh, sending a listener off on mind travel, far from petty retribution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg9JZLaVLCk

Then, just when you’re settling into a meditative reverie, it starts to rage — a splatter of vokills is tossed artfully across the silken tundra of synths — with faint echos of the White Zombie and Sepultura that play into its musician’s makeup, along with Black Flag, whose classic hardcore number partly inspired RP’s project. White claims that the Rollercoaster Project is “a vain attempt to make an audio version of the film Manhunter. ”Sans the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” one presumes — and genre labels like post-rock or post-hardcore. Revenge or no, Rollercoaster Project wins.

Politics and redistricting: The madness in SF’s future

Zelda Bronstein
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Politics and redistricting: The madness in SF’s future

The political merry-go-round in San Francisco going to be whirling at light speed soon. It’s partially the fault of term limits — over the next couple of years, some very talented, ambitious politicians are going to be forced to leave local office, and they’re looking for the next step. Part of it is the confluence of a bunch of events, starting with Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris both seeking statewide office.


 


And there’s another factor that hasn’t been talked about much, but it’s really important: Next year, every Congressional, state Legislative and local supervisorial district is going to change.


After the decennial census, everyone has to draw new lines to reflect population shifts. At the state level (and Congressional redistricting is also a state function), that’s in the hands of a reapportionment commission, which I’m dubious about: The majority of the applicants are white people, and it’s supposed to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, although the state has far more Democratic voters. It’s anybody’s guess how they’ll actually draw the lines.


 


An elections task force will do the local lines, and it’s going to be harder to screw up; San Francisco supervisorial districts are supposed to reflect established neighborhood boundaries, and the population shifts within the city haven’t been that dramatic.And it’s unlikely anyone’s going to try to draw lines just to force an incumbent supervisor out of a district. But the districts will be a little bit different, and in San Francisco politics, a little bit can mean a lot.


 


The state Legislative districts will change significantly — and could change the politics of this area, and the state, in dramatic ways. For example, suppose Mark Leno’s Senate District moves somewhat North, to include a majority of Marin and Sonoma residents and only a small minority of San Franciscans? Suppose that district no longer includes Marin or Sonoma, but includes all of San Francisco (which would put Leno and Leland Yee in the same district)?


 


Suppose the 12th and 13th Assembly Districts, which now divide about East/West, shift to North and South? What if Tom Ammiano and Fiona Ma end up in the same district? (Um, I think that’s a closer relationship than either of them wants ….)


 


What happens if Nancy Pelosi is redistricted out of her seat? (Heh heh, won’t happen, but in theory, she and Lynn Woolsey could wind up living in the same district.)


It’s going to change the dynamics in a city that’s already poised for some upsets to the political apple cart.


 


Ross Mirkarimi’s termed out in 2012, and if he doesn’t run for mayor (or doesn’t get elected) he’ll be looking for the next step, which could be a run for the state Assembly; Tom Ammiano will be termed out in 2014. Of course, that’s been a gay seat for a long time (Carole Migden, Mark Leno, Ammiano) and by them someone like David Campos might be interested.


 


Or the district lines might have changed so much that both of them – or neither of them – can get elected.


 


If Bevan Dufty doesn’t get elected mayor, he’s out of a job – and he’s a political junkie who won’t easily retire. He’ll be looking at other offices, too. So will Sean Elsbernd, I suspect.


And that doesn’t even count the mayor’s race, which could, at this point, involve both state Senators, Leno and Leland Yee, and if either one wins, that opens up a Senate seat. And at the same time, if Kamala Harris is elected district attorney, that job will be open, and it’s an open secret that Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, a former prosecutor, would love to be in that office some day.


And in the background is the question of who becomes mayor if Newsom becomes lt. governor



 (and what happens to Aaron Peskin, an astute politician if ever there were one, and a potential mayor if this board of supervisors gets to make the appointment ). At lot to think about – and trust me, the thinking is already going on.

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein paste — now with more salmonella!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Hydrolyzed vegetable protein paste — now with more salmonella!

By Robyn Johnson

If you love hydrolyzed vegetable protein paste and/ or powder — you know, that savory flavoring that is nearly ubiquitous in processed foods — then you might want to check out this list just put out by the FDA. It’s a growing product recall for possible salmonella contamination. 

Basic Food Flavors, the Nevada-based manufacturer of the bad-batch HPV in question, recently issued the recall and its extensive client list has begun to follow suit, including PepsiCo Inc., Pringles, Proctor and Gamble, and Nestle, (and a whole host to come). As of right now the FDA lists 149 products, with a wide range of foods from dressing mix to corn bread stuffing, but Business Week is reporting that the number could soon reach 10,000 — making it the one of, if not the, largest recall of processed foods in history.

Before we panic, the same article also reports that the risk to the consumer is low considering most foods using HPV are cooked before consumption. No illnesses have been reported, but you still might want to hedge your bets and over-microwave those Jose Ole taquitos or refrain from eating ready to eat products, like Taco Night-flavored Pringles.

And while it’s all very fine and well that the consumer will probably not be subjected to mass salmonella-poisoning, people, including well-regarded people like Marion Nestle, are taking a very dim view that Basic Food Flavors waited approximately one month after FDA testing found the potentially fatal bacteria in their processing plant to issue the recall. Is it time to expand the FDA’s power in the face of a less than conscientious corporate food culture?

Dare you take offense at Steven Wolf Fine Arts?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
Dare you take offense at Steven Wolf Fine Arts?

Keith Boadwee is a fascinating artist. Known for his outrageous self-portraits — which combine media that include but are not limited to photography, performance art, painting, self-administered enemas, and pornography — his work is unorthodox to say the least. Boadwee has photographed himself in situations that 99.999% of the world would probably rather die (like for real die) than experience for themselves, and he kills himself fearlessly (see NSFW — I repeat NSFW — images on his Web site). Viewing Boadwee’s work in a gallery setting, such as that of Steven Wolf Fine Arts, is like experiencing the collision of someone’s private world with your own public forehead.

Boadwee’s “Denim on Ice” exhibit there — consisting of works he made with his former students Erin Allen and Issac Gray — evokes the demented scribblings of a disturbed child, albeit one with a great sense of humor. In a more hostile environment, these painting would be legitimately disturbing. Seen together as they are, crowded onto a single gallery wall, the effect is still one of something totally crazy, though overall harmless. Even weirder: the paintings in this exhibit, with their wholly unsophisticated content, evoke the high expressionism of artists like Matisse and Muehl. My favorite piece in “Denim on Ice” was the still-life rendering you see above, “Titties and Milk,” a strange composition of breasts, a glass of milk, and a hat-wearing cactus (who has a face).

“Lincoln Log Bong” by Boadwee, Allen, and Gray

The gallery describes “Denim on Ice” as “paintings that take low humor and bad taste so far they come around again as refinement.” To me this feels accurate. The paintings are in such absurdly bad taste that it’s difficult to imagine how taste level can possibly go lower. While I wouldn’t call any of the work particularly “refined,” the collection displays its subterranean brow so cheerfully that you can’t help but smile and enjoy the ride.

“Birmingham I” by Rives Granade

Paintings “Birmingham I” and “Birmingham II” by Rives Granade — also on display in the gallery in a collection called “Love Force” — pluck figures from famous civil rights photos and transpose them into the sterility of corporate architecture. The effect is uncanny in the strictest Freudian sense. The old black and white photographs of the Birmingham freedom marches, with their nightmarish displays of police brutality, disturb and shame us deeply. In light of the past, the instinctive reaction upon viewing these new paintings is to cry blasphemy. Upon further examination, viewers will note that these paintings are not actually politically irresponsible.

“Birmingham II” by Rives Granade

The images, which draw from the firmament of political history, invite viewers to draw new moral comparisons. The past is still present in Granade’s re-contextualized paintings, camouflaged but not erased. The brutality of that past is obvious, even in an ahistorical setting that seems, for all its artifice and architecture, like a Hobbesian state of nature.

Keith Boadwee, Erin Allen, and Isaac Gray: “Denim on Ice”
Rives Granade: “Love Force”
Through March 20
Steven Wolf Fine Arts
49 Geary Street
www.stevenwolffinearts.com

Spanjian out in D-8

Zelda Bronstein
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Spanjian out in D-8

Laura Spanjian, a member of the Democratic County Central Committee and candidate for supervisor in District 8, is leaving town for a new job in Houston. That means she’s out of the hotly contested race to replace Sup. Bevan Dufty in the Castro.


Spanjian was one of three leading candidates, and her withdrawal means that Rafael Mandelman and Scott Wiener are going to be slugging it out for the job. Rebecca Prozan, who also has Alice support, is also in the race, but I don’t see her coming in first.


In a press release sent out this morning, Spanjian said she’d taken a job as sustainability director for the city of Houston. “I am overjoyed to have the opportunity to work directly with Mayor Annise Parker and her staff and contribute to a cleaner environment which is, of course, not just a local issue,” Spanjian’s statement read.


Spanjian currently works for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and will leave that job in April to move to Houston.


Before we get into the political calculus, let me stop for a moment and congratulate Laura, who’s a good person and will do a great job in Houston (although, Jesus — she’s going to have to live in Houston.)


Now then: With Spanjian out of the race, I think Mandelman is on track to come in first. That doesn’t mean he’s going to win an election decided by ranked-choice voting, but I think he comes in first.


“Clearly it’s a win for Rafael,” Jim Stearns, a political consultant who was working for Spanjian, told me today. “Laura was going to go after the more nonideological folks in the district, but she was also going to make a push with the progressives. And now Rafael has the solid progressive base in that district to himself.”


That base, though, isn’t enough alone to get Mandelman elected. It’s going to come down to the second and third votes. And Wiener and Prozan start off competing for a lot of the same voters, but in the end, Mandelman is going to have to get enough of the more centrist folks to at least put him second to finish in the money.


 


 


 

Snap Sounds: Yeasayer

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Snap Sounds: Yeasayer

YEASAYER
Odd Blood
(Secretly Canadian)

A creepy terminator-type robot dude rolls up to the hottest party in a cage you’ve never even been privileged enough to attend. Damn, I wish I could stumble upon a get-down like Yeasayer throws — swimming ninjas, neon martinis, laser orgies, and magical board games would definitely be something I could get into on a regular weekend basis.

It’s hard to remember you’re listening to “O.N.E.,” a track off the Brooklyn psychedelic band’s second release Odd Blood, put out earlier this year; the video is just that good. Odd Blood is lined with crazy beats, a melting pot of genres — “O.N.E.” is no different. African, disco, electro-tropix will squeeze your inner parts and beg you to groove alongside the web of lasers and glowing windbreakers featured in this stellar video.

http://vimeo.com/10044003

Yeasayer
Sat., April 17, 9pm
The Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
www.thefillmore.com

How’d you get so fly, SambaDa?

Andrew Lam
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Pop quiz! 

Q. A woman with the mic croons the bloco afro riddims of her childhood growing up in Salvador. Around her, percussion reigns king and it’s possible that a capoeira or samba dancer has snuck onstage to accentuate the party energy. Your body jumps to the beat. SambaDa has you in its grasp. But from whence does this musical group hail?

A. (Choose one)

-Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

-Santa Cruz, California

 

If you picked Santa Cruz, you owe yourself a pat on the back and a spangled samba getup. The crew, a hometown fave, is steeped well in the legacies of reggae, Brazilian worship of sun and sand, and Cali funk. SambaDa got its start as a capoeira group and with the arrival of lead vocalist Dandha de Hora from her home town of Salvador, Brazil, have become a celebration of surf culture and the wonder of the natural world. They’re celebrating the release of their fourth album, Gente!, a tribute to the community that has sponsored their musical success.

Sambada tears it down, Carnival style. Shows attract a multi-generational crowd, and inspire foot stomping, hip swaying and a healthy, hearty dose of dance. The best place to watch this music performed is on a beach, feet stomping some white sand… but until the Outer Sunset gains a beach bar and 40 degrees, the stage at the Independent (Sat/13) will more than do for this weekend. 

 

Sat/13 9 p.m., $13-15

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

Mark Growden hits with a “Judas” kiss

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Mark Growden hits with a “Judas” kiss

It’s been eight years since Mark Growden, local bad boy of the accordion (and the bicycle handlebars), last recorded a studio album, and the weathering of not a few storms layers his lyrics with a weight typically reserved for bellowers of dust-bowl ballads and feverish Appalachia-born hymns. But though Growden — who’ll be performing Wed/11-Sun/14 at the Porto Franco Art Parlor — captures the sorrow and sincerity of a high lonesome crooner, his unique instrumental blend of Dixieland, Frontierland, and gypsy caravan band inhabits a genre all its own, especially on the new Saint Judas (Porto Franco).

Part chamber music, part High Noon, the atmospheric moan of songs such as “Coyote” and the first half of “The Gates/Take me to the Water,” tug low in the gut, while a touch of bitterly rollicking bar band via cabaret lane creeps into tunes such as the title track, “Take me to the Water,” and “Been in the Storm so Long”. Perhaps destined to be remembered as Growden’s finest drinking song, “Saint Judas” in particular distills the dark joviality of the sort of shambolic dive bar frequented by off-duty cab drivers, ex-junkies, and toothless pensioners, while toasting the “saint of the sinners” for taking the blame, “’cause somebody had to.”

But for an album so intimately acquainted with woe, the real connective thread throughout is not one of pain, but one of love. Hurt love hopeful love, dashed love, and eternal love, each facet of the ever-abiding emotion has its own moment to shine in the flickering glow of the Mark Growden ensemble’s warm strings, hot licks, and sizzling horns. There’s an ode to love the undertaker (“Undertaker”), love the temptress (“Delilah”), and love the hidden (“Inside Every Bird”). A melancholy, lounge-y cover of Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man,” and the lonely dirge to a fallen companion “Coyote,” dissect heartbreak while the banjo-infused jam piece, “Everybody Holds a Piece of the Sun,” and the tenderly wistful rendition of “All the Pretty Little Horses,” remind of hope.

Growden’s music has never been the kind that compels the body without first engaging the mind, and Saint Judas is full of the kinds of compositional layers and technical surprises that keep music geeks happy while still providing enough oompah and oomph for the kinesthetic enjoyment of the masses. It’s a homegrown affair all the way through, released by Mission-based family label Porto Franco records, with cover art by local muralist Mona Caron, and championed by various luminaries of the San Francisco underground. And yet, meticulously designed and arranged, this album has obviously been crafted with a high trajectory in mind, and time will tell if this bid to escape the gilded cage of regionalism will take.

Mark Growden
Thu/11-Sun/14, 8pm, $20
Porto Franco Art Parlor
953 Valencia, SF.
www.portofrancoart.com
www.markgrowden.org

Mirkarimi’s a Democrat, Newsom’s a candidate

Zelda Bronstein
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47
Mirkarimi’s a Democrat, Newsom’s a candidate

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi has done what a lot of us have been expecting for months now: He left me a message tonight saying he’s changed his registration from Green to Democrat. I think that’s a recognition that the Green Party isn’t the functional political entity in San Francisco that it once could have been — and that the only way he’s going to get elected to higher office is as a Dem. He’s clearly looking at the mayor’s race, but I think he’s also looking at the state Legislature; if Mark Leno ran for mayor and won, and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano ran for Leno’s Senate seat and won, then the 13th Assembly District seat would be open. Besides, with term limits, Ammiano’s seat will open up pretty soon anyway. And it’s highly unlikely a Green could win that race right now.


So welcome to the party, Ross — now you get the fun of voting in the Democratic primaries, which are often the only real elections around here, and you can vote for Democratic County Central Committee (although I don’t think you can run; you have to be a Dem for 12 months to do that).


And Gavin Newsom pulled papers for. Lt. Gov.


It’s going to a wild year.


 


 

Appetite: Fill your Irish self to the gills at the Liberties

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Appetite: Fill your Irish self to the gills at the Liberties

St. Patty’s Day draws near — for more wild Irish events, check out our rundown in the current Guardian.

The Liberties Bar & Restaurant has always been a welcome respite from some Irish bars: a place where you can kick it up with friends but not so rowdy that you can’t have conversation or a reflective pint. (I particularly like the room tucked to the side with quotes painted on the walls.) It celebrates St. Patty’s all week long with a special Irish menu and long pours of Guinness, Kilkenny, Smithwick’s and Harp. Oh, there’s also plenty of Irish whiskey, like Midleton Rare 21 year, Red Breast 12 year and Black Bush. Irish brunch, beer and whiskey flights round out the week, along with live music on St. Patrick’s Day.

The menu offers crowd-pleasing corned beef and cabbage ($14), cottage pie ($10 – with grass-fed beef, naturally), and bangers and mash ($15). Or go straight to fish and chips ($15) or an Irish potato pancake ($11) sporting smoked salmon. Irish whiskey flights explore various parts of the island, from Fightin’ Irish ($12), a flight highlighting family-owned distilleries, to King of the Emerald Isle ($8), an affordable jaunt through three Irish powerhouses: John Powers, Old Bushmills, Jamesons.

There’s no need to be fighting Irish when St. Patty’s is this raucously delectable.

March 13-19
998 Guerrero Street
415-282-6789
www.theliberties.com

Check out Virginia Miller’s personal dining itinerary site www.theperfectspotsf.com for more food deals and news.

Newsom’s plan means service cuts

Zelda Bronstein
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Newsom’s plan means service cuts

The San Francisco Controller’s Office says that Mayor Newsom’s plan to lay off 15,000 city employees then hire most of them back at a reduced workweek will save $110 million. The Examiner quotes the mayor:


“The 37½-hour idea was a way of equalizing,” Newsom said in an interview Tuesday. “I would have to go to every single labor union, open contracts that are closed and engage with those open contracts in collective bargaining for each and every local.
“Every labor union is in this together. We aren’t going to pick and choose. That being said, they are coming back Thursday with a set of alternatives, and I will keep an open mind.”


Actually, it’s not exactly equalizing — no police officers or firefighters will get what amounts to 6.25 percent pay cuts. But here’s the more important issue:


The mayor — and, to a great extent, the newspapers — present this as a simple way of saving money; sure, the workers take a little hit in their pay, but jobs are preserved. What nobody’s saying is that this will amount to more very significant service cuts.


Take 15,000 employees and cut 2.5 hours from each of their workweeks. That’s 37,500 hours of work a week, or the equivalent of 937 full-time jobs. So one of two things are going to happen: Either city employees are going to be working 40 hours for 37.5 hours pay — that is, taking a direct pay cut, which is what I think Newsom really wants — or the city’s going to lose the equivalent of 937 workers.


If you assume that it’s unfair to ask people to work 40 hours for 37.5 hours pay (and if you assume, as I do, that the unions won’t stand for that), we’re going to be talking about service cuts — work that doesn’t get done. And where will those cuts happen? Guess what — it’s the usual places.


Public health takes the biggest hit, with $35.5 million in “savings” (actually, cuts) over the next 14 months. Human Services gets $10 million cut, and Muni about $8 million.


That means longer lines and sicker people at SF General, and more broken buses with no mechanics to fix them, which means slower Muni service … you get the picture.


I’m not saying that we don’t need cuts, and you could argue that it’s more fair to cut everyone’s pay a little than to eliminate 937 jobs altogether. But let’s be honest about this — it’s not just “salary savings.” It’s service cuts. On top of last year’s service cuts, on top of the previous year’s service cuts … and it’s being done without any real overall plan for what services we need to provide and what takes priority.


And of course, it’s being done with no discussion at all of raising new revenue.  

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