SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 326 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Getting cheesy at Outerlands

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December 26, 2009

Bowled over. Photo by Kimberly Chun.

By Kimberly Chun

Hmm, is there a nicer place to hunker down on a chilly, wind-swept winter day in the Outer Sunset than Outerlands? Even better is a spot at one of the weathered wood tables, over a grilled cheese sandwich made with the restaurant’s homemade levain toast and an ample bowl of hearty garlic soup — the latter is pungent and addictive, with a bite that won’t kill you. Love the chip garnish. A delightful side: ginger lemon apple cider, hot, fulfilling, and thoroughly comforting. I’d make Outerlands my own personal warming hut, if I could.

Outerlands
4001 Judah Street
San francisco, California 94112
(415) 661-6140
outerlandssf.blogspot.com

Lush bash: One of the best post-Xmas sales started today

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December 26, 2009

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By Kimberly Chun

One of the finest post-Christmas sales has to be the ask-and-they’ll-tell, somewhat-secret sale going down at Lush on Union Square.

No signs in the windows herald its arrival, but just ask a salesperson and they’ll spill the beans about the highly scented, ordinarily pricey products: buy one holiday bath bomb and you get two more free. Purchase a wrapped gift package of, say, vegan bath bombs, shower gels, and soaps and you get another free. Buy a soap and you get two more free. And so on… so get to it, if you’re a fan of the UK bath and skincare brand.

Lush Cosmetics
2116 Union St., SF
(415) 921-5874
www.lush.com

Richard Youngs slips out ‘Under Stellar Stream’

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December 25, 2009

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Richard Youngs is a shaman of sorts — of the neodruid variety. With Under Stellar Stream, his latest solo collection of compositions, the English artist compels listeners to stop and pay heed to the small moments, the cycles of life, and the minimal music of repetition. His voice also sounds like it’s gained new strength: it’s clarion-like on numbers like the beautifully spacious “Cluster to a Star.” I keep returning to the second track, augmented with sparse bass and slowly ascending and unfolding organ: “All day Monday and Tuesday, the fuel of day, the fuel of day. All day Monday and Tuesday, the machine of time, the machine of time,” he intones, effectively conjuring the sacred lodged in the everyday.

We seize SF Weekly’s rent check

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December 24, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

Our efforts to collect on the $21 million that SF Weekly and its parent company owe us continue. Here’s the latest — the SF Superior Court ruled that we can seize the rent that the SF Weekly’s subtenant pays to the paper.

Creditor Wins Collections Rights Action Against Village Voice Chain

San Francisco (12/23) — The San Francisco Bay Guardian Company on Tuesday was granted its motion to intercept the income of the SF Weekly, one of the newspapers in the Village Voice Media chain.

The Bay Guardian is pursuing the collection of its nearly $21 million judgment against the SF Weekly and New Times Media LLC, the holding company for the Village Voice chain.

The Village Voice chain is financed by a consortium of banks led by Bank of Montreal, which has exposure of over $80 million in loans to the chain according to a declaration filed in the case by BMO managing director Thomas McGraw on 12/17/09.

In a court hearing on Monday, an attorney for the Village Voice chain, Randall Farrimond, pleaded for the court not to enter the order assigning part of the SF Weekly’s income to the Bay Guardian. “If this motion is granted, the bank will declare a default,” Farrimond told the court, and concluded, “If the Bay Guardian thinks there are more assets than those pledged to Bank of Montreal, they are mistaken.”

The Bay Guardian is exploring the possibility of placing the Village Voice chain into an involuntary bankruptcy, but has also made a formal demand on Bank of Montreal to marshal the assets of the Village Voice chain as required by California law.

“Our fight is not with Bank of Montreal at this point,” said collection attorney Jay Adkisson, who successfully argued the motion on behalf of the Bay Guardian. “We’d be perfectly happy if Bank of Montreal was repaid every cent that it loaned to the Village Voice chain plus interest, and leave us to proceed against the rest.”

Several court hearings scheduled for January have the potential to substantially advance the Bay Guardian’s collection efforts, which have gained momentum in recent weeks. In November, the Bay Guardian successfully auctioned off vehicles belonging to the SF Weekly.

The judgment was entered after a jury found that several of the Village Voice companies engaged in predatory pricing against the smaller, locally-owned Bay Guardian. Shortly after the jury verdict, the court also entered an injunction against the guilty Village Voice companies to prohibit any future predatory pricing activities against the Bay Guardian.

The Bay Guardian has alleged that the Village Voice chain has continued its predatory pricing campaign even in violation of the injunction.

Under California law, post-judgment interest accrues at 10% per annum, which is more than $4,900 per day. The Village Voice chain will also be responsible for the substantial fees of the Bay Guardian’s attorneys which were incurred in collection efforts.

The Joe Lieberman file

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December 24, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

Just for the record, here’s a good report that shows why Joe Lieberman is such an insurance industry shill.

Fat workers beware!

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December 24, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

And smokers, and people who don’t go to the gym enough and people who like a couple of donuts in the morning … One thing I did not know about the health care bill that just passed is that it allows employers to set health standards — including cholesterol levels and body-mass index — for workers, and stick the ones who don’t meet the standards with higher insurance premiums.

That’s according to Democracy Now’s show this morning.:

JUAN GONZALEZ: One of the—in terms of how the bill would affect the majority of the population, one of the things that you’ve written about that, I haven’t seen anywhere else, is this whole issue of how premiums will be affected by wellness programs and how insurance companies will use that to penalize certain employees. Could you talk about that?

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: Yeah, that can happen. What’s written into the bill are incentives to encourage better health behavior, better cholesterol levels, lower body mass index, and so forth. So what’s going to happen is an employer can set certain targets, that you have to have a BMI, say, below twenty-six or twenty-five, whatever they decide, cholesterol will be lower than—

AMY GOODMAN: BMI being body mass index?

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: Body mass index—cholesterol levels below x amount. And employees will have to check in, weigh in every year, so to speak, and those that don’t meet the targets very well may be penalized, in terms of the price of insurance. We see employers also—

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the individual employer would set this?

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: Exactly.

Jesus. That’s a scary thought. Especially since high cholesterol is in part genetic. And body mass index is not always an accurate gauge of a person’s health (there are some very health people who are just heavier than the rest of the population).

So now your boss can also be the health police. Yikes.

Game Theory: USF Women’s Basketball vs. Tennessee 12/21/09

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December 23, 2009

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By Caitlin Donohue

Sports give me that same special something that I love about all cultural events- even if you don’t know what the hell is going on, they’re great to project onto. The thrill of victory, the crush of defeat, these are clichés for a reason. You can dig an athlete’s face when they get that big win or fall down on their ass- whether you hit the courts on the regular or get more exercise on your daily commute (/flight from the cops/stripper pole).

So the Guardian’s getting physical, San Francisco. Here’s the first installation of our new local sport series, “Game Theory.” Feel free to holler at us if you’ve got a big game coming up.

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Lady Don Brittany Brumfield gets low on D against Tennessee. Photo by Erik Anderson

When we walked into the University of San Francisco War Memorial basketball court, the Lady Dons were down by twenty points. In the first quarter. Which would be a huge bummer if you didn’t take into account the following background informations:

Big changes for cab industry

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December 23, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

The San Francisco taxi industry may be headed for a major shakeup that could change the way the city distributes the medallions that allow driver to legally operate cabs.

There’s no formal proposal on the table right now, but over the past few months, the director of the Municipal Transportation Agency’s taxi division, Christine Hayashi, has been meeting with drivers, cab companies and other stakeholders to discuss what could be sweeping changes in Proposition K, the 1978 measure that set the rules for cab permits in San Francisco.

She plans to issue a report on her proposals to the MTA Jan. 5th, but she’s been presenting talking points that give a suggestion of where the proposals might go — and it involves the sticky issue of allowing some medallion holders to sell their city permits for cash.

Prop. K, authored by then-Sup Quentin Kopp, was based on the premise that cab permits are valuable, belong to the city and should only be issued to people who are actually driving taxis. Under the current rules, only active drivers can hold permits, for which they pay a nominal annual fee. The only way to get a permit is to put your name on a list and wait for one of the 1,500 medallions to become available, which happens when a permit holder retires from driving or dies.

The wait is now more than 10 years.

Permits are worth a lot. You not only get to drive a cab, you can least the permit to other drivers when you’re off duty — and since cabs are in use 24 hours a day, the lease revenue alone amounts to about $30,000 a year.
Prop. K put an end to the concentration of ownership in the industry, taking control of the lucrative permits away from the few big companies that dominated the business in the early 1970s. And it ensured that working drivers got the benefits of permits.

It’s also created a complex industry system: Most drivers are independent contractors who lease both vehicles and medallions from cab companies. They pay more than $100 a shift in lease fees — known as “gates” — then pay for their own gas and try to bring in enough fare revenue over the course of a 12-hour shift to cover costs, and keep whatever is left over as their income.

They get no health insurance from the cab companies, no retirement plans, and no disability. The medallion holders do a little better — they get the best shifts, pay lower gates and keep the outside lease income — but they lack benefits, too.

A lot of the drivers like the independent contractor system — the harder they hustle, the more money they make. But once drivers get the valuable medallions, they don’t ever want to relinquish them.

That’s left a potentially dangerous situation: A significant percentage of medallion holders — perhaps as many as a third, by preliminary city estimates — are more than 60 years old, and quite a few are over 70. Some have vision problems. At a certain point, it’s not safe to have them carrying passengers in cabs; that’s not ageism, it’s a basic medical fact. Most transportation systems have mandatory retirement ages; airline pilots typically have to get out of the cockpit at 60.

But the aging medallion holders have gotten used to that $30,000 a year in income, and refuse to retire — because once they stop driving, they have to turn the permit back to the city.

In some places — New York City, for example — cab medallions are sold on the open market, and go for anywhere from $250,000 to more than $500,000. Drivers take out bank loans similar to mortgages to buy the permits, then sell them when they get out of the business. Speculators also buy and sell them, like pork belly futures.
Mayor Gavin Newsom last year suggested a similar system
for San Francisco.

That’s not what Hayashi is suggesting. Both she and MTA spokesperson Judson True told me that it’s too early to talk about a specific set of proposals. But in a taxi town hall meeting she held Dec. 15th, Hayashi put out some talking points that show what could be the outlines of a plan to overhaul the industry.

The goals she outlined are pretty basic — and laudable. Driver quality of life (the better things are for drivers, the better drivers we’ll get), public service and safety, “entry strategy” — that is, who gets medallions and how do you encourage good drivers to stay in the business — and “exit strategy” — how do you deal with drivers who want to, and ought to, retire.

But then it gets tricky.

Hayashi suggested that some percentage of the permits — say, 40 percent, which would be 600 medallions — would be designated as “retirement eligible.” Those medallions could be sold when a driver retires, and the driver could keep most of the money (after a sizable cut goes to the city). Instead of auctions, though, Hayashi wants the city to set the sale price — at a level that drivers could afford. That price would depend in part on what sort of loans local banks and credit unions would be willing to make, and at what rates.

The people currently on the waiting list would have first shot at buying the medallions.

The other thing she talked about was winnowing down the current seniority list. It’s no secret that a lot of the people on the list have been out of the industry for years. Her presentation jokingly talked about getting rid of the “pets and unborn children” on the list, and I think a serious review would probably knock out a third of the names.

The whole idea of selling medallions — any medallions — or allowing drivers to keep them and earn income from them after they retire run directly counter to what Kopp had in mind with Prop. K. And while I couldn’t reach him today, he’s told me in the past that he will put his formidable political capital on the line to block any attempt to change one of his signature pieces of legislation.

And the United Taxicab Workers union doesn’t like the idea of selling medallions, either. Union president Mark Gruberg told me that he sees this as the first step toward allowing all permits to be bought and sold on the market.

“Once you can sell some medallions, the people who hold them will put enormous pressure on the city to expand that program,” he said.

On the other end, Newsom has made no secret of his desire to tap into the potential gold mine that would be opened up if the city simply put the permits up for sale at auction. Sell all 1,500 permits at $200,000 and the city picks up a cool $300 million — enough to make this year’s budget deficit nearly vanish.

So Hayashi’s walking a fine line here, between Kopp and the UTW, which wants no sales at all, and Newsom and his money people, who want to cash out today.

I recognize the problems of the older drivers, but I’m still dubious about the idea that San Francisco somehow owes retirement to people who have insisted their entire careers that they want to be independent contractors, not employed by or managed by anyone. No other small business person who works under those conditions (including, for example, freelance writers, freelance web designers and self-employed accountants) gets to sell a city-owned permit and retire on the proceeds.

And I’m really nervous any time anyone talks about changing Prop. K — because the cab companies would just love to get their hands on those permits, and it will take a mighty effort to keep the drivers in control.

But the ideas floating around now have come a long way from the idea of treating cab medallions like mortgage-backed securities. I’ll keep you posted.

Grey’s anatomy: An interview with Sasha Grey

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December 22, 2009

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Grey’s anatomy: An interview with Sasha Grey

To state that hardcore porn nymphet Sasha Grey has mainstream appeal is like arguing a truism. Thrust onto billboards and magazine covers, written into highly publicized Hollywood movies, integrated into our cultural vernacular, Sasha Grey didn’t just cross over into mainstream territory; we brought her here.

It’s easy to see why, among the many female performers in adult entertainment, Sasha Gray has become the unwitting locus of the public’s gaze and speculation. Next to those flaxen, suprafemale Barbies who dominated porn in the 90s, Grey’s handsome brunette naturalism seems somehow transgressive. Grey’s bosoms are not big enough to generate their own gravity, and her smooth, skin-colored skin and svelte muscularity are the products of youth and genetics rather than of dubious cosmetic procedure. With her placid, heavy-lidded eyes, broad forehead, and insistent jawline, Grey’s face looks real rather than representational. She looks like the pretty 21-year-old that she is — with an age appropriate penchant for darkening her already dark Mediterranean eyebrows — and it’s this sense of the familiar that makes Grey, a real girl among a valley of dolls, so erotically appealing.

Sasha Gray in an ad for American Apparel

The media has the tendency to describe Grey in extreme binaries: young yet wise, beautiful yet intelligent, intellectual yet a porn star, and so on. In a sense, this tendency is understandable. Most writers, yours humbly included, are not citizens of the adult entertainment world. It’s tempting for writers to use obtuse paradoxes and reductive generalizations when describing those who seem, by virtue of their work, so fascinatingly equivocal. And Grey doesn’t make our jobs any easier, with her casual mentions of Baudrillard and Sartre, her appreciation of Godard, and her use of the adjective “Jungian,” while cheerfully inhabiting an industry that we take for granted as being intellectually unconcerned. As fellow twenty-something with an affection for cultural theory and French New Wave, I relate to some of her interests, but beyond that, my interpretive abilities hit a wall and all that’s left is conjecture. Grey is a descriptive paradox, and it would not surprise me if she preferred it that way.

Grey was recently announced as this year’s keynote speaker at the 2010 AVN Awards and I had the opportunity to interview her. Not wanting to add to the guesswork that surrounds Grey’s celebrity or to embark on a vague meditation of the porn-star psyche, I limited the questions to her involvement with the AVN ceremony. The result was simple, straightforward and, at least for me, refreshing.

SFBG: As such a young performer — and one relatively new to the adult entertainment industry — are you comfortable with the responsibility of giving the AVN keynote address?

SG: This has been an incredibly exciting year for me, and I feel each year I continue to excel… but the industry has changed rapidly, in my almost fourth year of experience. I am proud that I have the chance to share my voice with the industry and show appreciation for the fans that support my career and adult film-making.

SFBG: At the moment, what are some of the most important issues or concerns for the adult entertainment community?

SG: First and foremost the never-ending battle of obscenity laws, i.e. the ongoing case against Evil Angel Video. If Evil Angel is found guilty, we’ll be rolling backwards in time when Naked Lunch was banned for obscenity. Secondly, the state of AIM Healthcare, where all performers are tested, could be shut down any day due to grueling legal battles with Cal OSHA, which would temporarily shut the business down until there’s a replacement testing facility… and who knows how long that could take.

SFBG: You’ve performed in so many films and been in the spotlight for so long that it feels strange for me to ask, but are you nervous about giving this speech?

SG: Nope.

SFBG: This will be your third year attending the AVN Awards. Do you enjoy the ceremony?

SG: The awards show has always been a fun way to end a long week of press and meeting fans, and there’s certainly the neverending people watching which always entertains!

SFBG: Just out of curiosity, have you read “Big Red Son” by the late David Foster Wallace? He attended the AVNs 11 years ago and wrote about his overwhelmingly negative experiences as a journalist and onlooker. He prescribed the AVNs as a humble alternative to self-castration and described the adult industry as “predictably vulgar.”

SG: No I haven’t. Why do you think they don’t hold most awards shows in Vegas? People would be letting their inhibitions go! Vegas: a great example of the Jungian idea, the duality of man. People put on a mask; those who don’t ordinarily drink too much yet end up wasted, spend too much money on strippers and gambling, etc, this goes for 90% of people who visit the city of sin. People from the adult industry or those who mingle with its crowds are aware that Vegas calls for celebration, and they are usually comfortable letting their inhibitions go, or wearing these masks. I am sure this might intimidate an onlooker with no knowledge of the adult entertainment community, but this doesn’t reflect the day-to-day life of the businessmen and women that run this industry.

SFBG: What did it feel like to win your first AVN award in 2007, less than a year after having entered the industry?

SG: It was a real shock, I had only been in the business for five months before the nominations went out, so I was just happy to be nominated.

SFBG: You’ve won 4 AVN awards in 4 separate categories. Of these awards, which one meant the most to you?

SG: Female Performer of The Year of course!

SFBG: In your own career, are awards a huge honor for you, or just icing on the cake?

SG: I used to think they were something to add to your resume, until I actually won. The anticipation, being unsure, and then winning… yeah it’s incredibly gratifying.

Flares in the Political Dark

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December 22, 2009

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Norman Solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics. He wrote the weekly “Media Beat” column from 1992 to 2009. His latest book is “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State” (2007). To read more from Solomon, visit www.normansolomon.com.

The winter solstice of 2009 arrived as a grim metaphor for the current politics of healthcare, war and a lot more. “In a dark time,” wrote the poet Theodore Roethke, “the eye begins to see.”

After a year of escalation in Afghanistan, solicitude toward Wall Street and the incredible shrinking healthcare reform, we ought to be able to see that the biggest problem among progressives has been undue deference to the Obama administration.

In recent months, the responses from the progressive base to the Obama presidency have often resembled stages of grief — with rotations of denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance.

Mobilization of progressive movements to pressurize Obama in the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill has always been essential. It hasn’t happened. Instead, among Democratic loyalists, reflexive support for the latest line from the administration has made it easier for Obama to move rightward.

In 2010, we should concentrate on generating the kind of public information, vigorous debate and grassroots organizing that could shift the center of political gravity in a progressive direction.

At every turn, progressives should be putting up a fight — not only in all kinds of venues outside the electoral system but also inside the Democratic Party. Winning elections will require doing the methodical and difficult work of running candidates in Democratic primaries, sometimes against entrenched incumbents.

For instance, that’s what stalwart anti-war progressive Marcy Winograd is doing in her challenge to Congresswoman Jane Harman in the Los Angeles area. Across the country, dozens of strong progressives are running for Congress with a real chance to win. They need our volunteer help and our financial support.

In some congressional districts with many progressive voters, blue dog Democrats are running for re-election without any declared primary opposition so far. That should change.

It’s time for progressives to get out there and fight the good fight in election campaigns. We should do what our conservative and centrist and mushy-liberal adversaries least want us to do. They don’t want more progressives to seriously engage in electoral battles.

During the last year, left to their own devices, the Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House have managed to demobilize the progressive base that swept them into office. The latest nationwide polls are foreshadowing grim consequences; Republicans express far more eagerness to vote in 2010 than Democrats do.

In Washington, the conventional wisdom of top Democratic strategists has run amok, continually splitting the difference with Republicans. All year long we’ve seen Congress undermine basic progressive principles, whether for healthcare or peace or economic justice or environmental protection or civil liberties.

Despite the Democratic Party’s leadership, we have a huge stake in thwarting GOP ambitions and in replacing tepid Democrats with progressives. It might be more comfortable to just engage in the politics of denunciation — but we also need to change who is casting votes on Capitol Hill.

Among progressives, there’s a surplus of frustration, anger and despair. Let’s transform those downbeat energies into fuel for the imperative political work ahead.

The DEIR that ate Christmas!

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December 22, 2009

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Text by Sarah Phelan. Photo by Ben Hopfer.

I don’t know if Mayor Newsom took a copy of the city’s 4,400 page draft environmental impact report (DEIR) for Lennar’s proposed massive Candlestick/Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment on vacation at the swanky Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in Hawaii.

This is what a room at the Newsoms’ get away (from the folks wanting more time to read the DEIR) hotel in Hawaii looks like.

But if he did, he’d need an extra suitcase just to carry the darn thing, not to mention an ante chamber to store it, when he goes swimming, or whatever, in between readings.

As our illustration shows, a volume of this massive six-volume report is the size of a phone book. And way denser.
That’s because it’s packed with all kinds of interesting information. Which is why folks have been asking Newsom to extend the public comment period on this document, which was released in mid-November, to mid-February.

This requested extension would give folks three months to read, digest and comment on one of the most important and legally binding documents to land on Newsom’s desk since he became mayor. And the last month of this requested extension wouldn’t be unencumbered by Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

But to hear Newsom’s appointees on the Redevelopment and Planning Commissions, those folks asking for a mid-February extension are just whining, or don’t plan on reading the documents at all. And anyways, who cares if the public doesn’t get their comments in time. Because there’ll be plenty of opportunity to comment later on, right?

Wrong. The DEIR public comment period represents one of the few moments when comments have to be put into the public record—and replied to. That was not the case during all those hundreds of meetings that city staff and project boosters like to quote as alleged evidence that there has been plenty of public input into this process.

In fact, when folks were worried about the prospect of selling off a slice of Candlestick Park so that Lennar could build luxury condos on prime waterfront land, they were told, don’t worry, they’ll be plenty of opportunity to review this plan when the environmental impact report comes out. But now it’s all, hurry up and finish, already.

But now that a draft version has been released, and is available online—or in the offices of the Redevelopment Agency and the Planning Department, it’s critical that folks read all of it, and not just the executive summary. It’s also important that folks not versed in “DEIR speak” find professionals that are to give them independent feedback, and that they then submit written comments to Redevelopment and Planning, the city’s two lead agencies on this project, by the deadline that the city has set.

The city’s original deadline was Dec. 28–the minimum 45-day public review period that’s required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), when a project has to be reviewed by state agencies. That’s why a lot of folks showed up at the city’s two DEIR hearings on Dec. 15 and Dec. 17 to voice their concerns. And while I sympathize with the plight of Alice Griffith residents, who continue to live with cockroaches and backed-up sewers and leaking roofs and broken windows, and unemployed workers in this town, rushing DEIR review won’t get housing built or jobs created any sooner. What it will do is increase the chances that the city will get sued.

Which is why folks who seriously want to read and comment on the DEIR asked the city for the Feb. 12 extension. Instead, they got a patronizing rebuff from Newsom’s commissioners, who gave them a 15-day extension, which ends Jan. 12. Along with the opportunity to voice their concerns one more time before Redevelopment on Jan. 5.

That’s why some folks are planning to ask Newsom not to be a Grinch, by faxing copies of a poster that features a cool looking Grinch to City Hall. So, while it won’t be snowing in Hawaii, it could be snowing faxes in the Mayor’s Office. As the poster notes,

“Don’t be a Grinch! Mister Mayor. Don’t steal Christmas and New Years. Your staff released the draft environmental impact report a week and a half before Thanksgiving.”

“Your staff had two years to work on it, but your commissioners just gave the public two months to read 4,400 pages. It’s unfair to steal the public’s Christmas and New Years’ to meet an arbitrary deadline.”

“Extend public comment on the Candlestick Point Hunters Point Shipyard draft environmental impact report (DEIR) to Feb. 12, 2010.”

This follows on the heels of a letter that a broad coalition of environmental and community groups, along with concerned Bayview Hunters Point residents, sent to Newsom before the Dec. 15 and 17 hearings, asking for the Feb. 12 extension, a copy of which follows:

The walrus and the publisher

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December 22, 2009

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By Caitlin Donohue

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all putting out T-shirt retrospectives together

Having come of age in the era of instant messaging and invisible braces, it can be hard to imagine that the world was ever different than it is today. There are things from a few years ago, even, that don’t make a whole lot of sense to me- like portable CD players? How did that work out for you?

That’s why I need retrospective books like Upper Playground’s Ten Years of T-Shirt Graphics (Gingko), a coffee table tome that could moonlight as a prop for a wieghty door. It’s a (heavy yet) gentle reminder to us young’ns about how cool gets to be that way- and that what you think is happening often has a solid decade of work behind it.

At its core, Ten Years is a catalog- nearly every design that UP has slapped on a shirt is present. But although the illustrations are impressive, the book’s small amount of copy explicitly tells the interesting story of the rise of the San Francisco brand, who is often credited with changing the commercial viability of hip hop design.

The halting dance of Sirron Norris and Fox TV

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December 22, 2009

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By Caitlin Donohue

One more quirky animated show for FOX TV? Hey, at least it’s something to keep you busy in between episodes of The Cleveland Show!

Some may see it as a big leap to go from working on street murals in San Francisco to designing a pilot for Fox, but for painter Sirron Norris, it all comes down to the cheese. “Making a living is important to me,” says the Bay Area artist. Norris has been keeping busy working on the creative design for “Bob’s Burgers,” an animated series that the network just ordered 13 episodes of, set to debut in early 2011 with a cast of comedians in the vocal roles.

In our recent interview for this week’s SFBG Scene magazine, Norris leveled with me about the process his team went through to make “Bob’s Burgers” a TV series that was appropriate for the network home of the country’s first cartoon family.

PG&E’s morning line of bullshit

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December 22, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

KQED’s Forum had a show on Marin County’s clean energy efforts and community choice aggregation this morning; the audio should be posted in an hour or two here. It gave me an opportunity to hear the greatest line of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bullshit that I’ve come across in a while.

The director of the Marin Energy Authority, Dawn Weisz, talked about how her agency will be able to offer renewable power to Marin residents at a cost competitive with PG&E. Paul Fenn, the president of Local Power, pointed out that there’s not a lot of risk here, and that public power agencies routinely offer cleaner power at lower prices than PG&E, which can’t even meet the state’s weak renewable energy standard.

Then up pops PG&E flak David Rubin, who has the most amazing line: PG&E, he says, loves clean energy and really wants to help the good people of Marin and San Francisco and the rest of California reduce their carbon footprints. But gee, he’s concerned about CCA — not, of course, because it might cause PG&E to lose customers (perish the thought) but because nice ol’ PG&E is “worried about the risks to the taxpayers and the community.”

Ladies and gentlemen: Pacific Gas and Electric Company has never worried about risks to taxpayers and communities. The company worries only about its bottom line — and as host Scott Shafer (too gently) pointed out, CCA — like any form of public power — is a serious threat to PG&E’s profits.

That’s what the company is sponsoring a ballot initiative that would essentially end public power in California by mandating a two-thirds vote of the public for any new municipal power efforts.

PG&E has jacked up rates, gone bankrupt, provided lousy service and screwed San Francisco for decades. Now they nice folks over there are worried about the taxpayers.

Amazing. And this is the line that we will hear in the upcoming campaign to pass the PG&E ballot measure.

The smell of sweet leather

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December 21, 2009

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SFBG TV visits Suzanne George, local shoemaker

FAIR: The 2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards

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December 21, 2009

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FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986.

The 2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards

For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

Starting this year, FAIR has the somewhat dubious honor of reviewing the nominees and selecting the winners. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So, without further ado, we present the 2009 P.U.-Litzers.

–The Remembering Reagan Award
WINNER: Joe Klein, Time

Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09), not altogether impressed by Obama’s announcement of a troop escalation in Afghanistan, wrote that a president “must lead the charge–passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger.”

He described the better way to do this:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse–a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center–who enlisted immediately after the attacks…and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

Ah, Reagan–now there was a president who could inspire people to fight and die based on lies.

–The Cheney 2012 Award
WINNER: Jon Meacham, Newsweek

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham declared (12/7/09) that Dick Cheney running for president in 2012 would be “good for the Republicans and good for the country.” He explained that “Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people…. A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.”

While the 2008 election might have seemed a sufficient judgment of the Bush years, it’s worth pointing out that at beginning of the year (1/19/09), Meacham was adamantly opposed to re-hashing Cheney’s record, calling it “the rough equivalent of pornography–briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive.” The difference? That was in response to the idea that Cheney should be held accountable for lawbreaking. Apparently a few months later, the same record is grounds for a White House run.

–The Them Not Us Award
WINNER: Martin Fackler, New York Times

The New York Times (11/21/09) describes the severe problems with Japan’s elite media–a horror show where “reporters from major news media outlets are stationed inside government offices and enjoy close, constant access to officials. The system has long been criticized as antidemocratic by both foreign and Japanese analysts, who charge that it has produced a relatively spineless press that feels more accountable to its official sources than to the public. In their apparent reluctance to criticize the government, the critics say, the news media fail to serve as an effective check on authority.”

The mind reels.

–The Thin-Skinned Pundits Award
WINNER: Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cilizza got into trouble when, in an episode of their “Mouthpiece Theater” web video series, they suggested brands of beer that would be appropriate for various politicians. What would Hillary Clinton drink? Apparently something called “Mad Bitch.” The video, unsurprisingly, was roundly criticized, and was pulled from the Post site. So what lesson was learned? Milbank complained (8/6/09) that “it’s a brutal world out there in the blogosphere…. I’m often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn’t be.”

Yes, the problem with calling someone a “bitch” is the “ferocity” of your critics.

–The Sheer O’Reillyness Award
WINNER: Bill O’Reilly, Fox News Channel–TWICE!

1) Asked by a Canadian viewer, “Has anyone noticed that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?,” Fox’s O’Reilly (7/27/09) responded: “Well, that’s to be expected, Peter, because we have 10 times as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents, crimes, down the line.”

2) Drumming up fear of Democrats’ tax plans: “Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That’s not capitalism. That’s Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn.”

Perhaps Castro was president of the United States in 1982-86, when the top rate was 50 percent. Or maybe all of the 1970s, when it was 70 percent. Or from 1950-63, when it was 91 percent.

–The Less Talk, More Bombs Award
WINNER: David Broder, Washington Post

Post columnist Broder expressed the conventional wisdom on Barack Obama’s deliberations on the Afghanistan War, writing under the headline “Enough Afghan Debate” (11/15/09):

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision–whether or not it is right.

–The Racism Is Dead Award
WINNER: Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote (5/5/09): “The justification for affirmative action gets weaker and weaker. Maybe once it was possible to argue that some innocent people had to suffer in the name of progress, but a glance at the White House strongly suggests that things have changed. For most Americans, race has become supremely irrelevant. Everyone knows this. Every poll shows this.”

For the record, “every poll” does not actually show this; the vast majority of Americans continues to recognize that racism is still a problem. Cohen went on to write months later–still presumably living in his racism-free world–that he did not believe Iran’s claims about its nuclear program, because “these Persians lie like a rug.”

–The When in Doubt, Talk to the Boss Award
WINNER: Matt Lauer, NBC News

Today show host Lauer announced a special guest on April 15: “If you really want to know how the economy is affecting the average American, he’s the guy to talk to.” Who was Lauer talking about? Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. The ensuing interview touched on the Employee Free Choice Act, which Lauer noted was supported by many unions but opposed by some large corporations–leading him to ask Duke, “What’s the truth?” Yes, look for “the truth” about a proposed pro-labor bill from the new CEO of an adamantly anti-labor corporation.

–The Socialist Menace Award
WINNER: Michael Freedman, Newsweek

Newsweek’s “We Are All Socialists Now” cover (2/16/09) certainly turned heads, but one of the stories inside explained in more detail the real threat. As senior editor Michael Freedman asked: “Have you noticed that Barack Obama sounds more like the president of France every day?”

The real problem, though, is what that’s going to do to us Americans, says Freedman: “If job numbers continue to look dismal, or get even worse, an ever-greater number of people will start looking to the government for support…. It’s very easy to imagine a chorus of former American individualists demanding cushy French-style pensions and free British-style healthcare if their private stock funds fail to recover and unemployment inches upward toward 10 percent and remains there.”

Pensions and healthcare for all–this is worse than we thought!

–The Iraq All Over Again Award
WINNER: Too Many to Name

After the invasion of Iraq, countless journalists who had treated allegations about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as facts were embarrassed when there were no such weapons to be found. So you’d think they’d be more careful about thinly sourced claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. But in 2009, many journalists are still willing to treat such allegations as facts.

-NBC’s Chris Matthews (10/4/09): “As if Afghanistan were not enough, now there’s Iran’s move to get nuclear weapons.”

-NBC’s David Gregory (10/4/09). “Iran–will talks push that country to give up its nuclear weapons program?”

-Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly (9/25/09): “All hell breaking loose as a new nuclear weapons facility is discovered in Iran, proving the mullahs have been lying for years…. Iran’s nuclear weapons program has now reached critical mass. And worldwide conflict is very possible. Friday, President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy revealed a secret nuclear weapons facility located inside Iran.”

Some even went further, turning allegations of a nuclear weapons program into the discovery of actual nuclear weapons:

-ABC’s Good Morning America host Bill Weir (9/26/09): “President Obama and a united front of world leaders charge Iran with secretly building nuclear weapons.”

–The Talking Like a Terrorist Award
WINNER: Thomas Friedman, New York Times

In a January 14 column, New York Times superstar pundit Tom Friedman explained Israel’s war on Lebanon as an attempt to “educate” the enemy by killing civilians: The Israeli strategy was to “inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical.” Friedman added, “The only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians–the families and employers of the militants–to restrain Hezbollah in the future.” That strategy of targeting civilians to advance a political agenda is usually known as terrorism; Osama bin Laden couldn’t have explained it much better.

–The It Only Bothers Us Now Award
WINNER: Wall Street Journal editorial page

When Barack Obama only called on journalists from a list during a press conference, the Wall Street Journal did not like the new protocol (2/12/09):”We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors.”

Actually, Bush was famous for calling only on reporters on an approved list; as he joked at a press conference on the eve of the Iraq War (3/6/03), “This is scripted.”

–The No Comment Award
WINNERS: MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Rush Limbaugh

When asked by Politico (10/16/09) to name her favorite guest, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski named arch-conservative Pat Buchanan “because he says what we are all thinking.”

Rush Limbaugh on Obama (Fox News Channel, 1/21/09): “We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles…because his father was black.”

IPI: Three Killed in Pakistan Press Club Bombing

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December 21, 2009

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The International Press Institute is a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists. They are dedicated to the furtherance and safeguarding of press freedom, the protection of freedom of opinion and expression, the promotion of the free flow of news and information, and the improvement of the practices of journalism.

Three Killed in Pakistan Press Club Bombing

Pakistan IPI Member Warns: Media Now a ‘Central Target’

VIENNA, 22 Dec. 2009 – At least three people were killed on Tuesday in Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the city’s Press Club, according to media reports.

Two policemen and a passer-by were killed, Reuters reported. At least 17 people were wounded.

Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, has been wracked by violence since the Pakistani armed forces began an offensive against Pakistani Taliban militants in October.

“It was a suicide attack. The bomber wanted to get into the Press Club and, when our police guard stopped him, he blew himself up,” city police chief Liaqat Ali Khan told Reuters – which noted that Peshawar reporters had said militants had threatened journalists since the beginning of the offensive against the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. According to IPI’s Death Watch, seven journalists have already been murdered there this year.

Owais Ali, an IPI member, and Secretary-General of the Pakistan Press Foundation, told the IPI Secretariat: “Things are getting from bad to worse. There was a time when the press was collateral damage in covering the war on terror. Now it seems the press has become a central target for terrorists.”

He added: “This is another blow for press freedom in Pakistan. It’s high time the government moved beyond issuing routine condemnations for attacks on journalists and moved to providing security for journalists.”

Ali said that many newspapers didn’t have the money to provide proper security at their entrances, and warned that in the absence of concrete measures to bolster media security after Tuesday’s attack some journalists might choose self-censorship rather than remain exposed to the wrath of the militants.

IPI Director David Dadge said: “Pakistan is already one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists out in the field. The fact that journalists are now being attacked in the traditional haven of a press club is another tragic blow for freedom of the media in Pakistan. Journalists must never be targeted because they will not
follow a political or ideological line and I call on the authorities to do everything to ensure that the perpetrators are brought swiftly to justice.”

Do public health cuts make sense?

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December 21, 2009

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By Melanie Ruiz

The Examiner’s front-page headline decries cuts to the San Francisco Police Department (it’s going to be harder to patrol North Beach with all that overtime reduced). But there’s been a lot less press attention to the midyear cuts to public health.

DPH proposed $7.4 million in cutbacks, with some of the biggest losses to be suffered by HIV prevention programs. The mayor, however, rejected these program cuts, instead using HIV/AIDS reserve money to the programs going.

So the cuts will come elsewhere — and may leave the city in worse shape over time.

Gregg Sass, chief financial officer of the public health department, presented the news to the Health Commission Dec. 15th, arguing that the proposed plan operated in large part by increasing program efficiencies and reducing or eliminating San Francisco’s support for programs cut in the state budget bloodbath. Sass said “there are a few, isolated instances of some very targeted program reductions.”

Those targeted programs reductions include two substance abuse residential treatment programs, yet to be named, which will be closed. The plan also cuts the backfill funds for state proposition 36 services, which are “provided to individuals charged with non-violent drug violations who choose drug treatment and counseling in lieu of incarceration,” according to the health department’s program change request.

The people who run these programs that will be cut testified for more than an hour, making the case that the cuts are financially foolish — because prevention is cheaper than treatment.

Representatives from the Homeless Youth Alliance (HYA), a harm reduction coalition for homeless youth in the Haight-Ashbury, were out in full force. “Twice a year our budget is up for cuts, and twice a year we have to stand up here and beg you to keep allowing us to save lives,” said Lani Riccobuono. Supporter after supporter came up, cheered on by an entire back section of the room, to testify to the vital role the HYA plays in the future of at-risk individuals. It’s a thriving, supportive community of people who explained that they have only found help and hope after walking through the drop-in center’s doors.

And the infuriating level of the cuts was on display, too — It costs only $58,729 to keep HYA’s doors open – less than the cost of just one of Newsom’s five press spokespeople.

To be fair, the mayor’s office is taking cuts, too — a total of $201,520. Those reductions will come through attrition, unfilled vacancies and salary reductions for top earners.

Supervisor Chris Daly has been drawing attention to the different growth rates of the police and health departments’ budgets. According to Daly, the health department received $410 million in General Fund money last year, which fell to $343 million this year. The police department received $332 million, which rose to $345 million. In other words, public health received 16 percent less – and the police received four percent more.

Newsom’s proposed cuts include $6 million in reductions for the police department — which is hardly enough to balance out past years of health cuts.

At the onset, Commission President James Illig noted that this was only a small step: “We want to hear how we’re going to face the future, because more cuts are going to have to be made.” Next year the health department faces $101 million in cuts.

The main idea offered by speakers for the next round of cuts was simple – look elsewhere.

As Riccobuono sees it, the current strategy “is not only bad public health, it is balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable population in San Francisco.”

Mall-free Santa hang time: A miracle on 21st st.

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December 21, 2009

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By Caitlin Donohue

Noe Valley is a lot of things to a lot of people- a good place to stash children, very hilly, ridiculously wealthy- but did you know it’s also the best place to catch the Big Red Guy kicking up his shiny black boots in San Francisco?

Tom Taylor and Jerome Goldstein bought their Norfolk Island pine back in 1973, at which point it could fit inside their house neatly. Now 55 feet tall, the yuletide behemoth has become the focal point of the most gosh darn spectacular home holiday display you’re ever going to see in this city, funded entirely out of the couples’ pocket. Their multi story house is buried under tiers of stuffed animals and bright, shiny Christmas. Massive ornaments, lights and bows, stuffed animals and extravagant K’nex machinery click away from all vantages. It’s nuts. It’s wonderful. We happened upon the site randomly last night and there was quite a crowd amassed of neighborhood families and random passers- by.

Tom and Jerry’s Christmas tree warms hearts, non commercially. Photo by Erik Anderson

Live Shots: Trannyshack Star Search, DNA Lounge, 12/19/09

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December 21, 2009

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

Where can you be showered in confetti and splattered with milk… or see blue dancers
growl the lyrics to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and then witness a leather clad diva beat the crap out of her ex-lover with a diamond studded baseball bat? Why, only at Trannyshack of course. The weekly trash drag night may be on hiatus, but this weekend at the DNA Lounge the competition was fiercely gender-bending and over-the-top as queens of all shapes and sizes sauntered across the stage for Trannyshack’s Annual Star Search. From Faux King Awesome to Fruitbomb, there was no lack of flashy costumes and creative stories in every act, keeping Trannyshack at the height of drag show fabulousness.

Street Threads: Emily

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December 21, 2009

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Emily, Vicente and West Portal

Tell us about your look: “All my clothes were gifts.”

Dick Meister: Too damn old!

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December 18, 2009

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The right to protection from age discrimination will remain a second class civil right

(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.)

Racism and sexism we know plenty about. But what of ageism?

Ageism can strike anyone once they reach a certain age – sometimes as early as 40 – and it can make the victim feel unwanted, unneeded and oppressed by all in this work and youth oriented society.

It doesn’t matter if you’re white or black, brown or Asian, man or woman. What matters is your age.

Federal law and several state laws say employers cannot consider your age in deciding if you should be hired, fired, retired, promoted, laid off or whatever. But the laws are widely violated, and sometimes invalidated by courts.

Some of the court decisions have been downright bizarre. One recent ruling, for example, found that an employer who told a worker he was being fired because “you’re too damn old for this kind of work” was not violating the law. Another court said a boss who told a worker he had to make way for younger workers was simply stating “a fact of life.”

The Supreme Court recently made a key ruling that workers who are fired because of their age will have to prove that their age was the decisive factor in the firing, not just a contributing factor. A bill currently in Congress would invalidate that ruling.

The number of workers filing legal complaints of age discrimination has been growing steadily. Between 2007 and 2008, the number grew by 30 percent to nearly 25,000 cases. The actual number of older workers discriminated against is undoubtedly even higher, if only because many victims can’t afford the court proceedings that often follow the filing of complaints.

Age discrimination is expected to become an even greater problem as the number of older workers continues to grow steadily and because of current economic conditions that are forcing more and more older workers of retirement age to seek jobs.

The drying up of pension funds and the increase in the Social Security retirement age has also led more older people to seek jobs – jobs that are hard enough for anyone to find, but particularly hard for many older workers. Their unemployment figures have been consistently higher than those of most other groups.

Not all the unemployed older workers want or need jobs. But most do, as has been shown repeatedly in studies by private and public agencies. Many badly need the income. Most also seek jobs as the way to gain self-esteem and an active, meaningful existence.

But younger workers, of course, can be paid less than older workers with seniority and usually are less demanding and more easily directed because of their inexperience and eagerness to secure a foothold.

Employers also are greatly influenced by the myths about older workers that many people still accept as fact.

The widely-held assumption that as workers age their productivity declines, for instance, is simply not true on a general basis, As a matter of fact, the studies show that among white-collar workers, those 45 or older produce more than their younger counterparts, thanks to their greater knowledge and experience. Among blue-collar workers, there is no substantial difference in output.

Older workers also have lower rather than higher rates of absenteeism than younger workers, fewer on-the-job accidents and at least as great a capacity to learn new skills required by new technology.

Generally, older workers also are more stable and dependable. They show more satisfaction with their jobs and hold them much longer.

Those facts alone should be enough to cause employers to mend their prejudicial ways. But they haven’t been, and aren’t likely to be in the future. The right to protection from age discrimination, the right to protection from ageism sadly will remain what one writer calls a second-class civil right.

Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century. You can contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

Espers: high-maintenance psych rock that hopes to hang in there and be of use to humans

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December 18, 2009

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Espers: high-maintenance psych rock that hopes to hang in there and be of use to humans

Espers sailed through the Independent not long ago, spreading their ecstatic breed of folk rock tither and fro. I spoke to Meg Baird before the date, while she was getting ready for a show in the band’s hometown of Philadelphia.

SFBG: How did you approach this new album, III (Drag City)? Were you working with any particular narrative or set of images?

Meg Baird: We didn’t have anything that concrete as far as unified images go. We did kind of talk and get a sense of different places it would be coming from, especially in relationship to II. And we had a big hodgepodge of common ground where we thought it might come from.

We thought about things like new world colonialism, things being above ground instead of underground, something that would be a good counterpoint to the dense underworld of II. Something had landed, in comparison to the space place that II generated. Exuberance, weird Christianization.

Just a common sense of images or feelings. We tend to just write when we write. It’s really loose, more of a guide, so it feels like there’s a sense to everything. Not so that it’s a hard and fast rule — it’s just a way to talk about things.

SFBG: One also gets a sense that there’s a narrative there?

MB: We’re really not that narrative. Again it’s just trying to find a common ground of images. I think even with thinking of things like ships, boats, The Heart of Darkness. It’s so big. It just makes a little more fun when we can come up with a palette of common things. It’s really about tone and sounds — the imagistic stuff is a fluffy way to talk about it. It’s always about tone and feel.

SFBG: So “Trollslända” is not about trolls?

MB: That’s actually a Swedish word for dragonfly. Helena [Espvall], the cellist in the band, is Swedish. We like to have a Swedish language nod in every record.

SFBG: How does Espers write songs?

MB: It’s very ensemble-based, that’s for sure. Which makes it a little tense. I think we have a slightly tense presence on the live front because things are pretty worked out and rehearsed but we’re kind of not sure how it’s going to work at any moment. Especially because the band’s not leader-based. It doesn’t have that dynamic to the band, even if someone is playing a lead part for us. It’s never gone that way for us in a live setting.

SFBG: What was the weirdest show ever for Espers?

MB: Something really weird happened at a beautiful show — formerly the HockHocking Festival in Nelsonville, Ohio. We were invited to play by Michael Hurley — it was a beautiful outdoor festival and somehow people got in a fight right by the stage. It was only happening on my side of the stage — I found it really upsetting that this throw-down fight was happening, especially since it was such an intense environment.

SFBG: Espers are paranormal creatures — is that something you folks believe in?

MB: It’s cool that that’s in there. The name is pretty simple — it’s a reference to a book that Greg [Weeks] had, a book thinking about intellectualism as a form of social deviancy. There was a chapter on a cult in North Carolina — they didn’t use their names. They just referred to themselves as espers.

SFBG: Members of Espers have worked with other performers like Vetiver and Vashti Bunyan — what brings you back together after those other projects?

MB: Wow, it would be hard to describe exactly, which is probably why we like it. There’s something there in the dynamic that we don’t get anywhere else. I don’t know. Now that we know each other so well, it’s just a known quality that there’s a dynamic coming only from the group. It definitely feels like a real collaboration, not just, there’s a leader and here’s a song and back it up. I guess that’s why we like it. It’s always going to be bigger than ourselves — you’re putting a lot into it, but it’s going to be more than the one thing you’re doing.

SFBG: The album art is so beautiful — what’s the story behind it?

MB: Oh, yeah, we’re so pleased with album art. That came from the goofy concepts I was telling you about in the beginning, when we were just getting a feel for the record. Brook [Sietinsons] had this book on a woman artist, Xavier Schipani — it seemed to jive with some of the things we were talking about. She did a new drawing based on ideas we were throwing around.

SFBG: It’s about community-building?

MB: I think it would be a little more cynical than that. It’s about colonialism, too. It’s not all good. Of course, when people were there they had to build community and all those things — we’re just looking at it in a realistic and nonromantic way.

I might be more interested in it because of my interest in early American music. That comes from a family connection. My family is all from Appalachia, from way back — that’s part of the reason why I got interested in folk music.

SFBG: If Espers could be a tree, what would it be?

MB: Probably something very, very high maintenance. Hopefully one that will live… long. That hung in there for a while and maybe had some use to humanity with shade or fruit or something useful rather than pure ornamentation.

Budget cuts are the calm before the storm

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December 18, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

The real news from Mayor Gavin Newsom’s announcement yesterday of $45 million in mid-year budget cuts was that it didn’t make news (this Chron story was buried on page A15). But make no mistake that this is the calm before a budget storm that will really get howling next month when Newsom introduces his proposal to let TIC owners buy their way out of the condo-conversion lottery. Progressives strongly oppose the proposal because it could rapidly deplete the rental housing stock in a city where most residents rent, but where developers just aren’t building new rental housing.

Newsom’s budgets in recent years have stuck it to social services and front-line workers, but this round of budget cuts was actually much closer to progressive priorities, hitting the bloated public safety departments and high salary managers the hardest. “We were rather judicious in this round,” Newsom told the Examiner. “The next round, I can’t promise that.”

Newsom is still refusing to earnestly pursue new general revenue options (and belittling those who argue they are necessary and that the mayor’s support for them is crucial), so the question next month is whether the Board of Supervisors can decisively defeat the sellout of the condo conversion lottery (as well as the privatizing of taxi medallions, Newsom’s other big revenue idea that progressives hate) and convince Newsom that he’s going to need to work cooperatively with progressives to close the $522 million budget hole that the city is facing.