SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 352 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Last chance for our LIT123 contest!

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September 21, 2009

Have you entered yet? Midnight on Tuesday, September 22, is the cutoff for entries so get to scribblin’!

Our 10 favorites will win a gift certificate to Books, Inc. and be published in our October 7 Writers Issue! Just send a story that reflects life in the Bay — fiction, nonfiction, or poetry — to culture@sfbg.com with LIT123 in the subject line. The catch? Each entry MUST BE EXACTLY 123 WORDS! (Not including any title.)

Here’s one from copy chief Diane Sussman to help your creative juices flow:

A few weeks back, shortly after a 57-year-old friend dropped acid (at a concert, surrounded by grinning friends, designated driver assigned, all glowing and good) my husband and I began thinking about the worst places we could think of to drop acid. And then it came to us: the 22 Fillmore. It took us a while to get there. Natural settings were out: there’s always the risk that a stray bug proboscis can wander on the scene and unhinge your worldview. Home was out: a massive dustbunny could lead to hours of horror. I tested it out on a 20-something at a Haight Street head shop. “Whoa,” he said. “Whoa. Yeh, man.” Then he paused for a second. “I dunno. I think the 23.”

See more examples here and here. Hope to hear from you soon!

Prison report: What the state really wants

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September 21, 2009

5

By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches appear twice a week.

I guess this is sort of a continuance from my last blog, which was, What Plan?My sentiment hasn’t changed — what the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has offered the three-judge panel is a “plan” that will surely get rejected.

The political rhetoric indicates that the state will fight — but it really is weak rhetoric, spoken just between the ears of constituents by politicians who want to appear tough on crime.

For those who that don’t deal directly with lawyers and politicians on a daily basis, the “we-will-fight-the-feds” speech really is weak. They have to say that — to appear tough on crime and strong for public safety (in their minds anyway). But I believe a good percentage of them are silently grateful for the escape granted to them by the feds. Ultimately, the court will reject their weak plan and take over long enough to release dozens of thousands of us .

If CDCR and the politicians who say they’re against releases felt as strong as they would have you think, a much more robust, pragmatic, well-thought-out process to deal with overcrowding would have been presented.

The Republicans claim to be against big government. If they really thought that way about the release scenario, they would have pushed for a plan that would have been acceptable to the courts and kept the big federal government out of the California prison system.

The Democrats who speak against releases and federal interference are just hypocrites scampering for a way to ride out the potential political fallout they perceive if they don’t “speak out” against releases.

Meanwhile, the ones who are speaking up for sanity are not getting the shaft that the others so feared.

The long-term results of the current budget cuts for health care, welfare and education are not seen as threats to public safety. But its so right in front of everyone to see and it’s not too complicated to explain nor to understand:

— Cuts to welfare mean more people have to find a way to feed themselves and their families. Consequently, they may steal or deal drugs.

— Cuts to health care mean less money to pay for you and your family’s health — consequently people will steal or deal drugs to pay for health care.

— Cuts to education mean a less-educated workforce that can’t get jobs because the economy sucks so they get on welfare …. oops, there is no welfare. Consequently, they steal or deal drugs to pay for food or healthcare or both.

Of course, there are those that wind up on drugs because it’s easier to worry about the next high than your next meal.

40,000 now — or what, 400,000 in five years?

Sexcipe: No-carb burger salad with spanking

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September 21, 2009

1

By Mistress Eve Minax, a professional dominatrix, sex educator, and food lover based in SF. Read her previous sexcipe here.

This recipe (“The Quickie”) was inspired by a quick spanking, bondage and fucking session the other night. Quick and easy, you still have time to process, read, or watch a movie, happily sated in sex and food.

Burger with almond butter served on salad of mesclun greens, strawberries, avocado, and spicy citrus melon

Ingredients:
1 lb Grass fed ground beef
salt, (high quality or smoked)
fresh ground pepper
garlic clove
Raw almond butter
Mesclun greens
Half pint strawberries
Avocado
1 fresh melon
two lemons
ground cayenne pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Method:
Chop the garlic clove and combine it with the ground with the salt and pepper and set aside.

Grab your subject and lift her skirt or drop his trousers and put them across your lap for a lengthy, fine, slow, well delivered spanking, (take classes if you want to know more!). When their ass is warm and rosy and both of you are turned on, have them go to the bed, strip, and lay like an X. Bind the arms and feet nice and wide and outstretched, add a blindfold. Tell them something dirty to think about.

Return to kitchen, (within eye and ear shot).

Power Exchange bust: an eyewitness report

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September 21, 2009

5

This weekend, the Power Exchange sex club, one of the few in the city that welcomes more than gay bio-men, was busted by police at its new Tenderloin location last Friday night, ostensibly because of permit violations. It had been facing some ridiculous backlash. Was it really because of transphobia? Commenter robintv posted this eyewitness report. We’ve been unable to confirm robintv’s identity, but if you were there or have any other information please post it in the comments.

Intolerance closes the Power Exchange club in San Francisco
by robintv

Late Friday night the forces of intolerance prevailed in San Francisco, using the San Francisco government to do their bidding.

Around 10:30pm, I heard voices telling everyone to leave the premises, and saw a large number of uniformed San Francisco fire and police personnel had entered the Power Exchange club (PE) at 34 Mason Street. The PE usually is not real busy till after midnight, so there was not a large number of people inside. The whole process was peaceful, and from what I saw, the police and fire dept personnel were courteous and discreet and just following orders and there were no cuffs, no id checks, no photos, we were just told to leave the club.

After exiting, we milled around outside the PE talking with each other, passerbys, local residents, and M Powers, the PE owner. People continued to arrive at PE by foot and cabs, including a number of transgender (TG) women who frequented the Otis St location and were returning to the PE for their first time at the new Mason St. location. They were returning to the only space where they could safely be themselves, socialize with other TG women and friends and meet people who are attracted to TG women, without risk of being verbally abused, beaten, or even murdered. Many, including myself, have been going to the PE for over 10 years.

For many, the PE has been a sanctuary of tolerance and acceptance in a world of intolerance, persecution and pain.

As I stood there on a beautiful, warm, September SF night, it was difficult for me to believe that this was happening in San Francisco, where the politicians give a lot of lip service to how tolerant SF is.

I believe the PE has limited resources and lawyers are very costly. A business can be right and the city wrong, but still loose if the business has used up its resources in proving it is right, and can not reopen. Thus, even if PE is right, which I suspect they are, they can still be forced to stay closed and intolerant haters will prevail in forcing their religious/moral values on others using the San Francisco government as a forceful vehicle to do so.

What to do?

Will your favorite club/venue/ business be the next target of the intolerance crusade?

Found Footage Fest: “Hold the phone, is that from Eddie’s Bar Mitzvah?”

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September 21, 2009

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By Caitlin Donohue

Er ….

Rejoice, ye public access hosts, ye corporate training stooges, ye home movie starlets, for thy hour is nigh. No longer will your tapes be the viewing delight of a happenstance few. Film collagists Nick Pruehler and Joe Pickett have vaulted you into a slightly more middling level of obscurity. The fruit of their labor, The Found Footage Festival, makes its way to the Red Vic Movie House for a two night run starting Friday, October 2, bringing with it the panorama of American G-list treasures that Pruehler and Pickett have been discovering ever since a fateful trip to the back room of a McDonald’s in 1991. Discovering, scavenging, stealing — don’t get bogged down in semantics, people, it’s all part of the creative process. We recently interviewed Pruehler to discuss the profound joy produced by combining the FFF with Bay Area cush, as well as his deep-seated man love for Mr. T.

Found Footage Festival trailer

San Francisco Bay Guardian: How renegade are we talking here in terms of your video collecting techniques– do you ever dumpster dive for the tapes, or is that something you have “people” to do for you these days?
Nick Prueher: We’re not afraid to get our hands dirty and root around through garbage cans and dusty bargain bins at thrift stores in search of VHS gems. We’ll take risks to get videos. A few weeks ago, we were in a FedEx office picking up a package and happened to see a set of three VHS training videos behind the counter. When the clerk went back to grab the package, Joe snuck behind the counter and grabbed the tapes. Unfortunately, they were all pretty boring.

Celluloid scavengers Joe Pickett and Nick Pruehler

SFBG: Has anyone from the home movies ever gotten sassy on you because you put them in a showcase?
NP: Without fail, whenever we’ve met people in the videos we’ve found, they’ve been universally flattered by the fact they’ve become unintentional cult heroes of sorts. This footage that they’ve long since forgotten about is now bringing joy to hundreds of people across the country. The one close call we had was with Jack Rebney, a guy we dubbed “The World’s Angriest R.V. Salesman.” We cut together some outtakes of this guy going nuts during a promotional video for Winnebago R.V.s and it became a big hit from our first show. Then Jack found out about it and, believe it or not, was pretty pissed off. But we somehow convinced him to appear with us at a show at the Red Vic last year. He came out to a standing ovation and regaled the audience with hilarious stories from that disastrous shoot, then signed autographs for a half hour afterward. At the end of the night, we actually hugged the man.

Slavic Soul Party! rocks the cockatoo

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September 21, 2009

1

By Marke B.

Soul with a “!”

In the hoot-and-whirl tradition of Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beat Box, massive NYC brass-and-other-things band Slavic Soul Party! brings Eastern European funk sounds to the dancing masses, on the order of our own beloved Brass Menazeri crew. New album Taketron (barbes) is a shining example of the delicious new Romany hybridity.

Don’t believe me? Download a slice of Taketron and listen for yourself here.

Then watch the feathers fly to this SSP track:

Then join the freakin’ party!

Slavic Soul Party!
Fri/25, 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.
$15 per show, $25 for both
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
www.elbo.com

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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September 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: Renee, Arguello and Anza

Tell us about your look: “I’m late and I’ve got to get to class!”

Dick Meister: Obama, labor, and FDR

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September 21, 2009

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Obama is well on his way to becoming the most pro-labor president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, former San Francisco Chronicle labor editor and labor reporter for KQED’s TV’s “Newsroom,” has covered labor and politics for a half-century as a author, reporter, editor, and commentator.)

It¹s clear that Barack Obama is well on the way to becoming the most pro-labor president since Franklin D. Roosevelt – clear that he’s firmly committed to strengthening the vital union rights that FDR secured for U.S.
workers seven decades ago.

Consider Obama’s address to the AFL-CIO’s national convention in Pittsburgh on Sept. 15. Yes, the president was speaking to a friendly audience, saying what the convention delegates wanted him to say and promising them what they wanted him to promise. But his were not empty words.

Another wake-up call

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September 21, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

The New York Post — or the Yes Men’s version of it — finally levels with the people about capitalism and climate change.

A few days after I wrote here about my hopes that the upcoming film “Capitalism: A Love Story” would prompt a national discussion about our doomed economic system, The Yes Men have provided another wake-up call, creating a fake New York Post website and newspapers warning of the climate change disaster we’re headed for if we don’t quickly change our wasteful, overly consumptive ways.

That stunt — a hallmark of this creative duo — precedes the Oct. 7 release of their new film, “Yes Men Save the World.” Combined with Michael Moore’s Oct. 2 release of “Capitalism,” we have an excellent opportunity for an important discussion, if only mainstream media obstacles like Post owner Rupert Murdoch would recognize economic and environmental realities. But we at the Guardian plan to facilitate the discussion over the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Amazing Park(ing) Day

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September 18, 2009

4

By Steven T. Jones and Molly Freedenberg

San Francisco — and cities around the world — celebrated Park(ing) Day today in glorious fashion, transforming hundreds of automobile parking spaces (about 50 in SF alone) into mini-parks and works of art.

Among the highlights: the folks at Rebar, which founded the event here in 2005, made the rounds in their pedal-powered Parkcycle; Temple nightclub and Ritual Roasters each created lush lawns for lounging; SPUR worked with the Great Streets Project to extend the sidewalks with platforms and create a street party complete with DJ and belly dancers; Four Barrels Coffee turned car parking spots into bicycle parking spots; and Interstice Architects had a mobile forest that moved to various spots, including 826 Valencia in the afternoon. Downtown’s parks were said to be liveliest during lunch hour, whereas Mission area installations drew the most activity in the afternoon.

Some images of the event by Steven T. Jones:

Prison report: Where’s the plan?

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September 18, 2009

0

By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports run twice a week.

I wasn’t going to write anything for today, but I realized after a conversation with someone earlier in the day, and one this afternoon with Tim, that I had an apology to make.

You see, I’ve been guilty over the last month or so of the very thing I am constantly denouncing, which is wholesale condemnation of various groups and entities.

That’s not fair, and I don’t want it done to me, and I really am trying to treat people how I would like to be treated.

So, I say: Please accept my apology if you are a politician, or a California Correctional Peace Officers Association member, or a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee, or a media person or a person in general who is fighting for change within the prison system, fighting for sentencing reform, trying to move toward sane policies around prisons, and doesn’t buy into the constant rhetoric about those of us in prison.

I apologize for lumping you together with those you don’t deserve to be compared with. And I say, thank you for your efforts at rational laws and fair inmate practices.

But, for those of you that are the cowards and liars serving from the trough of fear, that acrid ambrosia you’re serving the general public in the name of public safety, I still say, Screw You.

Well, it’s 3:30 and California still hasn’t, to my knowledge, given the federal courts a plan to reduce the prison population by 43,000 over the next two years. Imagine that. They don’t have a real plan — well, actually, the real plan all along has been to have the feds come in and take over, so the state can still look tough on crime.

A meager fight is the same as a non fight, which is basically giving up and saying, we don’t know what to do.

There’s nothing wrong with admitting when you are wrong and accepting defeat. But for many, I think it’s more cowardice at the public expense — the public that would rather the problem just go away because we have enough problems already.

“Oh well, oh hell,” as my dad would say.

I hope the feds get it right, and the powers that be use their “new slate” to make changes that may work.

Do unto others as you would have then do unto you.

Chris Patten: America’s Groucho Marxists

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September 18, 2009

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Maybe it’s no coincidence that Groucho Marx was an American citizen

Here is Chris Patten’s commentary on the Project Syndicate news series. Patten is a former EU Commissioner for External Relations, Chairman of the British Conservative Party, and was the last British Governor of Hong Kong. He is currently Chancellor of Oxford University and a member of the British House of Lords.

America’s Groucho Marxists

By Chris Patten

LONDON – Groucho Marx has always been my favorite Marxist. One of his jokes goes to the heart of the failure of the ideology – the dogmatic religion – inflicted on our poor world by his namesake, Karl.

“Who are you going to believe,” Groucho once asked, “me, or your own eyes?” For hundreds of millions of citizens in Communist-run countries in the twentieth century, the “me” in the question was a dictator or oligarchy ruling with totalitarian or authoritarian powers. It didn’t matter what you could see with your own eyes. You had to accept what you were told the world was like. Reality was whatever the ruling party said it was.

The designated successor to Mao Zedong in China, Hua Guofeng, raised this attitude to an art form. He was known as a “whateverist.” The Party and people should faithfully follow whatever Mao instructed them to do.

Can we talk about capitalism now?

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September 18, 2009

26

By Steven T. Jones

Are we actually, finally, about to have a long overdue national conversation about capitalism? I really hope so, and perhaps the catalyst for that conversation can be Michael Moore’s new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which I saw yesterday and which debuts in theaters on Oct. 2.

Moore doesn’t pull any punches in assailing an economic system that has created huge and growing disparities in wealth, corrupted both the public and private sectors, destroyed people’s lives and the country’s manufacturing base, and is both wasteful and unsustainable — a system that even the mainstream clergy he interviews labels as “evil.”

He makes excellent use of last year’s financial meltdown and the electoral gun that Wall Street power brokers (working inside and outside the federal government, Democrats and Republicans alike) held to the heads of Congress members in order to get their $700 billion bailout, which Moore calls a theft of the US treasury.

But it’s his use of archival footage that really brings home just how much capitalist propaganda has conditioned the American people into accepting as natural and inevitable an economic system that is so hostile to their interests. Particularly powerful was a speech that FDR made a year before his death calling for a “Second Bill of Rights” that would guarantee the right to work for livable wages, have access to affordable health care and quality education, housing that is adequate and reasonably priced, a pension and vacation time, and the resources to enjoy recreation and pursue our happiness.

These are reasonable expectations that the richest 1 percent of the country – which Moore shows as actively conspiring against basic equity, fair competition, and the common good, citing an incriminating Citibank memo among other evidence – has removed from the realm of the possible. And it’s time that the people rose up against our economic masters and demanded a new economic system that is sustainable, equitable, and just, something he shows as already starting to happen here and there.

“I refuse to live in a country like this and I’m not leaving,” Moore said toward the end of the film, soon adding, “Capitalism is an evil and you can’t regulate evil — you have to eliminate it.”

Wa! Amazing Baby speaks of aural love, locked-out boyfriends, perfect pitch

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September 18, 2009

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amazingbaby sml.jpg

By Kimberly Chun

An amazing amount of hype and chatter accompanied Brooklyn band (and Wesleyan Mafia contingent) Amazing Baby’s first MySpace musical postings. Time to judge for yourself. I traded e-mails with Will Roan before the group’s Bottom of the Hill show on Sept. 19.

SFBG: How did your new album, Rewild [(Shangrila)], come to pass?

Amazing Baby: I think that we approached the recording with equal parts professional and amateur goals. We are always learning more about ourselves, and to be honest, it’s hard to really know what our intentions were at the time. I think we wanted to express aural love, beauty, heartbreak, and humor. There are people that we love, there are people that have died, and all of the emotions that fall in between. I think next time we may focus more on rhythms and melody. But for Rewild, it was mostly emotive.

SFBG: There’s a very glammy/glitter rock feel to the record? Is David Bowie an influence?

AB: Well, I’ve always been very drawn to Bowie and his effortless power over a song. However, I also feel that his other styles, more than glam, have probably had a larger effect on our songwriting and recording. You can’t deny your first loves. And I think, as a music fan, I continuously find myself going back to his music. It’s really strong stuff, isn’t it?

Gavin tweets, while Jennifer gives birth?

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September 18, 2009

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It’s typical for women to swear and variously carry on while giving birth. So, one can’t help wondering what Jennifer said when she saw Gavin tweeting, while she was busy pushing out daughter Montana.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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September 18, 2009

1

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

Today’s Look: Michelle and Andrew, University of San Francisco

Tell us about your look:
Michelle — “My pants have holes in them and my shirt is falling apart.”
Andrew — “I stole this jacket from my friend and then I broke the zipper on it, so my friend let me keep it.”

Sonic Reducer Overage: David Cross, Little Boots, Titus Andronicus, and more

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September 17, 2009

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By Kimberly Chun

Oh, yes, SF — you like it hot. And you got the sounds to send off the Indian Summer in a proper freaky styley. Here are the worthies that didn’t fit in print.

Alan Braxe
The French dance pop maestro, a.k.a., Stardust, gets out from behind the remix. With One Man Party and Bad Neighbors. Sat/17, 9 p.m. doors, $12-$15. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 820-9669.

Chairlift
Electropop loveliness from Brooklyn, exploding exponentially since its last liftoff in SF, thanks to an iPod commercial. With Magic Bullets and El Ten Eleven. Thurs/17, 9 p.m., $15. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

LAPD says de la Plaza stabbing may be suicide

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September 17, 2009

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Text by Sarah Phelan

If de la Plaza really killed himself, how come no one can find the weapon?

I’m still waiting for a copy of this latest report and a call back from SFPD, but the Chronicle is reporting that the LAPD’s review of the 2007 stabbing death of Hugues de la Plaza is leaning towards ruling the case a suicide.

And that’s a verdict that has made de la Plaza’s ex-girlfriend, Melissa Nix, extremely angry.

“It’s very disappointing,” an emotional Nix told me today. ‘It’s a cynical decision that’s meant to silenced critics. How can they explain that a man kills himself when there is no weapon? They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Nix went onto slam the SFPD’s new chief George Gascón .
“This shows that Gascón is not necessarily in favor of cfhange, but of politics as usual,” Nix said. “I think San Francisco should be outraged. And scared. San Francisco can’t be the kind of city where you murder someone and get away with it.”

After a March press conference in which the de la Plaza family announced that French investigators had ruled the stabbing a homicide, and a report from the Office of Citizen Complaints that found that de la Plaza was a low SFPD priority, the SFPD agreed to review the case. And when Gascón took over as SFPD Chief this summer, he called investigators in the LAPD, where he used to work, and asked them to take another look at the case.

But according to the Chronicle, Dr. Venus Azar, the SFPD Medical Examiner in charge of the case, intends to stick by her original finding, namely that the cause of de la Plaza’s death is “undetermined.”

Either way, this case is doubtless going to get people wondering just how many deaths that the SFPD has ruled as suicides or undetermined were actually homicides. And how many murderers wander our streets unchecked.

SF Weekly dredges up the Sixties. Sigh.

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September 17, 2009

10

By Tim Redmond

I wasn’t going to say anything about the SF Weekly’s big story on the Weather Underground. I mean, Peter Jamison clearly did a lot of work, it was reported in some detail, and frankly, I’ve over talking about what happened back in 1970.

But it keeps gnawing at me, mostly because I don’t really like this whole idea of dredging up radicals from the past and trying to find ways to put them in jail today. I know, I know, a cop got killed and there’s no statute of limitations for murder, and nobody should ever get away with killing anyone else.

But that was a time when all sorts of people on all sides were doing really fucked-up stuff, from the Vietnam War to COINTELPRO; Geronimo Pratt spent most of his adult life in prison after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Fred Hampton was murdered. The list goes on — and none of the perpetrators of the state-backed or state-sanctioned violence have ever paid for their crimes.

You can read a remarkable essay by former Guardian arts editor J.H. Thompkins about it here. His basic take:

The ’60s were full of challenge, and although I’m not a revolutionary now, in my heart, I’m still a revolutionary then. You believed you could change the world and yourself in the process, and that was liberating. The politics were confusing, we made mistakes, and at the end of the day, the fact is that we were right and the other side – racists, politicians, corporate vultures, and the rest – were wrong.

Sometimes I think we should just have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, put it behind us and move on.

Anyway, I asked an old friend of mine who was around in those days what he thought about the Weekly story. He didn’t want his name used, because even now this shit scares people, and the FBI seems happy to be looking for every Sixties radical it can find. But he had some interesting comments:

I’d heard this story was coming out;. it doesn’t seem credible to me. I wasn’t too far away from that scene during those months they refer to — December ’69-March 1970 — and I don’t think BLA and Weather were much connected. Weather types had showed up in disarray after the fucked up “days of rage” thing. And I just don’t think they had the ties — in fact, I’m almost certain they didn’t. even the early weather people weren’t so stupid as to meet a group (BLA) and then pull some horrific job with them. I’d be more inclined to think it was the splinter Panther, BLA-types, even though that trend wasn’t very big in the bay area.

Cops and FBI statements all sound like typical conspiracy things, general and ignorant of any real nuance. And the writer – what was the point of this? – doesn’t dig much up but aging police sources, but does a good job with the incriminating innuendo.

The most credible voice for the cops is Gitlin; because his statement is very true. The group was nearly defunct after days of rage, and the true believers were prone to crazed hyperbole like Bernadine Dohrn’s Manson riff at Flint. It was like that Sociology 101 book “when prophecy fails,” so they were over the top between the fall and when the townhouse exploded. then it changed dramatically.

But I still don’t think that it makes any sense. The Weather people were so naive and so new to it at the end of ’69; I just don’t think they could have – or would have – pulled it off. Plus, and I was closer to the people if not the group as ’70 wore on, I never heard one whiff of gossip about it, and those people loved to tell their stories. What’s more disturbing is the way all this stuff sets precedents, softening up people so that the country is used to finding demon radicals in America again.

I don’t know if Weather Underground was involved in this bombing. I do know that it’s almost impossible at this point to prove it, one way or another. There were too many nutcases doing too much crazy stuff, and all this can possibly lead to is another show trial that seeks to put the Sixties on defense again.

I’m kind of over that, too.

How Newsom chooses commissioners

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September 17, 2009

8

By Tim Redmond

The Small Business Commission isn’t one of the highest-profile public bodies in San Francisco, but to the tens of thousands of small entrepreneurs in the city, it’s important. So the recent appointment of Luke O’Brien to a vacancy on the panel left a lot of small business activists scratching their heads.

“Nobody knew this individual,” Scott Hauge, one of the city’s best-connected and active small business leaders, told me. “As far as we know, he’s never been active in small business issues.”

When the seat opened up, the commission’s director, Regina Dick-Endrizzi, let the small business community know there was on opening, and advised interested people to send in recommendations, and Hauge and others had plenty to offer. But in the end, the way the new commissioner was chosen says a lot about how Newsom makes decisions — and how little he cares about real community input.

O’Brien, according to a resume the mayor’s office sent over, has a background in sales, engineering and technical support and has worked for several technology companies, including Lucent, where he was a corporate sales engineering manager, and two start-ups, one in Mountain View and one in Reno. In 2003, he joined Pattani Construction, a San Francisco outfit run by Mel Murphy, a developer and Residential Builders Association guy who holds the RBA seat on the Department of Building Inspection Commission. When Murphy set up a real-estate investment company the next year, O’Brien joined him as vice president and partner.

According to the mayor’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard,

Commissioner O’Brien will work to ensure that small local construction companies get their fair share of construction dollars. He will work with Small Business Commission Director Regina Dick-Endrizzi and Supervisor David Chiu on their ongoing efforts to reduce redundant and unnecessary businesses fees, and will bring needed expertise into those business fees flowing out of the DBI and Planning Department that are most onerous for small businesses.

In other words, he’s an RBA guy who wants to make life easier for developers. He’s given money to Newsom allies, including Doug Chan for Supervisor and Joe Alioto for supervisor. (I haven’t been able to reach O’Brien, but I left him a message and I’ll let you know if I hear back.)

Since he has no visible background in the small business community, none of the activists had ever heard of him, and none of the names that Hauge and his allies submitted had made the cut, I asked Ballard who the mayor had met with, reached out to or discussed this appointment with. His response:

“O’Brien was recommended to us by his business partner, Mel Murphy.”

Snap Sounds: Emitt Rhodes

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September 17, 2009

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By Johnny Ray Huston

EMITT RHODES
The Emmit Rhodes Recordings (1969-1973)
(Hip-O-Select)

Oh, Emitt. At your peak you were picture-perfect: thick brown hair parted down the middle, angelic face with a doll’s complexion. The music business’ merry-go-round has been cruel to you, but what glorious pop songs you’ve given us: “Live Till You Die” has been holding me together the last week or two, and it’s just one of many beauties from your self-titled 1970 LP.

Emitt Rhodes, Four Songs from Emitt Rhodes

Tubular: Passing Stones’ “**** Me Up”

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September 17, 2009

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Hey wazzup! My fave StSanders vid is probably “**** Me Up” by Passing Stones. His attacks on Def Leppard and Judas Priest have their minimalist power, but this one’s got a rhythm section — and Mick Jagger prancing, flouncing, and doing aerobics in heinous pajama gymwear. And it’s got subtitles. All the better for enjoying lyrics such as:

— “I dress casually..”
— “Where’s Kojak?”
— “Frustration/B.O./Void”
— “May I ask you a whiskey sip?”
…and…
— “I will stop the office trotter”

If you haven’t seen it, you should, and if you have seen it, you can never see it enough, so here it is, for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Pics: Mark Morris Dance Group intertwines, rehearses

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September 17, 2009

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

Smiling dancers spun across the stage wearing neon bright pep-band uniforms. Classical music from a live ensemble kept the dancer’s movements fluid and true. It was the last rehearsal before opening night at Zellerbach Hall (as part of Cal Performances) for the Mark Morris Dance Group, who will be premiering two new pieces on the West Coast, entitled “Visitation” and “Empire Garden” this coming weekend.

Two-day On Land Festival takes root

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September 17, 2009

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By Michael Harkin

Christina Carter. Photo by Rosa Guerrero

Root Strata, the San Francisco-based avant/out music label co-owned by Jefre Cantu and Maxwell Croy, has released over 50 records since its inception. Its foundations and mission are humble, but after nearly five years of work, the label has seen fit to celebrate in a quietly extravagant way with the On Land Festival, a two-night event in the city where it initially, um, took root. "This is the first time we’ve collectively tried to do something on this scale," Cantu, Root Strata’s founder and a member of Tarentel (who perform the first night of the festival) explains over the phone. Sure, On Land is relatively small compared to SF’s other fall festivals, but it’s a damned feast for the right audience. Ducktails and Keith Fullerton Whitman at Café Du Nord on the same night? Killer!

Ducktails, “Parasailing”

Although On Land is not a label showcase per se, nearly every artist on the 21-act weekend bill at Du Nord and the Swedish American Hall has put out at least one record with Root Strata, or will be doing so soon. The label began in late 2004 as a way for Cantu to release a solo CD-R prior to a Japanese tour with Tarentel, but it quickly snowballed into a wide-ranging outlet for artists local and distant, whether they be noisy, pretty, glitched-out, or all or none of the above. For instance, Root Strata recently released Common Eider, King Eider’s Figs, Wasps, and Monotremes, in which core member Rob Fisk’s viola, guitar, and piano meanderings coalesce into a frail, haunting song cycle.

The headliner of Sunday’s bill at the Swedish American is Portland, Ore.-based Bay Area expat Grouper, a.k.a. Liz Harris, whose harmonic haze will dovetail beautifully alongside the sounds of the venerable Christina Carter, the Austin, Texas cofounder of drone-folk outfit Charalambides and superb visual and musical artist. Although a straight-up music festival in most senses, On Land also possesses some cool nonauditory aspects: Paul Clipson will be showing films to accompany several of the performances, and, according to Cantu, Joe Grimm has been generating music by placing contact mics on two 16mm projectors. A handful of other labels will vend their wares as well, including Eclipse Records and Last Visible Dog. Bring a few bucks and an open mind — this is an ideal, totally stacked entrance to San Francisco’s rich underground.

ON LAND FESTIVAL Sat/19–Sun/20, various times. Café Du Nord and the Swedish American Music Hall, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016. www.onlandfestival.com