By Kimberly Chun
Relaxing too hard this Labor Day weekend? Get the blood moving at these musical happenings – so much more than we could fit in print.
AC/DC
The Aussies are slipping on Black Ice and into the record books as the fifth best-selling band in US history. With Answer. Wed/2, 8 p.m., $92.50. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. www.livenation.com
By Andrea Nemerson. Read more of her columns here.
andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com
Dear Andrea:
I’m confused. Are there any guys out there who aren’t at the extremes as far as sex goes? My ex-boyfriend was completely obsessed. Not only did he want it four-plus times a day, he’d want to have phone sex at least twice a day when we were apart. I think of myself as a pretty sexual person, but even I have my limits. Plus phone sex was boring. I like to masturbate, but it’s hard for me to orgasm when I feel the person on the end of the line is waiting. But that’s not why he’s my ex. He was rather immature. He was so obsessed with sex, everything was sexual. If I said it was raining out. He’d say "oooh sounds … wet." If I said something was hard (difficult) he’d say "ooh, hard!" It was like that with everything! He was not some 20-year-old kid, either. He was 48! I’m 31 and I felt I was more mature than he was. So we broke up. Then I fell in love with his polar opposite. We’ve been together a couple years and our sex life has gone downhill rapidly, from two or three times a week to maybe once every three months. I’ve tried to initiate, but I get nowhere. It only happens when he wants it to. I really love this guy and I want to marry him. I just need to figure out how to find a happy medium.
Love,
Opposite Day
Dear Day:
All photos by el fotografo clandestino
Cuckoo for M.I.A.
John Vanderslice
Calexico
Calexico
Calexico
Modest Mouse
by Rebecca Bowe
This jar contains the debris picked up by a manta trawler, a device that skims the surface of the ocean, in a single hour.
The tall ship Kaisei has returned from its month-long voyage to the plastic garbage vortex swirling through the North Pacific Gyre, and the preliminary findings of the ocean researchers are something of a wake-up call.
“We trawled thousands of miles, and we tested surface samples across the whole distance,” said Doug Woodring, cofounder of Project Kaisei, created in May of 2008 to study and address the growing problem of marine debris. “Every single sample came up with plastic.”
“We barely scratched the surface,” added Woodring, who was speaking at a press conference at San Francisco’s South Beach Harbor on Sept. 1.
Project Kaisei is a project of the Ocean Voyages Institute, a Sausalito-based nonprofit founded in 1979. The voyage was conducted in partnership with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, which sent a second research vessel, called the New Horizon, to collect samples of the marine debris for further study. The voyage was just the beginning of the mission, and now Scripps scientists have a good six months of lab analysis ahead to try and better understand the impact of plastic on the marine environment.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Myloan, Buchanan and Union
Tell us about your look: “I’m on my way to my birthday dinner tonight at Osha Thai.”
All photos by el fotografo clandestino
Outsidestock
Nortec Collective
Nortec Collective
Street Sweeper Social Club
Street Sweeper Social Club
Street Sweeper Social Club
Before Chief Gascon starts talking amnesty and clearing minor cases, he needs to demonstrate that he’s going to take a hard line on the serious misconduct cases
EDITORIAL We’re glad to see San Francisco’s new police chief, George Gascon, is talking about reform. He’s talking about opening up the mediaphobic culture at the SFPD, bringing in new blood at the management level, shifting schedules so more experienced cops are available at night (when most crime takes place). He wants to focus the discipline process on the most serious departmental offenders – the handful of officers who are responsible for the majority of the misconduct problems.
Those are, generally, good signs. If he’s serious about changing the moribund, sometimes corrupt, and generally toxic climate in the department, though, he’ll need more than promises. Over the next few months, he needs to take action on a few key fronts.
By C. Nellie Nelson
Late last week, three members of the Board of Supervisors signed a letter urging Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop the charges against the remaining defendant of the San Francisco 8. The letter, signed by Supervisors Eric Mar, John Avalos and Chris Daly, calls the prosecution misguided: “Based on ‘confessions’ and other testimony extracted by torture and denial of right to counsel, this prosecution has been a disservice to the people of San Francisco.” They point out that the case has cost the city millions of dollars already.
In June Sup. Mar introduced a similar resolution urging the attorney general to drop the charges against the seven men (one had had charges dropped previously) to the Board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee. The Committee opted to send the resolution to be heard by the full Board, but ended up postponing when budget disagreements literally overtook City Hall.
Then in early July, the prosecution agreed to drop the charges against five of the men, and allowed two men to accept much lesser charges, where they were credited with time served and received only probation. The one remaining defendant is Francisco Torres, who declined an offer to plead guilty to a lesser charge.
The case being largely dismissed, the board tabled the resolution. As there is now just one attorney and assistant, compared with an original team of sixteen attorneys, so the next hearing on the case was postponed to October 9.
The Attorney General’s office had not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment by Monday evening.
By Marke B.
I have a soft-spot in my cold, cold heart for East Bay electro-funk duo Wallpaper — I grin at their catchy-kooky antics, and whatever wrong rub I get from the pair’s unironic frat-boy sentiments (“If I wasn’t me, I’d date myself”) is quickly sanded off by the amount of beguiling musical ideas in their songs. I’m still working my way through my advance copy of their new Eenie Meenie LP, Doodoo Face (see what I mean about the level of humor here?), and I’ll have more thoughts on it before it hits stores on 9/22. For now though, here’s Wallpaper’s latest — you can judge for yourself. It could be a giant statement about the loneliness of a crowded dance floor, it could just be a party jam. It’s kind of both to me. Plus, they totally sample themselves.
Wallpaper, “I Got Soul, I’m So Wasted”
Wallpaper
Doodoo Face record release party
w/ HOTTUB
Sat/26, 9pm, 18+
$10 over 21/$15 under
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF.
M.I.A. All photos by Kimberly Chun.
By Kimberly Chun
Outside Lands — here and now gone. A final dispatch from the dusty, green groves.
Sunday, Aug. 30
Keeping your expectations low is key to smorgasbord fests. Still, I expected a sparser crowd today, the day of the canceled Beastie Boys appearance due to Adam Yauch’s cancer diagnosis, and those expectations were fulfilled. There was definitely less of a mob today: not quite as many specially propped-up cleavages and fewer well-heeled, supertanned oldsters (acolytes of George Hamilton?) than yesterday. What can you say? Dave Matthews definitely skewed the demographic toward the middle-aged, if not outright white-haired.
I don’t know how gramps and grammy would have felt about the fence-jumpers, but they were definitely hopping today as well: I spied about a dozen crash over the fence en masse near the Presidio stage mid-afternoon to the sound of congratulatory whoops from bystanders on the inside. Outside a few agile types peered in at the Sutro stage from the trees on the other side of the barrier. Low-key in comparison to last year’s gang fence-vaulting.
Matt and Kim.
Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.
MJ, with Mary, at Doc’s Clock. Photos by Virginia Miller
EARLY TAKES on new OPENINGS
Three Papayas at Doc’s Clock
Guardian readers are no stranger to Doc’s Clock, a longtime favorite dive bar of many of us, where they pour it strong and keep it real. There’s been something special afoot at Doc’s on Sunday afternoons the last few weeks — you can get your Bible reading in over a Bloody Mary as Three Papayas (aka Chef Ta-Wei Lin) cooks up Vietnamese brunch. Open your Bibles to Papayas’ menu and choose from around five huge entrees (all $8) like papaya salad, a Vietnamese crepe (vegetarian or with pork and shrimp), or the Bunny Chao, a hollowed-out (bread filling piled neatly on the side) loaf of bread stuffed with green lentils, veggies and cardamom-pods. Lin keeps the plates exciting with an array of garnishes and in-season fruits like figs, passion fruit and papayas, of course. Doc’s capable bartenders take care of the drinks. Ryan bartends on Sundays and his Bloody Mary ($8) is killer: sometimes he grills juicy tri-tip and crisp asparagus for a meaty, peppery version (vegetarians can stick with non-carnivorous asparagus). Sit at Doc’s bar with a fresh plate of Vietnamese creativity on your Michael Jackson (Jackson 5 era) placemat, and you’ll wish every Sunday was this chill.
12-4pm Sundays
2575 Mission Street
415-824-3627
http://twitter.com/threepapayas
By Marke B. Photos by Hunky Beau
One heck of el jugo de zanahoria
Yesterday afternoon, I came to with a fierce craving for Mexico’s wonderfully traditional hangover cure: chilaquiles. So me and Hunky Beau hopped on the Aprilia and zoomed out to the Chava’s in the Mission for a heaping plateful of tortilla chips fried and scrambled with eggs, peppers, and salsa — yum. But really, it was the ginormous four-dollar tinted gobletful of fresh-squeezed carrot juice that snapped me out of my “dancing like a fool all night at the EndUp at DJ Ruben Mancias‘ Devotion party” haze. Seriously, they could have served this as a shareable favorite at the old Trader Vic’s. Highly recommended if you’re ever in the same position.
An eager model demonstrates
Chava’s
2839 Mission near 24th St.
(415) 282-0283
By Juliette Tang. Photos by Jack Lukic
Art of Restraint, a quarterly event held at Femina Potens Gallery (2199 Market St), was quite a tranquil affair, given the subject matter of all the artist performances. A well-heeled audience, many of whom had “Do not photograph” stickers adhered to their gallery finery, milled around drinking champagne and wine while bondage artists Fivestar, Judy Minx, Madame Butterfly, Midori, Lochai, James Mogul, and Madison Young performed one after the other in a calm, albeit kinky, manner. The somber atmosphere was reinforced by the music accompaniment, most of which was ambient and mournful. Ms. Young and Mr. Mogul’s performed to the sad, falsetto trilling of Sigur Ros, a band whom I have never before listened to in the context of bondage arts but which in retrospect seemed a strangely fitting choice for this real-life couple.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Natasha, Charlton and Union
Tell us about your look: “We’re trying to get our new store White Label going and we stock all the latest fashion. This outfit is from there.”
By Just A Guy
Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His blogs typically run twice a week.
It was a good week for Jaycee Dugard, who was discovered after being imprisoned for 18 years in an Antioch backyard. But it wasn’t a good week for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which missed several opportunities to solve the case, including two visits to the home of Phillip Garrido, the paroled sex offender who is charged with kidnapping Dugard.
But at least Contra Costa Sheriff Warren E. Rupf had the courage to admit the mistakes, ask forgiveness and take steps to assure that something like this would never happen again.
What was the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation response? Remember, CDCR is responsible not only for people in prison but for people on parole. In typical fashion, agency spokesman Gordon Hinkle denied that anything had gone wrong or that CDCR had been remiss in any way, and said that that the parole agent had gone in Garrido’s backyard but because of the way it was situated didn’t find anything strange.
Wait: These agents visited a registered sex offender’s house once a month, yet found nothing awry?
Far be it for the people at CDCR to even admit that they are doing a poor jobs. They never admit responsibility for anything. Yet they are tasked with rehabilitation.
Isn’t a key component of the rehabilitation process admitting your mistakes? What kind of example does it set when the entity so concerned about the public’s safety is incapable of admitting it has done something wrong performed poorly?
Examples like this should make it obvious that CDCR is not protecting you but protecting itself through a continuous enterprise of lying, hiding the truth, covering up the facts and skewing information in order to paint a picture or inmates as unrepentant evildoers bent on destruction — while coloring itself as a benign bureaucracy with the unenviable job of keeping us at bay by “walking the toughest beat.”
The beat is so “tough” that the parole agents didn’t thoroughly investigate the back yard of a convicted sex offender. I guarantee my parole officer would investigate my back yard if it were in such disarray – at the very least, the yard was ripe to be a meth lab and Garrido’s deranged rants would be a cause for concern.
But you know what one of the big problems with the scenario is? The parole agent probably had 200 people to watch, 100 of them no nonviolent offenders, so he or she didn’t have time to thoroughly investigate what was going on.
Wait – it was 18 years! Good job, CDCR.
Government’s number on priority is to protect the public, but with that comes a responsibility to define what the public is being protected from. Do we really need to be protected from a casual drug user, or even addict (any more than we need to be protected from a casual drinker or even an alcoholic)? If drugs were decriminalized, taxed and regulated by the FDA — or even handed out free to registered addicts – a large percentage of our property crimes would disappear. The black market would collapse, prices would drop and drug-related murders would decline.
But most important, parole officers wouldn’t have to be so overwhelmed that they don’t have the time to investigate the jungle-like backyard of a convicted rapist who believes he was inspired by God to commit atrocities on teenage girls.
Who are the real criminals here?
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3805/>
Cheney’s ‘Fodder’
Cheney’s torture claims debunked; will the media say so?
The release of a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on the agency’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques, along with two other previously classified memos, has thrown a harsh spotlight on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s oft-repeated pro-torture arguments. But corporate media seem intent on deflecting much of that glare.
Earlier this year, Cheney spent weeks on the airwaves, explaining that these CIA memos would back up his argument that torture provided valuable intelligence that helped thwart attacks against the United States (FAIR Media Advisory, 5/29/09). But the heavily redacted documents don’t appear to do that. Of the two that Cheney asserted would help his case, reporter Spencer Ackerman noted (Washington Independent, 8/24/09) they “actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations.”
Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder. All photos, except where noted, by el fotografo clandestino.
By Kimberly Chun
O Outside Lands – how sprawling thou art. So many acts in the dusty, leafy grounds of Golden Gate Park, so many goings-on at night at the Independent and Rickshaw Stop. A few dispatches, then, from the periphery and about.
Zap Mama.
By Kimberly Chun
So much to do and so many Mayyors ‘n’ Lamps hoedowns, Outside Lands night shows, and damaged prom benefits to attend. San Fran never disappoints. Here are the worthies still to come.
Big Sur Festival 2009/Party in the Pines
A mini-fest to rival Golden Gate Park’s massive — with way coolios like Kurt Vile, who puts out his first Matador disc, Childish Prodigy, in October, and SXSW breakouts such as Woods. With Wooden Shjips, Vietnam, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Gang Gang Dance, Dungen, and Saviours. Sat/29, noon-11 p.m., $31. Henry Miller Library, Highway 1, Big Sur. www.henrymiller.org. Dungen also plays with Woods and Kurt Vile Sun/30, 8 p.m., $14, at Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.
Blue Sky Black Death
From Haight to the wide blue yonder, with estimable hip-hop sounds for all. With Boy Eats Drum Machine and Boy in Static. Sat/29, 10 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.
Death Angel
You can’t keep the Bay thrash vets down. With Skinlab and Kaos. Sat/29, 9 p.m., $15. Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 451-8100.
By Bruce B. Brugmann
I liked Ted Kennedy for lots of reasons. But I think I liked him the most because, in carrying the Kennedy family torch for all these decades, he was the most liberal of the Kennedys and he never backed down from calling himself a liberal, even when the word went out of fashion and lots of “liberals” were ducking for cover. To me, a liberal is someone who tries to make things better.
Kennedy spent his Senate career working tirelessly and effectively to make things better, for all of us, and applying his liberal voice to a breathtaking range of issues from health care reform, to civil rights, to opposing the Gulf and Iraq wars, to backing Obama at the right moment.
If Kennedy had not been stricken in the middle of his greatest battlle and his greatest cause (“health care for all is the cause of my life”), I’m certain that single payer health care would not have been taken off the table so cravenly and there would at minimum be a real public option with real public support and without a lot of cowering Democrats and Republicans. And there would be real health care reform, perhaps a version of Medicare for all, with a liberal Ted Kennedy imprimatur. He was the one politician in all these years and all these battles who could have made it happen. Alas. Alas.
The Boston Phoenix, the liberal alternative newsweekly of Boston and New England, has covered the Kennedys and liberal Ted since Steve Mindich founded the paper in l966.
Click here to view its splendid coverage, updated regularly.
By Steven T. Jones
The three-year-old ban on new bicycle-related projects in San Francisco – imposed because city officials failed to do a detailed Environmental Impact Report with its Bicycle Plan – may soon come to an end.
The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office this afternoon filed a petition with Judge Peter Busch seeking to end the injunction, arguing that the recently approved Bike Plan and supporting EIR address the concerns that led to the injunction, which banned everything from bike lanes to simple sidewalk racks.
Where Is the Afghanistan Debate?
When public support slips, TV packs in war boosters
With new polls showing the American public becoming increasingly critical of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the Sunday morning network talkshows turned primarily to Pentagon officials and war boosters to discuss the issue, continuing the media marginalization of critics of the escalation of the war (Extra!, 4/09).
The most recent ABC/Washington Post poll (8/13-17/09) found that 51 percent of respondents believe the war is not worth fighting–the first time that position has received majority support. Just 24 percent supported sending more troops to Afghanistan, while 45 percent think the level of troops should be decreased.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Lindsey, Webster and Union
Tell us about your look: “My style is eclectic. I like to mix some classic pieces and then some more trendy pieces together.”
By Mayka Mei
So you follow them on Twitter because it would be too obvious to friend them on Facebook. Well, now you have more of a reason to stalk your favorite San Francisco creatives, and the end of the rainbow leads to free shades and a party.
Hayes Valley boutique, Acrimony, will be kicking off Super in the City, an all-out scavenger hunt, on September 1. They’ve pooled together 40 of San Francisco’s local celebrities to each wear a pair of Italy’s trendy SUPER sunglasses throughout this (hopefully) sunny September. The innovative icons — including SelfEdge’s Kiya Babzani, Thrillist’s Nick Elliott, and BlowUp’s Ava Berlin — will be posting clues to their whereabouts on Acrimony’s Twitter (ShopAcrimony). Get yourself to the hot spot on time and you win the SUPERs!
The sunglasses are much more than sunglasses, though, of course. First off, they’re worn by the likes of KanYe West, Gwen Stefani, and the Kills. Second, and probably more importantly because who cares what everyone else is wearing, they’re your ticket into an exclusive party hosted by Acrimony, Vice, and SUPER. Exact time and location are confidential. Obviously.
So there you have it. Follow the Twitter and take the shades off of someone’s face. Consider it having your cake and eating it, too, since your current pair of sunglasses probably didn’t earn you enough street credit to get past any velvet ropes previously.
Super in the City. Scavenger hunt. Twitter. SUPERs. Golden ticket. I hope they play R. Kelly’s “Superman High.”
