SFBG Blogs

The Way of the Samurai

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Now open at the Asian Art Museum: “Lords of the Samurai”, a fascinating exhibit of over 160 items, remarkably assembled over the past 600 years by a single family, the Hosokawa clan. At the exhibit’s press preview June 10, former Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa was on hand to introduce his family’s collection, which overall totals some 6000 objects — a high number due in part to his ancestors’ emphasis on cultural arts and literature, and also due to plain old good luck.

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Sake bottle and food box set (sagejū) in the shape of an eggplant, by Hosokawa Sansai (aka Tadaoki, 1563–1646), Japan. Edo period (1615–1868), 17th century. Lacquered wood. Eisei-Bunko Museum, 6535. © Eisei Bunko, Japan.

Chronicle continues anti-immigrant crusade

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By Steven T. Jones

Jaxon Van Derbeken and the San Francisco Chronicle continued their crusade against undocumented immigrants today, expecting elected officials in San Francisco to be accountable to federal immigration authorities while resisting accountability for their own unethical collusion with a controversial anti-immigrant group.

At issue is a Los Angeles Times story about how District Attorney Kamala Harris – who is running for attorney general, a fact that likely played a role in the hit piece – allowed a half-dozen undocumented immigrants to enroll in a rehabilitation program rather than turning them over to the feds. The Chronicle essentially rewrote the Times story under Van Derbeken’s byline and ran it as its splashy lead news story.

Harris told the Times that it’s not her job to enforce federal immigration policies, a stand that has been San Francisco’s official Sanctuary City policy since the ‘80s when Dianne Feinstein was mayor. But Van Derbeken and anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies – which recently gave Van Derbeken an award and large cash payout for his work on the issue – have been pushing for more local cooperation with federal immigration crackdowns.

The Chronicle has refused to say how much money Van Derbeken received for an award that was worth $1,000 a few years ago (CIS has also refused to disclose the figure despite our direct questions), or to address the validation of CIS’s controversial views that acceptance of the award represents, or to offer a position on CIS’s demands and quest for mainstream legitimacy, or to explain or apologize for the derogatory comments that Van Derbeken and conservative Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders made about San Francisco and immigrant rights activists during his acceptance speech earlier this month.

While Van Derbeken did briefly raise the concern during his speech that innocent San Francisco residents could get deported under federal immigration policies, he has resisted accepting the immigrant rights community’s call for due process to play out before deporting local residents (often to a country they know little about and where they have no support system) and dividing up families in order to satisfy the increasingly vitriolic demands of nativist groups.

Berkeley’s budget success

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By Tim Redmond

Berkeley isn’t in the financial mess San Francisco is, and while you can’t compare the two cities at all — SF is a city and county, has far more people and much more demand for services — there are two telling points in today’s Chronicle story:`

While sales tax revenues have plummeted elsewhere, they’ve actually risen in Berkeley. (Union City, Albany and Alameda were the only others in Alameda county to see a year-to-year rise.)

The sales tax increase is due, in part, to the quirky nature of the Berkeley economy. The city has virtually no big-box retailers. Instead of shopping malls, the city has clusters of stores in various neighborhoods, Elmwood to Solano Avenue.

The result is that “during times of prosperity, we don’t grow that much,” said Kamlarz. “And during downturns, we don’t decline that much.”

In other words, a diversified economy of local small businesses is more sustainable and better in tough times than one based on big chains.

The other:

Of course, this couldn’t happen without city voters who continue to tax themselves at among the highest levels in the state. Libraries, fire stations and school measures all continue to get support.

You want good libraries, good schools and no fire-station closures? Be willing to pay for them.

Of course, this shouldn’t be seen as any sort of surprising news.

Super Ego: Grab your Ongina, it’s Pride

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By Marke B.

We all love drag gadabout Monistat — even if we want to pinch her little chubby cheeks to death for sending us 20 texts a week demanding to be on the Guardian cover. Love! Now, she’s making up for all her cray-cray by starting a weekly Tuesday night affair called Chaser, which offers a safe haven at EndUp for transgender people on the prowl, and dishes up some fierce drag performances to boot (recent theme nights: “The Aporkalypse: Swine Flu vs Avian Flu” and “Steampunk Circus.”) Basically, it’s almost beloved Trannyshack all over again. And Monistat possesses some real talent.

To kick off Pride — or continue kicking off, if, like me, you went to far too many Pride kickoffs this past weekend (Kick it already, Lucy!) — she’s bringing in someone, someone apparently big, from RuPaul’s Drag Race to make us all a bit fiercer, if perhaps also more amateur-fabulous. This person is named Ongina.

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I think she’s gonna do a few numbers? According to her bio: From one of the thousands of tiny islands in the Philippines comes a mighty, powerful force called Ongina! She’s a mighty wind!

Chaser with Ongina
Tue/23, 10 p.m., $10
The EndUp
401 Sixth St., SF
www.theendup.com

Classes for sale

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By Tim Redmond

So City College is going to start selling naming rights to its classes. From the Chronicle story, it looks as if the chancellor, Don Griffin, has the whole thing planned out — he told the paper where to send checks for $6,000 and exactly how to make sure your name gets in the books.

There’s a minor problem, though: He never mentioned any of this to the Community College Board.

“When I read about it in the paper, that was the first I’d heard of it,” board member John Rizzo told me.

It’s not as simple a fundraising scheme as it seems. Besides the tacky factor (which doesn’t trump the desperate need for money) there’s the potential for conflicts, both real and imagined.

“What if PG&E wants to buy a class — or maybe ten of them?” asked Rizzo. What if big pharma companies want to sponsor chemistry classes? What if big agricultural congomerates want to sponsor nutrition classes? This could get ugly fast.

“I have a lot of serious concerns about it, and it’s certainly a new policy,” Rizzo noted. “I’m amazed that the chancellor never even mentioned this to the board.”

The Chronicle and the angry nativists

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By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco Chronicle editors continue to defend their decision to let reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken accept an award and large cash payout from the Center for Immigration Studies, which pushes an extreme position cracking down on immigrants, even though the Guardian has learned that the payout was $1,000 in 2001, which is extremely high for a journalism contest, most of which have no cash award and are judged by journalists based on professional standards.

Van Derbeken (who still hasn’t responded to my follow-up questions) and the editors (Managing Editor Stephen Proctor and Assistant Managing Editor Ken Conner) continue to refuse to answer detailed questions about whether the size of the award compromises accepted journalistic standards and whether the acceptance of it legitimizes CIS’s effort to make its extreme position more acceptable to mainstream audiences and politicians.

“All issues have proponents and opponents,” Proctor told us, equating the award to those given for education and legal affairs reporting and denying that the immigration issue is more divisive and controversial.

Meanwhile, CIS’s Mark Krikorian responded to our request for comment by criticizing his critics as a “jihad against dissent from the elite consensus for open borders” and sending us this link to a National Review article that he wrote addressing the Southern Poverty Law Center report labeling CIS an extremist organization.

Neither Krikorian nor anyone from the Chronicle has responded to our direct questions about how much cash Van Derbeken received from the CIS, although we found an application for the 2001 award that listed the amount as $1,000.

Sonic Reducer Overage II: Elvis Costello, Starfucker, Nihlotep

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By Kimberly Chun

Get out and lend an ear – it’ll be returned, perhaps changed. Here are more intriguing shows that didn’t make it to print.

Elvis Costello
Certified rock genius – up in the house! No secrets here: in true diehard music lover form, Declan MacManus gives back to music emporiums with his one-day “Amoeba Music Tour” performances here in the Haight and then at Amoeba Hollywood. Expect him to play acoustic versions of tunes from his new Secret, Profane and Sugarcane (Hear Music) alongside Jim Lauderdale, and to sign copies of the CD (copies purchased at Amoeba come with a poster silkscreened for the event). Mon/22, noon, free. Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. (415) 831-1200.

Nihlotep performing Mosaic and studio clip

Nihlotep
Drink in the unearthly screeches and high-drama doom metal sturm und drang from the San Jose group. With Vesterian and Condemned to Live. Tues/23, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

Starfucker
The Portland, Ore., combo with the oh-so-naughty moniker has somewhat innocuous origins: Josh Hodges started out with just a borrowed drum set, loop pedal, and a mic – one-off, one-man entertainment for a house party. Now, with the addition of three bandmates, Starfucker is busy reproducing the 8-bit electro pop-dance punk off its mini-album, Jupiter (Badman).
With Atole and White Cloud. Tues/23, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., S.F. (415) 621-4455.

Villaraigosa to announce intentions

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By Steven T. Jones

CNN reports that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will in just a couple hours announce whether he plans to run for governor against Gavin Newsom, who really needs some high-profile opponents to keep him honest. So, on behalf of the Guardian, let me just offer this last-minute encouragement: Run, Antonio, run!

Mr. Prez — just don’t fuck things up worse

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By Tim Redmond

I heard a lot of discussion on KQED’s Forum this morning about President Obama and his affronts to the queer community, and several callers — all folks who claimed to be “supportive of the the LGBT community” — suggested that the president is doing the right thing by taking it slow. First, he has to fix the economic mess, restore the banking system, put about 10 million people back to work, close the Guantanamo Bay torture chamber and create a national health-care system. Then, after he takes a little nap and has a nice healthy snack, he can get to work on human rights and equality.

Bill Clinton, one caller said, screwed everything up by moving too fast; his health-insurance reform collapsed, Congress wouldn’t go along with allowing gay people to serve openly in the military, and before long, the Republicans were kicking his ass all over Washington.

I know the song: A president only has a certain amount of political capital, and he can’t just go flinging it all around at once. And he needs Congress for his health plan, and overturning the Defense of Marriage Act or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell could alienate those same moderates who might be the swing votes on health reform. He also has to deal with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose district may include the single largest concentration of active queer people in the United States, but who long gave up representing San Francisco. She’s more worried about electing Democrats in conservative districts to keep her majority and her power — and if that means lesbian and gay people have to go the back of the bus for a while, oh well. That’s politics.

But there are so many things Obama could do, right now, without Congress (and without making a big fuss) that would make a huge difference to the queer community. He can’t get rid of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — but as commander in chief, he can simply order the office of the Judge Advocate General of each of the services to suspend indefinately all prosecutions seeking to discharge service members for homosexuality. The military doesn’t do everything right, but the one thing the leaders of that august institution understand is taking orders. Just tell them to stop kicking gay people out — and not to make a big deal of it. Then the problem will at least be something we can ignore while Obama is taking his sweet time and collecting political chits to deal with it properly.

Same thing with DOMA. I don’t know who exactly approved the legal brief defending that law — and I suspect somehow that Obama himself never read it — but that shit has to go. Just withdraw that brief, submit another one that doesn’t compare homosexuality to incest (and that’s kind of badly written and not particularly persuasive), and hope to god the government loses.

Yeah, the president ought to stand up publicly for equality — and unlike Willie Brown, who thinks that’s never going to happen, I suspect it will. By the end of his first term, he’ll come around. But in the meantime, Mr. President, remember the Hippocratic Oath of politics: First, don’t fuck things up worse.

Jane of the Jungle: Donkey shows, tapir dongs, stoned chimps

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SFBG’s Justin Juul asks zookeeper Jane Tollini — former penguin keeper at the San Francisco Zoo, and originator of the annual “Woo at the Zoo” tour — about life, love, and sex in the animal kingdom. Read part one here.

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Part Two: Donkey Shows — not as cool as they sound

SFBG: So! The real reason I’m here is to find out about donkey shows. I’ve been hearing about them my whole life, but I’ve never actually met a person who’s seen one. Have you?
Tollini: Yeah, they exist. And yes, I’ve seen one. It was horrible and extremely gross. I was drunk and stoned down in Mexico. Not sure why I wanted to see it, but hey, you’re only young once, right?

SFBG: Have you seen any other cross-species interaction? Chicken fucking, goat licking…anything like that?
Tollini: Oh yes, lots! There was this girl – I’m not gonna say here name, but she worked in the primate division — who just loved her apes to death. And we were just positive that she was getting down with them. She would bend over and give them a show in front of everyone and then she would stay late most days doing god knows what in the pens. Also, I have friends who have dogs and I’ve heard plenty of stories about canines sucking their masters off. The thing about the donkey show is that donkeys have pretty sizable dicks so a woman would have to be good and prepared, if you know what I mean. The show I saw looked pretty painful… but, well, you could tell she’d done it before. I also saw a pretty weird thing go down with an orangutan and a couple of cute college girls once. That was weird.

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SFBG: Please go on.
Tollini: Well, a few years ago, a couple of girls from UC Davis decided to collaborate on a thesis statement about orangutan reproduction. Obviously, they were gonna need some sperm, so they contacted The Sacramento Zoo. The zoo was cool about it and gave the girls permission to use one of their older orangutans, but also said that it might be hard because there were no female orangutans hanging around that weren’t already pregnant at that specific point in time. Also, this orangutan had arthritis so he couldn’t masturbate very well. You can imagine what happened after that.

SFBG: The girls found a different project?
Tollini: Ha! No, the girls spent four months giving hand jobs to a grizzly old orangutan.

Spanish Street Threads: Look of the Day

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto just returned from Spain with a glimpse at Spanish street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Spanish Look: Fatima y Anna, San Sebastian

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Latin Project’s slick, sulty “Musica De La Noche”

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By Michael Krimper

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I’m bumping the Latin Project’s second full length record, Musica De La Noche, in my headphones right now. The signature Latin-Electronica blended sound is the brainchild of British producers, Jez Colin and Matt Cooper, who now call Los Angeles home. Listening to the music transports me to the surreal place of one of those Hollywood film sequences where the slick talker dude walks into the smoky (not cigarette smokey, but fog-machine smokey) disco ball club where epileptic lights flash all over the sweaty dance floor. All of a sudden, a sultry red light shines on a sexy maroon lipped lady, and the eyes of our two protagonists lock in a moment of tidal crashing bass. Magnetism.

For this release, the Latin Project produce a finely polished fusion of house, broken beat, Afro-beat inspired polyrhythms, Latin grooves and vibes, with an occasional sprinkle of buttered hip-hop lyricism. The bass hits hard in that clean type of way and the jazzy horn sections uplift the mood, crafting easy going, dance friendly grooves. Some of the remixes venture into more experimental electronic territory, hinting towards a fresh Latin sound with coarser curves and layered intricacy. But most of the night music lives comfortably in a world without ghosts or werewolves or any other eerie spirits lurking around the corner, where your problems disappear in the heat of dance floor and your feet take you away.

Chronicle accepts award and cash from anti-immigrant group

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By Steven T. Jones and Sarah Phelan

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken recently accepted an award and cash prize (he refuses to say how much) from the Center for Immigration Studies – which a Southern Poverty Law Center report in February 2009 criticized for its overtly racist roots and extreme anti-immigrant agenda – for his controversial articles on San Francisco’s Sanctuary City policies.

CIS paid for Van Derbeken to accept the award at the National Press Club and conservative Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders to introduce him earlier this month, an appearance they used to make derogatory comments about San Francisco, its values, and local immigrant rights activists, while saying little to rebuke the group for stirring up hateful nativist furor around what has become perhaps the country’s most divisive issue.

Van Derbeken and Ken Conner, the Chron’s assistant managing editor for news (who the reporter consulted before accepting the award), told the Guardian that they see nothing wrong with accepting the award and they don’t see it as validating the views of a group that has been desperately seeking mainstream credibility with which to push its anti-immigrant agenda.

“No one should mistake their decision to endorse my work for my endorsement of theirs,” Van Derbeken wrote via e-mail in response to questions, although he wouldn’t offer an opinion on the CIS agenda. He said he was unaware of the SPLC report when he accepted the award, and now that he’s seen it, he wrote, “I haven’t drawn any conclusions about it.”

Conner also dismissed concerns that accepting the award and its cash supplement amounts to validating the group and letting it benefit from the Chronicle name. “We don’t think that’s true. They gave us this award. We didn’t seek it,” Conner told us.

Les Claypool doin’ it (Yard) Doggie style

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By Molly Freedenberg

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Accordion Babes calendar covergirl Sansa Aslyum will squeeze her box with the Yard Dogs on Saturday.

There’d be something inherently sexy about the Yard Dogs Road Show even if you left out the scantily clad dancing girls, sultry songstress, steamy squeezebox vixen, and mustachio-ed MC in his underwear. Their brand of vaudeville-style variety show, with its touches of circus, musical theater, and old school comedy, has a visceral appeal all on its own – much like an old film reel of vagabonds and freaks come to life.

But lucky for us, there’ll be no leaving anyone out on Saturday, when the Bay Area-based cabaret opens for the legendary Les Claypool at the Warfield. In addition to sword-swallowing, live music, wacky antics, and the usual stunning costumes, Saturday will feature Sansa on accordion, the beautifully synchronized (and scintillating) Black and Blue burlesque dancers, and Lily Rose Love’s come-hither voice.

There are few acts good enough or brave enough to follow the Yard Dogs. Luckily, Les Claypool is both.

Les Claypool with the Yard Dogs Road Show
Sat/20, 7pm. $33.50-$36. (Visit this link and enter code EENOR for a discount.)
Warfield Theatre
982 Market, SF
www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

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Will downtown go after IRV?

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By Tim Redmond

Interesting meeting at the Chamber of Commerce office yesterday. In attendance, I’m told by a good source, were Chamber CEO Steve Falk, Senior Vice President Jim Lazarus, Nathan Nayman from the Committee on JOBS, Pamela Brewster, vice-president for government affairs at Charles Schwab, Wade Rose, vice president at Catholic Healthcare West, and some other downtown types.

Among the topics: A campaign to repeal the city’s Ranked-Choice Voting system.

Downtown has never liked RCV, also known as Instant Runoff Voting. The Chamber and Committee on JOBS folks also dislike the fact that they’ve gotten their butts kicked in the past few supervisorial elections — and instead of finding better candidates, or recognizing that the electorate really isn’t interested in a pro-corporate Republican-style agenda, they’ve decided to go after “the system.”

I couldn’t reach Falk today, but Lazarus called me back. He said the Chamber had polled this year on both district elections and IRV, and found (no surprise) that the public loves district elections, and that trying to return to a citywide system was a nonstarter. And while support for IRV was also strong, the voters, according to the Chamber poll, would be willing to consider direct runoffs between the top two finishers if the voting were all done by mail.

That, presumably, would keep the cost down and the turnout up.

“The Chamber has always been in favor of direct runoffs,” Lazarus told me. That allows the top two candidates to directly address their differences on the issues. With multiple candidates in the race, the issues aren’t well defined.”

Steve Hill, who works at the New America Foundation and was one of the architects of IRV in San Francisco, pointed out that direct runoffs have been tried in San Francisco. “That what we used to have,” he told me. “And we saw regular attack ads and nasty campaigning. The Ethics Commission found a four-fold increase in independent expenditures during direct runoffs.”

In other words, direct runoffs allow groups like the Chamber and its allies to dump huge amounts of money into negative campaigns in a short election period. “Getting rid of IRV is a vote to empower special interests,” Hill said.

Lazarus told me he’s not sure what the next steps would be, and whether the Chamber would push a Charter Amendment campaign to repeal IRV. “We’ve talked about it,” he said. “That’s all.”

Ah, sweet embarrassment of sex

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By Juliette Tang

Sometimes, porn takes itself way too seriously. Why don’t porn DVDs come with ‘bloopers’ features? Because after being gratefully exposed to Porn Fail, I feel my overall experience of porn would really benefit from seeing more bloopers. From a naked man doing a pirate jig in the background of a scene, to an overenthusiastic cumshot that makes its way to the cameraman’s eye, to um, trumpet sex, these NSFW ‘porn fails’ are great reminders of what the body is not capable of doing gracefully. If you’ve ever been embarassed about something you’ve done in the bedroom, reassure yourself with the knowledge that it even happens to people who have sex for a living.

Gloria Vanderbilt’s Brooklyn sex mansion: anything but vanilla

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By Juliette Tang

Gloria Vanderbilt may be 85-years-old, but she will have you know that she is having none of your boring, vanilla bedroom fantasies. Famous for that whole 80s denim thing, and for being Anderson Cooper’s begetter, Vanderbilt’s erotic novel Obsession (about BDSM no less!) is due out on June 23, and, according to the New York Times, it comes with a healthy dose of flora, though not, apparently, of fauna:

Mint, cayenne pepper and a fresh garden carrot are deployed in the book in ways never envisioned by “The Joy of Cooking.” And there is also a unicorn, though, blessedly, it remains a bystander.

Charles McGrath cautiously sidesteps Ms. Vanderbilt’s own involvement in BDSM (and stiffly acknowledges that her novel “uses vocabulary and describes activities of a sort that readers of The New York Times are usually shielded from”), but I doubt the author is any stranger to her subject.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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

Today’s look: Jordan, Dolores Park

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Tell us about your look: “My shoes have flamingos on them because I’m from Miami.”

Frameline33 review: “Cure for Love”

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By Laura Swanbeck

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For years cinematic satires such as Saved! (2004) and But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) have served as send-ups of extreme orthodoxy and have mined ex-gay therapy groups with names like “True Directions” and “Mercy House” for laughs. Francine Pelletier and Christina Willings’ Cure for Love (2008) also tackles these controversial subjects, but in a very earnest and even-handed way. Love opens with the wedding of Brian and Ana, two gay Evangelists who have no delusions when it comes to their sexuality, but who simply refuse to abandon their religious beliefs. The film juxtaposes their union with the relationships of their gay friends, Jonathan and Darren, who finally manage to accept their sexuality while retaining their faith after years spent struggling and journeying to Exodus, a retreat for “same-sex addiction.” From a liberal standpoint, it is extremely difficult to watch Brian and Ana’s wedding footage without thinking that this charade is what’s unnatural, not gay marriage, especially in light of the recent upholding of Prop 8. However,Love never preaches an agenda. Instead, it keeps both sets of couples clearly in focus, presenting an intimate portrait of the myriad kinds of love humanity possesses — love of family, love of God, love of a man or a woman (regardless of your gender) — and how individuals ultimately choose to reconcile them.

Cure for Love plays as part of the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
Sat/20, 11 a.m., $8
Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, SF
www.frameline.org

Vote on resolution to drop SF8 charges is postponed

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By C. Nellie Nelson

In the face of police officers already angry about proposed budget cuts, the Board of Supervisors this week delayed consideration of a resolution supporting the San Francisco 8 and urging charges to be dropped.

Last week, we reported that the Board of Supervisors’ Government Audit and Oversight Committee would hear a resolution urging the state attorney general to drop charges against the SF8, a group that’s now seven African-American men accused in the killing of a San Francisco Police Department sergeant 38 years ago. The case had been dropped in 1975 because the court found that the confessions constituting the main evidence were elicited under torture.

The Committee heard public comment from SF8 supporters and police officers on June 11 and sent the resolution to the full board on June 16, the day when all hell broke loose in City Hall. Then on June 13, the San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial challenging the resolution and a front page story on the day of the hearing include quotes from police officials using the resolution to argue the board was anti-cop.

SF vs. the Catholics, Round One

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By Rachel Buhner

The highly anticipated showdown between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the San Francisco Assessor-Recorders Office came to head June 16th in the Atrium conference room located at One South Van Ness. At stake is millions of dollars in revenue to the city, and perhaps the question of whether the Catholic Church will be able to hide hundreds of millions in assets from sexual abuse victims and other litigants.

Arguing in front of the Transfer Tax Review Board, the legal counsel for both the RCA and the Assessor-Recorder’s Office presented their respective cases with minimal theatrics. However, with the city estimating the total property values of the transferred parcels ranging anywhere from $210 million to $1.25 billion, and the potential transfer tax payout to be somewhere between $3 and $15 million – on top of increased property taxes as the properties are reassessed — there was clearly at a lot at stake for both parties.

Renegade Rockers Hold Down 26 Years of SF Breakdancing

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By Michael Krimper


Renegade Rockers in action.

When a breakdance battle erupts — whether in a club or gym, or on the block or Youtube — heads heed and take note. In a swirling cypher, b-boys and b-girls display their skills on the floor in a back and forth rhythm, showcasing commando techniques and more daring, original styles to the appraisal of the crowd and their fellow crew members, and of course for themselves.

The electric dance style has come a long way since its formative years in the boroughs of 1970’s New York. The West Coast, and in particular the San Francisco Bay Area, has been at the center of many of the innovations contributing to the dynamic evolution of breakdancing. One of the legendary local crews still active, the Renegade Rockers, have been breaking boundaries since their founding at SF City College in 1983.

That longstanding history informs Renegades’ consistent dedication to the culture. In their upcoming 26th anniversary event, the crew plans to showcase the skills which keep them competitive with the top players of the worldwide breakdance community. “Organizing the Renegade Rockers anniversary events encourages the dance scene to keep pushing the limits and inspires new generations to come,” team captain Wicket tells me. Beyond the high energy battle competitions, the crew plans to spread the love by hosting a series of panel discussions on the history of street dance and workshops covering the basics, from foundational breaking to popping, locking, and rocking.

Sonic Reducer Overage I: Polly, Poirier, Tomine, Ade, and more

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By Kimberly Chun

Going out? Staying out? There’s so damn much out there – consider this Sonic Reducer Overage, the Wonder Years/Part I. Look for the sequel in the next day or two.

Poirier
Jump and shake it like the riddim possess ya. The man’s Caribbean and South Asian sonics keep it sweaty on his Soca Sound System EP. With Daedelus. Thurs/18, call for time and price. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001. www.mighty119.com

Miike Snow
He has a nice chunky mohawk, but the Swede is “Still an Animal.” With Esser. Thurs/18, 10 p.m., $10-$12. Popscene, 330 Ritch, SF. www.popscene-sf.com

Seth and Adrian Tomine
Sacto native, onetime Berkeley resident, ex-zine maker, and now Optic Nerve graphic novelist and New Yorker illustrator Tomine returns to the scene of so many of his yarns, to talk about his Shortcomings and 32 Stories, now both out on paperback on the esteemed indie publisher Drawn and Quarterly. Seth – famed for his Palookaville comics – tags along for moral support (I kid because I love). Thurs/18, 7:30 p.m., free. Park Branch Library, 1833 Page, SF. (415) 863-8688. www.booksmith.com

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