Text and photos by Ariel Soto. Devendra Banhart performs again Thu/16 at Yoshi’s SF
“You’re a sexy beast!” someone shouted from the crowd, as Devendra Banhart made his way onto the stage of the Independent to a sold out show, Tuesday, April 14th. After the openers, The Healing Curse, left the stage, Devendra started with an acoustic set and then later was joined by his band, serenading his fans with songs of about sweet little birds, wild wolves, and Latin love.
By Tim Redmond
The hottest contraband in prisons these days isn’t drugs or weapons. It’s cell phones. The California Department of Corrections is pushing for stiff criminal penalties for cell phone possession:
“Cell phone smuggling into California’s prisons is a very serious and growing problem. Public safety officials in prisons and prosecutors on the outside need additional tools to combat cell phone smuggling to inmates,” said Matthew Cate, CDCR Secretary. “Illegal cell phones are used to circumvent supervision of conversations, and can be used by inmates to orchestrate criminal activity, plan escapes, and be a menace outside of prison walls.
There’s state legislation. There are cell-phone-sniffing dogs (seriously, cell-phone-sniffing dogs). There’s a lot of press fuss, and almost all of it has focused on the possibility that crimes can be committed from inside prison wall with cell phones.
But let me suggest some other reasons why the CDC might be trying to ban these handy little devices. For one thing, forcing inmates to use incredibly expensive, overpriced pay phones is quite lucrative for private vendors and state and local government. Inmates who have cell phones can call home without forcing their loved ones to pay huge collect-call charges.
I called the CDC today to ask if revenue has dropped since cell phones started showing up in prisons, and spokesperson Gordon Hinckle said he’d get back to me if that information was something the notoriously secretive agency might be willing to release. Of course, he said, “By no means is that any reason why we’re trying to crack down on this.”
And then there’s the fact that cell phones have cameras.
Imagine if the routine prison-guard misconduct — the beatings, the abuse, the violence — that goes on in state prisons could be captured by inmates and sent to the outside world. Imagine if the next Oscar Grant turned out to be a prison inmate, say, someone denied medical care or beaten near death by the authorities.
You think the wardens and the prison guards’ union wants any chance of that ever happening?
I get the point about the crimes and the potential for problems. But I also think there are plenty of inmate who are just serving their time and aren’t parts of gangs and aren’t plotting assassinations and who might have slightly better lives if they were allowed to communicate more cheaply and freely with the outside world.
By Andre Torrez
Is it just me or do the over-produced vocal stylings on A-Trak’s “Kilometer” remix resemble Justin Timberlake? Prepare for more heavy, dark, French synth pop from a stylishly hairy Parisian: Sebastien Tellier returns to SF on Friday at Mezzanine — in a precursor performance to his part in Coachella‘s blowout weekend, where he’ll be juxtaposed with the likes of Calexico, Throbbing Gristle, and Paul McCartney.
Speaking of Sir Paul, Tellier looks a bit like a cross-hybridization of John and Yoko from the hair peace-bed peace, gurus in drag phase. A white suit outfit, scraggly beard, straight long brown mane, and oh-so-Yoko wraparound shades have never looked better combined on one person.
Is Sebastien Tellier a cyborg fusion of these two?
Yoko took wraparounds to another dimension in her wack-wonderful Starpeace phase
By Natalie Gregory
Elissa Down’s The Black Balloon is an impressive little film. The Australian import follows the Mollisons, a family centered on their autistic son Charlie (an awards-worthy performance by Luke Ford). It is told mainly through the eyes of Thomas (Rhys Wakefield), Charlie’s younger brother. We see Thomas struggle with the perception of his brother by his peers and his constant regret that Charlie is not normal. His mother Maggie (played with maternal strength by Toni Collette) and father Simon (Erik Thomson) love Charlie unconditionally and take excellent care of him. And there are certainly incidents to be taken care of. Maggie and Thomas argue just after Charlie has just defecated on his bedroom floor. The reason? Thomas locked him in his room when Thomas’ love interest drops by. It is a quest for Thomas to accept his brother’s fate, and to learn by example what it means to be compassionate. A moving film.
The Black Balloon opens Fri/17 in Bay Area theaters.
By Molly Freedenberg
Ah, the economic downturn. I’m sitting at my desk, eating instant noodle soup and dreaming of more luxurious times. Times when I’d find myself somewhere like Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation, a benefit featuring more than 20 of the area’s best restaurants and bartenders — and raising funds to end childhood hunger in San Francisco. If I had $75 to spare, I could be at the tasting reception, hosted by Absinthe’s Jamie Lauren. A bit more pocket change (OK, it’s $175 more) and I’d also enjoy a multicourse dinner with premium wine pairings. A fantasy closer to my actual budget, though, is ViniPortugal’s Wine Tasting. One $35 advance ticket takes my imaginary self to the Westin St. Francis, where I’d taste every one of 250 quality wines from Portuguese vintners while noshing on appetizers and supporting WomenHeart, an organization helping women with heart disease. Or perhaps I’ll take Dream Molly on a date to Campton Place, where I’ll feast on the $45 three-course Stimulus Menu.
But times (and bank accounts) being what they are, my Cup O’ Noodle alternatives are going to be a bit less swank — though no less tasty. Find me Thursday at Paragon, where a brat sandwich, fries, sauerkraut, and a Fat Tire costs a mere $13. And next week? Tuesdays with Morty’s. The deli offers a delicious Reuben sandwich and a PBR for $7, and is now open until 8 p.m.
Taste of the Nation. April 23, 5:30pm, $75–$250. Field Club Lounge at AT&T Park, SF. taste.strength.org
Wine of Portugal Wine Tasting. Thu/16, 5:30-8pm, $35–$50. Westin St. Francis, 335 Powell, SF. www.viniportugal.pt
By Danica Li
Late of the Pier is catchy while still retaining an essential core of flighty, fidgety weirdness. With its askew harmonics, squelchy synths, and wildly off-key vocals, Fantasy Black Channel (Parlophone, 2008) marks the big label debut of a band bent on peddling an oddball sound to the masses, to say nothing of a kitschy aesthetic. The album’s cover presents a haphazard assortment of drums, kits, cords, and keyboards scattered atop outcroppings of granite — an apt visual for the band’s chaotic approach. Some tracks suggest a recorder switched to on-mode at the site of a train wreck, while others rescue some order from the mayhem. Discerning musical adherents will peg the group as contemporaries of outfits like Metronomy, Hot Chip, and Klaxons. This quartet is inventive and almost extreme in how far they’re willing to take their sprawling multipart sagas, instrumental transitions and elaborate glam guitar breakdowns. Plain-jane indie rock outfits have nothing on them.
Two quick takes on Junior Boys, who perform tomorrow with Max Tundra at Bimbo’s (Thu/16, 7 p.m., $18. Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com)
Junior Boys
Begone Dull Care
(Domino)
Johnny Ray Huston:
The knives are out at least a little for the critics’ darling duo, and to be fair, this third full-length falters a bit in following the breakthrough of 2007’s So This is Goodbye. But "Work" might be Junior Boys’ best composition, and "Sneak a Picture" is simply sweet. A reward for those who care enough to dig: the title and lyrics braid through the life and work of Canadian animator Norman McLaren.
Junior Boys, “Work” live
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: David, Market and Castro
Tell us about your look: “I like color and offbeat items. Be true to yourself when it comes to fashion.”
By Johnny Ray Huston
When Blossom Dearie passed at the age of 84 this February, the world of jazz and cabaret lost perhaps its lightest, sweetest, and wittiest voice, not to mention a pianist of subtle grace. But Dearie’s contributions to recorded music, the American songbook, and even children’s television remain for people to discover and veteran fans to celebrate. The singer and songwriter Jacqui Naylor is paying tribute to Dearie in concert this week at Yoshi’s SF. We recently discussed the singular charms of Dearie, and her influence, via email.
Jacqui Naylor
SFBG When was the first time you saw Blossom live on stage? What impressions or favorite memories do you have from her performances?
Jacqui Naylor I first saw Blossom with my vocal teacher, Faith Winthrop, in 1997 in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall. I fell in love with her unmistakably sweet voice, quirky delivery and unmatched style.
Blossom’s voice was small and large at the same time and she used her nice range to tell the story of a song with sincerity, rather than over singing it, sometimes with a little sweet vibrato at the top and sometimes with an almost speaking quality in her middle and lower register. I appreciated that she made the most of every lyric, especially with such a diverse repertoire, everything from lovingly sung ballads to wit-filled swing tunes and songs that she wrote. I was also struck by the fact that she was selling her CDs herself and taking the time to sign them for people. I have a few that I cherish from that evening. She is the only artist from whom I’ve felt compelled to get a signature.
Blossom Dearie sings “Surrey With the Fringe on Top”
SFBG Did you know Blossom?
JN I saw Blossom on a number of occasions in New York and met her through my distributor, John Nustvold, from Ryko/Warner. He is also a big fan of her work and was hopeful to get her music out to more people. We dreamed that maybe there were even some unreleased tracks that we could help bring to market.
I should say here that Blossom not only inspired me musically but also in her business savvy, since she was one of the first artists to own her own label, Daffodil Records. It was great to meet her and tell her how much she had affected me, inspiring my own Ruby Star Records and my determination to find a sound that was uniquely mine. It is because of her that I stopped worrying about whether I sounded like a traditional jazz singer and instead focused on telling the stories of the songs I chose to sing in a ways that felt true to me. Because of her, I also began to imagine bringing humor to my music and shows by reinterpreting the idea of modern cabaret songs, and by writing songs that might inspire people. Many of the songs Blossom chose to sing touted words of spring, birds, love, flight, and yes, blossoms. And even when she sang the most cruel and humorous cabaret song, she did so with a sense of compassion, humility and good fun. Famous for refusing to sing unless her audience was quiet, Blossom did so politely and without malice. A true talent with a lot of grace and charm.
After the jump: Schoolhouse Rock, grape-peeling appeal, great live clips, “Blossom’s Blues” and Dearie’s musicianship,
By Steven T. Jones
As overhyped and ridiculous as tomorrow’s Republican Tea Party events are, I find them a fascinating manifestation of the perplexing posture of victimhood that the US ruling class and its right-wing shills seem to revel in. So I might just have to pop down to Civic Center Plaza from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. tomorrow to see San Francisco’s festivities.
The US has one of the lowest rates of taxation in the industrialized world. Fiscal conservatives have been calling the political shots in this country since 1980, resulting in an extraordinary consolidation of wealth, a threadbare social safety net, and an economic system collapsing because we refused to regulate greed and corruption.
“Yet on this Tax Day, all taxpaying Americans should be concerned that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats’ runaway tax hikes will be the death of America’s economy as they extend the ‘Pelosi Recession,’” warned National Republican Congressional Committee director Guy Harrison in an alarming mass e-mail. “This week, thousands of patriotic Americans will gather to protest oppressive government taxation, and stand as one for fiscal sanity at tea parties across the nation.”
Really? We should all be alarmed that Congress and President Barack Obama are considering increasing the upper income tax bracket by a couple of percentage points? Frankly, I’m pissed that they’re being too timid in getting our money back from the rich motherfuckers who stole it. And I certainly feel that our corporate-sponsored political system is essentially taxation without representation from those of us who can’t afford a campaign contribution.
So maybe we’re all a little indignant.
LOCAL ARTIST Mike Kuchar
TITLE Myth Men
BIO Mike Kuchar, cinematographer, painter, writer, and brother of George Kuchar, was born in New York City. He began making 8 mm movies in the 1950s, switching over to 16 mm film production in 1960, and continues now, producing short motion pictures in the video and digital formats. He has also done illustrations for various erotic publications, including Manscape, Gay Heartthrobs comics, First Hand, and Meatmen.
SHOW "Dark Americana," through May 9. Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, 172 Minna, SF. (415) 777-1366.
By Andrea Nemerson. View more alt.sex columns here. Email your questions to Andrea: andrea@altsexcolumn.com.
Dear Readers:
These are perennial body parts questions, and I feel I would be somewhat remiss if I didn’t re-answer them every few years. Here are some that have been hanging around waiting for me.
Love,
Andrea
Dear Andrea:
I once tried for half an hour putting my index finger about two inches inside my girlfriend’s vagina, pressing with a "come hither motion" and simultaneously pressing the mound from outside. Unfortunately my partner did not experience any extra pleasure. Maybe I have to try again and again?
Love,
Willing
Dear Will:
Yes, yes, very funny. I’m not entirely sure what she was experiencing, but from your phrasing, which could have been cut and pasted from any one of a thousand how-to Web sites, I think you may have been proceeding a bit by rote there. Rather than printing out some stranger’s directions, how about following hers?
There are plenty of women who don’t have much of the spongy erectile tissue surrounding the urethra and the front of the vagina that we’ve come, for convenience’s sake, to call the G-spot. These women can lie there all day receiving simultaneous come-hither motions and external pressure and only manage to get kind of annoyed with you. If your girlfriend is one of them, I would not suggest "trying again and again" unless you want her to lean forward and swat the top of your head with the TV remote.
You can probably determine whether she is G-spot enabled by letting her guide you. Since the G-spot is, inconveniently, not actually a "hot button," but a collection of tissues sensitive to the touch under certain but not all circumstances, I cannot tell you exactly how to operate it. I’d start once she’s already well turned-on, though, and without impatience or, indeed, goal-orientation. Just kind of slip in there when things are already going well and keep your eyes on her face while you try a little deeper or a little closer in, a little harder and a little softer, a little … oh, you get the picture.
Love,
Andrea
Dear Andrea:
My penis is curved a little. Is that normal, and if not what can I do to straighten it?
Love,
Upwards
By the ravenous Guardian staff
(1) Dim sum, Ton Kiang
(2) Hunky Beau’s brisket
(3) Pizza d’Asti and Prosecco, Palio d’Asti
(4) Basil Napolean, Chapeau!
(5) Bacon-wrapped, mushroom-stuffed pork roast and Lagunitas pilsner
Whoa, total drum ’n bass flashback time, as one of the original innovators, Roni Size, reprazents on Friday at 103 Harriet with toasty Dynamite MC providing the wicked verbiage, and — what the freak — dub legend Mad Professor and the “dubstep prodigy” craziness of DJ Seven providing backup. Apparently Size still matters.The Bay’s fiery Compression crew opens up, so time to do some bass drops.
This party oughta be an ear-hair-blazing connect-the-dots from dub to drum ‘n bass to dubstep for all you hedz out there… and damn if looking up old Roni clips isn’t already hearkening me back to simpler days and thicker floors (especially this track, which pretty much worked as atmospheric-breaks gods LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad‘s main template for years — check out the second half of the live video below).
Roni Size w/ Mad Professor and Seven
Fri/17, 10 p.m., $15 advance
103 Harriet, SF
www.sunsetpromotions.net
Roni Size, “Dirty Beats”
Roni Size with Dynamite MC, live in Milan 02/08
Mad Professor, Kunta Kinte Dub ’91 (love, love this)
By Steven T. Jones
Our post the other day on how Lennar and its allies misrepresented promises to build 32 percent affordability into its 10,500 homes proposed in southeastern San Francisco has earned us indignant calls from the Labor Council and ACORN. But at the end of each of those conversations, my belief that the city is getting a raw deal has only been strengthened.
Sure, these organizations and the city are collectively getting millions of dollars from Lennar. But if construction of affordable housing in the part of town with the lowest income San Franciscans is the concern, as it rightfully should be, it’s clear that Lennar has gotten one helluva deal, thanks to Mayor Gavin Newsom and other establishment Democrats.
Lennar gets free land from the city and free cleanup money from the federal government. Then they build market rate units (in a real estate market that’s already oversaturated with them), except for the same 15 percent below market rate units that every other developer in town (most of whom pay for their land) is required to build. And then they give some of our land back to us to build more affordable units, at the public’s expense.
Please, somebody out there explain to me why this is such a great deal for San Francisco.
Newsom has plenty of ideas for Detroit. We’d like to see him focus on San Francisco.
And scroll down for Rebecca Bowe’s story on the city’s energy deficiency program
EDITORIAL Here’s a snapshot of the state of green San Francisco, as we approach Earth Day 2009:
•San Francisco ought to be getting $18 million a year for energy-efficiency programs, but the money instead goes to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which is wasting half of it.
•Mayor Gavin Newsom went to Washington, D.C. to participate in a Newsweek panel on the environment and called for a transformation of the American automotive industry just a few days after the city’s transportation agency decided to cut $56 million out of Muni, increase transit fares by $30 million — and hike fees for car parking by just $11 million.
•The city stands to get millions in federal stimulus money for green jobs — but nobody knows how many jobs the money will create, where they will come from, or who will get them.
In which super sexy porn people answer questions — each week — from Bay Area locals
By Justin Juul
Wendy Williams is an award-winning movie star with nearly a half-a-million films under her belt. But that doesn’t mean this month’s featured celebrity is some shallow Hollywood glamour snob… quite the opposite, actually. In fact, it only takes a second of conversation with Williams to realize that she’s really just a down-home southern girl who enjoys the simple things in life.
Williams likes traveling, shopping, advanced social networking and, um…interracial gangbangs. Okay okay okay! So maybe Williams isn’t exactly what you’d call normal, but that’s why she’s so much more intriguing than other media starlets known for dropping their vowels and dipping their thongs. While traditional southern belles like Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, and Brooke Hogan waste their/our time making crappy music, popping pills, and collecting the worst sunglasses you’ve ever seen in your life, Williams keeps it real and focuses her energy on something we can all relate to: steamin’ hot tranny sex. What I’m saying here is that trans porn is better than reality TV and that mainstream pop icons have less talent than the people you see on Fleshbot everyday. I’m also saying that Williams is much cooler than all the girls I mentioned above because she’s an interesting individual with a mind of her own and those other girls are pretty much the opposite of that (although Britney got pretty cool there for a second).
Anyway! Enough with the half-assed shot at social commentary, right? Here’s the Wendy Williams story in a nutshell:
John Ross reads at Modern Times
By Tim Redmond
John Ross, the legendary poet, writer and shit-disturber who has been our Mexico City correspondant for years and broken numerous big stories, called me last week to say he’d been knocked around by the SF cops.
Now, that’s nothing new for John — he has never done well with authority and has been beaten badly by police officers in San Francisco, Mexico City and numerous other locations over the years.
But today, John is 71, blind in one eye, deaf in one ear and recovering from surgery and chemotherapy for liver cancer. He’s physically weak and has a hard time walking. He’s certainly no threat to law enforcement.
And somehow, he tells me, he wound up on the wrong side of a violent police confrontation, right on 24th and Valencia.
There was no protest; he wasn’t in the middle of a riot or disturbance, trying to get a story (as he’s done so many times before.) He was walking — slowly, with a cane — to a café to buy a bottle of blueberry Odwalla, which he figured was good for his liver.
Read his account after the jump.
By Johnny Ray Huston
Johan Agebjörn
featuring Lisa Barra
Mossebo
(Lotuspike)
Paging Vangelis: the songwriter and studio whiz behind Sally Shapiro (and official Glass Candy remixer) goes new age, replete with the requisite peaceful, tranquil blurry cover art. I’m not as enthused about this as I am about the news that a new Shapiro album is due out this year. Loaded with music, Agebjörn’s site also links to the site for Diskokaine, a label which put out some early Shapiro songs. I say this because DIskokaine’s site has a great Atari- or Commodore-era look — and is annoying as hell.
Johan Agebjörn featuring Lisa Barra, “Unitas vitae” (Live in Linköping)
View the previous Snap Sound here.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Bronwyn from Australia, 18th St. and Castro
Tell us about your look: “My outfit is very put together because we are traveling and I’m trying to keep warm with what I have in my suitcase.”
02, you too: A still from Live in London.
By Kimberly Chun
O to be as spry and energetic at 74: Leonard Cohen launched his three-performance stand at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland last night, April 13, with an approximately three-hour concert that had the audience chuckling with amazement when the singer-songwriter came back for a fourth encore. “I tried to leave you,” he moaned.
Cohen had the crowd in his clenched fist throughout multiple standing ovations and a set that fundamentally mirrored that of his recent Live in London DVD and CD. And he put up a good fight, alternating between standing with his knees slightly bent, hands grasping mic and chord, in a boxer’s posture, and kneeling as if a humble mendicant – the latter his favorite way to open an emotionally intense song.
The songwriter received bursts of appreciative applause for lines like, “You told me again you preferred handsome men / but for me you would make an exception,” and, “You fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind, / we are ugly but we have the music,” from “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” a song about written about his affair with Janis Joplin. So long ago, yet still so vivid. This beautiful loser has morphed into a wiry, elegant slip of a man, skipping gracefully off the stage after each encore then back. From afar, Cohen resembles less William Burroughs, a Blues Brother, or a Bogart-esque “Tough Jew” like Bugsy Siegel than a smiling Stuart Little-like gent, revealing a snowy white pate beneath the fedora and a fiercely ingenuous grin. There’s a hard-won innocence to the performer, though he was less chatty and more focused than on the recent Live in London. Likewise backup vocalists the Webb sisters chose to chartwheel rather than do-si-do to that key reworked phrase, “All the lousy little poets / coming round / tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson / and the white girls dancin'” in the charred apocalyptic ode “The Future.”
“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”: A still from Live in London.
By Tim Redmond
I can’t even send a couple of questions to the executive editor of Village Voice Media without setting off a premature ejaculation.
That’s right — Mike Lacey was attacking my story on how VVM is ducking payment in our lawsuit before I even had the story written. And he even quoted Dire Straits! From 1985! How incredibly hip!
So here’s the deal: VVM owes us $20 million and doesn’t want to pay.
I email Lacey to get a comment – -which is only fair, and which I have always done, even though most of the time he ignores my questions — and he responds with this.
The guy’s got a thing for “brain vomit,” which seems to be his standard comment on anything he doesn’t like.
I particularly like the comment about “class bitterness,” which works so well these days. And of course, he ducks the point: VVM owes us a bunch of money. If Lacey wanted to wait until after the appeal, he could have posted an appeal bond — but if he did that, then we’d be guaranteed payment if we won the appeal.
This way, even if we win (which I think we will) he can try to slime away without paying.
Hell of a guy. Hell of a company.
Oh, and by the way: His description of the trial testimony isn’t terribly accurate either. You can read the whole history here.
On the point about the building, Bruce and the rent, I have to weigh in since Lacey and his cohorts have been trying to retail this crap for years. In the late 1980s, when office space in the Mission was dirt cheap, the Guardian signed a ten-year lease on a building on Hampshire St. When the lease ran out, the market for office space in the Mission (and all over town) had changed, dramatically. Our rent was going to double, or more; and every place we looked at offered about the same (high) rates.
We figured out that we could buy a building, lease out the space we didn’t need, and pay LESS every month than what we would have had to pay to rent, either at our old place or anywhere else. So yes: The rent the Guardian was paying went up after we bought the building. It could have gone up even more, and the cash could have gone to a commercial landlord. Instead, we got a great deal on a building, gained some equity, and have kept our costs LOWER ever since.
Bruce and Jean don’t make any money from the Guardian on the building. Anyone who thinks they would try to squeeze their own newspaper for their personal gain is either nuts, doesn’t know them, or is just trying to be an asshole.
I suspect Mr. Lacey fits in category three.
Here’s a juicy lead: Seems Lennar is willing and able to give folks who register with the “Lennar family” discounts at Home Depot, Blockbuster, Ace Hardware and Target,
Does that mean Lennar is planning on trying to bring all of those big boxes into D10, home of the Bayview, Hunters Point Shipyard, Viz Valley and Candlestick Point, on the southeast of town?
