SFBG Blogs

Live Shots: Yonder Mountain String Band at the Fillmore, 4/10

-
1

Text and photos by Ariel Soto

mountain0409_2.jpg

mountain0409_9.jpg

mountain0409_1.jpg

Yonder Mountain String Band has serious groupies. I mean really hardcore groupies. I talked to several String Band fans in the audience before the show. For one person it was his 36th time seeing Yonder Mountain and he has plans to follow the band through California and then up to Oregon for their tour. There was another woman in the audience who said she saw them at least 70 times … how is that even possible? By then I was excited for the show to get started — who were these string strummers? Once the band made its way to the stage the Fillmore was thoroughly saturated with sweet smelling smoke, feet were stomping, and hippy skirts were twirling as the folksy, bluegrass notes weaved their way between the band’s eager, dare I say, obsessed, devotees.

mountain0409_3.jpg

mountain0409_4.jpg

Ex-gay, no way pt. 2: Sexologist Dr. Jallen Rix talks about surviving the ex-gay movement

-
0

The second part of a conversation with Justin Juul about Dr. Rix’s work with the Ex Ex Gay movement — and the answer to that eternal question, “What, exactly, is a sexologist?” Read part 1 here.

jallenrix0409a.jpg
Dr. Rix, left, with partner

SFBG: So, after all of this, do your parents still believe you can just switch it up and find yourself a wife?
Rix: Yeah, I think they do. They blur behavior and attraction, you know? Like, they would never say this, but they seem to think that if I could just keep my dick in my pants, I could learn to be normal again. They’re just old, man…and from a totally different time and place.

SFBG: How do they feel about your sexology work?
Rix: You know, they made a point to give me a pat on the back when I graduated with my degree, which is really all I can ask. The thing about my parents is that I know they love me the best they know how. And that has to be good enough because I realize that I’ve been the theological dilemma of their lives. Here’s an example: my sister died of a really rare heart disease when I was sixteen and my mom later told me that her death was easier to handle than my coming out. She apologized later, but still, it’s just obvious that life choices are never going to be easy for them. As far as my sexology stuff goes, they manage to be nice about it, but I don’t think they’re thrilled.

SFBG: So what is a sexologist, exactly?

Rix: Well, if you look around at all the problems in society these days, it seems like the majority of them have to do with pleasure-phobia, sexophobia…just a general fear of following our desires. As a sexologist, I do what I can to help people accept themselves. To answer your question, sexology is the study of what people do sexually and how they feel about it. There are only a handful of schools that award degrees in sexology. You’d be amazed at how little sexual research is done these days. I mean, scientists don’t even know what comes out of females when they ejaculate.

Tom Kennedy – 1960-2009

-
0


By Steven T. Jones

Tom Kennedy — an artist who helped create the art car movement popularized by Burning Man, and an activist who used his creations to push for progressive political change – drowned yesterday at Ocean Beach at the age of 48.

As the writer of and commenters to his obituary at Laughing Squid attest, Kennedy had a big influence on the Bay Area’s counterculture. After being arrested protesting at the Republican National Convention in 2004, he was undeterred and went back at the GOP four years later as Dr. Stange McCain and the Missile Dick Chicks in a great bit of political theater.

San Francisco has lost a unique creative force to a turbulent ocean and his influence will be missed.

Appetite: Free pancakes, Lower Haight French, Little Skillet, twice the Woodhouse, and more

-
0

By Virginia Miller

littleskill0409a.jpg
Farmerbrown’s leaps from the frying pan into Little Skillet

As long-time San Francisco resident and writer, I’m passionate about this city and obsessed with exploring its best food-and-drink spots, events and news, in every neighborhood and cuisine type. I have my own personalized itinerary service and monthly food/drink/travel newsletter, The Perfect Spot, and am thrilled to share up-to-the minute news with you from the endless goings-on in our fair city.

————-

NEW RESTAURANT OPENINGS

Little Skillet: Chicken & Waffles from a walk-up alley window in SoMa
Farmerbrown’s is about to open Little Skillet in a SoMa alley at 330 Ritch. It’s a walk-up window offering morning pleasures like biscuit sandwiches loaded with cheese, egg, housemade sausage or bacon, plus Oyster Po’Boys, and one of my favorites in comfort food: Chicken and waffles (from Petaluma Poultry chickens) for breakfast and lunch. Lucky, those who work nearby! Cento, neighboring alley Blue Bottle coffee-source, also sells box lunches of Little Skillet’s food. Initial hours are supposed to be Monday–Friday, 8am–3pm, open later as baseball season progresses. No strikes here!
330 Ritch
415-777-2777
www.littleskilletsf.com

Woodhouse Fish Co… Part Deux
When I want a Crab Salad (aka mountain of fresh crabmeat) with fresh lemons, Anchor Steam-battered Fish & Chips or a buttery Lobster Roll without waiting in line at the great Swan Oyster or paying Waterbar prices, Woodhouse Fish Co. fits the bill perfectly. Old seafaring movies on the wall, like 1935’s “Mutiny on the Bounty”, pair nicely with hanging squids and tackle. Up till now, it’s been the Castro locale but with a brand new, larger space on Fillmore, there’s more than one way to assuage New England seafood hankerings.
1914 Fillmore Street
415-437-2722
www.woodhousefish.com

Bistro Saint Germain delivers French flair to Lower Haight
Le P’tit Laurent owner, Laurent Legendre, with chef Eliseo Soto Dimos, debuted Parisian bistro fare to Lower Haight this weekend with Bistro Saint Germain. If you want a change of pace from Lower Haight’s curry houses and sandwich shops, here you can dine on French classics like bistro-style mussels, salads, escargots and boeuf bourguignon. Legendre makes quick friends in the ‘hood by offering Le P’tit’s popular steal of a prix-fixe: 3-courses for $19.95, Sunday through Thursday.
518 Haight Street
415-626-6262

Crossroads: Take a shot

-
0

By Juliette Tang


Crossroads Trading Company, the Berkeley-based clothing retailer that deals in used and recycled threads, wants you to submit your fashion photos for a $1,000 prize, plus the inclusion of your photo in an upcoming Crossroads ad campaign. The details: you style your own fashion shoot, snap some pictures, and upload them to the Crossroads website before May 31. Once your snaps are uploaded, judges from Crossroads will pick their favorites on the basis of originality, creativity, composition, and overall quality. “We can’t wait to see this year’s entries,” said Jerry Block, founder of Crossroads Trading Company, “We receive hundreds each year, with some from as far away as Germany and Sweden. The winning photos clearly express our customer and our customer’s love of all things fashion.” So, photogs, what are you waiting for? Hurry up and start snapping away! People have already started submitting. Look at what Crossroads

Can Fun police itself?

-
1

bw.jpg
By Steven T. Jones

Yesterday’s Bring Your Own Big Wheel event showed how a weird, community-based event that draws thousands of people and even has a real element of danger can be remarkably responsible, well-organized, and self-policing, without any help from police or other city officials, who mostly stayed at bay until the event was over.

Nonetheless, as the Examiner reports today (joining the Guardian’s years-long campaign against the Death of Fun), city officials continue to insist on expensive permits and the hiring of too many police officers on overtime for most events, making it increasingly difficult to stage the fun that makes San Francisco what it is.

The next big test is whether the Mayor’s Office can get the SFPD to back off of its demand that the How Weird Street Faire pay almost $10,000 up front. While senior mayoral adviser Mike Farrah has gotten involved with mediating the dispute, the latest word from the SFPD is they want their money by May 1 or else. Organizers say they won’t have the money until the day of the May 10 event when they collect donations.

As Lt. Nicole Greely wrote to How Weird organizer Brad Olsen just this morning, “Although we appreciate your position, it would be unwise for the SFPD to risk public money by not collecting the required fees prior to the event. If the event is the only way your group is able to pay for police services, we are all betting that the event will be as successful as you hope. However, a rainy day or other unforeseen problem would mean that you would be unable to fulfill your financial obligation and that is an inappropriate risk for a City agency. Possibly seeking a loan from another source would be an option.”

Stiglitz: Developing Countries and the Global Crisis

-
0

Here is our monthly installment of Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Unconventional Economic Wisdom column from the Project Syndicate news series. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

Developing Countries and the Global Crisis

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – This year is likely to be the worst for the global economy since World War II, with the World Bank estimating a decline of up to 2%. Even developing countries that did everything right – and had far better macroeconomic and regulatory policies than the United States did – are feeling the impact. Largely as a result of a precipitous fall in exports, China is likely to continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than the 11-12% annual growth of recent years. Unless something is done, the crisis will throw as many as 200 million additional people into poverty.

This global crisis requires a global response, but, unfortunately, responsibility for responding remains at the national level. Each country will try to design its stimulus package to maximize the impact on its own citizens – not the global impact. In assessing the size of the stimulus, countries will balance the cost to their own budgets with the benefits in terms of increased growth and employment for their own economies. Since some of the benefit (much of it in the case of small, open economies) will accrue to others, stimulus packages are likely to be smaller and more poorly designed than they otherwise would be, which is why a globally coordinated stimulus package is needed.

Most Definite, not Think So

-
1

By D. Scot Miller

289-music2.jpg

Anyone who heard "Big Brother Beat" on De La Soul’s 1996 album Stakes Is High (Tommy Boy) was soon saying, "Who’s this kid Mos Def?" Still, it’s hard to believe that, 13 years later, the radiant voice on that track would become the ubiquitous scion of that good old Native Tongue can-do.

Mos Def can turn up simultaneously in a movie (his next project is a film version of Iceberg Slim’s Mama Black Widow) and on a television show (you catch him on House last a few weeks ago?), yet still find time to cameo on other people’s albums, win an Obie for his performance in a play (Suzan Lori Parks’ Fuckin’ A), and come out with a book (Black 2.0, due this summer). It’s like, wait a minute, there’s got to be more than one Mos Def.

His four albums explore his tortured id and black people’s rightful place as the inventors of rock ‘n’ roll and just about all forms of popular music — all that, and they still maintain the dedication to socially conscious protest we’ve come to expect from our once and future truth-tellers. His fifth, The Ecstatic, is due later this year. He’s coming to Yoshi’s in Oakland for a few sets with Robert Glasper on piano, Mark Kelly on bass, Chris "Daddy" Dave on drums, Casey Benjamin on sax, and Keyon Harrold on trumpet. Be a part of history in the making. It’s not like you have a choice. His name is Most Definite, not Think So.

MOS DEF Tues/14–April 16, 8 and 10 p.m., $55. Yoshi’s Oakland, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Snap Sounds: Stereo

-
0

By Johnny Ray Huston

stereo0409.jpg

Stereo
Somewhere in the Night
(Minimal Wave 2008/ Carrere 1982)

“She’s gotta be there, as you walk in the dark
Number four, at your door, number four
You’re ost in the heaze, she’s gotta be there…
Somewhere in the night”

1980s duo Stereo‘s criss-cross sunglasses put Kanye’s Venetian shades to shame. Minimal Wave delivers once again with this synth jam gem. I’m on the lookout for another recent Minimal Wave release, a vinyl-only collection by Linear Movement. But Stereo — not to be confused with Kompakt figurehead Wolfgang Voigt’s early recording project of the same name — has surprising songwriting chops. My fave track might be “Nowhere in the Island,” which uses the echo vocal effect so beloved by circa-1983 new romantic acts to great effect. It includes saxophone and yet still has a potent air of melancholy. I wonder if these two French guys every rubbed pointy shoulders with Bernard Fevre of Black Devil Disco Club.

Stereo, “Somewhere in the Night”

Stereo, “No More”

Check out the previous Snap Sound here.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

-
3

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

Today’s Look: Sally, 24th St. and Sanchez

sally0409.jpg

Tell us about your look: “No comment”

Happy Easter, ‘jaded hipster owls’ – and cute-backlash blog Fuck You Penguin

-
0

Jaded Owl.jpg

Crankies, start revving up your book deals. I have a new love (oh, I know, it’s been around since 2008 but I was busy working back then): the cute animal-loathing, curmudgeonly Fuck You, Penguin blog.

I’m especially happy about the fact that the FUP has moved on from simply adorable critters and misbehaving pets to mythical creatures and figments of our imagination like unicorns and Bigfoot. Hey, it’s an excellent excuse to give a nice, hard poke to those omnipresent cutsey-pie pics all over the Internets (always the most-popular pics on online news sites) and snappy-good bad-attitude writing.

Here’s a primo example of the hee-hee-larious stuff coursing off the site, under the headline “Jaded hipster owls think they’ve seen it all.”

Transbay Terminal’s two-station solution

-
4

By Steven T. Jones

As the deadline approaches for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority to figure out how its massive new Transbay Terminal will accommodate the California High-Speed Rail project, it appears the agency may pursue a two-station solution to the capacity question.

TJPA spokesperson Adam Alberti tells the Guardian that involved agencies are hoping operational adjustments can be made to handle up to eight trains per hour at Transbay, and that the additional four trains per hour that the California High-Speed Rail Authority says it wants might have to stop at the existing 4th and Townsend station.

He said there is a growing consensus against building a second floor of train platforms, which could add $1 billion to the price of the project. The TJPA board needs to land on a plan by May so current contracts can be issued and so regional agencies can come together on a request for about $1 billion in federal stimulus money when the state makes its formal request for federal high-speed rail funding in June.

CHSRA Chair Quentin Kopp continues to question the Transbay Terminal project, saying its schedule and location have been dictated by its bus component and noting that its costs have been creeping ever higher. “This has all the earmarks of San Francisco’s Big Dig.”

Objects of Obsession: Easter joys

-
0

SFBG’s Laura Peach rounds up local items and experiences to die for. See her last installment here.

How happy April always is. Sunshine and showers bring bright blossoms out into the world. Heavy jackets and scarves are shed and exchanged for light blazers and cardigans. Everything seems to have a new life, which makes Easter a fitting celebration.

————–

1. Bottled for Baby

weego_0409.png

Have a friend or family member who took up with the fertility frenzy and has a new little chickie of their own? Newborns don’t digest Cadbury’s so well, really. Opt for one of these rainbow colored baby bottles ($14) instead. They are made of glass, so mama’s milk will taste fresh and delicious. Silicone covers will ensure the bottle won’t crack like an egg if junior drops it.

Spring, 2162 Polk, SF; 415-673-2065, www.springhome.com

What depression? New movie by David Enos

-
0

As local fave Papercuts puts out You Can Have What You Want, sometime contributor to the project David Enos shares a new movie about going without:

Snap Sounds: Lô Borges

-
0

loborges2.jpg

By Johnny Ray Huston

Lô Borges
Lô Borges and Nuvem Cigana
(EMI Brasil)

It took me too long to realize all my favorite tracks on 1972’s classic Clube de Esquina are written by Lô. The cover of Lô’s debut album is perfection, and I am completely in love with Nuvem Cigana‘s “A força do vento,” “Uma canção,” “Viver viver,” and O vento não me levou.”

What do you know about Lô? I’d love to read more perspectives about him and his music. He releases recordings at roughly the same pace as Scott Walker. That alone is enough to intrigue me in an era of talking loud and saying nothing, but the tunes are terrific and his voice has a true sweetness to it.

Lô Borges, Clube da Esquina, “Ao Vivo”

Lit: Erik Drooker takes aim with Slingshot

-
0

By Ben Terrall

I met Eric Drooker when we were both callow teens experiencing the joys of a coed Quaker socialist hippie camp in Vermont. We skinny-dipped, which was part of the camp’s official policy, and smoked pot, which wasn’t. Drooker has lived in the Bay Area since the mid-1990s, but his art is closely associated with New York City. A lanky, laconic man in his late 40s, he was born and raised in Manhattan, and the city still dominates his imagery. This is true of his wordless graphic novel Flood: A Novel in Pictures (Dark Horse), which won an American Book Award in 1993. It also applies to the haunting silent ballad Blood Song (Harvest Books), published in 2002.

ericdrooker.gif
Eric Drooker

Yet Drooker is perhaps best known for oil paintings that grace covers of The New Yorker — in early September last year, his 15th cover for the magazine appeared on newsstands. Some of these paintings are also included in 2006’s Illuminated Poems (Running Press), which pairs his art with writing by the late Allen Ginsberg. Most recently Drooker published a book of postcards titled Slingshot (PM Press, 68 pages, $14.05). It consists of 32 images created with razor blade on scratchboard.

slingshot.jpg

Cruising Craigslist: Muses, models, and art sluts

-
0

Each week, Justin Juul combs the SF Craigslist Personals and Missed Connections for true gems that prove there’s enough love for everyone. View his last installment here

cruising_cl-artguy2a.jpg
“Fancy a threesome?”

It’s weird when you have one of those crazy jobs that lets you work from your laptop because, after a while, you really do begin to lose touch with whatever lies beyond the cafes, bars, and dining patios in your comfy little art hood. And I’m not talking about that weird alien feeling you get when you go back to Iowa or Michigan for the holidays. No. All it really takes to get a sense for how uh, queer, you’ve become is to take a little trip to Union Square. I mean, the ads for soda pop and fast food are enough to make you puke right off the bat. But dude, what’s up with the luxury industry? Fancy-pants Romanian guys with five-o-clock shadows hawking Rolexes, scrawny chicks with waxy skin pumping hair-care products and denim, David Beckham, Jessica Simpson?! Are these people really supposed to represent the pinnacle of beauty and success? Are they supposed embody what we want to fuck and/or be? Seriously…can you imagine how bad it would suck to hang out with one of these idiots or –even worse– one of their painfully normal admirers?

Obviously, you can. That’s why you holed up in the Mission (or the Lower Haight, or Oakland, or wherever) and that’s why you never go downtown until you have to get your MacBook serviced or buy some crack. It’s also why The Bay Area stands out –parts of it at least—as a hothouse for new beauty ideals. There’s the whips-n-chains bondage set in SoMa, the hula-hooping fire-eaters in The Haight, the buff dudes with Canadian tuxedos in The Castro, and of course, the coveted “super sexy artist type” you find in galleries, museums, and dive bars throughout the city. We all want one of those, right? The problem is that there simply aren’t enough of them to go around. And then of course there’s the flipside: artsy types actually have a hard time finding love themselves because everyone’s too intimidated to ask for a date. No worries. That’s what Craigslist is for.

Bhutan Exhibit – Asian Art Museum (from Tuesday) – w4m (downtown / civic / van ness)
Reply to: [Redacted]
Date: 2009-04-01, 8:41PM PDT
Hello. This is a total shot in the dark, but it’s worth a try. We were both looking through the Bhutan exhibit by ourselves, but we kept crossing paths. I said something when we were looking at the Phurbas like “these are really amazing!” We kept looking at each other but didn’t talk besides that. You have long, dark beautiful hair, and quiet, soft brown eyes. I had my hair pulled back and was wearing a brown top and jeans. I didn’t see you again after I sat down for a few. I’m curious about you.

Hot girl with long brown hair and a great ass – m4w – 23 (New Montgomery)
Reply to: [Redacted]
Date: 2009-04-07, 1:16AM PDT
You came out of Academy of Art and used someone’s lighter and walked off. I had the pleasure of walking behind you for the rest of the block. Then I turned. [I just want you to know] this handsome black guy thinks you’re hot!

You were wearing a blue top and blue jeans. I think you might’ve had sunglasses too.

Help a bored artist – m4w – 24 (anywhere)
Reply to: [Redacted]
Date: 2009-03-25, 10:34PM PDT
I am a design student that loves to draw. I’m looking to draw something a little more interesting than landscapes, buildings, or the occasional live model we get in studio that is never that pleasing to the eye. So here’s what I’m asking. I’m looking for some lovely ladies to send me some more, lets say, erotic pictures I could sketch from; nude, partial nude, costume, whatever, make it interesting. I’d be happy to send you my drawings when I’m done. Help a bored artist.

Lennar breaks its affordable housing promise

-
10

Lennar_Logo.jpg
By Deia de Brito

Last year, Florida-based Lennar Corp. broke local ballot funding records at the time when it spent close to $5 million on its campaign to approve Proposition G, giving it the right to develop more than 10,000 homes in southeast San Francisco, and to defeat Proposition F, the alternative measure demanding that half these units be affordable.

Lennar, the Redevelopment Agency, and Mayor Gavin Newsom argued that 50 percent affordability would doom the project. But to win the support of the San Francisco Labor Council, the San Francisco Organizing Project (SFOP), and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Lennar agreed to increase the number of affordable units from the 25 percent it proposed up to 32 percent of the total, along with guarantees of using local union members in the construction.

But in its first residential project under that plan, revealed on Tuesday at the Redevelopment Agency, it proposes building 88 market rate ownership units at the shipyard’s Parcel A, with only 13 are set aside for families earning less than 80 percent of the Bayview’s Area Median Income. That’s less than even the 15 percent required of most projects in San Francisco, and less than half what the company promised San Francisco voters.

Sup. Chris Daly authored Prop. F and warned at the time that Lennar couldn’t be trusted. “It’s not surprising, but it is unfortunate,” Daly said of Lennar’s opening residential project. “They should either live up to their promises or we should kick them out of town.”

Super Ego: New-bass invades the Bay

-
0

By Marke B.

Get ready, kids — this Saturday night’s all about the new-bass (and I go in deep on it in this week’s Super Ego clubs column). Do like I said and hit up both mindblowing parties featuring this amazing nightlife sound of now.

289-ego.long.jpg
Ghislain Poirier, helloooo

In one corner is Montreal’s “King of Bounce” Ghislain Poirier, whose Bounce Le Gros monthly in the MTL not only helped launch the careers of such wiggy Canadian future bass purveyors as Megasoid and the tres-tres atmospheric Sixtoo, but also put Quebec on the world dance music map. Ghislain will storm the Tormenta Tropical monthly’s electro-cumbia castle at Elbo Room.

Below are two video examples of how Poirier wonderfully “plays it both ways” as it were — super-danceable and brainily abstract — with the dancehall boinger “Blazin'” and the headphone freaker “Hit & Red.” The third vid, “Don’t Smile, It’s Postmodern” is his awesome kinda middle ground (although the visuals are waaaay goofy.)

Ghislain Poirier, “Blazin'” featuring Face-T

Ghislain Poirier, “Hit & Red”

Ghislain Poirier, “Don’t Smile”

AND in this other corner, righteous kings of woofer-blowing abstractitude Flying Lotus, Kode9, and the Bug hit Mighty for a jam called “The Future.” I’ll let the videos after the jump give you an idea of each of their genius individual styles, but DO NOT MISS THIS PARTY.

The Sisters explode!

-
0

By Cheryl Eddy

289-event.jpg

It’s Easter time, which means drugstore aisles are bloomin’ with Peeps, bonnets are being bedecked, and aspiring Hunky Jesuses (the Biblical kind, not the Madonna-datin’ kind) are frantically doing ab exercises prior to the annual Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence celebration in Dolores Park. This year, the annual bash is extra-special, marking 30 years of good works (and fabulous accessorizing) by the organization, which has gone global — the theme is "Nun World Order" and some 150 national and international Sisters will be in attendance. Can’t get enough Sisterhood? Make sure you check out "Under a Full Moon: 30 Years of Perpetual Indulgence," on view at the San Francisco Library and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Featured are archival materials chronicling the group’s three decades of colorfully-dressed, white-faced, charity-supporting, queer- and sex-positive, Pope-exorcising, boundary-pushing history.

UNDER A FULL MOON: 30 YEARS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE Opening party Fri/10, 8 p.m., free. Installation on view Tues–Wed and Fri–Sun, noon–5 p.m.; Thurs, noon–8 p.m., $5–$7. Through June 28. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Also: through May 7. Sun, noon–5 p.m.; Mon and Sat, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Tues–Thurs, 9 a.m.–8 p.m.; Fri, noon–6 p.m., free. San Francisco Main Library, third floor, James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4499.

NUN WORLD ORDER: THE SISTERS’ 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. Sun/12, 11 a.m., free
Dolores Park, 19th St at Dolores, SF (after-party, 6 p.m., free, Noe at Market, SF); www.thesisters.org

Street Threads: Look of the Day

-
0

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

Today’s Look: Jenny, 20th Street Station

Jenny0409.jpg

Tell us about your look: “I’m a big thrift store person. I’ll never pay full price.”

Doing the unspeakable

-
2

By Molly Freedenberg

shh_0309.jpg

During a recent beer-fueled gab session with my girlfriends, I made a startling discovery: All of us have particular ways our sexual encounters – whether with strangers or long-term lovers – tend to go. They are different for each of us. And most interestingly, they are unspoken.

For example. When Friend A brings a boy back to her bed, more likely than not they’ll simply cuddle – or make out without having intercourse. This never happens with Friend B or Friend C. However, almost every man Friend B brings home tries (and usually succeeds) for anal sex – a reality almost completely foreign to A and C. And Friend C almost always has unprotected sex, with her partner pulling out before he comes. (Yeah, yeah, we know. We’ll get to the modern-adults-having-unprotected-sex post later. That’s not the point here…)

What’s amazing is not that the three friends have different preferences. It’s that these are patterns for each girl, and they happen without being discussed first (or, in some cases, ever).

SF to allow Big Wheel event after all

-
3

Big_Wheel_Pic-DRV2-PCZ.jpg
By Steven T. Jones

Under pressure from the community, the Mayor’s Office, and Sup. Sophie Maxwell, organizers of this Sunday’s Bring Your Own Big Wheel event say the San Francisco Police Department has reversed its position and will allow the event to happen as long as organizers promise to apply for permits next year, which they have agreed to do.

“This could be the start of something really cool,” said Tom Price, who has been lobbying City Hall on behalf of the event, whose organizers have reached out to neighbors, rented porta-potties, stressed responsibility, and promised a vigorous cleanup effort.

As we reported yesterday, the SFPD had taken a hard line on this increasingly popular annual event. Capt. John Loftus told organizers, “We will barricade the street and you won’t be able to go two feet anywhere on that block. If downtown wants to come up with another solution, fine.”

But downtown apparently intervened. Earlier in the day, I spoke with top mayoral adviser Mike Farrah, who had been working with Price to reach a resolution. “These events are important to San Francisco. I think they are vital to the foundation of our economy, not to mention, they’re fun,” Farrah, who has become something of a City Hall liaison to the Burning Man community, told me. “And I think there’s been an effort to try to be responsible.”

1...393394395...597Page 394 of 597

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org