SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 397 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Hollis update: Safe and sound in San Francisco

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April 3, 2009

The Guardian continues to follow the condition of local dancer and activist Hollis Hawthorne, who was in a serious motorcycle accident in India and is in a coma. By Molly Freedenberg

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One of my favorites: Hollis getting ready for the Cheese Puffs’ big show opening for Richard Cheese at Bimbo’s last year. The Derailleurs had their first big show immediately afterwards.

Wow! There have been lots of changes since we last updated about Hollis. For those who haven’t been keeping up with the Hollis blogs, she’s home! As in: settled into a private room at our very own St. Luke’s, right here in the Mission. Her room is decorated with photos of her and her friends, including a giant poster at the foot of her bed featuring Hollis, Eliza (who’s maintaining the friendsofhollis blog), and their mutual friend Shannon (who helped co-found the Sprockettes with Eliza before she co-founded the Derailleurs with Hollis). Her mom, Diane, is still in town and spending nearly every second of every day at her side (with a sadly dinky blanket, I must add.) Hollis also is getting tons of visitors – so many that Eliza is working on posting an online schedule for reference and planning.

Hollis is still in a coma, but her condition continues to improve slooooowly. (Contrary to what soap operas would have us believe, the process of coming out of a coma is incredibly gradual.) She is making verbal sounds, which we can hear thanks to a small purple device attached to her tracheotomy tube that helps air flow over her vocal chords (instead of right out the tube). She occasionally opens both eyes, which seem to be tracking (though not exactly seeing). And some friends report that Hollis is responding to them directly – whether turning her head towards a book being read to her, or seeming to play thumb wars with Eliza. As of yesterday, she also seemed to be relaxing – letting go of the curled-up tension she’s had on her right side (especially her hand and arm) since the accident.

Big box is back for Bayshore

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April 3, 2009

14

By Tim Redmond

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Sophie Maxwell are pushing a massive 107,000-square-foot Lowe’s home improvement store for the old Goodman Lumber site on Bayshore Boulevard.

And it’s still a bad idea.

Big-box retail is the opposite of sustainable economics and progressive city planning. I know, we’re in a recession and we need any jobs we can get, but low-wage employment in a chain store that sucks all its revenue out of town every night isn’t going to help us get out of this hole.

Io-wha???

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April 3, 2009

0

By Marke B.

Lat night, I attended the annual gala for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign (or IGLHRC) — last year’s gala feted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and this one, while considerably smaller, was also mega-inspiring. It was held mostly to honor Helem, an incredible and youthful gay rights organization based in Lebanon, but it also served as an introduction to IGLHRC’s new Executive Director, Cary Alan Johnson. The intensely charismatic Johnson spoke of how he had just visited nine starving gay prisoners in Senegal, convicted of “engaging in acts against the order of nature” and ordered to serve eight years — the men in fact had simply gathered at an apartment to discuss AIDS education (and were therefore also convicted of conspiracy.)

He also spoke about how IGLHRC’s small ground team in Uganda was desperate to combat a huge new wave of creepy American religious right extremists (totally creepy — one horrid group of them is called “Extreme Prophetic Ministry!”), who were openly and vocally attacking Ugandan LGBTs and insisting they could be “cured.” Johnson also described IGLHRC’s role in assisting all the people who had been beaten senseless in the backlash against South Africa’s recent adoption of same-sex marriage laws.

The speech was pretty rousing and I was soon wiping my eyes on the bf’s sleeve as the emotions poured out for my persecuted peeps around the globe. Would there ever be any bright spots in the seemingly eternal struggle to get other people to fucking mind their own goshdarned business?

Labor deal leaves open issues

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April 3, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

Yesterday’s joint announcement of a wage concession deal between the Mayor’s Office and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 — the largest union of city employees — included few details, and sources on both sides have been reluctant to give out much information until the rank-and-file have the chance to review it (they say more details could be forthcoming on the union’s website by tonight).

“The goal of this tentative agreement is to protect vital services for San Franciscans, minimize layoffs to employees, preserve the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement, and assist the City with its economic recovery,” read the brief joint public statement.

The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos got a bit more, with unnamed sources telling her the union has agreed to forgo $40 million in promised pay increases over the next 16 months, including raises that were set to kick in this Saturday. While the promise to “minimize layoffs” was in there, the real question is how to do that, including whether Mayor Gavin Newsom will cooperate with the desire by labor and the left for a package of local tax measures later this year.

Given this week’s report predicting unprecedented budget deficits for each of the next three years — reaching a staggering $750 million by 2011 — there is growing recognition that service cuts alone simply will not solve this city’s fiscal crisis.

“Changing Channels” tonight!

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April 3, 2009

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Creative Growth is one of the best places — if not the best — to make art in the Bay Area, and is host to some of the Bay’s most imaginative artists, including Tara Tucker, Aurie Ramirez, and William Scott (whose visions of a better San Francisco are on view at a current White Columns solo show in New York).

Michael Hall originated the site’s Video Production workshop, which has already put together some entertaining animation-filled DVDs. Hall produced the latest Creative Growth video and animation project, “Changing Channels,” which includes CG’s first-ever exhibition devoted to those forms. Tonight there’s a free screening event with popcorn. Pow!

Fri/3, 7:30 p.m.
Creative Growth
355 24th St., Oakl.
(510) 836-2340 ext.15
www.creativegrowth.org

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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April 3, 2009

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

Today’s Look: Halley, Hyde and Market

Tell us about your look: “I’m a second-hand fashion person.”

Smells like 20-something angst: 500 Days of Summer

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April 3, 2009

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By Juliette Tang

Wednesday night at the Sebastiani Theatre in downtown Sonoma, the Sonoma International Festival kicked off with a showing of 500 Days of Summer, an indie-romance starring the lovely and blue-eyed Zooey Deschanel and the surprisingly-cuter-as-he-ages Joseph Gordon-Levitt, alum of 3rd Rock. Directed by music video director Marc Webb, the cloyingly sentimental movie makes liberal use of a twee ‘supermix’ of popular college radio love songs, which included The Smiths, Regina Spektor, Doves, Belle & Sebastian, Black Lips, Spoon, Jack Penate, and Feist — “Mushaboom,” during a wedding scene, no less. About an unstable romance between two scruffy, marginally hip 20-somethings in Los Angeles, the movie was a hit with a Sonoma audience, who clapped and cheered after the showing. It ought to be mentioned, though, that this audience inexplicably also loved the Comcast commercial that played during the previews, clapping and cheering after that as well.

Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt play Summer and Tom, two people who look like everything that protagonists in ‘quirky’ emo rom-coms are supposed to look like. She has long wavy hair with bangs, wears opaque tights, ballet flats, and little cardigans over vintage dresses. He appears to have a large collection skinny ties, sweater vests, Pumas, and messenger bags. Tellingly, in one scene, Tom actually admits that he fell in love with Summer at first sight, because she looks like what his dream girl would look like. Called 500 Days of Summer because Tom’s relationship with summer lasts – hah – 500 days, most of those 500 days are wasted away by Tom, who is either pining after Summer, or subsequently whining when their whirlwind relationship ends abruptly. The film’s message is that Tom’s grave was entirely self-dug because he didn’t recognize the warning signs. As viewers, we’re left wondering why we should feel sorry for Tom at all if the mess was of his own making.

Watch it: Peeping at ‘Alien Trespass,’ chatting up filmmaker R.W. Goodwin

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April 2, 2009

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A blast from a kinder, gentler past – complete with a whopping penile-shaped alien monster with a unnervingly large eyeball. That’s the sweet, funny, and ever-so-slightly spooky Alien Trespass, which rights the wrongs of the recent turgid remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008): this tribute to ‘50s sci-fi thrills and chills is fully aware of its throwback appeal and stays true to not only the spirit but the quirky details of its B movie predecessors – banish the Mars Attacks! irony. I talked to director-producer R.W. Goodwin, best known to some for his executive producer work on the first five seasons of The X Files.

R.W. Goodwin (as he signs a set of Alien Trespass lobby cards): I have all these collectibles from The X Files like the season one hats that Christopher [Carter] and I did for the crew. They’re all stuffed in closets, and I keep saying to [my wife] Sheila [Larken, who appeared in The X Files as Scully’s mother], “These are going to be worth a lot of money someday!” [Laughs] She goes, “Well, how about now?” She’s sick of finding X Files T-shirts and hats everywhere she looks.

SFBG: Now are you worried about being typecast as an alien lover?

Confessions: My favorite accidental porn

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April 2, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

While catching up on the last season of the L Word last night, I was reminded that I’m not that into porn. Thing is, I do get turned on by media – photos, stories, movies – just rarely media that’s meant explicitly, or exclusively, to excite me sexually. Call it a girl thing. Call it a woeful lack of porn geared towards my particular interests. Whatever you call it, it doesn’t bother me – primarily because there are so many other places (besides actual, you know, life) I find sensual stimulation. Here are some of my favorites:

1. The L Word

It’s been awhile since I’ve watched this Showtime series about ridiculously attractive, femme-y lesbians in L.A. But as I watched the steamy tango (real, not euphemistic) between Bette and Tina in the second-to-last episode of the series, I was reminded of how sexy I used to find all the girl-on-girl action that punctuated every episode. I didn’t even realize how much until I tried to watch it with my Mom. Both uncomfortable, we turned it off halfway through. “I think I’d rather watch this … uh, alone,” she said. My inner embarrassed teenager and I couldn’t have agreed more.

Just one example: Shane and Carmen. (Please ignore the cheesy music.)

Fiona Ma’s “renegades”

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April 2, 2009

14

By Tim Redmond

So Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, with the help of the Republicans, managed to get a bill through committee that would force San Francisco to restore JROTC. It’s astonishing to me that a San Francisco representative, and a former supervisor who understands why local control is often important to San Francisco, would try to get the state to override a local school board policy decision. I’m totally against JROTC in the public schools, but however you feel about it, letting the state dictate that kind of policy for a local school board is a dangerous precedent.

And to make things worse, she read what looked like a prepared speech blaming the situation on “renegade” SF school board members. “Renegade?” Because local elected officials voted their conscience on a tough issue?

I emailed Ma to get an explanation, but according to her email auto-response, this great maker of educational policy is on “vaction.” (Sic). I’ll let you know if I hear any more.

Snap Sounds: Great Lake Swimmers — Lost Channels

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April 2, 2009

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GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS
Lost Channels
(Nettwerk)

Great Lake Swimmers walks a fine line. When the group succeeds, it does do so by satisfyingly convincing me — as long as I’m in the mood — that its slow-paced and shy songs, which often pair thick reverb and a finger-picked guitar line, are cozy instead of cheesy. On GSW’s latest release, mastermind Tony Dekker records songs in the castles, churches, and community centers of the Thousand Islands of Lake Ontario. This site-specific approach could describe earlier recordings as well, if you replace church with silo, and make one other adjustment: Lost Channels is less stark, at least throughout the first half, and aims for a feeling of exhilaration. It succeeds some of the time.

Like Ongiara (Nettwerk, 2007), Lost Channels opens buoyantly: “Palmistry” is an upbeat jangle-pop number that showcases Dekker’s hearty voice even as a full band nudges through the subtler spaces. “The Chorus in the Underground” is a cheery country sing-along with a background choir. The album’s two halves are divided by “Singer Castle Bells,” an interlude recorded at St. Brendan’s Church that is followed by the goose bump-inducing “Stealing Tomorrow.” On “River’s Edge,” pastoral poetics take over. “Now the wind picks up swiftly and suddenly and it is breathing as if from a mouth and the edges are lungs that are heaving,” Dekker sings, searching for spirituality in nature.

One can sense that the perimeters of the buildings where Great Lake Swimmers record have changed. Subsequently, the group’s sound has changed as well. Even though the experimentation on Lost Channels isn’t always successful, the band — and its promise — continues to evolve. (Michelle Broder Van Dyke)

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS
with Kate Maki
Fri/3, 9 p.m., $12
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St, SF
(415) 621-4455
www.bottomofthehill.com
www.greatlakeswimmers.com/

Bacon: The other other white meme

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April 2, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

Last night, I slept with bacon. Or rather, I soaked up my whiskey and beer with a big fat bacon sandwich — slices of crisp, thick-cut pork piled between two sides of a cheese bagel — and then drifted off to sleep immersed (thanks to the bedroom’s proximity to the kitchen) in the smell of fried pig.

This has been happening a lot more often than it used to – and not just because I finally kicked that pesky eating disorder and discovered that bacon (and french fries, and pizza, and just about everything else) really does taste better than rice cakes dipped in mustard. It’s also because everyone around me seems to be eating bacon. Talking about bacon. Talking about art about bacon.

It’s got me wondering: When and how, exactly, did bacon become such a big friggin’ deal?

Baconstache: where two ironic trends collide. Photo courtesy of skullsandbacon.blospot.com.

Endtroducing … Kutiman

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April 2, 2009

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By Marke B. Kutiman, “Wait for Me” In the future when vids are vinyl, and vinyl is — what? La Chanson de Roland, maybe — people might claim that Kutiman, the Israeli Vegas Pro genius who collages up backwater YouTube vids into breathtaking electronic atmospheric joyrides (see the complete work at http://thru-you.com), was the DJ Shadow of the ’00s. Kutiman, “I M New” I think those people would be wrong (and there are already a number of them). Searching through the all the minor dreck of YouTube to fish out suitable usable samples and build them into destabilized microsymphonies can surely be compared to Shadow’s impeccable crate-diving technique. And the dense sound both derive from their purely sample-driven compositions elicits a similar melancholy (why is that?). But Shadow traded in rarity nostalgia — who the hell else had that 78, man? — whereas Kutiman’s brilliant corners are purely of the moment and completely accessible to all. Except for one of them, now set to “private,” ha. Kutiman is also way more international in musical scope than Shadow — something perhaps more necessary in our globalized age, that Shadow could only hint towards in his Endtroducing… ’90s heyday — which brings Kutiman more in line with the likes of that other frequent Bay boy Amon Tobin, another sample-based innovator who opened the West’s ears to a different native music contextuality and who eschewed nostalgia in favor of up-to-the-minute headtrip breaks. Kutiman, Babylon Band

Fantastic Planet tonight!

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April 2, 2009

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I might have to skip Venus vs. Serena, chapter 20: René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet is screening at SFMOMA tonight. Escape the first Thursday art stampede for privacy, darkness, and a playful scary dream.

One major reason I’m looking forward to seeing this movie is its soundtrack, by Alain Goraguer. I got a reissued vinyl edition (on the Pathe Marconi label) recently, and it is equally attractive and spooky. Goraguer worked with Serge Gainsbourg, and in some ways his La Planete Sauvage score reminds me of Gainsbourg’s soundtrack work with Jean-Claude Vannier. Without a doubt, Air has stolen plenty from Goraguer’s sinister yet sleek orchestration and his (and Gainsbourg’s, and Ennio Morricone’s, and Pino Donaggio’s…) use of sighing female vocals. The blog Electric To Me Turn — which gets love for taking its name from a Bruce Haack song — notes some of those corollaries, to which I’d add a resemblance to some David Axelrod sounds as well as the score for Shaft.

I’ve never seen anything more than clips of Fantastic Planet. But the movie is crammed with art references, is a big influence on early Hayao Miyazaki, and its surreal take on societal oppression and rebellion (inspired by the ’60s Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia) is more than applicable to the US, even if we’re in woozy morning-after status. Here’s a great trailer (love the voice-over, blue diamond effects, and the way critic Judith Crist’s last name is misspelled):

Sonic Reducer Overage: Snoop Dogg, Eugene Mirman, Jeremy Jay, Skin Horse, and so much more

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April 2, 2009

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San Francisco just can’t, just won’t stop. More musical – and comedic – worthies than one can jam into print.

The Get Up Kids
These lesser-known monsters of emo, progenitors of punk-pop, are back. With Approach. Thurs/2, 8 p.m., $26-$29. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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April 2, 2009

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

Today’s Look: Olena, Civic Center

Tell us about your look: “I like European style.”

Hot sex events this week: April 1-7

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April 2, 2009

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

Will U and U be my Valentine? Learn how to ask at Negotiating Successful Threesomes.

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>> Clothes-On Sex! Resurrecting the Art of Frottage
Indulge your inner teenager and recapture those days of long, carefree make-out sessions – the days before “The Sex” started to overshadow everything. Sex and relationship educators Nellie Wilson and Reid Mihalko host this fun, informative, sassy, and arousing class on outtercourse.

Thu/2, 7-9:30, $30
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF.
sexandculture.org

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>> 91/2 Years Behind the Green Door
Simone Corday reads and signs her memoir about her first-hand experiences stripping at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theater, the place Hunter S. Thompson referred to as “the Carnegie Hall of public sex.”

Fri/3, 7pm, free
Good Vibrations
603 Valencia, SF.
www.goodvibes.com

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>> Negotiating Successful Threesomes
Is three company or a crowd? Do it right and three’s just a downright good time. Reid Mihalko helps those interested in M-F-M, F-M-F, F^3, M^3, or any combination of three consenting adults figure out techniques, common mistakes, and how to negotiate boundaries with live demonstrations and lots of laughs.

Sat/4, 7-10pm, $30
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF.
sexandculture.org

Snap Sounds: The Juan MacLean — ‘The Future Will Come’

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April 2, 2009

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By Brandon Bussolini

THE JUAN MACLEAN
The Future Will Come
(DFA)

Whether or not you were up enough on your rock genealogies to make the connection between John MacLean, guitar scraper for synth-punks Six Finger Satellite, and The Juan MacLean, the latter unit’s 2005 debut Less Than Human (DFA) probably took you by surprise. Like LCD Soundsystem, TJM looked towards history to fashion its electro-futurism, but while LCD appealed to rock kids with nods to the Fall, Can, and Daft Punk, TJM’s necro fantasies tended towards marrying Chrome’s glimpse of future-shock with Cybotron’s sleek, muscular productions. On The Future Will Come, the results remain strangely successful, all the more remarkable given techno’s way of sloughing off its skin every two years.

The Juan Maclean, “One Day”

Last year’s Happy House EP displayed just enough refinement and innovation to make up for the group’s three year silence: the 12-minute main track is a mainline rush of looped house piano figures and Nancy Whang’s mantra-like vocals. Of course, it’s not as hard to eliminate the extraneous moments on an EP. Part of what makes this new full-length recording durable is that it moves confidently away from the digressive, instrumental style of the first album towards a minimal, vocal-heavy style that makes its point more effectively, in less time.

I had to make an exception, at first, for MacLean’s singing style. Less chanty and easily endured than on Less Than Human’s “Give Me Every Little Thing,” it remains stiff. With added Brian Eno-like modulations, it resolves less quickly than the album’s other pleasures. Whang’s increased presence in particular is welcome: it allows her monotone to reveal subtle emotional inflections. The assertive vocal cadences of the incredible “One Day” split the difference between disco and hi-NRG, for example, before the chorus melts them down into a strange, bliss-inducing alloy. It’s tempting to see The Juan MacLean as a kind of genre-supercollider: they work in a tradition too perverse to accurately be called either techno or rock or even fit under the umbrella of a catch-all like “electro.” More likely, and less common, TJM is making it up as they go along, which must be where some of that joy they’re singing about comes from.

Brain damage is good for your political career

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April 1, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

I thought this was an April Fool’s joke at first, too, but it’s not: Former Sup. Ed Jew is asking for a reduced sentence in his extortion case because of brain damange

Now, before you go all bananas about this, keep in mind that it’s fairly common in high-stakes capital cases for defense lawyers to argue — often correctly — that their clients’ violent behavior was caused in part by organic brain damage. Arguing that someone has diminished capacity because of head trauma, and that his medical condition should be a factor in his sentence, is a perfectly legitimate legal strategy.

But what I love about this story is that Stu Hanlon, a brilliant defense lawyer, is arguing that Jew’s brain damage was exactly what made him so popular and got him elected:

“His social naivete and exuberance likely endeared him to people initially, helping him to become supervisor, but ultimately contributed to his downfall when more prudent judgment and impulse control were necessary.”

In other words: People with brain damage make excellent politicians. Wow, that explains a lot.

Financial District fills with stupid people

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April 1, 2009

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Story and photos by Steven T. Jones

A motley crew of colorful fools paraded through the Financial District this afternoon for the annual St. Stupid’s Day Parade. Who? Why, St. Stupid, who one fool with a megaphone described as the “two-dimensional scapegoat brought to you by the First Church of the Last Laugh.”

What, haven’t heard of that church either? What are you, stupid? Said fool told the hundreds in attendance that it’s the largest and oldest religion in the world, the one to which all humans are members and from whence every other church is derived. It is the church to which all and nothing is sacred.

Hot pix! Amish Country Gazebos (NSFW)

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March 31, 2009

1

Here’s what happens when you step into an Amish Country Gazebo:

… the temperature rises … the body relaxes … and the mind wanders ….

…. you get a fresh perspective — an invigorating splash of tranquillity — whether you’re enjoying a morning cup of coffee, an evening glass of tea, or your neighbor’s wife ….

…. whether you’re laughing with family or having “private time” outdoors ….

….whether you’re engaged in meaningful conversation or set mentally adrift in tantalizing iPhone pornography ….

… remember, it’s your gazebo — to do with what you will ….

…. it will always be there for you … for whatever … forever …

All hail our new corporate overlords!

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March 31, 2009

8

Editor’s Notes by Tim Redmond

It was hard in the good old days. Back when we were young and San Francisco was cheap and I was really cool with my long hair and motorcycle and stuff. You could rent an apartment for $200 a month, and even though we weren’t making much money in those days, there was plenty left over for drugs.

Back then, a guy like me would never have respected a politician like Gavin Newsom. You know: Party pooper. High-society twit. He even blamed his drinking for his tawdry affairs; we always though our tawdry affairs were the best reason for our drinking. And we never went into rehab. How, like, Betty Ford can you be?

But now I’m older and have a family and take cholesterol medication and I’ve come to realize how much I like Gavin Newsom. I mean, I don’t like him, not all Beth Spotswood or anything, but he’s growing on me.

I remember when he was running for reelection, and he came down to the Guardian to talk to us, and I asked him why he should get another term when the city was so eminently fucked up, and he said: "Gee, why did I even bother to get up this morning?"

That’s the kind of question you’d never hear Jerry Brown or John Garamendi ask. They know why they got up this morning; they are past the time of wonder and self-doubt.

Old farts is what they are.

So this week we endorse Gavin — Our Mayor — for governor of California. You won’t read that in SF Weekly — they don’t even do endorsements, pathetic little shits.

In other news, I’m happy to announce that the Guardian has settled its lawsuit with SF Weekly and Village Voice Media.

Gav for Guv! Do it to ’em, Newsom

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March 31, 2009

7

A special Guardian endorsement

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POTUS here he comes!

California’s a tough place. It’s a state of clashing values — of coastal liberals who want good public services, environmental protection, and gay marriage and central valley conservatives who want nothing of the sort. It’s run by a fractious, divisive legislature that desperately needs a firm hand. It’s a state so big and complex that it has defied the abilities of generations of talented politicians, from Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian to Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And yet, we refuse to give up on the Golden State. It’s been the Guardian‘s home since 1966, the place where we launched what would be the first alternative paper on the West Coast. It’s a place with endless possibilities, from sunshine to public power to tax reform, and we can’t risk its future on another worthless, wimpy chief executive.

That’s why we’re taking the unusual step of announcing an early endorsement for governor. We’re backing the only candidate strong enough, smart enough, sober enough, and secure enough in his own self worth and image to take on the Sisyphean task of running California. Today, we’re endorsing Gavin Newsom.

The mayor of San Francisco may look like a lightweight fop, but that’s unfair — we know him better. This is a young man who grew up cleaning toilets then went on to found his own successful business, using nothing but the wealth and connections of a billionaire family friend to help him. A man who has never spent a day in his life without comfortable surroundings yet developed a remarkable empathy for the less fortunate, and capitalized on their misery to promote his career. A man who travels the world in the company of movies stars and brilliant entrepreneurs, fearlessly promoting his home town while the rest of the whiney little twerps at City Hall just sit in committee meetings and bitch.

Losers.

Newsom’s platform is perfect for this state, at this time. He supports marriage; after all, he’s done it twice himself. He’s even gotten involved in the marriages of close friends and advisors! And he thinks the rest of us, no matter what our sexual proclivities, should have the right to be miserable too.

Newsom talks not just of change, but of "gigantic order-of-magnitude change." He thinks we should all come together to solve the state’s problems instead of pointing fingers of blame — and isn’t that just the sweetest?

Sonic Reducer: Madonna! Kanye! Jonas Brothers! Michael Jackson!

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March 31, 2009

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By Kimberly Chun

Chris Brown on Dancing With the Stars

SONIC REDUCER Due to April 1 budget cuts, the original content in this space has been replaced by a selection of music news items from the wire.

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MADONNA ADOPTING COUNTRY OF MALAWI

LILONGWE (Rutters) — Madonna announced her plans to adopt the entire southern African nation today after local friends told her that her adopted Malawian children, David and Mercy James, were lonely and needed companionship. In 2006 some Malawian activists attempted to block David’s adoption, but this time many are endorsing the idea of a high-flying life attached to a parent with a global pop brand. "We had no idea she would take her name so literally," opined a High Court clerk. "Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to meeting my nanny and hanging with the backstage crew at mom’s next arena show."

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Jacko in Twilight 2: Teens Suck

MICHAEL JACKSON STARRING IN LATEST TWILIGHT INSTALLMENT

LOS ANGELES (APE) — In a surprise move, Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson has been dropped from the lead role of vampire hottie Edward Cullen. His replacement: the King of Pop. Producers believe that despite his age and HIStory, Michael Jackson has the tween idol beat in the unnatural skin pallor department. "He’s much more believable as a vampire," said one source.

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CHRIS BROWN PICKED LAST FOR DANCING WITH THE STARS

LOS ANGELES (FuxNews) — Just weeks after Chris Brown was charged with felony assault, commercial endorsements were suspended, and his music withdrawn from radio stations, the Platinum recording artist took another backhand blow to his ego: he was snubbed by the entire cast of the popular TV show and picked last in a very special dancer’s-choice episode. "Sure, the guy can cut a rug," said an unnamed contestant. "But everyone saw those unauthorized TMZ pics of his last cut-up partner. Performers always say, ‘Break a leg.’ I don’t want to take that chance."

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KANYE WEST: ‘YEAH, I HAVE AN AUTO-TUNE IMPLANT — SO WHAT?’

NEW YORK CITY (Eek! Online) — "It’s just another tool in the studio," hip-hop artist Kanye West said. "Now I don’t even need to touch a computer to get my sound." Emboldened by the success of the operation, West’s surgeons plan to remove a part of the G.O.O.D. Music founder’s brain and install an entire suite of Pro Tools plug-ins.

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Jonas Bros in 2012 (projected)

JONAS BROTHERS BUSTED IN HUMAN ANTI-GROWTH HORMONE STING

WYCKOFF, N.J. — (EmptyV.com) In an effort not to become Hanson or New Kids on the Block, Kevin, Nick, and Joe Jonas have been taking massive amounts of HAH in an effort to retain their tween demographic, allege Wyckoff police after a 4 a.m. raid on the Jonas family McMansion. "Our management told us we were taking flaxseed oil," Kevin said. "They claimed it was pixie dust," added Joe.

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ALL-GIRL INDIE ROCK GROUP TAKE HAIR BAND EFFORT TO NEW LEVEL: WITH BEARDS

PORTLAND, Ore. (Ditchfork) — As one of the most pervasive trends in indie rock, beards have stood the test of time and triple-blade, pivoting shavers. One all-girl combo, however, is proving that they can play that game too: this week the Portland-based Her Suit obtained beard transplants at the O’Hare Baldness Clinic outside Chicago. The number of friends on the band’s MySpace page has risen tenfold, particularly among the follically challenged.

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MP3S FOUND TO CAUSE CANCER, NEW VINYL FORMAT CONSIDERED ‘ANTI-CARCINOGEN’

SAGINAW, Mich. (AFPEE) — Scientists have determined a link between heavy use of iPods and other MP3 players and increased risk of cochlear cancer. The same team of scientists also determined a simple preventive measure: a protective vinyl coating applied to the actual MP3 players. "Vinyl is not only better," said one researcher. "It makes everything better."