SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 409 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Howard Zinn’s organized disobedience

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February 27, 2009

By Paula Connelly

“There is great power in disobedience” ~ Howard Zinn, Mission High School Feb. 26, 2009

Howard Zinn started Voices of the People’s History of the United States six years ago when his best-selling book “People’s History of the United States” sold its 1 millionth copy. It has since expanded from a collection of stories with occasional live readings to a traveling performance, making stops across the U.S., including San Francisco last night.

Actors, musicians and activists read from historic primary sources to illustrate a side of history that standard textbooks tend to exclude. The sustained interest in the People’s History of the United States and the mounting interest in Voices show that this is a story that Americans want to hear. In his charming introduction, Zinn said, “You go into the past, you get lost. You never come out. I want to go into the past and learn something.”

Today, I think this desire is catching on.

Brownell: The right has a new hero

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February 27, 2009

2

Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC has electrified the nation. Now he needs to change his name and start a movement

By Jess Brownell

The right has a new hero. (I know, they do seem to come along with astonishing regularity these days, considering the results of the last election, but heroes are made not born, and these people are desperate to make some new ones. Even being long dead is no bar. A U. S. News and World Report blogger was pushing Wendell Wilkie stock recently.) Anyway, this time it’s Rick Santelli, a formerly mild-mannered CNBC reporter whose tirade about the Obama housing and mortgage rescue plan at the Chicago Board of Trade has apparently electrified the nation, even that part of it electrified by that rotten New Deal of FDR’s. Don’t see how that man ever beat old . . . what was his name? . . . oh, yeah, Wendell Wilkie. Election must have been rigged.

Partiers save Bay to Breakers

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February 27, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

Two weeks after city officials and event organizers proposed a crackdown on partying at the annual Bay to Breakers race – announcing a ban on nudity, alcohol and floats – a large and well-coordinated opposition campaign has effectively scuttled the restrictions.

Event spokesperson Sam Singer disavowed the nudity ban almost immediately, then over the course of this week indicated floats would probably be allowed as long as they register and that a zero tolerance policy on alcohol was unenforceable, with the focus now on keeping out kegs of beer and glass bottles.

Although Mayor Gavin Newsom’s announcement today tried to cast the outcome as a negotiated compromise, Ed Sharpless of the group Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers said they got everything they wanted. “We’re pleased with the outcome. I think it’s a victory,” he told the Guardian. “When you have over 20,000 people join your group in two weeks, it’s means something.”

Yet Sharpless and other opponents of the crackdown – who testified yesterday at a city permitting hearing — say the race organizers are still underestimating how many portable toilets and trash cans will be needed to avoid last year’s problems with litter and public urination, something they will continue working with the city and race organizers to address in the coming weeks.

P.S. For more on this rare victory for preserving fun in San Francisco, read next week’s Guardian.

The end of free sfgate?

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February 27, 2009

6

By Tim Redmond

Not only is the Chron in trouble, Hearst Corp has just announced that it will begin charging for some digital content. I couldn’t reach anyone at Hearst tonight to find out how that will impact sfgate here in SF, and the Hearst memo that the WSJ quotes is almost impenetrable. Check this out, from Steven Swartz, the president of Hearst Newspapers:

We believe we must begin to provide greater differentiation between the content of our free Web sites and the content of our paid product, be that paid product read in print, on a digital device like Amazon’s Kindle, or online. This doesn’t mean we wall off our Web sites behind a paid barrier. Our sites must continue to be the superior and dominant free Web sites in their markets. This means they must offer the best in breaking news, staff and reader blogs, community databases and photo galleries. In fact, we need to expand the number of reporters, editors and photographers who are running a truly great blog, creating a rich dialogue of opinion and data sharing. We must do a far better job of reaching out to prominent citizens in our communities, those who already have a blog and those who don’t, and providing them a prominent platform to state their views. We must develop a rich network of correspondents to help us grow the deepest hyper-local community microsites in our markets. We must do a better job of linking to other great sources of content in our communities. And we must put staff resources behind building those channels of interest that have the greatest potential: those built around pro sports teams, moms and high school sports, to name a few. Exactly how much paid content to hold back from our free sites will be a judgment call made daily by our management, whose mission should be to run the best free Web sites in our markets without compromising our ability to get a fair price from consumers for the expensive, unique reporting and writing that we produce each day.

So will we have a hybrid sfgate, with most of the stuff free but some of it only available to subscribers? What goes in which category? Will we get Matier and Ross free but have to pay for Jon Carroll? Of the other way around? Does anyone think this will actually work?

DeLong: The Stimulus Ostriches

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February 27, 2009

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J. Bradford DeLong is a contributing writer for the Project Syndicate news series. DeLong is Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley and a former Assistant US Treasury Secretary.

The Stimulus Ostriches

By J. Bradford DeLong

BERKELEY – Of all the strange things that have happened this winter, perhaps the strangest has been the emergence of large-scale Republican Party opposition to the Obama administration’s effort to keep American unemployment from jumping to 10% or higher. There is no doubt that had John McCain won the presidential election last November, a very similar deficit-spending stimulus package to the Obama plan – perhaps with more tax cuts and fewer spending increases – would have moved through Congress with unanimous Republican support.

As N. Gregory Mankiw said of a stimulus package back in 2003, when he was President George W. Bush’s chief economic advisor, this is not rocket science. Deficit spending in a recession, he said, “help[s] maintain the aggregate demand for goods and services. There is nothing novel about this. It is very conventional short-run stabilization policy: you can find it in all of the leading textbooks…”

Kinky Salon endures and expands

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February 27, 2009

2

By Steven T. Jones

Polly Superstar and Barron Scott Levkoff met in 1999, shortly after Polly arrived in San Francisco from London, where she was a latex fashion designer involved in the fetish scene. They gravitated toward the same sex-positive community here, which they have tapped or morphed for the Kinky Salon parties they throw at a home they’ve dubbed Mission Control.

“I’ve been involved since 1990 with different costume subcultures in San Francisco,” Scott said. “Like the Costumer’s Society, like Dark Garden, doing fairy tale masquerade balls, doing the Renaissance Faire, getting involved with Burning Man early on.”

Sex has always been central to this open couple’s lifestyle, but the sex at their parties is almost secondary to the parties themselves, where costumes and other forms of creative expression dominate. As they like to say, they aren’t sex parties, but parties where sex and sexual expression happens, usually in the rooms off the dance floor.

Fisher’s Folly at the Presidio

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February 27, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

We won’t actually see what Don Fisher’s museum and monument to himself would look like until Sunday, or whenever John King of the Chronicle decides to tell us, since Fisher’s PR team released the drawings only to him.

That’s kinda sleazy and unfair; I hope King decides to utterly trash the design instead of deciding to (as Sfist suggests) pump his golden ejaculate over the museum plans for a glowing review.

But we do know this much: The Presidio Trust has released the basic outlines of what it wants to do with the Main Post area, and the Fisher museum (also known as CAMP, for Contemporary Art Museum Proposal) is very much a part of it. The 200,000-square foot museum, which would house all the modern art Fisher collected with the profits he made off the labor of child slaves in third-world sweatshops is supposed to be inoffensive because most of it will be underground and the roof will be green.

How special for us all.

The bottom line is that this particular land-use plan exists entirely because one very rich man asked the privatized Presidio board (of which was a founding member) to let him have a prime piece of real estate to house his masturbatory edifice. This thing doesn’t belong in a national park, where there is only limited public transit and where it will either be an expensive flop or will cause thousands of people to drive through a crowded neighborhood and into a park where people are hiking and riding their bikes. It’s about an inappropriate a use as you can imagine.

As the Presidio Trust Historical Association said in a press release I got this afternoon,

“We are very distressed by the Presidio Trust’s decision to promote the construction of a massive contemporary art museum, large hotel and theater in the heart of the National Historic Landmark District on the Presidio’s Main Post. The Trust has once again ignored the broad, nearly unanimous public opposition to its proposal.”

Fisher may have a little trouble here. The Trust board is appointed by the President, and there are several positions that open up this spring. If the Obama administration puts real environmentalists and preservationist on the board, they might look askance at Fisher’s Folly. (On the other hand, Obama will probably let Rep. Nancy Pelosi select the nominees, and she is not only close to Fisher, she’s the one who wrote the legislation privatizing the Presidio in the first place.)

The supervisors have passed a resolution calling on Fisher to build his museum in the city, somewhere, perhaps, near the other downtown museums, where there’s plenty of transit. Fisher won’t let MOMA (the logical curator of this kind of collection) touch it, because the folks there wouldn’t give The Don complete and utter control. But maybe he could build his personal monument nearby.

The foes of Fisher’s Folly want the city to do everything possible to encourage him to build downtown. If it looks like he’s going to get blocked at the Presidio, and we all smile nice and invite him to grace us with his artistic presence somewhere else within city limits, then we’ll get this grand museum AND save the Presidio. That’s fine, I guess – but frankly, when you’re dealing with Mr. Fisher, I prefer the stick to the carrot. Let’s fight him to the bitter end at the Presidio, and tell him if he wants to come downtown, we’ll allow him to look for a site with his own real estate brokers and submit a proposal to City Planning just like anyone else. No special favors for a guy who has done more to damage San Francisco in the past decade that just about anyone else alive.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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February 27, 2009

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

Today’s Look: Paige, 23rd St. and Mission

Tell us about your look: “Go with whatever’s tight.”

SF to host landmark same-sex marriage arguments

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February 27, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

All eyes will be on San Francisco this Thursday at 9 a.m. when the California Supreme Court hears oral arguments about whether Proposition 8, which revoked the marriage rights from same-sex couples that the court granted last year, is unconstitutional, thus restoring marriage equality for all Californians.
While there are only 20 seats available to the public (on a first come, first served basis) in the Earl Warren Building courtroom on McAllister Street, the court has recognized the widespread interest in their proceedings by providing an array of other viewing options, including televising the hearing.
There will also likely be several watch parties set up around town, which y’all can list here in the comments section. We’ll also be included some in the Alerts section of next week’s Guardian.

Russoniello and Ryan in the cross hairs

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February 27, 2009

3

Text by Sarah Phelan.

As the city searches for a new police chief, the Board of Supervisors is intensifying efforts to oust the US Attorney for Northern California, Joseph Russoniello, and the former US Attorney for Northern California, Kevin Ryan, who is currently Mayor Gavin Newsom’s top crime advisor, and replace them with folks more in tune with San Francisco values.

Ryan and Russoniello, who were both appointed a year ago, have come under increasing scrutiny since July, when the mayor ordered the city to report undocumented youth to federal authorities the minute these youth are arrested on suspicion of committing a felony.

Immigrant rights groups nationwide have decried Newsom’s decision as robbing youth of their right to due process. But, city insiders say Newsom is refusing to reopen the conversation, in face of a Grand Jury investigation that Russoniello convened. Russoniello has claimed that the city’s previous policy direction, which included flying Honduran youth back to their families, was tantamount to harboring and thus was a violation of federal law.

At last Tuesday’s Board meeting, Sups. David Campos, John Avalos, Chris Daly, Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi and Board President David Chiu introduced a resolution urging President Barack Obama and Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to appoint a new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California.

The resolution cites five examples that “highlight Mr. Russoniello’s questionable judgment,” and states that the Board “recognizes the importance of having a U.S. Attorney that understands San Francisco’s diversity, values and commitment to equal justice, especially as s/he works closely with the City’s law enforcement agencies on public safety measures. The resolution also observes that the Board “has a duty to safeguard the well being of its residents and ensure their equal protection.”

The next night, Campos, who came from Guatemala to this country at age 14 as an undocumented immigrant, joined speakers at an immigrant rights forum that denounced recent changes in the sanctuary city ordinance, called for the ouster of Kevin Ryan and expressed disappointment that Newsom did not attend the forum.

“I understand Newsom sent a representative and I appreciate that, but for a lot of people it would have meant a lot if the mayor had attended himself,” Campos told the Guardian.

With the heat on Newsom locally and statewide—many voters in the upcoming gubernatorial race are of immigrant descent and/or have undocumented relatives here—will the mayor meet community members face to face? Or is he afraid of alienating the powerful Police Officers Association and losing vital campaign contributions?

Mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard reportedly told the Chronicle that, “the mayor supports Ryan but ‘is willing and eager to listen to feedback from the community.”

Asked if the Mayor has scheduled a meeting yet, Campos told the Guardian, “Newsom has said he wants to meet with me and members of the community, so until I hear otherwise, I will believe that is what is going to happen.”

Stay tuned.

The Nation

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February 27, 2009

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Click here to read John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney’s March 18th article in The Nation, The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers.

Noise Pop: Giddy with Thao Nguyen at Swedish American Hall

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February 27, 2009

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Dippin’ dots: Thao at Swedish American Hall. All photos by Ariel Soto.

By Ariel Soto

Her dress was pink with black polka dots, and she got it just for us. Thao Nguyen only had one dress, and she had already worn that one on the cover of the Guardian last week and figured we’d all remember it, so Nguyen went out and got a new dress for her sold-out show on Feb. 26 at the Swedish American Music Hall. We all screamed and hollered and clapped like ridiculous school children, giddy beyond control as our rock star sung song after song of irresistible, delicious hyper-goodness. We’ll never forget that night and that perfect little dress.

Noise Pop: Sleepy Sun makes us hallucinate

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February 27, 2009

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Sleepy Sun sml.jpg

By L.C. Mason

You know that mindspace between the blissed-out haze of a daydream and the rush of reality’s iron grip – that sense of profound escapism that has its claws sunk deep into both truth and fantasy? Getting there takes just the right musical ingredients – and the sky-scraping psych-blues reveries of San Francisco’s Sleepy Sun were last night’s one-way ticket to that destination.

The sextet exploded like a supernova onstage at Bottom of the Hill Feb. 25, leaving no room for dissenters. Sleepy Sun wove the edges of darkness with revelatory rays of light by mixing brain-sizzling guitar solos and leaden grooves with fistfuls of soaring vocals like nouveaux flower children carrying the torch for their blissed-out hippie predecessors.

Noise Pop: Picturing Matt Costa, An Horse, Two Sheds, Robert Francis

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February 27, 2009

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matt costas_4.jpg
Wailing souls: Matt Costa performs at Slim’s. By Ariel Soto.

By Ariel Soto

For the second night of Noise Pop, March 25, I made my way to Slim’s to check out Matt Costa and his openers, Two Sheds, Robert Francis, and An Horse.

Sacramento band Two Sheds got the night started with mellow, folksy tunes: lead vocalist Caitlin reminded me a bit of Feist. Robert Francis rocked out, with an added twang of slide guitar, and created quite a stir among the female fans when he announced that his group needed a place to stay for the night and hoped for some invitations home after the show.

An Horse, an Australian brother-sister duo, was an obvious favorite: almost half the crowd sang along to each song. Around 10:30 p.m., Matt Costa made his way to the stage. His sweet serenades made a perfect ending to a long evening of awesome music.

an horse_3.jpg
Let her ride: An Horse.

The paper chase: Three adventures in the realm of matter

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February 26, 2009

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

1. The Shape of Things

The Museum of Craft and Folk Art recently exhibited “The Shape of Things: Paper Traditions and Tranformations.” The show was a historical investigation of traditional cut, folded, and molded paper arts from Korea, Japan, China, and the Philippines, along with contemporary art inspired by them. Long-established Asian paper arts, such as Filipino parol lanterns, were juxtaposed with contemporary creations, such as Gene Apellido’s decorative stars, while little plaques outlined the date and cause of death for various traditional craft arts, noting such realities as mass production and forest extinction. Nonetheless, the emphasis was positive. The overall presentation revealed how classic papercuts, katagami, paper lanterns, papier-mache, and paper boxes inspired the adjacent contemporary art, which varied in degrees of intrigue and engagement.

Bull Moose, Opus 413, by Robert J. Lang

Banner for “The Shape of Things”

Spectacular life-like creepy crawlers such as a centipede, a black widow, and a Goliath beetle were placed alongside each other in glass cases that looked more like the taxidermy collection of a mad scientist than what they really were: displays of intricate crease patterns based on the mathematical theory of origami geometric constructions (i.e. Huzita axioms). Pitting conventional origami diagrams, which describe a figure by a folding sequence — a linear step-by-step pattern of progression — against crease patterns, which, by contrast, provide a one-step connection from the unfolded square to the folded form, is no competition. In the past ten years, crease pattern origami has become the popular style, allowing anyone to fold a real-looking 3-D moose.

Feds finally relax pot policies

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February 26, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones and Ben Terrall

Might the wasteful U.S. war on marijuana be coming to an end? That possible light at the end of this long dark tunnel was sparked by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday when he said the federal government would no longer raid medical marijuana facilities in the 14 states where voters have legalized weed for medical uses.

That announcement comes just days after California Assembly member Tom Ammiano introduced a bill that would decriminalize and tax marijuana, even pot consumed for strictly recreational reasons by healthy Californians. Advocates are hailing the twin announcements as a refreshing change from the ridiculously intolerant rhetoric that has characterized the national narcotics debate for decades.

Margaret Brodkin, former DCYF director, honored as ‘Community Builder’

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February 26, 2009

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Margaret 1.jpg

By Rebecca Bowe

A little more than a month after Mayor Gavin Newsom asked former Department of Children, Youth and their Families director Margaret Brodkin to step down from her post, community support for her work is still very much in place. At an annual fundraising event called Soul of the City, hosted by the San Francisco Organizing Project on Feb. 23, Brodkin was honored with a Community Builder Award.

Brodkin, who is currently serving as director of the New Day for Learning Initiative, a project aimed at galvanizing efforts for a more just and comprehensive educational system in the city, thanked the crowd who had gathered at a Mission District restaurant for the Soul of the City celebration. But she also expressed disappointment about being removed from her position at DCYF, which she was appointed to in 2004. “I lost a job that I was very devoted to and felt I’d lived a lifetime to do,” she said. On the day that she was asked to step down, the mayor’s office issued a press release to put a good face on it, but Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth worried that her dismissal set the stage for a “possible raid, erosion, or elimination of the children’s fund and other critical services for our kids and families.”

Meanwhile, members of SFOP and others working on education issues in the city are gearing up for tough work ahead on pending budget cuts that could affect schools and youth programs. The coalition has had success in the past: Last April, the organizing project spearheaded an effort to protect the jobs of 535 teachers from seven schools in the county whose employment was threatened by state budget cuts. Facing pressure from parents and teachers, city officials agreed to release $20 million from the city’s Rainy Day Reserve to reinstate the teachers’ salaries. But with the dismal financial landscape on the state and local levels, another battle looms ahead. “How can I tell my daughter to do the best she can when the education is not available?” asked Michelle Antone, a SFOP community leader, whose daughter attends school at Sanchez College Preparatory School.

Blog Love: That’s quite a burrito

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February 26, 2009

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Juliette Tang shouts out to local bloggers. Read her last installment here.

Image: El Faro burrito via Menupages

I like my burritos vegetarian, vaguely the length of a collapsible umbrella, and girthy enough to put a grown man into a coma if dropped off a 10-story building. I like my tortilla grilled — adding just rice, pinto beans, spicy salsa, avocado slices, a healthy dose of sour cream, and THAT’S IT. Babies crying in a movie theater is less of a pet peeve for me than lettuce in my burrito, and you might as well eat your burrito with soy sauce and hummus and then stuff a bacon doughnut in it if you’re the type to ruin it with grilled vegetables.

Whenever I get a burrito at a taqueria I’ve never tried before, I always mentally rate it against all the other burritos I consumed in San Francisco and then cross-check my findings afterward with what the editors are saying on Burritophile or Burritoeater, two of the most comprehensive burrito blogs in San Francisco. These blogs are written by seasoned burrito eaters who give you their input (which they graciously admit is by no means gospel) on what makes a good burrito and where to find good (and bad) burritos all over San Francisco. Between these two blogs, burritos from nearly every taqueria in San Francisco, from SOMA to the Sunset, have been consumed and rated. These writers aren’t trying to tell you how to eat your burrito; they just want to take you with them on a quest for the perfect burrito that is equally entertaining and informative.

Red Hot and getting brighter: ‘Dark Was the Night’ AIDS/HIV benefit comp stirs the fire

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February 26, 2009

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Dark Was the Night: A Red Hot Compilation
(4AD)

By Todd Lavoie

Benefit albums have always been a noble but iffy prospect for the music buyer. Unfortunately, too many well-meaning compilations have seen their intentions unfairly matched with either a glaring lack of cohesion or a failure to procure decent songs from the artists involved. More often than not, charity discs tend to come across as sonically and/or thematically disjointed, thanks to the piecemeal fashion with which they’re frequently put together – with each artist contributing without any sort of direction or instructions, the resulting collection runs the risk of ending up a jumbled, unfocused mess and an awkward start-to-finish listen.

Worse yet, many of these benefits seem to be cobbled together with whatever scraps have been previously tossed aside by the artists involved: lesser B-sides, uninspired live tracks, or sonic afterthoughts that never received a full fleshing-out for one reason or another. Considering the labor of love that goes on behind the scenes in assembling such a disc – contacting musicians and agents and record labels to convince them to join the cause, for example – it’s a shame that the end product often fails to project an equivalent amount of passion and fire. Scan the bargain bins at any CD shop, and you’ll see what I mean.

Not so for the Red Hot Organization, however – the culture-savvy international charity has spent the past 20 years fighting AIDS and raising HIV awareness through releasing countless inspired compilations. Unlike many other heart-of-gold organizations, Red Hot tends to do much more than merely compile a bunch of donated tracks to disc.

Noise Pop: Indie confidential – ‘Family’ photos gathered at Eleanor Harwood

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February 26, 2009

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Lauren Dukoff has been photographing her friends since she was 13. It was simply serendipitous that they became famous. As a result, her photos have appeared on the cover of everything from Rolling Stone to the Guardian.

On Feb 20, at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery, Dukoff’s intimate to obscene portrayals of Devendra Banhart, Matteah Baim, Joanna Newsom, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and others went on display along with artwork by those featured in the photographs. The exhibit runs through March 7.

The Black Godfather is in the house: Andre Williams at Slim’s

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February 25, 2009

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By Andre Torrez

There wasn’t much love for the Flash Express when a boisterous dude in the audience shouted, “We don’t care about you! We care about him!” He was referring to Andre Williams, the headliner that night, Feb. 20, at Slim’s.

Sadly, I got the feeling most of the audience agreed – the Los Angeles rock and soul outfit overstayed their welcome. Performing what seemed like an eternally lengthy set before returning to the stage as the Black Godfather’s backing band, Williams, in a show of solidarity to his support, coolly retorted to any stray hecklers, “Man, you paid too much money to fuck this up!” Laughter ensued and any bit of hostility was quelled by Mr. Rhythm.

Chron flackery poses as news

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February 25, 2009

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By Tim Redmond

David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, has a few choice words for the Chron in Columbia Journalism Review. He’s got a good point — the Chronicle basically ran a Hearst press release as news on the front page.

Reminiscent of the days when the Chronicle and the old Examiner formed a joint operating agreement in the 1960s. The deal, which changed journalism and the newspaper business in San Francisco forever, was announced in a small, brief item that ended: “Neither publisher could be reached for comment.”

Hot sex events this week: Feb. 24-March 4

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February 25, 2009

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Compiled by Breena Kerr

>> Give Spanks!

Get better at telling your play-pal they’ve been very, very bad with this after hours workshop at Good Vibrations. Eve Minax will lecture and give demonstrations- hope the seats have cushions!

Wednesday/ 24, 8pm-10pm, $25 pre-registered, $30 drop-in
Good Vibrations
603 Valencia, SF
415-522-5460
www.goodvibes.com

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>> Ask the Doctors: Assume the Positions with Carol and Robert

Dr Carol Queen and Dr Robert Lawrence share their collective expertise on how to increase pleasure with a variety of sexual positions. They promise the yoga pro and unbendable alike the chance to learn something new and win a “Ramp” or “Wedge” courtesy of Good Vibrations

Thursday/ 26, 6:30pm-7:30pm, Free!
Good Vibrations
1620 Polk, SF
(415) 345-0400
www.goodvibes.com

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>> Boots

Are your boots made for dancing? Then pull ‘em on boys and head to CHAPS II for “local” drink specials from $2.50-5, no cover and electro-indie-wave-house music.

Friday/ 27, 9pm-2am
Chaps Bar
1225 Folsom, SF
ChapsBarSanFrancisco.com

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>> Burlesque at the Va Va Voom Room

A weekly event every Friday and Saturday night, come to this Bay Area Cabaret and see one of the best burlesque shows in town. 90 minutes of corset-unbuttoning fun, with a full bar and live jazz to boot. Hold on to your pasties.

Saturday/ 28, 11pm-12:30am
Va Va Voom Room
2467 Pacific, SF
www.vavavoomroom.com

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>> Jack ‘n’ Jill Off

Ever been in bed with your vibrator or your hand and thought; I wish I could just share this with someone. Well now you can! The Center for Sex and Culture is holding a pan-gender event where everyone can sit in a circle and sing cum by ahhhhhhhhhhhh… together!

Sunday/ March 1, 4:30pm- doors open, 5pm event begins
$5-10 women and trans-folk, $20-25 men, $30-35 couples
The Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
415-255-1155
www.centerforsexandculture.com

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>> Bathe With the Opposite Sex

Every Tuesday San Francisco’s only wellness spa offers communal bathing, this Japan town spa event features public baths that go co-ed. Complimentary bath products and body polishing sea salts. Bathing suits required. Darn.

Tuesday/ 3, 10am, $20
Kabuki Springs and Spa
1750 Geary, SF
415.922.6000
www.kabukisprings.com

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>> Lindy Hop Dance Series

Back in my grandfather’s day, it wasn’t even called “sex” yet. But I’ll be goshdarned if they couldn’t do a hot Lindy Hop- the key was figuring out who was going to lead. Bring your boyfriend and be ready to swing… Charleston style. Intermediate dancers.

Wed/ 4, 7pm-9pm, $35
Live Art Gallery
151 Potrero, SF
www.queerjitterbugs.com

Details of Chronicle ‘s cost-cutting/closing scenarios emerge

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February 25, 2009

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Text by Sarah Phelan

Proposed cuts at the Chron will be painful and could even be fatal for the city’s most influential daily.

Cutting half the Chronicle’s staff. Outsourcing operations. Busting the union. Selling the Chronicle to media baron Dean Singleton. Closing down the paper entirely.

All these equally strange and bleak media futures were hovering on the Chronicle’s horizon, as representatives for the paper and Hearst Corporation met with leaders of the Northern California Media Workers Guild today, in an effort to keep the Chronicle open, after Hearst announced it will close San Francisco’s daily paper, if cost-cutting plans don’t pan out.

After a morning meeting spilled into the afternoon, representatives from Northern California Media Workers Guild released a bulletin, saying they met with reps from the Chron and Hearst to discuss “the cost-cutting proposal.”

“We opened the meeting by underscoring our commitment to our membership and the community to do all we can to reach an agreement that will keep The Chronicle open and return it to profitability,” Guild representatives stated.

But Jerry Roberts, a former Chronicle managing editor, burst out laughing, when informed by phone that one of the aims that emerged from that meeting was to return to profitability a paper that has lost $50 million a year.

“That will definitely be an uphill slog,” said Roberts, who left the Chronicle seven years ago to become editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press and is now an adviser to the Daily Nexus, UC Santa Barbara’s student newspaper.