SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Katie, Mission and 24th
Tell us about your look: “I get most of my clothes at vintage thrift shops. At the moment I’m obsessed with 80s LA style, the Goth look coming out of Spain, and anything resembling Siouxsie and The Banshees.
By Tim Redmond
And he is bad, one of the worst in modern history … just consider one of the leading GOP contenders to succeed him. Meg Whitman — who doesn’t want to raise taxes on the rich but doesn’t seem to have any other ideas about balancing the budget — announced in her first public campaign appearance :
“Californians can no longer afford the government they have. … “I will give them the government they deserve.”
The government we deserve? That’s pretty harsh.
Photo by Tim Daw
By Steven T. Jones
Tonight at a meeting open to its 10,000 members, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is launching a campaign to push for rapid approval of the 56 bike projects studied in the city’s long-derailed Bike Plan, which will likely be approved this summer, ending a nearly three-year court injunction against any new bike projects.
And if you want to learn more about those projects and their traffic impacts, you can attend a lunchtime forum that the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association is holding tomorrow, or you can read next week’s Guardian for a complete analysis.
Pop rocks: Tainted Love at Bimbo’s 365 Club. All photos by Ariel Soto.
By Ariel Soto
A spandex- and leg warmer-clad audience rocked out to Tainted Love‘s sold-out show at Bimbo’s 365 Club Feb. 13. The ’80s cover band, which also performed the following night on Feb. 14, did a run through of everything from “Rock the Casbah” to “Like a Virgin,” while the enthusiastic crowd sang and jumped along to every tune. Vocalists Brett and Chad Roman added their own twist to each classic song while continuing to inject an ’80s flair, and guitarist Franklin Vasquez put his heart and soul – and sweat – into every move he made. All and all, a perfect night of neon and pop jams.
By L.C. Mason
I’m willing to bet that on a wall somewhere in this city of ours there’s a message emblazoned in loopy, florid handwriting purring, “For a good time, call Scissors for Lefty,” because there is nothing about their exuberant, glammed-up indie sound that suggests otherwise. The San Franciscan group’s newest self-released EP, Consumption Junction (Pepper Street Music), evokes a night-is-young idealism that speaks to the party kid in all of us.
The tight set of athemic, body-moving tunes opens up with “Ornamental,” a song sporting a giant, lung-busting chorus interspersed with ennui-tinged lead vocals by Bryan Garza and bullet-train drums. “Long Distant Love” sounds like the Cure drank a whole lotta Love Potion Number 9 and highlights a buoyant, Unicorns-esque keyboard melody that dips and bends to jaunty, optimistic lyrics about the pitfalls of loving someone a world away.
Next Obama will encounter such terrifying inhuman threats as the Lobbyist Vampires of Capitol Hill, American werewolves in Baghdad, the Ethanol children of the corn, Nightmare on Wall Street, and the Texas oil profits chainsaw massacre
By Will Durst
(Will Durst is a comedian who writes sometimes. This is one of them.)
It is the stuff of nightmares. Hear the shabby shuffle of their soft somnambulant stutter and your skin begins to crawl. To see their haunted hollow eyes on the cable news shows taking no notice of their surroundings is a spiral straight into terror. The worst part is the cries of the children as they cower behind couches, hands over their ears blocking out the monotonous intonations of the mind numbing mantra- “Tax Cuts. Tax Cuts. Tax Cuts.” They are the Tax Cut Zombies from the Planet No!, and they are not of this earth. Okay, maybe they are, but they sure don’t live in the real world.
In which super sexy porn people answer questions — each week — from Bay Area locals. View the last installment here.
Mediated by Justin Juul
Fielding your questions this month is local celebrity, Lorelei Lee. Lee specializes in fetish porn (water torture, whips-n-chains, electrocution, etc.) and has a blossoming side-career as a writer. Check out some of her movies/pics here.
Tony T: What does a porn director tell you to do? How specific does he/she get?
Lee: Sometimes we get very specific direction, exact positions and order of actions. Sometimes the scenes are scripted. But the majority of my work is what’s called “gonzo” porn – which basically means it’s all sex, no plot. In most of these scenes, I get a basic premise for the scene, a set-up, and a few specific actions. For example, if the film is called “Anal Nurse Whores,” we definitely will be expected to wear stethoscopes (just kidding) – and then we are given free-reign. Most of my performances are improv within specific parameters.
SFBG’s Juliette Tang peeps the best eco-friendly products and boutiques. Check out her most recent installment here.
Like The Pub, La Taqueria, The Bar on Church, Cheese Boutique, Cheese Steak Shop, and Burger Joint, Eco Boutique falls into a long standing tradition of San Franciscan businesses whose names and exact definitions are 1:1. Nestled in the Castro and owned by a bona fide porn star, Eco Boutique specializes in eco friendly home, baby, and gift products that are elegant and affordable, like Wee Go glass baby bottles ($10.50), beautiful Glass Dharma drinking straws ($3.99), and writing paper made out of recycled elephant dung ($5.50). According to the owner, John Melecio, cow dung paper is coming soon!
By Steven T. Jones
Cases like this — nonviolent drug offenders sent back to prison on bullshit parole violations — make a mockery of claims that California can’t significantly reduce it’s prison population without endangering public safety.
The New York Times is right: we can and should substantially decrease our prison population.
SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.
Today’s Look: Jaquayla, Church and 17th St.
Tell us about your look: “I’m in fashion school at the moment, and I’ve been sewing since the 6th grade. I love making my own clothes and I also make outfits for my kids.”
The percentage of workers belonging to unions grew last year for the second straight year
By Dick Meister
(Dick Meister, a San Francisco-based journalist, has covered labor and political issues for a half century.)
After nearly a half-century of steady decline, American unions are showing unmistakable signs that they’re finally reversing direction.
Sheryl Gould’s dating horror story may not be Valentine’s Day specific, but it was so good we named her the winner of our Valentine’s Day Horror Story contest anyway. Congrats to Gould, who will receive two passes for dinner and a show at Teatro Zinzanni. And condolences to anyone who’s dealt with the kind of date she describes.
TABLE FOR THREE (or THE CALIFORNIA WRATH)
There once was a girl who had grown quite irate
She vowed to never date men from her state
She took one last chance,
In the name of romance
And veered from her path,
Inevitably to face the “California Wrath”
This man, he loved to smoke the green,
His home was immaculate & his body was lean
Minimal & orderly, you could eat off the floor,
No condiments stood in his refrigerator door
A couple of bong rips he was off & running
Even the gabbiest girl would indeed find it stunning
Babbling nonstop, not a breath in between
The excess of his yammer would shock even a teen.
Overlooking the obvious, much to her chagrin
Let the dating mistake begin once again
Caught up in a moment, “adult time” commenced
Disregarding the ominous doom that she sensed
Romping & rolling he was unable to speak
Enabling her (temporarily) to forget he was a geek
In thralls of passion, these words he did utter
(can’t believe I can write this, it just makes me shudder)
“Is your pussy happy” is that what you said?
In horror, she lay there on her back, on his bed
Grammatically erroneous, disgusting & lewd,
Would a response “it’s repulsed” come across rude?
By Steven T. Jones
When I criticized Mayor Gavin Newsom’s latest budget plan as bad economics that will do more harm than good to San Francisco, Newsom spokesperson Nate Ballard said I (and the sources I relied on, from Moody’s to congressional Democrats to President Obama) didn’t know what I was talking about.
“OK, so you think he’s wrong. The City’s chief economist Ted Egan thinks he’s right. So does the Mayor’s chief economic advisor, Michael Cohen. I think the Mayor is probably going to go with Ted and Mike!” Ballard wrote (later referring me to this article, as if it proved his point).
Maybe Ballard or Newsom should have actually talked to Egan, who didn’t review Newsom’s plan and doesn’t agree with its premise. Egan told me, “We were in no way saying you should cut taxes to stimulate the economy, particularly if it means reducing government spending.”
By Andre Torrez
If your frantic scramble to find that last-minute, self-esteem Valentine’s Day date hasn’t panned out, fear not. Saturday’s show at El Rio provides the real excitement this V-Day when the Husbands return to the stage after a year-long hiatus. Blood guts and good ole girl garage rock ‘n’ roll – you can just tell by the flier that it’s gonna be good.
The shrill squeals of guitar and vocal from this trifecta are punk enough to recall the heyday of the Sympathy for the Record Industry label. Take the Demolition Dollrods, mix them with girl groups of the ’60s (i.e., the Shangri-Las, and Shirelles), and then dress them like the Pleasure Seekers. Add a bit of blood for gore factor – and voila! That’s my assessment of the formula that comprises the Husbands’ look and sound.
Mr. Obama’s victory feels more than a bit like defeat. The stimulus bill looks helpful but inadequate, especially when combined with a disappointing plan for rescuing the banks. And the politics of the stimulus fight have made nonsense of Mr. Obama’s postpartisan dreams.
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Paul Krugman ended his column in his Friday New York Times column with this warning and a bit of paraphrase from a W.B. Yeats poem:
“And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach–a feeling that America just isn’t rising to the greatest economic catastrope in 70 years. The best may not lack all conviction, but they seem alarmingly willing to settle for half-measures. And the worst are, as ever, full of passionate intensity, obliviious to the grotesque failure of their doctrine in practice.
“There’s still time to turn this around. But Mr. Obama hs to be stronger looking forward. Otherwise, the verdict on this crisis might be that no, we can’t.”
Click here to read Paul Krugman’s full column in the Friday, February 13 New York Times titled, Failure to Rise.
Justin Juul takes on singular porn hottie Buck Angel in part two of this exclusive SEX SF interview. See part one here.
SFBG: How did people in the porn industry respond to you when you first opened shop?
Angel: Oh man, it was really rough at first. People just thought I was weird, I guess, and they didn’t want to give me a chance. They didn’t want to talk to me, they didn’t want me at their shows, nothing. But, I’m a fucking pioneer, you know, and that’s just how it is when you set out to do something totally unheard of. The situation has changed a lot since I’ve become so successful on my own though. I mean, I just won an AVN award and that’s huge! But it wasn’t easy getting here.
By Tim Redmond
The folks who got their collective asses kicked in last fall’s elections also got the message — that their politics, their candidates and their messages aren’t working — and they’re quietly meeting to map out a new strategy to try to take back some seats on the Board of Supervisors in 2010.
A meeting earlier this week, convened by former SFSOS staffer Ryan Chamberlain, drew representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the Committee on JOBS and candidates like Scott Wiener, a Democratic County Central Committee member who is planning to run in District 8.
“What we’re doing isn’t working,” Chamberlain told us. “The progressives are winning.”
So downtown is looking to build grassroots operations — and the message right now is “quality of life.” That means cracking down on homeless people, cleaning up the streets, more cops, probably a move toward allowing more condo conversions (homeowners tend to vote more moderate than renters, so these folks love the idea of having more owners and fewer renters in town).
Chamberlain wouldn’t give us a list of who attended, but one source familiar with the meeting told us the Chamber and JOBS were well represented. Wiener confirmed that he was there, but wouldn’t say anything else about the meeting. Sup. Sean Elsbernd told us he was invited, but couldn’t make it.
So let’s remember: The progressive victories last November were hard-fought. This is still a battle for the soul of the city, and the other side isn’t anywhere near ready to concede. In fact, the downtown guys have plenty of money and sophisticated political strategists and they’re lining up candidates.
Today’s Ammianoliner;
Bay to Breakers goes puritan. Is that a stimulus package or are you happy to see me?
(From the home telephone answering machine ot Assemblyman Tom Ammiano on Thursday, Feb, 13, 2009.)
Juliette Tang continues her journey into the altporn world.
Recently, I chatted with Annaliese of the famous altporn site God’s Girls about nudity, tattoos, and DIY photography. In this installment of altporn interviews, I got the chance to talk to Cutter Smith of Altporn.net, the blog to read if you’re a fan of altporn. We literally talked about everything — Cutter is a veritable encyclopedia of altporn knowledge, and his site reflects his thoughtful, intelligent, and knowledgeable obsession with observation of his favorite genre of porn.
SFBG: First, what is the story behind Altporn.net?
SFBG’s Laura Peach checks out local fashion you can afford. Check out her latest installment here.
A tear for the purses of our futures, and a smile for our slimming wallets: San Francisco’s own luxury bag company, Goldenbleu, is dissolving. They are having a huge going out-of-business sale at the Mission Street warehouse tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. Get down to get the very last Goldenbleu goods—sexy strappy sandals, clever double-fold clutches, hot heels and of course those lovely large hold-everything bags—ever to be produced.
By Steven T. Jones
At a time when even Mayor Gavin Newsom’s allies are complaining that he’s disengaged with running the city at this crucial time, largely because of his gubernatorial ambitions, it seemed like an odd time for the Newsom campaign to send out a campaign plea called “Don’t do it, Gavin” that began like this:
“When I first started talking to friends and family about running for Governor, I was excited at how much enthusiasm there was for the idea. It’s not a decision I’m going to take lightly – but of course it’s nice to hear friends say they support the concept.
“That’s why I was a little taken aback when I asked my father what he thought. Without hesitation the man whose opinion I value most came out and said it: “Don’t do it Gavin.”
“I think my father must have seen my face – because he immediately said – “Of course I think you would do a great job – it’s just that nobody is going to be able to solve the state’s problems. I don’t want to see you fail in a job that’s impossible to do right now.”
Then he goes on, like the petulant son he is, to explain that he just wants to do it anyway, without ever really articulating why or explaining why he’d be a good governor (you can read the whole letter on the jump if you don’t trust my conclusion).
Take your dad’s advice, Gavin. Don’t do it. Honor your hollow promise to work with the Board of Supervisors on finding a way out of this budget mess. Do your job.
P.S. In my e-mail exchange with Newsom flak Nathan Ballard for my last post about the mayor’s avoidance of budget realities, he went on to explain that Newsom will indeed offer a budget plan: “Rest assured that the Mayor will deliver a balanced budget, as he always does, on June 1.” So, while everyone else works to solve an immediate problem, Newsom is going to sit it out for the next four months. Unbelievable!
The Northern California Indie Bestseller List, as brought to you by IndieBound and NCIBA, for the sales week ended Sunday, February 8, 2009. Based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.org.
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HARDCOVER FICTION
1. The Associate
John Grisham, Doubleday, $27.95, 9780385517836
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows, Dial, $22, 9780385340991
3. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
David Wroblewski, Ecco, $25.95, 9780061374227
4. Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese, Knopf, $26.95, 9780375414497
5. A Mercy
Toni Morrison, Knopf, $23.95, 9780307264237
6. Run for Your Life
James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge, Little Brown, $27.99, 9780316018746
7. The Piano Teacher
Janice Y.K. Lee, Viking, $25.95, 9780670020485
8. Beat the Reaper
Josh Bazell, Little Brown, $24.99, 9780316032223
9. The Vagrants
Yiyun Li, Random House, $25, 9781400063130
10. The Host
Stephenie Meyer, Little Brown, $25.99, 9780316068048
11. The Art of Racing in the Rain
Garth Stein, Harper, $23.95, 9780061537936
12. Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri, Knopf, $25, 9780307265739
13. Going to See the Elephant
Rodes Fishburne, Delacorte, $22, 9780385342391
14. True Colors
Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s, $25.95, 9780312364106
15. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson, Knopf, $24.95, 9780307269751
Editor’s Note: Joe Lynn served on the Ethics Commission staff (1998-2003) and later as a commissioner (2003-2006), and has since been a knowledgeable watchdog of the agency.
By Joe Lynn
“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. (Obama Inaugural Address.)
When San Francisco voters formed the Ethics Commission in 1993, there were high hopes for an agency that could provide proactive enforcement of our good government laws. Today a budget crisis commands us to examine the Commission’s record in enforcing those laws.
If it hasn’t worked, we shouldn’t be asked to pay any more for this part of the experiment to continue. There should be no surprise if this portion of the experiment has failed, and based on its record over the last few years, I think we can conclude that the Ethics Commission has failed to be an effective and trustworthy enforcer of this city’s campaign finance laws.
