SFBG Blogs Archives — Page 443 of 597 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

A double dutch affair: SFC hops and skips into our hearts

-

October 13, 2008

By Justin Juul

Jill Herrera (Switchblade), Valerie Hurysz (Death Valley), and Erin Dougherty (Venom Miss) of SFC Double Dutch can do The Ludicrous, The Donkey Kong, and The Turducken all without breaking a sweat. Never heard of these tricks before? Don’t worry, after a six-week course at SFC, your vocabulary will be full of weird slang and you’ll be pushin’ more rope than an exhausted porn star. The Guardian caught up with The SFC Girls recently to find out what happens when journalists stop staring at their computers and start gettin’ down.

SFBG: So what’s your deal?

Switchblade: We are Switchblade, Death Valley, and Venom Miss, Otherwise known as SFC Double Dutch. We jump rope, perform, and teach classes in the Bay Area.

SFBG: How did you get into the Double Dutch thing? I mean, is there a scene? Do you battle other Double Dutch crews and stuff? Or did you sort of just pick the jump rope thing randomly?

Switchblade: We met in the summer of 2002 and we wanted something physical to do with our friends. We just sort of landed on this, really. As far as a scene goes, there’s not really a battle scene like you find in break dancing. The Double Dutch community is really organized and clean and it’s not what you imagine when you think of old New York street-style stuff.

SFBG: But that’s kind of what you guys are all about, right, the street stuff? Are you the first people take that sort of old-school New York aesthetic and apply it to your group?

Pop Montreal part two: Irma Thomas, Silver Apples, DD/MM/YYYY, and more

-

October 13, 2008

0

Ripe for the picking? Silver Apples’ Simeon back in the day.

By Laura Mojonnier

A snapshot of the Pop Montreal festival, Oct. 2.

Irma Thomas at Ukranian Federation, 8:30 p.m.

The night started off with a bike ride up north into Montreal’s Mile End area to catch Irma Thomas and a full backing band play the Ukrainian Federation.

I’d only been to this venue once before, to see Patti Smith play a secret show at last year’s festival, and the place certainly seems made for that kind of gig. The venue feels like a cross between a middle school auditorium and a Protestant church, rows of 40-year-old theater seating on the first floor and a pewed balcony for the choir. In conclusion, Ukranian Federation is not great for rocking out, but it’s just perfect when watching Thomas belt torch songs for middle-aged Quebecers.

Gayest. Videos. Ever. (Pt. IV)

-

October 12, 2008

0

And … we’re back! In honor of a fresh new crop of limpwristed video-drones (and the inclusion of my Gayest. Music. Ever. essay — toot! toot! **own horn** — in the just-released Best Music Writing 2008 book) I’m compelled to resurrect back our much lauded Gayest. Videos. Ever. feature. Possibly for the last time! And yet October releases are simply brimming with digigay overload. Here’s a few that are getting my loafers lighter ….

Frankmusik, “Three Little Words” (will this vid finally make the Bar on Castro electro? The backups are 80s trannies who do robot plus giant rainbow keyboard equals I would have bought the 12″ in 1985 on import)

Ssion, “Credit in the Straight World” (soooo FGGT/cruising/warjola, young marble giant!)

Free-flowin’: Independent Fashion Fest dazzles

-

October 12, 2008

0

Photos and text by Ariel Soto

Edgy, non-traditional and dramatic models made their way down the catwalk Saturday night at the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts Bay Area Independent Craft & Couture Runway show. There was no lack of creative and unique designs, all of which seemed to stem from the free and colorful spirit of San Francisco. The fashion presented, which featured local designers who focus on creating sustainable clothing and stick by green business practices, featured designers from R.A.G. Co-op, Hellyn Teng Mersereau, Sarah Zins, Rehema Bah, and Erin Mahoney.

Back to bare: Nude Beach Olympics (NSFW)

-

October 12, 2008

5

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Descending from the Muni 29, looking out over the water and running my gaze across Baker Beach, I tried to spot the Nude Beach Olympics. But tucked away in the North End the au natural forms of the competitors remained elusive.

Walking along the shoreline, I began to zoom-in, finally spotting the events at the far end of the beach. There, the broad jump was under way. It is as glorious as you might imagine—with predominantly males participating, I witnessed the quick running, the leaping, and the hard fall into the dark, mottled sand, which seemed a lot less graceful while bare. In the act of falling, there seemed to be a moment’s hesitation while each participant debated whether to land hard in the sand or to try to stop the fall with a hand. The latter being more challenging, most men took the hard fall and then stood up, bums covered in grainy sand, but entirely unfettered.

The event was full of pubes, both shaved and unshaved, in a full color spectrum from gray to red, and it featured men and women of all body types and levels of athleticism. This, the first Nude Olympics at Baker Beach, resulted in a tie for first place: Rocky and Michael were crowned with olive-branch wreathes, following the traditions of the ancient Greek Olympics. George Davis, who had organized the Nude Beach Olympics I, explained: “The original Olympics, in Greece, were all done nude.”

Those ancient Olympics were the inspiration for the mini-version held at Baker Beach. The practice of exercising in the nude began in the seventh century B.C.E. It is believed that the custom began in Sparta, and, although various theories have been advanced, most assume that the main reason for this practice was the eroticism of the male body.

Rocky the Olympian. Photos by Lisa Weiss

Rocky, who was adorned with a hand-painted silver and red mask much like the Legion of Doom, won both the Greco-wrestling and the sumo-wrestling competitions.

(After the jump: NSFW pics)

Newsom proposes marijuana crackdown

-

October 11, 2008

3

By Steven T. Jones

The Examiner reports that Mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing a crackdown on the city’s medical marijuana clubs, including requiring them to keep detailed patient records that advocates say could easily be used by the federal government to prosecute people for smoking pot, which is legal under California law but not under federal law.

And once again, it appears that Newsom’s increasingly conservative approach to policing and regulation is being driven by his top crime adviser, law-and-order Republican Kevin Ryan, the former US attorney who was fired for incompetence by the Bush Administration despite his deep political loyalty to Bush and the GOP. Ryan, who led the federal government’s war on drugs against San Franciscans (including an overzealous prosecution of Ed Rosenthal), is quoted by the Examiner trying to justify going well beyond recent state guidelines.

Newsom’s office didn’t respond to our questions, but the latest proposal is directly at odds with the city’s innovative approach to regulating the clubs, which had among its central tenets protection of patient privacy and wariness of giving the federal government information that could be used to prosecute San Franciscans.

In the red with Weezer’s Scott Shriner

-

October 10, 2008

0

By Daniel N. Alvarez

Weezer’s long-time bassist Scott Shriner is fired up. After spending almost a year holed in Los Angeles working on this year’s critically acclaimed, Weezer (Geffen), also known as “The Red Album,” he is psyched to be back on the road. Flanked by U2-loving Angels and Airwaves, Weezer are currently bringing their narcotic hooks and questionable facial hair to a town near you. Shriner was good enough to talk about The Red Album, his love of metal, and being inundated with YouTube celebrities, among other things.

SFBG: This album is a big step forward for Weezer. Without losing your signature sound, you guys were able to try some new things that were really successful. What are some aspects of the new Weezer that may surprise the fans?

Scott Shriner: I mean, it’s the first time, since I’ve been in the band, that we all contributed writing on the record. Also, we all took turns singing lead vocals, and a couple of the songs have the lead vocal spots kinda switched up. For example, Brian (Bell, guitarist) sings the chorus of “Everybody Get Dangerous” and Rivers (Cuomo, primary vocalist-guitarist) sings the verses. Or in “Greatest Man,” I sing a couple of verses, Rivers is sings a couple, and then we all sing on a couple parts. There’s just a lot more participation from the band.

More downtown dirty tricks

-

October 10, 2008

1

Does anyone think this really has anything to do with Eric Mar’s comments about an earthquake in China? Come on — this is part of the concerted downtown campaign to keep Mar from winning.

Tell Obama and McCain to go to Poland

-

October 10, 2008

0

by Amanda Witherell

350image10.10.08.png
image courtesy of 350.org

Send the prospective presidents a letter that says “get thee to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Poznan, Poland this December and talk to the rest of the world leaders, with or without preconditions, about rapidly reversing global carbon emissions.”

Or if you’re not feeling your inner environment-in-crisis muse, just click here and 350 will send it for you. It’s easy. I did it and was 9,000th person to do so.

350, an organization founded this past year by environmental writer Bill McKibben, has a mission to incite more public awareness and action on climate change. The name comes from 350 parts per million — what most climate scientists and watchdogs consider the safety mark for atmospheric CO2 concentration. Globally, we were at around 384 ppm in 2007, and despite all the talk and attention, there are no indications it will be any lower this year. Jamie Henn, co-coordinator of the campaign, said the number is an important one to burn into peoples’ minds. “We’re in the climate danger zone right now,” he told me. “For the first time we have a number, we have a target we can shoot for.”

And it’s a number off which to launch some long overdue international policy and action. The campaign began on Oct. 7 and organizers are hoping to get 35,000 people to sign letters, which will be delivered en masse to both Obama and McCain in an effort to get a solid commitment from both that whoever wins will participate in the international talks.

Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, has specifically asked that the president or vice president attend the next round of talks, according to 350.org and, as Henn told me, they’re targeting Obama and McCain, “because the US has been so bad, we have been so off the mark on this for so many years it would take the president attending” to repair our international reputation on limiting carbon emissions.

The Poland meeting is considered the precursor to a 2009 Copenhagen event that will hopefully result in an international treaty and agreement, a la Kyoto Protocol, to reduce global carbon emissions.

The US remains the only industrialized country that didn’t sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, the last attempt to curb global warming, and we’re the second-highest CO2 emitter, outpaced only by China.

Big victory for Tom Ammiano

-

October 10, 2008

0

It’s taken 11 years, but Sup. Ammiano has finally convinced the Golden Gate Bridge Board to accept a suicide net on the bridge.

Eleven years fighting that bridge board must have felt like torture. But he hung in, and this will save lives.

Yes We Can Rap

-

October 10, 2008

0

With the race-baiting haters trying to stir things up, here’s a MC Yogi video that will lift your spirits:

Is this ad sexist?

-

October 10, 2008

1

Eric Jaye, the flak for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, must be really worried about defeating Proposition H, the Clean Energy Act. He’s gone so far as to try to convince the Sierra Club to somehow formally denounce a funny ad put out by the Yes on H campaign.

Jaye’s complaint? The ad is “sexist.”

Here’s the ad again, in case you haven’t seen it:

In an email to John Rizzo, the Sierra Club’s political chair, Jaye wrote:

>>As a sponsor of Proposition H, do you also approve of this most recent
>>video?
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZuwXSbb6WA
>>
>>Will you send out a release denouncing it? (You were pretty quick to
>>send out a press release attacking the Mayor on Monday. I hope you
>>will be as quick to denounce such offensive and sexist behavior).

If this wasn’t a serious campaign, I’d find the whole thing just nutty. Is there anything wrong or politically incorrect about making fun of a pair of corporate weenies who act sexist?

Alix Rosenthal, immediate past president of the local National Women’s Political Caucus and founder of the SF Women’s Policy Summit, doesn’t think so.

“If anyone has credibility on women’s issues, it’s me,” she told me. “And I don’t think it’s sexist.”

In fact, she said, “I could argue that it’s a feminist video — the two PG&E executives are mocked for being sexist.”

She said that the leaders of several local women’s organizations have been talking about this and “we certainly aren’t going to be putting out any kind of statement denouncing it.”

I called Jaye today and he had a hard time expaining why the ad was sexist. He did say he found it juvenile (whoa — that’s a crime in San Francisco politics) and said: “I find it demeaning for an august organization such as the Sierra Club to fund and support this kind of ad.”

The Sierra Club had nothing to do with the ad, by the way.

So lighten the fuck up, Eric. All this is doing is drawing more attention to a funny ad that makes the point that the PG&E executives are assholes and can’t be trusted.

Which is a great reason to vote Yes on H.

Yes we can rock out

-

October 10, 2008

0

In the home stretch of a long presidential campaign, with the economy failing and politicians failing to really speak truth to power, it’s easy to feel fatigue. So if you’re looking for a bit of pro-Obama inspiration, download this awesome, free Obama mix from DJ Z-Trip and play it everywhere you go, loud. You’ll feel better, regain your perspective, and get fired up for the real struggle that begins with our vote on Nov. 4.

And if that doesn’t work, go back and watch this one again:

Pop Montreal, part one: Hot Chip heats up, Sic Alps smashes, Woodhands sweats

-

October 10, 2008

0

Great Northern: Mixylodian.

By Laura Mojonnier

Montreal is the kind of city you only appreciate once you leave for an extended period of time, as I did when I relocated to the Bay Area for a few months this past summer. Living here spoils you – it makes you think that all cities have vibrant art and music communities and cheap rent, that all cities serve poutine (fries, gravy, and cheese curds) at every 24-hour corner food joint for your drunken feasting.

Sure, there are drawbacks: the five-month winters, the unchallenged hegemony of skinny jeans, the fact that the gravely pit in front of my stairwell probably won’t return to its former state as a sidewalk until early 2009. But, at its core, this city has a fiercely independent nature that makes festivals like Pop Montreal possible.

What began in 2002 as a series of shows all booked in the same weekend has exploded into a five-day extravaganza that takes over every venue in the city every year in early October. The core of the festival remains the music, but now there’s Film Pop, Art Pop, Puces Pop (a craft fair/exhibition), Pop Symposium (panels, discussions, lectures), and Kids Pop. And though a small corporate presence has arisen – rumor has it that all staffers received a fresh pair of Converse this year – Pop is still run mostly by hip 20-somethings and a hoard of volunteers jockeying for five-day wristbands. As a result, the festival has a refreshingly laid-back, organic vibe, even if the published set times are occasionally unreliable.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Pendulum, Killdozer, Kowloon Walled City, and more

-

October 9, 2008

0

Taken for granted? Pendulum’s “Granite.”

Whoa, again, San Fran coughs up the fun stuff to do this week – and as usual, it’s far more than we can handle in one mere newspaper. Here’s what didn’t make it into print, but may be worth leaving the house for.

SKYGREEN LEOPARDS AND EYES
SF’s feline psychedelicists stir, alongside Eyes’ proggy dreamers. With the Mantles. Thurs/9, 9 p.m., $8. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

GLITCH MOB
The LA glitch-hoppers unleash the Equal Opportunity Enjoyer on an unsuspecting public. With Megasoid, Rustie, Eprom, and Anasia. Fri/10, 9 p.m. doors, $20 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880.

Farewell, Guardian’s SF blog

-

October 9, 2008

3

“In Japan neglected or abandoned blogs are called ishikoro, pebbles,” blog expert Sarah Boxer tells us — and it’s time for us to cast a pebble into the humongous Web quarry, as we at the Guardian refocus our energies on our Pixel Vision Arts and Culture blog. Look for all our fab local content to be posted there from now on. Thanks, Guardianites!

Who’s flying that Blue Angel …

-

October 9, 2008

0

…. that just buzzed my office window? I’m glad it’s not John “crash” McCain.

Duke’s gonna get ’em: High Decibels’ main man turns that shit into gold

-

October 9, 2008

0

By Billy Jam

Shit happens. We all know that. But it’s what we do with that shit in life that is the important part. In the case of East Oaklander Duke, ne D’Andre Johnson, of new Oakland rap group with a blues twist, the High Decibels, the MC/poet has managed to take the negatives dealt him in life and spin them into something a lot more positive.

In fact if weren’t for one of his earliest humiliations as an artist – being booed offstage at a talent showcase at his Oakland high school – that he wouldn’t be doing what he is doing right now. “I went to Skyline High School, and at that school, they have a really good performing arts program, and they do this thing called “Showtime at the Line,” like at the Apollo with the Sandman and all,” he recently recalled of the night that he and his brother entered the contest. They were confident that their rap performance would win over the audience.

Not so. “The theater holds like five thousand people and it was packed. So we started out our song, and the music started skipping. And I was first. I just started busting a cappella. The music came back on and I was off beat. And we got booed off the stage,” said Duke of the incident that happened about eight years ago when he was 14. “And for the next year I would be walking down the hallway and one person would start booing, and before I would get to the end of the hallway, the whole hallway was booing.”

That Dude

Electoral collide-o-scope: smooches and fury

-

October 8, 2008

0

Two snapshots of the right and left — such as! — at this increasingly hysterical election moment that I think say it all:

This month’s cover of The Progressive:

And an AP “shot” from one of Palin’s Florida rallies yesterday. (The one where someone yelled “kill him!” or the one where they screamed at an African American sound man to “sit down, boy!”? And weren’t these kids just at LoveFest last Saturday?)

Of course, it seems right now we’re winning — so say these wonderful things loud and proud, lest you lose your chance soon. And yet, we’re losing ground on Prop 8 — help out already! It’s an upside-down autumn, and I feel like wearing shoes on my feet and hamburgers eating people.

Shout outs: Fierce bloggers and others to help stay sane during all this kerfuffle: Megan at Jezebel (this should be taught at blogging school), Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic, of course the fab Kos who is freaking killing it this election with the wonky deets, and, as ever, Cathy Horyn‘s coverage of the global fashion weeks — because I’m far too busy frantically, panickedly checking the politisphere to measure this season’s hemlines. Plus, that third grade class in Alaska. Stay golden, kids!

The return of Mayor Chicken

-

October 8, 2008

0

Guardian illustration by Joshua Ellingson

By Steven T. Jones

For a politician who aspires to higher office, Mayor Gavin Newsom is surprisingly afraid of public debates. The latest example is his refusal to debate the merits of Prop. H, the Clean Energy Act, and the unusual step that Eric Jaye – the political consultant that Newsom shares with Pacific Gas & Electric – took in convincing the Commonwealth Club to rescind its offer to host the debate.

We’ve seen this before. When voters asked Newsom to engage in monthly public discussions with the Board of Supervisors, he flatly refused to comply, even as his petulant approach to governance began to take a serious toll on the city. And now, he’s content to let PG&E’s deceptive, multi-million-dollar propaganda blitz substitute for a public discussion on an issue vital to the future of the city and the planet.

Meanwhile, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, Newsom has adopted hypocritical environmental piety and false claims of green progress as the central planks of his political platform. And when we try to ask him, Jaye, or his press secretary Nate Ballard about why Newsom won’t debate, when he changed his position on public power, or about the many contradictions in his public pronouncements, all we get are lies and obfuscation.

Endorsements: How did we do?

-

October 8, 2008

21

Our endorsements are out today. Knowing our readers, I suspect not everyone agrees with everything we said. Comments?

PG&E: F**K ’em all

-

October 8, 2008

8

A very funny Yes on H video:

Same-sex marriage good for the economy

-

October 8, 2008

0

The opponents of same-sex marraige have raised $25 million. That’s amazing: $25 million to stop people from getting married.

But apparently, it’s working. The Newsom ad has been effective, and now No on 8 folks are issuing a wake-up call to their supporters.

In the meantime, I really like the Sonoma State University study that shows how same-sex marriage is good for the economy. Sonoma County alone could see $112 million in benefits.

More jobs, more money into the economy in a depression … and these nut cases are spending $25 million to stop it?

Genghis Tron: electrogrindcore of the gods

-

October 8, 2008

3

SarahCass genghis tron sml.jpg

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Imagine Zeus and Ares, up on Mount Olympus sipping cocktails when suddenly they start arguing about Ares’ old-news fling with Aphrodite. What ensues is more then expected, with lightning bolts flying into trees, morphing them into vertical charcoal, and spears being sent high into the sky as vultures descend upon the slain. The members of Genghis Tron brought a little of that mythical drama when they took the stage at Bottom of the Hill on Oct. 6. The band churns out cacophonous metal that waxes and wanes between caliginous grindcore and mellow yet still moody electronica.

Openers Religious Girls from the East Bay stepped in for Yip-Yip, which couldn’t perform due to a member’s illness. The group mirrors the point in which Zeus and Ares are still just sipping cocktails: it’s a good moment because you’re drinking, but it’s not unusual enough to order anything less original then a gin and tonic. They played with passion, pounding beats ferociously on multiple drums, with war chants and shrieks that sounded somewhere along the lines of Animal Collective’s “Native Belle” and “The Purple Bottle.” Not to say that I don’t love Animal Collective, but Religious Girls’ sound didn’t come off as entirely original.

Clipd Beaks, the onetime Oakland combo, was the lull while you’re trying to get the attention of the bartender to order another drink – hopefully the one that’ll push you from tipsy to drunk. Their sound was simple and synthy. Nic Barbein vocals were filtered with noise as he sang undecipherable lyrics into two mics, once even sticking one into his mouth. Overall, it was like being ignored by the bartender for more than 15 minutes because that more aggressive patron distracts him or her and takes all the attention.