Click here to read Philip Gourevitch’s September 22 article from the New Yorker, The State of Sarah Palin: The peculiar political landscape of the Vice-Presidential hopeful.
SFBG Blogs
Producer/journalist Jerry Wexler remembered
Jerry Wexler. Courtesy of popentertainment.com.
By Kandia Crazy Horse
I am in utter shock at the fact that my lifelong hero, my much-cherished Jerry “Papa Dippermouth” Wexler (Jan. 10, 1917–Aug. 15, 2008) has gone to glory. Been thinking hard not only about my friend, his youngest daughter Lisa (of the great New York State band Big Sister), and my play-uncle/mentor Stanley Booth (one of his best friends), but all the unbroken circle of folks who loved and forever appreciate the magic Wexler produced during his paradigm-shifting career as a music journalist and (likely) the last of the great record men.
I have been weeping all this interminable weekend beginning with his death on Friday morn, Aug. 15 – Black Friday to me forever after. Of course, it is not as if Papa Dip was not poised at the end of his days. And, yes, he enjoyed a long and varied career the likes of which many music geeks of my generation envied (who didn’t want to be a producer at Atlantic Records between the titanic poles of Brother Ray Charles’ and Led Zeppelin’s arc’s therein?). Still, I cannot be consoled.
He wasn’t just the hallowed man who exposed me to the riches of King Solomon Burke and sent me Dusty in Memphis for deep listening or kindly shared personal revelations about my generation’s foremost soul icon Donny Hathaway – the man born Gerald Wexler in the boogiedown Bronx was the first person I was conscious of outside my kinpeople as being essential to how my world revolved. From the age of 2 ½ at least, I read his liner notes or saw his name credited on the back of Atlantic long-players, as the label’s iconic iconography circled round-and-round, and I knew in my deepest soul who and what I wanted to be.
Local Artist of the Week: Aurie Ramirez
LOCAL ARTIST Aurie Ramirez
TITLE Untitled
STORY Aurie Ramirez’ sophisticated, delicately rendered compositions create an ever-expanding fantasy world where fragments of 18th-century dandyism, neo-Victorian decorum, psychedelia, Venetian masquerade, glam-rock sex, and punk fetishism are repeated and transformed. Aurie’s work has been inspired by her interest in The Addams Family and KISS.
BIO Born in 1962 in the Philippines, Aurie Ramirez has exhibited her work at White Columns in New York, Jack Hanley Gallery in Los Angeles, ABCD in Paris, and Collection l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.
SHOW “Estacion Odesia,” through Aug. 30. By appointment. Queen’s Nails Annex, 3191 Mission, SF. (415) 202-3199. www.queensnailsannex.com
WEB www.creativegrowth.org
Tell the House to veto the FCC
Big Media is big enough. Here’s how to cut it back a notch.
By Bruce B. Brugmann
(Big Media is big enough. This is yet another Big Media story you won’t see in the mainstream media: the ruling by the Federal Communications Commission to gut media ownership rules and the media reform moves to overturn it. You also won’t see the news of the overwhelming Senate “resolution of disapproval” (H.J. Res. 79) . And you won’t get the information on how to click in on how to join the media reform campaign and send your personal message to Rep. Nancy Pelosi and other congresspeople to support the “resolution of disapproval” and veto the FCC ruling. See below.)
In 2003, nearly 3 million people signed an online petition demanding that Congress stop the Federal Communications Commission from gutting media ownership rules. Those millions of actions added up and helped turn the tables on the FCC.
Now the FCC is at it again.
After hearing from a quarter million people, the Senate rejected Big Media’s plan to get even bigger.
Now we need you to click here and send a message to the U.S. House asking them to do the same thing.
This isn’t just another online petition. We’re connecting online and offline actions to make the most of every click. Soon we are going to hand-deliver these petitions to members of Congress in their home offices, so it is vital to add your name now.
Your click matters. It only takes a few seconds. Click here to make a difference today!
In solidarity,
Josh Stearns
Campaign Coordinator
http://www.stopbigmedia.com/
http://www.freepress.net/
Stretch your hole and your mind will follow: Meet Stephen Boyer
Intrepid reporter Justin Juul hits the streets each week for our Meet Your Neighbors series, interviewing the Bay Area folks you’d like to know most.
Stephen Boyer is an up-and-cumming writer/blogger/porn star. To hear about his sexcapades, stop into his next reading at Dog Eared Books on August 21st. And if want to read his blog or see him take a foot up the ass, just follow the links below.
SFBG: The first time I ever met you was at a party in Oakland. You came out of nowhere, grabbed my girlfriend and I by the shoulders and said, “Oh my god you guys, I just got fucked behind the bar!” Is that how you normally introduce yourself to people?
Stephen Boyer: Ha! Actually, I think we met in Dolores Park. I remember because you and all your friends were trying to convince a pregnant girl to eat a pot brownie. I don’t really remember the Oakland party though, and I could have my dates jumbled. That’s pretty like me. But yeah, I am usually pretty up front with what’s happening in my life. It helps me feel better… that and writing.
SFBG: So what do you usually write about?
Boyer: The major topics I’m taking on right now are shit, piss, and lots of sex. I’m also doing my part to help define a fag/male movement in response to all the feminist bullshit I was forced to sit through in college. You know, because white men are sooooo privileged (sarcasm!).
SFBG: Is it always sex stuff, then?
Boyer: A lot of it is. But not everything. The sex part comes from being young and horny in a country with lots of inhibitions and secrets. Plus, sex sells.
SFBG: What compels you to share that part of yourself with others?
Boyer: Well, I like stretching my brain as well as my asshole and I want to help others do the same. Basically, I really enjoy learning about other peoples’ fetishes and helping them enact their desires. I have a shit load of desire and I’ve spent the better part of the past five years working through it to learn about what turns me on. I’ve realized that learning about other peoples desires and stretching my preconceived notions about what is and isn’t sexy is my biggest turn on. Well, that and orgies. And to return to the question, I want to make money.
SFBG: What’s the craziest, dirtiest thing you’ve ever done?
Semiconscious Consumerism: Dope gear for idiots
Blogger Justin Juul ponders high-end street gear in a time of economic crisis. Read his saga of American Spirits here, and his sassy deconstruction of the Nike and American Apparel connection here.
Here’s a bunch of shit I bought because I thought I was the only person in San Francisco tuned into the world of supercool urban fashion. Most of these items cost hundreds of dollars and almost nothing fit straight out of the box. So, genius that I am, instead of re-selling my stuff on Ebay for a profit, I took everything to a tailor for resizing. Which, most times, wound up costing almost as much as the actual item.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been right, if indeed I could ever hope to know more about “high-end streetwear” than your average 15 year-old skater thug. But I don’t. By the time most of this stuff got my to house you could buy knock-off versions at any store on Sixth Street. And besides, look at it! I’m almost thirty years old, man. I can’t go outside in this shit. Still, even though I never wear any of the stuff I buy, and even though I’m fully aware that the whole street wear industry is a marketing sham that preys on the ridiculous aspirations of clueless suburban kids, I’m insanely proud of my ghetto-fab wardrobe.
I mean, whatever, right? These clothes may not be worth the money I spent on them, and they may not make me cool, but I have them and you don’t, so there. You can call me shallow and you can call me crazy, but you can’t deny that if you could get your hands on my gear you’d be happy for life. I win.
Here Are the Top Five Coolest Garments in my Collection:
Willie Brown complains about political power
Okay, this is incredibly ironic: Former Mayor Willie Brown, now a Chronicle columnist, is suddenly complaining about the use of political power. From his piece yesterday on the changes at the Democratic County Central Committee:
But what’s really going on behind the headlines is a move by the “progressives” to take over the central committee a la Tammany Hall or Richard Daley’s Chicago. The goal is to control the party money and endorsements – and that way be able to pick candidates for office as well.
In other words the central committee will be Peskin’s shadow mayoralty, allowing Peskin to keep calling shots even when he leaves office.
Willie, Willie, Willie — YOU were the one who took Chicago-style machine politics to a new level in San Francisco. You were the one who controlled the money, the endorsements, the DCCC, the Board of Supervisors … Now you’re complaining?
Getting saved by Saviours at the Rickshaw
By Kat Renz
I kept glancing behind me during the Saviours show last Sunday, Aug. 10. Where is everyone? The Rickshaw Stop, a 4,000-square-foot venue with a worthy sound system, stayed only about a quarter filled – and sparsely at that. I was in awe: anyone reading music mags since the release of Saviours’s second album Into Abaddon (Kemado) last January has been inundated with gushing reviews of the local foursome, so WTF? The crowd’s absence was almost embarrassing, like we fell short in upholding our gracious side of the mutually beneficial performer/audience agreement.
Shame aside, it’s challenging to convey just how visceral a Saviours show is. Even through my weenie laptop speakers, their sound – dripping with reverb, soaring on dead-on harmonized guitar leads, reliant on sick scale-shreddage, equally mastered bass, and no mercy drumming – is preternaturally powerful. The live experience, transcendence times 10, is positively psychedelic.
Sunday’s show was exemplary. The band delivered a typically spirited eight-song barrage to launch their two-and-a-half month national tour (catch them again at the tour’s end Octer 23 at the Regency Center Ballroom with Iced Earth). Riding on their signature galloping riffs — the two guitarists are nothing if not relentless gallopers — they began with “Circle of Servant’s Bodies,” a Black Sabbathian decent into doom land. Title-track “Into Abaddon” felt in fast-forward, the tempo increase sort of a surprise considering the delicious brownies circulating the room. Ditto for “Narcotic Sea, on which vocalist-guitarist Austin Barber took turns dominating the fretboard with new guitarist Sonny Reinhardt, formerly of Watch Them Die and recently replacing D. Tyler “Balls” Morris.
The “ultra-liberal” city
By Tim Redmond
I don’t know what Heather Knight means by “ultra-liberal,” but to say that the San Francisco Democratic Party has taken a “sharp turn to the left” is a bit miselading. Yes, the progressives ran an agressive campaign and picked up some seats this spring, but most of the votes on most of the issues were pretty close to unanimous; public power, fro example, had support from across the spectrum. Same with most of the supervisors races.
In fact, the only reason the Democratic Party seems a little more progressive now is that it has so often in the past been controlled by moderates (and in the days of Willie Brown, by a political machine).
So what’s up with the “ultra-liberal,” anyway?
I mean, the word “liberal” used to mean someone who believed that government was part of the solution to social problems, that income ought to be redistributed and the weathy should pay their fair share and that taxes levied and collected in a progressive fashion should be used for programs to help the needy.
That describes most of the people the Chron is now calling “ultra-liberal.” It does not describe, for example, Gavin Newsom.
In San Francisco, taking liberal stands on social issues is easy. The economic issues are a lot more tough, and that’s where you can draw political lines. The Shorensteins, Walter and Doug, are (generaly speaking) social liberals who give money to Democrats, and they always have. But when it comes to regulating land use and development and taxing downtown — when it hits the Shorensteins in the pocket book — they’re as anti-tax and anti-regulation as most Republicans.
John Burton asked me once why I didn’t call him a progressive, and I told him that the difference between a liberal and a progressive these days is that progressives don’t trust real-estate developers. That’s just a small example, but it makes the point. The progressives in San Francisco stand for both social and economic justice.
Here’s what I think is going on: The Newsom camp is angry about the use of the term “progressive” to describe Newsom’s critics, because it implies that Newsom somehow isn’t progressive. (Honestly, by any meaning of the word, he’s not. Care not Cash was the opposite of a progressive program. His budget is the opposite of a progressive budget. On economic issues, he’s very much a centrist.)
But Newsom’s operatives have been putting pressure on the media, and I’m sure on the Chron, to change that terminology. So now that Chron has come up with the disparaging term “ultra-liberal.”
Really, based on the recent endorsement, the Democratic Party in SF today pretty closely reflects San Francisco values. The nasty label’s got to go.
Ken Garcia: Keep trafficking out of city
Click here to read Ken Garcia’s Friday Examiner article, Keep trafficking out of city.
Georgia: Media forces conflict into Cold War frame
By Bruce B. Brugmann
FAIR made a key point in its analysis of the conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia (8/14/08).
The Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting media advocacy group wrote about the big corporate media coverage:
“A striking feature of the coverage was the ability of pundits who have enthusiastically advocated for U.S. invasions of sovereign countries, dismissing concerns that these would violate international law, to demand that Russia be punished for breaking the same law by violating Georgia sovereignty.
“These commentators seemed blissfully unaware of the contradiction, as when New York Times columnist William Kristol wrote (8/11/08) that ‘in Iraq, we and our Iraqui allies are on the verge of a strategic victory over the jihadists,’ citing this as evidence that 2008 was ‘an auspicious year for freedom and democracy,’ while two paragraphs later condemning the fact that ‘Russia has sent troops and tanks across an international border.’ Kristol even cited Georgia’s eager participation in the violation of Iraq’s sovereignty as a primary reason that ‘we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty.'”
FAIR noted that “alternatives to the official media narrative were difficult to find outside of independent and foreign media.” I particularly liked the linked Guardian piece (8/14/08) by Seumes Milne: “This is a tale of U.S. expansion, not Russian aggression. War in the Caucacus is as much the product of an American imperial drive as local conflict. It’s likely to be a taste of things to come.” B3
Click here to read FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) media advisory titled, Georgia/Russia Conflict Forced Into Cold War Frame.
One elephant case bumps another
By Steven T. Jones
The big Ringling Bros. elephant abuse trial that I wrote about in the current issue of the Guardian has been delayed by two weeks — for a politically interesting reason.
Federal District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is hearing the Ringling Bros. case, is also presiding over the political corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has asked for a speedy trial to try to clear his name before the fall election, when he will try to continue as the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate. To accommodate the Stevens trial, Sullivan moved the Ringling trial start from Oct. 7 to Oct. 20. Apparently he wants to dispose of one elephant case before dealing with the next.
Meanwhile, also in a Washington D.C. court, another big Ringling-related lawsuit is moving forward. Superior Court Judge Brook Hedge yesterday ruled on motions for summary judgment in the strange case of journalist Jan Pottker vs. Ringling owner Ken Feld, which involves allegations of using former CIA operatives to sabotage Pottker’s efforts to write about Feld. Judge Hedge granted motions removing National Press Books and other ancillary defendants from the case, but denied Feld’s motion and will apparently allow the nine-year-old case to move toward trial.
“The filings are voluminous, but the core facts relevant to the claims are set forth above and revolve around the admitted plan to divert plaintiff from authoring any more works on the circus,” the judge wrote in a 45-page opinion.
For more details, read my story.
The Nation: Blood in the Caucasus
The Nation‘s coverage on the crisis in Georgia in its Sept. 1 edition:
*Georgia’s Biggest Mistake? Taking John McCain Seriously
by John Nichols
Did Saakashvili misread senator’s March message about “the dangers posed by a revanchist Russia” and Black Sea “solidarity.”
*Blood in the Caucasus
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
As a wobbly cease-fire takes hold in Georgia, it’s time for the United States to dissolve its cold war military alliances and develop realistic new policies toward Russia.
*A Dispatch from Tblisi by Margarita Akhviediani
In Georgia’s Capital City, residents worry they may have put too much faith in the West to save them from Russian aggression.
Go, go, Music Go Music!
By Todd Lavoie
I want to rave like a street-corner rapture-seeker about the enormous healing properties of Los Angeles’ new unashamed pop-messiahs Music Go Music, but first, a little personal exposition.
When I dare to cast a fleeting glance back in the direction of my tween years – the absolute apex of my chronic bumblinghood, that endless expanse of skinny arms and butterfingers and nervous stammers – I’m tempted to take refuge in how deep-down cool I told myself I really was despite my oversized glasses and severe bowl-haircut and startling inability to interact with the rest of the human race. I had Clash cassettes, after all – and the Fall, too, and mixes of Echo and the Bunnymen and Flipper and Dead Milkmen songs I’d taped from local college radio shows! I mean, who could step to that kind of coolness at such an age? Sure, I was scared of my own shadow, but the Misfits convinced me I was the biggest bad-ass in all of New Hampshire, pubes or no pubes. Since I couldn’t speak for myself in public, I’d simply assumed that the meticulously crafted Gang of Four and Fishbone logos I’d etched across my fifth-rate denim-blue Trapper Keeper-knockoff would do the talking for me. I knew all of the words to the Smiths’ “Reel Around the Fountain,” for Christ’s sake – why oh why didn’t any of my equally self-conscious gangly-wangly peers take notice? Or care? Why was I so alone?
Here’s the thing. This so-called coolness I’ve just described? It’s only part of the picture. See, there’s a deeper, darker secret, lurking underneath the Morrissey quotes and ballpoint-pen notebook sloganeering: I also harbored a wide-eyed fascination with Top 40 radio. Or, specifically, the stuff I’d hear in the car on the way to a swimming lesson, to summer camp, to a Little League game I’d rather avoid.
The LA anti-scene guerrillas of Rainbow Arabia make dance mayhem with Middle Eastern guitar, microtonal keys
By Vanessa Carr
With feral vocals, shattering guitar riffs, and a collection of microtonal keyboards ordered off of a Lebanese Web site, Rainbow Arabia combines Middle Eastern beats and modes with the vibrant energy of Los Angeles’ experimental punk/dance scene. The result is a hypnotic neo-tribal, hipster-dub sound that falls somewhere in the vicinity of post-punk spiritualists Gang Gang Dance and These Are Powers. Rainbow Arabia plays at Cellspace on Aug. 16 before embarking on a cross-country tour with Gangi and Hecuba in October.
The band is composed of Danny and Tiffany Preston, both 36. The husband and wife duo were married for more than three years before they started playing music together and recording in their basement in early 2008. Before Rainbow Arabia, Danny played in punk-dub outfit Future Pigeon and Tiffany in Licorice Piglet.
“It’s definitely tested us, being in a band together. But the great thing is that when things are going really well, you get to share it together,” Tiffany told the Guardian.
DCCC endorses….
The newly elected progressive block of the local Democratic Party flexed their muscles during tonight’s endorsements. It was a full house, with only Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s seat empty. She neglected (perhaps purposefully) to send a proxy.
Many of the supervisors’ measures passed — including the Affordable Housing measure and the Clean Energy Act. All of the items put on the ballot by Mayor Gavin Newsom failed, despite a small consistent cabal following his centrist party line. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proxy cast steady abstentions on many local issues, with notable “no” votes against Affordable Housing, Clean Energy, and decriminalizing prostitution. She did, however, support Newsom’s Community Justice Center, which some pointed out had already been funded and should have been taken off the ballot.
All the progressive candidates handily won top seats, with David Campos beating out Eric Quezada in the hot district nine race. Nods went to incumbents Elsbernd and Chu. There was a lot of debate over whether to select second and third choices for ranked choice voting in the district supervisor races. Though there were attempts to get second and third seats filled, there was too much division among candidates and enough progressives stuck with “no endorsement” for those seats to keep solidarity behind the top seeded candidate. After some talk about the need to have at least one woman on the slate, Denise McCarthy, running in district three, was the only candidate to receive the second billing, getting votes from Debra Walker and Michael Goldstein, who stepped outside the progressive contingent that was urging a “no endorsement” vote to keep loyalty lined up behind Chiu.
The Clean Energy Act received a healthy majority of 22, with more choosing to abstain than cast a “no.” Tom Hsieh, Joe Julian, Megan Levitan, Mike Tuchow, Dianne Feinstein, and August Longo, voted against it while Laura Spanjian, Scott Wiener, Jackie Speier, Leland Yee, and Fiona Ma, abstained.
The complete rundown, after the jump:
Georgia: a neocon August surprise election ploy?
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Robert Scheer, the journalist who did one of the first major early critiques of the Vietnam War,
today weighed in on the Georgia war.
His lead paragraphs make his point: “Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
“Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.” B3
Click here to read Scheer’s op-ed column in today’s Chronicle, Georgia war is a neocon election ploy. Scheer was most prescient on the Vietnam War. Is he as prescient on this one?
G-List: 6 laundromats that don’t suck
The G-List is a weekly list of things to do and places to go by Justin Juul
As a Los Angeles transplant, I enjoy talking shit on my old hometown even more than most San Franciscans. But there are a few perks to living in the city of douchebags that a man doesn’t notice until he’s moved on. For starters, the weather is better there. No getting around that. But there are other reasons I occasionally consider going back to hell and one of them is so constantly irritating I could die. Talkin’ bout laundry ya’ll.
Every apartment I had in LA came with a laundry room. But not here. Of the five crappy apartments I’ve had in SF, only two of them have had laundry facilities. The building I live in now is the worst. Not only does it lack an onsite washroom, but the nearest Laundromat is almost a mile away. Which doesn’t really matter because I wouldn’t want to go there even if it was right next door. The thing about doing your laundry at Laundromats is that it takes almost an entire day. You have to stuff your shit in bags, truck the whole pile down the street, and then sit and twiddle your thumbs until it’s done. Doing laundry is pretty much the most boring shit ever –a total waste of time. Unless, of course, you know where to go.
All of the Laundromats on this list have special features you won’t find at regular places. They make washing fun.
Brainwash
Drink beer, eat food, and wash the stains from your soiled sheets with stand up comedians, SoMa punks, and a bunch of crazy swingers from a nearby Sex Cult. Brainwash is the best show in town because it’s the only Laundromat that serves alcohol. Plus, the music is usually pretty rad and the wi-fi is free.
1122 Folsom, SF
Newsom hacks away at the budget
It’s no surprise that many of the items Mayor Newsom hacked out of the city budget at the last minute were important to supervisors who didn’t go along with the mayor’s original budget proposal.
Just look at the complete list (here as a pdf). Among the items axed: $130,000 for a Bernal Heights childcare center (a project Sup Tom Ammiano has been working on for two years or more), $397,000 for homeless drop-in services (which progresive board members have pushed for); $300,000 for home health nurses (a priority of SEIU Local 790) … the list goes on.
The Chron quotes Robert Haaland:
“It’s a very aggressive and obviously retaliatory move. But we’re not just going to roll over,” said Robert Haaland, a political organizer for SEIU. “Imagine you’re a working person and all of a sudden your salary gets slashed. People can lose their homes just because the mayor wants to retaliate. It remains to be seen how we’ll fight back, but we’re certainly not going to watch our members lose their homes.”
I just got off the phone with Haaland, and he went even further: “What they did is an unfair labor practice, retaliating against someone who refused to make concessions,” he said.
Which pretty much sums it up. SEIU Local 1021 wouldn’t play ball with the mayor, so now the union members get hit.
Ammiano was more than a bit pissed off. “It’s all retaliatory,” he told me. “Look at the Bernal preschool. This is a tiny amount of money, but it’s important to the community. And he didn’t even have the courtesy to call me himself and tell me about it.”
Added Ammiano: “It’s particularly ironic since he talks all the time about keeping families in San Francisco. I guess that doesn’t mean low-income families.”
The killer here is that these kind of cuts seem minor when they’re part of a $5 billion budget, but on the ground, on the streets, they really matter.
I’m still waiting to hear if the mayor will support Sup. Aaron Peskin’s revenue measures on the fall ballot, which would provide plenty of money to avoid these kinds of cuts.
Newsom embarrasses himself on clean energy
Bob Brigham’s got a good post on Calitics about Al Gore’s new clean-energy ad campaign and how foolish it looks for Gavin Newsom to be on the wrong side of this issue:
This is the challenge of our time and history will record those who side with polluters like PG&E against the movement to switch that is growing every day. By the time the Democratic primary heats up, this vote will be as poison as the Iraq War vote (it is no coincidence that the polluters are using the same right-wing tactics the neocons used in their push against the reality-based community).
Yet it is not too late. Every day more and more people are realizing that the time to make the switch is now, the time for bold action is now. Hopefully, Gavin Newsom will have the wisdom to realize the how silly it sounds when he regurgitates PG&E’s talking points and will stop and think about what it is Al Gore is saying.
Newsom is also looking more and more alone here, as most of the prominent political leaders in the city line up behind the Clean Energy Act. I wonder: He’s the biggest name PG&E is going to have in its campaign; willhe let the disgraced private company use his picture and make him the centerpiece of the campaign against this charter amemdment? And won’t that look awful?
Oberst, Wilco, Wrens rock for net neutrality
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Rock the Net: Musicians for Network Neutrality
(Thirsty Ear)
By Ian Ferguson
Although Al Gore considered naming the Internet “Magic,” and it seems that way to some (black magic for John McCain), an actual energy- and bandwidth-consuming infrastructure supports our browsing habits. Once the Net broadened beyond ARPA, private companies (namely service providers like AT&T and Comcast) assumed control of its traffic lights. Service providers are huge corporations: profit machines compelled to consider little else. These companies want to charge content providers (Web sites ranging from Google to your favorite blog) a fee for more bandwith: more bandwith means the Net works faster for a given site.
The FCC hasn’t yet stepped in to regulate the practice, but is currently evaluating the available options. In a show of support for net neutrality – the principle that demands service providers keep the Net free and open and by extension an indie band’s site as fast as any multiplatinum act’s – a coalition of musicians and labels have united to make an album intent on persuading Congress and the FCC to come around to their point of view. After all, as labels suffer, the Net offers itself as an inevitable platform for whatever distribution model to come – take OK Go’s YouTube music video-fueled fame, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s blog-buzzed status, or Radiohead’s acclaimed In Rainbows digital release.
Though none of these bands appear as part of the collective of musicians supporting network neutrality on Rock the Net, the album more than makes up for their absence. Everyone knows that one of the most promising potentials the Internet offers audiophiles is ease of discovery. No longer must one buy countless so-so albums to find one gem: simply peruse Imeem, Muxtape, or MySpace for revelations. This disc provides a microcosm of that in tangible form: 15 artists – some familiar, some not so well-known – present tracks as varied as infinite cyberspace.
King me, Fudgie: Spermin’ out with drag’s biggest baller
Hey, girl, hey: In this week’s Super Ego clubs column, I talk to the reigning king and queen of SF Drag: Fudgie Frottage of this Saturday’s 13th Annual San Francisco Drag King Contest, and Heklina of Trannyshack, whose weekly club is coming to a nuclear close after 12 years as I type this (listen very carefully and you can hear dizzy trannies exploding in the distance….) before her giant Trannyshack Kiss-Off Party on Aug 23 at the Regency Center.
Footage of the century: A youngish Heklina plugs the first Trannyshacks at Fudgie’s legendary DragStrip club, April 14, 1996. Arturo Galster MCs.
Look at me, I’m a starfucker. Below is my extended, unexpurgated, sticky-fingered interview with Fudgie, aka Lu Read, whose hairy roots stretch back to the heyday of SF’s punk rock drag scene. Strap one on and dive in.
SFBG: This is your lucky 13 — are you planning anything, like, spooky? Are there any SF Drag King disaster stories you can share?
Fudgie: Well, our theme this year sets us Kings donating to a sperm bank — that is genetically spooky to many, though most find it hilarious. Drag King disaster stories? Well, last year one of my balls failed to inflate during the opening number “Big Balls,” but the concept got across so it wasn’t a total disaster.
Yes Nurse! No Nurse! Photos by Larry Utley
SFBG: What in general do you have planned for this glorious, gorious evening?
Fudgie: Hard and throbbing musical productions, firm and penetrating performances, and extraordinary feats of entertaningly unbridled masculine stamina and staying power. Cohost Indra and I have a few surprizes, Electro, the Pop n’ Lock King, SFDK title holder from 2000 is flying in from NY as our special guest. He hasn’t performed here for 8 years and I’m really looking forward to seeing him — he is a fantastic performer!
The Contest is very much like a variety show, we’ve got bands like The Mighty Slim Pickins and TuffnStuff, aerialist burlesque with Kitty Kitty Bang Bang: some Kings lipsynch, some sing live, some choreograph amazing dance routines, of course there’s Fakin’ Aiken, this year’s title holder plus the troupe title holders The Pacmen from Sacramento who are adorable, talented and handsome. Surely Delicio Del Toro, L. Ron Hubby and Seimen Marcus will do something wild and crazy. The contest is like a mash-up of the Miss America Pageant, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Project Runway, Halloween and a Monster Truck Show.
Fudgie gets fishy
SFBG: An annoying thing for me: Many people I know, even smart ones, don’t know much about the drag king community — drag queens get all the freakin’ press. What do you think about the lack of drag king visibility on the SF scene?
Photo Issue Q&A: Sean McFarland
To choose just one photo by Sean McFarland for this year’s Guardian Photo Issue was tough. Ultimately, we went with one from 2005 that looked best within the issue’s layout. McFarland’s more recent work was markedly different, but just as impressive. The interview below is interspersed with some of these more recent photos, and some interesting background information about their mysteries.
Sea, by Sean McFarland
At the moment, McFarland is part of the survey of Bay Area photography on display at City Hall (through Sept. 19), but that isn’t his only current show with a strong local element. He’s also a contributor to “Let Us Now Praise San Francisco,” at the 77 Geary space Marx and Zavattero Gallery. Up through this Saturday, it brings together select writers and photographers for a SF-specific 21st-century answer to James Agee’s and Walker Evans’ famous combo of word and images, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
Tornado, by Sean McFarland
SFBG In the last year or two, your work has shifted away from urban views to elemental images: sky, sea, vast land. What has set you off in that direction?
Sean McFarland: I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which the earth changes. In an urban environment, we build buildings, roads, and parks, changing the landscape. These are immediate and obvious alterations of our environment. Our actions also change the landscape as we alter the climate – more frequent and powerful storms, rising seas. By focusing on making images of the natural world, of the landscape, I’m interested in making pictures of us. How we change the earth and how the earth effects us.