SFBG Blogs

Summer of Love Schedule

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This Sunday September 2nd, from 9am – 6pm at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park more than 100 ’60s music icons will take the stage to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. The Council of Light and 2b1 Multimedia Inc. is producing the FREE (with a flower in your hair) event open to everyone.

Special surprise guests are expected, but below are all the rockin’ ones listed so far. Some of the guest master of ceremonies will be Wavy Gravy, Woodstock festival producer Artie Kornfeld and poet Lenore Kandel of the “Love Book.”

After the jump, the listed schedule

Exclusive! Gonzo burner speaks?

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Someone claiming to be the man who burnt The Man, Gonzo-enthusiast Paul Addis (“currently chilling out in Fernley NV”) has posted a juicy, lengthy comment to our blog in which he presents his side of the “you could have killed people!” case.

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Talkin’?

We hope it’s him — because this one’s a doozy of a justification (and at this point into my three-martini lunch it makes a teeny bit of sense. One more round!)

The poster identifies himself as “the ‘alleged’ arsonist/douchebag/attention whore himself.” Well, OK then!

We’re working on getting some verification. Meanwhile — there are reports that there’s been an apparent suicide on the playa. Is this really Burning Man’s Altamont?

Wifi meltdown, Newsom meltdown

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By Tim Redmond

It’s no surprise that Earthlink has backed out of its deal to provide free wi-fi in San Francisco; we predicted this weeks ago.

What’s annoying is that the mayor is trying to blame the supervisors for delaying the contract. What — they should have rushed to approve it even as the prime vendor was telling the rest of the world that it wasn’t interested in this line of business any more? The supes should have done no due diligence and just gone along with what the mayor wanted?

Newsom’s big election-year initiative has just burned down, and he’s looking for a scapegoat. It’s your own fault, My. Mayor; it was a bad deal from day one.

Freakend Alert! Wild bears, trannies ….

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This weekend’s clubs and parties: It’s a classic case of B&T this Labor Day weekend. Not B&T as in bridge and tunnel — although the fact that the BART’s open 24 hours while the Bay Bridge gets some fixin’ promises to flood the city with thankfully non-drunk driving revellers. (I myself plan to take advantage of this BART generosity by exploring some East Bay haunts I haven’t been able to visit in a while, like the White Horse Inn, the Ruby Room, and the Bench & Bar … look out Oaktown!)

Nope, it’s B&T as in bears and trannies, and a fab club called Trans Am (and more!). This week’s Super Ego column gave the lowdown on some of the events going on this week and next, here’s some more. Just for us.

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Look out!

Summer of Love not cancelled!

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We just received an e-mail from the organizers of the Summer of Love 40th Anniversary event happening this Sunday at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park. According to them, some nasty rumors have been circulating via Internetz and radio that this historic event has been cancelled. NOT TRUE!

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Tune in, turn on, drop by

We contacted the organizers, and they assure us that everything is hunky-dory, that the rumors appear to be propagated by unsavory sources (“a disturbed person or one of Nixon’s retired dirty tricksters,” they say), and that the event — which is expected to be attended by thousands eager to commemorate the incredible peace-wishing happening of 40 years ago — will go off just a cosmically as expected, with a stellar line-up including the likes of Canned Heat, Wavy Gravy, Riders of the Purple Sage, Michael McClure, and various former Doors. (A complete lineup of performers and activities can be found here.) See you there!

Resources

Summer of Love 40th Anniversary Web site

Info on the Summer of Love 40th Anniversary

Our 40th Anniversary Summer of Love reunion photo and “Where are they now?” (from Best of the Bay 2007)

Some key Summer of Love players still active in the community (from Best of the Bay 2007)

Summer of Love-related history from the Bruce Blog

The great Human Be-In Caper

Ammiano to gay Republicans…

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Gay Republicans repeat after me. I’m here. I’m queer. I’m sorry.

(Today’s Ammianoliner: on the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano’s home telephone.) B3

Pics of Mel Belli’s friends

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Some pictures of the friends of the famous San Francisco attorney at the Be-In 2007.

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Mel Belli’s friends got together last Friday night (Aug.24) for the Human Be-In 2007.

Belli, the famous San Francisco attorney and King of Torts, as he liked to call himself, has been dead for many years but his spirit lives on, at the Be-In and at Sunday’s Summer of Love spectacular in Speedway Meadows at Golden Gate Park.

The reason is a most tantalizing and unknown San Francisco story, as I mentioned in a previous blog and as a panelist at the Be-In. The two promoters of the first Be-In, Allen Cohen and Michael Bowen, were desperately trying to get a permit from City Hall for their original Be-In event in l967.

Allen got nowhere when he tried City Hall. So Bowen went to his friend Mel Belli, who sent his secretary over to City Hall. She came back later that afternoon with a permit. The permit was for “a birthday party for Mel Belli and his friends.” That was how the Human Be-In of l967, the precursor to the Summer of Love, was held legally on the Polo Field at Golden Gate Park.

And so you can say in an expansive Oraculean way that all the people who come to the Be-Ins and Summer of Love events, and tens of thousands are expected on Sunday, are friends of Mel Belli. He would get a kick out of that. B3

Click on the continue reading link to see some pictures of the Human Be-In 2007, taken by Raymond Van Tassel.
To see more pictures, go to his website at www.RaymondVanTassel.com.

Michelle Tea hits Sewdown

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By Michelle Tea

Last Saturday night I went to Sewdown, a fashion party that billed itself as an alternative to San Francisco’s fashion week.

Yes, San Francisco has a fashion week, and it’s OK that you didn’t know that.

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Sewdown took place at the Temple Nightclub, a place that does indeed look like a temple, for a religious sect worshipful of art galleries: the place is all white with high-ceilings and cold columns on the inside. The perfect place for a fashion show!

Me and my partner in finery, writer/filmmaker Tara Jepsen, grabbed some Cokes (no Diet Cokes? at a fashion show?) and started posing. Tara had raided the closet of an employee of Danielle Steel who gets to go on shopping jaunts to Paris, and as a result was wearing a Behnaz Sarafpour dress of silkscreened black lace and a mesh heart that framed her cleavage in a sweetly pornographic style. She also scored a knit Dolce & Gabbana purse, which we entertained ourselves with by speculating on its original price. Tara confirmed that yes undeed it does make you feel like a better person to wear amazingly fancy clothes, and I believe her because I felt like a better person just standing next to her. But this is not about me and Tara, this is about Sewdown.

Dispatch direct from the playa

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Man Down

By Steven T. Jones, aka Scribe

We were partying in deep playa, watching the lunar
eclipse, when we saw the man burn. I didn’t believe it
at first, thinking that it had to be the Burning Man
folks fucking with us, maybe with some bright lights
to simulate a fake burn. But it was enough for my
Garage Mahal campmates and I to take the party mobile
and cruise our art car back in toward the man, joining
a wave of art cars with the same idea. I still thought
it was a prank or piece of theater until …

Gonzales goes, but investigation must continue

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

From time to time, I will pass along articles that I think are particularly timely and cogent.
This week’s piece by John Nichols, in the Nation’s “Online Beat,” gets to the heart of the issue of the Gonzalez and Karl Rove resignations.

He writes, “The essential question with regard to Gonzalez remains the same as the question that Leahy ((Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont) laid down when Rove said he would go. What are these people so desperate to hide.

“The answer is that, just as Gonzalez and Rove served Bush rather than the Constitution, they now seek with their resignations to protect Bush–and Vice President Dick Cheney–from investigations that are necessary to any serious effort to restore the primacy of the founding document in the affairs of the nation.” B3

Do Bad (Burning) Boyz have good cop karma?

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By Sarah Phelan
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If you can’t afford to go to Burning Man, how about an overnighter at the Pershing County jail?

The Reno GazetteJournal reports that 35-year-old San Francisco resident Paul Addis was booked into Pershing County Jail on suspicion of arson and possession of illegal fireworks after the 40-ft high Burning Man icon got torched in the wee hours of Tuesday, four days ahead of the scheduled burn.

But did “Burning Man burning” Addis foretell his 2007 self-immolation four years ago in an essay called “Good Cop Karma,“?
And if “Good Cop Karma” Addis is “Burning Man burning” Addis, then Pershing County sheriff better beware: because “Good Cop Karma” Addis describes taunting San Francisco police with,er, a giant black dildo before being let go, after being wrongfully accused–a happy ending he chalked up to “good cop karma,” natch.

It’s not yet clear what kind of karma “Burning Man burning” Addis has with sheriffs, but when we checked earlier today, visitors to the Pershing County sherrif’s department website were being greeted with a reggae riff of “Bad Boyz.”

The Gonzo burner

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Mugshot of Paul Addis from the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office


See the comments below to read Paul Addis’s exclusive statement to the Guardian

Well, according to Laughinsquid and a commenter on sfgate, the alleged arsonist, Paul Addis, recently performed a one-man play about Hunter Thompson called “Gonzo.” And apparently he’s not too thrilled with the people who run Burning Man.

If that’s true, then his fiery act would be a very Gonzo thing to do.

Steve Jones, calling by satellite phone, says there were weird signs at the Burning Man entrance saying “what if they burned him Tuesday?”

I have to say: Charging this guy with arson, which carries a hefty prison sentencce, for burning something that was going to be burned in a few days anyway is kind of harsh.

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Paul Addis as HS Thompson (photo: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

Premature inflammation?

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Somebdoy tried to burn the Burning Man icon, a bit too soon. A San Francisco man was arrested and charged with arson.

OUr man on the scene, Steve Jones, just called in by satellite phone to let us know that the premature inflammation happened during the lunar eclipse, and that the mood on the playa is a bit somber. More details to come.

Jiminy! Another gay Republican

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(UPDATE 5:30PM: A concerned reader just informed us that you can see Craig’s creepy mug shot, along with a photo of the pretty yummy decoy cop here. No fair if the cops are that cute!)

Except that I’m completely against them, I have nothing against gay Republicans: we’re all driven by the engines of hypocrisy in one form or other – and accepting yourself is a lifelong journey, incredibly difficult for some. We are everywhere, darnit. (For a great history of closeted Republicans, click here.) So I didn’t jump to posting about the Larry Craig scandal until I got a few facts, er, straight – like his heinous record of voting against equal rights (looks like, for once, Perez freaking Hilton did his homework, and there’s a solid little encapsulation here. You can look up Larry Craig’s individual Senate votes here.) Plus, I was awfully busy celebrating Alberto Gonzales’s resignation. Not even this could take that away from me.

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“Wide stance.”

I also wanted to read the giant expose that the Idaho Statesman was hyping today. Even though Roll Call broke the story of the three-term senator from Idaho who had been arrested for cruising the bathrooms of a Minnesota airport, the Statesman had been investigating allegations of Craig’s homosexuality for months – and there are portions of a revealing interview with the Senator (and, alas, his poor wife) included, where the Senator actually keeps saying “Jiminy!” A LOT.

I talked with a Zombie

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The busiest guy with an undead name in showbiz? Rob Zombie. Like a certain mask-wearing maniac, the man can’t be stopped – at least when it comes to doing press for Halloween, his latest film, which opens Friday, August 31 (giving you a full two months to prepare for the actual holiday). I zoomed into the office after an ill-advised night out for my 8:45 a.m. interview. My phone was lit up like Vegas – Mr. Zombie was running a bit late, could I hold on for a few minutes? Yeah, I could hold on to talk about Halloween – John Carpenter’s 1978 original is my go-to favorite film citation, and I’m anticipating the remake with every bloody bone in my horror-geek body. I don’t like doing interviews before I’ve seen the film, but again – it’s Halloween, dude. A movie that – let’s be honest – needs no enhancement to be scary, even in 2007. But I’m willing to see what Zombie has to offer. Which leads me to my first question …

San Francisco Bay Guardian: What do you think makes you different from other directors who’ve remade horror films (see: The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Fog, etc. etc.)? I know you’re a huge horror fan…

Rob Zombie: It’s hard to say. All directors are different. And for me to assume I know who they are and what they do and what their motivations are would be presumptuous on my part. But the only thing that I know is that what makes this remake possibly different from others is that it’s not just a job. If you’re gonna take on something, you have to take it on because you have some passion for the project. Because I’ve been offered other things in the past and I’ve turned them all down because I was just kind of like, “Why would you remake that? Who give a shit?” So I mean, maybe that’s different. Sometimes people just take on jobs that they really don’t have a passion for, and it shows.

Bert Jansch – fresh as a sweet Sunday evening

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Magic time with Bert Jansch. Photo courtesy of bertjansch.com.


By Todd Lavoie

First off, I gotta ask this: have you ever sat in the Swedish American Hall, waiting for a show to begin, sipping your tea (and wishing it was a cup full of glogg, just to get in the spirit of things, y’know) and soaking up all of the woodcarving wizardry of the place, only to find yourself staring up at that pseudo-Masonic crest posted over the stage, wondering what it means? No? Well, I do, dork of dorks that I am.

“Fylgia,” it reads on the top of this oh-so-captivating piece of cryptic craftmanship, and every time I catch a show at the hall, I brood over the significance of the word, telling myself that this will be the night when I go home and look the damn thing up and put the question to rest. Of course, by the time I get home, I’ve forgotten all about it – till the next show, anyway.

But not tonight! No siree, bucko: tonight I wrote it down on my arm and when I got home, I Googled it. Turns out there are a whole bunch of possibilities, but the one I like best is this: Fylgia is, according to Scandinavian mythology, a supernatural creature that accompanies a person. Oftentimes it takes animal form and it may be considered similar to a person’s soul, separate from the body. Makes the unbelievable acoustics of that space take on a whole new weight, eh? Ah, mythology – gods and goddesses and the whole bit. No wonder I love that venue – it’s fucking epic.

Which brings us to Bert Jansch. Talk about epic! Neil Young – no six-string slouch himself – once famously said that Jansch had done for the acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric, and the man had a serious point there. Sure, I’ve thought so for the longest time – ever since buying his It Don’t Bother Me on a whim back in college just ‘cause I’d heard his band Pentangle was cool and I liked the cover photo with his rumpled “whatever” look, only to undergo a major folk epiphany when I set the needle to the record. Still, watching the seemingly effortless grace with which Jansch spun off into jazz and blues idioms while throwing down some deliciously melancholic folk at Swedish American Hall on Sunday, Aug. 26, I have all the proof I need that Neil once again was right.

Don Perata gives up

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Here’s a lovely bit of political defeatism, courtesy of Calitics.

Today’s Ammianoliner

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Gonzalez steps down. His last act is to ban same sex cock fighting.

(On the voicemail of Sup. Tom Ammiano). B3

What’s in a name? Answer: $26,000

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A few weeks ago, we told you the story of Kevin Scott Noah, a carpenter who fell to his death while working on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2002. Occupational safety officials fined his employer, a joint venture known as Shimmick-Obayashi, $26,000 for a handful of alleged violations.

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But four years later on appeal, an administrative judge tossed every single one of the fines arguing that a bizarre technicality meant Shimmick-Obayashi wasn’t responsible for the accident. Cal/OSHA, the judge concluded, hadn’t printed the full legal name of the company on the citations, so the contractor didn’t have to pay a dime.

Apparently, however, state auditors don’t give a lick what the company’s full legal name is – they know that using the shorter but clearly decipherable “Shimmick-Obayashi” should be enough, according to the report linked above. So while one bureaucracy can waste thousands completing an investigation that’s dismissed on a single flimsy claim four years after the fact, another can summarize what that same firm is earning in contract change orders and simply refer to them as “Shimmick-Obayashi” without anyone declaring the audit invalid.

By the way, between April and June alone, the Shimmick-Obayashi joint venture (not their full legal name, your honor) earned $212,000 in contract change orders. Earlier we reported that Shimmick-Obayashi would likely earn a total of $30 million more to help retrofit the Golden Gate Bridge than authorities originally anticipated. The initial contract was for $122 million.

Now recycling is the problem

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By Tim Redmond

The latest installment in the San Francisco Chronicle’s war on the homeless is pretty insane. According to C.W. Nevius, the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council’s recycling station is part of the problem and perhaps ought to be shut down.

Think about this for a second: Homeless people have had their general assistance and SSI benefits cut repeatedly. G.A., thanks to Care not Cash, is down to almost nothing. So how are these folks supposed to eat (much less ever find a place to live)?

Some of them do a bit of real work: They go around town and collect bottles and cans, some of which would otherwise be unsightly garbage. Some of the cans and bottles also came out of people’s blue bins, and would otherwise by recycled (for money) by the private garbage company, which is quite profitable anyway; I’m not going to cry about that sort of “theft.”

So these folks haul the bottles to the recycling center and get a few bucks, which, as the Chron even admits, often goes immediately for (imagine this!) food. I bet some of the remaining money sometimes goes for booze or drugs. (Some of my remaiming money every week goes for booze, too, and I know a few highly upstanding citizens who spend some of their disposable cash on the ol’ Evil Weed. I don’t think this signals the imminent decline of society.)

Here’s my question: What would the opponents of the HANC recycling center do — deny the can-collectors their money? Because here’s what would happen: More aggressive panhandling. More petty theft. Car windows broken and stereos stolen. Bicycles stolen. That sort of thing.

As long as we can’t provide people with a decent place to live in this rich city, some will sleep outdoors, including in the park. And they’re going to find a way to get some cash every day. I think the current situation is a lot better than many of the available alternatives.

Bling in the police union’s new contract

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Some might suggest that reading reports from the city’s budget analyst over tumblers of well bourbon at Mission Bar is a little pathetic. They’re right, but the damn things are so often full of such great little stories, we can’t help it. And they’re not available on the city’s Web site; you have to request and obtain them from the board clerk’s office, leading us to wonder how many people actually read them.

San Francisco’s longtime Budget Analyst Harvey Rose reviewed more than two-dozen union contracts for city workers passed this year by the Board of Supervisors. You’re gonna love what we found in the police union’s new agreement with the city.

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San Francisco police officers don’t like living inside city limits, because they say it’s too expensive. Cops do fairly well here, and as we reported awhile back, Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, even anticipates that his union’s rank-and-file will be the highest paid in the nation by 2011.

But that’s not enough to keep officers from escaping to the ‘burbs, which would pose a serious logistical problem if a major natural disaster occurred and emergency personnel couldn’t cross damaged bridges back into the city fast enough. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi contended earlier this month that 75 percent of the force lives outside the city, and he wants more recruitment efforts to take place within the heart of San Francisco. An equally startling number of firefighters live elsewhere, too.

So the city of San Francisco will be handing $20,000 checks to officers as a down payment on a home in the city if they move back. It’s actually a “loan,” but it doesn’t have to be paid back if the recipient lives in the home for at least five years. If the cop is a renter, they can receive $5,000 for “relocation-related expenses.”

Bye-bye, bandshell

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Luckily or unluckily, many people who may be really bummed out about this news are on their way to Burning Man. Parks and Rec has decided not to extend the Panhandle Bandshell‘s permit, and the much-feted piece of public sculpture/architecture will be dismantled in September. (The bandshell was constructed and managed by some of the more active Burning Man-related organizations)

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A detail from our 2007 Summer of Love reunion photo, taken at the bandshell. (See! We used it!)

Many people love this neato art work, but others claim it was a magnet for homeless people. I rabidly disagree. I live right by there and it’s not the bandshell that’s the problem — I’d say the problem is the homelessness. Still, I wouldn’t want the fancy residents of the “up-and-coming” Nopa neighborhood to have their idyllic dog walks interrupted by social facts. Many of these same complainers also gripe that the bandshell was hardly ever used (it was intended to provide a space for public entertainment.) But how many of these people put on any puppet shows, or grabbed a guitar or tambourine and contributed?

I have a wonderful memory from when the bandshell first went up. My mother was in town visiting. We encountered the bandshell and she hoisted me up on the stage and we did a little tango for observers nearby. Aplause, applause. Thanks, bandshell!

Classic! Ching Chang’s other fall opera and classical music picks

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From upon high: Tallis Scholars.

As summer melts into fall, symphonies, singers, and fine classical music purveyors shift into high gear. Contributor Ching Chang delved into a few Philip Glass performances, and offered an array of classical and opera picks in his fall arts preview – here are a few more selections.

More Philip Glass Works

Music for Two Pianos

This benefit concert for the Other Minds festival highlights Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa in a recital of works for two pianos by Philip Glass and JS Bach, as well as new works by Balduin Sulzer, Chen Yi, and San Francisco composer Adam Fong.

Oct. 11, 8 p.m. (panel discussion 7 p.m.), $20-$50. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 934-8134, www.otherminds.org

Synesthesia: Bridging the Senses

San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s BluePrint presents a performance of Philip Glass’s Facades, with projections by local video artist Elliot Anderson.

Oct. 13, 8 p.m. (discussion 7:15 pm.), $15-$20. Concert Hall, SF Conservatory of Music,
50 Oak, SF. (415) 503-6275, www.sfcm.edu

More Classical Music to Look Out For

Strauss’s Alpine Symphony

Young Swiss conductor Phillippe Jordan is quickly emerging in Europe as an exciting interpreter of Richard Strauss. For his SF Symphony debut, he leads the Alpine Symphony, a massive tone poem scored for an orchestra of 120 musicians, which the composer uses to capture the epic feel of a journey through the Alps.

Oct. 25, 8 p.m., at Flint Center for the Performing Arts, 21250 Stevens Creek, Cupertino. Oct. 26-27, 8 p.m., at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. $25-$125. (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org

Tallis Scholars

The finest a cappella ensemble in the world, the Tallis Scholars pay a visit to the Bay Area in their latest US tour, performing renaissance motets by Palestrina, Mouton, and Josquin, and other 15th and 16th century works centered on the Virgin Mary.

Nov. 30, 8 p.m., at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk. Dec. 1, 8 p.m., at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF. $48. (510) 642-9988, www.calperfomances.net

Castro: Muerto?

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By Stephen Torres

UPDATE: 8/27 — Castro still not officially dead. Sorry, Perez!

The poison pen of notorious blogger Perez Hilton has apparently sealed the end of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. According to the celebrity mudslinger’s eponymous website, www.perezhilton.com, the infamous leader is dead.

Rumors of his death have been circulating for awhile now, but due to Hilton’s reputation for leaking celebrity gossip before anyone else, including veterans of the gossip biz, the interest of the media and Cuban Americans alike has been piqued. Apparently, Miami is afire with the news.

Hilton is of Cuban descent and stands by his source, claiming it is only a matter of time before the Cuban government concedes the truth.

We want to know: What does it mean for the state of our world when news outlets get their tips from PhotoShop-happy celebrity bloggers?

Oh yeah, and we guess Castro (alleged?) death is important too.

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The crazy part is that this “news” comes by way of Hilton instead of the AP and that people take this Hedda Hopper of the Internet as a serious source. The fact that I write about this as bog posting only continues this dubious gossip mill.

For an inside glimpse at Hilton and his thoughts on journalistic responsibility and his place in the media firmament. Check out the latest issue of the delectable BUTT Magazine on newsstands now.

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