Michelle Devereaux is in Toronto. Here’s her first report:
“I’m hearing Oscar buzz!” a giddy audience member shouted after the second public TIFF screening of For Your Consideration Tuesday afternoon, kicking off a 10-minute-plus Q&A with the cast and director Christopher Guest. She was being ironic — the film-within-the-film is a little indie that receives tons of Oscar speculation — but who knows? She might not be too far off base.
Day five.
Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
By Tim Redmond
Okay, so I tweaked Sup. Bevan Dufty a couple of weeks ago about an item that appeared in Matier and Ross Aug. 20. The item suggested that “mud balls are being lobbed” in the District 8 supervisorial campaign; someone apparently sent the dynamic duo at the Chron a “1995 news clip from the Chicago Tribune describing how Rosenthal, then a 22-year-old senior at Northwestern University, abruptly resigned as student body president rather than face an impeachment hearing over a campaign finance scandal.
“Her sin: Exceeding the campaign spending limit by $26.06”
I picked it up and raised the question: Since Dufty has made a huge point (rightly so) of refusing to engage in negative campaigning, who exactly was flinging this mud?
Well, it’s turned into a fascinating little teapot tempest.
Dufty came in for an endorsement interview last week (we’ll post the full tape, all 90 minutes of it, on sfbg.com in a day or two), and tore into me for implying that he was somehow involved in dishing dirt on another candidate. He said he’d called Matier and Ross and complained that they never asked him for comment on the item (true); he then told us that the boys had apologized and promised to run a correction. He swore nobody affiliated with his campaign had done it, and suggested that it might have come from anywhere — even Rosenthal herself.
That’s not how Andy Ross remembers it. Ross told me that Dufty had, indeed, called him to complain, but that he had never promised to correct anything — the item, he insisted, was entirely accurate.
No, Dufty wasn’t the source for the dirt — but it was, Ross promised me, “someone in his corner … that’s why we said mud was flying.”
So someone allied with Dufty — perhaps an overzealous supporter — dragged Bevan the clean campaigner’s name through the, uh, mud by dredging up a silly and pointless item from a decade ago and tossing it to the Chron.
Dufty disavowed the hit, and told me that anyone who would do something like that “shouldn’t claim to be a supporter of mine.” But it raises an interesting question: Why would any of Dufty’s allies waste time on this sort of stuff? (Among other things, the B.A.R. has made a point of playing up Rosenthal’s attendance at Burning Man). Could it be that, as the latest Progressive Voter Index shows, District 8 is still a pretty left-voting part of the city? Rosenthal has some real political challenges — she’s not well known, she’s a straight woman running in what has traditionally been a gay district, and Dufty has most of the key endorsements — but on the issues, especially tenant issues, Rosenthal may be more in touch with the voters.
Frankly, Dufty’s the clear front runner at this point. For anyone in his “corner” to give Rosenthal additional press and credibility by attacking her for something everyone with any sense knows is irrelevant — that’s either a sign of world-class stupidity or a signal that the incumbent is vulnerable.
By G.W. Schulz
So I’ve been watching older episodes of Frontline lately, the longtime investigative journalism program produced by PBS. You can download each of their past shows in pieces here. Sure, it doesn’t sound like the most exciting way to spend your free time, and it may even say something disturbing about my personal life.
Maybe it helps that as I watch Frontline, I swill whiskey and crank the volume on the computer’s speakers – neighbors be damned – while spitting a beer chaser at the screen when a voiceover lists the show’s nonprofit benefactors. Okay, that’s a lie.
Taxes, zits, and coffee breath – these things are eternal. Add to that list “Rock ‘n’ Roll Bingo” at Blankspace in Oakland on Sept. 1. This third installment of the Oakland Art Murmur event featured the Bay’s winning bro-duo Moore Brothers and Santa Cruz chamber-goofers Antarctica Takes It (Bookends canceled, shoot). Most amazing – this writer took home an awesome prize (a fine alternative to the unicorn thrift scores): a tote bag design original by artist Tonya Solley Thornton. Bingo, indeed.
Game? All photos by Kimberly Chun
A few days later on Sept. 5, we stopped by Great American Music Hall to catch Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog (with longtime local Ches Smith on drums) and our pals Deerhoof.
Onetime guitarist-bassist Chris Cohen will be missed, but man, has John Dieterich stepped up, big time. The ‘Hoofies are approaching their songs from new, streamlined angles. Awesome, as usual. Before the show, drummer Greg Saunier had tales to tell from the road and Radiohead (Jonny Greenwood did their lights on their last show together in Europe, Saunier said).
Deerhoof was off to LA right after the show, he added, to finish mixing their forthcoming new album, Friend Opportunity, which the band worked on while out with Radiohead (it’s scheduled to come out Jan. 23, 2007). Next it was off to tour the East Coast with Flaming Lips.
When will we see Greg, Satomi, and John again? Not soon – the trio was also in LA recording and co-composing a score for Justin Theroux’s new film, Dedication, starring Billy Crudup, Mandy Moore, Tom Wilkinson, and Amy Sedaris. And a Milk Man ballet, inspired by the Deerhoof album, is in the works in October at the North Haven Community School in North Haven, Maine. Their likes won’t be seen again till Nov. 11 at RIOTT! at Bill Graham Civic. So count yourself lucky, Deerhoofies, that you saw ’em before they scampered off into the wilds again.
Believe the hype: Borat rules. It has a release date of November 3. I suggest you mark it on your calendar … you will not be sorry. (Unless highly offensive, off-color humor — and the sight of two hairy, naked men vigorously wrestling their way across a banquet hall filled with mortgage brokers — ain’t your cup of tea. Then you can skip it. Everyone else will bust a gut without you.)
Image of Yoko Ono and John Lennon, as seen in The U.S. vs. John Lennon, courtesy AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS.
It’s raining in Toronto … and New York City, setting for the weep-tastic Bollywood epic Never Say Goodbye, where no emotionally-charged moment passes without soaking at least one major character (and random passers-by) to the bone.
Just interviewed Bong Joon-ho, director of The Host, which even random journalists I’ve never met are declaring “the best thing here” in crowded elevators. More on the interview later, but after the jump, an example of something I’ve been seeing all over fest turf today…
Author and critic B. Ruby Rich (who programmed TIFF’s 2002 runaway hit and award winner Whale Rider) checks in with her first report from the fest:
The Contra Costa Times report that Hearst could end up “partly” owning the Times and the San Jose Mercury News
I was about to start my daily blog by twitting the Hearst/Chronicle for its two telling heads in today’s paper: front page in big type (“HEWLETT-PACKARD SAYS IT SPIED ON REPORTERS.” And then a David Lazarus special across the top of the business page: “HP’s investigation broke state laws, attorney general says.” Good stories, important subject, good to see the AG awakening from his slumbers, but……why can’t Hearst and the AG move on the big CENSORED media monopoly story that I have been blogging on for days and George Schulz laid out in our current Project Censored package, “The Silent Scandal, How does media concentration affect the news we read? Just check out the coverage of the latest newspaper merger.”
Then I got a rocket from my reliable source in Contra Costa County who reported that the Times had run a major story today by George Avalos stating in its lead that Hearst “could wind up being partly owned by the current owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, according to documents filed in connection with a federal antitrust suit.” Its head: “Media firms’ deal disclosed, Lawsuit declaration reveals new details about MediaNews, Hearst financial arrangements.” The Merc ran a six-paragraph story, from “Mercury News Wire Services,” saying the same thing. The Oakland Tribune/Singleton ran a short version of the Avalos story. And the Chronicle/Hearst as usual blacked it all out and have yet to report its financial and stock involvement that in effect partners Hearst and Singleton.
Amazing. The documents have been publicly available for weeks. But only now, after the Bruce blogs and the Schultz story, have two Media News papers reported some critical details of the regional monopoly. And Hearst, with its vast business and court political reporting staff, somehow can’t cover the story.
Why?
There were significant quotes in the Times story: “Executives with MediaNews refused to comment. Frank Vega, publisher of the Chronicle, said, ‘I really don’t have any comment about the lawsuit. This is a Hearst-MediaNews deal.’” In other words, Dean Singleton/MediaNews out of Denver and Hearst out of New York are calling the shots and that is a prime reason for the local censored coverage in all Hearst/ Singleton papers. Impertinent question: Why don’t MediaNews executives and Vega demand that their editorial staffs cover the story or perhaps demand that they be allowed to cover the story?
Read the Times and Merc stories below, then read my previous blogs and the Schulz story to get a fuller perspective on what is going down here: a quiet move by Hearst/Singleton, aided and abetted by McClatchy/Gannett/Stephens, and facilitated by Justice and Atty. Gen. Bill (the Consolidator) Lockyer, to kill newspaper competition in the Bay Area and impose deadly regional monopoly. That is the real story and I hope the Conglomerati begin to allow their reporters and editors to start doing real reporting on the biggest censored story of the year. I am certain they would love to do it, allegro furioso.
Memo to Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto: you are doing good, keep on rolling. Memo to Carl Jensen and Peter Phillips at Project Censored: congratulations, you have once again confirmed the value of your project. Memo to the Conglomerati publishers: Publish the Censored stories and give us a ray of hope for the future of journalism in the Bay Area.
Meanwhile, to get the news on monopoly journalism. read the Bruce Blog, dammit! B3
P.S. Reporting in on Sunday evening: still no Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/McClatchy/Stephens story on the Project Censored package.
Day two. Why can’t every morning for the rest of my life begin with a Johnnie To movie?
By Tim Redmond
It’s hard to even describe how horrible this state Supreme Court ruling on the secrecy of police disciplinary cases really is. Read it and weep — or better, read it and hide. Under this ruling, the cops can do almost anything, and get away with it.
Something wicked this way comes: Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) in The Host. Copyright Magnolia Pictures.
Memo the readers of the Conglomerati (Singleton/Hearst/McClatchy/Gannett/Stephens papers):
Keep a sharp eye out to see if any of the papers of these big chains publish the Project Censored story. Or if they comment on it or on any of this year’s censored picks. Or if they run any real coverage of the coming of the regional newspaper monopoly, the Guardian’s pick as the biggest local censored story.
(So far, at blog presstime, my agents and I have not spotted any.)
If they don’t run the story, it would be further confirmation of the reason the Guardian is happy to run the story every year as a front page special, which is then run on the website of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) and in alternative papers throughout the country. It is confirmation of the fact that not only does the mainstream media censor or trivialize lots of major stories in favor of “junk food news,” but it even censors a major local story out of Sonoma State University that has become the longest running media censorship project in the country (30 years). Delicious: censoring the censored story.
Let the Guardian and the Bruce blog know if you spot anything.
Eurekaism is now more rampant than ever. Where it will all end knows only God and Dean Singleton.
P.S. All of this censorship only illustrates a key problem with the mainstream press. The bloggers have been blogging away on these stories throughout the year and they will continue to blog away on major stories the mainstream press (and its wire service, the Associated Press) censor or trivialize. B3, blogging away at sfbg.com
The noses were small, the dresses were expensive, the Mayor was in attendance, and the music was sublime. Yep, I crashed the annual SF Symphony Opening Gala, chockful o’ Zellerbachs, Wilseys, DuPonts and whomever else rich-like, and lived to blog all about it (despite being almost kicked out for yodeling during the singing of the National Anthem, ahem.)
“Pose for the Guardian? I’ve been in National Geographic, and I thought that was weird …” (actual quote)
So I was stumbling to work today when a horrible sight stopped me dead in my tracks, made me drop my purse, and burst me into tears. SOMEONE had painted over the Positive Visibility/Women Fight HIV and Invisibility mural at Haight and Scott.
Attention, film geeks: the Guardian‘s Toronto International Film Festival desk is up and running and frantically trying to patchwork together a schedule that crams in as many movies as possible without incurring some kind of mental break with reality as a result.
It’s a delicate balance, really, and one that brings forth a feeling of excitement, panic, and jet-lagged punchiness that I’ve never really felt at any other time in my life. Ideally, one figures out a way to see everything worth seeing (note: a personal judgement call all the way) while still leaving room for spontaneity, last-minute interviews, random networking, and bothersome other crap like meals, caffeine, and sleep. This is my second year at the fest, which happens to be the same exact age as me (31), and I’d be lying if I said I had the whole crazy shebang figured out.
wow — a lot of death on the blog this week. On Saturday, one of my favorite people in the world passed on from AIDS complications (yep, it still happens — drugs aren’t magic, people). Willi Ninja, voguer extraodinaire, mother of the House of Ninja, superfamous spokesperson for utterly fabulous butch queen love, was FIERCENESS itself. We’ll miss you Willie.
THE QUEEN OF BUTCH FEMME REALNESS
Check out this awesome YouTube tribute.
I met Willi when I was but a wee thing in NYC in the late 80s. I was at the height of my first club kid phase, doing the door with the IT TWINS at the World and Save the Robots, a mere teen hanger-on to all my glittery heroes, when he crossed my path — and crossed and crossed it! Girl, he was a human pretzel, a cyclonic blackalicious blur. All those flailing limbs! This was before Paris is Burning or Vogue came out (it was right around the time of Malcome McLaren’s awesome “Deep in Vogue” dancefloor shaker), and he wasn’t all internationally famous yet — but he was ROYALTY, you could smell it. He briefly commented nicely on my gold sequined short-shorts and blue afro (he thankfully said nothing about my giant Burger King crown) and moved through the party like a Swiss Army Knife thru butter. She moved thru the FAIR. I was star strucked.
He was only 45, but what a world of inspiration he leaves behind. The kids never die. FIERCE N HEVEN.
Vashti Bunyan is giving a concert at Great American Music Hall this week. To give an idea of how rare this event is, Bunyan has played fewer shows here than she has released albums, and she’s released exactly two long song collections: 1970’s justifiably adored Just Another Diamond Day and last year’s equally exquisite Lookaftering. With a little help from a calling card, I spoke with Bunyan recently about her not-so-hidden current bond with Devendra Banhart, her rather more secret past kinship with Francoise Hardy, the artistic leanings and pilgrim’s progress of the Bunyan family bloodline, the making of a Diamond Day movie, the cruelty beneath Swinging London’s fun, the wonders of home recording, and some friendly coincidences.
Guardian: I just ran up a hill to buy a calling card. How are you?
Vashti Bunyan: I’m fine. I’m comfortably at home at Edinburgh, [Scotland].
G: Have you been living in the same place for many years?
VB: Yes, we’ve been here for 12 years, which is the longest I’ve been anywhere in my life. I keep thinking, “Maybe it’s time to go?” But yes, I’m back in the city after many years of country living.
Hearst was last seen covering the big Hearst/Singleton deal via Reuters out of New York. Now it is blacking out the story completely. A tale of two footnotes tells all.
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Just in time to update our annual Project Censored package, the Hearst/Chronicle demonstrated yet again how the galloping Conglomerati are covering the big story in Eureka (where the MediaNews Group/
Singleton are competing headon with a local upstart daily) — and blacking out the much bigger story in the Bay Area where Hearst and Singleton are destroying daily competition and forming a regional monopoly, aided and abetted by the McClatchy, Gannett, and Stephens newspaper chains.
The major new development: The federal judge in the
Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto lawsuit against the deal okayed an agreement between lawyers from both sides to fast-track the suit and set a trial date for Feb. 26.
Obvioiusly, this is a major local news story. Josh Richman, a staff writer for the Singleton’s East Bay group, wrote a story dated Saturday, Sept. 2, headlined “Newspaper suit put on legal fast track.” The story quoted Alioto as saying on Monday Sept. 4 that he and Reilly “are grateful that the court has ordered an expedited trial date in this very important antitrust case which seeks to prevent the monopolization of newspapers in the Bay Area.”
The story quoted MediaNews president Jody Lodovic as offering “no comment except to note that the case was accelerated by mutual agreement. Hearst spokesman Paul Luthringer (B3 note: who he? where he? New York? ) said his company wouldn’t comment.” It is always great sport, of course, when publishers under fire say “no comment” to their own reporters.
Hearst’s last story on the deal came from the Reuters New Service out of New York (which it butchered, see my earlier blog.) This time, the Chronicle simply blacked out the story completely. The Singleton story left out a key point: that Hearst had invested $399 million in the deal and that the two major chains were becoming jolly good business and editorial partners in creating an unprecedented Bay Area newspaper monopoly. Both chains are sweating mightily to create the impression this is no big deal, there isn’t much of a story here, that Justice and the AG have cleared it, and Clint Reilly is just, well, Clint Reilly, and there is nothing to the lawsuit, and certainly nothing for anybody to worry about. Peace!
However, there is a deadly time bomb in the deal and it is hidden in a tiny footnote in Hearst’s July 25 filing in the suit. The footnote disclosed that Hearst is a major potential major investor and partner with Singleton. Here’s how it works: Hearst has stated repeatedly that its $299 million equity investment in MediaNews will be based on what is known as “tracking stock.” In other words, the value of the MediaNews stock will rise and fall depending solely on the performance of MediaNews businesses outside the Bay Area, which was a legal structure set up presumably to help the deal survive anticipated antitrust scrutiny.
However, Hearst admitted in the footnote that in the future the “tracking” stock “will be convertible into ordinary MNG common stock.” Hearst added that any such conversion will require additional antitrust review. Federal Judge Susan Illston picked up on the significance of this footnote in her own footnote in her ruling knocking out the Reilly request for temporary restraining order. She stated, “Although Hearst’s proposed interest in MediaNews does not include MediaNews Bay Area publications, Hearst implies in its filings that it will seek permission at a future time to convert its interest in MediaNews into MediaNews common stock.” (See the G.W. Schulz story in the current print and online Guardian).
Voila! In this mysterious tale of the two footnotes, the closely held secret is finally revealed: Hearst and Singleton are working hard to be partners, cheek to cheek, jowl to jowl, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. And this fact, among many others, demonstrates in 96 point Garamond Bold why they have employed Eurekaism and censored a big local story about newspaper monopoly, the local censored story of the year, while going hellbent to cover the story about Singleton’s competition in Eureka.
Stop the presses: Frances Dinkelspiel, in her Wednesday Aug. 30 blog (see link below), spotted a juicy Eureka and posted it under the head “Newspaper Coverage in the Bay Area is Shrinking.” Her lead: “the latest evidence of media consolidation in the Bay Area screamed out all over the front pages on Wednesday.”
She pointed out that the four major papers in the region (Hearst/Chronicle and the Singleton/Contra Costa Times/San Jose Mercury News/Oakland Tribune) all prominently displayed the same story–the story of the motorist who deliberately drove his car into l4 pedestrians, killed one man in Fremont, and injured l3 others in San Francisco.
“On Wednesday,” she said, “instead of four distinct stories on the region’s front pages, there were only two—one from the Chronicle and one from the MediaNews group.” (Merc reporters did the story for the three Singleton papers.) She concluded, “That’s a huge loss for Bay Area readers. Competition improves news coverage. What will readers miss out on in the future? What will readers miss out on in the future? This was just a police story; imagine the impact when the big story deals with corruption or another important, but less easily reported event. If fewer reporters are tracking the story, there will be fewer revelations.”
Eureka!
Postscript: Let’s keep the Eureka exercise going. Anybody who spots a Eurekaism, an example of the galloping Conglomerati censoring a local story, please send it along to the Guardian and the Bruce blog and any of the handful of independent voices left in the Bay Area. B3
By Tim Redmond
This lovely little gem dropped Friday afternoon, just before the Labor Day weekend, when much of hte nation was’t paying attention: The Pentagon is looking for bidders on a $20 million contract to monitor news media coverage of Iraq I could save the generals and admirials some money:
Get a clue, folks. The once-fawning news media is turning strong against the war.
You can make the check out to me.
By Kimberly Chun
It’s trippy but true: if you feel nostalgic for snow in the middle – or well, the tail end – of summer, you should head up to Lassen Volcanic National Park, north of Sacramento and chock-full of geothermal drama like boiling rivers, gurgling mudpots, and jagged rock formations. When I headed up with my veteran camping pal D, the campgrounds were relatively unpopulated; purple, yellow, and pink wildflowers were abundant; and dang, but wasn’t there an amazing amount of snow and ice on the ground – still dirty and frozen and seeded with pine needles at 7,000 feet. And ready to be fashioned into summer snow poodles (with thumbs, to boot).
Frolick in the snow in late August. It’s possible at certain altitudes, dudes.
I can’t lie. I was bummed — if not 100 percent totally shocked — to hear the news about Steve Irwin. Yeah, there was the thing with his infant son and the crocodile a few years ago. And he was definitely putting himself in danger every time he went toe-to-toe with whatever latest vicious creature he decided to feature in any of his Animal Planet specials (always with commentary that cheerfully belied the danger at hand: “Here’s the spitting cobra — deadly accurate! What a little beauty!”) When he came to San Francisco in 2002 to promote his feature film, Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, I had to take advantage of the opportunity to talk to him, just to see if he was actually that hyper and energetic and hopped up on animals all the time.
