Advice

No rest for the ‘No Wave’: author Marc Masters chats up his tome

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What’s the story behind the music movement that cried, “No”? I recently caught up with No Wave author Marc Masters via e-mail, as he prepared for a series of Bay Area appearances: Saturday, May 24, at Amoeba Music in SF and 21 Grand in Oakland and Sunday, May 25, at Artists’ Television Access in SF.

SFBG: How did the book project come about?

Marc Masters: Black Dog approached me about writing a book about another subject, but for various reasons that fell through. They mentioned they had been considering doing a no wave book for a while. I¹d always liked no wave and wanted to delve further into it, since there have been lots of theories about it when it happened, which bands were part of it, and so on. So I was really excited to get that chance. I was intimated, too – so I contacted Weasel Walter for advice, since he¹s been researching and collecting this stuff forever. When he agreed to help with material and proofreading (and eventually write the foreword), I felt a lot less daunted.

The Bike Issue: Don’t stop

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In the two miles between my home and office in downtown Boise, there are five stop signs and 10 traffic lights. On a good day, I can make the journey without coming to a complete stop.

That doesn’t happen in my car because, of course, I’m a law-abiding driver. Yet on my bicycle, it’s possible for me to cruise through all five stop signs and effortlessly cruise right on through the downtown corridor without once touching my feet to the pavement.

And in Idaho, it’s completely legal.

Although cycling commuters here often bemoan the city’s ineffective bike lane system and criticize the lack of public bicycle parking, nary a word is spoken about the state’s progressive bicycle traffic laws. Thanks to some forward-thinking state legislators a couple of decades ago, Idaho’s bike laws are the envy of cyclists throughout the country.

The concept is a simple one that allows bicyclists to keep their momentum without ever taking the right-of-way from motorists: basically, stop signs are treated a yield signs, and stop lights as stop signs. Bicycles can legally blow through stop signs as long as it isn’t another driver’s turn. And at red lights, bicycles must stop, but can proceed if the intersection is clear

"There are lots of good reasons for it," said attorney Kurt Holzer, who specializes in bicycle accidents. Aside from the fact that a waiting cyclist won’t trip a traffic light changing mechanism, Holzer said the laws are in place for safety reasons. "If you have a bike on the right side and a car wants to turn right, the law allows the bike through the intersection, through the area of conflict, so the biker can get out of the way."

Newcomers to Boise often muse that people are less defined by what they drive than what’s hanging from their bike racks. Boise’s mayor endorses the bicycle and is a regular bike commuter. Mayor Dave Bieter is often seen pedaling to City Hall on his red 1969 Schwinn Typhoon — the bike he got for his 10th birthday.

Rather than each faction exerting ownership over the pavement, cyclists should know and follow all the laws, while drivers should concede that bicycles are different from cars and should therefore be subject to different laws. Stopping at empty intersections is cumbersome for drivers and cyclists alike — but cyclists aren’t likely to kill pedestrians with their carelessness.

By drawing a legal line in the sand between cars and bikes, allowing them different rules in the same environment, Idaho’s bike laws ultimately foster a mutual respect between drivers and cyclists. In Boise it’s common to see road signs instructing drivers and cyclists to "share the road." It may be common sense advice for cyclists, but to motorists, it’s a subtle reminder that bigger shouldn’t mean better.

Rachael Daigle is a staff writer for Boise Weekly.

Unlock your Sons and Daughters

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Raw, skin-glistening sensuality and brooding, lip-curled menace — ah, what a combination at the club. There’s something to be said for straddling the edge of a knife like that, simultaneously titilutf8g and unsettling those witnessing the spectacle onstage. When my partner and I first caught the fearsomely hot ‘n’ bothered Scottish quartet Sons and Daughters at a music-shop appearance in their hometown of Glasgow back in 2005, we were spellbound, rendered immobile in a mighty glue of arousal and trepidation. It felt wonderful.

Despite the bright lights and merchandise displays, the foursome had cloaked the room in lurid, late-night basement ambience: nothing but broken bottles and dark-corner encounters to be regretted the morning after. Force-of-nature vocalist Adele Bethel brandished the mic cord like a whip, lashing away at the floor like a bedroom punisher as her bandmates stoked rockabilly wildfires behind her. The powder keg at their core, shrapnel-blues guitarist Scott Paterson, provided the perfect sparring partner for Bethel’s tales of scary love and lusty violence, his soulful baritone bellow and spiked riffs further elevating the drama. Then there were the rhythms of drummer David Gow and bassist and occasional mandolinist Ailidh Lennon — alternating between deathly lurches and full-blown Sun Records shuffles on speed, their purely primal, low-end grind hit squarely between the gut and the groin. We were transfixed. And so the love affair — sordidness and all — began.

To locate the first strokes of desire, one must consult Sons and Daughters’ 2003 debut, Love the Cup (Domino), for answers. A seven-song collection of murderous urges and dirty romances, the mandolin-blazing mini-album threw fevered glances in the direction of X, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and as the song title "Johnny Cash" would suggest, the Man in Black himself. Offering both sweltering come-ons and skin-burrowing creep-outs, the highlight arrived with the ominous chug of "La Lune," in which Bethel offered some small comfort for listeners’ inevitable sneaking feelings: "The fear’s making sense."

The courtship blossomed with 2005’s The Repulsion Box (Domino), a continuation of the Glaswegians’ frenzied rockabilly trawls through id territory. But my head officially tumbled over my heels with the arrival of the recently released This Gift (Domino). Produced by former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, this third outing is an immense leap forward, heaping compellingly glamorous levels of reverb-heavy drama to the band’s more tightly focused explorations of the dark side of the pleasure principle. "Living’s so dangerous / Try to conduct yourself," Bethel counsels on the twisted soul rave-up "Darling." But somehow I have to wonder whether Sons and Daughters follow their own advice. Meanwhile, I seem to have fallen a bit deeper.

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

With Bodies of Water

Fri/2, 9 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.musichallsf.com

CC Riders

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> a&eletters@sfbg.com

LIT When filmmaker Bruce Baillie founded Canyon Cinema in the early 1960s, it was a backyard bohemia to show artisanal films and drink wine with neighbors. But it quickly took root as a cooperative serving the needs of a movement of underground filmmakers. In scholar Scott MacDonald’s lovingly detailed history, Canyon Cinema: The Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor (University of California Press, 480 pages, $29.95), Baillie’s early shambling is halcyon past, a sweet moment of spontaneous invention that then, rather surprisingly, begot a sustainable model for communal eclecticism.

Canyon wasn’t the only game in town — indeed, MacDonald describes the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative, which preceded Canyon, as "a single instance of an idea whose time had come." But the organization’s underlying West Coast flavor, open channels of communication, and relatively clean distribution record put it at the center of an unwieldy film culture.

Drawing from a wealth of primary materials, MacDonald has woven a compelling narrative of American avant-garde cinema. One hardly needs to be aware of obscure corners of the underground to appreciate the book’s lively mix of voices. MacDonald doles out generous segments of Cinemanews, Canyon’s in-house clearinghouse for letters, critiques, advice, poems, recipes, and — in later years — extended interviews with the anointed giants of the avant-garde.

Among Canyon Cinema‘s five historical "portfolios," we get a full panorama of Canyon’s burning personalities: Baillie’s Zen road correspondences (describing pies that contain grapes and flowers); John Lennon’s zonked fan letter to Bruce Conner; Conner’s fierce riposte to Jonas Mekas’ NY Cinematheque; Saul Landau’s exposé of police pressure on a local Jean Genet screening; a photograph of the board of directors forming a naked pyramid; Stan Brakhage holding forth on etymologies; Robert Pike’s thoughtful report on how programming avant-garde cinema in peep houses could be a profitable venture; a tender letter from Will Hindle worrying over teaching filmmaking in art institutes; George Kuchar comics; and last, a precious line from Commodore Sloat: "Maybe more bits of film history next letter: Hollis Frampton and my junior high astronomy book (which he won’t admit he has and has refused to return)."

Canyon Cinema is wonderful in its particulars. It’s a pleasure to explore the depths of an organization that was emblematic of the counterculture without being beholden to it. Of course, being located in San Francisco and Sausalito, it had a pretty good view. Canyon keeper and former Pacific Film Archive programmer Edith Kramer recalls of the 1967-69 heyday that "The East Coast people were coming out; everybody wanted to come out — for the right reasons and the wrong reasons." Already in 1968, Robert Nelson writes of "the ever-growing dirge of psychedelica that in three years has gone from far-out to ad nauseam." Things dry up a bit with the intellectualization of the ’70s, though there are passionate, nothing-for-granted debates over the currents of the co-op’s milieu.

One suspects this overarching prudence is because, as filmmakers and co-op members, these people were intimately familiar with the economics of personal expression. Canyon is a romantic, idealistic group, but also a utilitarian one. Despite frequent brushes with insolvency, the amazing fact remains: "During the past 40 years, Canyon has evolved into the most dependable distributor of alternative cinema in the United States, and it has done so without betraying the fundamental principles on which it was founded."

More on Home Depot pulling up stakes

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As Tim Redmond blogged yesterday, Home Depot has notified the city that it will not be opening a store on Bayshore Blvd. – ten years after the land entitlement process began. Guardian intern Michael Leonard spoke with several people involved in the process:

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, whose District 10 would have hosted the outlet expressed regret at the giant retailer’s decision, “People were certainly looking forward to the jobs and the convenience…and the sales tax dollars,” Maxwell said. “Now, it’s back to the drawing board.”

Not everyone in Maxwell’s district, however, or the city at large, was eager to have a mammoth chain store located in a vital neighborhood.

“Actually, there was not a lot of community support. There were people with money who tried to override real community voice,” Marie Harrison, a community organizer for GreenAction, told the Guardian.

According to Harrison, community opposition centered around two factors: the extra traffic and resulting pollution in the already industrialized area; small, local businesses being forced to close by a large, national chain.

It remains unknown what will become of the land plot. Mayor Newsom has requested that Home Depot hold off on pulling out of the deal. Maxwell stated that the some in the community had suggested a Target store or a movie complex during talks in past years.

As for Home Depot, the behemoth home improvement firm says it is not giving up on San Francisco. Spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher told us, “We want to reiterate our thanks to the many customers, city officials, and partners that expressed support of us…We hope to be part of the community someday.”

Harrison had some words of advice for Gallagher and other company officials should the firm opt to show up in town again. Noting that their proposed job numbers constantly fluctuated and that the estimated economic benefits of the proposed location never added up, she stated, “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep.”

Careers & Ed: Degrees of separation

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› culture@sfbg.com

Julia Cosart spends her days attending to San Francisco’s skin woes — unwanted hair, unwelcome wrinkles, and clogged pores — at Spa Radiance. Her calm, self-assured, soothing demeanor is not unlike the atmosphere of the spa in which she works. Which is why it’s hard to imagine her in the fast-paced, cutthroat world of advertising.

But that is where Cosart imagined herself ending up, having graduated in 2004 from the University of Nevada at Reno with a combined degree in advertising and journalism. After college, she tried her new career on for size with an advertising internship. "I realized I hated it," she says.

After working a few other jobs, including a stressful stint at a home for troubled youth, she decided to become an aesthetician by training at Miss Marty’s School of Beauty in San Francisco. Now, she says, "I love what I do. I only work three days a week, but make enough to live in a beautiful San Francisco apartment. Most importantly, I don’t go to a job I hate every day. There is very little stress in my life, and that’s no accident."

Cosart isn’t alone. According to experts like Alexandra Robbins, author of Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis: Advice from Twentysomethings Who Have Been There and Survived (Perigee, 2004), Cosart represents a current movement among recent (and not-so-recent) college graduates who are entering jobs that have nothing to do with their degree(s), or with a traditional four-year college at all. Generation Y is not one that leaves college to head straight for the embrace of the corporation that will keep them until retirement; people now in their mid-twenties will most likely change careers several times throughout their life. They are also delaying getting married and having children, deferrals that make it less appealing or necessary to immediately seek out a career-track job.

"I know someone who went to an Ivy League school and then became a mailman," Robbins says. "People are starting to realize that college isn’t a direct segue to the ‘real world.’"

TIME IS MONEY. SO IS MONEY.


For many college grads following this path, the appeal is both more money and more free time. While their newly graduated classmates work 50 hours per week to earn $25,000–$45,000 per year in typical post-BA employment, grads who take jobs that don’t require degrees (such as in the service industry) can earn much more.

That’s why Bert Ladner slings sushi to the Gucci-clad Financial District masses instead of using his degree in finance from San Francisco State University to be an entry-level accountant. In an ironic twist, he says, "I’ll definitely be waiting tables until I pay off my student loans. It would be impossible to pay those off on an entry-level salary."

It’s hard to track a server’s average "salary" — pay varies widely from restaurant to restaurant (and temperament to temperament) — but it’s estimated that a server could make $60,000 per year in a high-end restaurant. Ladner makes as much as $50,000.

Even better, he says, the lack of a set salary provides greater control over how much you make. "Need more money? Pick up an extra shift," Ladner says.

These jobs also provide more freedom about how you spend your time. Servers, aestheticians, and massage therapists all have control over the balance between money and time — and many seem to value the latter even more than the former.

"Quality of life is the top priority for the new generation for twentysomethings," explains Robbins. "It ranks higher than salary or prestige."

Some say this proves that Generation Y, widely considered to be navel-gazing, fun-loving, and responsibility-shirking, isn’t self-indulgent and lazy. It’s just that they’ve abandoned a Gordon Gecko-esque pursuit of status for a greater sense of equilibrium in life.

REAL CONNECTIONS


Another reason that service jobs seem to appeal to grads more than office jobs do is the increased level of human interaction.

"A trend I see a lot is students joining us after a few years in an office," says Rocky Hall of the San Francisco School of Massage. "In those jobs, they get tired of communicating electronically through e-mail, phone conferences, et cetera. They crave a genuine sense of connection with other people, which they find through massage."

Michelle Hamer, director of admissions for Miss Marty’s School of Beauty, agrees. "In a corporate world, it’s all done over e-mail and phone. There is an electronic wall between people. We are the last profession to touch people."

And even if grads aren’t actually touching people, they are meeting, talking to, and potentially spending social time with people they wouldn’t see in office jobs — both the clients they meet on the job and the friends they have more time for afterwards.

Riley Salant-Pearce says this is the benefit of waiting tables (he declined to name the restaurant). After earning his degree in biology from University of California, San Diego and guiding tours in Ecuador for a year, he found himself serving when he moved to San Francisco. Now, it’s hard for him to imagine doing a science job.

"I love the freedom of a restaurant job. I see my friends in 9-to-5 engineering and science-related jobs, and it’s too restrictive. They’re not having any fun. I make an equal amount of money, but I only work four nights a week," says Salant-Pearce, who estimates he makes about $40 an hour. "I make enough to live comfortably in San Francisco. Better than that, I can take time off to enjoy it."

He also likes the social environment of working in the service industry. "The restaurant was a great way to meet people," he says. "We all go out together when we get off. I realized I’m just too social to work in a lab."

Another selling point is that the interaction in these types of jobs tends to be of a happier, more relaxed sort. More often than not, those in the corporate world are stressed-out people dealing with other stressed-out people during work hours. The service industry sees those same corporate drones, but with their ties loosened at the bar or completely removed at the spa. Waiters and beauticians are salespeople, true, but they’re selling you something you already want. People want to buy drinks, eat lavish meals, enjoy massages, haircuts, and facials. This makes these industries sustainable.

"Beauty is a recession-proof industry," Hamer says. "People are always going to get their hair done. We maintain every other profession."

WHAT I COULD’VE BEEN


Yet many of these twentysomethings are consumed with self-doubt about "wasting" their college degrees. "Guilt does cause conflict for twentysomethings," Robbins says. "How do I weigh doing what I love with making enough money? A big part of that is image, thinking people judge them. It can take a big leap of faith to say, ‘You know what? This is how I’d like my life to be.’"

Christine Hassler, author of 20 Something Manifesto (New World), has been there. "After graduating from college, I became a successful Hollywood agent. By my mid-twenties, I had my own assistant," she says. "Agents are salespeople, and I don’t like sales. I was a nerd in high school, and the entertainment industry was the adult version of the popular crowd. I didn’t feel passionate about what I was doing. Now that I’m older, I realize that passion doesn’t come from external circumstances. But back then, I just felt lost."

So she decided to become a personal trainer.

"But I still felt lost. With all that education, I was counting to 12 in a gym all day. When people would ask what I did, I’d say, ‘I used to be an agent in Hollywood.’ I didn’t give value to personal training because it was frowned upon," she said.

Experts say part of getting over the guilt of having nondegree jobs is understanding they’re not just fun, easy, and carefree. Succeeding in them may not require a traditional degree, but they do require a certain amount of smarts and/or skill.

"Cosmetology requires an artistic background. You have to know people’s face shapes and what colors work on them," Hamer says. "Aestheticians approach skin from a medical perspective; they nurture and heal people with bad skin. And not everyone can do it. To be good, you have to be articulate and speak well to sell your product."

Cosart, who has been an aesthetician for three years, says she is "just now getting to the point where I’m really proud of it, where I’m not a little ashamed that this is what I’m doing with my college degree."

At the same time, Cosart is realizing that if she ever does want to rejoin the career track, it’ll take more than a BA to get her there. Since bachelor of arts degrees have become a dime a dozen, many twentysomethings feel pressure to get more advanced degrees to earn the prestige a BA might once have given them — and to distinguish themselves from the bachelor’s-holding lumpen. Cosart figures she’ll eventually go back to school, though she’s not sure what she’ll focus on. But if she does, she knows she’s learned a valuable lesson from this time outside the white-collar world.

"I’m grateful to have figured out early in life that in choosing a career, you must decide what you want your life to feel like, not what you want it to look like," she said. "Some people live for stress. I know because I listen their Blackberries buzz in their purses every 30 seconds even as I meticulously work the stress out of their pores and their shoulders. I’m not cut out for that, and I often wonder if they are."

South By Culture: Home again … and advice for next year

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Culture editor Molly Freedenberg hits SXSW for the first time to explore the festival’s extracurricular aspects. For Music Editor Kimberly Chun’s take on SXSW’s tunes, click here.

I’m finally back from South by Southwest. And by “back” I don’t only mean “in San Francisco.” The latter happened early Sunday morning. But I only recovered, brushed my teeth, got out of bed, and unpacked last night. Yes, it was that much fun, and that exhausting. (Yes, I also have a habit of squeezing every bit of fun out of every moment I can, which often leads to days of bed rest, but that’s another story…)

Now that I have some time to reflect, I can say deciding to go was one of the best ideas I ever had. (Way better than paying $180 to see Buffy the Musical.) First off, Austin’s rad. Now I completely understand why everyone I know is moving there. Rent is cheap. People are interesting. It’s got the politics, art, music, and culture of Portland and San Francisco but without the rain and gloom of either; and it’s got the weather of Los Angeles, but without the smog, the sprawl, or the especially high ratio of douche-bags to cool people our sister to the South has got.

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The unofficial SXSW (female) uniform: summer dresses and cowboy boots.

And second, the festival itself. How do I explain this? It isn’t simply that there’s music everywhere. It’s that everyone is there because they love being there. This is summer camp for music geeks. Or Sturgis. Or (don’t kill me for saying this) Burning Man. Southby isn’t just a big, spread-out Coachella or Bonnaroo – both of which are contained, commercial festivals in the traditional sense. This is more of a temporary culture – where every venue is dedicated to playing music from morning to night, and where every person there is so dedicated to music they want to spend several days immersed in it.

In fact, I found the experience of being at Southby much the same as being at Burning Man: intending to go one place and ending up at another, running into people I never expected to see, leaving the house at 11 a.m. with the intention of coming home for dinner and not seeing my bed until 4 a.m. Drinking early, forgetting to eat, thinking I’d found the most inspiring thing I’d ever seen and then, two blocks later, finding something even more inspiring. Sure, at Burning Man it’s guerrilla art or random performance or the joy of seeing Barbie Death Camp for the first time – at Southby, it’s rock bands that sound like Led Zeppelin (Parlour Mob) or discovering the punk band I’m listening to actually sings one my favorite song on an old, unlabelled mix tape (Meat Men) or finding my way into the Perez Hilton party (not as exciting as it sounds) with a writer friend from L.A. But the fundamental feeling is the same: riding the wave of the unexpected. I bet you could even draw parallels between relationships at Burning Man – how some are formed and how some are ruined – and those at Southby.

And just like Burning Man, Southby isn’t for everyone. The pace is breakneck. The beer is unlimited. And if you don’t like crowds, walking, or loud noise, it could be your biggest nightmare. But for people like me, it’s an absolute fantasy.

Which is to say, yes, of course, I’m going to go again. But I’ll do a few things differently. Here’s my advice for other Southby virgins, based on what I learned this year:

SXSW: Lou, Lou, la, Lou, Lou…

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Hal Willner and Lou Reed get down and sorta brief at SXSW. All photos by Kimberly Chun.

Lean, not so mean, and ready with both sage music-biz advice and disarming wisecracks – that was SXSW keynote speaker Lou Reed, chatting comfortably with collaborator-producer Hal Willner two hours ago today, March 13, at the Austin Convention Center.

The pair discussed Reed’s new concert doc capturing his 1973 LP, Berlin, at the behest of Julian Schnabel who considers the record one of his favorites. Reed talked about recreating the album in Europe, “but it won’t be here. But not in LA. Music business town. Not in the states.”

They showed a clip from the film of his band playing “Men of Good Fortune” with particular intensity. Cribbing from his own 2007 film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Schnabel drifts watery, transparent, shadowy imagery, seemingly pulled from the photo collage backdrop behind the band. The group includes guitarist Steve Hunter, Willner pointed out. Reed added that Hunter was in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal band, which was actually Alice Cooper’s combo. “It’s emotional music – that’s what’s so great about rock ‘n’ roll,” said Reed. Berlin was marked by the time: 1973, a time much like our own. “Don’t you agree? Terrible.”

Secret crush

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By Andrea Nemerson


› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I’m having the best sex of my life, but when I’m having a good time — which is often — my PC muscles have minds of their own and they get enthusiastic. I know I’ve got strong PC muscles because the last time I went to Doc Stirrup she told me to squeeze and then said, "Whoa." The end result is that I inflicted one doozy of a bruise on my poor guy’s junk.

He’s being a sport about it and says he doesn’t mind, but I know it hurts him afterwards and I’d rather not strangle my man.
Any advice?

Love,

Supergirl

Dear Girl:

I think we’d all rather you not cause permanent damage, physical or psychic, to your sweet baboo’s manhood (also either physical or psychic, come to think of it), and I do think I can help, although I understand that you are a woman to be reckoned with and he probably shouldn’t take anything for granted. (Note: I know the writer slightly, and nobody would mistake her for anything less than a force of nature, although obviously I had no idea just how much of a force. Bruising! Really.)

Now here’s the thing: the whole deal with yer basic dentata muscles is that they do operate via conscious control, so even though you’d rather be all transported and let your eyes roll back in your head and all that, you’ll need to think, really think, about relaxing those muscles while you’re at it, exactly the way those with less-toned bits have to concentrate on contracting them. In fact, perhaps it’s best to look at this entire problem backward, if you will.

While your (boyfriend’s) problem is not unheard of — one can, for instance, rapidly lose all feeling in one’s hand after inserting it up to the wrist in the terrifyingly well-toned interior of a Kegel-exercise enthusiast — the opposite complaint is far more common. When a woman can’t feel much upon intromission, or her male partner finds himself diligently thrusting away but has to keep reminding himself that he isn’t just pumping blindly into thin air, then it’s time for some Kegeling and some applied mindfulness. I suggest that you practice not contracting your pelvic muscles when excited, either with his help (warning: this exercise is not particularly erotic), or alone, or both ways. Women trying to get their muscles under conscious control can buy something such as a "Kegelsizer" or "vaginal barbell," even. These are rather lovely, smooth, heavy devices of stainless steel or similar, and one practices holding onto the larger, more bulbous end and progresses to the smaller, at which point one may also be able to project ping-pong balls across the barroom or smoke a cigarette in an unexpected manner. (But of course you’re not interested in such circus tricks. You’re not, right?)

I am quite sure that you could employ such exercises in the pursuit of less instead of more, since it’s less reflexive clenching you’re after, not less muscle. Just do be careful not to accidentally ultratone yourself. You could break something.

There are also, of course, tips and tricks for genital-size-discordant couples that could be brought into play here — in reverse. Women who want more friction for themselves and/or their partners keep their legs close together, so do the opposite. The famous but not-for-amateurs modified missionary position where the woman lies supine and the man straddles her legs, keeping them clamped between his manly thighs lest they dare to make a break for it, is another obvious no-no. The one with your feet up around his ears while he clutches your hips? Don’t do that. Also, all those tricks for better alignment (hip-tilt pillows and whatnot) are meant for G-spot (internal clitoral) stimulation, but that is accomplished partly by just making things tighter in there, so they’re contraindicated too. I’d also throw in whatever you yourselves do in pursuit of greater sensation, since in intercourse sensation is linked to tightness, which is linked to friction, and quit doing (briefly, we hope) whatever you were doing when you caused the bruising. Remember, we’re in Bizarro World here, so whatever feels especially intense is on the "quit it" list, at least until you get those Supergirl muscles under control. And in the interest of equal time for opposing cartoons, stop eating spinach.

Now, let’s consider lube. Lube is tricky, since it actually decreases friction yet improves sexual sensation, making a lie of what I said above about friction, but never mind that. Yes, I tell people who aren’t feeling enough to try more lube, and yes, I tell people who are feeling too much to try more lube. What the heck, it’s cheap.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

Freedom of Information: A citizen’s guide to fighting secret government

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San Francisco has the best local sunshine law in the country — and there are still problems getting access to information. Even though the digital age in which we live affords government agencies with myriad ways to give citizens more access to public documents, there is too often little official will to create transparency. And often, bureaucrats are downright hostile to public scrutiny. But help is out there. This guide to local and national organizations offers a wide range of resources for journalists, citizen activists, and hell-raisers who want to track their tax money and hold their government accountable.

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS


The California First Amendment Coalition is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission is to "promote and defend the people’s right to know" by improving compliance with state and federal access laws. CFAC’s Web site contains an archive of articles dealing with FOI issues, the texts of state FOI laws, and other useful resources. 534 Fourth St., Suite B, San Raphael, CA 94901. (415) 460-5060, cfac@cfac.org, www.cfac.org.

The California Newspaper Publishers Association is the umbrella organization to which most newspapers in the state belong, so it has an acute interest in open government. Its FOI Watch newsletter (also available online) includes a clearinghouse of sunshine news from around the state. 708 Tenth St., Sacramento, CA 95814. (916) 288-6015, tom@cnpa.com (general counsel Thomas Newton), www.cnpa.com.

Californians Aware, run by former CFAC general counsel Terry Francke, helps activists and organizations get access to public meetings and records and offers resources on the Web for citizens, public officials, journalists, and attorneys. 2218 Homewood Way, Carmichael, CA 95608. (916) 487-7000, info@calaware.org, www.calaware.org.

The Center for Investigative Reporting sponsors workshops on investigative techniques for journalists and university students. The center’s Web-based magazine provides FOI information, tips for journalists, and updates on past CIR investigations. 2927 Newbury St., Suite A, Berkeley, CA 94703. (510) 809-3160, center@cironline.org, www.muckraker.org.

The DataCenter provides on-call research, consultation, and referrals to justice organizations regarding FOI issues. It also offers research and action training. Services are free or on a sliding scale, depending on one’s ability to pay. 1904 Franklin St., Suite 900, Oakland, CA 94612. (510) 835-4692, ext. 376, www.datacenter.org.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online First Amendment organization, works to uphold digital free speech, empower the online public, and protect privacy on the Internet. It provides stories and alerts on its Web site, with daily updates. Effector, an e-mail newsletter, is available through the site. 454 Shotwell St., S.F., CA 94110. (415) 436-9333, information@eff.org, www.eff.org.

The First Amendment Project is a public interest law firm that provides legal representation, educational programs, and low-cost or free advice for journalists, public interest organizations, and individual citizens with public records and FOI-related issues. In a joint publication effort with the Society of Professional Journalists, the project offers three free pocket guides, on the Brown Act, California’s Open Meeting Law, and accessing court records. The Web page has information on using the California Public Records Act as well as on getting court records. 1736 Franklin St., 9th floor, Oakland, CA 94612. (510) 208-7744, fap@thefirstamendment.org, www.thefirstamendment.org.

Media Alliance is a nonprofit media center that offers classes on journalism skills, including how to find and use public records. 1904 Franklin St., Suite 500 Oakland, CA 94612. (510) 832-9000, information@media-alliance.org, www.media-alliance.org.

The Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, FOI Committee fights for open access to information and educates members of the public on FOI issues. The group provides a subscription e-mail list for journalists and others involved in FOI and First Amendment issues in California as well as putting on the James Madison FOI Awards. 222 Sutter St, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 321-1700, www.spj.org/norcal.

NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information conducts research and educates the public in mass-media law and the First Amendment, including public access to government meetings and records and litigation information. University of Florida, College of Journalism and Communications, 3208 Weimer Hall, P.O. Box 118400, Gainesville, FL 32611-8400. (352) 392-2273, www.jou.ufl.edu/brechner.

The Center for National Security Studies works with concerned citizens and groups to expose secret government policies and offers free assistance to those seeking records under the Freedom of Information Act. It also coordinates related litigation. 1120 19th St. NW, 8th floor, Washington, D.C. 20036. (202) 721-5650, cnss@cnss.org, www.cnss.org.

The FOIA Blog, created by an FOIA Washington attorney, has an updated list of documents currently being released by several government agencies infoprivacylaw@yahoo.com, www.thefoiablog.typepad.com.

The Freedom of Information Center of the University of Missouri School of Journalism has a collection of more than one million articles and documents about access to information at the local, state, and federal levels. The center works to ensure compliance with sunshine laws around the country. Its Web site contains links, updates, and tips on FOI inquiries. A free e-mail newsletter provides information on developments in FOI access and issues; you can sign up by contacting umcjourfoi@missouri.edu. University of Missouri, 133 Neff Annex, Columbia, MO 65211. (573) 882-5736, daviscn@missouri.edu, www.missouri.edu/~foiwww.

GovernmentDocs allows people to browse and search thousands of pages acquired through the FOIA and sunshine laws. Registered users can review and comment on documents. www.governmentdocs.org

GovTrack provides information on the U.S. Congress. It compiles information on federal legislation, voting records, and other congressional date and simplifies the language for ordinary citizens. It also indexes all bills, as well as changes to them, in Congress and all roll call votes www.govtrack.us.

Investigative Reporters and Editors provides educational services for investigative reporters and editors. The group’s Web site offers FOI-related resource guides, a database of FOI stories, tips for using the Freedom of Information Act, and a database of previous FOI requests. University of Missouri School of Journalism, 138 Neff Annex, Columbia, MO 65211. (573) 882-2042, www.ire.org

The National Freedom of Information Coalition is composed of First Amendment organizations dealing with FOI issues. It provides resources for the media, government officials, lawyers, and citizens who want access to public information. The coalition also offers seminars and workshops to media professionals, attorneys, academics, students, and the public on FOI issues and helps nurture start-up FOI groups and Internet sites. Its Web site offers links to relevant legislation and organizations state by state, as well as an Internet mailing list, FOI-L. 133 Neff Annex, Columbia, MO 65211. (573) 882-5736, cdavis@nfoic.org, www.nfoic.org.

OMB Watch is a member of the Public Access Working Group, a coalition of organizations promoting greater access to government information. OMB Watch offers an online newsletter, OMB Watcher, available on its Web site or by e-mail, which typically includes articles on FOI issues. To subscribe to the weekly e-mail version, e-mail join-ombwatcher@lyris.ombwatch.org. 1742 Connecticut NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. (202) 234-8494, www.ombwatch.org.

The Project on Government Secrecy is an advocacy and public education project of the Federation of American Scientists. The project has an extensive archive and provides regular news updates through its Web site and e-mail newsletter, Secrecy News. 1725 DeSales Street NW, 6th floor, Washington, D.C. 20036. (202) 454-4691, www.fas.org/sgp/index.htm.

Project Vote Smart provides information on local, state, and national candidates, including voting records, issue positions, campaign contributions, phone numbers, and mailing addresses. The database is accessible by calling the toll-free hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART. 1 Common Ground, Phillipsburg, MT 59858. (406) 859-8683 comments@vote-smart.org, www.vote-smart.org.

The Radio-Television News Directors Association is the world’s largest professional organization devoted to electronic journalism. It lobbies for cameras in courtrooms and strong FOI laws and provides coverage of FOI issues on its Web site. 1600 K St. NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20006. (202) 659-6510, www.rtnda.org.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press operates the 24-hour FOI Service Center at 1-800-336-4243 to answer emergency questions from journalists and others with open-records problems. 1101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1101, Arlington, VA 22209. (703) 807-2100, rcfp@rcfp.org, www.rcfp.org.

The Society of Professional Journalists advocates for open access to information and educates members of the public on FOI issues. The society’s Web site has an FOI section with extensive links to resources and information, including a list of FOI advocacy organizations. 3909 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN 46208. (317) 927-8000, questions@spj.org, www.spj.org.

State Sunshine and Open Records shares information, guidance and advice on developments and news about open records at the state and local level. They also have an extensive list of links to other sunshine blogs. www.openrecords.wordpress.com.

The Student Press Law Center works with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to cover FOI and other First Amendment issues reutf8g to high school and college journalists. It offers free advice, lawyer referrals, and analysis. 1101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1100, Arlington, VA 22209. (703) 807-1904, admin@splc.org, www.splc.org.

The Sunlight Foundation develops a database to ensure transparency in government and fiscal accountability. They digitize new info and provide access to existing information. 1818 N Street NW, Suite 410, Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 742-1520. www.sunlightfoundation.com.

WikiFOIA helps people understand the FOI Act on a state and federal level by providing a how-to-guide about open records requests, as well information on how to make that request. www.wikifoia.pbwiki.com.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND RESOURCES


The Guardian Web site has extensive information and links concerning international press-freedom issues. For details on journalists under fire, including frontline dispatches and reports from the battle to keep the world safe for journalists, go to www.sfbg.com/journalists/. For updates, dispatches, and links to national and international FOI groups, go to www.sfbg.com/FOI.

The UK FOI Blog provides a glimpse into how FOI issues are dealt with across the pond by listing news and developments on FOI in Great Britain. www.foia.blogspot.com.

Local government resources

The Government Information Center, on the fifth floor of the San Francisco Public Library’s Main Branch, stocks public documents published by the city. These include annual reports for committees and departments, minutes and agendas of official meetings, environmental impact reports, and city audits, ordinances, and resolutions. San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St., S.F., CA 94102. (415) 557-4500, www.sfpl.org.

The Oakland Public Ethics Commission responds to complaints and holds hearings on possible violations of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance. Records, tapes of the commission’s meetings, agendas, and minutes can be picked up at the commission’s office. 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 4th floor, Oakland, CA 94612. (510) 238-3593, ethicscommission@oaklandnet.com, www.oaklandnet.com/government/public_ethics/webpage.html.

The Office of Information and Privacy, U.S. Department of Justice, provides online versions of frequently requested records, opinions, policy statements, and guides to the Freedom of Information Act. The guides include detailed instructions for filing FOIA requests, average response times for different governmental offices, and a wealth of other useful information. The text of the FOIA is available on the office’s Web site. 1425 New York Ave., Suite 11050, Washington, D.C. 20530. (202) 514-3642, www.usdoj.gov/oip/oip.html.

Public Access to Court Electronic Records is an online database of court records and decisions. Web access is 8¢ a page, and requires registration through the Web at www.pacer.psc.uscourts.gov. P.O. Box 780549, San Antonio, TX 78278. 1-800-676-6856, pacer@psc.uscourts.gov.

The San Francisco Ethics Commission monitors and enforces the Sunshine Ordinance and the city’s governmental-ethics, campaign-finance, and lobbyist-reporting laws. Individuals can file complaints regarding violations of the Sunshine Ordinance. The commission meets the second Monday of each month at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall, Room 408. 25 Van Ness, Suite 220, S.F., CA 94102. (415) 252-3100, ethics.commission@sfgov.org, www.sfgov.org/site/ethics_index.asp.

The San Francisco Law Library is open to the public, though only government officials, state bar members, and judges can check out items. Main reference library: Mon.-Fri., 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Veterans War Memorial Building, 401 Van Ness, Room 400, S.F. (415) 554-6821. Courthouse reference room: Mon.-Fri., 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., 400 McAllister, Room 512, S.F. (415) 551-3647. Financial District branch: Mon.-Thurs., 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun., noon-4 p.m., 685 Market St., Suite 420, S.F. (415) 882-9310, www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/sfll_index.asp.

The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force oversees compliance with San Francisco’s sunshine law by investigating complaints from individuals who believe city officials have withheld records or conducted meetings in violation of the law. The task force meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at 4 p.m. City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244 (meetings held in Room 408), S.F. For complaint forms and other information call (415) 554-7724 or go to http://www.sfgov.org/site/sunshine_index.asp

PUBLICATIONS


The California First Amendment Coalition publishes the California Journalist’s Legal Notebook, a handy guide to the legal issues surrounding telephone interviews, press passes, gags on sources, and other journalism-related topics ($36.25, $30.88 for CFAC members, shipping included). Also by CFAC is The New Brown Act: How the Open Meeting Law Has Been Revised ($12.75, $7.39 for CFAC members, shipping included). (415) 460-5060.

The Oakland Public Ethics Commission publishes a free brochure, How to Notice a Public Meeting under the Oakland Sunshine Ordinance and the Brown Act, useful for making sure a public meeting follows the requirements of the Brown Act. (510) 238-3593, (510) 238-6620, ethicscommission@Oaklandnet.com, www.oaklandnet.com/government/public_ethics/webpage.html.

Access to Courts and Court Records in California, Open Meeting Laws in California, and The California Public Records Act are free, convenient, quick-reference guides published by the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, and the First Amendment Project. (510) 208-7744, www.thefirstamendment.org/freepress.html.

The ACLU Freedom of Information Project publishes Using the Freedom of Information Act: A Step-by-Step Guide (#4002, $3) and Your Right to Government Information (#1190, $5.95), which covers a broader range of topics, including how to get into public meetings. Both publications can be ordered online through the ACLU’s e-store or by phone. ACLU Publications, P.O. Box 4713, Trenton, NJ 08650-4713. 1-800-775-2258, www.aclu.org.

The Government Printing Office publishes The Freedom of Information Act Guide and Privacy Act Overview ($63), a 986-page guide to the FOIA produced by the Justice Department. It can be ordered by phone at 1-866-512-1800 or online at bookstore.gpo.gov. The Citizen’s Guide is available in its entirety online at www.fas.org/sgp/foia/citizen.html.

The Freedom of Information Clearinghouse Guidebook is a free brochure about making FOIA requests and appealing agency decisions. It’s available online through the Freedom of Information Clearinghouse. www.citizen.org/litigation/free_info/index.cfm.

Paper Trails: A Guide to Public Records in California ($12.89), written by Stephen Levine and Barbara Newcombe, is published by the Center for Investigative Reporting and supported by the California Newspaper Publishers Association. It can be ordered from the CIR. An abridged, online version is coming soon. 2927 Newbury St., Suite A, Berkeley,, CA 94703. (510) 809-3160, www.centerforinvestigativereporting.org/

The fourth edition of the Investigative Reporters’ Handbook ($61, $51 for Investigative Reporters and Editors members), by Steve Weinberg, Brant Houston, and Len Bruzzese, is a comprehensive and accessible guide for novice and experienced journalists that shows how to locate and use more than 500 sources of public information. (573) 882-3364, www.ire.org/store/books.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press supplies a wealth of publications on public access and other First Amendment topics. How to Use the Federal FOI Act ($5) is a handbook on FOI rights, with instructions for appealing if your request is denied, and includes sample letters. The First Amendment Handbook ($7.50) is a journalist’s pocket guide to FOI issues. Two guides — Judicial Records: A Guide to Access ($3) and Access to Electronic Records ($5) — analyze state laws and decisions regarding access to legal records and government electronic data. Tapping Officials’ Secrets is a set of guides to state public records and open-meeting laws ($10 a state). The News Media and the Law is a quarterly magazine that includes updates on legislation pertinent to FOI ($30 a year for four issues). Some of these publications are available in their entirety online; all can be ordered online. 1-800-336-4243, www.rcfp.org.

The second edition of Law of the Student Press ($18) is a vital handbook for student newspapers. It’s extensively annotated but avoids legalese and tries to bring the law to life for students and educators. The Student Press Law Center also publishes Covering Campus Crime, Third Edition ($2) and the Student Press Law Center Report ($15 for three issues a year). (703) 807-1904, www.splc.org.

Citizen Muckraking: How to Investigate and Right Wrongs in Your Community ($9) offers advice on writing press releases, conducting interviews, and using the FOIA. The book, a collaborative effort by the Center for Public Integrity, is available through Common Courage Press. 1-800-497-3207, www.commoncouragepress.com

>

And also, herpes

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

You guessed right — those letters about women who can’t have orgasms were both mine. Maybe I was so frustrated that I lied about my age so you wouldn’t think they were from the same person. Anyway, I’m in a stupidly worse situation now: I contracted herpes, despite having had sex with only one other human being. My boyfriend engaged in some ill-advised polyamorous experimentation about two years ago: I agreed to it even though I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. And he proposed it even though he was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea, either.

It’s just HSV-1, but I can’t get over how unfair it is. I don’t even like oral sex! I have this irrational feeling of being punished. I hear that HSV-1 isn’t nearly as bad as HSV-2, and that I might never even have another outbreak (though it doesn’t feel that way). Plus, my boyfriend keeps saying that around 20 percent of Americans have genital herpes, which sucks because that means 80 fucking percent don’t.

While I love my partner, I never thought he’d be the only person I’d ever sleep with. However, I’m shy: having to have the pre-sex "I have an STD" talk means that I’ll just avoid sex. Since I wasn’t enjoying it anyway, this shouldn’t bother me. But now, I feel disgusting too. My boyfriend admitted that he had to leave school on STD Day because he was so completely grossed out that he felt faint. At least he’s unlikely to get it, since HSV-1 doesn’t like to jump from genitals to genitals.

Add to all this the fact that I don’t really want to be touched sexually, and you get the result that my boyfriend is unhappy too. Of course, now that I regret having just one relationship so far, I’m screwing that one up. It’s like some kind of terrible paradox.

I know that I’m overreacting, but I’m just so mad and unhappy. I know that outbreaks can be treated, blah, blah, blah, but then I’m just a less-ulcerated, less-contagious plague carrier. I know that I have to talk to some kind of therapist before I become even more messed up, but I thought that someone whose area of expertise is sex would be a good first person to ask.

Love,

Angry and Contagious

PS: Thank you for your previous advice, but I don’t think Betty Dodson will be advising me until everything involved doesn’t hurt.

Dear Contagious:

Sorry, nope. You totally have to talk to a therapist as well as a gynecologist, but mostly to a therapist — and possibly a psychiatrist too. Don’t you think you’re depressed and anxious enough to benefit from at least contemputf8g medication? I do!. And maybe you should speak to a yoga master about learning deep-breathing techniques. Or get a paper bag and breathe into it until you pass out or don’t pass out — however that trick is supposed to work.

First off, do we know how you got the genitally located oral herpes? We do not. Do we know that the introduction of the GLOH to your ménage was due to one of the women your boyfriend kissed during that brief foray into ill-advised polyamory? We don’t know that, either. Unless there’s something you haven’t told me, it’s possible that the boyfriend either picked it up somewhere far less ooky (it’s only oral herpes, after all) or already had it but it hadn’t made an appearance yet. Furthermore, do we believe that you had to agree to doing something that even your guy thought was a bad idea? Nuh-uh. I know you were young and silly, but so was he. I’d chalk that one up to "our bad" and move on.

You’re going to have to disentangle your anger with your boyfriend from your beef with fate and, for that matter, yourself. What happened happened, and hey, it could be worse. By the way, about 20 percent of Americans have genital herpes but somewhere between 50 and 80 percent have the oral version, so you’ve a ton of company — and some of it is quite nice.

If you drag your angry self to a clinic or to your regular gyno you can get on an antiviral, which will not only suppress your symptoms but make it far less likely that you could spread this thing to a putative future boyfriend that you don’t even want, especially since you still like the one you have. Then you won’t hurt as much and can get back to where you were before: frustrated, angry, and bitter because sex isn’t any fun for you. And then you can go see a therapist. And then, after that, maybe Betty Dodson and I can help you.

And before you think me unsympathetic, I’m really and truly not. I just think you need a swat on the behind to stop dithering in fury and start fixing stuff. I swat because I love.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

On shaky ground

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› gwschultz@sfbg.com

The violations were purported to be accidental. Top administrators broke the law in two separate incidents in 2005 when they diverted a total of $30,000 belonging to City College of San Francisco to a local bond campaign committee, although they said it was an innocent mistake.

Now new documents obtained by the Guardian show an apparent pattern to this misuse of public funds. A special audit indicates that on Nov. 7, 2006, administrators from the school district transferred $38,670 to a bank account controlled by the Foundation of the City College of San Francisco, a nonprofit that seeks donations for the school and funds scholarships.

Just one day before, on Nov. 6, 2006, the foundation made a $35,000 cash contribution to the Community College Facility Coalition Issues Committee, which lobbies for and promotes statewide bonds to benefit schools like City College. State law bars City College from using public funds for such political purposes.

When asked about the money transfers, Vice Chancellor Peter Goldstein conceded to the Guardian that $28,670 of the newly uncovered funds were improperly moved to the foundation to replenish the Nov. 6, 2006 contribution, but he referred questions regarding who made that decision to outgoing chancellor Phil Day, who did not return a call.

The firm that conducted the audit, Louie & Wong, based in San Francisco, could find no evidence that the foundation’s board approved the contribution, and a lawyer hired by the foundation says the directors were not aware of the transfer of district funds into the foundation bank account at that time.

Although some of the board members later recalled authorizing the contribution, it wasn’t reflected in meeting minutes, and the directors say they never intended to launder public funds into a political contribution.

These revelations further damage the credibility of City College administrators, who for several months have undergone an investigation by the District Attorney’s Office into political fundraising efforts by the school. Spending public funds to support or oppose a ballot measure or candidate is against California law.

Two school trustees, Rodel Rodis and Julio Ramos, confirmed for the Guardian that the district attorney in recent weeks requested documents related to the transactions and will be interviewing senior administrators at the school soon, presumably including Day, who is leaving for a new job in Washington, DC, as this story goes to press. Both say the trustees only learned about the audit’s conclusions this month, although it was completed last summer.

"The way it’s always been presented to me is the foundation is supposed to give the district money in order for the district to fulfill its function of educating students," Ramos told us, "not vice versa."

The District Attorney’s Office will neither confirm nor deny the existence of such probes, but its investigation has been confirmed by sources and reported in both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Guardian (see "Day’s Dilemma," 8/8/07).

Day characterized the earlier diversions from the 2005 bond campaign as a simple misunderstanding when they were publicized last year. His administration wasn’t trying to do anything illegal, he wrote in a public statement at the time, and a resulting internal investigation called for by City College’s board of trustees seemed to confirm his claim.

"The 2005 campaign was compressed into little more than three months, and as a result of this rush, we made some mistakes," Day wrote in response to the report when it was released in January. "As the chancellor and CEO of this college, I take responsibility for these missteps."

But despite the breadth of the internal investigation, which filled 232 pages and detailed the history of the hastily organized 2005 bond election, its scope never reached the foundation’s political activities.

Now it appears that after the Chronicle published stories last April exposing the misdirected funds from 2005, the foundation’s board of directors asked for a special audit to ensure that all its financial transactions between 2005 and 2007 were free from any association with public funds the board wasn’t aware of.

The foundation at that time hired a lawyer, Peter Bagatelos, who told the Guardian that the board didn’t know $38,670 was transferred to the foundation’s bank account on the day of the November 2006 statewide election, when voters were asked for $10.4 billion in bond money to support California’s public schools.

"It was never done with their consent or knowledge or participation," Bagatelos said.

During the same two-year period covered by the audit, the foundation made cash donations to other political action committees (PACs) totaling $110,000, including $75,000 that went toward City College’s $246.3 million local bond election in 2005.

Those transactions appear to be legal because the foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that technically operates separately from the school and can promote political causes that benefit community colleges within certain parameters, according to a coalition lobbyist. Each of those contributions were approved and properly documented by the foundation’s board, unlike the transactions from early November 2006.

Goldstein also said that the foundation’s board was not happy about the discovery and that the directors returned the money last April, just as the Chronicle‘s stories were breaking. He said the remaining $10,000 was legally acquired from yet another nonprofit controlled by the college and through a private vendor, but the foundation’s board elected to return that money as well on the advice of legal counsel "to avoid any appearance of impropriety."

"Any funds that the college is entitled to cannot and should not be transferred to the foundation," Goldstein told us. "The particular item that you’re asking about was absolutely a mistake. It should not have been transferred. It was found internally, corrected, and the funds were distributed to a variety of student organizations."

The Community College Facility Coalition, which received the $35,000 donation, was formed by a small group of school presidents in the spring of 1993 and today includes 52 districts across California. Its "issues committee" was created expressly for financing statewide bond campaigns.

The political action committee’s state election filings show that the foundation’s contribution was actually made on the same day City College transferred the $38,670 to the foundation’s bank account, rather than a day earlier as the audit states.

City College has aggressively sought such state money — nearly $200 million since 1998 — to match funds raised through local bonds from San Francisco taxpayers to help with its ongoing capital projects like a new gymnasium, a performing arts center, and campuses in the Mission and Chinatown.

The $35,000 contribution was among the largest made to the coalition’s PAC leading up to the election, and Paul Holmes, a lobbyist for the coalition, said only 10 to 12 schools use their foundations to support ballot measures each year. Rarely does it receive a donation of more than $20,000, he said. Holmes added that many colleges use their supporters for donations.

Judy Iannaccone, a spokesperson for the Rancho Santiago Community College District in Orange County, which helped raise $13,600 for the 2006 election, said they did so by forwarding the names of potential donors to the coalition, which allowed the school to remain impartial.

"The money was absolutely not from the general fund," Iannaccone told us.

Colleges and universities commonly form nonprofit foundations to raise money on their behalf from alumni and other supporters, like the behemoth $1.1 billion endowment of the UCSF Foundation, which encourages and administers private giving to the medical school and health-related research of the University of California-San Francisco.

City College’s foundation is considerably smaller. It had $22 million in net assets at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, according to district documents, and describes itself in an audit as a discrete component of the school. The foundation gives out hundreds of relatively small scholarships to students every year, some worth up to $3,000, but most for smaller amounts of between $250 and $500.

The foundation also maintains a separate board of directors that, like many higher-education foundations, contains top officials from the school itself, like Chancellor Day and Vice Chancellor Goldstein.

Most of the foundation’s other directors, however, are simply civic leaders who support City College’s mission but don’t work for the district and aren’t affiliated directly with Day’s administration.

The two entities are still close enough that the district handles bookkeeping for the foundation and shares its employees. For instance, the audit shows that the foundation’s finances — including its political contributions — were often prepared by City College’s chief administrative services officer, the title carried by Stephen Herman, who was implicated in the first round of illegal diversions made public last year.

"People literally thought that the college was obligated to make a contribution to this statewide campaign and that meant funds that would otherwise be under the college’s control could be eligible for a donation," Vice Chancellor Goldstein told us. "But, of course, that’s incorrect."

Tooth and consequences

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› culture@sfbg.com

It’s two days after Christmas and I’m sprawled out on a plastic-lined chaise lounge, sipping fluoride and waiting for the blood to stop gushing from my gums so the doctors can get back to work. Beyond the noise of drills and X-ray machines I hear grunts from several other patients and the sounds of merchants outside hawking sombreros, sweetbread, bootleg Fendi bags, and pottery. Kind of strange, but I’m not worried anymore. This is my second day at Dr. Rafael Lopez’s dental clinic, and I’m no longer freaked out that it’s nestled among trinket stores and cantinas in a bustling bazaar in Mexico.

I also don’t care that the dentists here speak hardly any English, nor I any Spanish. I mean, it’s not like I’m alone. All the other patients at Dr. Lopez’s office are either Canadian or American, and all the people shopping out front are too. In fact, nearly every person I’ve met on the streets here is Caucasian and an English speaker. We’re all dental tourists, and we’ve come to Los Algodones — a sunny border town near Yuma, Arizona, which allegedly has more dental clinics and pharmacies per block than any other city in the world — to save money. In my case, I’m in for three root canals with posts and crowns for the price of a secondhand scooter on eBay: $1,850, about a third of what I’d pay for the same procedures in the States.

I’d heard about Dr. Lopez’s clinic through a friend of my mother’s, but Los Algodones, like other dental tourism destinations, was easy to find on the Web. In fact, the town’s Web site, www.losalgodones.com, is actually a dental clinic referral network, with pictures of smiling clinicians and graphic before and after shots flashing across its home page. Clinics like Dr. Lopez’s, which often handle 10 to 20 patients a day, are set up exclusively for foreigners. Dr. Lopez estimates that 80 percent of his customers are American and 20 percent are Canadian; most Mexicans in the area can’t afford his rates. Many of them come to towns like this for big-ticket procedures like bridges and reconstructive surgery, some of which can cost more than $10,000 at home.

And they’re coming in increasing numbers. According to HealthCare Tourism International, a nonprofit accreditation and information organization set up to monitor the medical tourism boom, an estimated 1 million Americans will travel abroad this year for some of sort of medical service, up from the National Coalition on Health Care’s figure of about 150,000 in 2004. Of the procedures sought, 40 percent will be dental related. A recent article in the New York Times on the dental tourism phenomenon cited a boom in luxury travel packages designed around dental procedures. A root canal followed by a little fly-fishing in Costa Rica? Why not? The money you save can justify a short vacation.

ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM


Dr. Lopez’s clinic is, hopefully, the end of the road for me. I’ve been struggling with dental problems (and the potential resulting bills) for years. With all this talk of health care reform, you’d think I would have been able to find a decent low-cost US dentist, especially in civic-minded San Francisco. But it just wasn’t happening. For whatever reason, dental care and health care are viewed as two separate issues in the United States. When it comes to diseases, colds, and broken bones, you can usually catch a break, but good luck trying to get your teeth fixed on a budget. The truth is, even if you have some form of dental insurance, which is unlikely — according to the American Dental Association (ADA), only about half of all Americans do — dental care is nearly impossible for average wage earners to afford. At least, I’ve never been able to afford it. And I’ve looked everywhere.

My own dental horror story began nearly a decade ago when the Marine Corps kicked me off my retired father’s lifelong dental plan. I was fine for about a year, until the day I awoke with a terrible pain in my mouth. I was 19 at the time, taking classes at a community college and working at a café — barely able to pay rent, let alone find the time and money for a visit to the dentist. So I did the next best thing: simply ignored the pain, staving it off with copious amounts of ibuprofen when it got intense. The over-the-counter denial did the trick for almost two years, but I knew I would be forced to eventually bite the bullet, however softly.

And then it happened. My teeth started breaking. Not hurting, at least no more than usual, just breaking off — in huge, gray chunks.

This went on for years. By the time I was 25, four of my teeth had shattered and the rest seemed well on their way to doing the same. I adopted the diet of a five-month-old, unable to chew anything tougher than bananas or scrambled eggs. It was time to act, but I had no idea where to go. As a full-time student, getting by on financial aid, loans, and whatever I could rake in as a part-time waiter, I was nearly destitute. I’d recently transferred to San Francisco State University, but at that time, in order to purchase the student dental plan the school offered, I also had to purchase its medical plan, a combination that would have increased my monthly bills by nearly $200.

It was tempting, particularly in comparison with most employer-related or individual plans I qualified for, which could run into the thousands. But SFSU’s dental plan screened out existing problems, like the trainwreck I had going on, and carried an annual cap of less than $1,000. (Unlike medical insurance plans, which feature deductibles, most dental plans have annual monetary ceilings.) So even with the plan I would still be unable to afford even a fraction of the work I needed to have done. Since my student days, SFSU has implemented a dental-only plan available to undergrads, but often the limits are too low to cover anything other than cleanings and fillings.

Thus I began my search for a pro bono dentist, figuring that with all the uninsured people living in the city there must be someone around. It quickly became clear, however, that scoring free dental is harder than finding a decent vegetarian restaurant in rural Alabama.

QUEST FOR DENTAL


First, I had a glimmer of hope: a medical and dental clinic in Berkeley that had the word free in its name.

The Berkeley Free Clinic (BFC) has been offering free medical and dental care to the hard-up since 1969. It provides free HIV tests, medicine, preventative education, and more. But I needed dental work — and that was another story. As the only clinic in Northern California offering free fillings, extractions, and referrals to discount dentists, BFC is insanely popular. And since it’s run by volunteers and donors, it’s also chronically understaffed. Jessica Hsieh, a clinic coordinator, explained that the facility does as much as it can with limited resources. "We used to take patients on a first-come, first-served basis," she says. "But there were so many people lined up every night that our waiting room and hallway became fire hazards."

To deal with this problems, the clinic has devised a maddening selection system, which includes spotty business hours and a name-in-the-hat-style lottery. It sounded a little sketchy, but I gave it a go.

After making the 45-minute commute from my home, I arrived at the clinic at exactly 5:30 on a Monday evening. I scribbled my name on a small slip of paper, handed it to the receptionist, and took a seat in a waiting room crowded with students, broke workers, and homeless people. A nurse came out and told everyone to sit tight; the dentists were taking our names into a separate room and she’d return soon with their random choices. Ten minutes later, she came out again, read off three names, and then told everyone else to go home.

The room had been quiet as we all waited to see who’d won, but when a young blond girl with designer jeans and a fancy cell phone rose to claim her prize, the atmosphere became tense.

"That’s fucking bullshit," said a man with dirt on his face and ripped boots. "I’ve been coming here for weeks. This is her first fucking time!"

One of the dentists apologized and reminded us that we were welcome to keep trying as many times as we liked. I took his advice and returned three more times, missing a day of study or work for every fruitless visit until I gave up. One of my teeth in the back had started aching like hell, and I couldn’t stomach the wait any longer.

I broadened my search to include dental schools like that at the University of California San Francisco, where the wait times were rumored to be long, but once on the list, getting work done was guaranteed. After talking to students at the UCSF clinic, though, I realized treatment would require several days off from work and school because each step a student made during surgery would have to be approved by a busy professor and analyzed by other students. And the discount wasn’t exactly phenomenal.

The average cost of a single complete root canal procedure (root canal, post, and crown) at UCSF is more than $1,100, almost twice the amount I wound up paying in Mexico and way more than I could afford at the time.

So I scrapped the dental-school idea and dug deeper, figuring that if I couldn’t find free or cheap dental work, I could at least find a place that offered a payment plan. And I did find such a place.

Western Dental is like the McDonald’s of dental clinics. With multiple locations in almost every city in California, it’s effectively cornered the market on affordable dental work. Only it’s not cheap. A complete root canal procedure on one tooth can cost up to $1,590 — a lot less than a regular dentist, but much more than a dental school and about three times as much as Dr. Lopez charged me in Mexico. People flock to Western Dental because it lets you pay off your dental work like you would a car. You plunk down $99 for a yearlong membership, make a 20 to 30 percent down payment, and then pay the rest off monthly over the course of one year. And Western Dental doesn’t take your credit history into account when working out a plan.

Out of desperation, I eventually did get one of my teeth fixed at the Mission and 24th Street location, and wound up paying a $350 deposit and monthly installments of $110 for the next 12 months.

CAVITY CAVEATS


With my most painful tooth taken care of, I could now focus on finding a better deal, which is how I wound up in Mexico. So far it seems to have been a pretty smart decision. My new teeth look great and they’re holding up fine. I was treated extremely well by Dr. Lopez’s staff. But there are many reasons not go to Mexico for cheap dental work. And Brad Hatfield, a Korean War vet and retired city planner from Arizona City who asked that I not use his real name, knows them all.

Hatfield has been making the three-hour trip to Los Algodones for nearly a decade. He’s seen the town evolve from a haven for cheap trinkets and booze into what it is now: a medical resort for Americans with expensive tooth and eye issues. Hatfield started going to Los Algodones when he realized that even with his insurance he’d never be able to afford necessary dental work. But now, many years and thousands of dollars later, he’s learned his lesson.

"The problem with dentistry in Mexico," says Hatfield, "is that there’s no recourse. If something bad happens, you can’t sue anyone. All you can do is ask for your money back." And that’s just what Hatfield did when he returned from Los Algodones recently and discovered that his new teeth were worthless. Indeed, he claims that almost none of the work he’s gotten in Mexico has held up longer than a year or so.

This last time was the worst. "As soon as I got home," says Hatfield, "my gums started hurting really bad and bleeding off and on." When he called his clinic to complain, they denied his request for a refund and invited him back for some discounted work instead. Hatfield went back, got the work done, and thought his problems were over. But a few days later he realized they weren’t. "I was sitting here eating a piece of chocolate, and all of a sudden I realized I was chewing on two of my teeth and the bridge that was connecting them. All the work they had done had just fallen out."

Hatfield has tried repeatedly to get his dentist to refund his money back, but all he gets in response are invitations to return for more work. "Now they want to just rip all my teeth out and give me a full set of implants. It’s going to cost thousands of dollars on top of the $10,000 I’ve already spent there over the past year."

Hatfield is currently trying to get his problems fixed at a dental college in Mesa, Arizona, but he’s facing steeper prices and will probably have to return to Mexico soon. "My dental and medical problems have ruined me as a person," he says. "I can’t get a job because my teeth are so screwed up, and I can’t think through all this pain. I just don’t understand why dental work is so expensive. It’s much worse than medical."

THE BIG YANK


Hatfield brings up a good point. For some reason dental issues aren’t included in national or local debates about health care. Healthy San Francisco, the universal, citywide health care access program operated by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, doesn’t cover access to dental services, which were never even considered for inclusion. When reached by the Guardian for comment on this exclusion, SFDPH spokesperson Eileen Shields stressed the difference between the city’s program and regular insurance plans, saying "[Healthy San Francisco] is a health access plan, providing access to basic medical care. I mean, my health plan doesn’t even include dental — does yours?"

Denti-Cal, the state dental insurance program offered as part of Medi-Cal, is an option for California residents with a low income, a social security number, and at least one child. But it obviously doesn’t help the throngs who fill the waiting rooms of Western Dental. San Francisco General Hospital keeps an oral surgeon on call for extreme emergencies but if you want your janked-out teeth replaced or aren’t doubled over in chronic pain, SF General can’t help you.

It doesn’t look like any of this is changing soon. None of the candidates running for president this year has announced a platform that specifically deals with the high cost of dental care in America. Why? Why are medical and dental issues treated as two separate entities? And why is it so hard to afford dental treatment even with insurance?

Hsieh of the BFC thinks it may have to do with the fact that dental issues aren’t thought to be as life-threatening as medical issues. But if an infected tooth is left untreated, it can lead to death just as surely as unchecked pneumonia. On its Web site, the ADA acknowledges the high cost of dental insurance but privileges prevention over treatment, claiming that most dental problems are preventable. If Americans would just take care of their teeth, use their paltry insurance plans for routine checkups, and quit eating so much candy, they wouldn’t have to get root canals. But I brush after meals, floss regularly, and stay away from sweets — and I’ve been in and out of dental clinics with major problems since I was five.

Another theory has to do with the high costs of dental school and specialized equipment, which makes sense. But the truth of the matter, commonly pointed out in the ongoing health care debate, is that mixing profit with patients is a recipe for disaster. As long as insurance companies are able to make billions by fleecing their customers, and as long as dental clinics and drug companies are allowed to set their own prices, the general population is going to be cavity ridden and kind of ugly.

For now, it seems dental tourism may be the best option for people with normal-to-low incomes and chronic problems. Two months after my visit to Mexico, my teeth feel much better and I’m back on solid food. But this kind of travel isn’t for the fainthearted. The weather and food in Los Algodones are great. But getting your teeth ripped out and reconstructed in a foreign country with no legal recourse is dangerous and scary, especially during the high-traffic winter season when the tendency to rush through patients escalates.

My triple root canal, for example, took a mere two visits. The doctors hacked away for 10 hours straight, let me heal for one day, and then stuck on the crowns and pocketed my check. I stumbled out of Dr. Lopez’s office a few days before New Year’s, in a Novocain-induced daze, with blood on my shirt and pieces of rubber molding stuck to my cheeks. My jaws and head ached as I shuffled through the mile-long border-crossing corridor, sweating and dry-heaving.

As I approached the checkpoint, I wondered if I had made the right choice.

Then I remembered that I hadn’t actually made one. It was this or nothing.

Emma Lierley contributed to this report.


>>View a video interview with a Canadian dental tourist

Requiem for a lemon

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The city slicker’s agricultural portfolio tends to run toward seasonings and emendations — rosemary, for instance, which has plenty of street smarts and is drought resistant too. Yours truly has for years managed a tiny estate of such bit players, including the aforementioned rosemary (a weedlike presence at the rear of the garden), along with bay and Kaffir lime bushes. The one crop that might qualify as cash is the Meyer lemon.

The infrequency of the (dwarf) Meyer lemon tree’s deigning to fruit has long added piquancy to those moments when it does, usually every other year. This year was to be one such moment; the flowers were heavy last summer, the immature fruit abundant all through the autumn, and by Christmastime a wealth of golden globes hung like ornaments from the tree’s branches. Tree is an absurd word to describe a shapeless shrub about three feet tall that drags its knuckles on the ground, but when such a plant produces three or four dozen fruit in one of its fecund moods, one is inclined to be forgiving.

Such plans I had for those lemons! Crème caramels were envisioned, also tarts, estate-bottled limoncello, and wonderful salad dressings. All in good time. Let the lemons remain safe on the tree; I would simply gather them as needed so they would not languish on the counter or in the refrigerator like supermarket produce. The city-slicker farmer, you see, has no conception of pests, and tales of whole harvests lost to plagues of locusts belong to the pages of the Bible or John Steinbeck novels.

So it was with a sense of horror and disbelief that I gazed out the window at my lemony riches a few days ago, at the end of weeks of obscuring rain, and saw that those riches were gone. Had they been stolen? Organic Meyer lemons would fetch a pretty penny at markets. But no: a close examination revealed the lemons had been eaten on the spot; the ground was scattered with shavings of rind. Templeton, the gregarious rat from Charlotte’s Web, bragged that he would eat anything — but lemons? Do skunks eat lemons? Raccoons? All the neighbors’ lemons similarly vanished.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may was the advice of the English poet Robert Herrick, and even if your rosebuds are lemons, this remains a wise strategy.

› paulr@sfbg.com

Buddy movie

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

Recently I shared a hotel room with a buddy on a trip and we masturbated together (for the first time). His cock was bigger than mine, and he had an incredibly big come shot. I am not attracted to men — we are both married — but I was very aroused by seeing this. After the awkward silence, I commented on the volume of his load, which led to a conversation about how he gets no sex and never receives a blow job because his wife is grossed out by come. After an hour-long discussion on the pros and cons of cocksucking, we exchanged oral sex (it was the first time for this too). This was about two weeks ago. So finally, here are my questions: Is this unusual among hetero men? My justifications for my actions are that it’s safe sex and just a mutual favor between buddies, not cheating per se. Am I delusional? Can someone else taste come in one’s mouth after oral sex? It seemed like I could taste it for a long time afterward, even once I rinsed.

Love,

Buddy-Buddy

Dear Bud:

Yeah, OK, I’m going to answer this out of nostalgia — it’s been some years since I was free to give sex info over the phone at San Francisco Sex Information (www.sfsi.org), but when I did, it was during the first shift on Mondays, and I got tons of calls from you guys, the "I had completely unexpected homo sex over the weekend" people. I have to say, though, that I don’t believe this happened to you any more than I believed it happened to most of those other dudes. The big tip-off? It wasn’t the blow job; it was the use of the word buddy. Who says that? I IM’d my own best buddy this question: "Under what circs could you imagine yourself referring to a male friend as a ‘buddy’?" And after he recovered from the shock, he offered, "If we were in a bowling league together?" which made me laugh, but you know, I still don’t buy it. Guys you have beers with are friends or guys you have beers with. Buddies are people you trade imaginary blow jobs with in hotel rooms that the two of you are mysteriously sharing in the unexplained absence of your wives. OK, then!

So, just for the sake of the good old days (mine, not yours), let me answer your questions.

Yes, it’s pretty unusual. The experimental hand job among teenage boys may be common, but straight married guys do not customarily go down on each other just as soon as they’re done raiding the minibar. It doesn’t happen. I’m not judging, mind you. I could not care less about random blow jobs among buddies. Harking back to the San Francisco Sex Information model, though: we were trained to normalize things by placing them on a continuum. Rather than saying "People don’t do that," or "Everyone feels that way," we use the words some, many, most. For instance, we say things like "Most people have fantasies, many people have homosexual fantasies, some people act on them in hotel rooms they are mysteriously sharing with a ‘buddy.’<0x2009>" Most guys don’t! And — keeping in mind that I don’t care about the gay angle or the blow job itself — I do disagree that it isn’t cheating. Ask your wives if it’s OK with them and you’ll see what I mean. On second thought, don’t.

It’s funny, just as I was sitting down to pull this column together a friend (specifically, one of the friends my husband regularly has a beer with and never, ever refers to as a buddy) called to tell me there was a show on advice giving on the radio, featuring the "Radical Honesty" guy (www.radicalhonesty.com), Brad Blanton. Apparently BB was perched in one studio telling the Chicago Tribune‘s Amy Dickinson, who was in another studio, that yes, those pants did make her butt look big, and bloviating on about how — and this is from his Web site — "Radical Honesty means you tell the people in your life what you’ve done or plan to do, what you think, and what you feel. It’s the kind of authentic sharing that creates the possibility of love and intimacy." Now, I am a firm believer in the occasional use of Radical Obfuscation and honestly believe Brad Blanton is probably a total tool, so obviously his philosophy is not for me. I suggest it’s not for you either. It’s far better to do something not great (the random blow job not exactly being the moral equivalent of setting fire to an orphanage), shut the hell up about it, and never do it again. Of course, if you find yourself turning from your wife’s touch and longing for your buddy’s instead — well, that’s a different problem and maybe a little radical honesty might be called for. But I think not.

And yes, the taste will linger forever. There is nothing that will loosen its foul grip upon your tongue, so you might as well get used to it.

Kidding! I think if you’d actually given a blow job instead of just fantasizing about one, you would know this, but pungent as it may be, semen is just proteinaceous glop like any other. Brush your teeth and it will go away.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

Cleaning up FERC’s mess

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OPINION In the late 1980s, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Charles Trabant warned that "the only thing that we have to fear is FERC itself." He was speaking about his agency’s aggressive policy of preempting state regulatory powers — and undermining the rights of consumers — to encourage utility competition. This spring the Supreme Court will decide whether or not Trabant was right.

FERC’s response to the California energy crisis was too little too late.

At the height of the crisis FERC urged the state and many utilities — desperate to reduce the immediate cost impact of the crisis — to purchase long-term power supply contracts. Energy traders call this type of transaction "blend and extend" because the contract is a mix of short- and long-term prices. During this period, California and many utilities followed FERC’s advice and took advantage of this form of contract with the objective of extending the contracts long enough to keep short-term prices down. One utility, for example, tried to limit prices to a 35 percent rate increase. While the immediate effect was to reduce prices, sellers ended up gaining crisis-related scarcity profits over the longer term of the contract.

After the crisis abated FERC found that short-term prices — including those that had been used in many utilities’ blended contracts — were unjust and unreasonable and ordered sellers to refund revenues that exceeded an administratively determined just price. However, FERC denied the pleas of the state of California and others for adjustments to long-term contract prices. Ironically, it did so based on a "public interest standard," a financial test that considers the welfare of sellers but not that of customers. The public interest standard evolved to enable sellers to unilaterally raise a contract price that is below cost in order to avoid financial harm. Clearly, these were not the circumstances facing those who purchased power to temper customer costs. FERC just reckoned that the price would be passed on to customers.

The federal courts overturned the FERC decision. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that FERC’s oversight was "fatally flawed" and "offers no protection to purchasers victimized by the abuses of sellers or dysfunctional market conditions that FERC itself only notices in hindsight."

Electricity sellers, supported by FERC, have persuaded the Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit’s ruling. Amicus briefs before the Supreme Court paint a dark picture of unwilling investors not providing the capital necessary to maintain reliable electric systems.

The merchant energy sector experienced a severe credit and liquidity crisis in 2002. According to Moody’s Investors Service, the crisis was not caused by regulators’ protecting customers but was due to energy trading having a flawed business model that lacked investment-grade characteristics. The market was taught an expensive lesson with the bankruptcies of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Enron, Mirant Corp., Calpine, and NRG. During this process, however, bankrupt power generators such as Mirant, the owner of the Potrero Hill power plant in San Francisco, used bankruptcy protection to modify contracts to generate value for their creditors.

Creditors have protection in the new competitive markets. Now it is time for the Supreme Court to protect customers too, by enforcing the Federal Power Act as it was written by Congress.

Carl Pechman

Carl Pechman is an economist and the founder of the energy consulting firm Power Economics in Santa Cruz.

G-Spot: Don’t fear the jeweler

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› culture@sfbg.com

Poor well-intentioned, misunderstood, Valentine’s Day! For a holiday meant to joyously celebrate the plentiful doses of compassion and generosity love can bring, V Day has a notoriously bad reputation — probably because choosing the right gift on this, the third-largest retail day of the year, always elicits at least a little anxiety, occasionally a good deal of panic, and, in dire cases, even immense fear. Who knew that buying chocolates and flowers could bring on anxiety attacks and performance crises? In an attempt to give the little day that could a chance to redeem itself, we bring you this year’s shopping guide.

GRAB ‘N’ GO


The perfect floral accent to your V Day celebration is a must, and you’re sure to score an electric grin the size of Canada when you show up with a selection from Church Street Flowers (212 Church, SF; 415-553-7762, www.churchstreetflowers.com). With the beautiful arrangements and personalized advice, it’s tough to make a wrong choice. Can’t make it there to pick up les fleurs yourself? The shop offers same-day deliveries within city limits. No wonder it’s won Best of the Bay six years in a row.

Chocolate Covered (4069 24th St., SF; 415-645-8123) in Noe Valley packs a pleasurable punch with delectable sweets and knowledgeable staff. Keep an eye out for the owner, Jack, who will help you select exactly what you need — even if you aren’t quite sure yourself — in sugary cocoa form. Plus, the blue and white custom print boxes can feature almost any picture you want.

In your intrepid search for arm candy for your arm candy, make a stop at Manika Jewelry (11 Maiden Lane, SF; 415-399-1990, www.manikajewelry.com) in Union Square for unique, distinctive designs. A warm staff will help direct you through the wide selection, some of which is locally designed, to find a one-of-a-kind piece. And feel free to try pieces on, as this establishment isn’t shy about giving you a chance to find exactly what you want.

Sexy, snazzy, and a little taste of naughty come together at Agent Provocateur (54 Geary, SF; 415-421-0229, www.agentprovocateur.com). But its Swarovski crystal–encrusted riding crops might break the bank. For more monetarily accessible lingerie, mosey on over to Belle Cose (2036 Polk, SF; 415-474-3494) in Nob Hill. From comfy-cozy to rawr-tastic, a purchase from this store is sure to be worn many times — if not for long.

ADDIN’ A LITTLE FLAIR


Give a jewelry piece (or a pocketknife) extra pizzazz and a touch of thoughtfulness by including a tiny message somewhere on its shiny surface. You’ll be able to cue the oohs and aahs in surround sound if you enlist the help of Alden Engraving (208B Lily, SF; 415-252-9072, www.aldenengraving.com) in Hayes Valley to bring happiness in the form of script.

If you’ve got no time to scour the streets but are big on impressions, check out Apple’s new pink iPod nano (www.apple.com). This ridiculously adorable iPod comes not only in a V Day color favorite but with free laser engraving and free Apple gift wrap if you order online. It’s not quite the MacBook Air, but there will probably be very little complaining if you give something that pretty in pink.

Willing to drop a little more bank? Book a spa date for two at the Nob Hill Spa at the Huntington Hotel (1075 California, SF; 415-345-2888, www.huntingtonhotel.com). The space is picturesque and features an infinity pool overlooking the city, food service, and knockout massages. A day spent here will guarantee that postdate afterglow.

For those who are interested in a little stage-side romance, the American Conservatory Theater (405 Geary, SF; 415-749-2228, www.act-sf.org) opens its production of Blood Knot on Feb. 8. Granted, it’s not the most uplifting piece — the story features two brothers having existential crises in South Africa during the apartheid era. But it will still blow the socks off your theater-loving sweetie when you smoothly place the tickets on the table and say, "I thought we’d try something different tonight."

Those willing to trek across the bridge to the East Bay can spend an evening at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre (2025 Addison, Berk.; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org), which is featuring Taking Over, Danny Hoch’s one-man show in which he hilariously morphs into multiple characters from one neighborhood. Another option? Catch Carrie Fisher’s biting repartee (yes, Princess Leia in the flesh) as she recalls her years in Hollywood in Wishful Drinking.

Of course, if the whole V Day extravaganza is causing unbearable amounts of stress, consider spending an afternoon strolling through the Japanese Tea Garden (Tea Garden and MLK Jr., SF; 415-752-4227) in Golden Gate Park. Its five acres of eclectic gardens and a Japanese-style teahouse mean it shouldn’t be hard for you to find the perfect spot for whispering romantic nothings into each other’s ears.

However, in the event you’re looking to spend an evening in, Good Vibrations (603 Valencia, SF; 415-522-5460. 1620 Polk, SF; 415-345-0400. www.goodvibes.com) is always a safe bet for fun goodies. The store’s recommendations for its wide range of adult toys are helpful and friendly, and you’ll be hard-pressed (heh heh) to not find something you’ll enjoy. Honestly, who could pass up chocolate body pens or a fun-filled match of the Tantric Lovers Game?

G-Spot

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We’ve got the official word: the G-spot does exist. At least insofar as we’re talking about the Guardian‘s guide to sex, love, and romance. Turn the page for revelations from a newly knighted expert on women, scheduling tips from people who manage to please several partners at once, news from the world of gay porn, and plenty of advice about how and where to celebrate the National Day of Making Singles Feel Bad. Plus, we’ve got the results of our Sex Poll! It’s information that’s sweet, sexy, and, unlike the mysterious G-spot, doesn’t require a diagram to find. You’re welcome! And happy Valentine’s Day.
Love and lust,
Molly Freedenberg

>>Getting girls
What a supposed sex cult can teach you about women — and yourself
By Justin Juul

>>U R mine… and so are U
How the polyamorous celebrate Valentine’s Day
By Erikka Innes

>>Everyone’s a wiener
The GayVN Awards wrap the best gay dick in an envelope of surprise
By Marke B

>>Waiter, I’ll take the (status) check!
Valentine’s Day dinner ideas in sync with your situation
By Ailene Sankur

>>Don’t fear the jeweler
A Valentine’s Day shopping guide
By Candice Chan

>>Valentine’s Day events
Prom, poetry, and porn

>>Wine + chocolate = love
Valentine’s Day pairings
By Molly Freedenberg

>>Nookie by the numbers
The results of our 2008 Sex Poll

>>Take our Sex Poll, please!

SPORTS: The return of C-Web is a bad idea

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By A.J. Hayes

Thomas Wolfe may have been exaggerating when he wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again.” But in the case of basketball player Chris Webber that phrase should be taken as gospel.

webber.jpg
Chris Webber, earlier

Especially when it comes to a possible return to the Warriors, Webber’s initial NBA club. When Webber forced his way off the Warriors in the fall of 1994, he just didn’t leave the franchise and team’s dedicated fan base in the lurch. He dumped a gallon of gasoline on the shag carpet and lit a match.

But here we are more than a dozen years later and there is serious talk of a Warriors and Webber reunion. But before the Warriors make that move we implore Golden State to take Amy Winehouse’s advice and say “No, No, No.”

The current Warriors, with Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson leading a “shoot-and-ask-questions-later” barrage are currently the most entertaining and only winning pro sports team in Northern California. But today’s W’s still have a ways to go in matching the excitement level generated by the Warriors clubs of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Led by fish-tie-wearing Coach Don Nelson in his first tenure as Warriors coach, those Warriors reinvented NBA basketball in the Bay Area. Led by Timmy Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin (AKA Run-TMC), those Warriors clubs put on awesome scoring displays every time they took the hardwood, selling out the Coliseum Arena on a nightly basis and winning a couple of league scoring titles in the process.

Warrior’s fans ate it up like popcorn, or more accurately free pizza, which they won every time Golden State scored 120 or points in a game, which was frequently.

Despite a high entertainment value, the Warriors of those days lacked the presence of a great big man to move them deep into the playoffs. But that all changed in 1993 when the Warriors managed to draft Webber, the collegiate superstar who led Michigan to the NCAA championship game in ’93.

Video Mutants: Shirtless on YouTube

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The Passionistas, “Wild West”

GAZE ON THE INTERNET I guess I’m a true romantic. I like my porn softcore. When I get in that certain mood, I visit YouTube to watch videos because I know they’ll never go too far. I’ll get off watching a mustached Austrian take a shower while fully clothed or a drunken dad mooning the camera. It’s repulsive enough to be sexy but harmless enough to be cute.

I must have watched thousands of videos like these without ever considering making one of my own. It wasn’t until I stumbled across an early viral video, "This and That" by Chris Crocker (of "Leave Britney alone!" fame), that I seriously considered making one for the Internet. What I saw was a young gay white boy with a Jennifer Aniston bob, screaming out "to the bitches that wanna fight me" in an accent halfway between Mo’nique’s and a Tennessee grandma’s. It wasn’t necessarily erotic, but there was something completely invading about Crocker’s gaze into the webcam — it was as though he activated that little gray box perfectly. He had the excitement of a Pinocchio with his strings recently cut and the entertaining intent of a sociopath like Chucky. I knew this was a car crash waiting to happen, and I immediately became addicted to Crocker’s videos.

I became Crocker’s friend on MySpace in December 2006 and followed the flood of video monologues posted almost daily. In topics that ranged from sarcastic beauty secrets and arguments with his grandmother to sexy dance videos and relationship advice, there was something very lonely about him. He wanted to be famous but was stuck living with his grandparents in a rural part of the South. With only the Internet and a camcorder, Crocker was able to independently create, in a little more than a year, an infrastructure of hundreds of thousands (and now millions) of viewers. A mixed audience of fans and haters, they all waited on his every move because he would do anything for the camera. As an artist, I was jealous of his popularity and brilliant consistency. I wanted in on his game.

My bandmate Aaron Sunshine and I decided we would start making Internet videos for our band, the Passionistas, as this would be a simple way to sate our incessant needs for humiliation and self-promotion. After our first attempt, an underviewed series of videos titled Haterz Beware targeted at a fictional group of people who spend their lives hating our band, we decided to make a short that would encapsulate everything that makes Internet video popular. Or so we thought.

Our goal was Internet popularity, so we wanted to make sure something sexy happened, and something violent too. We decided that the concept of Aaron burning me with a cigarette while we were both shirtless sounded too perfect not to do.

We sat in front of my iMac, a gift from my parents for my graduation from San Francisco State University two anticlimactic years ago, and took off our shirts. We opened QuickTime and clicked Record. Aaron seemed transfixed by the moment. He stared at the camera, then at the tender white of my forearm. He showed the glowing cigarette to the camera. Then, leering, he sadistically burned my wrist. It hurt like an Alien baby popping out of my arm. Fifteen minutes later it was on YouTube. Stupidity being a mainstay of the format, I was expecting grand popularity. We made sure to include lascivious and lurid tags in the video description, like twinks, shirtless, naked, burned, owchie, and sexy, so anyone searching with these words, or a combination thereof, would stumble upon our video. It reached about a thousand views in a little more than a week.

My rational mother somehow found out about the video and got very upset. She is a grade school teacher who lives in a pine tree–infested coastal art community. She made some really popular shabby-chic birdhouses in the 1990s. She’s recently returned to watercolors and has always loved making smiling figures with clay. My mother had no idea why somebody would make something so awful and hurtful. She was not at all thrilled when I explained that this video was an experiment done in the name of art. I told her that one day she’d understand, and I reluctantly removed it from YouTube.

So, to get back at her, I asked Santa for a camcorder and staged a Passionistas video for our song "Wild West" in her hot tub. Following one of the rules of Internet video popularity, I was, of course, shirtless and in my underwear. To contrast with my forest-filled hot tub scenes, I filmed Aaron brushing his hair and teeth and smoking in San Francisco — shirtless, of course. My second attempt at a viral video is doing all right in terms of views at the moment, but its popularity is not comparable to that of Crocker’s videos.

Crocker is more pathetic than me. Aaron and I had a chance to catch him in one of his first public appearances, in October 2007 at the Crib in San Francisco. It was that night that he proclaimed, "I don’t have talent — I only have fans." There is a certain sexy courage we possess only when we are alone. Crocker is in the vanguard, the best of many new artists broadcasting from the bedroom.

www.youtube.com/thepassionistas

>>Back to Video Mutants: The Guardian video art issue

The press: Humbled in New Hampshire

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B3 comment:

As I said in my post-election blog, I liked the fact that it was the voters, not the pundits nor the pollsters, who decided the New Hampshire primary and surprised everyone.

I also liked this commentary below by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a national media watchdog group, who asked the Washington Post’s David Broder and NBC’s Tim Russert to explain their embarrassingly wrong predictions, rebuked NBC’s Chris Matthews for horserace coverage, and quoted NBC’s Tom Brokaw offering some good reporting advice, and then giving its own good advice.

FAIR to the campaign reporters: “Reporters should strive for coverage no matter what the results are.”

Brokaw: “Wait for the voters to make their judgment…”

B3 adds: “Reporters should cover the issues and the policy differences between the candidates. And work to keep the war and Bush on the front burner at all times.”

fair.gif

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3242

Media Advisory

Humbled in New Hampshire?
Press Needs to Refocus Campaign Coverage

1/11/08

Leading up to the New Hampshire primary, the storyline on the Democratic side was the disastrous state of the Clinton campaign. Her loss was a given; it seemed the only considerations were the margin of defeat and whether or not she would even continue running at all. The day of the primary, the Washington Post reported (1/8/08) that a second loss to Obama “would leave the New York senator’s candidacy gasping for breath,” and declared that Clinton’s vow to stay in the race

may be more wish than reality. By Wednesday, it may be too late. By then, Obama’s campaign may have inflicted enough damage on the woman-who-was-once-inevitable that no amount of readjusting, recalibrating and rearranging will give her the wherewithal to overcome two big losses in the first contests of the 2008 nomination battle.

Clinton, of course, won the primary–surprising the pundits and contradicting the polls that journalists unwisely use to set the tone of so much of their coverage. In the aftermath, the media were left asking what went “wrong” with the numbers. As the front page of USA Today declared (1/10/08), “For pollsters, N.H. ‘unprecedented.'” But this isn’t so; the actual USA Today story included a state pollster who noted that pre-election polls in 2000 vastly underestimated John McCain’s victory over George W. Bush. Right before the primary, the New York Times reported (1/30/00) that “a series of polls showed the two Republican front-runners in a dead heat.” Given that McCain won by 19 points, journalists and pollsters puzzling over Clinton’s showing are ignoring very recent history.

As the media mea culpas start to pile up, it’s worth considering the unspoken implication–that if the vote had gone the way the polls were predicting, then the press would have been doing a fine job of covering an election. But journalists should not be gamblers, betting that they will be vindicated by voters’ choices that are inherently unpredictable. Reporters should strive for coverage that holds up no matter what the results are.

Expectations and reality
Though they often prefer to think of themselves as mere observers of an election, the media clearly set the tone for much of the campaign, laying out expectations for various candidates and making editorial decisions about who the most “viable” contenders will be–usually long before most actual voters have been given the chance to weigh in.

But beating the expectations doesn’t necessarily guarantee good coverage. Democratic contender John Edwards defied press predictions by finishing second in Iowa, ahead of supposed front-runner Hillary Clinton. But much of the media conversation after the votes were tallied focused on the disappointing Edwards showing. By contrast, Republican John McCain had a great night in Iowa, according to many in the press– despite the fact that he finished fourth, behind Fred Thompson. The obvious difference is not how well the candidates did but how well they are liked by the press corps.

Some in the media point out that the Republican race in New Hampshire went as predicted, so it wasn’t all bad news for the press. But the campaign coverage still included its share of bizarrely confident predictions. NBC’s Tim Russert (1/4/08) declared that “only McCain or Romney can come out of New Hampshire to fight for another day in South Carolina, only one. One stays behind. It is make or break for McCain or Romney in New Hampshire.” Given that both candidates are, by all appearances, continuing to campaign, will Russert explain where his prediction came from? Or as the Washington Post’s David Broder wrote before the New Hampshire vote (1/4/08), “A second Romney loss would effectively end the former Massachusetts governor’s candidacy.”

Horse race
There’s a long trend of media hostility towards so-called “second-tier” candidates (Extra!, 9/10/03). As a recent Wall Street Journal news story put it (1/10/08), “In both parties, second-tier candidates continue to press on and siphon off votes.” But Broder and Russert were not just saying that non-frontrunners have a duty to get out of the way–they were asserting that a loss in New Hampshire would mean that Romney would no longer be a front-runner. This illustrates an important point about mainstream election coverage: Not only do journalists and pundits devote far too much attention to covering the horse race aspect of campaigns, but when they cover the horse race they generally do a poor job of it.

Primary elections and caucuses determine how a state party’s delegates are assigned; if a candidate wins enough delegates, they will almost certainly be their party’s nominee. So a reasonably helpful media would focus on this delegate count. But the mathematics of this process are obscured by the media’s obsession with “wins” and “losses” in highly visible contests.

Consider Barack Obama’s apparently monumental victory in the Iowa caucuses. The distribution of delegates, though, was hardly so dramatic: Obama won 16, Clinton 15 and Edwards 14. In a race to secure a little over 2,000 delegates, the results are of little consequence. In New Hampshire, Clinton’s dramatic comeback netted her nine delegates–the same number awarded to Obama. In the total delegate count tallied on CNN’s website–which counts a large number of party insiders awarded as “superdelegates”–Clinton has more than double the number of delegates as Obama, and Edwards is about 25 delegates behind Obama.

On the Republican side, McCain’s victory in New Hampshire gained him seven delegates; to put that in context, Romney’s second-place finish in Iowa was worth 12 delegates. And Romney’s win in the Wyoming primary–which received almost no media coverage at all–secured him eight delegates. His total delegate count still puts him ahead of all or most his competitors (depending on whether you believe CNN or ABC), though the media coverage would lead you to conclude otherwise.

Given that the process of nominating a presidential candidate is a matter of winning delegates, why does the press assign so much significance to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries? The implicit assumption is that these small states have a big role in determining the eventual party nominees, but they actually have a quite mixed record in projecting overall winners in competitive races. (Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas and Pat Buchanan were all New Hampshire winners.) Neither does losing early primaries necessarily doom a candidacy–in 1992, Bill Clinton lost the first five contests. The media’s decision to place such importance on the small number of delegates in the first two states has little to do with any actual reasonable political determination.

What do we cover now?
Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw offered some helpful commentary during the coverage of the New Hampshire primaries, suggesting to MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews that reporters put less emphasis on trying to predict outcomes and spend more time covering actual policy:

BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

MATTHEWS: Well, what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.

BROKAW: No, no we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.

Matthews’ response is illuminating. Does a political junkie who hosts two national television programs really not have any idea about how to cover politics other than talking about strategy, fundraising and polls? Do campaign journalists really have so little interest in the actual policy positions of the candidates?

As it stands now, the races for the major party nominations are remarkably close. The most valuable service journalists could provide now would be to illustrate the differences between the candidates on the major issues of importance to voters. The press corps seems chastened by their misreading of the New Hampshire electorate, and many are vowing to be more cautious in their assumptions. Will they follow through on their own advice? And will voters ever get campaign reporting that helps them make informed choices about the direction of their democracy?

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Peter Hart on 2008 primaries, Kali Akuno on New Orleans public housing (1/11/08-1/17/08)

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Careers & Ed: Paid by Pandora

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› culture@sfbg.com

Before Tim Westergren founded the Music Genome Project and Pandora, an online radio station–music recommendation site that’s developed a cultlike following, he had no idea what he was going to do for a living. After all, how do you prepare for a job that doesn’t exist yet?

He wasn’t like the scores of people who go through school with specific goals in mind — for instance, major in computer science or business administration, get an entry-level position, start climbing the corporate ladder to become an engineer or manager, and acquire a 401(k).

No, for the venture capitalist, for the entrepreneur, life is more abstract. Westergren’s career path was blazed on a hunch and an intense passion for music, which he’d loved ever since learning to play piano in the suburbs of Paris as a child.

"It’s more, kind of, personal instinct," Westergren said when asked how he found his niche. "Looking around thinking, ‘OK, the problem that I have and that all my friends and everyone I know has is that they love music but they have a hard time finding new stuff.’ That’s the problem that just about every single adult faces. I also knew, as a musician, that there was an awful lot of really great music around that nobody was hearing because it was all buried. And so I figured, ‘Gosh, there’s got to be an opportunity in there of connecting those two.’<0x2009>"

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?


If you don’t happen to be one of the many people who have already pledged their allegiance to Pandora’s wide selection of music and uncanny ability to predict what other artists you might like, let me explain.

At its simplest, Pandora is Internet radio with a brain. Signing up is free and surprisingly quick. Then you choose an artist or song as your "station," and music begins to play. Each successive song is chosen by Pandora, creating a customized streaming playlist based on the attributes of the songs you’ve chosen (and on whether or not you like the songs the site chooses for you). If you like Manu Chao, Pandora might play Los Cafres next. If you start a station around Weezer, Pandora might recommend a song by Jimmy Eat World. If you like Prince, you’ll probably soon be jamming to the Time. And if your Nine Inch Nails station is playing too much hard, dark Marilyn Manson, you can give feedback that’ll lead the station toward a more melodic NIN relative, like Tool.

It’s this system — the combination of radio station and the Music Genome Project, which offers carefully crafted music recommendations based on your tastes — that sets Pandora’s suggestions apart from those of other music sites.

"We’ve created a taxonomy of musical attributes that kind of collectively describe a song," Westergren said, sitting in the main room of Pandora’s headquarters, which looks like a computer lab crossed with a record store thanks to rows of computer stations backdropped by stacks of CDs. He showed me an example, clicking on a tune by Chet Baker at one of the stations. A form popped up on the flat screen, filled with about 40 drop-down menu fields rating musical characteristics. One, for example, says "Fixed to Improvised" and lets the user rate a song from 1 to 10 on that scale. A graphic at the bottom of the screen shows that this is the first of seven pages.

"An analyst goes through and scores each one of these, one by one," Westergren said. Around him the stations were speckled with sleepy-eyed musicians clutching Monday-morning coffee cups, while downtown Oakland glistened through large windows. "So in the end, they have a collection of about 400 individual pieces of musical information about the song. Everything about melody and harmony, rhythm and instrumentation, etc. And it’s this sort of musical DNA that connects songs on Pandora. So when you type a song in, it’s using this information to create playlists."

The criteria for these selections, much like Westergren’s qualifications for steering this funky music boat across the World Wide Web, have been gathered from scratch.

MUSIC BUSINESS


Born in Minneapolis, Westergren moved to France with his family when he was six years old. He went to high school in England, where he sang in a choir and learned a smattering of instruments: clarinet, bassoon, drums, and the recorder. But school in Europe was too tracked for his tastes, and by age 16 he knew he wanted to return to the United States. In college he majored in political science but kept finding himself drawn further into music.

"I tried a bunch of things out. The last couple of years, though, I really got deep into music and recording technology," Westergren said. With his tousled hair and green sweater, the 41-year-old has the clean-cut but cool appearance you’d expect of an Internet executive. "I went to Stanford as an undergrad, and there’s a place there called the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. It’s a place where science and music come together. There’s a lot of study of sound and sound creation and sound recording, and I [practically] lived there my senior year."

After graduating in ’88 and working as a nanny for several years, he began practicing piano eight hours a day, studying with jazz pianist Mark Levine in Berkeley, and performing at the Palo Alto Holiday Inn. But he always played in rock bands, which he says aren’t that different from start-up companies, and moved to San Francisco to be closer to the nightlife. He began writing jingles for radio ads; it was a short step from there to composing soundtracks for student films.

"The idea for the Music Genome Project, the whole sort of foundation for Pandora, actually was really hatched when I was a film composer. Because when you’re a film composer your job is to figure out someone else’s taste. So you’ll sit down with a film director with a stack of CDs and play stuff for them and try and learn what they like about music," Westergren said. "Then, as a composer, you’ve got to go back to your recording studio and write a piece of music they’ll like. So what you’re doing is, you’re transutf8g that feedback into musicological information."

But this was all just pointing in the right direction. There was still no road map, no clear way of making a musical-taste machine profitable. About this time, Westergren read an article about Aimee Mann, the singer-songwriter you may remember for sacrificing her toe in The Big Lebowski or for covering Harry Nilsson’s "One" for Magnolia. Mann had a decent fan base from her success with the band ‘Til Tuesday, but her record company had shelved her because it didn’t think she could sell enough records.

"It was really that article that prompted me to think, ‘Wow, if there was a way to let people who like her kind of music know that she had a new album coming out, then maybe she’d release her albums, because you could find the fan base.’ That was the original idea: to help connect artists with their audience," Westergren said.

In 1999 he started developing that idea. He sought the business advice of Jon Kraft, a friend from college. Kraft tapped Will Glaser for his computer expertise, and the trio began moving forward with the Music Genome Project, forming Savage Beast Technologies, the name still emblazoned on Pandora’s software today.

"We weren’t originally a radio station. In the beginning we were actually a recommendation tool," Westergren said. "You know how Amazon has ‘If you buy this book, you should also read these books?’ We thought we were going to be that kind of a recommendation tool used on other sites to help people find stuff."

The company got its first push in January 2000, when a few angel investors, or wealthy individuals, loaned it enough money to start developing software. It was on its way, but there was still no clear moneymaking mechanism, and for years the company ran on faith and credit cards. After a while cofounders Glaser and Kraft decided they had to move on. Westergren stuck with the project and kept looking for investors.

"I had been pitching venture funds for a couple of years. I had pitched over 300 times to different venture firms. I didn’t get a yes until 2004," Westergren said.

That was when Pandora.com was created, the Music Genome Project was plugged into personalized radio stations, ad space started selling, and revenue began to flow. It’s also when Westergren’s idea was paired with the shift the Internet has taken toward interactive marketing. Today Pandora has offices in Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York and sells ads connected to sounds that consumers like — and therefore products to consumers. The field of interactive marketing is booming, and Westergren says anyone looking to break into Internet radio should first look into a background in advertising.

Then again, you could just follow his example: use your instincts and see what develops.

Tim Westergren is traveling the country promoting Pandora with town hall meetings. See blog.pandora.com/pandora for information.

This is going to be big

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Wow, will California ever matter. Clinton defied the polls and won in New Hampshire, but Obama will almost certainly win South Carolina and probably Nevada, and it will be a heated two-person race in California with both campaign fighting it out to the last voter.

I’m with Kos — it’s very cool that the first two democratic primaries went to a woman and an African-American. I like what John Edwards has been saying, but he’s CTD at this point. It’s about Clinton and Obama.

Majority Report has some advice for Clinton; she and Bill have been through this many times, and they don’t give up easy. Obama’s going to have to get down to some real specifics and get off his lofty cloud.

But boy howdy, this is going to be fun.

Will money win tonight in Iowa?

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B3 note: This is an important and timely “follow the money” report from the Center For Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. It makes a significant point: that even though there are 2,000 or so journalists covering the campaign in Iowa, and even though there is almost saturation media coverage, nobody can really follow the money.

As the report notes in section 3 below, “If money raised in Iowa is any indicator of popular support, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton will win their respective caucuses tonight. And in New Hampshire, it’ll be Romney and Barrack Obama. But remember that these figures represent fundraising thruogh Sept. 30 only. The fundraising and spending reports for October-December aren’t due to the Federal Election Commission until after the caucuses on Jan. 3l.” The best you can do to follow the money, as we learned to do from Deep Throat in the movie “All the President’s Men,” is to read this report and follow its advice on how to go further. Alas, that’s not good enough.
Congratulations to the Center for doing the best that can be done under current election reporting law. B3

CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
MONEY-IN-POLITICS NEWS
January 3, 2008
tel: 202-857-0044, fax: 202-857-7809
editor@capitaleye.org
www.OpenSecrets.org
www.CapitalEye.org

WILL MONEY WIN TONIGHT IN IOWA?
Winning the Iowa caucuses takes organization and money, certainly, but the biggest spenders haven’t always won there. Howard Dean, Steve Forbes and Pat Robertson are just a few of the candidates who dumped money into the Hawkeye State with little to show for it. How much have the ’08 candidates spent to campaign in Iowa? Well, it’s hard to know. Using campaign finance reports, the best you can do is look at vendors’ addresses. But the biggest expenses, like for advertising, staff and travel, are often paid out to companies and individuals outside the state. In the first nine months of this campaign, the candidates reported spending more than $13 million with Iowa-based vendors. If the true cost of the Iowa effort were known, a single top-tier campaign might have spent that much alone — or more — in the state. As it is, Barack Obama’s reports detail about $2.6 million in Iowa expenditures from January through September, followed by Mitt Romney with about $2.4 million. By comparison, during the entire ’04 presidential election cycle, including the general election, the field of mostly Democratic candidates reported spending about $8.5 million in Iowa. Leading up to the caucuses that year, the field reported spending just $5.2 million, or 40 percent of this election’s reported spending.

*2008 presidential expenditures

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