Bicycles

Velo-mutations

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P>I’ve been aware of the intersection between alternative culture and bicycles since 1996, when I saw my first tall bike at Reed College in Portland, Ore. Since then, I’ve seen bikes at Burning Man tricked out with paint, fun fur, and EL wire. Bikes at Critical Mass made to look like animals or disco balls. Bike-powered carnival rides at Coachella. And punk girls, dressed in pink, dancing on minibikes at Tour de Fat.

But it wasn’t until "The Art of the Bicycle," an underground multimedia art show and party held in a warehouse in the Mission District last May, that I came to understand how these were each parts of a greater whole — spokes in the wheel of a bicycle culture that centers around creativity, empowerment, and, above all, fun. It also became clear, as I sipped cheap beer and listened to live punk rock in an unpermitted space, that this culture was very different from the road bike culture my dad (and his Spandex shorts) was a part of in the 1980s — or even the activist culture my friends in the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are in now.

No, this bike culture is something else. Rooted in DIY principles, punk and anarchist values, a good dose of geekiness, and rejection of the mainstream, the alternative bike culture that exists in San Francisco and beyond is an entirely different animal — and it’s growing up fast.

In the Bay Area alone, there’s Cyclecide, a bicycle club known for mutating found and rejected bikes into new forms and pedal-powered rides, as well as for their carnie aesthetic and rodeo-inspired antics; the Derailleurs, a group of women who dance on, with, and about bicycles; and the Trunk Boiz, an Oakland-based community of kids who pimp out their bicycles the way their older brothers might’ve pimped out their low-riders; and many others — all of whom operate outside the realm of traditional bike culture or politics.

And each of these are connected to a greater network of bicycle artists across the country and the world. The past decade has seen the birth of the Portland-based Bicycle Porn festival, which screened films showing the sexiness of (or near) bikes at Victoria Theater last November; as well as the New York City-based Bicycle Film Festival, which had its first West Coast showing in San Francisco several years ago and now visits 39 cities per year. There are now more than 120 bicycle clubs all over the world, with originals like Black Label growing so big it has 40 chapters of its own. And only five years after the first bicycle dance troupe, the Sprockettes, was formed in Portland, there are 11 bicycle dance troupes worldwide.

But who are these people? Why are they so inspired by bikes? And why make art with or about them, rather than just ride them? The answer is complex. For some, the bike is simply a beautiful machine, an engineering problem whose solution hasn’t changed much since the 1600s but whose application is infinite. For others, it’s the bike’s democracy that’s so appealing: cheap, accessible, and available to all kinds of riders. Some see the bike as a vehicle for change, undermining car culture and the politics involved in non-people-powered transportation.

But what seems to tie all these people together is a counterculture instinct. These are artists, musicians, and math geeks. They’re the same people who may have been drawn to skateboarding or surfing (before both became commercial and mainstream), punk shows, Dumpster diving, or even Stitch ‘n’ Bitch parties. It’s a community of people dissatisfied with the status quo and filled with the imagination and ambition to work outside it — if not against it.

"We wanted to have fun," said Jarico Reesce, about founding Cyclecide in 1997. "And we wanted to break every rule we could." (Molly Freedenberg)

Newsom’s self-serving bike proposal

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newsom.jpg
Newsom rode a rental bike as we chatted during Bike to Work Day a few years ago.
By Steven T. Jones

I was already cranking up my criticism of Mayor Gavin Newsom in this post when he announced his anemic bike-sharing proposal – 50 bikes for San Francisco versus the 20,000 in Paris, from where he made the announcement – so I wondered if perhaps I was being a little hard on the proposal. You know, poisoned by my own venom.
It seemed pretty ridiculous to spend $1 million to start a program that nobody could rely on considering there would be less than 10 bikes at each of the five locations that they’re proposing. So I listened to the chatter on the CarFree list (people who promote biking and would support a legitimate bike-sharing program), checked sites such as SF Streetsblog, and did some interviews.
And so now I can say, with great confidence, that this is indeed a really dumb and self-serving idea that has everything to do with Newsom being able to claim he started something sexy like bike sharing and nothing to do with actually promoting bicycling in San Francisco.
Hell, Blazing Saddles (the rental company that lends Newsom a ride for Bike to Work Day, the one day a year that he pedals) rents 200-700 bicycles per day in San Francisco depending on the season and weather, according to someone I spoke with there. So how exactly is the Clear Channel-administered 50 bikes going to make any difference?
MTA spokesperson Judson True did defend the proposal when I called him, telling me the 50 bikes was, “based on Clear Channel’s experience in other cities getting people used to the idea.” Clear Channel runs the only other one in the U.S., Washington DC’s shitty little 150-bike program, unlike the thousands of bikes in real programs in cities around the world. True also said the high cost is based partly on renting private property because the bike injunction, which will be lifted later this year, prohibits bike improvements on public property.
Which, to me, sounds like even more proof that Newsom decided to roll this out now because it fits into his larger political plans, beating other U.S. cities like New York that are doing actual planning to roll out real bike sharing programs. And so it goes with Mayor Press Release.

P.S. See you all at Critical Mass tomorrow.

Strange bedfellows

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY San Francisco’s bicycle community found itself in the strange position of encouraging Superior Court Judge Peter Busch — someone many cyclists revile for his strict enforcement of a far-reaching injunction against bike projects in the city — to reject a city-sponsored bike safety proposal during a Jan. 22 hearing. It was one more sign of the desperation bicyclists and city officials are feeling over the three-year-old ban on all things bike-related, from new lanes to simple sidewalk racks (see “Stationary biking,” 5/16/07).

Judge Busch denied a city motion asking for the authority to make safety improvements at intersections that have proven dangerous to bicyclists, as well as a specific proposal by the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) to remove the bike lane at the most dangerous of those intersections, on Market Street at Octavia Boulevard, where 15 bicyclists have been hit by cars making illegal right turns onto the freeway since the revamped intersection opened in September 2005.

But the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and other bicyclists opposed the MTA proposal, arguing it would be more dangerous and holding a Jan. 16 rally at the site, which drew several supportive local politicians, including Sen. Mark Leno, Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, and Sups. Ross Mirkarimi, David Campos, and Bevan Dufty. “As people who ride through that intersection every single day, we believe the proposal would have made the intersection more dangerous. So I’m really relieved that the judge saw that,” SFBC director Leah Shahum told us.

She was less pleased with the judge’s refusal to relax the injunction, which stems from a legal challenge to the San Francisco Bicycle Plan. San Francisco resident Rob Anderson and attorney Mary Miles successfully sued the city in June 2006, arguing that the plan was hasty and did not include an environmental impact report (EIR), as required by state law, to determine how the plan would affect traffic, neighborhoods, businesses, and the environment.

“This case has been very discouraging because there are a handful of activists against bicyclists in the city,” City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey said. “The hearing showed that the city has to go to court any time it wants to improve the streets for bicyclists.”

Although Judge Busch denied the city’s request to remove the bike lane, he hinted that the injunction would probably be lifted this spring with the completion of the Bike Plan’s EIR. “There was a strong message from the judge that he sees the bigger picture about getting the EIR done. It just needs to be complete and fair and accurate. Then the city can get back to work making the streets safer,” Shahum said.

Both Anderson and the SFBC, who usually agree on little, agreed on the judge’s latest ruling. Anderson advocates maintaining streets for cars and pedestrians, while the SFBC works to make roads safer for bicycles and encouraging bicycling as an important transportation option. Shahum urges city officials to rethink their approach to make Market and Octavia safer. “The city really does need to move on to the next steps to make the intersection better,” she said.

Although the number of bicyclists in San Francisco has doubled in recent years in light of volatile gasoline prices, the economic crisis, and greater awareness of global climate change, Anderson continues to argue that bicyclists will always be a minority interest, even in San Francisco.

“We have to make the streets as safe as possible without strangling the rest of the traffic,” Anderson told the Guardian. “Only a small percentage of the population in San Francisco use bicycles as their main mode of transportation. It’s not fair for the bike people to design the streets just to benefit them.”

Dorsey and Deputy City Attorney Audrey Pearson oppose Anderson, who has said bicycling is an inherently dangerous activity that the city shouldn’t be promoting. “As a policy, the city tries to discourage cars in San Francisco,” Dorsey said, referring to the longstanding “transit first” policies.

Now that the public comment period for the Bike Plan’s Draft EIR is over and Judge Busch has ruled to keep the bike lane at Market and Octavia, all parties are looking ahead to spring when the court is expected to lift the injunction on improving bike safety in San Francisco, unleashing nearly 60 new bike projects. That is, unless Anderson and Miles can find a way to stop them.

The Hard Times Handbook

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We all have high hopes for the new administration. We’d all like to believe that the recession will end soon, that jobs will be plentiful, health care available to all, and affordable housing built in abundance.

But the grim reality is that hard times are probably around for a while longer, and it may get worse before it gets better.

Don’t despair: the city is full of fun things to do on the cheap. There are ways to save money and enjoy life at the same time. If you’re in trouble — out of work, out of food, facing eviction — there are resources around to help you. What follows is a collection of tips, techniques, and ideas for surviving the ongoing depression that’s the last bitter legacy of George W. Bush.

BELOW YOU’LL FIND OUR TIPS ON SCORING FREE, CHEAP, AND LOW-COST WONDERS. (Click here for the full page version with jumps, if you can’t see it.)

MUSIC AND MOVIES

CLOTHING

FOOD

CONCERTS

WHEELS

HEALTH CARE

SHELTER

MEALS

COCKTAILS

DATE NIGHTS

YOGA

PLUS:

HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

HOW TO GET UNEMPLOYMENT

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FREE MUSIC AND MOVIES

For a little extra routine effort, I’ve managed to make San Francisco’s library system my Netflix/GreenCine, rotating CD turntable, and bookstore, all rolled into one. And it’s all free.

If you’re a books-music-film whore like me, you find your home maxed out with piles of the stuff … and not enough extra cash to feed your habits. So I’ve decided to only buy my favorites and to borrow the rest. We San Franciscans have quite a library system at our fingertips. You just have to learn how to use it.

Almost everyone thinks of a library as a place for books. And that’s not wrong: you can read the latest fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, and I’ve checked out a slew of great mixology/cocktail recipe books when I want to try new drinks at home. I’ve hit up bios on my favorite musicians, or brought home stacks of travel books before a trip (they usually have the current year’s edition of at least one travel series for a given place, whether it be Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, or Frommer’s).

But there’s much more. For DVDs, I regularly check Rotten Tomatoes’ New Releases page (www.rottentomatoes.com/dvd/new_releases.php) for new DVD releases. Anything I want to see, I keep on a list and search www.sfpl.org for those titles every week. About 90 percent of my list eventually comes to the library, and most within a few weeks of the release date.

And such a range! I recently checked out the Oscar-nominated animated foreign film, Persepolis, the entire first season of Mad Men, tons of documentaries, classics (like a Cyd Charisse musical or Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s catalog), even Baby Mama (sure, it sucked, but I can’t resist Tina Fey).

A music fanatic can find virtually every style, and even dig into the history of a genre. I’ve found CDs of jazz and blues greats, including Jelly Roll Morton, John Lee Hooker, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, kitschy lounge like Martin Denny and singer Julie London, and have satiated rap cravings with the latest Talib Kwali, Lyrics Born, Missy Elliott, T.I. or Kanye (I won’t tell if you won’t).

Warning: there can be a long "holds" list for popular new releases (e.g., Iron Man just came out and has about 175). When this happens, Just get in the queue — you can request as many as 15 items simultaneously online (you do have a library card, right?) You’ll get an e-mail when your item comes in and you can check the status of your list any time you log in. Keep DVDs a full seven days (three weeks for books and CDs) and return ’em to any branch you like.

I’ve deepened my music knowledge, read a broader range of books, and canceled GreenCine. Instead, I enjoy a steady flow of free shit coming my way each week. And if I get bored or the novelty of Baby Mama wears off, I return it and free up space in my mind (and on my shelf) for more. (Virginia Miller)

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STYLE FOR A SONG

Shhh. The first rule about thrifting, to paraphrase mobsters and hardcore thrift-store shoppers, is don’t talk about thrifting — and that means the sites of your finest thrift scores. Diehard thrifters guard their favorite shops with jealous zeal: they know exactly what it’s like to wade through scores of stained T-shirts, dress-for-success suits, and plastic purses and come up with zilcherooni. They also know what it’s like to ascend to thrifter nirvana, an increasingly rarified plane where vintage Chanel party shoes and cool dead-stock Western wear are sold for a song.

Friendships have been trashed and shopping carts upended in the revelation of these much-cherished thrift stores, where the quest for that ’50s lamb’s fur jacket or ’80s acid-washed zipper jeans — whatever floats your low-budg boat — has come to a rapturous conclusion. It’s a war zone, shopping on the cheap, out there — and though word has it that the thrifting is excellent in Vallejo and Fresno, our battle begins at home. When the sample sales, designer runoff outlets, resale dives, and consignment boutiques dry up, here’s where you’ll find just what you weren’t looking for — but love, love, love all the same.

Community Thrift, 623 Valencia, SF. (415) 861-4910, www.communitythrift.bravehost.com. Come for the writer’s own giveaways (you can bequeath the funds raised to any number of local nonprofits), and leave with the rattan couches, deco bureaus, records, books and magazines, and an eccentric assortment of clothing and housewares. I’m still amazed at the array of intriguing junk that zips through this spot, but act fast or you’ll miss snagging that Victorian armoire.

Goodwill As-Is Store, 86 11th St., SF. (415) 575-2197, www.sfgoodwill.org. This is the archetype and endgamer of grab-and-tumble thrifting. We’re talking bins, people — bins of dirt cheap and often downright dirty garb that the massive Goodwill around the corner has designated unsuitable, for whatever reason. Dive into said bins, rolled out by your, ahem, gracious Goodwill hosts throughout the day, along with your competition: professional pickers for vintage shops, grabby vintage people, and ironclad bargain hunters. They may not sell items by the pound anymore — now its $2.25 for a piece of adult clothing, 50 cents to $1 for babies’ and children’s garb, $4 for leather jackets, etc. — but the sense of triumph you’ll feel when you discover a tattered 1930s Atonement-style poison-ivy green gown, or a Dr. Pimp-enstein rabbit-fur patchwork coat, or cheery 1950s tablecloths with negligible stainage, is indescribable.

Goodwill Industries, 3801 Third St., SF. (415) 641-4470, www.sfgoodwill.org Alas, not all Goodwills are created equal: some eke out nothing but stale mom jeans and stretched-out polo shirts. But others, like this Hunter’s Point Goodwill, abound with on-trend goodies. At least until all of you thrift-hungry hordes grab my junk first. Tucked into the corner of a little strip mall, this Goodwill has all those extremely fashionable hipster goods that have been leached from more populated thrift pastures or plucked by your favorite street-savvy designer to "repurpose" as their latest collection: buffalo check shirts, wolf-embellished T-shirts, Gunne Sax fairy-princess gowns, basketball jerseys, and ’80s-era, multicolored zany-print tops that Paper Rad would give their beards for.

Salvation Army, 1500 Valencia, SF. (415) 643-8040, www.salvationarmyusa.org. The OG of Mission District thrifting, this Salv has been the site of many an awesome discovery. Find out when the Army puts out the new goods. The Salvation soldiers may have cordoned off the "vintage" — read: higher priced — items in the store within the store, but there are still plenty of old books, men’s clothing, and at times hep housewares and Formica kitchen tables to be had: I adore the rainbow Mork and Mindy parka vest I scored in the boys’ department, as well as my mid-century-mod mustard-colored rocker.

Savers, 875 Main, Redwood City. (650) 364-5545, www.savers.com When the ladies of Hillsborough, Burlingame, and the surrounding ‘burbs shed their oldest, most elegant offerings, the pickings can’t be beat at this Savers. You’ll find everything from I. Magnin cashmere toppers, vintage Gucci tweed, and high-camp ’80s feather-and-leather sweaters to collectible dishware, antique ribbons, and kitsch-cute Holly Hobbie plaques. Strangest, oddly covetable missed-score: a psychiatrist’s couch.

Thrift Town, 2101 Mission, SF. (415) 861-1132, www.thrifttown.com. When all else fails, fall back on this department store-sized megalith. Back in the day, thrift-oldsters tell me, they’d dig out collectible paintings and ’50s-era bikes. Now you’ll have to grind deeply to land those finds, though they’re here: cute, mismatched, mid-century chairs; the occasional designer handbag; and ’60s knit suits. Hint: venture into less picked-over departments like bedding. (Kimberly Chun)

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FREE FOOD

San Francisco will not let you starve. Even if you’re completely out of money, there are plenty of places and ways to fill your belly. Many soup kitchens operate out of churches and community centers, and lists can be downloaded and printed from freeprintshop.org and sfhomeless.net (which is also a great clearinghouse of information on social services in San Francisco.)Here’s a list of some of our favorites.

Free hot meals

Curry without Worry Healthy, soul pleasing Nepalese food to hungry people in San Francisco. Every Tues. 5:45–7 p.m. on the square at Hyde and Market streets.

Glide, 330 Ellis. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch noon-1:30 p.m. everyday. Dinner 4-5:30 p.m., M-F.

St. Anthony Dining Room, 45 Jones, Lunch everyday 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

St Martin de Porres Hospitality House, 225 Potrero Ave. Best bowl of oatmeal in the city. Tues.-Sat. breakfast from 6:30-7:30 a.m., lunch from noon-2 pm.. Sun. brunch 9-10:30 a.m. Often vegetarian options.

Vegetarian

Food not Bombs Vegetarian soup and bread, but bring your own bowl. At the UN Plaza, Mon., 6 p.m.; Wed., 5:30 p.m. Also at 16th and Mission streets. Thurs. at 7:30 p.m.

Mother’s Kitchen, 7 Octavia, Fri., 2:30-3:30. Vegan options.

Iglesia Latina Americana de Las Adventistas Seventh Dia, 3024 24th St. Breakfast 9:30-11 a.m., third Sun. of the month.

Grab and go sandwiches

Glide, bag meals to go after breakfast ends at 9 a.m.

St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 666 Filbert. 4-5 p.m. every day.

Seniors

Curry Senior Center, 333 Turk. For the 60+ set. Breakfast 8-9 a.m., lunch 11:30 to noon every day.

Kimochi, 1840 Sutter St. Japanese-style hot lunch served 11:45 am (M-F). $1.50 donation per meal is requested. 60+ only with no one to assist with meals. Home deliveries available. 415-931-2287

St. Anthony Dining Room, 10:30-11:30 a.m., 59+, families, and people who can’t carry a tray.

Free groceries

San Francisco Food Bank A wealth of resources, from pantries with emergency food boxes to supplemental food programs. 415-282-1900. sffoodbank.org/programs

211 Dial this magic number and United Way will connect you with free food resources in your neighborhood — 24/7.

Low-cost groceries

Maybe you don’t qualify for food assistance programs or you just want to be a little thriftier — in which case the old adage that the early bird gets the metaphorical worm is apropos. When it comes to good food deals, timing can be everything. Here are a couple of handy tips for those of us who like to eat local, organic, and cheap. Go to Rainbow Grocery early and hit the farmers markets late. Rainbow has cheap and half-price bins in the bread and produce sections — but you wouldn’t know it if you’re a late-riser. Get there shortly after doors open at 9 a.m. for the best deals.

By the end of the day, many vendors at farmers markets are looking to unload produce rather than pack it up, so it’s possible to score great deals if you’re wandering around during the last half hour of the market. CAFF has a comprehensive list of Bay Area markets that you can download: guide.buylocalca.org/localguides.

Then there’s the Grocery Outlet (2001 Fourth St., Berkeley and 2900 Broadway, Oakland, www.groceryoutlets.com), which puts Wal-Mart to shame. This is truly the home of low-cost living. Grocery Outlet began in 1946 in San Francisco when Jim Read purchased surplus government goods and started selling them. Now Grocery Outlets are the West Coast’s version of those dented-can stores that sell discounted food that wasn’t ready for prime-time, or perhaps spent a little too long in the limelight.

Be prepared to eat what you find — options range from name brands with trashed labels to foodstuffs you’ve never seen before — but there are often good deals on local breads and cheeses, and their wine section will deeply expand you Two-Buck Chuck cellar. Don’t be afraid of an occasional corked bottle that you can turn into salad dressing, and be sure to check the dates on anything perishable. The Grocery Outlet Web site (which has the pimpest intro music ever) lists locations and ways to sign up for coupons and download a brochure on how to feed your family for $3 a day. (Amanda Witherell)

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LIVE MUSIC FOR NOTHING — AND KICKS FOR FREE

Music should be free. Everyone who has downloaded music they haven’t been given or paid for obviously believes this, though we haven’t quite made it to that ideal world where all professional musicians are subsidized — and given health care — by the government or other entities. But live, Clive? Where do can you catch fresh, live sounds during a hard-hitting, heavy-hanging economic downturn? Intrepid, impecunious sonic seekers know that with a sharp eye and zero dough, great sounds can be found in the oddest crannies of the city. You just need to know where to look, then lend an ear. Here are a few reliables — occasional BART station busks and impromptu Ocean Beach shows aside.

Some of the best deals — read: free — on world-class performers happen seasonally: in addition to freebie fests like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass every October and the street fairs that accompanying in fair weather, there’s each summer’s Stern Grove Festival. Beat back the Sunset fog with a picnic of bread, cheese, and cheap vino, though you gotta move fast to claim primo viewing turf to eyeball acts like Bettye Lavette, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, and Allen Toussaint. Look for the 2009 schedule to be posted at www.sterngrove.org May 1.

Another great spot to catch particularly local luminaries is the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which runs from May to October. Rupa and the April Fishes, Brass Menazeri, Marcus Shelby Trio, Bayonics, and Omar Sosa’s Afreecanos Quintet all took their turn in the sun during the Thursday lunchtime concerts. Find out who’s slated for ’09 in early spring at www.ybgf.org.

All year around, shopkeeps support sounds further off the beaten path — music fans already know about the free, albeit usually shorter, shows, DJ sets, and acoustic performances at aural emporiums like Amoeba Music (www.amoeba.com) and Aquarius Records (www.aquariusrecords.org). Many a mind has been blown by a free blast of new sonics from MIA or Boris amid the stacks at Amoeba, the big daddy in this field, while Aquarius in-stores define coziness: witness last year’s intimate acoustic hootenanny by Deerhoof’s Satomi and Tenniscoats’ Saya as Oneone. Less regular but still an excellent time if you happen upon one: Adobe Books Backroom Gallery art openings (adobebooksbackroomgallery.blogspot.com), where you can get a nice, low-key dose of the Mission District’s art and music scenes converging. Recent exhibition unveilings have been topped off by performances by the Oh Sees, Boner Ha-chachacha, and the Quails.

Still further afield, check into the free-for-all, quality curatorial efforts at the Rite Spot (www.ritespotcafe.net), where most shows at this dimly lit, atmospheric slice of old-school cabaret bohemia are as free as the breeze and as fun as the collection of napkin art in back: Axton Kincaid, Brandy Shearer, Kitten on the Keys, Toshio Hirano, and Yard Sale have popped up in the past. Also worth a looky-loo are Thee Parkside‘s (www.theeparkside.com) free Twang Sunday and Happy Hour Shows: a rad time to check out bands you’ve never heard of but nonetheless pique your curiosity: Hukaholix, hell’s yeah! And don’t forget: every cover effort sounds better with a pint — all the better to check into the cover bands at Johnny Foley’s (www.johnnyfoleys.com), groove artists at Beckett’s Irish Pub in Berkeley (www.beckettsirishpub.com), and piano man Rod Dibble and his rousing sing-alongs at the Alley in Oakland (510-444-8505). All free of charge. Charge! (Kimberly Chun}

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THE CHEAPEST WAY TO GET AROUND TOWN

Our complex world often defies simple solutions. But there is one easy way to save money, get healthy, become more self-sufficient, free up public resources, and reduce your contribution to air pollution and global warming: get around town on a bicycle.

It’s no coincidence that the number of cyclists on San Francisco streets has increased dramatically over the last few years, a period of volatile gasoline prices, heightened awareness of climate change, poor Muni performance, and economic stagnation.

On Bike to Work Day last year, traffic counts during the morning commute tallied more bicycles than cars on Market Street for the first time. Surveys commissioned by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition show that the number of regular bike commuters has more than doubled in recent years. And that increase came even as a court injunction barred new bike projects in the city (see "Stationary biking," 5/16/07), a ban that likely will be lifted later this year, triggering key improvements in the city’s bicycle network that will greatly improve safety.

Still not convinced? Then do the math.

Drive a car and you’ll probably spend a few hundred dollars every month on insurance, gas, tolls, parking, and fines, and that’s even if you already own your car outright. If you ride the bus, you’ll pay $45 per month for a Fast Pass while government will pay millions more to subsidize the difference. Riding a bike is basically free.

Free? Surely there are costs associated with bicycling, right? Yeah, sure, occasionally. But in a bike-friendly city like San Francisco, there are all kinds of opportunities to keep those costs very low, certainly lower than any other transportation alternative except walking (which is also a fine option for short trips).

There are lots of inexpensive used bicycles out there. I bought three of my four bicycles at the Bike Hut at Pier 40 (www.thebikehut.com) for an average of $100 each and they’ve worked great for several years (my fourth bike, a suspension mountain bike, I also bought used for a few hundred bucks).

Local shops that sell used bikes include Fresh Air Bicycles, (1943 Divisidero, www.fabsf.com) Refried Cycles (3804 17th St., www.refriedcycles,com/bicycles.htm), Karim Cycle (2800 Telegraph., Berkeley, www.teamkarim.com/bikes/used/) and Re-Cycles Bicycles (3120 Sacramento, Berkeley, www.recyclesbicycles.com). Blazing Saddles (1095 Columbus, www.blazingsaddles.com) sells used rental bikes for reasonable prices. Craigslist always has listings for dozens of used bikes of all styles and prices. And these days, you can even buy a new bike for a few hundred bucks. Sure, they’re often made in China with cheap parts, but they’ll work just fine.

Bikes are simple yet effective machines with a limited number of moving parts, so it’s easy to learn to fix them yourself and cut out even the minimal maintenance costs associated with cycling. I spent $100 for two four-hour classes at Freewheel Bike Shop (1920 Hayes and 914 Valencia, www.thefreewheel.com) that taught me everything I need to know about bike maintenance and includes a six-month membership that lets me use its facilities, tools, and the expertise of its mechanics. My bikes are all running smoother than ever on new ball bearings that cost me two bucks per wheel, but they were plenty functional even before.

There are also ways to get bike skills for free. Sports Basement (www.sportsbasement.com) offers free bicycle maintenance classes at both its San Francisco locations the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Or you can turn to the Internet, where YouTube has a variety of bike repair videos and Web sites such as www.howtofixbikes.com can lead you through repairs.

The nonprofit The Bike Kitchen (1256 Mission, www.thebikekitchen.org) on Mission Street offers great deals to people who spend $40 per year for a membership. Volunteer your time through the Earn-a-Bike program and they’ll give you the frame, parts, and skills to build your own bike for free.

But even in these hard economic times, there is one purchase I wouldn’t skimp on: spend the $30 — $45 for a good U-lock, preferably with a cable for securing the wheels. Then you’re all set, ready to sell your car, ditch the bus, and learn how easy, cheap, fast, efficient, and fun it is to bicycle in this 49-square-mile city. (Steven T. Jones)

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LOW-COST HEALTH CARE

When money’s tight, healthcare tends to be one of the first costs we cut. But that can be a bad idea, because skimping on preventive care and treatment for minor issues can lead to much more expensive and serious (and painful) health issues later. Here is our guide to Bay Area institutions, programs, and clinics that serve the under- and uninsured.

One of our favorite places is the Women’s Community Clinic (2166 Hayes, 415-379-7800, www.womenscommunityclinic.org), a women-operated provider open to anyone female, female-identified, or female-bodied transgender. This awesome 10-year-old clinic offers sexual and reproductive health services — from Pap smears and PMS treatment to menopause and infertility support — to any SF, San Mateo, Alameda, or Marin County resident, and all on a generous sliding scale based on income and insurance (or lack thereof). Call for an appointment, or drop in on Friday mornings (but show up at 9:30 a.m. because spots fill up fast).

A broader option (in terms of both gender and service) is Mission Neighborhood Center (main clinic at 240 Shotwell. 415-552-3870, www.mnhc.org, see Web site for specialty clinics). This one-stop health shop provides primary, HIV/AIDS, preventive, podiatry, women’s, children’s, and homeless care to all, though its primary focus is on the Latino/Hispanic Spanish-speaking community. Insurance and patient payment is accepted, including a sliding scale for the uninsured (no one is denied based on inability to pay). This clinic is also a designated Medical Home (or primary care facility) for those involved in the Healthy San Francisco program.

Contrary to popular belief, Healthy San Francisco (www.healthysanfrancisco.org) is not insurance. Rather, it’s a network of hospitals and clinics that provide free or nearly free healthcare to uninsured SF residents who earn at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level (which, at about $2,600 per month, includes many of us). Participants choose a Medical Home, which serves as a first point-of-contact. The good news? HSF is blind to immigration status, employment status, and preexisting medical conditions. The catch? The program’s so new and there are so many eligible residents that the application process is backlogged — you may have a long wait before you reap the rewards. Plus, HSF only applies within San Francisco.

Some might consider mental health less important than that of the corporeal body, but anyone who’s suffered from depression, addiction, or PTSD knows otherwise. Problem is, psychotherapy tends to be expensive — and therefore considered superfluous. Not so at Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center (507 Polk. 415-561-0230, www.goldengatecounseling.org), where individuals, couples, families, and groups can get long- and short-term counseling for issues from stress and relationships to gender identity, all billed on a sliding scale.

Other good options

American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (450 Connecticut, 415-282-9603, actcm.edu). This well-regarded school provides a range of treatments, including acupuncture, cupping, tui ma/shiatsu massage, and herbal therapy, at its on-site clinics — all priced according to a sliding scale and with discounts for students and seniors. The college also sends interns to specialty clinics around the Bay, including the Women’s Community Clinic, Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, and St. James Infirmary.

St. James Infirmary (1372 Mission. 415-554-8494, www.stjamesinfirmary.org). Created for sex-workers and their partners, this Mission District clinic offers a range of services from primary care to massage and self-defense classes, for free. Bad ass.

Free Print Shop (www.freeprintshop.org): This fantabulous Webs site has charts showing access to free healthcare across the city, as well as free food, shelter, and help with neighborhood problems. If we haven’t listed ’em, Free Print Shop has. Tell a friend.

Native American Health Center (160 Capp, 415-621-8051, www.nativehealth.org). Though geared towards Native Americans, this multifaceted clinic (dental! an Oakland locale, and an Alameda satellite!) turns no one away. Services are offered to the under-insured on a sliding scale as well as to those with insurance.

SF Free Clinic (4900 California, 415-750-9894, www.sffc.org). Those without any health insurance can get vaccinations, diabetes care, family planning assistance, STD diagnosis and treatment, well child care, and monitoring of acute and chronic medical problems.

Haight Ashbury Free Clinics (558 Clayton. 415-746-1950, www.hafci.org): Though available to all, these clinics are geared towards the uninsured, underinsured "working poor," the homeless, youth, and those with substance abuse and/or mental health issues. We love this organization not only for its day-to-day service, but for its low-income residential substance abuse recovery programs and its creation of RockMed, which provides free medical care at concerts and events. (Molly Freedenberg)

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THE BEST HOMELESS SHELTERS

There’s no reason to be ashamed to stay in the city’s homeless shelters — but proceed with awareness. Although most shelters take safety precautions and men and women sleep in separate areas, they’re high-traffic places that house a true cross-section of the city’s population.

The city shelters won’t take you if you just show up — you have to make a reservation. In any case, a reservation center should be your first stop anyway because they’ll likely have other services available for you. If you’re a first-timer, they’ll want to enter you into the system and take your photograph. (You can turn down the photo-op.) Reservations can be made for up to seven days, after which you’ll need to connect with a case manager to reserve a more permanent 30- or 60-day bed.

The best time to show up is first thing in the morning when beds are opening up, or late at night when beds have opened up because of no-show reservations. First thing in the morning means break of dawn — people often start lining up between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. for the few open beds. Many people are turned away throughout the day, although your chances are better if you’re a woman.

You can reserve a bed at one of several reservation stations: 150 Otis, Mission Neighborhood Resource Center (165 Capp St.), Tenderloin Resource Center (187 Golden Gate), Glide (330 Ellis), United Council (2111 Jennings), and the shelters at MSC South (525 Fifth St.) and Hospitality House (146 Leavenworth). If it’s late at night, they may have a van available to give you a ride to the shelter. Otherwise, bus tokens are sometimes available if you ask for one — especially if you’re staying at Providence shelter in the Bayview-Hunters Point District.

They’ll ask if you have a shelter preference — they’re all a little different and come with good and bad recommendations depending on whom you talk to. By all accounts, Hospitality House is one of the best — it’s small, clean, and well run. But it’s for men only, as are the Dolores Street Community Services shelters (1050 S. Van Ness and 1200 Florida), which primarily cater to Spanish-speaking clients.

Women can try Oshun (211 13th St.) and A Woman’s Place (1049 Howard) if they want a men-free space. If kids are in tow, Compass Family Services will set you up with shelter and put you on a waiting list for housing. (A recent crush of families means a waiting list for shelters also exists.) People between 18 and 24 can go to Lark Inn (869 Ellis). The Asian Woman’s Shelter specializes in services for Asian-speaking women and domestic violence victims (call the crisis line 877-751-0880). (Amanda Witherell)

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MEALS FOR $5: TOP FIVE CHEAP EATS

Nothing fancy about these places — but the food is good, and the price is right, and they’re perfect for depression dining.

Betty’s Cafeteria Probably the easiest place in town to eat for under five bucks, breakfast or lunch, American or Chinese. 167 11th St., SF. (415) 431-2525

Susie’s Café You can get four pancakes or a bacon burger for under $5 at this truly grungy and divine dive, right next to Ed’s Auto — and you get the sense the grease intermingles. , 603 Seventh St., SF (415) 431-2177

Lawrence Bakery Café Burger and fries, $3.75, and a slice of pie for a buck. 2290 Mission., SF. (415) 864-3119

Wo’s Restaurant Plenty of under-$5 Cantonese and Vietnamese dishes, and, though the place itself is cold and unatmospheric, the food is actually great. 4005 Judah, SF. (415) 681-2433

Glenn’s Hot Dogs A cozy, friendly, cheap, delicious hole-in-the-wall and probably my favorite counter to sit at in the whole Bay Area. 3506 MacArthur Blvd., Oakl. (510) 530-5175 (L.E. Leone)

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CHEAP DRINKS

When it comes to free drinks I’m a liar, a whore, and a cheat, duh.

I’m a liar because of course I find your designer replica stink-cloud irresistible and your popped collar oh so intriguing — and no, you sexy lug, I’ve never tried one of those delicious-looking orange-juice-and-vodka concoctions you’re holding. Perhaps you could order me one so I could try it out while we spend some time?

I’m a whore because I’ll still do you anyway — after the fifth round, natch. That’s why they call me the liquor quicker picker-upper.

And I’m a cheat because here I am supposed to give you the scoop on where to score some highball on the lowdown, when in fact there’s a couple of awesome Web sites just aching to help you slurp down the freebies. Research gives me wrinkles, darling. So before I get into some of my fave inexpensive inebriation stations, take a designated-driver test drive of www.funcheapsf.com and www.sf.myopenbar.com.

FuncheapSF’s run by the loquacious Johnny Funcheap, and has the dirty deets on a fab array of free and cheap city events — with gallery openings, wine and spirits tastings, and excellent shindigs for the nightlife-inclined included. MyOpenBar.com is a national operation that’s geared toward the hard stuff, and its local branch offers way too much clarity about happy hours, concerts, drink specials, and service nights. Both have led me into inglorious perdition, with dignity, when my chips were down.

Beyond all that, and if you have a couple bucks in your shucks, here’s a few get-happies of note:

Godzuki Sushi Happy Hour at the Knockout. Super-yummy affordable fish rolls and $2 Kirin on tap in a rockin’ atmosphere. Wednesdays, 6–9:30 p.m. 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994, www.knockoutsf.com

All-Night Happy Hour at The Attic. Drown your recession tears — and the start of your work week — in $3 cosmos and martinis at this hipster hideaway. Sundays and Mondays, 5 p.m.–2 a.m. 3336 24th St., (415) 722-7986

The Stork Club. Enough live punk to bleed your earworm out and $2 Pabsts every night to boot? Fly me there toute suite. 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 444-6174, www.storkcluboakland.com

House of Shields. Dive into $2 PBR on tap and great music every night except Sundays at the beautiful winner of our 2008 Best of the Bay "Best Monumental Urinal" award. (We meant in the men’s room, not the place as a whole!) 39 New Montgomery, SF. (415) 975-8651, www.houseofshields.com

The Bitter End. $3 drafts Monday through Friday are just the beginning at this Richmond pub: the Thursday night Jager shot plus Pabst for five bucks (plus an ’80s dance party) is worth a look-see. 441 Clement, SF. (415) 221-9538

Thee Parkside Fast becoming the edge-seekers bar of choice, this Potrero Hill joint has some awesome live nights with cheap brews going for it, but the those in the know misplace their Saturday afternoons with $3 well drinks from 3 to 8 p.m.1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.theeparkside.com

Infatuation. One of the best free club nights in the city brings in stellar electro-oriented talent and also offers two-for-one well drinks, so what the hey. Wednesdays, 9 p.m.–2 a.m. Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF. (415) 433-8585, www.vesselsf.com

Honey Sundays. Another free club night, this one on the gay tip, that offers more great local and international DJ names and some truly fetching specials at Paradise Lounge’s swank upstairs bar. Sundays, 8 p.m.–2 a.m. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-5018, www.paradisesf.com (Marke B.)

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IMPRESS A DATE WITH DINNER UNDER $50

You’ve got a date this weekend, which you’re feeling pretty good about, but only $50 to spend, which feels … not so good. Where should you go?

You’ll appear in-the-know at the underrated Sheba Piano Lounge (1419 Fillmore, www.shebalounge.com) on lower Fillmore Street, right in the middle of the burgeoning jazz revival district. Sheba was around long before Yoshi’s, offering live jazz (usually piano, sometimes a vocalist) and some of the best Ethiopian food in the city in a refined, relaxed lounge setting. Sure, they’ve got Americanized dishes, but skip those for the traditional Ethiopian menu. Sample multiple items by ordering the vegetarian platter ($13) or ask for a mixed meat platter, which is not on the menu ($16 last time I ordered it). One platter is more than enough for two, and you can still afford a couple of cocktails, glasses of wine or beer, or even some Ethiopian honey wine (all well under $10). Like any authentic Ethiopian place I’ve eaten in, the staff operates on Africa time, so be prepared to linger and relax.

It’s a little hipster-ish with slick light fixtures, a narrow dining room/bar, and the increasingly common "communal table" up front, but the Mission District’s Bar Bambino (2931 16th St., www.barbambino.com) offers an Italian enoteca experience that says "I’ve got some sophistication, but I like to keep it casual." Reserve ahead for tables because there aren’t many, or come early and sit at the bar or in the enclosed back patio and enjoy an impressive selection of Italian wines by the glass ($8–$12.50). For added savings with a touch of glam, don’t forget their free sparkling water on tap. It’s another small plates/antipasti-style menu, so share a pasta ($10.50–$15.50), panini ($11.50–$12.50), and some of their great house-cured salumi or artisan cheese. Bar Bambino was just named one of the best wine bars in the country by Bon Apetit, but don’t let that deter you from one of the city’s real gems.

Nothing says romance (of the first date kind) like a classic French bistro, especially one with a charming (heated) back patio. Bistro Aix (3340 Steiner, www.bistroaix.com) is one of those rare places in the Marina District where you can skip the pretension and go for old school French comfort food (think duck confit, top sirloin steak and frites, and a goat cheese salad — although the menu does stray a little outside the French zone with some pasta and "cracker crust pizza." Bistro Aix has been around for years, offering one of the cheapest (and latest — most end by 6 or 7 p.m.) French prix fixe menus in town (Sunday through Thursday, 6–8 p.m.) at $18 for two courses. This pushes it to $40 for two, but still makes it possible to add a glass of wine, which is reasonably priced on the lower end of their Euro-focused wine list ($6.25–$15 a glass).

Who knew seduction could be so surprisingly affordable? (Virginia Miller)

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FREE YOGA

You may be broke, but you can still stay limber. San Francisco is home to scores of studios and karmically-blessed souls looking to do a good turn by making yoga affordable for everyone.

One of the more prolific teachers and donation-based yoga enthusiasts is Tony Eason, who trained in the Iyengar tradition. His classes, as well as links to other donation-based teachers, can be found at ynottony.com. Another great teacher in the Anusara tradition is Skeeter Barker, who teaches classes for all levels Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:45 to 9:15 p.m. at Yoga Kula, 3030a 16th St. (recommended $8–$10 donation).

Sports Basement also hosts free classes every Sunday at three stores: Bryant Street from 1 to 2 p.m., the Presidio from 11a.m. to noon, and Walnut Creek 11 a.m. to noon. Bring your own mat.

But remember: even yoga teachers need to make a living — so be fair and give what you can. (Amanda Witherell)

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HOW TO KEEP YOUR APARTMENT

So the building you live in was foreclosed. Or you missed a few rent payments. Suddenly there’s a three-day eviction notice in your mailbox. What now?

Don’t panic. That’s the advice from Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union. Tenants have rights, and evictions can take a long time. And while you may have to deal with some complications and legal issues, you don’t need to pack your bags yet.

Instead, pick up the phone and call the Tenants Union (282-6622, www.sftu.org) or get some professional advice from a lawyer.

The three-day notice doesn’t mean you have to be out in three days. "But it does mean you will have to respond to and communicate with the landlord/lady within that time," Gullicksen told us.

It’s also important to keep paying your rent, Gullicksen warned, unless you can’t pay the full amount and have little hope of doing so any time soon.

"Nonpayment of rent is the easiest way for a landlord to evict a tenant," Gullicksen explained. "Don’t make life easier for the landlady who was perhaps trying to use the fact that your relatives have been staying with you for a month as grounds to evict you so she can convert your apartment into a pricey condominium."

There are, however, caveats to Gullicksen’s "always pay the rent" rule: if you don’t have the money or you don’t have all the money.

"Say you owe $1,000 but only have $750 when you get the eviction notice," Gullicksen explained. "In that case, you may want to not pay your landlord $750, in case he sits on it but still continues on with the eviction. Instead, you might want to put the money to finding another place or hiring an attorney."

A good lawyer can often delay an eviction — even if it’s over nonpayment or rent — and give you time to work out a deal. Many landlords, when faced with the prospect of a long legal fight, will come to the table. Gullicksen noted that the vast majority of eviction cases end in a settlement. "We encourage all tenants to fight evictions," he said. The Tenants Union can refer you to qualified tenant lawyers.

These days some tenants who live in buildings that have been foreclosed on are getting eviction notices. But in San Francisco, city officials are quick to point out, foreclosure is not a legal ground for eviction.

Another useful tip: if your landlord is cutting back on the services you get — whether it’s a loss of laundry facilities, parking, or storage space, or the owner has failed to do repairs or is preventing you from preventing you from "the quiet enjoyment of your apartment" — you may be able to get a rent reduction. With the passage of Proposition M in November 2008 tenants who have been subjected to harassment by their landlords are also eligible for rent reductions. That involves a petition to the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board (www.sfgov.org/site/rentboard_index.asp).

Gullicksen also recommends that people who have lost their jobs check out the Eviction Defense Collaborative (www.evictiondefense.org).

"They are mostly limited to helping people who have temporary shortfalls," Gullicksen cautioned. But if you’ve lost your job and are about to start a new one and are a month short, they can help. (Sarah Phelan)

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OUT OF WORK? HERE’S STEP ONE

How do you get your unemployment check?

"Just apply for it."

That’s the advice of California’s Employment Development Department spokesperson Patrick Joyce.

You may think you aren’t eligible because you may have been fired or were only working part-time, but it’s still worth a try. "Sometimes people are ineligible, but sometimes they’re not," Joyce said, explaining that a lot of factors come into play, including your work history and how much you were making during the year before you became unemployed.

"So, simply apply for it — if you don’t qualify we’ll tell you," he said. "And if you think you are eligible and we don’t, you can appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board."

Don’t wait, either. "No one gets unemployment benefits insurance payments for the first week they are unemployed," Joyce explained, referring to the one-week waiting period the EDD imposes before qualified applicants can start collecting. "So you should apply immediately."

Folks can apply by filling out the unemployment insurance benefits form online or over the phone. But the phone number is frequently busy, so online is the best bet.

Even if you apply by phone, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment beforehand to view the EDD’s extensive unemployment insurance instructions and explanations. To file an online claim, visit eapply4ui.edd.ca.gov. For a phone number for your local office, visit www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/telephone_numbers.

(Sarah Phelan)

We’ll be doing regular updates and running tips for hard times in future issues. Send your ideas to tips@sfbg.com.

Great day for biking

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by Amanda Witherell

bikesignal12.1.08.jpg
More please. Image courtesy of San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

In spite of the dreary un-bicycle friendly weather today, things are looking up for cyclists in the “safety” and “free shit” categories.

First off, this afternoon City attorney Dennis Herrera filed a request with San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch to amend the injunction against the city’s Bike Plan. The city is banned from making any bicycle-related infrastructure improvements until an Environmental Review of the plan is completed, a draft of which was released last Friday.

But, the injunction was recently waived for the deadly intersection of Fell and Masonic Streets, which allowed the city to alter the traffic flow and install a bike signal. It’s great. We love it. (Though I still see cars blowing right through it occasionally, so don’t take it for granted, fellow pedalers.)

Similar to the Fell and Masonic waiver, Herrera is asking the court to review more than 100 pages of supporting evidence detailing an alarming increase in the number of collisions between bicycles and automobiles at locations throughout San Francisco. You can read the full pleading here.

“We are confident that our motion today makes a compelling case for how we can best address and alleviate hazards to cyclists and pedestrians while respecting the limits of the court’s injunction,” Herrera said in a press release. “With more and more commuters making use of bicycles as their preferred means of transportation, we have an obligation to do what we can to make bicycling as safe as possible on San Francisco streets.”

Top of Herrera’s hit list is Market and Octavia where, according to the press release, at least fifteen bicyclists have been struck by cars since the 101 highway entrance opened on Sept. 9, 2005. Cars routinely make illegal right turns and clip cyclists who have right of way to cross. The city is asking to change the traffic lanes so cars and bikes queue up in front of each other, rather than side by side.

Five other sketchy places to ride are also listed for safety improvements. They, and their collision totals as of 2003, are as follows:

An economic locavore policy

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EDITORIAL Local food is all the rage in San Francisco these days. The locavores and the slow-food people held a conference at Fort Mason a couple of weeks ago that drew huge crowds. Mayor Gavin Newsom is on board, and he loves to talk about creating a sustainable San Francisco. There are people in town who talk about energy independence, who talk about shopping locally, about building a city where people can live and work without using private cars.

We’re all for it — but in the wake of the wrenching meltdown in the financial markets, San Francisco needs to take a broad approach to the city economy. It’s time to develop a comprehensive plan to turn San Franciscans (and their government, businesses, and institutions) into economic locavores.

There are three basic reasons why the housing, credit, and financial markets are in the worst crisis since the Great Depression. The first two are related: The complexity of the financial instruments and securities being traded has increased so dramatically that even the heads of big investment banks didn’t know exactly what they were buying and selling. And the regulatory system under the George W. Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to keep up.

There’s not a lot San Franciscans can do locally to fix either of those problems (other than work to elect Barack Obama in November).

But the third factor in the current crisis is the globalization of money — and that’s something San Francisco can address.

For years, most famously in Seattle in 1999, protesters in this country have clashed with major institutions like the World Trade Organization over globalization issues. For the most part, they’ve focused on trade — on America losing jobs to low-wage companies, on big American chain stores selling goods made in third-world sweatshops, and on American money going to multinational corporations that prey on impoverished people and foul the environment. All of those are crucial issues — but so is the globalization of finance, which has received less attention.

And we’re not just talking about the stock market. The money San Franciscans deposit every day in local banks, the payments on mortgages and credit cards, the insurance premiums … all that cash goes into a financial system that instead of reinvesting in communities is buying and selling complex international securities like credit default swaps and derivatives. The traders and top executives who make these markets get colossal paychecks and bonuses — and most of us get nothing. Now that the whole house of cards is starting to topple, the small businesses and the people who need credit to buy cars or washing machines or bicycles or a house — the ordinary residents of cities like San Francisco — are the biggest losers.

The plan the White House has put forward is one of the grossest examples of corporate welfare in a generation — and even the Democrats in Congress are hesitant to oppose it.

But if San Francisco is serious about building a sustainable city, the mayor and the supervisors ought to start working, now, to create a citywide policy for economic localism. Among the elements:

•Banks that do business with the city should be required to set aside a significant amount of their loan portfolio for local small-business and housing loans. (The Treasurer’s Office can start with Bank of America, which currently holds the city’s deposit and payroll accounts.) The Community Reinvestment Act is far too weak and rarely enforced; San Francisco, with the leverage of a $6 billion city budget, can do much better.

•Most city contracts go to companies outside of San Francisco. Local businesses need to get a strong preference.

•The San Francisco controller needs to start looking at the city’s balance of trade — what do we import, what do we export, and how can we use more local products?

•The city needs to use tax policy to encourage local enterprise and discourage the out-of-town chains that use San Francisco as a strip mine.

There’s much more on the agenda, and there are plenty of people with good ideas. The crisis will define our political era; the city ought to be moving now to be in the lead.

Democracy in St. Paul

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› news@sfbg.com

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The bright white light of flash bombs can be seen everywhere among the scattering crowd. Loud explosions of concussion grenades mix with the lighter, metallic tinkling of tear gas canisters bouncing along the pavement. Lines of police dressed in full riot gear stretch beyond the sulfur-green clouds of smoke bombs. Shouts come from all directions in the darkness, suddenly lit up like a war zone.

"What are you doing? We’re peaceful!" some people scream.

"Turn around! Go back!" police shout.

People are scattering now despite cries from some protesters to stay together. As they retreat, demonstrators bump into police lines blocking off escape routes. The police — on horses, motorcycles and bicycles, in squad cars, even driving dump trucks with lowered snowplow blades — attempt to herd the crowd.

"No more tear gas!" some people yell as they try to escape, their eyes red and watery as medics attempt to help amid the chaos. Others scream, "Where do you want us to go?" as officers plug them with mace.

Still others are getting angry. "Fuck you, pigs!" they shout in defiance, attempting to hold their ground, at times hurling projectiles at the police as the explosions continue.

Despite attempts by police to herd the crowd, people are running wild through the neighborhoods surrounding the Minnesota Capitol Building in St. Paul. They dart through parking lots and unblocked streets, trying to escape and hoping to regroup. Cars screech to a stop and bystanders are swept into the mass as they, too, attempt to sidestep the onslaught of police firing from all directions.

Beginning with nearly 1,000 people, this demonstration has been reduced to around 200. It started earlier as an antiwar rally on the Capitol lawn, the latest in a week of protests and civil disobedience, a citizen response to the Republican National Convention taking place at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. It is Sept. 4, which means John McCain would soon be inside, offering his version of the next four years of America.

By the end of the convention, more than 800 people, including journalists, street medics and legal observers, will have been arrested in RNC-related protests, many having experienced a similar use of force by police.

There had been showdowns between zealous police and protesters all week.

On Aug. 29, police raided the headquarters of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anarchist organization that says it was here to provide assistance to people who wanted to disrupt the convention through direct action and civil disobedience.

Police said the raid was the culmination of an undercover operation that began a year ago, in which officers claim to have heard discussions about plots to disrupt the convention. During that raid and subsequent raids of the homes of some local activists, police said they found caltrops for popping tires, buckets of urine to throw on police, and hand links for creating human barricades, among other items that could potentially be used to disrupt the convention.

The RNC Welcoming Committee refuted the police claims. "The raid was an effort to derail RNC protest organizing efforts and to intimidate and terrorize individuals and groups converging in the Twin Cities to exercise what are supposed to be their basic civil rights," said Tony Jones, a member of the group.

"We are not the terrorists," another spokesperson later said. "The terrorists are inside the Xcel Center."

Among some 10,000 protesters in St. Paul last week — far more than the contingent that protested at the Democratic National Convention the week before — was a strong contingent of self-proclaimed anarchists, whose direct-action style of protesting led to a near-continuous conflict with police. This became the focus of local and national media coverage, and while to some degree it represented the vibe on the streets, there were also thousands who came to engage in peaceful civil disobedience.

Despite last-minute revisions to the RNC schedule, thousands gathered on Sept. 1 for the March on the RNC protest — the largest of the week — to kick off the opening day of the convention. Throughout the day, confrontations broke out between police and autonomous groups of protesters attempting to block roads and bridges around the city. Some became violent, and there were mass arrests.

Tuesday night, the Poor People’s March For Our Lives" protest provoked confrontation, when several hundred people who marched to the free speech "cage" — a barricaded area outside the Xcel Energy Center reserved for protesting — refused to disband after police issued three dispersal orders. Like the previous day, police began firing tear gas into the crowd, eventually pushing the people to a park, where some 60 were arrested.

The Sept. 4 rally was permitted, but the march was not. The Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, which organized the event, made clear from the beginning it intended to march to the Xcel Energy Center to try to disrupt McCain’s acceptance speech.

At the rally, which preceded the march, a speaker commenting on the mass arrests of protesters asked the crowd, "Are the people responsible for the criminal war on Iraq and the war at home on the poor ever held accountable for their actions?"

"No!" came the reply.

Police had the rally surrounded and intermittently plucked people from the crowd, placing them under arrest for unknown reasons — the most common charges were unlawful assembly, felony property damage, and felony riot. Large clusters left the main body of the rally and surrounded the police, prompting tense stand-offs as the police removed those under arrest.

"Stay together," Katrina Plotz, an organizer with the Anti-War Committee, screamed from the stage. "They’re trying to steal our protest — we have to ignore the police intimidation."

What became a battlefield here in the streets of St. Paul began with a series of sit-ins, as impenetrable police lines continually stifled marchers not looking for a serious fight with police. Frustrated with repeatedly being halted — a slow process in which police used horses to divide groups and arrest only some protesters — demonstrators engaged in an improvised maverick march that went wherever it could, for as long as it could.

Now, in the quieter moments between concussion bomb blasts that pushed the group toward its ultimate fate in the Ramsey County Jail, a small debate broke out among some of the protesters about how effective their direct action was at this RNC.

"It makes sense at a WTO conference like Seattle in 1999, where policymaking can actually be halted," one said of the police presence. "But more than anything else the RNC is ceremonial."

Still, as the police ultimately herded this crowd onto a bridge that police then blocked on both sides before placing everyone under arrest, it was clear those here tonight were angry. Judging from chants throughout the week, most felt they could not meaningfully participate in the political system in any other way. They obviously wanted to be heard.

"The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!" they shouted as police shot pepper spray into the crowd, forcing its last few steps onto the bridge.

This report first appeared in the Louisville Eccentric Observer. Sam Stoker is a freelance reporter based in Chicago. Like many journalists covering the protests — including Amy Goodman and two of her DemocracyNow! producers — Stoker was arrested and charged with "presence at an unlawful assembly." Police confiscated his notes and camera gear.

Man in the middle

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>>More: For the Guardian’s live coverage of the Democratic National Convention 2008, visit our Politics Blog

› steve@sfbg.com

As the Democratic National Convention was drawing to an explosive close Aug. 28, Barack Obama finally took center stage. In an address to more than 70,000 people, he presented his credentials, his proposals, and his vision. Most in the partisan crowd thought he gave a great speech and left smiling and enthused; some bloggers quickly called it the greatest convention speech ever.

I liked it too — but there were moments when I cringed.

Obama played nicely to the middle, talking about "safe" nuclear energy, tapping natural gas reserves, and ending the war "responsibly." He stayed away from anything that might sound too progressive, while reaching out to Republicans, churchgoers, and conservatives.

He also made a statement that should (and must) shape American politics in the coming years: "All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me — it’s about you."

Well, if this is really about me and the people I spend time with — those of us in the streets protesting war and the two-party system, people at Burning Man creating art and community — then it appears that electing Obama is just the beginning of the work we need to do.

As Tom Hayden wrote recently in an essay in the Guardian, Obama needs to be pushed by people’s movements to speed his proposed 16-month Iraq withdrawal timeline and pledge not to leave a small, provocative force of soldiers there indefinitely.

After a 5,000 mile, 10-day trip starting and ending at Black Rock City in the Nevada desert with Denver and the convention in between, I’ve decided that Obama is a Man in the Middle.

That creature is essential to both Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention, a figure of great significance — but also great insignificance. Because ultimately, both events are about the movements that surround and define the man.

THE BIG TENT


Nominating Obama was a historic moment, but the experience of spending four days at the convention was more like a cross between attending a big party and watching an infomercial for the Democratic Party. It was days of speeches followed by drinking — both exclusive affairs requiring credentials and connections for the biggest moments.

This year’s convention saw a new constituency come into full bloom. It was called the Big Tent — the literal name for the headquarters of bloggers and progressive activists at the Denver convention, but it also embodied the reality that the vast blogosphere has come of age and now commands the attention of the most powerful elected Democrats.

The tent was in the parking lot of the Alliance Building, where many Denver nonprofits have their offices. It consisted of a simple wood-frame structure two stories high, covered with a tent.

In the tent were free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. But there was also the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among leaders of the Democratic Party.

New media powerhouses, including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco that sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) spent the last year working on the Big Tent project. It was a coming together of disparate, ground-level forces on the left into something like a real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.

"When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement," MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. "The left wing conspiracy is finally vast."

The Big Tent constituency is a step more engaged with mainstream politics than Burning Man’s Black Rock City, an outsider movement that sent only a smattering of representatives to the convention, including me and my travel mates from San Francisco, musician Kid Beyond and Democratic Party strategist Donnie Fowler, as well as the Philadelphia Experiment’s artistic outreach contingent.

It’s an open question whether either constituency, the Big Tent bloggers and activists or the Black Rock City artists and radicals, are influencing country’s political dialogue enough to reach the Democratic Party’s man in the middle. Obama didn’t mention the decommodification of culture or a major reform of American democracy in his big speech, let alone such progressive bedrock issues as ending capital punishment and the war on drugs, downsizing the military, or the redistribution of wealth.

But those without floor passes to the convention represent, if not a movement, at least a large and varied constituency with many shared values and frustrations, and one with a sense that the American Dream is something that has slipped out of its reach, if it ever really existed at all.

These people represent the other America, the one Obama and the Democratic Party paid little heed to during their many convention speeches, which seemed mostly focused on bashing the Republican Party and assuring heartland voters that they’re a trustworthy replacement. But that’s hardly burning the man.

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Photo by Mirissa Neff

AMERICAN DREAM


It’s been almost a year since Burning Man founder Larry Harvey announced that the art theme for the 2008 event would be "American Dream." I hated it and said so publicly, objecting to such an overt celebration of patriotism, or for setting up a prime opportunity for creative flag burning, neither a seemingly good option.

But I later came to see a bit of method behind Harvey’s madness. After announcing the theme, Harvey told me, "There was a cascade of denunciations and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It pricked people where they should be stimulated." He asks critics to read his essay on the Burning Man Web site explaining the theme: "It says that America has lost its way."

But he also said that the disaffected left and other critics of what America has become need to find a vision of America to fight for, something to believe in, whether it’s our Bill of Rights (pictured on Burning Man tickets this year) or some emerging manifestation of the country. "Americans need to find our pride again," Harvey told me. "We can’t face our shame unless we find our pride."

I was still dubious, since I tend toward Tolstoy’s view of patriotism: that it’s a bane to be abolished, not a virtue to be celebrated. Harvey and I have talked a lot of politics as I’ve covered Burning Man over the past four years, and those discussions have sharpened as he has subtly prodded participants to become more political, and as burners have reached out into the world through ventures such as Black Rock Arts Foundation, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock Solar.

I’ve become friends with many of the event’s key staffers (some, like BWB’s Tom Price, through reporting their stories). This year, one employee (not a board member) I’m particularly close to even gave me one of the few gift tickets they have to hand out each year, ending my five-event run of paying full freight (and then some). I’m also friends with my two travel mates, Kid Beyond, a.k.a. Andrew Chaikin, and Fowler, who handled field organizing for Al Gore in 2000, ran John Kerry’s Michigan campaign four years later, and was attending his sixth presidential convention.

Kid Beyond and I arrived at Black Rock City late Friday night, Aug. 22, and found the playa thick with deep drifts of dust, making it a difficult and tiring bicycle trek into the deep playa where San Francisco artist Peter Hudson and his crew were building Tantalus. But it was worth the ride, particularly if seeking a great take on the American Dream theme.

Like most creations at that early stage of the event, it wasn’t up and running yet, but it would be by Aug. 24, when the event officially began. Still, even in its static state, it was an art piece that already resonated with my exploration of how the counterculture sees the national political culture.

Tantalus looks like a red, white, and blue top hat, with golden arms and bodies around it. And when it spins around, totally powered by the manual labor of visitors working four pumper rail cars, the man — a modern American Tantalus — reaches for the golden apple being dangled just out of his reach and falls back empty-handed.

It’s a telling metaphor for such a big week in American politics.

There were plenty of political junkies on the playa, including two friends who let me crash in their RV for two nights and who left the playa for Denver after a couple of days. Fowler’s sweetie, Heather Stephenson, is with Ideal Bite (their logo is an apple minus one bite) and was on an alternative energy panel with Mayor Gavin Newsom, Denver’s mayor, John W. Hickenlooper, and Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado.

"The American Dream to me is not having barriers to achievement," Stephenson told me. It is Tantalus getting some apple if he really reaches for it. Fowler said that it is "the freedom to pursue your own dream without interference by government or social interests." But, he added, "the American Dream is more a collective dream than an individual dream."

Bay Area artist Eric Oberthaler, who used to choreograph San Francisco artist Pepe Ozan’s fire operas on the playa, hooked up with the Philadelphia Experiment performers years ago at Burning Man — including Philly resident Glenn Weikert, who directs the dance troupe Archedream. This year they created "Archedream for America," which they performed at Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention. Weikert told me the artistic and collaborative forces that Burning Man is unleashing could play a big role in creating a transformative political shift in America.

"These are two amazing events that are kind of shaping the world right now," Weikert said. "A lot of the ideas and views are similar, but people are working in different realms."

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Tantalus. a Burning Man installation
Photo by Steven T. Jones

MEDIA, 15,002 STRONG


Kid Beyond and I arrived in Denver around 8 a.m., Aug. 25, after a 16-hour drive from Black Rock City, cruising through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, a couple of which Obama will probably need to win in November if he’s to take the White House.

We headed into the city just as a gorgeous dawn was breaking, arriving with a few hours to spare before our Democratic National Convention press credential would have been redistributed to other journalists, who reportedly numbered more than 15,000. After arriving at my cousin Gina Brooks’ house, we showered, got settled, and jumped on our bikes to pick up our press credentials.

All week, we and others who rented or borrowed the thousands of bicycles made available to visitors used the beautiful and efficient Cherry Creek Bike Trail to get around. It cut through the heart of Denver, passing the convention and performing arts centers, which boasted a great sculpture of a dancing couple, and ran close to the Big Tent in downtown on one side and the convention hall, the Pepsi Center, on the other.

It was a great way to travel and a marked contrast to the long car trip, which felt as if we were firing through tank after tank of gas. Bike travel also proved a smart move — most of the streets around the convention were closed off and patrolled by police in riot gear riding trucks with extended running boards, with military helicopters circling overhead.

The massive Pepsi Center was less than half full a couple hours after the gavel fell to open the convention, but it filled quickly.

The broadcast media had it good, with prime floor space that made it all the more congested for the delegates and others with floor passes. Most journalists were tucked behind the stage or up in the cheap seats, and we couldn’t even get free Internet access in the hall. But journalists could get online in the nearby media tents, which also offered free booze and food.

Even though Hillary Clinton announced she was releasing her delegates to vote for Obama, those I spoke to in San Francisco’s delegation — Laura Spanjian, Mirian Saez, and Clay Doherty — were still planning to vote for Clinton on that Wednesday, although all said they would enthusiastically support Obama after that.

"It’s important for me to respect all the people who voted for her and to honor the historic nature of her candidacy," Spanjian said. "And most of all, to respect her."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tried to rally the faithful for the "historic choice between two paths for our country." She belittled the view that John McCain is the most experienced presidential candidate. "John McCain has the experience of being wrong," she said, emphasizing his economic views and his instigation of the "catastrophic" Iraq War.

There were only a smattering of protesters outside the convention center, the most disturbing being anti-abortion activists bearing signs that read, "God hates Obama," "God is your enemy," "The Siege is Here," and one, wielded by a boy who was maybe 12, that read "God hates fags." Family values indeed.

THE ROLL CALL


San Francisco Sup. Chris Daly was giddy when I joined him in the two-thirds full California delegation during the nominating speeches for Obama and Clinton. It was partly because he was finally an official delegate, having been called up from his role as alternate a couple of hours earlier. But an even bigger reason for his joy was that he’s a serious political wonk and just loves the roll call, the only official business of the convention.

"This is the best part of the convention, roll call. It’s cool," Daly, the consummate vote counter, told me as we watched the chair ask each state for their votes. "The speeches are OK, but this is what it’s about."

And pretty soon, this kid in the candy shop was losing his mind as we watched a series of genuinely newsworthy developments in an otherwise scripted convention: California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres was saying "California passes" rather than reporting our votes, states like New Jersey and Arkansas were awarding all their votes to Obama and causing the room to go nuts, and a series of states were yielding to others.

As the chair worked alphabetically through the states, Obama’s home state of Illinois became the second state to pass. Very interesting. Indiana gave 75 of its 85 votes to Obama. Minnesota gave 78 of its 88 votes to Obama, then erupted in a spirited cheer of "Yes we can." Daly and San Francisco delegate London Breed were on their feet, cheering, chanting, and pumped.

With Obama getting close to the number of delegates he needed to win the nomination (there was no tally on the floor and I later learned Obama had 1,550 of the 2,210 votes he needed), New Mexico’s representative announced that the state was "yielding to the land of Lincoln." Anticipation built that Illinois would be the state to put its junior senator over the top.

Then Illinois yielded to New York, and the screens showed Clinton entering the hall and joining the New York delegation. "In the spirit of unity and with the goal of victory," Clinton said, "let us declare right now that Barack Obama is our candidate."

She made the motion to suspend the vote count and have the whole hall nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. Pelosi took the podium and asked the crowd, "Is there a second?" And the room erupted in thousands of seconds to the motion on the floor. She asked all in favor to say "aye," and the room rumbled with ayes. To complete the process, Pelosi said those opposed could say no, but simultaneously gaveled the motion to completion, causing the room to erupt with cheers. I heard not a single nay.

The band broke out into "Love Train" and everyone danced.

NEWSOM’S STAGE


Mayor Gavin Newsom threw a big party Aug. 27, drawing a mix of young hipsters, youngish politicos, and a smattering of corporate types in suits and ties. Although he didn’t get a speaking slot at the convention, Newsom is widely seen as a rising star in the party, far cooler than most elected officials, and maybe even too cool for his own good.

Comedian Sarah Silverman did a funny bit to open the program at the Manifest Hope Gallery (which showcased artwork featuring Obama), then introduced Newsom by saying, "I’m honored to introduce a great public servant and a man I would like to discipline sexually, Gavin Newsom."

Apparently Newsom liked it because he grabbed Silverman and started to grope and nuzzle into her like they were making out, then acted surprised to see the crowd there and took the microphone. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment for those who know about his past sex scandal and recent marriage to Jennifer Siebel, who was watching the spectacle from the wings.

But it clearly showed that Newsom is his own biggest fan, someone who thinks he’s adorable and can do no wrong, which is a dangerous mindset in politics.

Another slightly shameless aspect of the event was how overtly Newsom is trying associate himself with Obama (the party was a salute to the "Obama Generation") after strongly backing Clinton in the primaries. And then, of course, there’s the fact that his party was sponsored by PG&E (a corrupting influence in San Francisco politics) and AT&T (facilitators of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping policy).

I was able to interview Newsom about Clinton before the party. "People can criticize her, but I do think that you’ve never seen a runner-up do so much to support the party’s nominee," Newsom told me. "She’s done as much as she could do, privately as well as publicly."

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Clinton’s dramatic roll call moment
Photo by Mirissa Neff

OBAMA NIGHT


Amid all the excitement, there were scary moments for the progressives. For example, Joe Biden, accepting the vice-presidential nod, urged the nation to more aggressively confront Russia and send more troops into Afghanistan.

During one of the most high-profile points in the convention, halfway between the Gore and Obama speeches, a long line of military leaders (including Gen. Wesley Clark, who got the biggest cheers but didn’t speak) showed up to support Obama’s candidacy. They were followed by so-called average folk, heartland citizens — including two Republicans now backing Obama. One of the guys had a great line, though: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," said Barney Smith. "The heartland needs change, and with Barack Obama we’re going to get it," he added.

Of course, these are the concerns of a progressive whose big issues (from ending capital punishment and the war on drugs to creating a socialized medical system and fairly redistributing the nation’s wealth) have been largely ignored by the Democratic Party. I understand that I’m not Obama’s target audience in trying to win this election. And there is no doubt he is a historic candidate.

Bernice King, whose father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech 45 years to the day before Obama’s acceptance speech, echoed her father by triumphantly announcing, "Tonight, freedom rings." She said the selection of Obama as the nominee was "decided not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. This is one of our nation’s defining moments."

But there is still much work to do in convincing Obama to adopt a more progressive vision once he’s elected. "America needs more than just a great president to realize my father’s dream," said Martin Luther King III, the second King child to speak the final night of the convention. Or as Rep. John Lewis, who was with King during that historic speech, said in his remarks, "Democracy is not a state, but a series of actions."

BACK TO THE BURN


We left Denver around 1:30 a.m. Friday, a few hours after Obama’s speech and the parties that followed, driving through the night and listening first to media reports on Obama’s speech, then to discussions about McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The Obama clips sounded forceful and resolute, directly answering in strong terms the main criticisms levied at him. Fowler said the Republicans made a very smart move by choosing a woman, but he was already getting the Democrats’ talking points by cell phone, most of which hammered her inexperience, a tactic that could serve to negate that same criticism of Obama.

We arrived back on the playa at 5:30 p.m. Friday, and a Black Rock Radio announcer said the official population count was 48,000 people, the largest number ever. The city has been steadily growing and creating a web of connections among its citizens.

"That city is connecting to itself faster that anyone knows. And if they can do that, they can connect to the world," Harvey told me earlier this year. "That’s why for three years, I’ve done these sociopolitical themes, so they know they can apply it. Because if it’s just a vacation, we’ve been on vacation long enough."

Yet when I toured the fully-built city, I saw few signs that this political awakening was happening. There weren’t even that many good manifestations of the American Dream theme, except for Tantalus, Bummer (a large wooden Hummer that burned on Saturday night), and an artsy version of the Capitol Dome.

Most of the people who attend Burning Man seem to have progressive values, and some of them are involved in politics, but the event is their vacation. It’s a big party, an escape from reality. It’s not a movement yet, and it’s not even about that Black Rock City effigy, the Man. Hell, this year, many of my friends who are longtime burners left on Saturday before they burned the Man, something most veterans consider an anticlimax.

It’s not about the man in the middle, either; it’s about the community around it. And if the community around Obama wants to expand into a comfortable electoral majority — let alone a movement that can transform this troubled country — it’s going to have to reach the citizens of Black Rock City and outsiders of all stripes, and convince them of the relevance of what happened in Denver and what’s happening in Washington, DC.

Larry Harvey can’t deliver burners to the Democratic Party, or even chide them toward any kind of political action. But the burners and the bloggers are out there, ready to engage — if they can be made to want to navigate the roads between their worlds and the seemingly insular, ineffective, immovable, platitude-heavy world of mainstream politics.

"As hard as it will be, the change we need is coming," Obama said during his speech.

Maybe. But for those who envision a new kind of world, one marked by the cooperation, freedom, and creativity that are at the heart of this temporary city in the desert, there’s a lot of work to be done. And that starts with individual efforts at outreach, like the one being done by a guy, standing alone in the heat and dust, passing out flyers to those leaving Black Rock City on Monday.

"Nevada Needs You!!!" began the small flyer. "In 2004, Nevada was going Blue until the 90 percent Republican northern counties of Elko and Humboldt tilted the state. You fabulous Burners time-share in our state for one week per year. This year, when you go home please don’t leave Nevada Progressives behind! ANY donation to our County Democratic Committee goes a long way; local media is cheap! Thanks!!!"

Change comes not from four days of political speeches or a week in an experimental city in the desert, but from the hard work of those with a vision and the energy to help others see that vision. To realize a progressive agenda for this conservative country is going to take more than just dreaming.

Ed Note: The Guardian would like to thank Kid Beyond, who traveled with Jones and helped contribute to this report.

The carfree challenge

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>>For our complete Towards Carfree Cities conference coverage, including video, interviews, and pics, click here.

› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY A large group of San Francisco’s top alternative transportation advocates traveled to Portland, Ore., for the Towards Carfree Cities international conference June 16-20, marveling at a transportation system widely considered to be the most progressive in the United States.

"Portland is light-years ahead of everyone else in this country," said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who attended the conference along with representatives from the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, San Francisco State University, prominent urban design firms including Arup (which is designing the new Transbay Terminal project), architect David Baker, and other institutions.

Public transit in Portland is extensive, cheap, frequent, and easy to use, with the Max line — unlike Muni — allowing bicycles on the trains. Walking is encouraged by new design standards and public information campaigns. A riverside freeway was replaced by open space years ago. And the large network of bicycle paths and other improvements to promote cycling have made Portland the only large city to earn the putf8um designation from the League of American Bicyclists (San Francisco is one tier down at gold).

"But the reality is Portland is far from being great," was the sobering assessment from keynote speaker Gil Peñalosa, the former parks director of Bogotá, Colombia, who pioneered carfree policies there before pushing the issues internationally through the nonprofit Walk and Bike for Life.

Cities are facing multiple crises connected to over-reliance on the automobile — declining public health, environmental degradation, resource depletion, loss of community, and not enough space in US cities to handle the 100 million people they’ll need to accommodate in the next 35 years. And Peñalosa said most are responding with baby steps that deny the scope of the challenge.

"We’re not doing enough," he said, noting that even the best US cities are way too dependent on automobiles compared to cities that have made the biggest advances in reducing automobile use, such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, and Vancouver.

"That’s where Portland belongs, and that’s the challenge," Peñalosa said. "Under existing conditions, we have to make major leaps instead of baby steps."

It was the first time that this eighth annual conference has been held in the United States, and organizers said they hoped its message will resonate in a country that needs to change profoundly if it is to efficiently manage its growth while playing a positive role in dealing with global climate change.

Many of the ideas raised at the conference and pursued in Portland are beginning to spread. The conference opened with Depaving Day, a pavement-removal effort that has many adherents in the Bay Area, and closed with Sunday Parkways, during which a six-mile loop in North Portland was closed to cars. Such "Ciclovias," which Peñalosa started in Colombia, are planned this August in New York City and San Francisco.

"There are people from all over the world doing amazing work," said local conference coordinator Elly Blue of the Portland group Shift, which organized the conference to coincide with Portland’s annual Pedalpalooza, two weeks of fun bike events and other festivities.

Many attendees noted that global warming, high gasoline prices (and the specter of Peak Oil), worsening public health, and persistent traffic congestion have made many big city leaders more open to carfree concepts than they’re ever been.

"The climate is changing," League of American Bicyclists director Andy Clarke said. "This is our time. It’s our moment to seize the opportunity and change our communities."

Mia Birk, Portland’s former bicycle-policy coordinator, added, "We’re not anti-car, but we’re trying to create a system where walking and biking are viable transportation options." Birk now runs Alta Planning and Design, which is working on carfree and car-light projects with hundreds of cities around the world, including some in the Bay Area.

"What we’re talking about is a true cultural revolution to encourage that kind of shift," Birk said, inviting the crowd to "be a part of that revolution."

The Cool Kids

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PREVIEW With the success of their BMX ode "Black Mags" ghost-riding beyond the Internet echo chamber, the Cool Kids are on a roll. After one single for Nick Catchdubs and A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold imprint and a year spent performing live, including 30 dates with M.I.A., the 10-cut Bake Sale EP comes courtesy of C.A.K.E. Recordings/Chocolate Industries, home or former home to such acts as Prefuse 73 and Lady Sovereign. It’s slated to be followed by a proper album, When Fish Ride Bicycles, but right now the Cool Kids are back onstage, peddling — or pedaling? — their own blend of stripped-down hip-hop.

Though many latch onto the Chicago duo’s 1980s fixation and look no further, the carefully casual drawl of 19-year-old Antoine Reed (Mikey Rocks) and the spare, angular beats of 23-year-old Evan Ingersoll (Chuck Inglish) owe as much to Spank Rock or the Neptunes as the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. With its brassy, clanging drums and tightly reverbed vocals, it’s no surprise that "88" has been snatched up by both HBO and NBA Live 08. If it’s possible to be aggressively nerdy, this pair, who first met on MySpace, are doing it. On "What Up Man," lanky Mikey Rocks raps, "I can build a sandcastle without bringing a pail / And go catfish fishing and come up with a whale," while the rhythm track, built from Inglish’s processed ticks, claps, and basses, chugs greasily along. From the uptempo, hi-trilling "Bassment Party" to the lethargic one-in-four boom of "Jingling" — an off-the-cuff riff on the sound of keys in your pocket — the Cool Kids make hip-hop akin to busting a wheelie. It looks pretty simple, but it’s damned hard to do.

THE COOL KIDS Tues/3, 9 p.m., $18. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422 www.theindependentsf.com

Scraper success

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"This is what happens when Bay Area gas goes to 4 bucks!! We cant even afford to rap about cars..lol [sic]."

So reads one YouTube viewer comment for "Scraper Bike," a music video by local rap group the Trunk Boiz. Rather uncharacteristically for hip-hop, the clip includes a crew of hoodie-wearing, dreadlock-shaking young guys pedaling through the Oakland streets on their tricked-out bicycles. With zero support from radio, "Scraper Bike" became an underground hit last year, making alternative transporation cool for Escalade-obsessed East Bay youth.

"My scraper bike go hard, I don’t need no car," intones Trunk Boi B-Janky in the chorus of a song that’s so catchy it’s viral. Through Web word-of-mouth alone, "Scraper Bike" became one of the 20 most-watched YouTube videos of 2007. In March of 2008, the video was nominated for a YouTube Award, putting the Trunk Boiz in such illustrious company as Obama Girl.

With 2.5 million views and counting, "Scraper Bike" spurred a local trend now gone global, with folks from as far away as Turkey and Bavaria petitioning the Trunk Boiz to come pimp their rides. Yet scraper bikes are pure East Oakland, an homage to their four-wheel counterparts: long a fixture of East Bay car culture, "scrapers" are hoopty rides — usually ’80s-era Buicks or Oldsmobiles — made ghetto-fabulous with candy paint, huge rims, tinted windows, and booming speakers in the trunk.

Trunk Boi Baby Champ, inventor of the scraper bike, recalls his initital inspiration. "At that time I was real young and didn’t have no license or nothing," he says. "So I just wanted to take the pieces of the car and put it on a bike and mold it and shape it like that. I just took it and ran with it." In transutf8g the scraper aesthetic, not only does Champ outfit the bikes with neon colors and decorative spokes, he even wires up stereos to the handlebars and loads speakers on the rear. "That’s one of our promotional schemes," B-Janky informs me during a group interview at their West Oakland studio. "We ride around on scraper bikes eight deep, with speakers slappin’ our music."

Hustlers and entrepreneurs, the Trunk Boiz bring a whole new meaning to the Bay-slang term "out the trunk." The phrase refers to the marketing strategy immortalized by Too $hort, who early in his career famously sold music out of his car. Yet when the Trunk Boiz slang CDs "out the trunk," that trunk is less likely part of a Cutlass Supreme than a double-axle three-wheel cruiser — essentially, a tricycle — on the back of which is a wooden cart painted in Oakland A’s colors with the words "That Go!"

A rather endearing sense of juvenalia surrounds the Trunk Boiz mystique. After all, their average age is about 19. As one might expect of a group of more-or-less teenage boys, songs tend to focus on adolescent preoccupations such as partying, looking fly, and getting girls. But unlike blunt rappers like Lil’ Weezy — who endlessly employs stale metaphors to describe their male members — the Trunk Boiz make sex romps sound clever. In the track "Cupcake No Fillin’," MCs Filthy Fam and NB drop double entendres, extending the concept of "cupcaking" — Oakland slang for flirting — into a confectionary ode to casual, no-strings-attached hookups (i.e., with "no feeling").

It may not be a message mothers want their daughters to hear, but the kids love it. The video for "Cupcake No Fillin’" has nearly 100,000 YouTube views, and helped expand the group’s female fanbase by casting the rappers in a loverboy light.

Given the group’s penchant for high-energy antics, the Trunk Boiz were happy to ride the hyphy train while it lasted. They even got scraper bikes into videos for the Federation’s "18 Dummy" and Kafani’s "Fast (Like NASCAR)." None other than Too $hort called Champ the day of the Kafani shoot, urging the scraper bike crew to roll through and bring some local flavor. They continue to glean game from the legendary rapper through their involvement with East Oakland nonprofit Youth UpRising, where Too $hort volunteers.

Inspired by such mentors, the Trunk Boiz have become more civic minded than one might expect of a group that raps about going "SSI" ("Socially Stupid Insane") — a track off their sophomore album, due out this summer. Not only are they involved with Youth UpRising and Silence the Violence but also with the "Ban the Box" reentry-reform efforts in Oakland as well as Bikes for Life, an antiviolence campaign launching July 13 with a ride around Lake Merritt. In August, they’ll attend the National Hip-Hop Political Convention in Las Vegas, where they’ll roll down the Strip on their scraper bikes.

Fortunately, when it comes to homegrown innovation, what happens in Oakland doesn’t always stay in Oakland. *

For more on Bikes for Life, call (510) 238-8080, ext. 310.

www.scraperbikes.net

A perfect San Francisco day

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The superlatives are flowing in San Francisco today. “What a wonderful, wonderful day,” was how City Attorney Dennis Herrera opened the giddy press conference in City Hall today, a love fest event discussing and celebrating this morning’s California Supreme Court ruling legalizing same sex marriage.
“What a day for San Francisco!” beamed a jubilant Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose decision to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples in 2004 set off the legal struggle that resulted in the most important civil rights ruling in a generation. He told a large, smiling crowd how proud he was of this city, its values, and its courage to push hard for meaningful sociopolitical change.
“At the end of the day, that’s what I’m so proud of, San Francisco and the values we affirm,” Newsom said. “This is a great day for California, a great day for America, and a great day for the constitution.”
It was also a just plain great day, with hot weather contributing to a record-breaking Bike to Work Day. During the morning commute, a city survey counted twice as many bicycles as cars on Market Street, a 30 percent increase from the number of bicyclists last year.
Today is just one of those days when you fall in love with San Francisco all over again, when it feels like we have the power to really lead the rest of this troubled country in a new direction.

The Bike Issue: Getting in gear

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1. City Hall has a bike room. For a while I thought only a scant number of city employees rode to work because the racks out front are usually pretty barren. Then I came across a storage room in the basement, near the café, full of bikes. What an encouraging sight. It was opened a few years back by the Department of the Environment, which is tasked with many of the city’s greening chores, and is available for all City Hall employees to park their rides safely inside.

2. More than 50 percent of San Francisco’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from transportation. Despite this, 20 percent of San Francisco residents polled in November 2007 by David Binder Research said riding a bike did nothing to curb global warming. Au contraire. Bicycles emit zero greenhouse gases (although the rider emits some carbon monoxide from huffing and puffing). A car produces roughly 20 pounds of CO2 for every gallon of gas burned. Gas stations in San Francisco sell about 953,000 gallons of fuel a day. At $4 a gallon, it would take about five months’ of fill-ups to buy every San Franciscan a $750 bicycle — and that’s a nice bike.

3. Someday when you’re waiting for a BART train, take a good look at a system map. It has almost every East Bay bike trail detailed, and many of the trails connect BART stations with recreation areas. "There are a lot of great ways to get out to nature from BART," said BART board member Tom Radulovich.

4. BART is getting more bike-friendly. About 15 percent of the 580 trains now have removed seats to create special areas for bikes. (Look for the cars marked "Bicycle Priority Area.") Though some riders would like each train to have an entire car dedicated to bikes (Caltrain’s approach), a BART spokesperson told me that it would be difficult because cars are added and dropped throughout the day to handle fluctuating ridership. Soon more stations will be outfitted with bike lockers, for rent at a couple of pennies an hour with a BikeLink pass (for information, go to www.bikelink.org). Later this year, the Embarcadero Station will be getting an entire storage room (like City Hall’s, and again, partially funded by the Dept. of the Environment.)

5. One BART oddity: That groove running beside the stairs at the 16th and Mission station is to wheel your bike up and down rather than carrying it. Who knew? Not me. It’s a pilot project, so if you use it and like it, let BART know by calling (415) 989-2278 and the transit agency might install some more.

6. A San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (www.sfbike.org) membership provides mad discounts, and not just at bike shops. Get 10 percent off at Rainbow Grocery and 50 cents off beers at Hole in the Wall — and that’s just the beginning.

7. Make sure you write down your bike’s serial number so it’s easier for the cops to track your ride if it gets ripped off (see "Chasing My Stolen Bicycle," 2/13/07, for more on bike theft in San Francisco). How do you find these magic digits? Flip your bike over and copy the number stamped on the bottom bracket where the pedals go through the frame.

8. Distant lands like Larkspur, Mill Valley, and Muir Woods are all much closer when you mix the bike with the boat. Marin has an amazing network of bike paths, and the Marin Bicycle Coalition (www.marinbike.org) has a map that one-ups San Francisco’s. (It shows the direction of the hills, not just the grade.) And … the ferries have bars.

9. DIY is the way forward. The three-class series at Box Dog Bikes (www.boxdogbikes.com), which covers flats, replacing cables, and truing wheels, is cheap and goes into enough depth that I no longer feel like there are certain parts of my bike I’m not supposed to touch with an Allen wrench. Follow it up with a membership to the Bike Kitchen (www.bikekitchen.org), a DIY shop with tools, parts, and people on hand to help you tune your spokes. It also regularly hosts "WTF" nights for girls, queers, and transpeople.

10. Need to know how to find the bike lanes and avoid the hills? Get one of those great bike maps (available at City Hall and at bike shops) when you join the SF Bike Coalition through a free download at www.sfbike.org/download/map.pdf. You can also pick them up at the energizer stations all over town on Bike to Work Day. It will help you find the best routes and navigate groovy spots like the Wiggle, which is the best route from mid-Market Street to Golden Gate Park. If you look along the sides of the streets, you’ll even see the green bike route signs that say "Wiggle." If you get lost, just look for a bike lane, which are well-marked all over town. Or follow all the other bikers.

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.

Careers & Ed: Pedalheads

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› culture@sfbg.com

For many of us, reminiscing to the warm spring days of childhood can be a tour adorned with dreamy bike rides through old neighborhoods or feverish races in back lot trails. But at some point, sadly, those plywood jumps crumbled, the mudholes dried up, our skinned knees healed, and ultimately, we bought cars and began our lifelong battles for parking. Well, at least some of us did. Others, such as the Oakland-based founders of Broakland Bicycles — Jason Grove, Jason Montano, and Steve Radonich — made biking their passion, zipping past the norm and into the bipedal future of urban transportation.

Handmade in Oakland, Broakland bicycles are fixed-gear bikes professionally designed to be sold for both the track and for everyday commutes. Reviving the triple-triangle frame made famous by GT Bicycles, the boys at Broakland have unleashed a uniquely Bay Area flavor of bike, complete with custom paint jobs by local graffiti artists. The old-school style and unquestionable quality of the work entrusted into these bikes dial them into that nexus where "great" separates itself from "good." But what really makes these cycles so special is the way the three unique personalities of Broakland’s classically East Bay designers shine through in their finished product.

BIKES BY THE NUMBERS


Jason Montano, also owner and chief mechanic of upbeat Oakland bike shop Montano Velo, is the numbers guy. He tweaks the fork rakes, offsets, bottom bracket drops, head angles, and seat angles, even if you don’t know what those things are. He hasn’t owned a car in eight years.

He’s as unlikely to be behind the wheel of a car as he is behind a desk. He’s more likely to be out riding his beauties or working on bikes at the shop. He admits that he doesn’t fit the classic model of a businessowner. "I don’t wear a suit," he said. "I am who I am. But if I couldn’t live doing what I’m doing, I wouldn’t do it."

So far, so good. The shop’s been open for four years and is doing well. And the Broakland line, unveiled a little over a year ago, has been garnering great reviews.

BIKE BUILDING AS SCIENCE


The ridiculously talented craftsman of the Broakland crew is Jason Grove, who is also the man behind Emeryville’s El Camino Fabrications. A welder who developed and refined his skills at the Seattle aerospace juggernaut Boeing, and he’s been building bikes for almost 18 years. Armed with his TIG welder, Jason prudently fashions the Broakland frames from high-grade aluminum and titanium tubing, utilizing a technique that fills the tubes with argon during welds to ensure extra durability and a longer shelf life.

His solar-powered shop, which doubles as his studio apartment, is impressively clean. He claims that clean air helps the welds gel. Confucians claim that a clean house creates good energies that help the mind think. In that vein, Grove prides himself on putting good energy into his product. "It’s all about good karma," he said. "And I think that goes into these bikes and makes them better for it."

THE ART OF THE BICYCLE


Broakland’s jack-of-all-trades is Steven "Stevie" Radonich. He’s the energetic hype man who makes sure that the bikes are as stylish as they are functional. Stevie, rider and art consultant for Broakland, has brought in East Bay graffiti artists Soul from the TDK crew and widely-known Goser to create custom paint jobs for these rides. Sleek marble, quintessential custom flame paint jobs, or graffiti-style lettering topped off with a beautiful finish elevate these high-end bikes beyond transportation or sport: they ascend into the realm of art.

THE PRODUCT


The prices on these masterpieces start with the Street Fighter model, a traditional track bike that runs about $1,350, including a base paint job. Things get pricier as you continue to trick them out. In the past, naysayers argued that spending so much moolah on a street bike is a fool’s errand for gearheads and overgrown kids whose cash burns a hole in their messenger bags. But that was before gas hit $4 a gallon. Now it makes as much sense to shell out for a bike you love as it ever did to do the same for a car.

And these designers are making sure their products are worth it. "Our bikes have to live up to our standards," Montano said. "If we build a bike we like to ride, then other people will like to ride them too."

The Broakland crew unveiled their first design in San Jose just over a year ago at the 2007 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, the four-year-old exhibition of the nation’s top designers and bikemakers. In February, the Broakland crew set up a display, including the cream-and-magenta-marbled Meat Wagon, now on exhibit in the window of Montano Velo, at the 2008 NAHBS in Portland, Ore.

When asked what these bikes mean to him, Jason Grove just laughed. "It’s nice having a solid ride."

Check out Broakland’s designs or pick up some gear at Montano Velo, 4266 Piedmont Ave., Oakl., (510) 654-8356, or at www.myspace.com/broaklandbicycles

Clubs: Chrome gets our headbanging rocks off

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Polish me off, Chrome. All photos by Joshua Rotter.

By Joshua Rotter

Chrome makes me think of those metallic-plated bicycles that kids ride around on. It also reminds me of the same-name rock band that formed in San Francisco in the late ’70s. Promoter Bill Picture (Trans Am) managed to meld both elements together at monthly rock night Chrome at the Gangway.

Showcasing DJ Dirty Knees (Trans Am, Charlie Horse) and special guest DJs including March’s Metal Patricia, this metal night gets gear heads banging with heavy favorites like Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and Motley Crue’s “Too Fast for Love.” It’s like a metal hall of fame with something old and something newer.

Headbanging purists might divide the genre into two phases: the early years with bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath and the later, new wave of British metal (NWOBHM), led by tougher, harder acts like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead. But I chronologize it differently: BRHCO and ARHCO, before Rob Halford Came Out and After Rob Halford Came Out, which finally brought the genre out of the closet.

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International intrigue

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION The following story is not entirely made up. But it’s fictional enough that if you think you recognize yourself or your friends, then you must be mistaken.

He had a vaguely European-sounding name and a vague job doing something with the United Nations, or perhaps one of its subcommittees or projects or councils. It sounded important because it had a lot of words in it, and one of those words was Internet. That’s why Shiva met him.

They were at some kind of after-conference party, or maybe it was midconference. Anyway, it was for some center or special interest group at Harvard that was very concerned about the Internet in Africa. Shiva had come late in the afternoon to hear the keynote presentation, which wasn’t actually related to Africa. It was delivered by someone whom she admired, a technologist with a social conscience who would have done something about Africa if he had had time after haranguing the United States government about putting its citizens under surveillance without warrants.

The keynote speaker talked rousingly about how easy it was for governments — even ones in Africa, he was careful to add — to spy on people’s activities online. He talked about all of the great activist groups at Harvard and elsewhere around the world where smart geeks were figuring out ways to hide personal data from invasive states. He invited them all to help out by contributing to several open-source software projects, and then he invited them to the reception for wine and cheese.

There Shiva met the guy with the European-sounding name, who regaled her with stories about the wine in Spain and setting up wireless networks in Africa. He was so entertaining that she forgot to ask him which country in Africa, and then she consciously decided not to ask him since she knew so little about African geography that she might come across as exactly the sort of person who didn’t belong at Harvard. At one point he mentioned Lagos, which she knew (to her relief) was in Nigeria.

One thing led to another, and they wound up at Shiva’s lab at MIT because the European guy got really excited when she told him about her project on assembling virus shells for drug delivery. He would be leaving for Lagos in the morning, he told her, and she thought, "What the hell? I’m going to take this guy back to my lab and fuck him." And she did, and it was pretty hot, especially because he seemed so interested in her work. Before he left they exchanged e-mail addresses.

Lagos is one of the biggest cities in the world, but its exact population is unknown. A 2006 census claims the state of Lagos (which includes the city) has a population of nine million, but locals say these numbers are low and should be as high as 10 or 12 million. A city like that, whose population can’t even be determined to the nearest million, is a good place to disappear.

But the European guy didn’t disappear, and he would occasionally write Shiva e-mails from Lagos, forwarding her links about local politics or commenting on how locals ate this green stuff they called simply vegetable. He was setting up wireless networks and writing reports about them for his UN group or council or whatever. To get data in and out of the country, he wrote, he had to hide it on USB devices that looked like toy models of the TARDIS spaceship. People were so suspicious of anything that looked like a computer.

Eventually, the e-mails trailed off. He was in Switzerland, then Dubai, then Africa again. Never Cambridge. Shiva was busy prepping a paper for Nature, and then she was prepping for a conference. She hooked up with a couple of other people, started exchanging other flirtatious e-mails, then forgot about the European guy entirely.

Until one day she saw a picture of him on her favorite blog, right next to a post about how to make bicycles from foam. Apparently he’d been selling bioweapons information to groups variously labeled terrorists or insurgents, using his UN gig as cover. He had been teaching guerrillas about viruses. Nobody could figure out where he’d gotten his data. They figured it was a disgruntled Islamic militant somewhere, a person with a vendetta against the US government. Shiva never knew if it was her. *

Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who doesn’t know anything about virus shells and has never been to Lagos.

Don’t accept Bike Plan delays

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EDITORIAL The way city officials are describing the situation, it’s going to be another 18 months at least before San Francisco can add even a single bicycle lane or road stripe or put in a single new bike rack. That’s because a lone nut who thinks bicycles shouldn’t be on the city streets sued San Francisco and forced it to do an environmental impact report on its Bike Plan. And that report has been delayed and delayed again as city planners have been unable to complete it.

That’s infuriated some advocates, including Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Tom Ammiano — and for good reason. The San Francisco Planning Department seemed to have no problem whatsoever forcing an EIR on the 55 Laguna Street development project onto the fast track, but the Bike Plan … that’s just creeping along.

And in the meantime, bicyclists and pedestrians continue to be run down at some of the most hazardous intersections in town, particularly Fell and Masonic streets and Octavia Boulevard and Market Street. City figures show that Fell and Masonic is one of the most dangerous places in town for pedestrians and bikers; the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition reports that at least eight collisions between cars and bike — all of them causing injury to the rider — have occurred at the intersection since April. It’s not an acceptable situation, and with a little creativity, the city ought to be able to do something about it.

The lawsuit, brought by blogger Rob Anderson, claims the city failed to do a complete EIR before approving its Bike Plan. That’s put everything — even the restriping of pavements for safer bike lanes — completely on hold.

In a sense, it’s absurd to have an environmentally positive change — a city policy promoting bicycling — held up by environmental law. But the California Environmental Quality Act and the way the city is interpreting it still have roots in the era when automobile traffic was considered the most important form of urban transportation.

For example, CEQA requires cities to evaluate how projects would impact traffic — and San Francisco has always used a yardstick called "level of service," or LOS, which refers to the number of cars using a particular intersection and the speed at which those cars can proceed. If a project slows down car traffic beyond an acceptable level, there’s an environmental impact that has to be addressed.

But that’s a backward analysis; the city’s job shouldn’t be to find ways to facilitate more cars on busy streets. And it allows bizarre interpretations: if, for example, the addition of a bike lane on a street reduces the available space for cars, that ought to be looked at as a positive environmental step; the city interprets it as a negative impact.

State senator Carole Migden has discussed legislation that could exempt bike plans from CEQA, and while we’re nervous about any exemptions to the state’s premier environmental law, that might make some sense. But it might not even be necessary.

San Francisco’s city planners are still looking for ways to accommodate cars — all of the city’s development policies are based on the assumption that the number of private vehicles in San Francisco will increase over the next 10 years. An assumption like that leads to mandates for more parking, wider roads, and (maybe) fewer bike lanes.

But there’s nothing in the law requiring the pro-car approach. The Planning Commission could simply adopt new rules that define the level of service on streets differently. Instead of tracking how many cars go through an intersection, the city could track the number of people — including people on foot, people on bikes, and people in buses — and made a determination that pedestrian and bike safety and the quality of the travel experience for non–car users is as important as the degree of auto traffic.

That simple change would render much of the Anderson suit moot: new bike lanes, for example, would no longer be a potentially adverse impact. The city could move forward with much of its bike plan, now.

CEQA doesn’t require cities to accept public safety hazards — and the law clearly creates exemptions for situations in which lives are at risk. Mirkarimi has proposed legislation to change the LOS system, but it has languished; the supervisors need to move on it if the city planners won’t. You don’t need an EIR to tear down a freeway that’s about to collapse — and you shouldn’t need an environmental review to fix the most dangerous intersections in the city, including Fell and Masonic. City planners should simply define those hazardous sites as imminent dangers to public safety and immediately start changing the traffic lights, rerouting cars, and redefining bike lanes to put an end to the carnage, now.

Polishing SPUR

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› amanda@sfbg.com

Wedged among the commerce, tourism, and white-collar businesses north of Market Street is the slim entry to 312 Sutter, easy to miss unless you happen to be searching for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. SPUR occupies the fourth and fifth floors of the building — and occupies them completely. Cubicles are close and overstuffed. Conversations compete. Space for meetings is a hot commodity. Four bicycles, ridden to work by staff members, are crammed in a side room where languish a half century’s worth of policy papers, photographs, and planning documents generated by the active public interest think tank.

It looks more like a struggling nonprofit than one of the most influential policy organizations in town, one supported by the city’s richest and most powerful interests.

"This is why we’re building the Urban Center," said Gabriel Metcalf, the youthful executive director of the 48-year-old organization, clad in a dark suit and sipping from a Starbucks coffee cup while he roams the fourth floor office space searching for any available real estate to sit and talk.

He settles on an open-faced workroom with empty seats. They circle a table covered with a thick ledger of plans for SPUR’s new Urban Center, a $16.5 million, 12,000-square-foot four-story building at 654 Mission that the group is building with more than $8 million in public money.

Plans for the center include a free exhibition space, a lending library, and an evolution of the group’s current public education program, now consisting of noontime forums, to include evening lectures and accredited classes. Though the center will house meeting rooms for SPUR’s committees and offices for its staff, the suggestion is that the new space will be a more public place.

And SPUR seems to be searching for a new public image.

For years the organization was synonymous with anything-goes development, ruinous urban renewal, and an economy policy that favored big business and growth at all costs. Today SPUR’s staffers and some board members present a different face. The new SPUR features open debate and seeks consensus; phrases like sustainability and public interest are bandied about more than tax cuts and urban renewal.

But San Francisco progressives are a tough crowd, and SPUR’s history — and, frankly, most of its current political stands — makes a lot of activists wonder: Has SPUR really changed its spurs? And can a group whose board is still overwhelmingly dominated by big business and whose biggest funders are some of the most powerful businesses in town ever be a voice of political reason?

As one observer wryly noted, "I’ve yet to see SPUR publicly denounce a development project."

SPUR considers itself a public policy think tank, a term that conjures an impression of lofty independence. But the group has, and has always had, a visible agenda. SPUR members regularly advocate positions at public meetings, and the group takes stands on ballot measures.

And it has a painful legacy. "We have a dark history," Metcalf admits, referring to the days when "UR" stood for "urban renewal," often called "urban removal" by the thousands of low-income, elderly, and disabled people, many African American and Asian, who were displaced by redevelopment in San Francisco.

That history — and the fact that SPUR’s membership is largely a who’s who of corporations, developers, and financiers — has caused some to raise questions about the public money the group has received for the new Urban Center.

"They’re not an academic institution," said Marc Salomon, a member of the Western SoMa Citizens Planning Task Force who’s butted heads with the group. "There’s no academic peer review going on here. The only peer review is coming from the people who fund them."

Yet prominent local progressives like artist and planning activist Debra Walker, veteran development warrior Brad Paul, and architect and small-business owner Paul Okamoto have joined the SPUR board in recent years. "There’s a bunch of us that have come in under the new regime of Gabriel Metcalf because there’s a real aching need for a progressive dialogue about planning," said Walker, who thinks SPUR is making concerted efforts to inform its policies with the points of view of a broader constituency. "I think SPUR is engaged in those conversations more than anyone."

SPUR defines its mission as a commitment to "good planning and good government." Though a wide range of issues can and does fall under that rubric, the 71 board members and 14 staff tend to focus on housing, transportation, economics, sustainability, governmental reform, and local and regional planning, and their agenda has a dogged pro-growth tinge.

SPUR likes to trace its history to the post–1906 earthquake era, when the literal collapse of housing left many people settling in squalid conditions. The San Francisco Housing Association was formed "to educate the public about the need for housing regulations and to lobby Sacramento for anti-tenement legislation." A 1999 SPUR history of itself places its genesis in the Housing Association, though other versions of the group’s history suggest a slightly different taproot.

According to Chester Hartman’s history of redevelopment in San Francisco, City for Sale (University of California Press, 2002), the 1950s were a time when corporate-backed regional planners were envisioning a new, international commercial hub in the Bay Area. They were looking for a place to put the high-rise office buildings, convention centers, and hotels that white-collar commerce would need. Urban renewal money and resources were coming to the city, and San Francisco’s Redevelopment Agency identified the Embarcadero and South of Market areas as two of several appropriate places to raze and rebuild.

The agency, however, was dysfunctional and couldn’t seem to get plans for the Yerba Buena Center — a convention hall clustered with hotels and offices — off the ground. The Blyth-Zellerbach Committee, "a group the Chamber of Commerce bluntly described as ‘San Francisco’s most powerful business leaders, whose purpose is to act in concert on projects deemed good for the city,’<0x2009>" as Hartman writes, commissioned a report in 1959 by Aaron Levine, a Philadelphia planner, which identified the Redevelopment Agency as one of the worst in the nation and recommended more leadership from the business community. The San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association was born, funded by Blyth-Zellerbach, whose leaders included some corporations that still pay dues to SPUR, like Bechtel, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

John Elberling, a leader of the Tenants and Owners Development Corp., a group representing the people who were trying to stay in the area, was one of many activists who litigated against the city’s plan and managed to wedge some affordable housing into the developers’ vision of South of Market. SPUR, he told us, was "explicitly formed to support redevelopment issues in the ’60s and ’70s."

By 1974, when Paul began fending off redevelopment efforts around the Tenderloin and directed the North of Market Planning Coalition, "all through that period SPUR was viewed by the community as a tool for the Chamber of Commerce," he said.

In 1976, "Urban Renewal" became "Urban Research," a move away from the tarnished term. The 1999 commemoration of SPUR’s 40th anniversary is a somewhat sanitized history that never presents the faces of the people who were displaced by the program; nor does the analysis nod significantly toward the neighborhood groups and activists who were able to mitigate the wholesale razing of the area.

That’s still a soft spot for SPUR, some say. "They’re uncomfortable with questions of class. Those questions tend to be glossed over," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and a SPUR board member from 2000 to 2004.

Metcalf doesn’t duck the issue. "If you’re a city planner, you’ve got to meditate deeply on urban renewal, even though you didn’t do it. It’s the only time in urban history that planners were given power, and that’s what they did with it," he said.

Besides a long friendship with powerful businesses, SPUR has frequently enjoyed an intimate relationship with city hall. "They morphed in the ’80s into a good-government, good-planning group, but in fact they were really tight with the [Dianne] Feinstein administration," Elberling said. "One of the ways you got to be a city commissioner was by being a member of SPUR. Feinstein’s planning and development club was SPUR."

Mayor Feinstein’s reign is often remembered as a boom in downtown development — at least until 1985, when San Franciscans for Reasonable Growth succeeded in passing Proposition M, a measure severely limiting annual high-rise development. SPUR opposed the measure and still supports increased height and density along transit corridors in the city.

"SPUR always goes with more," Radulovich said. "Sometimes there’s a trade-off between sustainability and growth, and I don’t have much confidence they won’t go with growth."

A March SPUR report, "Framing the Future of Downtown San Francisco," is one example of a cognizance of other options, weighing the pros and cons of expanding the central business district or transforming it into a "central social district": "While office uses remain, the goal of a CSD is to create a mixed-use, livable, 24-hour downtown neighborhood." Another line in the report offers a telling look at how SPUR thinks: "Economic growth in the CSD model may be diminished as the remaining sites for office buildings become used for new residential, retail, or other non-office uses."

Retail means, in fact, economic growth. A 1985 Guardian-commissioned study of small businesses in San Francisco, "The End of the High-Rise Jobs Myth," found that most of the new jobs created in the city between 1980 and 1984 were not in the downtown office high-rises but around them. Businesses with fewer than 99 employees had generated twice as many jobs as those with more employees.

While the numbers may be different today, the concept that neighborhood-serving retail keeps a local economy healthy has only grown stronger, as has public sentiment against chain stores. Yet SPUR opposed a proposition calling for conditional-use permits for formula retail, which voters approved in 2006.

Over the years SPUR’s political record has been checkered. Though the group talks the good-government talk, it opposed propositions establishing the city’s Ethics Commission and reforming the city’s Sunshine Ordinance. According to Charley Marsteller, a founder of Common Cause and a longtime good-government advocate in San Francisco, "Common Cause supported initiatives in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005. SPUR opposed all of them."

This November, SPUR came out in favor of Proposition C, which calls for public hearings before measures can be placed on the ballot, but opposed Question Time for the mayor. The group gave a yes to the wi-fi policy statement and approved establishing a small-business assistance center — contrary to past stances.

SPUR isn’t afraid to defend its positions. "Those who disagree with a conclusion SPUR reaches object to us presenting our ideas as objectively true rather than as values based," Metcalf notes in the May SPUR report "Civic Planning in America," in which he surveys other similar organizations.

"And in truth, evidence and research seldom point necessarily to one single policy outcome, except when viewed through the lens of values. We want to stop sprawl. We want housing to be more affordable. We want there to be prosperity that is widely shared…. Perhaps it’s time to grow more comfortable with using this language of values," he writes.

Paul, who’s now program director for the Haas Jr. Fund and has served on the SPUR board for seven years, says the group is indeed changing. "Over the last six to eight years I’ve noticed a real shift on the board," he said. "We have really intense and interesting discussions about issues. People feel they can speak their mind."

Okamoto, a partner in the Okamoto Saijo architectural firm, thinks this is the result of a fundamental shift in planning tactics, due to a more recent and deeper comprehension of the coming environmental crises. "Global climate change is moving things. I think SPUR’s going in the same direction," he said. Okamoto joined SPUR "because I’d like to see if I could influence the organization toward sustainability. Now we have a new funded staff position for that topic."

And yet the fact remains that only 5 of the 71 board members — about 7 percent — can be described as prominent progressives. At least half are directly connected to prominent downtown business interests.

And a list of SPUR’s donors is enough to give any progressive pause. Among the 12 biggest givers in 2006 are Lennar Corp., PG&E, Wells Fargo, Westfield/Forest City Development, Bechtel, Catellus, and Webcor.

In the past 10 years SPUR’s staff has doubled, signaling a subtle shift away from relying mainly on the research and work of board members. One of the newest positions is a transportation policy director, and that job has gone to Dave Snyder, who helped revive the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in 1991, founded Livable City, and spent seven years on SPUR’s board before taking the job.

Having occupied the new post for a year, he said, "If I left, it wouldn’t be because I didn’t like SPUR. The debates we have at the staff level are more open than I expected."

Proposition A, the November transportation reform measure, is one example of the group’s new approach. The group voted a month earlier than usual to endorse a measure that was directly in opposition to the interests of one of its biggest funders, Gap billionaire Don Fisher (the Gap is also a member of SPUR). According to Walker, when the SPUR board vetted the endorsements the number of no votes for Prop. A was in the single digits. "I was so surprised," she said.

SPUR opposed Proposition H, a pro-parking countermeasure largely funded by Fisher, and worked with progressives on the campaign.

Metcalf noted it was the ground troops who made all the difference. "We don’t have [that kind of] power, and there are other groups that do. We wrote it, but we didn’t make it win. The bike coalition and [Service Employees International Union Local 1021] did," he said.

Sup. Aaron Peskin, who brokered much of the Prop. A deal, called it a sign of change for SPUR. "They probably lost a lot of their funders over this."

Radulovich is still dubious. He jumped ship after witnessing some disconnects between the board and its members. Though SPUR asks members to check their special interests at the door, Radulovich couldn’t say that always happened and recalled an example from an endorsement meeting at which a campaign consultant made an impassioned speech for the campaign on which he was working.

As far as his board membership was concerned, Radulovich said, "there were times I definitely felt like a token…. Development interests and wealthy people were much better represented."

Some say that isn’t about to change. "SPUR has been, is, and I guess always will be the rational front for developers," said Calvin Welch, a legendary San Francisco housing activist. "The members of SPUR are real estate lawyers, professional investors, and developers. Its original function was to be the Greek chorus for urban renewal and redevelopment."

Welch and Radulovich agree SPUR doesn’t represent San Franciscans, and Welch suggests the Dec. 4 Board of Supervisors hearing on an affordable-housing charter amendment was a case in point. "The people who got up to speak, I’d argue that’s San Francisco, and it doesn’t look a fucking thing like SPUR."

SPUR recently applied for a tax-exempt bond capped at $7 million from the California Municipal Finance Authority to help pay the cost of SPUR’s new Urban Center. It’s a standard loan for a nonprofit — SPUR is both a 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) — but some neighborhood activists raised questions about whether SPUR’s project is an appropriate expense for taxpayer cash.

"There’s no city money going toward the Urban Center, but by using tax-exempt bond financing they’re depriving the US Treasury of tax revenues," Salomon said. "The people who are funding SPUR can afford to buy them a really nice building, with cash."

The Urban Center also received a $231,000 federal earmark from Rep. Nancy Pelosi, whose nephew Laurence Pelosi is a former SPUR board member. Another $967,500 will come to SPUR from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment, which voters set aside through Proposition 40 to fund projects that "provide a thread of California’s cultural and historical resources."

Metcalf said SPUR isn’t sitting on a pile of cash: "We’re not that wealthy. We just don’t have that level of funding." The group’s endowment is small, and according to its 2006 annual report, revenues were $1.8 million, 90 percent of that from memberships and special events. The annual Silver Spur Awards, at which the group celebrates the work of local individuals, from Feinstein to Walter Shorenstein to Warren Hellman, is one of the biggest cash cows for SPUR, typically netting more than half a million dollars.

So far most of the funds for the Urban Center have come from donations raised from board members, individuals, businesses, and foundations. Metcalf defends the use of public funds. "For a group like SPUR that needs to be out in front on controversial issues, our work depends on having a diverse funding base. The Urban Center is part of that," he said.

The new headquarters is modeled on similar urban centers in Paris and New York, places that invite the public to view exhibits and get involved in answering some of the bigger planning questions cities are facing as populations increase and sprawl reigns. According to SPUR, this will be the first urban center west of Chicago, and the doors should open in 2009.

Walker, who’s been a board member for about a year, isn’t ready to say SPUR has been transformed. "It’s in my bones to be skeptical of SPUR," she said. "I have a different perspective than most of the people who are on SPUR, but the membership is different from the people who are funding it. I still think we need to have a more progressive policy think tank as well."

Walker recruits for SPUR’s membership development committee and said some of her suggestions have been well received. "The reality is, the progressive community is really powerful here when we come together and work on stuff. You can’t ignore us. Rather than fight about it, SPUR is offering some middle ground."

Protecting air quality, by car only

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Now this is truly outrageous: a local blog called Bikescape has unearthed a Bay Area Air Quality Management District memo banning employees from using bicycles while carrying out their duties of promoting clean air. The memo states, “While biking to work is an option that the District supports, employees are not to ride their bikes in the course of their work duties. The potential for serious injury is much greater when riding a bicycle than driving a car in the event of an accident.”
And the potential for dirtier air is much greater if even our air quality officials are required to drive cars.

Toilets on the way to the Castro

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After playing it cagey right up until today’s media coverage, sources say city officials have blinked and ordered 120 portable bathrooms for Halloween in the Castro after all and started to close off some of the streets. Closure of the closest BART and Muni stations will make accessing the neighborhood difficult for outsiders, although the ease of access by San Franciscans on bicycles should, IMHO, improve the average quality of partygoers. See y’all out there.

Hayes and Kebab and Stacks’

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› paulr@sfbg.com

On a warm late summer afternoon a few weeks ago, a friend and I stood in front of a shuttered market on Hayes Street, marveling at the shutters themselves. These really weren’t shutters but a kind of corrugated-steel fortification, the sort of thing people in hurricane country buy at Sears so high winds don’t blow out all the windows. Here the danger would not have been hurricanes but vandalism and perhaps an occasional touch of civil unrest — but during our momentary vigil we saw nothing of the kind, not a possibility nor even a hint. Just a dowdy old market that had come to seem out of place, slightly scruffy and paranoid, on what has become, in the past 15 years or so, one of the city’s most transformed stretches of culture and commerce.

Although Hayes Street’s darkest days probably fell in the mid-1990s — when a long symphony strike turned the western precincts of the Civic Center into a ghost town — the neighborhood’s prospects were already brightening even then. True, the idling of the symphony meant that the area’s restaurants had fewer people to serve preperformance dinners or postperformance desserts to, and things were already bad enough with the earthquake-related closures of government buildings near City Hall and the dislocation of the people who worked in them and made up a reliable lunch crowd. But the elevated Central Freeway, the malignant tendril of concrete that cut the neighborhood in two, was succumbing, bit by bit, to ballot initiatives, and removal of that blight meant that there was nowhere to go but up.

When the sun shines in Hayes Valley these days, it’s difficult to remember that dank structure and its scary shadows, or how unsettling it could be to walk along Hayes west of Gough in the evening. Today the scene is one of quirky, pricey boutiques, the wonderful village green, which is full of lunchtime people and romping dogs and whizzing bicycles — and of course restaurants.

There are some excellent restaurants in the vicinity: Jardinière, Hayes Street Grill, Indigo, Absinthe. Although Essencia is too new to put firmly in this category, its bona fides are impressive. But all these places are east of or on Gough. West of Gough, there’s still surprisingly little beyond various sorts of cantinas that cater to the lunch folk.

Suppenküche, with its au courant German cooking, is interesting and worthy in an oddball sort of way, but it’s held down its far corner for more than a decade. Modern Tea, across the street, is also interesting and worthy, but its food service, while estimable, is circumscribed. Frjtz has fabulous frites and sandwiches, Patxi some excellent pizzas, but you’re in and out of those places.

For a time there seemed the possibility of something notable opening in the glassy new building at the corner of Octavia. The restaurant space was large and commanded views of the green, but the first occupant was Café Grillades, which was essentially a creperie. Some months ago the place reopened as Stacks’ — as in stacks of pancakes, as in we deal in breakfast and lunch and, like West Coast stockbrokers, are done by midafternoon.

The restricted hours appear to have heightened the restaurant’s allure. Grillades served dinner but was often emptyish in the after-dark hours. Stacks’, by contrast, actually seems to have people waiting at the host’s station for tables. I would like to say the public’s renewed enthusiasm has to do with the food, but Stacks’ menu doesn’t seem too different from Grillades’ and even includes a wide selection of crepes, along with Belgian waffles, omelets, soups, and sandwiches.

The food is good rather than memorable, except for the prices, which reflect the chichification of Hayes Street. Soup and sandwich (the combination changes daily) will run you $8.69. For that you get a pretty-good-size bowl of, say, chicken noodle soup (with plenty of wide, fettucelike noodles) and a turkey and cheese sandwich on soft whole wheat bread. This is just the sort of lunch your nutrition-involved mother would make you eat, if she could still make you do anything.

A plaudit too for the turkey burger ($8.89), which was cooked through — as is essential with poultry — but not dry. Turkey burgers need a secret ingredient; I use an egg yolk, which helps keep the meat moist and also provides a binding effect. Could this be the Stacks’ technique? I couldn’t tell, but the kitchen knows what it’s doing here.

For years a noontime stalwart was Sage, one of those Chinese restaurants that seemed as if it had always been there and always would be. Then, one day last fall, it wasn’t. Now it is a Middle Eastern place called Hayes and Kebab. Not much has changed except the cuisine, and the fact that there is no longer full table service: you order at the counter, take a numbered placard, and wait for the food to be brought to you.

The falafel ($5.95) is served burrito-style, wrapped in lavash instead of the usual pita bread, and this is an improvement. There is also, squirting gently from the cylinder, a tasty sauce of yogurt spiked with paprika — a nice touch, since falafel can be dry. We liked the charcoal-grilled chicken shish kebab ($9.95), in part because the marinated meat remained juicy and because it was presented with tasty little salads of bulgur wheat and rice pilaf dotted with green peas, raisins, and slivered almonds.

Hayes and Kebab serves dinner, if you can’t get into Essencia next door or you overlooked Stacks’ daylight-only policy. Said King Théoden as he led the Rohirrim into battle before the walls of Minas Tirith, "Fear no darkness!"

HAYES AND KEBAB

Mon.–Thurs. and Sun., 11 a.m.–10 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

406 Hayes, SF

(415) 552-3440

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

STACKS’

Daily, 7 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

501 Hayes, SF

(415) 241-9011

www.stacksrestaurant.com

Beer and wine

AE/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Green City: Reaching critical mass

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Fifteen years ago this month, San Franciscans mobilized for the first Critical Mass, an unpermitted monthly bicycle parade and social protest that has subsequently been exported to cities around the world.

The movement formed in the streets as the Commuter Clot, just a handful of bicyclists seizing their stretch of pavement together. Among them rode former bike messenger Jim Swanson, whom many credit with coining the name Critical Mass, a reference to the traffic-controlling power achieved when enough bicycles join a ride.

Two months into the project, Swanson watched Ted White’s short film The Return of the Scorcher. The surreal footage of bicyclists in China fording intersections inspired Swanson: "When there was enough of them, they crossed and took over the road."

Thus, in September 1992, the autonomous and leaderless collective known as Critical Mass was born, picking up momentum — while enduring an often rocky relationship with the city and its motorists — ever since.

On Sept. 28, around 6 p.m., thousands of bicyclists are expected to convene around Justin Hermann Plaza for the 15th anniversary ride, just as they do on the last Friday of every month. Each rider brings a unique cause and perspective to the ride. Swanson wheels out his 1965 blue Schwinn Tandem each month and makes it a regular date with his sweetheart and friends.

Longtime rider Joel Pomerantz focuses on the political undertones of the event. "For me, the ride is about community. It’s an opportunity for people to take over public space that is usually destructive to the community," he told the Guardian.

During Critical Mass, riders change the use of street space and establish bicycles as the dominant form of transportation, taking control of every intersection they encounter, at least for the 10 or 15 minutes it takes the mass to pass.

Bicyclists in San Francisco have also attained critical mass in other ways, with more and more residents realizing the environmental, health, safety, and monetary benefits of trading the gas pedal for a pair of pedals. The 35-year-old San Francisco Bicycle Coalition now boasts a peak membership of 7,500, and the city has the highest per capita membership in the Thunderhead Alliance, a national conglomeration of cycling and walking advocates.

According to the Urban Transportation Caucus’s 2007 report card, automobiles and trucks account for 50 percent of San Francisco’s carbon emissions, a major cause of climate change and respiratory ailments. "Simply reducing the number of driving vehicles will be the biggest thing in reducing carbon emissions and improving people’s health. Bicycling comes up as the most cost-effective way to reduce private vehicle trips," SFBC director Leah Shahum said.

Some groups want to take big steps toward furthering that trend. For example, San Francisco Tomorrow is pushing a plan to ban private automobiles on Market Street. But for now the city is prevented by a court injunction from undertaking bike-friendly projects after a judge found procedural flaws in how the current Bicycle Plan was approved (see "Stationary Biking," 5/16/07).

Carla Laser, founder of the San Francisco Bicycle Ballet, said getting the plan back on track is also essential to minimizing bike-car conflicts: "The striping of bike lanes is an example of how the Bike Plan educates the public on how to share the streets. Drivers can clearly see that the city actually supports bikes on streets and is willing to give them a nod of space with the stripes. Every street is a bike street."

That’s especially true for Critical Mass, a situation that can cause tensions between motorists and cyclists and fuel a backlash toward bike riders seen as overreaching into the realm of automobiles. Yet Critical Mass remains more popular than ever, and it only seemed to grow larger a few months ago, when the San Francisco Chronicle publicized some motorist-cyclist clashes (see "Did Critical Mass Really Go Crazy?," SFBG Politics blog, www.sfbg.com, 4/4/07).

Yet as the event becomes a popular rolling party, some longtime massers have started openly wondering what’s next for those looking to send a serious message about minimizing dependence on cars.

As transportation activist and former SFBC executive director Dave Snyder told us, "I’m looking forward to the next public phenomenon in San Francisco that inspires a humane use of public space, as Critical Mass was to so many people."

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.

Bikes are traffic too

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OK, so I’ll admit that my main reason for this blog post is to shove a certain irrational, poorly written, anti-bike intern’s post off our front page, where it will hopefully become just a bad distant memory (BTW, said intern, who goes by the pseudonym Lotto Chancellor, also goes by Chris Demento and can be contacted at cdemento@gmail.com). He’s a kid who’s still learning how to transform a petty, ill-informed rant into legitimate commentary, but after re-reading his piece and talking to him this morning, I do want to address a serious problem raised by his perspective and the flawed points he tried to make.
As one commenter noted, bicycles are traffic, as entitled under state law and local policies to that lane as cars are. We also occasionally take entire lanes because that’s what safety dictates — it’s just not safe to ride in the door zone of parked cars — not because we’re simply idiots or assholes. Our intern tells me that he’s scared to ride bikes, so he doesn’t understand these realities, and he’s not alone. That’s why so many of us feel a need to assert our rights, sometimes aggressively, because attitudes like his, and the driver impatience and aggression that flows from this attitude, threatens not only our lives, but also the attractiveness and viability of a form of transportation that — whether or not this kid thinks we’re being sanctimonious — really is one of the most environmentally beneficial simple choices that any of us can make.

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