California

What the “Defund ACORN Act” is really about

Mary Magee
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What the “Defund ACORN Act” is really about

Last September, the US Congress approved the Defund ACORN Act without investigating the charges leveled against ACORN.

Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s CEO, claims that these charges were nothing more than a massive “propaganda campaign” and that ACORN was targeted because it was successful at organizing low-income communities–the very folks that rich corporate interests don’t want to see voting and otherwise standing up for their rights.

Now with a hearing scheduled for June 24, Lewis is asking folks to stand up and fight what she describes as an assault on the Constitution itself.

“Congress’ move, singling out one organization for sanctions without investigation, is called a “bill of attainder” and it is expressly prohibited by the Constitution of the United States,” Lewis stated in a press release issued today.

” If this attack is allowed to stand, then any other organization that displeases those with power in the United States can be similarly attacked and, potentially, destroyed,” Lewis said.

As she notes, ACORN has been investigated by four separate and independent, sources – former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger; the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office; the California Attorney General; and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“Each of them has cleared ACORN of any wrongdoing,” Lewis observed. “ Three investigations reviewing the videos used to attack ACORN determined that they were “splice jobs” in which “the truth is on the cutting room floor”. The fourth, from the GAO, concluded that ACORN had not misused any of the Federal funds it had received. In other words, the entire set of attacks was a witch hunt driven using modern propaganda techniques and with millions of dollars in dedicated air time on a “news” channel and talk radio.”

Lewis thinks she knows why these attacks happened.

” We were simply too good at what we did – engaging low- and moderate-income families and families of color in America’s democratic system,” she said. “ If we hadn’t helped 860,000 new voters get on the voter rolls since 2004 (we believe this is the largest non-partisan voter registration effort ever carried out by a single non-profit organization), if we hadn’t helped raise the minimum wage in seven states, if we hadn’t blown the whistle about predatory lending in the sub-prime market back in 1999, and if we hadn’t brought in over $15 billion in direct benefits to America’s low- and moderate-income neighborhoods from 1994 – 2004, then we wouldn’t have been the targets of smears and attacks going back to the 2004 election. Smears that were exposed during the height of the scandal surrounding the firing of US Attorneys like David Iglesias in New Mexico, who refused to trump up phony voter fraud charges against ACORN.”

Lewis comments that if the attacks leveled against ACORN had really been about misusing taxpayer dollars, then defense contractors like Xe (formerly Blackwater), Halliburton, and Kaman Dayron, all of whom have been found guilty of either committing actual crimes or of collectively defrauding the American people of hundreds of millions of dollars, would have been the subject of their own Defund Corporate Criminals Act.

”But, of course, they aren’t,” Lewis concluded.  Because, unlike ACORN’s low- and moderate-income membership, these corporations can buy influence in the highest levels of political power in the United States. So, our lawsuit against the unconstitutional Defund ACORN Act is not about ACORN and its past federal funding. It is about justice for all organizations that fight for the interests of regular folks against the most powerful interests in America.”

Film listings

David Talbot
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide at www.sfbg.com.

FRAMELINE34

The 34th San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival runs through Sun/27 at the Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; Victoria, 2961 16th St, SF; and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk. Tickets (most shows $8-15) can be purchased at www.frameline.org. All times pm unless otherwise noted.

WED/23

Castro Thy Will Be Done: A Transsexual Woman’s Journey Through Family and Faith 11am. Mädchen in Uniform 1:30. The Golden Pin 4. Beautiful Darling 7. Children of God 9:30.

Roxie The Stranger in Us 6:45. Tough Girls 9:30.

Victoria Bloomington 7. The Adults in the Room 9:30.

Elmwood We Have to Stop Now 7. Going South 9:30.

THURS/24

Castro "Deep Red" (shorts program) 11am. "Says Who? Gender Variant Representation in Media" (free panel discussion) 2. All Boys 4:30. The Sea Purple 6:45. Spring Fever 9:30.

Roxie Stonewall Uprising 7. The Motionless 9:30.

Victoria Plan B 6:30. "Transtastic!" (shorts program) 9:30.

Elmwood The Last Summer of La Boyita 7. The Man Who Loved Yngve 9:30.

FRI/25

Castro TBA 1 11am. Gay Days 1:30. "Worldly Affairs" (shorts program) 4. Elena Undone 6:45. Hideaway 9:30.

Roxie Out in the Silence 7. The Fish Child 9:30.

Victoria The String 7. We Have to Stop Now 9:30.

SAT/26

Castro Out of Annapolis 11am. FIT 1. "Dyke Delights" (shorts program) 3:45. From Beginning to End 6. BearCity 8:30.

Roxie Holding Hands 11am. The Sons of Tennessee Williams 1:30. Uncle Bob 4. Mother Earth 7. "The Experimentals" (shorts program) 9:30.

Victoria Heretics 11am. Other Nature 1:30. The Chorus/HIV Story Project 4:15. Lost in the Crowd 7. TBA 2 9:30.

SUN/27

Castro "Fun in Girls’ Shorts" (shorts program) 11:30. "Fun in Boys’ Shorts" 2. Going South 4:30. Howl 7:30.

OPENING

*Air Doll See "Inflated Meaning." (1:56) Lumiere.

Cyrus See "Sonny Dearest." (1:32)

Grown Ups Another man-child comedy? Is there a time-traveling hot tub in this one? (1:42) Marina, Shattuck.

Have You Heard from Johannesburg? The best word to describe Connie Field’s Have You Heard From Johannesburg? is "impressive." At eight-and-a-half hours, the seven-part documentary series spans nearly five decades of the South African anti-apartheid movement. The individual films are well-researched and thought-provoking. The stories are compelling — that is, until you put them all together. The complete series is just too long for those without a strong, vested interest in South African history. It’s simply not approachable for the mainstream, and the approximately three-hour chunks it’s meant to be consumed in are daunting. These films are better suited to a televised series, where viewers could appreciate hearing about anti-apartheid pioneers like Oliver Tambo and Desmond Tutu in smaller, digestible bites. As it stands, Field’s documentary is not likely to find a wide audience — a real pity, given the 10 years of effort she put into it, and the importance of sharing the South African struggle for equality with the rest of the world. (8:30) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

*The Killer Inside Me See "Pulp Vicious." (1:48) Sundance Kabuki.

*I Am Love I Am Love opens in a chilly, Christmastime Milan and deliberately warms in tandem with its characters. Members of the blue-blood Recchi family are content hosting lavish parties and gossiping about one another, none more than the matriarch Emma (Tilda Swinton). But when prodigal son Edoardo befriends a local chef, Emma finds herself taken by both the chef’s food and his everyman personality, and is reminded of her poor Soviet upbringing. The courtship that follows is familiar on paper, but director Luca Guadagnino lenses with a strong style and small scenes acquire a distinct energy through careful editing and John Adams’ unpredictable score. Swinton portrays Emma’s unraveling with the same gritty gusto she brought to Julia (2008), and her commitment to the role recognizes few boundaries. You’ve probably seen this story before, but it has rarely been this powerful. (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero. (Peter Galvin)

*Knight and Day A Bourne-again Vanilla Sky (2001)? Considerably better than that embarrassingly silly stateside remake, though not quite as fulfilling as director James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) rework, this action caper played for yuks still isn’t the most original article in the cineplex. But coasting on the dazzling Cheshire grins of its stars, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, reunited for the first time since Sky, you can just make out the birth of a beautiful new franchise. Everygirl June Havens (Diaz) is on her way to her sister’s wedding when she collides-cute at the airport with Roy Miller (Cruise). After killing the passengers and pilots on their plane, he literally sweeps her off her feet — thanks to some potent drugs. Picture a would-be Bond girl dragged against a spy-vs.-spy thriller semi-against-her-will — grappling with the subtextual anxiety rushing beneath all brief romantic encounters as well as some very justifiable survival fears. Can June overcome her trust issues? Is Roy the man of her dreams — or nightmares? Mangold and company miss a few opportunities to have more fun with those barely teased out ideas, and the polished, adult-yet-far-from-knowing charisma of the leads doesn’t quite live up to sophisticated interplay of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, or even the down-home fun of Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, but it’s substantial enough for Knight and Day to coast on, for about 90 minutes tops. (2:10) Four Star, Presidio. (Chun)

The Message This period melodrama-meets-spy thriller is set in 1942 Nanjing. (1:57) Four Star.

ONGOING

The A-Team (1:57) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center.

*Babies (1:19) Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki.

*City Island (1:40) Shattuck.

*Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky (1:55) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Exit Through the Gift Shop (1:27) Lumiere, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Get Him to the Greek (1:49) Empire, Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2:32) Clay, Piedmont, Red Vic, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

*Iron Man 2 (2:05) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

*Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (1:24) Bridge, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Jonah Hex Based on DC’s dark western comics, Jonah Hex is a jumbled mess of mishandled superhero tropes and obligatory attempts at badass-ery. The title character, a grizzled gunfighter with a distinctive facial scar, could be an engaging outsider antihero, but as portrayed by Josh Brolin, he feels neither as cool nor as tortured as we’re clearly expected to believe. The film has a decidedly ’90s feel to it — think overbudgeted, underthought masterpieces like Wild Wild West (1999) — with its farcically fantastical take on post-Civil War supervillainy. Its ridiculous cast of character actors is almost completely squandered, including archvillain John Malkovich, Aidan Quinn as Ulysses S. Grant, and Will Arnett in an inexplicably serious role. Megan Fox is trying the hardest out of the whole cast, but in a rather sleazy move, her character always seems to appear in soft focus. Oh, and there are a few explosions. (1:81) 1000 Van Ness. (Sam Stander)

The Karate Kid (2:20) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Killers (1:40) 1000 Van Ness.

Letters to Juliet (1:46) SF Center.

Lovers of Hate (1:33) Roxie.

Micmacs (1:44) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

La Mission (1:57) Opera Plaza, Red Vic.

*Ondine (1:43) California, Opera Plaza.

*Please Give (1:30) Opera Plaza.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2:10) California, 1000 Van Ness.

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Albany, Lumiere.

Sex and the City 2 (2:24) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki.

Solitary Man (1:30) Empire, Opera Plaza, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Splice (1:45) 1000 Van Ness.

The Sun Behind the Clouds A delicate political subject that penetrates to the roots of a nation’s cultural identity, the Tibetan "issue" most recently re-entered the Western consciousness in 2008, preceding China’s hosting of the Olympics. Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s informative documentary addresses the issue from many perspectives, including those of protest marchers, Tibetans dwelling around the world, Chinese anti-Tibetan-independence campaigners, cultural commentators, and the Dalai Lama himself. Thoughtful narration by Sonam elaborates on the difficult ramifications of the Dalai Lama’s pursuit over the past few decades of the "Middle Way Approach," which does not incorporate Tibetan independence from Chinese rule. The film is tinged with great sadness, which gives the proceedings a decidedly biased feel but also a sincere glow. The Chinese state’s continuing suspicion of the Dalai Lama’s intentions led to a breakdown in talks, but the documentary’s very title alludes to a protest song which predicts the inevitability of Tibetan freedom. (1:19) Opera Plaza. (Stander)

Touching Home (1:48) Smith Rafael.

*Toy Story 3 You’ve got a friend in Pixar. We all do. The animation studio just can’t seem to make a bad movie — even at its relative worst, a Pixar film is still worlds better than most of what Hollywood churns out. Luckily, Toy Story 3 is far from the worst: it’s actually one of Pixar’s most enjoyable and poignant films yet. Waiting 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2 was, in fact, a stroke of genius, in that it amplifies the nostalgia that runs through so many of the studio’s releases. The kids who were raised on Toy Story and its first sequel have now grown up, gone to college, and, presumably, abandoned their toys. For these twentysomethings, myself included, Toy Story 3 is a uniquely satisfying and heartbreaking experience. While the film itself may not be the instant classic that WALL-E (2008) was, it’s near flawless regardless of a viewer’s age. Warm, funny, and emotionally devastating—it’s Pixar as it should be. (1:49) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Winter’s Bone Winter’s Bone has already won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s the kind of downbeat, low-key, quiet film that may elude larger audiences (and, as these things go, Oscar voters). Like Andrea Arnold’s recent Fish Tank, it tells the story of a teenage girl who draws on unlikely reserves of toughness to navigate an unstable family life amid less-than-ideal economic circumstances. And it’s also directed by a woman: Debra Granik, whose previous feature, 2004’s Down to the Bone, starred Vera Farmiga (2009’s Up in the Air) as a checkout clerk trying to balance two kids and a secret coke habit.

Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) California, Embarcadero. (Eddy)

Stage listings

David Talbot
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

*Blackbird: Honoring a Century of Pansy Divas Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 Mission; 786-9325, www.evezen.org. Opens Thurs/24, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sun/17, 8pm). Through July 10. The intimate Blackbird Funeral Parlour Speakeasy is somber-toned and deceptively hushed, complete with period furnishings, a see-through dressing room, softly flickering altar, and obligatory piano. Only a few moments into Seth Eisen’s exceptional one-man cabaret, however, and the place is alive and kicking: doleful aspects of the décor making ample room for a sly, vigorous, soulful performer and a completely unexpected journey through some vibrant underground queer history (backed by fellow Circo Zero alum Sean Feit’s sharp musical direction and breezy accompaniment, and Alanna Simone’s gently humorous and haunting video pieces). Your guide is 100-year-old Jean Marlin, author of the notorious 1930s Pansy Craze, 75 years dead and looking fabulous in tails, bold green cravat, dapper purple hankie and a topping of regal black plumage (costumer Jack Davis demonstrates a genius throughout for turning a shoestring budget into a G-string–supported extravaganza). A multifaceted performer with quick tongue, nimble steps, and hearty voice (giving life to an assortment of extraordinary songs), Eisen uses drag, dance, puppetry, and performance art techniques to give flight to worthy exotic blackbirds known and forgotten—drag queen Zen priest Tommy Issan Dorsey; sexually ambiguous Danny Kaye; Brazil’s inimitable Ney Matogrosso; the definitely outré Klaus Nomi; and disco treasure Sylvester, whose live rendition of the Beatles’ "Blackbird" at SF’s War Memorial Opera House is one of several standout moments in this rollicking and poignant act of resurrection, insurrection, and homage. (Avila)

Much Ado About Lebowski Cell Space, 2050 Bryant; www.primitivescrewheads.com. $20. Opens Thurs/24, 8 p.m. Runs Fri/25-Sun/27, July 24, 7pm (also July 9, 10, 16, 17 at Off Market Theater). Through July 24. SF IndieFest and the Primitive Screwheads present a live staged parody fusion of Shakespearean and Coen Brothers comedy, with White Russians served an hour before showtime.

Reading My Dad’s Porn and French Kissing the Dog The Marsh Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Opens Thurs/24, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 17. The Marsh presents Cherry Zonkowski’s tour of suburban living rooms, crowded dungeons, and sex and artist party scenes.

BAY AREA

Shaker Chair Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear Avenue, Mtn View; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-30. Opens Fri/25, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (also July 10, 2pm; no perfomance July 4). Through July 11. Pear Avenue Theatre presents Adam Bock’s play about a middle-aged widow who applies Shaker philosophy to her lifestyle.

ONGOING

Abigail: The Salem Witch Trials Temple SF, 540 Howard; www.templesf.com. $10. July 8, 29, Aug 5, 12, 19, 26, 9pm. Through Aug 26. Buzz Productions, with Skycastle Music and Lunar Eclipse Records, presents an original rock opera based on the Salem witch trials.

All My Sons Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Actors Theatre performs Arthur Miller’s masterwork.

Boys Will Be Boys New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. What happens when you realize you have Gay Attention Deficit Disorder? This comedic musical aims to find out.

Die Walküre War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Fri/25, June 30, 7pm. Through June 30. San Francisco Opera presents the second installment of Wagner’s Ring cycle, directed by Francesca Zambello.

"Durang Me!" Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (no show July 4). Through July 10. Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare could just as easily be called The Accountant’s Nightmare, as befuddled Everyman and presumed non-actor George Spelvin (Eric O’ Kelly) attempts to navigate his way out of a confused rendition of Noel Coward’s "Private Lives" dressed as Prince Hamlet and menaced by a trashcan-bearing Beckett-arian (AJ Davenport). This traditional companion piece to Durang’s Catholic School send-up Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You references a Catholic boyhood several times, but it is the anxiety of the present moment that prevails, as the stage clears, and Spelvin is chased into a corner by an unforgiving spotlight to deliver his frantic last-ditch attempt at a soliloquy: his ABC’s. The titular Sister Mary Ignatius (AJ Davenport), by turns arctic and expansive, attempts to explain all, while periodically trotting out her star pupil Thomas (Cole Cloud) to recite catechism and spell eck-u-men-ickle for cookies. Davenport plays the pedantic side of Sister Mary with humorous vigor, but when a group of her former students drop by "to embarrass her" she doesn’t quite pull off embodying the ogress of their now-adult nightmares. Of her former students, it is probably Aloysius Benheim (Eric O’Kelly) who comes across as the most damaged by her tyranny, and not coincidentally, suffers the piece’s greatest humiliation. (Nicole Gluckstern)

La Fanciulla Del West War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Thurs/24, Tues/29, 7:30pm; Sun/27, 2pm; July 2, 8pm. Through July 2. San Francisco Opera presents Puccini’s opera, with Deborah Voigt as Minnie.

Forever Never Comes Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Crowded Fire performs Enrique Urueta’s world premiere "psycho-Southern queer country dance tragedy."

Gutenberg! The Musical! Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.beardsbeardsbeards.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Beards Beards Beards: A Theatre Company presents a musical about two writers who scheme to create a Broadway musical about Johann Gutenberg.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. On the principle that when you’ve got it you should really flaunt it, San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers essay their second revival of a musical by the storied Cockettes. Hot Greeks, which premiered in midnight performances at the old Palace Theater in 1972, was the gleefully crazed cross-dressing troupe’s only other fully scripted musical besides, of course, Pearls Over Shanghai.

While not the Oresteia or anything, Hot Greeks is more than an excuse for a lot of louche, libidinous hilarity. Okay, not much more. But it is a knowing little romp — supported by some infectious songs courtesy of Martin Worman and Richard "Scrumbly" Koldewyn — wedding trashy high school romance with the trashy ancient Greece of Aristophanes and the Peloponnesian War. (Avila)

*How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. A natural born charmer and a comedic actor with hard-won training behind her, Aileen Clark wins over an audience within about ten seconds. But her stories (co-scripted by John Caldon and ably directed by Claire Rice) turn out to be just as solid: all of them loving, irreverent, and unfailingly hilarious autobiographical accounts of coming of age across three cultures. Born to a Nicaraguan mother and a Scottish father and raised principally in Brazil, Managua and San Francisco, Clark’s perfectly-pitched monologue comes liberally spiced with Spanish and Portuguese, sweetened by an affecting but never maudlin honesty, and stirred with a feisty humor clearly a lifetime in the making. As well paced and energetic as this Guerilla Rep and Ann Marie co-production is, it could probably be tightened further by shaving some 10 minutes off the 90-minute run time. Nonetheless, you are not likely to regret a minute of this frank and funny, wise and sassy visit to Aileen’s world. (Avila)

KML Goes Undercover Zeum Theater, 221 4th St, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7pm, 10pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/27. Killing My Lobster returns with a series of comedic vignettes based on the theme of espionage.

Krapp’s Last Tape Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 3. Cutting Ball Theater remounts its strong recent production of Samuel Beckett’s hour-long solo play, featuring a full-fledged and satisfying turn by a hearty, slyly comic Paul Gerrior as the titular Krapp, reflecting on the fleeting sense of self recorded on reel-to-reel tapes over the course of a long life. Artistic director Rob Melrose approaches the material with supreme assurance and passionate but never stifling fidelity. David Sinaiko provides the recorded voice of the younger Krapp, expertly balancing a passion and unselfconscious pomposity that has Gerrior’s Krapp alternately bemused, euphoric, and wincing through one of Beckett’s most autobiographical and surprisingly affirming pieces. Melrose’s choice use of scenic elements, meanwhile, including the palpably solid 1950s-era tape machine, places Gerrior (suitably odd and natty in costumer Maggie Whitaker’s dapper vest, high-water trousers and white shoes) in a kind of communion with the reel and the real—an affecting and quietly unsettling relationship, pitched against an infinite blackness all around, that has Krapp at one point resting his head gently on the machine as he and the insubstantial voice of his younger self relive a moment of intimacy with a long-gone lover. (Avila)

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show Fri/25); Sun, 2pm. Through Sat/26. Gomez performs her GLAAD Media award-winning comedy.

The New Century New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Paul Rudnick’s bill of short comedies.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St.; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Starting July 10, runs Sat, 8pm and Sun, 7pm. Through August 1. Thrillpeddlers presents this revival of the legendary Cockettes’ 1970 musical extravaganza.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/27. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway "Beatlemania" comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic. (Avila)

"Something C.O.O.L.: The Summer Cabaret Festival" Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.brownpapertickets.com. Free-$10. Mon-Tues, 7:30pm; Wed, 8pm. Through Sat/27. Cabaret singer Carly Ozard presents six diverse showcases (Mon-Tues nights) and hosts open mics (Wed nights) with professional performers.

*The Tosca Project American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2ACT, www.act-sf.org. $15-87. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Wed, Sun, 2pm. Through Sat/27. Four years in the making, this ACT–SF Ballet collaboration unfurls a lushly romantic, whimsical pageant of San Francisco history through movement, character, mise en scène, and an irresistible cultural lens: the famed North Beach bar lending the project its setting and name. Co-created by ACT’s Carey Perloff and SFB choreographer Val Caniparoli, the storyline traipses over every iconic period since Prohibition—sometimes too cursorily but generally with vigor and a quietly gathering intoxication—meanwhile centering on three characters: the tragically lovelorn Italian bartender-owner (Jack Willis); a Russian émigrée and regular (Rachel Ticotin) who eventually inherits the establishment; and an African American musician (Gregory Wallace) arriving on the lamb, who becomes another permanent fixture of the place. Never far away either is the incarnation of the Bartender’s lost love, played by SFB’s enchanting Lorena Feijoo. Although the story is conveyed without dialogue, there are moments when words take the stage too—how could they not in Beat-era SF, especially with a neighbor in poet-publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti (played here by the consistently winning Peter Anderson). The truly rare treat, of course, is watching the dancers of SF Ballet—not least the radiant and commanding Sabina Allemann (who retired from SFB in 1999), with added power and charisma in key scenes from Pascal Molat—relatively up-close and personal, mingling persuasively with their formidable actor colleagues, enveloped in an exquisite stage design (courtesy of Douglas W. Schmidt, gorgeously lit by Robert Wierzel) and a moody soundscape (by Darron L West) featuring choice period songs. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through August 28. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

The Drawer Boy Marion E. Greene Black Box Theatre, 531 19th St, Oakl. www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 4. TheatreFIRST presents Michael Healey’s comedy about two aging farmers with a family secret.

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/26, July 3, 24, 31, 8pm; Sun/27, July 18, 25, Aug 1, 7pm; July 2, 9, 16, 9pm. Through August 1. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

"Fireworks Festival" Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $25-35. Through July 3, showtimes vary. This performance festival includes work by John Leguizamo, David Sedaris (whose show is already sold out), Dan Hoyle, and Wes "Scoop" Nisker.

*In the Wake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $13.50-71. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no show Fri/25); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Sun/27. Brilliantly weaving the political and the personal, New York playwright Lisa Kron takes on the myth and mayhem of American exceptionalism through the prism of a compelling lefty smarty-pants named Ellen (Heidi Schreck) and her "alternative" family circle, as it slowly unravels during the first decade of the 21st century. From her modest Manhattan perch — shared with adoring, wise-cracking longtime boyfriend Danny (Carson Elrod) — Ellen rails against the ineptitude of the Democrats in the face of the rising Right and its season of havoc. But she’s already told the audience she has a problem with "blind spots," much like the country. Projections of headlines and sound bites, intermittently splayed across the fortified proscenium arch, locate the action at precise moments in the dreary political timeline of the last decade, beginning with the 2000 election coup that has put a damper on Thanksgiving festivities (despite inclusion of Pilgrim smocks). Her sister (Andrea Frankle) and sister’s wife (Danielle Skraastad) are there too, along with Ellen’s older friend Judy (Deidre O’Connell), a cranky, deceptively oblivious relief worker just back from a refugee camp in Africa. As time goes by, and Ellen turns to an open relationship with a woman filmmaker (Emily Donahoe), our protagonist’s bedrock assumptions about the natural order of things get sorely tested. Leigh Silverman directs a top-notch cast in a remarkably engaging mix of political dialogue and personal entanglements, written for the most part with stirring intelligence and incisive humor. If the play loses focus and momentum by the second act — despite a wonderfully charged scene between Ellen and Judy that is the play’s most memorable — its wit, real anger and constructive irreverence still make it too good to miss. (Avila)

Les Liasons Dangereuses Redwood Ampitheatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; (415) 251-1027, www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thurs-Sun, 7:30pm; also Mon/28, July 7, 7:30pm. Through July 10. Porchlight Theatre Company presents a production of Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the 1782 novel.

John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Wy, Orinda; (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org. $34-70. Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/26, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Sun/27. Cal Shakes leads off its season with an original staging of John Steinbeck’s early story cycle, a collaboration with Word for Word theater company gracefully adapted by acclaimed San Francisco playwright Octavio Solis (Lydia, Ghosts of the River). Artistic director Jonathan Moscone directs a fine 11-actor cast in lively performances across a smoothly intertwining set of ten tales, all revolving around two specific households—one, the Munroe family, settled upon a notoriously "cursed" patch of land—in the central California valley that a Spanish explorer once dubbed "the pastures of heaven." Irony anyone? Steinbeck went for broke in the themes and taboos he touches upon here, from incest, madness, infanticide—he misses one or two, but not many. It’s sometimes somber yet rarely heavy going, however, with many lighter stories and situations in the mix, and director Moscone’s staging missing few opportunities for added humor along the way. At the same time, the stories are not equally compelling—the overly crowd-pleasing "song" story of two Mexican American sisters (Catherine Castellanos and Joanne Winter) who segue almost unconsciously from a failed restaurant venture into prostitution, for instance, is cute but surprisingly ho-hum. But if you lie back and let the play’s frontier landscape unfurl (as you do literally anyway in the hill-saddled Bruns Amphitheater), the evening has a dependable charm and several dramatic highlights—not the least of which features the powerful Rod Gnapp in the role of a man desperate to appear prosperous before his family and neighbors. (Avila)

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/25, July 2, 9, 7pm; July 3, 5pm; July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. Ann Randolph’s comic solo show about an irreverent woman’s trip back to her childhood home in Ohio.

Opus Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $27-62. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/27. TheatreWorks performs Michael Hollinger’s drama, set in the world of chamber music.

Speech & Debate Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm, 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through July 18. Aurora Theatre closes its 18th season with Stephen Karam’s comedy about three teen misfits connected to a small town sex scandal.

*Woody Guthrie’s American Song Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-54. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/27. Marin Theater Company presents director-adapter Peter Glazer’s graceful, dynamic staging of the life and times of Woody Guthrie using the famed folk singer’s own enduring words and music (impressively, rousingly orchestrated and arranged by Jeff Waxman). Traveling alternately hard, light, and stirringly through the 1930s and 1940s before leaping ahead to alight briefly on the present (which is never far, in fact, from any of the concerns of the much abused but resilient working people channeled so brilliantly in Guthrie’s social poetry), five charismatic cast members (Lisa Asher, Berwick Haynes, Sam Misner, Matt Mueller, Megan Pearl Smith) sing, act, and play their own instruments beautifully, backed by a smooth and irresistible band under multi-instrumentalist and musical director Tony Marcus. You don’t have to know a lick of Guthrie’s material to immediately understand its relevance and beauty in these cleverly staged set pieces, which are as humorous and crowd-pleasing as they are unapologetically damning and defiant of the rule of capital. For Guthrie fans, of course, this is a must. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $10-50. Sun, 11am. Through June 27. The Amazing Bubble Man, a.k.a. Louis Pearl, performs his family-friendly show.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Bathala Na! Stories of Mothers Moving Forward From the Philippines to Africa" Stage Werx Theater, 533 Sutter; 734-7903, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm. $10-15. Meldy Hernandez performs a one-woman show about the body, cancer, grief, and the life-giving beat of ancestral drums.

"Dark Horse Cabaret" Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market; 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com. Sun/24, 8pm. A homoerotic and homoneurotic cabaret show, with Planet Booty, the Ethel Merman Experience, Erika Von Volkyrie, DJ Steve Fabus and others..

"The Dresses/Objects Project" Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; 626-0453, www.zspace.org. Fri/25-Sat/26, 7:30pm. Free (donations accepted) Erin Mei-Ling Stuart and EmSpace Dance perform in conjunction with an interdisciplinary art installation by Katrina Rodabaugh.

Will Franken Purple Onion, 140 Columbus; 956-1563, www.caffemacaroni.com. Thurs/24, 8pm. $10. The comedian performs at the famous comic’s venue.

Happy Forever: Life and Death of an Italian Cat Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; 401-7987, www.spygirlfriday.com. Sat/26, 7, 8, and 9pm. $6 Spy Emerson presents a dark comedy about human exploration.

Oni Dance CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; 626-6060, www.onidance.org. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm. $16-20. The ten-member Los Angeles dance company led by Maria Gillespie presents Exquisite.Corpse and Wasteland (arrival).

"Sound of Fabulous" Mission High School, 3750 18th St; (800) 838-3006, www.sfprideconcert.org. Thurs/24-Fri/25, 8pm. $15-30. A performance by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band.

Thai Rivera and Marga Gomez LGBT Center, Rainbow Room, 1800 Market; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/25, 8pm. $15. The comedians perform with special guests Casey Lee and Ricky Luna.

"San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival" Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon; 474-3914, www.worldartswest.org. Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm). Through June 27. $22-44. Nearly 600 Bay Area performers representing 20 cultures participate in this 32nd annual festival.

"WHORE! Magazine Launches at the Cat’s Pajamas" Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.whoremagazine.com. Mon/28, 8pm. Free. The first issue of the women’s quarterly publication is celelbrated with performances by Le Cancan Bijou, Monique Jenkinson, Cameron McHenry, kamp Camille, Dusty Horn, Mick Mize, Gabrielle Ekedal and Agnes Martin, and Baruch Porras-Hernandez.

BAY AREA

"An Evening with the Groundlings" The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Alston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Wed/23, 7:30pm. $15-35. The Marsh presents four short performance pieces addressing some pressing social issues, including work by Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, Mark McGoldrick and Paul Sussman.

Music listings

David Talbot
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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blue Rodeo, Justin Rutledge Independent. 8pm, $25.

“HomoEvolution” El Rio. 8pm. With Foxxjazell, Bry’Nt, Benni E, Drew Mason, and Sgt. Sass.

Porkchop Express, Hollyfields, Emily Zisman and Ryan Avery Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Rockin Jake Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Sistas in the Pit, Valerie Orth Band Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Wisdom Tooth, Little Teeth, Pineapple Explode Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blind Willies Bollyhood Café. 8:30pm, $7.

Brothers Comatose, Tiny Television, Allofasudden Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $45.

Alan Iglesias Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Living With Lions, Spires, Young Generals, Second to Last Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Luccabrazzi, MC Meathook and the Vital Organs Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Gretchen Phillips, Phranc El Rio. 9pm, $8-15.

Radar Brothers, Man/Miracle, Mist and Mast Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Carolina Chocolate Drops Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Tornado Rider, Audiodub, Conscious Souls, Oola Rocksteady Slim’s. 9pm, $14.

Waifs, Mike Gunther Independent. 8pm, $30.

Zodiac Death Valley, Drug Wars, Complaints Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and Old-time Jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Ian McFeron, Alisa Milner Duboce Park Café, 2 Sanchez, SF; (415) 621-1108. 7:30pm, free.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-7. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afro-tropical, samba, and funk.

Bad Reputation Lexington Club. 9pm, free. Lose that good girl attitude at this Pride kickoff party with DJs Jenna Riot and Dee Dee Crocodile.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Gold Queers in the Night 111 Minna Gallery. 9pm, $7. Combining three dirty underground queer dance parties into one pride event with DJs Black, Bunnystyle, davO, Durt, Pink Lightning, and Rapid Fire.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Meat DNA Lounge. 9:30pm-3am, $2-5. Industrial with BaconMonkey, Netik, Stats, and Shadow Angel.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Lou Barlow, Sarah Jaffe Café du Nord. 9pm, $14.

Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $45.

Entrance Band, Growlers Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $12.

Evolfo Doofeht, Vernon “Ice” Black, Cudnz, Candlespit Collective Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Heavy, DJ Harry Duncan Warfield. 9pm, $27.

Judgement Day, Stomacher Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; http://snobtheater.tumblr.com. 10pm, $10. With comedians Red Scott, Melanie O’ Brien, Alex Koll, and DJ Real.

Little Black Bats, Prognosis Negative, Video Wine Party Walgreen’s Parking Lot, 4122 18th St, SF; gawksf@yahoo.com. 7pm, free.

Minipop, Trophy Fire, Chasing Kings Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10.

Pleasure Kills, Blank Stares, Glitter Wizard Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Soul of John Black Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Still Time, Lucas Ohio and the Shamblers, Dustbowl Revival Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $12-14.

“Trans March After Party” Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Original Plumbing hosts performances by Katastrophe, La Monistat, Glenn Maria, and more.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Ben Darwish Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

Marina Teich Group Savanna Jazz, 2937 Mission, SF; (415) 285-3369. 7:30pm, $8.

Meshell Ndegeocello Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $22-28. Playing Gil Scott-Heron covers.

Trumpetsupergroup Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum, SF; www.trumpetsupergroup.com. 8pm, $5-10.

Will Bernard Trio with Robert Walter and Simon Lott Boom Boom Rom. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Fishtank Ensemble Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 9pm, $10. With tribal fusion dancer Rachel Brice.

Marina LaValle Coda. 10pm, $10.

Wrenboys Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Art Attack Supperclub. 9pm, $20. With DJs Lady Kier and Pepperspray.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.

Chunkhouse DNA Lounge. 9pm, $15-20. House with Ted Eiel.

DJ Morse Code Vessel. 9:30pm, $20.

Episco Disco Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; (415) 869-7817. 7pm, free. With DJs Broker/Dealer and Disco Shawn, a live performance by Chelsea Wolfe, and art by Oliver DiCicco.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Gymnasium Stud. 10pm, $5. With DJs Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, disco, rap, and 90s dance and featuring performers, gymnastics, jump rope, drink specials, and more.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

House of Voodoo Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 501-9162. 9pm, $5. With DJs voodoo, Purgatory, and Ms. Samantha spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, eighties, and more.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Road to Ruin Lexington Club. 9pm, free. A Trans March after party with DJ Rapid Fire spinning hip hop, pop, rock, and top40.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Teenage Dance Craze Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. With DJ Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

SATURDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Concrete Blonde, Flametal Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $35.

Steve Earle Great American Music Hall. 7pm, $36.

Finest Dearest, Sterling Says Epicenter Café, 764 Harrison, SF; www.epicentercafe.com. 7pm, free.

Hightower, Kingdom of Magic, Razorhoof Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Robert Earle Keen, Elliot Randall and the Deadman Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Bill Kirchen Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; (415) 831-1200. 2pm, free.

MC Trachiotomy Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, free.

Myonics, Mystery Lights, Wax Idols, Colbalt Cranes Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Obsessor, Cwachemoe, Moss Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

“Rock and Sox” Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm. Fundraising benefit for the Dana-Farber Institute’s Jimmy Fund, with the Canver Sucks Band.

*Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Four Year Bender, T and A Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

C U Next Weekend, Lady Nerd, Kaptain Harris Club Six. 9pm, $5. Warped Tour after party.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lily Alunan Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Joan Crowe Trio Enrico’s Sidewalk Café, 504 Broadway, SF; (415) 982-6223. 8pm.

Meshell Ndegeocello Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $28. Playing Gil Scott-Heron covers.

Will Bernard Trio with Robert Walter and Simon Lott Boom Boom Rom. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

An Evening of Song Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 454-5238. 7:30pm, $17.

“Jai Ho” Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum, Oakl.; (510) 569-2121. 7:30pm, $50-$150. A.R. Rahman in concert.

Rattle Cans Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Thank You Julius, Brothers Amor, Maria “Songbird” Remos, DJ Chief Boima, Nothing Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

DANCE CLUBS

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $5-10. Eclectic 80s music with Djs Damon, Phillie Ocean, and Javier, plus free 80s hair and make-up by professional stylists.

Blowoff Slim’s. 10pm, $15-20. With DJs Bob Mould and Rich Morel.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Lady Gaga vs. Madonna mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. Dyke March after party.

Colombia y Panama Coda. 10pm, $5. Latin with DJs Beto, Vinnie Esparza, and Guillermo.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Hip-hop with FAME, Hawthorne Headhunters, DJ Spair, DJ Strategy, DJ B. Cause, Mista B, and Aron.

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating 70’s/80’s disco nightlife with DJs Tres Lingerie, Steve Fabus, Nicky B., and special guests Jason Kendig and Marcelino Andrade.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Kiss Me Deadly Lexington Club. 9pm, free. Dyke March after party with DJ Bunnystyle.

KO $3 Dance Party Knockout. 8pm, $3. Eclectic tunes with Paul Paul, dX the Funky Gran Paw, and DJ Deadbeat.

Love and Happiness Som. 10pm, $15. With DJs David Harness and Ruben Mancias.

Mini-Vacay Milk Bar. 10pm, $5-$10. Beach gear encouraged at this Risky Bizness DJ crew summer jam party featuring performances by PFunk and C-Plus.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, Serg, and Jah Yzer spinning dancehall and reggae. Army attire themed.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Backstreet Boys, Mindless Behavior Warfield. 8pm, $45-65.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcase” Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

*Danzig, All Shall Perish, Toxic Holocaust Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.

Dustbowl Revival, Anna Ash, Bonnie Doom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Red Hot Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

*Saint Vitus, Hammers of Misfortune, Walken, Stone Axe DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $17-20.

*Ty Segall, Grass Widow, Sonny and the Sunsets, Baths Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $10.

*Zoroaster, Black Tusk, Dark Castle, Serpent Crown, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kathleen Grace Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-15.

Max Weinberg Big Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-25.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Completely Unmarketable Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Golddiggers, Misisipi Rider, DJ Mr. Goodtimes Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Hapa and the Academy of Hawaiian Arts Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, Frank Fairfield Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Autumn Rhodes, Jeff Pearson, Glen Farr Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Body Rock Temple Bar, 600 Polk, SF; (415) 931-5196. 11am-6pm, free. A showcase of queer talent and DJ sets.

Continental Breakfast Lexington Club. 2pm, free. Soul music and breakfast goodies with DJ Katie Duck.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Vinnie Esparza and Irie Dole.

45 Club Knockout. 10pm. Funky soul with dX the Funky Gran Paw, Dirty Dishes, and English Steve.

Fresh Ruby Skye. 6pm, $25. With DJ Wayne G.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad, Kuze and MC Child Independent. 9pm, $23.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

Too Fast For Love Lexington Club. 9pm, free. With DJ Campbell spinning dirty jams, top40, and more.

MONDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Backstreet Boys, Mindless Behavior Warfield. 8pm, $45-65.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcase” Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

Eagle Winged Palace, Paula Frazer, Killbossa, These Hills of Gold Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Every Avenue, Sing It Loud, Secret Handshake, There For Tomorrow Slim’s. 7:30pm, $14-16.

Lemuria, Hard Girls, Beat the Oak Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $8.

MOTO, Midnight Creeps, Sharp Objects, Spurts Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $6.

Sally Seltmann, Gemma Ray, Old-Fashioned Way Rickshaw Stop. 7pm, $12.

DANCE CLUBS

Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

CocoRosie, Cibelle Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $24.

Greg Ashley, Yea Ming, Brian Glaze Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

“Blue Bear School of Music Showcase” Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12-20.

Buxter Hoot’n, Mark Matos and Os Beaches Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Frozen in Amber, Disemballerina, Wild Hum Knockout. 6pm, $6.

*Harlem, Hunx and His Punx Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. “Stump the Wizard” with DJs What’s His Fuck and the Wizard.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

How SF can get $50 million a year from PG&E

David Talbot
-
1
How SF can get $50 million a year from PG&E

EDITORIAL Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the Budget Committee, is looking for ways to bring another $100 million into the city’s coffers this year. There’s a hotel tax initiative headed for the fall ballot. He’s talking about an increase in the real-estate transfer tax for high-end properties. And he and his colleagues are looking into a tax on commercial rents.

Those are all valid ideas. But there’s another way the city can bring in as much as $50 million more a year — without raising anyone’s taxes. It just involves increasing the franchise fee Pacific Gas and Electric Co. pays to the city.

PG&E uses the city’s streets and rights-of-way to run its gas lines and electricity cables; the company doesn’t pay rent for that space. Instead, it pays an annual franchise fee to the city, a percentage of its gross sales. Other utilities pay, too — Comcast, for example, pays 5 percent of its gross to San Francisco every year for its cable-TV franchise.
PG&E pays 0.05 percent for electricity sales, and 1 percent for natural gas.

That deal was reached in 1939. The Board of Supervisors back then gave PG&E the lowest franchise fee in California, a pittance, a fraction of what other cities and counties charge — and the contract has no expiration date. It’s a perpetual deal, something highly unusual.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi wants to open up the 72-year-old contract for renegotiation and raise the fee significantly. It seems like a perfectly reasonable idea — Berkeley charges PG&E 5 percent for electricity. San Diego charges 3.5 percent. If the city is desperately scrambling for money to close the budget gap, why are we leaving so many millions on the table?

The numbers are big. In 2008, according to the Controller’s Office, PG&E paid San Francisco $3.5 million for electricity sales and $3.16 million for gas. If the city raised both fees to the level that cable TV providers pay, the general fund would pick up another $50 million.

It seems crazy that a franchise deal signed seven decades ago, by a board that was in PG&E’s pocket, should tie the hands of elected officials today. Most legislative bodies have rules barring any laws that would tie the hands of future legislators forever.

It’s particularly ironic for this to happen in the only city in the United States that is mandated by federal law (the Raker Act) to run a public power system.

But according to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, raising the fee would be very difficult; California law allows perpetual utility franchises. If Herrera is right (and no city attorney has ever been willing to challenge PG&E on this), then the state Legislature needs to act.

One idea from Mirkarimi’s office: simply mandate that all perpetual utility franchises increase every year by the cost of living index, up to a maximum of, say, 5 percent. If all the years since 1939 were counted, the city would be at the max today.

An even simpler option: the state could outlaw perpetual franchise deals — something that should have been done years ago — and mandate that all existing deals expire on, say, Jan. 1, 2011. That would give San Francisco six months to negotiate a new deal with PG&E, and the money from that deal would save a lot of city services.

Both Assembly Member Tom Ammiano and state Sen. Mark Leno have expressed interest in a bill that would open up San Francisco’s franchise fee, and both told us that they’re looking into it. Leno already has a bill barring PG&E from using ratepayer money on political campaigns; potentially, a franchise fee amendment could be added to it. The deadline for introducing bills for this session has already passed, so it would be a little tricky to find a way to change state law in the next few months. But it’s worth a try: there’s never been a time when PG&E was less popular in Sacramento. The company violated its own agreement with the Legislature, promising to support the law authorizing local community choice aggregation systems then turned around and spent nearly $50 million to overturn it.

Leno and Ammiano should pursue a bill as soon as possible to get rid of one of the great scandals in city history, a sweetheart deal in 1939 that has saved PG&E billions and cost the city dearly.

Alerts

David Talbot
-
0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23

Remembering torture victims


Commemorate U.N.-enacted International Day in Support of Victims of Torture at this screening of The Response, a courtroom drama based on the transcripts of the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals. Featuring guest speakers from UCSF and SF State, members of Survivors International, Amnesty International, and Health Professionals Against Torture.

6 p.m., free

Amnesty International SF Office, Suite 210

350 Sansome, SF

(415) 546-2080

Water bond happy hour


Join the Food and Water Watch team in helping to get voters to reject the California water bond on the November ballot. Meet others who care about the issues and discuss a sustainable water future for California and how water issues effect us all. Raffles of stainless steel water bottles benefit Food and Water Watch, a local nonprofit corporate accountability organization.

6 p.m., free

Elixir Bar

3200 16th St., SF

www.foodandwaterwatch.org

THURSDAY, JUNE 24

Radically queer


Radical Women celebrates LGBTIQ month with a panel discussion titled "Queer Radicals: Strategies for Our Movement." Queer and transgender activists will discuss how to build a militant movement for LGBT liberation. Pre-discussion buffet with vegetarian options available at 6:15 p.m. for $7.50. Call for information about childcare.

7 p.m., free

New Valencia Hall

Suite 202

625 Larkin, SF

(415) 864-1278

SATURDAY, JUNE 26

Protest Big Oil


Join thousands for a beach lie-in to create a "slash oil" image that will be photographed from a helicopter. Arrive no later than 10:30 a.m. to participate. Attendees will receive an overhead postcard of the event. Then at noon, join Hands Across the Sand, an international statement on protecting coastlines from oil pollution. Carpooling, biking, or taking public transit to the events is highly encouraged.

10 a.m.; free, donations accepted

Ocean Beach

1000 Great Highway, SF

www.slashoil.blogspot.com

www.handsacrossthesand.org

SUNDAY, JUNE 27

Have a good cry


Attend this "cry-in" against the commercialization and corporate sponsorship of the Gay Pride festival. Wear your most morbidly gothic clothing, bring your favorite sad songs, and share your best morose attitude with other queer people and allies eulogizing the demise of the grassroots queer community.

2 p.m., free

San Francisco LGBT Center

1800 Market, SF

www.gayshamesf.org

MONDAY, JUNE 28

Honduras resistance


Watch three videos presented by the Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition (BALASC) on the 2009 military coup in Honduras. Proceeds benefit the Popular Resistance in Honduras.

8 p.m., $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

www.balasc.org

A tale of animal liberation


Hear activist and former prisoner Andy Stepanian tell how he stood up to one of the world’s largest contract animal testing labs, was charged with terrorism, and served three years in federal prison.

7 p.m., free

Station 40

3030B 16th St., SF

www.sparrowmedia.net

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

We tax, they spend

Zelda Bronstein
-
8
We tax, they spend

There’s nothing terribly new about this data, but it’s still worth a look. Guess who pays most of the taxes in California? The Democratic counties whose legislators don’t mind raising revenue to solve the budget crisis. And guess who gets the greatest share of that tax money? The counties dominated by Republicans, who want to cut services and keep taxes low.


In other words, the tax-and-spend liberals like me are trying to get more money that will go to the folks who elect those assholes that take the “no-new-taxes-ever” pledge.


A little bit of lovely irony for this fine summer day.

How SF can get $50 million a year from PG&E

David Talbot
-
1

EDITORIAL Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the Budget Committee, is looking for ways to bring another $100 million into the city’s coffers this year. There’s a hotel tax initiative headed for the fall ballot. He’s talking about an increase in the real-estate transfer tax for high-end properties. And he and his colleagues are looking into a tax on commercial rents.

Those are all valid ideas. But there’s another way the city can bring in as much as $50 million more a year — without raising anyone’s taxes. It just involves increasing the franchise fee Pacific Gas and Electric Co. pays to the city.

PG&E uses the city’s streets and rights-of-way to run its gas lines and electricity cables; the company doesn’t pay rent for that space. Instead, it pays an annual franchise fee to the city, a percentage of its gross sales. Other utilities pay, too — Comcast, for example, pays 5 percent of its gross to San Francisco every year for its cable-TV franchise.

PG&E pays 0.05 percent for electricity sales, and 1 percent for natural gas.

That deal was reached in 1939. The Board of Supervisors back then gave PG&E the lowest franchise fee in California, a pittance, a fraction of what other cities and counties charge — and the contract has no expiration date. It’s a perpetual deal, something highly unusual.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi wants to open up the 72-year-old contract for renegotiation and raise the fee significantly. It seems like a perfectly reasonable idea — Berkeley charges PG&E 5 percent for electricity. San Diego charges 3.5 percent. If the city is desperately scrambling for money to close the budget gap, why are we leaving so many millions on the table?

The numbers are big. In 2008, according to the Controller’s Office, PG&E paid San Francisco $3.5 million for electricity sales and $3.16 million for gas. If the city raised both fees to the level that cable TV providers pay, the general fund would pick up another $50 million.

It seems crazy that a franchise deal signed seven decades ago, by a board that was in PG&E’s pocket, should tie the hands of elected officials today. Most legislative bodies have rules barring any laws that would tie the hands of future legislators forever.

It’s particularly ironic for this to happen in the only city in the United States that is mandated by federal law (the Raker Act) to run a public power system.
But according to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, raising the fee would be very difficult; California law allows perpetual utility franchises. If Herrera is right (and no city attorney has ever been willing to challenge PG&E on this), then the state Legislature needs to act.

One idea from Mirkarimi’s office: simply mandate that all perpetual utility franchises increase every year by the cost of living index, up to a maximum of, say, 5 percent. If all the years since 1939 were counted, the city would be at the max today.

An even simpler option: the state could outlaw perpetual franchise deals — something that should have been done years ago — and mandate that all existing deals expire on, say, Jan. 1, 2011. That would give San Francisco six months to negotiate a new deal with PG&E, and the money from that deal would save a lot of city services.

Both Assembly Member Tom Ammiano and state Sen. Mark Leno have expressed interest in a bill that would open up San Francisco’s franchise fee, and both told us that they’re looking into it. Leno already has a bill barring PG&E from using ratepayer money on political campaigns; potentially, a franchise fee amendment could be added to it. The deadline for introducing bills for this session has already passed, so it would be a little tricky to find a way to change state law in the next few months. But it’s worth a try: there’s never been a time when PG&E was less popular in Sacramento. The company violated its own agreement with the Legislature, promising to support the law authorizing local community choice aggregation systems then turned around and spent nearly $50 million to overturn it.

Leno and Ammiano should pursue a bill as soon as possible to get rid of one of the great scandals in city history, a sweetheart deal in 1939 that has saved PG&E billions and cost the city dearly.

Judge orders UC police to hand over journalist’s photographs

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
2
Judge orders UC police to hand over journalist’s photographs

Remember when a crowd of angry student protesters surrounded the home of UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau last December, and broke some windows? And then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called them terrorists?

That eventful night touched off a months-long court battle for David Morse, a journalist who was arrested at the chancellor’s residence along with seven protesters but later had his charges dropped entirely. After a June 18 court ruling in his favor, Morse will finally have his photographs from the protest returned to him.

The win signifies a major victory for the First Amendment Project, which represented him pro bono, and strengthens the principle that journalists’ unpublished photographs and information should not be seized by police and used for law-enforcement purposes.

Morse was at the fiery Dec. 11 march not to protest, but to report on it for Indybay, the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center. He wore a press badge, and repeatedly identified himself as a reporter to University of California police officers when they detained him. Nonetheless, campus police seized his camera and arrested him, initially charging him with several felonies. “They said to me, ‘you were taking pictures of us. We want your camera,’” Morse recalled.

As the scene at the chancellor’s residence made headlines the following morning, Morse was sitting in jail in Santa Rita. “My voice as an eyewitness was completely silenced,” he told the Guardian when we interviewed him for an earlier story.

His charges were dropped, and his camera was returned within a few weeks. However, he’s been in court for about six months trying to get his digital photos back. 

State law prohibits the issuance of search warrants for unpublished journalistic materials. The idea behind this is to protect journalists from serving law enforcement’s agenda against their will, which could limit the flow of information by causing sources to clam up. Yet the UC police department obtained a search warrant for Morse’s unpublished photos, which were stored on a memory disc seized along with his camera.

The First Amendment Project stepped in on his behalf. FAP attorney Geoff King said the affidavit that triggered the issuance of the warrant failed to mention that Morse had identified as a journalist. It was a strange omission, King said, since the police report included several references to Morse’s assertion that he was there as a reporter. Since the affidavit didn’t describe Morse as a journalist, the judge had no way of knowing that the warrant was illegal.

On June 18, Morse and FAP claimed victory as an Alameda Superior Court judge quashed the warrant. The court also ordered UCPD to return all of Morse’s photographs, including any copies, and to declare under oath what other agencies had received copies.

While the decision is a major win for press freedom, UC police used the illegally obtained photographs for their own purposes in the interim. Morse’s photos of activists were uploaded onto a “Wanted” website maintained by UCPD, but have since been removed, King said. The university has also indicated that it wanted to use the photos in a series of disciplinary hearings targeting students who engaged in on-campus activism protesting tuition hikes.

In a San Jose Mercury News article, UCPD Capt. Margo Bennett was quoted as saying the department has not considered changing the way it deals with journalists.

Sunday Streets contrasts with SF’s bike injunction

Sasha Cuttler
-
1

A day after bicyclists and pedestrians took over the streets of the Mission for the popular, incident-free Sunday Streets, and a day before the court hearing on whether to end the four-year-old injunction against bike-related projects in San Francisco, Judge Peter Busch today (6/21) issued a noncommital tentative ruling in the case, indicating he needs a hearing on myriad technical details to reach a decision.

Most members of the city’s bicycling community see the injunction as surreal and are simply unable to understand how the California Environmental Quality Act could be used to hinder a transportation option that is clearly a boon for the environment. The answer, say critics, lawyers, and Judge Busch, is that the city should have done an expensive EIR first to probe the finest of details of exactly how more bike lanes would disrupt traffic.

Or as Busch put it in his temporary ruling, he wants to explore questions such as: “1) WHAT OTHER ALTERNATIVES OR MITIGATION MEASURES DOES PLAINTIFF CONTEND RESPONDENT SHOULD HAVE ANALYZED OR CONSIDERED? 2) WAS RESPONDENT REQUIRED TO INCLUDE DATA UNDERLYING TRAFFIC LOS AND, IF SO, DID IT SATISFY THE REQUIREMENT? 3) DID RESPONDENT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION BY USING A SIX-MINUTE THRESHOLD TO ANALYZE TRANSIT IMPACTS?”

It’s a level of detail that only lawyers and traffic engineers can appreciate, and to the casual observer, it’s a level of detail that could maddeningly extend this entirely unreasonable injunction. And Sunday Streets was a great example of why it’s so unreasonable. Here’s an event that disrupted far more cars and buses than the Bike Plan would over a month, and it was done with no EIR and with no major problems.

Why? Because CEQA has an exception for temporary events, which is certainly a good thing. But if CEQA is used to extend this injunction for another month, or a year, then it’s time to revisit this unreasonable law and whether this was ever a reasonable ruling.  Because the harm he’s doing by dragging this case out for a year after the city completed the EIR – to bicyclist safety and to the environment when people are afraid to bike and choose to drive — certainly outweighs any harm this plan will do.

Solstice fun: Brown and Whitman’s birthday personalities

Mary Magee
-
0
Solstice fun: Brown and Whitman’s birthday personalities

I’m probably going to get into all kinds of trouble for this post, but seeing as today is the summer solstice, and I have hay fever, now (as I wait for the antihistamine to kick in) feels like the perfect moment for fun with politicians’ personalities, beginning with California’s gubernatorial candidates, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman.

“Many people have long suspected, as astrologers believe, that the day you were born affects your personality,” states the dust jacket of The Secret Language of Birthdays (Penguin, 1994). This weighty 832-page tome claims to be a guide to personality based on “psychology, history, numerology, tarot and astrology.”

So, what light, if any, does this tome shed on Brown and Whitman?

We learn that Brown and the Buddha were both born April 7, a birthday this tome characterizes as The Day of Enthusiastic Belief. (William Wordsworth, Billie Holiday, and Francis Ford Coppola apparently also emerged on this day)

Whitman, who was born August 1, shares a birthday with Yves St. Laurent, Jerry Garcia, Moby Dick author Herman Melville and Claudius 1, (who became Roman emperor after Caligula’s murder), a day the Secret Language of Birthdays characterizes as The Day of Original Style.

“It is not uncommon for April 7 people to reach a point in their lives when they can spiritually progress no further and have to make a very big change,” states the tome, which actually includes Brown in its list of famous April 7 folks. “If April 7 people pass through this crossroads, well, they are capable of even greater success in their life. They may feel less impelled to throw themselves at the world, and instead allow the world to come to them.”

“April 7 people do well in public positions in which they can inspire others to higher achievement through their own example,” the tome concludes. “They should continually work toward being realistic in their view of everyday life, and must not be carried away by illusions. They should also avoid reacting in an angry fashion if their expectations are not met by others.”

As for Whitman and other August 1 people, the tome claims that, “Not content with the knowledge that they are the best in what they do, they must force others to this realization either through the quality of their work or the sheer persuasiveness of their personalities. They may suffer many setbacks, frustrations and disappointments along the way, but rarely give up on their endeavors.”

‘Those born on August are not the easiest people to get along with,” the tome warns. “Since they themselves are the only boss they tolerate, they are generally unsuited for jobs where they must work with superiors…Those born in August 1 are often caught up in the middle of a swirling world of controversy. No matter what they do, they seem to arouse the interest and sometimes antagonism of others.”

Okay, well there you have it with the fun stuff. And now that the antihistamine finally feels like it’s working, I’m ready to enjoy some politically meatier stuff at Politics Verbatim, a website California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting just launched “to hold California’s two major gubernatorial candidates accountable in the most straightforward way possible: by collecting and categorizing the promises, proposals, arguments and attacks that they make on the campaign trail.”  (But don’t forget to watch out for the personalities behind the promises: They could just be each campaign’s (not so) secret weapon.)

 

=

Ammiano wants to clean up crime labs

Zelda Bronstein
-
1
Ammiano wants to clean up crime labs

Why could the San Francisco crime lab operate with so many problems for such a long time? One reason: There’s little or no effective state oversight or regulation of local crime labs in California.


That seems like a glaring problem — crime labs can mean the difference between guilt and innocent, the difference between a long prison term and a free life, between an innocent party getting wrongly convicted and a guilty party getting away with murder.


Assemblymember Tom Ammiano told me he’s worried that problems in cities and counties are going to continue unless somebody’s paying attention — so he’s introducing a bill that would create some form of state oversight body to monitor crime labs and make sure they maintain credible standards.


“I think it’s like the BART Police, they aren’t going to reform unless the state tells them they have to,” Ammiano said. He’s going to have legislation drafted shortly.

Turning Clinton’s words into Brewer and Whitman’s problem

Mary Magee
-
9
Turning Clinton’s words into Brewer and Whitman’s problem

“Obama Admin has decided to sue AZ and we had to learn about it through Ecuadorean TV. Outrageous!”
So tweeted accidental Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, after Sec. of State Hillary’s Clinton admitted that the US DOJ has decided to sue Arizona over SB 1070. 
Brewer, who faces a gubernatorial primary August 24,  is betting that  talk about immigration, will help her win the race.
“This is no way to treat the people of Arizona,” Brewer said.

But wasn’t that exactly the point Clinton was making?

And isn’t it about time that the Dems figured out ways to counter the right’s “illegal alien” meme?

Not just in Arizona, but also in California where Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman recently told reporters in San Francisco that, “We have to prosecute illegal aliens and criminal illegal aliens in all of our cities, in every part of California.”

As far as I’m concerned, (and I’m speaking as an immigrant to North America) the only beings on the planet who can truly be defined as “aliens” are extra terrestrial visitors. The rest of us are humans, thank you very much. And most of us immigrants are economic refugees, not subhumans who somehow deserve to be  treated like shit by a bunch of white folks who turn red in the California and Arizona sun, and whose ancestors came here for similar reasons–and without paperwork–not so very long ago.

Newsom’s plan for DCCC domination

Zelda Bronstein
-
4
Newsom’s plan for DCCC domination

Gavin’s not quite ready to take over the world, or even California, but he’s not leaving office without trying to mess up the progressive majority on the Democratic County Central Committee. The plan he hatched June 15: Ban elected city officials from sitting on the DCCC. The idea: Get rid of Supervisors David Campos, David Chiu, John Avalos and Eric Mar. The overall plan: With the progressive supervisors — who have high name recognition and thus get easily elected — gone, the Newsom allies can take back control of the local Democratic Party.


It’s a pretty blatant move — far beyond Aaron Peskin’s so-called coup. And I must say, it’s a bit hypocritical.


See, the DCCC isn’t just made up of 24 elected members. Every San Francisco Democrat who holds state or national office — or who is a candidate for state or national office — is also an automatic member. So Senator Diane Feinstein is a DCCC member; so is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Sen. Mark Leno. And guess who gets a seat this fall? Lt. governor candidate Gavin Newsom. People like Feinstein and Pelosi never show up; at best, they send a proxy. They rarely pay much attention to the local party, don’t help out much with party fundraising, don’t even come to the party’s annual dinner (Newsom didn’t show this year, even though he’s the mayor of a Democratic city.)


There have been members of the Board of Supervisors on the DCCC for years. The late Sue Bierman was always a member, and actually cared about and paid attention to the local Democratic Party. Leslie Katz was a member as a supe, and still is. It’s never been that big a deal to anyone — until the progressives starting winning seats. Then suddenly it’s a horrible conflict.


The real conflict has nothing to do with city officials sitting on the committee; it’s the fundraising issue. The city’s campaign finance rules don’t apply to DCCC races, so candidates for DCCC who are also running for supervisor — Scott Wiener, Rafael Mandelman, Debra Walker — can raise unlimited money for their DCCC races and use that additional name recognition for the fall elections. The thing is, I think most of the candidates who benefit from this loophole agree that it needs to be fixed; Mandelman certainly does, and he’s told me that several times. I couldn’t reach Walker or Wiener this morning, but I’d be very surprised if both of them wouldn’t endorse some kind of contribution limits for DCCC races.


I asked Newsom’s press spokesperson, Tony Winnicker, if the mayor would support fundraising limits. Apparently he doesn’t (or at least, he doesn’t want to push the issue):


“For this November’s local ballot, which the Mayor can place an initiative on, we propose eliminating the potential conflict that exists between City officeholders also holding office as elected County Party Committee members.”


How about getting rid of all the elected officials, and creating a real grassroots county committee? No, that won’t fly with Newsom either. Winnicker:


It’s appropriate for state and federal Democratic elected officials from San Francisco to serve on the Democratic County Central Committee.


The city/local offices — Mayor, Board, Treasurer, Assessor, City Atty, Sheriff, District Atty, Public Defender — are nonpartisan offices who have direct oversight over City business. That’s the difference and conflict. This is a local initiative, so our focus and concern is local good government and local conflicts or appearance of conflicts.


From everything I can figure, Newsom doesn’t want campaign-finance reform and doesn’t want to put the party in the hands of local activists; he just wants to get rid of the supervisors who take positions he doesn’t like. That seems like a pretty bad way to make public policy. 


UPDATE: Just talked to Scott Wiener, who told me he agrees that the whole issue of DCCC campaign spending ought to be on the table. And he said he is not at this point prepared to support Newsom’s initiative. “I have concerns with the number of elected officials on the DCCC,” he said, “but there are times when it’s entirely appropriate to have people who have a demonstrated commitment to the DCCC and then get elected supervisor to stay on it.”

SF’s bike project ban is coming to an end

Sasha Cuttler
-
5
SF’s bike project ban is coming to an end

Despite high-profile recent improvements to San Francisco’s bicycle network – including a half-dozen new bike lanes since last fall, a green bike lane on Market Street separated from cars, and new on-street bike parking on Valencia and Divisidero streets – the city is still prevented by a court injunction from creating bike lanes that have been sought for a decade. But that could change as early as next week.

On Tuesday, June 22, Superior Court Judge Peter Busch will hear oral arguments and consider whether to end the four-year-old injunction against the city executing any of the projects or policies outlined in its Bicycle Plan, a ban perversely created by the court finding the plan violated the California Environmental Quality Act because it wasn’t subjected to a full-blown environmental impact report, which cost more than a million bucks and took two years.

Despite the fact that EIR was completed and certified last year, the plaintiffs who sued the city over the plan five years ago – anti-bike activist Rob Anderson and his attorney, Mary Miles – sued again, claiming the study was inadequate and decrying how the plan would take space from cars to improve bicycle safety.

In her brief, Miles noted how the EIR finds “89 significant impacts of traffic, transit, and loading but fails to mitigate or offer feasible alternatives to each of these impacts.” Referring to the near universal political support in San Francisco for making improvements to the bike network despite these impacts, Anderson told the Guardian last month,“It’s a leap of faith they’re making here that this will be good for the city.”

But the brief that the city filed in the case argues that leap of faith is a decision for policymakers, whether or not Anderson and Miles agree with it. The city position is that cars have ruled the roads for long enough and now it’s time they shared some space with the fastest growing transportation choice in San Francisco, where the number of regular cyclists has nearly doubled in recent years.

“Petitioners are clearly disappointed that, despite the disproportionate number of drivers over bicyclists, City decisionmakers chose to implement improvements to the bicycle network that may inconvenience some drivers and some transit riders on certain streets at certain times. But the CEQA process does not approve or deny projects; it merely requires that decisions be made with environmental consequences in mind. By improving the City’s bicycle network, the decisionmakers determined that the City would encourage more people to use a bicycle for everyday transportation,” Deputy City Attorney Audrey Williams Pearson wrote in her brief.

With oil continuing to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, the atmosphere becoming steadily more concentrated with planet-threatening fossil fuel emissions, and the politicians in Washington DC offering only hollow rhetoric about our stubborn addiction to oil-powered convenience, San Francisco elected officials from across the ideological spectrum took a small but important step in promoting safer bicycling.

Now, it’s up to Judge Busch (who partially lifted the injunction last fall, allowing the handful of projects I mentioned above) to take the next step, which he will do probably within days (or weeks at the latest) after hearing from both sides June 22 starting at 9:30 a.m. in Superior Court, Department 301, at the corner of Polk and McAllister streets.

 

P.S. If you want to celebrate the impending end of the bike injunction with thousands of other bicyclists, walkers, dancers, and other non-motorized movers and shakers, show up on car-free Valencia, Harrison, and 24th streets this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the latest installment of Sunday Streets.

Mirkarimi to PG&E: We want our $46 million back

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Speaking at the June 15 Board of Supervisors meeting, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi introduced a non-binding resolution calling on Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to refund ratepayers for the $46 million it spent on a failed bid to pass Proposition 16, a ballot initiative dubbed the “Taxpayer’s Right to Vote Act” that would have impeded the creation of municipal electricity programs.

While PG&E has publicly stated that its campaign costs were covered by “shareholder funds,” the sole source of income for the parent corporation is money that the utility makes selling electricity, so the $46 million originated in ratepayers’ pockets.

At the meeting, Mirkarimi displayed a map of PG&E’s service territory beside a map of the California counties that rejected Prop 16, highlighting the striking similarity. In San Francisco, Prop 16 was rejected by more than two-thirds of the vote.

Mirkarimi’s resolution included several other improbable requests. He extended an invitation to PG&E CEO Peter Darbee to attend a Board of Supervisors meeting, to “discuss what it really and truly means to peacefully coexist,” he explained. “We look forward to Mr. Darbee coming to meet with us.”

The third aspect of the resolution deals with SFERS, San Francisco’s employment retirement system, which owns 106,348 shares of PG&E common stock valued at $4.38 million on the day the information was accessed. Institutional investors such as CalPERS and SFERS account for more than a 60 percent share of ownership of PG&E, according to the resolution.

Mirkarimi is calling on PG&E to refund SFERS, and “urges CALPERS and SFERS to consider divesting its holdings in PG&E stock” if the company refuses.

The resolution also asks the California Public Utilities Commission to carefully scrutinize PG&E’s requested rate hike.

PG&E didn’t return our requests for comment the last 10 times we called, but we tried again — even though the result is predictable.

And now, the race to replace Kamala Harris

Zelda Bronstein
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And now, the race to replace Kamala Harris

David Onek, who has strong political connections and little courtroom experience, sent out a email today announcing that he wants to be San Francisco’s next district attorney:


As many of you know, District Attorney Kamala Harris is very likely to become California’s next Attorney General. DA Harris is a friend and I would never run against her, but her victory in November will open up the office as early as the end of this year. This means the time to get organized is right now.


He adds his name to the list of people, including former chief homicide prosecutor Jim Hammer, who want the job. But it’s going to be an unconventional campaign, to say the least. Because if Harris wins, her successor won’t be chosen by the voters of San Francisco.


There are three relevant scenarios here.


1. Harris loses the AG race. Entirely possible; she’s got a tough campaign ahead of her. Then all of this talk is moot; Onek clearly isn’t going to run against her, although Hammer might.


2. Harris wins the AG race, and Newsom loses his race for lieutenant governor. In that case, Newsom will be mayor of San Francisco when Harris resigns to move up to Sacramento — and under the City Charter, he will appoint someone to serve out the rest of Harris’s term.


3. Harris and Newsom both win — in which case there’s a fascinating legal issue. Do Harris and Newsom leave at the same moment — in which case the Board of Supervisors appoint the next mayor, who appoints the next DA? Or does Newsom try to fill Harris’s job before he resigns himself? In the end, Matt Dorsey, spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera told me, “that’s a question that will be answered by the attorney general. Theoretically, it could get very complicated.”


Under the state Constitution, the governor, lt. governor and attorney general all take office the same day, the first monday after Jan. 1st, which in this case is Jan. 3. The constitution doesn’t say what time of day that happens. In theory, then, Harris could take the oath of office at 9 am, Newsom could wait until 10 am, and appoint a new DA in between. Then somebody who didn’t get appointed (or, frankly, any angry citizen of San Francisco) could sue — because if Newsom’s term technically starts at 12:01 am Jan. 3d, then at that moment, by city law, the president of the Board of Supervisors instantly becomes mayor, meaning David Chiu should be the one making the DA appointment.


Or Harris and Newsom (and whatever other parties wanted to play ball) could cut a deal. Harris could resign a day early, and Newsom could appoint her replacement with no legal consequences at all. That would look sleazy as hell and be a rotten way for the mayor to start his term as lieutentant governor, but he could do it.


Of course, that will all depend on an interpretation from the attorney general on when the AG and lt. gov. terms actually begin — and the AG at that point will be Jerry Brown, who may have just been elected governor on a ticket with Newsom and Harris.


What a clusterfuck.


At any rate, David Onek now has to build a campaign aimed not really at winning an election, but at convincing either Newsom or Chiu (or, potentially, the next mayor, who would be named by the supervisors) that he ought to be district attorney. Part of that calculation will hinge on whether he can hold onto the job when it comes up for a real election in November.


If it’s a simple deal with Newsom, Onek will be relying on his political allies. He notes:


A broad range of leaders in government, in law enforcement and in the broader criminal justice community have already pledged their support – including former San Francisco City Attorney and Police Commission President Louise Renne, former state Treasurer Phil Angelides, Supervisor Carmen Chu, School Board Commissioner Hydra Mendoza, former Mayor Art Agnos, former Police Chief Heather Fong, Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley, Jr., Police Commission President Joe Marshall and former Chief Probation Officer Jeanne Woodford. 


Although I’m not sure that Newsom cares much these days what Louise Renne, Art Agnos or Phil Angelides think.


So what Onek — and anyone else who wants to be the next DA — needs to do is convince the next mayor that he’s not only going to be a good chief prosecutor (already a hurdle for someone with no background as a prosecutor) but that he has the political ability to convince the actual voters that he’s qualified. Otherwise he’s just another Kim Burton waiting to happen.


I haven’t been able to reach Onek yet to discuss all of this, but the minute he calls me I’ll post an update.

Now voyager

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Now voyager

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC What might Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s status be? Casual but committed, relaxed yet extremely productive sounds about right for the Alps music-maker, Root Strata label head, On Land festival organizer, and now the third leg of the recently formed Moholy-Nagy.

Not another reunion band-cum-supergroup — Cantu-Ledesma, Danny Paul Grody (the Drift), and Trevor Montgomery (Lazarus) were founding members of Tarentel — the new SF project shares a moniker with the Bauhaus movement mover-and-shaker, although the trio is much more unassuming than all that.

“I think Danny and Trevor had been playing for a couple months, and they called and asked if they could borrow one of my synthesizers,” recalls Cantu-Ledesma on the phone, taking a break from his day job in operations at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “I said, ‘No, but I’ll come down and play it’ — an asshole move on my part, but that’s typical of me.” You can practically hear his tongue being firmly thrust in cheek.

Very casually, but consistently, in the spirit of a “nerding-out recording project” with the members switching instruments and utilizing a “junky analog” ’70s drum machine Montgomery found on eBay, the threesome hunkered down in its longtime Hunters Point practice space, making what Cantu-Ledesma describes as the “most synthesized thing any of us has ever done before. It’s largely improvised around bass lines or drum parts, so things weigh it down and other things can have freedom around it.”

“It’s more like hanging out with friends having some lunch and getting some coffee and making music,” he adds. “It’s not like, ‘Dude! We’re in a band!'<0x2009>”

Easy-going but quick to step back and see the folly or humor in whatever’s before him, often issuing a loud, bright laugh, Cantu-Ledesma seems less than impressed with self-important “band dudes,” even after years spent in an influential combo like Tarentel.

“Oh, gosh, are you picking up on that?” he replies, dryly ironic, when asked about it. “Well, even with the Alps, when you look at it on the surface, it looks like we’re writing songs, but we’re not writing songs. We just want to create stuff and not so much worry about the fidelity of recreating things.”

But what things Cantu-Ledesma makes, judging from the haunting watercolor tone poems of Moholy-Nagy — music that could easily slip into a cinematic mood piece like Zabriskie Point (1970) or Paris, Texas (1984) — and the alternately motorik-beatific and insinuatingly delicate experiments of the Alps’ new Le Voyage (Type). For Cantu-Ledesma’s forthcoming solo album, due this fall, he’ll dig into his more shoegaze-ish background, but for Moholy-Nagy, he gets to “exercise another side. I’m a total knob-tweaker kind of guy, but we get to move around a lot more than we get to on other projects. Things are tending to sound more quirky or funky than other things we’ve done.”

In a way this project is an extension of the San Francisco Art Institute painting and sculpture graduate’s interior, rather than audibly exterior, work. “I’m going to say this, and I’m not trying to be new age,” he confesses. “But honestly, I used to be really intense about stuff happening a certain way. But I worked on my own development and became more secure with my own personality. and that really helped in terms of — without sounding too Californian — just letting it flow.”

That goes for his collaborations with filmmaker and kindred SFMOMA staffer Paul Clipson: a DVD of their Super-8 films and sound pieces since 2007 comes out this summer and coincides with an August performance at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. “We love what we do, but there’s no plan behind any of it,” Cantu-Ledesma ponders. “I know this probably sounds facetious, but I’m not really motivated to make things happen — though obviously with things like On Land, you’re booking and buying plane tickets and stuff.”

On Land is firmly grounded in Cantu-Ledesma’s Root Strata imprint, which materialized in 2004, inspired by SF collectives like Jeweled Antler and then-Bay Area-based performers like Yellow Swans, Axolotl, and Skaters. It’s a way to present artists that Cantu-Ledesma and co-organizer and label cohort Maxwell Croy like and have worked with in the last year, in a “nice venue,” otherwise known as Cafe Du Nord. In early September, label musicians and friends like Charalambides, Grouper, Oneohtrix Point Never, Zelienople, Dan Higgs, White Rainbow, Barn Owl, and Bill Orcutt will appear, with video collaborations by Clipson and Nate Boyce, at the second annual gathering.

“Does the Bay Area need another music festival? Probably not,” Cantu-Ledesma quips wryly. “But you’re not going to see Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy or Vampire Weekend. We’re trying to show a different strata of stuff from California or Oregon, kind of a West Coast underground, or people who just fit into our tastes, which are idiosyncratic and weird.”

MOHOLY-NAGY

With Brother Raven and Golden Retriever

Wed/16, 9 p.m., $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

rootstrata.com

www.onlandfestival.com

Our Weekly Picks: June 16-22, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

WEDNESDAY 16

THEATER/DANCE

The Tosca Project

American Conservatory Theater artistic director Carey Perloff and San Francisco Ballet choreographer Val Caniparoli have teamed up with an all-star cast of ACT actors and San Francisco Ballet principal dancers (Lorena Feijoo, Pascal Molat, and Sabina Allemann) to bring theater and dance to one stage. Tracing the history of SF’s famous Tosca Café, The Tosca Project at ACT journeys through the love, loss, and popular dances of the past century to a soundtrack (featuring everything from Stravinsky to Hendrix) as diverse as the café’s ever-changing clientele. (Katie Gaydos)

Through June 27

Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.); Sun, 2 p.m., $15–$85

American Conservatory Theater

415 Geary, SF

(415) 749-2228

www.act-sf.org/0910/tosca/index

THURSDAY 17

PERFORMANCE

Fresh Meat Festival

It’s that time again when Sean Dorsey brings tranny and queer performers for a love feast of dance, humor, music theater, and just about any other form of performance you could want. Most remarkable perhaps is how the Fresh Meat Festival — a tiny, local event only a few years ago — has grown into a national forum for often very polished performers who stick their necks out in every direction. Part of the festival’s fun is people-watching; some audience members’ get-ups nearly rival what’s seen on stage. Highlights from the lineup include world premieres of Dorsey’s take on Craigslist’s Missed Connections, Annie Danger’s media-style life coaching session, and SoliRose’s music-theater reflections about life in the Middle East. (Rita Felciano)

Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8 p.m.; Sun/20, 7 p.m., $17–$20

Z Space @ Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

MUSIC

U.S. Bombs

Boasting one of the most unpredictable, energetic, and enthralling bandleader of any punk band ever to set foot in front of an audience, U.S. Bombs has cultivated an incendiary reputation thanks to singer, legendary skateboarder, and all-around “master of disaster,” Duane Peters. Combining sounds culled from old school influences like the Clash and mixing them with the raw, adrenaline-pumping attitude needed while attacking a half-pipe, the band’s lineup has gone through several variations. But no matter which members of punk rock royalty he has behind him, Peters is guaranteed to steal the spotlight and make for a show you won’t likely soon forget. (Sean McCourt)

With the Forgotten, Druglords of the Avenues, and Cunt Sparrer

8 p.m., $14

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

EVENT

Decomposition reading

It’s sometimes said that, like pop songs, all good poems are ultimately about either love or death. Instinctively, I think most of us know this to be incorrect. Sometimes, though, we need a little reminder, which is where events like this one come in handy. Decomposition is an anthology of fungi-themed poetry from throughout the ages — apparently, many of America’s most seminal wordsmiths, including Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson, drew tremendous inspiration from the lowly mushroom (and no, not like that). Leading this tour of verse’s dark, dewy reaches will be editor Kelly Chadwick and poet Charlotte Innes. (Zach Ritter)

7–9 p.m., free

Ecology Center Store

2530 San Pablo, Berk.

(510) 548-3402

www.ecologycenter.org

FRIDAY 18

DANCE

Great Integration: A Chamber Hip-Hop Opera

By calling Great Integration — an allegory about the end of times — a hip-hop opera, choreographer Raissa Simpson and composer-pianist JooWan Kim may be on to something. Hip-hop is music, it’s dance, it’s poetry, and above all it’s a way of being. It means living on the edge, on unstable ground and embracing the subversive. Longtime East Bay activist and Integration contributor MC Kirby Dominant can attest to that. As far as the opera part is concerned, the Chinese and the Italians discovered centuries ago that opera is a messy, all-encompassing form of theater splendidly suited for big topics. Sounds just about right for all aspects of Integration. On opening night, jazz vocalist Christopher Nicholas joins Kim’s Ensemble Mik Nawooj and Simpson’s Push Dance Company. (Felciano)

Fri/18–Sat/19, 8 p.m., $15–$25

ODC Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/104653

MUSIC

QM

Do you like hip-hop? Do you like cheap booze? Get your ass down to Hotel Utah for a stiff double dose of both and party like your parents are outta town. Local rapper QM of the Rec-League, self-described as “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper to drink with,” is finally releasing his latest album, Happy Hour, and is throwing his own happy hour to celebrate. QM’s clever punch lines and West Coast sound may not change your political views, but they just might leave you hung over. Throw in $1 PBRs and Happy Hour grab bags filled with the album, a beer koozie, and other surprises, and Hotel Utah’s guaranteed to get wild. Be prepared for a drunken good time, and keep some aspirin and water ready for the morning after. (Ben Hopfer)

With Rec-League, Adverse, and Parable Paul

9 p.m., $10

Hotel Utah

500 Fourth St., SF

(415) 546-6300

www.routinefly.com

EVENT

“Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young”

If you’re one of those people for whom a croissant is a “kwah-sahn,” then this week’s Friday Soirée at the de Young Museum, presented in partnership with the Alliance Française, should cater to your Francophiliac tastes. Though not French himself, Rich Kuhns accompanies the “Birth of Impressionism” exhibit as a strolling accordionist. The Bay Area monsieur of musette hearkens back to traditional French sounds — he plays Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf, of course — while also adding some contemporary flair to the fête. Following his performance, Dr. Alexandra Amati-Camperi lectures on the Fête de la Musique, French singer-songwriter Eric John Kaiser performs, and you can make your own found object instrument with Kim Erickson, described as an “art diva” by the de Young website. It’s no coincidence that the word “cliché” is French,” but zut alors, clichés never sounded so good. (Ryan Lattanzio)

5–8:45 p.m., free

de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF

(415) 750-3600

www.deyoung.famsf.org

FILM

Top of the Food Chain

Bluntly retitled Invasion! for its American release, Canadian filmmaker John Paizs’ homage to 1950s sci-fi films, Top of the Food Chain (1999), is the second of his films to screen at Artists’ Television Access in as many months. Previously, the auteur worked on beloved Canadian comedy series Kids in the Hall, but his films have a miniscule presence on the Internet — a few blog reviews here and there, and only two relevant YouTube clips. However, both of those clips are of hilariously non sequitur musical numbers, so that’s a promising sign. Indeed, Paizs’ fetishization of a seemingly outdated genre should be right at home alongside ATA’s usual assemblage of experimental video art. (Sam Stander)

8 p.m., $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.atasite.org

PERFORMANCE

Miriam’s Well

This cultural and artistic mashup tells the stories of Mary, Maryam, and Miriam from the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions connecting across time and distance at an ancient water well, the source of life and strife in a world that has yet to come to terms with how we can come together around our most basic shared needs. The performance involves dance, live music, poetry, and readings of sacred texts by a variety of acclaimed artists, from creator and dancer Miriam Peretz to musicians the Qadim Ensemble and master percussionist Pezhham Ackavass to spoken word artist Lana Nasser. It’s a story of visionary women leading all us past our historical and still-growing divisions and toward the realization that “without peace the well will soon run dry.” (Steven T. Jones)

8 p.m., $20

Grace Cathedral

1100 California, SF

(415) 749-6355

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/97354

SATURDAY 19

EVENT/PERFORMANCE

Birthfest and The Dynamite Show

FouFouHa!, San Francisco’s uniquely zany clown dance troupe, wants to take you on a strange journey all the way from a woman’s womb to a glitzy reality show set in Hollywood. That may seem like a long road to travel, but with troupe founder and performance director/choreographer Maya Culbertson-Lane, a.k.a. MamaFou, behind the wheel, it’s sure to be a fun ride. The play, which runs at Brava June 17-26, follows the Fous as they audition to be humiliated on television, exploring the role of the fool in society. But this show is preceded by a film festival on midwifery, with proceeds benefiting the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery, which recently helped MamaFou deliver her second child. What’s the connection? As she explains, it’s about power, “the power to not give into social fears created by a system run by money — in this case Hollywood and insurance companies.” With live music by the Gomorrans Social Aide and Pleasure Club and a photo exhibit by Eric Gillet. (Jones)

Birthfest, noon-6 p.m.; The Dynamite Show, 8 p.m., $20–$40

Brava Theater

2781 24th St., SF

www.foufouha.com

www.birthfest.com

EVENT

StreetSmARTS Community Extravaganza

It’s afternoon in the Tenderloin, and muralist Jet Martinez has been sponsored by the SF Arts Commission to paint traditional Oaxacan embroidery flowers in Cedar Alley. His audience: a man who has been yelling “I’m gonna kill you!” to no one in particular all day. The guy starts to approach him, and when he gets close enough says this to Jet in a low, articulate voice: “We really appreciate what you’re doing for the community.” Don’t ever let them tell you art doesn’t matter. Celebrate the beautiful walls created through StreetSmARTS with b-boys, DJs, and a midnight unveiling of “The Elements of Hip Hop,” a indoor gallery of works by the muralists themselves. (Caitlin Donohue)

Sat/19, 6 p.m., free

African American Art and Culture Complex

762 Fulton, SF

(415) 252-2598

www.sfartscommission.org

MONDAY 21

MUSIC

Brian Jonestown Massacre

Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? the Brian Jonestown Massacre asks in the title of its latest album. It’s possible bandleader Anton Newcombe did, if you recall how insane he was in Ondi Timoner’s documentary Dig! (2004). The San Francisco-bred band returns to the Fillmore in conjunction with its new release — a rather disquieting listen with plenty of dissonant space noise and expletives to make for a psychedelic headbanger’s wet dream. Newcombe, steeped in notoriety since Dig! and its frenetic portrait of the artist as a disturbed man, has been honing his sound since 1990. If you can separate art and artist (or don’t even bother — it makes things more interesting), BJM is one of today’s only bands that should be allowed to remain as prolific as it is. (Lattanzio)

9 p.m., $22.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.livenation.com The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. We cannot guarantee the return of photos, but enclosing an SASE helps. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Tale of two landfills

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
Tale of two landfills

Sarah@sfbg.com

Everyone should make a pilgrimage to the landfill where their city’s garbage is buried. For San Francisco residents to really understand the current trash situation — and its related issues of transportation, environmental justice, greenhouse gas reduction, corporate contracting, and pursuing a zero waste goal — that means taking two trips.

The first is a relatively short trek to Waste Management’s Altamont landfill in the arid hills near Livermore, which is where San Francisco’s trash has been taken for three decades. The next is a far longer journey to the Ostrom Road landfill near Wheatland in Yuba County, a facility owned by Recology (formerly NorCal Waste Systems, San Francisco’s longtime trash collector) on the fertile eastern edge of the Sacramento Valley, where officials want to dispose of the city’s trash starting in 2015.

Both these facilities looked well managed, despite their different geographical settings, proving that engineers can place a landfill just about anywhere. But landfills are sobering reminders of the unintended consequences of our discarded stuff. Plastic bags are carried off by the wind before anyone can catch them. Gulls and crows circle above the massive piles of trash, searching for food scraps. And the air reeks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide as a manmade cause of global warming.

It’s also a reminder of a fact most San Franciscans don’t think much about: The city exports mountains of garage into somebody else’s backyard. While residents have gone a long way to reduce the waste stream as city officials pursue an ambitious strategy of zero waste by 2020, we’re still trucking 1,800 tons of garbage out of San Francisco every day. And now we’re preparing to triple the distance that trash travels, a prospect some Yuba County residents find troubling.

“The mayor of San Francisco is encouraging us to be a green city by growing veggies, raising wonderful urban gardens, composting green waste and food and restaurant scraps,” Irene Creps, a San Franciscan who owns a ranch in Wheatland, told us. “So why is he trying to dump San Francisco’s trash in a beautiful rural area?”

Behind that question is a complicated battle with two of the country’s largest private waste management companies bidding for a lucrative contract to pile San Francisco’s trash into big mountains of landfill far from where it was created. This is big and dirty business, one San Francisco has long chosen to contract out entirely, unlike most cities that at least collect their own trash.

So the impending fight over who gets to profit from San Francisco’s waste, a conflict that is already starting to get messy, could illuminate the darker side of our throwaway culture and how it is still falling short of our most wishful rhetoric.

 

TALKING TRASH

The recent recommendation by a city committee to leave the Altamont landfill and turn almost all the city’s waste functions — collection, sorting, recycling, and disposal — over to Recology (see “Trash talk,” 3/30) angered Waste Management as well as some environmentalists and Yuba County residents.

WM claimed the contract selection process had been marred by fraud and favoritism, and members of YUGAG( Yuba Group Against Garbage) charged that sending our trash on a train through seven counties will affect regional air quality and greenhouse gas emissions and target a poor rural community. Observers also want details such as whether San Francisco taxpayers will have to pay for a new rail spur and a processing facility for organic matter.

Mark Westlund of the Department of Environment told the Guardian that negotiations between the city and Recology are continuing and the contract bids remain under seal. “Hopefully they’ll be concluded in the near future,” Westlund said. “I can’t pinpoint an exact date because the deal is still being fleshed out, but some time this summer.”

Under the tentative plan, Recology’s trucks would haul San Francisco’s trash across the Bay Bridge to Oakland, where the garbage would be loaded onto trains three times a week and hauled to Wheatland. Recology claims its proposal is better for the environment and the economy because it takes trucks off the road and removes organic matter from the waste before it reaches the landfill and turns into methane gas.

But WM officials reject the claim, noting that both facilities will convert methane to electricity, energy now used to fuel the trucks going to Altamont. The landfill produces 8.5 MW of electricity annually, some of which is converted into 4.7 million gallons of liquid natural gas used by 300 trucks. The Ostrom Road facility would produce far less methane, using it to create 1.5 MW of electricity annually.

Recology officials say removing organic matter to produce less methane is an environmental plus because much of the methane from Altamont escapes into the atmosphere and adds to global warming, although WM claims to capture 90 percent of it. Yet David Assman, deputy director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, doesn’t believe WM figures, telling us that they are “not realistic or feasible.”

State and federal environmental officials say about a quarter of the methane gas produced in landfills ends up in the atmosphere. “But they acknowledge that this is an average. Some landfills can be worse, others much better if they have a good design. And there is no company that has done as much work on this as Waste Management,” company spokesperson Chuck White told us, citing WM-sponsored studies indicating a methane capture rate as high as 92 percent. “The idea of 90 percent capture of methane is very credible if you are running a good operation.”

Ken Lewis, director of WM’s landfills, said the facility’s use of methane to cleanly power its trucks has been glossed over in the debate over this contract. “We’re just tapping into the natural carbon cycle,” Lewis told us.

But Recology spokesperson Adam Alberti (who works for Singer & Associates, San Francisco’s premier crisis communications firm) counters that it’s better to avoid producing methane in the first place because some of it escapes and adds to global warming, which Recology claims it will do by sorting the waste, in the process creating green jobs in the organics recycling and reducing the danger of the gases leaking or even exploding.

“But what has Recology done to show us that the capture rate at their Ostrom landfill is on the high side?” Lewis asks. “Folks in San Francisco say it’s not possible, but we’ve got published reports.”

Assman admits that San Francisco won’t be able to ensure that other municipalities that use Ostrom Road will be focusing on organics recycling. While questions remain about how that facility will ultimately handle a massive influx of garbage, Altamont has been housing the Bay Area’s trash for decades. And even though San Francisco’s current contract will expire by 2015, this sprawling facility nestled in remote hillsides can still handle more trash for decades to come.

 

ZERO SUM

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Altamont landfill is the 30-foot-tall fence that sits on a ridge on the perimeter of the facility. It’s covered with plastic bags that have escaped the landfill and rolled like demonic tumbleweeds along what looks like a desolate moonscape.

Wind keeps the blades turning on the giant Florida Power-owned windmills that line the Altamont hills, but it also puffs plastic bags up like little balloons that take off before the bulldozers can compress them into the fill. Lewis said he bought a special machine to suck up the bags, and employs a team of workers to collect them from the buffer zone surroundinge site.

Although difficult to control or destroy, plastic bags are not a huge part of the waste volume. San Francisco has already banned most stores from using them, and the California Legislature is contemplating expanding the ban statewide in a effort to limit a waste product now adding to a giant trash heap in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“Plastic bags are a visual shocker,” said Marc Roberts, community development director for the city of Livermore. “In that sense, they are similar to Styrofoam. It’s pretty nasty stuff, can get loose, and doesn’t break down. But they’re not a major part of the volume.”

Yet Roberts said that these emotional triggers give us a peek into the massive operations that process the neverending stream of waste that humans produce and don’t really think about that often.

“Our world is so mechanized,” Roberts observed. “Stuff disappears in middle of night, and we don’t see where it goes.”

San Francisco officials confirm that the trend of disappearing stuff in the night will continue, no matter which landfill waste disposal option the city selects.

“No matter what option, it’s going to involve some transportation to wherever,” Assman said. Currently, Recology and WM share control over San Francisco’s waste stream. But that could change if the waste disposal contract goes to Recology.

A privately-held San Francisco firm, Recology has the monopoly over San Francisco’s waste stream from curbside collection to the point when it heads to the landfill. Waste Management, a publicly-traded company that is the nation’s largest waste management operation, owns 159 of the biggest landfills in the nation, including Altamont, the seventh-largest capacity landfill in the nation.

San Francisco started sending its trash to Altamont in 1987, when it entered into a contract with Waste Management for 65 years or 15 million tons of capacity, a level expected to be hit by 2015, triggering the current debate over whether it would be better to send San Francisco’s waste on a northbound train.

 

TRAIN TO WHEATLAND

Creps, 76, a retired school teacher, warns folks to watch out for rattlesnakes as she shows them around this flood-prone agricultural community.

“This is an ancient sea terrace, and now it’s fertile grazing ground between creeks,” Creps said as we walked around the ranchland that Creps’ grandfather settled when he came to California in 1850. Today he lies buried here in a pioneer cemetery, along with Creps’ adopted daughter, Sophie, who was killed at age 27 after she witnessed a friend’s murder in Oakland in 2006.

Creps’ cousin, Bill Middleton, who grows walnuts on a ranch adjacent to hers, worries about the landfill’s potential impact on the groundwater. “The water table is really high here, so you’ve go a whole pond of water sitting under this thing,” Middleton said.

Wheatland’s retired postmaster, Jim Rice, recalled that when the landfill opened on Ostrom Road in the 1980s, individual cities had veto power over any expansion plans. “But Chris Chandler, who was then the Assembly member for Sutter County and is now a judge, carried a bill in legislature to do away with veto power,” Rice said.

“So we lost out and ended up with a dump,” Middleton said.

Creps believes the landfill should be for the use of local residents only. “There’s a lot of development going on around here and the population is going to grow,” she said. “But at this rate, this landfill will be used up before Yuba and the surrounding counties can use it. And that’s not fair. They think they can get a foothold in places off the beaten path.”

Yet not everyone in Yuba County hates San Francisco’s Ostrom Road plan. On June 7, the Yuba-Sutter Economic Development Corporation backed Recology’s plan to build a rail spur to cover the 100 yards from the Union Pacific line to the landfill site.

EDC’s Brynda Stranix said the garbage deal is still subject to approval by San Francisco officials, but will bring needed money to the county. “The landfill is already permitted to take up to 3,000 tons of garbage a day and it’s taking in about 800 tons a day now,” Stranix said.

If the deal goes through, it would triple the current volume at the landfill, entitling Yuba County to $22 million in host fees over 10 years.

Recology’s Phil Graham clarified that Ostrom Road is considered a regional landfill, one that has already grown to 100 feet above sea level and is permitted to rise another 165 feet into the air. “So even with the waste stream from San Francisco,” he said, “we’ll still be operating well under the tonnage limits.”

“The world has changed. Federal regulations come in, and landfill operations change,” Recology’s Alberti said as we toured the site. “And there really are no longer any local landfills. This one is already operating, accepting regional waste.”

He claimed that Livermore residents had similar concerns to those now expressed in Yuba County when San Francisco’s waste started going to Altamont. Livermore and Sierra Club brought a lawsuit around plans to expand the dump, a suit that forced WM to create an $10 million open space fund.

Alberti said he understands that people like Creps are concerned. “But we are not seeking an expansion. The only thing we are asking for is a rail track.

“From our point of view it’s simple,” he continued. “We have the facility; Ostrom Road is close to rail; and it’s not open to the public. So it’s a tightly contained working area.”

Graham, the facility’s manager, also dismissed concerns that the landfill might harm the groundwater or the health of the local environment. “A lot of people don’t know how highly regulated we are,” he said. “That’s why we are having public meetings. Our compass is out in the community. These are people we work and live with.”

Alberti said YUGAG and other opponents of the landfill aren’t numerous. “If we draw the circle wider to the two-county area, how many people even know a landfill is operating here?”

Graham takes that as a testament to how well the facility is operated. “I consider that a compliment. Obviously, we weren’t causing any problems.”

 

TRASH MONOPOLY

Those who run both landfills say they recognize that their industry’s heyday is over, and that the future will bring a more complicated system that sends steadily less trash to the landfills.

“Eventually we will be all out of business,” Alberti predicted. “One reason we changed our name was knowing that landfills are not sustainable. And that’s a significant difference. Waste Management is the largest landfill owner in the world. Recology is a recycling company that owns a few landfills and, for that reason, does innovative things like the food scraps program.”

But the company with the new green name has traditionally been a powerhouse in San Francisco’s trash industry, becoming a well-entrenched monopoly after buying out two local competitors — Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Disposal and Recycling — a triad that has long held exclusive rights over the city’s waste.

The 1932 Refuse Collection and Disposal Ordinance gave the company now calling itself Recology a rare and enviably monopoly on curbside collection, one that had no expiration date and would be difficult to change. “So legally, it’s not an option,” Assman said.

Retired Judge Quentin Kopp, a former member of the Board of Supervisors and California Legislature, got involved in an unsuccessful effort to break Recology’s curbside monopoly in the 1990s when the company then known as NorCal Waste asked for another rate increase. But he found the contractual structure to be almost impossible to break.

“The DPW director examines all the allowable elements and makes recommendations to the Rate Board,” Kopp said. “And the Rate Board consists of three people: the chief administrative officer, the controller, and the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.”

SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington says Recology’s curbside monopoly is unusual compared to other places, but it also makes the company a strong contender to the landfill contract. “It comes down to economies of scale. If you don’t have a contract with a facility that does recycling or waste disposal, you can collect the garbage, but where are you going to take it?”

Harrington said the situation was better before Recology purchased Sunset Scavenger, which mostly handled residential garbage, and Golden Gate, which mostly handled commercial garbage. Today, he said, the city has little control over commercial garbage rates or Recology’s overall finances. “That made it more difficult, and we only set the rate of residential garbage collection,” Harrington observed. “They have never come before the rate appeal board over commercial rates. I have asked who subsidizes whom, the commercial or the residential, and they say they think the commercial. But we have no ability to govern or manage those rates.”

WM’s Skolnick said a positive outcome of the current contract negotiations would be to break Recology’s monopoly on curbside collection. “We have to work to keep our business. That’s the competitive process. But we have a competitor that can encroach into our area even though we can’t encroach on San Francisco. And they claim to have one of the most competitive rates in the country — but try getting those numbers,” he said.

WM’s David Tucker added: “We’d like if San Francisco jumped into the 21st century and had a competitive bid process.”

 

DIRTY BUSINESS

The battle between WM’s local landfill option and Recology’s plan for a longer haul but with more diversion of organic materials is complicated, so much so that the local Sierra Club chapter has yet to take a position.

Glen Kirby of the Sierra Club’s Alameda County chapter told the Guardian that the Sierra Club’s East Bay, San Francisco, and Yuba chapters are taking a “wait and see what becomes public next” stance for now. But insiders say the club’s national position is against landfill gas conversion projects like that at Altamont, possibly favoring Recology’s bid.

Recology proponents claim the Sierra Club didn’t initially oppose landfill gas conversions because its members in the East Bay benefit from an open space fund that WM pays into as mitigation for a 1980 expansion at the Altamont. And Alberti claimed that WM’s analysis of greenhouse gas emissions from the competing waste transportation plans was flawed.

“Their calculation is a shell game. And it relies on Recology using diesel when we are using green biodiesel trains. This is not your grandfather’s train any more. One train equals 200 trucks,” Alberti said.

But WM’s Lewis defends the company’s analysis, which showed Recology’s bid to be worse for greenhouse gas emissions than WM’s.

“Landfill gas is a byproduct of an existing system,” Lewis said, noting that 43 percent of the trash buried at Altamont comes from San Francisco. The implication is that a large part of the methane in the landfill comes from — and benefits — San Francisco.

“We are delivering waste products that contain organics,” he said. “We realized that we could flare methane [to burn it up] or produce electricity. California has very aggressive landfill gas requirements, and the collection rates are relatively good at most sites. But once you’ve collected it, what to do? Historically, they flared the gas. Twenty years ago, there was not a lot of technology to allow anything else.”

Lewis says WM began producing electricity from the gas in 1987. “What we do in the future is decoupled from what was giving us the methane in the past,” he said. “Today we are managing what was brought here 15-20 years ago. It’s your hamburger, cardboard, and paper that has been sitting up there since 1998. We’re doing something good with something that we used to flare.”

“If Altamont was closed today, the gas yield coming off it would be enough to produce 10,000 gallons a day for the next 25 years,” WM’s Bay Area president Barry Skolnick interjected.

And Lewis observed that if you take organics out of the waste stream, as Recology proposes, that matter has value, whether in a digester to produce energy or a composting operation. That complicates the comparison of the two bids.

“We agree that if you can get that waste out in a clean form, that’s a good thing,” Lewis said. “But composting is a very highly polluting approach. In the process of degrading, it gives off a lot of volatiles and carbon dioxide. So air districts have not traditionally been very positive on sitting aerobic composting facilities.”

 

WHAT’S NEXT?

The contract that San Francisco has tentatively awarded to Recology is for 5 million tons or 10 years, whichever comes sooner. As such, it’s a much smaller contract than the city’s 1987 contract with WM, mostly because the future is uncertain.

But trucks will remain a part of the equation. Recology is proposing to continue driving 92 truckloads of garbage over the Bay Bridge per day, possibly to keep the Teamsters happy, frustrating transportation advocates who believe direct rail haul or barges across the bay would be greener options.

In December 2009, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Bob Morales, director of the Teamsters Union Waste Division, cowrote an op-ed in the Sunday Sacramento Bee, in which they argued the case for increased recycling and composting as a “zero waste” strategy for California and as a way to generate green jobs and reduce global warming.

“Equally important for the future of our green economy is that recycling and composting mean jobs,” Newsom and Morales wrote. “The Institute for Local Self-Reliance reports that every additional 10,000 tons recycled translates into 10 new frontline jobs and 25 new jobs in recycling-based manufacturing.”

Newsom and Morales clarified that they do not support waste-to-energy or landfilling as part of their zero waste vision.

“It makes no sense to burn materials or put them in a hole in the ground when these same materials can be turned into the products and jobs of the future,” they stated.

Yet WM’s Skolnick sees a certain hypocrisy in San Francisco turning its back on the methane gas that its garbage helped create at Altamont over the past three decades. “Here’s a very progressive city, and we want to take their waste from the last 30 years and use gas from it to fuel their trucks,” he said. “But they want to haul waste three times as far to Wheatland. What does that say about San Francisco’s mission to become the greenest city?”

David Pilpel, a political activist who has followed the contract, agreed that San Francisco officials can’t simply walk away from Altamont and call it a green move, but he would like to see the city use rail rather than trucks. “Instead of putting stuff on long-haul trucks, put it on a rail gondola and haul it around the peninsula to Livermore,” he said. “The Altamont expansion was for San Francisco’s purposes. So to say now, ‘We’ll go elsewhere,’ is lame.”

Sally Brown, a research associate professor at the University of Washington, acknowledges that landfills have done a great job of giving us places to dump our stuff and can be skillfully engineered to release less methane and capture more productive biogases.

“However, we are entering a new era where resources are limited and carbon is king,” Brown wrote in the May 2010 edition of Biocycle magazine. “In this new era, dumping stuff may cease to be an option because that stuff has value. and that value can be efficiently extracted for costs that are comparable to or lower than the costs — both environmental and monetary — associated with dumping.”

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on the contract later this year, deciding whether to validate the Department of the Environment’s choice of Recology or go with WM. Either way, lawsuits are likely to follow.

Voters are pissed

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Voters are pissed

By Guardian News Staff

news@sfbg.com

After spending more than $70 million, two big corporations failed to convince Californians to vote their way. After spending nearly $70 million, the former head of a big corporation easily convinced Californians to vote her way. And that outcome is not as schizophrenic as it sounds.

On one level, the outcome of the June 8 election was a sign of the anti-corporate anger seething through the California electorate. “BP, Goldman Sachs, PG&E — anything that seems connected to a big corporation is in serious trouble right now,” one political insider, who asked not to be named, told us.

Yet two candidates who were very much corporate icons — Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — won handily in the Republican primaries and now have a real chance to become the state’s next governor and junior senator. What’s happening? It’s fascinating. The voters in the nation’s most populous state are pissed off — at big business, at government, at the oil spill, at 10 percent unemployment, at Washington, at Sacramento, at Wall Street. It’s an unsettled electorate, uncertain about its future and looking for something new, and definitely despising power.

There’s a populist fervor out there, and it’s going to define this fall’s expensive, dirty, and high-stakes battle for California’s future.

 

THE MAYOR GOES STATEWIDE

Addressing a crowd of supporters gathered at Yoshi’s San Francisco on election night, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom — who easily beat opponent Janice Hahn to claim the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor — said he was excited to be part of a crucial political year for the Golden State.

“We’re very proud to be in a position to be the Democratic nominee and to work with the other Democratic nominees,” Newsom told supporters. He lavished praise on the Democratic nominee for governor, Jerry Brown — the man who just last year he was trying to beat in a primary — telling stories about his father’s long relationship with the former governor and expressing his admiration. “I couldn’t be more proud to quasi- be on a ticket with Jerry Brown,” he said.

The race for lieutenant governor may prove one of the most interesting this election season — and not just because a victory for Newsom would transform San Francisco politics. Newsom’s opponent is Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican who enjoys popularity among the growing, influential Latino community, and who Newsom’s team said will be a formidable challenge.

The campaign could revolve around an intriguing question. At a time when the Republican Party has been taken over by virulent anti-immigrant politicians — Whitman and Fiorina have both made harsh statements about illegal immigrants and vowed never to support “amnesty” (that is, immigration reform) — will Latino voters go for a white Democrat over a Latino Republican?

“You talk to them about all the same issues you talk to all voters about: jobs, education, and health care,” Newsom political strategist Dan Newman said when asked whether Newsom could win over Latino voters. “Latinos, like all voters, will appreciate someone with a proven record of success.”

Pollster Ben Tulchin also downplayed the trouble Newsom could encounter in winning the Latino vote. “With what’s going on in Arizona, they are very wary of Republicans,” Tulchin said, but then added: “We don’t want to underestimate the challenge we have. There’s never been a moderate Latino on the statewide ballot.”

Newsom sounded another alarm. If Whitman decides to help Maldonado, the race will get even tougher. “We’re running against Meg Whitman’s checkbook,” the mayor said.

“Expect to see Meg and Abel together a whole lot in the next few months,” one consultant predicted.

If Newsom wins, San Francisco will get a new mayor a year early — and the district-elected Board of Supervisors will choose the person to fill out the last year of Newsom’s term. Technically, the current board will still be in office then, but the task may well fall to the next board — which makes the local November elections even more important.

“Everyone is gaming this out and trying to figure out what happens,” political consultant Alex Clemens said during a post-election wrap-up at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association office. “There will be a lot of dominoes to fall and deals to be cut.”

Meanwhile, Newsom’s nomination for lieutenant governor places many San Franciscans in an uncomfortable position, one that was illustrated well by Newsom’s victory speech, in which he proudly rejected taxes. Although most San Francisco progressives are disenchanted with their fiscally conservative mayor, few would rather vote for Maldonado.

Tim Paulson, the SF Labor Council president, was at the Newsom event gritting his teeth as he talked about the opportunity progressives now have to work with “a mayor of San Francisco we have issues with.” Now, he noted, “There is going to be a real campaign around this man. It could establish a narrative for what California is about.”

 

POWERFUL WOMEN

At Delancey Street on election night, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris talked about getting “tough and smart on crime,” addressing gang-related criminal activity but also focusing on corporate criminals. She talked about cracking down on predatory lenders, supporting health care reform, and protecting California’s environment. And she made a point of dragging in BP.

“It must be the work of the next attorney general to ensure that the disaster and tragedy that happened in the Gulf of Mexico never happens in California,” she said, warning of attacks on AB 32, which set California’s 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal into law in 2006.

Of course, Harris now has to take on her southern counterpart, Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley, who is a moderate but comes in with much stronger law enforcement support. If Harris wins, it will go a long way to prove that opposition to the death penalty isn’t fatal in California politics, and that voters are finally ready for a women of color as the top law enforcement official — a first in state history.

But she and Newsom will both have to overcome likely attacks for the San Francisco’s crime lab scandal, one of many hits to be magnified by the size of Whitman’s war chest.

Whitman, who trounced opponent Steve Poizner in the primary, is riding the crest of a new wave of Republican-style “feminism,” starring her, Fiorina, and Fox news pundit Sarah Palin as female champions of the right-wing agenda. A few short months ago, it looked as if Brown was in serious trouble. But that was before Whitman and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner got into an $85 million bloodbath that left the winner of the GOP primary badly wounded. Whitman wants to play off the populist uprising by portraying herself as an outsider running against a career politician; Poizner gave her a huge scare by hammering her ties to Goldman Sachs.

That Wall Street narrative is one Democrats will push against Whitman and Fiorina. “I think it is stunningly politically tone deaf to nominate two Wall Street CEOs to the top of the ticket,” Newman said. Voters will decide whether they are fresh voices with new ideas or corporate hacks who laid off Californians and made fortunes with dubious stock market deals.

Brown leads in the polls — narrowly — but he’s vulnerable. He’s taken so many stands over so many years and Whitman’s fortune will hammer any openings they see. Brown is only slowly getting into campaign mode, but it’s no secret what he has to do. If the campaign is about Jerry Brown, unconventional politician, against Meg Whitman, Wall Street darling, then he wins.

But to take advantage of that, Brown has to offer some concrete solutions to the state’s problems — and he has to start acting like the progressive he once was. “If I were him, I’d run hard to the left,” a consultant who isn’t involved in any of the gubernatorial campaigns said.

The conventional wisdom had Barbara Boxer in trouble, too — but she’s a savvy campaigner who has beaten the odds before. And while the senator appears ripe for attack — almost 30 years in Washington, a voting record perhaps a bit more liberal than the state as a whole — her opponent, Fiorina, has baggage too.

For starters, Fiorina’s entire pitch is that she — like Whitman — would bring business-world savvy to politics. But as CEO of HP, “she was about perks and pink slips,” Newman said. “She laid off Californians and shipped those jobs overseas while enriching herself.”

Her own primary pushed her far to the right (at one point, in an embarrassing sop to the National Rifle Association, she actually argued that suspected terrorists on the federal no-fly list should be able to buy handguns). And speaking of feminist values, her anti-abortion positions won’t help her in a decidedly pro-choice state.

 

PROP. 16 GOES DOWN

The defeat of Proposition 16 will go down in history as one of the most remarkable campaigns ever. It was, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi noted, “a righteous win:” The No on 16 campaign spent less than $100,000 and still captured 52 percent of the vote. Another narrow corporate-interest measure, Mercury Insurance’s Prop. 17, faced a similar fate.

One reason: PG&E’s $50 million campaign backfired, making voters suspicious of the company’s propaganda. Another: it lost overwhelmingly in its own service area, the company rejected by those who know it best.

Now PG&E CEO Peter Darbee, who pushed to mount the expensive campaign, must return to his shareholders empty-handed — and that’s going to cause problems. “I assume the leadership of PG&E will be called to task,” Clemens said. “They truly rolled the dice.”

The day after the election, PG&E shares dropped 2.2 percent, a possible sign of shaken investor confidence. Mindy Spatt of the Utility Reform Network (TURN), a nonprofit that worked on the No on 16 effort, described the situation succinctly. “Peter Darbee’s got egg on his face,” she said. “Big-time.”

Mirkarimi has witnessed other battles with PG&E, and said this probably wouldn’t be the last. “PG&E, every time we want to have a seat at the table, tries to take us out, like assassins,” he said. “If they were smart, they would take us up on what we asked many years ago, and that is to abide by peaceful coexistence.”

On the statewide level, the bold and expensive deceptions pushed by PG&E and Mercury Insurance were countered by only a handful of super-committed activists and a broad cross-section of newspaper editorials, a reminder that newspapers — battered by the economy and technological changes — are neither dead nor irrelevant.

One of the wild cards of the election was Prop. 14, which will eliminate party primaries for state offices — and potentially shake up the state’s entire political structure. “This is a big deal even if we don’t know how it’s going to play out,” consultant David Latterman said at the SPUR event.

Interestingly, the only two counties that voted No on 14 were the most progressive — San Francisco — and the most conservative, Orange.

Progressives did well in San Francisco, expanding their majority on the Democratic County Central Committee. “In an environment where it was about hundreds of millions of dollars from PG&E and Meg Whitman and Chris Kelly outspending us, we showed that San Francisco is San Francisco and we support San Francisco values,” DCCC chair Aaron Peskin told us.

Money used to define the debates in San Francisco, but the dominant narratives are now being written by the coalition of tenants, environmentalists, workers, social justice advocates, and others who backed a progressive slate of DCCC candidates, which took 18 of the 24 seats on a body that makes policy and funding decisions for the local Democratic Party.

“This time it was the coalition that really made the difference,” DCCC winner Michael Bornstein said on election night. “Frankly, our people worked harder.”

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu agreed, telling us, “For the Central Committee, the message is people power wins.”

The lesson from this election is that people are starting to get wise to corporate deceptions. And they’re realizing that with hard work and smart coalition-building, the people can still prevail.

Steven T. Jones, Rebecca Bowe, Sarah Phelan, and Tim Redmond contributed to this report.

 

Us vs. SF Weekly: the next step

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Us vs. SF Weekly: the next step

tredmond@sfbg.com

The California Court of Appeal heard oral arguments on the Guardian’s lawsuit against SF Weekly and its chain parent June 11, and the discussion focused almost entirely on the Weekly’s assertion that it’s too easy to prove predatory pricing under California’s Unfair Practices Act.

Justices James J. Marchiano, Sandra L. Margulies, and Robert L. Dondero peppered the Weekly’s lawyer, Dennis Maio, with questions as he attempted to argue that state law needed to be brought in line with federal standards.

The Unfair Practices Act bars companies from selling products below costs with the aim of harming a competitor. The Guardian sued the Weekly and its parent company, New Times, under that statute, claiming that the chain had deliberately sold ads below cost with the aim of driving a smaller, locally-owned competitor out of business.

In March 2008, a San Francisco jury found in favor of the Guardian and awarded more than $6 million in damages. Judge Marla Miller trebled some of the damages, and with attorney’s fees and interest, the judgment is now close to $23 million.

Maio argued that the intent of the law was to protect consumers, and that below-cost sales are often beneficial. “Low prices are good,” he said. “Below-cost prices are even better, because they’re cheaper.” He compared the Village Voice Media chain, which owns SF Weekly, to Costco, suggesting that the justices might shop there for better prices.

The thrust of Maio’s claim — and the heart of the Weekly’s appeal — is the argument that the Weekly shouldn’t have been held liable for predatory pricing unless the Guardian could prove that the chain would be able to recoup its losses after its competitor was gone. The federal courts have adopted that approach — and the result has been the effective end of predatory pricing suits in federal court.

But there’s nothing in California law that requires so-called “recoupment” proof, and the justices focused on that in their questions to Maio.

Maio argued that antitrust law was all about protecting consumers, and that the only danger of below-cost sales is if they lead to higher prices later, when a monopoly company has driven away competitors. “Causing a competitor to lose money isn’t a violation,” he said. “The purpose of the statute is to protect the public.”

Under questioning, Milo admitted that there’s no mention of recoupment in the Unfair Practices Act, and no discussion of it in the legislative history.

In a somewhat bizarre diversion, Maio tried to argue that the UPA had anti-Semitic roots because it could have been devised to hurt Jewish-owned chain stores. Then he compared below-cost pricing to pro bono legal work — although it’s hard to make any rational argument that SF Weekly owners were attempting to do a charitable act by putting the Guardian out of business.

Ralph Alldredge argued the Guardian’s case. “This is,” he said, “a plain and simple matter of statutory interpretation.

“This is black-letter law,” Alldredge continued. “You can’t take the preamble to a law and use it to add things that aren’t there — especially to add things that are completely inconsistent with the terms of the statute.”

When Dondero asked why there are so few cases under the California Unfair Practices Act, Alldredge explained that until 1987, federal antitrust law took the same approach as the state, so most cases went to federal court. The federal judges added the recoupment standard — “and essentially closed the door to these cases,” Alldredge said.

“And that’s what they’re asking this court to do.”

Alldredge pointed to a number of cases where state antitrust law goes beyond federal law. He also said that the standard or proving below-cost sales and intent to harm a competitor has been tested in other cases “and the Unfair Practices Act has sailed through all those tests.”

Maio then tried to bring up the issue of whether New Times, now part of Village Voice Media, could be held liable for the actions of the Weekly, but the justices cut him off, saying they’d already read all the relevant briefs and testimony.

A ruling is expected in several weeks.

VVM’s Executive Associate Editor Andy Van De Voorde, whose coverage of the trial has been nasty, bitter, and personal, took a remarkably muted approach to the Court of Appeal hearing. The Chronicle’s Bob Egelko turned in a typically clean, accurate account of the proceedings.

Festival front lines: Harmony 2010

Andrew Lam
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5

Aerial photo by DJ Guacamole

Santa Rosa got a little more groovy this weekend for the estimated 30,000 to 35,000 that attended the 32nd annual Harmony Festival, three days that were so epic my ability to narrate them cohesively has been called into question. Assembled here are some bits and pieces from the scene.

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Best year ever?

The longest running West Coast music and lifestyle festival seems to have resolved many of the problems it’s had with turning a profit in years past. “We tightened our ship, we did less with more, and we sold more tickets,” says festival CEO, Bo Sapper. Sapper cited the Eco Rally skate contest as a particular success – Harmony teamed up with eight local skate shops, and a passel of pros to put on an amateur mini ramp competition. They had 1,000 skaters sign up to ride, mainly from the local area. The festival also sold out it’s Saturday night shows, a rare occurrence for past years of Harmony.

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Vendor madness

Call me monetarily minded (you’d be the first), but I said it before, and I’ll say it again; the stuff that’s selling can encapsulate the event itself. So what kind of hawkers of wares greeted you upon arrival a the front gates? Amongst the psychics and Mayan chocolate was a woman selling personal sized, portable saunas (she said she was having trouble getting people to experiment with it, temperatures topping out in the nineties and all), some berries from Ghana whose claim to fame were that they could effectively mess your sense of taste up (suggested to buyers as possible cocktail garnishes), and my favorite; Asturias, the sonic didgeridoo man who charms lions and tigers (and for $200/two hours, you too!) with his big, hollow, vibrating stick. 

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Swami sanity

Don’t mourn last night’s loss of those fairy wings! “Everything is set, but the people are upset,” said Swami Chidanandji from his comfy pillow at the Wisdom Speakers Stage. Take it from a man who spent ages nine to 17 practicing solitude and yoga in the Himalaya; no matter how much festival flair you’ve stuffed into your backpack, happiness lies within. 

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Seeding the future

The basket of striped fava beans were what brought me to the West County Community Seed Bank‘s booth, but hearing about their mission to provide Sonoma County with GMO-free seeds for sproutin’ kept me fingering favas for awhile. At the moment, they’re meeting at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Sebastopol every last Saturday of the month, and the seeds are stored in their founder’s basement. Harmony Fest gave them their vendor booth for free; the same price they charge their seed buyers.

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Yoga for the party kids

“Well, I got two hours of sleep last night. I’m not sure how, but we’ll make it through this,” said Yogaworks instructor Eric Monkhouse. Monkhouse took us through a few moderately paced asanas at the Eco-Wellness Sanctuary at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday morning — part of a full slate of yoga classes I thought I’d make it to, but obviously didn’t.

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Goddess Grove

One of the festival’s most rockingest scenes was this shady little side stage, where crowd pleasers Delhi to Dublin and Diego’s Umbrella rolled about gleefully onstage and off (Diego’s guitarist at one point plunged into the crowd to squirm about in the grass). At night, laser lights tickled the tree leaves above the concerts, setting an entirely different stage for the late night lovin’ that any good festie inspires.

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Festival babies: cooler than I am

Where do these little rascals come from? Big ups to the munchkin who was walking around performing courtesy sprays with his bubble gun, but my favorites were the pretty little girl and her buddies perched on the back of a truck that was making its slow way past the Goddess Stage. Next to her were two boys on skateboards, holding onto the fender for dear life. I attempted to make contact with the little thing,  but she shushed me through her ice cream cone, and pointed urgently, soundlessly to the truck’s cab. Festivating stowaways. Love it.

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Crime! 

Of course, it wasn’t all ice cream cones and good vibrations. There’s the matter of the Saturday night theft of a borrowed moped, which Sapper cited as the weekend’s sole unpleasant incident (if you don’t count beer prices).

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Lauryn Hill: ragingly good

So what if she spent a large portion of her first US concert in three years harassing the sound guys – the woman’s a legend, and if she wants to get a little surly, she’s entitled. “We’re all big fans of Lauryn Hill,” Sapper says. “We were aware she was quite reclusive, but she’s ready to come out of that now. Her agency was looking for a safe place for her [to restart her US performing career], and they thought Harmony Festival would be that place –and they were right.” Sapper recalls waiting with his wife and daughter backstage for Ms. Hill to emerge as one of the festival’s more magical moments.

Hill’s heavily remixed versions of such classics as “Turn Your Lights Down Low,” and “Ready or Not” struck a fine balance between crowd pleasing and innovative — and her red, white, and blue jumpsuit she wore struck an equally fine balance between Southern belle and Soul Train. Well worthy of a headliner. Thanks for coming out to play, Miss Hill. Now that she’s played a California hippie fest, can we finally quit with those stupid racism rumors?

 

Stage listings

David Talbot
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

BAY AREA

Les Liasons Dangereuses Redwood Ampitheatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; (415) 251-1027, www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Previews Thurs/17-Fri/18, 7pm. Opens Sat/19, 7:30pm. Runs Thurs-Sun, 7:30pm; also June 28, July 7, 7:30pm. Through July 10. Porchlight Theatre Company presents a production of Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the 1782 novel.

ONGOING

Abigail: The Salem Witch Trials Temple SF, 540 Howard; www.templesf.com. $10. July 8, 29, Aug 5, 12, 19, 26, 9pm. Through Aug 26. Buzz Productions, with Skycastle Music and Lunar Eclipse Records, presents an original rock opera based on the Salem witch trials.

All My Sons Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.ticketweb.com. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 26. Actors Theatre performs Arthur Miller’s masterwork.

Andy Warhol: Good For the Jews? Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 292-1233, www.tjt-sf.org. $15-45. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/20. Renowned monologist Josh Kornbluth is ready to admit his niche is a narrow one: he talks about himself, and more than that, he talks about his relationship to his beloved late father, the larger-than-life old-guard communist of Kornbluth’s breakthrough Red Diaper Baby. So it will not be surprising that in his current (and still evolving) work, created with director David Dower, the performer-playwright’s attempt to “enter” Warhol’s controversial ten portraits of famous 20th-century Jews (neatly illuminated at the back of the stage) stirs up memories of his father, along with a close family friend — an erudite bachelor and closeted homosexual who impressed the boyhood Josh with bedtime stories culled from his dissertation. The scenes in which Kornbluth recreates these childhood memories are among the show’s most effective, although throughout the narrative Kornbluth, never more confident in his capacities, remains a knowing charmer. (Avila)

Bone to Pick and Diadem Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sun/20. Cutting Ball Theater closes its tenth season with a pair of plays by Eugenie Chan.

Boys Will Be Boys New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 26. What happens when you realize you have Gay Attention Deficit Disorder? This comedic musical aims to find out.

Die Walküre War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Sat/19, Tues/22, June 25, 30, 7pm. Through June 30. San Francisco Opera presents the second installment of Wagner’s Ring cycle, directed by Francesca Zambello.

“Durang Me!” Next Stage, 1620 Gough; 1-800-838-3006, www.custommade.org. $10-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (no show July 4). Through July 10. Custom Made performs two comedies by Christopher Durang: Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, and The Actor’s Nightmare.

La Fanciulla Del West War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $15-360. Opens Wed/9, 7:30pm. Fri/18, July 2, 8pm; June 24, June 29, 7:30pm; June 27, 2pm. Through June 17. San Francisco Opera presents Puccini’s opera, with Deborah Voigt as Minnie.

Forever Never Comes Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 26. Crowded Fire performs Enrique Urueta’s world premiere “psycho-Southern queer country dance tragedy.”

Giant Bones Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; (650) 728-8098, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/19. Cobbled from the stories of Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, this frolic into the fantasy genre is a multi-corn misstep from writer-director Stuart Bousel. The only good thing about the convoluted plot—which, in addition to the requisite assortment of wizards, dragons, and whatnot has a play-within-a-play dimension featuring a band of caviling actors—is that it is so convoluted you can safely stop paying attention to it almost immediately. For the rest, you will have to endure two hefty acts’ worth of amateurish theatrics, whose look and tone suggest an Interstate mishap between giddy vanloads of Renaissance Fairegoers and Star Trek conventioneers. (Avila)

Gutenberg! The Musical! Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.beardsbeardsbeards.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 26. A Theatre Company presents a musical about two writers who scheme to create a Broadway musical about Johann Gutenberg.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. On the principle that when you’ve got it you should really flaunt it, San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers essay their second revival of a musical by the storied Cockettes. Hot Greeks, which premiered in midnight performances at the old Palace Theater in 1972, was the gleefully crazed cross-dressing troupe’s only other fully scripted musical besides, of course, Pearls Over Shanghai.

While not the Oresteia or anything, Hot Greeks is more than an excuse for a lot of louche, libidinous hilarity. Okay, not much more. But it is a knowing little romp — supported by some infectious songs courtesy of Martin Worman and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn — wedding trashy high school romance with the trashy ancient Greece of Aristophanes and the Peloponnesian War. (Avila)

*How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. A natural born charmer and a comedic actor with hard-won training behind her, Aileen Clark wins over an audience within about ten seconds. But her stories (co-scripted by John Caldon and ably directed by Claire Rice) turn out to be just as solid: all of them loving, irreverent, and unfailingly hilarious autobiographical accounts of coming of age across three cultures. Born to a Nicaraguan mother and a Scottish father and raised principally in Brazil, Managua and San Francisco, Clark’s perfectly pitched monologue comes liberally spiced with Spanish and Portuguese, sweetened by an affecting but never maudlin honesty, and stirred with a feisty humor clearly a lifetime in the making. As well paced and energetic as this Guerilla Rep and Ann Marie co-production is, it could probably be tightened further by shaving some 10 minutes off the 90-minute run time. Nonetheless, you are not likely to regret a minute of this frank and funny, wise and sassy visit to Aileen’s world. (Avila)

KML Goes Undercover Zeum Theater, 221 4th St, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7pm, 10pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. Killing My Lobster returns with a series of comedic vignettes based on the theme of espionage.

Krapp’s Last Tape Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through July 3. Cutting Ball Theater remounts its strong recent production of Samuel Beckett’s hour-long solo play, featuring a full-fledged and satisfying turn by a hearty, slyly comic Paul Gerrior as the titular Krapp, reflecting on the fleeting sense of self recorded on reel-to-reel tapes over the course of a long life. Artistic director Rob Melrose approaches the material with supreme assurance and passionate but never stifling fidelity. David Sinaiko provides the recorded voice of the younger Krapp, expertly balancing a passion and unselfconscious pomposity that has Gerrior’s Krapp alternately bemused, euphoric, and wincing through one of Beckett’s most autobiographical and surprisingly affirming pieces. Melrose’s choice use of scenic elements, meanwhile, including the palpably solid 1950s-era tape machine, places Gerrior (suitably odd and natty in costumer Maggie Whitaker’s dapper vest, high-water trousers and white shoes) in a kind of communion with the reel and the real—an affecting and quietly unsettling relationship, pitched against an infinite blackness all around, that has Krapp at one point resting his head gently on the machine as he and the insubstantial voice of his younger self relive a moment of intimacy with a long-gone lover. (Avila)

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show June 25); Sun, 2pm. Through June 26. Gomez performs her GLAAD Media award-winning comedy.

The New Century New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun/20, July 11, 2pm. Through July 11. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Paul Rudnick’s bill of short comedies.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St.; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 26. Starting July 10, runs Sat, 8pm and Sun, 7pm. Through August 1. Thrillpeddlers presents this revival of the legendary Cockettes’ 1970 musical extravaganza.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 27. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway “Beatlemania” comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic. (Avila)

“Something C.O.O.L.: The Summer Cabaret Festival” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.brownpapertickets.com. Free-$10. Mon-Tues, 7:30pm; Wed, 8pm. Through June 27. Cabaret singer Carly Ozard presents six diverse showcases (Mon-Tues nights) and hosts open mics (Wed nights) with professional performers.

Speed the Plow Royce Gallery, 2910 Mariposa; 1-866-811-4111, www.speedtheplowsf.com. $28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/19. Expression Productions performs David Mamet’s black comedy.

*The Tosca Project American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2ACT, www.act-sf.org. $15-87. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Wed, Sun, 2pm. Through June 27. Four years in the making, this ACT–SF Ballet collaboration unfurls a lushly romantic, whimsical pageant of San Francisco history through movement, character, mise en scène, and an irresistible cultural lens: the famed North Beach bar lending the project its setting and name. Co-created by ACT’s Carey Perloff and SFB choreographer Val Caniparoli, the storyline traipses over every iconic period since Prohibition—sometimes too cursorily but generally with vigor and a quietly gathering intoxication—meanwhile centering on three characters: the tragically lovelorn Italian bartender-owner (Jack Willis); a Russian émigrée and regular (Rachel Ticotin) who eventually inherits the establishment; and an African American musician (Gregory Wallace) arriving on the lamb, who becomes another permanent fixture of the place. Never far away either is the incarnation of the Bartender’s lost love, played by SFB’s enchanting Sabina Allemann. Although the story is conveyed without dialogue, there are moments when words take the stage too—how could they not in Beat-era SF, especially with a neighbor in poet-publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti (played here by the consistently winning Peter Anderson). The truly rare treat, of course, is watching the dancers of SF Ballet—not least the radiant and commanding Allemann (who retired from SFB in 1999), with added power and charisma in key scenes from Pascal Molat—relatively up-close and personal, mingling persuasively with their formidable actor colleagues, enveloped in an exquisite stage design (courtesy of Douglas W. Schmidt, gorgeously lit by Robert Wierzel) and a moody soundscape (by Darron L West) featuring choice period songs. (Avila)

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through July 30. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

The Drawer Boy Marion E. Greene Black Box Theatre, 531 19th St, Oakl. www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 4. TheatreFIRST presents Michael Healey’s comedy about two aging farmers with a family secret.

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri/18, 9pm; Sun/20, 7pm. Through June 20. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

“Fireworks Festival” Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $25-35. Through July 3, showtimes vary. This performance festival includes work by John Leguizamo, David Sedaris (whose show is already sold out), Dan Hoyle, and Wes “Scoop” Nisker.

God’s Ear Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $15-28. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; and Sun, 5pm. Through Sat/20. Against a frozen, deceptively empty-looking landscape of perpetual winter, an anguished married couple stagnates in grief over the accidental death of their young son. Estranged by the sorrow and guilt they feel, they spend most of the time apart but not alone: Mel (Beth Wilmurt) stays at home, where she loses herself in obsessive domestic projects while fielding questions from their surviving daughter — the equally traumatized but far more resilient Lanie (Nika Ezell Pappas) — with assists from the Tooth Fairy (Melinda Meeng) and G.I. Joe (Keith Pinto); meanwhile, Ted (Ryan O’Donnell) wanders in his business suit through a string of airports and airport bars commiserating with other lost souls (Joe Estlack and Zehra Berkman). New York-based playwright Jenny Schwartz’s whimsical meditation on the process of grieving is something like The Rabbit Hole as written by Ionesco, fueled by dialogue that makes an overly showy and eventually tedious hysterical poetry of the banalities, clichés, and platitudes spoken by her stricken characters as a kind of prefab linguistic armor — everything and anything to avoid saying something. Director-choreographer Erika Chong Shuch stages the action in this Shotgun Players production with warm energy and imagination, however — and a handful of tuneful, clever songs from composer Daveen Digiacomo — compensating somewhat for the motionless plot. Moreover, Shuch undercuts the play’s maudlin tendencies by moving her able actors and even the stage properties around in swift, comical, aptly dreamlike fashion, as the stunned couple continue their largely separate meanderings, meaningfully spouting “meaningless” lines about bucking up, or settling in, or riding off, etc. The problem is there is not much beneath this frozen surface of clichés beyond more cliché. (Avila)

*In the Wake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $13.50-71. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Thurs/17; no show June 25); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through June 27. Brilliantly weaving the political and the personal, New York playwright Lisa Kron takes on the myth and mayhem of American exceptionalism through the prism of a compelling lefty smarty-pants named Ellen (Heidi Schreck) and her “alternative” family circle, as it slowly unravels during the first decade of the 21st century. From her modest Manhattan perch — shared with adoring, wise-cracking longtime boyfriend Danny (Carson Elrod) — Ellen rails against the ineptitude of the Democrats in the face of the rising Right and its season of havoc. But she’s already told the audience she has a problem with “blind spots,” much like the country. Projections of headlines and sound bites, intermittently splayed across the fortified proscenium arch, locate the action at precise moments in the dreary political timeline of the last decade, beginning with the 2000 election coup that has put a damper on Thanksgiving festivities (despite inclusion of Pilgrim smocks). Her sister (Andrea Frankle) and sister’s wife (Danielle Skraastad) are there too, along with Ellen’s older friend Judy (Deidre O’Connell), a cranky, deceptively oblivious relief worker just back from a refugee camp in Africa. As time goes by, and Ellen turns to an open relationship with a woman filmmaker (Emily Donahoe), our protagonist’s bedrock assumptions about the natural order of things get sorely tested. Leigh Silverman directs a top-notch cast in a remarkably engaging mix of political dialogue and personal entanglements, written for the most part with stirring intelligence and incisive humor. If the play loses focus and momentum by the second act — despite a wonderfully charged scene between Ellen and Judy that is the play’s most memorable — its wit, real anger and constructive irreverence still make it too good to miss. (Avila)

John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Wy, Orinda; (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org. $34-70. Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also June 26, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through June 27. Cal Shakes leads off its season with an original staging of John Steinbeck’s early story cycle, a collaboration with Word for Word theater company gracefully adapted by acclaimed San Francisco playwright Octavio Solis (Lydia, Ghosts of the River). Artistic director Jonathan Moscone directs a fine 11-actor cast in lively performances across a smoothly intertwining set of ten tales, all revolving around two specific households—one, the Munroe family, settled upon a notoriously “cursed” patch of land—in the central California valley that a Spanish explorer once dubbed “the pastures of heaven.” Irony anyone? Steinbeck went for broke in the themes and taboos he touches upon here, from incest, madness, infanticide—he misses one or two, but not many. It’s sometimes somber yet rarely heavy going, however, with many lighter stories and situations in the mix, and director Moscone’s staging missing few opportunities for added humor along the way. At the same time, the stories are not equally compelling—the overly crowd-pleasing “song” story of two Mexican American sisters (Catherine Castellanos and Joanne Winter) who segue almost unconsciously from a failed restaurant venture into prostitution, for instance, is cute but surprisingly ho-hum. But if you lie back and let the play’s frontier landscape unfurl (as you do literally anyway in the hill-saddled Bruns Amphitheater), the evening has a dependable charm and several dramatic highlights—not the least of which features the powerful Rod Gnapp in the role of a man desperate to appear prosperous before his family and neighbors. (Avila)

Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/18, June 25, July 2, 9, 7pm; July 3, 5pm; Sun/20, July 11, 2pm. Ann Randolph’s comic solo show about an irreverent woman’s trip back to her childhood home in Ohio.

1001 Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 488-4116, www.justtheater.org. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sun/20. Just Theater performs Jason Groete’s Arabian Nights-inspired tale of post-9/11 life.

Opus Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $27-62. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 27. TheatreWorks performs Michael Hollinger’s drama, set in the world of chamber music.

Speech & Debate Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $34-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm, 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through July 18. Aurora Theatre closes its 18th season with Stephen Karam’s comedy about three teen misfits connected to a small town sex scandal.

*Woody Guthrie’s American Song Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-54. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 27. Marin Theater Company presents director-adapter Peter Glazer’s graceful, dynamic staging of the life and times of Woody Guthrie using the famed folk singer’s own enduring words and music (impressively, rousingly orchestrated and arranged by Jeff Waxman). Traveling alternately hard, light, and stirringly through the 1930s and 1940s before leaping ahead to alight briefly on the present (which is never far, in fact, from any of the concerns of the much abused but resilient working people channeled so brilliantly in Guthrie’s social poetry), five charismatic cast members (Lisa Asher, Berwick Haynes, Sam Misner, Matt Mueller, Megan Pearl Smith) sing, act, and play their own instruments beautifully, backed by a smooth and irresistible band under multi-instrumentalist and musical director Tony Marcus. You don’t have to know a lick of Guthrie’s material to immediately understand its relevance and beauty in these cleverly staged set pieces, which are as humorous and crowd-pleasing as they are unapologetically damming and defiant of the rule of capital. For Guthrie fans, of course, this is a must. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $10-50. Sun, 11am. Through June 27. The Amazing Bubble Man, a.k.a. Louis Pearl, performs his family-friendly show.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Ball-ist-ic CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org. Fri/18-Sat/19, 8pm and 9:30pm. $18-22. Scott Wells & Dancers present a performance with seven dancers and a lot of balls.

Fauxgirls! Kimo’s Penthouse Lounge, 1351 Polk; 885-4535, www.fauxgirls.com. Sat/19, 10pm. Free. The female impersonation revue’s ninth anniversary show.

Liss Fain Dance Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8pm. $15-30. The company presents its home season, with two premieres, How It Ends and Speak of Familiar Things.

Marsh’s 20th Anniversary Performance Marathon The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Sat/19, noon-midnight. A full-day of performances, including appearances by Charlie Varon and David Ford, and a late-night party.

Mortified SF Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; 647-2888, www.makeoutroom.com. Fri/18-Sat/19, 8pm. $12-15. Share the shame with firsthand stories of embarrassment.

“San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon; 474-3914, www.worldartswest.org. Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm). Through June 27. $22-44. Nearly 600 Bay Area performers representing 20 cultures participate in this 32nd annual festival.

Sherri aka Cherchez La Femme Club Six, 60 6th St; 863-1221, www.cherchezlafemme.eventbrite.com. Fri/18, 9pm. $10-15. Performing along with Ariellah and Deshret Dance Company, Freyja, Auberon, Calamity Sam, Mirtara, blackhoodygrrrl and Superkate.

 

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