Castro Archives — Page 68 of 80 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Hank Wilson, queer activist, has died

November 10, 2008

By Tim Redmond

Hank Wilson, longtim e queer activist and overall wondeful guy, died yesterday of lung cancer. There’s a memorial for him tonight (Monday, Nov. 10) at 18th and Castro starting at 6 pm.

I always liked Hank; he was so upbeat, so full of energy.

A lot of people may not remember, but Hank was was also the one who started the amazing Tom Ammiano mayoral write-in campaign in 1999, when Ammiano agreed at the last minute to take on Mayor Willie Brown. Hank was the one standing in the Castro — all alone, at first — with the posterboard getting signatures; he was the one who really convinced Ammiano to run. I never forget him calling me the day Tom agreed to be a candidate and saying, with his usual excitement: “It’s real, it’s real, it’s going to happen.”

And that campaign — and the activists it brought out and the movement it helped spark — was as the heart of many of the progressive victories we’ve won since then.

“It’s a cliche, but with him they broke the mold,” Amminano just told me. “He was really one of a kind.”

We’ll all miss him.

Prop 8: Nobody walks in LA?

November 6, 2008

As Stephen Torres reports, even though Prop 8 won in LA County (WTF?) there was still plenty of protest action on the streets of West Hollywood, home of the bleached bi-level bob/Daisy Dukes combination …

As a native Angeleno, I would say that most of the time that “nobody walks in LA” is, sadly, very true. Last night, however, my hometown did me proud and, apparently, is doing so again today.

Like many, here in the SF, I joined the gathering in front of City Hall last night to hold vigil against the injustice of the recently passed Proposition 8 and marched to Castro Street to rally my fellow city dwellers to demonstrate our conviction.

San Francisco was and is at the forefront of this battle, but now it is clear that the city is not the crazy, singular enclave that some terrified religious-types would have you believe.

Obama parties break out; Castro calms

November 4, 2008

At 16th and Dolores, at 19th and Valencia — drums, screams, police, but all peacful. People streaming out of bars like the Kilowatt, singing, celebrating …

Also: in the Castro things have calmed down a bit as the tension of uncalled prop 8 close race sinks in. “People were happy, but now they don’t know what the hell to do, ” says my BF. “They were exuberant for the cameras for the 11 o’clock news, but now everyone’s just milling around a little despondently. I’m going to Moby Dick for a drink.”

Halloween 1951: Fast times in Rock Rapids, Iowa

October 30, 2008

The tale of what really happened on Halloween Eve in 1951 in Rock Rapids, Iowa

By Bruce B. Brugmann

As I was preparing to update my annual Halloween blog, I noted the news accounts of all the civic effort going this year into making Halloween “safe” in San Francisco. City Search website even said that, “Despite what you’ve read in the news, Halloween isn’t over just because you won’t be experiencing the fun, debauchery, and occasional gunfire in the Castro.”

Well, there wasn’t any known or admitted debauchery and no gunfire in the Halloweens of my youth back in my hometown of Rock Rapids, a small farming community in northwest Iowa. But we did have some fast times and created some almost famous urban legends on Halloween. I can speak for a generation or two back in the early 1950s when Halloween was the one night of the year when we could raise a little hell and and hope to stay one step ahead of the cops.

Or, in the case of Rock Rapids, the one and only cop, who happened to be Elmer “Shinny” Sheneberger. Shinny had the unenviable job of trying to keep some semblance of law and order during an evening when the Hermie Casjens gang was on the loose. Somehow through the years, nobody remembered exactly when, the tradition was born that the little kids would go house to house trick and treating but the older boys could roam the town looking to make trouble and pull off some pranks.

It was all quite civilized. The Casjens gang would gather (no girls allowed) and set out about our evening’s business, being careful to stay away from the houses of watchful parents and Shinny on patrol. Dave Dietz and I specialized in finding cars with keys in the ignition and driving them to the other end of town and just leaving them. We tipped over an outhouse or two, the small town cliche, but one time we thought there was someone inside. We never hung around to find out. There was some mischief with fences and shrubs.

The booness

October 29, 2008

› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Happy Slutoween, librul terrorists. Now that the Castro Street celebration has been officially buried, there’ll be more terrific parties than tired Sarah Palin costumes haunting Halloween night. Below are 13 batshit surefires, all taking place Oct. 31, night of the living-undead pro-life governor of Alaska. Trick or trick!

ALL HALLOW’S EVE

Goth equals deathly perfect — insert exhausted "every day is Halloween" joke here — as 18-plus clubs Death Guild and Meat team up to paint it black with DJs Decay and Melting Girl and "techno opera singer" Diva Marisa.

9 p.m., $13. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. (415) 626-1409, www.dnalounge.com

BITTEN

A French bordello Halloween masquerade ball seems right up any horny black cat’s alley — especially with an acrobatic performance by the ever-sexy Vau de Vire Society and lofty tunes by DJ Ean Golden.

10 p.m., free with costume. Harlot, 46 Minna, SF. (415) 777-1077, www.harlotsf.com

BLOOD PACT

An 18-and-up, gayish underground "dark places" extravaganza with vampiric DJ vamps Honey Soundsystem, Rchrd Oh?!, and Lord Kook, and promoters Homochic and Tantra, plus a slashing guest spot by Los Angeles’ A Club Called Rhonda.

10 p.m., $15. SomArts, 934 Brannan, SF. (415) 552-2131, www.homochic.com

BLOW UP HALLOWEEN

Those gorgeous 18-plus electro hipsters will never settle for anything less than horrifyingly bangin’ style — with terrific, terrifying rap trio HOTTUB, and evil genius DJs Richie Panic and Jeffrey Paradise.

10 p.m., $15. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011, www.myspace.com/blow_up_415

CHARLIE HORSE HALLOWEEN THING

Two whole hours of the trashiest drag performances the nether regions of Polk Street have to offer? Sounds heart-stopping, but hostess Anna Conda will pump you back up with the cheapest drinks — and "outfits" — in town.

10 p.m., free. The Cinch, 1723 Polk, SF. (415) 776-4162, www.myspace.com/charliehorsecinch

COOKIE’S HAUNTED HALLOWEEN

Ecstatically kooky drag princess Cookie Dough hosts a night of haunted whores, with ghoulish electro-goth duo Ejector live, DJ MC2, alarming numbers by Landa Lakes, Glitterella, and more.

8 p.m., $8. Octavia Lounge, 1772 Market, SF. (415) 863-3516, www.cookievision.com

HALLOWEEN: A PARTY

This one’ll be pure crazyboots, as Heklina of Trannyshack literally rises from the dead to join Midnight Mass’ Peaches Christ in hosting a dark diva drag extravaganza, with bloody insanity from Kiddie, Fauxnique, Renttecca, Raya Light …

9 p.m., $20. Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF. (415) 703-8965, www.peacheschrist.com

HAUNTED TEMPLE

Unholy deeds will abound in cavernous club Temple’s sacred spaces, with insane décor on two levels, howlin’ DJs Paul Hemming, IQ!, and Jaswho?, plus a $500 costume contest.

10 p.m., $20. 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com

MONSTER HALLOWEEN

Ghoul’s night lip-sync battle-a-thon! DJ Scottish Andy and glamazon hostess Juanita More exhaust the hipsteratti queens and friends on the mic at the manly Truck bar for exotic "prizes" (i.e., drunk sex).

9 p.m., $5. Truck, 1900 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-0306, www.juanitamore.com

NIGHT OF THE LIVING BASS

Burner faves Opel get with Evil Breaks for an endless night of sheer funky drum ‘n’ bass madness, with a little techno freak-out on the side. With DJs Meat Katie, the Rogue Element, and Kid Blue.

10 p.m., $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com

RE:CREATION

A hip-hop, old-school electro, and freak beats spectacular, as ArtNowSF and Euphoric Conceptions present a platter’s worth of head trip performers like Mochipet, the New Deal, Pleasure Maker, and Sleepyhead. 9 p.m., $20. Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. (415) 531-6953, www.clubsix1.com

STILETTO: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

No San Francisco club is sharper fashionista-wise than theme-driven Stiletto. Gasp as too-cool zombies arise from the depths of loveliness with DJs Mario Muse, Eric Sharp, and runway madness from Flock, plus photo booth!

10pm, $8, AsiaSF, 201 Ninth St., (415) 255-4752, www.myspace.com/stilettosf

Z-TRIP

The inexhaustible mix-master must have some sort of magic potion in his vinyl cauldron, because the mash-up and intel hip-hop kids still flock to his politically oriented, mind-blowing shows after several centuries. Scary!

9 p.m., $22.50. Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF. (415) 348-0900, www.blasthaus.com

Flaming in the Castro

October 29, 2008

› paulr@sfbg.com

At Brandy Ho’s newish outpost in the Castro District, the fuchsia-colored paper place settings are embossed with the image of a chili pepper. For spice freaks, this is the equivalent of the famous blinking boob in North Beach — the neighborhood that is the home of the original Brandy Ho’s, which turns 30 next year. Let us meditate on the complex irony of all this.

People in the vicinity of their 30th birthdays often find themselves with procreation on the brain, so perhaps it isn’t so surprising that restaurants sometimes develop a similar fever. It probably isn’t too shocking, either, that Brandy Ho’s should have chosen to spawn in the heart of the Castro, a heavily foot-trafficked neighborhood with something less than a cornucopia of Chinese restaurants. For years I was a quiet fan of China Court, a block away at the corner of Castro and 19th streets, but that place folded and became something else a few years ago, leaving the field pretty lightly uncontested. It might be more shocking that Brandy Ho’s offspring bears so little physical resemblance to its parent.

Brandy Ho’s in the Castro isn’t just a Chinese restaurant: it’s a good Chinese restaurant, and it’s a Hunan Chinese restaurant. It’s also rather sensationally good-looking: a rosewood-lined cave — or mining tunnel, or (since this is the Castro) sauna — fronted with enormous, ground-to-ceiling panes of plate glass, which makes it easy to observe those who are observing you as they drift by. You are either inside or outside the human aquarium, and it doesn’t matter which. The Castro is a kingdom of darting eyes. If you struggle with chopsticks, you might draw a crowd of gawkers here. Brandy Ho’s chopsticks are plastic, and that’s not the best news for beginners and the inept. Wood has more grip and is much more forgiving.

Why does Hunan matter? Because Hunan food is spicy food, and while I have high regard for steamed Cantonese or Hakka delicacies for their fineness and subtleties, I prefer some fire on the plate. I love Szechuan food, but there isn’t a lot of it to be found in San Francisco. Hunan is just about as appealing and, perhaps, just a wee bit more refined, at least as it’s turned out by the kitchen at Brandy Ho’s.

And — to invert an old saw — where there is fire, there must be smoke. At Brandy Ho’s, the smoke comes not from tea leaves but from hardwood, and it results in a set of dishes that are exceptionally flavorful and quite unlike any other Chinese food I’ve eaten. Our server cautioned us that there were those who found the smokiness of smoked duck Hunanese ($12.95) "too strong," but the meat, when it finally floated in as a set of osso buco-like pieces on a carpet of carrot coins and bamboo shoot tabs, was reminiscent of Canadian bacon or some other kind of pork that had been roasted over a campfire. The smoke was smooth, hearty, and gently dominant in the manner of a good dark beer. Modest inconveniences: remnants of bone and dried skin. There was some chili heat too, but it deferred to the smoke.

Many of the dishes aren’t spicy at all. Steamed dumplings ($5.50) turned out to be potstickers, a half-dozen of them chubby as well-fed goldfish and filled with a tasty but well-behaved mince of pork, ginger, garlic, and scallion. Hot and sour soup ($3.50) was hot mostly in the hot-weather sense, but mostly it was bitter. The roster of ingredients seemed unremarkable — eggs, bean curd, bamboo shoots, and carrots — but had some unannounced greens been stirred into the mix, sharpening the soup’s edge?

And mo si vegetables ($8.95) — mu shu is the more familiar English spelling — rely mainly on garlic and ginger, not hot peppers, for their effect. Nonetheless, their effect is quietly potent, abetted by the hoisin sauce you swab on your pancakes before filling them with the actual stir-fry, whose main players are shredded napa cabbage and tree-ear mushrooms, bound together with egg. As much as I’ve loved mu shu pork over the years, I found this porkless version of the dish to be quite as convincing as its fleshier siblings and did not miss the meat.

Seinfeld‘s George liked his chicken spicy — and in the third person — and he would have liked Brandy Ho’s gon-pou chicken Hunan ($8.95), a fabulous mélange of boneless chicken cubes, onion slivers, chunks of red bell pepper, garlic, water chestnuts, and — most fabulous of all — wok-fried peanuts. There was plenty of chili-pepper heat in here somewhere. We mentioned to our server that we wanted the food to be spicy but didn’t want to burst into flames, and he’d nodded sagely, as if he heard this sort of thing every day and took it as a precise instruction. We ended up tingling yet unflaming, so the message must have gotten through somehow.

What was more remarkable was the dish’s uncanny resemblance to that old Szechuan favorite, kung pao chicken. What could distinguish the two, besides the spelling? The wok-frying of the peanuts? Is that some expression of Hunanese character, or just a flourish from this particular kitchen? Hunan and Szechuan provinces do adjoin each other, so maybe neighborliness accounts for some of the apparent cross-pollination.

Considering the quality and noteworthiness of the food and the restrained high style of the setting, Brandy Ho’s is notably inexpensive. Although portions are generous, many of the dishes cost less than $10, and even the pricier ones struggle to reach into the low teens. If you’re tired of fretting about the stock-market burn-off but aren’t yet ready for the depths of Carl’s Jr. or microwaveable burritos, Brandy Ho’s could very well be the place.

BRANDY HO’S

Continuous service: Sun.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 11:30 a.m.–midnight

4068 18th St., SF

(415) 252-8000

www.brandyhos.com

Full bar

AE/DC/DS/MC/V

Moderate noise

Wheelchair accessible

Sue Lee and segregation

October 28, 2008

By Tim Redmond

I find it hard to believe that D1 supervisor candidate Sue Lee is allowing her supporters to resort to this sort of pandering, but here it is: Fliers from the landlords are going out attacking her main opponent, Eric Mar, over “neighborhood schools.”

That’s a buzzword for re-segregation. I hate to be that harsh and blunt, but it’s the truth. THe pro-neighborhood schools people may be well-meaning, but if they get their way, and school assigment is done primarily on the basis of where you live, the schools are going to face some ugly problems.

Eric Mar’s been on the school board. He understands this better than most. Sue Lee ought to understand it, too.

I get the frustration that some parents in the Richmond feel: After all, there are quite a few good schools in that part of town, and their kids won’t necessarily get into those schools. But there’s a very good reason for that: If every kid went to a school in his or her neighborhood, we’d have a lot of segregated schools. That’s not only terrible for the kids, it’s against federal law.

Imagine: All the Asian and white families in the Richmond could keep their kids in schools that were almost entirely Asian and white — and the kids in Bayview Hunters Point would go to schools that would be almost entirely African American. Where do you think the resources are going to go?

My kids go to McKinley Elementary in the Castro. Their classmates are a picture of San Francisco — black, white, Asian, Latino, Pacific Islander; kids from single-parent families, kids from traditional families, kids from gay families … not all of them can walk to school (we commute from Bernal Heights), but it’s a wonderful educational situation. It’s what public schools ought to be.

And it’s tricky in a city like San Francisco, where we still, sadly, have some hihgly segregated neighborhoods. But it’s worth the effort.

Frankly, I can’t believe anyone in this liberal city really thinks the schools would be better off if we didn’t have policies that seek to integrate the classrooms.

Besides, San Francisco parents have made it very clear, over and over, that they want school choices. They don’t want to be forced into one neighborhood school (especially if they live in a poor neighborhood or one where the local public school isn’t very good). Why can’t kids from Bayview go to Rooftop and Clarendon?

I’ve been through the San Francisco school assignment process, and it isn’t perfect. And every time someone complains to me about it, I ask them the same question: How would you make it better? It’s a tough one; either you accept that some schools are going to be segregated and some kids denied the opportunity to attend the best schools in town and all kids denied the value of learning in a diverse environment — or you accept that fact that not everyone can go to the neighborhood school.

Of course, you can insist that San Francisco provide excellent schools in every neighborhood, and we should — but really, that’s a copout. It isn’t happening now, and it’s not going to happen in the next five years, and unless the state spends a lot more on education, it’s not going to happen at all. Look: My school has some fairly well-off parents with organizing skills and time on their hands. We can raise money for special programs, and we have an active PTA and lots of volunteers. We just got a new playground built.

In a school that serves almost entirely a low-income community, the parents don’t have money to pour into special programs, they’re working two jobs to pay the rent and don’t have time to spend on the school — and it’s not fair. Clarendon parents raise $200,000 a year, because they can. So Clarendon gets programs that other schools don’t. If the state doubled education spending, we’d be better off, but it won’t, and we’re not.

So you simply have to let parents choose to send their kids to schools out of their neighborhoods — and you have to accept the fact that some kids from richer parts of town won’t be able to attend their local school.

Sue Lee ought to know that. It’s a disgrace that she is allowing this to happen in her name.

Are you worried yet?

October 28, 2008

My daughter says she say fliers everywhere in Berkeley yesterday, announcing that there will be no Halloween in the Castro.

Wait a minute! Does that mean that Berkeley is now home to the gang bangers and gay bashers that the Newsom administration reportedly wants to stop from coming to the Castro?

It makes you wonder just what is going on in the Mayor’s mind. Especially since it’s almost impossible to get a straight answer from his handlers. And especially if you had to sit through last week’s report to the Board of Supervisors on the impacts of the global economic meltdown on the San Francisco economy. There were lots of charts and statistics, mostly showing roller coaster plunges of one financial stripe or another, even though we were assured that there is no need to panic. At least not just yet.

But one of the predicted outcome, (In between fairly severe reductions to the City’s property tax transfer revenues, as people stop flipping homes so fast, I guess.), was a drop in international and business tourism, as European visitors and convention traffic are forced, for credit freeze reasons, to stay home or go elsewhere.

I listened as the Mayor’s people described how they want to attract local Bay Area residents, instead.

Anniversary Issue: Culture isn’t convenient

October 22, 2008

› molly@sfbg.com

San Francisco is the playpen of countercultures.

— R.Z. Sheppard, Time (1986)

I live near Church and Market streets, which means I’m stumbling distance from an organic grocery store, my favorite bar, several Muni stops, and a 24-hour diner. It also means the street outside my apartment is usually loud, the gutters are disgusting, there are rarely parking spots, and transients sleep, smoke, panhandle, and play really bad music near my front doorstep.

Actually, until recently, they did a lot of this on my front doorstep. Then the landlords — without asking us first — installed a gate. And I hate it. Yes, my stairs are cleaner. I suppose my stuff is safer. But I’m no longer as connected to my community. I’m separated from the life that’s happening on the street — the very reason I moved to this neighborhood in the first place. I fear I’ve lost more than I’ve gained.

Lately our city’s approach to entertainment and nightlife has been like that fence. While protecting people from noise, mess, and potential safety concerns, we’re threatening the very things we love about this city. Thanks to dwindling city budgets and increasingly vocal NIMBYs, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to manage nightclubs, plan street fairs, and organize outdoor festivals. And as we continue to build million-dollar condos at a brisk place, the city is filling up with affluent residents who may not appreciate the inherent messiness of city living. We’re at risk of locking away (and therefore losing) the events that make this a vibrant place where we want to live.

The recent history of this issue can be traced to the 1990s, when dot-com gold brought live/work lofts to otherwise non-residential neighborhoods — and plenty of new residents to live in them. Those newcomers, perhaps used to the peace and quiet of the suburbs, or maybe expecting more comfort in exchange for their exorbitant monthly rent checks, didn’t want to hear the End Up’s late-night set or deal with riffraff from Folsom Street Fair peeing in their driveways. Conflicts escalated. The Police Department station in SoMa, responsible for issuing venue permits and for enforcing their conditions, embarked on a plan to shut down half the area’s nightclubs. Luckily, city government and citizens agreed to save the threatened venues and the police captain responsible for the proposal was transferred to the airport, the San Francisco equivalent of political exile. In 2003, the Entertainment Commission was formed, in part to take over the role of granting venue and event permits.

But as Guardian readers know, the problem was not solved. As we’ve covered in several stories ["The death of fun" (05/23/06), "Death of fun, the sequel," (04/25/07), "Fighting for the right to party" (07/02/08)], beloved events and venues are still at risk. How Weird Street Fair was forced to change locations. Halloween in the Castro District was cancelled altogether. Alcohol was banned at the Haight Ashbury Street Fair and restricted at the North Beach Jazz Festival. Fees are still increasing. Rules are getting more stringent. As we predicted, it’s getting harder and harder to have fun in San Francisco. And while it’s the job of the Entertainment Commission to prevent problems while protecting our right to party, it has never been given enough funding, staff or authority to properly do its job.

So why should we care? Our legendary nightlife, festivals, and parades bring international tourists to our city — where they stay in hotels, eat at restaurants, shop at stores, and otherwise pump money into our economy. Street fairs give us ways to connect to our neighbors and our neighborhoods. Free events (which, if permit fees increase and alcohol sales are prohibited, will be a thing of the past) give equal access to fun and frivolity to people in all income brackets — and most raise money for charities and nonprofits. Particular venues and happenings provide an important way for those in the counterculture — whether that’s LGBT youth or progressive artists — to meet, mingle, and support each other. And none of that captures the intangible quality of living in a city where freedom, tolerance, and the pursuit of a good time are supported. And all this is one of the reasons many of us moved here, where we pay taxes (and parking tickets), open businesses, start organizations, and contribute to our already diverse and vibrant population.

But if we don’t establish a way to protect our culture, personally and legally, we may lose it. Instead, we need an overarching policy that establishes our values as well as the legal ways we can go about supporting them. The Music and Culture Charter Amendment, in the works for more than three years and currently sitting before the Board of Supervisors, aims to do exactly this.

The most important part of the amendment, created by a coalition of artists, musicians, event planners, club owners, and concerned citizens who call themselves Save SF Culture, would be to revise San Francisco’s General Plan to include an entertainment and nightlife element, just as the current plan contains an entire section devoted to the protection of (presumably mainstream) dance, theater, music, and art, calling them "central to the essence and character of the city." Not only would this amendment mandate that future lawmakers try to preserve events and venues, it would give a roadmap on how to do this effectively — most notably by creating a streamlined, transparent, online permitting process for special events.

Yet even if this important amendment passes and wins the mayor’s signature (which is hardly a sure thing), that’s just the beginning of a process of figuring out how to sustain San Francisco’s culture in the face of potentially threatening socioeconomic changes. At the very least, the next step will be giving the Entertainment Commission the full funding and staff (it currently operates with five of the eight staffers required). And once our beloved clubs and events are out of immediate danger, it will be time to form a coalition of citizens, government officials, and city planners to decide how and where culture in our city should grow, asking questions like whether or not we want a large-scale amphitheater or if we need to designate an area as an entertainment district. Most important, the city needs to develop a framework for resolving the inevitable conflicts with NIMBYs in a way that promotes a vibrant culture.

Yet there’s also a role in this process for each citizen of San Francisco. We need to remind ourselves and our neighbors that tolerance is one of our core civic values, tolerance for different races, classes, genders, sexual identities, and for the potentially noisy, messy, chaotic ways our culture supports those differences. If we erect a gate — physical or metaphorical — every time we’re uncomfortable or inconvenienced, we’ll turn San Francisco into the sanitized, homogenous, boring suburbs that I moved to Church and Market to escape. *

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

October 19, 2008

Guardian street photog Ariel Soto takes in San Francisco style.

Kisha, Crystal, and Gianna, Eddy and Divisadero

After my last few fashion seeking jaunts through the city, the styles seems to be moving towards fall, with boots galore and then a mix of almost all black and white, or totally color crazy. Luckily for us city dwellers, the sun is still shining here in San Francisco and we don’t have to completely cover up to fight the elements, or our toes for that matter, as many were still sporting cute open toed sandals. My favorite fashionista this round? Olive in her adorable purple pants. Whose style do you lust over?

Anee, Castro and 18th Street

Carol, Fillmore and Sacramento

Corey, Pierce and Post

Jamie, Sacramento and Fillmore

James, McAllister and Divisadero

Mayumi, Buchanan and Sutter

Chan Chan can cook

October 14, 2008

› paulr@sfbg.com

One is tempted to say that Chan Chan Café Cubano is authentically Cuban, but one has no idea, really. These days it is easier for Americans to visit Albania than Cuba, which, after nearly 50 years, remains sequestered behind the rusty remains of the iron curtain. Maybe Barack, if he manages to fend off the dazzling Republicans — he a grizzled ex-maverick with recurrent skin cancer, she a sporty gunner-down of wolves from helicopters (Tail Gunner Sarah?) — will rethink the wisdom of our Cuba policy. First, of course, he’ll have to put Wall Street’s Humpty Dumpty back together again while finding some path out of two ruinous wars. The book of Genesis informs us that God created the earth in six days, "and he rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done," but the president who succeeds the present crew won’t have it so easy.

The endless and preposterous isolation of Cuba reveals itself in many ways, among them a paucity of Cuban restaurants. We have a few, and we’ve had a few fail, among the latter the homey Los Flamingos (in Duboce Triangle) and the grander Habana (at the edge of Russian Hill). At the moment we have Laurel’s (in Hayes Valley) and Café Lo Cubano (in — oh, irony — Laurel Heights). And of course Chan Chan, which is nearly as isolated as Cuba itself.

The restaurant (opened in August by Ana Herrera and Michel Alvarez) occupies a snug space, very nearly at the head of 18th Street, that previously housed another restaurant but whose most historic occupant was Fran Gage’s Patisserie Française, a boutique bakery that helped set the table for today’s wealth of boutique bakeries. The patisserie was destroyed by fire in 1995, and the building seemed to sit there as a charred hulk for many months, perhaps years.

Signs of the fire are long gone. When I first stepped into Chan Chan, I discreetly looked for them and sniffed for them, but all I noticed were handsomely distressed wood frames around the doors and windows and the smell of flowers. Maybe my companion was wearing too much (flowery) cologne. The restaurant is small, with seating at about a half dozen tables for maybe 20 people. One wall looks like a gigantic finger painting, and there is a semi-exhibition kitchen where Alvarez, the young, rakish chef, works his magic.

And magic he does work. Chan Chan might look like a café, with a menu whose dishes are all demurely described — and modestly priced — as tapas, but the food is sophisticated and often sublime. Even the dipping sauces that accompany the warm bread are carefully conceived and executed; among these are a garlic-and-honey vinaigrette flecked with herbs and a smoothly savory tapenade of sun-dried tomato. (The restaurant’s menu describes the cooking style as "fusion," hence some of these cross-cultural borrowings.)

The salads and other vegetable-intensive dishes are of a lushness that might appeal to Cézanne. The tibia salad ($10.50), for instance, a variation on spinach salad, is a springtime meadow of deep green, tender leaves tossed with pine nuts, raisins, and chunks of seared apple, all of it bound together by a voluptuous, sweet-tart dressing. Similarly verdant is the aguacate relleno ($12.50), a beautifully ripe avocado split, peeled, filled with sautéed shrimp and scallops, and nestled in garden greens. Eating this dish is a little bit like stumbling on an avocado-shaped treasure chest in the woods and opening it to find a fortune of edible gold.

Given the historical importance of pork in both Spain and her New World colonies, it is slightly surprising that Chan Chan turns out such a wondrous lamb shank ($15). (The eating of pork has long served to distinguish Christians from Jews and Muslims, two groups well represented in medieval Spain, while pigs — carriers of brucellosis, among other diseases — were brought to the New World as a reliable and prolific food source by the conquistadores, as Charles C. Mann discusses in his incomparable book 1491. Lamb, meanwhile, has long been associated with the hot, dry climate of the Mediterranean and not so much with the muggy tropics.) The shank is braised in beer until the meat is tender, though not mushy, and it’s plenty big enough for two, especially if you have a plate of Spanish rice and black beans ($6.50) on the side. You should, if only for authenticity’s sake, although we did find both rice and legumes to be underseasoned — the only dish of which this could be said.

Flan for dessert teeters on the brink of cliché. In this sense it’s the Latin American answer to tiramisu. But Chan Chan actually has a good one ($6); it has something of the texture of bread pudding and the flavor of dulce de leche, and because it’s served as a square cut from a pan, like lasagna, its housemade provenance is apparent.

Chan Chan feels more isolated than it is. It sits in a tiny commercial strip (next to a busy hair salon) in a quiet residential quarter well uphill from the heart-of-the-Castro hubbub. But Muni’s 33-line trolleys glide by periodically, and Market Street is just steps away. And — I almost never get to write this — parking is easy! There are often spaces on 18th Street, and even more on Market. Free! In the Age of the Bailout, you can’t beat that.

CHAN CHAN CAFÉ CUBANO

Dinner: Tues.–Sat., 6–11 p.m.

Breakfast/lunch: Tues.–Sat., 9 a.m.–2 p.m.; Sun., 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

4690 18th St., SF

(866) 691-9975

www.chanchancafecubano.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Pleasant noise level

Wheelchair accessible

“SF Open Studios: Weekend 3”

October 14, 2008

STUDY 3, 2003 BY DAVID KING

PREVIEW The third weekend of Open Studios focuses on spaces in Bernal Heights, Duboce Triangle, Glen Park, Eureka Valley, Noe Valley, and the Castro and Mission districts. Here’s a lucky-seven list of artists worth seeking out.

Matt Sarconi Spatial clarity is a major aspect of Sarconi’s photography; his use of frames within frames elevates images that might be pretty as a greeting card into something more contemplative. His settings span from the Bay Area to Spain and Croatia.

A.J. Oishi There’s at least a bit of the late Sol Lewitt in Oishi’s low-key commercial acrylic-on-canvas paintings. She patterns circles within circles (or conversely uses smaller circles to form larger ones) while experimenting with muted versions of appetizing colors such as chocolate, orange, and cherry.

David King The gallery owner Jack Fischer first showed me some of King’s collages, which commingle camp and metaphysical imagery in a manner that never neglects visual pleasure. King’s most recent work veers away from blue-hued dreamland into darker, microscopic images. His sharp-eyed use of found material means an upcoming residency at the San Francisco Dump holds promise.

Lauren Kohne A mixed-media piece that mines musicality from the grids, strips, and numbers on Muni bus transfers demonstrates Kohne’s interest in foregrounding societal habit and patterns.

Victor Cartagena Artist and teacher Cartagena had a stark solo exhibition at Galeria de la Raza earlier this year — a visit to his busy studio is bound to reveal different facets of (and relationships between) his mixed media works, painting, and printmaking.

Bill Basquin This is a busy time for Basquin: you can find his collected films for sale at Needles and Pens, see at least one of them projected by kino21 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts this week, and check out photos from his urban garden series "SOILED" at Mission Pie. He’ll show photos and installation work at Open Studios.

Robert H. Garrett Garrett’s photo in the Open Studios guide suggests a color version of Henry Wessel’s droll, laconic, crisp images of the suburban landscape.

SF OPEN STUDIOS: WEEKEND 3 Various neighborhoods, SF. (415) 861-9838. www.artspan.org

The buzz on urban bees

September 10, 2008

› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY One would hardly even notice there was a beehive in the garden behind the Mission District’s Kaliflower Collective, except for the winged traffic shuttling industriously between the four-tiered bee box and the fruit trees flowering just overhead.

It’s not easy to imagine, given the scant handful of visible bees, that as many as 50,000 bees might be contained within the modest hive which, at less than two feet square and about three feet tall, looks as innocuous and unthreatening as a stack of closet organizers. It’s also hard, in this tranquil setting, to fully appreciate the crisis situation of colony collapse disorder (CCD), which has been quietly decimating honeybee populations nationwide since 2006. Some beekeepers report up to 90 percent losses. Since bees are responsible for pollinating a wide variety of urban plants — from fruit trees to garden veggies, from clover to cactus — beekeeping is more than a curious hobby. It’s an essential link in the chain of life as we know it.

The even-keeled behavior of San Francisco’s backyard bees is appreciated by most urban beekeepers. Roger Meier, a Castro District-based beekeeper whose home-produced honey appears in several local markets under the label Mint Hill, admits that despite their proven usefulness in city settings, the idea of kept bees can cause some consternation among the uninitiated. Swarming bees in search of a new hive (such as a recent incident in the Mission reported on SFist.com) is cited as a cause for alarm by nervous neighbors.

"It’s pretty frightening to wake up and find a big swarm of bees in your backyard if you don’t know much about them," Meier says. His neighbors have come to appreciate his honey-making habit over the years, not to mention their own well-pollinated apple trees, which he calls "happy with fruit." That Meier, like most experienced beekeepers, actively maintains his hives to prevent swarming also helps keep potential public relations problems in check.

Since swarms mainly occur when a hive gets overcrowded, Meier and his fellow apiculturists monitor the population growth of each hive and split their broods into empty bee boxes when necessary — a process known as "forced swarming." Despite these precautions, swarms can occur, but people are urged not to panic or reach for the Raid. Instead, the San Francisco Beekeepers Association offers removal referrals on its Web site, www.sfbee.org, and many urban beekeepers are happy to inherit a new brood.

Peter Sinton, president of the association, estimates there to be around 60 active beekeepers in a club with a membership of 171, a number that seems initially low until you consider that most beekeepers run multiple hives. Kept bees can be found across the area in backyards, rooftops, community gardens, the Alemany Farm, and the Crystal Springs watershed. Spreading the bee population over far-flung neighborhoods is one way to ensure the continued survival of diverse flora and means that even if the beekeeper loses one or two hives to infestation, infection, or CCD, there will be some survivors.

It’s not just a passion for pollination that brings nascent beekeepers into the fold. Nancy Ellis, animal exhibit coordinator at the Randall Museum, began her journey into apiculture when she became responsible for the upkeep of the museum’s exhibit hive. Nearly nine years later, she cares for four hives in various locations and bottles her honey harvests under the label Bee Bop. She waxes somewhat rhapsodic on the unique benefits of honey: "It’s bactericidal, like Neosporin," she explains, "and its chemical makeup keeps it from spoiling or getting moldy." Another unique benefit of honey is its reported effect on sufferers of pollen allergies, whom Ellis encourages to take a small dose of locally-produced honey per day to "inoculate" themselves against the allergens present in surrounding flora.

But it’s not just the medicinal that lures folks into apiculture. Suzi Palladino, youth program and compost education manager at the Garden for the Environment, cites her interest in urban sustainability and self-sufficiency as key to her forays into apiculture. Peter Sinton refers to the meditative state his beekeeping encourages.

"Handling bees is like tai chi," he says. "Do it with calm and grace, and bees usually do not get riled up."

SF’s scary new Halloween plan

September 5, 2008

Image from SF Party Party

By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco’s latest plan for Halloween, which falls on a Friday this year, is a ridiculously naive recipe for disaster. Even worse, mayoral flak Nate Ballard is still trying to peddle the ludicrous assertion that creating a police state and ending the Castro party early by turning water hoses on the costumed participants is sound civic policy, telling the Chronicle: “We’re optimistic this strategy will deliver a peaceful Halloween for the second straight year.”
I got news for you, Nate, Gavin Newsom, Bevan Dufty and the rest of the nervous nellies who are afraid to throw a decent party: occupation isn’t the same as peace. And it’s certainly counter to San Francisco’s values and economic interests. These people earlier this year hired Laura Fraenza at a ridiculously high six-figure salary to come up with a plan for Halloween and all they could do is propose a no-name concert in the baseball stadium that will appeal to none of the people who are drawn to the Castro each year. Lame, lame, lame.
Between trying to cancel the plan to issue identification cards to city residents, including those without immigration documents (which Newsom has no authority to do under the charter given that the Board of Supervisors created the program on a veto-proof 10-1 vote) and his efforts to end San Francisco’s Sanctuary City status, Newsom’s flirtation with running for higher office has made him scared of his own civic shadow. Toughen up, Mr. Mayor, because we don’t intent to sacrifice San Francisco’s most laudable initiatives and best civic gatherings on the altar of your political ambitions.

More power to the righteous

September 3, 2008

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Do I admire Michael Franti? You bet your ass I do. In the scary days after 9/11 he had the balls to stand up to a fascist tide led by flag-waving goon squads and cheered on by most of America. Franti and a handful of Bay Area artists, including Paris and the Coup’s Boots Riley, took a stand when it mattered, when free speech wasn’t free anymore.

Making albums is one thing — making history is another. In the case of Franti and artists like him — those who are loosely described as "political" — there’s a connection between one activity and the other. So which yardstick do you use when sizing up a career? Franti’s major label releases with Spearhead didn’t sell much, the Coup’s Kill My Landlord (Wild Pitch, 1993) went out of print, and Tommy Boy dropped Paris because of his politics.

But from today’s vantage point — with hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq and the Bill of Rights sacrificed in the process — how do you factor in the foresight and courage these artists displayed in battles that involved all of us, even if we tried to hide out on the sidelines?

In Franti’s case, his social and political vision has been consistent, voiced over constantly evolving sounds and styles. He emerged in the mid-1980s with the Beatnigs, a fabulous, noisy, funky, radical mess of a band built around his seething manifestos and Rono Tse’s ear-splitting percussive experiments. When the sometimes-exhilarating Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy were born from the Beatnigs in 1990, Franti softened the noise, sharpened his voice, and gained musical elevation courtesy of avant-jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter.

Spearhead and the hip-hop mainstream came next, and two albums later, when he parted ways with Capitol, Franti was free to explore — like it or not. Without a hip-hop straightjacket, his more recent work has been as interesting as any since the days of Disposable Heroes.

Franti’s latest album, All Rebel Rockers (Anti), drops Sept. 9, a few days after his now-annual "Power to the Peaceful" festival will likely draw some 50,000 people to Golden Gate Park. That said, All Rebel Rockers interests me like yoga and veganism, which isn’t much. Franti recorded the full-length in Jamaica with durable rhythm section Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare) co-producing. There was a time when reggae was lifted by menace and invention — a dissonance that’s been lost along with the anticolonial hope that inspired musicians like the Wailers to take a stand in the first place. While it’s no surprise that Franti turned to Jamaica for an album, he seems to be chasing a kind of holistic harmony that’s long on shelter but short on threat. That’s fine unless — like me — you need an outlet for outrage.

The post-corporate music world is a vast, constantly shifting collage of musical and social niches in which Franti has created a big, warm home for himself. On Rockers his words are more clever than they are challenging, and the rhymes are tight and infectious in a way that serves the dance floor, but they go down like fast food. Franti’s got hardcore fans, which arguably makes him famous enough to be glibly autobiographical, even when he sounds like a ’70s singer-songwriter. The chorus of the opening cut, "Rude Boys Back in Town," is a call-and-response between Franti and fans: "Michael, Michael, where you been …" But in the past, when critics have asked that he mix the personal with the political, I don’t think this is what they had in mind.

I still consider Franti one of the Bay Area’s genuinely important artists. Without his work, as well as that of the Coup and Paris — whose latest album, Acid Reflex (Guerrilla Funk) also comes out in September — the world would be the worse for it. And not just on Saturday night. At the end of the day, I can’t deliver higher praise. *

10TH ANNUAL POWER TO THE PEACEFUL MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL

With Michael Franti and Spearhead, Ziggy Marley, and more

Sat/6, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., free

Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF

Also "Power to the Peaceful" after-party with Spearhead and all-star jam session

Sat/6, 9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

Also "Sunday Yoga Jam" with Franti and others

Sun/7, see Web site for time, $35–<\d>$110

Yoga Tree Castro

97 Collingwood, SF

www.powertothepeaceful.org

Cinemania

August 27, 2008

› johnny@sfbg.com

Mock Up on Mu Craig Baldwin’s latest opus, on rocket science and Scientology in California, with the director in person.

Sept. 2. Pacific Film Archive

Obscene A new documentary about Evergreen Review and Grove Press publisher Barney Russet and his many battles on behalf of free speech and real art.

Sept. 5–11. Roxie Film Center

Lost Indulgence and In Love We Trust A pair of films by up-and-coming Chinese directors Zhang Yibai and Wang Xiaoshuai.

Sept. 6–20. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

"History Stutters: Found Footage Films" Bruce Conner’s John F. Kennedy–assassination film Report (1965) and Ken Jacobs’ Malcolm X. assassination response Perfect Film (1984) is on the same bill; program also includes a movie with Ed Henderson.

Sept. 9. Pacific Film Archive

Leave Her to Heaven The 1947 Technicolor noir — and ultimate swimmer’s nightmare — returns with a demonstration of film restoration.

Sept. 12. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org

"MilkBar International Live Film Festival" Three days of experimental cinema, including more than 20 local short works.

Sept. 12–14. Noodle Factory Performing Arts Center, 1255 26th St. #207, Oakl. (510) 289-5188, www.milkbar.org

"Unknown Pleasures: The Films of Jia Zhangke" At last, China’s vanguard contemporary filmmaker gets an extensive Bay Area retrospective.

Sept. 12–Oct. 17. Pacific Film Archive

"The People Behind the Screen" Local programmers contribute to "Bay Area Now": Jesse Hawthorne Ficks presents girl rock; Stephen Parr of Oddball Films shares a giddy taste of his mega-montage project Euphoria; and kino21 puts together performance cinema; Peaches Christ, Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, and DocFest also have nights.

Sept. 13–Oct. 18. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Shatfest Thrillville’s tributes to the one and only William Shatner continue with his 1968 spaghetti western White Comanche.

Sept. 18. El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net

"Taylor Mead: A Clown Underground" The legendary wit Mead visit for screenings that showcase his best starring roles (1960’s The Flower Thief and 1967–68’s Lonesome Cowboys).

Sept. 18–21. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Forbidden Lies The Roxie is distributing this look at con artist Norma Khouri, which gets a theatrical run after a successful trip through the festival circuit.

Sept. 19. Roxie Film Center

MadCat Women’s International Film Festival Ariella Ben-Dov’s fest turns 12 with eight archival greats (including one by Samara Halperin) and silent films with live rock scores.

Sept. 19 and 23. Various venues. (415) 436-9523, www.madcatfilmfestival.org

"Psychotic and Erotic: Rare Films by Tinto Brass" Ass-fixated erotica that includes talking animals and naked cannibals.

Sept. 24. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

"How We Fight: Iraqi Short Films" Kino21 kicks off a series with Argentine director Mauro Andrizzi’s feature-length compilation of short videos shot by US or British soldiers, Iraqi militia members, and corporate workers.

Sept. 25. Artists’ Television Access

"James Dean Memorial Weekend" Come back to the five and dime, or failing that, the Castro, and be sure to wear your red windbreaker.

Sept. 26–28. Castro Theatre

Film in the Fog Gene Kelley is singing in the rain — and the Presidio fog.

Sept. 27. Main Post Theatre, 99 Moraga, SF. (415) 561-5500, www.sffs.org

The World’s Largest Shopping Mall The debut or preview of a film by Sam Green and Carrie Lozano is at the heart of a program devoted to psychogeography.

Sept. 27. Other Cinema

Deathbowl to Downtown Coan Nichols’ and Rick Charnoski’s look at the history of NYC street skateboard culture, narrated by Chloë Sevigny.

Sept. 29. Castro Theatre

"Bette Davis Centennial" She’ll tease you, she’ll unease you — all the better just to please you.

Sept.–Oct. Castro Theatre

Dead Channels You can never get enough weird horror and fantasy.

Oct. 2–5. Roxie Film Center

Mill Valley Film Festival The major fall Bay Area festival turns 31.

Oct. 2–12. Various venues. (415) 383-5256, www.mvff.org

Rosemary’s Baby and The Devils Double the demonic hysteria!

Oct. 3. Castro Theatre

"No Wave: The Cinema of Jean Eustache" The series includes 1965’s Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes, his 215-minute masterpiece The Mother and the Whore (1973), his hog-slaughtering documentary — shades of Georges Franju? — The Pig (1970), and a 1997 doc portrait of him.

Oct. 4–22. Pacific Film Archive

"Rediscovering the Fourth Generation" The post-Mao cinema that laid groundwork for directors such as Jia Zhangke gets a SF showcase.

Oct. 4–30. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

Vertigo The greatest San Francisco movie ever — maybe greatest movie ever — gets the outdoor screening treatment from Film Night in the Park.

Oct. 4. Union Square, SF. (415) 453-4333, www.filmnight.org

"Spirit of ’68" and "Know Your Enemy" A pair of programs compiled by Jack Stevenson

Oct. 5. Oddball Films, 275 Capp, SF. (415) 558-8117, www.oddballfilm.com

Manhattan and Muppets Take Manhattan Mariel Hemingway, meet Miss Piggy.

Oct. 7–9. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994. www.redvicmoviehouse.com

"French Cinema Now" A new minifestival from the San Francisco Film Society.

Oct. 8–12. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org

"Superstars Next Door: A Celebration of SF Amateur Sex Cinema from the ’60s" Stevenson looks at that time in SF when everyone would take off their clothes for a camera — with film in it.

Oct. 9–11. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

"Midnites for Maniacs: Back to School … in the ’90s" Jesse Hawthorne Ficks serves up Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1991), Romeo and Juliet (1995), and Starship Troopers (1997).

Oct. 10. Castro Theatre

"Envisioning Russia: A Century of Filmmaking" The expansive 16-film program extends across eight decades.

Oct. 10–30. Pacific Film Archive

"Protest-sploitation" A lecture-demo by Christian Divine looking at six "youth" films made in 1970, along with a screening of that year’s The People Next Door.

Oct. 11. Other Cinema

RR James Benning’s train film finally reaches a Bay Area destination.

Oct. 14. Pacific Film Archive

Arab Film Festival The festival turns 12 this year.

Oct. 16–Nov. 4. Various venues. (415) 564-1100. www.aff.org

DocFest IndieFest’s doc extension turns seven this year with a slate of at least 60 films.

Oct. 17–Nov.6. Roxie Film Center and Shattuck Cinema, 2230 Shattuck, Berk. (415) 820-3907, www.sfindie.com

Leslie Thornton A three-program SF Cinematheque series devoted to the director behind Peggy and Fred in Hell (1985–present) and other experimental works, with Thornton in-person.

Oct. 19–26. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

United Nations Association Film Festival Environmentalism is the focus of the festival’s 11th year.

Oct. 19–26. Various venues. (650) 724-5544, www.unaff.org

"I Love Beijing: The Films of Ning Ying" Ning and her acclaimed Beijing trilogy — which spans from the Peking Opera to dogs, cops, and taxi drivers — visit the Bay, capping things a screening of her 2005 "Chinese Sex and the City" feature Perpetual Motion.

Oct. 23–27. Pacific Film Archive

The Werewolf of Washington The president’s speechwriter is a lycanthrope in this Nixon-era flick.

Oct. 31. Pacific Film Archive

"The New Talkies: Bollywood Night" Kino21 presents six works of live narration to Bollywood film scenes.

Nov. 1. Artists’ Television Access

"Occult on Camera" Erik Davis charts out the Aleister Crowley–Kenneth Anger–Led Zeppelin triumvirate-of-evil — what does Jimmy Page’s appearance in the closing ceremony of the Olympics mean?

Nov. 1. Other Cinema

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine The SF premiere of a new documentary devoted to the sculptor.

Nov. 2–3. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com

Ghosts Nick Broomfield’s excellent first non-documentary feature, about the abuse of Chinese immigrants in the United Kingdom.

Nov. 7–13. Roxie Film Center

San Francisco International Animation Festival The burgeoning fest and showcase turns three with a program that includes the Cannes favorite Waltz with Bashir.

Nov. 13–16. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org

Luther Price New works by one of the more scathing and harrowing filmmakers on the planet, presented by SF Cinematheque.

Mid-November. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

New Italian Cinema Will it include Matteo Garrone’s Cannes critic’s fave Gomorra?

Nov. 16–23. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org

"Films by Martha Colburn" A night of kinetic works by the collage creator, presented in conjunction with a show at Berkeley Art Museum.

Dec. 2. Pacific Film Archive

Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy Thrillville stuffs your stocking with a gem from 1957.

Dec. 11. El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net

James Hong A sneak peek at the local director’s expose on Japan’s rewriting of history, Lessons in the Blood.

Dec. 13. Other Cinema

"At Sea" Peter Hutton’s At Sea (2004-7), about the life and death of a colossal container ship, is the centerpiece of an oceanic SF Cinematheque program.

Dec. 14. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS/OTHER CINEMA

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.othercinema.com

CASTRO THEATRE

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE

2575 Bancroft Way, Berk.

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

ROXIE FILM CENTER

3317 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

701 Mission, screening room, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Autumn reels

-

August 27, 2008
0

› cheryl@sfbg.com

As summer dwindles into, well, Indian summer (this is San Francisco, after all), film fans are all asking the same thing: will The Dark Knight be nominated for Best Picture, or what? Like, what other 2008 release has even come close? As the temperature tries to make up its mind between freezing fog and freaky heat, the only thing to do is haul ass to the movieplex and let Hollywood deplete your brain cells as painlessly as possible. Who knows, there might be some awards-season contenders in the following list of fall movie picks. There’s at least one talking chihuahua, anyway. All dates subject to change.

Sept. 26: Seems like just yesterday that Shia LaBeouf was giving interviews about how he wasn’t going to be a show biz cliché — you know, keeping his head down, concentrating on his career, and avoiding scandalous run-ins with the law. Maybe Eagle Eye, in which the erstwhile spawn of Indy Jones plays a ne’er-do-well mysteriously targeted by terrorists, will make it into theaters before he has his first tabloid-fodder romance. Tick-tock, Us Weekly!

Oct. 3: Weirdly, there aren’t many horror flicks primed for October releases this year. Guess Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which stars the voices of nearly every known Latino actor in Hollywood (Edward James Olmos, how could you?), is gonna have to fit the bill. Director Raja Gosnell also helmed both Scooby-Doo movies. Far more promising is Ed Harris’ Appaloosa, a Western about two lawmen (Harris and Viggo Mortensen) whose friendship is tested by, natch, a dame (Renée Zellweger). Those of us for whom "Viggo on a horse" is box-office draw enough can work around the Zellweger.

Oct. 10: Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and William Monahan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Departed, join forces for Body of Lies, a political thriller worth seeing based on the above pedigree alone. So what if Leo has a weird Southern accent in the trailer, and Ridley and Russell’s last collaboration birthed the 2006 bomb A Good Year?

Oct. 17: Do we really need to see Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic, W., having just suffered through eight years of the worst president ever to take office? Is it too soon to point and laugh? Judging from the hilarious (and scary-because-it-might-actually-be-true) trailer, the performances of Josh Brolin and others cast as real-life newsmakers will make W. well worth it. Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice may be a stretch, but Toby Jones as Karl Rove is particularly inspired.

Oct. 24: Two cunning linguists, Brick writer-director Rian Johnson and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind writer Charlie Kaufman, have new flicks out today. Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom follows the entanglements of con men played by Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo; Kaufman makes his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York, in which a dying theater director played by Philip Seymour Hoffman aims to create one last great work of art.

Nov. 14: James Bond (extra-buff Daniel Craig version) returns in Quantum of Solace. In Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Nicole Kidman, and Hugh Jackman combine their home-country superpowers for a sweeping epic set you-know-where.

Nov. 21: I realize I already foamed over Viggo Mortensen above, but The Road — directed by The Proposition‘s John Hillcoat and adapted from the postapocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novel — absolutely gets my vote for most-anticipated 2008 release.

Nov. 26: The Castro Theatre gets a two-day exclusive on Milk before it opens wide Nov. 28. Don’t know what Milk is? What kind of a San Franciscan are you?

Dec 12: Keanu Reeves stars in The Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Insert your own Klaatu/Keanu joke here.

Dec. 25: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button reunites Fight Club director David Fincher with star Brad Pitt. Based on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the film explores the curious-indeed life of a man (Pitt, with copious CG assistance) who ages in reverse.

>>More Fall Arts Preview

The circle game

-

August 20, 2008
0

Say "Kumbaya," somebody. Despite vast differences in sound, intent, and commercial appeal, a thin yet unseverable bloodline connects the big, bold, Brill Building, pop-factory-perfect songcraft of Carole King, last heard coursing off the AM radio, and the stripped-raw, close-to-bare-bones rasp and moan of Tiny Vipers’ Jesy Fortino, delivered to a small clutch of listeners at the Elbo Room last year. Eyes squeezed shut, plucking her acoustic guitar beside just one other guitarist, Ben Cissner, she was a small dark star, poured fully concentrated into the sparse minor key chords of "Swastika," and, as gutsy as the loudest reaches of the underground, she sang as if her life depended on it: "If I would let you into my heart / Would you thank the Lord / Would you tear it apart?"

Superficially, so far away — doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? — from King’s monumental oeuvre, which seems almost incidental amid the gushy, gossipy tidbits propelling Sheila Weller’s bio, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation (Atria), concerning King’s beleaguered marriage to her first husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, with whom she wrote such songs as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," among many other classic pop numbers, even after he fathered a child with one of the pair’s vocalists. Likewise Weller makes much of Mitchell’s out-of-wedlock daughter and penchant for using her songs to seduce paramours like Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash, and James Taylor — the last often credited with spurring the singer-songwriter movement and acting as a unifying thread between Mitchell, King, and Simon — and Simon’s uninhibited, proto-pro-sex feminist "eroticism"; read: sex in a cab was "no problem." Yet as remote as the early-’70s phenomenon of the singer-songwriter seems, the form appears to have returned: could this be the revival of core values of craft and voice, the intimacy and immediacy of a writer on a single instrument, during a tumultuous time for the music industry, post-Auto-Tuned disasters and Ashlee Simpson lip-synch blowouts — the adult flip-side to the bubblegum remnants of High School Musical, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers?

The initial energy of so many turn-of-the-millennium garage rock bands may have petered and innumerable hip-hop artists may have turned toward dully materialistic navel-gazing, so hail the return of the soft-spoken singer-songwriter who can break down a tunes to its bare, unadorned components. The stars are aligned; the signs, apparent: from Outside Lands headliner Jack Johnson landing at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with his latest album, Sleeping Through the Static (Brushfire/Universal), earlier this year, to ex–Castro Theatre ticket-taker, proudly folkie Devendra Banhart being adopted by Parisian couturiers and glitterati, from the MySpace-inspired success of Colbie Caillat and Kate Nash to the iTunes-buttressed popularity of Eureka native Sara Bareilles — hell, not to mention everyone and their dog documenting their solo acoustic version of "Bubbly" and posting the video on YouTube. This quiet flurry of activity undoubtedly whetted someone’s appetite for all things unplugged.

Those with eyes trained on pop cycles might point to the rise of antiwar sentiments throughout the country, coupling it with the renewed attention given to the softer, sincere sounds of singer-songwriters — a worthy theory, though apart from the many unfortunate CD-Rs of anti-Bush agit-pop that crossed my desk during the last two presidential elections, the generally apolitical vibe of the music from this crop of singer-songwriters seems to belie that notion: championing green issues are as didactic as these writers get. Instead this current wave of earnest songsmiths has more to do with both a reaction against the insincere, canned, possibly un-nutritious mainstream boy-band and Britney-centric breed of pop from the recent past — the likes of which could only be enjoyed with a semi-size dose of irony — and a response to an easy access of technology, which allows just about anyone and their mutt to make their own music at home, bypassing Brill Building–style hit-factories.

This time, the slew of sensitive men — solo fliers ranging from Iron and Wine, Conor Oberst, and Adam Green to Josh Ritter, Jonathan Rice, and Ray LaMontagne — sequestered behind acoustic guitars or pianos, working freak-folk, soft-rock, commercial pop, and Grey’s Anatomy–friendly veins, are being almost eclipsed by the multitude of womanly singer-songwriters. Natural women all, including Feist, Kimya Dawson, JayMay, Brandi Shearer, Yael Naim, and Ingrid Michaelson, among others. As much as King, Mitchell, and Simon are considered mothers of these singer-songwriters — along with predecessors like Woodside resident Joan Baez and ’60s folk hit mistress Judy Collins and successors like the many estrogen-laden ladies of the ’90s Lilith Fair outings — so too are indie sisters Liz Phair, Sarah Dougher, and Cat Power, a holy trinity to homemade, once-bedroom-bound DIY divas who make their own clothes, hope to carve out their own path, and find their own vox.

Of course, one can’t discount the release of resurrections and reissues of neglected and forgotten femme singer-songwriters such as Vashti Bunyan and Ruthann Friedmann and late greats Judee Sill and Karen Dalton, whose latest private recordings were unearthed via Green Rocky Road (Delmore) in June. And Mitchell’s unique guitar tunings, experimental mindset, and maidenlike purity of sound has made her one of the most oft-referenced artists of the last few years, thanks to such explicit shout-outs as Wayfaring Strangers’ Ladies from the Canyon (Numero, 2006). But no less influential is Phair, whose classic Exile in Guyville (Matador) got the royal reissue treatment this summer: her pro-sex, third-wave feminist, Midwestern rejoinder to riot grrrl writ large, with a gatefold sleeve and a slip of naughty nipple peeking through. At the same time, Dougher — cover girl in Johnny Ray Huston’s take on the last, more-riot grrrl-centered singer-songwriter movement in the Guardian about a decade ago — took a more polemical tack on the Northwest coast with her K Records releases, while working tangibly for greater female rock visibility by organizing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls and teaching courses on the history of women in rock at Portland State University.

But Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, appears set to be the Joni Mitchell of this generation — even as Marshall has largely turned her back on originals with her latest Jukebox (Matador). The Seattle-based Fortino’s almost gothic melodrama seems to draw more than a little inspiration from Marshall’s What Would the Community Think (Matador, 1996), while San Francisco transplant Thao Nguyen of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down borrows Marshall’s clarion-call, half-sung, half-spoken phrasing for her far more fancy-free, loose-limbed, and shambling songs. Nguyen sounds positively, happily tipsy on the old-timey bounce, finger clicks, and sandpapery soft-shoe shuffle on We Brave Bee Stings and All (Kill Rock Stars).

Yet Marshall’s most indebted sib might be Emily Jane White, 27, whose Dark Undercoat (Double Negative) evokes the former’s haunted and haunting, hollowed-out sensuality as well as her songwriting savvy and way with a hook. "Everybody’s got a little hole in the middle / Everybody does a little dance with the devil," the Oakland singer-songwriter croons on her "Hole in the Middle," sliding around the curves of this verb or the other and letting her voice drift off into the meaningful silences between the words.

The surprise is that this intensely eerie, closely miked singer-songwriter also turns out to be one of the more deliberately political-minded. Of "Hole," she said recently while breaking from the recording her second album with Greg Ashley, "I originally wrote that in response to the war in Iraq when that first started. Yeah, it’s about American imperialism."

And perhaps that’s the key to why the music by this former member of an all-girl band, the Diamond Star Halos — much like those seemingly apolitical numbers by other singer-songwriters — has increasingly relevance today: White and other crooners are foregrounding the everyday loves as well as the overseas skirmishes in a way that transcends the desensitizing glut and so-called objectivity of news headlines, sound-bites, and bloggable blurbs — and acutely personalizes it all. Call it the resensitizing of pop.

"I’ve always believed that your personal experience is political," says White, echoing the first wave feminist tenets, "and everyone has a story to tell, about how they’ve lived their lives and what has happened to them, and the experiences they’ve gone through. Not that what I think I do is revolutionary or anything, but one positive thing about being a singer-songwriter is people have contacted me and said they’ve felt a strong sense of encouragement or inspiration, so I think putting myself out there says something."

Emily Jane White plays Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $8, at the Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. www.uptownnightclub.com

From Silicon Valley to “City Hall”

-

August 20, 2008
0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

WWLD: What would Lilith do? Described by besotted music writers as the love child of Frederic Chopin and Sarah McLachlan, the supple-voiced imaginary spawn of Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell, classically trained singer-songwriter Vienna Teng freely confesses she’d be nothing if not for Ms. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Tori Amos — staples from her college days spent immersed in computer science studies at Stanford. But what of the most shadowy love buried in the South Bay native’s past? Walt. As in Disney. "I think I’ve always been influenced by Disney musicals," Teng says with some wry humor from Brooklyn, where she moved last year from San Francisco. "At least those from the Little Mermaid and Aladdin era. Yeah, I know it’s not a cool thing."

Adam’s fierce first love might not approve. But as the inspiration for the feminist-centered, oft-unplugged folk-rock fest known for giving the music of Amos and McLachlan a forum in the ’90s, Lilith would undoubtedly delight in the sweet, subtly elegant mixture of classical melodicism and pop chart-friendly folk on the 29-year-old Taiwanese American vocalist’s most recent CD, Dreaming Through the Noise (Zoe/Rounder).

Perhaps that early affinity for Disney’s protean fairy tale characters allowed Teng to imagine leaving her software engineer job at Cisco Systems, Inc. and begin playing coffeehouses on downtown Mountain View’s Castro Street seven years ago. Maybe that imaginative affinity led her to build the substantial following that fills venues like the Independent and has purchased 60,000 copies of her first two albums (Warm Strangers [Rounder, 2004] and Waking Hour [Virt, 2002]), and made it easy for Teng to put herself in the shoes of, for instance, gay couples on the brink of marriage ("City Hall") and drowned victims of Hurricane Katrina ("Pontchartrain").

For Teng, music is way of fully grasping topics weighing on her mind, "a more gentle exploration than editorials or speeches": she aims to write songs she doesn’t already hear out there. And next up for her forthcoming album is the challenge of crafting lyrics about global warming and suicide bombers. The latter is one number she hasn’t been able to finish, she says: "The more I read about it and research it, I realize, gee, it’s really hard to write about."

Still, the process of putting together her fourth full-length has been a refreshingly unrestrained experience. Teng and South Bay–bred coproducer Alex Wong assembled a chamber orchestra, tapping into Wong’s classical percussion background, and recorded everywhere from New York City and Indiana to SF’s Noe Valley Ministry and a spooky Victorian in the Mission District ("It was indeed haunted, but the owner explained it was just haunted by her old pets") — just to get that eerie feel for couple songs revolving around the past. "We pretty much indulged in every outlandish idea we’ve come up with," Teng says happily. "The joke is it’s basically two Asian American kids from an overachiever culture making an album together."

Vienna Teng performs 3:25 p.m., Sun/24, at Outside Lands‘ Avenues stage, Polo Fields.

Clubs: More Transfer kerfuffle — Big Top bows out

-

August 19, 2008
0

While I’m still waiting for a response from owner Greg Bronstein about the supposed “new direction” that his bar the Transfer — our City’s most beloved alternaqueer and ultrahipster dive-hole — is supposedly taking (as I reported earlier), another regular party besides Frisco Disco and Lustre has decided that the next date will be its last there. Everyone’s transferring out! I just got word from promoter Joshua J. that his raucous monthly homo-disco-circus spectacular, Big Top, which is celebrating its one year anniversary at the Transfer on Sunday August 31, will end after that date.

Joshua is part of a VERY successful Wednesday weekly, Juanita More’s Booty Call, at another of Bronstein’s joints, Bar On Castro, and assures me — despite the odd timing — that he’s folding his Big Top tent so that he can concentrate on his new Friday party with the illustrious Frankie Sharp, called M4M, at Underground SF. And indeed, if the Transfer truly is looking to go all upscale, Underground SF should snatch all its shit and bring it for the alternaqueers and rangy str8s. I don’t like the looks of the flyer below much — seems a little LCD — but hey, I’ll check it out. Especially if there’s a cologne-blast of mojito-squealers big-upping C+C Music Factory unironically at the Transfer.

This is a golden opportunity, really, for any bar still willing to be open-minded enough to really let something creative happen in this city. Deco, Club Eight, Matador, Buckshot Tavern, Amnesia, or Rickshaw Stop are well-positioned to lap up the new party homeless. You may not make loads of $$, but I’ll write about you more! Legendary.

I really can’t fault Bronstein for wanting to make money off his business — he’s allowed the Transfer to be the most exciting and edgy club in the City for the past three years. I know he’s planning to expand and renovate his slick Jet venue up the street, so maybe he’s freaking about the duckets it’ll take. His usual thing is rather chi-chi, not even always in a tacky way. But it’s just sad. Plus I’m guessing that he was none too polite about the changes (although I really want to hear his side of it before I jump to unjournalistic conclusions): the Frisco Disco kids are absolutely fuming. Read their explosive farewell kiss-kiss MySpace post after the jump — to the tune of “Death of a Disco Dancer” by the Smiths:

No borders!

-

August 5, 2008
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

For all the criticism we could justifiably plop down on the mighty feet of globalization, perhaps one of the few upsides worth positing as the world keeps shrinking is that cross-cultural exchange in the arts is at an all-time high. Purists can grumble at the arrival of the "world music" phenomenon and even accuse some of its Western practitioners of engaging in Colonialism 2.0, but how about a counter-argument: hasn’t the rise of the global groove fostered a greater understanding between cultures? Isn’t this what Bob Marley meant when he sang "One World, One Love"?

Singer-songwriter Rupa Marya makes a compelling case for such counter-arguments as the leader of local — but thoroughly global — culture-jumping, genre-colliding fusionists Rupa and the April Fishes. Switching gracefully between English, French, Spanish, and Hindi vocals while leading her bandmates on breathless journeys from Parisian chanson to Indian ragas, Marya offers a thrilling vision of globalization-gone-good. On their debut, XtraOrdinary rendition — originally self-issued but recently remastered and rereleased by Cumbancha — the nature of boundaries is called into question, not just in terms of nations but also in terms of musical traditions. By drawing upon so many influences — in addition to the aforementioned, we can also add Latin alternative, polka, Romani dance, tango, and American folk into the mix — they share the same mix-it-up mettle as such intrepid travelers as Manu Chao. Hardcore traditionalists they are not.

Over lunch at a Castro teahouse, Marya expresses her dual embrace of and resistance to the oft-used world music tag applied to her band’s sound. "Someone at the label came up with ‘global agit-pop’ — I kind of like that," she offers, chuckling. "’World music’ sounds meaningless, whereas at least ‘global’ is more inviting, more inclusive, to me. After all, we are playing music from all over the world! Really, though, ‘folk music’ makes the most sense to me."

Certainly the folk description does ring true. Their sound sports a distinctly populist bent, and the bulk of the songs originally started off as solo compositions — Marya alone on her acoustic guitar. Peel away the Left Bank accordion waltzes and the sweltering trumpet fanfares, and at their core these are singer-songwriter compositions designed to inspire, motivate, and comfort. This singularly folksy concept — the healing capacity of music — segues with Marya’s other profession, as a doctor. Having deftly orchestrated a schedule that allows her to concentrate on music for part of the year and on her medical practice for the other, she has realized that the seemingly disparate careers are ultimately compatible. "I’ve definitely seen how my work in one setting inspires what I do in the other," she says. "My drive to help and empower my patients often finds its way into my songwriting."

Yet the music goes beyond healing balms. EXtraOrdinary rendition‘s title should be a tip-off that Marya knows how to lead a battle cry: it refers to the torture-by-proxy tactics employed by the current administration in its so-called War on Terror. The ensemble is also passionate about raising awareness of the dubious acts perpetrated by our government in its other ongoing fixation: the US-Mexico border. "Poder," for example — a rousing Spanish-language thumper peppered by clicking castanets and a sprightly trumpet melody — meditates on the arbitrary essence of borders. "In spite of this border," Marya sings, "life is like water / It must run."

The songwriter became acutely political aware at an early age. Marya was born and raised in the Bay Area, but at age 10, moved with her family to the south of France, where she lived for a few years before returning home. The experience left a lasting impression: in addition to cultivating a love for Gallic culture, the relocation brought up issues of cultural identity and prejudice. As someone of Punjabi Indian heritage in a country with relatively few South Asians but sizable populations of largely marginalized Roma and Arab immigrants, Marya found herself on the receiving end of plenty of preconceived notions: "It was then that I began thinking more about race, about inequality, about people treating each other differently over such things. About people creating borders between each other."

Asked about the significance of borders to the band’s platform, Marya observes: "You know, I think the best comments we can get from listeners are when they tell us, ‘When I hear your stuff, I don’t know where I am.’ That’s exactly what we’re trying to do here. We want to get rid of time and space! We want them to be lost for a little while. No borders!" It’s a feat the two-year-old group — which includes Marcus Cohen on trumpet, Isabel Douglass on accordion, Aaron Kierbel on drums, Safa Shokrai on upright bass, and Pawel Walerowski on cello — manages to pull off seamlessly, whether by pairing French tales of longing with a sultry Southwestern desert groove ("La Pecheuse") or evoking sepia-toned photos of ships and sailors in a swaying folk ballad ("Wishful Thinking").

Such versatility is vital to a defiantly non-purist point of view. "This is deliberately a mélange, a smashing of things and ideas. In order to impart a feeling of freshness — and hopefully create a little confusion along the way — we don’t want to simply do what’s expected," Marya explains. "That’s what’s so great about being here in San Francisco, why we identify so closely with here. This city encourages people to get rid of their mental borders." As Rupa and the April Fishes hit the Outside Lands stage this week, their message will surely connect with a new batch of listeners, with new sets of eyes and ears willing to temporarily lose themselves among the tangos and the waltzes.

Rupa and the April Fishes play at 1:40 p.m., Sat/23, at Outside Lands Panhandle stage, Speedway Meadow.

1...676869...80 Page 68 of 80

Castro

Clubs: Bitch, B*tch, Booty Call

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

Hank Wilson, queer activist, has died

Prop 8: Nobody walks in LA?

Obama parties break out; Castro calms

Halloween 1951: Fast times in Rock Rapids, Iowa

The booness

ALL HALLOW’S EVE

BITTEN

BLOOD PACT

BLOW UP HALLOWEEN

CHARLIE HORSE HALLOWEEN THING

COOKIE’S HAUNTED HALLOWEEN

HALLOWEEN: A PARTY

HAUNTED TEMPLE

MONSTER HALLOWEEN

NIGHT OF THE LIVING BASS

RE:CREATION

STILETTO: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Z-TRIP

Flaming in the Castro

Sue Lee and segregation

Are you worried yet?

Anniversary Issue: Culture isn’t convenient

Street Threads: What the heck are you wearing?

Chan Chan can cook

“SF Open Studios: Weekend 3”

Gayest. Videos. Ever. (Pt. IV)

The buzz on urban bees

SF’s scary new Halloween plan

More power to the righteous

Cinemania

Autumn reels

The circle game

From Silicon Valley to “City Hall”

Clubs: More Transfer kerfuffle — Big Top bows out

No borders!