Event Archives — Page 109 of 149 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Poor turnout

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October 28, 2009

news@sfbg.com

The Guinness World Record for the largest mobilization of human beings was recently broken when 173 million people demanded that their governments eradicate extreme poverty around the world. But U.S. media barely noted the call and San Francisco’s event had low attendance, suggesting an uphill struggle for the cause in the world’s richest nation.

Millions gathered at more than 3,000 Stand Up, Take Action events in 120 countries Oct. 16-18 in an attempt to put pressure on governments to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, but less than 30 people gathered on the steps of San Francisco City Hall to support the movement.

Sup. John Avalos was one of the speakers at the event, organized by a coalition of local activist groups and student volunteers. Admitting that he was "expecting it to be a little bigger," Avalos said the event was just the start of what needed to be a much larger movement by the American people.

"There is a strange phenomenon occurring at the moment. It’s as if people are a little bit asleep about the need to be active," Avalos told the Guardian. "Because we have an administration they view as being more supportive of human rights and economic and social justice, people are being lulled into thinking things will just get better."

Standing just a short walk away from the birth place of the United Nations, Avalos bought attention in his speech to the rich history San Francisco has in mobilizing social change. "We do the best to live up to it, but we have a long way to go. Around the world this is the time to uproot poverty — we try to provide a safety net, but it could be stronger."

The Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now! campaign is in its fourth year and is organized by the UN Millennium Campaign in an attempt to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of benchmarks designed to eradicate global poverty.

At the United Nations Millennium Development Summit in 2000, 189 world leaders promised to "end poverty by 2015." The eight goals include eliminating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) has authored or coauthored every major piece of legislation dealing with global HIV/AIDS issues since she was elected to Congress. She told the Guardian that MDGs must be placed in context with poverty in America. "Sometimes people argue that we must look after our own first, but my position is that if you look at the eight Millennium goals, they all apply to our own country too," Lee said. "Look at the plight of people who are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS in our country — especially in African American and Latino communities.

"With the economic downturn, poverty rates in America are soaring, putting more people into circumstances the MDGs focus on outside of America," she continued. "I think it really is important to make those connections."

Lee compared the foreclosure crisis and lack of regulation in the financial markets over the last eight to 10 years to the "wild West" and calls America’s 47 million uninsured a "moral disgrace."

"It is about priorities and political will, and this will be determined by the voices of people saying it must be done," she said. "People have to push for these changes and remember that it didn’t just stop with the election. We have to raise awareness while at the same time working on changing policy. Otherwise we can get stuck debating issues and not doing the work that has to be done to change these very deplorable conditions."

Sup. David Campos was the only other supervisor to speak at the Civic Center event. He said he is committed to the fight against global poverty and wants to see the government represent the values San Francisco was founded on.

"We need to shed light and bring attention to one of the largest issues facing the world today — severe poverty," Campos said. "I really believe that as a city, as a state, and as a country, we not only need to make sure we push the U.S. to follow the lead of other countries, but actually become a leader in making these Millennium goals a reality."

After the event, Campos told the Guardian: "It doesn’t surprise me that more people didn’t show up to the event. But part of the task is to spread the word. San Francisco has been a leader in a number of these issues in the past, and I think we should play a key role in this one."

Campos said that one solution might be to put forward a resolution before the Board of Supervisors to support MDGs and have the city take a formal position on it.

"It is definitely something we are talking about to demonstrate San Francisco’s commitment to the issue," he said. "A lot of people don’t know about the goals, or the fact that the U.S. hasn’t really made them a priority. We need to spread the word and let people know this kind of a movement is only going to be a success if people take it upon themselves to play a leadership role."

Brian Webster, a volunteer who organized the SF event, drew attention to the large number of supporters for the MDGs in California. More than 250,000 people have signed up for the One Campaign, a global NGO that partnered with the U.N. Millennium Campaign in the events.

"For campaigners, it is now a matter of trying to join together and identify vast strategies to communicate what needs to be done," Webster said. "We will continue to educate communities, politicians, and civic leaders in what can be done this month, in the next six months, and ultimately, in the next six years."

While the Bush administration rarely mentioned MDGs while in office, many activists believe President Barack Obama’s public recognition of the goals at a recent U.N. summit demonstrates a change in American policy.

"In other countries, there has been more education and awareness about the goals. But here in America, it is almost like we are starting eight years late," said Anita Sharma, the North American director for the U.N. Millennium Campaign. "President Obama has said that the MDGs are American goals and has even talked about his plans for achieving them."

Also, despite the low numbers at the San Francisco event, Sharma says more than 190,000 people from North America participated in last weekend’s campaign, an increase of more than 70,000 from last year’s attempt.

"It’s not like Americans don’t care about global poverty — in fact we give more in charitable contributions than any other country in the world," she said. "It just takes quite a lot to get Americans into the streets and mobilized. There needs to be more education out there, that’s all."

Ananya Roy, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning and education director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies, says she doesn’t think MDGs can be achieved worldwide by 2015. Even so, she stressed the important role they played in the framework of development.

Speaking at UC Berkeley’s Stand Up and Take Action Event, she said: "The goals are important because they are seen as a new global social contract that makes issues of poverty and inequality quite urgent. They also come with measurements and targets, which is meant to create accountability."

Roy placed particular emphasis on the eighth goal: building a global partnership for development. She noted that that increased awareness can change the ways the U.S. and European governments operate in terms of aid and trade.

"This multilateral contract requires more than simply the action and leadership of the U.S. and Western Europe," she said. "We need to think about poverty and inequality that is immediately around us, understand how we are involved in the production of depravity, and then we must act in solidarity.

"We need to be thinking about poverty as it exits here in the U.S. and not just as an abstract problem that belongs to someplace else," she added. "It is also our problem."

According to a 2009 U.N. report, progress toward achieving the MDGs has been slow in some cases and certain achievements have been reversed by the economic downturn. The report estimates that there will be 55 million to 90 million more people living in extreme poverty than anticipated before the crisis.

For Chandler Smith, media coordinator for the One Campaign — which campaigns for better development policies and more effective aid and trade reform — the Guinness certification marks progress toward achieving the MDGs. "That this year is breaking another world record speaks to the power of people to organize around the world, shows that we are a global community, and that there is a sustainability in the movement," he said.

"As for the North American aspect, we are always trying to educate people more about these issues. Our results show that a lot of our work has been done — but that we also have more work to do."

Music listings

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October 27, 2009

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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 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Jace Everett, Kevin Meagher Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Former Ghosts, White Hinterland, Common Eider King Eider Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Sean Hayes, Killbossa Independent. 8pm, $16.

Hot Shears, Tank Attack Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Joe Buck Yourself, Jesse Morris and the Man Cougars, .357 String Band, DJ Eva Von Slut Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $10.

David Landon Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

MC Chris, Whole Wheat Bread, I Fight Dragons Slim’s. 8:30pm, $5.

Amy Milian, Bahamas Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $15.

Nathan Moore, Fred Torphy Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 9pm, $12.

Struck By Lightning, Aftermath, Man Among Wolves, Witness the Horror Thee Parkside. 8pm, $6.

William Elliott Whitmore, Hoots and the Hellmouth, Ferocious Few Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Nick Rossi Trio.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Cindy Blackman’s Another Lifetime Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $30. Tony Williams tribute.

Mads Tolling Quartet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20.

"Meeting of the Minds" Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7:30pm, $30-70. With Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, and Edgar Meyer.

Phat Man Dee Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St., SF; (415) 704-3260. 8pm, $7-15.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Freddie Clarke Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30pm; $12

Gaucho Amnesia. 8pm, free. Michael Abraham Jazz Session.

Ben Jordan Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Odes with Kevin Taylor Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; (415) 552-6066. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro; 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 Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

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.; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blowie, Luv and Rockets, Jealousy Knockout. 9:30pm, $8.

Marc Broussard, Matt Hires Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $30.

Dodos, Ruby Suns Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $18.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Jesse Grant, Elektrik Sunset, John Predny Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.

Lorne Smith’s Guns for San Sebastian, Booty Cooler Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $10.

Mumiy Troll Independent. 8pm, $25.

MurderMurder, Piles, Josef Van Wissem Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Joshua Radin, Watson Twins Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

"Rock Strip N’ Roll 3: A Naughty Good Time for Halloween" Rouge Night Club, 1400 Broadway, SF; www.myspace.com/liveevilrock. 9:30pm, $10. With Live Evil, Godz of Rock, Electric Vagina, burlesque performances, and more.

Shonen Knife, Ty Segall, Kepi Ghoulie: Electric! Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $14.

Tainted Love Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $15.

Third Date Blondie’s, 540 Valencia, SF; (415) 864-2419. 9pm, free.

Times New Viking, Axemen, Clipd Beaks, Work Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

*Valient Thorr, Early Man, Hightower, Nihilist Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $10.

"Witch Tits Homo Halloween Party" Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5-10. With dance jams spun by DJ Campbell, Durt, and Jean Jamz; live music by Try the Pie and Imogen Binnie; and a fashion show.

Your Cannons, In the Dust, Gem Tops, Foreign Resort Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audrey Shimkas Trio Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Terry Disley Washington Square Bar and Grill, 1707 Powell, SF; (415) 433-1188. 7pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Erik Jekabson’s New Orleans Quartet Coda. 9pm, $7.

Laurent Fourgo Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7:30pm, free.

Yasmin Levy Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7:30pm, $25-65.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

Dave Mathews Yoshi’s San Francisco (in the lounge). 6pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Swing with Stan Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; (415) 552-6066. 9pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and Old Time Jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Charming Hostess Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $10-15.

Dunes El Rio. 9:45pm, $5.

Flamenco Thursdays Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30pm; $12.

Brent Jordan Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $5.

Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7:30pm, $30-90.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Tribal Seeds Rockit Room. 8pm, $10.

Jozef Van Wissem, Diego Gonzalez, Lickets, Mira Cook Amnesia. 9pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, B Lee, and special guest Ibeke Shakesdown spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Bingotopia Knockout. 7:30-9:30pm, free. Play for drinks, dignity, and dorky prizes with Lady Stacy Pants.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St; 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.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

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

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

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

Popscene Halloween Party 330 Ritch. 9:30pm, $8. With DJs Aaron and Nako and live performances by Veil Veil Vanish and Danger.

Represent Icon Lounge. 10pm, $5. With Resident DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist and guest.

Solid Club Six. 9pm, $5. With resident DJ Daddy Rolo and rotating DJs Mpenzi, Shortkut, Polo Mo’qz and Fuze spinning roots, reggae, and dancehall.

Wonderland Ruby Skye. 8pm, $40. Enter a fantasy world inspired by Alice and Wonderland to benefit at-risk youth.

FRIDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Art Brut, Princeton Café du Nord. 10:30pm, $16.

Bayonics, Orgone Elbo Room. 10pm, $15.

Blue Flames, Society’s Child El Rio. 10pm, $6.

Ronnie Baker Brooks Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Death Valley High, Perfect Machines, Killola, Pinky Swear, Protoman Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $7.

Fast Times Broadway Studios. 8:45pm, $40. First 500 drinks free; proceeds benefit the Steven David Cannata Scholarship Fund.

DJ Lebowitz Madrone Art Bar. 6-9pm, free.

Luce, Felsen Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Lucha Vavoom Fillmore. 9pm, $32.50.

Melt Banana, All Leather, We Be the Echo Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Moonspell, Divine Heresy, Secrets of the Moon, DJ Rob Metal Thee Parkside. 9pm, $15.

Monophonics Coda. 9pm, $10.

No Age, Residual Echoes, Magic Bullets Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Nobunny, East Bay Grease, Apache Dropout Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Pine and Battery, New Montgomery, OONA, Hi-Nobles Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Skee-Lo, 40 Love, Aquarius, ADDX Rock-It Room. 9pm, $15.

Sleepy Sun, Antlers Independent. 9pm, $14.

Sound Junkies El Rincon. 9pm, $10.

Super Diamond, Knights of Monte Carlo Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

BAY AREA

"Evil 105’s Subsonic Halloween Spookfest" Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, Daly City; www.ticketmaster.com. 6:30pm, $40. With Faint, Basement Jaxx, Infected Mushroom, Crystal Method, Flosstradamus, Steve Aoki, and more.

Regina Spektor, Jupiter One Fox Theater. 8pm, $37.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

Dee Dee Bridgewater Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-70. Tribute to Lady Day.

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

Lucid Lovers Rex Hotel, 562 Sutter, SF; (415) 433-4434. 6-8pm.

Lisa Mezzacappa and friends Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15. Edgar Allen Poe-themed performances.

Nicholas Payton, Don Byron Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $35-60.

Pedestrian Deposit, Acre, Brandon Nickell, Work/Death, Infinite Body Lab, 2948 16th St, SF; www.thelab.org. 9pm, $8.

Sandra Aran Group Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Marcos Silva Yoshi’s San Francisco (in the lounge). 6pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm, $15. With Fito Reinoso.

*"Dark Side of the Uke" Knockout. 10pm, $6. Tatami Mats perform Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon with their all-ukelele ensemble, plus Frisky Frolics and DJ dX.

Toshio Hirano, Michael Musika, Vanessa VerLee, Karl Young, Jessie Woletz Li Po Lounge. 8:45pm, $5. Art opening for Jeremy Rourke.

Joe Henley Band Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Pamela Means, Thomasina and the Jam Dolores Park Café. 7:30pm, free.

Orquesta La Moderna Tradicion Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $18.

Sonny and the Sunsets, Sean Smith and the Present Moment, Donovan Quinn, Sandwitches Amnesia. 9pm, $7. With DJ Patty P.

DANCE CLUBS

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

All Hallow’s Eve DNA Lounge. 9pm, $13. Guild, Meat, and Hubba Hubba co-present this party with DJs Decay, BaconMonkey, Joe Radio, Melting Girl, and more.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $15. With DJs Jeffrey Paradise and Richie Panic spinning dance music.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (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.

FreakBeat Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $25. DJs Paul Oakenfold and Rooz spinning progressive house, tech house, and techno.

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.

Hallonasty Mighty. 9pm, $10. With DJs Ron/E, Worthy, Laura, and more spinning heavy grooves from the whole musical spectrum.

Halloween Friday Mezzanine. 9pm, $25. With DJs Zach Moore, Syd Gris, Kramer, and Adnan Sharif.

Hov-o-ween Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 501-9162. 9pm, $3. Featuring a deathrock costume contest with DJs Voodoo, Purgatory, and BatKat spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, glam 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.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

Suite Jesus 111 Minna. 9pm, $20. Beats, dancehall, reggae and local art.

SATURDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

GG Amos and the GG3 Riptide. 9pm, free.

Chris Kid Anderson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Bayonics, Orgone Elbo Room. 10pm, $15.

Built to Spill Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

"Club Silencio and the Coalition of Aging Rockers present Caroly n Keddy’s Super Secret Scary Halloween Show" Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Corner Laughers, Desoto Reds Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Dead Souls, Spellbound, Reptile House Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $7.

Fast Times Maggie McGarry’s, 1353 Grant, SF; (415) 399-9020. 9pm, free.

Grannies, Mongoloid, Steel Tigers of Death El Rio. 10pm, $7.

Loquat, LoveLikeFire Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $14.

Pop Rocks Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Rattler, Bang Maiden, Hate Breeders Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

*Slough Feg, Totimoshi, Grayceon, Serpent Crown El Rio. 4pm, $8.

Tori Sparks Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8:30pm, $10.

Stone Foxes, Wendy Darling, Buxter Hoot’n Hotel Utah. 8:30pm, $10.

Super Diamond, Knights of Monte Carlo Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $22.

*Swingin’ Utters, Throw Rag, Thee Merry Widows Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Triple Cobra, DJ Omar Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12.

Wallpaper Mezzanine. 8pm, $25.

Wil Blades Soul Solution Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $10.

BAY AREA

"Hell-O-Ween 2009" Uptown. 9pm, $10. With Sonic Seducer and the Hobo Gobbelins.

"Hippie Halloween Costume and Dance Party" Art House Gallery and Cultural Center, 2095 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 482-3336. 8pm, $13. With Spirit Wind as Santana, Pearl Essence as Janis Joplin, Cosmos Factory as Creedence Clearwater Revival, and others.

Johnny Vegas and the High Rollers 19 Broadway. 9:30pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Larry Dunlap Yoshi’s San Francisco (in the lounge). 6pm, free.

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

James Cotton Superharp Band with Hubert Sumlin Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-65.

"Jazz Mafia’s Seventh Annual Mobsters Ball" Coda. 10pm, $10.

Marco Benevento Trio Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 9pm, $25. Halloween dance party.

Proteges of Hyler Jones Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $15.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $22.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Albino! Independent. 9pm, $18. Special Star Wars-themed Halloween show.

BooGrass Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10. Featuring some scary bluegrass, a costume contest, games, treats, and more.

Carnaval Del Sur Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, $15. Live Flamenco music and dance.

Halloween Spectacular Amnesia. 8pm, $7. With Cretatous and Bob Saggath.

Sila and the Afrofunk Experience Café du Nord. 10pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Big Top Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; (415) 431-1151. 9pm, $10. A homoween disco circus featuring a costume contest, drag performances, and go go boys with DJs Kevin Graves and Marcus Boogie.

Cock Fright Underground SF. 9pm; $8, $5 with sports costume. With DJs Earworm and Matt Hite slaughtering the dance floor and performances by Hugz Bunny and Suppositori Spelling.

Dress to Kill Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. A Fringe Halloween party with costume contest and the best indie rock music videos with added special effects.

Hacksaw Halloween Poleng Lounge. 10pm, $12. Featuring Mixhell, a duo with Brazilian heavy metal drummer Igor Cavalera and Laima Cavalera on the turntables.

Halloween Booootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Mash-up party with Adrian and Mysterious D, Dada, and more, plus a costume contest (including "Best Mash-Up Costume"!) and live performances.

Famous: Sin and Celebrities Glas Kat. 9pm, $30. Dress as your favorite Hollywood icon and dance down the red carpet with DJs Fuze, Jerry Ross, Mauricio, and more.

Ghost Ship California Ave., Hanger II, Treasure Island, SF; www.kraaksmak.com. 9pm, $40. With DJs Kraak and Smaak and Fort Knox 5.

Heaven and Hella Suite 181, 181 Eddy, SF; (415) 345-9900. 10pm. With DJs Mindmotion, One G, and Mark Divita spinning dance beats and radio hits. Costume contest for complimentary bottle service.

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 of Death Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 10pm. Featuring a costume contest and DJs Frenchy Le Freak, Pheeko Dubfunk, and Martin Aquino.

Monster Bash Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Boos and booze all night with DJ White Mike.

Night of the Living Bass Mighty. 9pm, $20. A costume party with DJs Wolfgang Gartner, Uberzone, Syd Gris and more.

Nightmare on 6th Street Club Six. 9pm, $18. With DJs Maseo of De La Soul, Shortkut, Jah-Yzer, Serg One, and more spinning soul, classic hip hop, reaggae, and dancehall.

Nightmare on Van Ness Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $60. Multiple levels featuring a live performance by LMFAO and DJs E-Rock, Scene, Mark Farina, Dale Martin, BB Hayes, Sam Issac, and more.

Saw VIII Masquerade Extravaganza Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 341-7314. 9pm, $20-50. Featuring a costume contest with cash prizes, and two spooky levels of music with DJs Mindmotion, Sake1, and more.

SF Halloween Ball San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF; (415) 816-7763. 9pm, $45-100. An upscale Halloween costume party with DJs remedy, cut 5, vangeli, and more spinning mainstream, top 40, mashups, and house.

Spider Ball Bently Reserve, 400 Sansome, SF; (415) 288-0202. 10pm, $55. Featuring DJs and live performances by Vibe Squad, Beats Antique, Random RAB, Resident Anti-Hero, Tamo, and more to support the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

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

Teenage Dance Craze Halloween Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. Scary teen beat, twisters, and surf rock with DJs Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and Howie Pyro.

Thriller Lexington Club. 9pm, free. Featuring a Michael Jackson inspired costume contest and DJs Durt and Ponyboy startin’ somethin’ on the dance floor.

Zombie Ball Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; (415) 861-9199. 9pm, $15. With a live performance by the Hi Rhythm Hustlers and guest Cari Lee and DJs spinning teen beat tunes.

SUNDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Built to Spill Fillmore. 7pm, $25.

Dirty Projectors, Little Wings Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $18.

Flyleaf, Paper Tongues Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25.

Lucero, Jack Oblivion, John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives Mezzanine. 8pm, $22.

*Possessed, Impaled, Sadistic Intent, Witchhaven DNA Lounge. 6pm, $25.

Jason Reeves, Curtis People Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Brittany Shane, Misisipi Mike and Gayle Lynn, Vandella Make-Out Room. 8:30pm, $7.

Skinny Puppy, Vverevvolf Grehv Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

Tori Sparks Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8:30pm, $5.

UFO, Travis Larson Band Independent. 8pm, $25.

BAY AREA

Shonen Knife, Ty Segall, Dreamdate, DJs Zola and Jen Schnade Uptown. 9pm, $14.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu Ensemble Yoshi’s San Francisco. 2pm, $5-20. Performing Japanese ghost stories and jazz.

Giovanni Allevi, Patrizia Scascitelli Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-35.

Marc Cary Focus Trio Florence Gould Theatre, Legion of Honor, 34th Ave at Clement, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 2pm, $25.

Rob Modica and friends Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 3pm, free.

Pamela Rose Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $22.

SF Contemporary Music Players ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; (415) 278-9566. 4:30pm, $5-10. Performance and discussion of Ken Ueno’s "Archaeologies of the Future."

"SFJAZZ Beacon Award" Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $20-50. Honoring John Handy.

SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 3pm, $5-15. Playing Duke Ellington and the sounds of the Harlem Renaissance.

"SIMM New Music Series" Musicians Union Hall, 116 Ninth St, SF; (415) 905-4425. 7:30pm, $10. With Reconnaissance Fly and Noertker’s Moxie.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Boulder Acoustic Society Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10. With special guest.

Fiesta Andina! Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7pm, $10. With Eddy Navia and Sukay.

Mucho Axé Coda. 8pm, $7.

DANCE CLUBS

Breakfast in Bed Supperclub. 5am, $15. Halloween After-Party with DJs Syd Gris, Alain Octavo, Cosmic Selector, Dulce Vita, and more.

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and guest Teleseen.

Fresh Ruby Skye. 6pm, $25. A Halloween weekend T-Dance with DJ Tony Moran.

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; 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.

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

Shuckin’ and Jivin’ Knockout. 10pm, free. Rock, doo-wop, jivers, stompers, and more on 78 rpm with DJs Dr. Scott and Oran.

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

MONDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Airborne Toxic Event, Henry Clay People Fillmore. 8pm, $21.

*Big Business, Triclops! Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Chevelle, Halestorn, After Midnight Project Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $28.

Emerald Triangle Independent. 9pm, $15.

Land of Talk, Eulogies Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Tiger Lilies, Vinsantos Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Trawler Bycatch, Seim and Rossfunke, 1-2-3 Knife Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

Nice Guy Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

Reptet Make-Out Room. 8pm.

SF Contemporary Music Players Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 278-9566. 8pm, $28. Performing "Maid to Order," music of Leroux, Ueno, Dennehy, and RB Smith.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Belle Monroe and Her Brew Glass Boys Amnesia. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

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.

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

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

Armin Van Buuren Ruby Skye. 9pm, $30. With DJs Alain Octavo and Syd Gris.

TUESDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ashford and Simpson Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; 1-866-468-3399, www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $47.50-55. Performing through Nov 14; check website for showtimes.

Astral, Ghosts and Strings, Moonlight Orchestra, Seabright Elbo Room. 8pm, $6.

Atlas Sound, Broadcast Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

B-Cups, Minks, Started-Its Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Layce Baker and the Black Diamond Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Cage the Elephant, Morning Teleportation, Shackletons Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Chinese Stars, All Leather, Casy and Brian, Sensitive Hearts Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Jeffrey Foucault and Andy Friedman, Dave McGraw Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Kawabata, ?Alos, 3 Leafs Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

Imelda May Independent. 8pm, $15.

Queen Latifah Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $39.50-49.50.

Ron Thompson Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $10.

Verbal Abuse, Rat Damage, Steeples Knockout. 10pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Claudia Acuna Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

"Booglaloo Tuesday" Madrone Art Bar. 9:30pm, $3. With Oscar Myers.

Conscious Jazz Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Euliptian Quartet Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Joe Bagale.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs What’s His Fuck, Taypoleon, and Mackiveli.

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Guest DJs, free pool, and $1 Hamm’s.

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

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Mixology Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, (415) 441-2922. 10pm, $2. DJ Frantik mixes with the science and art of music all night.

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.

Culture war at City Hall

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October 27, 2009

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text and photos by Caitlin Donohue

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Jazz Mafia’s horn section trumpets their support for the EC at yesterday’s City Hall demonstration

It’s not everyday that Jazz Mafia plays the steps of City Hall. Hell, it’s not everyday that the San Francisco nightclub community rallies for an event before five p.m. But both went down yesterday in observation of a big battle in the war on fun.

The Friends of the Entertainment Commission turned out hundreds of venue owners, festival promoters and music fans for a committee hearing on legislation that would increase the Commission’s autonomy. Should the proposed changes be signed into law, the regulatory body that oversees nightclubs and special events would have the power to quickly shut down troublesome nightspots and give out special event extended hours permits. Also under debate was a proposal by Sup. David Chiu that would cap the special hours permits if they rose 15% above their current level (a “small amount” now, even in the words of Chiu) over the next year.

The scene inside the hearing room made it clear that we’re in the middle of a culture war. Protesting the increase of the EC’s authority were police officers insisting that public safety demanded clubs and events be given a shorter leash and NIMBY activists showing grainy peeping tom-like videos that showed two scuffles outside Union Square clubs and a whole lot of… people standing in lines. Look, that man is leaning against a wall! Mayhem! We’re under siege!

West Fest: Mel Belli’s friends gather again

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October 23, 2009

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Well, promoter Boots Houston put out an email summarizing his West Fest event:

“West Fest, Woodstock 40th Anniversary this Sunday October 25th, 72 acts, 4 stages, 26 poster artists- FREE-9 a.m. to 6 p.m.Golden Gate Park. Let the magic begin.”

But I like to think of the event as full of Mel Belli’s friends and coming in a direct line from the famous Human Be-In of l967 and the Summer 0f Love and the Summer of Love anniversaries and other such events in Golden Gate Park.

Let me explain the story as told to me by the late Michael Bowen, a promoter with Allen Cohen of the Be-In. Bowen called me from Sweden, where he was living, on the eve of the 40th Summer of Love event in 2007. He said the story, a closeted San Francisco classic, had never before been told and he wanted it out. Mel Belli was the famous San Francisco attorney and King of Torts, as he liked to call himself. He’s been dead for many years, but to me his spirit will live on in Sunday’s Woodstock event.
Bowen said he and Cohen were in desperate need of a permit for their event because, as hippie activists, they were persona non grata at City Hall. So Bowen went to the downtown office of his friend Mel Belli and asked for help.

Belli sent his secretary down to City Hall and she returned later that afternoon with a permit.

It read, “A permit for Mel Belli and his friends.” And so Mel Belii and his friends showed up by the tens of thousands and turned the Human Be-In into a world famous cultural event and the precursor to the Summer of Love and anti-war events that followed. The event drove the tac squad crazy and police and City Hall officials scurried about trying to find out how this huge event blossomed almost over night. Bowen loved retelling the story and swore up and down to me that it was true. I believed him.

There will once again be tens of thousands at the Woodstock event. And they will all be in an Oraclean sense Mel Belli’s friends. Mel would like that. B3

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Poster by Carolyn Ferris

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Poster by Mike Dolgushkin

To view more West Fest posters click here, here, and here.

Click here to read Johnny Ray Huston’s preview of West Fest, Park life — and 3,000 guitars.

Selling stuff to educate kids

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October 22, 2009

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By Melanie Ruiz

This Saturday, Oct. 24, City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is holding a garage sale and flea market to raise money to help offset billions of dollars cut from the state’s public education budget. The district lost $20-25 million this school year under the current state budget, a decision that Milton Marks, president of the CCSF Board of Trustees, says was “made in error and is short-sided.”

Marks admits that it, “really is absurd for the college to be doing this,” but said it illustrates what public agencies are being forced to do to survive in this no-tax climate. The money raised through the sale of donated goods will go to restoring classes and increasing counseling services for the spring semester. In August, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created the “Great California Garage Sale,” in which state property was sold for just over $1.6 million, a drop in the bucket for the education sector’s needs.

With furloughs, class cuts, and tuition increases littering our public education system, schools have to do something to mitigate the situation for both students and faculty, including fostering a sense of community. There has been great support from people, says Marks, as this event, “gives people a sense of community and helps them feel like they are able to do something.”

Pics: Trolley Dances salve Muni woes

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October 22, 2009

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

For once, taking Muni was actually a pleasure. This weekend saw the San Francisco Trolley Dances dip and twirl along Muni stops, which meant riders had their noses pressed against the glass as salsa dancers shimmied along the street, chasing the J-Church as it made its way from Dolores Park to Balboa Park Pool. The annual event featured dance companies from around the Bay Area as well as the young and talented swimmers of the SF Merionettes Synchronized Swim Club. The piece “Journey through time in no time because it is time” performed by the Deep Waters Dance Theater, was especially inventive and witty, mixing theater, poetry and dance in a piece that revolved around the ideas of more time and less time, and the time in between, ending with the audience pointing to the sky, looking up towards a new time of “infinite possibilities.” Oh, if only every ride on Muni could be quite as enjoyable and entertaining as this one.

Other participating dancers and companies included: Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theater, Kathleen Hermesdorf, and Rosamaria Garcia and Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos

Hot sex events this week: Oct 21-27

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October 21, 2009

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

Missing Persons are among the impressive number of bands, live acts, and special appearances at Saturday’s Exotic Erotic Ball.

————-

>> Underwear Party
Every Thursday this month, Powerhouse hosts this panty-themed event, featuring a wet underwear contest, drink specials, and a chance to exchange your old underwear for a free drink.

Thurs/22, 10pm
$5
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 52-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

————-

>> Exotic Erotic Expo and Ball
The two-day Expo celebrating flesh, fetish, and fantasy has lots of sexy exhibits, great food, interesting lectures, and previews of Saturday night’s Ball, which is part Mardi Gras, part burlesque, and part rock concert. Live acts include Impotent Sea Snakes, Coolio, Missing Persons, Minikiss, Unauthorized Rolling Stones, and many more.

Fri/23-Sat/24
$20-$185
Cow Palace, SF
www.exoticeroticexpo.com

————-

>> Hubba Hubba Revue: Oktoberfest!
SF’s favorite burlesque show brings a bit of Deutschland to DNA with this tassel-twirlin’, hip-shakin’ Bavarian party. Featuring Vienna La Rouge, SF Boylesque, Wiggy Darlington, The Baron Meatball von Tease, and more Bay Area favorites.

Fri/23, 9pm
$10
DNA Lounge
375 11th St, SF
www.dnalounge.com

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Bikes rule and cars suck!

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October 21, 2009

6

By Steven T. Jones
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My cover story on bicycling in May provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative. I called out motorists for their oversized sense of entitlement to such a damaging and heavily subsidized transportation choice, and was called out for being self-righteous and admitting to routinely breaking traffic laws.

I never apologized for my position and I intend to push it even further tonight at CounterPULSE when I’ll be on a panel talking about bicycling politics in San Francisco, along with author/activist Chris Carlsson, transportation planner Janel Sterbentz, and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition program director Andy Thornley. The free event starts at 7:30 pm, is co-sponsored by City Lights Foundation, and goes down at 1310 Mission Street at 9th.

So, all you haters out there (and hopefully a few lovers as well), you know where to find me. Bring it on.

The zone

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October 20, 2009

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andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I read an article (I think it was in Redbook) that listed six little known erogenous zones or "hot zones." One was big toes, which they said has a direct connection to the genitals. And one was tip of the nose, which they said it is an erotic area because people get stuffy noses sometimes when they have sex. I don’t know. Is there really such a thing as an erogenous zone? What would it take for something to be a real erogenous zone? And is it worth learning these to turn my husband on? We have a good sex life, but sometimes it does seem like we just touch the same places the same way all the time.

Love,

Looking

Dear Look:

Well, don’t do that. You don’t need a list of unlikely or downright unerotic body parts (I have allergies; don’t touch it if you don’t want to get sneezed on) to inspire you to branch out a little. In the event that you do need such a list, here are some nongenital, sexually responsive spots for your perusal: nipples, necks, ears, armpits, lower backs, inner thighs, backs of knees, feet. Some of these are "erogenous" simply because they are adjacent to more traditionally eroticized areas (by the time someone’s got to your inner thigh, it’s a pretty good bet he’s going to keep going) and/or because the skin there is thin and well-supplied with both blood vessels and nerve-endings. Some do seem to have their own independent set of erotic responses (fingers, toes). And while we’re at the toes, some body parts seem to have sex lives all their own, quite divorced from any nearby genitals. Feet have their own admirers and magazines and special party nights at the sex clubs and more than 4.7 million Google hits. They don’t need a good address near the genitals to throw a party.

I think I found your article. It’s by Judy Dutton, who is, not at all coincidentally, the author of the book Redbook’s 500 Sex Tips. I guess I had Redbook filed as a "ladies’" magazine, but on closer examination, it’s more Cosmo (Dutton was an editor there too) than McCall’s. I found more "Six filthy things men want you to know" and "16 essential sex techniques you’ve never heard of" and "the top 26 mistakes you’re making in bed" articles from Redbook than I could count, though it appears the Redbook editors would have no trouble totting them up. There was even a "Top 40: excerpts from our steamiest sex articles." And in addition to what I think was our article, there were six other Redbook offerings on erogenous or "hot zones."

The Hot Zone was one of the books I read a few years ago while on an infectious diseases kick, after I had exhausted my household’s considerable stock of bubonic plague titles. So I don’t think I’m really comfortable seeing the phrase applied to, say, labia. "Erogenous zones" itself is a phrase so redolent of the ’70s, I can’t help imagining anyone who talks about them as a mustachioed gent in a denim and corduroy patchwork bell-bottomed suit. And that is not in the "hot zone," not for me. So, not knowing what to call them, here are some of the, uh, places in the article.

Big toe We’ve already established that toes and feet are both sexually responsive (to varying degrees) and the object of enormous sexual interest, but we have not established that there is any merit whatsoever to "reflexology." So there is no merit to the claim made here that stimuutf8g them "activates reflexology pathways connected to your genitals." Nor do we know that pressing on the soles of the feet can "cause energy to ‘bubble up’ the legs to the genitals." I’m not saying it can’t, mind you. Just that there’s no particular reason for it to do so.

Nose Swelling of the mucus membranes in there is a fairly common side effect of both Viagra and regular old sexual arousal. It just doesn’t particularly follow that nasal play adds to sexual arousal. And I wouldn’t pursue it during flu season.

Navel "Your navel and your clitoris have a lot in common. In the womb, these two regions grow from the same tissue, linking them neurologically in adulthood." I have no idea what this person is talking about. Also, lots of people cannot bear to have their navels prodded. It’s just too … internal. "It feels like you’re touching my soul," an old boyfriend once said. "And I don’t want you to."

We don’t really have to go on, do we? I have nothing against Redbook, but these list-type articles are a perennial favorite of lazy magazine editors, and writers gamely do their best to produce them, month after month after month. I once had a job writing lists just a tiny bit like this one for an only-just-passably-reputable men’s magazine, and you know how I managed it?

I made them up.

Love,

Andrea

(If you’re interested: www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/advice/surprise-sexy-spots-ll)

See Andrea’s other column at carnalnation.com.

Park life — and 3,000 guitars

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October 20, 2009

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arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Golden Gate Park has once again become a nexus for huge music concerts. The massive scope of events such as Outside Lands can’t help but evoke the legacy of San Francisco in the 1960s, when musical gatherings were not only abundant, but a definite inspiration behind concerts elsewhere — especially Woodstock. With West Fest, organizer Boots Hughston and an extensive lineup of musicians and participants are paying tribute to Woodstock’s 40th anniversary. But they’re also bringing a sense of living history to a place where new generations of music lovers — some of whom knowingly or unknowingly admire contemporary acts influenced by the Woodstock era — regularly congregate.

Politically speaking, it’s especially important to bridge a sense of then and now. One person who will be doing exactly that is David Hilliard, former chief of staff in the Black Panther Party, author of many books, and current-day teacher. "Our purpose was always to ensure that art was part of our revolutionary political process," says Hilliard. "I dispatched members of our chapter to Woodstock ’69 as a gesture of solidarity to the counterculture movement. We were the comrades of the hippies and yippies and Peace and Freedom Party. We had the support of people like John Lennon — that was our constituency. It makes sense that we should be included in a celebration of this momentous event."

Hilliard has no problem connecting his message to the present — especially because the present includes some tell-tale problems. "I have to talk about the contemporary issue of millions of people who have lost their homes to foreclosure," he says, when asked about the subjects of his West Fest speech. "And isn’t it ironic that universal health care is the chief issue of the day, because we were devoted to free health care — it was central to our program."

Hilliard isn’t especially inspired by contemporary hip-hop, aside from Talib Kweli and a few other conscious artists. When asked whether the music of the moment approaches the political intensity of hip-hop’s Public Enemy era, he answers with a "hell no" that is as strong as it is quick, adding, "The whole industry has been reduced to a few artists who make it because they come up with songs about the latest dance."

This doesn’t mean that Hilliard and his contemporaries don’t have a hand in politicizing popular culture and youth culture in ways big and small. Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas currently has a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Hilliard takes part in projects like the South L.A. Road to College, which teaches South Central L.A. youth about the Panthers and their history while preparing them for college. HBO is developing a six-hour series on the Panthers based on Hilliard’s 1993 book This Side of Glory and Elaine Brown’s 1992 autobiography A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. "We are proud to be working with Carl Franklin," Hilliard says, referring to the series’ director, whose undersung 1992 classic One False Move renders in truly disturbing human terms the kind of drug violence that 1994’s Pulp Fiction treats as entertainment. "We need a year to tell this story [in a series], but we’ll take six hours and hope that it will inspire people to tell the story more often."

West Fest’s wildest musical element has to be an attempt to outdo the Guinness World Book of Records‘ current entry for Largest Guitar Ensemble via a 3,000-or-more-guitar rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s "Purple Haze." A chief force leading this effort, the producer and musician Narada Michael Walden, is also performing a set in honor of Hendrix later in the day. "Jimi Hendrix was the highest-paid performer at Woodstock, the most sought-after at the time," Walden points out from his base at Tarpan Studios in San Rafael. "A lot of the music he played at the festival — "Jam Back at the House," "Villanova Junction," "Isabella," "Fire" — is in obscurity because we only hear "Purple Haze" and "Foxy Lady." I wanted a chance to play some of the songs Jimi played at Woodstock that we don’t get to hear."

Moreover, working with musicians such as Vernon Ice Black, Hendrix’s bassist Billy Cox, and some special guests, Walden hopes to tap into the political subtext of Hendrix’s music at West Fest. "He didn’t just want white fans or black fans, he wanted to reach everybody," Walden says. "He tried his hardest by doing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in a way in which you heard the bombs exploding. He’d been a paratrooper jumping out of airplanes, and he wanted our nation to wake up to what we were doing, all the needless killing in Vietnam."

If anyone can corral 3,000-plus guitarists into making something musical, it’s the energetic Walden. He’s the producer behind the hits that made Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey into stars, and before that, the gorgeous pop R&B songs by teenage Stacey Lattisaw ("Let Me Be Your Angel," "My Love") that no doubt inspired those divas-to-be to work with him. "My first solo album [Garden of Love Light] in 1976 was produced with Tommy [Tom] Dowd," he remembers, when another legendary musical force who turned away from the U.S. military is mentioned. "I spent months and months recording with him and learned first-hand from him. He was really here to do what he did — only a few people understood how to compress music for radio in a way that it could still live and breathe. He knew how to take the queen of soul, Aretha, and give her a Southern sound with a vibrancy that allowed all people everywhere to feel it. That’s the genius — not just the musical side but the scientific side — of Tom Dowd."

The life stories of men such as Hendrix and Dowd — who abandoned atomic work on the Manhattan Project for the studios of Atlantic Records — are still applicable today. After all, this is an era in which Barack Obama calls for more troops in Afghanistan and wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Amid the potential and contradictions invoked by such a circumstance, Walden’s Hendrix-inspired endeavors and Hilliard’s speech at West Fest are worth hearing.

WEST FEST, 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF WOODSTOCK

Sun/25, 9 a.m.–6 p.m., free

Golden Gate Park, SF

www.2b1records.com/woodstock40sf

alt.sex.column: The zone

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October 20, 2009

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By Andrea Nemerson: andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.

Dear Andrea:

I read an article (I think it was in Redbook) that listed six little known erogenous zones or "hot zones." One was big toes, which they said has a direct connection to the genitals. And one was tip of the nose, which they said it is an erotic area because people get stuffy noses sometimes when they have sex. I don’t know. Is there really such a thing as an erogenous zone? What would it take for something to be a real erogenous zone? And is it worth learning these to turn my husband on? We have a good sex life, but sometimes it does seem like we just touch the same places the same way all the time.

Love,

Looking

Dear Look:

Well, don’t do that. You don’t need a list of unlikely or downright unerotic body parts (I have allergies; don’t touch it if you don’t want to get sneezed on) to inspire you to branch out a little. In the event that you do need such a list, here are some nongenital, sexually responsive spots for your perusal: nipples, necks, ears, armpits, lower backs, inner thighs, backs of knees, feet. Some of these are "erogenous" simply because they are adjacent to more traditionally eroticized areas (by the time someone’s got to your inner thigh, it’s a pretty good bet he’s going to keep going) and/or because the skin there is thin and well-supplied with both blood vessels and nerve-endings. Some do seem to have their own independent set of erotic responses (fingers, toes). And while we’re at the toes, some body parts seem to have sex lives all their own, quite divorced from any nearby genitals. Feet have their own admirers and magazines and special party nights at the sex clubs and more than 4.7 million Google hits. They don’t need a good address near the genitals to throw a party.

I think I found your article. It’s by Judy Dutton, who is, not at all coincidentally, the author of the book Redbook’s 500 Sex Tips. I guess I had Redbook filed as a "ladies’" magazine, but on closer examination, it’s more Cosmo (Dutton was an editor there too) than McCall’s. I found more "Six filthy things men want you to know" and "16 essential sex techniques you’ve never heard of" and "the top 26 mistakes you’re making in bed" articles from Redbook than I could count, though it appears the Redbook editors would have no trouble totting them up. There was even a "Top 40: excerpts from our steamiest sex articles." And in addition to what I think was our article, there were six other Redbook offerings on erogenous or "hot zones."

Is there a gaffe in GAFFTA?

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October 20, 2009

8

By Spencer Young

GAFFTA marquee. All photos by Spencer Young.

I encountered a man lost in a solo dance-trance when I walked into Grey Area Foundation for the Arts on Thursday, Oct. 1. GAFFTA is a newly-opened “nonprofit organization dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture,” and this was their GAFFTAhours Preview Celebration for their inaugural exhibition, “OPEN.” This guy really seemed to be enjoying the event — he hunched and vibrated to a well-worn house track in front of the gallery’s main feature, a video art projection by C.E.B Reas. I halfway understand why he was doing this: Reas’s ornate visual fractals spiral, ebb and flow like magic on the screen. Using the open-source program Processing, he creates morphing crystalline structures that mimic natural processes. Walking around the rest of GAFFTA’s quirky yet beautiful space-turned-temporary-nightclub, I found the rest of Reas’s works: another projection, and a series of prints hanging like traditional art objects. They don’t convey much, but they sure are pretty.

C.E.B. Reas video still

C.E.B. Reas print

A saunter to the cozy nook upstairs revealed Stamen Design‘s heavy display of information graphics that plastered the walls, hung in negative space, and covered the low slab of concrete in the middle of the room apparently used for sitting. Working with crime and cab data and Craigslist rental listings specific to the Tenderloin, Stamen’s largest piece attempts to draw geographical connections between these three phenomena.

Bloodsports and the Exotic Erotic Ball

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October 15, 2009

1

By Juliette Tang

Those who would like to attend Perry Mann’s Erotic Exotic Ball (Oct 24 @ Cow Palace) next weekend but who balk at the $79 general admission price tag (i.e. you, me, and everyone we know) have the option of donating blood this Saturday in exchange for a free pass, while supplies last. Organizers are sponsoring a blood drive at Blood Centers of the Pacific’s Irwin Center (270 Masonic Ave) from 2 to 9PM on Saturday (Oct 16) and each donor will receive one ticket to the event. If you wish to schedule an appointment to donate blood, you may go to BloodHeroes.com and enter “ExErBall” as your sponsor code. For those who partake in needle play, this means you can have your cake and eat it too.

The Erotic Ball has graced San Francisco with its presence since 1979 and features “live music, top DJs, erotic performers, exotic dancers, wild sideshows and playful interactive fun on multiple stages”. If the video above with its clips from previous years’ festivities is anything to go by, this entails near limitless opportunities for depravity and an all-around epic night of partying. A pass seems well worth a little blood, a service to the community, and an hour of on a Saturday afternoon.

Fighting for juvenile justice

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October 13, 2009

0

sarah@sfbg.com

Sup. David Campos’ proposal to amend San Francisco’s sanctuary policy so that the city guarantees due process to juvenile immigrants heads for a full vote of the board next week with the support of a veto-proof majority of supervisors.

Board President David Chiu and Sups. John Avalos, Chris Daly, Bevan Dufty, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell, and Ross Mirkarimi have signed on as cosponsors of the amendment, which also has the support of a broad coalition of civil and immigrants’ rights organizations.

But with the mayor opposed to the bill and the daily newspapers agitating against reform, it’s important to remember what’s really at stake here.

As a team of civil rights experts notes, the Campos bill "will ensure that families are not torn apart because a youth is mistakenly referred for deportation and will encourage cooperation between law enforcement and immigrant communities by reestablishing a relationship based on trust, therefore increasing public safety."

Campos, who came to this country as an undocumented youth from Guatemala and represents San Francisco’s heavily immigrant Mission District, says his proposal is a balanced solution to the draconian policy Newsom ordered last summer, without public input, the day after the mayor launched his 2010 gubernatorial bid.

When Campos introduced his amendment this summer, after months of public conversations with law enforcement agencies and the immigrant community, Newsom responded by leaking a confidential legal memo that outlined possible challenges to the proposal.

Angered but undaunted, a group of civil rights organizations responded by issuing their own brief explaining why Campos’ proposal is legally tenable and defensible.

As Angie Junck of the Immigrant Legal Resources Center, Robert Rubin of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Julia Mass of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, professor Bill Ong Hing of UC Davis Law School, and Angela Chan of the Asian Law Caucus explained, Campos’ proposal "will allow immigrant youths to have their day in court and be heard by an impartial judge, ensuring due process is upheld for all of San Francisco’s youth."

They argue that Campos’ legislation seeks to "lessen the risk that the city will be liable for racial profiling, unlawful detention, and mistaken referrals of U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants for deportation while bringing the city’s juvenile probation practices into compliance with state confidentiality laws for youth."

And as they point out, Campos’ proposal won’t prevent youths who have been found by a court to have committed a felony from being referred to ICE.

"The sanctuary ordinance has stood strong for 20 years, and the proposed amendment strengthens the ordinance by taking steps to bring the city’s practices more into compliance with state juvenile justice law," the brief states. "The legislation is a measured step in the right direction that will help restore accountability and fairness in the city’s treatment of immigrant youth."

Or as Campos put it: "It’s something we drafted very carefully in close consultation with the City Attorney’s Office."

ARRESTED OR CONVICTED?

Campos’ amendment seeks to shift the point at which immigrant kids get referred to ICE agents for possible deportation. Newsom’s policy allows the police to refer kids to ICE the moment they’re arrested. That means someone who turns out to be innocent and was arrested in error can still be deported. Campos wants the cops to wait until the felony charge is upheld in juvenile court.

Since July 2008, when Newsom ordered the city’s current policy shift, 160 youths have been referred to ICE, increasing the risk they will be sent to detention facilities across the country, far from their families, without access to immigration legal services, based on accusations and racial profiling.

Abigail Trillin, staff attorney with the Legal Services for Children, told us that the Newsom policy makes San Francisco bedfellows with Texas and Orange County.

"A bunch of our kids go to Yolo County and Oregon, a lot to Los Angeles, others to Miami, Virginia, and Indiana, and some have already been deported," Trillin said.

Trillin noted that Newsom’s policy is destroying families by allowing innocent kids to be reported for deportation without the basic right to due process — often for minor offenses. She has already seen youth who are documented or innocent erroneously referred to ICE by juvenile probation officers, who often lack expertise in immigration law.

She also fears this miscarriage of justice could result in abuse and even death — especially if kids try to return to their homes and families by crossing the border, which has became increasingly militarized and perilous in the aftermath of the Bush administration’s decision to spend billions to build a fence along the border.

Last week, the battle for juvenile justice took a fresh twist locally when Newsom’s newly appointed Police Chief George Gascón said he hoped for a compromise involving third party review by the District Attorney’s Office.

"I fully understand the concerns Campos brings to the table," Gascón said, referring to his previous job as chief of police in Mesa, Ariz., where he saw the anti-immigrant excesses of Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio.

"I have the benefit of seeing the other side, where you have police agencies aggressively engaged in immigration enforcement, where people that were frankly not engaged in any criminal activity other than that of being here without authority, are being deported," Gascón said. He noted that being here without papers often is not a crime; it’s just an administrative violation.

"I’ve seen very young people, people that basically came to this country when they were three or four years old and are staying clean and going to school, get stopped for a traffic violation at age 17 or 18, and now all of a sudden they’re getting deported to a country where they have no roots," he said.

But the chief remains convinced that the criminal justice system needs to be able to use all legally available tools to deal with violent criminal juveniles.

"I’m not saying the district attorney needs to make the reporting. The triggering event could be the determination to file the case," Gascón said. "Frankly, I wish I’d been here a year earlier to deal with this issue," he added, noting that federal immigration hearings are "a kangaroo court."

"It’s not a beyond-reasonable-doubt standard for people to get deported," he said.

"The other side of the coin is that this would be putting people in situations where they could be federally indicted for violations of law. And you also have problems at state," he continued, noting that two federal grand juries are currently reviewing the behavior of the Juvenile Probation Department.

DUE PROCESS

Campos, a lawyer, appreciates that the new police chief is "genuinely trying to see if there is something he can do to resolve the situation. I believe if he had been in place where this discussion was going on a year ago, the mayor would have received better advice."

"The chief’s comments reflect that what is happening here is pretty extreme," Campos added. "I recognize that changing the reporting process to a third party would definitely be better than what we have now, where the final decision rests with a police officer. But while it’s better, it’s not sufficient. Due process necessarily entails giving people their day in court, and letting a judge decide what actually happens."

Sup. Chiu, a former prosecutor, also said he appreciates Gascón’s resolution attempt. "But the point of our system is that once you are arrested and charged, there are due process rights so you can respond to those charges."

Sup. Dufty, a mayoral candidate, said he expects that when the board passes laws, those laws will be implemented by Newsom. "As CEO of San Francisco, he has to comply with all legislation, including local laws the legislative body passes that he may not like," Dufty said.

"My mother was born in Czechoslovakia and was stateless when I was a boy," he added. "She had to register every year as an alien, so this is very visceral for me. If we are to be a sanctuary city, it’s because everyone has due process. It’s denying people’s humanity and dignity and creating a two-tiered system for justice."

But mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard continued to assert that Newsom’s current policy is balanced. "While he remains open to argument, the mayor believes the current policy strikes the right balance between protecting public safety and safeguarding the rights of accused criminals," Ballard, who had not replied to the Guardian‘s questions as of press time, told the Examiner last week.

But Trillin says she can’t stand to hear Ballard falsely claim, one more time, that the city is going to shield criminals. "Ballard keeps repeating a completely false position, because Newsom’s actual position is morally indefensible," Trillin said. "You can’t have the mayor publicly say that young people don’t deserve due process, so you have to make up stuff like this instead."

Collective growth

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October 13, 2009

0

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Last December, Anticon celebrated its 10th anniversary with a concert at the Knitting Factory in New York. It was an emotional reunion. Many fans flew from around the world to see a hip-hop collective that hadn’t performed together since a 2002 concert at Slim’s in San Francisco. Peter Agoston, the event’s promoter, says it took a year to pull it together.

This was a far cry from 1999, when most of the original Anticon seven (along with more than a few couch-surfers) lived communally in an East Oakland warehouse. Tim "Sole" Holland, Adam "Dose One" Drucker, Yoni "WHY?" Wolf, Brendon "Alias" Whitney, Jeffrey "Jel" Logan, David "Odd Nosdam" Madson and James Brandon "the Pedestrian" Best sought to revolutionize hip-hop, injecting the art form with absurdist humor and beatnik poetry. Every month, they held court at Rico’s Loft in San Francisco, performing college radio hits like "It’s Them" and "Rainmen" as throngs of Bay Area backpackers shouted along. Doseone, Anticon’s madcap poet, says, "We were crew, posse, label, brotherhood, and boys-club."

A decade later, Anticon has become a brand and a myth. Baillie Parker, who faithfully attended those Rico’s Loft showcases, became an eighth member, label manager, and co-owner in 2001. Slowly (and sometimes painfully), he steered the label toward solvency, streamlining the collective’s unpredictable adventures into a small business. Then he ceded day-to-day responsibilities to his former intern Shaun Koplow, a student at UC Berkeley. After Koplow graduated, he moved back to his native Los Angeles, and now runs the label there.

Today, Anticon Records is surprisingly durable and stylistically varied. Recent albums include melancholy rock (Anathallo’s Canopy Glow, 2008), wintry indietronica (Son Lux’s At War With Walls and Mazes, 2008) and punchy, synthesized instrumental beats (Tobacco’s Fucked Up Friends, 2008).

Meanwhile, the collective that founded the label has splintered and scattered across the country. Some remained in the Bay Area (Dose One, Jel, Odd Nosdam, and Parker) while others moved elsewhere (Sole in Denver, Colorado; Alias in Portland, Maine; and the Pedestrian in Los Angeles; Yoni Wolf is currently "homeless" while he embarks on a months-long tour). They still own the label and make major decisions together. However, each pursues his individual career. Some collaborate, others do not.

What does it all mean? It doesn’t take a Rashomon-like investigation to figure it out. "We all send each other friendly [e-mail] messages every few months, but we’re not like this cult. And I think that’s good," says Sole. "When we tried to be a cult, we realized that none of us made very good cult members."

ORIGINS OF AN ICON

Anticon’s symbol is an ant, designed by Aaron Horkey of Burlesque Design. Ant-icon. The name comes from the Pedestrian, a Los Angeles native, and Sole, who grew up in Portland, Maine. The two met in 1992 on a Prodigy message board for cassette trading. Both were avid tape collectors, the lingua franca for music dispersion before the Napster era. They bonded over a love for the Los Angeles scene, where Freestyle Fellowship and the Shapeshifters pioneered speed-rapping and obtuse, free-associative rhymes; early Midwest battle-rap crews like Atmosphere and 1200 Hobos; and obscure Canadian groups like the Sebutones.

Anticon coalesced around a series of fortuitous happenings. Alias and Sole met when both lived in Portland; there was the 1997 Scribble Jam, famous in rap circles for its battle between Dose One and a pre-Slim Shady Eminem; Doseone’s frenzied networking skills brought him in touch with Jel, and then Sole; and Dose One made fast friends with WHY? and Odd Nosdam when he lived in Cincinnati in the late 1990s.

After Sole and the Pedestrian came up with the Anticon concept in 1998, Sole moved to Oakland to work for Listen.com. The rest of the crew eventually followed him there. "I was making $50,000 a year during the dot-com rush," he says. "I didn’t have any expenses, so I just put all the money into starting the label."

Anticon’s first release, 1999’s Music for the Advanced Hip Hop Listener EP was an invitation and a challenge, with Alias’ "Divine Disappointment," which imagines an argument between father and son, and "Holy Shit," a posse track marked by precociously off-kilter rap flows. A compilation, Music for the Advancement of Hip-Hop, followed later that year. "For me, it was about representing these underground aesthetic movements," says the Pedestrian.

But the only song anyone remembers from those records was Sole’s missive "Dear Elpee." On the surface, it was a battle record directed at El Producto, the incredibly talented rapper/producer whose group Company Flow recorded the 1997 opus Funcrusher Plus. El-P memorably coined the term "independent as fuck" to distance himself from mainstream rap, then lost in the throes of Puff Daddy’s hyper-commercial "jiggy" era. But Sole saw hypocrisy in East Coast tastemakers such as Rawkus Records, which distributed Company Flow’s records. He felt they excluded anyone who didn’t live in New York City, and was disgusted at how they extolled "independent" virtues while launching sophisticated marketing campaigns to promote themselves.

"Dear Elpee" wasn’t just a dis against a popular rapper, it was a distillation of Anticon’s scrappy, outsider stance. "Underground hip-hop is a mentality. It’s not supposed to be commercial. You’re supposed to spit an 80-bar verse and people are going to love it," says Sole. "I felt like [hip-hop] needed a little chin check."

On his subsequent two solo albums, 1999’s Bottle of Humans and 2001’s Selling Live Water, Sole honed his sarcastic and brutally honest persona. He criticized himself and attacked his unnamed enemies, exposing thoughts of paranoia and depression. With songs like the brilliantly melancholy title track, he sowed the seeds of what would later become known as "emo rap."

Meanwhile, Jel and Odd Nosdam (along with other producers such as Alias and DJ Mayonnaise) drew from a wide breadth of influences, from orchestral rock like Radiohead and Flying Saucer Attack to electronic acts like Boards of Canada. They made tracks using rudimentary equipment, including 4-track and 8-track recorders and SP-1200 sampling keyboards, resulting in songs that expounded a murky and intimate low-fi aesthetic.

Anticon’s recordings were imbued with a childlike playfulness. In 1998, Sole, Doseone, and Alias collaborated with Minneapolis rapper Slug [from Rhymesayers group Atmosphere] under the name Deep Puddle Dynamics. Alias explains the concept: "[The group name is] in reference to puddles … because of how they form, you sometimes can’t tell how deep they are until you stand in them or observe them really closely."

Deep Puddle Dynamics’ 1999 album, The Taste of Rain … Why Kneel (a title inspired by Jack Kerouac’s poem "Some Western Haiku"), mixed wide-eyed abstraction with introspective thoughts. On the yearning "June 26, 1998," they trade lines until their voices became a kind of Greek chorus. "What is the meaning of life?" they chant. "Fortune, health, knowledge, success / Woman, man, trust, progress / Culture, faith, healing, destiny / Endurance, family, science, society."

"It was so inspiring to be around those cats and see how they operate," says Alias of those recording sessions. His shy New England demeanor contrasted sharply with Doseone and Sole’s bravado. "It’s weird to go back and listen to it now. … It shows its age, and it shows its awkwardness."

However, Anticon’s precocious search for deeper truths through hip-hop, a genre often maligned for its lack of intellectual discourse, endeared them to listeners around the world. The collective helped spark a cottage industry of aspiring rappers, a sensibility built around tweaked flows and five-minute soliloquies, and nourished a brief, exhilarating moment of hip-hop experimentalism in the early 2000s.

Alias says, "I’ve been at shows and had kids come up and tell me how much my music has meant to them. They’ll tell me stories like when their father passed away, all they did was listen to ‘Watching Water’ [from The Other Side of the Looking Glass, 2002] for a week. Then they’ll show me that they have these Anticon-related tattoos or something. It’s crazy. It makes me feel embarrassed."

OFFBEAT STREET

If Sole is the blustery visionary who led Anticon into war, then Doseone is the eccentric who personifies its unfettered creativity. His catalog, issued via several record labels, ranges from the bleak tone poems of Circle, his 2000 album with producer Boom Bip; to Subtle, a band formed with Jel and keyboardist Dax Pierson. Over the course of three albums (including 2008’s Exiting Arm), Subtle molded rap, electronics, rock, jazz-fusion and whatever else they could find into a searing and dense whirlwind of word and sound.

"We were artists’ artists without a doubt. Still are," says Doseone. "It was DIY … and you could hear the flaws, the sensitivities, the trying-something-new, even when it was over the top or egregious."

Doseone’s strangely disembodied, half-sung raps epitomized Anticon’s greatness as an offbeat take on hip-hop culture. It should have made a bigger impact on the rap industry, and there are several reasons why it didn’t. First, Sole’s battle with the iconic El-P, whose music was just as experimental and groundbreaking as anything Anticon made, turned many people against him. And yes, Anticon was undoubtedly too weird for a generation raised on 2Pac and Jay-Z.

Most damaging were assumptions that Anticon was full of rich, ego-driven art-school snobs who made hip-hop for white people.

Those accusations struck Jel as funny. The Midwest native has been devoted to hip-hop for most of his life, and his placid, straightforward demeanor results from a staunchly lower-middle-class background. "All the shit that came out of nowhere about us not paying dues all comes from the racism that was involved," he says.

The Pedestrian admits that part of the problem was attitude. "When we were doing that whole pretentious ‘Music for the Advancement of Hip-Hop’ shit, for me it was about representing these underground aesthetic movements," he says. "I didn’t imagine we would look as white as we did. It really surprised the shit out of me. And in retrospect, we should have done things differently.

"In those early years, the crowd was pretty fucking white," he continued. "I know there was definitely a consciousness about it — we were thinking about it. But we were fucking kids. We didn’t know how to deal with these really difficult situations."

By the summer of 2002, when Anticon held a series of come-to-Jesus meetings to determine the label’s future, all of its members realized they weren’t a hive-mind group of crazy MCs à la Wu-Tang Clan (with Sole as the RZA), but eight very different people. Wolf, whose esoteric music masks a highly disciplined songwriting approach, felt those aspirations were "unrealistic." "There was almost a utopian idea about record-making, that it could almost be a socialist affair," he says.

As Anticon evolved from a movement into a traditional company, it meandered creatively and financially. Some released material that paled in comparison to past efforts (Sole’s Live from Rome, 2005). New signings, such as indie-pop multi-instrumentalist Dosh (self-titled, 2003) struggled to gain recognition for music that had nothing to do with hip-hop. Eventually, though, Anticon Records learned how to promote releases by its onetime collective as well as its growing indie-rock and electronic roster.

"The way it’s perceived by artists, particularly rock artists, I think they see it as a natural progression," says Sole of Anticon Records’ development. "All the outside-of-hip-hop-world friends we’ve made over the years see it as a natural evolution because what we’ve done has always been pretty melodic and rock and musical anyway."

Some of the onetime "cult" members who felt overshadowed during those early years forged individual identities. Alias, who always felt "awkward" when he rapped, moved back to Maine with his wife and focused on production instead. His efforts yielded 2007’s Brooklyn/Oaklyn, an evocative collaboration with Brooklyn singer Rona "Tarsier" Rapadas.

After a somewhat uneven solo debut (2003’s Oaklandazulasylum), Wolf formed a trio under his old WHY? moniker. Their next two albums (Elephant Eyelash, 2005; Alopecia, 2008) impressively blended Wolf’s prior talent for harmonies, loquacious wordplay, and poetic imagery with the band’s newly-minted melodic rock arrangements. By scoring rapturous national press, he epitomized Anticon Records’ new status as a fast-rising independent label.

WHY? just released its fourth album, Eskimo Snow, which consists of unused material from the Alopecia sessions. Wolf still does a fair amount of rapping, or rhyming in rhythm, even if the results can no longer be classified as strictly hip-hop. "I’ve incorporated it into my pantheon of musical styles," he says, adding that "the next record could be a disco record, for all I know."

BRAND OF OUTSIDERS

Anticon hasn’t abandoned hip-hop. Doseone and Jel just released their third album as the cryptically-named Themselves; their 2000 debut was notable for producing the indie-rap classic "It’s Them." With CrownsDown, Doseone returns to the arena he once flourished in. "There’s purity to the construction and presentation of this record that is derived from Guru and Premier," Doseone says, referring to the classic rap duo Gang Starr.

This year has also brought Chicago duo Serengeti & Polyphonic’s Terradactyl; and Bike for Three!, a collaboration between Buck 65 (formerly of Sebutones) and Belgian electronic musician Greetings from Tuskan. The difference between now and 10 years ago is that these albums aren’t the latest missives from Anticon the collective. They just enhance the label’s reputation for honest, lyrically-driven, complex music.

Amid all this activity, Anticon’s original theorists seem like the odd men out. Back in the day, the Pedestrian was the crew’s sardonic (and sometimes arrogant) prankster, sending out eloquent and confrontational press releases inspired by Dadaism and Situational Ethics. By 2002, however, the former high-school dropout went back to school, enrolling in Laney College. He transferred to UC Berkeley, earned a degree in literature, then enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he’s working on a PhD in ethnic studies.

"There was once an aesthetic collective. And now we’re a record label whose brand name has some lingering connection to that aesthetic," says the Pedestrian, who still treats hip-hop as a hobby and elaborate game theory. "But what we decide to put out and the music we all make is infused with those early years of collaboration. Those were important, foundational years for all of us."

Sole lives in Denver with his wife, and works as an IT technician for Denver Open Media, a public-access station. "It’s not my label anymore. I’m just one voice in it, and I try to contribute as meaningfully as I can to it," he says, adding that he wishes Anticon had a traditional rap profile. So for his new album, Plastique, he decided to work with Fake Four Inc., home to underground artists like Awol One and Mikah 9 (from Freestyle Fellowship).

With Plastique, he focuses on a wide-ranging critique of political injustice, capitalism, and Western hegemony, fed by radical works like Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. Sometimes, Sole fits the American lone wolf profile, railing about the world’s troubles.
"Do I wish it was still a crew? Yeah. I miss that. To me, that’s what it’s all about," he says. "But when you’re married, you don’t want to be hanging out all the time. You want to be home, making a stew and watching Heroes."

WHY?
With Mount Eerie, Au, Serengetti and Polyphonic
Sat/17, 9 p.m. (doors 8 p.m.), $16
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
www.gamh.com

SOLE
With Astronautalis, Sahib
Sat/17, 10 p.m. (doors 9 p.m.), $10-12
Uptown Nightclub
1928 Telegraph, Oakl
(510) 451-8100
www.uptownnightclub.com

Hear from constitutional convention proponents

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October 13, 2009

11

By Melanie Ruiz

California’s government is broken, unable to deal with this state’s many challenges, and it’s time for fundamental reform. That call was sounded in the summer of 2008 by Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council (BAC), and it was heeded by disparate allies who formed a movement that is pushing for a constitutional convention.

Tomorrow, Oct. 14, representatives from the BAC, Courage Campaign, California Forward and Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation will explain why a convention is necessary to get California out of crisis and gridlock and into prosperity. San Francisco Young Democrats (SFYD) and Citizen Hope (the grassroots political group that formed about Barack Obama successful presidential campaign) are sponsoring the panel discussion starting at 7 pm at the California State Building Auditorium, 455 Golden Gate Ave. The event is free.

One of the biggest impediments to good government is the hefty two-thirds vote requirement for passing budgets and raising taxes. Though supporters of this initiative often have opposing views on controversial issues like taxes, they all agree that one of the oldest state constitutions needs an overhaul.

Teens take over library, olds gasp

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October 13, 2009

0

By Cailtin Donohue

Just when you thought you were safe… teens take over the library

Friday night at the library! Sure, when I was 17 you couldn’t have gotten me there with a sharp stick and an unmarked van, but back then I was doing more meaningful things like chugging Mike’s Hard Lemonade and straightening my hair.

Not so with the attendees of TeenQuake. This sucka-free event of which I speak is part of LitQuake’s mega lineup of all that is arty and eloquent. The west coast’s largest literary festival has somehow managed to convince the San Francisco Main Library to be peacefully taken over by the under-20 set, and dulcet tones of teen lit authors will be echoing off the walls all night. Look forward to readings by Frank PortmanFrank Portman, author of King Dork, whose title character wryly dismantles life as a baby boomer’s progeny:

“He must have read the notebook. Otherwise, how would he have reached the conclusion that my ‘relationship’ with ‘my girlfriend’ was undermining his generation’s sacred achievement of the institution of easygoing touchy-feely ouchless deodorant optional crunchy-granola Hair-soundtrack butterflies-and-unicorns sexuality?”

TeenQuake featured artist Tom Franco’s story illustration from his collaboration with Mom

Also featured are teen lit writers Ying Chang Compestine, Tom Dolby and mother-son team Betsy and Tom Franco who recently collaborated on Metamorphosis, a young adult novel whose narrator recasts his high school social milieu in the form of ancient Roman mythology. In addition to all the booky folk there will be an emcee battle, a scavenger hunt whose victor wins a Wii, a live art wall and performances by teen spoken word artists, dancers and musicians.

So find the coolest, most verbose teenager you know and give them a ride. And how about just drop them off there because (a) they want to do their own thing and (b) Teenquake’s for 13-19 year olds. Don’t be that guy.

TEENQUAKE
Fri/16, 6:30-9 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
(415) 750-1497 www.litquake.org

Twenty galleries in two hours

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October 13, 2009

0

By Spencer Young

“First Thursday” is, you guessed it, the first Thursday of every month, but it’s also an open house art event where 30-plus galleries, mostly concentrated in downtown SF, invite you to look and hopefully buy their art things from around 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

But, what if — like me — you struggle making decisions that involve seemingly endless options and finite resources (time, money, stomach space)? If at restaurants you get overwhelmed by the menu’s dimensions, eventually narrow it down to the french toast and panini, but linger between the combinations tirelessly? You can choose at random, allowing chance to dictate your indecisiveness, or, you give in, exercising volition. Neither option, however, will erase the pangs of what was left out — what if the wild arugula salad would have been the one?

Oh the anguish of living in a liberal democracy! How does one make a decision and avoid the anxiety of absence? The answer: suicide. Not the act, but the drink. Filling a 64 ounce mug from every soda pop spout from Hawaiian Punch to Mountain Dew reconciles the dilemma at hand, because everything is chosen and nothing left out. Sure, the result tastes like shit, but at least you’ve experienced all there was to experience, albeit all at once.

This was my logic for “First Thursday.” There was just one problem: given that there’s over 30 participating galleries and only a two-hour window, that leaves less than four minutes per gallery, excluding commute time. Impossible.

The next best alternative? Hit the most concentrated area: 49 Geary St. With five floors and 20 galleries, two hours allow five minutes per gallery and 20 minutes in the hallways and stairs. Most galleries get boring after mere seconds anyways, so five minutes is plenty of time to drink a glass of wine, do a quick perusal, snap some photos, and jot down some impressions. In order to avoid another decision, these shotgun summaries are limited to 49 words each, constrained, like each gallery’s space, by the building. In order of viewing, here are 20 extremely hasty reviews of the 49 Geary St. galleries:

1. Bekris Gallery: “Common Ground” (continues through Nov. 21) www.bekrisgallery.com

Importantly dressed buyer-types regaling each other of trips to Africa and chanting, “Oh, how do you do?” “How do you do.” Broom-like statues of African subjects, and lively colored paintings with tricky ciphers fill the room. General, by William Kentridge, is the most attractive piece in the place.

General by William Kentridge. All photos by Spencer Young.

2. George Lawson Gallery: Clem Crosby, Tad Wiley, Transfocus (continues through Oct. 3) www.rfprfp.com

Eerily empty compared to Bekris Gallery. Clem Crosby: crude, ugly, drippy oil paintings seemingly painted with fingers, fists, and libidinal angst. Tad Wiley: solemn, yet inviting graphic arts balanced-shape paintings on paper. Transfocus: haunting photos of the abstract, awash in yummy colors. Uhh… where is the wine?

Art by Tad Wiley

Free concert: 40th Anniversary of Woodstock

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October 12, 2009

5

From the producers of the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock:
Free Concert Golden Gate Park
Sunday, October 25, 2009

Event: “West Fest” Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock.
Attraction: 42 bands, 3 stages and 26 poster artists. Solar domes, Alternative vehicles, Electric bikes, Native American Tipi Village, Sustainable Living Road Show, Conscious Art Gallery, Light Temple, Holistic Healing Section, Hooper Heaven, Rock’n Green Kids Zone and Eco Village vendors. Narada Michael Walden featuring Vernon e Black leading 3,000 guitar players and closing the show with the Hendrix Experience reenactment and Superstar Jam
Admission: FREE
When: October 25, 2009, 9am to 6pm
Where: Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA USA
Producer: 2b1 Multimedia Inc. and the Council of Light in association with Artie Kornfeld, the original producer of “Woodstock 1969”
Contact: Boots Hughston, 415-861-1520 www.2b1records.com/woodstock40sf or woodstock40sf@yahoo.com

West Fest Posters: Wendy Wright

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October 12, 2009

1

As West Fest approaches, Noise is showcasing some of the 18 different concert posters created for the event, which takes place on Sunday, October 25 at Golden Gate Park.

Here’s a poster by Wendy Wright:

The Chron, the guv and the issues

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October 9, 2009

3

By Tim Redmond

It’s as if the San Francisco Chronicle didn’t recognize that there are real issues facing California — and that the governor is acting like a thug, threatening the future of the state and clowning around like it doesn’t matter.

Check this out: The Chron’s editorial page criticizes Tom Ammiano for standing up to the governor:

But Assemblyman Tom Ammiano crossed the line when he shouted “You lie!” at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during a Democratic fundraiser in San Francisco on Wednesday night. Ammiano reportedly went even further on the crass-o-meter when he suggested that the governor could kiss his posterior.

.

(By the way, this is San Francisco — it’s okay for the daily newspaper to say “ass.”)

And then suggests that this was just a nice event at which

The governor was invited for a brief visit to a Democratic Party event by former Mayor Willie Brown

(By the way, Brown is also a San Francisco Chronicle columnist)

without ever saying that Brown had no business bringing the governor — who is so openly threatening the Democrats with mass bill vetoes that Sen. Mark Leno is forced to ask “are we dealing with the Mob or the governor of California?” — to a Democratic party fundraiser.

Brown was playing his normal games, goofing around and ignoring the life-and-death issues at stake. He and Arnold are buds, and Brown backed Schwarzenegger for governor over a Democrat. He knew bringing the guy into that room would create a furor, and he knew that the governor would love it (it helps him with his conservative base to get booed by San Francisco Democrats.)

Ammiano knows all that, too, and frankly, was somewhat reserved in his comments. I would have gone further; I would have called out Willie Brown for a back-stabbing political stunt.

And don’t the Chron editorial writers have any sense of humor? “You lie” was a joke, guys, a parody. Please: Lighten up, and get a clue.

The Democrats wild night

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October 8, 2009

24

By Tim Redmond

Well, I’m really sorry I missed the Democratic Party gala Wednesday night. Apparently it was quite a show. Brian Leubitz has a great report at Calitics on the unexpected appearance of Gov. Schwarzenegger and the overwhelmingly negative response by the attendees, including Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who stood up and shouted “You Lie!”

“It was political theater of the type we love,” Ammiano told me.

Seriously, though: Former Mayor Willie Brown apparently told the guv that the event was happening, and since Schwarzenegger was in the same hotel for a President’s Cup event, he decided (perhaps at Brown’s invitation, it’s not entirely clear) just to drop by. And everyone was supposed to act all nice and pretend that they’re aren’t real, serious issues in Sacramento and that the governor isn’t really, really screwing up the state and hurting a lot of people.

“This wasn’t the Legislative Chambers, where you have to put up with this shit,” Ammiano said.. “It’s like this guy just showed up and took a big dump in my living room.”

Labor folks weren’t happy, either, and a bunch of them walked out. Then Ammiano (and we should all give thanks that he’s in the Legislature, reminding everyone what San Francisco stands for) accepted an award and made a speech:

And then he proceeded to bludgeon the Governor’s record. He questioned why he was holding bills hostage to get a bad water deal. He questioned why a Governor who has vetoed the Harvey Milk Day bill would stand up in front of a room that was at least 25% LGBT. He politely asked Mayor Brown to send a message to the governor to sign the bills already.

And finally, Senator Mark Leno closed the proceedings for the evening. Leno took a different tack than Ammiano’s passion. He simply stated the facts. He said that the events of this evening were all funny and stuff, but the fact is that this Governor had cut state workers salaries by 15% with the furloughs. This Governor wanted to cut IHSS salaries to minimum wage. This Governor illegally used the line item veto to slash funding for domestic violence shelters. And that he, and the Senate Democrats, were going to fight him tooth and nail.

And to a loud applause, Leno stepped off the stage and the crowd began to thin. And everybody was saying, “um, wow.”

The other thing Ammiano said in his speech was that Democrats have gotten a little lax on standing up for their friends — and he mentioned both ACORN and Kim-Shree Maufas, and both times was met with huge applause.

And, of course, the Chron’s Carla Marinucci focused her reporton Willie Brown’s comments about how inappropriate this all was and how everyone needed to make nice to poor Arnold. But there are serious issue here that aren’t just fun and games, and when the stakes are as high as they are here, I’m glad to see them Democrats (or at least some of them) deciding not to play so nice with a governor who is smiling while he drives the state into bankruptcy and despair.

PS: Ammiano told me that when Marinucci called him, she seems astounded that he had said “kiss my gay ass” while walking out of the governor’s speech. “I told her, I don’t remember, but I probably did say that,” Ammiano said. “After all, it’s safe sex.”

Editor’s Notes

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October 6, 2009

0

Tredmond@sfbg.com

The folks at SEIU Local 1021 have been getting the mayor’s panties in a bunch lately — and it’s caused Newsom to make something of an ass of himself.

The union, which represents city employees, is still seething about the mayor’s failure to follow through on a deal he cut during the summer budget crunch. The way it was supposed to work, the union members gave $38 million in concessions, and Newsom agreed to hold off on major layoffs until this November — when he was going to support a measure to raise new revenue for San Francisco.

That never happened, and the layoff notices — more than 600 of them — have gone out, mostly to women of color who work on the front lines in the Department of Public Health. At the same time, the city’s forcing some skilled workers into lower-paid job classifications, in essence slicing their pay by more than 20 percent.

So the union put out a flyer demanding that Newsom stop the layoffs — and when a Local 1021 member handed it to the mayor at an event Sept. 28, Newsom went ballistic. According to union member (and certified nursing assistant assistant) Evalyn Morales, the mayor "said, ‘this is a lie,’" referring to the flyer. He then went on to say: "I don’t want to do anything to deal with the union. I hate Robert [SEIU organizer Robert Haaland]. What you’re doing now is hurting me … I hate Robert. I don’t want to do anything for the union."

Which is all too typical of how Newsom responds to criticism — particularly when the critics are going around to his gubernatorial campaign events and reminding people that this is the mayor who, like (Republican) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, produced an all cuts, no-new-taxes budget. He gets pissy. He loses his shit. He looks like … well, like someone who isn’t quite ready to be the governor of the nation’s most populous and probably most complex and contentious state.