Event

Anti-cyclist bias must stop

Michael Redmond
-
478

EDITORIAL The streets of San Francisco can be dangerous enough for their most vulnerable users — pedestrians and bicyclists — without the aggressive, insensitive, and judgmental attitudes that have recently been expressed toward those who choose to get around this city by bike.

The Guardian’s Politics blog exploded with caustic comments last week after a pair of reports related to the death of bicyclist Amelie Le Moullac. Among the worst of these blame-the-victim attitudes was expressed by SFPD Sgt. Richard Ernst, who showed up Aug. 21 at an event at the site where Le Moullac died to lecture those mourning her death and make a series of unfounded, irrelevant, and thoughtless accusations (for details, see “Shit Happened”).

These attitudes have no place in a civilized debate over how we share the roadways of this city, and they are particularly reprehensible coming from someone in a position of public trust and authority, validating the dangerous view that violence is an acceptable response to bicyclists who don’t obey traffic laws to the letter.

Compounding the anti-cyclist bias of the SFPD and other police agencies — which routinely fail to cite motorists even when their inattention or negligence results in the loss of life — is the revelation that SFPD misrepresented its efforts to seek video surveillance of the collision, which activists easily found from a neighboring business.

We call on the SFPD to fully investigate Le Moullac’s death, two similar cyclist fatalities earlier this year, and the actions of Ernst, who clearly abused his authority and misrepresented the results of an open investigation in order to make political points against a class of road users that he doesn’t like or understand, needlessly creating a safety hazard in the process. Perhaps temporary reassignment to bike patrol would give Ernst a clearer perspective on the entire community that he’s supposed to be protecting and serving.

The city should also do a public outreach campaign to improve the awareness and safety of all road users, particularly targeting commercial truck drivers, who have now fatally run over three bicyclists this year. The weight and poor driver visibility of these vehicles make them particularly dangerous, and they must drive them in a cautious and predictable manner. The city should also have clearer road markings to encourage safe merging at problematic intersections like Folsom and Sixth streets.

We all need to learn to safely share this city’s roadways, which starts with simply slowing down and paying attention. To focus exclusively on the behavior of cyclists is like blaming a rape victim for wearing a short skirt. Those with the most power to kill or maim need to be held accountable when they blow through red lights or drive unpredictably, and that should be a higher priority for the SFPD than to piously lecture those mourning a tragic death.

Alerts: August 28 – September 3, 2013

Michael Redmond
-
0

FRIDAY 30

Pre-Labor Day breakfast Hilton San Francisco, 333 O’Farrell Street, SF. www.sflaborcouncil.org. 8am, $75. Join the San Francisco Labor Council for an annual event, the Pre-Labor Day Breakfast. The keynote speaker will be Assemblyman Tom Ammiano and guests will also hear from Executive Secretary Treasurer of the California Labor Federation, Art Pulaski. Mix around, sip coffee, and get updates on worker campaigns. RSVP to Emily Nelson at emily@sflaborcouncil.org.

 

Summer of Solidarity concert and forum ILWU Local 34, 801 2nd St, SF. www.summerofsolidarity.org. 4:30-10pm, donation. The Summer of Solidarity tour is a 17-day, 13-city nationwide tour of local union activists and community allies aimed at supporting local struggles and connecting them with the broader fight against corporate power. Cosponsored by Laborfest, the event will begin with a forum on labor journalism at 4:30pm, followed by a forum on labor and community struggles at 6pm and a concert at 7:30pm featuring Anne Feeney, Michael O’Brien and others. For more visit www.laborfest.net.

SAT 31

Community forum on transit workers Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Cedar, Berk. www.bfuu.org, workweek@kpfa.org. 2-4pm, $5–$10 donation. Join KPFA for a town hall style labor community meeting. The talk will include the voices of transit workers, riders, and researchers about what is happening with our transit systems, and how to solve problems facing workers, communities and the public. Sponsored by KPFA WorkWeek, and the BFUU Social Justice Committee.

 

SUNDAY 1

San Francisco Zinefest 2013 County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, 1199 9th Ave, SF. sfzinefest.org. 11-5pm, free. This year’s Zinefest convenes over 140 creators of art, comic, and writing zines packed into two exhibition halls, including workshops with local and national zinesters and artists, plus a reading room and library. Off-site poetry readings and post-festival party are open to all. Japan Dolphins Day Fisherman’s Wharf, between Piers 41 and 43, SF. japandolphinsday.net. 11am-2pm, free. Activists will gather to call attention to the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, a cruel practice that was exposed by the award-winning documentary, The Cove. This peaceful gathering will coincide with Japan Dolphins Day, an annual event created by activist Ric O’Barry, who has gathered more than 2 million petitions to put a stop to the dolphin slaughter.

Win Tickets to WillCall Presents: Guards

Maria Poblet
-
0
Win Tickets to WillCall Presents: Guards

Just announced as a WillCall Presents Pop-Up show at the Rickshaw Stop, Guards will play with Dan Casey and Dante Elephante on Wed/28. WillCall is known for throwing incredible last-minute concerts, and they seem awfully excited about this one. Check out the event description from the WillCall app: 

“Bringing big heart and bigger hooks, Guards is the stuff of summer camp crushes and driving too fast in cars on school nights. Count the WillCall Family among the faithful – we’re fully devoted to the dopamine surge that comes with a night after seeing Guards. It’s pop-perfect pleasure, smeared liberally with honest-to-grit rock ‘n’ roll. We couldn’t be more fired up about this show than if we were actually on fire!”

If you haven’t used WillCall yet, here’s your chance to install the app (on iOS or Android) and experience the pure joy of gaining admission to a concert with a tap of your finger.

We’ve also got a pair of tickets to give away to a lucky Bay Guardian reader. Here’s how to get ’em: email your full name as it appears on your ID to sfbgpromos@sfbg.com with GUARDS in the subject line. That’s it! One lucky winner will receive email notification by noon on Wed/28. Good Luck!

Guards w/ Dan Casey and Dante Elephante

 

Wednesday, August 28

The Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF

$14, doors at 8pm, 18+

 

How I learned to stop worrying and just trust Larry

Sasha Cuttler
-
8

As I leave for Burning Man, I wanted to share an article that I wrote for the on-playa BRC Weekly. Enjoy, and I’ll see you all on the on the other side:

This is as good as it gets, burners, right here and right now in beautiful, bountiful Black Rock City. And this is the way it’s always going be, year after year, like a dusty Groundhog Day on acid. Only the numbers and faces of the citizens and the things we create for one another will change.

It’s perfect, right? No reason to change a thing. What God (or, rather, Larry Harvey) has created, let no burner presume to alter.

That’s an idea that most burners seem to embrace, despite the beloved pastime of veteran burners to kvetch and celebrate some storied golden age, whether it be 1986, 1996, or 2006. We all just appreciate the chance to build a city for ourselves each year and the leaders of Burning Man for giving us that opportunity, again and again.

And I’m now joining those who accept Burning Man as it is, hereby officially dropping my struggles against Larry, Maid Marian, and the rest of Black Rock City LLC board to create some form of representative or democratic leadership for the Burning Man and its culture.

It’s been a lonely and frustrating crusade anyway, so I’m happy to be done with it (as I’m sure they are). I’ve been regularly covering Burning Man for my newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, since 2004. My reportage formed the basis of my book, The Tribes of Burning Man, which came out in 2011 just as the LLC board was being torn apart by internal divisions that they resolved by deciding to turn control of Burning Man over to a new nonprofit they were creating, The Burning Man Project.

“Why not act to change the world, a world that you won’t be in? And that’s what we want to do,” Larry told a roomful of grateful burners when he announced the plan in April 2011. “We want to get out of running Burning Man. We want to move on.”

The prospects of that change in leadership seemed exciting, and I imagined a council of veteran burners representing our community’s constituent communities – artists, DPW, sound camps, volunteers, art car makers, regional leaders, maybe the biggest villages – gathering around a table to plan the future of Burning Man. It might get messy, but things worth doing usually are.  

First, I took issue with Larry’s announced plans to create secret payouts for the six board members, but nobody except Chicken John seemed to care about that. The predominant view seemed to be that they had done us all a great service and they deserved whatever it was they wanted to pay themselves.

Fine, so then I publicly questioned the hand-picked nonprofit board, which seemed chosen for their fundraising ability more than the communities they represented. Again, no resonance, so I accepted it and moved on. Maybe money was what was important in the early stages, and new leadership would come later.

And I was totally willing to just let it go and move on, until earlier this year when I watched the new documentary, “Spark: A Burning Man Story,” which concludes with the claim “the organization is transitioning into a nonprofit to ‘gift’ the event back to the community.”

So I decided to plug back into covering Burning Man to check on the status of this gift with just a year to go until Larry had said that control of the event would be transferred to the new nonprofit. But rather than relaxing their grip on the event and entrusting it to the community, I learned that they consider their leadership “more important than ever,” as Marian put it.

Not only are The Burning Man Project board members still not representative of the overall community, but they have no authority over the event, which Larry wants to continue as is “without being unduly interfered with by the nonprofit organization.”

Sure, the LLC and its various fiefdoms can unilaterally change its contracts with artists, its policy on what kinds and how many art cars to license, its ticket pricing structure, and size of the city (the max population this year jumped to 68,000 from 60,000 last year), all without any input from the community. It can cut lucrative side deals with corporations and propagandists. But we can’t have the new nonprofit board making these sorts of decisions, that would be unthinkable. 

“The nonprofit is going well, and then we have to work out the terms of the relationship between the event and the nonprofit. We want the event to be protected from undue meddling and we want it to be a good fit,” Larry told me.

And when I wrote about these issues in the Guardian, where they were read by tens of thousands of people, few people seemed to care. Two articles I wrote on these issues this year got two online comments each, comparing to the 259 comments and vigorous public discussion that ensued after I wrote “Burning Man ticket fiasco creates uncertain future” in February of last year.

The lesson: as long as we can get to Black Rock City, we don’t really care who’s calling the shots. After all, it’s really all of us who create the city each year for our own enjoyment, and that’s what matters, not the six people who control the $23 million we all spent on tickets this year.

So I’m just going to enjoy myself this year and forever after, safe in the faith that “participation” and “radical self-reliance” are things I do in my own camp and immediate surroundings, and that the larger Burning Man project itself is in the same safe and benevolent hands that it’s always been and always will be.

Amen.

 

 

The internet reacts to Sgt. Ernst’s bicyclist memorial tantrum

Erica Hanna
-
140
The internet reacts to Sgt. Ernst’s bicyclist memorial tantrum

A memorial (and informational event) at the 6th and Folsom corner where bicyclist 24-year-old Amelie Le Moullac was fatally run over by a truck last week was interrupted by a tense confrontation with SFPD Sgt. Richard Ernst, when he showed up to block the bike lane with his cruiser to lecture the cyclists.

SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum told the Guardian in a story Wednesday that SFPD Sgt. Richard Ernst showed up to make his apparent disdain for “you people,” bicyclists.

From that story: “He then told me explicitly that he ‘would not leave until’ I ‘understood’ that ‘it was the bicyclist’s fault.’ This was shocking to hear, as I was told just a day ago by Commander [Mikail] Ali that the case was still under investigation and no cause had yet been determined,” Shahum wrote in a report to the Office of Citizen Complaints. Below are a few reactions from the Twitterverse to Sgt. Ernst’s actions.

Below are a few reactions from the Twitterverse to Sgt. Ernst’s actions.  

 

Cyclist Patrick Traughber then rode a route spelling out the victim’s name, in tribute and memoriam. Special software tracked his route and displayed her name via the software. 

Cyclist Patrick Traughber rides a route to spell out the accident victim's name

The other thing Chelsea Manning said, and more updates

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
23

By now, we all now that Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years on Aug. 21 for leaking classified U.S. government documents, would like to enter the next phase of her life as a woman named Chelsea. “I want everyone to know the real me,” Manning said in a statement. “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female.”

But the message on gender identity wasn’t Manning’s only public statement the day the sentencing was decided. There was also this, a heartfelt explanation of why the whistleblower did what she did, titled, “Sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.” Manning writes:

“It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.”

Meanwhile, Bay Area supporters who rallied for Manning at the San Francisco Pride Parade and every other juncture – including attending the trial in Fort Meade, gathering on the day verdict was announced and most recently launching a campaign calling for the WikiLeaker’s pardon – also gathered at Justin Hermann Plaza Aug. 21 in response to the sentence.

The SFPD and CCTV


Yesterday, we told you about CommunityCam, a new online mapping platform that displays surveillance camera locations throughout San Francisco. We’d placed a phone call to Sgt. Dennis Toomer of the San Francisco Police Department’s Media Relations Unit to ask whether SFPD has an eye toward collaboration on this effort, but didn’t hear back until after publishing the post. In a voice message, Toomer explained the manner in which SFPD utilizes CCTV footage to investigate crimes. He said:

“The SFPD does not own or operate any [permanently installed] cameras. There are some cameras throughout the city, but those are operated by the Department of Emergency Management. Consequently, we don’t monitor cameras either. At events like the Pride Parade, Bay to Breakers, we have put up our own cameras along the parade routes, or along the race routes, just for the purpose of deploying resources.

“As soon as the event is over, those cameras come back down, and we don’t store any kind of video footage. What we do is, we rely on the public, the commercial businesses, banks, stores, you name it, to provide us with video if a crime occurs in that area – but it’s not something that we monitor. We ask the public to provide us with any kind of video tape, or cameras or surveillance that they operate. We don’t maintain our own system. Again, the city cameras that are around in certain areas – like the Tenderloin, Bayview, I believe out in Ingleside – those are all operated and managed by DEM.”

Where the Uber meets the road 

We recently reported that Uber, the smartphone-enabled ride service that does not wish to be lumped in with rideshares or taxis, is facing a class action lawsuit from drivers who claim they were cheated out of hard-earned tips.

Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes initially declined to comment, but has since emailed an official response (which does not actually contain any answers to the Guardian’s questions). Here is what Noyes had to say about the lawsuit, which Uber has not yet received:

“While we have not yet been served with this complaint, the allegations made against our company are entirely without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously. Uber values its partners above all else and our technology platform has allowed thousands of drivers to generate an independent wage and build their own small businesses on their own time. Frivolous lawsuits like this cost valuable time, money and resources that are better spent making cities more accessible, opening up more possibilities for riders and providing more business for drivers.”

Memorial for cyclist marred by SFPD harassment

Sasha Cuttler
-
380

A memorial and informational event this morning at the 6th and Folsom corner where a bicyclist was fatally run over by a truck last week was marred by a tense and unsettling confrontation with an SFPD sergeant who showed up to block the bike lane with his cruiser, lecture the cyclists, and blame the victim.

The event was organized by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to raise awareness of the incident and that dangerous intersection and to call for the city to make improvements. It included friends and co-workers of 24-year-old Amelie Le Moullac, who was riding in the Folsom Street bike lane on the morning of Aug. 14 when an unidentified delivery truck driver turned right onto 6th Street, across her path, and ran her over.

SFPD Sgt. Dennis Toomer tells the Guardian that the department has completed the traffic incident report, information from which can only be shared with the parties involved, but that the investigation of the fatality is still ongoing and will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for review once it’s done.

But SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum said that SFPD Sgt. Richard Ernst, who showed up at the event a little before 9am, had already drawn his own conclusions about the crash and showed up to make his apparent disdain for “you people,” bicyclists, disturbingly clear.

Shahum said that she tried to be diplomatic with Ernst and asked him to please move his patrol car out of the bike lane and into an available parking space that was right next to it, saying that it presented an unnecessary hazard to bicyclists riding past.

But she said Ernst refused to do so for almost 10 minutes, telling the group that he has “a right” to leave his car than and that he was “making the point that bicyclists need to move around” cars parked in bike lanes, according to Shahum’s written account, which she prepared to file a report about the incident with the Office of Citizens Complaints.

“He then told me explicitly that he ‘would not leave until’ I ‘understood’ that ‘it was the bicyclist’s fault.’ This was shocking to hear, as I was told just a day ago by Commander [Mikail] Ali that the case was still under investigation and no cause had yet been determined,” Shahum wrote.

And apparently Ernst didn’t stop at denouncing Le Moullac for causing her own death, in front of people who are still mourning that death. Shahum said Ernst also blamed the other two bicyclist deaths in SF this year on the cyclists, and on “you people” in the SFBC for not teaching cyclists how to avoid cars.

“I told him the SF Bicycle Coalition does a significant amount of safety work educating people biking and driving about sharing the road, and that I’d be happy to share more information with him. I again urged him to move his car out of the bike lane. He again refused, saying it was his right and he wasn’t moving until I ‘understood,’” Shahum wrote.

Shahum said there were multiple witness to the incident, including three television reporters who were there to cover the event.

“In addition to the Sgt’s inappropriate and dangerous behavior of parking his car in the bike lane and blocking safe passage for people bicycling by, it was deeply upsetting to see him unnecessarily disrupt and add tension to what was already an emotional and difficult time for many people who lamented this sad loss of life,” Shahum wrote.

Asked about the actions and attitudes expressed today by Ernst, who we could not reach for comment, Sgt. Toomer told us he “cannot talk about personnel issues.”

Compounding Ernst’s insensitive and judgmental approach today, it also appears the SFPD may have failed to properly investigate this incident, which Shahum and the SFBC have been tracking closely, and she said the SFPD told her that there were no video surveillance tapes of the collision.

After today’s event, SFBC’s Marc Caswell decided to check in at businesses on the block to see if they had any video cameras aimed at the intersection, and he found an auto body business at the intersection whose workers said they did indeed have revealing footage of the crash that the SFPD hasn’t requested, but which SFBC today delivered to investigators.

“He had the time to come harass us as a memorial, but he didn’t have the time to see if anyone had footage of this incident. It’s very unsettled,” Shahum told us.

Whoever was ultimately at fault in this collision and others that have injured or killed bicyclists in San Francisco, today’s confrontation demonstrates an unacceptable and dangerous insensitivity and animosity toward bicyclists in San Francisco, which was also on display in the comments to the post that I wrote last week about the incident.

It’s fine to debate what happens on the streets of San Francisco, and you can even harbor resentments toward bicyclists and believe that we deserve your ire. But when you endanger people’s lives to make a point, or when you threaten violence against vulnerable road users, then you’ve gone too far.

Yes, let’s talk about what happens on the roads and how to improve behaviors, but let’s not forget our humanity in the process.  

The Selector: August 21 – 27, 2013

Michael Redmond
-
0

God is dead?

WEDNESDAY 8/21

 

“German Summer Films”

Though the Goethe Institut’s latest film series is dubbed “German Summer Films,” it offers a refreshingly loose interpretation of the theme. For example, the first film, Color of the Ocean (2010), is from German director Maggie Peren, but it’s set in Spain’s Canary Islands, and features an international cast in its tale of a border patrol officer (Alex González) who meets a German woman (Sabine Timoteo) entangled with a Congolese refugee (Hubert Koundé). (That said, the second film in the series, 2005’s Summer in Berlin, is more or less the quintessential “German summer film.”) The rest of the series includes acclaimed German-Turkish director Fatih Akin’s 2000 In July; and a 2009 made-for-TV adaptation of Jack London’s Sea Wolf starring Sebastian Koch (2006’s The Lives of Others). (Cheryl Eddy)

Wednesdays through Sept 18

6:30pm, $5 donation

Goethe Institut San Francisco

530 Bush, Second Flr, SF

goethe.de/sanfrancisco

THURSDAY 8/22

 

Cool Ghouls

Bay Area natives Cool Ghouls are fun, reckless, rude garage-rock goofballs and they know it. It’s virtually impossible to attend one of their live shows and not feel the same chill vibes they give off. The group released its self-titled full-length debut album in April of this year, and has been playing shows on it locally since. The Ghouls’ scratchy-screamy vocals backed by playful guitar riffs and tumbling percussion resonated with the young SF crowds and landed them gigs most recently at Bottom of the Hill, the Chapel, Hemlock Tavern, Brick and Mortar, and the summery Phono del Sol fest. Their enjoyably sunny sound was the perfect match. If they get much bigger, their house-party image might have to expand. So catch them while you can, and while they’re still cool. (Hillary Smith)

With Lemme Adams, Black Cobra Vipers

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

THURSDAY 8/22

 

Melvins

And they said a stoner metal cover of Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” couldn’t be done. Well, sludge metal veterans the Melvins are here to prove them wrong. The longstanding band is making a voyage to Slim’s to play its 2013 cover album, Everybody Loves Sausages. Get ready for things to get a little weird and campy, as a bunch of middle aged dudes play a diverse selection of tunes throughout the ages. Embarking on their 30th anniversary tour, the Melvins will be playing songs by artists such as freak folk band the Fugs, the dear and departed drag queen Divine (John Waters’ muse), Queen, David Bowie, and the Jam. In short: don’t miss this hit parade. (Erin Dage)

With Honky

9pm, $22

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

FRIDAY 8/23

 

No Age

The newest album from LA noise-punks No Age, An Object, seems almost restrained compared to the bombast of previous records like 2010’s Everything in Between. With An Object, there’s a sense of tense build-up without release, tightly coiled guitar lines over paranoid drumming, and faraway hollers on the Sub Pop record, which comes out Aug. 20. Like much arty post-punk, it makes you feel like you’re holding your breath for the entirety of the tracks, unable to unclench. Relax and settle in: the experiment of An Object is a success, and the album is worthy of passionate intake. Continuing down the experimental route, the duo takes its live show to a more unexpected location this time: the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. And if you miss this stop, No Age will be back in Oakland Sept. 28 for the Station to Station fest at 16th St. Station. (Emily Savage)

With Devin Gary and Ross, Sun Foot

7:30pm (doors at 5pm), $7

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

2625 Durant, Berk.

www.bampfa.berkeley

FRIDAY 8/23

 

Nahko and Medicine for the People

Aptly named, Nahko and Medicine for the People seem like some sort of sonic cure. Nahko Bear’s versatile vocals range from a howling, soulful croon to a bouncing, jovial talk-sing. The indefinable quality of the group is further pushed in lyrics “I am a killer whale, I am a lion, I am a panther, I am coyote, I’m just a human being on another fuckin’ journey,” in “Warrior People.” According to their website, Bear is joined on stage by “truth seekers for whom Nahko’s story resonates with their own.” Nahko himself was born a mix of Apache, Puerto Rican, and Filipino cultures and adopted into an American family. Consequently, he suffered from an identity crisis at a young age. The mission of the band is simply to make people feel good, and to give solace to the culturally alienated. They do all that and then some. (Smith)

With Saritah

9pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF (415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

FRIDAY 8/23

 

The Parmesans

Local countrified indie-folksters the Parmesans released their full-length debut, Wolf Eggs, this week. The record’s full of swoony multipart harmonies, plucky instruments, and a chipper sense of hot-sauced humor. All of that is on fine display in track, “Load Up on Eggs and Bacon,” which begins with a solo voice, “when I wake up/I feel shaken” then layered barbershop quartet-style with additional harmonies, “load up on eggs and bacon,” and the sound of an egg cracking. Add to that the strings of guitars and mandolins and banjos, bellowing trumpet, and a light and tight rhythm section. Then bake on high. Oh, and be sure to check the new video for “JuJaJe,” also off Wolf Eggs; there’s no food involved, unfortunately, but the sparse little vid does feature the boys clowning around in various states of lounge. Perhaps there’ll be egg on their faces in the next one. (Savage)

With Before the Brave, Garden Party, Greg Downing

9pm, $10

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St, SF

www.theeparkside.com

SATURDAY 8/24

 

“Sneak Peek at the Fringe”

The colorfully creative chaos that is the 22nd San Francisco Fringe Festival is mere weeks away (it runs Sept. 6-21), but diehards and early birds can check out excerpts from works by eight local companies tonight. Among them: Amy K. Kilgard’s multi-character solo performance, Triskaidekaphobia: 13 Consumer Tragedies; Sean Andries and Siouxsie Q’s tale of a love affair between a mermaid and a tourist, Fish-girl; Maria Grazia Affinato’s autobiographical ode to her Italian family, Eating Pasta Off the Floor; and Genie and Audrey’s Dream Show!, featuring Genie Cartier, Audrey Spinazola, and a “cat piano.” For all the deets — and complete info on the upcoming full fest, visit the Fringe’s website. (Cheryl Eddy)

8pm, free

Exit Theatre

156 Eddy, SF

www.sffringe.org

SUNDAY 8/25

 

San Francisco Bacon and Beer Festival

For the first time ever, San Francisco will host an almighty bacon and beer fest. The Boston version of the event has sold out in under 10 minutes the past three years. Chefs from more than 25 Bay Area companies presenting their best bacon dishes and local craft breweries bringing out their finest for the $50 event are reasons enough to attend the unique gathering. If you’d like one more reason to spend the cash, take comfort in the fact that all admission proceeds will be donated to Sprouts Cooking Club. The club is a Bay Area organization that strives to teach children of all socio-economical backgrounds how to cook hands-on with real chefs, using real ingredients, in real restaurants. (Smith)

2:30pm, $50

Fairmont San Francisco Hotel

950 Mason, SF

(415) 772-5000

Facebook: San Francisco Bacon and Beer Festival

 

MONDAY 8/26

 

Deerhunter

Many who have flirted with musical greatness have also teetered on the fine line between eccentricity and insanity, and Deerhunter frontperson Bradford Cox is no exception. While the Atlanta band’s garage rock albums continue to receive glowing reviews and growing numbers of dedicated fans, Cox’s mental (in)stability has also been featured center stage in the group’s evolution. His charming eccentricities — rambling and semi-incoherent stage banter — are shadowed with more off-putting stunts, as when Cox responded to a fan’s snarky request for “My Sharona” with an hour-long cover of the song in Minneapolis. A Deerhunter show is many things — insane, beautiful, confusing, and frequently very moving — but there is one thing it will never manage to be. Bradford Cox will never be boring. (Haley Zaremba)

With Lonnie Holley, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks

8pm, $21

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

MONDAY 8/26

 

Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie

A trashy pop-culture icon, a chain smoker, a right-wing maniac, a finger-jabbing screamer so notorious his fans were called “Loudmouths:” Morton Downey Jr. was one of a kind, and that’s probably for the best. New documentary Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie screens tonight in San Rafael and opens August 28 at the Roxie; it looks at his legacy through clips of Downey’s train-wreck-in-progress talk show and features interviews with the likes of Pat Buchanan, Alan Dershowitz, and Sally Jesse Raphael. (Eddy)

7:15pm, $6.50–$10.75

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center

1118 Fourth St, San Rafael

www.cafilm.org

MONDAY 8/26

 

Black Sabbath

Before reality television and famous flame-haired wives, even before that bloody bat-biting incident, Ozzy Osbourne was simply a wild-eyed young boy from a hardscrabble town who, together with guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, formed the world’s first heavy metal group. Black Sabbath has become a hardened, bellowing legend, though in recent years was mostly relegated to playing metal fests like Mayhem, or Ozzy solo at Ozzfest. This year, however, the original group released its first new album together in decades, 13, a lumbering return to form produced by Rick Ruben. With it came instantly timeless first single, “God is dead?” an eight-minute metal epic. Beyond all the hype, myth, and druggy tabloid brouhaha, a vital band still stands before us, wicked as it ever was, and willing to crowd-please with old tracks mixed in with the new. According to live reviews of this headlining non-fest tour, the band has been opening with “War Pigs.” (Savage)

7:30pm, $40–$149.50

Shoreline Amphitheatre

One Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View

www.livenation.com

TUESDAY 8/27

 

The Breeders

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough album Last Splash, ’90s favorites the Breeders released a special deluxe version of the record earlier this year on CD (a seven-disc vinyl version is set to drop next month on 4AD), featuring a host of bonus live tracks, demos, a photo booklet, and more. The classic lineup of the band — Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim MacPherson — has reunited and is promising Bay Area fans it will perform Last Splash, which was recorded right here in San Francisco, in its entirety, along with its seminal debut effort, Pod. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $30

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

Alerts: August 21 – 27, 2013

Michael Redmond
-
0

WEDNESDAY 21

Breaking News: The future of open news and local storytelling Hub Media Lab, The San Francisco Chronicle Building, 925 Mission, SF. Hubmedialabsf.com. 6:30pm, $15. Local news outlets and mobile app founders will discuss the future of news distribution in the Bay Area in the context of maintaining an informed citizenry. Panelists will include Lydia Chavez, Founder of Mission Local; Laura Ramos, Executive Producer of The Bold Italic; Michael Coren, Co-founder of Publet and Burt Herman, Co-Founder of Storify.

FRIDAY 23

Egypt: A revolution in crisis 2969 Mission, SF. www.answersf.org. 7pm, $5–$10. Since the Egyptian Revolution began in January 2011, hundreds have been killed and thousands more wounded. The Egyptian military seized power on July 3, following massive protests against the government of Mohammad Morsi. What do these developments mean for the future of Egypt and the broader region? What is the role of the U.S.? Panelists include Omar Ali, an Egyptian-American activist with ANSWER, and Mazda Majidi, co-author of Socialists & War.

SATURDAY 24

Women’s Rights Day: A tribute to immigrant women New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk, SF. www.radicalwomen.org. 7:30-9:30pm, $3. This tribute to immigrant women will feature a screening of the documentary “Rape in the Fields,” unmasking the sexual violence against female agricultural workers. Hear from guest speaker, former farm worker and Los Angeles Radical Women member Yolanda Alaniz, co-author of Viva La Raza: A History of Chicano Identity and Resistance. Arrive at 6:30pm for dinner, which will be available for a donation of $8.50.

 

Rally for civil rights Steps of San Francisco City Hall, SF. bayardrustincoalition.com. 3:30-5:30pm, free. The Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition is organizing this civil rights rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famed “I have a dream” speech. The event will also honor the memory of Bayard Rustin, a gay man who was a prominent strategist of this historic event.

Lawsuit alleges Uber unfairly withholds tips from drivers

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
51

A class action lawsuit filed against Uber, a tech-based service that connects riders to drivers and has filled San Francisco streets with sleek black town cars, alleges that the company is cheating its drivers out of tips.

The suit also charges that drivers have been misclassified as independent contractors under California law.

Uber’s website tells customers there is “no need to tip,” and drivers are prohibited from accepting any extra cash. The complaint alleges that “drivers do not receive the tips that are customary in the car service industry and that they would otherwise receive were it not for Uber’s communication to customers that they do not need to tip.”

The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco’s Northern District on Aug. 16. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, of the Boston-based firm Lichten & Liss-Riordan, believes that by withholding tips “Uber is artificially trying to make the total price look lower – and in doing so, they’re hurting the drivers.”

Douglas O’Connor, who is named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said that when he started working as an Uber driver in San Francisco about 10 months ago, he was told not to accept tips because they were included in the service fees automatically charged to customers’ credit cards. But there’s nothing in his paycheck to indicate whether he has received a gratuity or for what amount, O’Connor said.

“For some of the drivers there has been a line item, but that line item that’s called the gratuity has not gone to the drivers,” Liss-Riordan explained. In those cases, it appears Uber takes half, she said. And in cases like O’Connor’s, “There is no separate gratuity that’s going to the drivers,” Liss-Riordan said, so the representation that any tip was included in the first place is “a lie.”

Liss-Riordan noted that Uber has even been known to send out “secret shoppers” who are directed to take Uber, offer cash tips, and report whether the drivers accepted the tips or declined with the explanation that the tips are included in the service fee, as they are instructed to.

Meanwhile, Uber recently required drivers to agree to revised contract terms, which is mandatory in order to continue their relationship with the ridesharing company. Buried in the fine print is an arbitration clause with a class action waiver. By agreeing to these terms – something Uber not only requires but makes exceptionally easy with the tap of a button on a smartphone – drivers are essentially giving up their rights to join a class action suit against the company. O’Connor noted that the contracts were sent out in English only, but English is not the first language of many Uber drivers.

“In order to opt out of this class action they have to send a hand-delivered letter to the general counsel of Uber in San Francisco,” Liss-Riordan pointed out. “We’re also trying to get the word out to Uber drivers that if they want to participate in this class action case and potentially recover their tips, they actually have to opt out of this arbitration clause.”

O’Connor said he drives between 30 and 70 hours a week, and would like to continue doing so in the long run. But without the additional income he feels he could be earning in tips, “I’m not going to be able to do it. It’s just so expensive to live in the San Francisco Bay Area.” He described what happened when a businessman he’d ferried to the airport offered to add an additional $10 to $15 onto his company credit card for exceptional customer service. He couldn’t, because Uber does not provide a mechanism for attaching an additional driver bonus onto the service fee. 

Asked if there was an estimate as to how much drivers could be losing in tips, Liss-Riordan said, “It adds up to a lot – for someone working there for over a year, you could be talking in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars.” And for the entire class of Uber drivers, who are estimated to number in the thousands across major U.S. cities, she noted that the total damages sought could end up being in the millions.

In addition to charging that Uber is “unjustly enriching” itself by collecting fees that are owed to drivers, the suit also claims that Uber drivers should be classified as employees under California law.  

“Under California law, there’s a multi-factor test to determine whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor and the test looks at things like … whether the workers’ services form the core part of what the business does,” Liss-Riordan explained. In this case, they do, she added: “If there were no drivers, there would be no Uber.”

As independent contractors, Uber drivers must pay for their own gas expenses and vehicle maintenance. They are not eligible for workers compensation or unemployment benefits in the event that they are terminated. Nor is Uber required to make any contributions toward its San Francisco drivers’ health care costs, since its drivers aren’t considered employees. The San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance mandates that employers contribute toward healthcare for any employee working eight hours or more.

Liss-Riordan specializes in representing tipped employees. She prevailed in a lawsuit against American Airlines on behalf of skycaps who were prevented from receiving tips because the airline created a $2 fee for curbside check-in that led passengers to believe that gratuity was included.

Reached via email, Uber spokesperson Andrew Noyes declined to answer questions about the allegations raised in the complaint, nor would he explain why Uber required its drivers to agree to an arbitration clause waiving their rights to join a class action suit. Noyes declined to comment, saying the complaint had not yet been formally served.

O’Connor, meanwhile, said he agreed to be named as a plaintiff in the case “in order to improve working conditions for myself and my colleagues.” Asked if he was concerned whether this decision would affect his standing as an Uber driver, O’Connor shrugged it off. “I’m probably not going to get the employee driver of the month award,” he joked.

Celebrating food (and the food biz) at La Cocina’s Food and Entrepreneurship Conference

Sue Vaughan
-
5

La Cocina — known for its ability to break down cultural barriers through food and for aiding low-income food entrepreneurs in their journey to sustainability — drew many fresh faces to its fourth annual Food and Entrepreneurship Conference Sun/18. The conference wrapped up a busy weekend for the organization, which also hosted the fifth annual San Francisco Street Food Festival Sat/17.

The all-day conference, held at SOMArts Cultural Center, was a mixing bowl of talented women cooks, curious food-business pioneers, new volunteers, and delicious food. Needless to say, the atmosphere was buzzing.

The theme was centered around work, women, and food. Three panels throughout the day featured business owners, food writers, and urban food-access coordinators, who discussed their inspirations for cooking, how to catch a food writer’s attention, and how to provide affordable food to urban landscapes, among other topics.

Carlos Rivera, director of Radio Laser Los Angeles, a family-centered Latino radio station based in Los Angeles, said he came to soak up La Cocina’s mission and hopes to spread it in the LA area.

“We’re discovering what they’re doing here. The most important thing is culture,” he said, adding that the LA area would benefit tremendously from La Cocina’s services. “There is a division of culture. We [Los Angeles] will need three or four La Cocinas. Thousands of people come to these seminars, but only a few catch the idea — culinary culture with fresh, healthy foods.”

The sharing of cultures is one goal that La Cocina and the businesses within it hit dead-on. It’s certainly true of Chiefo Chukwudebe, chef and owner of Chiefo’s Kitchen, with wares available at La Cocina’s Ferry Building kiosk, among other locations.

Chukwudebe spoke at the event about her culinary journey and her inspirations. She specializes in home-cooked Nigerian dishes like grilled suya chicken (“marinated in fresh ginger garlic and roasted peanut sauce and coated with West African peanut pepper spice rub,” according to the Chiefo’s Kitchen website). Another customer favorite is her take on Scotch eggs.

“Not a lot of people know about Nigerian food,” said Chukwudebe, who’s been with La Cocina for three years. “Most of what they know [about Nigeria] is from the news. But the best way to get to know a culture is through food. My goal is to bring the best of West Africa to the Bay Area. I want people to taste Africa, to taste the sunshine. There’s more to food than what’s on the plate.”

She is glad to be a part of La Cocina and said the business brings the issues of food to the forefront, and above all, provides her with a network of fellow cooks and owners.

“Most important to me is the community of women business owners providing support,” she said. “It’s hard work, but I wouldn’t change it.”

The event drew in people who are new to the food business and others who hope to jump in soon, including an Oakland resident who preferred not to give her name for professional reasons. She hopes to quit her job and start a community food space, kitchen, and market place in Oakland later this year, and she’s enjoyed drawing up ambitious plans for her future sustainable food business.

“It’s been fun connecting with people who are excited about making it happen,” she said, noting that she was inspired by the food owner speakers at the event. “People are doing pieces of what I want to do.”

Throughout the day, between panels and during coffee breaks, there was lots of upbeat chatter and excited conversations. Anna Rakoczy, a new business owner and founder of Homemade, an organization that holds weekly healthy cooking meet ups for sustainable weight loss, was especially enthused about the event. La Cocina, she noted, “helps entrepreneurs who are cooking real food with real ingredients.”

To the fit Stanford graduate, helping others become healthy is not just a job. “For me, to actually show people how easy it is to achieve weight loss and a sustainable lifestyle just by eating delicious, healthy, natural, real food … that, for me, is so inspiring and exciting,” said Rakoczy.

Luis Gonzales, a Treasure Island resident who volunteered at the event, aptly captured the spirit of La Cocina, and its small food businesses. “People look for homemade food and the public helps them [small food businesses] survive,” he said. “It’s like a symbiotic relationship.”

America’s Cup organizers sell small-scale naming rights at Pier 27 to pay their debt to the city

Sasha Cuttler
-
0

The Port Commission has approved a proposal by the America’s Cup Organizing Committee (ACOC) to sell bricks, benches, and other assets at Pier 27 to offset budget shortfalls, but community activists fear that corporate naming rights are undermining plans for a public recreation space.

A presentation at the Tuesday meeting by Kyri McClellan, the former city staffer who now serves as CEO of the ACOC, and Mike Martin of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development outlined the sale of up to 1,000 bricks to be set in pathways and 72 benches to dot the Northeast Wharf Plaza, which will bear the names of donors. Benches will be priced at $25,000, which McClellan cited as the going rate at other high-profile locations throughout the city.

McClellan emphasized that “none of what we’re proposing today as a pilot program includes what may previously have been alluded to as naming rights for this particular park, the piers, or the buildings.”

Milo Hanke and Alex Walker of San Francisco Beautiful, a local advocacy organization, didn’t have a problem with the smaller scale elements of the ACOC proposal. “The tiles and the bricks that are being offered here for $150, $300, for instance,” Hanke told the crowd, “that’s a gratifying opportunity for ordinary citizens who have already invested in our port to volunteer to express additional support for this proud port.”

But Hanke and Walker expressed concern about bigger ticket items that McClellan addressed with less specificity. “We want to make sure that this is a thing that’s going to be place-making and not place-taking,” commented Walker.

In addition to bricks and benches, the wharf’s lawn and adjacent walkway, an open plaza area, and a point at the pier’s end are earmarked for recognition of donors. So too are an event space and an exterior concourse on the second floor of the James R. Herman Passenger Cruise Terminal, slated to open at Pier 27 next spring.

“Corporate naming rights,” explained Hanke, “come with an intangible cost and I think that, given San Franciscans’ historic aversion to excess commercialization of our public realm, corporate naming rights are well worth taking a bypass on.”

Diagrams presented by ACOC did not include detailed renderings of larger donor fulfillments or clarification as to whether recognition would be restricted to individual and foundational donors and off limits to more commercial interests. “There is concern,” said Hanke, “of a creeping naming rights program if large areas are named for corporations.”

Pulling in $500,000 to $2.5 million a piece, however, bigger structures may be the revenue drivers ACOC is desperately seeking. As part of its host agreement with San Francisco, the organization is obligated to help offset the city’s expenses incurred in event preparations and operations.

Luckily, the race’s outsized budget is expected to be less than the $32 million originally projected, due to the paltry number of teams competing (four at last count) and the resulting decrease in spectatorship. Still, the ACOC needs to come up with as much as $20 million – a debt burden that’s got Mayor Ed Lee personally stumping in the fundraising effort. The fundraising flop belies early promises that the city would make money hosting the event.

San Francisco voters approved Proposition B last November, authorizing the city to apply public funds towards repairs and redevelopment of recreational spaces. The fact that the Northeast Wharf Plaza was a named site in that bond measure isn’t the only reason community activists are demanding to know what assets on its piers are being auctioned off and who’s buying them.

According to Jon Golinger, a spokesman for the Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group, the San Francisco Waterfront Special Area Plan limited development on the Pier 27 plaza until a 2000 amendment lifted port restrictions in exchange for guarantees of public recreation areas.

Since then, “we’ve been paying close attention to this park. It’s particularly needed and a long time coming,” explained Golinger, who said there’s been no citizen review of the ACOC’s donor recognition program proposal.

Neighborhood organizations hope ACOC’s tag sale of infrastructure doesn’t torpedo use plans for land long ago promised as a public recreation area. Golinger would like to see features like a kids’ play area, a dog run, and exercise equipment for seniors included in the final design – whether or not they are lucrative to race organizers now.

“After the Cup is done in October, it should look, feel, and be used like a true public park,” Golinger said of the plaza. “This corner of town is the most densely packed part of San Francisco with the fewest recreation areas per capita…. [the plaza] should be part of the neighborhood as opposed to a corporate event venue.”

The promise of infrastructure improvements was one reason the city of San Francisco agreed to host the America’s Cup race in the first place. Residents are now left to hope that ACOC won’t forgo investments of lasting civic value for single-use vanity projects intended to float its budget deficit.

Concluding the discussion of the ACOC’s proposal on Tuesday, Port Commissioner Leslie Katz offered assurances that, “we’ll definitely oversee and be mindful of the aesthetics of anything going forward… This is not a selling off of the port, but really an opportunity to thank and acknowledge those that have allowed us to move forward.”

This opportunity, of course, assumes that donors actually surface. Mayoral spokesperson Christine Falvey said, “We will learn from [this] effort about how we can raise private dollars to improve our waterfront and engage city residents in the effort.”

If ACOC’s efforts to court private dollars from city residents aren’t fruitful, however, taxpayers-turned-debt-collectors may have no option but to sign former District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s online petition and to demand that America’s Cup billionaire defending champion Larry Ellison pick up the tab for his boat race all by himself.

Promo: SF Street Food Festival is this Saturday!

Maria Poblet
-
0

La Cocina’s San Francisco Street Food Festival brings all of the best food and music in the Bay Area to one street, once a year, to celebrate the talent, taste, and entrepreneurial spirit of people who make a living doing what they love to do. Over the years, the festival has both galvanized a national movement while supporting local businesses – both informal vendors and high-profile restaurants.  

Admission to the festival is free, however all food at the event – whether from State Bird Provisions, Central Kitchen, or the local tamale-maker’s tent – will be priced at under $8. Attendees may purchase a passport before the event, the culinary ticket to all street food and discounts, to save time and money.   

In addition to mouth-watering eats from 80-plus vendors, the festival serves as a fundraiser for La Cocina’s kitchen incubator, cultivating low-income and immigrant food entrepreneurs since 2005. For the complete festival line-up and continued updates, download the festival app or visit sfstreetfoodfest.com.

Saturday, August 17 from 11am-7pm in the Mission, on Folsom from 20th to 26th  Streets, and on 21st and 25th Streets from Treat to Shotwell, as well as the Cesar Chavez Elementary School parking lot, Parque de los Ninos Unidos, and Jose Coronada Playground

 

 

 

 

 

Elaborating tradition

Michael Redmond
-
2
Elaborating tradition

THEATER The idea of traditional dance as somehow frozen in time or resistant to modernity is a canard that received a thorough going-over at last weekend’s Performing Diaspora Symposium, which kicks off the Performing Diaspora series at CounterPULSE.

Attending to tradition while moving freely beyond it remains a hallmark of the artists gathered in the annual series. Joti Singh is a good example. Dancer-choreographer Singh — whose Red, Saffron and Green premieres this weekend — grew up in the American South with parents who hailed from northern India. One way she absorbed her family’s Indian culture was through training in Punjabi dances that, as an adult, she began blending with West African styles.

Singh’s Red, Saffron and Green is a celebratory accounting of the Gandar party, founded in 1913 San Francisco by Punjabi activists organizing on behalf of Indian independence from Great Britain. Singh’s own great-grandfather served for a time as the party’s president. Her innovative blend of performance styles thus could be considered a natural vehicle for a story that is transnational, local, and familial at once — indeed a historically astute expression of the elaborate nature of diasporic identity and of the personal as political.

The CounterPULSE series expresses an ongoing commitment to ethnic and traditional forms as a vital area of innovation and conversation in the larger world of dance. Its title, meanwhile, flags two overlapping impulses in presenting the broad range of work: the desire to highlight diasporic communities as important producers of performance; and a focus on dance as a channel of expression, investigation, and community-building for diasporic cultures, whether those cultures are borne by first-generation immigrants or their American-reared great-grandchildren.

Animating the daylong symposium (available as a podcast on the CounterPULSE website) were three panels featuring distinguished guests and at least one artist from the series — the absorbing Congolese dance-theater performer and choreographer Byb Chanel Bibene, who spoke to the harrowing experience, and body memory, of civil war that informs his Taboos and Heroes (running this weekend) in the first panel’s exploration of diasporic dance derived from the experience of genocide and war.

On the same panel, Cambodian dancer-choreographer Chey Chankethya spoke to the “silence” confronting the children of genocide survivors, and the physicalizing of that unspoken trauma in the body. Jazz tap dancer and vocal improviser Germaine Ingram spoke as an African American concerned with the legacy of slavery and dispossession, adding that it is the space for expression in even the most oppressive conditions that exercises her creative imagination. “I consider my work not so much about trauma as agency,” she emphasized.

The following two panels covered the challenges of “representing Africa” in the changing heterodox world of Bay Area African dance — which generated some lively and straightforward talk during the audience Q&A — and the presentation of sacred dance as performance for general audiences.

There were also bursts of live performance and music (in particular, from Ingram and master drummer and Bay Area legend CK Ladzekpo, of UC Berkeley and the Ghana National Dance Ensemble, who joined the panel on “Spirit Moves: Sacred Dance Onstage”). Meanwhile, Singh led an interactive “experiential lecture/demonstration” on Punjabi Bhangra dance that had the audience up and on the dancefloor, moving in ecstatic unison for the better part of an hour.

In all, the event generated a lot of productive questions and considerable momentum for the fifth annual Performing Diaspora series (this year curated by Roko Kawai, Lily Kharrazi, and Umi Vaughan), which features work-in-progress showings from six individual artists over two weeks. The varied stories and distinctive aesthetic styles on display amount to a unique tribute to the cultural persistence and improvisation that make up life in the diaspora. *

PERFORMING DIASPORA

Through Aug. 25

Thu-Sun, 8pm, $22-$32

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

counterpulse.org/performing-diaspora

 

The Selector: August 14 – 20, 2013

Michael Redmond
-
0

 

WEDNESDAY 14

SPF6

Long before SF became hospitable to starts-up and high tech biz, it fostered dance innovation. No one in the city boasts this continued support more so than the Garage, the place with the red door that welcomes all-comers. Some of those choreographers, however, have outgrown the Garage’s limited studio space. Hence, the yearly Summer Performance Festival (SPF), which throws the spotlight on those ready for the bigger world. Last year SPF moved to ODC Theater, which was a great decision. ODC offers a superb, professional, yet still intimate environment. The eight 2013 choreographers — selected from 120 — are BodiGram, Jenni Bregman, Aura Fischbeck, Gretchen Garnett, Angela Mazziota, Milissa Payne, Nine Shards, and VinnicombeWinkler. Their pieces range from solos to a dozen or more dancers; from 15 to 45 minutes; inspired by, among others, kids drawings and hot air balloons. (Rita Felciano)

Through Fri/16, 7pm and 9pm, (Sat/17, also 4pm; Sun/18, 2pm, 4pm, 7pm), $10–$20

3153 17th St, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odcdance.org

 

Ivan & Alyosha

Seattle band Ivan & Alyosha creates a beautifully feel-good take on folk and indie rock. However, the group’s songs are more than just catchy tunes. The band, which was formed by Tim Wilson and Ryan Carbary, delves into darker patterns and themes on songs like “Don’t Wanna Die Anymore,” an indignant and resolute track with soft melodies that speaks of repentance and death. This balance of fast-paced, catchy, foot-stomping rhythms with earnest, ballad-like vocals gives listeners a wide variety of moods to choose from. One of its most buzz-worthy songs seems to say it all — the band is “Easy to Love.” And this summer, Ivan & Alyosha has been hitting the venues hard, touring on the latest, highly acclaimed album All the Times We’ve Had, with a stop in SF tonight. Come and see just how easy it is to love the rising band. (Hillary Smith)

With the Record Company 8pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

THURSDAY 15

Divisadero Art Walk

For better or worse (depends who you ask), Divisadero Street, between Geary and Haight, is undergoing a transformation. Some long-standing businesses (Blue Jay Café, Little Chihuahua, Fly Bar, the Page, NOPA) remain, while others have recently settled in that Alamo Square-ian, Panhandle-adjacent nook (Bi-Rite, Rare Device, the Mill, San Franpsycho). And yet, they all exist in basic brick-and-mortar harmony along Divis, and will showcase such familial spirits at the annual Divisadero Art Walk tonight. Journey down Divis to take in the basics: art shows, store discounts, food and drink, live music. Some offerings of note: Vinyl’s got Pizza Hacker craft pizza, the Page will have an extended happy hour till 9pm, and Madrone Art Bar hosts Fred Windisch’s surf photography from the 1960s, New Orleans piano music, and a free Night Fever Disco Party. Plus, the New Liberation Community Garden at 1100 Divisadero, a project of Neighbors Developing Divisadero and the New Liberation Church, will host SF Skate Club’s skate jam, a variety show, and jazz-inspired artwork. (Emily Savage)

5pm, free

Divisadero between Geary and Haight, SF

nddivis.org

Facebook: Divisadero Art Walk

 

“Neon Slime Double Feature!”

Everyone knows there’s beef between Los Angeles and San Francisco — and not just where baseball is concerned. But rivalries that run as deep as fault lines be damned: SoCal’s Cinefamily and our very own Roxie are making a star-spangled case for harmony — through movies! Trashy movies, no less! Cinefamily zips into town tonight carrying precious cargo: 35mm prints of 1984’s Angel (“honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night!”) and 1982’s Vice Squad (two words: killer pimp), to be screened before San Francisco eyeballs hungry for garish, sleazy exploitation rarities. Together we can! (Cheryl Eddy)

Angel, 9:15pm; Vice Squad, 11pm, $12

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.roxie.com

 

Useless Children

Useless Children, a noisy hardcore act hailing from Australia, has made its way from down under to play with Seattle-based noise rock band Dream Decay, and North Bay stoner-garage act, the Vibrating Antennas. With its second album — 2012’s Post Ending // Pre-Completion — in tow, this will be Useless Children’s first time venturing into the US. The band, known for its chaotic sound, takes an artsy, more experimental approach to modern hardcore. And those supporters also pack a punch, both known for being rowdy and playing powerful live shows. If you like your music feedback-laden with murky distortion pedals, then this may be the show for you. Get ready for a night of violent noise rock in a bar. (Erin Dage)

8:30pm, $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

Matatu Film Festival

The traveling Matatu Film Festival — named for a Swahili term that refers to ride-share taxis in Kenya and other East African countries — visits Oakland’s New Parkway Theater with films depicting “global journeys of humility, pride, resistance, and faith.” The fest opens tonight with Patricia Benoit’s story of Haitian immigrants in New York, Stones in the Sun (2012). It closes Sat/17 with Senegalese director Alain Gomis’ Tey (2012), about a man drifting through the last day of his life. (Both films are followed by tie-in music events at the nearby New Parish.) Among the other screenings: powerful docs God Loves Uganda and Stolen Seas (2012), well worth catching if you’ve missed them at previous local fests. (Eddy)

Through Sat/17

New Parkway Theater

474 24th St, Oakl

matatu.eventbrite.com

 

Best Coast

Under “biography” on Best Coast’s website, there is a single phrase: “Inspired by life and love and everything else.” Brief as it is, this little credo is really all one needs to know about Best Coast’s beach-bleached garage jangle. Frontperson Bethany Cosentino’s attention is sometimes attributed to her rock star boyfriend (Nathan Williams of Wavves) or her Internet-famous cat (the almighty Snacks) but after two successful albums — not to mention an unflaggingly devoted fan base —Best Coast’s catalog speaks for itself. The LA outfit’s simple, sunny pop songs are not particularly challenging, adventurous, or intellectual, but sometimes a hyper-listenable little slice of SoCal bliss is just what you need on a gray San Francisco day. (Haley Zaremba)

With Bleached

8pm, $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

FRIDAY 16

Deadfest

Have you ever worried that you just didn’t have enough grindcore in your boring, monotonous life? For those who have had that terrifying thought, Oakland’s third annual Deadfest is the perfect remedy. Boasting headliners such as ’90s grindcore heroes Dropdead and sludge bands Noothgrush and Brainoil, this will be a weekend of hardcore not soon forgotten. In true grindcore tradition, there will be over a dozen bands in a short period of time each night on two stages. Get ready for an aural assault that will have your ears ringing for days. As the youngsters these days say: “See you in the pit!” Just a reminder: It’s best not to be 30 minutes late to this event, because you run the risk of missing two to three bands. (Dage)

Through Sat/17, 8pm, $15 per night

Oakland Metro Opera House

630 Third St, Oakl.

(510) 763-1146

www.oaklandmetro.org

 

SATURDAY 17

SF Street Food Fest

La Cocina’s annual San Francisco Food Street Festival gives locals the chance to sample cuisines from all over the world. Food trucks and booths line the streets at the festival in a pulsing, crowded mix of aromas and flavorful dishes like the Penang peanut tacos from Azalina’s, Peruvian ceviche from Cholo Soy, or beef pho rolls from Rice Paper Scissors. The Mozzeria stand can satisfy your cheese craving with the Margherita pizza — fresh mozzarella, pomodoro sauce, and basil. And if you desire a sweet and refreshing beverage, visit the Curry Up Now truck and try the Rose Lassi. The festival has an infinite amount of combinations, and it’s fun to try as many of them as your stomach, and wallet, will allow. Donations made at the festival support La Cocina’s business incubator program which aids early-stage entrepreneurs growing healthy, sustainable food businesses. (Smith)

11am-7pm, free

Folsom from 20th to 26th, SF

www.sfstreetfoodfest.com

 

“Eat a Bug! An Interactive Bug Cooking Workshop”

Oh sure, you call yourself a foodie. But would you dare snack on a scorpion or gnaw on a hairy tarantula leg? Test the limits of your taste buds (and earn some sweet bragging rights) with author David George Gordon, aka “The Bug Chef,” whose wholly unique Eat-a-Bug Cookbook contains such recipes as “Sheesh! Kabobs,” featuring “12 frozen katydids, locusts, or other suitably sized Orthoptera, thawed.” Gordon’s cooking demo is aimed at adventurous chefs of all ages — Fear Factor fans and planners of daring dinner parties alike. (Eddy)

1-3pm, $10-$20

San Francisco Botanical Garden

Golden Gate Park (near the corner of Ninth Ave and Lincoln), SF

www.sfbotanicalgardensociety.org

 

SUNDAY 18

San Francisco Mixtape Society: Camp

Bug juice and swimming holes, acoustic guitar strumming by the crackling fire and hand-braided friendship bracelets around your wrists, those sticky-sweet summer breezes whistling through the trees. Yes, the thought of summer camp tends to bring back warm and itchy memories for the lot of us who experienced such seasonal traditions in our youth (even for those who accidently went to Christian horse camp, but that’s another story). Put those nostalgic feelings to tape, or CD, or flash drive, then share them with that bright and bubbly SF Mixtape Society crowd tonight, at this newest installment of its quarterly gathering, centered around the theme of “Camp.” Maybe I’ll even make an accidently-religious-pony-camp mix to trade. Although, as the Mixtape Society smartly likes to keep its themes broad, the “Camp” distinction could lend itself to something else entirely, say, a campy Judy Garland track? As always, the meetup is open to all and free of charge, but you can only take a mix home if you bring your own to trade. Didn’t you ever learn the joy of sharing? (Savage)

4-6pm, free

Make-Out Room

3225 22nd St., SF

www.sfmixtapesociety.com

 

TUESDAY 20

The She’s

If you walked anywhere in the downtown area during July, you’re probably already familiar with the She’s. The band was featured by the Converse Represent campaign, and its image, pushing a drum kit up one of SF’s trademarked hills, has been boldly splashed around the city. Converse chose well. The She’s embody all the youth, DIY attitude, and vintage pop that San Francisco loves. Their debut album, appropriately titled Then It Starts To Feel Like Summer, retrofits dreamy ’60s pop with a crackling teenage energy (these ladies are still in high school) and they’re finishing up a much-anticipated EP, tentatively titled We’re not Best Coast (But They’re Cool Too). The band, which has credited much of its success to the open and supportive SF music scene, is giving back tonight at Bottom of the Hill, where it’s headlining this Save KUSF Benefit. (Zaremba)

With the Yes Go’s, False Priest

$10, 9pm

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Theater Listings: August 14 – 20, 2013

Michael Redmond
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

In Friendship: Stories By Zona Gale Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $20-50. Previews Wed/14-Thu/15, 7pm; Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Sat/17, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sept 8. Word for Word performs Zona Gale’s “comedy of American manners.”

BAY AREA

All’s Well That Ends Well Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Previews Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Aug 24, 8pm. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 28; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company continues its outdoor season with the Bard’s classic romance.

Lady Windermere’s Fan Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-62. Previews Wed/14-Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Sat/17, 8pm. Runs Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 7, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Sept 8. California Shakespeare Theater performs Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

Orlando Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.theatrefirst.com. $10-30. Previews Thu/15, 8pm. Opens Fri/16, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 15. TheatreFIRST performs Sarah Ruhl’s gender-shifting comedy, which takes place over a span of 300 years.

ONGOING

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater performs Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

Gold Rush! The Un-Scripted Barbary Coast Musical Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. The Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical about gold-rush era San Francisco.

Gorgeous Hussy: An Interview With Joan Crawford Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $15-35. Thu/15-Fri/16, 8pm. Running in repertory with Lawfully Wedded (below), this world premiere by Morgan Ludlow imagines a young writer’s encounter with the legendary movie star.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. $15-25. Mon-Tue, 8pm. Through Aug 27. Kent Underwood is a motivational speaker and self-help expert with some obvious baggage of his own in this solo play from former comedy writer and stand-up comedian Fred Raker (It Could Have Been a Wonderful Life). The premise, similar to that of Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook: Better Than You (ongoing at the Marsh), has the audience overlapping with participants in an Underwood seminar. Underwood, however, two years on the seminar circuit and still unable to get his book published, deviates from the script to answer texts related to a possible career breakthrough. Meanwhile, with the aid of some bullet points and illustrative slides, he explains the premise of said manuscript, “How to Make Your Bitterness Work For You,” as the sad truth of his own underdog status emerges between the laugh lines. But where Bodden is careful to make his Seabrook a somewhat believable character despite the absurdity of it all (or rather, while firmly embracing the absurdity of the self-help industry itself), Raker and director Kimberly Richards put much more space between the playwright/performer and his character, which turns out to be a less effective strategy. Verisimilitude might not have mattered much if the comic material were stronger. Unfortunately, despite the occasional zinger, much of the humor is weak or corny and the narrative (interrupted at regular intervals by an artificial tone representing the arrival of a fresh text message) too contrived to sell us on the larger story. (Avila)

Keith Moon: The Real Me Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $40. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 7pm. Was Keith Moon the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer ever? Veteran solo performer and drum stylist Mick Berry doesn’t exactly come out and say so, but his biographical play about Moon definitely makes a good case for the possibility. Keith Moon: The Real Me, written and performed by Berry, kicks off with a literal bang, a hi-octane cover of “Baba O’Riley,” featuring Berry’s exuberantly crashing cymbals layered over the iconic, rapid-fire synth riff that runs throughout the song. Though the characters of the play are all portrayed by Berry — with references to all the requisite sex, drugs, and self-destruction thrown into the mix — a full band stands at the ready behind two transparent screens to flesh out the show’s strongest element: the rock-and-roll. In order to channel Moon’s full-throttle drumming, Berry enlisted the assistance of Frank Simes, the music director of the Who’s 2012-2013 tour, while to channel Moon’s freewheeling but insecure personality, he enlisted local director Bobby Weinapple. The script itself is still ragged, and a couple of key moments, particularly when Moon’s car is attacked in early 1970, are presented in such a way that the context comes later, which is confusing if you don’t already know the history of the incident. But if you don’t mind a bit of chat with your rock concert, you’ll probably find this fusion of the two intriguing. Just remember, when the nice concessions people offer you complimentary earplugs, take them. (Gluckstern)

Lawfully Wedded: Plays About Marriage Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $15-35. Sat/17, 8pm. Running in repertory with Gorgeous Hussy (above), this world premiere “collage of scenes and stories” by Morgan Ludlow, Kirk Shimano, and Alina Trowbridge takes on marriage equality.

Marius Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, SF; www.generationtheatre.com. $20-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Aug 25. GenerationTheatre performs R. David Valayre’s new English translation of Marcel Pagnol’s classic about a man who dreams of traveling the seas.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

So You Can Hear Me Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Aug 24. A 23-year-old with no experience, just high spirits and big ideals, gets a job in the South Bronx teaching special ed classes and quickly finds herself in over her head. Safiya Martinez, herself a bright young woman from the projects, delivers this inspired accounting of her time not long ago in perhaps the most neglected sector of the public school system — a 60-minute solo play that makes up for its slim plot with a set of deft, powerful, lovingly crafted characterizations. These complex portraits, alternately hysterical and startling, offer their own moving ruminations on a violent but also vibrant stratum of American society, deeply fractured by pervasive poverty and injustice and yet full of restive young personalities too easily dismissed, ignored, or crudely caricatured elsewhere. An effervescent, big-hearted, and very talented performer, Martinez boasts a bounding personality and contagious passion for her former students (as complicated as that relationship was), and makes this deeply felt tribute all the more memorable. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Stories High XII: The Soma Edition Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. $10-20. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Four mini-plays about “living, working, playing, and struggling” in SoMa, written by Dianne Aquino Chui, Paolo Salazar, Cristal Fiel, and Conrad Panganiban.

Sweet Bird of Youth Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. Tides Theatre performs Tennessee Williams’ Gulf Coast-set drama about an improbable couple.

BAY AREA

A Comedy of Errors Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 29; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company presents a cowboy-themed spin on the Bard’s classic.

No Man’s Land Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $35-135. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Aug 29); Wed, 7pm (also Aug 28, 2pm); Sun/18 and Aug 25, 2pm. Through Aug 31. Acting legends and erstwhile X-Men Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen star in this pre-Broadway engagement of Harold Pinter’s play.

Oil and Water This week: San Lorenzo Park, Dakota at Ocean, Santa Cruz; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/17-Sun/18, 3pm (music at 2:30pm). Through Sept 2 at NorCal parks. It’s a rough year for mimes, or at any rate for the San Francisco Mime Troupe who, after presenting 53 seasons of free theater in the parks of San Francisco (and elsewhere), faced a financial crisis in April that threatened to shut down this season before it even started. The resultant show, funded by an influx of last-minute donations, is one cut considerably closer to the bone than in previous years. With a cast of just four actors and two musicians, plus a stage considerably less ornate then usual, even the play has shrunk in scale, from one two-hour musical to two loosely-connected one-acts riffing on general environmentalist themes. In Deal With the Devil, a surprisingly sympathetic (not to mention downright hawt) Devil (Velina Brown) shows up to help an uncertain president (Rotimi Agbabiaka) regain his conscience and win back his soul, while in Crude Intentions adorable, progressive, same-sex couple Gracie (Velina Brown) and Tomasa (Lisa Hori-Garcia) wind up catering a “benefit” shindig for the Keystone XL Pipeline giving them the opportunity to perpetrate a little guerrilla direct action on a bombastic David Koch (Hugo E Carbajal) with a “mole de petróleo” and a smartphone. Throughout, the performers remain upbeat if somewhat over-extended as they sing, dance, and slapstick their way to the sobering conclusion that the time to turn things around in the battles over global environmental protection is now — or never. (Gluckstern)

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed/14-Thu/15, 7pm; Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. The stage comes unusually populated in this latest from well-known Bay Area monologist and red-diaper baby Josh Kornbluth: a four-piece musical ensemble (El Beh, Jonathan Kepke, Olive Mitra, and Eli Wirtschafter) sits stage right, a standing table with some reed-making equipment appears stage left. Front and center is Kornbluth and his oboe, before him a music stand and behind him three “reeds”—freestanding concave walls of a bamboo-hue (designed by Nina Ball). But there’s more: Kornbluth’s physical trainer (Beth Wilmurt), bounding up from her seat in the first row to lend Kornbluth support or, more productively, prod him in the right direction as he takes the long road home to setting up a promised recital of Bach’s Cantata No. 82. That set up hinges on his recent bar mitzvah, at 52, in Israel, and its unexpected connections between his life-long oboe playing, his Communist upbringing in New York, his mixed marriage, his conversations with a local rabbi, and the Book of Exodus (specifically, Moses’s trail-blazing for the Israelites across the Red Sea, a.k.a., the Sea of Reeds). Although the introduction of supporting characters, musicians, and a musical score (by Marco D’Ambrosio) breaks new ground for the longtime soloist, Sea of Reeds is classic — indeed classical (thanks to a final few tenuous bars from the promised Bach cantata) — Kornbluth. Directed by longtime creative partner David Dower, the show features the boyish comedic persona, the intricate storytelling, and the biographical referents that have given him a loyal following over the years. Diehard fans aside, the show’s cheesy, somewhat self-regarding conceit of staging “spontaneous” interactions between Kornbluth and his trainer may not work with everyone. Perhaps more challenging, though, is the persistence of a less than fully examined disjunction between the political values of his parents and his own political and ethical evolution — a disjunction highlighted here in the narrative’s fraught Middle Eastern setting and its vague navigation between the violence of religious zealotry and a plea for tolerance. (Avila)

The Wiz Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Wed-Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 25. The first time I saw the movie version of The Wiz with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, and Lena Horne (among others) it pretty much blew my young, Wizard of Oz-loving mind, swapping funky R&B for syrupy ballads, sophisticated silver pumps in place of the familiar sequined red ones, and mean city streets and subways in place of the more bucolic surroundings of the 1939 Victor Fleming film. Unfortunately, from a certain perspective, the 1970s feel just about as dated today as the 1930s, and consequently The Wiz doesn’t seem quite as innovative as it once did. And while there are some nods to the political climate of today made by the creative team behind the Berkeley Playhouse’s production (such as a pair of almost randomly-wielded rainbow flags, and a handful of t-shirts printed with peace-and-love messages), they mostly steer clear of making any kind of overt statements, even in regards to the all black casting (now thoroughly integrated). Similarly, many of the trappings of the “seventies” have also been axed in favor of more fanciful, almost cartoonish, costuming and choreography. It’s long for a children’s musical, clocking in at around two-and-a-half hours, but that seems no deterrent to the plucky Wiz Kidz youth ensemble who tread the floorboards as a pack of munchkins, a band of sweatshop laborers, and a groovy bunch of glammed-up citizens of the Emerald City. Grown-up voices of special note belong to Taylor Jones as Dorothy, Nicole Julien as Aunt Em/Glinda, Amy Lizardo as Addaperle, Reggie D. White as Tin Man, and Sarah Mitchell as Evillene. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Amplitude II” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/16, 7-9pm. Free with gallery admission ($8-10). Novelist Laleh Khadivi, scholar Paula Moya, and others lead this event in which audience members are invited to read excerpts from novels recommended by participating artists. There will also be an expanded cinema performance by Michelle Dizon (2012’s Perpetual Peace).

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 31. $20. The company’s 19th annual Summer Improv Festival continues with “Spontaneous Broadway” (Fri/16); “SF vs. LA Theatresports” (Sat/17); “Duoprov Championship” (Aug 23-24); and “Choose Your Own Adventure” (Aug 30-31).

Kurt Braunohler Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; kurttub.eventbrite.com. Fri/16, 8pm. $18. The comedian release his new album, How Do I Land?, with fellow performers Laura Kightlinger, the Business, and a special musical guest.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/17 and Aug 25, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Help Is On the Way 19” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Sun/18, 7:30pm (silent auction and VIP party, 5pm; pre-show gala reception, 6-7:30pm; post-show party, 10-11:45pm). $65-125. Alex Newell (Glee) and Judy Garland impersonator Jim Bailey headline this benefit for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation.

“Iolanthe” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 2pm. $15-59. Lamplighters Music Theatre performs Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic musical comedy.

“Merola Grand Finale” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.merola.org. Sat/17, 7:30pm. $25-45. Future opera headliners perform.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 7pm. Through Sept 28. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Dance-circus company Capacitor presents a family-friendly series of performances inspired by the ocean. Each show features a pre-performance talk by a marine biologist or oceanographer.

“Performing Diaspora Festival” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through Aug 25. $20-30 sliding scale. This week: Byb Chanel Bibene, Joti Singh, and Jia Wu; next week: Jewlia Eisenberg, Muisi-kongo Malongo, and Nadhi Thekkek.

“RAWdance presents the Concept Series: 14” 66 Sanchez Studio, 66 Sanchez, SF; www.rawdance.org. Sat/17-Sun/18, 8pm (also Sun/18, 3pm). Pay what you can. Intimate salon of contemporary dance with Nina Haft and Company, Stranger Lover Dreamer, Post: Ballet, the Anata Project, Fog Beast, and RAWdance. Plus popcorn!

“San Francisco Drag King Contest” Space 550, 550 Barneveld, SF; www.sfdragkingcontest.com. Sat/17, 10pm. $15-35. The 18th rendition of this popular contest, hosted by Sister Roma and Fudgie Frottage, benefits Pets Are Wonderful Support; a dance party with guest DJs follows.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

San Francisco Opera Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sun/18, 2pm. Free. As part of the Stern Grove Festival, SF Opera performs an outdoor concert featuring the works of Verdi, Wagner, and Benjamin Britten.

“San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission at Third, SF; www.brava.org. Thu/15, 12:30-1:30pm, free. Son de Madera performs. Additional events at Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Thu/15, 7pm: screening of documentary Soneros del Tesechoacan ($5); Fri/16, 8pm: Los Soneros del Tesechoacan perform with Cambalache ($18-35); Sat/17, 8pm: Son de Madera play a concert with Dia Pa’ Son ($18-35); and Sun/18, times and prices vary: workshops, master classes, and more.

“SPF6” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Wed/14-Sun/18, 7pm (also Wed/14-Sat/17, 9pm; Sat/17-Sun/18, 4pm; Sun/18, 2pm). $10-20. SAFEhouse, which fosters new performing artists through residencies and other programs, presents its sixth annual Summer Performance Festival.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Mission at Third St, SF; www.ybgf.org. Free. This week: “Brazil in the Gardens” (Sat/18, 1-2:30pm); “Poetry Tuesday at Jessie Square” (Tue/20, 12:30-1:30pm).

BAY AREA

“My Own Fairytale” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. $15-30. Leslie Noel presents a workshop performance of her new musical about heartbreak, love, and betrayal.

“Legally Blonde: The Musical” Valley Center for the Arts, Regent’s Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakl; www.stagedoorconservatory.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 7:30pm; Sun/18, 2pm. $15-35. Stage Door Conservatory performs the musical based on the Reese Witherspoon comedy.

“The Peace Project; Shaking & Shocking” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.dnaga.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. $15-20. dNaga in partnership with PDActive and Danspace presents Claudine Naganuma’s work about the ways in which patients manage Parkinson’s Disease.

“TheatreWorks New Works Festival” Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. Wed-Sun, showtimes vary. $19 (festival pass, $65). TheatreWorks performs its 12th annual fest, with a line-up that includes a new comedy from Pulitzer winner Beth Henley. *

 

On the Cheap: August 14 – 20, 2013

Michael Redmond
-
0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 14

Toby Barlow Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The Detroit-based author reads from his latest novel, Babayaga.

Caleb Crain 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. The journalist and literary critic discusses his new work, Necessary Errors.

Fran Moreland Johns Books Inc., 3515 California, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. The author shares Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before and After Roe V. Wade.

THURSDAY 15

Yangsze Choo 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. The author reads from her debut novel, The Ghost Bride.

Dr. Ellen Cutler Books Inc., 2251 Chestnut, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. The holistic healing pioneer discusses Clearing the Way to Health and Wellness.

Dr. Christopher Herndon Bone Room, 1573 Solano, Berk; www.boneroompresents.com. 7pm, free. The UCSF physician discusses “Learning from Tribal Healers,” drawing on his own experiences working with Amazonian healers.

“Shipwreck: Competitive Erotic Fanfiction” Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7pm, $10 (included drinks). The Booksmith and Write Club SF present the third installment of an event in which “six writers destroy one great book” by inserting its characters into new and strange worlds. This time around, it’s The Wizard of Oz. Surrender!

“3rd on Third Arts Celebration” Third St between McKinnon and Quesada, SF; www.bayviewmerchants.org. 5:30-8pm, free. Bayview’s Third Street Corridor hosts activities for the whole family, including live mural painting, pop-up galleries, a “children’s zone,” food vendors, live music by Afrolicious, KBLX DJs Rick and Russ, and more.

FRIDAY 16

Cathleen Miller Books Inc., 601 Van Ness, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. The author shares Champion of Choice, a biography of reproductive-rights advocate Nafis Sadik.

“Mugsy Is the New Black” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.elriosf.com or @musgyawinebar. 5:30-8:30pm, free. It’s a pop-up wine bar focusing on winemakers who are queer, female, and/or people of color. El Rio serves free oysters (limited quantities) starting at 5:30pm, so show up early and sip wares from Gratta Wines, Farina Blanco, and more.

SATURDAY 17

“Family Day Kite Festival” Main Post Lawn, 103 Montgomery, Presidio, SF; www.fdkf.org. 11am-5pm, free. One of the windiest places in San Francisco (and that’s saying a lot) hosts this fun and colorful festival, with a “Make-a-Kite” pavilion for kids, kite acrobatics, a variety of kite-flying contests, the intriguing possibility of “candy-showering kites,” and more.

“San Francisco Street Food Festival” Folsom at 24th St, SF; www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free (bring cash for food). La Cocina hosts what’s sure to be an insanely popular event, with local food trucks, restaurants, and pop-ups selling their wares to the hip and hungry masses. Arriving early and not trying to park nearby are both advised.

“Take the Field” AT&T Park, 24 Willie Mays Plaza, SF; coachingcorps.org/takethefield. 1-5pm, $5 suggested donation. Support kid-helping charity Coaching Corps and live out your own baseball fantasies with this event held on the Giants’ home turf; activities include a “Splash Hits Derby,” a base-running game; photo ops with the World Series trophies, and more.

SUNDAY 18

“Urban Air Market” Pier 70 (near 3rd and 20th Sts), SF; www.urbanairmarket.com. 11am, free. You’ve probably browsed the stalls when this pop-up market has appeared in other neighborhoods (Hayes Valley, for one); now, for the first time, Dogpatch’s Pier 70 plays host to this showcase of local, independent designers, with emphasis placed on sustainable and “green” products.

TUESDAY 20

Ben Alamar Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The sports-statistics expert discusses Sports Analytics: A Guide for Coaches, Managers, and Other Decision Makers with Zyzzyva managing editor Oscar Villalon.

Michael Paterniti 1 Ferry Bldg, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 6pm, free. The author reads from The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese, a nonfiction work inspired by a highly sought-after variety of Spanish queso. *

 

Dream deferred

Michael Redmond
-
3
Dream deferred

news@sfbg.com

Nearly 50 years ago, hundreds of thousands of people marched at our nation’s capital to demand racial equality and respect. And half a century later, people are still fighting for that same cause.

In July, when George Zimmerman was found not guilty of any crimes for fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, racial tensions flared in the Bay Area and abroad. Martin’s death brought the issue of racial profiling to the surface, energizing a new generation of activists just in time for Aug. 28, the 50th anniversary of the Great March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Rev. Arnold Townsend, vice president of San Francisco’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. Townsend told the Guardian that Martin’s death triggered memories of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in 1955 for flirting with a white woman.

Townsend was 12 when Till was murdered, and he says seeing the pictures of Till’s disfigured body in a casket posted in Jet magazine was what inspired him to be actively involved in the movement for racial justice.

“What happens in the world finds ways of bringing people together. What happened to Trayvon Martin isn’t so different from what happened to Emmett Till,” Townsend told us. “I knew that people could come for my father, my uncle, but from this I learned that they could come for me.”

The Zimmerman verdict resulted in large demonstrations of anger and outrage all across the country, including Oakland and San Francisco. The verdict inspired Zack Aslanian-Williams, a 24-year-old San Francisco resident, and others to join the NAACP and become activists.

“There is something about the Trayvon Martin case that definitely impacted my willingness to get involved,” Aslanian-Williams told us. “The case caught fire, and I have a sense of urgency to get involved in any way I can.”

In the wake of the verdict, many new and veteran activists targeted National Night Out, a neighborhood watch program event that African American activists fear fosters the kind of racist vigilantism they say motivated Zimmerman to kill Martin.

Jesse Strauss and more than a dozen other Oakland residents fanned out all over Oakland during the Aug. 6 event, visiting dozens block parties in an attempt to educate people as to why they should be wary of police and wannabe cops.

“We’re doing this to build community and talk to people about real safety,” Strauss said. “I think that the way that police function has been steady, and from that we have so many black and brown people locked up. This is a reflection of the struggles that have been going on and this shows that racism has not stopped at all.”

Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco NAACP chapter, said he wants to see people come together around racial equality and he fears the targeting of neighborhood watch programs may hinder that goal.

“We don’t need extreme provocateurs,” Brown said of anti-police activists. “The movement is like an airplane, and if one wing is too heavy, the whole thing goes down”

But Brown is just as critical of police, saying the 52 hours of sensitivity training that all personnel at San Francisco Police Department have to undergo isn’t enough.

“If relations were good between them, we would not have numerous calls coming in from people who were profiled by police, immediately being asked if they were on parole when they were approached,” Brown said.

Many San Franciscans are sensitive to the racial profiling issue. Last year, when Mayor Ed Lee proposed a stop-and-frisk policy to combat the proliferation of guns — despite studies showing a similar policy in New York City disproportionately targets African Americans — the community rose up and forced Lee to abandon the idea.

“Being a person of color who has been racially profiled, I couldn’t stand back and let this happen,” says Theo Ellington, president of Black Young Democrats of San Francisco, which organized people against the idea.

But activists say it’s not enough to play good defense. Fifty years after the strong show of support for racial justice, there is still much progress to be made.

“We need to keep pushing forward,” Townsend said. “Success is not measured by what you have done, it’s measured by what you’re going to do next.”

On Aug. 24, the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP plans to head over to Mosswood Park in Oakland for a rally commemorating the march put on by the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

The University of San Francisco will also be hosting an event on Aug. 20 to discuss the progress and setbacks in the march toward racial equality since the 1960s. Speakers at the event will include Clarence B. Jones, Martin Luther King Jr.’s former lawyer and adviser, and Mayor Ed Lee.

“It’s important to pause and see what’s happened in the past 50 years. It is the 50th anniversary of the dream and it is important to recognize that there’s been some unraveling of the dream,” USF Vice Provost Mary Wardell-Ghiraduzzi said.

Ellington said he’s still waiting for his own generation’s Great March on Washington. “The death of Trayvon Martin was a wakeup call. It proved that my life, as a person of color, is not as valuable as my counterparts,” Ellington said. “We have to be the ones to turn the tide. There’s still a lot more work to do to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. We are still fighting the same social ills we faced 50 years ago.”

Boxes in space

Michael Redmond
-
38
Boxes in space

rebecca@sfbg.com

On a recent weeknight, a group of volunteers met up at a warehouse space in SoMa to hash out plans for The Learning Shelter, a project that has attracted hefty donations and enthusiastic volunteers but lacks a permanent home base. The brainchild of Marc Roth, a maker-movement enthusiast, the idea is to give homeless people a boost toward a brighter future by teaching them how to make things with 3D printers, and other useful skills.

Eight large shipping containers, on loan from supportive organizations, are currently sitting in a gated lot adjacent to the 14,000-square-foot warehouse, which housed a community-based project called [freespace] in June and July.

Roth and his core group of volunteers have plans to retrofit each container to be a “shop in a box” — a mobile classroom, outfitted with whiteboards and enough juice to power the Cubes (a brand name for 3-D printers), CNC routers, laser cutters, and other maker toys. The vision is to use those retrofitted shipping containers to lead three-month intensives in technical skill instruction for up to 30 adult students without homes at a time.

Roth is currently working at a laser company startup, but it wasn’t long ago that he was among his project’s target population. He moved to San Francisco from Las Vegas in September of 2011 and slept in his car (which was “part of the plan,” he explained) while struggling to piece together a new life in the Bay Area.

After one job opportunity fell through, he landed a gig cooking pizzas on Treasure Island. But the long shifts kept him on his feet all day, and aggravated a health condition that causes nerve damage. With few options and a disability sending his health into a downward spiral, it was only a matter of months before he hit rock bottom and checked into a homeless shelter run by the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

It was near 5th and Bryant streets in SoMa. Just a few blocks away, Roth discovered TechShop, a do-it-yourself community workshop that describes itself as being “on a mission to democratize access to the tools of innovation.” An atypical member of the homeless population, Roth had worked as a programmer in the past, and had an itch to learn laser cutting. So he shelled out some of his last dollars for a TechShop membership.

At first, he was grateful just to have found a place where he could tinker for about 10 hours a day while sitting down, since his health problems were still sapping his energy. “I’d never heard of any of these machines,” Roth said. But soon, he was voraciously teaching himself to use them. “When they showed me what a water jet was and what it could do, the hair on the back of my neck stood up,” he said of the device that uses high-pressure water for cutting. “This was Disneyland, multiplied.”

Today, Roth is housed (for now, but he’s still seeking a permanent place to rent) and teaches multiple workshops at TechShop. Yet he’s acutely aware that there are others who were under the roof of St. Vincent with him who still wake up every day to a harsh and destitute life on the streets.

During his time there, he said he befriended several people and got a sense of their innate curiosity and creativity. “I was dragging people with me to the TechShop,” Roth recalled. “In my little group of five to six people, we had a couple ideas for inventions.” With the skills that could be mastered at the community workshop, “they could actually go out and get a part-time job.”

 

DIY BOOTSTRAPS

Of course, there are obvious barriers preventing the vast majority of San Francisco’s homeless population from following Roth’s example of just going out there and doing-it-yourself.

People who lack income generally cannot afford training programs to learn new skills. Nor is shelter ever a sure bet: Homeless advocates have reported that it can take eight hours of waiting around in line just to reserve a shelter bed through the lottery system, making it difficult even for would-be job hunters to devote time to much else — let alone the challenges presented by addiction, behavioral health problems, or a lack of access to nutritious food or bathing facilities.

Roth’s vision is to combine temporary housing with a 90-day training program, so that up to 30 individuals can participate in intensive trainings in how to use maker tools. His plan is to partner with homeless service providers who already offer basic computer-training courses, and enlist their help in screening for candidates who’ve demonstrated an interest in technical skills and stand to benefit the most.

To date, Roth has collected several Cubes donated by 3D Systems, eight shipping containers loaned by ReAllocate and Ekology, and struck a partnership with a similar project that seeks to convert retired Muni buses to bathing facilities for the homeless.

But things are still coming together, and the looming question (“the elephant in the room,” as one meeting participant put it) is location. The use of shipping containers as the basis for classroom design is intentional and a key element of the plan, Roth said, because the only surefire guarantee for viability in astronomically pricey San Francisco is to build something that can be taken apart and transported somewhere else if necessary. When economic barriers prevent cash-poor idealists from carving out a physical space, they find ways to adapt.

High on Roth’s wish list is finding a church to partner with, since he believes religious establishments can more easily gain residential permitting. And it almost goes without saying that there is a crowd-funding video pitch in his future.

“When I moved into the homeless shelter,” Roth said, “I thought it would be my secret until I died.”

Now, in a city where the idea of harnessing a powerful narrative to fuel crowd-funding campaigns is practically a way of life in some circles, he’s relating that experience to anyone willing to listen. Venture Beat, a magazine that chronicles tech culture, profiled Roth in an article that ran earlier this year (“Homeless to Hacker,” May 16, 2013).

Ilana Lipsett, an organizer who helped launch [freespace], read about Roth’s project and sent the article around to her co-conspirators, saying it seemed to complement their endeavor perfectly. Soon Roth was dubbed a “[freespace] fellow,” his shipping containers had found a home in the lot next door, and one of [freespace]’s final acts before its lease ran out at the end of July was to host a hackathon for The Learning Shelter.

 

BIG TECH, LITTLE TECH

The buzzy word hackathon is sometimes used to refer to different things; in this case, it was an extended brainstorming session organized over the Internet. Some 40 volunteers attended that event one July weekend, and wound up forming committees dedicated to tasks like promotion, workshop instruction, or soliciting donations.

The foundational reason for [freespace]’s existence was to host a series of hackathons under the umbrella theme “civic hacking,” to inspire a kind of extended collaboration-fest that would produce projects to benefit civic life in some way.

Its doors were open to all, “and you had people who had lived on the street interacting with people who worked in tech companies,” Lipsett recalled of some events hosted at the 14,000-square-foot warehouse space.

Can something with staying power emerge from this short-lived experiment? The concept behind [freespace] was to show what could be accomplished if a dedicated space was provided, and permission granted, for the civic hackers to run wild with their ideas. Emerging from the 60-day experiment was a community garden, a bike-sharing project, a plethora of visual art and a core of volunteers committed to making The Learning Shelter a reality.

[Freespace] came about when the landlords who own the spacious warehouse, a former sewing factory, agreed to rent it to the core group of volunteers for $1 during the month of June. (For the month of July, the tenants crowd-funded $24,000 and used $10,000 of it to pay the rent.) But now, [freespace] is technically homeless, because the space isn’t really free. In fact, the 14,000-square-foot SoMa warehouse is downright unaffordable to the group of makers and idealists who fervently believe they can better the lives of homeless people by teaching them skills that are in demand in the Bay Area’s changing economy. Lipsett says [freespace] will continue in some form, and Roth is still looking for collaborators to help elevate The Learning Shelter, but it’s struggle in a city where the economic forces unleashed by big tech is making things harder for little tech.

Light Asylum, Miami Horror, Hercules, whips, chains, etc.: Lineup for Folsom announced

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
7

Folsom Street Fair: yes to fisting, whipping, piercing. But the September 29 event has also morphed, through the auspices of kicky executive director Demetri Moshoyannis and his crew, into a huge music festival as well, attracting a young and adventurous crowd who may not know they’re into slings and harnesses — yet.

(“It’s one of my favorite things,” Demetri told me recently, “to watch newbies show up for the music, their eyes wide at what’s going on around them. And then later to see them tied up or in thigh-high boots and a paddle or whatever.”)

This year’s main stage line-up is cute and true to Demetri’s electro roots: Hercules and Love Affair, Miami Horror, Light Asylum, Icky Blossoms, the return of local all-drag rock band Pepper Spray, and more. Plus the dance area has Mark Moore from S’Express! (And insanely great and cute techno dude Boris.)

Full release, heh, after the jump. Oh and don’t miss the awesome official Folsom “Deviants Arcade” party, happening within the fair itself (and afterwards), with Honey Soundsystem, Hard French, MATRIXXMAN, Olga T, Aaron Clark, and Boris. Eep!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPhoE9yz-nI

August 13, 2013
FOLSOM STREET EVENTS® ANNOUNCES MAIN STAGE PERFORMANCES AT HISTORIC 30TH FOLSOM STREET FAIR®
Miami Horror and Hercules and Love Affair to co-headline world’s largest fetish event

On Sunday, September 29th from 11:00am – 6:30pm, Folsom Street Events’ annual Folsom Street Fair presents a hugely impressive line-up. The nonprofit event producers hope to showcase a broad presentation of music with ‘a little something for everyone.’ Folsom Street Fair will feature only one live “main” stage, continuing the fierce momentum of featuring live indie music and electronic dance music as a highpoint of the fair. This year’s main stage headliners are Hercules and Love Affair and Miami Horror as well as Light Asylum.

Hercules and Love Affair is a musical project from New York-based DJ Andy Butler, who gives us a new take on classic disco and house anthems while showcasing some of the best up-and-coming vocalists in the industry. The band’s self-titled debut album has been critically acclaimed and charted in the Top 40 in several countries. The first single “Blind,” co-written by and featuring guest Antony Hegarty (lead vocalist of Antony & The Johnsons), was awarded Best Song of 2008 by Pitchfork Media. The follow up album, Blue Songs, offered the stirring singles “Painted Eyes” and “My House.” New music is forthcoming soon.

Miami Horror is one of the top acts from Australia that best characterizes the Nu-Disco dance genre, taking influences from dance-pop artists of the 1970’s and 1980’s as well as progressive rock acts and combining it with modern production techniques from styles such as house music and classic disco. The debut album, Illumination, featured an abundance of fresh tracks, including “I Look To You (featuring Kimbra),” “Sometimes,” and “Moon Theory” among others. A sophomore album is in the works.

Light Asylum is heavily influenced by 1980’s music, especially the works by the likes of Grace Jones and Alison Moyet. It was the mutual love of Clan of Xymox that brought Shannon and Bruce together. Light Asylum’s style incorporates elements of industrial and post-punk music into something uniquely formidable. Shannon’s rich contralto brings a complementary humanity to their cold electronic beats. Check out the band’s 2012 self-titled debut album.

Joining the headliners at the main stage are other indie and electronic artists from around the world and here at home. They include: Aiden James (New York); Vixen Noir (California); Pepperspray (California); Heloise & the Savoir Faire (Vermont); and, Icky Blossoms (Oklahoma). DJ Rotten Robbie will serve as the Main Stage DJ.

10TH STREET MAIN STAGE

MCs: Monistat, MuthaChucka, Visa De Klein

11:00am…Aiden James

11:50am…Vixen Noir

12:40pm…Pepperspray

1:10pm…Leather Titleholders

1:30pm…Heloise & the Savoir Faire

2:25pm…Icky Blossoms

3:25pm…Light Asylum

4:30pm…Miami Horror

5:40pm…Hercules and Love Affair

According to Folsom Street Events Executive Director Demetri Moshoyannis, “I am in love with every single one of our Main Stage acts! They are offering up an impressive range of alternative music – from neo-folk and rock and roll to electro-pop and four-on-the-floor house music. It’s an extremely diverse offering that I believe will appeal to a vast range of our fair-goers. I hope everyone discovers some new music!”

In addition to the main live performance stage, Folsom Street Fair will feature two dance areas: Magnitude Dance Area on Folsom Street between 11th and 12th Streets and the DEVIANTS Dance Area on Folsom between 7th and 8th Streets. These stages are named and programmed after the two popular Folsom Street Events parties that take place during the same weekend. Headlining the Magnitude Dance Area are circuit legends, Jamie J. Sanchez and Tony Moran. Headlining the DEVIANTS Dance Area are house and techno legends Mark Moore of S’Express fame and Boris from the renowned Berghain in Berlin.

DEVIANTS DANCE AREA

MCs: Suppositori Spelling and Grace Towers

11:00am…DJ Bus Station John

12:30pm…Harry + JPEG

2:00pm…Dabecy

3:30pm…Mark Moore // S’Express

5:00pm…Boris (Ostgut Ton, Berghain Resident / Berlin)

Taxis reinvent themselves to be more like Lyft

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
49

For all the (justified) grumbling about the business models of ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber, the so-called ridesharing revolution may prove to be a catalyst for a taxi industry overhaul.

“We’re adding hundreds more taxis, and our board has approved regulations for each vehicle to provide real-time locational information,” San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Paul Rose told me in an interview yesterday.

“One of our goals is to move forward with making the data available to our customers to hail a cab with an app,” Rose added, referencing a plan unveiled by the transit agency several weeks ago. Faced with stiff competition from random vehicles adorned with garish pink mustaches, the taxi industry is taking a stab at evolution, or at least imitation.

This week’s issue of the Guardian includes a story by journalist and part-time Lyft driver Josh Wolf, exposing a catch-22 facing Lyft drivers seeking full-coverage auto insurance. On our Politics Blog, reporter Joe Fitzgerald highlights a similar question that surfaced around ridesharing after an Uber driver’s involvement in a terrible accident.

The question of who foots the bill after someone gets crippled in a rideshare wreck is one of many accompanying the rise of unregulated app-connected cabs. Customers hailing a car with Uber have nowhere to turn in the event of a bad encounter, in contrast with the SFMTA’s complaint system for monitoring registered cabbies.

The SFMTA receives 100 to 120 cab-related complaints each month, and requires the city’s 311 information hotline info to be posted in every registered vehicle. “We follow up with every incident,” Rose said. “Results range from addressing or notifying the driver, to the very extreme – a revocation of a permit.”

To be a cab driver right now, paying off the pricey medallion they must purchase in order to operate while oblivious new transplants rake in the cash without following the same set of rules, must be infuriating.

At the same time, let’s be honest here. There’s a reason people are ditching conventional cabs and climbing into cars with random strangers who may be beckoned with the tap of a smartphone. And it has nothing to do with passengers’ sentiments about government regulation or newly minted tech millionaires.

Head over to Yelp (sorry, but it’s instructive) and read the comments yourself: Services like Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar are garnering rave reviews (Homobiles actually seems to have won the most ardent fans of all), while Yelpers use the online forum for virtual venting sessions to describe their frustrating taxi experiences. Maybe it’s a skewed sample, but there seem to be lot of people out there who were left languishing while waiting for a cab, and they’re pissed. No wonder Silicon Valley investors think it’s a good idea to dump $60 million into some faux-taxi scheme lacking clarity on even the basic question of insurance.

Wolf wrote about his experience as a Lyft driver; here’s my personal anecdote as a taxi patron. I called for a cab on a recent weekday and it never showed. When I phoned again to ask where it was, a robotic voice intoned, “an error has occurred,” and then the line went dead. Twice. When I dialed a second company, the dispatcher told me flat out that there were no cars close by. He suggested I just call someplace else, because he couldn’t help. 

Fail.

The taxi industry lags far behind the lightning-speed reality many Bay Area residents have come to inhabit, but if it weren’t for the competition, they might not have any incentive to change.

Rideshare services might be your quintessential rogue tech companies backed by nauseating sums of venture capital, but at the end of the day, people also want taxi service that does not suck. The Lyft drivers I’ve met tend to be people like Wolf – young, idealistic, bent on pursuing a creative passion despite the city’s high cost of living, and grateful for flexible work hours that make it possible to follow that dream and still make rent.

With that, here’s a sappy breakup letter composed to Yellow Cab by one Cori D., a Yelper. “I just don’t love you anymore,” she writes. “You’ve left me waiting on the curb one too many times now without a word. No ‘I’ll be a little late’ or ‘sorry you’re late for work now.’ … So I’m leaving you. In fact, I’ll confess that I’ve been cheating on you. Uber is just so handsome and reliable. … You might even say he bends over backward for me.”

True story? Or just some clever guerilla marketing orchestrated to plug Uber? Like most things pertaining to San Francisco’s information-age gold rush, it’s impossible to know for sure.

Final Burning Man ticket sale brings total to 61,000 sold for $23 mil

Sasha Cuttler
-
11

With the final official Burning Man ticket sale going off without a hitch yesterday, Bay Area burners are now in mad preparation mode, with DPW setup crews arriving on the playa this week, early art crews heading out next week, and everyone else anxiously awaiting the official start of the annual Nevada desert bacchanal in 27 days.

With the US Bureau of Land Management recently awarded the event a permit and population cap of 68,000 — a big jump from last year’s 60,000 cap — Black Rock City LLC decided to bump up yesterday’s “OMG! Sale” ticket offering from the initially planned 1,000 up to 4,000.

“The sales yesterday went breathtakingly smoothly,” event spokesperson Jim Graham tells the Guardian.

Yesterday’s ticket sales brings the total number of tickets sold up to 61,000. Accounting for the expensive early sale tickets (3,000 at $650 each), low-income tickets (4,000 at $190), and 54,000 at this year’s standard $380 price, that brings the LLC’s gross revenue from ticket sales (not counting fees) to $23.23 million. The LLC also gives away thousands of tickets each year to volunteers, art crews, and VIPs.

No wonder this ambitious organization could afford to hire Graham as yet another official spokeperson, joining Megan Miller (US Sen. Barbara Boxer’s former flak) and longtime spokesperson Marian Goodell, an LLC board member.  

After last year’s stressful scramble for tickets, availability seems to be pretty good this year. Craigslist has lots of tickets still available for face value, and while Stubhub is still listing 223 tickets starting at $550 each (burners consider it bad form to charge more than face value), anecdotal evidence suggests that’s just wishful thinking by scalpers still hoping for a big score.

My advice: don’t pay more than face value, and if you’re willing to wait until the very last minute, you’ll probably get one for even cheaper than that.

Or as Graham told us, “Everybody who wants to get to the event will certainly get a ticket.”

Jack Spade tries to sneak into a beloved Mission spot, triggering a community backlash

Sasha Cuttler
-
16

The Stop Jack Spade Coalition is throwing an impromptu fundraiser tonight (Wed/7) at the Make-Out Room to help support local business and oppose chain store blight in the Mission.

Jack Spade, an upscale men’s clothing chain owned by Liz Claiborne, has plans to set up shop at 3166 16th Street, once home to Adobe Bookstore. The community bookseller of 25 years moved south to 24th Street in June, having been ousted from the space by two consecutive rent hikes. The second time, Adobe General Manager Chris Rolls tells us, “the landlord rejected continuation of the lease, which was outrageously expensive and, for this neighborhood, a bit alarming.”

Opponents of the deal say the men’s clothing retailer signed a $12,000 per month agreement on the storefront shortly after Adobe failed to meet its landlord’s exorbitant demands. (Note: A Jack Spade representative contacted the Guardian after this story was published to say this figure was “exaggerated,” but would not disclose any other financial details.)

Jack Spade has gotten this far by failing to apply for a conditional use permit, a pesky little measure imposed by voters in 2006 to thwart corporations chomping at the bit to turn San Francisco neighborhoods into sanitized strip malls.

Turns out Jack Spade is a subsidiary of one such corporation, Liz Claiborne, a fact downplayed in the chain’s original application to the Planning Commission. Even a modest 10 storefronts nationwide, sadly, doesn’t confer small business cred on a menswear line owned by a company with a $2.88 billion market capitalization.

Conveniently, the Jack Spade label has just one too few stores to be formally defined as “formula retail” by Proposition G.  But the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association has been hot on the case, circulating a petition that Jack Spade play by the rules of other big businesses and submit to a public hearing anyway.

A similar effort was successful in preventing an American Apparel store from opening just up the street in 2009 and in slowing the insatiable gentrification that has steamrolled local culture in many other once-unique and affordable cities.

Tonight’s event will feature live music and stand up comedy.  Chicken John Rinaldi promises to host an auction and “talks about what we can do to stop this bullshit.” Doors open at 7pm and $5-$15 will be collected at the door, with proceeds to benefit the campaign for a public hearing next week.

1...202122...149Page 21 of 149

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org